Cruel Serenade

Works of fiction are not real life. One of the purposes (maybe THE purpose) of fiction is to explore the unconscious, including (especially) the darker areas. We are, fundamentally, a predator species (sharp teeth, meat eating, persistence hunters), and despite tens of thousands of years of stuff accumulating on top of that, the base urges and instincts remain the same. It is better to exorcise those "demons" in contained places where they can do no harm than to let them fester in the dark. That which is feared and revered becomes powerful, that which is trivialized becomes largely harmless. 

And even all that said, this is a very modest dipping into these themes. If they're not for you, that's fine of course, but understand that they ARE for a lot of people. The whole of BDSM essentially grows out of this, and it's not one-sided either. People enjoy throwing others around, but a whole lot of people enjoy GETTING thrown around too (and it fact that's the main audience for this game).

On your last point: In my experience the fandom is simultaneously one of the best and worst groups of people out there. Most are incredibly kind, patient, generous, creative and so on. But it's also a community of people built on the idea of being outcasts (like nerds, geeks, "gamers" etc), which makes its members extremely hesitant to gatekeep or have hard limits or boundaries, and this in turn leads to exploitation by bad actors who would have been much more rapidly shown the door in other circles. To be clear, I am NOT advocating the witch hunt nonsense that has devoured the internet in recent years. Encouraging dogpiles over minor things or fabricated evidence is bullshit. But if there is clear, severe evidence that someone is up to seriously terrible shit, and has been for a while, people should obviously warn others to stay away. What I make is adult entertainment, for adults. It's clearly marked as such. This isn't a physical store, I can't card people (and trying to do so online is impractical and dangerous for a variety of reasons), but this is an adult product with an adult intended audience.

What specific problem are you having? Game won't launch? Game launches, then crashes with an error? Game runs, but not correctly?

If a native speaker volunteers to do so, absolutely; as I say in the translation sticky (on GT), I'm open to unofficial translations. But I don't do any translations myself or contract out for a professional to do so, not enough time and money for that currently. Also keep in mind that if you just want basic playability, CS and CS:GT are RPGMaker games, which means they're very easy to hook and machine-translate in real-time with "RPGMakerMVGame Hook patcher", Textractor, and a free API key from Deepl. Far from perfect, but it'll get you the general idea.

Aw, thanks! Glad you're enjoying it so far.

"I would like to continue to see options for pure endings for Mezz, even if it's hard." There definitely will be, tough it will obviously be only a small part of the scenes overall. But hey, you can play it the way you enjoy it. I mostly have the "pure" path as a counter to the other stuff; it's not fun to lose if you don't have the OPTION to actually play legitimately.

"taking many retries for the bar before the boss, but I suppose it's intended to lose a lot a standard playthrough,"

I tend to put in "speed bumps" or barriers, pain points that are meant to tempt players to go the "easy" way. People do the humiliation thing differently: some just plow him straight into the scenes, but some like a little bit of coercion or struggle, they like to actually be pulled into it, so those bits are there for that. It is possible to push through them for pure players though, just takes extra effort. And I try to not make the speed bumps TOO brutal: that bar fight used to be a lot worse.

Yeah, it's just slowed down and pitch shifted slightly in-engine.

Ha, thanks! Give GutterTrash a try too when you can: if you like this, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Different flavors for different people obviously, nothing wrong with that. But yes, unfortunately what I call the "trained" ending, with him being used but escaping is essentially the "middle" ending depending on how you look at it. Pure obviously would be no captures. But I suppose middle is debatable, because maximum corruption leads to the trained end, whereas SOME corruption either leads to the ordinary victory, a temp defeat and then the ordinary victory, or a full defeat where he doesn't leave the island. Thematically though, I tend to think of the trained end or slutmode end as the middle path. 

What were you looking for, more specifically though？ You don't have describe specific scenes or anything, just broadly what were you imagining as the ideal middle way? What would it look like? Obviously not going to change this game, but I can always consider ideas.

Well this first game itself is free. The save file may not be as useful as you think though, as the game doesn't have a gallery to unlock yet: the only way to see the scenes currently is to actually play the game. If you're having trouble with a particular part, let me know, or check the Scene Guide here.

ご覧いただきありがとうございます！

Cruel SerenadeとGutter Trashは、どちらもRPGMaker MV 1.6.2で作られています。Translator++( https://dreamsavior.net/download )を使うことをお勧めします。少し複雑ですが、手作業でファイルを編集するよりも、あるいはプロジェクト・ファイルから作業するよりもずっと簡単です。また、荷造りや荷解き、その他多くのことを自動化してくれる。インターフェイスは他の言語にも切り替えられるが、残念ながら日本語版はまだない。いくつかの設定ファイルを編集することで、インターフェイスの独自翻訳が可能なようだ。

以下の限りにおいて、翻訳と配布を許可する：

1. ゲーム全体ではなく、変更したテキストファイルだけを配布すること。

2. 「非公式」または「ファン」翻訳であることを明記すること。

3. お金を請求しない。

がんばってください！もし完成したら、また教えてね！ぜひ見せてください。質問があれば遠慮なく聞いてください。

To be clear, in case other people see this and get confused, this is in GutterTrash, not this first one.
By "night club" I'm assuming you mean the basement party area with the green fog? Talk to the NPCs. Specifically, one on the far left.

Yeah, that does sound unintentional. Would you mind confirming that this is happening on the most recent version, 0.4.1? You can check the number on the zip file you downloaded, the folder name, or the most recent revision listed in the readme.

Hey, thanks for playing, and for the notes. I'm genuinely really honored when people take the time to dig through this stuff in depth. Let me work my way through these...

I will start by saying: keep in mind this was my first outing in formally making a game. So while some things are more or less where I want them to be for this game, they've definitely improved in Gutter Trash in many cases. With that general preface though:

1. So to be clear, clips off IS supposed to function as a toggle: you shouldn't be getting any battle sex/hypo stuff with them off. To be EXTRA clear that toggle stops working once you've been defeated enough times, but on your second battle it should still be working fine. I'll test this out and get back to you, though it might be a bit, working on finishing up a piece of art first.

2. So, this is a theme you'll hear a lot unfortunately: art is a big time and effort sink for me, far more than writing or programming. I agree, variety would be good, but it takes a lot of time to refine out a brand new character design. And it's not just just the battle standees: you'll notice the enemies, or parts of them, show up in a lot of the battle sex sprites. Which means I need a new variant of EACH of those for each new species I introduce (or worse brand-new sex positions!), which stacks up fast.

It's also a matter of give and take because of the mechanics. See, I'm not just doing a simple RPG fight system, and then tacking on scenes if you lose. I wanted to have sex mechanics IN the battles themselves. Which means each new enemy needs to have NEW mechanics, and those mechanics each need to be balanced against each other, and on and on. Long story short, I had to make a choice, and I decided the best way to spend the time and energy I had was to invest them in taking a handful of enemies (really just one with some palate swaps for minor variation) and giving them a fun, somewhat juicy battle sex mechanic. An inch wide and a mile (well, maybe four or five yards) deep rather than the opposite. I DO have new enemies for GT though, with new mechanics, and plan to mix it up each chapter at least.

3. Main fight mechanic is VERY simple in this game, yes. I think you've pretty much described it. I've made things a LITTLE more complex in GT, but in both it's basically broad attack, recharge, broad attack, recharge, but strategically hitting with the single attack when an enemy is weak to save time. The fights are built around not wasting time, even more so in GT, which moves much faster. If you're gathering items properly and using the ability out of battle to heal you shouldn't burn through them TOO fast. You do have to conserve them a bit though. Keep in mind you aren't meant to kill ALL the enemies: there's no reward, and in fact a punishment for doing so, since it will eat into your resources. The idea is to carve a path through them, as efficiently as possible.

4. Excellent, good to hear. And like I said, my aim was to focus time there, on the sex mechanics, rather than on the general mechanics. Those are really just a frame to hang the rest of it on, because having some agency and interactivity is hotter than just clicking through a visual novel. Of course I'd love to add more depth to the extent possible, and may add a BIT as future games go on, but let me know how you find GT. That's still not super complex on the general stuff, and I probably won't go too much more than that on this series, but it does add a little.

5. My enemy "AI"/battle code is a little bit of a mess in general on this first one (got a lot cleaner on GT): I've managed to squash most of the serious bugs, but there are some odd ones that crop up occasionally due to poor planning when I originally set things up. And the Mashers are the goofiest of the bunch: they're already nowhere near as broken as they used to be. But I'll definitely run a few more fights with them and consider what you're saying here; will get back to you with what I find.

6. Same as 5.

7. See my previous comment about art assets. Every new overworld sprite means nine new sprites need to be drawn, pixel by pixel. Given, some of those are just flips, and in this case I'd be tweaking an existing one, but that still takes time, and I was working on a very short deadline for this first game, and judged it was less important compared to a lot of other things (like having extra endings, check out fireplace's guide if you haven't already, if you're curious/want to check that you've hit all the endings/side stuff). I know it doesn't sound like a lot in isolation, but making the game initially, I have to make ALL my overworld sprites from scratch, unlike a lot of RPGMaker games. That's why there's only three for this one: Mezz, the boars, and Diezel. There's a bit more variety in GT though.

8. That's a core element of games like this, to allow skipping immediately to defeat, in turn allowing quick gathering of scenes that someone's missed their first time through. There have to be multiple because deaths aren't "hard" in the game: you get defeated, go through a scene, and then go out and fight again, and need to be able to force defeat again. Of course it could just be a non-consumable of some kind, but it's just tradition to do it this way. As for Mezz's death sprite being stripped, that's actually part of a larger inconsistency: it's just always stripped (though not always...glazed), even if you fight with hypno disabled and he stays completely clothed. That case may make more sense to you than the first, but you're really just bridging the gap with your own narrative there (as do I); it's a little goofy in both.

The practical answer is that although the kill item does exist in-game and in-narrative, I still see it more as a debug item that players can use, rather than a serious part of the game, so it's less refined. I also felt like giving people MORE bunny ass probably wasn't a bad thing. But my standard since the game came out is that if enough people complain and it's easy to fix, I'll fix it. I may even have a clothed version of the sprite hanging around somewhere, will have to check. Long story short though: yes, it is a little sloppy, but I see the item as "debug", so I wasn't as worried about it.

9. Thank you much! And I certainly hope so, because writing is the one thing I can do reasonably well. If people aren't enjoying that, I'm in trouble.

10. To be fair, I never actually state that the flashlights are vision cones. But yes, they're purely aesthetic. It's VERY basic stealth, but you can get a sense of their range with a little experimentation. And I actually find it a bit more fun if you don't know EXACTLY where detection is. But again, something very basic and simple to put in, just to add a little bit of flavor to things on my first attempt at all this. There is a new take on stealth in GT though, so you'll have to let me know how you like that one.

11. Not a bad idea: the traditional thing would be to grand some kind of "stealth attack" bonus on the start of combat if you approach them from behind. But again, in this case it really was intended to just be a very basic "try to avoid combat on this screen" kind of thing. There are lot of things you can do to make an ACTUAL stealth section in RPGMaker, and again, I did do something a LITTLE more involved in GT, so check it out when you can. Will probably leave this one as-is though.

12. Have something like this in GT. Probably won't back-port it to CS 1 though.

13. Pay attention to your meters: cumming decreases health and energy, and can even down you if it gets low enough. Lust builds up until you cum, then you take damage and reset. It's an imperfect metaphor, it's not as though it's actually damaging you. But the HP in this case is more like "ability to fight" or "fighting spirit" or whatever. So if you get brought to climax too many times, you lose. The goal of each fight thus is to either beat or fuck the boars to submission before they do the same to you.

14. Again, first game. I am tracking a LOT already in battle, but at a certain point I had to draw a line in terms of how granular and accurate I was going to be. It's one of those things that seems simple from the outside: just use the nude sprite instead of the cum one, but in practical terms it means there's an additional state I have to track, and make sure it plays nice with all the other states. That said, I think GT is a bit better on this, though still not perfect. I probably won't change this on CS 1, but in general going forward I am trying to be more accurate with tracking states, within reason.

15. Again, be sure to check out OpenFireplace's guide if you haven't already. Very handy.

16. Yeah, I try not to force anything TOO much, although I did start getting a little stricter with certain boss conditions in GT. Generally though, my philosophy is you can do it the "right" way, or the hard way, but if you realy want to put up with the tedium, I won't stop you.

17. Again, it's a question of where I'm going to put my time. My guiding design philosophy with these games is to have just enough ordinary RPG stuff to be functional and a little fun, and then spend the rest of the time on horny stuff. I feel like that's where the biggest bang for buck is. I could do new weapons, items that modify stats, etc, but then I have to balance around that, the character sprite in battle wouldn't reflect the new items, and maybe most importantly, the games just don't go on long enough to make that level of complexity worth it. CS 1 is roughly a 2 hour game. GT is maybe 4-6 hours, and only half of that, at most, is combat. This isn't a classic RPG where you're spending 30+ hours watching your characters go on multiple adventures and evolve over time. As you yourself noted, there is only enough gameplay in CS 1 to level up a handful of times. I think that says it all.

You also have to understand that I have a tiny, tiny brain. I am not an RPG nerd at all, and math makes my head hurt. So I have to start small and simple so I can hold all this stuff in my head long enough to make it work. That said, I am slowly, gradually adding a LITTLE complexity to things, and will continue to do so as I make new chapters. Don't ever expect super deep RPG mechanics from these games though, that's not what they're for. They're for super deep fucking mechanics.That said, I do recognize that part of it is a little bland, and again, with time will hopefully be improving it a LITTLE. Probably not in CS 1, but in general going forward.

18. Like I said, leveling up doesn't really serve any purpose in these games other than flavor and to slightly boost your stats. I hand out new abilities on the map via manuals rather than at level barriers. And your level won't truly carry over to the next game anyway: I just take a "typical" level at completion of one game, and start Mezz at that for the next chapter.

Hope than answers at least some questions. Hope it isn't frustrating that I'm turning a lot down: aside from technical issues, and eventually a few quality-of-life improvements, CS 1 is probably more or less in final state at this point. But I still want to explain WHY it ended up the way it did, and if there's something that's a big improvement for very little effort, or a serious issue/annoyance (like some of the bugs you brought up) I definitely want to take a look at it. And I will eventually take a look at the issues I noted above and get back to you on this thread, though it might be a few days.

Beyond that though, thanks for trying (and buying!) the game, despite its flaws. Each chapter is a stepping stone, and they're definitely improving as I go along.

Ha, starting the new year off strong! Thanks, glad you're enjoying it!

I may do exactly that eventually, but that'll be after they're all out, which is quiiite a ways away yet. I don't like to overcommit, so I'm definitely not going to take money for several chapters into the future. One day (and one game) at a time.

After the third defeat yes, the clip removal is no longer an option. I can't remember whether clothes removal is allowed at 2 or 3 defeats, but yes, it is also intended. I'll have to double-check at some point to see if I can reproduce, but you should definitely be able to remove the jacket after 3 defeats. You may have stumbled on some combination of variables I didn't anticipate, as I'm fairly sure that never gave me issues, but like I said, will double-check.

Editing this as I didn't realize what comment section I was in at first; thought it was a GT question. For this game, consider taking off the ear clips. This will turn off the hypno mechanics in the fights, which will streamline them a lot if you just want to get through a number of them quickly.

I mean, that's the kink. I understand it may not be for everyone though.

RPGmaker doesn't have Linux support appearantly (dunno why), you can use Wine though. With Winetricks, it may work. It does sound like something that can break your system though... 

Thanks! Hope to keep making more for people to enjoy into the future.