Tbh never liked all that hotwife/cheating/swinging theme (and mostly avoided it) because most of the time it was about people who lost most of affection for each other and blatantly cheat left and right or even worse (like ntr, cucking and similar stuff). Saw that this game have hotwife/cheating/swinging bars and decided to try (cause swinging is pretty fun).
Premise was good (their need to spice up their sex life are all over), part there said bars was in play was a bit strained but controlled and interesting to watch. Too bad that after that all your previous illusion of control in this story poofed and it became standard slut&manwhore adventures... as someone said a couple a pages before: Jenny mostly sleeps with any decently looking person around her (in her case even gender doesn't matter) and Jim is doing basically the same (at least he does only girls) while using his own wife to "work" on his competition.
After that "Confused" chapter appeared and second in whole story sensible talk about their (Jen and Jim) life took place, after that i got some hope that something will change (or at least player will have a choice to change something) aaand.... got that hope totally destroyed because to resolve the confusion Jenny just needed to be politely "hit on" by absolutely random guy and to remember how Giovanni fucked her. And after confusion was lifted she fucks with Giovanni again... no calls to Jim about all this, not even a thought about including him (like foursome or something). So basically her answer to herself was that she likes to be a slut. After that episode with Jess's confession and talk about her love for Jim with the guy who just wants to fuck her ass was as cringey as it was hypocritical. It's not like Jim is better, he is almost no better than Winthrop in his manipulation and abuse. So as i said before we have slut and manwhore duo as husband and wife, at that point of story only redeemable character is Claire (at least her motivation and deeds are not that fucked up as others).
It wasn't all that bad if no one talked about love and caring for each other, but it all over the story. As story's cannon looks so far (for a game called "Happy marriage") marriage part is already gone, or to be precise it is badly drawn farce. At least there is still "happy" part intact, although if things continue to escalate as it is right now "happy" be gone for both of them (Jim and Jen) because they certainly getting carried away with their new "experience".
PS. I think this game badly needs tag "kinetic novel", because player basically have no control over course of action and even if you avoided something (like Jen's sex wit taxi driver) story still unfolds as if they fucked (just one example of story being ignorant to players choices).
PPS. Tbh i had hopes that at least this game will get the story about people losing passion for each other over the course of their life and trying things outside family right, without them degrading to their primal instincts and forgetting each other in this process. It works in real life ( i can tell, from experience), yes from sell point i guess it would be easier to interest player in story about non stop roulette of fucking but it can be interesting even if we don't see a new partner for fucking every in game update.
Hey BloodyA,
I thank you for the time you spent commenting the game with so many deep-through considerations. Let me reply on them to argue my dev's point of view.
I thought this game as visual novel with player interactions aimed to introduce some "gameplay" but not intended to change drastically the story or it's evolution. The paths related to Cheating, Hotwife and Swinging are all condensed inside a storyline, the second one in the novel, because that's the story period during which the couple experiments the three different approaches to an open sexual life. It was a "gaming" choice to make the player follow the paths using choices instead of letting him simply follow three parallel paths. That storyline completed, the novel continues with different storylines about various characters evolution: there's confusion for Jenny (cause inside the couple she is the one who's wondering about the choice made), there's manly desire for success and conquest for Jim, who's trying to challenge by any means Winthorpe's company (sometimes acting no different from the badass man he is attacking), there's discoveries of deep sentiments for Claire and Jessica, each of them in different ways, there's a predator who's chasing his prey (not an easy one, although), ecc.
Being a sex/porn game, obviously, there are many sex scenes involving the characters... but they're never (at least I try to) trivial sex encounters. Every time there's an intimate or special trigger that brings the characters to have sex; the game experience is to let the player follow/influence those intimate triggers that brings or negate the sex experience.
Softly hidden behind all Jim and Jenny's actions there's always their deep love! Reading the dialogues you'll be able to find it: this is what the "Marriage" word in the title means. Whatever Jenny and Jim experience to make their life happier, their deep love sentiment is always there... then you should follow the story til the end to see...
I agree with you that perhaps Jim and Jenny should confront each other more often (although many times in the dialogues there are references to the fact that they did it, although not depicted in the game) but I struggle to keep equilibrium in the game/novel pace between visual, dialogues and sexual content.
I'm not a professional story-writer, nevertheless I try my best to make this novel credible, interesting and visually appealing.
Surely your comments, as all the others so many people had the time to write on this forum, are precious and inspiring.
These are my thoughts and the driving forces behind this visual novel, Happy Marriage, my first erotic game.
Thanks to all.
