Redemption for Jessika (En, Sp, Fr, It, Ge)

[JFR]

a great game well thought out thnx for sharing guys,little question will we see a part 2

Tlaero is pretty active on this site so I expect she will respond soon. In the meantime, you should be aware that there is no "part 2" for Redemption for Jessika. RfJ is actually the second game in a multiple game series. The first was Dreaming with Elsa. Next came RfJ and we are now waiting for the third game titled Finding Miranda. I seem to remember tlaero saying that will be out in the early part of next year.

[Shift64]

I read through the last 34 pages and want to comment on few things. This is probably going to be pretty long. I'll start with a explanation of my own comment on the previous page. I wrote that I don't like the game mechanics.

Game Mechanics
There are two ways to influence the story. First you can choose what to say in a scene, second you can also click on hidden areas of the images. I dislike these mechanics, especially the last one. It reminds me of something that was generally frowned upon in old point & click adventures. Back then you sometimes had to click on a certain area of the screen to interact with is. The bad part was that this area was especially small, consisting only of a few pixels, and there was nothing indicating that you could click on this area. I find this just frustrating. It is not that bad in your games, as the areas to click on are large and easy to find, but still at the core this is something I don't like.
The reason is, that I can only try different areas by chance or vague guess. It would be better if I could find these areas somehow logically by carefully reading and observing. That would make me feel like I have fair chance. That is probably not something you can do in your games, but I really would appreciate if there was a standard option to highlight the action areas. I currently have to change the game files to achieve this.
The dialog options have the same frustration factor for me. I don't necessarily know beforehand where they are leading or what I have to achieve. Of course if I exactly know what is going to happen before I click some of the fun goes away. But for example the lewd path overdoes it a bit and is especially bad. While playing I find out, that I can get lewd points, so I try to get more and see what happens. What happens is that I get to a game over screen that explains me what I should do to succeed. That's not fair. I should at least get a chance to avoid the failure in the first place. To make it a game mechanic that the player has to fail before he/she can play successful is something I really dislike. Especially as I never really have a chance fully understand how the lewd path works. The principle to solve this is mostly trail and error. I have to go through the same scenes and game over screens again and again until I found out how to do it right.
On a scale of 1 to 5 I'd give RfJ 0 points as a game. Luckily everything else about RfJ is way more important to me and it gets 6 points on the same scale.
To me the game is more a interactive novel. The strong and important parts are the writing and how the story is presented visually. All in all I really love your work. I would not miss anything if you reduced the gaming part and instead tried to perfect it as a interactive novel. Ways to improve the situation for me would be to add save points. Every start of a chapter or any scene that has replay value should be unlocked during the game. Later I want to be able jump to the scene and start my game from there, to be able to read the complete story.

Marc's Background
There are a few posts talking about Marc's background and that we know too little about him. I don't feel the same, but nevertheless it would be cool if there were a few scenes that introduced us to Marc before the action starts. Giving us a broader view of his hobbies and his love for music for example.

Is Marc realistic?
A lot of things where said about Marc being realistic. Often the focus was on what Marc did and a normal/average man would do. I don't want to read stories with normal and average people. First this would make all characters in every story the same average person, second it would result 1500 renders of Marc sitting in the courtroom watching trials 9 to 5. Of course we want the people to be more interesting and unusual. Nobody wants Darth Vader to say: "The force is average/not present with him". That would be more realistic but not really make a good story.
To me Marc is 100% realistic because I can completely identify with him. That was for me the most shocking about this story. From start to end I can play Marc exactly like I would have acted in real life or at least like I would want to act. For example the scene with Sarah and Sylvia in the beginning. I'd always show descent behavior towards here. I'm the last one to stare or take a closer look at a woman, even if she is showing a lot. I'm simply pretty uptight here and if I'm not sure that she is OK with it, I'll keep my eyes off of sensitive parts. In general I at least try to treat people with respect no matter if man or woman (but especially extremely hot women like Sylvia ).
Also, if I learned that the drummer of my favorite band has lost all hope in men (which also means in ME) then of course I'd go a long way to do something about it. I'd assume there are terrible scars on her soul caused by very bad experiences with men. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I'd pass on a chance to do something about it or if I managed to even make the wounds worse. Especially if all I have to do is sit still for a while, be a nice guy and watch two beautiful women. It would also help that I'm rather shy and the situation pretty strange. Another plus is that lesbian sex is not that interesting to me.

Is Marc weak?
There was a lot of discussion about Marc being weak. I don't think there is any reason to assume he is weak. At least I can not remember a scene in which he shows a weakness. I instead see him move through this adventure like unstoppable charming force, dragging his crush Jessica out of the bar back into her life, his arms, the studio and back on stage where her happiness lies. Along the way he gets blowjobs, strips and sex from her. I can totally understand that Tlaero thinks that he is quite successful and important for the story.
This is a pretty wild ride for him within just a few days and he takes it pretty calm and with grace. I have a image of him as mentally pretty strong and balanced. It is not necessary for him to waste his strength drumming on his chest. Instead he waits at the river until he hot chick swims by to fish her out. He gets what he needs with patience, empathy and kindness. That is definitely not manly be common standards, but I think it is admirable and pretty cool. I too don't see what he could have done better through the whole story.

I have several topics left, but it is already way too late, so I'll end this here. Its probably also getting too long.

[tlaero]

Woody, JFR is correct. The next game in the series is called "Finding Miranda" and is very far along in development. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to release it in January. I've been writing posts about it on our p a t r e o n site if you're interested in learning more.

Shift, thank you for the long and insightful feedback.

My intent is to make story based games. There are people who want less story and more game and people who want more story and less game. I can't please everyone, so I make the kind of thing that I like to play. This is that kind of thing.

Regarding the hit targets, in most of my games I put a yellow border around the picture if there's a hit target on the screen. So you should never have to go searching when there's nothing to find. And, for the most part, I don't tend to have a large obvious hit target and a smaller, hidden one that you to need to search for. Though, fair warning, I do have a couple of those in the upcoming Finding Miranda. However, the "small hit target hidden by a bigger, more obvious one" will always be something "off the beaten path" and not necessary for the main storyline. Maybe you need it for that last, hard to get achievement, etc.

In almost all games, from Chess to Call of Duty, you get better at the game by trying, failing, and learning from it. I kind of expect people to do that with my games. At the very least, I expect them to do the normal "be nice" path first and save the harder "lewd" or "no score showing" paths for later playthroughs. There's always people who want the game to be harder, so I try to give some people challenges while still allowing others to enjoy the game. It's a balancing act, though, and I'm never sure that I've struck the right balance. Let me state for the record, though, that in my games you will never be penalized for covertly looking at someone's backside. If you have an opportunity to look ... take it. (-:

In the end, though, if there's going to be gameplay in a story-based game, you're pretty much limited to choosing things to say or choosing things to do. (Though there is that timing based thing in DwE: Learning to Fly.) I'm open to alternate suggestions, so long as they don't get in the way of telling the story. (i.e. "Make there be tons of different paths" which results in there being very little story.)

Something I'm doing differently in Finding Miranda, though, is that there are very few ways to outright fail in the game. I've come up with a different consequence for not getting enough points that doesn't stop you from experiencing the story. I'll be interested in hearing what people think of it when the game is finished.

Tlaero

[carloimbonati]

Played it again today, and it still befuddles me how thoroughly good this game is.
I admit that usually i play these sort of games for ... "less than innocent purposes" ... let's put it that way. But this is different. The story, the charachters, the art. Tlaera and Mortze i really and sincerely bow to your craftsmanship.

[tlaero]

I just uploaded a version of Redemption for Jessika that contains a few new languages, including German and two versions of Spanish.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/t21ijc3xjwo5tga/RfJ.zip

In terms of downloads, RfJ is still a bit behind Dreaming with Elsa, though it's almost pulled to within a thousand. Maybe this will push it over.

Also, the upcoming third story in the series, Finding Miranda, will contain spoilers for those two games. So, if you haven't played them yet, you might go play them now before FM is released.

A special thanks to John Milton, Marco6661, Chessy, NudeRaider, Shift64, Lokoo, Moskys, and Massi84 for doing the translations of this game. It was a ton of work for each of them, and none of them got anything for doing it.

Tlaero

[kaiowas]

Just wanted to say a big thanx to Mortze and Tlaero for this game, as a big metal fan myself the story really got to me.
keep up the good work!

[Greenleaftea]

This feels like the odd one out, a side story set in the same universe as the other two without seemingly being related. Aside from the occasional easter egg, it's only during the post-credits that the game ties itself to the last and sets up the next. That being said, it makes a lot more sense once you've played Miranda. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it (I did, albeit less than I have the games either side), I just wanted to provide some food for thought. On a side note, and one of personal taste, have none of these girls ever heard of wax? A bit of variety wouldn't go amiss.

[JFR]

... On a side note, and one of personal taste, have none of these girls ever heard of wax? A bit of variety wouldn't go amiss.

Variety is good. On the other hand, one of the things I like about the "Elsaverse" games has been that the girls seem more "real." Freaking awesome, but real. Among the various women I have known over the years, approximately none have waxed or shaved or otherwise "cleaned up" down there beyond the occasional trim. I think the concept of every girl being baby-bottom smooth between the legs only happens in porn. While most other games follow the porn trend (I suspect it is easier to render), I like the fact that Mortze (and a few others) stay more in the real world. YMMV.

[Mortze]

On a side note, and one of personal taste, have none of these girls ever heard of wax? A bit of variety wouldn't go amiss.

Thanks for your insight Greeleaftea
If I may give an explanation about that little detail the fact that you won't ever see much fully waxed ladies in my games it's because:
a) as JFR said, it's unrealistic. By my personal experience the ones that wax fully down there it's either for professional reasons (actresses, model, sports) or because of a misconceived idea that men prefer fully waxed girls and so, those girls that sleep around much (nothing wrong with that) tend to wax more. Of course, exceptions might exist and some or many girls prefer to wax fully for comfort only.
b) my personal taste. I don't like fully waxed women. It makes me think I'm not with a woman but with someone younger. That's of course a personal psychological process of my own.
I try to add some variety in the pubic area in the various games. Look at Miranda, Elsa, Sarah and Sylvia. Roos and Maggie. You will find 6 very different pubic hairstyles with 6 different ladies. The fact that none is fully shaved doesn't mean there isn't variety.

[tlaero]

That's an interesting perspective, Greenleaftea. It's cool to hear thoughts like that from outside sources. Since I know what's really going on, in my mind the second game was WAY more about the ongoing story than the first game was. But, like you said, since you didn't know that until the end (or, really, until you played Finding Miranda), it probably wasn't clear.

Tlaero

[Greenleaftea]

That's an interesting perspective, Greenleaftea. It's cool to hear thoughts like that from outside sources. Since I know what's really going on, in my mind the second game was WAY more about the ongoing story than the first game was. But, like you said, since you didn't know that until the end (or, really, until you played Finding Miranda), it probably wasn't clear.

Tlaero

What makes this game so good after playing Miranda is the number of references in the third game to this one. Just simple switching of perspective at the party, for example, was, I thought, a very clever bit writing and a nice touch to link the two stories together. At that point in the story she's not directly involved with the group. It also showed the stories run somewhat concurrently rather than linear to each other, which again is a nice touch. I'd definitely recommend people go back and play the first two games after playing the third. They'll make a lot more sense. Keep up the good work. I can't wait for the next installment!

[Powerbee]

If I may give an explanation about that little detail the fact that you won't ever see much fully waxed ladies in my games [...]

storm of applause

[tlaero]

In preparation for uploading RfJ to NewGrounds next week, I've converted it to the new format that has the 10 saves and save export/import. If anyone hasn't played in a while and would like to give it a run through to make sure I didn't miss anything, I've uploaded it to the standard site. https://www.mediafire.com/file/t21ijc3xjwo5tga/RfJ.zip

Also, I don't understand how NewGrounds ratings work. DwE has just a bit over 3 stars, but the vast majority of the ratings are 4+. The only < 3 star ratings are one guy who gave it a bad rating because he didn't think I was me (I am) and another guy who thought he got a virus from it (he didn't). If there are any DwE fans who would like to post a review there, I'd appreciate it. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/697183

Mortze and I continue to be frustrated that unfinished games with a few pictures are pulling in a ton more revenue on pat.reon that we are with our 8 full games and thousands of images. I'm putting our games on NewGrounds in an effort to reach a larger audience and, hopefully, keep this a sustainable effort for us. Getting more reviews there might help in that endeavor.

Tlaero

[Brocho]

I played through the new version of DwE two days ago and loved the new menus. I've downloaded the new RfJ and I'll probably play through it tomorrow. How do you find time to update your old games with all the work you must be doing on the latest one?

[Hero1]

Also, I don't understand how NewGrounds ratings work. DwE has just a bit over 3 stars, but the vast majority of the ratings are 4+. The only < 3 star ratings are one guy who gave it a bad rating because he didn't think I was me (I am) and another guy who thought he got a virus from it (he didn't).

If I understand it correctly the rating is based on the votes not the reviews. I just posted a 5-star review and the stats didn't change at all, it still says "3.46 stars - 244 votes".