Recommending Story-first games

[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.

 

[yossa999]

And I see in Artemis some similarities with Heinlein's "The Door to Summer."

The Heinlein's protagonist, Dan Davis, is a tech guy/engineer/inventor, just like the MC in Artemis. He was betrayed and deceived by his fiancée Belle, so he lost his robot manufacturing company to her and his former companion Milles, started drinking, and eventually decided to go into "cold sleep" as he could not solve his problems in the present. Aiden did roughly the same thing with his life after Cass’ betrayal, putting himself into hibernation and letting therapy sessions with the hot doc do their job.

After awakening, Aiden begins to rebuild his life, just like Dan did, because his talent and creativity were the real main asset of his former company. But since that moment the plots begin to differ greatly, but nevertheless, in some aspects, Kendra strangely reminiscent of Ricky, Milles' stepdaughter, she was the only person who knew and loved Dan since her childhood and whom he could only trust. The only question is, who is Dan's cat, Pete in Artemis? Robo-doggo, I guess.

Both stories have their pros and cons, Heinlein's story is rich with time travel, paradoxes and other popular 80s sci-fi thingies. On the other hand, Artemis has a sorority full of hotties, where pledge hazing is a proper blowjob.

 

[Éama]

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".

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?

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.

I have no trouble with wish fulfilling story. When the children go to Narnia and it is revealed that they have magic abilities, that's clearly a wish fulfilling. We just crave to have our wishes fulfilled. It's not bad writing to grant it.

I agree with you that it would have been great to put Cassie in the context of co-workers and a workplace structure. But you are asking for a lot of resources from a developer who is working on this novel all by himself. The overwhelming majority of visual novels are basically stage plays, just like the movie "Dogville" with Nicole Kidman most set pieces are caricatures of what the real world would look like. Look the movie up on google, it's literally a stage in a theater and all buildings and structures are only depicted as chalk drawing on the ground. Still, the entire thing is extremely impactful.

What I don't think is reasonable is to expect that an aspect of the story that is only of marginal importance is fleshed out to the same degree as the actual core plot. Artemis is clearly NOT a story about corporate structure, it is about an individual or a group of individuals who manage to break away from it, by having unique abilities, personalities and resources available to them. I said that I think it's a dig at corporate structures and how they abandon people once they have served their purpose. You say that's not how it works in corporate structures. I've read an article a year ago where exactly this was described by someone who left it all behind. How people with a good idea get swallowed up in Silicon Valley and find themselves out of it within a year after their arrival, unless they constantly produce results. You say Cassie should have been out then... yes. That's true. It's kind of a plot hole.

Cassie's co-workers add nothing to this overarching plot though. This is why her interactions with co-workers (like the secretary) are only a caricature (or chalk drawing) interaction. Her relationship with her fiancé shows signs that she treats every relationship like a calculated enterprise and that is what we need to know about her as a human being, because that's defining her. Now you might say, this is not what a real person would be like, she is too one dimensional. A lot of people are one dimensional on the surface. That is why I appreciate that she is a black box. There is a lot going on that we don't know about Cassie. That doesn't excuse her deplorable character, but it gives her room to become more nuanced as the story progresses. It's possible that I will be disappointed by her character arc but right now a lot of it is speculation.

She just played the "game" to the best of her abilities with the ruleset that she was taught. I honestly believe you misunderstand her purpose in this respect. We don't know much about her interactions with others beyond her job description. During her interaction with that girl, she was disillusioned but benevolent. During her confrontation with the MC, she showed signs of a breaking facade. There is no real reason to expect that she will stay one dimensional. There is a risk for her to fall into convenient genre traps. But it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Slick Bean]

This type of friendly banter on account of adored games it the reason some of us hang around.
Thank you for the read!

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".

Cass is the usual tropey office hag - she is constantly looking for the stag to butcher and wear on her sleeve:
She cooker MC so well he has been carrying her all through university and well into her office years.
While they were out sourcing possible opportunities, she spotted new stags to hunt and decorate her bosoms with.
She swiftly had her last meal of MC, then voraciously jumped on the boss son, cooked him good, is using him as we speak.

That is her M.O. - using people, more speciffically, simps she can bamboozle over with her femininity.

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.

On the other hand, Artemis has a sorority full of hotties, where pledge hazing is a proper blowjob.

We have to really differentiate this game from usual university games:
they have jobs and their employer has WRITTEN THE BOOK ON THOSE HAZINGS.

We got here what WArcraft Developers had during time building trips:
money for those employees willing to bang.

All those are mirrored in real life, corpo money affording a loose grip on morality.

I have no trouble with wish fulfilling story. When the children go to Narnia and it is revealed that they have magic abilities, that's clearly a wish fulfilling. We just crave to have our wishes fulfilled. It's not bad writing to grant it.

There is value in finding escapism hatches all throughout the game,
because MArk was a nobody LIVING IN CAMPUS DORM,
JUST like STeve Jobs and his pal living in their mothers garrage,
BEFORE BIG MONEY PICKED THEM UP.

 

[Hildegardt]

Wish fulfillment is when you play as the good guy, but still get to coerce your exgf into a hate fuck as a form of revenge. Artemis is kinda all over the place like that. I mean, it's also obviously building up to the player getting to impregnate the newly awakened/born android virgin girl.
It's sad, because Artemis doesn't need weird shit like that imo. The quality alone it's up there, but I guess the question always is, if this would be enough to gather monetary support. Nothing in the main plot really necessitates the porn content, so it's pretty much pure fan service.
Would Artemis work without the porn? Probably not, because it'd have to compete with millions of other good stories. But every time it embraces the fan service too much, it fucks with the immersion, which would be a disservice to a story that could work without all that.

This type of friendly banter on account of adored games it the reason some of us hang around.

How about returning the favour by trying to be clear and concise?

We got here what WArcraft Developers had during time building trips:
money for those employees willing to bang.

You know this stuff drove a woman into suicide? Nice try being cute, though. You're a regular Goethe, I guess.

 

[jufot]

I think I just finished reading ebi-hime's best VN so far, and I can't believe I didn't notice it until now.

It's a yuri VN called Dreamy Planet where the leading women mildly resemble those of Fragile Feelings (see discussion above). Unlike that game, though, this is a more familiar story of modern life dealing with everyday issues and relationships.

The vast majority of the game is melancholic and dreary. It is expertly told and I felt stressed at all times, which was a welcome surprise. The titular abandoned theme park serves both as backdrop and a well-fitting simile of the heroines' shared past. The events of which are mostly alluded to, but not clearly spoken about until much later.

The protagonist is a mid-twenties woman named Haruka. I love tragic heroines, and this one doesn't disappoint. She has a thin, insubstantial existence, full of nothingness and self-loathing. Haruka radiates sadness, sucking the joy out of even the most trivial conversations. The game describes her thus:

She was like a jar that had once been filled with sweets. Now, the sweets were gone, but the jar was left behind: pretty, perhaps, but unnecessary.

Haruka is unemployed, stuck in an oppressive life, and engaged to a man who, while decent, is resoundingly unremarkable and brings no joy to her life. Those are all intentional choices for Haruka, but her internal narration betrays her real feelings. Statements like

Mahiro was nice and inoffensive in every regard, like rice porridge: edible enough when there was nothing else to eat, but not something anybody would crave of their own accord.

and

Every time she and Mahiro were together, his fingers against her hip and his breath on her neck, Haruka wished she could slide out of her own skin and run.

are peppered throughout.

Shiina, the other lead, is the polar opposite. An older woman and a former goth girl, she is bright, vibrant, and relentlessly optimistic despite working a demanding job, going through her own difficulties and harbouring some pain and resentment towards Haruka.

The game is about their single day reunion after years apart, where they visit a theme park from their childhood. There is so much I could - and would like to - say, but this story is best experienced blind so I will control myself.

There is one, solitary sex scene, which is perhaps the most intimate I've read in a while. It's one of those religious sexual experiences that last both forever and no time at all.

At one point, I was unexpectedly confronted by credits rolling. I was distressed. ebi-hime certainly knows how to twist the knife when you're already anxious. Luckily, the credits were not the end and the story continued for a while afterwards.

Which brings me to the ending. It was... interesting. It wouldn't be my first choice, but it was clever and sidestepped an easier (and IMHO worse) option, so I'm happy with it.

I recommend everyone to give it a shot, and please do remember to read the unlocked notes after finishing the story.

The OP has been updated.