However, if I had to nitpick, I feel like there's some issues with the paths, or at least a bit of un-siezed potential. Going through it initially, I went for the sub/dom route and picked more or less all the most appropriate dialogue choices for that type of relationship, pleasantly surprised that it appeared choices would have a substantial effect on Sam's behavior and reactions in future interactions. On subsequent playthroughs though, it seems that although there are a few scenes that show up differently or only show up if you have a certain type of repeated interaction, that it doesn't branch off very dramatically.
The choice early on of your "objective" feels a bit odd to begin with, but now having played most of the variations of choices you can make, it doesn't even seem to have much/any impact on the scenes or the choices you get. I'm not sure if it was intended to actually be functional, or if it's just a "get the player in a certain headspace" thing. In either case, I didn't get the particular sense that it had an effect. Even picking the most dom/sub appropriate responses in every scene, the whole thing felt a little... hesitant? Like it wasn't sure how much the audience would accept? Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting the characters to jump into hardcore BDSM right away, but just the attitudes toward those interactions seem a little bit like it's a "thing to do" rather than a "way to act" if that makes sense? Aside from Sam enjoying some harder talk, the rest of the relationship doesn't reflect the intended power dynamic as a result.
I think you're absolutely right, i was thinking the same thing with that early choice
It feels like Dev wasn't sure if he wanted to have a regular visual-novel with routes influenced by choices,
Or a trainer that use stats for flavor-text
Which make that choice pretty meaningless since wether you decided to pick to make antag into a sub/GF/take revenge is influenced by the stats since it's what affect the flavor-text
And i also thought the writing, while being really good, is hesitant
The game start with a feminization revenge-plot which is clearly a power-fantasy, and slowly turn-more into a sexual-indentification thing
It feel like the antag is a little tame too-fast, he dosn't put-up much fight
It start with a power-relationship based on blackmail and bullying, and evolve too-quick into a almost-casual S/M relationship
I know it's the point, but it happen a bit too-fast in my opinion
it makes it feel more like you're helping him/her get-out of the closet than force-feminzating him/her
I think Dev might have been too scared to go full-force feminization, because it might have upset somes peoples since it's a touchy subject, it would have been pretty bad if he had caught the ire of LGBT+ communities, or just peoples in general
So he had to be careful and walk the fine-line between bullying and slightly forcing antag
It just feel like it happen too fast, and it does feel like Dev wasn't sure about how far he could go with the concept
As for myself, i would have liked it if the antag fought a bit-more
The friendly route feels particular feels lacking, as basically the only difference is one additional scene and a handful of different reactions if Sam's not subby enough to do what you say. There are some interactions where all options are some version of submission-inducing in Sam, which when you've played friendly up to that point, feels out of place. Based on some of the choices you can make earlier on, I definitely thought there was going to be a role-reversal/femdom route, but you just end up getting mostly the same scenes with the same or similar reactions.
Once again, i absolutely agree with what you're saying
Since the writing rush a bit the relationship between MC and Antag, it feel pretty shallow and out-of-place
As i already mentioned, i mainly play the Sub/dom route, maxing obedience and lust, while keeping friendship low
Which make the scenes when in which Antag and MC are friendly to each-others a bit weird
For example that kiss-scene and the following text, it might have been fine if had the choices but i didn't
It felt a bit forced and out-of-place considering the writing was pretty romantic
It would have been fine if it was influenced by your stats, like instead of it being romantic it would have been more of a humiliation-thing for Antag since it was in-front of his friends
But it wasn't like that, it was a bit too romantic
I'm sure this is partially an economical choice so as not to end up writing two hugely divergent dialogue trees, but it feels a little unsatisfying. I wouldn't mind at all having it only be a single path, but at the moment it feels very much like either certain paths are completely missing, or that going anything other than light sub is either the "bad" choice or at least the one that's less satisfying and appropriate to the tone of the scenes that follow.
I think Dev might have started-out wanting to make huge diverging path, like in most visual-novels
Which would explain the "objectives"-choices MC has to make in the start of the game
And then he realized it might have taken too much time and instead went for a trainer with flavoring-text
Which is probably much easier, and faster to do
And i think he made the best choice,
i'd rather have a lot of flavor-text influenced by stats raised by choices i made
Than the usual visual-novel model story with very-few choices that affect a lot the game
If you make a trainer, you need to have stats-checks pretty-often or they end-up feeling meaningless
And flavor-text win/lose events are both the best and easiest-way to reward players for stats-raising
All that said, I'm really excited to see how this progresses. There's clearly a ton of careful work that's been put in here, and I appreciate both the quality of the content and the attention to detail, two things I think these games are often lacking.
glad to see i'm not the only-one who could see the value in the game
it might have some slight-flaws, but i think it's one of the very-few quality indie-games on this site
There are no flaws that can't quickly be fixed,
And it can only improve as long as Dev just keep the writing as constantly good as it has been
