[Ren'Py] Summer vacation

[ziau]

Hi guys,

My name is Ziau and I am working on my first game called Summer vacation.

You can download it here: https://www.patreon.com/ziau

So, what is my game about?
It's a story of a family, (father, mother and daughter) who are spending their summer holiday in the hotel near the popular beach. You are taking a role of a father, Michael Goodwin. There will be a lot of people to meet and it's entirely up to you to decide what kind of father husband or friend is Michael going to be. All the decisions you make are going to open (or close) different options.
This game has a point system as well. But it is a little different from what you are used to (or at least I hope so). It is not about building relationships, it is about you choosing whether Michael is going to be strong, dominant person, or the kind of guy who perfers to obey and does what he's told.

I hope you enjoy it

 

[Jash]

It is not about building relationships, it is about you choosing whether Michael is going to be strong, dominant person, or the kind of guy who perfers to obey and does what he's told.

OK man, hate to say this but: as far as first impressions go, this does NOT sound like something I'd be interested in. Personally I can't stand the idea that you have to choose between "pussy-whipped" and "bullying alpha-male". Building relationships is where the appeal of these games really is. There's been more than one porn game where I've given up very early on because I simply don't give a shit about any of the characters on offer- I don't even WANT to fuck them.

 

[Tinman]

I'm typically VERY hesitant to download a .01 build because there's typically not enough content to get a feel for the game. This gave me an idea of the writing but not the mechanics. It appears there's about 5 major choices to determine dominance/submission with the only real impact being which scenes you see and whether you can peek at the daughter in the end. You also seem to be mistaking dominant with asshole. Wife and daughter don't feel safe at a gas station in the middle of nowhere? You can either be a dick and not go with them or a total wimp and keep them safe. Why is it impossible to be a strong protective person? Wouldn't it make more sense if you improved the wife and daughter's mood by offering to guard them? Similarly at the hotel you can either be a decent guy and carry the bags, or leave to flirt with Nikki. Choosing to leave makes it seem like your wife is going to wind up sleeping with the guy at the reception desk while taking the bags yourself goes towards submission.

Jash hit the nail on the head. Typically building relationships is part of the fun for these games. If you're going the route of Michael's behavior changing based on player decisions you're going to need more options and probably separate stats for dominance/submission and kind/rude. Otherwise the lack of control is likely to frustrate players.

 

[asestado]

I personally tried the demo and hope the feedback is useful.

There are two things that feel extremely wrong:

-No relationship points: I can't understand this because it is one of the must have in this types of games, having a good or bad relationship with your wife/daughter should be important, even more with the other main characters that you will use in the game. In fact if you are a dominant person people will answer differently depending on their trust of you. If you are having a bad relationship with a character it would make sense that they will ignore you or something.

-Some options give dominant/submissive stats while they shouldn't: In the game what I can see is that there are many rude choices and others are more on the line of kind choices, others should just be neutral, it feels forced. A few examples:

*Peeking at your wife or child gives dominant points, really at most you are a pervert not an alpha male.
*Waking up the man to pay giving submissive points and leaving without paying dominant, sorry but this doesn't make any sense, you may be dominant but not because of that it means you are a dick.

Using dominant/submissive points is normal when we are talking about how to interact with people, for example if you let your wife choose things without caring about it you can gain submissive points, if your decission is final you can gain dominant points... and of course sex scenes are the best ones to gain submissive or dominant points, especially if related to S/M, bdsm, foot fetish, teasing and sex positions.

Things that are a bit wrong:

-Being able to peek at your daughter: You are a family guy and you start already with a desire for your daughter?, it would actually be better if you started as a normal father but because of your daughter careless moments you start to develop something else, even more if you had relationship points it could be that your daughter is plainly teasing you and even falling in love with you.

-Fetishes being optional: Ok this exactly isn't truly wrong, in fact it is a must when you aim to a larger audience, however it could be wrong depending on how it is done, if you end up giving big warnings about options and the effect it will have... it will be kind of a big spoiler for the player, caring that your wife is alone with a bunch of guys makes sense and should make you on your way to avoid cheating on her part, not caring what your wife does is obviously asking for it. Of course it should be affected by the current relationship and many other things...

The game itself doesn't have bad ideas but it is feeling forced and the choices having effects that the players don't understand isn't good.

I would recommend to add more stats like kind/rude and a relationships pannel in which you could see your current relationship with x character and what you know about him/her.

That and start more as a normal father with choices effects making more sense.