Honestly mate you have completely killed the pacing of the game by including truly pointless laptop and phone bloat. These aren't really games, they're stories told in visual form. The clue is in the name; Visual Novel. You need to think: Does this *add to the story?* Does this *take away from the story?*
Being forced to click through random shit takes you right out of the story, missing out on anything because you haven't clicked the buggy mess in just the right way takes away from the story.
Imagine you're reading a book and halfway through the second half locks itself, magically, and you're told that you need to finger fuck random words in order to get past the interactive portion of the book. Then do it every couple of pages, but now instead of locking there's an ominous line reading: if you don't do this, some pages are going to be blank. That's essentially what you're doing here and your story is suffering for it.
When I first came across it my immediate thought was: oh no. Then, this looks pretty neat. Then, half an hour later, it was how the fuck do I progress through the game because it keeps kicking me back to the laptop. Imagine my surprise when I needed to place a fucking bet in order to stop that bullshit coming up. Seriously what was so wrong with the bet on x/bet on y prompt?
The worst part is that any and damn near all information contained in the laptop and phone bits could have been told organically - even in a near identical manner, just by providing pictures of conversations instead of an interactive browser.
I'm sure it took you a lot of effort to do it and it's presented nicely. It just doesn't fit the genre, nor does it make for an enjoyable experience. These games are already interactive enough, with some yes/no options and narrative forks. Some ideas are just bad and unless you're a genius then reinventing the wheel is one of them, especially when you're supposed to be working on getting the car running.
Being forced to click through random shit takes you right out of the story, missing out on anything because you haven't clicked the buggy mess in just the right way takes away from the story.
Imagine you're reading a book and halfway through the second half locks itself, magically, and you're told that you need to finger fuck random words in order to get past the interactive portion of the book. Then do it every couple of pages, but now instead of locking there's an ominous line reading: if you don't do this, some pages are going to be blank. That's essentially what you're doing here and your story is suffering for it.
When I first came across it my immediate thought was: oh no. Then, this looks pretty neat. Then, half an hour later, it was how the fuck do I progress through the game because it keeps kicking me back to the laptop. Imagine my surprise when I needed to place a fucking bet in order to stop that bullshit coming up. Seriously what was so wrong with the bet on x/bet on y prompt?
The worst part is that any and damn near all information contained in the laptop and phone bits could have been told organically - even in a near identical manner, just by providing pictures of conversations instead of an interactive browser.
I'm sure it took you a lot of effort to do it and it's presented nicely. It just doesn't fit the genre, nor does it make for an enjoyable experience. These games are already interactive enough, with some yes/no options and narrative forks. Some ideas are just bad and unless you're a genius then reinventing the wheel is one of them, especially when you're supposed to be working on getting the car running.
