Deleted member 1044747

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That's not how i view it. You play a game to win, if it's a video game, chess, basketball or wathever. A PC/MC is your brick that you move around and maneuver to achive your goal/win. A VN is usually a text based game, where you control your "brick" in an effort to win or reach your desired conclusion. Any type of game that gives you the choices or control a character actions is clearly designed to be viewed from the MC's prespective. I feel what you is describing is a more like a kinetic novel, which is a pointless media in my opinion, since books or movies will do the job better. As I have a hard time dealing with "walls of text" on no player agency in games.
I get your point, even though I disagree in some regards.

First off, taking NTR as an (extreme) example was probably not a good idea on my part - a less controversial example would have been a female protagonist.

A lot of people (men) who immerse themselves in actually being the MC seem to have issues with female protagonists.

I also witness this mentality in MMORPGs.
"I'm a guy, I would never play a female char - that's weird!"
Funnily enough people with such mindset don't have a problem playing an orc or an undead char, even though they aren't orcs or undead IRL (I surely hope they aren't ;)).
I don't really get it because these are roleplaying games after all...

And that's exactly how adult games work for me - they are roleplaying games.
I can assume the role of a straight guy, a lesbian girl, a gay guy, heck... why not even a dog if it's a compelling story...

But back to what your wrote:
Of course there are moments of "yes, I did it" in adult games, but for the most part I'm playing them to experience a good story, not to 'win' them.

Also, kinetic novels are completely fine in my book.
An adult novel doesn't necessarily need choices in order to captivate me.
It's just another medium, an illustrated adult book if you want.

A prime example would be
https://f95zone.to/threads/one-last-salty-kiss-v1-2-1-fullmontis.29036/

It's a kinetic novel which ends with the MC losing his loved one (and no - it's not about NTR ;)).
Still, it's one of the best adult novels I've read so far...

...but as always: Different strokes for different folks (no pun intended ;)).
 
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J1215

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Dec 15, 2019
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I like it if I can choose only one protagonist to play for!

If there are two protagonists, then you have to choose actions not only for one protagonist, but also take into account the interests of another protagonist. This significantly narrows the player’s choice.

When one protagonist, then more freedom in choice and action. You can play here, taking into account the interests of only one protagonist. Here you can choose the actions that really like!
 
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This is why personally, I'm not doing the Lena/Ian route. It's weird doing a romance path of 2 characters that you control. It is like I'm dating myself lol.
Same, I don't want to go the Lena/Ian route right away, I want to explore first then I'll go for the obvious choice... I just realised that I actually have that kind of behavior in almost any games with exploration, like in Skyrim for exemple where I spent so much time exploring and doing side quests before doing the main quest :giggle:
You play a game to win
Although I understand what you mean, the actual reason why we play games is first to entertain ourselves then goes the secondary goal which would be winning to some people ;)
 

John Doe Jr.

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Jun 11, 2017
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I think that's the crux.

Some people refuse to distinguish between themselves and the MC - which is completely fine (some VNs even encourage this view by letting you name the MC after yourself).

On the other hand this perception seems to be the main reason why certain genres like NTR get so much flak - it's mainly because some people take things (too) personally.

In my opinion Our Red String isn't supposed to be played from a first person view - we aren't those characters, we just control them (to a certain extent) and witness the unfolding story.
It's not that I view myself as the MC, it's the the fact that I'm controlling both Lena and Ian and doing their path doesn't feel like I've achieved anything or earned anything since I was the one controlling both of their actions throughout the game. I'd much rather have them go for other NPCs so I can uncover that NPCs story as the MC uncovers it.
 

mehGusta

Member
Aug 28, 2017
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I get your point, even though I disagree in some regards.

First off, taking NTR as an (extreme) example was probably not a good idea from my end - a less controversial example would have been a female protagonist.

A lot of people (men) who immerse themselves as actually being the MC seem to have issues with female protagonists.

I also witness this mentality in MMORPGs.
"I'm a guy, I would never play a female char - that's weird!"
Funnily enough people with such mindset don't have a problem playing an orc or an undead char, even though they aren't orcs or undead IRL (I surely hope they aren't ;)).
I don't really get it, because these are roleplaying games after all...

And that's exactly how adult games work for me - they are roleplaying games.
I can assume the role of a straight guy, a lesbian girl, a gay guy, heck... why not even a dog if it's a compelling story...

But back to what your wrote:
Of course there are moments of "yes, I did it" in adult games, but for the most part I'm playing them to experience a good story, not to 'win' them.

Also, kinetic novels are completely fine in my book.
An adult novel doesn't necessarily need choices in order to captivate me.
It's just another medium, an illustrated adult book if you want.

A prime example would be
https://f95zone.to/threads/one-last-salty-kiss-v1-2-1-fullmontis.29036/

It's a kinetic novel which ends with the MC losing his loved one (and no - it's not about NTR ;)).
Still, it's one of the best adult novels I've read so far...

...but as always: Different strokes for different folks (no pun intended ;)).
i would even say, i like it way more if i play a defined character. for example the games "mass effect" and "mass effect andromeda" lets you create a character with either gender, pesonalized face, a name that never gets used, choose a backstory and throughout the whole game has multiple options to even alter your story-flow. yet i think anyone can agree with me: ryder is a complete different person than shepard. how's that, if you were choosing the outcome? it's because shepard always gets shown as a hardass military veteran, while ryder gets shown as a laid-back scouts rookie, and that regardless if you played as renegade or paragon. that way the character feels alive and be a part of the story, which makes being able to choose how the story unfolds even better (so you still can say "my shepard did this" and have a personalized story of your own). i for one like it more if i can immerse myself with a strong self-explanatory character, as instead with a blank slate as interesting as a white cardboard cutout of a person. bad example is "knights of the old republic". it was a totally cool story but my never speaking MC was like a sore thumb, i couldn't take it seriously.
 

BloodyMares

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Dec 4, 2017
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i would even say, i like it way more if i play a defined character. for example the games "mass effect" and "mass effect andromeda" lets you create a character with either gender, pesonalized face, a name that never gets used, choose a backstory and throughout the whole game has multiple options to even alter your story-flow. yet i think anyone can agree with me: ryder is a complete different person than shepard. how's that, if you were choosing the outcome? it's because shepard always gets shown as a hardass military veteran, while ryder gets shown as a laid-back scouts rookie, and that regardless if you played as renegade or paragon. that way the character feels alive and be a part of the story, which makes being able to choose how the story unfolds even better (so you still can say "my shepard did this" and have a personalized story of your own). i for one like it more if i can immerse myself with a strong self-explanatory character, as instead with a blank slate as interesting as a white cardboard cutout of a person. bad example is "knights of the old republic". it was a totally cool story but my never speaking MC was like a sore thumb, i couldn't take it seriously.
An even better example to go with ORS would be Witcher 3. You do get to decide what to say or do, but all these decisions are within Geralt's personality. Geralt is not a brick without personality, he is defined through and through. You can't change him yourself, just merely put on his shoes and think "What would I do in Geralt's place?". That's why I like ORS so much more than I did GGGB. Because you choose what these 2 characters realistically could say or do in those situations.
Returning to the original point of the comparison, there is a certain moment in Witcher 3 where you get to play as Ciri as well, and it was Geralt's game. I don't remember too many players getting angry over it. Is it because it was just 1 relatively minor part of the game? Is it because you don't interact with Geralt's NPC (I don't know, I didn't get that far)? I don't know. But ORS is a 2-playable character experience. And it's not like you don't have a choice when it comes to them interacting with each other. Sure, certain interactions are mandatory, just like you are "forced" to interact with other NPCs such as Alison, Jeremy, Minerva or Robert. Just like those are parts of their lives, Ian and Lena are parts of each other's lives as well. That's how they met in the first place after all.
If you don't like the idea of them romancing each other, then fine, don't. It's not like you're forced to. Ian can decide not to ask for her name right until Chapter 2, not to text her. Lena can decide to be quite dismissive of Ian, saying just the most necessary things to get through the conversation. So they can just be in each others' lives due to their frequent crossovers but pursue other NPCs if the player's goal is to "win". Although I don't think in this game you are required to win. Because "losing" would be also winning, since you get to see more story.
 

SpikeZg

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May 8, 2018
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How many characters were in total in GGGB?
And do you guys think ORS will have even more? :)
 

mehGusta

Member
Aug 28, 2017
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How many characters were in total in GGGB?
And do you guys think ORS will have even more? :)
that depends. do you want everyone who got a sprite? or everyone that had at least a bit of backstory (so tyrone's homies are not part of this for example)?
 

Creeping Death

dies in loneliness
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Jan 28, 2018
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Character design (Emma)

With Emma I tried to deviate a bit from the more stylised body types I like giving to my female characters. I wanted to make her a bit shorter and curvier (what's gotten to be called T H I C C) and with a style and personality to go with it. She's a bit more alternative, one of those free souls who care about life in a different way. To represent that vibe I gave her that "punk" haircut (I like to use it for some reason) and in some ways I re-used some of GGGB's Eva's traits on her (the lips, skin tone and even top design haha).

Story-wise she won't play a role as major as other characters, but she'll be key to a couple aspects of the game. One has to do with Perry, as you probably already figured out, but you'll have to wait and see about the other one. And, of course, what she'll do and what will ultimately happen with her depends on your choices.
 

Dan5k74

Active Member
Oct 6, 2017
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How many characters were in total in GGGB?
You can quickly get a rough idea by following this .
By the way, this is the corresponding to ORS (maybe it would be useful to publish it in the OP of this thread).
 
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SpikeZg

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You can quickly get a rough idea by following this .
By the way, this is the corresponding to ORS (maybe it would be useful to publish it in the OP of this thread).
Oh nice (y)
29 chars in GGGB, that's a lot :D
 

Brickman

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May 26, 2017
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Seems the dual protagonist is pretty controversial for some people. Some interesting things are being said about games and immersion, but I mostly share Casual Voyeur's opinion. In games normally you play to "win", but that's not the case, especially with role-paying games. I used to play tabletop role-playing games with friends and the point was not so much to "win" but to experience a fun adventure. I think this is closest to Eva Kiss's game-making philosophy, there are no "wrong" choices, even if you fail or do something bad the game doesn't punish you for it or you get a game over screen, rather you just experience the story in a new and organic path, this is what made GGGB so fucking cool.
In ORS you're asked to roleplay as Ian AND Lena, this creates some new and interesting scenarios where one choice you take as one of the MCs can affect the other and you can feel you're interacting with yourself, but I just see it as me as a player interacting with the game. It's a role-playing game and you're asked to immerse in the shoes of two separate characters that share a story, and I think it's a very cool and brave creative decision. I understand some people wanting to immerse in just a single character but this way we get to see both sides of the story, and in GGGB we could only see Ash's side of the story. Imagine having been able to play as Dave dating Jessica, or Eric in the jungle, or playing as Eva as she was corrupted by Jack and Tyrone's friend, etc
And maybe playing ORS with your girlfriend (if you have one lol) and taking turns to control Ian or Lena could be super cool
 

John Doe Jr.

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Jun 11, 2017
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Seems the dual protagonist is pretty controversial for some people. Some interesting things are being said about games and immersion, but I mostly share Casual Voyeur's opinion. In games normally you play to "win", but that's not the case, especially with role-paying games. I used to play tabletop role-playing games with friends and the point was not so much to "win" but to experience a fun adventure. I think this is closest to Eva Kiss's game-making philosophy, there are no "wrong" choices, even if you fail or do something bad the game doesn't punish you for it or you get a game over screen, rather you just experience the story in a new and organic path, this is what made GGGB so fucking cool.
In ORS you're asked to roleplay as Ian AND Lena, this creates some new and interesting scenarios where one choice you take as one of the MCs can affect the other and you can feel you're interacting with yourself, but I just see it as me as a player interacting with the game. It's a role-playing game and you're asked to immerse in the shoes of two separate characters that share a story, and I think it's a very cool and brave creative decision. I understand some people wanting to immerse in just a single character but this way we get to see both sides of the story, and in GGGB we could only see Ash's side of the story. Imagine having been able to play as Dave dating Jessica, or Eric in the jungle, or playing as Eva as she was corrupted by Jack and Tyrone's friend, etc
And maybe playing ORS with your girlfriend (if you have one lol) and taking turns to control Ian or Lena could be super cool
I like that in Eva's games you don't get hit with a game over screen and that there's no "right" choices. Most games you pick a choice to see if it's the right one and if not you reload and choose again. With Eva's games you're able to pick a choice and stick with it. I'll disagree with seeing Eva's pov in GGGB though tbh. To me, part of what turned me on about that was not getting to see the ins and outs of Eva's character, but knowing it's happening behind the scenes and seeing little snippets of it. To me, having Ashley and thus the player seeing Eva being corrupted via seeing her giving a bj in a video sent to Tyrone is way hotter than getting the entire scene from Eva's pov. That's just my opinion though.
 

ridejock

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Jan 21, 2020
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I am gonna go the Lena + Richard route. I think he good cuckold material. Especially if Lena decides to have hate sex with Axel.

Ian is a much harder choice. Holly is more my style, but I think I will focus on Allison just to keep her away from Jeremy. He seems to have enough women already.

It would also be fun to watch Axel and Jeremy clash over Lena as well.
 

John Doe Jr.

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Jun 11, 2017
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I am gonna go the Lena + Richard route. I think he good cuckold material. Especially if Lena decides to have hate sex with Axel.

Ian is a much harder choice. Holly is more my style, but I think I will focus on Allison just to keep her away from Jeremy. He seems to have enough women already.

It would also be fun to watch Axel and Jeremy clash over Lena as well.
I haven't decided what I want to do with Lena yet but I'm leaning more towards Robert as well. For Ian I'm going with Cherry and possibly Cindy
 
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Brickman

Member
May 26, 2017
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I like that in Eva's games you don't get hit with a game over screen and that there's no "right" choices. Most games you pick a choice to see if it's the right one and if not you reload and choose again. With Eva's games you're able to pick a choice and stick with it. I'll disagree with seeing Eva's pov in GGGB though tbh. To me, part of what turned me on about that was not getting to see the ins and outs of Eva's character, but knowing it's happening behind the scenes and seeing little snippets of it. To me, having Ashley and thus the player seeing Eva being corrupted via seeing her giving a bj in a video sent to Tyrone is way hotter than getting the entire scene from Eva's POV. That's just my opinion though.
You're totally right about it being exciting watching Eva corrupted in the shadows, getting glimpses here and there. There's space for that in ORS like with Jeremy and Alison I think for example, but you can get that AND a second protagonist to play from a POV that kind of scenes too. I don't know in my opinion ORS has the best of both worlds and potential for a ton of cool scenarios, maybe even more than GGGB
 
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