Others E-Thots: A NTR Game Set in a 100% interactive PC Interface [Ch.2 v2.5] [Archipote]

4.10 star(s) 44 Votes

DicksInSpace

Active Member
Jul 8, 2017
593
646
Thank you for this very detailed review! Once again, I completely understand the feeling that some people have towards the update. Some people, like you, prefer the "despot" part of the game, as you mentioned, and so an update that takes place completely elsewhere was sure to divide!

It's like I said last time, I think a new player will appreciate this update much more than those who waited four months to get it, since they'll have the change and the refresh of the context right in their playthrough game and will appreciate it as it was intended (I hope, at least!). Or even you later, if you do a playthrough again in a year and come across it again, with a bit of luck and the change of context, you might appreciate it more!

As for the scenes and the payoff, I understand too. From my point of view, these are the most ‘lewd’ scenes I've made, with a lot of cumplay in particular and explicit scenes/exhibitonnism, but indeed they are for most part distributed in a way other than a linear plot and that can be not your cup of tea.

In any case, to reassure those who were less pleased that we are leaving the desktop part, it will of course be back with the next update. I still hope that you will like 2.5 in general, and of course I repeat it again but it never hurts, all your feedback is important and taken into account
Didn't feel any lewder than what they were already doing in the café tbh
 
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LoveII

Newbie
Jun 18, 2018
15
118
Writing this purely because you seem to be very open to honest feedback whether it's positive or negative and apologies in advance for the wall of text but I kind of want to get this out of the system. Very light spoilers ahead.
Some context: found out about this game a while ago, was planning on not playing it till Chap 3 but the temptation was too strong so I caved in early december hoping new version would come out soon.. terrible timing in hindsight haha. Decided to support for the first time today, very hyped for the update.

Now, having just finished it, and despite still thinking the game is incredibly solid (with the phone call scene being absolutely peak), I can't help but feel incredibly dissapointed. It honestly just feels like the update was so laser focused on the minigames and technical side of the game that it forgoes the porn part almost completely.
The result is essentially an hour of mostly playing an ok minigame, being constantly bothered by a new character constant yapping (ended up skipping dialogue at one point), while hoping to hit the jackpot and find a new big scene. It's literally all the update needs. What you get however are a handful of incredibly small scenes split between all the characters and they all lead nowhere. And then the one proper scene there is ends up being a delusion of a character. I initally even considered skipping some of them, hoping to reach the climax of the update.. but there is none. It just ends. No payoff. No progression. Techically everything here is mint and waaaay ahead of most other games. Insane minigame, setup, graphics, even extra costumes. But there is no actual content. So it all comes down crashing in a big pile of disappointement, like a fancy house with no foundations.
It stings having waited months for this, but I have no doubt it would also sting discovering the game in its entirety prior to the next update. You play up until the new update, everything is incredibly solid.. and then 2.5 cucks you just like that.

All in all, the update honestly feels like would have been better served as extra content, maybe for the game anniversary or something like that. Something small just to get more fun and unserious content out of the game. However it ends up being the most dev time consuming update so far and more importantly also committing the sin of killing the possibility of the anime convention having good spicy content.
Still having high hopes for the rest of the game (I still think overall it's excellent!) but man, what a clear miss.
 

QuiteQuiet

Member
May 2, 2023
265
425
Is thomas in the update?
No, unfortuantly. I hope he returns also. I can foresee some interesting development there that's closer to wholesome over predatory or exploitive (Lucas and Damian, respectfully).

so this update was more on the fun side of things than lewd ones?
More or less, yes.

While I can understand some disappointment, I found the update great overall. We got a first glimpse at how the girls act toward each other when Avar
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, and I was pleasantly surprised.
I agree that, with the update more or less following Morgane, having her scenes play out the way they did was an interesting design choice, and I'd love to hear Archipote's philosophy behind them.
The UI was crisp and well done, with the mechanics appearing to be stressful but not being so once you understood the flow of things. A few minor visual bugs exist, which I expect to be rectified before the public launch. I have a few other minor 'gripes' as well, such as some of the cards seem a bit too random of a drop, therefore taking a bit longer to collect them all.
I also agree that the end was kind of... There. Overall, this felt more like a 'beach' episode with no real plot beyond fan service, which is fine, so don't expect much plot development other than
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All in all, it's a solid update once you recognize what it is, and I'm defo looking forward to going back to Despot. A break from the computer interface every so often is not a bad thing. Remember that we're still playing the game as updates come out. It'll feel different once the game is completed, and we play it all the way through. We'll be glad for these breaks in the story and going on side adventures with the girls.
 

archipote

Active Member
Game Developer
Feb 13, 2021
540
1,376
No, unfortuantly. I hope he returns also. I can foresee some interesting development there that's closer to wholesome over predatory or exploitive (Lucas and Damian, respectfully).



More or less, yes.

While I can understand some disappointment, I found the update great overall. We got a first glimpse at how the girls act toward each other when Avar
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
, and I was pleasantly surprised.
I agree that, with the update more or less following Morgane, having her scenes play out the way they did was an interesting design choice, and I'd love to hear Archipote's philosophy behind them.
The UI was crisp and well done, with the mechanics appearing to be stressful but not being so once you understood the flow of things. A few minor visual bugs exist, which I expect to be rectified before the public launch. I have a few other minor 'gripes' as well, such as some of the cards seem a bit too random of a drop, therefore taking a bit longer to collect them all.
I also agree that the end was kind of... There. Overall, this felt more like a 'beach' episode with no real plot beyond fan service, which is fine, so don't expect much plot development other than
You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

All in all, it's a solid update once you recognize what it is, and I'm defo looking forward to going back to Despot. A break from the computer interface every so often is not a bad thing. Remember that we're still playing the game as updates come out. It'll feel different once the game is completed, and we play it all the way through. We'll be glad for these breaks in the story and going on side adventures with the girls.
Hey, I'm very grateful for your review, thank you very much! I think you had the right approach to play the update, i.e. a "cool bonus moment" that also allows you to see how the girls interact with each other, as it is often mentioned in the story that the three of them spend their days together, since their main thing in common is that they don't have any individual friends.

So for those who are interested and who read the story, it might give another point of view that I personally loved to see unfold!


Either way, I'm glad you liked the update, and I hope you like what's coming next too!
 
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variaNTR

Member
May 16, 2021
141
110
Played this game a long while ago when it was just a cards shuffling simulator, just came back to play again and love it so much. That voice call scene was hot, look forward for more updates and will support in the future
 
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Mike145

Newbie
Jul 14, 2018
99
300
I was really frustrated that Avar almost didn’t react to Morgane cheating on him. It went on for a really long time, but fortunately near the end, he finally made a pretty firm statement to Elaine about his plan with Morgane. Not sure how you want their relationship to play out, but I hope he keeps going in that direction. His plan from the beginning was to pimp them out iirc.


I just hope he doesn’t turn into a pushover and actually has a talk with Morgane about her cheating. He needs to gain more control over her actions.


The best part for me, by far, is the new minigame. It’s a shame you have to start it from the menu, but if that’s due to an engine bug, I understand. You did forget one really important thing tho. When the content ends, and you display a pop-up saying you need to launch the anime convention from the menu, there’s no chance to save, you’re forced to go to the main menu. It should either let you save or autosave for you. Fortunately, I save pretty often in games, but imagine someone playing the whole game without saving, only to be forced to the menu and lose all their progress because of it. While I wouldn't mind repeating the new minigame, I wouldn't want to replay the whole game.


The new minigame itself is definitely the best one so far. I really like collecting cards, it’s a fun side activity in this one, but they feel kind of pointless outside of quests. In my opinion, they should give some kind of bonus. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated, like each card having a different effect, but even a collection bonus, like a % boost to money earnings after reaching certain milestones would be nice.


The biggest problem for me though, is that the main gameplay loop (if we can call it that) mostly consists of skipping to the next day and reading chats. At the beginning, you rarely even see an image. Don’t get me wrong, it’s already better than before since we’re definitely getting more images in chats, but in my opinion, it’s still the weakest part of the game. That, and the fact that while the individual activities themselves are at minimum decent, the way they’re combined feels suboptimal to say the least.


TLDR: Things I didn't like, I still don't like but I enjoyed the new mingame very much. It's at least a tier or even two above the other ones imo.

btw. I hope you'll store posts from the convention somewhere. Maybe make it possible to look for them through a hashtag on hoothoot? Would work for future events similiar to that one too.
 
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archipote

Active Member
Game Developer
Feb 13, 2021
540
1,376
I was really frustrated that Avar almost didn’t react to Morgane cheating on him. It went on for a really long time, but fortunately near the end, he finally made a pretty firm statement to Elaine about his plan with Morgane. Not sure how you want their relationship to play out, but I hope he keeps going in that direction. His plan from the beginning was to pimp them out iirc.


I just hope he doesn’t turn into a pushover and actually has a talk with Morgane about her cheating. He needs to gain more control over her actions.


The best part for me, by far, is the new minigame. It’s a shame you have to start it from the menu, but if that’s due to an engine bug, I understand. You did forget one really important thing tho. When the content ends, and you display a pop-up saying you need to launch the anime convention from the menu, there’s no chance to save, you’re forced to go to the main menu. It should either let you save or autosave for you. Fortunately, I save pretty often in games, but imagine someone playing the whole game without saving, only to be forced to the menu and lose all their progress because of it. While I wouldn't mind repeating the new minigame, I wouldn't want to replay the whole game.


The new minigame itself is definitely the best one so far. I really like collecting cards, it’s a fun side activity in this one, but they feel kind of pointless outside of quests. In my opinion, they should give some kind of bonus. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated, like each card having a different effect, but even a collection bonus, like a % boost to money earnings after reaching certain milestones would be nice.


The biggest problem for me though, is that the main gameplay loop (if we can call it that) mostly consists of skipping to the next day and reading chats. At the beginning, you rarely even see an image. Don’t get me wrong, it’s already better than before since we’re definitely getting more images in chats, but in my opinion, it’s still the weakest part of the game. That, and the fact that while the individual activities themselves are at minimum decent, the way they’re combined feels suboptimal to say the least.


TLDR: Things I didn't like, I still don't like but I enjoyed the new mingame very much. It's at least a tier or even two above the other ones imo.

btw. I hope you'll store posts from the convention somewhere. Maybe make it possible to look for them through a hashtag on hoothoot? Would work for future events similiar to that one too.

It's funny to see people saying they didn't like the convention because they prefer the “Despot” part, and others like you where it's the other way around! I understand, of course, I know the rule that you shouldn't disturb a “VN” too much with mini-games, especially in a porn game. But in a game I like to be surprised often and that's what I've been hoping to do from the start with E-Thots, whether it's in the story or the gameplay.

So even if you didn't like the "Despot" part, I'm still very happy to hear that you enjoyed the mini-game part! I put a lot of effort into it and even if it's in the majority or the minority, it always makes me happy to know that at least a few people will have appreciated it.

And indeed I agree with you all on many points concerning the con, I too would have liked to have had some nice scenes or bonuses for the cards, to which I gave a lot of love, like everything else. However, there are so many things that I would have liked to add, but it had already been four months since the last update, and unfortunately I had to move on for the sake of the game, so I just refined what I had as much as possible before releasing it in a state that I would still like. And that's the case, I personally like 2.5 hehe.

But in any case it has not been lost, with each new “mini-game” of the genre I improve in my efficiency, as i'm still learning to be a dev (and everything else) on the go. So in the long term, we can perhaps hope to have more refined “mini-game” segments in less time than it will have taken this one!

And yeah, I'll be working on a gallery for the con too, not sure if it'll be in the next update as it'll probably take a lot of time to code & implement (and I'd like to "remake" the current gallery we have as well), but I'll definitely add one. (+ I'll make it so we can save after the last message, thanks for the report)
 
4.10 star(s) 44 Votes