Recommending Story-first games

[bacienvu88]

One thing that I am certain is that the sister was not, in fact, a porn star since it's not a skippable segment.

In the non-remastered version there was nothing said at all about her profession. At least as far as I remember it. So like I wrote in the thread, she could very well have been a porn actress. It just wasn't mentioned yet.

I'm also concerned the game might fall prey to remasteritis where the creator tries to make it into their perfect magnum opus so that it will get constantly changed with little to no plot progression. But it's definitely worth keeping a close eye on, for sure.

Yeah, that is a very real concern. I'm also concerned that there are too much stuff going on in the game so it becomes unfocused.

 

[Vasin]

Right. Far too many games suffer from this. They start out promising it won't affect the story progression, that they are only going to work on it on the side. Suddenly, six months have passed, no new chapter has been released, but hey, at least chapter 1 looks great now

If anything the sister's character is now more internally consistent, she clearly has to be bonked in the head to have such a high opinion of MC so it's only natural for her to be a porn actress as well.

As for game remakes I can't say that reading threads for something like Heavy Five does not bring me immense joy, but I can't help but feel bad about the games that could have been finished. I can say that any work is better than no work on the game though.

 

[thanks for the demos]

I also tried Derealization (first time reading it) and enjoyed it quite a bit. Flawed but charismatic PC plus s strong female MC to play off of - an amalgamation of idealized memories, porn-colored glasses, bantery angel-of-his-better-nature and vague reminder-of-what-was-lost.

I fall into the minority(?) who liked the scenes with Jilla, his sister: her sitting in the car, practicing her speech after he's stormed off - a cute scene and an effective way of showing her (overly) positive image of him. In her mind his outburst must of course stem from a misplaced sense of protectiveness and an inability to express emotions (a fair guess in most cases), she doesn't even really consider justifying herself, instead she tries to alleviate his perceived worries for her safety.

I don't really see what characterization she gets beyond that, other than (step)sister trying to reconnect (so it's hard for me to imagine what pristine image had been twisted/ 'tainted'(blergh) in the eyes of some commenters, much less understand the sheer vitriol of their reaction), but that scene, plus the one of her looking out for him, taking charge of the situation and handling his violent mess-up, paint a pretty sympathetic sibling character.

If you read Theia as partly his conscience/unconscious, her giving him shit shows he already knows he should do better by J. Once he puts on his big boy pants + spelunking gear and manages to crawl out of his own ass, he should find plenty of motivation in aspiring to become the person Jilla sees in him.

Sydney's big character moment being hidden behind a phone call you might or might not make seemed an odd choice, though we already get a decent idea of her brand of dysfunctional from her intro scene. Probably one of the best dead-inside 'fake smiles' I've seen in a VN (text priming certainly helped, but I felt the image stood on it's own).

Honorary mention for the highschool teen girl/neighbor fed up with her family being among the more relatable characters.

 

[Canto Forte]

She was nowhere enar MC for six years, now she drives him away from her in some other city,
then she dissapears for another six years.
She is angelic, just like the land lady blonde angel of a girl too fantastic looking to be of this earth,
they are prone to be manhandled by bad boys. Jill was abused by porn assholes playing on her inexperience
in human trafficking - sex slavery for some money is the go to scam in porn since the dawn of time.

Blonde angel of a girl sweeties in this game are beaten to blood and abused by the guys they stay with,
so hearing Jill drama and seeing the very graphic drug addiction of the blonde landlady having to get beaten
and abused and feel horrible about herself and want to end all the suffering,
coupled with the fact MC has no car and is not coming to pick her up -
she needed ambulance and police and restraining order and victims shelter ...

More like a chauffeur than a sister

there was nothing said at all

has to be bonked in the head to have such a high opinion of MC

a cute scene and an effective way of showing her (overly) positive image of him

This kind of drama just kills any human being on the inside.
MC cannot fathom Jill, his angel, someone he values deeply and above himself,
to have been taken advantage of and for her to mention that of all things six years worth.

As a player, anyone dies a little inside watching the abusive life of the blonde land lady,
her drama, her self deprecating self loathing thoughts, MC being oblivious ...

Underneath all the shallow female cancel culture and MC becoming the next saw/scream/dexter
psycho killer and the hylarious gags in this game, the heartache is suffocating.

 

[camube]

bacienvu88 how is the action scenes on Sicae? Is it as good as Eternum and Mad World?
I'm assuming here you played those.

 

[bacienvu88]

bacienvu88 how is the action scenes on Sicae? Is it as good as Eternum and Mad World?
I'm assuming here you played those.

All in all I'd say it is a tier below those. What Sicae has that is unique for VNs though is that it has three fairly long martial arts animations that I really like.

 

[constantine]

So I tried Derealization. I have actually played it more than a year ago and from what I recall I found it to be mostly enjoyable, save for the soapboxing bit from Gray that I thought was a bit cringe but still in-character for where it happens, and occasional stylistic mistake.

Fast forward to now, and apparently the game has been remastered which is the reason it still ends exactly where it ended last time. I can't tell if anything of substance was added or changed (I haven't called Sydney on that playthrough, so I'm not sure if I missed the best scene in the game or if it was expanded). I like what little there is of characterization so far, and even the main character, while being a kind of a pastiche of a midlife crisis douche, I found sort of relatable. The game also has a good sense of comedic timing and even the soundtrack I didn't find particularly aggravating.

One thing that I am certain is that the sister was not, in fact, a porn star since it's not a skippable segment. And while I don't share the utmost disdain the thread visitors have towards her (my favorite bit was comparing being a pornstar to being Batman. *chefskiss*), I can see how taking a good character and retconning them in a different direction can be annoying. Especially since it was mostly played for a gag and seemingly dropped with no consequence.

I'm also concerned the game might fall prey to remasteritis where the creator tries to make it into their perfect magnum opus so that it will get constantly changed with little to no plot progression. But it's definitely worth keeping a close eye on, for sure.

Well, since I was the one that made the Batman comparison, I think it works since Batman, like pornstars, work nights.

Seriously, while I can admit it being a rather odd, if not funny (my brain can act funny sometimes), to make that comparison, my point is Batman isn't a good character if there isn't some reason or context to him being Batman. He would simply be a man in a suit. Just like the sister doing porn I don't think is good characterization, if there isn't reason behind it. If she was a doctor would it be so wrong to want to know about why she's a doctor? So, I don't know what's so wrong to want to know more about her doing porn? Is her doing porn not meant to be part of her character, rather something mentioned only to piss off the MC?

Jilla says: "I'm not going to ask what happened here, and you in turn, have never heard of me doing porn. Deal?"
MC: "Deal."

Why doesn't Jilla want to acknowledge her doing porn when it was she that brought it up? Is she now embarrassed about it? If there's nothing wrong with her doing porn, why care what MC thinks about? And if his opinion mattered to her, why not ask him about it? It just seems to me that the dev didn't want to elaborate further, so the characters agree to ignore it.

Part of the problem I think is because we don't know enough about the sister, it allows people to project what they want.

 

[jufot]

If she was a doctor would it be so wrong to want to know about why she's a doctor?

If she was a doctor, half the game thread wouldn't be dedicated to complaints about it.

Why doesn't Jilla want to acknowledge her doing porn when it was she that brought it up? Is she now embarrassed about it?

How does she not want to acknowledge it when she's the one who brought it up in the first place? She panics and tries to roll it back because she knows the guy is an unhinged, violent douchebag.

If there's nothing wrong with her doing porn, why care what MC thinks about? And if his opinion mattered to her, why not ask him about it?

Because he's her brother? When I told my brother about my job, it was more "we're family and you should know" and less "I'm telling you so you can go into a moralizing rage about it"

 

[Hildegardt]

I think it works since Batman, like pornstars, work nights.

I don't think that's true, because the lighting at night sucks and filming is kinda all about catching light.

Just like the sister doing porn I don't think is good characterization, if there isn't reason behind it.

It's part of the worldbuilding. It's a taste of the possible characters, backstories and mood of the game. Just like other characters like Sydney show that violence, abuse and depression are going to be themes.
It's also used for the PC to react to, which characterizes him instead.

If she was a doctor would it be so wrong to want to know about why she's a doctor?

Come on now. You're deflecting. It's obvious that people want to know if she's marriage material or not in their eyes (spoiler alert: there's no incest anywhere in the planned tags). You don't seem to care as much about the PC's backstory, which only gets revealed in tiny little chunks for obvious reasons. Only in Jill's case does the plot need to get spoiled immediately, because people are deathly afraid of getting NTRed.

Part of the problem I think is because we don't know enough about the sister, it allows people to project what they want.

I don't even know why people assume that she's a porn star. To me she more so seemed to hint at a one time amateur gig. I also don't get why people assume that she's going to be an important recurring character. Isn't it obvious that the game is rather going to be about the PC's new work, his neighbours and his landlady?
I could see Jill's porno hinting at her getting involved with shady people and then the PC saves her from coercion by going on a rampage and revealing his violent nature. But other than that I don't see Jill getting much screen time. It's weird that we know almost nothing about any of the characters, including the PC, but only in Jill's case it's an issue.

 

[Canto Forte]

It shows how pathetic and insignifficant MC is in his life. The girls in his life do not interest him,
all throughout this game MC has rejected the girls he actually knows, like the secretary or the barmaid,
he just walked away from the people who know him, he even totally neglected that girl crashing at his.
Totally disheartening.
Then outta the blue, he wants to talk to his sister who only drives him away from her and then dissapears,
the girl who is a drunkard junky or the actual junky.
The two gorgeous blondes are shown to be total idiots that absolute assholes take advantage of.
MC had two opportunities to actually do good by the people he knows: barmaid and secretary,
but he just walks away literally. He runs away literally from the girl crashing at his, not saying a word.
Then when it comes to the blondes, is just pasing by through their lives, faking being interested,
but never actually angaging with them so they would actually do stuff together,
actually turn their bad stories around by being there with them.

but only in Jill's case it's an issue.

Sydney show that violence, abuse and depression are going to be themes

Jill is theonly one who tells MC her heartache, watching her go through her emotions about her adult scenes,
she is furious, she is ashamed, like some shmuck taped her and sold the video, which is a heartache.
Sydney is in the same predicament, some schmuck is bloody beating her up and feeding her pills.

The good is, MC can actually save Sydney, save the drunkard junkey, he can be there with them.
The sister is gone for the next six years, hopefully not being taken advantage of ... hopefully.

 

[jufot]

There has been some interest in Nova-Box VNs on this thread, so I wanted to share this here. They've just announced their next VN

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coming out on 25 May:

In this new interactive graphic novel, you'll be following a family trying to survive in a post climate meltdown Europe. To achieve that, you'll have to manage their resources and the people who travel alongside them, while, of course, making choices that will shape their journey across the continent.

Trailer:

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[Vasin]

This game frustrates me. On one hand, the writing is fluent and witty, the central mystery is going really well, and I'm invested. I love the references to horror literature. The MC's misanthropic emo-with-an-attitude personality is very alluring.

On the other hand, I find all LIs to be dreadfully boring. The teacher's pet, the succubus with a heart of gold, the quirky manic pixie dream girl, and the sworn enemy falling for the hero are all just tiresome and uninspired. I can't bring myself to care about any of them. And Brianna? Hers is a disgusting storyline and the less I say about it, the better.

On yet another hand, I like the villainous women. They are all quite entertaining. Silver, Odette and Swansong are all unimpressed with MC. They toy with him, use him and dump him. Marie is the wildcard, and her reference to MC's past suggests MC will turn the tables on them eventually. But until then, I'll keep enjoying their dynamic with our poor hero

I tried this one, not sure how I missed it. I think this could be the best representation of gothic urban fantasy here. Unlike The Bite that does vampires really well, but it mostly referencing VTMB this feels more like a proper WoD inspired setting, being much more eclectic and cosmopolitan. Main mystery works really well so far, and while I would like the MC to have a more proper introduction, I still liked his self-aware personality despite it feeling a tad anachronistic (I feel like setting the game in early 00's would help or maybe it's just because all of my WoD campaigns took place then).

Production value is also really good - great renders, soundtrack, even gameplay integration with stat menu and "combat" sequence with so many permutations based on your stats, it's all really great.

As for love interests, I'm sort of in direct opposition here, I find women that go for wham, bam, thank you to be very dull. That said, actual love interests felt pretty alright to me, given that we're only in the 1st chapter. The ones that have scenes, namely Rayne and Keira both felt kind of plain, but there are hints of future conflict in their storylines and Alice is probably the most potentially intriguing character given that she can see the future. (I also would like to say that while she's definitely manic, she doesn't fit the trope, as not only she's not the incentive for MC to do anything, it's actually quite hard to get with her). There's a bit of a hook in Selena's story that comes right at the end of the chapter too. That Brianna scene though, what the actual fuck. Yeah there's been some lampshading of "it must be some magical dick powers" thing but now I expect some damn impressive justification for this kind of shit.

I'll be keeping a close eye on this one.

 

[jufot]

I wanted to bring up another game here real quick even though it doesn't really fit here since it's a, more or less, full on porn game

Love, Honor, Betray

Thanks for recommending this! It's very similar to JOHN and so far I'm enjoying myself.

The MC is, how should I describe her, cute?, adorable?. I'm not even sure how to describe her to be honest. There's this certain level of genuity about her which I think works very well here and ends up carrying the whole thing.

Lacey is incredibly cute, and I already like her a lot more than JOHN's Jessica. Lacey feels a lot more grounded, sincere. I can imagine her being a real person. Unlike Jessica, who is more of a walking sex doll

In my run I played her as being sexual active with her husband right from the beginning while also exploring her bi sexual side along the way.

I do the same. The women actually map pretty well to JOHN, like LHB's Riley to JOHN's Blake, Victoria to Heather, and Maude to Shani. A bit too similar, maybe.

As for the blackmail portion of the story. Of course you immediately start to think "Alright, here we go". "Forced gangbangs, being forced sucking off some coma patients or whatever..." But that's not quite how this goes down. Seems more like a story angle so far rather than what you'd typically associate with blackmail in AVN's (could be wrong here though)

I'm fine with blackmail as a story device, but it really needs to stay non-sexual. That buttplug situation was already iffy, I hope that's where it stops.

 

[constantine]

How does she not want to acknowledge it when she's the one who brought it up in the first place? She panics and tries to roll it back because she knows the guy is an unhinged, violent douchebag.

Right. She acknowledges, then tries to un-acknowledge it. MC and her agree to not acknowledge her doing porn.

I don't think that's true, because the lighting at night sucks and filming is kinda all about catching light.

Fine, if you want to get technical about it. Let's compare with Spider-man instead of Batman, since both Spider-man and pornstars deal with sticky white stuff.

Come on now. You're deflecting. It's obvious that people want to know if she's marriage material or not in their eyes (spoiler alert: there's no incest anywhere in the planned tags). You don't seem to care as much about the PC's backstory, which only gets revealed in tiny little chunks for obvious reasons. Only in Jill's case does the plot need to get spoiled immediately, because people are deathly afraid of getting NTRed.

I don't even know why people assume that she's a porn star. To me she more so seemed to hint at a one time amateur gig. I also don't get why people assume that she's going to be an important recurring character. Isn't it obvious that the game is rather going to be about the PC's new work, his neighbours and his landlady?
I could see Jill's porno hinting at her getting involved with shady people and then the PC saves her from coercion by going on a rampage and revealing his violent nature. But other than that I don't see Jill getting much screen time. It's weird that we know almost nothing about any of the characters, including the PC, but only in Jill's case it's an issue.

That's them. They would rather she not do porn, I'm trying to figure out why she's in porn. I think it's fine if she does porn if it means something to her character or to the world.

"Choosing your character’s career should never be a slapdash decision, made on the fly and based on little more than impulse. What your character does for a living, even if it doesn’t feature prominently in your story, will profoundly affect who he is and how he responds to the world around him."

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"A character's occupation says a lot about who they are. It can define their morals and values, stem from a past wound, hint at their highest aspiration, or highlight a talent or skill. Occupations should also help (or hinder) the character as they strive to achieve their goals. As such, they need to be chosen deliberately."

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I'm not asking it to all be revealed, but there's no indication that her doing porn means anything because apparently they made a deal to ignore it.

I agree she's over scrutinized, and I'm guilty of doing so too, but her doing porn was added, while other characters (from what I can tell) remain mostly unchanged. If the MC was suddenly (re)written to being a pornstar without reasons, I would be asking the same questions.

 

[realjitter]

Lacey is incredibly cute, and I already like her a lot more than JOHN's Jessica. Lacey feels a lot more grounded, sincere. I can imagine her being a real person. Unlike Jessica, who is more of a walking sex doll

Her facial expressions are the best=).

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She always seems to become so invested, like her imagination's running on overdrive, when she gets approached by someone. Makes even your standard yoga scene amusing when she's just standing there at the doorway watching someone.. Well, she also doesn't really get it, as of now, which makes it even better.

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Mix in someone like Victoria and things become straight up cruel!. Be strong Lacey, be strong=). Overall, I think the game makes it very easy to root for her . It's interesting that you've mentioned sincerity because that is indeed an ingredient that's missing in a lot of AVN's, imo. By that I mean sincerity in it's entirety.

Well, and as for the blackmail portion of the game. I don't know, the whole vibe of the game doesn't excatly scream "depraved blackmail, fuck up story" in my mind, but we'll see I guess.

 

[bacienvu88]

Drifty's new game is out: u4ia

 

[Canto Forte]

Now we know and adore her for ever and for always ... case closed, she is all the rage.

Spoiler: The rage ...

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[boobsrcool]

Now we know and adore her for ever and for always ... case closed, she is all the rage.

Spoiler: The rage ...

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What the fuck?

 

[Impenitent]

Drifty's new game is out: u4ia

I made it through the opening sequence before shutting it off.

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I admit I came into u4ia with a bias because, with the very notable exception of much of Cece's story, I didn't think Leap of Faith was a well-written game. But that bias goes both ways. Already we see in several glowing reviews that u4ia is going to get the benefit of Drifty's reputation, rather than being evaluated on its own merits.

 

[Canto Forte]

Truth be told .. this is a testament of how much sexual tension works in any setting ...
but you gotta have it to work.

So .. we got sex up the walls in most action movies, sex off the hooks in horror movies, sex in many successful
series, because you either play off a sex tension to make events interesting, or you have actual sex do the talking.

Either way, unless anyone wants rude violence, unfortunatelly many hugely successful seris or movies use it well,
we can go for the next best thing: sex, where we can have suspense, rough times, emotional blackmail, conquering,
playing hard to get and/or banter and tension to cut it with a chainsaw ...

Sex is a hard comodity and making it be real in any setting is a wonderful sense of fulfilment
for the players/viewers:
the characters made it to a hard milestone in their lives: be attractive enough to be accepted in human society,
as possible partners by others, trustworthy or nasty enough to have someone be their sex partner, bare,
in their most unprotected state - body to body relationships.

Starting with hook ups is a very useful ice breaker for any story, it sets the actors up for success,
as they have won somebody over already and mated with them, for better or worse, the story starts strong.

Gary anatomy series at it to this day started with the protagonist bang their later love interest.
That pilot made a stirr enough to actually turn hospitals everywhere into breeding dens for horny rabid man eaters.