[ Reformatory Exposure ] - Beta Test Build

[Aether]

REFORMATORY EXPOSURE
A 2-D (RPGMaker) Stealth Game

Description

A young protagonist with big dreams and a lack of common sense embarks
on an adventure to expose the truth about an intimidating institution: A
private low-security prison / reformatory school for troubled young adults.

Will they be able to avoid detection for long enough to find what they are
looking for and make it back out again?


Features (Currently)

• MF/F Scenario
• 2 different endings
• 2 different main pathways through the game
• a custom-made stealth system
• no classic combat
• lots of graphical edits to at least get rid of some of the "default RPG-Maker feeling"

(Though I'm not a visual artist, don't expect too much.)


Public Beta Test Build

This game can be fully played from start to finish, though I blocked off a few
alternative paths, music & sound design are unfinished, and not all endings
are reachable.

The full release should contain fully customizable genders, 2 more endings,
more story branches, more locations, and more characters to interact with
(especially students).

Will it ever have custom spanking graphics? Let's see.



Download

Win: Project page on itch.io


Current Version & Changelog

beta1.1 - 2022-11-18


beta1.1.0
- fixed error when going through main gate on the first map
- implemented hint system in in-game menu

beta1.0.2
- ironed out initial startup difficulties


---


Design Principles

I wanted to make an RPG-Maker game that focusses on a slightly different
primary gameplay loop (okay, technically secondary), focussing on stealth
instead of classical JRPG combat/puzzles/dialogue-fetch-quests.

I also wanted to give the player choices that actually matter to the way the
game plays out (and reduce the number of choices that don't).

In essence, I wanted to create something that would also be fun and
challenging to play if it didn't contain any spanking.


Making Of

I'm a software developer and started making this game around mid 2017 when
I was fresh out of my previous freelance job and had some time to kill. About
70% of what's there today was actually finished within the first few months of
day-and-night hacking.

Then life happened, I got busy with other things, and the game sat around
unfinished. Every once in a while I would pick it up again, add a few things,
and then get busy with other stuff again. This went on for years.

In the meantime I married, had my first child, and time became even more
sparse to work on this.

Now, fresh out of another job, I went into full-time hacking on this again for
a few weeks to at least somewhat finish it and not have it be lost to the sands
of time entirely.


Will development continue?

Honestly, because of the above I don't have high hopes to ever fully finish it.

Please provide feedback anyway. I know every time I play through it I find
new bugs and glitches - you will probably too. Sorry for that. If I find time,
I'll look into it.


Contributors Wanted

If you find yourself liking this game, owning RPG Maker MV, and having spare
time I'd love to let others have a go at it too.

I don't feel fully comfortable open sourcing it on github as I don't know how
the licensing can work as it uses proprietary RPG Maker assets. But I can send
you the project folder if you send me a private message.

Also it would rock to have an artist make custom spanking graphics for the
respective scenes. I'm not talented in that regard.

[SoulSeeker001]

Heyo, download not working for me

[Aether]

Thank you both, I'm looking into it.

Edit: I think it works now. Republished the itch.io page.

[smack54]

I found the elevator key and am on the top floor but finding a place to hide in the office is impossible . And locking the save system so I keep having to replay over and over and over again is frustrating. Also where are the spankings? The guards catch you and there's a game over screen.

[Darkfear]

Hello!

I turned on the game and went to the left. I slipped past the guards and reached the door, but the game gave me this error.

Is that how it's intended? The description says that some paths are blocked. Are you talking about this? Or do I need to go to the right first, and then to the left, after I take something?

[Wyattar]

To those of you who cannot figure out the health office section, I just spent 30 minutes hitting enter on everything getting frustrated. Go further into the office where there are the drawable curtains and hit enter when facing the left curtain when in-between them.
NO, This was not at all clear.

[Mastermind]

How does one go about getting the second keycard from the girl??

Cool game so far! Can't really get the hang of the Headmaster sequence and, honestly, my one critique is that with scenes like that having to replay the opening section every time you fail gets real tedious. Really enjoy it overall though!

[RuzgarTW]

I like the concept of the game, but the save point system is painful to play with. Every time I make a mistake, I have to do the same things all over again.

[Aether]

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Saving & Loading

I realize that save points are not ideal, however I am basically hacking the engine to do something it wasn't designed to do. There are complex parallel scene routers that control movement of the actors around the room and the in-built save system cannot save all of their states, positions, directions, and so on. If a player saves in between scenes, it just all goes haywire. So I basically restricted saving to only be possible in-between scenes.

I guess a skip option for some of the scene intros might be a good solution.

Bug-Reports

Originally Posted by Darkfear

I turned on the game and went to the left. I slipped past the guards and reached the door, but the game gave me this error.

Is that how it's intended? The description says that some paths are blocked. Are you talking about this? Or do I need to go to the right first, and then to the left, after I take something?

Thank you, that report helps a lot. No, errors of any kind are not supposed to be left in, but a detailed description like that of how to get to them is appreciated.

Originally Posted by Wyattar

Go further into the office where there are the drawable curtains and hit enter when facing the left curtain when in-between them.

Could you please elaborate where you had to hit enter? You should be able to just hide behind the curtains without pressing the action key, just by going there. Then the guard shouldn't see you. Did some text appear when you hit enter?


Challenging

Originally Posted by smack54

I found the elevator key and am on the top floor but finding a place to hide in the office is impossible.

Impossible no, but challenging yes. Doctor's office or headmaster's office? The latter is definitely the most challenging part.

One of the nice-to-haves I considered was having an "easy-mode" where for stealth scenes there's a guiding light like in the tutorial section with the cat that just shows you where to hide. That would take a lot of time though.

In the meantime for a

Mini-Walkthrough

 

Hide behind the curtains, when the guard comes back go into the bathroom, then when he checks the curtains sneak past him. He's hard of hearing and thus won't notice if you are right behind him. Finally go back behind the curtains.

 

Scene 1: Getting data from computer

Sneak to the computer when he's just about to face left in the north-position, get the next bit of progress, then go to the right off of the chair and hide behind the desk.

Scene 1.5: He goes to check the computer. Run behind the south sofa and crouch. Wait until he's about to go to the right behind the north sofa, run back behind the desk and crouch. When he's moving towards the south sofa, run back behind the north sofa.

Finally you need to get past the two to the door. You have to go up around the desk when the headmaster isn't looking. Don't worry about the secretary, as soon as she's being caned she won't notice you anymore, even if you hide directly underneath her.

 

If you got this far, you need to help out the guard. Grab the USB stick when he's looking away. Search everything once, suggest the hairbrush twice.
Chair: Turn from behind and push from the left. (The shape of the handles gives a basic indication of how they're supposed to be used)
Note that time is ticking and each wrong choice will possibly delay you from getting the final piece of information. when spying a third time.

[SariaSong]

This is an extremely ambitious game. It's pretty impressive, but I did find it pretty difficult honestly. The guards seem to be really good at spotting you. This is made worse by the limited save system, which has you repeating stealth sections.