Recommending Story-first games

[Sidartha_6]

Earlier today, I released the opening act of my visual novel, "Mayura Express".

PC -

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MAC -

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It's not exactly ready for a proper "f95" release yet, as there's still an important part of the story I want to complete before creating a proper thread for it. (And that's going to take some time.)

I'm sorry if it was. It's the first day of the release and I'm a little nervous and desperate for feedback. )[/I]

The story, graphics and colors so far seem like an Indian feel good movie. Continue with the story and keep the rickshaw scene which is fun but maybe create more impact at the beginning of the train scene. The language part is a bit harder for me to have an opinion on as I don't speak English mainly myself but it feels like it could be improved a bit. But as I said, continue with the story and adjust later because the little that has come so far seems really good and promising. It may be foolish to spend too much time tweaking at the beginning because it can spoil the joy of creation. What you have done so far is still good enough to move on. Looking forward to the next release.

 

[Deleted member 2577953]

And you certainly won't stop me from giving the game another try after it's full chapter released

Thank you. I'll do my best to make the coming update (and all the subsequent ones) engaging

The scene in the cafe from the ONS makes a similar impression on me, when the characters have already become sufficiently acquainted and have overcome the initial awkwardness, they have a little time to get to know each other better and relax. But there the pressure of the plot prevails, one night stands are what they are, chop-chop boys and girls, there is no time for cuddling and chatting, you have the job to do! I hope there will be no rush in "Maurya Express"

Yeah, being a short story, ONS operated on a completely different pacing.

Rest assured, Mayura Express will be a slow-burn in a very traditional, episodic, sitcom kind of way.

Yes, there will be character developments and story progressions, but all of that will happen gradually, at a more comfortable pace.

The story, graphics and colors so far seem like an Indian feel good movie.

Thank you for the feedback, presenting a "feel-good" vibe was an important goal for me. So, I'm glad you felt that way.

... continue with the story and adjust later because the little that has come so far seems really good and promising. It may be foolish to spend too much time tweaking at the beginning because it can spoil the joy of creation. What you have done so far is still good enough to move on. Looking forward to the next release.

I personally do not believe in "re-working" on already published content (during active development). I'm the type of guy who will forever be stuck at the beginning if I did that.

So, I guarantee that I won't be wasting any time "fixing/changing" stuff that I've already released.

Instead, I'll do my best to make sure the upcoming updates are more entertaining

 

[jufot]

Short Sad Stories chapter 6 is out on

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! Chapter 5 is also out for free

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In an effort to entice more players to give SSS a shot, I'll share this spoiler-free relationship graph of the game. Complex doesn't even begin to describe it

 

[Abhai]

In an effort to entice more players to give SSS a shot, I'll share this spoiler-free relationship graph of the game. Complex doesn't even begin to describe it

View attachment 2953363

it is a bit weird what people consider as "complex" relations (graph)
nothing against your attempt to promote that game whenever/wherever possible (i did try it and it is as great as an average (latino) soap-opera), yet it is far from being "complex".

and while we are in soap-operas territory, complexes and story first games, has NCC been mentioned here?
if not check that for "story-first" and for the game where "complex doesn't even begin to describe it" advertisement would actually fit

now, enjoy your thread/talk...
*going back to story-first shadows*

 

[jufot]

it is a bit weird what people consider as "complex" relations (graph)

It is complex enough for me. Even in this latest episode, I was reminded of connections between characters that I've completely forgotten about.

and while we are in soap-operas territory, complexes and story first games, has NCC been mentioned here? if not check that for "story-first"

I wasn't familiar with that acronym, so I searched the forums a bit. Do you mean New Coral City? From a quick look at the game page, it has broken English, rape, and blackmail. Everything screams porny, and not at all "story-first" (see my criteria in the OP). I feel confident in saying this one is a pass.

 

[EndlessNights]

I wasn't familiar with that acronym, so I searched the forums a bit. Do you mean New Coral City? From a quick look at the game page, it has broken English, rape, and blackmail. Everything screams porny, and not at all "story-first" (see my criteria in the OP). I feel confident in saying this one is a pass.

I think quite highly of New Coral City personally. I've never seen another game present such a complex web of relationships or accommodate choices and branches so skillfully. It's definitely more character-focused than plot-focused if that matters, but literally every character has a story and the relationships can develop along completely different lines depending on how the MC treats them and generally behaves. You could maybe call it porny in the sense that casual sex is treated as the norm for the setting (though monogamous relationships are possible), but it's actually plausible casual sex for the most part and the characters still develop meaningful connections even if they're explicitly not dating or boyfriend/girlfriend. To a large extent, NCC focuses on friendships and rivalries above romance -- the MC's relationships with other men are very important to the story, for instance, though there's zero gay content as far as I'm aware. I thought Éama shared some interesting reflections on NCC's relationships on this thread earlier this year.

The English in the game isn't perfect though I found it passable. I don't remember any rape scenes in my 8 or so playthroughs, but it's possible it happens on branches I haven't played because the branching is pretty intense. FWIW, I tend to avoid Maud's parties though I find her an interesting character -- she definitely likes to pressure people to do sexual things or risk losing access to her events. And I do remember a scene where an obviously very drunk woman hits on the MC. Definitely a just say no moment in my view. Blackmail is present, but it isn't used to coerce sexual favors (again, at least not in any branches I've played or can remember). One character is a hacker who threatens the MC with financial ruin if he doesn't abandon his friendship with the hacker's girlfriend. Optionally, the MC can also help a friend who has been screwed over by a movie producer get a measure of revenge and her career back on track. The MC can definitely do some extremely sleazy things at times if you so choose: torpedo other people's relationships, cheat on girlfriends or with women in relationships, offer a woman with an addiction problem drugs, etc, but you can also play him as a more or less decent though definitely flawed person. I think he's generally worse in Follower, the game that preceded NCC, but I've never been able to get through that one so I can't say that for sure.

The status of the game is a bit complex. I'm talking about the old version which has by far the most content but has been abandoned. There's a remake slowly under development, but it's really just at the starting out stage still.

 

[jufot]

I think quite highly of New Coral City personally.

Well, that definitely changes things. Perhaps I should give it a shot.

 

[Raife]

The status of the game is a bit complex. I'm talking about the old version which has by far the most content but has been abandoned. There's a remake slowly under development, but it's really just at the starting out stage still.

NCC is a very, very porntastic game. It's a good porn game, with -- as Endless says, a very complex array of relationships (and a surprisingly sophisticated sexual satisfaction system) -- but it has even less of a carapace of a story than _The Anomalous Dr. Vibes_. RfL is like _King Lear_ by comparison.

I mean, Endless... consider the _Follower_ backstory to NCC. Strip out the porn and the there's some minor corporate intrigue involving the magazine that employs the MC. And that's it.

This might actually be a good negative test for proving the story-first rule: subtract the porn and sex-centric elements from the game. Are the characters still compelling? Is the plot worth playing through? If the answer is 'no,' it's almost certainly not one for jufot's list. (That doesn't mean that it isn't fun to play.)

 

[EndlessNights]

NCC is a very, very porntastic game. It's a good porn game, with -- as Endless says, a very complex array of relationships (and a surprisingly sophisticated sexual satisfaction system) -- but it has even less of a carapace of a story than _The Anomalous Dr. Vibes_. RfL is like _King Lear_ by comparison.

I mean, Endless... consider the _Follower_ backstory to NCC. Strip out the porn and the there's some minor corporate intrigue involving the magazine that employs the MC. And that's it.

It makes sense a plot-focused person wouldn't care too much for NCC because as you said not much happens in the grand scheme of things besides some dramatic subplots, but I'm just as much (OK, probably more) of a character guy myself. NCC has lots of characters I find rich, memorable, well-developed, and very human. And there's immense variety to the relationships and how they can develop. For instance, I greatly enjoyed my playthroughs where the MC was in a monogamous relationship with Ashley or Yvette. There is still all sorts of interesting things going on in the relationships even if the MC isn't sleeping around...for instance, it turns out Luana very much does not like to feel rejected. It's still a very enjoyable and immersive experience even if you avoid most of the sex.

I've been replaying Panacea recently, and I think it provides a good example of a game I'd be much quicker to call porny than NCC. There's so much sex in Panacea that feels obligatory and unnecessary. It's as if after x minutes of gameplay the dev feels like he has to throw in another emotionless sex scene and perhaps scratch another kink or two off the checklist. NCC never feels like that to me in part because it's always interesting to see what happens regardless of whether or not the MC pursues or rejects someone. All sorts of possibilities are accounted for and dialogue/interactions can change dramatically.

This is a bit off-topic, but I suppose porniness is in the eye of the beholder to an extent. I feel like realjitter often deliberately tries to play games in the porniest way possible as a kind of test to see if the story still holds up. That approach is certainly valid though it sets a difficult standard. Me, I'm more likely to judge a story on its best path or paths and treat a VN as a collaborative effort of sorts between player and author. If I don't make the porniest choices, maybe I'll get a less porny and more interesting story as a result.

 

[jufot]

I've been replaying Panacea recently, and I think it provides a good example of a game I'd be much quicker to call porny than NCC. There's so much sex in Panacea that feels obligatory and unnecessary. It's as if after x minutes of gameplay the dev feels obligated to throw in another emotionless sex scene and perhaps scratch off another kink or two.

I share your impression of Panacea. Despite having a story, it was too intertwined with all the pointless, porny sex and was ultimately ruined by it. Happily and surprisingly, the dev's new game, Occultus: Daughter of Darkness, is much better on both accounts.

 

[camube]

i just learned today that The Bite Revenant has a new update for $5 tier, and the update has been released since the 15th.

anyone played it yet?

good?

 

[Deleted member 2577953]

In an effort to entice more players to give SSS a shot, I'll share this spoiler-free relationship graph of the game. Complex doesn't even begin to describe it

View attachment 2953363

As a character-first kind of guy, your chart convinced me to give it a try.

I'm three chapters in at the moment, and it's been a completely satisfying experience so far.

There is not a single wasted character, or a wasted story beat so far. Everything is knit so tightly.

While it may not be the first or the biggest story which uses multi-perspectivity, it does a DAMN GOOD job of telling its story in an easy and digestible manner.

(I wish I had even 1/10th of the dev's elegance when telling my mess of stories. But I digress.)

On the scale of stories with multi-perspectivity:

. I already like it more than 2022's Bullet Train (which I enjoyed a lot btw)

. If it maintains the same consistency till the end, I'll happily place it up there with the likes of "Odd Taxi".

---

(Really appreciate the recommendation. I definitely wouldn't have tried it out otherwise)

 

[jufot]

. I already like it more than 2022's Bullet Train (which I enjoyed a lot btw)

So did I. Lemon was my favourite character. I even said "don't be such a diesel!" to my wife during an argument. She wasn't amused

(Really appreciate the recommendation. I definitely wouldn't have tried it out otherwise)

Really glad you enjoyed it! I hope you'll like the rest of it.

 

[realjitter]

I did find some time to read "Short sad stories"

I thought it was overall pretty awesome . The only downside here is that it's kinda hard/annoying to write about it because the developer chose to give the player the option to choose between 3 names for most of the characters instead of just giving them a fixed name + the option to name them yourself. So I don't even know how to refer to all of them.. Like, the brother?, the coke girl?, coke girls sister?. =). But despite that, I just really liked the way the story slowly unfolds here. Introducing character after character and then connecting all of them, I love this stuff. This is also one of those games where I would've been fine without making any decisions. It's interesting and unpredictable enough as it is, so just following along would've been good enough for me.

Well, it's basically a story about life, relationships and tragedy. Leaning a bit more into the tragedy side of things compared to other AVN's. Although, for me personally, there's only one really tragic story here and that one will most likely not even play out like it, unfortunately, often times does..

I mentioned it before that i'm a nurse and when i'm at my job i'm pretty good at not letting anything get to me. Like it doesn't matter what, blood/whatever.., nothing makes me flinch . I've had a guy trying to kill himself with a fork right infront of me, some alcoholic smearing the walls in his room with his own poo, patients who just scream all day... Basically everything you can possibly think about or not think about... At the end of the day I just go home and don't take anything work related with me...

But, wanna know about that one time something did get to me?. Like 15 or so years ago I went to another unit to pick up a patient. When I was outside i noticed 2 young (18-20 yo) women standing there having a smoke. I looked at their faces and I noticed that something was off. I looked further down and.., well, I don't know how to describe it. I'm sure most people have seen pictures from holocaust survivors/victims which is exactly how they looked like, just some bones with some skin around them. I honestly have no idea why this affected me the way it did... I felt so bad, I couldn't even greet them properly which is totally out of character for me. It was just really, really sad to see, you know?. So yeah, there's a girl in this AVN who has anorexia/bulimia.

A good friend of mine was also in a relationship with a girl who had this "condition". I told him back then what's likely going to happen and how this will go down in the end, but he didn't listen to me. Of course I couldn't blame him for that, like it's completely normal and understandable human behaviour. You fall for someone and then it turns out that this person has a problem and you try to help her/him the best you possibly can... I mean, you gotta try, right?. Of course you do, but sadly this is a pretty fucked up and complicated mental illness and the more you help and the more energy you invest into it the worse it'll get (on average). I think it's vaguely comparable with severe depression. The person who has it, over time, starts to feed off of their illness and the illness feeds off on him. Both sides become, knowingly or unknowingly, best friends and that's a recipe for, well..., not so healthy stuff when it comes to your psyche... But anyhow, so long story short, after 2 years he eventually realized that he couldn't help her and he broke up with her.... The end...

What i'm trying to say here is that putting that kind of an illness into your AVN is pretty darn ambitious if you don't wanna tell just a fairytale version of it. It doesn't really look like that's the case here, but I still think it's a bit overambitious in this particular case.. Of course we don't know about the severity of her condition or for how long she does what she does. Hell, we don't even know if she has anorexia or bulimia. At least I think we don't.... Maybe it got mentioned?.

As for the rest of this AVN, there's a lot more going on of course. Like "Nicole" for example, the drug dealer hobo who has, if I remember correctly, dementia. A bit off an odd choice to go with here, but ok.... It's just that dementia would be a pretty devastating diagnose for someone her age. I personally would've went with something like schizophrenia here which would fit in better with her having episodes and all that..

There's also the whole brother sister (not incest) dynamic which I thought was also pretty well executed. Well, my favourite character overall would be Ashley though, the coke girl. Mainly because she's the hardest one to get read on which makes her the most interesting one for me.. Although, in the end it'll probably come down to her family issues, which would be fine of course.

One last thing I wanted to point out here are the lewd scenes and how they're done. The developer managed to let those scenes play out organically instead of just turning them into some plain porn scenes like it's done in 99% of all the other AVN's out there.. Good stuff and also quite rare....

So all in all, a pretty cool and unique AVN imo. Go check it out if you like this kind of stuff...

 

[jufot]

The only downside here is that it's kinda hard/annoying to write about it because the developer chose to give the player the option to choose between 3 names for most of the characters instead of just giving them a fixed name + the option to name them yourself.

That was my initial complaint too, but for some reason, given those choices, most players seem to be drawn to the same names. Like, when discussing the game on Patreon, I refer to Lucas or Anne and everyone seems to instinctively get who I'm talking about.

Hell, we don't even know if she has anorexia or bulimia. At least I think we don't.... Maybe it got mentioned?.

It's never spelled out, but I think it's anorexia because bulimia doesn't fit. When she was in the hospital with Olivia, Anne talks about being sectioned against her will because she thinks she's fat and refuses to eat. Even when she's doing better (after meeting Lucas) she's hesitant to eat anything and needs gentle coaxing. We never see or hear about binge-then-puke cycles you'd expect from a bulimic.

Like "Nicole" for example, the drug dealer hobo who has, if I remember correctly, dementia. A bit off an odd choice to go with here, but ok.... It's just that dementia would be a pretty devastating diagnose for someone her age.

It is devastating, and it really affects her relationship with Alice. Since you haven't mentioned Mia, I'll assume you haven't played chapter 6 yet and won't risk spoilers.

Well, my favourite character overall would be Ashley though, the coke girl. Mainly because she's the hardest one to get read on which makes her the most interesting one for me..

Yes, she is interesting and has the potential to have a really solid character arc. We just need a chapter mostly focused on her. Something like what we've had with Olivia, Martha, or Anne.

One last thing I wanted to point out here are the lewd scenes and how they're done. The developer managed to let those scenes play out organically instead of just turning them into some plain porn scenes like it's done in 99% of all the other AVN's out there.. Good stuff and also quite rare....

Indeed. In every sex scene, you can feel that it's not mere lust, but an organic evolution of the relationship between people who genuinely care for each other. It's an AVN club with vanishingly few members...

Btw, did your Alice try to kill herself after Valeria? Just curious

 

[realjitter]

Since you haven't mentioned Mia, I'll assume you haven't played chapter 6 yet and won't risk spoilers.

No I haven't, I assume she's going to be one of the other patients there?. Of course with an easy going, light hearted story attached to her

Btw, did your Alice try to kill herself after Valeria? Just curious

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But no, I chose reason here because she didn't strike me as that kind of a girl.

 

[Deleted member 2577953]

So did I. Lemon was my favourite character. I even said "don't be such a diesel!" to my wife during an argument. She wasn't amused

I imagined the scene in my head, and it was just gold

---

One last thing I wanted to point out here are the lewd scenes and how they're done. The developer managed to let those scenes play out organically instead of just turning them into some plain porn scenes like it's done in 99% of all the other AVN's out there.. Good stuff and also quite rare....

Couldn't have said it better. Those scenes actually felt like an essential part of the story, and actively added to the relationship. (So good!!)

There's also the whole brother sister (not incest) dynamic which I thought was also pretty well executed.

I'm sorry, the fact that a brother sister dynamic has to be clarified beforehand as "not incest", is so hilarious. (And also kinda sad because of how necessary that clarification actually is.)

 

[jufot]

No I haven't, I assume she's going to be one of the other patients there?. Of course with an easy going, light hearted story attached to her

Hah, not even close

But no, I chose reason here because she didn't strike me as that kind of a girl.

I chose to take the pills just to see what would happen. It changes the next chapter a bit but ultimately she survives.

 

[doctorx6969]

i would add now and then and desert stalker.

 

[camube]

NCC

so about NCC, just to make sure, the "old version" you refer to is Season 1 DL link on f95?
did you play Follower and can I skip Follower and just go straight to Season 1?

Season 2 is the remake?