- Mar 16, 2018
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RPGM Below the Fold [Ep.5 R2] [iLTinoBambino]
- Thread starter TinoBambino
- Start date
Hey, well, if you end up giving me a play through, please come back and tell me what you think. I love feedback of all kinds.
It means that there's microscopic machine organisms in the world of Below the Fold.
- Oct 4, 2017
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@TinoBambino I'm playing through right now, and I'm definitely a fan. I love how the game is story-driven, and I do like the pacing of it. Some games come off as really wordy, and I end up click-spamming through it to get to the next scene, but your writing has a way of keeping me engaged and wanting to read what happens next. I know these are supposed to be adult games, but it doesn't mean they can't have a good story too, and so far I think you've found a great balance between the two.. can't wait to see where this goes
Thank you so much for your kind words and encouragement.
I think all of the erotic value from these types of games is in the degree to which the player is privy to the internal struggles of the character who is supposed to be undergoing moral degradation/ sexual corruption.
My protagonist is headstrong and self-righteous, but we see her position change over the course of the first episode from being on top of the world, to being at the bottom of a sinister corporate ladder and alienated from her friends and loved ones. It's repeatedly made clear to her that her current attitude is incompatible with both the demands of her investigation and the relationships she is trying to maintain. As her existing support network continues to crumble she will be forced to make some hard decisions about what her real priorities are and what those mean to her.
This is not a girl who is becoming more perverted over time because she's been cursed by succubi, or is simple and susceptible to manipulation. Amber Gold is an extremely privileged youth who was set up for a rude awakening by her parents who did a very poor job teaching her that she's not always going to get her way out there in the real world. She's someone with a messiah complex trying to do what she truly believes is the right thing for her community. She had conflated herself with the title she wanted for so long, and now that she can't be that person she's a youth in crisis. She doesn't have any of the answers she needs, she's in way over her head, and she is not thinking more than one or two steps in advance.
I've been in the writing game for awhile now, and I'm going to be here well after I complete the story of Below the Fold. I'm not going to be that guy who did all this cool stuff, except for that one cash grab 'fap n' go' 5 years into his career. I'm treating this project and this genre with as much seriousness as I would any other project I put my name (or pseudonym) on. Below the Fold is precisely what the 'corruption' tag means to me.
I can't thank you enough for going out of your way to make my morning brighter with the warm glow of your praise. Is it too much for me to ask if you can convert your enthusiasm to a star rating? The more clicks I get now, the better the game will end up being down the line. It would help me tremendously if the thread looked more attractive from the Games sub forum through a star-based reflection of your kindness and appreciation.
Also, I'm in talks with a talented artist as we speak and will have an update on that front for everyone soon.
- Jul 17, 2017
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That made me laugh out loud thank you.
I'll do it, but only if this post gets 5 likes, because I don't want to spam the OP with stuff that the audience doesn't think is funny.
If anyone wants to suggest more buzzwords for the genre section I'm super into that idea. I'm glad most people seem to like the thematic tags.
EDIT: It's been pointed out to me that the above post was probably telling me to tag the game as "text based" and I thought he was referring to the fact the municipal budget, or the tax base, of the town is a plot point.
There's already one piece of art in the game, I'll increase the resolution of it in the next update. I blurred it somewhat for this initial release because it might be superseded by art done by a professional soon. Standing portraits for the main character should be ready in the coming weeks.
If anyone actually wants me to tag the OP "municipal budgets" let me know, I'll tag it "reading intensive" for now though.
If you have to explain all that about your character in a forum, you are not doing a good job explaining it in the game.
Truth is, I haven't see all that in the game, probably because I have avandoned the game after the first hour of gameplay. And that´s because you failed in interest me at the begining of the game. The first 15 minutes of gameplay are the most important ones in every game, because are the ones that most of the people decide if they are going to continue playing the game, or they are going to delete it from the HD. I went farther, I gave this game not 15 minutes but about one hour, and, in spite of that, the game didn´t interest me.
My feedback, if you want it: rewrite the introduction, make it way shorter and less pretentious and confusing. And rewrite the MC. If you want to write a character that is a self-centered privileged brat, give her at least one positive thing: make her really funny. That´s the way the player won´t find her so annoying. The only reason I see her ex-boyfriend stands her and doesn´t tell her "go to hell" is because she´s pretty... but the player can´t see it since there is no art so... Why the player should stand your annoying MC right now? It seems that you like "Gilmore Girls". I used to see that TV show even if I consider it a kind of a guilty pleasure, and it´s because the girls were pretty even being annoying characters, and there was sense of humor in the show.
I didn't really provide any additional information that isn't established by either the text or the subtext of the first episode in your quoted post.
You're definitely correct about the hook of the first 15 minutes; the forthcoming art update will address that.
This is actually the fourth round of public playtesting Below the Fold has gone through. The main character was completely redesigned after the first round from a confrontation adverse and sexually liberated blonde named Cassie to the character currently known as Amber. Cassie's appearance, traits, and plot points formed the basis of the character of Megan. The second round of feedback actually led me to remove some of the sarcastic remarks and jokes Amber makes, and her character flaws were accentuated because the test audiences thought she skewed too much towards a Mary Sue. The main change brought about by the third testing phase was the addition of the South American prologue, in response to a widely shared consensus that it was basically impossible to get a sense of Amber's relationship with her parents if we didn't get to spend some time with the characters in the foreign environments that shaped Amber's childhood.
Story revisions are happening all the time, and it's certainly possible that I might turn up the wrong thing here, or mute the wrong thing there, but I think in terms of Amber's characterization we're in a pretty good spot right now. Maybe if you try again in an episode or two you'll be able to enjoy Below the Fold once there's more sex in it.
As far as the game being "pretentious" or me trying to write something more meaningful than an erotic game, well, I don't know what to say about that. Not all porn has to be kitsch.
I am curious what kind of TV shows you watch? Maybe I can describe my vision to you using the language of a show that didn't produce the same kind of reaction in you that Gilmore Girls seemed to. It might be possible for me to turn both Gilmore Girls and Below the Fold into guilt-free pleasures for you over time. I will say that two of the issues you brought up would have been addressed by the end of the first episode.
As always, thank you your feedback and engagement.
Not gonna lie, I quit the game after 15 minutes of intro.
I quite literally put a heavy object on my space bar and went doing sth else.
The game just kept on going and going without me.
I quite literally put a heavy object on my space bar and went doing sth else.
The game just kept on going and going without me.
Problem is, IMO, the dev is thinking in terms of TV series. That intro would work in a TV Series, movie, in a AAA 3D game, even in a novel with good descriptions of characters and ambients. But this is an RPG game. The MC is in a exotic tropical island with beautiful women in top less, and then in a prestigious college with beautiful young students, but you don´t see any of that. You see the ugly low resolution images of PRGM, and it´s terribly boring to see little puppets moving around for 1 hour reading a not so interesting text. And I don´t think a few drawings is going to make it better.
To the dev: If all you have is the ugly interface of the RPGM and, at best in the future, a few drawings or renders, abbreviate my friend. Go to the point. Only an amazing writer could make people stay in front of the screen for so long only with those elements, and I´m afraid you don´t write so well. Maybe the premise is interesting and there are good erotic scenes, but I don´t know because to know that I had to read a lot of not so good dialogues and descriptions, and I get bored. That's what I mean when I qualify your writting as "pretentious".
What TV Shows I like? The same as a lot of people, nothing terribly original. From "The Sopranos", "Breaking Bad", "Fargo" or "Mad Men" to "Entourage", "The office" or "The Big Bang Theory".
Thanks for giving me a chance, sorry I couldn't do it for you.
I get to my point immediately and that point is to provide the audience with a character driven narrative which frequently puts the player in situations lifted from popular subgenres of science fiction and erotica .
There are very popular games on this site that could be described as "porn for people who like League of Legends" or "porn for people who like X-men the Animated Series." I wouldn't object to anyone calling Below the Fold "porn for people who like to binge watch the CW."
Just out of curiosity, are there any shows, movies, or games you've ever enjoyed that had a female protagonist, which you watched for reasons besides the physical qualities of the actress/character? What was your opinion of the second (possibly third) best Star Wars film The Last Jedi?
Obviously, there are. Most of the TV series that I have tell previously have great femenine characters. Fargo, Mad Men or even The Big Bang Theory. But if you are telling movies in which a woman is the only protagonist, I could say "Gravity", for example. Or "Let me in", the original swedish, obviously. Or James Cameron's "Alien" and "Aliens". The female protagonist, Ripley, is a woman that behaves as a woman, has the motivations of a woman to do what she do, and is a real hero without the need of becaming in a man with tits... as happens with most of the moder movies with a "strong female character" that actually, is not a woman at all, but kind of the erotic fantasy of a bunch of lesbians out of the closet, the same way the "strong male characters" of the movies of the 80´s were the erotic fantasy of a bunch of gays into the closet. For that exact same reason, I´m not interested in "The Last Jedi" or the rest of the new movies of Stars Wars. Kill Bill would be another good movie with a female protagonist, since is a great parody and ridicule of the cliche of the "strong female character" that actually is a man.
Breaking my unofficial vow of silence on here thus far to say that I am also intrigued.
A heavily character-based, reading-intensive RPGM game that subverts the usual H-game tropes can be quite good even without art assets - for an example, I thought The Last Sovereign was fantastic. I haven’t tried this game yet, but the specific genre tags and detailed explanation posts behind the motives and plans have piqued my interest.
Hopefully I’ll have something of more substance to contribute once I actually play the game!
A heavily character-based, reading-intensive RPGM game that subverts the usual H-game tropes can be quite good even without art assets - for an example, I thought The Last Sovereign was fantastic. I haven’t tried this game yet, but the specific genre tags and detailed explanation posts behind the motives and plans have piqued my interest.
Hopefully I’ll have something of more substance to contribute once I actually play the game!
Thanks for speaking up! The Last Sovereign was definitely a step in the right direction for the whole industry, its writing and characterization elevated the genre. Sierra Lee is one of people in today's western H-game developer canon that I have true respect for as a fellow writer.
I'm hard at work on finalizing Episode 1 and the first builds of Episode 2 at the moment, but I would love to be able to take a break from that at some point in the coming days to hear what you have to think about Episode 1. Have fun!
I know where you're coming from but I think the introductory cutscene and text-based dialogue are both accepted conventions of the medium.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
