- Jul 26, 2017
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- 4,887
I understand where you are both coming from - there are mods which will let you change your character's name, if you want to.If that's true then that really does suck. Thankfully URM exists, giving you an option to change names among many other good features, it's saved many games from being unplayable for me just by giving me the option to change the MC's name.
However, keeping the names fixed was a conscious design choice for a couple of reasons:
1. It lets us record voice lines. Our voice actress can say other character's names and it stays consistent. If we let players enter custom names we'd have to write dialogue in an unusual manner to avoid peoples' names being said.
2. The style of game we're going for features an MC with an established background and history. They aren't a blank canvas which the player can project themselves onto.
There are two kinds of MCs in games. You have MCs with virtually no background, no name, no history. Think of the MC from Milfy City where the player can name them, and then project themselves onto this character. Their background is generic and a lot is left up to the player's imagination. They're blank canvases.
Mommy's Boy is different in that the MC, Lauren, isn't a blank canvas. The player can empathise with Lauren and guide her actions going forward, but she still has her own personal history, baggage, etc. Most of which the player won't fully know until more of the story unfolds.
Mommy's Boy isn't a game where the plot neatly opens up at the beginning and you get the full growth of relationships developing over time, like Milfy City. Rather, you're viewing a microcosm of Lauren's life in the final arc of these characters' stories.
When the game begins:
Lauren's marriage has already ended a long time ago.
Lauren's relationship with her sister, Casey, is already broken beyond repair.
Lauren's parents are no longer an active presence in her life.
All that remains is her underachieving son, Jacob - the last good thing in her life which she clings to.
In spite of everything, Lauren has finished climbing the corporate ladder as a single mother and achieved financial security for her and Jacob. In any other medium, this would be the happy/bittersweet ending.
However, this is an NTR and corruption story, so we don't get the credits rolling alongside an upbeat tune.
Everything that has happened before the game begins haunts Lauren as Vicki closes in on her son.
All the unresolved issues of her husband abandoning her.
The broken bond with her younger sister.
The absence of her own parents.
Sure, you could change Lauren's name if you want, but I think she works much better as a predetermined protagonist.