OK, about that. I don't know if you can find that helpful, but I'd like to offer my insight into "potential of Culture Shock greatness", which was mostly wasted in original game as creator never tapped from it or even recognized what is main strenght of his fiction.
And the secret is: potential social clusterfuck in school full of horny teenagers and angst for being ridiculed and ostracized in new surroundings (MC just moved in, gets to know new people and fit it).
As
I put it, considering mostly Beta path, when the game was young and much more promising:
I guess, if losing rivalry feels for our protagonist like winning, taking sloppy seconds is just better reward. Especially when you want to play a role of passive chronicler of somebody else sex life and try to get relation and memories from perspective of every involved-in-a-fuckage side.
And here the interesting part comes in. A strong point of this production.
It happens in claustrophobic social surroundings of high school, a world in which everybody knows almost everyone and you can be sure, people will gossip and talk about each other, while taking attempts of guarding their own reputation and privacy. It creates great potential of different power plays, blackmails to get some more carnal attention and favours, basically from every character involved with Marcus-MC antics.
So, simply you have a lot of teenagers with hormones buzzing, curious of first sexual experiences and leeping their social position within a group intact and yet sometimes risking it or gambling with it, to get out of horny jail. That alone creates natural tension between characters cravings and holding school reputation. It's not that these characters can't act on their dirty instincts, but much more interestingly would be to witness the fallout after they do so. Build up isn't neccessary every time, at least not for characters other than protagonist and his family, as we all understand horny high school premise, but consequences and follow ups after naughty scenes, damage control, social angst, character strategies to mitigate what others can think of them, that stuff should be present, not ommited and written well, because that creates the most of this high school drama.
As for Emma, I wrote:
And last, but not least - we've got my favourite slut with a golden heart - Emma. With this girl our character has best chemistry and unfortunetely for his future reputation, she's proven gloryhole slut, who loves to share her dirty secrets with someone trustworhy. And our MC is craving all the details, so she can have his all attention, especially since being watched and going public is her turn on.
I ship them in Beta pathway, and more outragous sex with Marcus and his friends or maybe even Dad, transpiring into school afairs will temper and quench our relationship with Emma. Maybe this turns into cuckold Romeo and Juliet theme, with us vs them? Maybe this relationship will destroy our reputation in school. Well, you must stand for your love interest, even if she's becoming total slut, (white)knight errant, but having to choose good name or girl's love would be nice touch in story.
Emma story can escalate very fast into most depraved shit, but I think writer should keep her sympathethic, warm and friendly school sweetheart attitude as long it is possible, because that's her personality and raunchy stuff she's also inclined to do sholdn't erase that. I think, this contrast gives her character interesting twist, as people in real world also have good and bad sides which they try to hide. Nobody is steoretypical moustache twisting evil overlord or bland copy-pasted sluts from porn stories. Long valuable talks, courtship, intimacy and planning life together with Emma, should stay, because all couples should go through this, but her infidelity and our complementing cuckoldry should keep posing dramatic conflict which should be resolved.
I think the reveal about Emma having her raunchy side should be more impactful and surprising for MC and should pose a much bigger dilemma for both, if we really want to pursue more serious relationship with her. The stakes and risk factor shouldn't vanish. Reputations and attempts to save them as well. I don't know, trying to keep secrets, so even their own parents won't get to know what kind of depraved shit you're into, should be considered, so these characters could finally act as people. Having an anonymous gloryhole user, should create a lot of speculation, wild guesses and mystery build up, so when it gets resolved, shit could have hit a fan.
I don't think Emma is really difficult to rewrite. She can be deeply ashamed of her behaviour when busted, so she probably would need acceptance as main mean to get back on stronger social footing after that could get seriously endangered. It was strange to make her exhibitionist so fast, when she's using gloryhole clearly for privacy sake to guard her reputation and keep appearances. The main question is how to tackle normalisation of what she's tempted into doing. She could find out about her exhibitionist kink later, after she's gonna get accepted as gloryhole sweetheart or even after some experiments with MC who can witness her routine from her standpoint. But yeah, teenage angst most of the time is proper way to go in general for "Culture Shock" methinks, especially for Beta route.
But most interesting and underappreciated thing about all this web of relationships in "Culture Shock" is possibility of many different reactions and responses of characters action made by other characters. It's wondeful clusterfuck, if you think about it. You can take into play jealousy, anger, revenge, but also will to sustain good reputation and make sexual Game of Thrones, if you prod in right places. It can go in so many directions.
What Sunny will think about MC, if she knows the truth? Will James would try to use his collection to blackmail someone or you can share with him stuff about his sister? What Sunny will think about Emma and her gloryhole routine in the school? Since everyone keeps his sexual secrets, the tables can change dramatically, if truth will be discovered. Characters could turn against each other, change partners or commit themselves to even more brave and dirty debauchery.
Well, that's fun about ongoing fiction, that you can speculate what is gonna happen next. And in "Culture Shock" we've got a lot of possibilities at the moment. Especially if we add also adults, like Tracy and teachers to play.
I hope authors of the game know it and won't take lazy and predictable way, but will find out many hoops, twists and turns along the path.
Guys, this has a huge potential, so don't blow it away like last season of GoT!
Well, it turned out worse than I was hoping for, but I guess, if you feel that vibe you can flush out much more drama and multi-directional obsession out of this story, if everyone pursues crushes of others. Another thing is, I didn't have any vision for teachers and adults in general in this game. Now they act more as distractions, so maybe they should pose different kind of danger and mingle or intervene or break student's romances? Being obstacle for social relations in the classroom and having a romance with teachers should make you outsider in front of other students?
I don't know. It's your remake, so I guess it's up to you what to do with them. For porn game they are simply MILF options, just as aunt and I think, I would cut out most of this stuff, because it distracts from main strenght of this fiction - school social life risks and sexual rewards.