Recommending Story-first games

[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.

 

[bacienvu88]

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.

You are reading too much into what I wrote. I only said that the game reads like wish fulfillment fantasy, not that it necessarily is bad (as basically every plot it depends on the execution). I didn't say that big tech aren't a soulless drain on human capital (in a lot of ways they are), I just say the way this corporation does things doesn't make sense. I didn't say that Cassie should have lots of screen time with her co-workers, just that they should exist. It is enough for her to refer to them sometimes (e.g. "My team came up with this idea that we could try" and so on).

But all of that is more or less beside the point. They just serve as examples. And that is my basic problem with the game: to me, there is a lot of small things I find not making sense, which in turn makes the whole plot fall into pieces.

I think I'll leave it at that, since it was too long ago I played the game so I don't remember all the details. And I am in no particular hurry to play it again.

 

[Éama]

I think I'll leave it at that, since it was too long ago I played the game so I don't remember all the details. And I am in no particular hurry to play it again.

I think I got your point though. I noticed when you talk about other VNs that you have very specific expectations when it comes to good VNs. I guess I'm just not as picky and as an anime fan I also don't mind tropes, unless they are toxic in nature. It wasn't really my intention to convince you, I just wanted to make my point clearer.

 

[bacienvu88]

I think I got your point though. I noticed when you talk about other VNs that you have very specific expectations when it comes to good VNs. I guess I'm just not as picky and as an anime fan I also don't mind tropes, unless they are toxic in nature. It wasn't really my intention to convince you, I just wanted to make my point clearer.

Yeah, I think you are right that expectations are a big part of it. The game starting with a huge betrayal I expected a game where the relationship between those two would play a central role. How they came to that point. How they interact from now on. Cassie could have easily been the most interesting character in the game. For example, one thing I speculated on in the early game is that her betrayal was a retaliation for something he had done to her to begin with (cheating or something else) and we have an unreliable narrator which would have made things much more interesting to me. But now the betrayal is mostly just back story and Cassie an evil antagonist.

I can be rather lenient with tropes etc. as well. But when games start to set expectations and lets them down I can be really picky.

 

[Regularus]

Some additional recommendations (i mean some titles not listed in the OP) for some story driven AVN that i really liked , with some description while trying to avoid spoilers :

A.O.A. Academy (abandonned)
I found the story of this AVN very interesting with a tension that increase progressively and engage the reader with many characters that have all have some depth that is explored as the plot move on.
additionally it has many paths depending on the LI that the MC focus on that unfold even more of the specific LI and allies backstory.
I still think this was a masterpiece in the AVN production in the making, a tragedy it was abandonned.

After the Inferno (completed)
While i had at first some difficulty to move past the design of the women faces with their exaggerated eye size, this AVN had a very good story in a medieval fantasy setting in which the MC is an actually likeable mercenary company leader stuck in the middle of a war between kingdoms. Many characters with their own motives , some hidden and some obvious that integrate very well in the storytelling.

Bare Witness (ongoing but soon completed)
While the story from the start attracted me with its interesting pitch with the MC being in a witness protection program and trying to make a living under his new identity (while still being under the threat of being discovered and killed), i really liked this one because of the characters that were all likeable and develop through the story some very well wrote relationship with the MC.

Between Two Worlds (ongoing)
It starts with a slice-of-life type of story telling the daily life of a MC with his girlfriend and their group of friends interacting in believable way with each other and regularly having some tabletop roleplaying sessions, during the story you start to notice some oddity here and there, that at some point will cease to be oddity but throw the group of friend life into something else.
Characters are nicely wrote and are believable in the way they interact.

City Of Broken Dreamers (ongoing)
A very good near future story mix with some inspiration from Blade Runner and other cyberpunk books.
With a cast of very interesting characters that join, antagonise or just try to do their own thing and survive the dystopian society, the MC is stuck with a mission that will turn into something else entirely and give him a chance of redemption for an ancient failure that haunted him all his life.

The DeLuca Family (ongoing)
A very engaging story that start with the MC getting basically forced due to some circumstances into a fictional world of mafia families that coexist/ignore or plot against each other with a cast of characters that integrate very well in the story as it progress. Characters are very likeable with their flaws and qualities and quickly you'll find yourself rooting for the MC and the friends he made within the DeLuca family
It suffers a bit from some characters that are shown as important early (especially one that is even presented as if he was going to be the "rival" of the MC in the family) and several of the family key-member through the town but for some reason are completely forgotten by the dev rather quickly and never even talked about after you meet them in the beginning.

Leaving DNA (ongoing)
This one really surprised me as i stumbled on it by luck, and was really amazed by the level of quality of dialogue and storytelling.
It's the story of an attorney that went through foster homes as a child, and start to investigate a crime that progressively reveal that it's connected to the family he never knew, making him trying to reconnect with a past that was lost to him in order to bring justice despite all the conspiracy that surround the crime.
The characters, his friend and interests are very well wrote and you're getting quickly immersed into the story.

The Neverwhere Tales (ongoing)
A MC with a normal corporate job progressively discover that there is a lot more to his own life, family and even to the world than he knew, another very engaging story that move the MC into a strange situation along lots of interesting characters that progressively reveal their true colors.

Projekt Passion (ongoing)
Truly good, very well wrote scifi story that mix nicely emotion, serious and humour .
The characters and the MC are all likeable individuals that will throw themselves into a story (that reminded me a bit of the tv series Firefly) that gets progressively more engaging as it progresses, with the MC and his group of misfits friends travelling through the galaxy with more problems going their way.

Zero End (ongoing)
Another one i ran into by luck, and another one that is a very good surprise.
Zero End is very inspired by those old Hellblazer comics with the MC being basically a young John Constantine-style of character that end into a strange academy surrounded by an interesting cast of characters that are all belonging to "All is not what it seems" with some having a strange past, hidden motives and various mental or physical issues .
All mixed with a conspiracy and enemies factions fighting around.

 

[Slick Bean]

Lets talk plain story here: Artemis is one engineering wonder that her owner, Kindra, uses multiple times as a sex doll.
That is a fact very well depicted in the game, graphic and hilariously. There is no point denying that before MC
gets his AI CODE in order, MC can impregnate Artemis while Kink remote controlls her, as is already depicted
as a major funny/sexy/kinky guilty pleasure for DJ Kink.
That is plain to see for me right now, as everyone havnig plaid the game can attest.

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.

This is no end game, is is perfectly feasible today, DJ KinK investing in making pregnancy alterations for Artemis.
They can sell Artemis as a IMPREGNATABLE SEX DOLL YOU GF CAN REMOTELY CONTROL FROM ACROSS THE GLOBE.

This would be A MAJOR SELLOUT TO EVERY ONE OF THE TOP 1% FILTHY RICH THAT ARE WEEKS OR MONTHS APART
WHEN GOING OFF ON THEIR BUSINESS BONERS.

Not to mention a real crutch to every cellebrity bimbo SEPARATED FROM HER BASKETBALL/FOOTBALL/RUGBY
MULTI-MILLIONAIRE HUBBY TODAY!

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

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

They just serve as examples. And that is my basic problem with the game: to me, there is a lot of small things I find not making sense, which in turn makes the whole plot fall into pieces.

as an anime fan I also don't mind tropes, unless they are toxic in nature.

Cassie could have easily been the most interesting character in the game. For example, one thing I speculated on in the early game is that her betrayal was a retaliation for something he had done to her to begin with (cheating or something else) and we have an unreliable narrator which would have made things much more interesting to me. But now the betrayal is mostly just back story and Cassie an evil antagonist.

Thjis is a really feasible business wildly exclusive and MOST ADVANCED ROBOTICS EVER SEEN TO DATE.

 

[bacienvu88]

Couple of games I played recently that I find interesting at least.

Cyberheart A Interesting premise with girl who has been experimented (think augmentations) on but fled. MC try to help her together with others (girls) who live there (it is an orphanage so no actual incest but has incest vibes). Story hasn't really taken off yet. What I like most about the game is the cosy atmosphere. Slow burn so very little lewd content. Harem, so usual caveats about that.

A Foreign World I think it has been mentioned here before. Also an interesting premise with women coming from a parallel Earth seeking refuge from horrible man (their Earth has very few men who are all powerful and rule the world). The women have powers too, but weaker than men in general. Unfortunately it is the MC who gets very strong to defeat the man from the other world, it would be much more interesting if it was the women who had to fight. Also harem (with too many women).

 

[Slick Bean]

Well .. play harder next time you dare shit on the fiery red head who is on par with the antagonist.

Unfortunately it is the MC who gets very strong to defeat the man from the other world, it would be much more interesting if it was the women who had to fight. Also harem (with too many women).

She just refuses to fight him because she was offered up as a slave to him by her king.
She also is afraid that by loosing to her ”owner”, he would then torture and kill her peers.
That guy is their king slayer. KILL jAIMIE ALREADY FFS!
The actual lore on that alternate EaRth is pretty messed up:
Old Testament Dads exchanghing their little girls to have them in their harems.

 

[realjitter]

Did read the latest Summer's gone chapter

To be honest, I don't know what i'm actually doing in this game anymore. I vaguely remembered that I played the Victoria route back then, but there was no content for her. That in itself isn't a problem, but the developer chose to casually introduce another 10 or so women. Like how is all of this supposed to work later down the line?. Sure, it's a 30+ year project, but still.. It's not only that, they also, from my perspective, start to blend in together. I'm really under the impression that the developer just has a thing for creating hundreds of pixel ladys... Because, lets face it, they're gonna keep coming, there'll be more and more....

This game needs more focus, imo. There are already 15+ characters, even some so called main LI's, who could've been used for new content, but nope.

As I mentioned, I felt pretty lost in this update. Like, am I supposed to be fazed about pornstar bookworm lady or the whole"cougar" bunch?. I just don't understand it. I'm sure if you're playing the Bella or Nami route the game feels more fluid, more sensical up to this point, but i'm not playing said routes..

 

[jufot]

This game needs more focus, imo. There are already 15+ characters, even some so called main LI's, who could've been used for new content, but nope.

It's one of many, many reasons why neither Summer's Gone nor Where It All Began will ever be finished.

 

[bacienvu88]

Did read the latest Summer's gone chapter

To be honest, I don't know what i'm actually doing in this game anymore. I vaguely remembered that I played the Victoria route back then, but there was no content for her. That in itself isn't a problem, but the developer chose to casually introduce another 10 or so women. Like how is all of this supposed to work later down the line?. Sure, it's a 30+ year project, but still.. It's not only that, they also, from my perspective, start to blend in together. I'm really under the impression that the developer just has a thing for creating hundreds of pixel ladys... Because, lets face it, they're gonna keep coming, there'll be more and more....

This game needs more focus, imo. There are already 15+ characters, even some so called main LI's, who could've been used for new content, but nope.

As I mentioned, I felt pretty lost in this update. Like, am I supposed to be fazed about pornstar bookworm lady or the whole"cougar" bunch?. I just don't understand it. I'm sure if you're playing the Bella or Nami route the game feels more fluid, more sensical up to this point, but i'm not playing said routes..

I think it has been clear that there is no focus since the introduction of the basketball stuff and then the RPG session. Thing is, Ocean is one of the best scene writers doing AVNs. Each individual scene is really well made. When all scenes are put together it just feels like a mess with just lots of stuff piled onto each other. Haven't played the latest update yet (or the one before). I'll probably play at some point for the individual scenes. I would love to see a standalone game of the RPG for example, but I don't think it really adds much to Summer's Gone. Personally I think Ocean's style would work better with short stories within the same universe. Then it wouldn't matter with all those disparate things.

 

[yossa999]

Did read the latest Summer's gone chapter

To be honest, I don't know what i'm actually doing in this game anymore. I vaguely remembered that I played the Victoria route back then, but there was no content for her. That in itself isn't a problem, but the developer chose to casually introduce another 10 or so women. Like how is all of this supposed to work later down the line?. Sure, it's a 30+ year project, but still.. It's not only that, they also, from my perspective, start to blend in together. I'm really under the impression that the developer just has a thing for creating hundreds of pixel ladys... Because, lets face it, they're gonna keep coming, there'll be more and more....

This game needs more focus, imo. There are already 15+ characters, even some so called main LI's, who could've been used for new content, but nope.

As I mentioned, I felt pretty lost in this update. Like, am I supposed to be fazed about pornstar bookworm lady or the whole"cougar" bunch?. I just don't understand it. I'm sure if you're playing the Bella or Nami route the game feels more fluid, more sensical up to this point, but i'm not playing said routes..

The scene in the reading club is the most confusing and crowded, that's for sure. It seems, my fears are coming true that the author will keep his long-standing promise and will really begin to scatter pieces of the puzzle, which will have to come together into a complete picture only at the end of the game. And given the large-scale plan of the game, this will not happen soon.

On the other hand, I'm glad he started crossing over storylines and characters from his other game, Where It All Began, which is also in development. I really hope this brings fans of each game together and makes them equally anticipate for updates for both games.

Before the book club scene, there are several major mysteries or challenges of the main story, such as what really happened to Summer, what is Nika and Nami's real origins, how did Nami and Sasha have the same halves of the earrings, and most importantly, will the MC manage to heal and leave the past behind.

But now so many more questions have been added by this only reading club scene that even a season of ten chapters will not be enough to answer them.

Spoiler

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Now Summer's Gone reminds me "Lost" TV show after the first season. There are so many characters, subplots, mysteries that I can't wait for the next season. Will Ocean be able to handle his own creation, that's the question.

 

[realjitter]

The scene in the reading club is the most confusing and crowded, that's for sure. It seems, my fears are coming true that the author will keep his long-standing promise and will really begin to scatter pieces of the puzzle, which will have to come together into a complete picture only at the end of the game. And given the large-scale plan of the game, this will not happen soon.

On the other hand, I'm glad he started crossing over storylines and characters from his other game, Where It All Began, which is also in development. I really hope this brings fans of each game together and makes them equally anticipate for updates for both games.

Before the book club scene, there are several major mysteries or challenges of the main story, such as what really happened to Summer, what is Nika and Nami's real origins, how did Nami and Sasha have the same halves of the earrings, and most importantly, will the MC manage to heal and leave the past behind.

But now so many more questions have been added by this only reading club scene that even a season of ten chapters will not be enough to answer them.

Spoiler

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Now Summer's Gone reminds me "Lost" TV show after the first season. There are so many characters, subplots, mysteries that I can't wait for the next season. Will Ocean be able to handle his own creation, that's the question.

I know that you're more active in the SG thread so maybe you can enlighten me a little . I gotta be honest by saying that I have no clue about the story since I don't follow WIAB. But what's so special about people from the other game appearing in SG?. What does it matter if some people are related or whatever?. Where's the mystery in all of that?. Are they part of some secret organisation?, a cult?, are they planning....something?.

I just don't get it. All I know is that summer's gone and unless, well, unless that particular part leads to some unexpected plot twists later down the line, maybe even some darker plot twists, I don't even know whats the story supposed to be outside of it being a dating sim. Which would be enough for me personally.., but appearently there's a
terrific story going on somewhere...

Again, I just don't see it at the moment. At the moment I just see the developer overburden himself by adding 1000000 "hotties" for no real reason, which I find a bit discouraging for what lies ahead.... I mean, it's no big secret that "the fucking" (lol) is gonna start soon and when you just look at how many women there are, this should turn into one big orgy in like 8 chapters from now...

I know that people bitch about the no sex stuff in this game , but c'mon, you have to be very blind not to see what's going to happen here at some point....

 

[yossa999]

I know that you're more active in the SG thread so maybe you can enlighten me a little . I gotta be honest by saying that I have no clue about the story since I don't follow WIAB. But what's so special about people from the other game appearing in SG?. What does it matter if some people are related or whatever?. Where's the mystery in all of that?. Are they part of some secret organisation?, a cult?, are they planning....something?.

I just don't get it. All I know is that summer's gone and unless, well, unless that particular part leads to some unexpected plot twists later down the line, maybe even some darker plot twists, I don't even know whats the story supposed to be outside of it being dating sim. Which would be enough for me personally.., but appearently there's a
terrific story going on somewhere...

Again, I just don't see it at the moment. At the moment I just see the developer overburden himself by adding 1000000 "hotties" for no real reason, which I find a bit discouraging for what lies ahead.... I mean, it's no big secret that "the fucking" (lol) is gonna start soon and when you just look at how many women there are, this should turn into one big orgy in like 8 chapters from now...

I know that people bitch about the no sex stuff in this game , but c'mon, you have to be very blind not to see what's going to happen here at some point....

I can't speak for others. I guess I'm thrilled to observe the big picture in dynamics, how different characters and events influence each other, how their storylines are intertwined, you know that butterfly's wings flapping thing. Why do people like it when their favorite heroes team up, why is it so popular? Of course you should be invested in these characters and their adventures, otherwise it doesn't make sense. And Ocean is good at making emotional connection between the reader and his characters.

It seems that several plots are developing in parallel. Competition for leadership in the ZPR college between athletes, rivalry between teachers, rivalry between colleges (ZPR vs MOR), something is brewing between the rich families of the city, Zanes vs Petrovs, but this is very vague now. Vic's storyline seems to go beyond the wheelchair kink. So the new "hotties" are parts of these plot lines. And if we take into account the dev's words that many events in the game take place behind the scenes and the MC perceives them through overheard conversations or evedropped scenes, then everything becomes even more confusing. Although so far I don’t see much of this game mechanic, perhaps he is just planning to add it.

But I think treating the game as a dating sim is one way to play it. And the problem along this way is exactly what you mentioned: “no sex.” If we are talking only about dating, then a romantic relationship must develop or they become boring. After all when I play Defending Lydia Collier just for the sake of lewds, the whole detective investigation side of the game becomes an annoying hindrance

 

[Regularus]

I appreciated the many additional small scenes that were added in the Summer's Gone rewrote parts but in all honesty i think the parts that were rewrote between 4.5 and 5.0 additionally removed a lot of what gave the characters emotions and removed important situations and setup that were rather crucial for the various characters psyche.

I didn't care at all if Ocean removed some of the renders of penis or vagina to try to sell some more in steam, but what mattered to me is that overall the rewrote parts are made for the worse unfortunately and some renders turned rather ridiculous in some of the scenes.

 

[idontdreamwhenisleep69]

The update was excellent. It always impresses me that I can be playing through and at no point am I sitting there wishing a scene or interaction would end. The vibes are immaculate. There are definitely some parts that don't make a ton of sense (like Bella randomly going topless for a few minutes) but they are easy to overlook because everything else hits just right.

I've played through a few newer updates of highly regarded games and haven't been able to keep that level of immersion, and often times skipping through dialogue that I find tedious. The new Hillside update for instance, I thought was a huge waste of my time.

 

[jufot]

Short Sad Stories chapter 7 is out on

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and chapter 6 should be out later today on

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