BlackHandGames, Let me start by saying again I love this game and the story so far.
Some pros about the latest content: I love Glasha's look without the nose and lip piercing. She was hot before of course (as I said in my earlier post), but she is stunning now. And I remember you said it makes rendering easier too, so I fully think you made the right call there. The art was beautiful as always. Overall, it was a good update.
First, I found an error: This should be Xiao speaking but it has the MC saying it.
I really enjoy this game, it's one of favorite new games out here, I even replaced one of the games in my sig to add this one. It's urban fantasy and a detective story, two of my top genres. But, what follows is a pair of personal pet peeves of mine and they both come from one scene:
The first is talking too much about past love interest the girls had. The talk about Jack was not sexy to me, I don't need the MC compared to another guy while with a girl, it was jarring. I can get past it, it's just annoying. The "I was in love with you but was with another guy for reasons" troupe is not one I'm a fan of. I'm not saying every girl needs to be a virgin, I just don't need it brought up, especially more than once and even more so during sex, that she was with someone else. The game Grandma's House has one of the best lines about this. I'm paraphrasing the MC from that game but "An experienced girl is good at pleasing other guys; I get to teach a virgin to be good at pleasing me." The MC even makes this point indirectly by commenting on how Glasha has perfected the art of pleasing him. Again, I get it, it happens in nearly every game on the site, I can move on. It just irks me every time and since I'm airing a bigger grievance in a minute, I thought I might as well just bring it up. Hopefully it isn't a common theme with other love interests. For example,
please don't have Elowin compare the MC to her husband in bed if we get the chance to rescue her from him. Nor have her telling the MC she's fantasized about being with him while being with her husband. You can just have her say her husband is an asshole and she is glad to be back with the MC. There is no need for sexual details. Players can fill in the blanks and head canon if she fantasized about the MC while with husband, never had sex with her husband since being with the MC, or anything in between.
But I really hate when I pick the creampie option and then this happens:
You gave me an option, even seemed to indicate she was down for that option with her comment before hand, I picked that option, and then you unilaterally undermined my choice. I was robbed of even the illusion of all player agency. No chance to tell her it was fine, that the MC would take responsibility, and it would be okay if it happened. Or to tell her that the MC supported her getting the pill for players who might want that, no chance to do anything. I picked for the MC and then he not only does nothing to support *my* choice as the player but joins the NPC in undermining it and then a *second time* she brings up getting the pill, reinforcing that I had done the wrong thing. At least that's how I was made to feel.
And I don't understand this? There is no reason to have this happen. I'm an adult, I know how babies are made, I decided I wanted the character to roll the dice. A choice I assumed was mine to make. Now you can say she isn't on board for that... fair, but then let me voice my disagreement and desire to be okay with it. You can also acquiesce to my choice and even have both of them be okay with it and just, not have her get pregnant. Not every creampie, even at a "risky" time ends in the girl getting knocked up. If you don't want that content yet, then just have it not happen. I've known couples who tried for years and never had a kid, and neither one was deficient, it just never happened for a long time.
Listed Planned Tags:
And with it being under your coming tags as part of the content in the future, of course I'm going to go for it. Which makes it even more jarring because you said it would appear at some point. I enjoy that content and don't want to risk missing it, so of course I would go for it at every opportunity. You even have lactation under the planned tags, meaning I could reasonably assume that a character will advance in their pregnancy during the game, thus meaning it will start early in the story so later it is at a stage where lactation can occur. Even further incentivizing me to pick to have the MC finish inside the love interest. But then you spoiled it and told me that until you're ready it won't happen... which duh, it won't happen until it's time, but you telegraphed it and did that by undermining my choice. A choice you said I had. A risk you indicated I could take.
If you were going to rob me of the choice, then you could have done any of the following:
* Had the MC think it was too risky because he didn't know if she was on the pill or if she was okay with that risk and forced him to finish in her mouth.
* Let me pick for the MC to argue for her not to get the pill.
* Let me pick to have the MC be the one who chooses to suggest it or not.
* You could have gone along with my choice and just have her not get pregnant from this encounter.
* Just not brought anything up after the fact, like what happened with the sex with Glasha in chapter one.
Any of those preserve the illusion that the choice I made actually mattered and was legitimate. But instead, I was told that I made the wrong one. Not even the MC agreed with me, an NPC disagreeing with the player choice is one thing, but the character *I* controlled undermined my agency as the player by siding with that NPC over the choice I had made.
Maybe I'm alone in this bothering me, it wouldn't be the first time I've stood alone. I'm not a fan of anal and I know I'm probably one of the only people on the site who doesn't consider it vanilla content. So, maybe this is like that. I'm alone in this being an issue. I don't know.
I'm sorry for the rant, and please don't take it badly, I really do love this game. But this is like the fourth or fifth game recently that has done this. Arbitrarily, and unilaterally, undermined my choice in this exact matter. And I think it grates me so much because it is a wholly unnecessary thing to do. It doesn't improve the moment or advance the story to have the character say this after the sex scene. It's an unneeded dialog that serves no purpose other than undermining the player agency. Again, I don't believe it was done out of malice or with the intent to undermine the player's choice, but that is, objectively what it does. My feelings about being upset by it are subjective, true, but the event itself is not. It is a robbery of player agency.
An adjacent but related topic:
It seems like Elowin got knocked up by the MC on their one-night stand and then her husband Fenvalur is an abusive ass and pushed her down the stairs to abort the baby. Now this is dark, and I'm not a fan of these kinds of plot lines in general, unless they culminate in a cathartic release later. As in the MC gets to exact justice on that assbag.
I'm still in this for the long haul, one scene doesn't ruin the game for me even if I didn't enjoy the way it was handled in its entirety. And I'll put up with a lot I dislike for a good urban fantasy story. And this is, so far, the only thing to bother me (other than Glasha's piercing which you fixed). I love pretty much everything else. Normally this is where I would joke about this being an essay but I'm not really feeling much like joking right now so I'll just say thank you for all the work you have done on this game and keep doing good work. I'm excited to see where the story goes.
