VN Ren'Py My Dorm [v0.28.4 S4 Ch.1] [Tropecita Games]

[HornyyPussy]

Well, this is a harem game with a bit of pain, but in the end everyone is happy. There are other games that start out as harem games and end up forcing you to make choices that break your heart. E.g., Where the Heart Is.

In all fairness Gino, WTHI was never made as a Harem game, Cheeky was clear about that from the start (the bastard!).

 

[Trope95]

Well, this is a harem game with a bit of pain, but in the end everyone is happy. There are other games that start out as harem games and end up forcing you to make choices that break your heart. E.g., Where the Heart Is.

In all fairness Gino, WTHI was never made as a Harem game, Cheeky was clear about that from the start (the bastard!).

I've heard a lot about that game, and I'm happy I didn't do that with any of the girls (my initial idea for Kate was that she could only enter the harem if Kim was in, but I changed my mind about it due to community feedback). Having to choose only one (or two, or three) girls once you know the others would be heartbreaking to write.

 

[HornyyPussy]

I've heard a lot about that game, and I'm happy I didn't do that with any of the girls (my initial idea for Kate was that she could only enter the harem if Kim was in, but I changed my mind about it due to community feedback). Having to choose only one (or two, or three) girls once you know the others would be heartbreaking to write.

yeah, I've stopped playing new VN's without a Harem (or at least Poly) since I hate having to choose between LI's.

 

[fromcsabi]

There are a lot of those, but they end up fucking or in a sexual scene (Emma, after the truth or dare game, is the best example, or Scarlett after the DNA reveal).

They are great scenes and I wouldn't want to substract from those. That is why I recommended some low code and low CG scenes.

Talking seriously, Amanda is special. If everyone did what she did, her specialness would be diluted.

And she feels special. I wouldn't want everyone to do it, but I would like her (and some similar themed girls) to do it more often. I really looking forward to more Amanda content (both the sex scenes and the romance).

Once again, overusing something with a character whose excitement about a relationship can be shown in other ways, would detract from the scene where it really matters. If Emma sneaked into the MC's room a lot, Kim doing it after the yacht scene would look childish by association instead of wholesome.

I probably playing favorites here, but personally I care much less about Kim then Emma.
Probably Amanda and Emma are my favorites for different reasons (and Eva has the best model I think). Purely selfish reasons I would like them to be even more flashed out as characters.

And about the kissing out of nowhere, I've been saving it for another character for the same reasons above.

I'm sure it will be great but still feeling a bit sad about it (reasons above).

Emma is childish, but she's also intelligent (when she takes a moment to think before acting).

Probably my favorite non-sexual/romantic scene is when the cousins and Emma sleeping with MC (after a glorious 4some) and comes Aunt Betty. Than everybody got scared but the little troublemaker said with a smile: "come in, Aunt Betty", it was golden.
She was right, why hide it anymore.

 

[blkcrow20]

there is a funny thing... and I know it is dumb AF, but I couldn't bring myself to betray Erika and seeing her temporally hurt by that (I know her path wouldn't close) so I have abandoned auntie path and lost out of her steamy content just to not see Erika hurt.
(I'm also a hypocrite because I wasn't on only path with her)
What I am getting at is I understand VinnneV's feelings about that. One does not simply hurt Erika.


BTW I wish there were more content like Amanda's when they just lied in bed and talked. Holding hands, looking eachother's eyes, kissing... even just as the narrator saying so. It could really sell the romance.
Also I really liked Emma's selfish/childish behavior at the beginning. I would have liked to see her demand more attention for herself by sneaking into MC's bed even for just sleeping or giving him kisses constantly without a care of the world.
These are some low code and CG content ideas.

I know, I know it is not a romance VN, unpopular opinion: but I would like more romance in my adult content

There is a ton of romance in this AVN.

 

[blkcrow20]

yeah, I've stopped playing new VN's without a Harem (or at least Poly) since I hate having to choose between LI's.

I don't have to have harem but there at least needs to be a poly or throuple route for me. I won't play AVNs that are solo LI only routes/endings.

 

[Chillout1984]

There is a ton of romance in this AVN.

True. Especially with Debby, Eva and Amanda. Most other girls have a decent amount of romance, but imo not that much compared to those three (at least when comparing screentime).

I'm currently just past the moment where MC asked Amanda about Eva's necklace. Looking at Amanda's expression, I'm a bit scared to find out, but also very curious.

 

[johnny0183]

yeah, I've stopped playing new VN's without a Harem (or at least Poly) since I hate having to choose between LI's.

I sometimes play non-harem games however I have noticed I'm significantly less relaxed playing them. I'm always concerned picking the wrong option locking me out of scenes with my chosen love interest for that play-through. On top of that, especially when you first play a game, you usually like to see as much of the game as possible. This becomes a problem if that would require dating multiple girls at the same time or you´d miss seeing 3/4th of the game.
So in that aspect I can fully understand your decision to just stop playing non-harem games all together.

 

[Rehwyn]

I sometimes play non-harem games however I have noticed I'm significantly less relaxed playing them. I'm always concerned picking the wrong option locking me out of scenes with my chosen love interest for that play-through. On top of that, especially when you first play a game, you usually like to see as much of the game as possible. This becomes a problem if that would require dating multiple girls at the same time or you´d miss seeing 3/4th of the game.
So in that aspect I can fully understand your decision to just stop playing non-harem games all together.

I've come to the conclusion that non-poly/harem games appeal most to people that either 1) know they're going to do several playthroughs before even starting and are fine picking 1 LI from the start or 2) have a personal preference or bias against CNM.

I'm neither of those, as I start an AVN expecting I'll play it once and that's likely it. And I'm very open to CNM.

So yeah, there needs to be something very special about a monogamy-only AVN nowadays for me to start it. Otherwise I'll likely get more bang for my buck and time reading an AVN where I won't miss huge amounts of the content.

 

[Chillout1984]

I've come to the conclusion that non-poly/harem games appeal most to people that either 1) know they're going to do several playthroughs before even starting and are fine picking 1 LI from the start or 2) have a personal preference or bias against CNM.

I'm neither of those, as I start an AVN expecting I'll play it once and that's likely it. And I'm very open to CNM.

So yeah, there needs to be something very special about a monogamy-only AVN nowadays for me to start it. Otherwise I'll likely get more bang for my buck and time reading an AVN where I won't miss huge amounts of the content.

Often I don't even know if an AVN I'm playing has harem content or not before starting it, especially starting about 2 years or so ago when I preferred to buy games through Steam instead of pirating them.

I don't really care if a game has harem or not, as long as the story is good, the characters are mostly enjoyable (especially MC) and the porn doesn't take that much importance in the game. However I prefer a game that need multiple playthroughs to get all content to justify the price.

If I should guess I'm probably about 75 to 90% in season 3 of this game (I'm just past the part where we find out Jam and Anthony are dating, and i'm guessing it's pretty clear what Ant's secret is to everybody who closely read Dr. Milk's dialogue about who she was with at the club.) and I still love it. That doesn't happen too often considering the amount of playtime each episode has. I can't think of any other game with this amount of playtime where I skip next to nothing except some sex scenes (because I'm more interested at what's going to happen in to story if something interesting is hinted at).

 

[Rehwyn]

I don't really care if a game has harem or not, as long as the story is good, the characters are mostly enjoyable (especially MC) and the porn doesn't take that much importance in the game. However I prefer a game that need multiple playthroughs to get all content to justify the price.

Yeah, like I said, I suspect that many people that expect or want to do multiple playthroughs are more tolerant of AVNs without poly/harem.

But I know from personal experience that I don't. Unless it's literally one of my top 10% of AVNs, a second playthrough usually feels like a chore to me rather than something I enjoy. And I can count on one hand the number of AVNs I've done a third or more playthrough.

So for games where I can only experience a fraction of content on a single playthrough, I feel like I'm buying content I'll never see.

 

[FatGiant]

Yeah, like I said, I suspect that many people that expect or want to do multiple playthroughs are more tolerant of AVNs without poly/harem.

But I know from personal experience that I don't. Unless it's literally one of my top 10% of AVNs, a second playthrough usually feels like a chore to me rather than something I enjoy. And I can count on one hand the number of AVNs I've done a third or more playthrough.

So for games where I can only experience a fraction of content on a single playthrough, I feel like I'm buying content I'll never see.

To this I can only add the absolute horror shows that are the games where you are almost "forced" to engage with several LI's, develop relationships, and after all that "Choose one".

I can "almost" respect a One LI game, IF, and only IF, the choice is made very very early, before anything happens with anyone, before you have invested time and feelings. To my recollection I've seen it only once. All others are "Try before you buy" and that is absolutely repugnant.

Right now, I have playthroughs with 2 games of that type, both very famous, one keeps throwing LI's in my face, taking them away right after, the other allowed me to choose early, and it is respectful enough to not even suggest anything with anyone else. Both are only played for the story, but the 1st one is probably getting dropped if that behavior continues. A choice is required, it was made, respect it. That's the bare minimum.

Peace

 

[JoeTheMC84]

Yeah, like I said, I suspect that many people that expect or want to do multiple playthroughs are more tolerant of AVNs without poly/harem.

But I know from personal experience that I don't. Unless it's literally one of my top 10% of AVNs, a second playthrough usually feels like a chore to me rather than something I enjoy. And I can count on one hand the number of AVNs I've done a third or more playthrough.

So for games where I can only experience a fraction of content on a single playthrough, I feel like I'm buying content I'll never see.

Games that try to force more than one playthrough especially feel like a chore if the only difference is that on play 1 you get girl A, but on play 2 you get girl B. And that's what most non-harem games end up like. You went with girl A to the cafe in that run, but the movies with girl B in this run! So different,

Even AAA games with millions of dollars and teams of devs that have multiple endings often only get played once by most players. Statistically most players don't replay games that are story based (Edit: or any games really, even strategy game like Total War and such often don't get the majority of players to keep playing them after beating a campaign with one faction). Not to mention that even those can botch the ending being different, relatively even in gratification, and all are impactful. Looking at you Mass Effect 3. And even story games that do have dedicated player bases, like Skyrim, most players replay and make the same choices because those are the choices they like, the story they want is the same, they just try different builds or challenges, and they may have never even tried a different ending or choice in a story moment.

But some AVN devs seem to think that they will make girl B's date at the movie so meaningful and so different from girl A's date at the same movie theater (since its the only daz asset they probably have ) that players will obviously want to play the whole game again.

And all of that is before even get into what FatGiant brought up.

...
All others are "Try before you buy" and that is absolutely repugnant.
...

This is how a lot of non-harems just play like harems for a huge chunk of the game. Which on one hand makes sense, the devs want you to have seen all the girls before you pick one, but they also feel like they each need a sex scene too because they see AVNs as porn often (which they aren't they are erotica), which ends up giving an incongruent experience. And it ends up begging the question of why make the player pick just one girl after that? They always give excuses like "realism," or "character reasons," but you already violated both of those by having the "Try before you buy" experience in the first place. Most guys irl don't get to fool around at the same time with 4+ (let alone the higher numbers that some games that still force a choice have) girls and then pick one like that, and most chicks aren't going to be down for that either if they aren't down for that, as in if they wouldn't also be fairly easy to convince that they should just keep the same status quo going since it works. Most guys are lucky if they can get one girl at a time. Especially in the modern era where a lot of chicks are using aps and something like 80% of chicks are hooking up with 20% of guys and about 60% of guys between 18-30 are either virgins or have only had 1-2 sexual partner their whole life. So, if you've got the Mc that can land more than one chick at a time anyway, and you've chicks that are already willing to be in a de-facto harem anyway for much of the story, then why wouldn't you just have a harem route?

Anyway, ramble over,

 

[Jaga Telesin]

yeah, I've stopped playing new VN's without a Harem (or at least Poly) since I hate having to choose between LI's.

I'm pretty much the same way. Only games that are pseudo-legendary (LoF comes to mind) are ones that squeak by and I really enjoy despite there being no harem. Getting invested in girls I know I won't end up with feels a bit like being robbed.

Games with very little to no "stable for-the-MC-only" girls like one I just replayed (Pa.. Car.......) but which have plenty of lewd sexy times are my only exceptions, since I get to go full pervert in them for fun. They're harem-but-non-harem, so they get a pass.

 

[blkcrow20]

This is how a lot of non-harems just play like harems for a huge chunk of the game. Which on one hand makes sense, the devs want you to have seen all the girls before you pick one, but they also feel like they each need a sex scene too because they see AVNs as porn often (which they aren't they are erotica), which ends up giving an incongruent experience. And it ends up begging the question of why make the player pick just one girl after that? They always give excuses like "realism," or "character reasons," but you already violated both of those by having the "Try before you buy" experience in the first place. Most guys irl don't get to fool around at the same time with 4+ (let alone the higher numbers that some games that still force a choice have) girls and then pick one like that, and most chicks aren't going to be down for that either if they aren't down for that, as in if they wouldn't also be fairly easy to convince that they should just keep the same status quo going since it works. Most guys are lucky if they can get one girl at a time. Especially in the modern era where a lot of chicks are using aps and something like 80% of chicks are hooking up with 20% of guys and about 60% of guys between 18-30 are either virgins or have only had 1-2 sexual partner their whole life. So, if you've got the Mc that can land more than one chick at a time anyway, and you've chicks that are already willing to be in a de-facto harem anyway for much of the story, then why wouldn't you just have a harem route?

Anyway, ramble over,

My feeling exactly. I dislike when they do this, allow you to 'manwhore' with every girl but then force you to chose one. A couple that do allow you to manwhore though, have throuple paths also, like Office Perks, but that works for me because I pick my throuple and don't chase the other girls. Then I am a happy camper.

 

[snakeplisskin]

My feeling exactly. I dislike when they do this, allow you to 'manwhore' with every girl but then force you to chose one. A couple that do allow you to manwhore though, have throuple paths also, like Office Perks, but that works for me because I pick my throuple and don't chase the other girls. Then I am a happy camper.

I need to give Office perks another go. I liked it at first but then got burnt out.

 

[Rehwyn]

To this I can only add the absolute horror shows that are the games where you are almost "forced" to engage with several LI's, develop relationships, and after all that "Choose one".

I can "almost" respect a One LI game, IF, and only IF, the choice is made very very early, before anything happens with anyone, before you have invested time and feelings. To my recollection I've seen it only once. All others are "Try before you buy" and that is absolutely repugnant.

Right now, I have playthroughs with 2 games of that type, both very famous, one keeps throwing LI's in my face, taking them away right after, the other allowed me to choose early, and it is respectful enough to not even suggest anything with anyone else. Both are only played for the story, but the 1st one is probably getting dropped if that behavior continues. A choice is required, it was made, respect it. That's the bare minimum.

Peace

Games that try to force more than one playthrough especially feel like a chore if the only difference is that on play 1 you get girl A, but on play 2 you get girl B. And that's what most non-harem games end up like. You went with girl A to the cafe in that run, but the movies with girl B in this run! So different,

Even AAA games with millions of dollars and teams of devs that have multiple endings often only get played once by most players. Statistically most players don't replay games that are story based (Edit: or any games really, even strategy game like Total War and such often don't get the majority of players to keep playing them after beating a campaign with one faction). Not to mention that even those can botch the ending being different, relatively even in gratification, and all are impactful. Looking at you Mass Effect 3. And even story games that do have dedicated player bases, like Skyrim, most players replay and make the same choices because those are the choices they like, the story they want is the same, they just try different builds or challenges, and they may have never even tried a different ending or choice in a story moment.

But some AVN devs seem to think that they will make girl B's date at the movie so meaningful and so different from girl A's date at the same movie theater (since its the only daz asset they probably have ) that players will obviously want to play the whole game again.

And all of that is before even get into what FatGiant brought up.

This is how a lot of non-harems just play like harems for a huge chunk of the game. Which on one hand makes sense, the devs want you to have seen all the girls before you pick one, but they also feel like they each need a sex scene too because they see AVNs as porn often (which they aren't they are erotica), which ends up giving an incongruent experience. And it ends up begging the question of why make the player pick just one girl after that? They always give excuses like "realism," or "character reasons," but you already violated both of those by having the "Try before you buy" experience in the first place. Most guys irl don't get to fool around at the same time with 4+ (let alone the higher numbers that some games that still force a choice have) girls and then pick one like that, and most chicks aren't going to be down for that either if they aren't down for that, as in if they wouldn't also be fairly easy to convince that they should just keep the same status quo going since it works. Most guys are lucky if they can get one girl at a time. Especially in the modern era where a lot of chicks are using aps and something like 80% of chicks are hooking up with 20% of guys and about 60% of guys between 18-30 are either virgins or have only had 1-2 sexual partner their whole life. So, if you've got the Mc that can land more than one chick at a time anyway, and you've chicks that are already willing to be in a de-facto harem anyway for much of the story, then why wouldn't you just have a harem route?

Anyway, ramble over,

Perhaps it's a regional or cultural thing, but those types of AVNs don't bother me that much if some conditions are met. Specifically if:

1) The LIs have no expectation of early exclusivity. It's the norm where I live for people to date multiple times over 1-3 months before talking if you want to go exclusive. Of course, it's probably not the norm to be having wild and frequent sex with 6+ people during this period, but it's not unusual to be sexually active either.
2) It's telegraphed early that some degree of exclusivity or boundaries is eventually expected, rather than just sprung on you.
3) When you do need to pick, you're not dramatically punished for not having been monogamous even when exclusivity wasn't expected.

It's still not my preference, and it's improved if there's throuple or other poly options (even if not full harem). But I still prefer it over AVNs that have like 6 LIs but start forcing you down exclusive paths toward monogamy like 20% through, or that deeply punish you for something silly like going on first dates with two women (the horror!).

 

[jI11jaCksjAkk]

Yeah, like I said, I suspect that many people that expect or want to do multiple playthroughs are more tolerant of AVNs without poly/harem.

But I know from personal experience that I don't. Unless it's literally one of my top 10% of AVNs, a second playthrough usually feels like a chore to me rather than something I enjoy. And I can count on one hand the number of AVNs I've done a third or more playthrough.

So for games where I can only experience a fraction of content on a single playthrough, I feel like I'm buying content I'll never see.

Agreed.

It would be one thing if there were guaranteed big changes to the story depending on which LI path you chose, so that at least it would be like a mostly new game in the same world with each playthrough. But IME very few games have significant unique content for each path outside of lewd scenes - much of the plot is usually only lightly modified.

AVNs are not Shakespeare, so I don't want to read the same meh, formulaic story 5 times to get to see the content for all the interesting LIs. To paraphrase Patrick Henry: give me harem or give me breadth (of unique storytelling.) I can't think of a single time I have completely re-played an entire game intentionally (as opposed to accidentallyforgetfully) just to play a different path ...although I probably will replay the Mia games eventually because an otherwise mediocre dev group accidentally wrote amazing and emotionally engaging characters before trying to force NTR garbage in everyone's faces. I play through games once making my best choices and then move on to another game.

I have gone back to galleries once or twice to view lewd scenes I missed, but I just don't understand people who are driven to re-play the same average game over and over and over to make sure not to miss a single render or one alternate word of dialogue unless OCD is in some way involved. I have a massive backlog (and a massive log, of course ) of games that seemed interesting enough to DL but have not yet gotten around to playing, and if there are lulls with no updates to games that I enjoy enough to actively follow then I would rather try something new than re-play a generic "new" path in a game I have already played.

 

[Rehwyn]

Agreed.

It would be one thing if there were guaranteed big changes to the story depending on which LI path you chose, so that at least it would be like a mostly new game in the same world with each playthrough. But IME very few games have significant unique content for each path outside of lewd scenes - much of the plot is usually only lightly modified.

AVNs are not Shakespeare, so I don't want to read the same meh, formulaic story 5 times to get to see the content for all the interesting LIs. To paraphrase Patrick Henry: give me harem or give me breadth (of unique storytelling.) I can't think of a single time I have completely re-played an entire game intentionally (as opposed to accidentallyforgetfully) just to play a different path ...although I probably will replay the Mia games eventually because an otherwise mediocre dev group accidentally wrote amazing and emotionally engaging characters before trying to force NTR garbage in everyone's faces. I play through games once making my best choices and then move on to another game.

I have gone back to galleries once or twice to view lewd scenes I missed, but I just don't understand people who are driven to re-play the same average game over and over and over to make sure not to miss a single render or one alternate word of dialogue unless OCD is in some way involved. I have a massive backlog (and a massive log, of course ) of games that seemed interesting enough to DL but have not yet gotten around to playing, and if there are lulls with no updates to games that I enjoy enough to actively follow then I would rather try something new than re-play a generic "new" path in a game I have already played.

In my case, I do generally prefer story-first AVNs. But my enjoyment of that comes from the immersion and from narrative and character being revealed throughout the process of reading it.

A second playthrough where I already know the characters and plot rarely has that same feeling, unless it's extremely well written and I can catch tons of hidden clues and foreshadowing that are only clear with full knowledge. And Ctrl-skipping just to see missed scenes and renders of course completely kills that immersive discovery because I only see them in isolation and not with the intended surrounding context, flow, and narrative timing.

Those factors, and a limited availability of time, are the main reasons I personally rarely do more than one playthrough of an AVN.

 

[fromcsabi]

In my case, I do generally prefer story-first AVNs. But my enjoyment of that comes from the immersion and from narrative and character being revealed throughout the process of reading it.

A second playthrough where I already know the characters and plot rarely has that same feeling, unless it's extremely well written and I can catch tons of hidden clues and foreshadowing that are only clear with full knowledge. And Ctrl-skipping just to see missed scenes and renders of course completely kills that immersive discovery because I only see them in isolation and not with the intended surrounding context, flow, and narrative timing.

Those factors, and a limited availability of time, are the main reasons I personally rarely do more than one playthrough of an AVN.

Similar here. I like small harem style playing, RPing the first playthrough.
If there is a promise of good, missed content then I do a second playthrough with Ctrl-skipping the seen parts.
First one is the head-canon and the second is just the what could have been.

If I don't like the story and not worth my time, I usually just decompiling, playlisting the videos and skimming the pictures.

MyDorm is one of the good ones. I will probably do a second playthrough when it finished to see if I had miss anything important.