neonghostsstudio
patreon
Dev Update 1/16/22
🕑 Added 2023-01-16 19:49:19 +0000 UTCHey friends, hope all's well with you and yours today!
I've finally gotten my feet under me a bit with Chapter Four: Part Two, completing enough of the script that I have some runway to render. Current render count is around 220.
As for the script, I'm about 2/3 finished with it, with renders currently something like.. 1/5 of the way done? Something like that. At the moment, there are completed renders for the opening of the next update, and the following two scenes where MC encounters Carolina, and has breakfast with Nicki/sees Pepper again. Still working on finishing up Pepper's first spicy scene, but I think people will like it. Once that's completed, I'll be making a demo available to $15+ patrons, so those fine folks can playtest it and let me know if they find any bugs, typos, etc.
This chapter is going to see me trying some new stuff with certain game mechanics, too. One complaint I've received here and there is that the game is too linear. That the only real choices available to players is whether to sleep with a character, or not. And while I'd like to disagree, I suppose it is half-true. The story is largely shaped by the romantic choices you make, because it's a romance-based game.
But, with the next installment, I want to give players a chance to better shape MC's world and reputation without sex being involved. I think it'll be fun to add a few wrinkles to the story.
That's all I have for you today! I'm gonna keep chugging along on the renders, and try to finish Pepper's scene this week.
Sorry for the relatively light picture content this week! I'm on my laptop posting this from my day job, and unfortunately I don't have much in the way of renders on it right now. :< I'll try to make it up to you folks next week.
Until next time, take care of yourselves -- and as always, thank you for your support!
Comments
Morad Dakhch
Regarding the "complaint" about the game being linear, I can understand where it's coming from. I agree with Razorhead above, while it does have two main routes for the girls, with specific scenes for each, I personally feel like the general progression of the story is the same. So I'd say it currently feel like a mix of kinetic and normal VN. I have no idea what you have planned, but not having something extremely complex choice isn't bothersome at all for me. I'm happy and really enjoying the VN in its current format. My only concern is that I feel like there's way too many characters being introduced. I keep seeing new faces in almost every dev update. Once again, I have no idea how you have things planned but I'd rather have quality and diverse routes for a handful of characters rather than ending up with 20 characters and having to wait for 4 updates to get a new scene with that character.
Razorhead
While I'm wary of having too much choice in games like these, as that often leads to devs increasing the scope way too much and being unable to handle the story anymore, I find myself halfway agreeing with the topic of linearity being raised. I do think you have a good handle on the different paths for the different characters, they feel nice, distinct, and well written, but I agree that the way to get there is often binary. With the exception of Nicki of at the start (which is a simple three-way choice) often times it boils down to "pressure her for sex now" (bad route) or "wait until she wants to have sex later" (good route). And while there are definitely non-sexual choices to be made (helping the homeless, confronting Pepper about her black eye, being nice to Gabby by the door), these are minority. It would indeed be nice to have some small, non-sexual choices that also help influence the story in some way.
