HTML Blue Swallow [v0.6.4] [Blue Swallow]

[kekvitirae]

can have Claire *not* to the thing...so, I don't understand what the problem is.

The problem is consistency.

By your logic, we can choose both guys and girls for lesbian and straight Claire for the bodycount list, but only guys show up for a straight Claire, and only girls show up for a lesbian Claire.

Finding a guy is the only option for the NY clubbing scene when she wants to find someone hot, regardless of sexuality.

If you choose a lesbian Claire in character creation, there's no period of awkwardness nor conflict in her sexuality in the entire story if you do choose dick. She's like "Yay! Dick!" with no explanation of why she likes dick now. Same with choosing a straight Claire and other women.

Again, why give us the option to choose our sexuality in character creation if you're just going to give us the bisexual options anyway? Why not just remove that part and make her canonically bi/pan, since apparently everyone is on a scale.

 

[PeanutGallery]

I wasn't aware you did pick sexuality in character creation. I know you can pick the gender of your close friend, and you can end up sleeping with them, but I don't remember an explicit gender preference choice.

Unless it was added and I just missed it?

 

[quiboune]

I wasn't aware you did pick sexuality in character creation. I know you can pick the gender of your close friend, and you can end up sleeping with them, but I don't remember an explicit gender preference choice.

Unless it was added and I just missed it?

I think it's the "attracted to girls/boys/both" choice made in one of the entering puberty scenes.

 

[kekvitirae]

I think it's the "attracted to girls/boys/both" choice made in one of the entering puberty scenes.

Adding to this, you can choose to be gay if you do not choose boys as your school interest. Choose teachers or trouble or whatever, just don't pick boys.

 

[vicaddict]

Rape Play requires a Risky score of 4+, which is one of the higher checks at that stage of the game. Breath play doesn't have any conditionals on it - you can just pick it, probably because there aren't any scenes or specific patterns of behavior associated with that particular kink.

Thanks, but this is kind of what I was talking about. Why does risky lead to rape play? Am I reading too much into it or shouldn't there be a trigger like with some of the other kinks? A scene where she feels pressured, bullied or threatened and realized that she actually liked it or not? Rape play out of all the kinks feels like the biggest extreme to pick and yet, there isn't much involved.

 

[PeanutGallery]

Thanks, but this is kind of what I was talking about. Why does risky lead to rape play? Am I reading too much into it or shouldn't there be a trigger like with some of the other kinks? A scene where she feels pressured, bullied or threatened and realized that she actually liked it or not? Rape play out of all the kinks feels like the biggest extreme to pick and yet, there isn't much involved.

This game is not the entirety of Claire's life. It is a series of snippets, bits and pieces, and the vast majority of it isn't fully detailed but rather representative of the kind of things Claire was doing. The origin of several kinks is part of it - if Claire has been very sexually adventurous, it's assumed that she'd have tried something beyond vanilla sex, and might have found that she liked it.

At the end of the day, there is a finite amount of attention that can be paid to each subject, and the origin of Claire's kinks during the first act of a spy story isn't the focus. There are games that focus on that, especially in the corruption genre, but that doesn't seem to be the focus here.

"Risky" here is an approximation. It's condensing a whole slew of decisions and tendencies to a single number. A lot gets lost there, but a lot needs to be lost if we're going to distill a life story down to a text game that can be played in a single session.

I think it's the "attracted to girls/boys/both" choice made in one of the entering puberty scenes.

Ohhhh, right. I honestly forgot about it -.-

 

[peppytheclown]

The problem is consistency.

By your logic, we can choose both guys and girls for lesbian and straight Claire for the bodycount list, but only guys show up for a straight Claire, and only girls show up for a lesbian Claire.

Finding a guy is the only option for the NY clubbing scene when she wants to find someone hot, regardless of sexuality.

If you choose a lesbian Claire in character creation, there's no period of awkwardness nor conflict in her sexuality in the entire story if you do choose dick. She's like "Yay! Dick!" with no explanation of why she likes dick now. Same with choosing a straight Claire and other women.

Again, why give us the option to choose our sexuality in character creation if you're just going to give us the bisexual options anyway? Why not just remove that part and make her canonically bi/pan, since apparently everyone is on a scale.

I think it's just the first few cracks beginning to show. The game is clearly overscoped and similar inconsistencies are just going to keep popping up until the game is such a garbled mess that the devs abandon it. I say this in the off chance that maybe one of the devs reads this and realizes I'm right because I think the idea is quite solid. The problem with branching path games (which I love) is that one branching path doubles the development time, and with that the chance of bugs and inconsistencies and the time it takes to playtest the complete experience. Before its story even begins the game showers you with choices, and it seems absolutely hell-bent on making each choice impactful and meaningful. It's just unrealistic how many options the game presents you with. There are only two ways that could go, either the devs are lying to themselves and every choice boils down to the same storyline with minor changes (in which case why make us choose in the first place?) or the development becomes a slog of waiting for the one branching path you're on to be updated with ten minutes of gameplay once a year, until the devs inevitably abandon the project because the community keeps complaining about how a game they've poured hundreds of hours of development time into has no content.

 

[CassieBare]

[...] I say this in the off chance that maybe one of the devs reads this and realizes I'm right because I think the idea is quite solid. The problem with branching path games (which I love) is that one branching path doubles the development time, and with that the chance of bugs and inconsistencies and the time it takes to playtest the complete experience. Before its story even begins the game showers you with choices, and it seems absolutely hell-bent on making each choice impactful and meaningful. It's just unrealistic how many options the game presents you with. [...]

So, I've ready your post and I'm unsure what you're recommending.

All I can say is that in six months we have substantial choices that matter, even in the Prologue. Certainly there are inconsistencies, but when they're called out we do our best to reconcile them promptly.

It comes down to track record? So just have faith in us and base your opinions on what will be based on what *we* have done so far, not what *others* have done in the past.

 

[ddaisy]

Can someone explain the difference between these two options to me?

That's where this agent — I can't stop laughing when I say that — grew up. It was warm and I certainly was doted upon. I had anything I wanted, when there was anything extra, it was mine.

That's where this agent — I can't stop laughing when I say that — grew up. It was warm and I certainly was doted upon. I had anything I wanted, what little there was ended up in my lap, no one else had anything at all.

Regarding the birth control options, I think having to select one of the five mysterious options makes the choice problematic. Maybe it fits the idea of playing as a careless character, but I chose condoms purely because I didn't want to invest my time into researching those five options and the differences between them.

 

[robin312]

tried this game and found the writing too hard for me even with a translator

i can't get what the choice really means

the format itself is great

 

[CassieBare]

tried this game and found the writing too hard for me even with a translator

i can't get what the choice really means

the format itself is great

Yeah, sorry. It's definitely written in full English, rife with colloquialisms and nuance...and written more like how people speak rather than a typical novel. Sorry for that!

 

[AnyName'llDo]

Birth control, I'm guessing??? Perhaps because I'm a guy playing this game... I have no idea what these are (&/or the differences between these options.)
View attachment 2780352

I found this telling that the author of the game is female. Guys are like, "Uh, eenie meenie miney mo."

 

[Gibberish666]

I've played this game through maybe 20 times in 20 different ways. I've gotten the breeding kink only once and I don't know how I got it. All I know is the Risky and Excitable traits must both be +1 or +2 higher.

Getting high Risk is easy enough. There is even a list of actions that will increase it. But one might think these same things, like joining a gang, avoiding school, and having a high "body count" would also increase Excitement. But apparently not. What the heck, game?

 

[Hungover00]

I found this telling that the author of the game is female. Guys are like, "Uh, eenie meenie miney mo."

That's super depressing. We should know at least some of the options, unless we're gay.

 

[AelphysTerra]

That's super depressing. We should know at least some of the options, unless we're gay.

More proof that sex ed is a bit lacking wherever you go, honestly.

 

[Kavalor]

I agree, that we as men should know the basics of Birthcontrol, but it does not help that she uses brand names.
I know what birth control pills do, but I don't know specific brandnames like Yaz. So in the end I had to look it up as well.
More generic terms would be helpful, especially because brandnames are not the same all over the world.

 

[Hungover00]

I agree, that we as men should know the basics of Birthcontrol, but it does not help that she uses brand names.
I know what birth control pills do, but I don't know specific brandnames like Yaz. So in the end I had to look it up as well.
More generic terms would be helpful, especially because brandnames are not the same all over the world.

Yeah, I had to look up some of those too (but knew that hormonal IUDs were a thing); also double checked which hair-removal method was more appropriate for a rich NYC girl, laser or electrolysis, because that isn't part of my daily knowledge. (I could be wrong for the most appropriate BC method, but copper IUD seemed to fit my head-canon for that type of character)

It is a bit understandable, in-world, that the game uses name brands, because I believe all origins are US based, but I do agree those terms degrade as soon as any border is crossed (most of the time, at least for laypeople).

 

[Sammie]

Is there any in game effect for the different birth control methods?

 

[PeanutGallery]

Can someone explain the difference between these two options to me?

Degrees of poverty.

"When there was extra, it was mine" implies that there is actually extra at any point. Parents are definitely poor here, but sometimes things go well or there's a small windfall and Claire ends up the beneficiary.

"What little there was ended up in my lap, nobody else had anything at all" implies that even what Claire is getting isn't enough to get by. Expect parents saying "we're not hungry" or "we'll eat later" at dinnertime.

In terms of game mechanics, the former sets the money variable to 1, the latter sets it to 0. The default range is 0-4, unless the player picked "Money" as a reason for Claire's mother to be attracted to her father, in which case wealth 5 ("the accounts seemed bottomless") is available as an option to select.

Regarding the birth control options, I think having to select one of the five mysterious options makes the choice problematic. Maybe it fits the idea of playing as a careless character, but I chose condoms purely because I didn't want to invest my time into researching those five options and the differences between them.

I mean, guys should know this stuff, frankly.

TL;DR:

• The pill, nuvaring, and implant are all mechanisms to deliver hormonal birth control. This works by regulating female fertility in a variety of ways (ovulation control, mucus composition, etc.) and comes with some side effects.
• IUDs are intrauterine devices, and their general mechanism of action is to render the uterus hostile or toxic place for sperm. These also have side effects, unsurprisingly, albeit different ones than traditional hormonal birth control.
• Condoms are condoms. I think most of us have a pretty solid grasp of how those work if we're on this site.

I haven't done a super deep dive on the impact of methods in the game yet, but it looks like most of the mechanism so far is flavor - the main checks are made to see whether or not she's fertile at all rather than whether she's using a specific form of birth control. However, seeing as there are wildly different durations for different methods I would not be surprised if some of the more "off-grid" sections of the story reduced the effectiveness of some methods.

 

[ray3dave]

After some of these good explanations here I dare to ask another possibly stupid question. How does the amount of tattoos one choses for the MC get impact on the game? I noticed that coming from a more stable household gives you less choices. BUT I don't see any impact on gameplay, this is unless I am missing it. Anyone got an idea?