Absolutely fantastic game. I've been bingeing games on the site for a bit recently (including the ones everyone recommends as the best ever), and this is quite possibly one of the best I've found here. Or pretty much anywhere in the AVN genre. Part of that is almost certainly my own biases and preferences, but I'm getting more enjoyment out of it than I have most actual AAA game releases lately.
Also, I absolutely loved the werewolf dialogue option, and I picked it
every single time it came up. And then yelped with joy during the conversation with Mara where you basically go "Ehh, screw it, I'm going to infodump the entire supernatural world in your lap right now", and she has the same reply.
For a bit of insight into how Mythos came about -- this was originally a story I'd outlined for a novel I was going to write.
Out of curiosity, was it a story inspired by White Wolf? Because almost every plot point introduced was pinging hard off my World of Darkness radar. Like, the Convocation and the Bureau feel like the Traditions and Technocracy (and the Convocation's lair feels like a textbook Chantry + Cabal), the Cult of the Void
screams Nephandi, and your crack team of magical girls is basically a Virtual Adept, a Nunnehi Changeling (Rain's even referred to as a Nunnehi at one point), a Get of Fenris, and a Sphinx (Mummy? A Bygone?). Also, depending on how things go we might be able to throw Lisa in as a ghost (vis-a-vis the dream), and maybe our officer friend counts as a Hunter?
Plus, I'm half waiting for the mysterious vampire girl at the party to eventually join our
harem team to fill the vampire quota.
I mean, sure, it could just be inspired by the "modern urban horror" genre in general, or something specific like the Dresden Files, but a lot of those were directly inspired by White Wolf, too. But it almost feels like too much matches up perfectly for it to just be a coincidence.
In fact, about half the main characters look like the
exact sort of characters some of my old friends would have made for a World of Darkness game. You weren't active on any "by Night" sites online about 20 years ago, were you?
I have to say, I'm honestly glad that Tara seems to be so well-received; one of my big worries was that she, in particular, would be disliked.
So far she's pretty much the only one I even remotely thought about actively romancing. While I wasn't 100% sold on the model/hairstyle, her being the childhood friend who's had a crush for
years and being open about it led me to pick the "Maybe we can be casual about this" option to start some sort of relationship with her. Then I reassured her later when it became a question again. My MC is also feeling moderately protective of her at the moment.
Granted, I
did go for the sex magic ritual with Rain (I thought about choosing the no-sex/kissing option, but then decided the MC
really wanted to solve this case so would opt for the more powerful ritual with the better chance of succeeding), and I've been flirting outrageously with a certain police officer of recent acquaintance (at the moment more as a joke than fully serious), but I've been passing up other opportunities (let B sleep on the couch and told Sophia I just wanted to be friends), and I'll probably stick to that relative pattern (like turning Rain down if the offer comes up later and it's not directly magically connected to solving the case).
(Which reminds me - I got a relatively minor bug (that may not be a bug, just unimplemented future stuff) in the recap at the end, because it mentions how Sophia and I "explored each other's bodies", when we didn't. I just picked the first minor flirt-ish option to verify that she actually WAS interested in me, and then friend-zoned her hard. No clue if that's a bug, or just something that will work properly when the next chapter gets added.)
I will say, though, I hope there's no ending down the line where it turns out which LIs we've romanced and which ones we haven't all factor into some endgame boss confrontation where celibacy gets us killed/dooms the world/results in a downer ending. Ideally, even celibate players should be able to get the best ending, while everyone else should feel free to pick and choose without having to worry about game mechanics shackling them to "optimal" romances.
I'm finding the overall story to be way more interesting/engaging than the romances anyway, for the most part. I could easily play this game if there was no up-front sex scenes at all.
I honestly wish I had some way of knowing how many people chose to not pet the cat, but there's no way to do that without the game sending me information and that'd look awful! I'm just going to assume everyone pet her.
I'm very much a dog person in real life, so I'd totally have passed that cat by without a second glance.
...except this is the Internet, and I
know how most Internet-savvy people feel about cats. So I petted the
fuck out of that cat on the off chance that it was the secret variable that would lock me out of the best ending of the game because
of course you needed to pet the cat for the happily ever after.
Though to be fair, even the moment it showed up I was half-convinced that it was the secret mastermind behind everything anyway. A suspicion
not dispelled when it showed up at my house with the invitation. So you obviously want to stay on Mr. Mistoffelees's good side...