- Dec 13, 2018
- 7,748
- 19,527
I really do have a lot of mixed feelings about this game because on the one hand I love it for its gorgeous renders and characters, and I even somewhat enjoy the measured relationship development and teasing as it actually can be more erotic than sex. But, at the same time, I really dislike the pace particularly with the burden of knowledge that we're not even halfway through the planned number of playable days. However, as much as I'd like the pace to quicken with regards to Sophia having sex with people other than her husband, I don't want it to be too quick and want it to still maintain that meaningful and somewhat realistic feel.
So it's a complicated mess of feelings about this game, but the one thing that stays the same is that I really want to see this game be great, but I also don't want that greatness to take another 10 years. There are so many games out there already that I'd consider great that haven't taken nearly as long as this to achieve their greatness and they too have great stories, they're not just mindless "fuck-em all" games.
The biggest obstacle in terms of the story is Sophia's very rigid morality. Even in this update, she made such a big fuss over Ellie and Julia drinking because they're not 21 even though the must be, what, 19? 20? Hardly something to get her panties in a bunch over, yet they go back and forth on it for so long that you're honestly saying to yourself, "oh for fuck's sake, Sophia, shut up!" She's so frustrating at times that even in the middle of a hot, boner-inducing scene, she kills that boner when her stringent morality rears its ugly head right in the middle of it. Giving her some morals and making her feel uncomfortable with certain things can be fine, but not when you set it to "nun level" morality because it impinges a lot on her advancements and slows the pace too much.
The other biggest problem is L&P themselves because there are areas where they could divest some of the development and seek help from other people, but they're not doing that. I'm fine with them continuing to make the renders themselves as they are the best person for that job, but they could get help with the writing/story development, translation, proofreading and coding/testing. For the writing/story development, finding people who might be willing to cast a glance over their development plans to see where certain things could be adjusted or even cut to quicken the pace towards extra-marital sex scenes yet still make them build in a meaningful way, could prove massively beneficial in terms of cutting down development times if it means they can do more events per update or even more days per update.
Handing someone else the job of translation could obviously save them having to do it, especially if the person is fluent in both German and English, and a native English speaking proofreader could help fix any mistakes like the ones we saw in this update. Then finally, a coder/tester could do a lot of the coding and testing while L&P works on the renders and leave placeholders in the code for either them or L&P to add the titles of the images to later, and perhaps L&P could even send the coder the completed images as they go making this part move even faster.
Doing all this could vastly improve the development of the game and really help it on its way to becoming one of the best out there because I honestly do not understand how anyone can look ahead to how long this game is likely to take and be happy about it. If L&P were to take the rest of the year to find people who could help, and to even readjust some their plans with the help of others, I'd be more than fine with that so long as the quality of the storytelling remains and we're looking, at best, at the game being completed in around 4 or 5 years, not 10+ years.
So it's a complicated mess of feelings about this game, but the one thing that stays the same is that I really want to see this game be great, but I also don't want that greatness to take another 10 years. There are so many games out there already that I'd consider great that haven't taken nearly as long as this to achieve their greatness and they too have great stories, they're not just mindless "fuck-em all" games.
The biggest obstacle in terms of the story is Sophia's very rigid morality. Even in this update, she made such a big fuss over Ellie and Julia drinking because they're not 21 even though the must be, what, 19? 20? Hardly something to get her panties in a bunch over, yet they go back and forth on it for so long that you're honestly saying to yourself, "oh for fuck's sake, Sophia, shut up!" She's so frustrating at times that even in the middle of a hot, boner-inducing scene, she kills that boner when her stringent morality rears its ugly head right in the middle of it. Giving her some morals and making her feel uncomfortable with certain things can be fine, but not when you set it to "nun level" morality because it impinges a lot on her advancements and slows the pace too much.
The other biggest problem is L&P themselves because there are areas where they could divest some of the development and seek help from other people, but they're not doing that. I'm fine with them continuing to make the renders themselves as they are the best person for that job, but they could get help with the writing/story development, translation, proofreading and coding/testing. For the writing/story development, finding people who might be willing to cast a glance over their development plans to see where certain things could be adjusted or even cut to quicken the pace towards extra-marital sex scenes yet still make them build in a meaningful way, could prove massively beneficial in terms of cutting down development times if it means they can do more events per update or even more days per update.
Handing someone else the job of translation could obviously save them having to do it, especially if the person is fluent in both German and English, and a native English speaking proofreader could help fix any mistakes like the ones we saw in this update. Then finally, a coder/tester could do a lot of the coding and testing while L&P works on the renders and leave placeholders in the code for either them or L&P to add the titles of the images to later, and perhaps L&P could even send the coder the completed images as they go making this part move even faster.
Doing all this could vastly improve the development of the game and really help it on its way to becoming one of the best out there because I honestly do not understand how anyone can look ahead to how long this game is likely to take and be happy about it. If L&P were to take the rest of the year to find people who could help, and to even readjust some their plans with the help of others, I'd be more than fine with that so long as the quality of the storytelling remains and we're looking, at best, at the game being completed in around 4 or 5 years, not 10+ years.
