[v.0.5.0]
This is a very strong work, a vast improvement over The Edge Of and so far the best NTR game I've played. It manages to be very innovative and keeps a solid and believable setting while respecting the tropes and beats of a "standard" NTR story, this is no simple feat. I held off on playing it until there was an ending as The Edge Of was already very promising and I wanted to read a fully coherent story to give the game a fair assessment and it didn't betray my expectations. [I played with all POVs from the start]
The plot is good, Laura is a very well written character, as are Harry and Luca. I have reservations about blackmail but the setting made it palatable, and the rules were a stroke of genius. The artworks are gorgeous and small illustrated panels add a lot of vitality, the music choices and the usage of music in general are great, sound effects are satisfactory, the rules tab is excellent, and full text screens usage has improved from The Edge Of. The amount of text itself is also carefully pondered, it never felt wordy when it didn't have to be.
I have some remarks from my first impression playing the game, and additional remarks that came to me as I was thinking back on it. Here go the first impressions :
- the initial artwork for the game made me think Aya and Laura were equal love interests, and the very first dialogue with Aya ticked me off enough that I closed the game and I only came back to it way later (something I may not have done if I didn't know the writer from The Edge Of)... Obviously my perception changed but it was a very rocky start. Using a cover artwork conveying that Laura is the main love interest could alleviate that ?
- the business trip section felt underused as it came very early in the story, there was pretty much no threat to anyone involved (this may change once the Aya section is written ?), and it is very short so there's no change of setting. The only thing it brings seems to be the Aya choice and the return back train scene. I was expecting another business trip later to make up for it / introduce assymmetry but it never came (and it didn't even introduce all that much for there to be something to compare to on a return).
- the music during the blowjob in the stalls section didn't change when Luca first hints that he understands Laura... Because the music is set to stop when someone enters the bathroom. To me Laura finding that someone instinctively understands his relationship to her mother is just as pivotal as the entrance of Harry so a "3-part musical section" (initial -> change -> stop) would have been a better fit. I understand how ridiculous this critic is for a work whose quality is far beyond the expectations on porn games but eh, first impressions are first impressions.
- the double date at the movies didn't make use of its setting in regards to the Laura Luca relationship, it's just another sex in the bathroom stalls with a phone call. It may not grow old for the protagonists but it's not nearly as effective for the reader. I suppose this scene is written in preparation for Aya work, but still. Since the game works with cosmetic changes and movies often are in malls, there was a lot that could be done here, even disregarding the staples movies porn scenes (esp. since we're incentivized to look closer - and there's nothing to look that much closer at).
- I found very hard to suspend my disbelief for the remote call scene. With nothing to constantly redirect the protagonist attention like the karaoke scene, and with how uncomfortable the setting sounded for Luca and Laura, it... didn't work for me ? I understand that the scene builds on Luca and Laura using rules to have "lover games" inscrutable to onlookers (something well handled all throughout) but that's not what bothered me. The yoga ball trick had already been used but what can work in a call doesn't make sense when you have a 60fps 1080p vision of the person you're talking to, there's nothing that indicates that the quality of the reception is bad pre-ejaculation as the images in the laptop have the same high quality as everywhere else. Also Luca is placing himself behind Laura in a split second while Aya speaks then aims perfectly at the camera (from behind her ? Or did he move again in front of the camera in a split second before teleporting back to his previous position ? Idk the logistics don't make sense to me, I (obviously) don't mind a clueless protagonist but the scene felt like it was missing some legwork.
To cap it off on my first impressions I didn't unlock the ending(s) on my initial playthrough, notably as I didn't realize the first choice (did Harry hear or not) was a matter of trust towards Laura - I thought it controlled Harry's perceptiveness. Linking perception to trust felt a little bit like a remnant of The Edge Of logic. It doesn't matter all that much to me as I'm more interested in the process of the NTR than in the endings anyway and obviously this isn't a finished work yet.
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As a second part of sort I also have some ramblings from thinking about the game, that I feel are not necessarily as valuable for NTR games as they rely more on the initial magic and not on what you see behind the curtains once it has faded :
- while I don't like Aya as a character all that much I really appreciate how she serves to setup the game in a "porny universe" (with caveats as mentioned by my first impression). The Edge Of's initial setting, with its serious tone, was harder to identify, but here is established from the get-go that we're not in "real world" cheating writing but a "somewhat silly porn" derivative world. It's one of the thing that's harder to do for non-RPGM games (since that support makes it obvious by itself) and it was handled in a clear manner - although as said before I didn't like how early it was made, when the game had not yet earned my trust.
- I felt the game should have had a clearer stance on drugs. Once Laura realizes that she's not better at sex than the guy with 3 "world's best sex haver" trophies in his room, and before she starts disguising <losing choices> as <conveniently misguided pride/ego>, I feel there ought to be a lull where she earnestly tries to win (not just gain control) and drugs affecting sex drive would be an obvious solution. I fully understand this could bring a "chemical arms race" to the story which may not go with the desired tone (and the decision to omit "magical" aphrodisiacs in a NTR game is one I respect) but there could be a justification as to why the initially ruthless Laura wouldn't resort to it (I may have missed it).
- Laura is very well written yet I still feel she has the same issue as the female protag in The Edge Of had : the plot partially hinges on Laura choosing to fail - Luca is smarter than the average fuckboi but is still a recognizable, identified quantity (as immediately understood by both female chars) and Laura could beat/see through him (after an initial setback) but chooses not to. This makes Laura a difficult character to depict : (1) she's smart enough to win, but plays (2) stupidly enough to leave openings to Luca yet (3) well enough to maintain the illusion she's trying her best. However, the reader doesn't get the receipts, (1) isn't proved to us : I didn't feel at any point in the story that Laura would be able to take the appropriate measures, preparation and care (she gets days to prepare) to beat Luca. Once one weakness of her is exposed, she doesn't plan to counteract it : that guy can make me come at will, this is fine ; during our marathon, I used rules for stupid things (no pinching/biting), oh well ; my very obvious attempt to restrict one day at a time misfired, wow I'm facing such a dastardly cunning opponent. Some could say the game isn't about a Death Notey's L vs Light duel of smarts in porn world but it... very much is ? Am I misunderstanding and we are to believe that, in fact, she just never was smart enough to win against Luca in the first place ?
- This affects the perception of time in the game. Despite whole days and weeks passing, it doesn't feel like characters exist or think by themself when they're not interacting with one another. There's no "preparation time" per se, there's instead, just like the train handjob, actions taken as a result of an undisclosed preparation time that obviously misfire immediately because it was "preparation" in a very tenuous sense of the word.
- It's all the more strange that the game at one point takes a very "numerical" approach, with open counting, dividing and prime numbers somehow. Unless this appeals to a specific fetish I'm unaware of, it seems the scene is about Laura being unable to maintain her concentration under dick-shaped duress. But this feels very artificial. Why not... Give Laura a winning strategy ? Since marathon sessions allow her to accumulate a number or rules before using them, she could very well have a strat like : accumulate, say, 6 rules, pass a rule allowing to pass a number of rules in a row without interruption or modification (and if that doesn't work another formulation of the same, etc), setup protections ensuring she can't lose again, then as last rule putting up protection against withdrawal of the newly introduced ? And just like the counting becomes gradually more complex, an issue in her plan could gradually add more constraints on what to keep track of before her attempt (need a reasonable ratio / balance to his number of undisclosed rules, need to keep X rules unused at any time in preparation for counterattacks...) . This gives her an actual sensible reason to count, shows her as a smart char, and leaves opportunities to reiterate themes of the story - maybe at some point she has the necessary number of points but decides against it for ego or pretexting ego, maybe as she fails Luca gives her another winning strat and she decides against it, etc. This may sound nerdy but it's less nerdy than having sex while shouting prime numbers.
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Again, I'm not sure feedback written once the magic has worn off is valuable for that kind of work. Thanks for the incredible quality of your game so far, and hopeful for those to follow.
