- Feb 23, 2018
- 853
- 1,600
Neko-Hime
I'm pretty sure this is my first exposure to your work, I never played Maou-Sama, although I might now!
There are a lot of things I enjoyed about this game. There's some very serious elements to the story, the characters seem to want/need different things from you, there's a wide variety of characters and content and it's all optional. All good things.
I like the characters, their look isn't for everyone, but it is what it is. Art styles are like that. The animations are quality and I like how they're handled. I don't accidentally skip past them, and I'm not forced to wait through a long set-length sequence.
My only issues are Brian's portrayal, the linking of Claude and her mother, and the "karma" system. I see that people have touched on those points already, so I'll try to see if I can add something more specific/different to my comments on them.
I agree that Brian's ultimatum was a bit sudden, and he seems to just want to drag you back into the irresponsible drug addled life you're trying to get away from. This makes it hard to like him right away.
As for "writing a gay male character," that might be overthinking it. There have been female characters in AVN's that were written just the same as if they were a male best friend, a total bro to the MC, and people really liked them.
You can equally have a male character, gay or straight, who's in to typically female things like art, ballet, classical music, hell even shopping. I can totally see a straight male best friend character saying something like, "You got a date with [POPULAR GIRL] and you're wearing that?! Look, bro, you don't have to be gay to dress sharp. Let me take you to the mall and show how it's done. Trust me, you'll be GQ when I'm done with you." They can even have typically female personality traits like being more empathetic and sensitive. All those things are just stereotypes that the world is basically working on doing away with anyhow. None of it genuinely has anything to do with sex or gender. That's just marketers trying to pitch pink toys to girls and military toys to boys.
Even within the narrower group of gay men specifically, some are effeminate but some aren't, some are into sports, some are into theatre, some you wouldn't even know they were gay unless they told you, and some are very obviously gay without even realizing it. There's something like 8 billion people in the world, and there's a lot of variation in personalities. What's important is that the character be likable.
In a game that's a non-stop voyage of "everyone loves you and wants to bend over backwards to make you happy, literally," Brian is the only one that seems to be completely ignorant and heartless about your personal issues and your desire to get your life back on track. Even if you accept him, there's no discussion about it. The MC doesn't even point out how selfish it is to not be able to turn off his libido long enough to be there to support someone he supposedly cares about. Meanwhile, Brian's only real problem seems to be that his dad wouldn't accept him as gay, tragic but not unusual for a gay teen to have to deal with, plus his dad is gone half the time anyway. That and being lovesick for the MC are his only problems in an (admittedly) otherwise cushy life, and he can't handle it to the point he has to get high when his friends are asking for his support? Unless this is a character who's actively dealing with a serious drug addiction, that's just kind of a dick move.
I see that a lot of the characters are "grouped" or "separated" (Brian vs his mom), but it seems a little different with Claude and her mother. There are a lot of players who like futa content but not trans, or like trans content but not futa. To some it makes no difference, but to others it's a crucial difference. Fortunately for me, I'm comfortable with both, but from a player/content-choice perspective, tying them into the same choice seems a little unfair. With that said, I totally get why it makes sense for story purposes, and I have to admit I don't know what else you could have done without a major re-write of their whole family. It's just kind of unfortunate for the people who are a bit more picky.
The karma. I kind of feel like karma is just the wrong word to be using. It doesn't make sense the way you're using it. It's supposed to be a cosmic punishment/reward system for moral behaviors, and even in the game it seems like there's going to be two distinct paths for positive or negative karma. Then, you can hardly avoid getting high karma unless you want to reject every character in the game.
There are choices where you get karma no matter which choice you make, so it seems odd to give karma for either one. The characters are mostly optional relationships, but most of them affect your karma if you reject them, and in some cases it seems like you're going to get bad karma, when what you actually get is a game over. If you can't actually get bad karma, it's hard for me to see its purpose.
It seems more like just... points, like any video game that has points. When you do well you get more points. It doesn't really make sense as "karma" when you get points for doing things that are rude, inconsiderate, perverted, or simply a matter of pragmatism or personal preference. If I'm a teenager with no job, the universe is going to give me bad karma for not wanting to have babies right away? Or because I just don't happen to like anal sex? I could see losing relationship points with a given character for not wanting the same thing they want, but the term karma doesn't really make sense in that context.
From what you said about a focus on family, it might make more sense if you just added a word to modify it, like, it's a particular kind of karma, like "family karma." Or you could just call it "family" and say it's a rating of how well you're building your family.
I hope some of that was useful to think about, even if you disagree with me. I also hope you're enjoying making your game, don't forget that's important too. Overall, the game is great, and I look forward to more. I'll probably also check out your other game as well.
I'm pretty sure this is my first exposure to your work, I never played Maou-Sama, although I might now!
There are a lot of things I enjoyed about this game. There's some very serious elements to the story, the characters seem to want/need different things from you, there's a wide variety of characters and content and it's all optional. All good things.
I like the characters, their look isn't for everyone, but it is what it is. Art styles are like that. The animations are quality and I like how they're handled. I don't accidentally skip past them, and I'm not forced to wait through a long set-length sequence.
My only issues are Brian's portrayal, the linking of Claude and her mother, and the "karma" system. I see that people have touched on those points already, so I'll try to see if I can add something more specific/different to my comments on them.
I agree that Brian's ultimatum was a bit sudden, and he seems to just want to drag you back into the irresponsible drug addled life you're trying to get away from. This makes it hard to like him right away.
As for "writing a gay male character," that might be overthinking it. There have been female characters in AVN's that were written just the same as if they were a male best friend, a total bro to the MC, and people really liked them.
You can equally have a male character, gay or straight, who's in to typically female things like art, ballet, classical music, hell even shopping. I can totally see a straight male best friend character saying something like, "You got a date with [POPULAR GIRL] and you're wearing that?! Look, bro, you don't have to be gay to dress sharp. Let me take you to the mall and show how it's done. Trust me, you'll be GQ when I'm done with you." They can even have typically female personality traits like being more empathetic and sensitive. All those things are just stereotypes that the world is basically working on doing away with anyhow. None of it genuinely has anything to do with sex or gender. That's just marketers trying to pitch pink toys to girls and military toys to boys.
Even within the narrower group of gay men specifically, some are effeminate but some aren't, some are into sports, some are into theatre, some you wouldn't even know they were gay unless they told you, and some are very obviously gay without even realizing it. There's something like 8 billion people in the world, and there's a lot of variation in personalities. What's important is that the character be likable.
In a game that's a non-stop voyage of "everyone loves you and wants to bend over backwards to make you happy, literally," Brian is the only one that seems to be completely ignorant and heartless about your personal issues and your desire to get your life back on track. Even if you accept him, there's no discussion about it. The MC doesn't even point out how selfish it is to not be able to turn off his libido long enough to be there to support someone he supposedly cares about. Meanwhile, Brian's only real problem seems to be that his dad wouldn't accept him as gay, tragic but not unusual for a gay teen to have to deal with, plus his dad is gone half the time anyway. That and being lovesick for the MC are his only problems in an (admittedly) otherwise cushy life, and he can't handle it to the point he has to get high when his friends are asking for his support? Unless this is a character who's actively dealing with a serious drug addiction, that's just kind of a dick move.
I see that a lot of the characters are "grouped" or "separated" (Brian vs his mom), but it seems a little different with Claude and her mother. There are a lot of players who like futa content but not trans, or like trans content but not futa. To some it makes no difference, but to others it's a crucial difference. Fortunately for me, I'm comfortable with both, but from a player/content-choice perspective, tying them into the same choice seems a little unfair. With that said, I totally get why it makes sense for story purposes, and I have to admit I don't know what else you could have done without a major re-write of their whole family. It's just kind of unfortunate for the people who are a bit more picky.
The karma. I kind of feel like karma is just the wrong word to be using. It doesn't make sense the way you're using it. It's supposed to be a cosmic punishment/reward system for moral behaviors, and even in the game it seems like there's going to be two distinct paths for positive or negative karma. Then, you can hardly avoid getting high karma unless you want to reject every character in the game.
There are choices where you get karma no matter which choice you make, so it seems odd to give karma for either one. The characters are mostly optional relationships, but most of them affect your karma if you reject them, and in some cases it seems like you're going to get bad karma, when what you actually get is a game over. If you can't actually get bad karma, it's hard for me to see its purpose.
It seems more like just... points, like any video game that has points. When you do well you get more points. It doesn't really make sense as "karma" when you get points for doing things that are rude, inconsiderate, perverted, or simply a matter of pragmatism or personal preference. If I'm a teenager with no job, the universe is going to give me bad karma for not wanting to have babies right away? Or because I just don't happen to like anal sex? I could see losing relationship points with a given character for not wanting the same thing they want, but the term karma doesn't really make sense in that context.
From what you said about a focus on family, it might make more sense if you just added a word to modify it, like, it's a particular kind of karma, like "family karma." Or you could just call it "family" and say it's a rating of how well you're building your family.
I hope some of that was useful to think about, even if you disagree with me. I also hope you're enjoying making your game, don't forget that's important too. Overall, the game is great, and I look forward to more. I'll probably also check out your other game as well.
