Devlog: Addressing Things/Credit!

Hey Hey! Everyone!

First thing First! Link to Tavern of Spear !

Long post incoming! This is the first Devlog thing... it's just a log, for logging... something.

This time it's about credit ->

So, I gotta Address credit where it's due. And it's been a looooong time coming.

This game is inspired by Tavern of Spear! That's it.

[Boring Part] Rambling:

I've been playing a lot of heterosexual JRPG 2D-adventure games since I was a teenager. (R-18?), also... Skyrim modded, and Corruption of Champions and steamy Dungeon and Dragons. and I've always had this kinda RPG with a lot of CG thing stuck at the back of my head. I thought making it was kinda difficult anyways, so I never really caught onto the idea. I've been drawing online for more than a year now, and during my time in university, I think I found ToS one day in late March 2022. And got really into it. Like... really into it. Long thing short, after finishing all playable content. I started craving for more. And ToS showed me how easy it is to make a VN. So... welp... I made the game during my finals and summer break. (I almost failed my class btw)

I think a lot of/most dudes would find the game has a lot of similarities with ToS. And that I haven't addressed officially...in my only defense, I have always been clarifying to any comments/replies whether it was inspired by ToS and the answer is always yes. I've always been honest about this, this game is inspired by ToS. The game reminded me a lot of RPG turn-based battle that I've been playing for a long time, while it has a lot of unique features that I think is kinda cute. So... I drew a lot of inspiration from the most recent game I've played. At the early development of my game, the setting is a little more different, it's about a cultist tribe capturing Player as a sacrifice, and his story of getting a revenge, I kinda... scraped this idea. And went with a more traditional isekai way.  I didn't touch ToS ever since I started developing the game (until recently). I've thought of a lot of ways to begin the story, but I thought setting doesn't really matter. So, I went the easy way. The generic isekai plotline. I didn't think it was that similar until I replayed ToS last month.

At this point of development (it's still like 2-3 months old lol), I think I've actually grasped how to actually code a game. I've never developed one before, neither did I write a line with python. [just a disclaimer, I have never seen/done/known the code of ToS. I don't know about the detailed steps. Neither is it necessary since I think our systems even if it looks similar, they're gonna be really different, (unless by chance it's the same, I don't know, hopefully its not, it would be kinda awkward.)] So everything was a challenge for me. I have used the codes from renpy cookbooks, Elaine's renpy tutorials, and many other stuff, throughout the development I made a lot of improvement, learned a lot of useful functions and customised these code to my needs, it went through a lot of stages and some of the methods, ideas. I solved it myself with a lot of trials and errors.

Most of the time of the game was spent on drawing arts, and coding. I never really spent that much time writing scripts, plots to the game, even though for now the majority of the script is written by me myself. I am not a good writer per se. And I often fall into traps of generic story tropes. A faction being a tribe and not another village? Player being saved or invited to multiple dudes home/place to sleep and not living alone? These are justifiable concerns that are... justifiable, I did have ToS stuck in the back my mind while I was initially developing the game. I think, in the eyes of a player, the general vibe of the game matters more than the details, it would be useless for me to actually compare the details of the plot only for someone to point out generic story tropes existed in both games, I think it's a matter of genre cliche/convention, which changing it for the sake of changing doesn't make it any unique, instead it would be poor storytelling.

I think initially the reason I didn't want to mention ToS was that I didn't want to bring that much attention to ToS-only audience, that it'll bring up a lot of discussions of this game being a clone of ToS, I've spent 90% of the time drawing and coding, which is not really related to ToS, I didn't check any details about ToS, so while I was developing the game, I didn't think it was necessary, because I still wanted my game to stand on its own, and if the game becomes successful one day, I don't want it to be because it was kinda related to ToS . Which, turns out it didn't really matter regardless. My initial thought process is, I didn't think it was that similar, and sometimes the word "inspiration" may have a little implication that people would get turned off. So I didn't mention ToS on my itch.io page. Was I wrong? I was completely wrong. Of course, now that I'm more used to playing games and reading credits and learning all that conventions that I was not exposed to I think this is the time I come clean, if anyone still have any doubts. 

So the thing is, I should try harder and put effort into removing all these similarities and actually create a refreshing experience. And I'm currently working towards that direction. Of course, I don't want to retcon the lore that much... but, from the trajectory I see, the story onward would go quite a different direction than ToS. And for the UI concerns, I will update it. There's only so many features here, I wouldn't want to remove them, but the only thing I can do is... maybe add some more personal touch to it. For new content, i never really wanted to promote myself that much. but Dungeon system are something I'm kinda proud of, it's still generic RPG stuff, but I hope it's considered my first step to make the game more unique. More of them are coming soon enough. Currently the game is doing much better than I expected, with the help of good scriptwriters and music, I think it is going towards a nice direction that, I don't wish to get overshadowed by it being similar to ToS at the early stage. But still, credit is where credit's due, and I love ToS so much! (I didn't interact with Caro, mostly because I'm kinda... embarrassed, and I don't know if he likes the similarity between both games, at this point I don't really want to find out, I'll still look up to him regardless, so please don't bother him with this topic.)

This game is inspried by ToS, but is it a literal copy? No. I think I wouldn't convince everyone to unhate this game for being too similar to ToS. But you know, I just wanted to address because I think it's time, and it's the right thing to do, I should have done it since the day I published the game. The reason I wrote this thing is not really because of negative comments, there's not really that much negative stuff, you all are really good people. It's just that, I've revisited ToS lately and realised so much details along the way, that wouldn't be justifiable for me to not credit ToS (and i got bored I guess).

[/Boring Part]

So that's it, that's my thought process I think. I wouldn't do another addressing on the same topic because I think this is enough for the length of a novella. But maybe another devlog another time when my rambling cooldown goes up.

Anyways, feel free to comments, I'm just excited to hear about any thoughts/suggestions/criticisms. I'll keep updating old stuff, and more importantly, creating new and exciting and hopefully steamy content to the game. 

I've added ToS to the credit. If anyone is confused. This game is inspired by Tavern of Spear (and their hot and lovely dudes :3) As I've emphasised before, the game is exceptionally good!

Thank you Caro for just being such an inspiration, regardless of what you'd think if you happen to see this. Without ToS, this game wouldn't be here~ Thank you so much!

(Please do not mention anything about this on ToS related stuff. I still do not wish to stir up any drama.)

Last thing Last! Link to Tavern of Spear !