Post by Alliebutt in Monsters of the Forest .4.25.04 comments

Monsters of the Forest .4.25.04 » Comments

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I'll be honest, I'm looking forward to just seeing the Kitsune 2 path in whatever shape it takes. Path 1 was pretty good, and without a doubt my favorite path in the game so far, period. I'm curious though, as to what the hidden ending on Path 1 is, since I don't seem able to find it just yet. What also did surprise me however, is the fact that having sex with the Matron in her male shape, didn't result in a pregnancy. Not that I'm particularly into that content, maybe as an epilogue sorta situation, but the reason it surprised me so much is how much focus is on the risk of pregnancy after the sex scene. You can blow up on her, pun intended, about it and having her make sure you don't get pregnant out of worry that her seed might be super potent. But even if you don't get mad at her, the MC still thinks about how the Matron just might not think too hard about impregnating someone.

Again that's not a complaint, it just feels odd to narratively put such a large amount of focus on the possibility of pregnancy, that it ends up feeling weird that all that thought process didn't really lead to anything.

Aaaac289 days ago(+1)

Oh I'm glad you liked that path so much! I'm really proud of the possessed sequence myself. I experimented and I thinked it worked out.

spoiler:
To get the hidden ending you have to think about tails at the start of the sequence, and cohen at the end. Not taking any damage in between, because that will kill you on the second thought. It's the option to rebuke your Matron, finally realizing why she has gifted you a tail, and drawing a negative conclusion about the relationship between you.

Re: pregnancy

That'd be an interesting element to be sure and it would perhaps make an interesting epilogue thing, although I don't think that'd fit well with the story I'm telling.

The purely pragmatic reason it didn't come up again is I didn't think about it.
The in-story reason is that even when you don't blow up at her, you immediately dip into steaming hot water and do your best to remove the offending substance. I'm not an expert at such things but that seems a believable anti-pregnancy measure. The thinking about how she can impregnate people with her mind was meant to be a joke.

The reason why it's given so much narrative weight is that it's meant to both poke fun at the story and game this is, and to illuminate in the most elemental sense the relationship between the player character and your matron.
The poking fun is that well, this is a porn game about adventurers doing adventuring. Heroic fantasies rarely focus on how unprotected sex can really screw over the woman, and suddenly being the woman in that equation is meant to point out that lack of thought.
The relationship dynamic is that, as the narration points out, that's not really done among equals, or at least among peasants because you don't screw over your neighbor, especially without asking. If you wished to be charitable, she assumes that you are in a relationship with her and that her trying to impregnate you is just part of that. If you want to be uncharitable, it'll be easier to be in a relationship with you if you are pregnant with her child. Either way, she is assuming that she's the important person in the relationship, and that you will just go with it. There is nothing that she can do, that you won't forgive, as exemplified by her callousness here. She is perhaps thinking with her dick.

Alliebutt288 days ago (2 edits) (+1)

Ahh yeah, the pregnancy thing does make sense then knowing what you've said here. As I said, it isn't really content I'm incredibly interested in myself and my confusion was born solely out of the focus placed on the possibility. I guess I was ultimately tricked by occam's razor, well a little different than occam's razor, but something close to it.

And I got around to play the hidden ending, and I did like it. I wish ultimately the player had an option to pick whether to turn back or not, or stay a woman at least. But it seems like the water doesn't really give you an option for what it does, it just seems like it washes everything away, so staying a woman wouldn't really be an option like it would on the ordinary kitsune ending. And while staying a kitsune would've been a cool option, solely because of the power and potential that brings with it when it comes to future adventures, I can't really blame you for making the MC change back. Ultimately to the MC at that point, the change was traumatic, and primarily seen as a reminder of what the matron did and why she did it, so it makes sense they would want to change back. So all in all, I enjoyed it.

For now I'm excited to see the Kitsune 2 path, and can't wait to actually get to play that whenever it's ready. Although I'm curious, when do you expect that will be out? It's obviously fine if you can't give a concrete timeline, life happens after all and sometimes deadlines don't work out. I was mainly thinking in general, as in a sorta general timeframe, like 3 months? 6 months? That sorta thing. If you don't have an answer to that, that's fine. I don't make games, but I do write fanfics myself, so I know first hand that it can be hard to actually give any certainty about that sort of thing, especially if life is, or suddenly does become really busy. So feel free to tell me that you have no idea when it'll happen, if that's what you think is the most realistic option to give me.

Aaaac288 days ago(+1)

Re the ending: I'm glad you liked it. It'd be possible to put in a choice to stay a woman. Be a neat touch. I'll make a note. But yes, they are waters of emancipation so you'd have to lose the kitsune aspect.

As for new content, it'll be a timeframe of months. I'm not starting until the end of March because I'm finishing up an RPG maker game this month and I'm gonna try to get a visual novel release out for the anniversary on march 22nd. On top of that, I'm not a very fast or consistent writer, it's a good day when I get a thousand words written. Checking the patch notes, kitsune 1 was about 100K and kitsune 2 will likely be about that big. It's also gonna be a path I'm less enthusiastic about, just because I don't really enjoy mind control or mind control adjacent content. But I'm be at it this long, so I'm gonna finish it.

I won't release the whole path at once, I generally put out releases when I hit writing milestones, or make the game 10% bigger. Anyway thank you for all of the feedback.

Alliebutt287 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Yeah, I totally feel like staying a woman should be a choice in the hidden ending, because that does seem to be a reoccurring option in most of the content of the game, so it makes sense to at least let it be an option for the player to pick.

Edit: One thing I did also find surprising with the hidden ending, is that Frederick decided to go back to being a guy as well. I haven't seen every ending yet I'm sure, but he does seem to pick staying as a girl a whole lot, so that surprised me a bit when he turned back in the hidden ending. Nothing is wrong with that mind you, it was just a surprise to see. I would love to know what's different in that path, that makes him make that decision compared to the endings where he stays a woman. Especially when he does seem to enjoy being a woman.

As for new content, take however long it takes dev. There's no point in rushing it, especially if it isn't content that appeals a ton to yourself as a person. Trying to force yourself to write something you don't enjoy as fast as you can, will only make it a bigger challenge to write it. As for myself I'm more than contend to wait for it to be done, and whatever time it takes is worth waiting. I might try it out in the increments that you end up releasing it in, or I might wait for it to be done, but we'll see. Either way, I don't mind it.

I'm excited to see what the RPG maker game is about though! I've pleasantly enjoyed almost every other game you've released on TFGs, so I'm excited to see whatever this next game is about! I'm curious about the visual novel version though. I assume it doesn't change much plot-wise to what we already have, but how much is the different transformations on display in the game? Does the MC have a sprite that changes as well, or is it a 'first person point of view' sorta situation, where only the other characters have a sprite? I might just try it out later today when I'm done with my chores for the day.

Aaaac286 days ago (1 edit) (+1)(-1)

If you read closely, Frederick almost always gets the idea to stay a woman from the player character. The way I read him is that he's interested in experiencing new things, which is why he enjoys being a woman so much. The group dynamic and how he's not the bravest soul means that he wouldn't want to be the only woman, so he "volunteers" to help when the player character stays. In the hidden ending, partially just to switch up the regular way things go, partially because like the player character he views staying a woman as still being kitsune influenced so he returns to normal because that's what he expects the player character to do. (Not that being a woman is necessarily kitsune influenced, but that's how things were vibing.)

Rpg maker game has been out sadly. It's the research tower one, with all the hardening content. It sucks. I know it sucks. But I woke up with a plan to make a game, and by god I made it. Anyway there needs to be a lot more writing to fill out the blank spots in the design, so I'm making it a writing challenge to get into the swing of writing lots. Also need to redo some of the puzzles.

The visual novel is currently just a retelling of most of the ant paths. The art and music are all placeholder. But the MC has a sprite. The writing is a touch stronger because it's first person and I gave it an editing pass. It's far from essential. A good friend of mine, Salty Justice was adding visual novel functionality to their game engine and offer to help me set up it. Lot more work than I was expecting sadly. I'd really like to finish it someday, but I'll have to finish the twine game first. Gotta get my life's work done.

itch.io

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