What?
Odd. That was pretty much the core of what I have experiened in Mystwood Manor. I had to make choices about what to invest in, which skills to train my workers in, which inventory items to give them.
There is even a banker and a loan that will eventually need to be paid once it is implemented. And eventually a difficulty slider so people can make it a bit harder if they want.
I even failed to please some customers later on in the game. Once you have more workers I had to make some choices about who to put in certain spots as some girls didn't have the skill to satisfy the particular customer. Julia can do most everything the best, but she can't endlessly work, so you have to decide how best to use her.
At one point one of my rooms broke as I wasn't able to manage the maintenance and everything else. Some combinations of guests can take thought.
Seems like management to me. Could it have more management aspects? Yes. For instance, I would like to see more penalty for failing to provide service.
Not that different than Monster Girl Club Bifrost, or maybe that game isn't a management game to you? Yes, in the current state Mystwood Manory isn't nearly as complicated, but in time I hope they will add more and more management elements.
I have no problems with criticism that is designed to improve the game, the problem is that the vast majority of criticism towards anything labeled as "management" or "sandbox" basically boils down to "remove all the game elements so I can click through the dialog real fast and cum."
You are a fan of wicked rouge as i just caught on and that was the game i mentioned which i found to be very similar.
That game is actually quite pretty for it being illusion character and render based but lost interest when the fighting started and i'm not a fan of prostitution therefor the whole premise wasen't as fun for me anyway.
I'm definetly guilty of never having played Monster Girl Bifrost.
If the screenshots arent faked the game may at least be faster paced as there is a girl fingered on day 1 week 1.
Coming back to topic i can see where youre coming from and i even follow you at least when i comes to the complaint about complainers part more or less.
I havent played at least the last 2 version mystwood manor tbh and were coming into this thread in hope of reading something along the lines of "the wait was worth it" or "these scenes are so hot" or maybe a hot screenshot just something that would give me reason to think its worth another try or that it would have changed a bit for the better from my view.
But there isnt much about that to be found here.
So i came across your post and i gave you my 2 cents about how i see this game and why it does seem to me the way it does.
And yes it qualifies for the term management game in a very very casual way for most people
I would be more specific and would call it a micromanagement game. But later more on that.
The game itself is kinda a weird bastard child of the designs i already mentioned and it has elements of all of them. Its part vn part sandbox and part casual game.
Evident sandbox elements are the visits to the rooms for example imho as they function exactly like that.
So when you find sis sleeping, ghost visit and stuff like that that is depending of time and progress made in the game. sometimes that is also triggered by what location you visit when. So thats pure sandbox behaviour at least in porngame s.
The vn is the start and the plot about the whole 3 hotel mistery and that stuff.
As for management...
As you said yourself the deep consequences aren't really there.
There are not many real choices to be made.
It really seems very hard to really loose.
The only punishement of room breaking for example or any other thing you may fuck up is that you would fall back to tier one guest and that current higher class guest would be unhappy leaving so progress is halted for a time until room is fixed again.
Its not like you forget to buy a fire extinguisher and the hotel goes up in flames or so.
At least not that i know of and i dont think that many want that at this tbh.
A credit that is there by default isnt a choice either.
It is true that one has to keep an eye on what guest want when. But that is also just more of an memory exercise as it is presented from the start and does then result in just you having to keep that in mind and putting staff into the rooms and dont overlap guests that arent compatible to each other at least in the start when you don't have enough personal to have all rooms staffed.
All of that is called micromanagement and is more or less the worst thing a real manager can do btw.
Normal management games bring tools or ways to ease the pain in regards of managing the staff and what they should be doing via time tables and stuff so one can think about the bigger picture. Thats what makes this so grindy and casual as it focuses on the parts noone would actually care about everyday, they would layout a plan for a week and fix issues like sickness or something unplanned happening.
The fun of managing is planning and then seeing these plans come to live and fix errors and whatnot.
The controlling part i liked but as i said that is more sandbox and part of the progress of the vn in the end than its that big of an influence for the management part.
Wasting your brainpower on minigame of what meal fits the desire of a customer a hundred times over isnt managing either. If one would do that you would be the biggest management fail ever.
You have also a lot of choices that aren't real and could just happen by default as they actually come up.
All the room unlocking is basicly pre set or severely punished. Upgrades are also tier locked and there is little room of gameplay outcomes for these either.
There is also no choice in staff and thats also understandable as it would be way to much overhead to make characters and renders for replacements. That just isnt possible for a one man team .. but its also takes away from the management part.
Are there parts of the game i can completly neglect in one playthrough and then have a diffrent experience in another?
Could i play through without opening the pool or maybe the sauna or any other room.
Can i not take a credit?
So yeah i see this as more of an illusion of management due to its very casual style and the rest being about story and sandbox events.
But i can also understand why most would put it under that category without thinking twice about it.
My intention btw is not bashing on this to no end as i really think this is quite an achievement for a one man project.
I do respect and know how much effort it took to make this.
So this is more a friendly discourse about definitions of gameplay and rewards and whatnot.
I really have no problem people having a good time playing this and i dont wanna take that from them at all.
And yea this is kinda the odd choice of words coming from me as i do gave it a bad review a while back when i was just very annoyed how grindy it felt for me and how there was no sexual gratification at all to be found to kinda have a reason to play at all. And of course that can be a total diffrent thing if someone is enjoying the minigames and stuff.
For now i am not downloading it again until its actually finished or i hear that the grind has more fluff added.
I hope to have reason to change my review then.
Since its late and i copied and pasted here and there this may have become somewhat out of order and i went sloppy with grammar too more than i would have wanted...sorry for that...
