What a waste of time.. a string of endless, pointless dialogue that cannot be quickly skipped followed by 1 actual training session featuring 2 pictures and that's it. It just stops there be flashing DEMO END dialogue pop ups every time you try to take a step.
- Oct 17, 2017
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Making the intro skip able helps, but is trying to get around the problem. You've filled the intro with key context. The real problem is that it lacks engagement. Anyone playing through it will mostly end up misrable. Note that you don't actually need flashbacks to do In Media's Res. The Illiad is In Media's Res and they just do it all through context.
- Mar 3, 2019
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Hello. Writer for the game here. I'm familiar with in media res and made the intro with it in mind, though I'm sympathetic to your point that I didn't make the intro with "player interaction" in mind. I'm surprised though that you mentioned The Illiad of all things as an example, which is filled with endless digressions and expositions of generally unimportant information that's probably only of interest to an academic, eg endless exposition of Character A-Z's lineage. Ultimately, I'm leaving it to the dev to decide on what's best for the game, and I'm obviously biased, but I think the intro serves its purpose well from a plot perspective. I think the problem is that some look at this game as mainly a RPG, whereas the game is mainly a visual novel. The height of interaction is choosing between Option A or B, and sometimes C. I may be wrong, but many people in the comments seem to want instant gratification with lots of sex scenes and constant interactions of some sort, which is a common framework for porn games, but that's something for the dev to address. I personally like the game as it is, but there is a considerable amount of people that dislike the intro, so that's a sign that something is probably amiss. I'm just wondering if it's a case of the intro being bad or people just wanting to play a different sort of game altogether.
- Oct 17, 2017
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I think the basic problem here is Core Engagement. What is the essential fantasy that the game is trying to create and what is it about the game that makes it *engaging*. By which I mean "possesing of an enjoyable emotion or draw that keeps intirest". A comedy game's core engagement is being funny. A horror game's core engagement is being frightening.
It's not just interaction, although it's not like it can't use that too.
If the game is a game ABOUT court politics, where the contest of wills between the Princesses is tangential or of lesser importance. Then the politics here are very boring. It needs more Drama capital D. More excitement. All of the scenes are boring and formal events and meetings, with the exception of the scene with the king which is mostly meh exposition.
But, that is A. not what the game is advertised as and B. not what really seems to be animating the game.
What the game seems to be about is a contest of Wills. One Princess in one corner. One Princess in the other. You don't need to put sex in the first five minutes to entertain people. You just need to start on the two meeting and butting heads, then go into more of the backstory and stakes after.
There is a sexual component to it, but the engagement runs deeper into the interpersonal drama. It's not that you need more sex in that time. It's that you need conflict and energy that stems from the core engagement.
So in a game where the Core Engagement is a contest of wills between two key charachters, why the actual fuck does one of these two barely get any lines in the first half-hour? Just start with them meeting.
Consider if you'd done this: It's a stormy night, a princess is in a carriage looking pensively. She has a note in her hands from her cousin saying he has a gift for her. She sneers.
She arrives at the prison and what does she see. An elf princess standing defiant in front of her. You start with the princesses curiousity. Them feeling each other out. No need to get too heavy into the lore for now. Just she's a captured princess. The two verbally joust. The Princess is fascinated now. She tells her guard to bring her along.
THEN we get a scene of the Princess talking to some adviser filling in the details. The conflict has already begun. You get to spend more time with the 2 Princesses.
- Mar 3, 2019
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Thanks for the feedback. Dev here again. I'm seriously considering adopting your suggestion for the intro, but there's a lot to consider. The game is about both the politics and the training, but the main point is that the human princess wants to be a queen and will use the elf princess to get what she wants. So both are important and my goal is to mesh the two together, but the battle of wills basically ends once the human princess makes threats on hostages to the elf princess. From that point on, it's more about managing health/sanity and how the human princess wants to use the elf politically. So the core engagement isn't about the two wills battling it out. It's more about the human princess's political skill. When and if we make the slave protagonist version, then the core engagement will be about the battle of wills and finding a way to escape. But with all of these complaints, I'm leaning towards making a big change for the intro eventually. Right now though I want to add more content and move forward instead of being stuck editing the beginning, but you gave me a lot to think about. Thanks again for the feedback.
Personally I enjoyed the game so far and had no issue with the pacing. Although it would be nice if you could save without having to interact with the mirror, and also load saves without having to restart the game.
Anyway good luck with it, I am looking forward to future updates.
Anyway good luck with it, I am looking forward to future updates.
- Jun 25, 2019
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Think the expectations of this game are getting a bit distorted due to the name. A title "Mistress vs slave" naturally caters to people who have fantasies along the line of bratty submissiveness, as it implies the slave being in a state of constant conflict with the mistress. Thus the title is more likely to cater to people with sub fantasies (as people with dom fantasies generally find constant conflict with the sub unsatisfying) while the content is more likely to cater to people with dom fantasies (as having a sub character with no agency tends to be boring for people who can't identify with the dom)
The long intro, while great in its own right for people like me who like a bit of story to their porn, also does not really do much to communicate what kind of bdsm/sex content the game will have. Making it skippable and a more intuitive save system are definitely going to improve the game, but also if the game's focus is about the mistress' rise to power in the kingdom, the title should focus on that.
The long intro, while great in its own right for people like me who like a bit of story to their porn, also does not really do much to communicate what kind of bdsm/sex content the game will have. Making it skippable and a more intuitive save system are definitely going to improve the game, but also if the game's focus is about the mistress' rise to power in the kingdom, the title should focus on that.
- Oct 17, 2017
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Clearly you've never had a bratty sub before, my man. The fun of a brat is that they don't make it easy. You get to engage in the thrill of consquest and victory over and over again. Longer conflicts can also be satisfying because they make final victory more interesting. Being a Dom doesn't mean that you don't like a sub who doesn't roll over immediately.
On a broader note here, I think there's a bit of problem. Not just because the title and presentation imply the battle of wills is the main content.
There is also the problem that the fantasy politics stuff...is just not very engaging. It's not merely not pornographic. I love a good fantasy politics story. But, if they're done inexpertly, they can become 20 scenes of characters sitting in a room talking. To make them engaging, you need.
1. Fascinating characters driven by psychologically complex and astute motives.
2. A world that is interesting, but also not shoved in the reader/player's face.
3. Surprises, twists, knives in the back. Schemes coming to fruition. Basically, things that breakup the monotony of proceduralism.
4. Strong scene construction. Often times, the drama needs to happen at a scene level, so you need to be constructing scenes like a screen writer.
But, this is also a sex game. So you need to figure out fascinating or good ways of implimenting the sexual content within the broader political hubdub.
I say all of this from experience too. Our game just came out of a huge fantasy politics segment, and I learned a lot from trying to keep that segment engaging. That shit is hard.
On a broader note here, I think there's a bit of problem. Not just because the title and presentation imply the battle of wills is the main content.
There is also the problem that the fantasy politics stuff...is just not very engaging. It's not merely not pornographic. I love a good fantasy politics story. But, if they're done inexpertly, they can become 20 scenes of characters sitting in a room talking. To make them engaging, you need.
1. Fascinating characters driven by psychologically complex and astute motives.
2. A world that is interesting, but also not shoved in the reader/player's face.
3. Surprises, twists, knives in the back. Schemes coming to fruition. Basically, things that breakup the monotony of proceduralism.
4. Strong scene construction. Often times, the drama needs to happen at a scene level, so you need to be constructing scenes like a screen writer.
But, this is also a sex game. So you need to figure out fascinating or good ways of implimenting the sexual content within the broader political hubdub.
I say all of this from experience too. Our game just came out of a huge fantasy politics segment, and I learned a lot from trying to keep that segment engaging. That shit is hard.
- May 16, 2019
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I kinda bashed this earlier, but let me add a little more constructiveness to my criticism. One of the problems I and undoubtedly others have with the intro is this...
Say you are a big fan of erotic games and you are always looking for more good ones to play. You download game after game looking for something that appeals to you. That's a lot of time sorting through games, especially when a very small percentage are any good at all. When starting a new game you will want to get to the meat and potatoes of the experience as soon as possible to determine if this is a waste of time or something you can get into. Then you start a game and it is just line after line of dialogue that you cannot skip.. on and on.. on and on... hitting enter or clicking as fast as you can just so you can see where this is all going and if it's worth even reading all of this in the first place.
..I think you see where I am going. Putting all of this overwhelming amount of exposition at the start makes it so the player is not engaged or invested yet in what is going on. Most people aren't going to want to read all of that on the slim chance that it later becomes an interesting game.
Leading with the struggle between Mistress and Slave and THEN integrating a larger narrative into that would be far more effective at engaging the player. Of course to do that, you would need more than 2 images followed by DEMO END.. So I both feel you've structured it in a way that will turn most players off while also releasing it before even having any artwork to back your project up.
Say you are a big fan of erotic games and you are always looking for more good ones to play. You download game after game looking for something that appeals to you. That's a lot of time sorting through games, especially when a very small percentage are any good at all. When starting a new game you will want to get to the meat and potatoes of the experience as soon as possible to determine if this is a waste of time or something you can get into. Then you start a game and it is just line after line of dialogue that you cannot skip.. on and on.. on and on... hitting enter or clicking as fast as you can just so you can see where this is all going and if it's worth even reading all of this in the first place.
..I think you see where I am going. Putting all of this overwhelming amount of exposition at the start makes it so the player is not engaged or invested yet in what is going on. Most people aren't going to want to read all of that on the slim chance that it later becomes an interesting game.
Leading with the struggle between Mistress and Slave and THEN integrating a larger narrative into that would be far more effective at engaging the player. Of course to do that, you would need more than 2 images followed by DEMO END.. So I both feel you've structured it in a way that will turn most players off while also releasing it before even having any artwork to back your project up.
- Nov 26, 2018
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jeeeeeeesssusss that intro is a odysse by itself... after haveing to watch it twice i figured out how to save. You go to the neighboring room by standing in front of the wall clicking it (and therefore) opening the door where you then can click the mirror and ultimatly can save your game... thx for that 
anyway like the idea and setting... hope to see more in the future
anyway like the idea and setting... hope to see more in the future
- Oct 17, 2017
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I think a lot of the problem is just...it's not really an especially fantasy politics intro either. I'm willing to forgive an erotic game that is slow to the porn, so long as it gives me something worth having fun with to start.
- Mar 3, 2019
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We're likely going to make that available if there's enough interest for it.
Thanks for the feedback. We made the intro skippable and added a quick message on saving. The name was a tribute to our previous game "Master vs Slave". Many people wanted a game with a female mistress, so we went with that. We might change it, but I think the title will be more relevant when/if we add an option to play as the slave.
Thanks for the feedback, will pass these notes to the writer.
That shouldn't happen. Try using the keyboard instead of the mouse. Arrow keys to move, Z to select, and X to erase.
Thanks for the feedback. We made the intro skippable in the next update, whether we scratch the whole thing is undecided, but I'm seriously considering a big fix somewhere down the road. Right now, we're working on adding more stuff instead of editing the beginning. The demo could have had more content, but it was really just made as a proof-of-concept to see if people would even be interested in the game. Our next update will add much more content.
Thanks for the feedback. We fixed those issues for the next update, but always great to have people letting us know issues with the game. Thanks for the encouragement.jeeeeeeesssusss that intro is a odysse by itself... after haveing to watch it twice i figured out how to save. You go to the neighboring room by standing in front of the wall clicking it (and therefore) opening the door where you then can click the mirror and ultimatly can save your game... thx for that
anyway like the idea and setting... hope to see more in the future
- May 16, 2019
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Okay, had to erase the letters with "X" (didn't know that) first and now it works.
I wanted to let you know that I absolutely ADORE the idea behind this game. Have been looking for a female-only dom/sub game for ages and couldn't find one. So I wish you all the best.
I must admit I kinda skim through the text only getting a vague idea what is going on to set up a context for the sex scenes in these games. Often what I imagine they said is better and more tailored to my own desires than whatever is actually said.
I started that way with this game assuming the court would be a cardboard facade but soon found myself appreciating the realistic and wholly plausible political backdrop. It's rich enough to be interesting on its own even without the sex.
And then I come to realize that the politics IS the game and so far the sex is the reason to play the politics game.
AND the politics game is shaping up to actually be a good game worth playing for its own sake.
Keep it up. I want to see if this was really a good idea for a sex game. Now that the premise is laid out I want to see where this goes.
I started that way with this game assuming the court would be a cardboard facade but soon found myself appreciating the realistic and wholly plausible political backdrop. It's rich enough to be interesting on its own even without the sex.
And then I come to realize that the politics IS the game and so far the sex is the reason to play the politics game.
AND the politics game is shaping up to actually be a good game worth playing for its own sake.
Keep it up. I want to see if this was really a good idea for a sex game. Now that the premise is laid out I want to see where this goes.
- Aug 15, 2018
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Waiting for role reversal and sub path. See ya then! Looking forward to seeing how this game progresses.
- Nov 10, 2018
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- Mar 3, 2019
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We're leaning towards making both, but we're going to focus on finishing the dom route first.
I'll be keeping an eye on this going forward, there definitely is a lot of potential.
Btw I'm a professional writer and game designer IRL (if not a particularly good one), so IF YOU GUYS WANT I'd be more than willing to provide a few pointers. I know most people don't take well to random internet strangers showing up to lecture them out of nowhere (and rightfully so), so I figured I'd ASK if Noxurtica and his colleagues are interested in such help before, you know, just throwing wall of texts at them and expecting them to do what I say.
I find that keeping things professional and providing constructive criticism is kinda hard on the internet
Btw I'm a professional writer and game designer IRL (if not a particularly good one), so IF YOU GUYS WANT I'd be more than willing to provide a few pointers. I know most people don't take well to random internet strangers showing up to lecture them out of nowhere (and rightfully so), so I figured I'd ASK if Noxurtica and his colleagues are interested in such help before, you know, just throwing wall of texts at them and expecting them to do what I say.
I find that keeping things professional and providing constructive criticism is kinda hard on the internet