RPG Unknown/Hiatus Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!

[KD360]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

What's it going to take to get my hands on the soundtrack or song playing in the preview video?

That is some very good music to my ears and I would love to know if it's possible to obtain the soundtrack or the song in anyway? That's If there's a longer version available of course.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

Clearly, you are practiced in these things. What does that mean???

Back on topic: Video is nice, but it feels a bit "busy" to me - the soundtrack and frequent scene-switching feels like there was too little source material to make a straight video.
Alternatively, the video is just going for more "atmosphere demo" than "gameplay demo" - even then, though, it sometimes seems a bit "3edgy5you", at least that's the impression I get.

There is very little source material; the game is in a pre-alpha state. Eromancer has spent almost the entire time in game development coding the game's engine and recoding RPGMaker from the ground up, so VISUALLY, there's not that much to show, mechanically/programming-wise, there's a ton, but Ruby code doesn't really make for a good video.

That said, I did manage to show off;
-Multiple game mechanics
-One H-scene finisher and the steps leading up to it
-Multiple outfits and weapons for both women
-Multiple levels that'll be in the game
-Multiple enemies that'll be in the game

Which for a 1:40-ish video isn't too bad, IMO

What would convince me about this game: Mechanics, mechanics, and mechanics.
CG quality is pretty easy to grab from a snapshot / brief video, but it doesn't quite show the meat of the game.
For example:
- Looks like an ATB system, though I'm getting that more from this thread than the video.

Pretty much. The video has a section at the beginning that clearly shows the bars, timing, so forth, so I figured that was pretty obvious

- Bars look like HP/SP/Arousal/Turntimer. Guessing arousal weakens H-defense, HP works as always, SP is consumable.
+ Presumably, HP=0 knocks out characters. Are they out at that point, or are they still relevant somehow?
+ How frequent is SP recovery? Over time during combat, outside combat, or only with expensive items or sleep?
+ Do all specials consume SP, or are there ones that go off HP or arousal?
+ Is clothing damage tied straight to HP or Arousal, or a separate hidden stat?
- Video shows there's a grab/fucked status effect. Is the transition strictly normal -> grabbed -> fucked? What other status effects are there?
+ Are all status effects a variation on "enemy ability X applies status Y", or are there more complex interactions?

These are all things Eromancer would have to answer, as I have a good idea of how the game works, but not a hyper-detailed one, and I don't want to mis-represent anything.

- The video alludes to an "interrupt" mechanic - details?

This though I do know about, and what that alludes to is actually shown in the video as well; in the beginning sections showing video, you can see a bar above the robot enemy, and Neon uses a special attack that says it interrupts it; the enemies will have attacks that require casting time, which will be shown by a bar above their heads, and when you use this specific ability to counter it, you cancel their cast and effectively nullify their turn at the cost of Neon's turn, opening Malise up to continue to do damage.

What's it going to take to get my hands on the soundtrack or song playing in the preview video?

That is some very good music to my ears and I would love to know if it's possible to obtain the soundtrack or the song in anyway? That's If there's a longer version available of course.

This is actually a heavily, heavily cut version of the song, but this is also something Eromancer could talk more about

 

[Darkstrain]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

there are three dots in your sentence, which make the shape of a triangle when arranged equal distance from each other.

then there is a fourth dot, on top of the "i", which obviously stands for the word "eye", which is the eye in the center of the pyramid triangle.

then there is a fifth dot on the "?" which obviously stands for questioning, which leads to knowledge, which leads to control, which leads to power, the power that the illuminati gives, and so it represents the light shining behind the pyramid.

these five dots also represent the five senses that human beings have, but it represents that the illuminati controls these five senses of all the humans on the planet, making it so that we are fooled in our everyday lives, unknowing of the truth that is really out there, living everyday in the shadow of the pyramid of the eye of truth that we cannot look into, for we will be blinded by the light shining from behind it, blinded being a euphamism for killed, and the light being a euphemism for the power that the illuminati holds to wipe us all out in an instant without anyone knowing.

time to think this up and write it up, 60 seconds

as your name implies you better write hentai, because you have several flaws here, the most important being the fact that the 5 human senses are not the only ones that exist, you are forgetting the sixth, an the seventh these allow us to defend ourselves against lesser mind control and hipnosis of the eleventh arcane grade, and also you imply that piramid light banishes existence when in fact the piramid light aligns with the stars to reveal lost knowledge

 

[KD360]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

This is actually a heavily, heavily cut version of the song, but this is also something Eromancer could talk more about

Aawww man! Don't tease! But awesome to hear that, god I hope the soundtrack get's added as a pledge bonus or something. I want that soundtrack!

 

[Eromancer]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

Clearly, you are practiced in these things.
- Looks like an ATB system, though I'm getting that more from this thread than the video.
- Bars look like HP/SP/Arousal/Turntimer. Guessing arousal weakens H-defense, HP works as always, SP is consumable.
+ Presumably, HP=0 knocks out characters. Are they out at that point, or are they still relevant somehow?
+ How frequent is SP recovery? Over time during combat, outside combat, or only with expensive items or sleep?
+ Do all specials consume SP, or are there ones that go off HP or arousal?
+ Is clothing damage tied straight to HP or Arousal, or a separate hidden stat?
- Video shows there's a grab/fucked status effect. Is the transition strictly normal -> grabbed -> fucked? What other status effects are there?
+ Are all status effects a variation on "enemy ability X applies status Y", or are there more complex interactions?
- The video alludes to an "interrupt" mechanic - details?

1. Correct, full active time, probably most similar to Final Fantasy X (actions are queued and go in the order they were registered).

2. Yeah, the "Lust" mechanic as I'm currently calling it has a lot of roles, some of which have yet to be solidified because things will be balanced as development goes on. To summarize though, it affects the types of states that can be applied to the character, H skills that can be used on the character, and struggle system results.

3. You'll be able to revive characters during battle

4. I want to experiment with this. For the first release it will probably just be with items just because I won't get a chance to tinker with it much, but I'm leaning towards a SP recovery over time system (which will have to be added to the engine). By 'over time' I mean the full bar would regenerate relatively quickly, similar to maybe The Elder Scrolls games' Magicka or Stamina.

5. Some skills may use HP, and some may depend on the character's current Lust to be used or be affected by it, but skills won't consume it. Also, some skills will have cooldowns.

6. Clothing damage is indirectly tied to the Lust bar, but is highly dependent on the outfit type the character has on. At certain points along the bar are transition points that make a character vulnerable to certain types of clothing damage. These can be realized by a specific skill being performed on the character. Some outfits require that an enemy uses an armor break skill to actually damage the clothing in certain areas (or at least will... this mechanic isn't in yet). It's a very fluid and dynamic system that allows for a lot of situations to be realized, and offers a reason to change up outfit types.

7. The standard H attacks follow a series similar to this, but each attack "branch" as I call it is different and can have a varying number of stages. Think of enemies' H skills as a tree, and they can progress to different branches depending on the character's current parameters and outfit/outfit damage. Being knocked down or in a post-H-scene situation will make a character vulnerable to certain types of H attacks. Armor damage skills will likely be directly applied. There's a lot of ideas I haven't implemented that I don't want to go into yet, but the system is extremely flexible for interesting stuff.

8. I'd say there's more complex stuff going on. It's usually not an enemy applying a status effect directly, but a series of conditions being fulfilled (which may include an enemy performing a certain type of H attack or something).

9. When the ATB bar is red it means a character/enemy is readying a skill. Certain attacks can interrupt the cast, similar to something like WoW. Certain attacks can also knock back the ATB or casting meter. Some gear/skills/items will make these preventable. Interrupting H attacks is more complex. You can interrupt a single skill, but it won't break the hold an enemy has on the character. The enemy's pink "Lust" bar starts off full with each renewed hold attack, and has to be diminished to zero for the character to break free. This can be done by struggling or by the opposite character who can use skills that damage that bar specifically.

I'll go into more detail down the road on this kind of stuff with some development journal posts on the blog.

What's it going to take to get my hands on the soundtrack or song playing in the preview video?

That is some very good music to my ears and I would love to know if it's possible to obtain the soundtrack or the song in anyway? That's If there's a longer version available of course.

Thanks! The soundtrack will generally consist of stuff similar to this / from my own project and from similar artists/acquaintances who are contributing material. I'd have to talk to the owner to be able to distribute it, but if people like it enough I will probably approach the artists to work something out to where I can sell it and give them cuts of the revenue. Doing something like this with Patreon would get goofy though as it doesn't make sense as an ongoing reward.

 

[Torgent]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

Spoiler

1. Correct, full active time, probably most similar to Final Fantasy X (actions are queued and go in the order they were registered).

2. Yeah, the "Lust" mechanic as I'm currently calling it has a lot of roles, some of which have yet to be solidified because things will be balanced as development goes on. To summarize though, it affects the types of states that can be applied to the character, H skills that can be used on the character, and struggle system results.

3. You'll be able to revive characters during battle

4. I want to experiment with this. For the first release it will probably just be with items just because I won't get a chance to tinker with it much, but I'm leaning towards a SP recovery over time system (which will have to be added to the engine). By 'over time' I mean the full bar would regenerate relatively quickly, similar to maybe The Elder Scrolls games' Magicka or Stamina.

5. Some skills may use HP, and some may depend on the character's current Lust to be used or be affected by it, but skills won't consume it. Also, some skills will have cooldowns.

6. Clothing damage is indirectly tied to the Lust bar, but is highly dependent on the outfit type the character has on. At certain points along the bar are transition points that make a character vulnerable to certain types of clothing damage. These can be realized by a specific skill being performed on the character. Some outfits require that an enemy uses an armor break skill to actually damage the clothing in certain areas (or at least will... this mechanic isn't in yet). It's a very fluid and dynamic system that allows for a lot of situations to be realized, and offers a reason to change up outfit types.

7. The standard H attacks follow a series similar to this, but each attack "branch" as I call it is different and can have a varying number of stages. Think of enemies' H skills as a tree, and they can progress to different branches depending on the character's current parameters and outfit/outfit damage. Being knocked down or in a post-H-scene situation will make a character vulnerable to certain types of H attacks. Armor damage skills will likely be directly applied. There's a lot of ideas I haven't implemented that I don't want to go into yet, but the system is extremely flexible for interesting stuff.

8. I'd say there's more complex stuff going on. It's usually not an enemy applying a status effect directly, but a series of conditions being fulfilled (which may include an enemy performing a certain type of H attack or something).

9. When the ATB bar is red it means a character/enemy is readying a skill. Certain attacks can interrupt the cast, similar to something like WoW. Certain attacks can also knock back the ATB or casting meter. Some gear/skills/items will make these preventable. Interrupting H attacks is more complex. You can interrupt a single skill, but it won't break the hold an enemy has on the character. The enemy's pink "Lust" bar starts off full with each renewed hold attack, and has to be diminished to zero for the character to break free. This can be done by struggling or by the opposite character who can use skills that damage that bar specifically.

I'll go into more detail down the road on this kind of stuff with some development journal posts on the blog.



Thanks! The soundtrack will generally consist of stuff similar to this / from my own project and from similar artists/acquaintances who are contributing material. I'd have to talk to the owner to be able to distribute it, but if people like it enough I will probably approach the artists to work something out to where I can sell it and give them cuts of the revenue. Doing something like this with Patreon would get goofy though as it doesn't make sense as an ongoing reward.

I don't think the question was if they could be revived, but more if they can still be raped by the enemy when they are 0 HP and maybe have new poses, or if they are completely out of the battle until you revive them.

Soundtrack so far is awesome and really fit's the atmosphere btw.

 

[Lipucd]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

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So, uhh, this got updated today....

Hate to be the bubble burster...but you MIGHT need to look elsewhere sadly...

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

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So, uhh, this got updated today....

Hate to be the bubble burster...but you MIGHT need to look elsewhere sadly...

From what I've read and heard, that change is more aimed at stopping child pornography than all pornography. "Pornography" is a vague term anyways, it leaves plenty of leeway for Patreon to leave something up. I don't see anything in Malise and the Machine to indicate child pornography, so... I don't know that Eromancer needs to look elsewhere yet for crowdfunding. It will be interesting to see how this plays out though. I hope they do not ban all pornography, as Patreon was becoming a viable method to fund English h-games.

 

[Lipucd]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

From what I've read and heard, that change is more aimed at stopping child pornography than all pornography. "Pornography" is a vague term anyways, it leaves plenty of leeway for Patreon to leave something up. I don't see anything in Malise and the Machine to indicate child pornography, so... I don't know that Eromancer needs to look elsewhere yet for crowdfunding. It will be interesting to see how this plays out though. I hope they do not ban all pornography, as Patreon was becoming a viable method to fund English h-games.

Sadly right here:

Nudity and Pornography:

Patreon is not for pornography, but some of the world’s most beautiful and historically significant art often depicts nudity and sexual expression. Because of that, we allow nudity and suggestive imagery, as long as it is marked NSFW. Think of the policy as allowing “R Rated” movies... but not porn.

They are allowing Nude, and 'Suggestive' material, they are aiming to take down anything sexual thought. I would hope it would just be child stuff, or just RL stuff, but from the looks of it, it's aimed at anything porn outright. At this point Offbeat's like the last thing I know valid :/

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

Yea, that reads like legal speak to me. My guess is if a page is reported as "pornography" or "obscene," Patreon will contact the owner and will have the ability to take the page down based on their current ToS. That does not mean they will be hunting these pages down.

Plus, R-rated movies depict sex, including sexual intercourse. "Pornography" is a vague term. I see the change as more of a cover-your-ass type change, than a dramatic shift to remove all adult products. I do think it is an effort to remove all child pornography (including art) from the website.

 

[jappetto]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

Considering that the most part of the art is about nakedy and porn it's funny.
Leonardo Da Vinci does not approve :

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It 'funny how bigoted man has still afraid of the nude, they are afraid of the most natural thing in the world.
Different is defending the right of young people, I approve this.
The same applies to real violence (not in the drawings and in the movies or videogames), the fiction is just fiction.

Considering that Hatred was banned from steam and next reapproved:

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A game can not affect much more than the behavior of a person, it all depends from self and from the education received in the place where he live.
There are many scientific books and more, that talk about it and I think that people should have assimilated now these concepts.
If a person is inspired by a violent game the problem is not the game but how the person has been formed. Surely he would do damage even if he had seen a man working on an electric system.

 

[Eromancer]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

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So, uhh, this got updated today....

Hate to be the bubble burster...but you MIGHT need to look elsewhere sadly...

Thanks for bringing it to my attention! That said, the project has always skirted the line. Somewhere in the first few pages of this thread there was discussion on their policies. This more or less seems to reiterate what it said previously. The general attitude seems to be if you follow their rules for making NSFW content private and they don't receive complaints from community members you'll be fine. Whether or not this means they will be changing their bar toward what is acceptable and therefore enforced, I'm not sure.

I do know that a pretty significant portion of their revenue is from adult content though. They just recently added a headline on the front page stating "Patrons are now sending over $1 million per month to Patreon Creators". A quick scan of projects that patrons on my page have pledged to tells me that probably well over 10% of that $1 million is from H games or comics.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

I've spent the last 6 months finding out the specific legality of "hentai" vs. "pornography" (among other things needed to try and sell hentai online);

Essentially, when "pornography" is used to reference things, almost universally, it's referencing real, live people. Hentai is in its own area, and there are multiple websites that will insta-ban you for pornography, and yet those same sites are perfectly accepting of hentai, just so long as it's not blatantly out in the public.

I've talked to Patreon's owner and the zendesk help guys, and they've outright said basically, to keep a hentai site on Patreon, you need to;

-Make sure the page is private. This means it can't be searched for on Patreon, you need to have the direct link.
-Make sure that the language you use on the site is kept to simple terms, this is the easiest way to get nailed. Things like "sexy", "18+", "NSFW" are fine, but things like "pussy", "fucking", "cumming", etc. are insta-ban regardless of it being private or not.
-No NSFW content can be hosted directly on the site, but you CAN link to NSFW content that's off-site, as long as it's within a Patron-Only post. So if your banner or graphics for the Patreon page have nudity, and it's in any way arguably sexual, that's a massive risk.

Those are the three biggest ones, but yes, I have talked to them, hentai is perfectly fine on the site.

All this stuff though isn't because Patreon is a stuck up site, it's due to the credit card and PayPal processors on the site.

Essentially, PayPal, as we all know, is completely insane about pornography of any sort and will freeze or wipe your account, with all the funds in it, if you deal in anything pornographic.

Mastercard and Visa are even more insane; if you want to open up a pornographic site, you need to pay them $1000 each just to get access to using them on your website for payment processors, and then another $500 yearly to keep this up... but they don't allow "furries" on any site using them. Now, this may seem like not a big deal, furry hentai is just a subset of hentai, right? Well, Mastercard and Visa, being companies headed by old men who have no idea what they're doing or internet culture, have decided that ANYTHING non-human = furry.

This means that the following things, as confirmed on the phone with multiple people who have access to the full TOS for companies working with Mastercard and Visa, as well as talking to people at those companies, are banned for any site using those companies as payment processors;

-Tentacles
-Robots
-Monsters
-Catgirls (girls with just cat ears and cat tail, otherwise fully human, no fur on body)
-Aliens
-Giants (not human)
-Elves (not human)

and so forth. Basically, anything not 100% human.

Get ready to get even more mind-fucked though; these companies ARE ok though, with characters that are FULLY animals, participating in sex.

So you can't make a game with say, two catgirls getting fucked...
...but you CAN make a game with two fully canine dogs fucking each other.

Seriously. /salutes backwards outdated ignorant laws

 

[lazycat]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

ANYTHING non-human = furry.

This means that the following things, as confirmed on the phone with multiple people who have access to the full TOS for companies working with Mastercard and Visa, as well as talking to people at those companies, are banned for any site using those companies as payment processors;

-Tentacles
-Robots
-Monsters
-Catgirls (girls with just cat ears and cat tail, otherwise fully human, no fur on body)
-Aliens
-Giants (not human)
-Elves (not human)

and so forth. Basically, anything not 100% human.

Get ready to get even more mind-fucked though; these companies ARE ok though, with characters that are FULLY animals, participating in sex.

So you can't make a game with say, two catgirls getting fucked...
...but you CAN make a game with two fully canine dogs fucking each other.

Seriously. /salutes backwards outdated ignorant laws

I wonder if you can sue them for racism.

If these people are too blind to differentiate child porn vs loli hentai and ban it, they shouldn't be allow to also be racist against drawings too (of course there's the case of parody usage)

Then again they'll probably go double standard to protect their asses on it, considering that these are the same sort of people making the laws...

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

I wonder if you can sue them for racism.

If these people are too blind to differentiate child porn vs loli hentai and ban it, they shouldn't be allow to also be racist against drawings too (of course there's the case of parody usage)

Then again they'll probably go double standard to protect their asses on it, considering that these are the same sort of people making the laws...

GL suing mastercard or visa! That's about as much of a chance of winning that one as suing the cops or the government, hahaha

 

[Eromancer]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

The kind of lawyers it'd take to achieve anything substantial cost $500+ an hour. They also often require it as work is done, not at the end of a legal dispute. You would also need a very clear cut case for them to consider anything. Basically though, the bigger dog always has the advantage because it can fight longer, even if it is in the wrong.

 

[jappetto]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

I wonder if you can sue them for racism.

If these people are too blind to differentiate child porn vs loli hentai and ban it, they shouldn't be allow to also be racist against drawings too (of course there's the case of parody usage)

Then again they'll probably go double standard to protect their asses on it, considering that these are the same sort of people making the laws...

GL suing mastercard or visa! That's about as much of a chance of winning that one as suing the cops or the government, hahaha

The kind of lawyers it'd take to achieve anything substantial cost $500+ an hour. They also often require it as work is done, not at the end of a legal dispute. You would also need a very clear cut case for them to consider anything. Basically though, the bigger dog always has the advantage because it can fight longer, even if it is in the wrong.

Teorically could be seen as a form of obstacle to the free market.
But at the same time everyone can determine how its service work.
The problem is that even in the reason it is difficult until you have the funds, someone should open a patreon about it lol.
A site to raise funds to help those who suffer injustice that violate his freedom of expression: funny interesting and democratic.

 

[jappetto]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

ANYTHING non-human = furry.

This means that the following things, as confirmed on the phone with multiple people who have access to the full TOS for companies working with Mastercard and Visa, as well as talking to people at those companies, are banned for any site using those companies as payment processors;

-Tentacles
-Robots
-Monsters
-Catgirls (girls with just cat ears and cat tail, otherwise fully human, no fur on body)
-Aliens
-Giants (not human)
-Elves (not human)

and so forth. Basically, anything not 100% human.

Get ready to get even more mind-fucked though; these companies ARE ok though, with characters that are FULLY animals, participating in sex.

So you can't make a game with say, two catgirls getting fucked...
...but you CAN make a game with two fully canine dogs fucking each other.

Seriously. /salutes backwards outdated ignorant laws

ANYTHING non-human = furry. Ok....

-Tentacles (a man masked as tentacle like spiderman)
-Robots (a man masked as // like spiderman)
-Monsters (a man masked as // like spiderman)
-Catgirls (girls with just cat ears and cat tail, otherwise fully human, no fur on body)
-Aliens (a man masked as // like spiderman)
-Giants (a man masked as // like spiderman)
-Elves (a man masked as // like spiderman)

So tecnically is hallowen day . If they say in the game they are human and the artist say they are human they are human masked.
Otherwise they should not accept the money earned from halloween..... and any form of super hero masked.
P.S. Hulk is furry for them in this photo:

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[HentaiWriter]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

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Drama over, haha

 

[Eromancer]

Re: Malise and the Machine (New RPG!)

Yeah, looks like all is good regarding the Patreon thing. I'm actually glad we got that in print as now we probably have more freedom than before.