- Jul 15, 2021
- 56
- 234
Hey GingerbreadMan,Hi Myrabelle
I loved 'Avalon', and while I would have liked to see some more of Dallas (I tried the Octavia route, but I prefer Dallas) and the three of them together in the end (lewd and story!-wise), it was still a great story and a very enjoyable experience (like for others, the large eyes were somewhat unexpected at first, but made for a very cute looking style in combination with their other looks).
The sister-plot felt a little tacked on, though.
Penny was fun, especially after the initial rework, and I enjoyed her parts immensely. Although I myself wouldn't have made her that prominent in this kind of story.
I'm not really active on either Patreon or Discord, so while I knew there would be a new game, beside some news from threads on here, I got to 'A Penny for your thoughts' mostly without any knowledge of what to expect exactly.
I remembered then that I had read somewhere some time ago that Penny would be the game's protagonist, and I wasn't sure I'd like that game, but was giving it a try because of 'Avalon'. And in the end, I think she actually was much better suited as a protagonist of her own game, than a sidekick in an emotional/'dark' game like 'Avalon'. On the other hand, it brought a lightness to it that I may have missed otherwise, so it's all good, it didn't sour my experience as it seems to have done for others.
While I felt the sister plot to not really fit as well as the rest of the story in Avalon, I really liked her.
But transferring a LI (and she kind of was presented as one) into another story as a LI again is 'problematic' for me. Even though I play the MC in both games, I built an emotional connection to her already and having her in a 'completely new environment' again, somehow damages the wholesomeness of the first one in retrospective. No logic here, just a feeling.
Just adding her as part of the story but no potential LI, even a possible one that never comes to fruition (and not adding that additional last scene with her in Avalon) would have worked much better for me personally.
While the beginning was a little 'different', I just went with the flow and trusted in you doing your magic again.
I found the story intriguing and only then read about people's fears regarding protagonists/LIs/...
I also read about what you had planned from those more active on discord, and was still very much looking forward to future updates. In retrospect, it might have been beneficial to state stuff like that beforehand, but I myself wouldn't have thought of doing so too, most likely.
Sad to see it 'Onhold' and now read you won't continue its story!
As for 'A Petal among Thorns', it's a great game, again!
The mentioned by others repetitive use of her age and relation to the MC is something I noticed too, though.
It's a difficult thing - how people address others in conversation at all is so different. From my own family experience, beside welcoming/saying goodbye to someone or addressing someone that might not be aware a conversation was started, or in a group with changing recipients, we hardly ever use our names at all - we and those we speak to know that we do so and what our names are.^^
With my friends/colleagues it is different, while I only seldom use names, they mostly use them much more often in conversation.
Even ignoring different kinds of (family) interactions, in a presented medium like a VN it is often potentially less clear who is talking to whom and while different name colors do help, relying on them for understanding the story might not be the best idea.
So naturally, VN dialogue might (have to) be different from RL dialogue.
Especially in stories with incest content, it seems to be part of the kink, though? I myself could live with some initial mentioning and then never coming up again unless it was really relevant, just because it feels somewhat forced to me (even in lewd scenes where it is added because of the kink).
That the girl is younger is already portrayed by the visuals (I would hope), the relation hopefully obvious from the rest of the story and their interactions. So my vote would go to a restrained usage of these bits.
If I feel like 30% (this is random!, while I stumbled over this, it mostly led to me more often browsing over the dialogue to get to the real content - which is a shame) of a conversation is stating the age and relation of the conversationalists, there is definitely not enough story in there. And yes, while I enjoy lewd scenes as much as the next guy, I'm mostly interested in the story. Fitting lewd scenes are the spice in it, while those added just because someone needs to have a scene with one's favorite girl just damage the whole thing. I'm not supporting games update to update, but in the hopes to have a finished product some day, that as a whole is balanced, fun to experience again and a good advertisement to the dev for new players.
All in all, I'm looking forward to what the next updates and the next parts of this planned trilogy might entail.
Thanks a lot for your great games!
You gave us quite a bit to digest. We're glad you enjoyed Avalon. You're right, Leah's entrance into Avalon and Penny's game were both off the mark in their own way. We had never planned for Leah to be a major part of any story but we enjoyed working with her so much that we wanted to find a way to keep her around. And we agree Penny was overused in Avalon. She was another character that was fun to work with and we just couldn't help ourselves. Avalon was full of valuable lessons and we've come a long way in understanding what people prefer and what people dislike now.
There's a lot in A Petal Among Thorns that will be explained in A Moment of Bliss. Writing a story in pieces like this always has its disadvantages. Many people will judge the game on what there is so far and miss explanations and reveals later on. So far we've gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback about APAT though so we're confident this was a worthy story to invest in telling. Hopefully, everyone will give us a chance to explain everything in the sequel.
Thank you for enjoying our work and we look forward to hearing more from you in the future!
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