Suffering is welcome, that's how you show devotion.
Since laharl12 asked for meaningful feedback, I figured I'd set myself up for a challenge and fired up Captured in the Dark. It's what you would expect and then also it isn't - because it focuses way more on mental imagery and text than it does on actual eye candy. Don't play this if you expect to see any sexual imagery.
I find it truly hard to rate this because it's such foreign material to me. As a story, I can feel the developer taking the main character through all these hoops in order to make her accept and rationalize her own irrational behaviour. She accepts it because she is told to accept it and by default, she is someone who likes to pleasure people - and perhaps even someone who feeds off approval. There is a deeper layer there, but the time skip way the story is told doesn't allow the developer to really get into the "I'm going mentally instable, so I can't rationalize these thoughts" area. Instead, the developer opts for "Maybe I didn't realize I wanted this" - which on the surface looks the same, but has tremendous differences.
Art style wise, it's a mixed bag for me. From what I could tell, it's photos edited with an art style. I read the developer made this game after doing a photoshoot that wasn't planned to become a game. While that restriction is an exciting challenge from a developer standpoint, as a user I at the very least wanted a reshoot. Simply because having the story beforehand allows for better complimentary imagery. You won't get to recognize MC or the other characters by face. The mental load from this is almost like a book - much of it happens between your ears. For a visual novel, that's not much of an exciting premise perhaps. I often didn't mind the art style, but there was so little detail at times that I had issues connecting with the source material. I ended up just reading and ignoring most pictures because it made for a clearer picture.
Story wise it's an interesting build - with multiple pathways. You will have to really allow the MC to submit before you can experience what's next for her. I hated where it ended because all endings basically stopped at a point where the story got interesting for me complexity-wise, but I understand seeing the photoshoot. Honestly, the story still feels quite 'on-rails' while MC is descending into a place of submission. The stark contrast of the emotionless handling by people shows it's a business thing for them, which is slighty more horrific than most of what MC has to endure. If anything, I had wanted the developer to explore that. Since breaking the MC's mind is basically all the cake of this game, for a better connection you need to see her tumble down every level of the rabbit hole - instead of plunging big drops down to the bottom. Even though it might traumatize you (if it hadn't already).
Of course, this is a touchy subject as people are in a similar deprived situation today. I would have loved for MC to stand out more by actually finding some warped bliss in her position as she spirals down into a broken form of sanity. That way, you could better separate the MC from other people currently in her situation which makes everything stand out more. That would set it apart from a standard sl- deprival of freedom story.
It's a thin line walked and I'm not entirely sure how to feel, but I'm curious to see how others feel about this. The developer really wanted to take this somewhere story wise, but I'm not convinced in the graphics department. If I didn't enjoy reading books I probably wouldn't have liked this as much. Because it's keeping me on the fence it's a 2.5/5 - but giving the dev the benefit of the doubt it'll be a short 3/5.
Since laharl12 asked for meaningful feedback, I figured I'd set myself up for a challenge and fired up Captured in the Dark. It's what you would expect and then also it isn't - because it focuses way more on mental imagery and text than it does on actual eye candy. Don't play this if you expect to see any sexual imagery.
I find it truly hard to rate this because it's such foreign material to me. As a story, I can feel the developer taking the main character through all these hoops in order to make her accept and rationalize her own irrational behaviour. She accepts it because she is told to accept it and by default, she is someone who likes to pleasure people - and perhaps even someone who feeds off approval. There is a deeper layer there, but the time skip way the story is told doesn't allow the developer to really get into the "I'm going mentally instable, so I can't rationalize these thoughts" area. Instead, the developer opts for "Maybe I didn't realize I wanted this" - which on the surface looks the same, but has tremendous differences.
Art style wise, it's a mixed bag for me. From what I could tell, it's photos edited with an art style. I read the developer made this game after doing a photoshoot that wasn't planned to become a game. While that restriction is an exciting challenge from a developer standpoint, as a user I at the very least wanted a reshoot. Simply because having the story beforehand allows for better complimentary imagery. You won't get to recognize MC or the other characters by face. The mental load from this is almost like a book - much of it happens between your ears. For a visual novel, that's not much of an exciting premise perhaps. I often didn't mind the art style, but there was so little detail at times that I had issues connecting with the source material. I ended up just reading and ignoring most pictures because it made for a clearer picture.
Story wise it's an interesting build - with multiple pathways. You will have to really allow the MC to submit before you can experience what's next for her. I hated where it ended because all endings basically stopped at a point where the story got interesting for me complexity-wise, but I understand seeing the photoshoot. Honestly, the story still feels quite 'on-rails' while MC is descending into a place of submission. The stark contrast of the emotionless handling by people shows it's a business thing for them, which is slighty more horrific than most of what MC has to endure. If anything, I had wanted the developer to explore that. Since breaking the MC's mind is basically all the cake of this game, for a better connection you need to see her tumble down every level of the rabbit hole - instead of plunging big drops down to the bottom. Even though it might traumatize you (if it hadn't already).
Of course, this is a touchy subject as people are in a similar deprived situation today. I would have loved for MC to stand out more by actually finding some warped bliss in her position as she spirals down into a broken form of sanity. That way, you could better separate the MC from other people currently in her situation which makes everything stand out more. That would set it apart from a standard sl- deprival of freedom story.
It's a thin line walked and I'm not entirely sure how to feel, but I'm curious to see how others feel about this. The developer really wanted to take this somewhere story wise, but I'm not convinced in the graphics department. If I didn't enjoy reading books I probably wouldn't have liked this as much. Because it's keeping me on the fence it's a 2.5/5 - but giving the dev the benefit of the doubt it'll be a short 3/5.