I just stumbled upon this game, and I am very impressed! Storyline, art, plot it's like a 9.5 out of 10.
I am a writer--and half the battle is the story. I think the game I am thinking of is "Christine Watson" at this moment were there is great artwork, but the storyline just is dreadful and the plot weak. Not sure how many here have read JRR Martin's "Game of Thrones" series but its nonlinear. It makes the story and a lot of the subplots because it connects other plots. I can just image how much labor goes into the programing and the renders let alone editing. I wager it's like watching snails racing each other at the Daytona 500.
Almost 6000 posts about just this one game is its own testament how good the game is. Another good game "Summer Story" is shy of 120 posts. Its own success though has its own pitfalls though. The biggest potential flop is the Sam/Sophia plotline. How those two finally make love and how its depicted is the test stone. The make out scene in second part totally works. But there are another plotline involving Dylan and his sister (maybe) and eventually the two mothers of Dylan and Sam and how they are going to react when they discover each other's involvement with their sons.
Seriously the only way really to speed things is more programmers working with a director/writer.
Anyone new to AWAM & playing for the first time could be impressed. It has high quality renders with an attention to detail, as a refreshing change from the majority of corruption games. There were so many possibilities & potentially several hours of game play. There was the slow burn which helped to distinguish this VN/game, (VN= as it was when I started playing 6 years ago), from average 3D porn. Early in the development of AWAM there existed a veneer of realism, not often present in other games. It had the "class" that the developer claimed in his mission statement & a very individual method of tale telling. Back then the proliferation of characters, kinks & storylines almost seemed to be an advantage, with something for everyone. As for my own POV, having played a large number of games, AWAM looked set to become THE great 3D adult game, making full use of the artistic medium's potential in a way that was unique, as well as long overdue. Overall, in comparison to 3D sex gaming norms, this was not straightforward porn but a piece of genuine erotica. It was as if, at last, there existed a 3D erotic fiction, written by a grown-up for grown-ups. It carried on in this style for the first couple of years. Here was a developer with creativity, vision & ambition. Interest was & remains high. AWAM is a success story, judging by the Dev's ability to maintain a paying consumer base, while occasionally working on a game, where even the personalities of the main characters are not consistent but which, nevertheless attracts & retains a hard core of uncritical fans, for whom L&P is worthy only of congratulations & gratitude. If 1 render was released every 5 years, there'd still be many to sing the developer's praises.
Regrettably, with the exception of high quality renders, none of the above is now the case. AWAM proved too big a project for one person. Promises to recruit a team once particular targets had been achieved turned out not only to be untrue but resulted in targets, once met, having the goalposts moved. Several changes, over a number of years, in the pace of development announced as the means to speed up, had the opposite effect, as AWAM slowed to the current situation, of one event on one day taking 2 & a half months. AWAM's ending is thus estimated as being anywhere from the 2050s to 2070. Slowness helped to destroy the continuity & coherence of the various routes & plot threads, which themselves became riddled with plot-holes. Characters disappearing anywhere from 5 to 11 years are now the norm, making immersion from a player's POV impossible. There are various other examples of unforced errors, traceable with a trawl through this thread.
Even the accomplished writing skills, often in evidence, no longer seem to be applied, Sophia & Sam's encounter in his bedroom being, from my POV, the latest evidence of the complete abandonment of any attempt at realism. There is now a second MC, (the original MC's son), despite "2 MCs" being a contradiction in terms. AWAM is now average teen porn, reduced to the level of 2 virgin schoolboys engaged in an improbably manufactured 'race' to see how far they can get in their sexual relationships with their favourite MILF & as we've seen, being mightily impressive, when the opportunity arises. AWAM is now all about wish fulfilment for the under-18 audience, "where the market is."
If you stay with this game for a while, you'll see what I mean. That's if you've got 30-40 years to spare. I stick around for 2 reasons, i) curiousity, to see how bad this can get & ii) quality renders, still a cut above the rest. So, I'll end with the most positive thing I can still honestly say about this once-great game.
