Recommending Story-first games

[realjitter]

Runa was the highlight.

I partially agree with you. Although, I did predict her storyline right from the beginning, including the rooftop scene. I just didn't predict that she'd do what she did . Ebi-hime stories are, at least the ones i've read so far, pretty straight forward when it comes to the to story itself. There's the MC and an LI and the story, most of the times, concludes in a happy ending. Nothing really wrong with that of course, like it's classic romance novel writing, but sometimes I feel like you could do a little more. Like in "fragile feelings" for example, Runa could've been used in a different way by making the "matters of heart" more complicated.

But then again, it told what it wanted to tell I guess and that's fine. The story was pretty stacked already and it also doesn't have a

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So maybe it was "perfect"?. I'm a little torn on this one...

 

[Jaike]

Ebi-hime stories are, at least the ones i've read so far, pretty straight forward when it comes to the to story itself. There's the MC and an LI and the story, most of the times, concludes in a happy ending.

Do we tell them?

 

[jufot]

most of the times, concludes in a happy ending

I concur with Jaike's reaction above! If this is what you think, you clearly need to play more of ebi-hime's games.

So maybe it was "perfect"?. I'm a little torn on this one...

I'm grateful it didn't have that kind of ending, so yes, I'd say it was perfect for me.

There are tragedies and comedies. I've always preferred the former, which is a big reason why I like ebi-hime's stories.

 

[bacienvu88]

I have some reservations about the "Sherlock Holmes" character of the MC. Like Sherlock, he always seems to have everything figured out. But there are several scenes where this expectation is subverted. Which is nice. I said to the dev that I appreciate a vulnerable MC and I was told there is much more to come in that regard.

Personally I find it refreshing that an MC described as intelligent is actually allowed to be intelligent instead of never figuring anything out by themselves. But the subversions are nice as well.

Selena is still my favorite LI. I love her conversations with Caleb. She's sensitive, thoughtful, and understated which is a rare set of qualities for an AVN character.

I agree with that, but what makes her extra interesting is her relation to the Dean and the Lunar Order.

The sex scenes are often abrupt, but I'd say there's an understandable reason for all of the encounters so far. It's just that mutual attraction isn't necessarily the primary or necessarily even one of the driving forces behind them. A lot of people and factions want to monitor and manipulate Caleb. The sex is all avoidable (easily now thanks to the NSFW tag on important choices) and the plot is definitely what's most important here.

I am quite fond of the date with Rayne and the sex scene when you commit to her. You get so much insight into her.

For what it's worth, I'm not sure Invictus is really manipulating Marie into doing anything she doesn't want to do. She knows what she's doing even though we don't, and her involvement with Invictus seems to be the result of her own choices and suits her own ends.

I hope you're right. I'd enjoy this game a whole lot more that way. It would mean that Marie isn't a damsel in distress, in over her head, but rather someone with agency who just happened to have made bad choices.

How did you figure Marie is a damsel in distress? It is hinted rather heavily that Marie manipulates Invictus behind the scenes. Marie is basically operating undercover and lets Invictus think he is in control. I doubt Invictus would approve of Marie's contact with Silver and they apparently know each other somewhat at least.

Then there is the new update with the whole spiel from Marie how Caleb taught her how to manipulative people. That said, I don't trust anything Marie says by this point.

My take on the plot is that there is a five-way power struggle between Dean, Invictus, Silver, Marie and the woman we meet at the end. With Caleb as the pivot. Marie cooperates with Silver; at least for now. Doubt they are fully aligned on the goal.

Finally. No one mentioned the early ending(s)? I find that pretty interesting and gets some more insight into Caleb.

 

[jufot]

How did you figure Marie is a damsel in distress?

From her "it's too late to save me" speech. Immediately she tries playing it off for laughs, like "haha I had to try," but I thought that was closer to the truth than she would have liked.

It is hinted rather heavily that Marie manipulates Invictus behind the scenes. Marie is basically operating undercover and lets Invictus think he is in control. I doubt Invictus would approve of Marie's contact with Silver and they apparently know each other somewhat at least.

I don't remember seeing anything that would suggest Invictus was unaware of Marie and Silver, but perhaps I missed something.

Finally. No one mentioned the early ending(s)? I find that pretty interesting and gets some more insight into Caleb.

I tried the one where he walks away from the school and was... disappointed. I expected more consequences and only got a surprised look at the end.

 

[Slick Bean]

For the love of Zero End ... the alternate path to just forego everything and go was wonderful.

I tried the one where he walks away from the school and was... disappointed. I expected more consequences and only got a surprised look at the end.

MC is not drawn, nor is he infatuated with the savior complex. MC just has a knack for mistery solving.
The moment MC had enough of being the puppet on the strings of Marie, we could get him outta there.

There are no consequences to be had if MC does not engage, which he does not all throughout the game:
-does not fight the tongue tie, does not fight the vampire hunter, just stalls the vampire,
gives himself to the babes in the night club or not. MC is not invested like a Hercule Poirot or Constantine,
as MC never actually actively goes against antagonizing powers, not like Marie or the dean.

Those being the circumstances of him up and going away,
not alone but with a wonderful honey,
who is just as much a ragdoll of circumstances beyond her control as himself,
was a breath of fresh air in the gloom and doom setting Zero End delves into
if we choose to continue the story.

What happends next is somethng akin to the end of John Constantine the movie,
where even tho MC is prepared to forego everything after he ensured the cursed book was secured,
in comes this goddess who has been keeping one eye out for MC the entire game,
just like Lucifer did in the movie, to make sure MC stays in the game for the long haul.

 

[Hildegardt]

Hmm... There's this distinct writing style I'd describe as "loves poetry, but sucks at rhyming". Did somebody get banned or something?

 

[bacienvu88]

From her "it's too late to save me" speech. Immediately she tries playing it off for laughs, like "haha I had to try," but I thought that was closer to the truth than she would have liked.

I don't remember seeing anything that would suggest Invictus was unaware of Marie and Silver, but perhaps I missed something.

I was thinking of the conversation between Invictus and Marie/Victoria about Caleb at end of Day 1:

Spoiler: conversation

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Though now that I read it again, that points more to Marie being a double agent for both Silver and Invictus while in reality she isn't working for either of them.

I tried the one where he walks away from the school and was... disappointed. I expected more consequences and only got a surprised look at the end.

What Silk Bean said. But I thought the Chloe variation was more interesting. He is not able to really settle down even when he has married someone which speaks a lot about him. Although the whole Chloe thing comes a bit out of nowhere to be honest; with a rather gratuitous backstory as well.

Hmm... There's this distinct writing style I'd describe as "loves poetry, but sucks at rhyming". Did somebody get banned or something?

Rhyming is not necessary for poetry. Rhythm on the other hand is.

 

[Hildegardt]

Rhyming is not necessary for poetry. Rhythm on the other hand is.

It's probably wrong to ascribe anything as necessary. Rhythm is very important for poems that want to translate the oral performance into the written word, but it's less important for things like poetry slams. There's also a lot of digital poetry that's all about form and can get pretty avant garde.

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is an awesome project that collects audio and video recordings straight from the authors mouths. It can be interesting to see the original intend behind some poems.

Anyway, sorry for off topic. Maybe I should try putting a beat under Canto Forte posts to gain some new appreciation. I just wish he wouldn't misrepresent literally everything he talks about. Seems like an obvious troll.

 

[Bombmaster]

For the love of Zero End ... the alternate path to just forego everything and go was wonderful.


MC is not drawn, nor is he infatuated with the savior complex. MC just has a knack for mistery solving.
The moment MC had enough of being the puppet on the strings of Marie, we could get him outta there.

There are no consequences to be had if MC does not engage, which he does not all throughout the game:
-does not fight the tongue tie, does not fight the vampire hunter, just stalls the vampire,
gives himself to the babes in the night club or not. MC is not invested like a Hercule Poirot or Constantine,
as MC never actually actively goes against antagonizing powers, not like Marie or the dean.

Those being the circumstances of him up and going away,
not alone but with a wonderful honey,
who is just as much a ragdoll of circumstances beyond her control as himself,
was a breath of fresh air in the gloom and doom setting Zero End delves into
if we choose to continue the story.

What happends next is somethng akin to the end of John Constantine the movie,
where even tho MC is prepared to forego everything after he ensured the cursed book was secured,
in comes this goddess who has been keeping one eye out for MC the entire game,
just like Lucifer did in the movie, to make sure MC stays in the game for the long haul.

Gotta say zero end still is a breath of fresh air.

It's a very cool project that could be great just need a tight writing in some aspects.
(The past mostly)
The setting is glorious, Harry Potter/the magicians style doom. The stats /point and click aspects need a overhaul tho.

 

[TheimmortalP]

Hi everyone, how's it going? I'll try to respond to everyone when I'm in a better mental health state, and I wanna thank you all for responding.

Let me do some recommendations then.
Some notable games completed this year (may be some that was completed earlier but received update this year and missed some that haven't got the completed tag):

Toro 7
Love of Magic
Alive
Become a Rock Star
Freeloading Family
Paradise Lust

I used this search to find games.

You can also check out the

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which has monthly roundup of new Steam releases.

Thanks for the recommendations, I really appreciate it.

As for SexPositiveGaming, yeah, she's great for that, but the problem is that most of the games she covers aren't actually complete, they're usually super early on.

Can you recommend Projekt Passion S1 and Artemis S1 as well? Same question with The Entreprenuer, Hacker's Restart, Alive, and Never Meet Your Heroes?

 

[bacienvu88]

Can you recommend Projekt Passion S1 and Artemis S1 as well? Same question with The Entreprenuer, Hacker's Restart, Alive, and Never Meet Your Heroes?

Project Passion is really great. Recommended.
Artemis I never liked for various reasons (although it was a long time since I last played).
Alive is great as well.
The others I haven't played.

 

[Slick Bean]

Itsy bitsy games with interesting plot lines and quirky tight plot holes, ready for your throbbing appetite.

The Entreprenuer, Hacker's Restart ... Never Meet Your Heroes?

The Entreprenuer Is a very bealievable slice of life exccentric entrepreneur doing dumb things,
just like Jobs got fired from Apple fist try and Zuckerbeg almost went to jail,
Gordom Ramsay had multiple businesses he had the unplasantry or the vigor to close.

The game follows Gordon in a kind of bar rescue scenario, MC being this halfwit sudden Bar owner,
where friends and enemies for various motives will swarm to either diss or con him,
with the ultimate goal to swoop his business from under him or sink it into the ground.

You can sorta play your ”owning a bar with friends” fantasy and see where the story gets you.

Artemis is in another league in of itself:

To story is so good and the character development is going deeper. In fact after I finished playing chapter 3 I've start supporting him on Parthenon. Digi.b need all the support.

Somehow I missed Artemis.

Let's say: I really understand how he got 650 patrons in 10 months.

there are a few things I can learn from this dev

I think it's a combination of factors:

- The theme. Cool sci-fi story with transhumanist undertones.
- Fan-service driven porny bits. There is an entire sorority of attractive, successful women who are all inexplicably single.
- MC's ex-girlfriend as the primary antagonist. She is designed to be easily hateable, and there is nothing more attractive to porn game audiences than justifiably hateable women. The utter rage on the Artemis thread is... something.
- Attention to detail. Very high production values (especially after the first chapter), excellent visual and sound design, with dozens of immersive, non-sexual animations.

The updates are very long and are delivered at impressive speed. Chapter 3 took only ~5 months from start to finish, and I still have a hard time believing it. Either digi.B is doing this full time, or he's working with a team.

My only real criticism would be about the porny bits. This comment summarizes my feelings perfectly.

Still, it's a very good game and I'd definitely recommend it.

 

[jufot]

It's worth noting that my opinion on Artemis (which wasn't that high to begin with) has soured a lot since ^that comment. This thread has the reasons why.

 

[Slick Bean]

Artemis being this inspiration for other devs out there blows most snarky arguments against it ouotta the water.

The sheer fact this dev made a game set in a university scenario with sororities yet everyone is either employed or
doing internship for the job they study for, MC and his most formidable LIs are well off adults
and do not get me started on the fkked up things DJs in their 50s do with their lives and their money IRL,
so the over the top porney approach is feasible.

That is the very much believable double or tripple life of many young entrepreneurs, actors, models,
who are suddenly into money and are swarming with hot bodies all around them, they like to dip in many pools,
mostly because they can.
Especially in the entertainment-tech industry,
where your nerd tendencies of knowitall in your field have top go way beyond rubbing shoulders with being one actual entertainer,
your passion for machinery has to literally dry hump your boner for what makes people excited,
happy, elated, orgasm - or else you face business disaster or long time unemployment, just like MC faces in the game.

 

[bacienvu88]

To me Artemis reads like the ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasy of a failed tech bro.

• Get revenge on those that didn't see how awesome your startup ideas was (never mind that I never actually did much work on them)
• Get revenge on all the women who rejected you (btw they are of course all evil bitches), and do it publicly so everyone else knows that they are evil bitches.
• Get all the great hot girls to fawn over you who never gave you the time of day
• Get the hot female execs that never even looked at you
• Get to attend all those sorority parties that you were never invited to
• Get everyone to recognise how awesome you and your skills are
• Get to work on new and cool tech that are decades ahead on everyone else
• Get to be a great martial artist so all those other guys have nothing on you

I find that the game makes much more sense if viewing it in that framing.

Note: I have only played Artemis up until the chapter where MC meets Artemis.

 

[realjitter]

Get to be a great martial artist so all those other guys have nothing on you

Was that a thing? I don't remember that at all

 

[Éama]

To me Artemis reads like the ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasy of a failed tech bro.

• Get revenge on those that didn't see how awesome your startup ideas was (never mind that I never actually did much work on them)
• Get revenge on all the women who rejected you (btw they are of course all evil bitches), and do it publicly so everyone else knows that they are evil bitches.
• Get all the great hot girls to fawn over you who never gave you the time of day
• Get the hot female execs that never even looked at you
• Get to attend all those sorority parties that you were never invited to
• Get everyone to recognise how awesome you and your skills are
• Get to work on new and cool tech that are decades ahead on everyone else
• Get to be a great martial artist so all those other guys have nothing on you

I find that the game makes much more sense if viewing it in that framing.

Note: I have only played Artemis up until the chapter where MC meets Artemis.

I see it more as a dig at the tech industry which betrays honest people (the MC), robs them of their potential and leaves them consumed on the ground. Artemis can be a revenge story but you can also play it as an MC who comes to terms with what happened to him and fulfills the promise of what he is able to do when put in a supportive environment. It's up to you as a player to decide whether this is going to be another disappointment - especially for those who trust in you unconditionally - or if you create a safe space for intelligent people to create something special. Kindra specifically is so strong yet so vulnerable. You could say the MC is out there to rescue her as a damsel in distress, but I never doubted for a second that she would go her own way and have some sort of success. What the MC adds to her life is someone she can truly rely on, someone who accepts her for who she is and supports her the same way she supported him for all those years.

The other LIs are a little less nuanced, I see them more as a group of (intimate) friends. Friendship can involve sex and in this case it does. It will be interesting to see how they tie into the greater plot surrounding Artemis.

Cassie on the other hand. Is she a trope? I'd say so. But a trope that thrives in corporate environments. People who leave only ruins behind but find success on top of them. And she is confronted with a situation where her way of life, the way she was taught from an early age, doesn't work anymore. So, it will be interesting to see whether there is redemption for her. What I like about her is that what is happening in her head remains there for the most part. She is like a black box. Her actions are cruel but it is also obvious that they are fueled by an emptiness which we cannot quite comprehend yet. She is somewhere between pure evil, suicidal destructive and broken to the core. And that is very interesting to observe as far as I am concerned. Tropey yay or nae, but those character types are intriguing and they can make for very compelling development arcs.
Like the person who was a childhood bully and later in life trying to turn things around and become a social worker, or the type of person who tortures animals as a child and becomes a criminal because of a lack of empathy, or truly broken people who just don't know any better, because their own life is constant misery. There is so much to love about them, as far as storytelling goes.

It's not the most artistic work out there (i.e. Artemis is very tropey), no doubt about that, but it's Hollywood levels of entertainment. And many plot points are still underdeveloped and have room to improve.

 

[realjitter]

Cassie on the other hand. Is she a trope? I'd say so. But a trope that thrives in corporate environments. People who leave only ruins behind but find success on top of them. And she is confronted with a situation where her way of life, the way she was taught from an early age, doesn't work anymore. So, it will be interesting to see whether there is redemption for her.

I do hope you're right here, but I have my doubts. What you describe would indeed make for some interesting storytelling, but it's a double edged sword because she's also simply a good villain and i'm not so sure if the developer is willing to give that up for the sake of character development. I would be on board with it, but...

To me Artemis is a (fairytale) story about overcoming depression with, as you've descibed it, a "Hollywood levels of entertainment" story attached to it. At the end of the day, this a story where the MC overcomes depression and also gets to fuck his therapist, which is kinda hilarious.

It'll be interesting to see where this goes. There's so much dumb stuff that can happen in the future, especially with Artemis herself. That whole part needs some pretty solid writing in my mind in order to not become pure cringe... But who knows, maybe the developer will pull it it off in his own way. He already surprised me with the way he treaded the sorority girls by turning them more into friends first rather than just some lewd adventures for along the way. That still doesn't change the fact that they feel a little out of place for the story as a whole, but maybe he finds a way to make it work afterall...

This can still go either way

 

[bacienvu88]

Was that a thing? I don't remember that at all

I may confuse with some other game, but I think that one of the sorority girls is a martial artist that you have to beat in a hand-to-hand fight in order to have sex with her. And the MC was trained by his mother who was some sort of soldier iirc.

I see it more as a dig at the tech industry which betrays honest people (the MC), robs them of their potential and leaves them consumed on the ground. Artemis can be a revenge story but you can also play it as an MC who comes to terms with what happened to him and fulfills the promise of what he is able to do when put in a supportive environment.

True. But that is also wish fulfillment; "If only I got a supportive environment I could have created Facebook or Amazon! Zuckerberg and Bezos were just lucky".

Cassie on the other hand. Is she a trope? I'd say so. But a trope that thrives in corporate environments.

No she wouldn't. That is one of the problems I have with the game. The so called "corporate environment" is just a crude caricature of how things really work. Real tech giants would never buy a company and take just one of the people, 90% of all buyouts are for the people, not the tech itself and even if it is for the product they wouldn't do shady deals to get rid of talent. Sure, Cassie may have convinced them she is the real talent, but then why did she keep him around at all? She obviously don't care about him at all.

Then there is the case of what happens next. Apparently she works alone on this extremely important project for years (I think it was 3 years?). Not a single other programmer or helper. And when she don't produce any result the corpos only sit around twiddling their thumbs. WTF?

She is somewhere between pure evil, suicidal destructive and broken to the core. And that is very interesting to observe as far as I am concerned. Tropey yay or nae, but those character types are intriguing and they can make for very compelling development arcs.

Yes, it could be compelling. If there was a single individual in the game except herself that cares even a little about her. The only thing she is there for seem to be a ghost to scare the MC now and again. And enrage the players. I like stories about destructive and broken people. But there needs to be something to latch on to to understand her.