Recommending Story-first games

[jufot]

Doesn't that game have a "monogamous" route? Okay, it's about "as true as you can" and there's still the chosen so I doubt it's 100% faithful. I think the arc with Emily is a bit tropey but not ridiculously tropey, and not super porny.

I don't think there is a monogamous route, or if there is one I missed it. MC being "destined" to form a harem of his warriors is too porny for me. Especially Molly, I really couldn't stand her. You could cut all sex but Emily, and the story wouldn't lose anything at all.

Mad World is updated

This update was a long time coming and it was definitely worth the wait. Both the new chapter 4, and the rework of chapter 1 were beautiful. It's definitely one of my favourite AVNs.

Price of Power also has an update out. While the story was great as usual, I'm immensely disappointed to learn that the new characters introduced in this chapter are LIs that will be part of the harem. I've never got harem vibes from PoP at all, so it was kind of a blindside. Panda says it was always planned as a harem, which is, again, disappointing...

 

[Éama]

Just my two cents, but as the hack in the room, I feel compelled to point out that anything can make for a good story, as long as you put in the effort to give it the right blend of cool, relatable, and surprising elements. Because you know what else had an MC every woman wanted to bang? James Bond. Oh, not a fan of James Bond? Then you probably enjoyed that series that mercilessly lampooned James Bond, Archer, whose titular main character every woman also wanted to bang.

(I mean, neither franchise had an incest route, but you can sort of see the dotted outline of where one could have been slotted into Archer.)

Don't blame the tropes. Blame the writers! They took incest and promiscuity and somehow made them boring!

I would argue that the turnoff is not promiscuity, but the fact that the hero is worshipped unconditionally. James Bond must at least be convincing in his role as a secret agent so that he can sleep with the ladies. One can understand why women find him attractive (it's still lazy storytelling but whatever). It's less relatable when the MC is a bum or generic.

 

[desmosome]

He goes to some lengths to make it sound plausible and acceptable, but I just couldn't keep up with the mental gymnastics required to reach love is love, even if they are your underage daughters.

Lol, I'm with you on this. It's just unnatural. Romance is not my first choice in tags, but I do enjoy quite a lot of games with romance (specifically the ones that have an actual plot that goes beyond dating girls). But man... I just can't with the romance variant of daddy daughter when they try to portray it as a wholesome and totally healthy relationship. I've played my fair share, and I couldn't name a single one that truly sold it to me. Adult incest, on the other hand, does have some decent portrayals with nuanced and grounded dynamics. Dreaming of Dana comes to mind.

On an unrelated note, Mad World coming back was a nice surprise. I wasn't super into this VN, although I thought it was pretty good, but the latest update got me properly hooked. The tone with the MC and many of the LIs are overly dour, imo, but the underlying plot and world building is cool as shit.

 

[jufot]

On an unrelated note, Mad World coming back was a nice surprise. I wasn't super into this VN, although I thought it was pretty good, but the latest update got me properly hooked. The tone with the MC and many of the LIs are overly dour, imo, but the underlying plot and world building is cool as shit.

I like the tone! Probably because I see the MC's story as a subversion of genre norms. MC is steadfast in his refusal to follow The Hero's Journey. He regrets ever talking to Tobias at the bar, and resents the situation he's been put in. Even the Royal Guard piss him off despite clearly being the good guys because they keep telling him he can neither give up his relic, nor run away, nor survive without them.

He's slowly opening up to some of the Guard, but he doesn't embrace their mission at all - he keeps saying you guys and never we, and talks about leaving the castle for good once the deal with Tobias ends. That's why the tone is always dour.

Of course, the audience knows that his resistance is for naught because the reworked chapter 1 starts three years into the future when MC is clearly still with Vincent and his gang

 

[desmosome]

1thousand new game, cybernetic seduction is out. And free even for non-patrons.

I've always think, from Deliverance, that the weakest aspect of 1thousand games are it's stories. It's not that engaging to me. I guess it's a personal taste, but their game doesn't hook me. Which is a shame because the style of their games is really good.

They truly deserves more patrons but I wonder if their patreon number is a reflection of that too. Maybe if they have a writing partner or an editor their games would have far more patrons.

I really think, outside of the story, their games deserves at least 3x more patrons than the current number.

By the way, I just realized Our Red String and Good Girls Gone Bad is not in the first page recommendation.

I read this interview with Eva Kiss last week

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and it's said she's inspired by Mass Effect, which I think kinda showed because how we control Ian and Lean in ORS, affects how other characters fates too.

Honestly, there are very few games that is in active development in the AVN genre where I could say "when the next update of the game is out, I still want to play it, look forward to see it's continuation regardless of how long time passes and will make time to play it"

And Our Red String is in that category for me. The other game in this category is Deluca Family. Pale Carnations is the other one.

As much as I greatly enjoy Being a DIK, I seriously think given how long of a development cycle DPC is currently doing, if I don't have enough leeway to play games (any games not just AVN), I would probably drop everything but those three.

I was initially checking page one because I wonder whether Deliverance is listed or not before realizing Our Red String is not there.

Another game that isn't there that I think deserves to be there is Desert Stalker. Holy shit this game nails atmosphere.

I don't know if it's "story-first" but it's definitely atmosphere-first game.

I don't really do incest games. As in when I play those games I usually don't choose the incest options and Desert Stalker has somewhat unavoidable incest dialogue with the younger stepdaughter, but outside of that 1 niche, it's pretty perfect.

It's so high effort, there's like tons of non-adult scene animations and stuff, I honestly think the presentation is pretty amazing as a ren'py game.

if I were to summarize games that have unique point on this site, I would say:

Pale Carnation nail meticulous expressions

DeLuca Family has amazing writing

Our Red String has very wide small dialogue variances off of how we control our MCs

Desert Stalker nail it's atmosphere

Above the Clouds nail humor
*I would say Projekt Passion is very funny, but Above the Clouds just has it beat

That's pretty much it.

Honorary mention to BaDIK since it nails general appeal I guess.
To be fair, I greatly enjoy my time playing BaDIK.

That just leaves Caribdis and Tlaero as the 2 devs/writers whose games I haven't play. Which I'm looking forward to play.

1Thousand games don't have the strongest writing, even if we were to classify them as story-frist. Deliverance, imo, was more about the love vs corruption roleplaying and certainly shoves in sex scenes for the sake of having sex scenes. Cybernetic Seduction seems a little less tropey, but it remains to be seen how it develops. The premise definitely makes it easier to insert sex scenes as part of the plot. That said, both games suffer from narrative shortcomings even though the basic ideas for the plot is solid. I still enjoyed Deliverance a lot, and Cybernetic seems pretty decent.

I think I've mentioned Our Red Strings before, but my thoughts on it is basically that it's something like a character relationship slice of life drama that doesn't really have an underlying plot. That's not a bad thing, but for me personally, I don't consider such games as story-first. That's just me though. If Intertwined can make the list, I don't really see why ORS wouldn't qualify as well. Granted, ORS has much more fetish content, but it's all optional, and the story doesn't suffer if you opt out of any or all depravity.

 

[camube]

1Thousand games don't have the strongest writing, even if we were to classify them as story-frist. Deliverance, imo, was more about the love vs corruption roleplaying and certainly shoves in sex scenes for the sake of having sex scenes. Cybernetic Seduction seems a little less tropey, but it remains to be seen how it develops. The premise definitely makes it easier to insert sex scenes as part of the plot. That said, both games suffer from narrative shortcomings even though the basic ideas for the plot is solid. I still enjoyed Deliverance a lot, and Cybernetic seems pretty decent.

I think I've mentioned Our Red Strings before, but my thoughts on it is basically that it's something like a character relationship slice of life drama that doesn't really have an underlying plot. That's not a bad thing, but for me personally, I don't consider such games as story-first. That's just me though. If Intertwined can make the list, I don't really see why ORS wouldn't qualify as well. Granted, ORS has much more fetish content, but it's all optional, and the story doesn't suffer if you opt out of any or all depravity.

Yeah ORS and GGGB is very Mass Effect-esque in that how we control the MCs would then changes the relationship of other people around us. As a game, it's pretty entertaining.

When I have far more free time, I'd like to experiment and see what happens to the dialogue variation if Lena just rejects everyone lol.

 

[EndlessNights]

By the way, I just realized Our Red String and Good Girls Gone Bad is not in the first page recommendation.

One thing some people here probably hold against ORS and GGGB is the fact that they have very malleable MCs and side characters. This is a difficult issue for me because I'm actually really fond of branches and choices. To me, they are what makes VNs (and other types of story-focused computer games) unique as an art form and different from regular novels or graphic novels. A big part of the fun in playing ORS and GGGB comes from seeing the wide variations in outcomes and dialogue that are possible. On the other hand, I also find some of the branches Ashley, Lena, and Ian can follow extremely unlikely given their characters, initial personalities, and back stories.

I think Eva Kiss isn't great at showing how her characters change their thinking over time. Instead, she favors more dramatic pivots in response to choices even if that effectively leads to a sudden personality change. To give one example, consider how in ORS both Ian and Lena are characters who have been deeply hurt by their partners' cheating. However, they can both pursue people in relationships (including going after the partners of their close friends) and cheat themselves rather easily. To be human is to be hypocritical, but it still feels jarring. While it would make for a darker story, I think I'd prefer it if we had seen Ian and Lena (at least on the cheating paths) consumed by bitterness over their past relationships and deciding they wouldn't let themselves be hurt again or humiliated again even if that would require them to be the bad guys in their future relationships and to never fully trust anyone ever again. That would be a totally natural way to feel in that situation, and cheating would hardly be a surprising outcome if someone were to enter a new relationship with that mindset.

In GGGB, some of the potential scenarios are really wild and improbable given who Ashley is at the beginning of the game. I had no problem imagining her waiting for Eric or falling in love with Dave or Jessica, and those paths all made sense to me in the way they developed. Nothing I sensed about Ashley ever made me think she'd want to have sex with her dad because she felt sorry for him or become a crime boss, though.

Honestly, I don't really consider Good Girl Gone Bad to be that well-written overall. It has its moments and it is memorable for the extreme branching, but it is also full of corruption tropes and full of characters who are weakly developed -- sometimes to the point of being walking stereotypes -- and frequently get on my nerves. I've never quite been able to understand why a female MC banging a really annoying dude is for some reason considered the height of depravity in these type of games. I guess good girls just sleep with people they genuinely enjoy spending time with...those horrid, horrid prudes!

I find Our Red String to be a much better game overall, and it would make my personal list of story-first games. Unlike GGGB, the story is interesting way beyond who is hooking up with who even though there's plenty of hooking up going on. We get a good feel for every aspect of Ian and Lena's lives: their career struggles as perpetually underemployed millennials, their friends, their families, and their creative journeys as aspiring artists. The characters are considerably better developed and more human. Even Seymour who is definitely a corruption character and an overpowered villain is still a pretty interesting and unique individual in his own right. I imagine very few of Ashley's potential conquests could even pronounce Nietzsche. The romantic storylines to me are considerably better than what we saw in GGGB...I consider Ian-Alison, Ian-Holly, and Lena-Ian to all be very good pairings.

That segues nicely into one of my main criticisms of ORS: at this point, Ian has way better romantic options than Lena does. In that sense, we're still very much in Corruptionville. Ian can have sex with a lot of women, but he can also develop meaningful emotional connections with some of his partners. He can get fucked, loved, and cared for while Lena can mostly just get fucked. I was particularly disappointed when Lena dropped Louise like a hot potato regardless of past choices because that was one of the few relationships Lena has that I felt could genuinely grow into something loving and romantic. It was very much a rebound for Louise so it might well not have worked out, but I still wanted those two to be given a chance at least. We'll have to see if Lena's options get any better in the future.

 

[desmosome]

That segues nicely into one of my main criticisms of ORS: at this point, Ian has way better romantic options than Lena does. In that sense, we're still very much in Corruptionville. Ian can have sex with a lot of women, but he can also develop meaningful emotional connections with some of his partners. He can get fucked, loved, and cared for while Lena can mostly just get fucked. I was particularly disappointed when Lena dropped Louise like a hot potato regardless of past choices because that was one of the few relationships Lena has that I felt could genuinely grow into something loving and romantic. It was very much a rebound for Louise so it might well not have worked out, but I still wanted those two to be given a chance at least. We'll have to see if Lena's options get any better in the future.

And the flip side to that is the complaint that Ian doesn't have as much cheating options or depraved situations.

The way I see it, this discrepancy is the result of meta aspects of the porn gaming scene. I think we could all agree that the overwhelming majority of porn gamers are males. And it's a safe bet to assume that a majority of males playing a female protag will use her as a walking slut simulator. Male protagonists, on the other hand, have to contend with all those self inserters and immersion folks. While a non-negligible portion would prefer the alpha bang all the bitches mode, a more grounded male MC will likely please a bigger portion of the players. Plus, a nice guy approach to the male MC also hits the NTR folks who want to set him up as the target.

I'm not sure if Eva considered all these factors when coming up with the characters, but it certainly seems like the optimal distribution to cast the widest net.

 

[Hildegardt]

Male protagonists, on the other hand, have to contend with all those self inserters and immersion folks.

Related to this, I saw that the facepalm squad tried to invade the Mad World thread, because in the latest update another male character can get some on a certain path. It's nice to see that the thread didn't get lost in toxicity (, yet at least). I think this speaks to the game's quality.
It seems like the majority can see that not everything has to go the protagonist's way in an immersive story.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Merry XXX-mas, and a Happy Questionable White Substance Covering The UI, everybody. I had some time to think during the Hollidays, and I've decided I'm probably going to end up trying some sort of spoof or lampoon for my first project. I don't think I'd go so far as to call it a parody. Satire is right out. But I can't think critically about sex and take it seriously at the same time. It's just too depressing.

 

[jufot]

I saw that the facepalm squad tried to invade the Mad World thread, because in the latest update another male character can get some on a certain path. It's nice to see that the thread didn't get lost in toxicity (, yet at least). I think this speaks to the game's quality.

Damn you! Because of your comment, I went over there and read some of that inane shit and couldn't stop myself from replying. Now I'll get PMs calling me a cuck because I liked Leon's scene

 

[Hildegardt]

Damn you! Because of your comment, I went over there and read some of that inane shit and couldn't stop myself from replying. Now I'll get PMs calling me a cuck because I liked Leon's scene

I always thought the constant lessons about constructive criticism in university basic courses were a little silly, but too many people seem to genuinely think that "I'm not into that" is feedback anyone should care about. You know the saying about playing chess with a pigeon? It's just too easy to knock over all the pieces and shit all over the board, or thread in this case. Good feedback can't compete, because it takes at least some effort.
We talked before in this thread about how story-first games might not be as popular as more "action oriented" games with tags like incest, harem, corruption, etc., but I think it's that people, who cry about things like "ruined LI", "spineless MCs" and "cuck games" are a minority that's just very vocal, because it's so easy to cry about these things, compared to actually analysing the story and characters.
Sometimes I wonder, if going into game threads is even worth it. But the problem is that, if you don't, then all there is would be harem Chads oversharing about their personal sexual preferences and devs won't have anything else to go by. That's why I think it's nice how the praise about the quality and story in the Mad World thread is still almost drowning out the usual toxicity for now.

 

[desmosome]

Related to this, I saw that the facepalm squad tried to invade the Mad World thread, because in the latest update another male character can get some on a certain path. It's nice to see that the thread didn't get lost in toxicity (, yet at least). I think this speaks to the game's quality.
It seems like the majority can see that not everything has to go the protagonist's way in an immersive story.

Well, deciding to not pursue a girl, and then seeing her hit it off with your other friends in a totally consensual and wholesome way is a happy outcome for everyone involved. Only the most braindead mouth breathers would take this as NTR or whatever.

 

[boobsrcool]

Dreaming of Dana comes to mind.

from this decided to check out Alexandra liking it a lot thanks

 

[camube]

One thing some people here probably hold against ORS and GGGB is the fact that they have very malleable MCs and side characters. This is a difficult issue for me because I'm actually really fond of branches and choices. To me, they are what makes VNs (and other types of story-focused computer games) unique as an art form and different from regular novels or graphic novels. A big part of the fun in playing ORS and GGGB comes from seeing the wide variations in outcomes and dialogue that are possible. On the other hand, I also find some of the branches Ashley, Lena, and Ian can follow extremely unlikely given their characters, initial personalities, and back stories.

I think Eva Kiss isn't great at showing how her characters change their thinking over time. Instead, she favors more dramatic pivots in response to choices even if that effectively leads to a sudden personality change.

Yeah ORS wouldn't satisfy a character-first requirement of this thread because the MCs on ORS aren't characters with existing opinions and characteristics, we the players choose their characteristics.

A good example of this is Lena's relationship with Mike.

The version of Lena that doesn't hook up with Mike doesn't think Mike is interesting. And she backed down once Mike said he has a gf.
The version of Lena that does hook up with Mike think Mike is great.

This Lena and that Lena is 2 completely different Lena.

ORS is not a character-first game in the sense that our options decides not only the MCs actions but also thoughts.
I do tend to think it's still story-first because how painstakingly detailed Evakiss wrote the small dialogue variations off of our choices. The replay value of ORS is big because of those "small dialogue variations". Like my curiosity on what additional thoughts Lena would have if I choose to play Lena not hooking up with anyone.

I also agree with you that ORS is a more "believable" story than GGGB because GGGB story development is pretty wild and out there compared to the initial MC background.

I think the only ORS plot that reminds me of GGGB is how Minerva relationship first started.
It's not that believable to me that someone with the position of Minerva would counter-react the way she did when Ian confronted her (the first office scene). It's too out there, and "too out there" defines half or more of GGGB to me. ORS in comparison is more believable yeah.

Sometimes I wonder, if going into game threads is even worth it. But the problem is that, if you don't, then all there is would be harem Chads oversharing about their personal sexual preferences and devs won't have anything else to go by. That's why I think it's nice how the praise about the quality and story in the Mad World thread is still almost drowning out the usual toxicity for now.

To me things are worth it insofar as I "want" to do it against the time spent. Since our time is very limited, anything that I "want" to do, I do, anything that I don't like doing, I don't do.

A case in point for me is the Intertwined thread. I feel sympathetic to Nyx and I hope she doesn't read the thread on a regular basis, but I don't enjoy reading the thread so I rarely visit it now.
Nowadays I realized doing things I don't want or enjoy is taking time away from doing other things I could have potentially enjoyed. I wish I learned that sooner tbh but it's better to learn that now than later.
However having that mindset is not that conducive for waiting for games that are in-development because any of these devs can just stop developing if they don't "want" to do it anymore.

Devs like DPC probably still keeps on developing because it's a good income but most of these devs have a paltry 50-250 backers and that number is just not enough for good living compared to time spent. It really is "labor of love", and because some love are transient, they could just quit.
And I legit would be sad if DeLuca Family stops developing. That game is awesome!

Pivoting to a different topic, so I take it that incest pays? The amount of game with incest in this genre is too damn high for me. Most incest in modern world is just not believable to me because our modern world society doesn't see incest in a good light.

A different world or a different planet would be more acceptable but the number of incest games set in the modern world in this genre is too high it makes me wonder whether incest kink enjoyers support and paid the devs more.

I just can't get into incest stories most of the time. If it's "believable", hence interesting, sure, I like stories. But most of it is just not that believable, and yet actively avoiding incest tags narrows down the game choices by a lot.

 

[TranscendentThots]

Pivoting to a different topic, so I take it that incest pays? The amount of game with incest in this genre is too damn high for me. Most incest in modern world is just not believable to me because our modern world society doesn't see incest in a good light.

*(cracks knuckles)*

There are a couple of different trends that I feel like are feeding into this. A look into the numbers over at

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shows "Step-mom" in the top spot for American searches basically from 2015 onwards. Rick & Morty even

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in 2017. There's also the axiom that "Taboo Sells." The more "shocking" or "extreme" something is, the more popular it will be in porn. (I personally think that this is best taken with a grain of salt, since there are some genres which have always been too niche for a mainstream audience.)

But western eroge in particular seemed to be proving that axiom when Breeding Season became the #1 most funded project on Patreon in its early years and basically became the poster child that launched the whole cottage industry. Was there any incest in the original builds of Breeding Season? I don't know. Frankly, I doubt it. But the point is any kink or tag that's "extreme" enough is seen as an easy way to boost interest in a flooded porn market.

But I'm not sure if demand has anything to do with it. I think it might be more of a supply-side issue.

Because there's one thing that makes incest porn inherently easier to make than bestiality, tentacles, scat, watersports, bukkake, or pretty much any other extreme fetish you can think of: The only difference between a filmed porn scene in which strangers have sex and one in which step-family has sex is that you just say that the characters are step-family. Likewise, the way that you turn a render of Victoria and Michael into a render of a brother and sister is that you just say that the characters are brother and sister.

It costs nothing. And it boosts the numbers at least a little bit. Therefore everybody does it.

As to why it's popular, I can't really say. I'm not into it myself. Frankly, I don't understand the appeal. Unless you have a relative in porn, There's zero possibility that you're going to mistake any of these actresses for one of your family. Which means the fantasy can't be about engaging in incest. It's more like you're watching someone else do incest, the neighbors or something? But then there's POV stuff?

And for some reason, video games just rip off the Step- prefix and throw it away, as if the whole step- genres are a half-measure towards actual incest porn? Which is kinda weird when you think about it from a marketing perspective. I would think having a crush on a step-cousin you only see once a year would be way more relatable than being attracted to your mom or a sibling. Certainly it's more normalized. I realize that many of these games are written in such a way that you can just slot in whatever relationship words you want, but those are fundamentally different relationship dynamics.

Then you always get that one guy in the comments who demands incest pregnancy. One of these days, somebody's gonna put a bunch of birth defect morphs on Renderosity, then devs won't have any excuse. (Other than, you know, free will? Choice? Art? Do artists still choose to make art or is that cringe and everything is literally determined by the algorithm and engagement, now?)

I've heard people who are into it saying it's more about the platonic ideal of a mother or a sister or a daughter? But that's a pretty abstract argument, and it seems kinda flimsy in an era and medium where personality types are so plentiful and so weirdly specific that you can telegraph with eye shape or a stray lock of hair what type of "-dere" each girl in a harem is.

About the most I can say with certainty, is that it instantly typecasts a character when you give her a label like mother or daughter or sister. There's baggage associated with those terms. Baggage apparently more appealing to a mostly-male audience than the baggage surrounding the label of "stranger," which is apparently more appealing than the label of "girlfriend," which itself is apparently more appealing than the label of "wife."

Maybe it really is all just about taboo.

But, before we chalk this all up to just "boys being boys..."



It's not just men.

 

[camube]

*(cracks knuckles)*

I feel like it does cost us "story" though, or at least monologues. Instead of whatever other monologues, the games are inundated by "i can't have this thought she's my (family)" over and over.

Chasing Sunsets gets away with it because they met as a pre-teen (not raised together from babies) and the MC also bailed after high school. Different world and different planet gets away with it because it's different setting than 2022 Planet Earth.

Many if not most of these games are in modern earth, and in modern earth the repeated monologue of "i can't have this thought about my family" gets annoying for me, even from very early on.

But the sheer number of these games and this internal monologue makes me wonder, maybe people does like it. And maybe it does pay.

Like I really want to play My Bully is My Lover because of the dev, but it's just so very hard to push through the early part because the first thing that's told is MC taking the V card of his roommate and the monologue that goes with it.

 

[Impious Monk]

Sometimes I wonder, if going into game threads is even worth it. But the problem is that, if you don't, then all there is would be harem Chads oversharing about their personal sexual preferences and devs won't have anything else to go by.

Yes, exactly. For the devs who are paying attention it is worth it. Some in-thread criticism is good, and some is bad. Sometimes it's easy to tell the difference, but sometimes it isn't. In those situations, a dev benefits from multiple perspectives.

After I released my demo, there was a criticism in the F95 thread of something I'd done. At first I thought the criticism was good advice and I actually spent some time reworking some parts of the game because of it. Then Jufot replied to that criticism by supporting my original approach and made me realize that my approach was the correct one. I just needed that little "attaboy" to give me the confidence I needed to stick to my guns.

 

[Jaike]

I don't think there is a monogamous route, or if there is one I missed it.

There isn't, there's a "monogamous" achievement if you reject all avoidable sex with characters except Emily. I think you'd still recruit the chosen so there's that and maybe more, but it should cut down a lot on sex with other characters. Details are on the wiki.

Especially Molly, I really couldn't stand her.

Ha, because Molly's the game's most haremy harem LI in an unavoidable harem game and she's written as an unsufferable antagonist in the beginning, I would be flabbergasted if you did consider her the "best girl" like people say on this forum.

But I like the continuities in her characterisation. She's still manipulative, morally dubious and unpredictable as a chosen. Sure there are also big personality changes (what you expect because "making a chosen" is basically mind control), she acts like the MC is her Great Leader, is nicer to Emily and to the other chosen, becomes less sensible if anything, but she stays a very colourful character. It's not just that most harem games are worse in preserving character traits because becoming an LI is clearly a very traumatising experience, many romance games use way blander characters.

In GGGB, some of the potential scenarios are really wild and improbable given who Ashley is at the beginning of the game. I had no problem imagining her waiting for Eric or falling in love with Dave or Jessica, and those paths all made sense to me in the way they developed. Nothing I sensed about Ashley ever made me think she'd want to have sex with her dad because she felt sorry for him or become a crime boss, though.

Honestly, I don't really consider Good Girl Gone Bad to be that well-written overall. It has its moments and it is memorable for the extreme branching, but it is also full of corruption tropes and full of characters who are weakly developed -- sometimes to the point of being walking stereotypes -- and frequently get on my nerves. I've never quite been able to understand why a female MC banging a really annoying dude is for some reason considered the height of depravity in these type of games. I guess good girls just sleep with people they genuinely enjoy spending time with...those horrid, horrid prudes!

I replayed GGGB a few months ago and my nostalgic opinion of the game didn't really survive undamaged. It's not just tropes or weak characters, but occasionally head scratching moments like Eva's reaction when Ashley refuses to meet up with the thugs who assaulted her. And you're right about the branching including wild scenarios though I bet I haven't seen even half of them myself.

But overall I still find the game relatively well written, also because of the demand forces desmosome mentioned. Those push the female-protagonist supply heavily toward corruption and randomly springing submissive scenes on players is still considered business as usual by many Western devs, and let's ignore Japanese or Russian devs for now. The average game with a female protagonist is at the end of 2022 still a lot tropier than GGGB. And you could basically bypass all corruption in the game if you wanted, at the price of a rather boring experience. I think that for its day and for a market-sensitive game, it holds up pretty well.

Eva Kiss to her credit recognises a lot of your criticisms, of course not going as far. From that old

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camube posted recently:

I didn't want to repeat GGGB's formula, not in the same exact way. Ashley was a very easy character to customize and you could take her in wildly different directions, and it was really fun to push that aspect of the game. ... GGGB was fun because the possibilities were really wide, but that meant they felt a bit shallow.

With GGGB I wanted to push the interactive branching possibilities to the extreme, so to contrast some of the "good" paths other ones became pretty wild and outlandish (and some were plain silly, haha).

GGGB is what it is and it's brought me here, of which I'm very grateful. And to be honest, I haven't even played GGGB after finishing it, I can barely stand to look at it now :joy: I find it rather crude and amateurish and sometimes it's hard for me to remind myself of what it accomplished. I certainly worked very hard on it and it was a learning experience. What I hate the most is the graphics, but I couldn't afford to hire anyone at the time. I also dislike how some mechanics are implemented, and the coding was a pain in the ass to work with, but I didn't know better at the time, so I did the best I could with what I knew and what I had. I would change a ton of things, but I know I did the best I could at the time, so I guess the game it's OK as it is.

 

[desmosome]

Yes, exactly. For the devs who are paying attention it is worth it. Some in-thread criticism is good, and some is bad. Sometimes it's easy to tell the difference, but sometimes it isn't. In those situations, a dev benefits from multiple perspectives.

After I released my demo, there was a criticism in the F95 thread of something I'd done. At first I thought the criticism was good advice and I actually spent some time reworking some parts of the game because of it. Then Jufot replied to that criticism by supporting my original approach and made me realize that my approach was the correct one. I just needed that little "attaboy" to give me the confidence I needed to stick to my guns.

The reading level of most F95zoners are abysmally low. Seriously, they wouldn't be able to discern the themes, tone, motifs, motivations, deeper characterizations, subtext, or anything resembling a literary analysis if it hit them upside the head. Granted, most devs are also amateurs, and most games (even the popular ones) don't require any deconstruction, but taking the majority sentiment on the forums as anything more than coomers wanting the story to stroke their ego would be a mistake.

If you are chasing the money, sure, tickling their balls to get them satisfied with their MILFS and harems is a valid route to take, but if you are actually interested in making something more than basic porn, you are better off believing in yourself and goggling topics on writing.