this is definitely intended as a game, far rather than a visual novel, for a few key reasons:
- the story is minimal, almost perfunctory. it's there because it has to be.
- emphasis on repeated events, that change or build with each repeat.
- whimsical character relationships: on one moment there is deep love, care, and passion, but then brutal cheating, abuse, and blackmail on the next.
the game is clearly meant to be just smut with a very light incestuous theme.
it really says something when the porno secenes the characters are filming make more sense and are more coherent than the interactions and story of the actual game itself.
then there are the immense narrative leaps which cause dissonance between the chapters.
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1st chapter was about corruption and drama: a gold digger bitch wife leaves and takes the kids, running to a place where she can't support herself and her children without resorting to sex work. the son is of course a perverted nerd with the dick of an elephant. but the sister is an entiteled psychopathic blackmailing, manipulating, and abusive whore, who fucks, fucks with, and fucks over any man without any remorse, morals, or care for consequences. she's an actual monster, but it's ok 'because she's hot'. I would title this chapter as "corruption".
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2nd chapter takes a confusing narrative pivot: the story suddenly is about cucking, abusing, and dominating the son, the reason for which being set up very poorly. now every woman in the game hates and abuses him despite somewhat loving and wanting him in the first chapter. this chapter was fucking annoying (besides the grind) and felt completely out of place.
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3rd chapter once again makes a huge pivot: now it's about the '
sweet innocent and lovable son/sibling who needs protection and care' trope. but it also takes a step back to corruption, as if there's anything left to corrupt. characters act as if something is bad, when they've already done, whatever it be, multiple times over without any semblence of shame. and they'll do it the next moment like deranged pornstars:
"oh we can't, it's bad, what would she think of me, she's my our mother... well let's just drug her and you can start face fucking her while I lick her asshole, then you can blow your load on our faces and we'll cumswap..."
I'm all for depravity, but all the initial apprehensiveness for actions that have already been done before, makes such scenes just frustrating and without narrative weight. it just slows down progress in an annoying way.
technically the first chapter was a mess. not for bugs so much, but how events could be completed out of order that would've made narrative sense.
the second chapter was less of this, but still not great.
the third chapter so far has been relatively linear and well ordered, apart from some hickups. from the code I can see that there's a much more coherent and structured use of variables and prerequisites than on the previous chapters. this has made progression in the game alot easier, with less grind, less figuring out, and less clashes between storylines. but it's not without bugs.
for example, one of the joshua events repeats with 5 scene paths, each with their own conditions (prerequisites).
the 4th path has conditions for 'joshjaneyphotos == 3 and buyjewlery ==0' and if those are matched, the path is played but buyjewlery is set to 1, instead of iterating with 1 (buyjewlery = 1). however, path 5 has the condition 'buyjewlery ==3' which is impossible to pass unless buyjewlery is iterated by another event before repeating this event. but since on my playthrough such an event was not possible to execute, and this joshua scene repeats every day without choice, buyjewlery is never '3'. so none of the prerequisites match any of the paths, meaning there are no paths to play out, so the game returns to the main menu.
this is an easy fix with for example with this logic:
Python:
if x == 1 and 1 <= y <= 3:
scene_step = scene_step5
y += 1 # unless this is iterated by another scene (it is).
if y >= 3:
scene_step = scene_step6
as for the grind... it's not only obnoxious, but grinding for stats is just unnecessary. actually, stats are completely unnecessary because events and paths already have prerequisites for othere events, paths, and 'true' persistent variables. those should be well enough, because they already ensure the player can't run through all secenes. they have to be repeated anyway, often with unlocks or steps completed in other scenes.
adding stats to that is just obnoxious. the game takes long enough without grinding for stats. they took me hours per chapter, even with cheats and URM.
my suggestion:
- get rid of the stats altogether.
- focus more on coherent and path-relative prerequisite-tied progression.
- ensure scenes don't happen out of narrative order. for example: a character should not act as if they've never fucked some other character, when they've already done so in another scene. that scene should not happen before the other.
- cut down the sister's insanity! she can be a slut and a tease, but not an unhinged monster like she is now.
- more story, and story beats. not every event has to end up in an orgy or manipulation.
- THE GAME ABSOLUTELY NEEDS A HINT SYSTEM.
as the game stands now, there's plenty of good development approach on ch.3, technically. but the story, characters, and especially functional progression (grind, stats) need significant improvements. character behavior patterns should make more sense: characters should not be apprehensive about actions they constantly do gleefully. they should also not act all lovey dovey huggie wuggie or just genuinely friendly towards a character, only to then abuse and blackmail them and whore themself to the same character and others, or abuse their emotions. it's even worse when these happen out of the blue and without reason. especially when they keep going back and forth between good and bad.
if anything, this game is an example of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder.
3/5
