- Oct 3, 2021
- 121
- 444
Thanks, I was hoping it wouldn't come off as too self indulgent.I'm loving your posts and your analysis! Congrats!
As for newer things, I was really hoping I would have some good to info to share. Instead, I can merely prevent others wasting* their time. Leap of Faith's thread has a fair amount of discussion about buying cigarettes for one of the girls, so I had high hopes going in. Had a bit of a false start early:
but whatever, that phrase is annoying but also legitimately a euphemism for "Let's talk privately." The game doesn't get into BS territory until you meet Holly later:
You and Holly discuss, among other things, her one-cig per day habit, where you have the option to either express disgust or neutrality. Later, there is a secret mini-branch where you can buy her cigarettes. There are even indirect ways to determine whether you get the correct brand or not.
So, if you make the correct choices and find the hidden option to buy cigarettes, something important must come of it, surely, right? Well...
(It's explicitly stated neither character has means to light the cigarettes at the time.
That's it. Oh, and depending on other choices, you might get points that might matter for your general relationship with Holly. Well, and the game will tell you in the end of chapter review how attentive to Holly's smoking needs you were. I just...why? Why would a dev go through the effort of coding and rendering content, with the extra effort of making it a secret, and even making it seemingly relevant if you got her brand or not, just to have it not matter at all? Once again, I don't expect anything ridiculous. Just, if I can approve or disapprove of a LI smoking, and can buy or not buy her cigarettes, I would at least expect her light up in my presence because I've demonstrated I'm cool with it, or pull one out after sex only to be shot down because she ain't stinking up the bedding, or something.
*When I say "wasting time", I refer only to time spent in hope of smoking content. Leap of Faith is actually very good, though also very flawed. I recommend it, just don't expect to get your smoking fetish fueled.
In further news of games being teases, Pale Carnations got an update.
Well, they remembered Felicia smokes. And she's going to go smoke some weed with Mina. But MC isn't invited. Goddamnit.
Finally, to end on a positive note, I played some of Photo Hunt (recommended by Zongor above), and it does smoking (generally) right. In addition to having a reasonable number of shots, it actually integrates smoking lightly into the story and strongly into the characters that smoke. What I mean is that the devs don't throw smoking into a render at random, they clearly have given thought to how and when these characters do or don't smoke. Rather than seeing smoking has a habit one does or doesn't have, this dev(team?) knows different people use smoking differently, and has communicated this information entirely through showing, rather than telling. Good work.
edit: I didn't misspell any names, shut up.
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