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GGGB vs ORS: Main characters
One of the things that made GGGB unique was the
female POV of the story. Most adult VN are written and played by men, so it’s natural the male POV is the prevalent one. When I started GGGB there were a few female POV games out there, but most of them were, how to put this... not too well done.
Writing from a female POV was something that for some reason appealed to me, and I thought I could do a better job than what most people were doing at that moment. It also allowed me to explore some erotic themes from a fresh and cool perspective, and it was just fun. So I took this angle and went with it. Some people had trouble playing from Ashley’s POV, but a lot of you really loved it.
Ashley as a character was rather plain, a fairly simple model that could be
easily transformed by your choices. My main contribution was writing her like a coherent character, delving into her inner monologue and elaborating into her feelings and personal relationships. It was fun seeing how this simple girl could change, fight for what she believed in or fall prey to lust. I know most people expected me to keep doing the same when GGGB was finished and ORS was announced, but I knew I didn’t want to repeat myself. It’s important for me to keep things interesting and fun for myself, and I knew I needed to go beyond what Ashley provided as a main character.
The choice of going with a double protagonist was a bold and risky one, but it’s one I stand by.
Lena is true to GGGB spirit, giving the player a female POV similar to Ashley’s, but introducing a male POV was something I had been wanting to do for quite a while. Dave, Eric and Jack were NPCs I really enjoyed writing, and often I imagines the story from their perspective. Ian would allow me to create just that, and intertwining his POV with Lena’s also allowed me to explore branching storyline and choice mechanics in a new way I hadn’t seen done before. It was a challenge that motivated me and opened up a lot of new door for me and for the player. But that wasn’t the only change from GGGB.
Some people have said that Ashley felt like a blank slate in which the player could insert his particular vision, compared to Lena and Ian, which feel like their own person, with their own and particular personality and past. That’s not exactly true, since Ashley also has a certain personality and a past. But it’s true Lena and Ian have a lot more entity as characters than her. That’s because
they have scars. You could say what builds a character (and what builds our own personalities) are wounds. Let’s look at Harry Potter, for lack of a better example: he carries the literal wound that defines his character on his forehead. Jon Snow is a bastard, Naruto hosts a cursed beast inside him, etc. etc... A good character has a wound that defines him.
Ashley had a background, but no real wounds: those happened during the game and shaped her (Eric leaving, her family falling apart, etc). On the other hand, Lena and Ian start the game heavily defined by a recent wound that ties into their character and their motivations. This is what make them feel more interesting and “real” as characters, and when I talk about ORS being a more focused and nuanced game experience I’m talking about things like these.
I know many of you are on the fence about the new double protagonist approach, but I hope you can enjoy the new angle it provides. Did you like Ashley or Lena more? And do you enjoy having a
GGGB-like experience but with a male POV in Ian? I surely enjoy writing it, and playing around with his relationships, especially Cindy's
!
