While the game does explore darker themes, it’s not just about 'whoring yourself to ugly bastards.
I’m aiming for nuanced characters—yes, there will be some creeps (where would the drama be without them?), but also well-written, believable people.
As for mindless exploitation? Nah. There’s actually a badass storyline where Layla can thrive in the city—power, ambition, and hard choices included. Stay tuned!
I was wondering abt the City choice. Can she still get "knocked down" on that path after she starts it or is she permanently good when she makes that decision?
Query: I'm assuming this is presented as a just generic site location? Kilometers are used as the accepted measurement of distance, but it (critically) doesn't sound like there's any substantial state support for higher education (such more prominent tax-funded support as you would more commonly see in European countries, but far less in the US), and it comes across very much like a generic variant of western America ("Generica") in appearance at the cafe (and it has an actual sandy desert, with cacti, tho that could easily be Spain, or various other Euro countries, ofc). More, the village sign looked to me like a French sounding name (tho I suppose it could be Spanish, and trying to find any real-world equivelents only brought up Albuquerque New Mexico), and a lot of the ambiance and early perspectives of Layla at the beginning (such as her stopping at a bakery to specifically desire croissants and cream-filled pastries) feel very French to me, though that is of course my subjective perspective.
The writing is quite good. I detected actual traces of poetry in there! Having her get corrupted by envisioning herself in the prostitute's position was well-plotted to move her along. That internal monologue is working as intended.
The only two VERY MINOR detail issues I noted at all were that you spelled her name with an I instead of a Y when meeting Michael, and the patron who orders scrambled eggs when she first starts in the cafe ends up getting eggs sunny side up. I only bring these up because they are things that could be corrected in text without having to change anything else, and would help avoid any sudden breaking of suspension of disbelief from the mismatches.
. . .
The only story suggestions I would have so far would be:
It feels rushed that she would make the decision to stay at the cafe, even if she is perhaps a proud and willful woman making decisions based more on in-the-moment emotion, than logic: it still feels over the top. IMO there needs to be some other additional highly humiliating sexual encounter added before, which would somehow frame her as INNATELY a slut, in her internal monologue (even if she was probably the victim), and so more firmly prod her into believing the Cafe path was in any way, shape, or form a good choice: some sort of unavoidable and deeply degrading situation that she barely escapes/does not escape from, and which she feels both at fault for (tho secretly this should have been a setup, and not her doing) and very disturbingly immensely titillated by, in either outcome: this might be sufficient to have her repeatedly mistakenly berating herself for innately being a harlot, so believing she deserves only staying, right up until she finally does. This could be woven right up into the internal monologue directly regarding the cafe/city choice. That, and something in the discussion with Michael could further convince her that he's just out to use her, himself. IMO, having both factors be in place would go a LONG way towards making the cafe/willfully whoring herself choice far more believable. Also, maybe using this to somehow further reinforce the negative emotional blowback of the modeling audition failure, to further hammer it into her head while simultaneously luring her towards the lurid, could slide her down the sex-work chute, to propel her down the prostitution path.
The other suggestion, arising from the one above, would be that it seems unlikely Michael wouldn't have known this outcome was a probability, not just a possibility. While he might be on the up and up, it seems really unlikely, even given his explanation later. He clearly knew about Jeff and Alex, and should have had real, immediate concerns about the matter, if he were not of ill intent: unless he is dodgy, he should have warned her on the train to very specifically only do certain things (tho likely being vague about it so not scare her off). Thus, he seems suspect, and it feels more likely that he was in fact "in on it" and had his own motives. For all we know, the shouting match between him and Jeff could have been a staged show to try to leverage getting her to go with him more readily (good cop/bad cop routine), so that he could potentially walk all over her down the road with him, after the initial shock wore off and he wined and dined her a few times.
Anyway, those would be my only two suggestions, although at least one of them would probably require a complete new start for the character, or at least going back to a certain point in the saves, since coding would be different past that change.
So, those are obviously just suggestions and, overall, your game is pretty damn good, IMO. Thank you for the work!!!
BTW, thank you VERY much for having an actually-hot main character. There are multiple other games I've played where we're expected to follow a borderline dog around and enjoy watching her getting f*****. It's always really sad when the secondary and background characters are hotter than the MC, and you DEFINITELY avoided that here! Congrats.
