discussion VN Ren'Py VAM The Call of Darkness [Arc 2 v0.001] [Ace Games]

[acewinz]

Allow others to update?

1. yes

Developer Name

Ace Games

Developer Links

Subscribestar - Discord

Version

Arc 2 v0.001

Latest Update

Feb 8, 2026

Release Date

Oct 5, 2024

Language

English

OS

1. Windows
2. Linux
3. MacOS
4. Android

Overview:
While man takes his place among the Light of distant Stars, the price of survival may be to embrace the Shadows in Darkness...

Spoiler: STORY

Man has finally reached new worlds and taken the first steps into the abyss, but, seemingly alone, we have had very little reason to change our ways.

War and profit are still the final say in things, so we should be content the recent cycle of war has passed and Humanity is once again united in peace, spread out among a dozen worlds.

You embody a veteran who has served his planet, just a man and his dog looking to move on as the newly minted Captain of a starship with an oddly sensual and motley crew.

But you will rise to be the leader of a destiny that has been seemingly chosen for you by an ancient force from beyond our reality or comprehension.

The tides of change from the "Other" sides are coming, and you, as the chosen herald to a less-than-merciful Elder God, must prepare humanity for what is coming.

Chaos, Madness, and Cosmic Lovecraftian Horrors that know only hunger and destruction will take much more from everyone and everything if you fail or fall.

When the greater good considers compassion weakness, can you be sure you are doing the right thing? Is it okay to enjoy the rewards and pleasures anyway?

The Darkness is Calling, and it comes bearing gifts...

Ace Games -

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Youtube Trailer

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​

Spoiler: Genre:

3DCG, Animated, Male Protagonist, Adventure, Sci-fi ,Humor, Religion, Romance, Horror (Light),
Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, Anal Sex, Creampie, Monster Girl, Mobile game,

Planned Tags: Harem, Lesbian (Optional), Milf, Virgin

Spoiler: Installation

Extract and run

Spoiler: Change-Log

Arc 2 v0.1
N/A

Version 3.44
Updated for Full Arc 1 (Spanish/Japanese translations added)
Primarily Bug Fixes/dialog improvements, some random image tweaks, overall size improvements, one early scenes images entirely redone (after arriving at the Antares for the first time), and save compatibility for the start of Arc 2 going forward. (Older saves may work, but Arc 2 (coming soon) will have quickstart and custom start features which will be recommended if you aren't carrying over a save from this version 3.44).

Episode 3.01
17 Chapters for PC/Linux/Mac and partially compressed Android.
Game Totals:
Total Images 3271
Total Animations/Video 106, (30-60 fps depending on action)
Code/Dialog over 9999+ lines! (Probably double that actually.)
Music: 44+ pieces of varying length, some original, free, licensed, and some created specifically for this game. Sounds: 85+

12-20 hours of content depending on choices/reading speed.
v2.8
12 Chapters
Total Images 2693+
Total Animations/Video 69, (30-60 fps depending on action)
Code/Dialog over 9999+ lines! (I honestly quit counting)
Licensed and Free music scores (Ep 2 and Early Ep3 still in the process of adding background music), audio effects (throughout), and more planned to be added (all future releases will have music in the new stuff, and slowly adding more to previous).

v2.7
N/A

v2.6
Total Images 2100+
Total Animations/Video 56, (15+ mins at 30-60 fps depending on action)
Code/Dialog 8600 lines give or take
Intro theme and audio effects.
6-9 hours of content depending on choices/reading speed.

v1.0
First release, 2 Chapters, about 2 Gigs
732 images
8 mins of video/animation (30 fps/14k+ images)
Around 3k lines of code/dialog.
Intro theme and audio effects.
2-3 hours of content depending on choices/reading speed.

Spoiler: Dev Notes

My new game! To answer some obvious questions, the renders are made with VAM, so the gens/models while tweakable aren't going to look as realistic as a gen9 from daz or blender.
I should hopefully exceed most expectations there though as I know a few tricks others using the engine don't seem to utilize in the AVN community.
The real benefit though is the efficiency with which I can create content compared to Daz or Blender, and the special effects and animations (which will be heavily utilized for intimate scenes and others)
that are in some ways superior/less mechanical compared to all but what the most dedicated regular 3D rendering artist can forge in weeks or months that VAM can do in a day or even hours depending on the complexity.
Which I try to showcase early in case you were wondering.

Spoiler: REGARDING WTHI

So I don't have to answer this too often, yes, I am the same Ace that worked on "Where the Heart is" for several years and lived and loved the game until life got in the way.
While I left the team with an open invitation to return, it is basically in heavy updates for Steam and Updating existing content, and I'm confident my former teammates Cheeky and Cell <3 have that covered.
If God forbid anything happened to Cheeky and the game wasn't finished they both could rely on me to help finish it if needed. It was my first love after all.

DOWNLOAD
Arc 2
Win/Linux: – – – –
Mac: – – –
Android: – – – –

Spoiler: Arc 1

(Note if you have a "Steam Build" Error. It is safe to ignore it or delete SteamToggle.rpy and rpyc from your game folder if it does cause any issue. (Will be fixed in next update)"
Arc 1 v3.45
Win/Linux: -
Mac: -
Android: -

​

 

[bingbear]

Is the hair and body weirdness caused by VAM using Daz3D Genesis 2 models? Everything just looks a bit off from what I would expect from Daz3D. Models still look good, but different.

 

[acewinz]

Is the hair and body weirdness caused by VAM using Daz3D Genesis 2 models? Everything just looks a bit off from what I would expect from Daz3D. Models still look good, but different.

That depends on what weirdness you are talking about and which model as some are honestly better than others even within the same gen/skin? Same goes for hair and a lot not only depends on the lighting, but the physics. For example the MC kinda gets the short end of the stick when I'm diving up resources. His body hair doesn't have physics for one (i honestly didn't like the way it clipped into his body so much) and I am still having an issue with his skin bleeding through light in a way that can make other chars visible through him. Then you have Lilly who while a gorgeous model, her hair has problems of its own, it is so full and fine that light wants to bleed through it as well in ways that makes her head underneath stand out oddly to me. Even though the models are gen 2, they have upgraded tweaks/plugins that help improve their looks, but some work better for one than another, etc.

 

[phdusa1]

Unofficial compressed Android port for The Call of Darkness [v1.0] [Ace Games]

Spoiler: Android Port Features

Textbox Height slider
Textbox opacity slider
Text Size slider
Text name size slider
Textbox Height slider
Text outline slider
Customize Quick menu
Save names with toggle
Delete save button on bottom-right of each slot
Swipe up: Menu
Swipe down: Hide textbox & Quickmenu
Swipe left: Rollback
Swipe right: Skip
Save files(Documents > RenPy_Saves > com.phdusa1.<game-name>)

Download android port

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(323 MB)

Please join my discord:

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Like my ports? you can support and tip me here:

*This unofficial port/mod is not released by developer, download at your own risk.

 

[pedromega]

Less than 700 images in total so far. Also, they are really dark.



I guess it's good that the game isn't called "The Call of Blackness", otherwise we'd have 700 black images in the game.

 

[acewinz]

Less than 700 images in total so far. Also, they are really dark.

View attachment 385518

I guess it's good that the game isn't called "The Call of Blackness", otherwise we'd have 700 black images in the game.

The start is a dream sequence... it is dark. The beach was not dark, even though the sky is not blue... but next scene in the next update is space... it is dark again sadly. Also if you want to split hairs... 8 mins of video at 30 fps is over 14k images. Also not sure why you would find a problem with 700 images in a first release. Some games average 100 an update then call it a day and depending on the game its fine if they get the job done.

 

[pedromega]

Also not sure why you would find a problem with 700 images in a first release.

I had to clarify. I do not intend to downplay achievement. That's just a statement of fact for other players who may expect longer gameplay at this moment. Whatever you do is good. We need more games, more artists, more success stories.

As for darkness, that's my point of interest in this area. I'm really sensitive to needlessly dark images in games and I point it out whenever I can.
Why so dark?

 

[acewinz]

I had to clarify. I do not intend to downplay achievement. That's just a statement of fact for other players who may expect longer gameplay at this moment. Whatever you do is good. We need more games, more artists, more success stories.

As for darkness, that's my point of interest in this area. I'm really sensitive to needlessly dark images in games and I point it out whenever I can.
Why so dark?

Well, I did point out the total images and average playtime in the changelog.

In regards to light, In some cases it is ascetic choice. Often it is because light can be a pita or they just don't like/know how to use it. For the start of my game, it was a combination of factors... The opening scene in my opinion felt better that way, it was a dream, required such a tone, and light has a profound impact on some of the way the models look in the VAM engine, particularly the girl Pella who was transparent. To much light in the wrong direction made objects behind her stand out through her and detracted from her focus in the scene, so I heavily curtailed light distance. There is also a minor issue with the engine I'm using where only so many individual lights are able to render at a single time, so if you attempt to go beyond that, it will have the light behave erratically, popping into and out of existence based on distance which ruins the consistency of even static scenes. I'm also using a variety of models, some do better in low lights, others are fine in any light, and there is also the fact VAM is asset strapped in some regards and you use what you can find or import yourself and sometimes what you have isn't as good as it could be. In those cases you either hide the mediocre stuff in the periphery with liberal depth of field, which I'm honestly not a fan of, or you hide it in the dark. Trying to find a balance is part of the journey.

 

[pedromega]

Well, I did point out the total images and average playtime in the changelog.

True.

In regards to light, In some cases it is ascetic choice.

You mean aesthetic, or am I reading you wrong?

I accept both of your points.

In some cases you do what you can do with what you have at hands and don't want to invest a ton of time and/or money into non-essential imrovements. That is quite understandable and to be expected.

In some cases you need to show dark scene so you make it dark. But sometimes low brightness is just out of place and for no reason.

In your case images are dark, but far from worst I've seen. Also, I see that as artistic choice rather than just inability to fix brightness.
I rather dislike very high contrast and high saturation, but that is even more artistic question rather than a question of accesibility. I must point out that I use IPS monitors. If vieved on some TN, the same images may look brighter, lower contrasted, and lower saturated (depending on monitor model).


What I see less acceptable is when image is dark for no good (or any at all) reason. In your game it's hard to find those, but I'll try.
Take a look at a first picture in a previews on this page. The dog in a room.


Unless your monitor is set up to burn your eyes with bright light, you'll see a silhouette of a very dark blob on a dark room background. And a white blob behind. What you'll struggle to see is any detail on the only thing that matters here - the dog itself. And I see no reason for it to be so dark.

Can we make it a little brighter? Yes, why not.

Here the dog is still in dark. And the room is still not fully lit. But hands in frame are not of a black man anymore and you can see at least some features of the dog. Personally, I'd light it even more. But even this is much better in my opinion.

Hopefully my criticism is constructive and my thoughts are layed well enough to be understandable.

 

[acewinz]

True.


You mean aesthetic, or am I reading you wrong?

I accept both of your points.

In some cases you do what you can do with what you have at hands and don't want to invest a ton of time and/or money into non-essential imrovements. That is quite understandable and to be expected.

In some cases you need to show dark scene so you make it dark. But sometimes low brightness is just out of place and for no reason.

In your case images are dark, but far from worst I've seen. Also, I see that as artistic choice rather than just inability to fix brightness.
I rather dislike very high contrast and high saturation, but that is even more artistic question rather than a question of accesibility. I must point out that I use IPS monitors. If vieved on some TN, the same images may look brighter, lower contrasted, and lower saturated (depending on monitor model).


What I see less acceptable is when image is dark for no good (or any at all) reason. In your game it's hard to find those, but I'll try.
Take a look at a first picture in a previews on this page. The dog in a room.
View attachment 386502

Unless your monitor is set up to burn your eyes with bright light, you'll see a silhouette of a very dark blob on a dark room background. And a white blob behind. What you'll struggle to see is any detail on the only thing that matters here - the dog itself. And I see no reason for it to be so dark.

Can we make it a little brighter? Yes, why not.
View attachment 386505
Here the dog is still in dark. And the room is still not fully lit. But hands in frame are not of a black man anymore and you can see at least some features of the dog. Personally, I'd light it even more. But even this is much better in my opinion.

Hopefully my criticism is constructive and my thoughts are layed well enough to be understandable.

Haha, yes, I did mean aesthetic and you have a point about the dog image and likely others. The room itself was well enough lit in that scene, but for the shot with the dog the shadows and angle were not ideal. I could have added a separate light just for that shot (and have done for many others) but also would need to turn it off after continuing on to maintain the lighting consistently for the rest of the scene. Speaking of that scene, it was also tricky with so much white in the room, too much light like in your shot, while good for the dog, causes the rest of the room to over-saturate. Finding the right balance between light and shadow can be tricky, and while I've done writing and such for AVN's for years, this is the first game I'm doing all the images and videos myself. Something I only have about 3 months of practice at thus far.

 

[pedromega]

I could have added a separate light just for that shot

Every photographer knows to use flash indoors. No matter how high you may crank up your ISO and how fast is your lense, if you shoot without light, you'll get grim zombies instead of ordinary people you see in real life. Maybe the same apllies to virtual photos too.

but also would need to turn it off after continuing on

Maybe there is a way to attach it to a camera and reuse it whenever needed? Why throw away good virtual light? Save the planet, reuse stuff!

too much light like in your shot, while good for the dog, causes the rest of the room to over-saturate

While my version is brighter than yours, it is still, imo, a bit dark. In fact, walls have around 50% of max brightness. If there was no need to match them to other, darker, images, I'd make this room even brighter.
Overall, my strategy is simple: color correct key objects is the scene, then see what you can do with non-important ones. In this image, key objects are hands and a dog. The rest is a background, which can be pretty much washed away as much as you like. Nobody would care a bit, ad long as they serve a goal of giving some context.
Only cheap automatic cameras set exposure according to overall brightness. Smart people set exposure according to brightness of main objects. We aren't cheap automatic cameras, are we?

Finding the right balance between light and shadow can be tricky

True, that's an art.
Not sure if that's an industry standart (probably not), but I think that some renders would get better by aplying simple levels on them in any simple photo editor. Sure, that's an additional manual step. And that operation isn't easily repeatable in case images need to be rerendered, but improvement in image readability may still be worth it. And applying levels still will be easier than messing with lights in the scene.
Instruments such as RawTherapee or DarkTable would make altering rendered images even more fun and repeatable, if needed.

 

[acewinz]

Every photographer knows to use flash indoors. No matter how high you may crank up your ISO and how fast is your lense, if you shoot without light, you'll get grim zombies instead of ordinary people you see in real life. Maybe the same apllies to virtual photos too.


Maybe there is a way to attach it to a camera and reuse it whenever needed? Why throw away good virtual light? Save the planet, reuse stuff!


While my version is brighter than yours, it is still, imo, a bit dark. In fact, walls have around 50% of max brightness. If there was no need to match them to other, darker, images, I'd make this room even brighter.
Overall, my strategy is simple: color correct key objects is the scene, then see what you can do with non-important ones. In this image, key objects are hands and a dog. The rest is a background, which can be pretty much washed away as much as you like. Nobody would care a bit, ad long as they serve a goal of giving some context.
Only cheap automatic cameras set exposure according to overall brightness. Smart people set exposure according to brightness of main objects. We aren't cheap automatic cameras, are we?


True, that's an art.
Not sure if that's an industry standart (probably not), but I think that some renders would get better by aplying simple levels on them in any simple photo editor. Sure, that's an additional manual step. And that operation isn't easily repeatable in case images need to be rerendered, but improvement in image readability may still be worth it. And applying levels still will be easier than messing with lights in the scene.
Instruments such as RawTherapee or DarkTable would make altering rendered images even more fun and repeatable, if needed.

Haha, there is also personal preference. For me while the dog in your shot could be a bit brighter, i think the room behind, especially the door is incredibly bright and distracting, the door looks like a light source itself.
There also is a plugin i have that functions both as color correction, and another that i can attach to the camera as a light source, the problems are always the consistency and realism if you use them and the resources available to the scene. Often I try to setup the natural light sources for a scene, and work from there adding small short range sources when needed.

There is a lot of post work that can be done on images as you said, but if you are going to do one in a scene, you often need to do them all for consistency unless it is just a minor correction, and every additional step is one where you can mess something up.
As an example though, nearly all the postwork done in EP1 was focused on the videos in ffmpeg, which you will notice are sharper and slightly color corrected compared to the static images. The difference between them bothered me in the past and I learned to fix the color change, but they looked inferior to the color corrected versions, so I went back.

I tried to apply the same color correction in static images which I could potentially do in bulk, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to respect shadows as well and the inconsistency between images really blew the immersion in that regard for me. It seems like it handles them a lot better in videos where they basically have a lot more samples to interpolate from.

In any event, assuming I am not crunching time to get the content I want out by Halloween I will revist some images like the dog shot and tweak it or even reshoot it if needed (I try and save almost everything in case it needs re-tweaked), in any event it will happen sooner or later.

 

[acewinz]

Chapter 3 released for top tier early access beta.
Adds several scenes
237 static images
2 mins of video (3700+images)
Over 1k lines of code/dialog

 

[BeowulfKnight]

Chapter 3 released for top tier early access beta.
Adds several scenes
237 static images
2 mins of video (3700+images)
Over 1k lines of code/dialog

Congrats on your release! Excited to play more of your game

 

[SkyBright22]

Less than 700 images in total so far. Also, they are really dark.

View attachment 385518

I guess it's good that the game isn't called "The Call of Blackness", otherwise we'd have 700 black images in the game.

can barely see the top images

 

[acewinz]

Given the part of the scene they take place in, that is intended, but I am keeping in mind going forward that darkness is only scary if people can make out what is in it.

 

[acewinz]

Chapter 4 is up for testing on subscribestar (Still not the full Episode 2).
Currently open to Outer God and Great Old One tiers currently. With chapter 3 it adds around 400 static images, 2 mins of video, 2 sexy scenes, 1500 lines of code/dialog.

 

[acewinz]

Chapter 6 is up on Subscribestar (Episode 2)
Now for Deep One tier and up.

Well, I was hoping to get more done for the Halloween update, especially since we are coming up on a story and action heavy section that will really bring the light horror elements into focus, but no way I can have it all ready and tested by the end of the month. So instead I'm going to release EP2 slightly early to applicable tiers with the content leading up to that which is still a lot. You get to meet more than half the cast, have sexy time with a few, and the story does move along.
Total Images 1457, 725 from this EP
Total Animations 50, 32 for this EP (14 mins at 30-45 fps depending on action)
Code/Dialog 5700 lines give or take, 3k+ from this EP

There is one tag I am reluctant to update as it is plot related and planned, but spoilery. But it was suggested I put it out there given it may impact some peoples interest in checking the game out in future, I'll put it in spoiler here and in the front page under planned once the new version makes it here. If you are already interested I would avoid it though...
Incest, of the daughter variety. 18+ so not loli.

 

[acewinz]

Just an update on the project, Episode 2 from above is now open to all paid tiers on Subscribestar and Episode 3's early access for the opening scenes is ready for testing and open to the Elder God tier (highest tier).
I also updated some of the images above from the new content including some gif versions of the animations.

 

[acewinz]

Happy Thanksgiving/Seasonal Greetings

Episode 3 still in progress, Chapter 7 is finished with first part of Chapter 8 included in the recent v2.4 build on subscribestar released to all tiers!