Ren'Py Life as an Innocent Waitress [v0.1.0] [Frisson Studios]

[*mumbling noises*]

One thing I will say as a point of constructive criticism - the writing needs to make up its mind whether the protagonist is an avatar for the player, or a character in and of herself. Right now it's trying to have its cake and eat it too on that point, and it's pretty jarring at times, particularly when the game tells me what "my" thoughts are - one, "get out my head, Charles!", and two, it presents them in first-person. Doing it that way takes it a step too far out of the zone of "a DM-like narrator is telling you what your character is experiencing" and into the realm of "this is actually a character with their own thoughts, feelings, and personality independent of yours, that we're for some reason elsewhere in the text pretending is just an avatar to represent you." To analogize to non-porn games, most of the time she's handled like a player character in a Bethesda game, then wham, suddenly the game decides no, for just a minute she's Cloud Strife instead.

Now, which way to go? Well, in 'normal' games I'm fine with either approach; both have their good points depending on what kind of story is being told. But when it comes to porn games, my personal preference as a male player (which I would imagine constitutes the majority of your player base) for female protagonist games is that the protagonist be an actual character with her own story I'm just there to guide her through, so to speak, rather than an avatar for me to inhabit. After all, if a girls' getting felt up in a sleazy bar, I'm not gonna be fantasizing about being *her*, I'm gonna be fantasizing about being the creep feeling her up. But IDK, maybe I'm wrong that that would be the majority opinion, or about who the main target audience for this game is.

Well said, Dr. Banner.

 

[Frisson_Studios]

One thing I will say as a point of constructive criticism - the writing needs to make up its mind whether the protagonist is an avatar for the player, or a character in and of herself. Right now it's trying to have its cake and eat it too on that point, and it's pretty jarring at times, particularly when the game tells me what "my" thoughts are - one, "get out my head, Charles!", and two, it presents them in first-person. Doing it that way takes it a step too far out of the zone of "a DM-like narrator is telling you what your character is experiencing" and into the realm of "this is actually a character with their own thoughts, feelings, and personality independent of yours, that we're for some reason elsewhere in the text pretending is just an avatar to represent you." To analogize to non-porn games, most of the time she's handled like a player character in a Bethesda game, then wham, suddenly the game decides no, for just a minute she's Cloud Strife instead.

Now, which way to go? Well, in 'normal' games I'm fine with either approach; both have their good points depending on what kind of story is being told. But when it comes to porn games, my personal preference as a male player (which I would imagine constitutes the majority of your player base) for female protagonist games is that the protagonist be an actual character with her own story I'm just there to guide her through, so to speak, rather than an avatar for me to inhabit. After all, if a girls' getting felt up in a sleazy bar, I'm not gonna be fantasizing about being *her*, I'm gonna be fantasizing about being the creep feeling her up. But IDK, maybe I'm wrong that that would be the majority opinion, or about who the main target audience for this game is.

That’s what we thought yesterday, and we decided to change the narration. It’s almost done now. From here on, she will be narrating like this:


"Once again, I started drying him off, this time in a more sensitive area—his abdomen... And once again, I couldn’t help but feel his eyes lingering all over my body..."
"But even though that was a lot... it wasn’t everything..."

and "Your thoughts" to "Angel's Thoughts"

 

[zimva]

I just hope it remains a very slow burn, that's one of the main reasons I liked this game.

 

[lemaro]

I just hope it remains a very slow burn, that's one of the main reasons I liked this game.

Yea and that slow burn does not mean adding tons of grind. Instead, as the game progresses Id like to see lewdness slowly build up (rather than her being a fuckdoll right away)

 

[Frisson_Studios]

I just hope it remains a very slow burn, that's one of the main reasons I liked this game.

That's what we’re aiming for, even if we've made some mistakes along the way...

 

[markus T]

Personally I don't mind a slow burn but there is such a thing as TOO slow. I can't say much about the developments cycle yet since this is the 1st release but last thing I want is a game that sees maybe 1-3 updates per year and progresses too Slowly.

Fast release cycles like once a month is not bad but when you have to wait 2+ years for any kind of meaningful content then thats when I start to lose interest.
So far I like what I've seen and the pace is fine as is if not a tad grindy just don't make a the grind unbearable like some devs do to hide the fact that their game doesn't have a whole lot of content.

 

[Frisson_Studios]

Personally I don't mind a slow burn but there is such a thing as TOO slow. I can't say much about the developments cycle yet since this is the 1st release but last thing I want is a game that sees maybe 1-3 updates per year and progresses too Slowly.

Fast release cycles like once a month is not bad but when you have to wait 2+ years for any kind of meaningful content then thats when I start to lose interest.
So far I like what I've seen and the pace is fine as is if not a tad grindy just don't make a the grind unbearable like some devs do to hide the fact that their game doesn't have a whole lot of content.

No, we don’t want to force grind to create game length. We want the grind to feel like an effort, a fight for purity. So, the slow burn will be for players aiming for a purity run. If you choose a slutty Angel, the game should last about 1/5 of the time, and the H-content shouldn’t be that hard to reach. But again, this is just the beginning, so we can’t say for sure what it’ll be like.

 

[zimva]

No, we don’t want to force grind to create game length. We want the grind to feel like an effort, a fight for purity. So, the slow burn will be for players aiming for a purity run. If you choose a slutty Angel, the game should last about 1/5 of the time, and the H-content shouldn’t be that hard to reach. But again, this is just the beginning, so we can’t say for sure what it’ll be like.

Yeah that's exactly what I'm hoping for, a process of corruption of the player himself, who will think something like "Nah I don't want to grind again, it's easier to let that guy grope my ass, it's not that big of a deal afterall", and then it goes for more, and more, and more...
If this is your goal then it'd be one of the best games idea-wise (for me at least), because I love this type of originality.

 

[That other person]

There's also "Sora the Star Guardian" which is a pretty good corruption game. Unfortunately, they never finished bugfixing and rebalancing it post release (the balance is mostly okay besides enemies only using molestation attacks like 2% of the time though).

I'll check it out. Thanks. Hopefully I won't find any issues but any game with corruption mechanics and/or slow burn sex scenes is alright in my book. I mean they would have to be real messy and bad for me to complain.

 

[RobAlson244]

No, we don’t want to force grind to create game length. We want the grind to feel like an effort, a fight for purity. So, the slow burn will be for players aiming for a purity run. If you choose a slutty Angel, the game should last about 1/5 of the time, and the H-content shouldn’t be that hard to reach. But again, this is just the beginning, so we can’t say for sure what it’ll be like.

I think you found a good balance between slow burn and not too slow of a burn. I'm definitely hoping for some exhibitionism content in the future as well.

 

[johnyakuza1]

That's what we’re aiming for, even if we've made some mistakes along the way...

Please... You already know how Pizza Hot has turned out after 5 years of development, yes?

Simply aiming for a "slow burn" is a mistake because there is no clear definition of it... Many devs mistake it for taking literal years to reach at a certain point where the FMC is ready to have sex or gets corrupted enough to start having some real fun.

I'm not saying that Angel should start blowing out dicks in the next update, the progression based on 0.1.0 is perfectly normal and it should continue the same way.

Make it a slow burn in the sense that there is a ton of content to play through before reaching the hardcore levels. If there's abundant content available to the player, which would take even 20 hours before Angel is ready to “think” about having sex, now that would be a real slow burn.

Do not take the path of breadcrumbing of content and scarcity approach but make it an abundance one for the first time ever.

 

[Frisson_Studios]

Please... You already know how Pizza Hot has turned out after 5 years of development, yes?

Simply aiming for a "slow burn" is a mistake because there is no clear definition of it... Many devs mistake it for taking literal years to reach at a certain point where the FMC is ready to have sex or gets corrupted enough to start having some real fun.

I'm not saying that Angel should start blowing out dicks in the next update, the progression based on 0.1.0 is perfectly normal and it should continue the same way.

Make it a slow burn in the sense that there is a ton of content to play through before reaching the hardcore levels. If there's abundant content available to the player, which would take even 20 hours before Angel is ready to “think” about having sex, now that would be a real slow burn.

Do not take the path of breadcrumbing of content and scarcity approach but make it an abundance one for the first time ever.

As we mentioned, the experience will depend on everyone’s playstyle.

- Repeated content will often have a skip/fast-forward option.
- The player doesn't need to chase every piece of content to advance the game.
- The player doesn’t need to grind at all.
- The player doesn’t need to experience every single event to progress.

This means someone aiming for a purity run might take 40 hours for Angel to touch a dick, while another player going for a mid-point might take 20 hours, and a slutty run could take only 5 hours. (This is just an example.)

The grind is mostly about the effort to maintain her purity.

 

[raz100raz100]

everything is good in this game, even the corruption pace. All they need to do it is start bringing out updates every so often and NOT 1 or 2 updates only a year or people loose interest. Simple as that.