I appreciate the detailed review! That said, I'd file a lot of your critiques under simple difference of opinion/story preferences. Everyone has their thoughts about what the game should be, or where it should go. Everyone has their favorite characters. Everyone's someone's
least favorite character, until I write a scene that makes the reader go, "Oh wait, I love them now."
The Lucien plot is what it is. Some people have had reactions that I consider a bit strange, i.e. "I'm feeling cucked by this guy," and I don't get that at all -- but okay. How much you like or dislike his plotline will probably vary based on how much you prefer a slice of life adventure versus something a little more focused and dramatic. But, I've been nudging things into place for this plotline to eventually pay off, since the beginning.
And I get it, there's a lot of balls in the air, and not everyone gets their time in the sun. I've said this before, but as the game progresses, I think a lot of this stuff gets easier to handle, not harder. As characters get their routes more or less locked in, and major sex scenes are finished for the love interests, there's just.. Less for me to juggle. As of now, a few of the love interests routes are more or less locked in. A few characters have had big, complex sex scenes, and won't need another. And if you squint, I think you can see the plotlines more or less coming together.
I'll just do a quick, top-of-my-head recap of what's going on with all the characters.
You're welcome, and thank you for taking the time to reply. I do hope you're feeling better, too!
As far as the outstanding plot points, I still think you're underestimating the work ahead of you. The passage of in-game time is largely immaterial here, it's purely a question of player content. Sure, once the MC settles into a 'stable' relationship with the various girls it will be easier to justify jumping ahead to the next significant event in a given girl's path, and that's handy. But you're still going to have to allocate
your time to writing those events. It's not enough to know the MC is in an off-screen relationship with a LI, we're going to want to SEE it continue to develop until the MC is ready to ride off into the sunset with one (or more) of them.
If the game is chock full of girls, that means each girl will get either very small slices of time we can't sink our teeth into, or she'll get larger chunks of content but need to wait several chapters between them as the rest of the cast cycles through the rotation. That's the rub. Bear in mind, this game is closing in on two years old and contemporary Cassie has
yet to even appear on screen. Alex isn't much better off. Ideally the players will be patient, but it's hard to keep up the enthusiasm for a game when you have to go literal years between major scenes with your favorite LI.
Speaking of which, I take your point about everyone having a favorite, but there's a difference between giving a girl her time in the spotlight and allowing her subplot to completely brainwash the MC. That goes doubly for Risa who is not a major part of the MC's life the way, say, Nicki is. The idea that the MC would agree to accompany a girl he barely knows into a seedy den just to buy her drugs
after she flat out lied to him is a hell of an ask. That goes doubly for an MC cruel enough to abuse Nicki and Viola to the point they'll flat out run away.
It's your story and only you know where this is going, but I cannot believe this is the best way to get there. If Lucien is going to tie into other aspects of the plot, one of those probably should have been what brought him to the MC's attention. If Lucien is specific to Risa's path, her relationship with the MC should have been much more developed before dragging him into her problems.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about this post makes it sound to me like you're saying the game is almost over. Is that so or am I just imagining it?
I don't think he's saying the game is winding down, but it does sound like he expects the girls to be a lot more passive once the MC settles into a routine with them. As I said above, I don't think that would work out very well in practice.
I doubt we will get a choice written in with the situation around Risa. It seems like this is possibly setting up the main conflict of the game. Which sadly I'm more interested in the Slice of Life type of gameplay and really was not looking for the darker conflict this seems to be setting up. Still waiting on next update.
Again like NeonGhosts said difference of opinion and what I'm looking for in the game. He had this planned from the beginning and has been working towards it.
If this was the plan from the start, it was not handled well. Risa should have had a much larger role in the earlier chapters.
I very seriously doubt this will end in a fist fight. If Lucien is who I think most suspect he is, he's not going to get physical or tell his goons to get physical.
I like player agency as much as the next guy (no pun intended), but there's plenty in games where the player doesn't get to control where they go or what situation they end up in.
I mean, the plot was gonna take us to the drug den one way or another because it seems very key to the plot. Would it have been better if Guy were clubbed over the head and taken there by force?
I agree, the MC will walk out of this unscathed (though possibly not without consequence), but that's just good old fashioned plot armor. There's no way a real person could know that when he made the decision to walk into the den, which means he must really want to help Risa despite the stunt she just pulled. That in turn implies that any future choices we have over how to treat Risa are just so much window dressing, and making the player doubt the validity of their choices is never a good thing.
Choice in these sort of games is always going to be an illusion, but it's a
*REALLY* important illusion. Anything that chips away at that illusion is a serious concern, and yanking the reins out of our hands to advance a minor character's subplot is no small thing.
But I've said my piece on this and should probably give it a rest now. We'll see what happens.
