Dev Update! 1/8/24 (Patreon)

Hey, friends! We've got one week of 2024 in the books, and I hope yours is off to a great start! Me? I'm fighting off a cold or something, which comes with all the usual fun stuff: stuffy nose, sick stomach, headaches, exhaustion.. Not fun! I don't recommend it.

But, you know what is fun? Working on the new update! With plenty of script currently written, I've been able to jump into rendering with both feet. Well, maybe one foot, until I'm back to 100%.

As you can see above, the next update will have us rejoining our irascible hero right where we last saw him -- neck deep in trouble, and dealing with some shady characters. I love it! I honestly don't think Guy's looked cooler than he does here, in his dumb shirt, with a black eye, and full of ire. I'm reminded of the Hawaiian Dick comics.

If it's not super apparent from my storytelling, I'm not a fan of the hyper-capable protagonist that's so common in the AVN space. When your hero's a brilliant hacker, a multi-discipline blackbelt, wealthy beyond reason, and also the secret descendant of a line of demi-gods.. Well, there's not much for me to get invested in. Just give him an "I Win!" button and be done with it, you know?

This is only amplified by the nature of Ren'py-based AVNs, where every fatal decision can be undone by rolling back to an earlier save file, or menu choice. So, the question becomes: how do you create stakes? How do you make things mean something, if every choice is easily undone?

I feel like a lot of AVNs take the path of making what's essentially a 'cozy' story. The hero is invincible, and infallible. Every girl wants him, and won't mind sharing him. Every conflict is relatively low-stakes, and every enemy is cartoonishly over-the-top evil (and stupid) to make sure we know who to root for at all times. Oh, and every choice is really just the choice to view a scene, or not. This is all compounded by making the hero a blank slate, which we can easily impress ourselves on.

When I think about Friends Indeed, I try not to think about it like a traditional AVN, with a blank-slate hero who can just choose to sidestep any scenes they don't want to see. Instead, I try to frame it more like a traditional videogame story. Yes, you drive the hero, and you get to make choices that shape and affect the narrative, but ultimately you're constrained by the story being told. The original Baldur's Gate game gave you a lot of freedom to roam and do new things, but at the end of the day, you still gotta go fight Sarevok.

So, bear that in mind as we move deeper into our story, and we find Guy coming up against more dramatic, situations that don't come with easy answers. People tend to accuse me of railroading in these situations, but if I push you down a path, it's only because that path is necessary for the story. I'll always try to give you choices as to how you walk that path, though.

Well, that's been Neon's Running a Fever and Rambling for you, today! If you haven't, be sure to check out the most recent Wanton Weekends post, which reveals a bit of backstory for the recently-introduced Isabella!

As always, take care of yourselves, and thank you for your support!