RPG Patreon Active Renfield

[stuntcock42]

Re: Renfield

Right now I just want to confirm that the executable runs on other systems.

Works fine for me. Win7 x64 (although the application runs in 32-bit mode). Reasonable startup time; some brief graphical stuttering as textures are loaded; controls are responsive and movement is fluid. Memory footprint is acceptable and no leaks were observed. Collision/navmeshing is fine; I stopped moving upon running into obstacles but never found myself stuck on invisible walls (or falling through the floor).

There's a problem with movement: the game's idea of "move forward" seems to be based on mouse cursor position. If you move the mouse cursor to the screen edge and press W, the character will strafe slighly while moving forward. If you continue to move the mouse cursor "beyond" the screen edge, the strafing motion becomes more pronounced. You can confuse the game to the extent that pressing W will cause the character to move directly backwards.

The river is probably a misfeature. Including a swim/dive/breath system in the game wouldn't really add to its core appeal, and it would definitely incur extra workload (e.g. additional animations, special monster AI and pathfinding rules). The simplest solution would be to "reskin" it as a shallow stream - the player character and NPCs can walk on top of it without any special logic (maybe with a "splashing" footfall noise) and it wouldn't disturb the player's immersion too much.

 

[SquallPT]

Re: Renfield

Runs very smooth on my system, win7 64bits.
The only problem i see at the moment is the movement stunt mentioned

 

[MajorKagami]

Re: Renfield

ok now that is more like it for a demo. I noticed a issue like said about movement and the mouse nothing to big. I felt like I had just loaded up world of Warcraft for a second. you are differently on the right track with this sure there is still a lot of work still to be done, but I feel it shouldn't be long before its a playable demo. and then H-game domination.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

Here's a version with the floating markers all brought to ground level:

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Press ESCAPE to quit. Hold Shift to run, Left Control to sneak.
The cursor is invisible, but the problem with the player drifting the wrong direction persists.
Apparently this is a very common problem with a 3rd party solution.
Hopefully it will be fixed with the next update.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

I'm already working to resolve the major issues that you guys have pointed out.
But here's my problem: Editing the overworld map is as time consuming as every other task combined.
So I need the help of people on the forum to make this work.

All I need you to do is walk around the map and make suggestions.
You can either post screenshots or just give me the coordinates.
"At X 1000 / Z 2000, you should do [action] to this [terrain feature]."

 

[SquallPT]

Re: Renfield

Looking good, amazing work

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

Here's a screenshot of the terrain editor controls:

Just pretend you have these tools in your own hands.
Feel free to suggest contour changes to the terrain.

Also, take a quick look at the asset store:

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If you see any good textures, buildings or other objects that would enhance the landscape feel free to point them out.
Preferably if they are free or relatively cheap.
Also, I can use Gimp to make any texture into a repeating, seamless texture.
So any free-to-use texture from any site is valid.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

New version:

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The walking glitch has finally been fixed.
Also, the tree change from their LOD versions at a greater distance.
Various small rendering improvements.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

The river is probably a misfeature.

For now, all rivers and lakes will be shallow. No diving.
I still remember when the makers of Guild Wars announced
that a sizable portion of GW2 would take place underwater.
"What are they thinking? Almost everyone hates underwater levels." I thought.

Typically underwater levels are just a nuisance.
Even if the controls were tight and the areas interesting,
being on a timer while you hold your breath is an unwelcome stressor.
The only games that do underwater well are the ones that make it entirely optional.

 

[kafi.p]

Re: Renfield

Hi KleptoLizard, I'd like to come out of my lair and tell you how much of an inspiration you are for me.
For a very long time I am thinking of making a game similar to yours, myself, only perhaps more extreme in terms of sexual content.

Sadly, though, I am in a stage of my life where I being prevented from seeking my interests and making them a reality - firstly by studying and learning the basics game design and development. And I am at least a couple of years away from even starting to do that.

But seeing someone such as yourself, using mostly freeware software and crafting such an ambitious game from basically scratch is truly inspiring for me, and you are practically carrying out what I am wishing to do on my own for a very long time ! So, thank you. Really. I wish you best of luck and I shall continue to follow this thread to see how you're game turns out.

Now, I'd like to address a question to you -
As I've read the entire thread (and I also learned a lot from stuntcock's posts which were thought provoking for me as well.) I noticed, and forgive me if I am under the wrong impression here, that you were trying your best to please the forum members here by focusing on the most popular sexual themes in order to attract the widest audience possible. Like for example when you took the most popular categories by number of works from dlsite, Which is not a bad thing on it's own. It is actually good.
But I was wondering whether you are not interested in making a game which answers to your personal tastes ?

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

But I was wondering whether you are not interested in making a game which answers to your personal tastes ?

Well to a degree my game will always somewhat reflect my personal tastes.
The whole reason I started this project was that there wasn't any game out there that suited me.
There are no "complete" H-games.
I've seen someone with a signature that said "All H-games are really just H-game demos."

For whatever reason, AAA games that are marketed in the mainstream can contain fanservice, but not actual hentai.
I don't know where this rule is written down, but it seems very well enforced.
What we're doing with Renfield is long overdue.

The initial release of Renfield will be very simple.
Only by ripping out 90% of my originally planned features and content can I ever hope for a release date.
But at the rate I'm going, we'll likely see a release this year.
Then I'm going to keep updating until it becomes the game I really wanted.

As far as polling the forums for content suggestions, I can't make the definitive H-game without feedback.
Ultimately I want every major sub-genre to be reflected at least somewhat.
However it's also important to make certain content optional.
Sometimes I'll find a doujin or game circle that has really great art, but then there's a fetish that I don't like that ruins it.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

Ok, I've addressed the issue with the armor. He's gone now.
The issues with the rocks and the altars have been resolved.
In addition, I've begun painting the cliffsides with a rocky texture.

Now comes an important part. And I'm looking for volunteers.
Would any of you like to design one of the towns?
You can use any free asset from the asset store.
Just show me a map of the town layout with instructions telling me what everything is.

You don't need to download Unity.

There are going to be 3 towns in the game.
They are relatively close to each other.
This is deliberate, as I want the far reaches of the map to seem "wild".
If you have any questions, please post them here.

 

[stuntcock42]

Re: Renfield

Would any of you like to design one of the towns?

We don't yet know enough about your world to do this properly.

• Does the game take place in a frontier area (e.g. single-storey wooden buildings abutting wilderness) or has it been inhabited for generations (e.g. stonework chimneys, windmills, cart trails, deforested surroundings)?
• Are the villages included for the sake of setting and fullness (c.f. farms in Skyrim) or do they contain critical NPCs and quest links (c.f. castles in Skyrim)? Or both?
• What's the approximate population of a village? Are we aiming for something like
  You must be registered to see the links
  with a few plot-relevant NPCs and a few nameless NPCs, or a sprawling settlement like
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  which provides a change-of-pace from the dangerous wilderness?
• Does the game engine use a single worldmesh (thus: each building must to be large enough to contain internal bedrooms, furniture, a reasonably-high ceiling, etc) or is the inside of each building represented by a separate cell (as in Skyrim)?
• Are the villages supposed to provide standard NPC services (inn, item shop, blacksmith, etc) via appropriately-marked buildings? Or will such things be handled differently (c.f. blacksmithing in Divinity: Original Sin) so the level-designers can just setup a bunch of peasant shacks?
• What's the climate? What's the approximate level of technology? If I want to gather all of the villagers for some important ceremony (wedding? trial?) then would it take place in the village square, or the chief's longhouse, or a forest glade, or a nearby stone cavern?
• Does the setting include domesticated animals (e.g. pens, sheepfolds, stiles)? What about dangerous wildlife, roaming monsters, or bandits (e.g. fences, walls, guardposts and lookout towers)?
• Do building plans need to include backdoors (to allow for sneaky Thief players)? Does the town layout need secluded alleyways (to allow for prostitution, mugging, etc)?
• Are you aiming for a specific cultural theme (e.g. Mediterranean? Arabic?) or historical period? The characters look fairly uniform and Caucasian to me, but perhaps you intend to diversify them when/if you have time to generate more faces.
  • Special note: if you intend for the game to take place in a borderland between rival nations/cultures/species then please say so ASAP.
• Your game-world will presumably omit children. In some settings (e.g. farming village) this omission would be quite noticeable. Do you plan to just ignore this, or attempt to justify it (e.g. military outposts instead of farming villages)? Should level designers deliberately
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  for comic-relief purposes?
• The two key conflict-themes that you've identified so far are magic and sex slavery. It's possible that these themes are isolated to the Player Character and the antagonists... but it's also possible that they play a larger role in the world.
  • How do the villagers feel about the witches? Are they blissfully unaware? (hence: the whole defeat-the-witches quest is something that the player is doing for their own private reasons) Do the villagers live in fear of the witches, being occasionally abducted for cruel experiments? Do the villagers live their own lives, but respect the witches for their power and wisdom? Does each village exist under the rule/guidance of the local witch?
  • How do the villagers feel about magic? Do they have apprentice hedge-wizards among them, healing the sick and feeding the hungry? Do they hate mages and stone them to death? Do they build wizard towers? Is magic seen as a skill, or a blessing, or a curse, or a mutation?
  • How do the villagers feel about sex? Do they stroll around in chainmail bikinis and banana-hammocks? Does the village chieftain maintain a Hugh Hefner Harem of nubile ladies, or does he have a humorously overbearing wife? Or is the chieftain required to be single and celibate for some obscure reason? Do the villagers build stocks in the village square for public shaming? If one of the villagers discovered that the Player Character had a bunch of women chained up in his basement, would they high-five him or call the police? Is the culture patriarchal, or matriarchal, or relatively equal? Is there a taboo against homosexuality?
  • Are the themes intertwined? For example: magic in the Renfield is sympathetic as well as hermetic; it's linked to human sexuality. The witches abduct virgins from the villages and subject them to erotic torture; the released energies give the witches great power but it erodes their sanity. Therefore, the whole dungeon-section of the game has a narrative basis: the player must drain the witch's power though sexual interactions. The "Paragon path" is basically rehabilitation - the player drains the excess power, the witch comes to her senses and repents, then she gets released into the world as a special NPC. Maybe the player needs to pass some dialog-tests in order to dissuade the villagers from immediately lynching her. The "Renegade path" goes further - drain her power, but also break her will and turn her into a sex slave. The player might think of this as a purely selfish action, or they might interpret it as a suitable "punishment" for the witch's past misdeeds. Either way, the player receives some of the drained energy (new abilities? levelup? special perks?) which helps to prepare them for the next set of quests/monsters/battles/whatever.

Some of the stuff above is pretty far off-topic, and you certainly don't need to answer all of it before laying out the first village. Nonetheless, those ideas can (and should!) influence your level design. If you establish the basics of your world-story early, then designers may be able to weave relevant details into their work:

• The silt striders of Morrowind helped to establish an otherworldly setting. The city layout often reflected these unusual creatures, since silt strider docks imposed a particular shape on their surroundings.
• The walled cities of Skyrim hint at the warlike nature of the land and its inhabitants. These walls also remind us that Skyrim has long since forgotten the true threat, since they're entirely useless when a dragon is soaring overhead.
• The village in Torchlight was explained as a gold-rush town devoted to the extraction of a newly-discovered and very valuable mineral. This provided a fig-leaf justification for the continued presence of NPCs once the site's dangers are revealed ("Screw the risks; I'm in it for the money! Two weeks here and I can retire!") and it helped to guide the artistic design: flat colors, no paint, exposed timber, scattered mining tools, etc.

The end result of this sort of planning is a world that feels more complete and genuine (and less of a mish-mash). This is important, because you're using secondhand art assets (which tends to push your game towards "mish-mash" territory), and you're inviting contributions from many different modders and authors (which pushes the game towards "inconsistent tone" and "confusing narrative").

 

[Yes]

Re: Renfield

Hey it's been while since this thread was last updated in terms of progress. Everything ok?

I got the impression that when you posted before you were trying to get people to discuss the game to give you motivation to keep working. It's difficult for people to give proper feedback on the game so far simply because there's not enough of it yet. Still I enjoyed the progress reports and really hope you haven't shelved the game and are still plugging away slowly as it was looking like it was getting somewhere.

If you want help designing one of the towns (i'd have thought that would've been the fun part), i'm happy to desgin the layout if nothing else. Though like the previous posts said, to make it feel immersive and real, more information about the "feel" (maybe some lore, or story about the main focus of the game) of the world would be helpful before thinking about the design.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

Hey it's been while since this thread was last updated in terms of progress. Everything ok?

Yeah everything's fine.
I burned out a bit and needed a break.

If you want help designing one of the towns (i'd have thought that would've been the fun part), i'm happy to desgin the layout if nothing else.

Actually all of the towns have been designed by volunteers already.
Just a matter of me updating the map.

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Renfield

Yeah everything's fine.
I burned out a bit and needed a break.

Super easy to do. It seems like 80-90% of fan made games die out. Breaks are important, but I have found that for me, it can be creating a itemized list of easy things to do in the game. When I complete these things, I feel I have accomplished something and gain a bit of a moral boost.

Aside from that, reading positive feedback can help a lot as well (granted that is a personal preference).

Designing a game is tough, creating an engine AND designing a game is ridiculous. Know that I am rootin' for you.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

Break's over.
Let's try to finish this damn game while we're still young.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

Went back and tried Skyrim & Oblivion with sex mods.
After 50 zillion CTDs I decided to work on Renfield again.

 

[Yes]

Re: Renfield

Break's over.
Let's try to finish this damn game while we're still young.

Woop Woop

Went back and tried Skyrim & Oblivion with sex mods.
After 50 zillion CTDs I decided to work on Renfield again.

Same, it's good but it's just a little irritating concerning a lot of the incompatibilities between sex mods.

 

[KleptoLizard]

Re: Renfield

Same, it's good but it's just a little irritating concerning a lot of the incompatibilities between sex mods.

Indeed.

There's several different body replacement systems.
All mutually incompatible and with exclusive outfits.
Then after you've replaced the bodies and faces (Those horrible Bethesda faces...)
you need to have a separate NPC replacer mod to actually change them.

The only thing that really impressed me on this account was Bodyslide.
It allowed you to set an ideal body type and morphed the outfits for you.
But it really just allowed you to set a 0 weight and a 100 weight template.
There wouldn't be any real randomness.

I want to populate Renfield with NPCs that all have slight differences.
The mayor's daughter might have better breasts and a cute face, but the light armor trainer might have a nicer butt.