VN Ren'Py Hard to Love [v0.21 Remake] [Qori Gaming]

[Abhai]

Japan according to OP
View attachment 2128541

you can also make it a a bit opposite: "any other place according to HS/HS2".

not playing those games much, so forgive me if im wrong, yet i would assume their threads are flooded with similar "omg, this isnt proper look for non-japanese characters..wtf are you doing dev" complains.

those games are meant for fun, as a fantasy, otherwise 99% of those games would make no sense at all being overly fictional and non-realistic. yet, again, i hardly see anyone complaining there.

just enjoy the ride, if it isnt to your liking, well, plenty of other "more realistic" games/setups should be there, surely.

 

[dolfe67]

Yeah, it sounds like sloppy damage control to say that thing people are criticizing was always meant to be that way.

No I believe it. Just it's not well introduced, it should be specified at the start of the game (still weird but at least it's not a big surprise in chapter 2). Or better yet, make up your own world and don't base it on the real one (fictional city names, no references to real world, etc.)

 

[JohnF95zone]

I am wondering how many DAZ/Blender/MAYA (or any other 3D rendering softwares) assets that (correctly and realistically) depicts people from various ethnic groups or countries, environment (like streets, buildings, architecture) from various countries or places? How much do they cost? Availability as in how many choices (or variations) are there etc.? How are they compared to the common or stock assets (that widely available at very affordable price or perhaps free) that are mostly used (over and over again) in so many games? Imagine that, if an artist can tweak any stock model to make it look like whatever ethnic group or race (for example turn it into an alien, furry, orcs, 'Smeagol'-like, Asian, African etc.), how much work required and times will that process take? (Multiply that with the total number of characters in the game and I guess it will take maybe a year at least for a solo developer?) Perhaps there aren't that many Japanese male model or most of them look like Hideo Kojima? Perhaps the developer has few favorites and/or already procured/obtained (male and female) models but they aren't Japanese (or Asian-looking) but he/she really wants to work and use them in a game? Do you want (or need) to know all of that or do you instead would like just to play and enjoy the hard labor of love that someone is willing to share in the first place?

I never see any unique or even landmark buildings like for example the New York Empire State building, the San Francisco Golden Gate bridge, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Great Wall of China, the Louvre Museum in Paris etc. depicted in any games that I ever played (and I played a lot). I am not saying that they don't exist but it is 'Loch Ness monster' rare to me. I have seen the same environment assets over and over again though (with little tweaks here and there) and the same models are being used over and over again that almost feels like there is at least one character in a game that I also see in another game (maybe tweak the hair or something). It is more prominent with Honey Select-based renders that even the panties are the same (lack of good choice perhaps?), especially if it is stock HS without (or very little) mods used.

Having said that, let say that even if someone managed to get all the correct models and environments that depicts the place or setting in line with his/her vision. Would it make sense to do that when the demographic of the player base are not of that place? In order words, would it made sense to make an all out Japan themed game when none (or very little) of the players are Japanese in the first place, who can barely relate (or associate) themselves with the characters (especially) and the environments? Even if you claim that you would love to play as Japanese in a Japan based game but you are just one person, the majority non-Japanese players might not like it at all.

One more thing, to what extent does this Japanese-theme game should be? For me personally, it should go all out Japanese so even the dialogue and voice acting should be in Japanese also, would you like that? But of course you wouldn't like it, even if it doesn't make sense at all that all the Japanese characters in Japan speaks fluent English and not Japanese. I don't know how many times I loathe watching movies where alien beings or whatever characters from even the remote places on earth speaks English, when clearly they have their own languages, or the fact that all the alien encounters or conflicts only happened in America (as if it is the only place in the whole universe that human live in). But no one seems to complaint about that. Most of these "it does not make sense" arguments and all the "bullshit immersion" are solely based on ones own biases and preferences.

Obviously there are more to game development but I just could not cover (and speculate) them all especially since I am not a game developer myself but I do have an interest of the process, so I learn a bit or two here and there.

I would say that it was an err on the game developer previously (was clarified recently which received mixed responses) not to be upfront with the location setting, but it is an honest mistake. Rarely any game ever mentioned an exact location, place and time where it took place except for one game (that I am aware of, there are others of course) Inside Jennifer by Inceton Gaming, which specifically mentioned it took place in New York (but even if that is true, I have no way of knowing since I don't live in New York, it might make sense or not to a New Yorker though). Some games mentioned fictional town or universe just so that this is not going to be an issue. Even though from time to time there will be players who questions that because this fictional town or universe apparently is based off reality i.e. the town is eerily similar to this real town or that character is exactly like this famous person or celebrity etc. (no surprise there, no one can really come up on their own, they have to base on something). Most (if not all) games only depict 'slice of life' view of the game settings that is you get to see only portions of the said plcae/location for example its exterior, some internal rooms, a few buildings (not the entire neighborhood, town, district or state) where events took place. The shown locations does not necessarily reflect the entire full location. I remembered being in a foreign country once upon a time years ago and 'stumble' a sight which resembles a lot my home country, maybe I am just homesick but that location really stands out and totally different than the rest of the locations I visited on that foreign country. However, the odds are very low that multiple sights have this 'out-of-place' feelings to them, it is more like 1 in 1000 chance.

All in all, this is just a game depicting fictional characters and places. Although I am aware that there are those who insist that even fictional work of arts must adhere to facts and cannot be made up or mix and match as the creator please but I would say that they are the exceptions. I would like to cultivate an environment where artists can express their freedom to make stuff up, mix and match as they please, where fiction is concerned (and applied). If you want realistic experience and immersion, then just go live a life. Just go to Japan, it is not that hard. Don't be mad if you can't experience Japan in a game because you literally can't and never will, just go to Japan and experience it real life. Don't be mad if the game is not to your complete liking either because *spoiler alert* it was never made specifically for you according to your specifications in the first place. Throwing tantrum expressing the lacks of immersion (according to your standard) and going over all sorts of "what if" scenarios, are not going to make the developer re-made his/her game to suit that intagible immersion standards of yours either. Cheers.

 

[Kinch310]

I am wondering how many DAZ/Blender/MAYA (or any other 3D rendering softwares) assets that (correctly and realistically) depicts people from various ethnic groups or countries, environment (like streets, buildings, architecture) from various countries or places? How much do they cost? Availability as in how many choices (or variations) are there etc.? How are they compared to the common or stock assets (that widely available at very affordable price or perhaps free) that are mostly used (over and over again) in so many games? Imagine that, if an artist can tweak any stock model to make it look like whatever ethnic group or race (for example turn it into an alien, furry, orcs, 'Smeagol'-like, Asian, African etc.), how much work required and times will that process take? (Multiply that with the total number of characters in the game and I guess it will take maybe a year at least for a solo developer?) Perhaps there aren't that many Japanese male model or most of them look like Hideo Kojima? Perhaps the developer has few favorites and/or already procured/obtained (male and female) models but they aren't Japanese (or Asian-looking) but he/she really wants to work and use them in a game? Do you want (or need) to know all of that or do you instead would like just to play and enjoy the hard labor of love that someone is willing to share in the first place?

I never see any unique or even landmark buildings like for example the New York Empire State building, the San Francisco Golden Gate bridge, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Great Wall of China, the Louvre Museum in Paris etc. depicted in any games that I ever played (and I played a lot). I am not saying that they don't exist but it is 'Loch Ness monster' rare to me. I have seen the same environment assets over and over again though (with little tweaks here and there) and the same models are being used over and over again that almost feels like there is at least one character in a game that I also see in another game (maybe tweak the hair or something). It is more prominent with Honey Select-based renders that even the panties are the same (lack of good choice perhaps?), especially if it is stock HS without (or very little) mods used.

Having said that, let say that even if someone managed to get all the correct models and environments that depicts the place or setting in line with his/her vision. Would it make sense to do that when the demographic of the player base are not of that place? In order words, would it made sense to make an all out Japan themed game when none (or very little) of the players are Japanese in the first place, who can barely relate (or associate) themselves with the characters (especially) and the environments? Even if you claim that you would love to play as Japanese in a Japan based game but you are just one person, the majority non-Japanese players might not like it at all.

One more thing, to what extent does this Japanese-theme game should be? For me personally, it should go all out Japanese so even the dialogue and voice acting should be in Japanese also, would you like that? But of course you wouldn't like it, even if it doesn't make sense at all that all the Japanese characters in Japan speaks fluent English and not Japanese. I don't know how many times I loathe watching movies where alien beings or whatever characters from even the remote places on earth speaks English, when clearly they have their own languages, or the fact that all the alien encounters or conflicts only happened in America (as if it is the only place in the whole universe that human live in). But no one seems to complaint about that. Most of these "it does not make sense" arguments and all the "bullshit immersion" are solely based on ones own biases and preferences.

Obviously there are more to game development but I just could not cover (and speculate) them all especially since I am not a game developer myself but I do have an interest of the process, so I learn a bit or two here and there.

I would say that it was an err on the game developer previously (was clarified recently which received mixed responses) not to be upfront with the location setting, but it is an honest mistake. Rarely any game ever mentioned an exact location, place and time where it took place except for one game (that I am aware of, there are others of course) Inside Jennifer by Inceton Gaming, which specifically mentioned it took place in New York (but even if that is true, I have no way of knowing since I don't live in New York, it might make sense or not to a New Yorker though). Some games mentioned fictional town or universe just so that this is not going to be an issue. Even though from time to time there will be players who questions that because this fictional town or universe apparently is based off reality i.e. the town is eerily similar to this real town or that character is exactly like this famous person or celebrity etc. (no surprise there, no one can really come up on their own, they have to base on something). Most (if not all) games only depict 'slice of life' view of the game settings that is you get to see only portions of the said plcae/location for example its exterior, some internal rooms, a few buildings (not the entire neighborhood, town, district or state) where events took place. The shown locations does not necessarily reflect the entire full location. I remembered being in a foreign country once upon a time years ago and 'stumble' a sight which resembles a lot my home country, maybe I am just homesick but that location really stands out and totally different than the rest of the locations I visited on that foreign country. However, the odds are very low that multiple sights have this 'out-of-place' feelings to them, it is more like 1 in 1000 chance.

All in all, this is just a game depicting fictional characters and places. Although I am aware that there are those who insist that even fictional work of arts must adhere to facts and cannot be made up or mix and match as the creator please but I would say that they are the exceptions. I would like to cultivate an environment where artists can express their freedom to make stuff up, mix and match as they please, where fiction is concerned (and applied). If you want realistic experience and immersion, then just go live a life. Just go to Japan, it is not that hard. Don't be mad if you can't experience Japan in a game because you literally can't and never will, just go to Japan and experience it real life. Don't be mad if the game is not to your complete liking either because *spoiler alert* it was never made specifically for you according to your specifications in the first place. Throwing tantrum expressing the lacks of immersion (according to your standard) and going over all sorts of "what if" scenarios, are not going to make the developer re-made his/her game to suit that intagible immersion standards of yours either. Cheers.

Some of the most popular and highly rated games on this site involve white characters in Asian settings or purportedly Asian characters in an Asian setting who somehow speak fluent English and use (almost) exclusively American cultural references. Several games do this masterfully and don't take themselves too seriously doing it. Lessons in Love is one example where the cast is supposedly Japanese, but acts like a group of Americans; references are all in English. There are several portions of the story that dance artfully around why this might be the case. And CRITICALLY the story never takes itself seriously in regard to its setting. MOST of the HS using games confront discordance between intended and actual appearances with a sense of playfulness. Waifu Acadamy, Once in a Lifetime, Ripples, etc. So many of the games here do this well.

Nah... To me everything boils down to the writing. The plot clearly lost direction, and the tone/tenor changed. There's just no way I believe the team composition stayed the same. I think they lost their translator. And I think the translator was doing more than (s)he was paid to do. That happens a lot in my field (mostly medical / science writing and editing). I will frequently be asked to "polish" a rough translation, and then just wind up rewriting the entire thing for the sake of coherence, tone, and style in addition to grammar and syntax. I'll try to give you an example. I was once presented with a patient's medical chart that had already been translated by someone without medical training from Romanian to English. My task? Clean it up, see if I could see what the initial doctors most likely meant, and put everything into a format that communicates everything in a way that requires no deciphering on the part of her American medical team. I'm a physician if that wasn't clear. I wound up spending close to 15 hours "translating" 20 pages from shitty non-expert semi-english into coherent medically sensible American English. It was... not what I signed up for. I learned my lesson doing that and never took a job like that again for under double my usual rate.

Sometimes "translating" is just rewriting. And I would be willing to bet a small sum that this is exactly what happened to this project. He or she lost their "translator." It just so happens the translator was basically an unpaid ghostwriter and editor. Whatever that person was being paid, wasn't enough.

I could be way off. But it just has a lot of similarities to some of the work I've done in the past. When I left that medical chart translating project btw, the patients' charts went from the type of quality in the first chapter here to the type of quality in the latest iteration.

 

[JohnF95zone]

Some of the most popular and highly rated games on this site involve white characters in Asian settings or purportedly Asian characters in an Asian setting who somehow speak fluent English and use (almost) exclusively American cultural references. Several games do this masterfully and don't take themselves too seriously doing it. Lessons in Love is one example where the cast is supposedly Japanese, but acts like a group of Americans; references are all in English. There are several portions of the story that dance artfully around why this might be the case. And CRITICALLY the story never takes itself seriously in regard to its setting. MOST of the HS using games confront discordance between intended and actual appearances with a sense of playfulness. Waifu Acadamy, Once in a Lifetime, Ripples, etc. So many of the games here do this well.

Nah... To me everything boils down to the writing. The plot clearly lost direction, and the tone/tenor changed. There's just no way I believe the team composition stayed the same. I think they lost their translator. And I think the translator was doing more than (s)he was paid to do. That happens a lot in my field (mostly medical / science writing and editing). I will frequently be asked to "polish" a rough translation, and then just wind up rewriting the entire thing for the sake of coherence, tone, and style in addition to grammar and syntax. I'll try to give you an example. I was once presented with a patient's medical chart that had already been translated by someone without medical training from Romanian to English. My task? Clean it up, see if I could see what the initial doctors most likely meant, and put everything into a format that communicates everything in a way that requires no deciphering on the part of her American medical team. I'm a physician if that wasn't clear. I wound up spending close to 15 hours "translating" 20 pages from shitty non-expert semi-english into coherent medically sensible American English. It was... not what I signed up for. I learned my lesson doing that and never took a job like that again for under double my usual rate.

Sometimes "translating" is just rewriting. And I would be willing to bet a small sum that this is exactly what happened to this project. He or she lost their "translator." It just so happens the translator was basically an unpaid ghostwriter and editor. Whatever that person was being paid, wasn't enough.

I could be way off. But it just has a lot of similarities to some of the work I've done in the past. When I left that medical chart translating project btw, the patients' charts went from the type of quality in the first chapter here to the type of quality in the latest iteration.

Probably you are right about the narrative. However, my post directed at the game setting being Japan although it does NOT have the look and feel or even Japanese main characters. I just highlight several factors (mainly about 3D graphic assets and models) that could potentially be the reasons. Basically, the developer vision was to make it Japan but was unable (or decided against) due to various (unexplained) reasons, that in the end had to settle with fictional Japan (but even that was not clarified earlier, only later when players question about it).

 

[LazyName]

Genuinely one of the worst updates to a promising game i've ever played. It was such a jarring waste of time and such a massive deviation from everything that came before it that it actually sapped all my interest in the project. The creator obviously has talent but i dont think its for me anymore. Having said that i do hope he continues to make his game exactly as he envisions it even if its not my taste.

 

[jish55]

Genuinely one of the worst updates to a promising game i've ever played. It was such a jarring waste of time and such a massive deviation from everything that came before it that it actually sapped all my interest in the project. The creator obviously has talent but i dont think its for me anymore. Having said that i do hope he continues to make his game exactly as he envisions it even if its not my taste.

The update isn't the full update, it's just apart of it as the creator was having issue with her computer for a couple of weeks and needed new parts. The next update (which she already has a nice chunk of renders and story done thanks to the new computer) is gonna be a much bigger update.

 

[kameohawk]

The update isn't the full update, it's just apart of it as the creator was having issue with her computer for a couple of weeks and needed new parts. The next update (which she already has a nice chunk of renders and story done thanks to the new computer) is gonna be a much bigger update.

To be fair, it not being the full update doesn't fix the issue some have where what was released is a peculiar one filled with changes to the plot and overall tone of the game which weren't there before. If the rest of the update reverts to previous then it stands out even more as odd, if the rest of the update follows the same it reinforces the issues mentioned.

 

[Kinch310]

The update isn't the full update, it's just apart of it as the creator was having issue with her computer for a couple of weeks and needed new parts. The next update (which she already has a nice chunk of renders and story done thanks to the new computer) is gonna be a much bigger update.

It is always possible that the Dev has an editor or translator with a very, very heavy hand. Rushing things, even ridiculously, does not offer a satisfactory explanation. People don't forget how to use English fluently, or the personalities of the characters they've created.

The confusion here has less to do with the quality of the current update than the quality of the first releases. It went from the best overall game on the site to one that isn't even worth playing (at least in English). I'm not exaggerating.

I think the dev insulted their supporters' intelligence by claiming that a computer issue somehow caused this colossal quality difference. Every aspect of the game changed. The tone. The pace. The setting. The plot. The characters. The grammar. The animations. The posing. Planning and storyboarding: out the window.

One of two things is happening. A) The editor is doing all the work. B) The English language writer left. Option B can account for the rendering problems by forcing the art team (or art person) to take focus away from their primary tasks and focus instead on the work the writer was doing.

Hell, the quality of writing in the update posts has changed dramatically compared to the start of the project.

You know what, I CAN think of an example where the quality drops off like this. FAN FICTION. If you told me that the initial developers sold the project rights (and granted limited access to the rendering assets used in the first portion) to a different person or team; I would completely accept this explanation. And it would make perfect sense. It would explain the new setting. It would explain the new pace. It would explain the new characters. It would explain so many of the otherwise inexplicable things happening here.

I can even give you an example. If you look over at Power Vacuum, search the forum for some of the fan-made mods. If you do that, you can find a similar drop-off in quality.

 

[Aristos]

Have i been catfished? currently in the early game with the introduction of the crazy family and the game is NOTHING like it was during the prologue. Beautiful story with the mother, some mystery and a hint of incest(daughter) basically devolved into a basic trashy family incest with everyone wanting hypno dick mc. That the older versions of mc family are uglier than the early versions doesn't help either

I wrote this in February, 8 months ago (almost 9 actually):
https://f95zone.to/threads/hard-to-love-v0-03-qori-gaming.107137/post-7504382

I received several facepalms I couldn't give fewer fucks about.

After several years, you develop a nose for this type of crap.
The early game was beautiful, emotional, even brilliant. Then it turned into a cringey, deranged incest story with undeniably superb renders.

 

[desmosome]

I think you guys misjudged the nature of the game pretty significantly. It never felt like some proper romance story or typical incest harems where everything is rainbows and sunshine. It had great writing in the prologue, for sure, but it had an underlying tone of uncertainty and depression. Young Antonella is super assertive and well defined as a character. It's one of those types that typical male power fantasy seeking harem bois will probably dislike. As someone who typically enjoys male dom and subservient women in fap scenes, I still felt her character was interesting. She reminds me of the girl from My Sassy Girl.

Then chapter 1 rolls around and you can tell that this is not a typical incest game. There are many strong (and deranged) women. Everyone got a few screws loose and that seemed quite interesting to me.

You guys thinking this went from a pure and romantic incest story to some gritty noir missed a lot of the themes and tone that was being set up. Narratively, this flashback could have been done much better than telling his whole life story to a random pantyness loli he just met. The actual content of this backstory isn't as disjointed as people think.

Of course, the whole Japan thing is still an issue. The dev made a peculiar choice in how to deal with the lack of assets depicting the setting he wants. You either change your story to fit what you got, or you look for assets that properly depict what your story is about.

You can't just say that this is an alternate timeline Japan but never give a single hint about this within the game. Intro exposition dumps are pretty shitty, but there are other ways to go about it. You could have a TV or radio in the background saying a few lines. You could have a history class scene during his schooling that briefly goes over the situation with this whitewashed Japan. You could have a short conversation between characters. Conversely, you can also edit the story and characters to incorporate the "unusualness" of MC's life in non-alternate Japan. Just ignoring the whole setting all the way up to chapter 2, and then explaining the story on patreon is a pretty unconvincing move.

 

[zack1419]

yeah im also developing a VN with a majority Japanese cast, old Japanese buildings and aesthetics but it takes place right in the middle of 1800s Europe in an alternative timeline. No dont worry i wont explain this bizarre choice or set this anomaly up on the fist chapter either, i will wait until the audience complains about it then do a half-assed post explaining it was my plan all along.

 

[JohnF95zone]

I think you guys misjudged the nature of the game pretty significantly. It never felt like some proper romance story or typical incest harems where everything is rainbows and sunshine. It had great writing in the prologue, for sure, but it had an underlying tone of uncertainty and depression. Young Antonella is super assertive and well defined as a character. It's one of those types that typical male power fantasy seeking harem bois will probably dislike. As someone who typically enjoys male dom and subservient women in fap scenes, I still felt her character was interesting. She reminds me of the girl from My Sassy Girl.

Then chapter 1 rolls around and you can tell that this is not a typical incest game. There are many strong (and deranged) women. Everyone got a few screws loose and that seemed quite interesting to me.

You guys thinking this went from a pure and romantic incest story to some gritty noir missed a lot of the themes and tone that was being set up. Narratively, this flashback could have been done much better than telling his whole life story to a random pantyness loli he just met. The actual content of this backstory isn't as disjointed as people think.

Of course, the whole Japan thing is still an issue. The dev made a peculiar choice in how to deal with the lack of assets depicting the setting he wants. You either change your story to fit what you got, or you look for assets that properly depict what your story is about.

You can't just say that this is an alternate timeline Japan but never give a single hint about this within the game. Intro exposition dumps are pretty shitty, but there are other ways to go about it. You could have a TV or radio in the background saying a few lines. You could have a history class scene during his schooling that briefly goes over the situation with this whitewashed Japan. You could have a short conversation between characters. Conversely, you can also edit the story and characters to incorporate the "unusualness" of MC's life in non-alternate Japan. Just ignoring the whole setting all the way up to chapter 2, and then explaining the story on patreon is a pretty unconvincing move.

I believe I am agreeing with most (if not all) about what you said there, especially about the Japan issue. Just based of reading most of the players comments and having played up until the beginning of Chapter 1, I had developed a theory (or hypothesis) about the game/story but I am not able to find time to continue and finish play it all yet (I need a solid 6 hours to play). All I can say for now is that it ties back or have to do with the Overview in the OP. Hope I can find the needed time soon. Cheers.

 

[LazyName]

I think you guys misjudged the nature of the game pretty significantly. It never felt like some proper romance story or typical incest harems where everything is rainbows and sunshine. It had great writing in the prologue, for sure, but it had an underlying tone of uncertainty and depression. Young Antonella is super assertive and well defined as a character. It's one of those types that typical male power fantasy seeking harem bois will probably dislike. As someone who typically enjoys male dom and subservient women in fap scenes, I still felt her character was interesting. She reminds me of the girl from My Sassy Girl.

Then chapter 1 rolls around and you can tell that this is not a typical incest game. There are many strong (and deranged) women. Everyone got a few screws loose and that seemed quite interesting to me.

You guys thinking this went from a pure and romantic incest story to some gritty noir missed a lot of the themes and tone that was being set up. Narratively, this flashback could have been done much better than telling his whole life story to a random pantyness loli he just met. The actual content of this backstory isn't as disjointed as people think.

Of course, the whole Japan thing is still an issue. The dev made a peculiar choice in how to deal with the lack of assets depicting the setting he wants. You either change your story to fit what you got, or you look for assets that properly depict what your story is about.

You can't just say that this is an alternate timeline Japan but never give a single hint about this within the game. Intro exposition dumps are pretty shitty, but there are other ways to go about it. You could have a TV or radio in the background saying a few lines. You could have a history class scene during his schooling that briefly goes over the situation with this whitewashed Japan. You could have a short conversation between characters. Conversely, you can also edit the story and characters to incorporate the "unusualness" of MC's life in non-alternate Japan. Just ignoring the whole setting all the way up to chapter 2, and then explaining the story on patreon is a pretty unconvincing move.

Personally my issue isn't about the content of the story being darker vs fantastical my issue is with the competence of its delivery. I think for most people the idylic nature of finding young love as the prologue presents it contrasted with the mystery of why she dissapeared made it abundantly clear that the story was going to have some conflict and mystery. Everyone is jumping on the japan thing because its the easiest to articulate as to why it feels so clunky but the clunk is present in all aspects of the writing top to bottom.

 

[JohnF95zone]

Personally my issue isn't about the content of the story being darker vs fantastical my issue is with the competence of its delivery. I think for most people the idylic nature of finding young love as the prologue presents it contrasted with the mystery of why she dissapeared made it abundantly clear that the story was going to have some conflict and mystery. Everyone is jumping on the japan thing because its the easiest to articulate as to why it feels so clunky but the clunk is present in all aspects of the writing top to bottom.

You are probably right but there are a lot of games that did not have good writing (or story) but did not get similar 'aggressive negative treatment' (comments/posts) from the players. I believe all these emotions-based reactions come when the players expectations (mostly story/plot-wise) were not met/materialized. I have not read (so far) any players complaints about the visuals and/or musics, so at least one aspect of the execution/implementation was very well done (if not great). I also read a lot of comments praising the Prologue, so it surely had good writing (and delivery) there.

All in all, there is no "a one size fits all" kinda answer (or reason) because each players are inherently different from one another, it is always that one aspect irks some players, while another aspect annoys some others (or subset of the former) and so on. Cheers.

 

[armond]

You are probably right but there are a lot of games that did not have good writing (or story) but did not get similar 'aggressive negative treatment' (comments/posts) from the players. I believe all these emotions-based reactions come when the players expectations (mostly story/plot-wise) were not met/materialized. I have not read (so far) any players complaints about the visuals and/or musics, so at least one aspect of the execution/implementation was very well done (if not great). I also read a lot of comments praising the Prologue, so it surely had good writing (and delivery) there.

All in all, there is no "a one size fits all" kinda answer (or reason) because each players are inherently different from one another, it is always that one aspect irks some players, while another aspect annoys some others (or subset of the former) and so on. Cheers.

If you read back, my and others comments were about how the story abruptly changed and seemed to stall, I think I said it felt like filler. I did address the setting but also said it was not very important, comments responding to these overly focused on the setting intimating it as the only problem while ignoring the narrative issues. Randomly recounting disjointed stories to a stranger about fucking prostitutes and then having him recount events that he wasn't even present for. It's just a mess.

 

[JohnF95zone]

If you read back, my and others comments were about how the story abruptly changed and seemed to stall, I think I said it felt like filler. I did address the setting but also said it was not very important, comments responding to these overly focused on the setting intimating it as the only problem while ignoring the narrative issues. Randomly recounting disjointed stories to a stranger about fucking prostitutes and then having him recount events that he wasn't even present for. It's just a mess.

It was an unexpected mess (abrupt story change, stalling, etc.), and that is what more or less my understanding regarding most of the (good) comments.

 

[thaeral]

you can also make it a a bit opposite: "any other place according to HS/HS2".
View attachment 2129482
not playing those games much, so forgive me if im wrong, yet i would assume their threads are flooded with similar "omg, this isnt proper look for non-japanese characters..wtf are you doing dev" complains.

those games are meant for fun, as a fantasy, otherwise 99% of those games would make no sense at all being overly fictional and non-realistic. yet, again, i hardly see anyone complaining there.

just enjoy the ride, if it isnt to your liking, well, plenty of other "more realistic" games/setups should be there, surely.

This, absolutely this. So much wingeing in this thread over Japan with Westernized characters. (Do you all do this over every Anime you watch as well? Anime was created as a parody of how Japanese see Westerners with their big colorful eyes and multicolored hair.) Additionally, they don't have to justify any of their creative decisions about their game to any of you. It's not your game. They don't even have to justify anything to their Patrons. Patreon is a TIP JAR.

Maybe she likes DAZ models. Maybe she thought since most of these games use DAZ that she had to in order to be more successful. Maybe she just wanted to avoid using HS/HS2 or Koikatsu for the uncertainty and licensing issues surrounding their use. It doesn't matter. They can do whatever they want with their game. Period.

 

[froufrou2019]

Another VN gone to the dumps because the dev wants to stretch it. Like always just for the sake of adding new characters so we won't get want as viewers until 4 years later or probably never, you completely destroyed a nice simple kinky VN by adding these random characters no one cares about and add nothing to the story.

 

[dolfe67]

This, absolutely this. So much wingeing in this thread over Japan with Westernized characters. (Do you all do this over every Anime you watch as well? Anime was created as a parody of how Japanese see Westerners with their big colorful eyes and multicolored hair.) Additionally, they don't have to justify any of their creative decisions about their game to any of you. It's not your game. They don't even have to justify anything to their Patrons. Patreon is a TIP JAR.

Maybe she likes DAZ models. Maybe she thought since most of these games use DAZ that she had to in order to be more successful. Maybe she just wanted to avoid using HS/HS2 or Koikatsu for the uncertainty and licensing issues surrounding their use. It doesn't matter. They can do whatever they want with their game. Period.

They don't have to justify it but they need to explain it in the story if they want the readers to be invested in the story and become supporters. You can't write an all-black characters story and set it in the Middle Ages England and never talk about it.


Also I don't think the prologue was stellar writing, I already found it quite weird. It's a lot of projecting from some people in what the story could have been imo. Though yeah it's a bit disturbing that the MC is telling his story to the little girl with full detail on lewdness.