yea Patricia could have been their 'test run' of Alicias powers.It's implied that this has all happened before. I think a scene between Veronica and I think Patricia, one of them talks about being in a fantasy world and losing a battle...and at some point she went from a sweet library club girl to a total bitch, the same path that Aura is following. And Aura is already starting to think that she is better than Alicia in the real world when talking to her cheerleader friends...
I would love a prequel game where we see what came before this with those other characters.
My guess is that it's been going on longer than that. I suspect it's some sort of cycle that's been on repeat for a while. That's just a guess I've been suspicious of since some of the demon worshipper conversations were added into the game. That plus the goddess clearly having some shady stuff going on behind the scenes. Whether or not I'm correct I'm interested in seeing what new lore about Roya gets revealed by the end of the game, because I'd like to know the why of several things.yea Patricia could have been their 'test run' of Alicias powers.
Ohh just wait until you get through the new scenes in this cycle, they're a doozy and massively progress the arc between Alicia and Richard.Alicia is raising a successor that will have a vendetta against her. When we reach the endgame, what value will Alicia have to Richard? I could see a very dark ending for her where 'Dark Queen Aura' (or whatever she becomes) finds a way to absorb her just like Richard has been doing with others this whole time. And then Luciela becomes just a voice in her head, literally.
Oh man, I'm a subscriber but usually try to wait two or three months between playing the updates so there's more content to enjoy. Can't wait to see this!Ohh just wait until you get through the new scenes in this cycle, they're a doozy and massively progress the arc between Alicia and Richard.
Not gonna say any specifics but aura-dev really struggled to find a screenshot to go in the prerelease update post because almost literally everything that could be screenshotted was a spoiler. XDOh man, I'm a subscriber but usually try to wait two or three months between playing the updates so there's more content to enjoy. Can't wait to see this!
Yeah game mechanically, going fully forced to 20 is still a bit of an issue, depending on the player skill. The theory is:Generic feedback from someone who has taken up the game again after a while and has gotten almost on par with content: my only kinda-complaint is that in a 'balanced' run on Hard mode in which I tried to do corrupt stuff only when particularly advantegeous I ended up soft-locking myself at 15 ~ Lewdness and my only way to advance corruption was the Hedonism orb that requires 20. I slowly accrued corruption day by day reaching the 40s and I had to prostitute Aura not because it felt like it made sense within the game systems and narrative, like in most cases, but to avoid game over.
It felt a bit out of sync, and I wonder if there could be some merit in implementing something of a "corruption sink", where you could spend big amounts of corruption to force Aura to do a lewd act on the following day.
Another thing that has me a bit confused is the Alicia side balance of things. There are a couple perks that come to mind (the ones that basically remove reading as an option for Aura and the one that make corruption gain a +1 per day, which alone must have produced some 40-50 corruption on its own) that are quite crippling. Are they, in the mind of the author aura-dev, something that players usually pick first, because it makes sense for RP-ing Alicia and/or for speeding up the unlock of cutscenes, or something that players pick as a last resort when there's no other option to avoid game over?
Last but not least the rest of the game is still after all these years fresh, interesting, super entertaining, rich with incredible game design ideas that elegantly mesh with each other while spanning over multiple complex interconnected systems, most of which are made and thought by a single person, all with incredible writing for the #AdultGames genre.
Thank you for such a complete replyYeah game mechanically, going fully forced to 20 is still a bit of an issue, depending on the player skill. The theory is:
Womb of Lust: Takes you to 10 Lewdness by itself
Masturbation is not enough: Takes you to 20+ lewdness
Of course you can dodge these using Blessed Waters, but Blessed Water increases in price and eventually this becomes difficult.
That's the theory, but in practice of course you can play around that by being fast, earning lots of money, etc.
I'll agree that the lewdness 15-20 gap presents a significant pacing problem. I also don't have a great solution. But for 2.0, this might present an opportunity for more side quests. When Ch.2 was still in its infancy, I briefly thought it would be interesting if Liliana would present Aura with the opportunity to "save" people such that even though a still relatively pure Aura was suspicious, she'd feel the need to act. And, of course, the straightforward outcome would always eventually lead to lewd acts as the way to save the people involved.Yeah game mechanically, going fully forced to 20 is still a bit of an issue, depending on the player skill. The theory is:
Womb of Lust: Takes you to 10 Lewdness by itself
Masturbation is not enough: Takes you to 20+ lewdness
Of course you can dodge these using Blessed Waters, but Blessed Water increases in price and eventually this becomes difficult.
That's the theory, but in practice of course you can play around that by being fast, earning lots of money, etc.
I definitely don't want to add a true forced corruption sink for lewdness. It's important to me that there is counterplay in the Roya part, and having an Alicia action that says that 100% Aura has to perform a lewd action, is kind of counter to Aura's agency part. But having counterplay always adds a skill element. Imo the best way for a skilled player to get into more forced situations is to play on Nightmare, there this kind of works.
I'm not sure what the right course of action is, but the direction I see would be more along the lines of giving Alicia somehow a way to further pressure/faster trigger the day stay start lewd events, although that then worries me about getting Aura caught up too hard in lewd loops when you go full into the lewd direction. x_X
For the reading removal, those are mechanisms to force Aura to engage with the more expensive forms of powerups, and therefore trigger more lewd events, so I would say if anything it's possible that there might be a need to teleport some more of them from Chapter 3 into Chapter 2, but I'm not sure.
For the +1, it's supposed to represent the curse becoming stronger and give players who are not producing corruption fast enough or need to artifically use SK on targets that don't need it, to gain the necessary corruption increase speed to progress at a nice pace. I would argue that in your case there is a good roleplay reason to no use it. Alicia could open the rooms, see the 20 Lewdness Hedonism orb, observe that she's quite far from reaching that and therefore avoid increasing corruption gain speed since she's informed from the start that this can be a two-sided sword, leading to soul break. That's just how I would roleplay justify not taking it early. It's possible that maybe it should be locked after a later mental change, but then again I also don't want to to take it away from people who need corruption to speed up.
We are definitely getting into the region where it becomes pretty tough balance everything since the states of the players combined with their playing intentions and skill levels form a very wide spread. The addition of Masturbation Is Not Enough quite some time ago was supposed improve the specific case you are finding yourself in, and in Nightmare I would say it's good enough, but on lower difficulties paired with higher skilled players, there's still some improvement that needs to be done.
Yeah i think the dev has a lot of talent and good planing. Many games from this site start well but end up with problems like rare updates, trying to cater to patreons and implementing too many things because of that (bestiality, too many fetishes, start focusing more on lesbian scenes only, etc.), and others. I love that the scenes here stay mostly F/M too. I was almost giving up on the genre and started playing this by pure luck. And the writing is really good too. Although I feel there were some hiccups along the way, like the fact that Aura ocasionally doesn't think about the situation properly (which feels weird because she is supposed to be a very smart person), and maybe some little mistakes (IMO) from the author like Alicia being the main suspect for being the Sorceress from the get go (as Aura should notice that they're the same person just from her opinions and the way she talks, the human brain is really good at noticing paterns). But I think things like this come from the ambition of the project: a story about 100% changing a way a person thinks, specially someone with such a strong personality as Aura, is hard to look convincing. And I think the author mostly get it right, making this a great game (I expected nothing less 5 minutes in as I noticed that the author was an Umineko fan). I really hope the dev make other games in the future, I'm currently not a patreon because it's been a rough year but hopefully I can start supporting next year, and they will have a patreon for life hereGeneric feedback from someone who has taken up the game again after a while and has gotten almost on par with content: my only kinda-complaint is that in a 'balanced' run on Hard mode in which I tried to do corrupt stuff only when particularly advantegeous I ended up soft-locking myself at 15 ~ Lewdness and my only way to advance corruption was the Hedonism orb that requires 20. I slowly accrued corruption day by day reaching the 40s and I had to prostitute Aura not because it felt like it made sense within the game systems and narrative, like in most cases, but to avoid game over.
It felt a bit out of sync, and I wonder if there could be some merit in implementing something of a "corruption sink", where you could spend big amounts of corruption to force Aura to do a lewd act on the following day.
Another thing that has me a bit confused is the Alicia side balance of things. There are a couple perks that come to mind (the ones that basically remove reading as an option for Aura and the one that make corruption gain a +1 per day, which alone must have produced some 40-50 corruption on its own) that are quite crippling. Are they, in the mind of the author aura-dev, something that players usually pick first, because it makes sense for RP-ing Alicia and/or for speeding up the unlock of cutscenes, or something that players pick as a last resort when there's no other option to avoid game over?
Last but not least the rest of the game is still after all these years fresh, interesting, super entertaining, rich with incredible game design ideas that elegantly mesh with each other while spanning over multiple complex interconnected systems, most of which are made and thought by a single person, all with incredible writing for the #AdultGames genre.
I think when it releases, we will get the typical ending for this type of game where Aura becomes Alicia and Richards's bitch/slut (which is what I want it's hot), and the more unique endings and everything else will come later in v2.Alicia is raising a successor that will have a vendetta against her. When we reach the endgame, what value will Alicia have to Richard? I could see a very dark ending for her where 'Dark Queen Aura' (or whatever she becomes) finds a way to absorb her just like Richard has been doing with others this whole time. And then Luciela becomes just a voice in her head, literally.
If you handed in Poisoned Elixirs to Roland, you won't get Something is Fishy. It only unlocks if you progress the investigation beyond surface level.The quest something is fishy isn't triggering for me after I finished poisoned elixir. Any ideas?
If I have any influence over it whatsoever there will be at least one polyamory ending, even if I have to create it myself.I think when it releases, we will get the typical ending for this type of game where Aura becomes Alicia and Richards's bitch/slut (which is what I want it's hot), and the more unique endings and everything else will come later in v2.
I think what makes this game so hot/good for me compared to most games of this genre is the corruption. Most of the time, I just want to fap like most people here, so I skip directly to the H scenes. But with this, the corruption, writing, and corruption game mechanics are done so well that seeing Aura slowly go from a good-natured cocky nerd to a bitch/slut is hot enough that it makes me want to actually play the game instead of cheating it.
I think when it releases, we will get the typical ending for this type of game where Aura becomes Alicia and Richards's bitch/slut (which is what I want it's hot), and the more unique endings and everything else will come later in v2.
I think what makes this game so hot/good for me compared to most games of this genre is the corruption. Most of the time, I just want to fap like most people here, so I skip directly to the H scenes. But with this, the corruption, writing, and corruption game mechanics are done so well that seeing Aura slowly go from a good-natured cocky nerd to a bitch/slut is hot enough that it makes me want to actually play the game instead of cheating it.
add money to Patreon, because physical changes increase the art budget by requiring more CG variations. Unless it's done at a specific point in the Earth storyline, and does not affect Roya.1. add BE
2. add AE