HTML A Mirror's Curse [v0.30] [amaty]

[Axismundi]

The split can feel a little awkward, but I don’t think it’s a major problem, at least not right now. Amaty is handling the subject matter well. The simplest solution, in my opinion, is to give players a bit more control when checks come up.

For example: if a player has a low or high trans stat and triggers a related check, offer them a “but” option.

• “I’m not comfortable wearing girl clothes… BUT I look damn good in the goth outfit.”
• “I like trying on all these clothes… BUT all this pink doesn’t feel right to me.”

These short blurbs don’t need to change stats or outcomes. They’d simply give players more room to roleplay in the way that feels right for them.

 

[KyoukoSakura]

Caught up with the recent material. There's some really great stuff in here; I know that getting all those mall scenes done must have been an absolute slog, but going shopping with mom and little sister in particular had some much needed focus. There's been a whole lot of "okay, we'll talk about this/do something about this later" sprinkled throughout and actually reaching a point in the story where the family wants to come together and figure this out feels good to read because it was becoming increasingly necessary within the story. I half-expected mom to go cuss out ~madame Serena~ for being so grossly irresponsible during the scene where you can tell her about the curse. In fact I'm still kinda hoping for that.

Same with introducing some stakes with the principal taking a realistically awful stance. With this setting it needed to examine the consequences of what's been happening from more than a personal perspective and introduce some real obstacles to overcome. So far it's kinda been cheesing a number of things with all the isekai cheat-level competency stuff; for the story to feel like it has any weight it's got to have some problems that can't be immediately trivialized.

I'm also a big fan of the other witch who took the exact opposite stance from all the other magical characters because she's actually been there. That's where the game's oldest problems start to crop up, though. I noticed that there comes a point where the story starts to have a harsh split that works against its own messaging. We'll have a scene with this character telling us "all these people who keep trying to force feed you their answers are full of it; whatever -you- decide is right and it can be as messy as you want" only for the game to decide what the main character's attitude is based solely on the transgender stat. Or maybe it's actually just the single choice of whether to accept or reject The Girl; I haven't tested that yet. The way the story and game are structured communicates that it's not conceiving of any answers as to what the curse is about other than the obvious one despite the text of the story wanting to communicate that this is not the only valid one.

If the main character's acceptance or rejection of everything only boils down to this one stat, what are the femininity/masculinity and acceptance/resistance measures even doing? It -looks- like you could build all kinds of characters, and I tried because I wanted to see what all it would take into account, but having high fem and acceptance but little or nothing in the trans stat results in scenes where the main character talks like he unilaterally hates all of this. Many of the choices are structured with three basic attitude archetypes (resistant, mixed, accepting/enthusiastic) but once it reaches this harsh divide it reads like it really only supports two character types: definitely trans Ethan and wants nothing to do with this Ethan.

It's...very awkward. I spotted this conflict in the structure of the story pretty early and it's only grown more pronounced. It'd be a lot more polished if it was more of an on-rails transgender game, but that would eat away at its charm. I can tell you really want it to be accommodating, but the story is always feeling friction between letting the player control the level of engagement and following the beats of a forced transformation game. Earlier I thought making adjustments so that the structure and the message agree more would be the way to go, but it's so deep in there now that I think it's just part of the game's identity.

My advice for how to deal with it now is to focus on smoothing away this rough divide that can make a player feel like the character they've built so far is being taken away from them and replaced with a wet blanket who now wants nothing to do with everything the player guided him into doing. Don't let that transgender stat be the only one that matters. In a game that's trying to be as open as this one and say the things that it wants to say, it shouldn't feel like it's outlandish or impossible for the main character to like wearing cute clothes or having a cute body while being cisgender or to actually be happy with rather than anxious about looking and acting androgynous. It pigeonholes a lot more than it wants to, I feel.

Here's an example: I was testing out what the game actually allows the player to do, so I kept Ethan somewhat feminine and had him mostly show interest in boys. He ended up just under the androgynous shift and I set him up to play Juliet. I very much enjoyed the reasoning that you came up with for him to want to do so and I was excited to see how he'd play that out - but then early ending. Not only that, one where he basically just decides that none of that stuff mattered and gets married to a woman.

That's the frustration of playing this game. You write some really interesting scenarios that aren't the main trans path where Ethan wants to play Juliet because girl. Wanting to play Romeo in a way that utilizes the androgyny of his body and feelings or Juliet because he doesn't feel that he needs to share her gender to understand her soul are things I really want to read! But if you're not playing the main character as trans the writing starts to assume that there's no other way the main character could possibly want to engage with what's happening to him.

You've got a lot of stat variables in play here. Let them play.

The reason for this is very simple. Trying to write for all the different play styles and choices would be far too time consuming and difficult, especially for one person, and considering probably like 90% of players just want to play the full trans/girl everything route, it just makes sense to prioritize and write the story all around that.

 

[Axismundi]

like 90% of players just want to play the full trans/girl everything route, it just makes sense to prioritize and write the story all around that.

As someone from that 10%. Reluctant Ethan is best Ethan!

 

[balitz Method]

The split can feel a little awkward, but I don’t think it’s a major problem, at least not right now. Amaty is handling the subject matter well. The simplest solution, in my opinion, is to give players a bit more control when checks come up.

For example: if a player has a low or high trans stat and triggers a related check, offer them a “but” option.

• “I’m not comfortable wearing girl clothes… BUT I look damn good in the goth outfit.”
• “I like trying on all these clothes… BUT all this pink doesn’t feel right to me.”

These short blurbs don’t need to change stats or outcomes. They’d simply give players more room to roleplay in the way that feels right for them.

That's -why- it's a problem. Because this split is based entirely on one choice and takes nothing else into account it's going to feel jarring to end up with a character who simply isn't the one they've been choosing to make up until that point. I took a look through other people's thoughts on the game and this is definitely something that a significant number of the players aren't happy with and it's easy to see why.

As-is, despite having all these personality stats there are only two possible results once the split happens: a character who likes all things girl because girl and a character who regrets everything. Believe me, over the past several days I tried to play a dozen different character types but these stats simply don't affect anything. 100% masculine trans Ethan will squee over skirts while 40% feminine cis Ethan will only ever feel apprehensive about them.

This precarious load-bearing choice that negates all the others can and should be addressed now before it becomes an even more entrenched problem by spreading out the weight that's currently stacked on it to some of the other stats.

 

[balitz Method]

The reason for this is very simple. Trying to write for all the different play styles and choices would be far too time consuming and difficult, especially for one person, and considering probably like 90% of players just want to play the full trans/girl everything route, it just makes sense to prioritize and write the story all around that.

Well, like I said: the game would be way less messy if it decided to go all-in on this and simply not have the option to be anything other than trans. Focusing all the attention on what most of the players want to see would drastically reduce the amount of work. That's one way to go. If it's going to continue to have other ways to play it - and I do feel that this adds to both its charm and replayability - it does need to be handled better. Right now it's hard to imagine the type of player who feels that cis Ethan well reflects what they want to see if they've willingly transformed this much.

Part of what draws me to this game is how amaty's writing in some scenes (the drama scenes in particular, I recognize a fellow theater geek) paints very different - and some very nuanced - portrayals of masculinity and femininity, something that's very rare to see in games like this. That's why it's jarring to run into this wall that forces a split that's so blunt and broad.

I went over this in a different post, but from a workflow standpoint this isn't a question of volume but organization: writing unique scenes for dozens of possible characters is absolutely the wrong way to go about it; using the -many- stats the game tracks to feed the player into what they're most likely wanting to see is the better option.

The shopping trip is probably the most obvious giant collection of scenes that has two big variations based -solely- on the transgender stat. From these broad strokes quasi-custom scenes can be built by organizing which reactions are appropriate with some of the others. I already suggested one way to do this using the masc/fem stat: feed the player into the lines that judge whether the player character likes the different clothes or not and then use the trans/cis stat to judge whether the PC finds them affirming or not. Just by organizing how the exisiting material is shown to the player in a different way you can change two possible character types into four: dislikes overly feminine clothes but finds the experience affirming, enjoys the feminine clothes but doesn't feel that it affects their gender, loves feminine clothes and finds the experience affirming, and dislikes feminine clothes and doesn't find the experience affirming.

With a couple of short strategically-placed flavor lines added in based on other stats - or by adding a short variation based on a player choice, like in the bra shopping scene - you can turn four into eight or more. Let's say one or two sentences based on the shy/confident stat about actually wearing the goth outfit out into the mall; now you have what feels like a custom scene just by using a different stat to judge enthusiasm levels rather than simply assuming that trans Ethan would be enthusiastic while cis Ethan wouldn't be while only writing two full scenes.

 

[ffive]

The shopping trip is probably the most obvious giant collection of scenes that has two big variations based -solely- on the transgender stat. From these broad strokes quasi-custom scenes can be built by organizing which reactions are appropriate with some of the others. I already suggested one way to do this using the masc/fem stat: feed the player into the lines that judge whether the player character likes the different clothes or not and then use the trans/cis stat to judge whether the PC finds them affirming or not.

My suggestion regarding those scenes was not to try to guess player's feelings based on any stats but let the player explicitly pick what reaction their Ethan has to various clothing types. It generally makes very little sense to take away player's control at this point, given this is supposed to be a very personal set of choices on their part. Something the game even talks about at length as it happens.

In this context, having just two "i love it" or "nah, this doesn't quite work" variants for each store is perfectly fine. Just don't try to guess how i may feel about it but simply ask me. In fact, it's a perfect opportunity for the player to either push their transgender stat or dial it back, and/or tweak the femininity/masculinity variables.

 

[Axismundi]

That's -why- it's a problem. Because this split is based entirely on one choice and takes nothing else into account it's going to feel jarring to end up with a character who simply isn't the one they've been choosing to make up until that point. I took a look through other people's thoughts on the game and this is definitely something that a significant number of the players aren't happy with and it's easy to see why.

As-is, despite having all these personality stats there are only two possible results once the split happens: a character who likes all things girl because girl and a character who regrets everything. Believe me, over the past several days I tried to play a dozen different character types but these stats simply don't affect anything. 100% masculine trans Ethan will squee over skirts while 40% feminine cis Ethan will only ever feel apprehensive about them.

This precarious load-bearing choice that negates all the others can and should be addressed now before it becomes an even more entrenched problem by spreading out the weight that's currently stacked on it to some of the other stats.

I get the idea, but the problem is that stacking so many variable checks doesn’t just double the work; it multiplies it, even if its "optimized". With three stats (trans/cis, feminine/masculine, and acceptance/resistance), you’d end up with 8 possible combos for every scene that has a check. For example, how would a high-trans, high-masculinity, high-acceptance read? The tone could shift wildly between paragraphs, and if you try to fully rewrite each combination so they flow together better, the workload would get out of hand fast.

I believe that the solution should simply be to give the player an out, like my previous recommendation, when checks pop up.
Removing the entire and, in my opinion, more compelling half of the story to make the more fringe combinations feel natural isn't the answer.

 

[amaty]

I’m really tired and sick rn so ima be fr you should try making your own game with this massive of a scope and also the entire business/money side of things influencing your decision making as well. It’s really not that easy and I’m prioritizing what most people are here for. Your points aren’t wrong lmao there is a lack of nuance especially regarding the 3 identity stays but it’s not as easy as you’re making it out to be also consider I barely get any views from this site and my audience are mostly very enthusiastic trans women. I only have so much time to get an update out dude I feel ur expecting way too much tbh.

 

[amaty]

It’s very easy to criticize until you actually walk in the creators shoes. A lot of interactive fiction that tries to do everything end up stalling and getting abandoned. Trust me, I’ve been around the choice of games forums. At the end of the day I’ve got to keep the plot moving and I can’t justify giving myself double or even exponentially more work because a few people that probably aren’t even my games target audience want to play as balanced fem/masc personality low trans high acceptance

 

[amaty]

If you feel other games handle it better, you are more than free to play them. I believe you’re the one who mentioned the princess trap and magical camp before. I’m also a big fan of the two. I’m not perfect. Not even close. this is my first work of interactive fiction and I have a long ways to go. I also made a lot of mistakes early on in development, as I wasn’t quite knowledgeable of many things yet. But my target audience and patrons are VERY happy with the game so far. I have to prioritize keeping the game moving and keeping the majority of people happy. I can’t please everyone and do everything. I really can’t justify slowing development that much and adding that many variations for something most people are not particularly interested in.

 

[amaty]

Also consider I get a message or survey result for forum post at least once a week where people haven’t even picked up on the fact that ethan is, canonically, meant to be trans (even after the rewrites where Madame Serena just about spells it out to you) if you’re looking for nuanced depictions of gender and how it affects a person, I feel f95zone might not be the place. Trust me, I’ve dealt with gender issues my whole life and I KNOW that it’s not as simple as “whee I’m a girl in a skirt and it’s all so good and I’m so cute!!” vs “ugh I hate all this I’m a cis man in a woman’s body”. I’ve had my own frustrations with this game as I feel I can’t do a lot of things with my writing as I have to make it as easily accessible as I can. I feel like, ironically enough, you’re missing a lot of the nuance of making a game like this and the difficulties it comes with.

 

[amaty]

But the news I meant to share before all this was that I will probably stop updating on f95zone for a little while. the game is straying further and further away from what most people really want when they open this site in their browser. I feel a little weird being in this space with a 99% SFW game. The thread will still be here but I likely won’t check in or report game updates as often at least until the NSFW update where the first sex scenes will be added. The game will continue being updated by me on tfgs

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and itch.io

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my patreon

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or the site amaty.space I personally do not upload to any other sites, so I cannot speak to that.

thank you to everyone who discovered this game on f95zone! I’m sorry I came to this decision, but I felt it was strange at best and disrespectful of the platform at worst to keep uploading my game here for more traction. I’ll probably check in a little and maybe continue reuploading once I add more NSFW elements

 

[ffive]

thank you to everyone who discovered this game on f95zone! I’m sorry I came to this decision, but I felt it was strange at best and disrespectful of the platform at worst to keep uploading my game here for more traction. I’ll probably check in a little and maybe continue reuploading once I add more NSFW elements

For what's worth, it's not disrespectful at all, you don't have to worry about such thing -- while yes, most games here have sexual content, the site also has no sexual content tag for a reason. It's not unlike tfgames.site in this regard, where bulk of games also come with plenty of sexual content, all the way to xxx rating and to the point where games without any are very much an outlier. But it doesn't mean a "pg-13" game, so to speak, isn't welcome there.

Whatever you decide in the end, good luck with your game and i hope you can stick with it to its completion. Like you mention, it's a rare feat for indie games, and i think this one well deserves it.

 

[Sieghard_Bloodedge]

But the news I meant to share before all this was that I will probably stop updating on f95zone for a little while. the game is straying further and further away from what most people really want when they open this site in their browser. I feel a little weird being in this space with a 99% SFW game. The thread will still be here but I likely won’t check in or report game updates as often at least until the NSFW update where the first sex scenes will be added. The game will continue being updated by me on tfgs

You must be registered to see the links

and itch.io

You must be registered to see the links

my patreon

You must be registered to see the links

or the site amaty.space I personally do not upload to any other sites, so I cannot speak to that.

thank you to everyone who discovered this game on f95zone! I’m sorry I came to this decision, but I felt it was strange at best and disrespectful of the platform at worst to keep uploading my game here for more traction. I’ll probably check in a little and maybe continue reuploading once I add more NSFW elements

I like your game a lot, so it's a bit sad reading this news..

But no matter what anyone says, i'll always be one of your ally.

I'll always keep waiting for your game's update. Good luck!

 

[coretex]

snipped

I will add too onto what ffive said - there are games of all kinds of content here.. there are many different circles of groups on this site, of all kinds. And.. honestly this site is still better for communication, than even tfgs's forums (function/features/performance, not necessarily content/members), as much as sometimes some threads turn into cesspools. Also.. I think you are overthinking things in relation to this site in general too.. I understand the concept of "overthinking" fully. I'll just cut this down.. Id say still update this site.. maybe not worry about every day or week even.. but keep updating here at least bi-weekly/once-a-month.
Also.. I dont think you will be able to accurately track "views from this site" ever at all.. because there people who will not mix and mince their accounts between sites. So.. dont even worry about attention directly coming from this site.. other to know that.. It does draw attention to the other sites you post/serve from. Lots of authors have mis-understood the way this site does actually draw people to S-Star, Patreon, Itch etch. Again, I point to the forum here being better than most, being easier to use than most, and the update notice tool here is awesome.

On audience: while you say you know what your "majority target audience" is, from my observations over the years, until you are in the mix, wont know, wont understand, wont be able anticipate what audiences actually are drawn to their content... until like you have seen, people wanting X content deviation from what you are aiming for, because so far what you have, draws people in a wider net than you initially thought. Which is fine. But then..dont get too bent out of shape when you get the "heat" you have.. just take it in stride and keep going. And.. from what you say is your target audience on patreon.. again acknowledge that your actual audience, even ones that maybe are not 100% what your original intention was, is more "diverse" than you expected. Not saying you have to go remake/edit/add/etc different content to go along with it, but just give it the nod/accept it.

Also anyone who didnt realize the main character was "malleable" to begin with.. wasnt using their correct head anyway.

 

[Axismundi]

But the news I meant to share before all this was that I will probably stop updating on f95zone for a little while.

Sad to see you go but getting away from f95 for a bit is probably the option thats safer for your sanity, Lol. You're making a fantastic game and I'll look forward to when you come back.

 

[DarkDaemonX]

We're 2 updates behind, I just want to see the animation from 0.28, how early is this early access?

 

[ffive]

We're 2 updates behind, I just want to see the animation from 0.28, how early is this early access?

Technically this thread is 1 update behind, not 2.

edit: oh wait, it seems that 0.29 has just gone out. So, yeah, we are indeed back to 2 updates behind.

But normally the delay with public releases is 2 updates, yes. So, to get v.0.28 now you can either hope one of patrons posts it here, like they did with previous updates, or to subscribe to the author's Patreon and get it from there. Otherwise we'll get it around the time of 0.30 release, which the author is planning/hoping to have out around the end of September.

 

[kerriwm25]

I have to prioritize keeping the game moving and keeping the majority of people happy. I can’t please everyone and do everything.

This is far and above the Wisest quote I have seen on here. SOOOOO many developers spend years tweaking things or catering to specific requests, that they forget their most important job is moving the game forward.

I wish you all the best.

 

[balitz Method]

If you feel other games handle it better, you are more than free to play them. I believe you’re the one who mentioned the princess trap and magical camp before. I’m also a big fan of the two. I’m not perfect. Not even close. this is my first work of interactive fiction and I have a long ways to go. I also made a lot of mistakes early on in development, as I wasn’t quite knowledgeable of many things yet. But my target audience and patrons are VERY happy with the game so far. I have to prioritize keeping the game moving and keeping the majority of people happy. I can’t please everyone and do everything. I really can’t justify slowing development that much and adding that many variations for something most people are not particularly interested in.

I know I probably came off as overly critical, but I'm very much enjoying what you're doing because I see you trying to push a genre of game that tends to get stuck in habits forward. That's why I wanted to offer some practical advice on the areas where I see the story struggling for footing or the mechanics not working to its benefit. I'm one of those players who'll scour a game like this to find all the scenes, and speaking from that perspective I see the reluctant/cis route as still holding plenty of storytelling potential even if the trans route is stronger.

Speaking as a fellow writer I hope to be at least a little helpful in trying to point out why and where the weaker route is stumbling. From an editing perspective if you find that route too frustrating then it is probably better to cut it loose, but as a reader I want to be encouraging in saying that even if it's messier I still very much enjoy reading that material as well and only want to see you get it to a place where you can also enjoy writing it. When that one cooks it -really- cooks. In the reluctant route I found that rare scene that you can only see if you get all the transformations, the one where the mom asks if the player character is even trying to stop the curse - and then the later follow-up at the mall if you bring her without Lily - to be more affecting than the trans route because the frustration from both of them, the lack of clear answers, feels even more raw. Those absolutely made me cry; they're probably my favorite ones in the game.

It all comes from a place of rooting for you.