I think this should be addressed as your post might give a wrong idea to others reading the thread.
We are sorry you feel the scenes are 'forced'. Every scene in this chapter is based on the player's choice either made in this chapter or the previous chapter, we learned our lessons in Chapter 1 when we did Zoe's scene (we understand it could've been done a little differently) which I think is the only 'forced' scene and we have made sure if people have not cheated after this, Mary won't cheat
I played Chapter 1 of your game a long time ago when the Zoe scene happened
as a consequences of being really drunk.
Has that drinking scene scene been reworked?
Not just not counting the variables but actually reworking the drinking scene monologue and the connection with Zoe scene?
If it haven't been rework, i think you need to rework the drinking scene and it's connection with Zoe scene.
At least in the monologue.
Because at least to me, the
unforeseen consequences of being drunk almost made me quit the game right then and there
because i thought it would be a game where the dev has no clue how to design even an average game mechanic. I didn't drop it and persist on continuing playing because your Prologue was
good
Allow me to explain. It's 100% not about "MC being forced on a scene with Zoe", not that at all.
Events can happen due to story reasons and that is 100% okay for me. MC being drunk and doing it with Zoe is not the problem here.
The problem for me was the mechanic of the neighbor drinking scene. The game (you) gave us multiple dialogue choices about background information of other couples. In game, usually choices like that are being presented for the sake of telling the players informations about the world and it's characters.
Not to trap the player on whether or not the player would choose to leave the neighbor's house before the MC gets drunk. Which in turn have unforeseen consequences of "scene with Zoe".
I want to note that the consequences can be any other thing, it doesn't have to be "scene with Zoe" and it would have been awful too. The "Zoe scene" feel extra awful not because the player have no choice but
because the central theme of your story is this Married Couple's life. And you have a
great prologue that makes some player (at least me), not want to screw over Mary.
And then with the scene with Zoe, us players screw over Mary by cheating on her. And we didn't even get to make that choice, it was because "MC was drunk".
Which doesn't make any sense because "
multiple dialogue choices about background information of other couples scene" usually are not used to trap players like that.
If you haven't rework that, I think a rework would make sense. You can go several directions with the rework. The easiest one would be just scrap the super drunk part. And even if the MC is really drunk, we still have an option to say no to Zoe.
Or use monologue, something like " I
really need to go right now. I can't drink more than this, if i drink more i would get really drunk and
will be unable to make good choices"
If you forewarn it like that, even if the scene with Zoe is still unavoidable when drunk, it's more of a consequences.
Those 2 direction is just off the top of my head. It can be rework in any other way you want too.
Again it's not about "being forced on a Zoe scene in isolation", it's about
the drinking scene + the multiple choice world information + the consequences (Zoe scene) + railroading the player to betray Mary
On your game's version a long time ago, that connection was really bad. If you didn't have a great prologue, i would have quit your game. I would miss out on a great game, and you would have missed out on a patron.
Your Chapter 4 was good, definitely an improvement to earlier chapters. And your prologue is actually great. I really like the prologue of your game.