Recommending Story-first games

[Jaike]

It didn't get named here recently, but Healslut has got a few more updates. The story didn't progress very far from that frontier port town, but there's another mindfuck backstory scene with Lel. We discussed here before what the hell's going on with her. I must say it isn't what I thought. And it has implications for the "game" world too.

Some of you may like Transylvania. It's a HTML horror adventure, not in the usual way that HTML games are horror but it features monsters, magic and forced feminisation with a unique drawn style. The game is imo more oriented to submissive playthroughs but you can get a dominant stat with a bit of grind. And I think you can't avoid feminisation becoming "permanent" after passing the first day. Personally I disliked the time management element and I felt the transformation into a succubus foreshadowed submission to garbage dudes, but I could be wrong there. I hope so.

I expect most of you who care know already but Talothral has a new game out: Tribulations of a Mage. Again with a tall, bearded and emotionally distant male protag, but this time he's an initiated mage in like a high-fantasy world. I can't comment too much on the plot now, but it's got plenty of action and drama for a 0.2. It's typical Talothral, so expect detailed world building, automatic sex scenes without narration and hic fuerunt (futura sint?) serracula (uxorum).

It's not story first, but I know some of you like BDSM that's more grounded than "capture someone, abuse them long enough and presto, a lust crest appears". In a sense Bindr gives that. It's about a dev who made a kink dating app and got rich. It's an excuse for him to play the field so expect a bit of a fuckfest. The dates are structured as an intro where they discuss kinks and limits with options to chicken out and then there's a series of sex scenes that you can choose when it ends. The intensity of the BDSM is usually low or mid, except that the bondage in some scenes, really Soumiya's later scene, is like totally insane at that stage. The scenes end without after care. You can choose between sub, dom or switch roles, choices add up to a meter that I think locks you out of some scenes. There are fantasy bonus scenes too that are a little wilder. So its groundedness may be high mid in the end. May be hit or miss for you.

So I tried Superhuman. I'll preface with saying that I'm probably very early into the game's story and yet... My expectations were probably overinflated by all the praise it's gotten here but I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

It's not anything big, but a plethora of small things that kept grating me while playing. The visual style is, to not offend anyone, amateurish and sub par. I get why the author went for it because there's no way 3dcg would be able to visualize all the things that are in the game, but at the same time it probably would have been better to not go with any images rather than this. Not everyone can be Elvensang when it comes to amateur art and with text only would serve the mood of the game even better.

Gameplay aspect feels like it's actively fighting against the story with how janky and unintuitive time slots and optional stories are. Am I missing something when I choose one option over the other? Some of them become unavailable later and some have effect on main story and there's no way to know. It also hurts narrative integrity of those optional side stories because they have to be written in a time agnostic manner to be playable at any point and they feel irrelevant. Sandbox just breaks my narrative immersion.

The main plot itself is fine. Good, even. But, man, the characters I just can't give more than 0 shits about. I'm probably going to keep playing to see what happens in the main plot, but no joke, my favourite character so far is a fucking dog. The game also struggles with establishing the setting with the world being this weird mishmash of contemporary and some weird half-dystopia that is not clearly defined. There are many cases of fourth-wall breaking humour, self-referential jokes and copious lampshading of the tropes used which is funny... first 10 times.

I played it over a year ago and my opinion was kinda similar, but not the same. I couldn't get in the style and didn't really like the MC and hated that goth girl. And that's an achievement for me! My favourite character is probably the black genius mentor idiot friend. The superpower element felt a bit like a power fantasy isekai to me. That a lot of the training was blind decreased the power fantasy element I guess, but it's not a mechanic I like.

The vague contemporary-dystopian setting and the strange style did contribute to a very gloomy atmosphere that works well for the game, I gotta say.

Brother, you're living life on the edge a bit here. This is probably the least meme-friendly thread on the entire site, and I don't know if we're collectively ready for change. After two years, I think the closest we've come to a meme of our own is that every now and then someone kids jufot about his shocking (alleged) bias against college VNs.

You might have noticed I tactfully avoided any mention of Superhuman technically being a college VN...considering the MC has pretty much dropped out now anyway, I felt like I should pick and choose my battles. Luckily, my secret is safe because jufot never reads inline spoilers. Whew, that's a relief.

Actually, come to think of it, our lack of memes may be less about thread culture and more about Raife just not being confident enough in his Photoshop skills yet. If someone gets the right book for him as a Christmas present, our world may never again be the same.

That's like old now, though. And there's no "alleged" about it, the good man's completely open about the bias, like yours truly. Agree that Superhuman doesn't feel like a college game. And for me the real problem with that genre isn't that they're set in a college or uni, it's that they don't feel like a university but like an American high school movie often with a paramilitary bully brigade and a prostitution sorority. So it's people playing this fiction trope straight that's the issue for me.

But if you want homemade memes, I've got them. Some are even SFW.

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No smartphones OR social media: it was paradise on earth. To entertain ourselves, we had sex... LOTS of sex. With no memes to distract us, there were other fun activities to enjoy.

So this man's previous life puts the average MC to shame, but he dislikes fuckfests in adult porn games?

 

[Raife]

So this man's previous life puts the average MC to shame, but he dislikes fuckfests in adult porn games?

Now, now, Jaike... is that any way to treat a harmless middle-aged elitist? You go quiet for long stretches, and then pop up to nail the old man right in the goolies?!

My point was simply that, if you're going to write for _Cigar Aficionado_ it helps to have smoked a few stogies. AND the data doesn't lie: your generation seems to be

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than jufot and I did when we were your age. Whippershappers like you and Endless are clearly spending too much time on those self-generated memes instead of going heels to Jesus.

 

[jufot]

there's another mindfuck backstory scene with Lel. We discussed here before what the hell's going on with her. I must say it isn't what I thought. And it has implications for the "game" world too.

Lel has been my favourite character for a while now and I wasn't expecting that either. I think the "game" world and the "real" world will come crashing together at some point. I'm curious to see what that'll do to the gang.

It's not story first, but I know some of you like BDSM that's more grounded than "capture someone, abuse them long enough and presto, a lust crest appears". In a sense Bindr gives that.

I like Bindr. It's not realistic compared to real life, but the bar for BDSM in VNs is so incredibly low that it easily stands above them all.

the real problem with [college game] genre isn't that they're set in a college or uni, it's that they don't feel like a university but like an American high school movie often with a paramilitary bully brigade and a prostitution sorority.

Indeed. See Artemis, BaDIK, and any remotely popular college VN.

Whippershappers like you and Endless are clearly spending too much time on those self-generated memes instead of going heels to Jesus.

Quite right. There are even

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!

 

[Jaike]

Now, now, Jaike... is that any way to treat a harmless middle-aged elitist? You go quiet for long stretches, and then pop up to nail the old man right in the goolies?!

Nah, I'm aware

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. Wouldn't want to risk you getting

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by the tabloids.

AND the data doesn't lie: your generation seems to be

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than jufot and I did when we were your age.

I'll spare you the TMI, but that's none of my fault. Unless you expect me to put the average MC to shame.

I think the "game" world and the "real" world will come crashing together at some point. I'm curious to see what that'll do to the gang.

I didn't pick up on that. That's a theory to keep in mind. Would explain what Gab's warning was going at.

I like Bindr. It's not realistic compared to real life, but the bar for BDSM in VNs is so incredibly low that it easily stands above them all.

That's about what I was inefficiently trying to say. Bindr is realistic about consent and negotiation for an MC who isn't a scumbag, mostly realistic about the level of the BDSM and not realistic at all about the amount of fuk.

And the bar for BDSM in Japanese h-games is even lower.

 

[Raife]

I'll spare you the TMI, but that's none of my fault. Unless you expect me to put the average MC to shame.

Ha! Having participated in your polls, my guess is that you're not letting down the side. You just need to get the rest of your generation to pick up the slack. More horizontal tango means more realistic, hot sex in VNs produced by devs in their 20s and early 30s.

Speaking of lack of verisimilitude, that's one of my gripes about _Law School_. The game is supposedly set at an American law school founded by Europeans... but all the students appear to be undergraduates.

Sigh. If a dev chooses to set their game in particular real-world context, like a law school or a corporation, they should do at least Wikipedia-standard research. (Unless they are as smart as you, Jaike, or have your hinterland... which 99.99% of F95 users do not.)

Otherwise, it makes it difficult for players to suspend disbelief and enjoy the game.

 

[noping123]

I'll just make a very simple point here -

Many of the college games I've played (badik, mine, a few others I'm slightly embarrassed to admit to having played so I won't), are fairly similar to the college experience of myself, and quite a few others I know. Well - that is if you take out most of the main plotlines from these games.

That is - Lots of alcohol (regardless of your age), lots of drugs (Though not everyone partook, they were definitely around a-plenty), Lots of sex, pretty frequent parties (Although in my experience most were "small" in compared to how they tend to be portrayed. An average was maybe 4-7 people, exceeding that only a few times a year... granted you could argue 4 people isn't a party, but it was the way we did it!), and a lot of faculty being .... let's say fairly liberal in their application of rules and policies. (in particular pretty strict on the no cheating, pretty lax on the "no alcohol on campus"). Of course there was always that one who would enforce rules to the letter, but that wasn't the majority for sure.

In all honesty, if you just take what you see in these games, remove the "drama" of the main storylines (Not that there wasn't a ton of interpersonal drama, because there definitely was, but that's not usually what fuels the main story), and dial everything down a few notches, it starts to ring pretty true.

And If I'm being REALLY honest, if you compare anything in these games to high school, it REALLY makes me wonder what sort of high school YOU went to.

Speaking of lack of verisimilitude, that's one of my gripes about _Law School_. The game is supposedly set at an American law school founded by Europeans... but all the students appear to be undergraduates.

I'll note, I haven't played the game, so I'm only relying on the screenshots available in the game thread - but your normal graduate student (and law student by extension) is in their early 20s - and those screenshots seem to fit the bill pretty well IMO. Granted some people start later but... just a quick google search says the average starting age for law students is between 22-24, while the median age seems to be 26.

Again, I haven't played the game, so this is based on a handful of screenshots only.

 

[jufot]

In all honesty, if you just take what you see in these games, remove the "drama" of the main storylines (Not that there wasn't a ton of interpersonal drama, because there definitely was, but that's not usually what fuels the main story), and dial everything down a few notches, it starts to ring pretty true.

Nothing in your post is overtly objectionable to me, so I suppose we differ on the definition of "a few" in "a few notches". I'll start taking these games more seriously when they stop having literally every character with a vagina thinking the protagonist is god's gift to womankind.

 

[Raife]

I'll note, I haven't played the game, so I'm only relying on the screenshots available in the game thread - but your normal graduate student (and law student by extension) is in their early 20s - and those screenshots seem to fit the bill pretty well IMO. Granted some people start later but... just a quick google search says the average starting age for law students is between 22-24, while the median age seems to be 26.

Again, I haven't played the game, so this is based on a handful of screenshots only.

The models look right for American JD students, noping... they appear circa the right age (22-24). My point is that the story has them as 18 or 19 -- first year undergraduates who are leaving home for the first time, which is wrong for the American setting. Way, way back when, you could do law as a first degree in the US. But that hasn't been the case in my lifetime. These days it's a graduate degree that you do only _after_ your first degree.

In other words, the dev has the 18-19 year law students (normal in Europe and most of the world) in an American setting (where they'd have finished their first degree and be at least 22). It's just a blunder.

 

[Mr Georgie]

Finally played through your first chapter... and it's lovely. As I said in my review, there's a large dollop of wisdom smuggled into the narrative, particularly on how some men misconceive relationships or idealize women without really knowing them. Bravo.

Your first sex scene was extremely hot. It drove home something that I've mentioned before: kissing, or even simply touching someone where the level of mutual attraction is off the charts... is a revelation. It's not comparable with anything else. At one point, the MC wonders 'what's wrong with me... why can't I stop!?' That hit me right in the feels.

Your difficulty, Georgie, is that the maturity of your perspective on life will almost certainly alienate some immature, incel players... as much as it gratifies me or jufot. But it's beautiful, nonetheless.

Thank you for your kind words Raife!!!
I knew this story would not be loved by everyone, but that was not my intention either, I know pleasing everybody is impossible. I want to reach the right people with the stories I want to tell, and I'm so glad that you guys are the right people.

 

[noping123]

The models look right for American JD students, noping... they appear circa the right age (22-24). My point is that the story has them as 18 or 19 -- first year undergraduates who are leaving home for the first time, which is wrong for the American setting. Way, way back when, you could do law as a first degree in the US. But that hasn't been the case in my lifetime. These days it's a graduate degree that you do only _after_ your first degree.

In other words, the dev has the 18-19 year law students (normal in Europe and most of the world) in an American setting (where they'd have finished their first degree and be at least 22). It's just a blunder.

Fair enough then, as I said haven't played it. If they're actually named as 18-19, then yea that's wrong. Which is weird because they LOOK older than that...

This is why my game is totally set in the fictional land of Americanada. (It's america, with the drinking laws of canada. I'm not saying that's the canon location... I'm just approaching it that way!).

 

[moskyx]

Fair enough then, as I said haven't played it. If they're actually named as 18-19, then yea that's wrong. Which is weird because they LOOK older than that...

This is why my game is totally set in the fictional land of Americanada. (It's america, with the drinking laws of canada. I'm not saying that's the canon location... I'm just approaching it that way!).

Fun fact: the term 'Americanada' is broadly used in common Spanish to mock your average Hollywood blockbuster with lots of action, fights, explosions, a predictable love story, and of course a very 'murican' hero who saves the world at the very last minute - i.e. 'Armageddon is such an americanada.'

 

[EndlessNights]

Many of the college games I've played (badik, mine, a few others I'm slightly embarrassed to admit to having played so I won't), are fairly similar to the college experience of myself, and quite a few others I know. Well - that is if you take out most of the main plotlines from these games.

When I talk about "colleges" in AVNs often reminding me more of high schools, I'm thinking more of aspects like school uniforms, lockers, tiny campuses, the presence of principals instead of deans, teachers who teach disparate subject areas seemingly without being subject matter experts, the existence of punishments such as detention, regimented schedules where classes begin in the morning and end in the afternoon each day, and the general look of the buildings and classrooms. That's not to say there aren't universities in the world that have some of these attributes as well, but the more of these features I see the worse my immersion and the less the setting invokes college for me.

 

[Slick Bean]

Student Population at Harvard University

2023 Student Population	Undergraduate	Graduate
30,631	9,368	21,263

For the academic year 2022-2023, total of 30,631 students have enrolled in Harvard University with 9,368 undergraduate and 21,263 graduate students.
By gender, 14,778 male and 16,567 female students are attending the school.

It has many more students compared to similar colleges (19,694 students in average - private (not-for-profit) Research University (very high research activity)).

10,495 students are enrolled exclusively, and 1,434 students are enrolled in some online courses.

You can check the student demographics by gender ratio, race/ethnicity, age distribution, and online enrollment:

Spoiler: Student demographics:

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What a doozy: how hard is it for any developer to open the internet site of any private or public university
and have a look see about the actual structure of the faculty, the actual titles, the actual departments, the actual
job sheets, the actual housing they propose ...

I'll just make a very simple point here -

Many of the college games I've played (badik, mine, a few others I'm slightly embarrassed to admit to having played so I won't), are fairly similar to the college experience of myself, and quite a few others I know. Well - that is if you take out most of the main plotlines from these games.

That is - Lots of alcohol (regardless of your age), lots of drugs (Though not everyone partook, they were definitely around a-plenty), Lots of sex, pretty frequent parties (Although in my experience most were "small" in compared to how they tend to be portrayed. An average was maybe 4-7 people, exceeding that only a few times a year... granted you could argue 4 people isn't a party, but it was the way we did it!), and a lot of faculty being .... let's say fairly liberal in their application of rules and policies. (in particular pretty strict on the no cheating, pretty lax on the "no alcohol on campus"). Of course there was always that one who would enforce rules to the letter, but that wasn't the majority for sure.

In all honesty, if you just take what you see in these games, remove the "drama" of the main storylines (Not that there wasn't a ton of interpersonal drama, because there definitely was, but that's not usually what fuels the main story), and dial everything down a few notches, it starts to ring pretty true.

And If I'm being REALLY honest, if you compare anything in these games to high school, it REALLY makes me wonder what sort of high school YOU went to.



I'll note, I haven't played the game, so I'm only relying on the screenshots available in the game thread - but your normal graduate student (and law student by extension) is in their early 20s - and those screenshots seem to fit the bill pretty well IMO. Granted some people start later but... just a quick google search says the average starting age for law students is between 22-24, while the median age seems to be 26.

Again, I haven't played the game, so this is based on a handful of screenshots only.

The models look right for American JD students, noping... they appear circa the right age (22-24). My point is that the story has them as 18 or 19 -- first year undergraduates who are leaving home for the first time, which is wrong for the American setting. Way, way back when, you could do law as a first degree in the US. But that hasn't been the case in my lifetime. These days it's a graduate degree that you do only _after_ your first degree.

In other words, the dev has the 18-19 year law students (normal in Europe and most of the world) in an American setting (where they'd have finished their first degree and be at least 22). It's just a blunder.

Fair enough then, as I said haven't played it. If they're actually named as 18-19, then yea that's wrong. Which is weird because they LOOK older than that...

This is why my game is totally set in the fictional land of Americanada. (It's america, with the drinking laws of canada. I'm not saying that's the canon location... I'm just approaching it that way!).

Fun fact: the term 'Americanada' is broadly used in common Spanish to mock your average Hollywood blockbuster with lots of action, fights, explosions, a predictable love story, and of course a very 'murican' hero who saves the world at the very last minute - i.e. 'Armageddon is such an americanada.'

When I talk about "colleges" in AVNs often reminding me more of high schools, I'm thinking more of aspects like school uniforms, lockers, tiny campuses, the presence of principals instead of deans, teachers who teach disparate subject areas seemingly without being subject matter experts, the existence of punishments such as detention, regimented schedules where classes begin in the morning and end in the afternoon each day, and the general look of the buildings and classrooms. That's not to say there aren't universities in the world that have some of these attributes as well, but the more of these features I see the worse my immersion and the less the setting invokes college for me.

Not to mention they could simply go to their former place of learning or higher learning and have a look around,
have a talk with their former teachers, get promotional skits about the new school year - have that actual real
information avaiulable to everyone be the basis of their fantasy.

How bad is it to just put a disclaimer: ”the high school life as we remember it” - straight up outta their skewed memories.

 

[noping123]

When I talk about "colleges" in AVNs often reminding me more of high schools, I'm thinking more of aspects like school uniforms, lockers, tiny campuses, the presence of principals instead of deans, teachers who teach disparate subject areas seemingly without being subject matter experts, the existence of punishments such as detention, regimented schedules where classes begin in the morning and end in the afternoon each day, and the general look of the buildings and classrooms. That's not to say there aren't universities in the world that have some of these attributes as well, but the more of these features I see the worse my immersion and the less the setting invokes college for me.

I will admit, of all the college games ive played, I haven't seen any of those elements except for the lockers (which generally I've only seen around athletic areas of campus) - so fair enough. I guess I just haven't played as many games as you have. (well tiny campus sometimes too, but I see that as more of a "It's hard to render full campuses in daz) - All of those things you listed definitely aren't things you'd commonly see outside of high school.

It almost seems like the devs you're talking about are trying to portray a high school setting, without getting dinked by patreons rules... hmmm...

 

[jamdan]

What a doozy: how hard is it for any developer to open the internet site of any private or public university
and have a look see about the actual structure of the faculty, the actual titles, the actual departments, the actual
job sheets, the actual housing they propose ...

Most college games aren't meant to be accurate or even plausibly realistic, colleges are just an easy way to have lots of LI's, student-teacher tropes, hot cheerleaders and that sort of thing.

 

[Vasin]

I think visual "high school" likeness of colleges is more due to authors working with limited pre-existing asset library rather than custom making every single asset. Not even AAA gaming developers have enough time to spend on tailoring every single piece they put in the game, let alone a single developer living in their mom's basement.

That's why it's the same damn park with the same benches in every. single. game.

Not that big of a deal for me, but hey, I'll take text only over graphics any day of the week.

 

[Ezykeyal]

I tried to stay a bit more grounded when it comes to the college theme, and craft a unique look... but no one cares about that.

 

[noping123]

I think visual "high school" likeness of colleges is more due to authors working with limited pre-existing asset library rather than custom making every single asset. Not even AAA gaming developers have enough time to spend on tailoring every single piece they put in the game, let alone a single developer living in their mom's basement.

That's why it's the same damn park with the same benches in every. single. game.

Not that big of a deal for me, but hey, I'll take text only over graphics any day of the week.

That is 100% accurate. If I do a search for "college" or "university" at the main asset store I get exactly TWO hits that are actual campuses, and not classrooms or dorm rooms. (And one of them is brand new - just came out this week, and is exterior only). If I do high school, I get 6 different interiors, and 1 exterior - plus one I know used to be there and has since been removed, plus about the same amount of classrooms, plus cafeterias, gyms, and a few other "high school style" classrooms.

The same can be said for other stores where these things are available.

It's a recurring problem with a lot of settings - there's only so many "movie theaters" or "restaurants" or "schools" (I could go on but you get the point) available. Sometimes they work for exactly what you want, other times they're not even close.

Hell, my next chapter has a scene in a park, and I've been looking for an appropriate setting to use for it.... so far my choices are at 2 - and I guarantee you've seen both. (One more than the other for sure though! Good ol' Haven Park.) As a dev you either have to suck it up and use it even if its been used a million times before, or re-write everything just to ... have a different setting. Or make your own stuff. I can promise you, making your own stuff is NOT worth the time for anything other than pride.

 

[Ezykeyal]

Or make your own stuff. I can promise you, making your own stuff is NOT worth the time for anything other than pride.

Making your own stuff helps you tell the exact story you want. Is it worth the time? Probably not for most people, especially those that start wtihout prior knowledge. But to say it's just a pride thing, I disagree.

 

[noping123]

Making your own stuff helps you tell the exact story you want. Is it worth the time? Probably not for most people, especially those that start wtihout prior knowledge. But to say it's just a pride thing, I disagree.

It depends what you mean by "making your own stuff". If you mean kitbashing things together, then yea it can help tell the exact story you want. If you mean actually building it from the ground up? Like going into blender and designing your own enviroments and whatnot? I maintain it's little more than pride. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong at all with being proud of your work - but looking at every since instance I've seen of that happening? (Whether it be devs making their own stuff, or commisioning it which I've seen plenty) - using something that already existed wouldn't have diminished the story in some way, it simply would have been less unique, and possibly a little different than the dev originally envisioned it - but only in a "Well this isn't what I originally pictured, but it works" way, not in a "This totally changes the story!" way.

You're free to disagree and view it differently, but tbh it's not something I'd change my mind on.