The Serpent's Paradox V0.1.1 - First Update!

[Protium]

Does anyone know how to access the save menu whilst playing the game please? The usual escape button that would work on games of this engine doesn't seem to work with this one?

That's really odd - the escape key on my keyboard still opens the menu whenever I run the game. Alternatively, you can just press X to also open the menu, and from there access the save slots. You know the same menu where you have inventory, equipment, etc. I didn't mess with anything that would alter that, I think. Maybe your keys got rebound, or something else on your end?

Yeah, I feel that may be something that needs to be made a bit clearer I felt like I talked to everyone around Kald, twice, and no one has mentioned a carpenter as far as I can tell. Maybe that information was in the mayor's house, as it did mention that maybe something could be found there, but not that I could find. I even went back to home, thinking maybe I had to find the frog girl or harpy to help.

Besides that, it's a good game so far, only other thing I could suggest, is maybe tweak the giant hornets a bit? Their evasion is enormously high.

I'll look into something for the carpenter, not sure what at the moment. And for the hornets, yeah, they're getting changed along with a bunch of other combat junk in the next update.
Thanks for playing!

[grz01]

Does anyone know how to access the save menu whilst playing the game please? The usual escape button that would work on games of this engine doesn't seem to work with this one?

[kauf371]

Any updates?

[GeisKhan]

Does anyone know how to access the save menu whilst playing the game please? The usual escape button that would work on games of this engine doesn't seem to work with this one?

Odd, it works just fine on this and the old version. Try re-downloading or starting a new game.

[LordKentus]

Any updates?

Hopefully soon

[Protium]

Any updates?

I left a summary of my progress on the previous page - I've got a little more done since then, but not too much. I prefer only to work on the game when I feel like I can best write the scenes, dialogue, and such. There are also many days where I'm just busy or want to do other stuff.

Does anyone know how to access the save menu whilst playing the game please? The usual escape button that would work on games of this engine doesn't seem to work with this one?

Odd, it works just fine on this and the old version. Try re-downloading or starting a new game.

Looking back on it, I think they may have been trying to save during the game intro/prologue. I turned off the ability to save, or access the menu at all, during this sequence because reloading would have likely broken the game. When you (the game creator) designate events to move around in RPG Maker, they return to their original position on the map (as it is in the editor) upon leaving and reentering that map, or by saving, quitting, and then reloading. A lot of stuff was moving in that sequence, and I figured it would just be better if people couldn't softlock so early. Assuming they played past the game intro, they should have been able to access the menu and save the game freely.

The only reason I could think for wanting to save at this point is to have a way to easily and quickly rewatch the elves scene without having to sit through the whole intro sequence up until that point, which isn't a bad idea. Once the player is inside the tent, having the save menu shouldn't be as much of an issue, so if I remember I'll change it so you can make a save there if you want.

Any updates?

Hopefully soon

Yes

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

ALSO! At some point I said that saves from this update might be compatible with the next update - it is now clear that that is not going to be the case. Fortunately, with the changes I've made / still need to make, the entire experience of playing the first chapter should be sufficiently different and unique for games like this, so I don't think replaying will be too much of a drag.

[NonamE1]

Don't want to be annoying, but how is it going?

[BoundedlyRational]

This game was fantastic. Although short, the quality was pretty much the highest among the RPG Maker games I've played on this site.

A few things tripped me up:
-That one of the six treasure items to put in the box was not in the treasure room, but rather the next room down, seems like unnecessarily mean game design.
-Also, some of the tile boundaries seemed very weird in the middle of the treasure room. If there's supposed to be a small cliff separating the two levels, the cliff sprite could use an update. In places it felt like I could/should be able to walk through the cliff tile.
-I was confused why I could not eat multiple of the same prey - one of the first things I did was try to get an entire warren of rabbits in my gut. If you could just mention that limitation somewhere, perhaps as "wanting variety in her diet" or something it would go a long way to fixing the confusion.
-Finding the carpenter after interacting with the cross in the cave was very difficult. The trees in the lower left of town really look like they're supposed to be a level boundary, and finding out that I could go through them and see an NPC I hadn't noticed before took some time.
-I have a feeling this has been mentioned before, but digestion takes a VERY long time, and some of the messages are a bit repetitive. Either changing some of the messages to show that things are actually progressing, or letting us speed up digestion somehow (sleeping?), or ideally both, would be great.

I hope this update of yours shows its head soon, because this is a fantastic project. I love the focus on monstergirl pred POV, which is something that is surprisingly incredibly lacking in vore games outside this one.

[Urielzael2]

This isn't bug but suggestion - change attack sound of animals in general should be turned into something more fitting as fist sounds are bit weird for bats or hornets or electrical jellyfish For now I started playing but game looks promising. I really wish dream of Olivia will happen and there will be part of story where she will be size of Felayran naga (Karbo reference).
Other suggestions that perhaps making also around tag f/? - as even merchant suggest cow meal.
Yet Another give some magic to naga after first boss to make it spicier.

As for bug I noticed that "adventurer" girl returns after being eaten.

[AssumedPseudonym]

-Finding the carpenter after interacting with the cross in the cave was very difficult. The trees in the lower left of town really look like they're supposed to be a level boundary, and finding out that I could go through them and see an NPC I hadn't noticed before took some time.

 I went on a different path entirely at that point. I thought I was supposed to go find “that fucking harpy”, recruit her, and have her carry Olivia over. I actually had to come look at the thread to get the right solution…

As for bug I noticed that "adventurer" girl returns after being eaten.

…Eh, I was just headcanon’ing that as it being a different adventurer girl.

 Kind of a weird bug report and/or request of my own: Would it be possible for you to convert all of the audio assets — music and SFX alike — to OGG format? I’m actually running on Linux via Wine. I’ve noticed that a lot of the MP3 format stuff isn’t playing at all ,and whatever audio is in the cave near Olivia’s home turns the game into a not much better than slide show (If you’re using one of the MIDIs in there, that’d really explain the slowdown on Linux.)

 As for the game itself? Admittedly not a fan of human or demi-human predators, but I’m just intrigued enough by the writing that I’m willing to overlook that. Besides, if I wasn’t enjoying it, I’d just say, “Eh,” and wander off instead of turning in a bug report.

[TheBlindSalmon]

The prey respawning is intended, Protium made it similar to the system used in Nyan Adventures (both as the main exp source and an easy way to repeat scenes).

[AssumedPseudonym]

Does anyone know how to access the save menu whilst playing the game please? The usual escape button that would work on games of this engine doesn't seem to work with this one?

 I ran into this, myself, but I think it’s deliberate. Menu access seems to be disabled in the first sequence. Once you get the two elves down and go back home, menu access is restored.

[NonamE1]

Is it dead?;c

[Susuko]

I hope not since the starting game was good and I liked it.

[Protium]

Spoiler: show

This game was fantastic. Although short, the quality was pretty much the highest among the RPG Maker games I've played on this site.

A few things tripped me up:
-That one of the six treasure items to put in the box was not in the treasure room, but rather the next room down, seems like unnecessarily mean game design.
-Also, some of the tile boundaries seemed very weird in the middle of the treasure room. If there's supposed to be a small cliff separating the two levels, the cliff sprite could use an update. In places it felt like I could/should be able to walk through the cliff tile.
-I was confused why I could not eat multiple of the same prey - one of the first things I did was try to get an entire warren of rabbits in my gut. If you could just mention that limitation somewhere, perhaps as "wanting variety in her diet" or something it would go a long way to fixing the confusion.
-Finding the carpenter after interacting with the cross in the cave was very difficult. The trees in the lower left of town really look like they're supposed to be a level boundary, and finding out that I could go through them and see an NPC I hadn't noticed before took some time.
-I have a feeling this has been mentioned before, but digestion takes a VERY long time, and some of the messages are a bit repetitive. Either changing some of the messages to show that things are actually progressing, or letting us speed up digestion somehow (sleeping?), or ideally both, would be great.

I hope this update of yours shows its head soon, because this is a fantastic project. I love the focus on monstergirl pred POV, which is something that is surprisingly incredibly lacking in vore games outside this one.

Glad you enjoyed the game! Responding to your comments:
- The item being in the other room was never intended to be mean design. At the time I made that part of the game I was still not super familiar with the RPG Maker engine, and I was testing out what I could do from a technical standpoint (tracking player objective progress across maps, essentially). I've moved well past that now, and I agree that it's unnecessary for it to not also be in the back room. You weren't even the only person to point that out, and so I've moved the last item to the room with all the others.
- Yeah, the default sprites don't lend themselves to that perspective - moving down in the vertical direction as you go up on the screen. I'm testing out some new things with my mapping skills, so maybe I'll be able to fix that.
- That is a limitation of my current system, but someone had a good suggestion for what I could do as an alternative that I really like (read some of the other replies from a page or two ago). It won't be in the next update, but in the meantime I am adding some text variations like you've suggested that I hope will alleviate that confusion to some extent.
- Several others commented about that too - I think in the next update I've made enough changes so that future players won't have as hard a time finding him. Going forward, I also won't make main story quests have objectives where you just have to look around with so little direction. Side quests though - fair game
- That shouldn't be as much of a problem in the next update

Spoiler: show

This isn't bug but suggestion - change attack sound of animals in general should be turned into something more fitting as fist sounds are bit weird for bats or hornets or electrical jellyfish For now I started playing but game looks promising. I really wish dream of Olivia will happen and there will be part of story where she will be size of Felayran naga (Karbo reference).
Other suggestions that perhaps making also around tag f/? - as even merchant suggest cow meal.
Yet Another give some magic to naga after first boss to make it spicier.

As for bug I noticed that "adventurer" girl returns after being eaten.

- That's a good suggestion with some of the attack sounds - I've already changed a few around.
- There may or may not be a dream sequence in the future! I certainly think it would be fun. Not the next update, but eventually I would be totally down to include something like that.
- The F/? tag actually does need to be added, hopefully I'll remember to update the main post for the next update.
- Other games like God Complex give the player permanent passive buffs or skills for devouring certain characters. Something like that might be worth including in my game, I'll have to think about it. Magic though is something Olivia probably won't be getting, for thematic/story purposes I've got planned.
- That last one isn't a bug - just a way to allow the player to be able to rewatch scenes without having to make a new save file. I'm trying to keep as many scenes as possible like that as it's much friendlier for the player.

Spoiler: show

-Finding the carpenter after interacting with the cross in the cave was very difficult. The trees in the lower left of town really look like they're supposed to be a level boundary, and finding out that I could go through them and see an NPC I hadn't noticed before took some time.

I went on a different path entirely at that point. I thought I was supposed to go find “that fucking harpy”, recruit her, and have her carry Olivia over. I actually had to come look at the thread to get the right solution…

As for bug I noticed that "adventurer" girl returns after being eaten.

…Eh, I was just headcanon’ing that as it being a different adventurer girl.

Kind of a weird bug report and/or request of my own: Would it be possible for you to convert all of the audio assets — music and SFX alike — to OGG format? I’m actually running on Linux via Wine. I’ve noticed that a lot of the MP3 format stuff isn’t playing at all ,and whatever audio is in the cave near Olivia’s home turns the game into a not much better than slide show (If you’re using one of the MIDIs in there, that’d really explain the slowdown on Linux.)

As for the game itself? Admittedly not a fan of human or demi-human predators, but I’m just intrigued enough by the writing that I’m willing to overlook that. Besides, if I wasn’t enjoying it, I’d just say, “Eh,” and wander off instead of turning in a bug report.

- That's an interesting bug with Wine. I'm on Windows myself so I don't have that bug, but I could certainly make that change for you. Something I can do after the next update, maybe. And yeah, I kind of have a mix of audio formats right now - OGG, MP3, and some MIDIs. VX ACE accepts all of them, so I saw no need to unify the formats for myself.
- Glad you're still playing despite it not appealing to your primary interests! Always happy to reach a wider audience. I'm curious - what part of the writing "intrigues" you? The story, the vore scenes, the NPCs and the world's ambience, the tone? Some combination of those or something else?

Spoiler: show

The prey respawning is intended, Protium made it similar to the system used in Nyan Adventures (both as the main exp source and an easy way to repeat scenes).

Correct!

Spoiler: show

Does anyone know how to access the save menu whilst playing the game please? The usual escape button that would work on games of this engine doesn't seem to work with this one?

I ran into this, myself, but I think it’s deliberate. Menu access seems to be disabled in the first sequence. Once you get the two elves down and go back home, menu access is restored.

Also correct!

Is it dead?;c

I hope not since the starting game was good and I liked it.

Nope, still not dead. These things take time.

Data Folder Backups.PNG (14.36 KiB) Viewed 1439 times

That image is a list of my backups. It is almost a 1:1 list of the days that I've worked on the game since the last update. Some of those folders represent only an hour of work, others several hours. Part of why it's taking so long is because I'm becoming more proficient with the engine. I've actually learned a bit of Ruby since around June/July, and recently I've uncovered the world of parallax mapping. As I learn more new things, I want to use them to make additions or changes to what's already there. Like I said in one of my earlier posts, I like making worlds. I want the world and the characters to feel impactful. I want the releases to feel polished, with as few bugs as possible, and with astonishing presentation, haha! When it's done, I think the next update really will blow people away. Right now, I still have no ETA on when that will be. Until then!

[Susuko]

I'm glad to hear that the game is still being worked on.

[BoundedlyRational]

I'm also glad to hear the game is still being worked on.
I have to say I specifically really like the MC's characterization and writing in this game. So many games try too hard to give deep and complex motivations to their main character. This game is different. You play as a naga, and she's hungry so she eats things. Why is a monster girl MC with these motivations so hard to find in a community of vore game enthusiasts? haha
Obviously the plot will be going other places in the future, but I hope the core conceit of being a monster girl who just wants things in her belly isn't lost. The MC obviously enjoys a small pre-snack power trip but I appreciate she is not written to be overly intentionally cruel, and also that she doesn't worry too much of the morals of what she's doing. I like her thus far simple outlook.

Just in general, the writing of the vore and scat scenes are excellent in this game.

[Susuko]

I'm not much for scat but I agree with Rational there,it was really good made.

[Urielzael2]

I'm glad there is a progress. I love games where we got chance to play as monstergirl pred. Wishing you success as fellow game developer of similar game genre

[PantsCommander]

That image is a list of my backups. It is almost a 1:1 list of the days that I've worked on the game since the last update. Some of those folders represent only an hour of work, others several hours.

May I recommend version control software of some kind?

Git, TFS, Tortoise SVN, really anything is better than just manually saving files by yourself.