I wrote this on a Discord in a #games channel, thought it belongs in here as well as feedback for the dev.
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Soo... after having it bookmarked for a long time I finally played a bit of Bad Memories. And then I stopped. I don't think I'm going to play more of it.
"But why?", I hear you asking,
"There's 'cest in it, and it's harem. That's, like, totally your thing, innit?"
Well... yes.
But...
I chose male MC. Pretty early on in the story MC is living back home - due to circumstances - with his step-mom and step-sis, who is celebrating her 18th birthday.
Step-mom was horrible to MC in his childhood, got her act together, stopped drinking, and is trying to make amends. No alcohol household.
Step-sis has a friend, who comes across as free-spirited - if you try to put a positive twist on her behaviour - a stereotypical bad girl.
And she spikes the non-alcoholic birthday punch with a fruity liquor "where you can't taste the alcohol".
And MC knows about it and lets it happen. Doesn't say anything.
And step-mom gets wasted.
And then I stopped playing.
I am a recovering alcoholic. When I start, I can't stop. If someone slipped me alcohol without me noticing soon enough to spit or throw it up, there is a good chance that I'd relapse. Badly. For months. Which is bad for my health, my finances, my friends. Then I'd have to go to rehab. More time (and money) and hard work to get back on the wagon.
Covertly and wilfully slipping a recovering addict their drug of choice and causing them to relapse is nothing short of criminal assault and in most European countries against the law.
Step-sis' friend is an asshole, and MC is complicit.
Don't make recovering addicts relapse on purpose!
Not even mentioning step-mom's non-reaction and not noticing she gets drunk is as believable as me being able to eat the Himalayas. Your body and addiction center get triggered. You recognize the feeling. You don't feel inexplicably unwell.
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Not writing a review, because I played too little to give an objective one.
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EDIT/ADDENDUM:
I don't mean to sound antagonizing. Like any non-con topics in other games, I realize it's all fiction, all fantasy. I don't like non-con, but I don't kink shame.
I mainly copypasted it in here, because I work with some other devs, and it's always interesting to know why people like and/or play your game, but it's also interesting why they don't - as long as it's somewhat coherently explained and goes beyond simple REEEing.
So I hope that
recreation will take this as feedback, not as shitting on the game. I could have done that with a REEEview, but that's not what I want.
Cheers!