Ochilochin I wish you good luck in ep 3. It will be a game changer for good or bad, if the MC continues to be passive without doing anything, it's a sure flop, the chance to improve the plot is in the next chapter. I'm rooting for Cora to be GOAT and recover the guy's memories and for him to do something useful.
Are there any animations in the game at all? I looked through a mountain of sex scenes, but didn’t see a single one. Most likely there is some kind of technical problem... It’s a pity, I liked the game.
For the most part I really like the game, I think the tone is A bit off at times and the English could use A bit of work, but honestly I've read through worse. My biggest complaint would be Tracy being A prostitute and not getting that info until long after you sleep with her because I'm generally not A fan of the whole prostitute LI thing in any game, but overall it's A minor complaint and while she'll never be favorite because of that, as long as I never have to see or here being with another guy I'll deal with it.
I should mention that I appreciate being able to get her to stop working at the club, just would have preferred to know that she was A prostitute earlier.
Ochilochin I wish you good luck in ep 3. It will be a game changer for good or bad, if the MC continues to be passive without doing anything, it's a sure flop, the chance to improve the plot is in the next chapter. I'm rooting for Cora to be GOAT and recover the guy's memories and for him to do something useful.
Hi. Thanks for your feedback =)
If that's the vibe you got, then my writing hit the mark. His initial passivity is intentional and driven by narrative consistency: he's a person with amnesia and living illegally in his country. I know that I run the risk of people not liking it because being an MC like this can be quite annoying.
The (good) news is that there'll be a huge change in his approach right at the beginning of the next chapter.
If you have any other suggestions, you can also send them to me directly on
Hi! I take full responsibility for that slip up. I got so immersed in the story that I forgot about that.
The truth is, prostitution really isn't a theme in Forgotten Pathways. There won't be a scene where the MC goes to a brothel and sleeps with a prostitute. Tracy being a prostitute is just a fact that's part of the plot and I forgot this could be seen as something that bad. Her living conditions and her dreams for the future are crucial to the story. But I apologize to anyone who was bothered by this, and I guarantee it won't happen again.
Are there any animations in the game at all? I looked through a mountain of sex scenes, but didn’t see a single one. Most likely there is some kind of technical problem... It’s a pity, I liked the game.
Hi! Thank you for playing the game =) It was likely a problem resulting from the game's compression. The original file contains a series of videos that have no issues at all.
Who are you specifically talking about? Tracy or any girl who's not a virgin?
About Tracy: It was a mistake not to mention she was a prostitute beforehand.
The others: well, most of them are either virgins or their personal history is irrelevant. When I mention that she's been involved with someone, there's no mention of sex itself.
In some specific cases, especially with older women like Cora and Elise, it's obvious they had sex with other guys, and their past is crucial to the story. Getting involved with a girl is optional. In total, there are 16 women, even if you exclude the ones you're not interested in, there's still quite a bit left =)
But your feedback is important because it reflects a big challenge I have: turning a finished story into a game. I try to make many adaptations, but there are some narrative points I can't let go of. Otherwise, I'd risk messing up the whole plot, haha.
Who are you specifically talking about? Tracy or any girl who's not a virgin?
About Tracy: It was a mistake not to mention she was a prostitute beforehand.
The others: well, most of them are either virgins or their personal history is irrelevant. When I mention that she's been involved with someone, there's no mention of sex itself.
In some specific cases, especially with older women like Cora and Elise, it's obvious they had sex with other guys, and their past is crucial to the story. Getting involved with a girl is optional. In total, there are 16 women, even if you exclude the ones you're not interested in, there's still quite a bit left =)
But your feedback is important because it reflects a big challenge I have: turning a finished story into a game. I try to make many adaptations, but there are some narrative points I can't let go of. Otherwise, I'd risk messing up the whole plot, haha.
ETA: (added 14-March-2024) Please take this post with a grain of salt. I am leaving it here to document some collected complaints about 0.1 and 0.2, and for reference to why Ochilochin added the detailed information in the dev notes after our discussion. With 0.3 now out and resolving most of the issues I brought up here, the game is in a much healthier state for appreciation, so I recommend people decide if they want to give it a try based on their own opinions, not necessarily on mine.
Who are you specifically talking about? Tracy or any girl who's not a virgin?
About Tracy: It was a mistake not to mention she was a prostitute beforehand.
The others: well, most of them are either virgins or their personal history is irrelevant. When I mention that she's been involved with someone, there's no mention of sex itself.
In some specific cases, especially with older women like Cora and Elise, it's obvious they had sex with other guys, and their past is crucial to the story. Getting involved with a girl is optional. In total, there are 16 women, even if you exclude the ones you're not interested in, there's still quite a bit left =)
But your feedback is important because it reflects a big challenge I have: turning a finished story into a game. I try to make many adaptations, but there are some narrative points I can't let go of. Otherwise, I'd risk messing up the whole plot, haha.
After finishing 0.2, I have to echo a lot of the complaints so far. I mostly enjoyed 0.1 and was looking forward to see more of the story and get some information about the mysteries. While I enjoyed some small parts of 0.2, and while it had more content and more lewd content than 0.1, it was overwhelmingly unsatisfying as an update.
Several story beats were actively unpleasant, and it felt shallow, while it did its best to make almost every character actively unlikable. The lewd scenes mostly felt out of place rather than fitting smoothly into or complementing the story, and the story spent a LOT of time in the first half of 0.2 in relatively unbroken exposition.
First, I'm going to comment about a few annoying things that aren't directly about the girls and their pasts.
The end of 0.2 was immensely unsatisfying, with the bad guys getting the upper hand in literally every instance.
There's a running theme in the game so far of EVERYONE (including the MC) blaming the MC for shit other people do TO him, and the game's writing and the MC just go along with that as if it's somehow true, despite the evidence of the actual events.
This makes the MC as written into a weak and unsympathetic character, and those are never fun to play. Since he is written as if he agrees that everything's his fault, other than the one time with Hannah and then with Dan, he just never stands up for himself. You say it will change early in Chapter 3, but that doesn't help the game as it currently stands, and the writing of the second half of 0.2 content doesn't give me much hope for it, either. It doesn't feel like you understand what is making him unfun to play. He even calls himself "the worst person in Sirione" for a ton of shit OTHER PEOPLE DID. He even takes responsibility for "hurting Nina", when other people did that to her AND him.
If Dan isn't lying, even NINA blames the MC, which makes her way shittier as a character and as an LI.
Beyond that, Dan's decision that Hannah starting shit with the MC is the MC's fault just makes HIM irredeemable, too, which makes Nina far worse as an LI because she idolizes him.
I even predicted during the party that Dan would assume the worst: that the MC was 'cheating' on Nina with Mya when she led him off at knifepoint, and that he "abandoned" her. And sure enough, at the end of the update, that's EXACTLY what happened, and he just blames the MC anyway even when he finds out the truth (or he doesn't believe him) about how shitty the noble families are.
It's just such a fucking tedious way to generate conflict between people who should be allies. Sure, there's the option to bitch Dan out, but none of it is for the right reasons, and from the variables, it enables Dan as an antagonist, which will just complicate everything unnecessarily. The end of the update turned Dan into a spineless hypocritical sycophant.
Scarlet also placed all the blame for everything on the MC, which was incredibly shitty of her. The incident at the bar was literally started by Hannah and indirectly by Tommy, and everything the MC said was 100% deserved by Hannah. That even his allies blame him for it is bullshit. Scarlet even calls the Hannah event and the party events "[the MC] picking fights", when he literally NEVER started anything. It was others attacking him in every instance. This makes Scarlet way shittier as a character and as an LI.
There is a lot of mystery that is intentionally remaining unrevealed. I understand some of the story reasons for this, but it results in an unsatisfying update (think of each update as a partial story; if an update is not satisfying, then that partial story is itself weak), and it means characters are placing themselves as antagonists by refusing to inform the MC of things he needs to know.
I saw you say this was adapting a completed story, but it's a good idea to understand that what makes for good story in novels and literature is absolutely NOT the same as what makes for good story in AVNs, harem or otherwise. Adapting a story not originally written for an AVN is going to, of necessity, involve more rewriting than it would to adapt a story to, say, a video series, or vice versa.
Now, for the LIs.
First, most harem games penalize not taking all LIs by not replacing their content, and many harem games that have multiple endings require all harem members for the "good" endings. So saying "if you don't like some of them, there are a lot of others" can be disingenuous if this is your plan, and it will result in some updates having almost no content for a person's preferred LIs since so many of them have problems. Also, as a caveat: While I am not personally opposed to former-prostitute LIs, it is a safe bet that there are statistically zero harem fans that like CURRENTLY-prostitute LIs - more on that below. It also wasn't fun having that sprung on me after having a lewd scene with her without having that information. I know you mentioned you already acknowledge that that was a mistake, but you haven't said anything about changing it.
Beyond that, you said that "most of [the LIs] are either virgins or their personal history is irrelevant", but as far as I can tell, this is just NOT true. Maybe one or two are virgins, and the others' sexual pasts absolutely inform (and for the most part cheapen) their lewd scenes with the MC and in several cases, the larger plot. Your story as written and presented so far does not support your statement, and that means you've ended up writing lewd scenes that just aren't very sexy, because there's no emotional connection with the girls, or that emotional connection gets ruined by their other interactions. For a bunch of them, the MC seems to be just another fuck.
Third, virginity inherently improves an LI in a harem game at least in part because it leads to the girl being more devoted to the MC, so if their pasts don't matter, why bother making them NOT be virgins? And if their pasts matter, then the statement above is false.
Now for some more specific comments about the girls and virginity to show my work.
7 explicitly-not-virgins (Helga, Anna, Scarlet, Sadie, Lilah, Tracy, Elise), four of them with sexual pasts that directly impact the story and absolutely DO matter, and two of those with actively harem-hostile sexual pasts.
6 that don't count (2 of those explicitly non-virgin (Cora, Margot), 3 not seen yet (Sofie, Tamara, Hollie/Lila), and 1 probably-not-virgin (Alysa))
TL;DR: I'm not going to tell you how to tell your game's story. It's your game, and your story. But you should be more honest about its content.
If your intent is to have primarily harem fans following/supporting your game, you might want to consider a few changes. LIs who fuck or have fucked other people are drastically less appealing to harem fans than LIs who are narratively meant only for the MC. Harem games are power fantasies, after all, so there's no reason NOT to lean into the fantasy, since the writer decides on everyone's backstories and game plots.
Final note about tags: In your Genre section, you can highlight which tags are what you consider major themes. For the game tags themselves, anything that's present at all needs to be tagged. The prostitution tag absolutely does belong on the game, even though it's not a theme or focus, because there are two characters who are blatantly prostitutes, one of whom is optionally sexually involved with the MC.
After finishing 0.2, I have to echo a lot of the complaints so far. I mostly enjoyed 0.1 and was looking forward to see more of the story and get some information about the mysteries. While I enjoyed some small parts of 0.2, and while it had more content and more lewd content than 0.1, it was overwhelmingly unsatisfying as an update.
Several story beats were actively unpleasant, and it felt shallow, while it did its best to make almost every character actively unlikable. The lewd scenes mostly felt out of place rather than fitting smoothly into or complementing the story, and the story spent a LOT of time in the first half of 0.2 in relatively unbroken exposition.
First, I'm going to comment about a few annoying things that aren't directly about the girls and their pasts.
The end of 0.2 was immensely unsatisfying, with the bad guys getting the upper hand in literally every instance.
There's a running theme in the game so far of EVERYONE (including the MC) blaming the MC for shit other people do TO him, and the game's writing and the MC just go along with that as if it's somehow true, despite the evidence of the actual events.
This makes the MC as written into a weak and unsympathetic character, and those are never fun to play. Since he is written as if he agrees that everything's his fault, other than the one time with Hannah and then with Dan, he just never stands up for himself. You say it will change early in Chapter 3, but that doesn't help the game as it currently stands, and the writing of the second half of 0.2 content doesn't give me much hope for it, either. It doesn't feel like you understand what is making him unfun to play. He even calls himself "the worst person in Sirione" for a ton of shit OTHER PEOPLE DID. He even takes responsibility for "hurting Nina", when other people did that to her AND him.
If Dan isn't lying, even NINA blames the MC, which makes her way shittier as a character and as an LI.
Beyond that, Dan's decision that Hannah starting shit with the MC is the MC's fault just makes HIM irredeemable, too, which makes Nina far worse as an LI because she idolizes him.
I even predicted during the party that Dan would assume the worst: that the MC was 'cheating' on Nina with Mya when she led him off at knifepoint, and that he "abandoned" her. And sure enough, at the end of the update, that's EXACTLY what happened, and he just blames the MC anyway even when he finds out the truth (or he doesn't believe him) about how shitty the noble families are.
It's just such a fucking tedious way to generate conflict between people who should be allies. Sure, there's the option to bitch Dan out, but none of it is for the right reasons, and from the variables, it enables Dan as an antagonist, which will just complicate everything unnecessarily. The end of the update turned Dan into a spineless hypocritical sycophant.
Scarlet also placed all the blame for everything on the MC, which was incredibly shitty of her. The incident at the bar was literally started by Hannah and indirectly by Tommy, and everything the MC said was 100% deserved by Hannah. That even his allies blame him for it is bullshit. Scarlet even calls the Hannah event and the party events "[the MC] picking fights", when he literally NEVER started anything. It was others attacking him in every instance. This makes Scarlet way shittier as a character and as an LI.
There is a lot of mystery that is intentionally remaining unrevealed. I understand some of the story reasons for this, but it results in an unsatisfying update (think of each update as a partial story; if an update is not satisfying, then that partial story is itself weak), and it means characters are placing themselves as antagonists by refusing to inform the MC of things he needs to know.
I saw you say this was adapting a completed story, but it's a good idea to understand that what makes for good story in novels and literature is absolutely NOT the same as what makes for good story in AVNs, harem or otherwise. Adapting a story not originally written for an AVN is going to, of necessity, involve more rewriting than it would to adapt a story to, say, a video series, or vice versa.
Now, for the LIs.
First, most harem games penalize not taking all LIs by not replacing their content, and many harem games that have multiple endings require all harem members for the "good" endings. So saying "if you don't like some of them, there are a lot of others" can be disingenuous if this is your plan, and it will result in some updates having almost no content for a person's preferred LIs since so many of them have problems. Also, as a caveat: While I am not personally opposed to former-prostitute LIs, it is a safe bet that there are statistically zero harem fans that like CURRENTLY-prostitute LIs - more on that below. It also wasn't fun having that sprung on me after having a lewd scene with her without having that information. I know you mentioned you already acknowledge that that was a mistake, but you haven't said anything about changing it.
Beyond that, you said that "most of [the LIs] are either virgins or their personal history is irrelevant", but as far as I can tell, this is just NOT true. Maybe one or two are virgins, and the others' sexual pasts absolutely inform (and for the most part cheapen) their lewd scenes with the MC and in several cases, the larger plot. Your story as written and presented so far does not support your statement, and that means you've ended up writing lewd scenes that just aren't very sexy, because there's no emotional connection with the girls, or that emotional connection gets ruined by their other interactions. For a bunch of them, the MC seems to be just another fuck.
Third, virginity inherently improves an LI in a harem game at least in part because it leads to the girl being more devoted to the MC, so if their pasts don't matter, why bother making them NOT be virgins? And if their pasts matter, then the statement above is false.
Now for some more specific comments about the girls and virginity to show my work.
7 explicitly-not-virgins (Helga, Anna, Scarlet, Sadie, Lilah, Tracy, Elise), four of them with sexual pasts that directly impact the story and absolutely DO matter, and two of those with actively harem-hostile sexual pasts.
6 that don't count (2 of those explicitly non-virgin (Cora, Margot), 3 not seen yet (Sofie, Tamara, Hollie/Lila), and 1 probably-not-virgin (Alysa))
TL;DR: I'm not going to tell you how to tell your game's story. It's your game, and your story. But you should be more honest about its content.
If your intent is to have primarily harem fans following/supporting your game, you might want to consider a few changes. LIs who fuck or have fucked other people are drastically less appealing to harem fans than LIs who are narratively meant only for the MC. Harem games are power fantasies, after all, so there's no reason NOT to lean into the fantasy, since the writer decides on everyone's backstories and game plots.
Final note about tags: In your Genre section, you can highlight which tags are what you consider major themes. For the game tags themselves, anything that's present at all needs to be tagged. The prostitution tag absolutely does belong on the game, even though it's not a theme or focus, because there are two characters who are blatantly prostitutes, one of whom is optionally sexually involved with the MC.
Hi. First, thanks for sharing your opinion, especially in such detail (I know it took some effort, and I know your intention was really to bring constructive points to the story and to improve the VN).
About the plot:
The feeling of helplessness, with everyone pointing fingers at the MC for absolutely everything involving the noble families, was intentional. There will be a much more explicit and detailed contextualization that justifies the characters' attitude towards the MC. Unfortunately, I can't reveal more at this point.
Injustice is a striking characteristic of the world they live in. If I don't introduce a bad standard intensely at the beginning of the narrative, the sense of satisfaction when that standard is broken/overcome drops drastically.
I understand that each chapter has to be enjoyable on its own, and I may have failed in that aspect, but I can't think of a different way I could have done it. In fact, there was a significant effort on my part to lighten the events that happen in Chapter 2, considering the original story.
Regarding the prostitution tag, I've planned to, this weekend, go over the game and fix the tags in every place the VN is being promoted. I have very little free time to work on this project.
Honestly, it seems like there's a long list of rules for a game to be classified as a harem. I really appreciate you patiently pointing out many of these preferences to me. Although I've played some and I financially support various devs out there, I confess I've never seen these projects in a more "pragmatic" way regarding what's allowed/not allowed. It seems like there are too many rules, and the feeling is that anything slightly outside these limits ruins everything. As if there's no room to create something different. If the game is so far from the official classification, I don't mind changing it, really. My intention is by no means to be dishonest.
"But don't you want to attract that audience?"
The truth is, obviously, I don't work with that. I write for fun, simply because I enjoy it. I do it because it helps me deal with the highly exhausting day-to-day work. I could aim to create a cool and engaging story "within the rules," even adding all the clichés of a badass MC and his virgin harem of cute girls that would ensure much greater acceptance. But then come the question: - Would creating this VN be enjoyable, considering that, above all, it's my hobby?
You must have noticed that there are plenty of devs out there who abandon their projects, many of them promising and some even with great initial acceptance. I assure you that the reasons behind this aren't just the lack of patreon support (where there is little room for new solo dev projects tbh). Another big reason is that the creative process itself has ceased to be enjoyable for the dev.
Some people who identified with my VN came to ask me not to abandon it (as it happens with most games). The response I give is always the same: I won't abandon it because I'm doing exactly what I enjoy. Adapting too much to all these standards would kill that motivation, to be quite honest with you.
Yes, maybe in the end, I'll realize that my story shouldn't have been adapted to this format (in terms of popularity). The comforting part is that I will have enjoyed the creative process and dedicated myself to something I like and believe in.
Anyway, thank you very much for sharing your opinion. It's nice to get a better grasp of what seems to be the mindset of most harem fans.
Hi. First, thanks for sharing your opinion, especially in such detail (I know it took some effort, and I know your intention was really to bring constructive points to the story and to improve the VN).
Hey, thanks for reading and responding, and I very deeply respect your drive to keep the game and story matching your vision. I do tend to post walls of text about games where I start out enjoying it a lot, and am then disappointed. It's a bad habit, I know. But, yes, the intent here was to give you more of a view of the general mindset, and the specific spots that caused the disappointment for me specifically (since I'm the only person whose opinions I can state definitively). I don't write long posts about games I never liked, I just drop those and move on.
I understand that each chapter has to be enjoyable on its own, and I may have failed in that aspect, but I can't think of a different way I could have done it.
The big problem here is update frequency. When an update of any kind, be it a full Chapter or not, ends on a lot of downer events, it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the players for an entire [update frequency] amount of time. For instance, if it takes six months for the next update to come out, that's six months where the game is unsatisfying for many of those who play it. So there just needs to be something to ameliorate the negatives, and at the end of this update, that just isn't there. The MC is effectively at rock bottom.
Honestly, it seems like there's a long list of rules for a game to be classified as a harem. I really appreciate you patiently pointing out many of these preferences to me.
It seems like there are too many rules, and the feeling is that anything slightly outside these limits ruins everything. As if there's no room to create something different.
There are fewer rules than some people think, but they all boil down to a mindset. The focus of a harem based game should be on the MC and his harem. If it's not, then it probably shouldn't have a harem at all.
The story should ultimately serve the purpose of uniting the MC and his harem - that's what people are here for (it's why they're playing a harem AVN instead of watching porn), and that's why it's so frustrating when an LI is romantically/emotionally driven away from the MC unjustly without any resolution so far, like what happened with Nina at the end of this update.
The lewd scenes should also only serve the MC and his harem - that's what people are here for (it's why they're playing a harem AVN instead of playing a non-sexual game), and that's why it's unpleasant to see scenes with other people not part of the harem, such as the nude shots of Eina.
The LIs' sexual histories should only exist or come up when they serve the relationship between the MC and his harem - this is why harem fans are so put off by suggestions that LIs are fucking other people during the game even before they're in a relationship with the MC. They're even MORE strongly put off by any indication of LIs fucking other people after starting a relationship with the MC (since that borders on netorare at best).
While it's okay for story beats to be negative, in a harem-focused game they should still serve the ultimate function of advancing the relationship between the MC and his harem. The ending harem fans want is the MC happy with his entire harem (and, better still, also with any side girls who aren't main harem but still end up with the MC). If that ending appears to be unattainable, then they may feel there's no reason to continue, regardless of how good the ending as planned might be.
If the game is so far from the official classification, I don't mind changing it, really. My intention is by no means to be dishonest.
The comments about honesty were about the virginity question specifically, since I still only see 1 definite virgin, and 2-4 potential virgins, out of the 15 girls we know of, and you did say "most".
As for the "harem" content tag, it should stay in Planned if it's possible to have consensual relationships with three or more girls simultaneously (because that's the tag definition). They're content tags, not thematic tags. The main issue is that, if a game isn't being aimed at harem fans, but it still has a harem as its group of LIs, then people who don't like harems also won't be drawn to it. Because so much story/characterization effort has to be put in to build a believable harem in a game, both harem and non-harem fans will generally assume that any game that has a harem IS meant to focus on the harem. That is, if the game isn't meant to focus on the harem, why go to the effort of writing in the extra story and characterization needed to build the harem? Harem fans have also been burned MANY times before by fake-harems (games where you can be with every girl right up until the game arbitrarily forces you to choose one of them for an ending) and by pseudo-harems (games where you cannot ever get all the game's LIs into your harem, because certain girls are mutually-exclusive with each other).
I won't abandon it because I'm doing exactly what I enjoy. Adapting too much to all these standards would kill that motivation, to be quite honest with you.
Yes, maybe in the end, I'll realize that my story shouldn't have been adapted to this format (in terms of popularity). The comforting part is that I will have enjoyed the creative process and dedicated myself to something I like and believe in.
This is an admirable mindset to have, and I do respect it. I do recommend being up-front about your intentions for the game and the girls, though. Put them in a spoiler block inside the Developer Notes if you have to, but being very clear about where you're going can only ever be a good thing.
Communication is always better than non-communication.
A lot of devs choose not to give future plans or planned tags, because of "spoilers", but that mindset is misplaced. Spoilers will only EVER matter during the timeline of the game's development, and even there, they're unnecessary (any controversial or relevant story beats, LI stories, or events will be spoiled in comments almost immediately, though hopefully with spoiler tags); people who open or click spoiler blocks are choosing to spoil themselves. Providing that kind of information can make certain that people don't end up playing a game that isn't what they wanted... And, conversely, it can sometimes encourage a person to play a game they didn't originally think they'd want to play due to assumptions made about the content tags.
I'll stop there, though, so your thread isn't all about our discussion. If you wanted to talk more candidly about any of this with me, my DMs are open and I do not post privately-provided spoilers when devs ask me not to, even when I disagree with the dev that the spoiler is needed.
It seems like your story has triggered some people I suggest to put a big ass alert in the OP telling people to read the developer's notes, so they understand where you're going with your story or why the MC can look weak at times.
It seems like your story has triggered some people I suggest to put a big ass alert in the OP telling people to read the developer's notes, so they understand where you're going with your story or why the MC can look weak at times.
You do realize that the dev wrote that AFTER the discussion he and I had in this thread and in DMs, right? The backstory change to Tracy in this release was specifically a suggestion I made to him, and his clarifications in the OP Developer Notes are a direct result of the discussion.
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