itch.io

img/kylie folder doesn't exist (so all images of Kylie are broken). Same for Karlee, and "profile" (the mc?)

I know the game's still in development, but I seem to have gotten a glitch: I completed the "Reach 3 Strength" objective, and had the scene where you interrupt Akira the second time, and then Sakuya visits you at night to talk about what happened, and...that's it. None of the other questlines are moving forward after this. The only thing I can do each day is train stamina with Mocuba...and at 6+ Stamina I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing with the rest of my day.

I can't even train Strength anymore because I hit the cap, but the chef never spawns so I can't accept the new job, and everything else seems to be waiting for the new job to trigger?

If it matters, I'm on the dominant path with Nariko and the last thing to happen with her was the blowjob scene.

If this is all the content that's available, the game should probably tell me I can stop at that point. Since it hasn't, I assume something is available for me to do to move the story forward but I can't find anything.

The occasional choice. There may be ongoing consequences, but it's DEFINITELY not free-roam. Seems like a good 50+% of the choices are effectively "things are getting spicy. Do you go with it, or shut things down?"

As far as I can tell the game doesn't have narrative branches. Instead there is the singular plotline, and along the way you can opt in to sex scenes.

Funny you should say that the Disillusion ending is the worst: it's also one of, if not *the* oldest. It's rarely seen updates, as Angela has preferred focusing on new content over re-writing old stuff.

Which strikes me as a good plan, because as the game changes through production fixing and re-fixing older content to keep it up to date with the latest changes will add a lot of extra work that ends up being cut in the long run.

"Added a check for two instances where the player can input a name to prevent Kyou from using something he'd consider inappropriate"
D: Boo! Hiss! /s
JK, it's a fair edit to make.

If you're struggling to write, please don't burn yourself out! It's good to hear you're transitioning to something else that needs doing instead of repeatedly banging your head against the spot that's giving you trouble, but if you need to take a break to let your brain recharge, then don't hesitate to take it!

I'm excited to see where this new Trickster path leads us, I'm really enjoying it so far, and I am positively ecstatic to see that we're getting to see the "I need to chill out" Villainous Robot path. I've been wondering what would lie behind that option ever since I first saw it. 

Just wanted to drop a comment expressing how much I'm enjoying the updates and the game in general. The game doesn't seem to get much discussion here on itch.io anymore, but that doesn't mean there aren't people watching/playing! Keep up the good work!

Renpy will pick up the saves, but it remembers them as "which line in the code were you at", which causes problems with updates: when there are small ones your saves can slide back and forth along a branch by a few posts. If there's a large new branch added or if there's a commented out section that got deleted (Angela frequently leaves those: writing a draft, commenting it out, and then writing the full version in between the draft lines, then at a later update deleting the leftover draft comments), then your save can jump from one branch to another completely different one.

My recommendation is, after you've seen every branch that previously existed and you've just downloaded the latest update, go into your settings (inside the penlight menu) and turn on "skip unread text". Then you can use the skip function to jump to choices until you get to the branch you are looking for from the beginning of the game. There aren't *that* many choices, so it's pretty fast.

The reason you'd want to skip unread stuff to get to unread stuff is that she frequently updates early portions one or two lines at a time, subtle tweaks and expression changes stuff. If you leave it to default (only skipping stuff you've already seen) you can't skip any scene because the game keeps going "Oh, you may have seen Hiroko say 'Back off asshole!', but you haven't seen her say 'Back off {w=0.5}{vpunch = 0.5}ASSHOLE!'" every 3 or so lines.

I like that the game holds to certain limits. OP says that the game is focused on the mind control fetish, and they're 100% right. The scene where you change Nozomi's name and she totally thinks Kyou's BSing her... that IS erotic for some, and adding some strait up porn-esque bits might cheapen that part of the game. Or maybe not: the robot ending doesn't cheapen the rest of the game, so maybe I'm wrong about the whole "cheapens the experience" idea. 

 That said, I do think the game could be a bit flirtier/pervier without going too far: while Hiroko's branch is a fun and entertaining read, she never gets MCed in a pervy way like the other two; she's a cat for a cg (which is someone else's fetish I'm sure, but didn't do anything for me), and then stuck to the ground (which is funny but not sexy imo), but even when Kyou makes her ok with what he's doing, in his mind he's helping her. He doesn't really try anything (mostly because he's scared Hiroko won't let him, but still).  He gets a LITTLE more risky with Sayori, making her alternate persona have a crush on him, but even then that romance is pretty chaste all things considered, and nothing pervy happens after that because everything centers around "oh wow she's really still under trance? That might be a problem".

The update in Nozo-Reversal (I think that's where it is?) with Nozo thinking her clothes are Kyou's and then almost leaving the house in her underwear is along the lines of what I'd like to see more of: it's not raunchy or sex-centered. It's just a dollop of pervy mixed into the mind control. I'd like to see more moments like that with Hiroko and Sayori...and I wouldn't say no to some moments with Risa either ofc.

anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Overall I trust the dev to make the right choice, even if it's not what I personally think the right choice is.

I am seconding the question.

Every time I open up and run the latest version of Penlight, windows makes a complaint; it's almost never seen this program before, and there's no security certificate or whatever to vouch for it. Its the curse of indie development, and I usually ignore it (I've already ran early updates of Penlight, so running the latest version isn't really that much riskier...)

This time, however, with update Source-0.1522.2, my antivirus *freaked out* saying that Penlight.exe was acting suspiciously in a recognizably malware way (it gave me a name, but I didn't catch it), and it wanted permission to isolate the program. Next thing I know it's saying it failed and is rebooting my PC.

When I got back online I scanned the Source-0.1522.2 folder and found nothing wrong (and no files missing?) so it's possible it's a false positive (it's also possible that the program only looks suspicious to my antivirus while running? Idk I'm not that kind of programmer)

Now, I don't think Angela would purposefully put malware in the game, but I figure it's worth bringing attention to; 0.1522.2 *has* set off a user's antivirus program. Anyone who worked on or has played that version of Penlight should probably run a scan on their computer just to be safe.

If it turns out it was nothing then I apologize for creating this thread; I'd hate to give this game bad press if there's nothing actually wrong.

I second that I'd like an alternative to the breath-holding at that point. I see on the path map that you've made a note to add an escape option at that point, and I'm very curious to see where that leads.

That said, I feel like "Kyou nearly kills his dream girl because he let his curiosity get the better of him" is 100% on-theme for Penlight. I do want to see chances to indulge, but I personally enjoy the "...and feel guilty about it" side of the game too. The moments when "reality ensues" add something to it, though I am having trouble describing what that exactly is right now.

Ok, that's largely what I expected. I'll keep my 'fanfics' to myself, then.

Thanks for the rapid response!

I only discovered Penlight a few weeks ago, but I've been hooked by the characters and storytelling!

While waiting for the next update, I've begun occupying myself by writing my own scenes into my local copy of the game, and it occurred to me that I'm basically building a mod (although admittedly not a very cohesive or polished one). Next thing I know I'm considering how little it costs me to share this mod with other fans of Penlight. 

The thing that made me hesitate is: it looks like any version of the mod I publish is going to contain in it a fully-functional copy of the original game (or at least the version I started from). I don't want to create a second source of the base game, and steal attention/credit from the original (especially because of itch.io asking for donations when you download a copy).

I just wanted to check if you were ok with people publishing (not for money! Just sharing the products of my labors with the community) modded versions of the game, and if so what would you consider to be 'best practices' for pointing people back towards the original?