Recommending Story-first games

[bacienvu88]

When discussing the value of reviews, keep in mind that people in general suck at clearly expressing what they actually want. And a lot of the time we don't even know what we actually want. We may think something is the cause of why we dislike the game, but most of the time what we express is the symptoms of why we dislike a game or guessed causes from our own observations. If someone writes "Too long, boring", is "too long" the actual cause or is it just a guess to why they found the game boring and the actual cause is something else? Neither symptoms nor guessed causes are actionable for a dev. Only actual causes are actionable. And it is very difficult to glean actual causes from reviews.

And also beware of the inherent selection bias in reviews on a site like this where anyone can write a review if they want. Who chooses to write a review and why? It is difficult to know what the silent mass thinks about the game.

 

[Dragon59]

Art is subjective. People like different things.

I wouldn't ever want to say that someone's opinion about my game is invalid or that it goes in the garbage heap. It's always useful to know how people respond to my game, whether they like it or not. The issue is whether I can glean from their comments some way I can improve my game.

And from anyone who feels that their view of art is objective, their opinions should be taken with at least a cup of salt, if not a full pound.

One review of my game was, "To long and a lot of talking boring game it sucked." I disagree with this review, but I wouldn't call it invalid. The player had this legitimate response to playing my game, and it's safe to assume that many other players also found my dialogue boring. I should keep that in mind when I'm writing dialogue. But I also should keep in mind those other players who praised the exact same dialogue.

I'm reminded of the many reviews that give bad ratings merely because their own particular kink wasn't included or given enough "air time." I would not consider that a useful review.

I like to remind myself that even the Princess Bride had a couple of negative reviews from professional movie critics.

The Princess Bride, Citizen Kane, and so many others open to mediocre reviews only to be come classics (or cult classics).

Princess Bride, pretty solid movie, but as you already mentioned, (almost) everything is subjective. This reminds me of a girlfriend of mine like 20 years ago. We wanted to see a movie back at my place and she went through my DVD colletction and after a while she asked me about what my favourite movie is out of the bunch. I answered "Short Cuts"... I've always been a "big" Robert Altman admirer, but i know that his type of movies certainly aren't everyone's cup of tea, to put it mildly. So we watched the movie and I was glued to screen, completely immersed in it, right from the beginning. Then after like 30 minutes I looked over at my girlfriend and, well, she fell asleep =). That was the last time she asked me about movies btw . Funny though, a couple of weeks later we went to the movies and I let her pick which one we're going to watch. She picked Lord of the rings, the first one.. And guess what, I also fell asleep after about an hour into it because I was bored out of my mind. Now that I think of it, I think we actually never watched a movie we both ended up liking . I know of course that many people adore LOTR, but again, (almost) everything is subjective...

I think there are a number of games that, if the reviewer was familiar to Altman movies, would cite it. His movies always had many, many characters.

I absolutely agree with EndlessNights, just wanted to add that unless you're developing yet another landlady molester sim (hey, everyone dreams of creeping on a sleeping landlady, right? Right?)

When I started here, it seemed like the majority of the games fit into this category.

there will always be a part of the audience that will not like what you do, simply because they came for something completely different or they weren't in the mood for your game. And I don't think that "boring dialogue" can be considered a criticism of the game. It's just the matter of taste of a particular player. For example, if the complaint was that your hero speaks like a street punk, although according to the plot he is educated and well-mannered, this is what I would call constructive criticism that you can work with.

I grew up with movies from many different eras. Many of the older ones (IMHO) are underappreciated because modern movies have a much faster pacing.

 

[camube]

Art is subjective. People like different things.

I wouldn't ever want to say that someone's opinion about my game is invalid or that it goes in the garbage heap. It's always useful to know how people respond to my game, whether they like it or not. The issue is whether I can glean from their comments some way I can improve my game.

One review of my game was, "To long and a lot of talking boring game it sucked." I disagree with this review, but I wouldn't call it invalid. The player had this legitimate response to playing my game, and it's safe to assume that many other players also found my dialogue boring. I should keep that in mind when I'm writing dialogue. But I also should keep in mind those other players who praised the exact same dialogue.

I like to remind myself that even the Princess Bride had a couple of negative reviews from professional movie critics.

I'm quite excited to read the continuation of your game.

 

[Canto Forte]

Are you now?

I'm quite excited to read

Spoiler: Read all you want:

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Impious Monk, great character design and sweet dialogues carry your game.
The awkwardness of MC and the unease of his friends fits right into the many reasons
MC has heaps of failed relationships and is dreading another hook up like the plague.
Game oN!

 

[Canto Forte]

MidnightArrow
Believng you are also a gamer and watching movies, please use the scenes
you love best in drawing inspiration about what shots carry over best your writing.

This is how you introduce a hottie to the audience - total focus on her.

At the moment, this is about all I can manage:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Focus on the babe, brah, she is your centerpiece, let us see all your work shine upclose.

 

[MidnightArrow]

What is hurting you is the totally hogging our focus but blurry bland outta focus guy
in the foreground, we cannot get around him, what eye sore, plus the nonessential babe
that we barely make out only because she is the only character facing our way in the shot.

It's not that kind of scene.

 

[jufot]

Thoughts on the latest episode of Three Rules of Life? I've been waiting for it for ages! I've only played Naomi and Danielle's paths so far, but the major plot points seem LI agnostic, so here are some early thoughts:

Spoiler: minor spoilers

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[camube]

Thoughts on the latest episode of Three Rules of Life? I've been waiting for it for ages! I've only played Naomi's path so far, but the major plot points seem LI agnostic, so here are some early thoughts:

Spoiler: minor spoilers

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

can i ask what are the game's Three Rules of Life?
I want to know that so very much
Don't have time to play that VN until much later though
Has the game told the readers what those rules are?

 

[jufot]

Has the game told the readers what those rules are?

It didn't give us an itemized list, no. If it helps, I'm sure the final chapter will end with an emotional monologue set to a warm and upbeat song addressing exactly that

 

[realjitter]

I thought this game was a goner for sure. Gotta find some time to read it since I probably have to start from the very beginning. Three rules of life was the first AVN that had, for me at least, a "Hey look, it's an AVN" or "It's a dating game" moment in it. And to be honest I can only think of 2 more games who had something similar. It's silly because all of those scenes are very small ones. Normally they wouldn't even be noteworthy because they happen all the time in other media. But since AVN's are so dead set on on wishful fulfillment..., you know..

Spoiler: Three rules of life

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Spoiler: Our red string

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Spoiler: Alive

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Again, very minor stuff..

 

[ShamanLab]

Hi there!

Yestarday i found little gem. Very solid and unique from storywise perspective novel "Strings of Fate".

 

[bacienvu88]

I just noticed that

You must be registered to see the links

of Reunion fame has a new game: Hearts Under the Red Sky

I haven't played it yet, so no more comments for now.

 

[bacienvu88]

New chapter for Price of Power is out on

You must be registered to see the links

and

You must be registered to see the links

.

I think it is one of the best chapters yet.

Spoiler: Some thoughts (copied from my post on the PoP thread)

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[jufot]

New chapter for Price of Power is out

Agreed, I liked it too.

Spoiler: Some thoughts

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[camube]

Agreed, I liked it too.

Spoiler: Some thoughts

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

I played Alpha and Omega second update a while ago. It was good. Really good.
I don't particularly get hooked on the first update. But second update was great.

With regards to "story-first games", I gain a new appreciation towards Projekt Passion after playing Eternum.
Both are harem, both have actions, both have mcguffins they chase, but Projekt Passion scripts makes more sense in the sense of consistency with regards to interpersonal relationship between the casts compared to Eternum.

Playing Eternum just made me realized how good Classy Lemon is at juggling things. A comedic one at that lmao.

Eternum action is amazing though.
Kinda worth it playing Eternum just to see the epic action scenes.

I still think you and all here should play Arson Betrayal though Jufot.
Take out all the adult scenes, it's still a good game. With good pacing that consistently moves forward. It's legit a story-first game that probably needs more Patreon support.

Speaking of more Patreon support, Mad World probably needs some as well.
Problem about Mad World is it's f95zone description to be honest. It sucked! not gonna lie Capella

I wouldn't have expect an epic action game based on that overview, that synopsis, and those pictures.

 

[jufot]

Arson Betrayal

I tried it a while back, just couldn't get into it. It's "too anime" for my tastes and the (rather generic) story takes a back seat to porn a few too many times.

Speaking of more Patreon support, Mad World probably needs some as well.

I'm a big fan of Mad World. While also featuring a harem, the scales are much heavier on the story side. It very much puts the story first and the few sex scenes it feature actual character development, unlike the mindless bit smashing of Arson.

 

[camube]

I tried it a while back, just couldn't get into it. It's "too anime" for my tastes and the (rather generic) story takes a back seat to porn a few too many times.


I'm a big fan of Mad World. While also featuring a harem, the scales are much heavier on the story side. It very much puts the story first and the few sex scenes it has feature actual character development, unlike the mindless bit smashing of Arson.

I understand. I can't get over the first part of Where the Heart is either. Preference is preference.

Mad World should have, or I'd say hopefully would have far more patrons than it currently is.
I really don't want it to get abandoned, but there are very few patrons as of now, and it's DAZ not Honey Select. From my understanding it takes more time to use Daz than to use HS.

I gain more appreciation towards Mad World's action scenes post-Eternum too. It's up there with Eternum with regards to action scenes.

After a year or so being in this forum, I now realized that there are very few good story AVN games out there (that also fits my taste, which is, usually, not medieval).
Most of AVN games out there that even have stories uses stories as a vehicle to deliver adult scenes instead of having good story and then having adult scenes as spices.

As in, the priority is the adult scenes, not stories (even in games that do have stories). Which brings me back to my initial sentence. There aren't that many games like Mad World but it's a sad state that games like Mad World has very few patrons and thus probably have longer development time due to limited resources.

Well, gonna try Sicae now and force myself to get over the first part of MBML.
Those and Toro 7 are probably the only three story-heavy games I haven't play on this site, on the ren'py side.
After that, I don't have anything else to play.

 

[twipwas]

How sandboxy is Arson Betrayal? Most of the time I cant get into them.

 

[noping123]

=

Mad World should have, or I'd say hopefully would have far more patrons than it currently is.
I really don't want it to get abandoned, but there are very few patrons as of now, and it's DAZ not Honey Select. From my understanding it takes more time to use Daz than to use HS.

Mad World suffers mostly from an insane break in development. It was a good game last I played it which was.... well over a year ago at this point. I know a new update came out, and I just haven't been able to bring myself to care enough to check it out - honestly the biggest reason is simply it's been so long that I forgot most of it, and would have to reply so much that I keep feeling like I just don't have the time for that.

I feel like a LOT of people felt the same way about it. It's patron numbers weren't amazing back then (although even now they're still better than mine! But hey), and I think it simply didn't have enough support at the time to really recover from such a long break - not the way something like Deluca did. That was also a game with an insane break in development, but it had the support to survive that... Mad World unfortunately, despite being good, didn't.

Knowing what little I do about the dev, I doubt it gets abandoned though. I feel like it's definitely a game that will be seen to completion, regardless of support. Maybe one day I'll try it again, but... if I'm being 100% honest? I'd probably want to wait for a few more updates first, just to make sure it's not going to run into more super long breaks.


In other news, I just announced a new game on my Patreon! (Nothing public yet. I haven't actually named the game yet, I'm waiting until I come up with a name before a public announcement. That will be sometime in the next month, or week, or however long it takes me to settle on a good name). I know one thing though.... jufot will hate it, seeing as it's main setting is a college......

 

[jufot]

simply it's been so long that I forgot most of it, and would have to reply so much that I keep feeling like I just don't have the time for that

Yeah, I had to start Mad World from scratch with the latest update but I remembered being so into the plot that I figured it'd be worth it. It was

I think it simply didn't have enough support at the time to really recover from such a long break - not the way something like Deluca did

It also helps that the plot in DeLuca is much less prominent/important to the game than MW.

In other news, I just announced a new game on my Patreon!

I'm looking forward to it!