Recommending Story-first games

[Drankz]

I don't think they have any interesting motivations because the dev said it's a classic anime harem.

Well... that's pretty sad. I didn't know what the developer said. Because of the events in this latest update, I was really hoping there would be a cool storyline. The sex scenes initially seemed pointless to me, but at least one of them started to make sense. It made me hopeful. I'll keep cheering. I'm in need of new games with good stories.

 

[realjitter]

Funny, I did start reading it yesterday and so far it's surprisingly nuanced and interesting when it comes to it's characters and story. Gonna write more about it once i've finished it . So far i'm dodging my team left and right like a boss, but they're percistent ...

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Does anyone know if this is going to be a forced harem game? Because if it is I'm gonna drop the game right away... Would be a huge wasted potential if it is though =(

 

[Drankz]

Funny, I did start reading it yesterday and so far it's surprisingly nuanced and interesting when it comes to it's characters and story. Gonna write more about it once i've finished it . So far i'm dodging my team left and right like a boss, but they're percistent ...

Spoiler

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Does anyone know if this is going to be a forced harem game? Because if it is I'm gonna drop the game right away... Would be a huge wasted potential if it is though =(

That's exactly what I think... I really hope there's something behind it all. Every LI so far seems to have some other interest in joining the group and getting closer to the MC besides just jumping in his pants. They apparently have a past and traumas whether or not related to the MC.

 

[bacienvu88]

Hellcat Lounge is doing better, but not by much. There are good bits, like George and Sandy's unexpectedly wholesome and endearing relationship, but the rest was excessively porny. A girl works in a library wearing a maid outfit that only partially covers her ass and two minutes after seeing MC she's asking him to fuck her ass in the special books room It's the most ridiculous sex scene yet, but the rest aren't much better in this chapter. Shame...

Ok, now I've played that game. My summary is cringey and porny that occasionally manages to have a good moment. The only semi-interesting thing plot wise so far is the girl with an abusive father. But I expect that to devolve into MC kicking the ass of the daddy and then girl will worship MC's magical dick forevermore after.

One of these days I hope there will be an "upcoming rock/pop star" game that is actually about music ...

I don't think they have any interesting motivations because the dev said it's a classic anime harem. Since they are all LIs, they can't do anything underhanded or against MC's (read: the player's) wishes. It's yet another case where the mere presence of a harem undermines the whole premise.

I still think there is plenty room for the LIs to do underhanded things before they actually join the harem. In fact they already do.

I find it interesting how you dislike Color of My Sound because harem. But you seem to be pretty invested in A long journey which is also planned to be an incest harem game. I am the opposite and have mostly lost interest in A Long Journey. Mostly because of the MC and how he always seem to think about the wrong things outside of tech/coding stuff. But I really like Color of My Sound so far.

 

[Raife]

But you seem to be pretty invested in A long journey which is also planned to be an incest harem game. I am the opposite and have mostly lost interest in A Long Journey. Mostly because of the MC and how he always seem to think about the wrong things outside of tech/coding stuff. But I really like Color of My Sound so far.

I am almost completely split on ALJ: there are some things that I love about it, and other aspects that are extremely annoying.

On the plus side:

• I enjoy the one LI we've encountered so far... mostly because she's entirely untrustworthy, her motives are ambiguous, and she's a first class liar, as the MC understands very well. I'm 99% certain that she is still lying, or deliberately omitting large portions of the truth, in her interactions with the MC.
• The setting really works, particularly the unique rooms.
• The renders are beautiful.
• The story is interesting.
• And the sex is hot (particularly the first scene, which struck me as a true to life rendition of what it's like to have sex with someone for the first time.)

But...

• There's far too much meaningless, dilatory dialogue -- if it's not advancing the plot or revealing new facets of characters or the world, we don't need it.
• Freeroam... worse yet, pointless freeroam!
• The mini-games are easy, dull and unnecessary.
• Despite the freeroam, the game still feels very linear, and there aren't any meaningful choices.
• Finally, as 88 notes, there's the ominous promise of a harem... although there are no such tropes, yet... and it may take us 1000 years to get there given the glacial pacing.

So... I'd say my expectations are pretty low. Unlike Panda, Tlaero, or DarkBlue -- for example -- the dev seems to be winging it, in terms of his episodic pacing. We have very little feeling of momentum... I don't get the sense that he has carefully planned or storyboarded out his plot or episodes.

 

[jufot]

I still think there is plenty room for the LIs to do underhanded things before they actually join the harem. In fact they already do. I find it interesting how you dislike Color of My Sound because harem.

It's not (just) the harem, it's the LIs. To be truly underhanded, LIs need agency, and that's anathema to "a traditional anime style harem story" (verbatim quote). With harem games, the audience expects a girl collector where at the end of the story everyone meets by the milkshake pool on the lesbian cloud and live happily ever after.

It's like Bond Girls who start out working for the villain. You just know that they won't do anything impactful because that would get in the way of Bond's heroic victory.

From what little I played of the game, the LIs feel less like characters with motivations and more like weirdly submissive sex dolls. Especially that blonde woman who is supposed to be the same rank as MC and yet just throws herself at him for no reason.

But you seem to be pretty invested in A long journey which is also planned to be an incest harem game. I am the opposite and have mostly lost interest in A Long Journey.

I'm glad you brought this up because I've had an extensive discussion with the dev about this exact topic. Let me quote some bits from his replies:

About 'harem' I'm not sure about that either anymore. I know it is in my planned tags, but like you said it would be troublesome to make it work. However, I haven't discarded that idea completely yet.

As much as I like to stay close to reality, this is still a "fantasy" story and maybe not everything might be 100% realistic, but I'll try anyway.

Anyway, I thought of [my points against harems] and I do have in mind what you just said, but I can't, or more like don't want to, elaborate further onto that without spoiling

 

[Vasin]

I have a small issue with that list in that most of the bad things can basically be condensed into a single point - gameplay. I don't even find it to be bad, the issue is that it doesn't fit with the mood of the game in general. It's like you have this great plot that you can stop and get sidetracked into some pixelhunting, an amazing mechanic from adventure games circa 2000. It's not Myst, come on. I don't want to click over square kilometres of screenspace trying to find a hidden easter egg. It helps that I basically treat the game as a kinetic novel.

Storywise I do get a feeling that there is some kind of outline behind it, episode releases not following squarely with plot beats is a common thing with most games here, very rarely you get authors that are willing to delay episodes just to make sure they get a full narrative chunk to the audience.

As for harem I voiced similar concerns in the game's thread earlier and I'm happy to see that there is no signs of harem yet at all. Hopefully that will continue to be the case.

Speaking of harem, I haven't touched PoP ever since I saw those terrible news, I take it it didn't plunge into pits of debauchery yet? I was promised wholesome romance, what a backstab.

 

[jufot]

I am almost completely split on ALG: there are some things that I love about it, and other aspects that are extremely annoying.

As usual, I agree with all of your points. There are far too many pointless 'things' (dialogue, free roam, internal monologues) and I don't really expect the game to ever be finished. Still, I reckon I'll keep enjoying it as long as the focus remains on MC and Selene's dynamic.

Speaking of harem, I haven't touched PoP ever since I saw those terrible news, I take it it didn't plunge into pits of debauchery yet? I was promised wholesome romance, what a backstab.

It definitely feels like a backstab but no, nothing porny just yet. The new "harem members" (eugh!) were barely present in the last update.

 

[Raife]

I have a small issue with that list in that most of the bad things can basically be condensed into a single point - gameplay.

Agreed... the gameplay is a problem. But, to my mind, the dialogue is a bigger problem -- and contributes to the dev's pacing issues.

For example: the MC spends a considerable amount of time explaining to the poor LI how he's deploying his programming skills. Do we really need all that? I suppose that it could become integral to the plot at some point... but jeez.

The most annoying thing is that the dev _can_ write good dialogue... even exceptionally good dialogue. He needs an editor, though, to pare down that prose... with a machete! Hack, hack, slash!

 

[bacienvu88]

From what little I played of the game, the LIs feel less like characters with motivations and more like weirdly submissive sex dolls. Especially that blonde woman who is supposed to be the same rank as MC and yet just throws herself at him for no reason.

There is Dizzy and Lana who so far seem to worship MC, but I expect there to be some character growth there. Especially Lana ("that blonde woman") who is behaving rather oddly. The rest most definitely have their own agendas and conflicting goals.

As for anime harem, sure that is going to be a problem, but I'm not too worried yet.

I'm glad you brought this up because I've had an extensive discussion with the dev about this exact topic. Let me quote some bits from his replies:

That is good news, gives me a bit more hope.
I'm actually more worried about the incest part than the harem part. Because it implies that all women awake on that ship is going to throw themselves at MC. No woman is spared, not even mom and sisters.

And as said before, I have an irrational dislike of the MC. He is annoying. And thinks too much with his dick ("Hmm. She said something strange, how did she know that? But her tits & ass are nice so I'll ignore that!"). And when Selene finally starts telling (what can be assumed to be) the truth he questions the strangest things. Why would they all lie about Stella's existence? It's not like her existing changes anything significant about the situation.

• I enjoy the one LI we've encountered so far... mostly because she's entirely untrustworthy, her motives are ambiguous, and she's a first class liar, as the MC understands very well. I'm 99% certain that she is still lying, or deliberately omitting large portions of the truth, in her interactions with the MC.

Selene is the only thing that still holds me to this game now. But now that she has told the truth(?) I fear that her interestingness is going to drop sharply.

Also, surely Stella is an LI as well and has been encountered.

• The setting really works, particularly the unique rooms.

I agree, except some of them are reused too much so that you don't know where in the ship you are. Although I guess that is realistic because it surely must be confusing navigating that ship. Just adding significantly larger signs in the corridors would help immensely.

• The story is interesting.

Rather than the story being interesting, I think it is still only has potential to be interesting. Not that much has happened yet after all.

For example: the MC spends a considerable amount of time explaining to the poor LI how he's deploying his programming skills. Do we really need all that? I suppose that it could become integral to the plot at some point... but jeez.

And even to someone who knows that stuff, the explanations are confusing and not that accurate. Some of those analogies are weird.

 

[Hildegardt]

Speaking of harem, I haven't touched PoP ever since I saw those terrible news, I take it it didn't plunge into pits of debauchery yet? I was promised wholesome romance, what a backstab.

The tags listed under the dev notes are just so weird. All this emphasis on wholesomeness, but then there's agency depriving tags like harem and optional lesbian. To me PoP's strong points are the character dynamics. I feel like getting to decide who gets to be a lesbian and who doesn't will take away from that. And debating Maria into sharing the PC is gonna be fucking lame. Watch it be something silly like plague healing sperm.

As usual, I agree with all of your points. There are far too many pointless 'things' (dialogue, free roam, internal monologues) and I don't really expect the game to ever be finished. Still, I reckon I'll keep enjoying it as long as the focus remains on MC and Selene's dynamic.

As long as Selene's current arc gets finished I'll be happy. Anything more is out of scope anyway unless the pace picks up massively.

 

[jufot]

I'm actually more worried about the incest part than the harem part. Because it implies that all women awake on that ship is going to throw themselves at MC. No woman is spared, not even mom and sisters.

Yeah, that's fair. I still think the dev has time to change course, and the fact that he's unsure about his original plan is promising, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I'll give it a chance, but I'm also only here for Selene and her dynamic with MC.

All this emphasis on wholesomeness, but then there's agency depriving tags like harem and optional lesbian. [...] I feel like getting to decide who gets to be a lesbian and who doesn't will take away from that.

I think this is a huge and sadly common mistake - making LIs player-sexual. Is she a lesbian? Bi? Who knows! She's a sex doll, she'll tell you whatever you want to hear, she's whoever you want her to be. It's so lazy and uninspired...

 

[bacienvu88]

I think this is a huge and sadly common mistake - making LIs player-sexual. Is she a lesbian? Bi? Who knows! She's a sex doll, she'll tell you whatever you want to hear, she's whoever you want her to be. It's so lazy and uninspired...

I hate it when games have a great lesbian couple and then the MC is butting in on that. But if you don't let MC butt in on it you'll never see their story. Just let the lesbians be lesbians!

That said, I do find it hot when lesbians seduce straight girls.

 

[jufot]

That said, I do find it hot when lesbians seduce straight girls.

Yes, in that direction I'm all for it

 

[realjitter]

I haven't played Price of power yet since i'm not nuch into medieval stories, but are you guys saying that this game spent 14! chapters with one, single LI path and is now about to introduce more to built a harem out of nowhere? That sounds pretty stupid.. Wouldn't it be better to just simply finish the game and then move on and make a new game or a sequel or whatever?

 

[bacienvu88]

I haven't played Price of power yet since i'm not nuch into medieval stories, but are you guys saying that this game spent 14! chapters with one, single LI path and is now about to introduce more to built a harem out of nowhere? That sounds pretty stupid.. Wouldn't it be better to just simply finish the game and then move on and make a new game or a sequel or whatever?

1. While it may look to be a medieval setting, it isn't the whole truth. I won't say more due to spoilers.
2. There have always been 1 main LI and 1 LI that so far only has been a side character but is clearly into MC.
3. In ch 14 two new LIs were introduced.

 

[Raife]

1. While it may look to be a medieval setting, it isn't the whole truth. I won't say more due to spoilers.
2. There have always been 1 main LI and 1 LI that so far only has been a side character but is clearly into MC.
3. In ch 14 two new LIs were introduced.

Indeed. Thus far, _Price of Power_ is a genuinely good, story-first game that I think almost any regular on this thread would enjoy. There are few porny elements and no sex at all in many episodes.

The harem-y option promised by the developer is ominous... but I don't believe that it will be a mandatory path. My hope is that we will end up with a largely story-first game that has a porny path... alongside a 'main path' or two that privilege story and characterization over porn tropes.

jufot follows Panda much more closely than I do, though, and might have a more accurate (and pessimistic) understanding of the dev's intentions...

 

[bacienvu88]

The harem-y option promised by the developer is ominous... but I don't believe that it will be a mandatory path. My hope is that we will end up with a largely story-first game that has a porny path... alongside a 'main path' or two that privilege story and characterization over porn tropes.

I just hope it isn't going to be that MC cures the disease through sex. And MC is the only one who can do it..

 

[Bombmaster]

I just hope it isn't going to be that MC cures the disease through sex. And MC is the only one who can do it..

A yes the blessed shag.

 

[jufot]

Yeah, I don't think anyone but Maria is mandatory. I just hope the game will let us keep the new girls at a friendly distance.