Time for my update.
The "Good":
Content wise I didn't really have any problems with this update. We got EXACTLY what we expected. Natalie had the most progress, which we called; Sam had significant progress, which we called; and Andy & Cathy want to swing, which we called. The images were, as always, gorgeous.
The "Bad":
This update was incredibly tedious to get through, and the writing was awful. The writing was full of typos/syntax/localization errors. The dialog continues to be extremely stilted and rigidly formal. I don't feel like any character sounds unique because they're all so stilted. Yes, Sam talks about different things than Natalie, but the words and style of their dialog is all the same. And it's all sooooo tedious. By the time I got to the scene with Sam in the sauna, even I started to skip over some dialog. It just goes on...and on...and on....it's exhausting. It isn't fun and it isn't interesting, it's self indulgent by L&P who definitely doesn't believe that brevity is the soul of wit. L&P definitely abides by a philosophy of "more is more".
And that philosophy bleeds into the images. There are sooo many images. Too many images. You click and click and click and click and nothing happens. It takes FOREVER to progress through a scene. You're bombarded with tedious dialog and a thousand images that need to be clicked through. The game would actually flow significantly better if the number of images were reduced by 20% and the text reduced by 30%.
Sam:
I found the dialog so distracting that I don't really know what to make of Sam. I can't tell if L&P is trying to write him as a cringey, creepy, pompous weirdo; or if L&P thinks that he's writing Sam as a sincere and charming love struck kid. Maybe it's because I'm a woman and my experiences are very different from a man like L&P, but guys like Sam exist and they're always giant red flags. Young guys who think they're great at sweet talking like this often grow into poorly adjusted men who think that talking to a woman must consist of one-liners and platitudes. They'll recite poetry, and the LOVE to talk about music. So as I play the Sam scenes I'm not sure if I should find him creepy or if his bullshit is supposed to work well.
Sophia:
This leads me to Sophia herself. I really think that her corruption is moving along well and makes sense, but the Sam stuff pushes the lines of suspension of disbelief. When I tried to shut Sam down I didn't get feedback from Sophia that she was creeped out, just that she thought the situation was going too far. If Sophia had said "Ok, Sam is a creep, I need to shut this down" I may have stuck with those decisions. But every time you allow him to go further Sophia justifies it and admits that she likes what she's hearing, so that tells me that the game wants us to think Sam is charming. As I've said a million times, Day 12 is going to be remembered as the day that the game really picked up steam story wise. If there was a major missed opportunity, it was Sophia not letting Natalie get her off. Considering the situation I think it would have been totally in-character for Sophia to either say yes, or for Natalie to just go for it. L&P is too addicted to the slow burn that he's too quick to smother any embers of fire, and in this case it was a mistake. It would have been great story-wise to actually advance Sophia's sexuality. L&P could have reeled it back in, maybe the postman comes and interupts them and Sophia snaps out of it, but at least we would have seen Sophia take a major step forward in her sexuality instead of a baby step.
Cathy & Andy:
In theory I'm totally fine with this scene, but in practice it just felt tacked on to the update. I liked that it was, relatively, brief and got right to the point. But the dialog absolutely ruined it. It was so fucking painful to get through. It wasn't sexy, it wasn't fun, it wasn't anything other than tedious. It was fine that Sophia and Liam didn't have an answer right away, but nothing about the dialog showed me that these four are old friends who are really close, it all just felt really forced. I like that L&P didn't take 500 images with this scene, and that it was brief, but how he chose to make it brief was the problem. We needed more flirting, more fun, better banter, etc. And, god help me, the images were too static. I know I know, I bitch about the number of images in the update, but this scene either needs a couple more, or it needed different ones. The images were just too boring and didn't help tell a compelling story. It reminded me of the sauna scene with Vicky and DeShawn, just boring back and forth static images; only the sauna scene was hotter. Overall, this scene with Cathy & Andy needed more work.
Overall:
I give this update 3 out of 5 stars. It was fine. Nothing special. Not terrible. The main problem is that it just takes too long for these updates to come out and they can never justify the time.
I mean seriously? We are 10 years too early to see a real improvement in AWAM.
