Recommending Story-first games

[jufot]

A couple of interesting updates from the last few days:

- Beyond Tomorrow is being rewritten and the revised chapter 1 is out. I'm not a fan of remasteritis, but the story flows much better now, so the dev is doing something right. MC is still an angsty little prick, but he is less annoying. The lines that caused the tempest in a teacup "controversy" in the old version, where the deranged denizens of this forum were frothing at the mouth over the supposedly incestuous feelings of MC's sister, have been removed entirely. Small blessings...

- Chapter 22 of Price of Power is out on

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. This is the beginning of the story's final arc. I increasingly hate how Lune and Zaya's relationship is handled. They are unfortunately player-sexual, the cheapest of cop-outs, especially for a relationship that predates meeting MC by many years. You can go with the homophobic "they are just friends" path that wouldn't feel out of place over at /r/SapphoAndHerFriend, choose to "bless" their years-long relationship as if you should have any say at all, or decide that what they both need is some good dicking and initiate them into your harem It's cheap, pandering, and exactly what I was worried about when the harem path was announced. It's especially grating because the dev keeps prodding you with these "are you suuure you really want them to be lesbians?" choices again and again. Not to mention the unavoidable pregnancy storyline, which can never be anything but dreadfully boring, my enthusiasm for this VN wavers with every new chapter... Still, the charming bits keep me going. This episode has Legacy talking about skyscrapers, reinforced concrete and the Karman Line to our medieval gang, which goes surprisingly well

- Pent Panda, developer of Short Sad Stories, has

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his next project. It's called Almost Castaways and is about "two girls who suffer a silly shipwreck and end up stranded on an uninhabited and somewhat strange island". The Patreon post is public, so go there for more details.

 

[Arisushi]

Pent Panda, developer of Short Sad Stories, has

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his next project. It's called Almost Castaways and is about "two girls who suffer a silly shipwreck and end up stranded on an uninhabited and somewhat strange island". The Patreon post is public, so go there for more details

Hell Yeah!! Best news all month.

Between this and "In the Ocean I Learned to Float", I'm glad there are at least two new VNs I feel truly excited about.

 

[FatGiant]

A couple of interesting updates from the last few days:

- Beyond Tomorrow is being rewritten and the revised chapter 1 is out. I'm not a fan of remasteritis, but the story flows much better now, so the dev is doing something right. MC is still an angsty little prick, but he is less annoying. The lines that caused the tempest in a teacup "controversy" in the old version, where the deranged denizens of this forum were frothing at the mouth over the supposedly incestuous feelings of MC's sister, have been removed entirely. Small blessings...

- Chapter 22 of Price of Power is out on

You must be registered to see the links

. This is the beginning of the story's final arc. I increasingly hate how Lune and Zaya's relationship is handled. They are unfortunately player-sexual, the cheapest of cop-outs, especially for a relationship that predates meeting MC by many years. You can go with the homophobic "they are just friends" path that wouldn't feel out of place over at /r/SapphoAndHerFriend, choose to "bless" their years-long relationship as if you should have any say at all, or decide that what they both need is some good dicking and initiate them into your harem It's cheap, pandering, and exactly what I was worried about when the harem path was announced. It's especially grating because the dev keeps prodding you with these "are you suuure you really want them to be lesbians?" choices again and again. Not to mention the unavoidable pregnancy storyline, which can never be anything but dreadfully boring, my enthusiasm for this VN wavers with every new chapter... Still, the charming bits keep me going. This episode has Legacy talking about skyscrapers, reinforced concrete and the Karman Line to our medieval gang, which goes surprisingly well

- Pent Panda, developer of Short Sad Stories, has

You must be registered to see the links

his next project. It's called Almost Castaways and is about "two girls who suffer a silly shipwreck and end up stranded on an uninhabited and somewhat strange island". The Patreon post is public, so go there for more details.

I agree with you.

Beyond Tomorrow, is quite better now. In all aspects. It was mildly annoying before, all that is gone.

Price of Power, is a thing that while I do agree that adding 2 women that are clearly in a monogamous lesbian relationship, to a harem because they want a male... doesn't really makes sense. Yes, they are hot... but... but... why? Sure, they may be cured of the plague AND may want to have children... but do they need to be added to the Harem for that?

However, I suffer from some kind of condition, that I can't comfortably leave food on a plate, even if I am already full. So, yeah, I added them to the Harem... under protest... but I did. :: sigh :: I simply couldn't say No.

The third option, it contains something that it will make it very hard for me to even try it: Sandbox. I've tried maybe a hundred of them... not even ONE was good. Some were almost OK, but I felt stupid, obsessively clicking on each "room" over and over and over, to see if something was going on. After a reflection and sincere examining of the time wasted, I come to the conclusion, that it is NOT worth it for me to sink that much time for so little return. I have another reason also, storified sandbox is an Utopia. If any part of the story can be played or not, there is no story. Period. Oh they try. How they try. But, what we get is NOT a story. A story has cohesion, sequence and form. A start, a middle and an ending. As I said before, a sandbox is the dismantling of a story, the removal of any vestige of sequence and the handing of it to a player to let them sort out what happens when and even IF it even happens.

So when I read a Dev saying that it is doing a sandbox with a story, I know that it is either not a story or not a sandbox. So, what I read is: Scam. It may be unintentional, but it is dishonest.

But, you may ask: FatGiant it isn't even done, how can you say that? Well, I'll use Einstein's definition of insanity defense: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” (I am aware that it is disputable that the quote may or may not be of Einstein, it is however how it is widely known). There is a very small chance that I may be wrong THIS time. Statistically irrelevant exceptions are just that.

Peace

 

[camube]

I admit that I just quickly skim many of the sex scenes too, instead of really reading them. Though that is mostly a me thing - I am here for the story and the game,

Same. I read most intercourse scenes really quickly. I don't go as far as ctrl+skip them but I click it really fast. Only reading the first one to three words of the sentences before clicking next.
Most intercourse scenes in most games doesn't tell a story. That is the exact same reason I dislike Incest story. Most games has nothing to say about it so it isn't interesting to read.
There are some games where the intercourse scenes in it does tell a story, but it's extremely rare.

That's one of my gripe about BaDIK. The development time gets clogged by the highly detailed intercourse scenes and on recent updates, the players even get to choose the positions. It became boring. The last BaDIK update I like was Zoey Interlude. DPC can tell a good story when he wants to. So I'm waiting for that.

By now I've seen numerous praise of Sierra Lee so The Last Sovereign is definitely a game I'd check in the future, when I'm hopefully have more free time to get into it.

 

[MissFortune]

Please just stop. This is not the thread for this shit.

Respectfully, If you're that strong on controlling people's right to maturely (or immaturely) debate/speak on a topic in a public thread that has no proper moderation function for you, then why not just move to Discord? You can have your own rules, censor, moderate as you see fit, and ban anyone or any dissenting opinion.

You're never going to control people's ability to speak, debate, or their will to vocalize their thoughts/opinions. Especially on the internet. So why make it hard on yourself?

 

[camube]

Respectfully, If you're that strong on controlling people's right to maturely (or immaturely) debate/speak on a topic in a public thread that has no proper moderation function for you, then why not just move to Discord? You can have your own rules, censor, moderate as you see fit, and ban anyone or any dissenting opinion.

You're never going to control people's ability to speak, debate, or their will to vocalize their thoughts/opinions. Especially on the internet. So why make it hard on yourself?

Oh! Nice to see you here. I check out Little Regina partially because of you.

I always wanted to try WWJK but around the time I had time to try it, you were about to release MTC Chapter 1, so I play that instead. I haven't play Chapter 2 of MTC yet, I'm about to do it this weekend actually, if the game I want to play is not release this weekend.

I don't know if Ivy is a minor character or a major character on MTC but I like the conversations you wrote between MC and Ivy on Chapter 1.

Anyway, I wish both you and EchoFoxtrot success.

 

[365 others]

Respectfully, If you're that strong on controlling people's right to maturely (or immaturely) debate/speak on a topic in a public thread that has no proper moderation function for you, then why not just move to Discord? You can have your own rules, censor, moderate as you see fit, and ban anyone or any dissenting opinion.

You're never going to control people's ability to speak, debate, or their will to vocalize their thoughts/opinions. Especially on the internet. So why make it hard on yourself?

Aren't they doing the same when they ask for the players not to mention any unrelated games in a thread's reviews, like in this one?
I didn't think of his ask as controlling, and it rather helped keep the discussion within the same context, instead of becoming another hectic thread with no sense.

 

[MissFortune]

Aren't they doing the same when they ask for the players not to mention any unrelated games in a thread's reviews, like in this one?
I didn't think of his ask as controlling, and it rather helped keep the discussion within the same context, instead of becoming another hectic thread with no sense.

I get keeping things in check. But where is that line drawn and who draws it? Who has the right to draw it on a public forum (short of mods/admins, ofc.)? Is calling random people 'seriously disturbed' sensible? There's obviously layers to this kind of conversation, but the aforementioned Discord is basically the answer to all the current issues in this thread, no?

Spoiler: Short ramble on perception, etc.

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[365 others]

I get keeping things in check. But where is that line drawn and who draws it? Who has the right to draw it on a public forum (short of mods/admins, ofc.)? Is calling random people 'seriously disturbed' sensible? There's obviously layers to this kind of conversation, but the aforementioned Discord is basically the answer to all the current issues in this thread, no?

Spoiler: Short ramble on perception, etc.

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Sure, I just wanted to point out that I found it weird reading a comment criticizing an ask from the OP (which again, I did not consider controlling how he asked for it) and doing the same within the same paragraph.

I never said you were the OP on the game's thread, but I haven't seen you there advocating for the right of the players to mention other games. I know that thread doesn't allow it for whatever reason, but I also have seen others where they mention other VN/games in the reviews.

 

[Hildegardt]

I get keeping things in check. But where is that line drawn and who draws it? Who has the right to draw it on a public forum (short of mods/admins, ofc.)? Is calling random people 'seriously disturbed' sensible? There's obviously layers to this kind of conversation, but the aforementioned Discord is basically the answer to all the current issues in this thread, no?

Spoiler: Short ramble on perception, etc.

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Damn, where's all this coming from? I can't speak for Jufot, but the way I see it, he was only trying to protect the vibes of this thread, because, as he said, it had good run for a few years now. Kinda weird to bring up rights and censorship honestly.
You're right that a bunch of people could decide to roll in and chase out the regular and Jufot wouldn't be able to do anything against it . But I feel like it's easy to see that this would be annoying.

 

[camube]

I'll just add my vote to The Last Sovereign. It's an absolutely fantastic game with an outstanding story. Also, the main story is now finished, so it's a great time to start playing it!
However, it does take a good bit of commitment: My current playthrough sits at 112 hours, and I have the bigger part of chapter 5 still ahead of me (the last but biggest chapter of the game). I think you'd need to speedrun it to finish in under 100 hours. And I would not attempt playing the game without either help from the wiki, or taking extensive notes.

As for NTR, the characters that do that are Succubi, for them sex is food, and everybody concerned views it as a positive event. It really shouldn't be a problem. By then, the game has drawn you way too deep into its world.
(There is one point early one where you have the option to prostitute an LI for money. It's a big choice with long lasting consequences, neither choice being obviously the right one. Basically all walkthroughs opt to not prostitute her, weighting the LIs trust higher than the money.)

I really enjoy the philosophy discussions in this game, the proactive planning the MC and his allies do, the worldbuilding, the characterization of everybody (MC, LIs, allies, enemies, gods, normal NPCs, everybody!), the amount of agency you have. In my eyes, this absolutely belongs in the list of story focused games.
Yes, there are some sex scenes that aren't needed for the plot, but I'd argue they are needed as examples of the sex-positive world this game builds. And all sex scenes are short, easily skippable through (you can even disable the images), and their duration absolutely pales in comparison to the play time of the whole game.

If there's a renpy game or games you think is worth mentioning, plz let us know. I might want to check it out.
Btw i just realized you have a Game Dev role. Can I ask what game? I take it it's not renpy? is it RPGM?

 

[365 others]

If there's a renpy game or games you think is worth mentioning, plz let us know. I might want to check it out.
Btw i just realized you have a Game Dev role. Can I ask what game? I take it it's not renpy? is it RPGM?

I'd also like to know, please!
While I have played mostly renpy (or Unity) games, recently started getting hooked with RPGM and found a couple there that while not on this list, I think they are great.

 

[MissFortune]

Damn, where's all this coming from? I can't speak for Jufot, but the way I see it, he was only trying to protect the vibes of this thread, because, as he said, it had good run for a few years now. Kinda weird to bring up rights and censorship honestly.
You're right that a bunch of people could decide to roll in and chase out the regular and Jufot wouldn't be able to do anything against it . But I feel like it's easy to see that this would be annoying.

I've got nothing against Jufot, and perhaps censoring is a strong word here. And like I said, I get the keeping things in check.

The reason I bring them up is because the idea of debating good or bad (or average) is a prominent (and accepted) theme in thread, is it not? But when it comes to the idea of rape or gorey violence, or other fringe material that Jufot doesn't like, there's zero room for it? That's the issue with it (along with the kinkshaming). Which is all fine and dandy, I don't really care. But you shouldn't be surprised when people start talking about something story-related on a game that's allowed on the forum you're posting on. It's kinda like a stranger kicking you out of a park for putting pineapple on your pizza, would you listen? To be clear, this isn't an attack on Jufot at all. It could be anyone and it'd still apply.

Either way, this went way further I intended. I simply asked why not use Discord if you're that against rape/loli/etc. content and refuse to see it posted. There's no real downsides to it, and it sure as hell beats trying to moderate a thread with no tools at your disposal.

 

[EndlessNights]

Respectfully, If you're that strong on controlling people's right to maturely (or immaturely) debate/speak on a topic in a public thread that has no proper moderation function for you, then why not just move to Discord? You can have your own rules, censor, moderate as you see fit, and ban anyone or any dissenting opinion.

You're never going to control people's ability to speak, debate, or their will to vocalize their thoughts/opinions. Especially on the internet. So why make it hard on yourself?

As I see it, threads naturally develop cultures and often unwritten codes of conduct of their own, particularly if they've been around for a long time and been populated by many of the same users for much of that time as this one has. I didn't see jufot's statement as some kind of authoritarian decree or an act of censorship considering he's a user like everyone else here -- he was merely indicating that posts like the one he was responding to which has now been deleted by its author didn't fit the purpose or culture of the thread as he sees it. He's both the creator of the thread and one of its most active participants so of course his opinion carries weight even if he doesn't have any special powers to punish users who don't share his vision.

That said, there are potential consequences on F95zone to ignoring requests from and disrespecting other users even if the behavior doesn't merit mod intervention. You can get added to ignore lists, not get responded to when you post, not receive likes, etc. Not everyone would care about any of those things, but there are still potential consequences to user behavior that don't require Discord mod levels of authority.

TL;DR: It's probably a good idea to listen to jufot.

 

[MissFortune]

TL;DR: It's probably a good idea to listen to jufot.

Fair enough. it's his thread. As I said, it went a little deeper than I initially intended beyond the Discord comment. Well, that and the whole 'I don't like X genre/game = you're seriously disturbed' thing, which just isn't cool on website like this.

I guess it just roots in the concept that if you're going to leave a platform open for debate (such as this one), then it should be open for anything and everything (within the constructs of the said platforms rules, obviously). If not, then what's the point? This is aimed less at the loli/shota stuff and more at the rape, to be clear. But the point still kind of stands for both regardless.

 

[MrPocketRocket]

I think there is a bit of a disconnect in what the thread was intended to do, be a forum for and what the reality of this site is. Neither invalid, however: I think what jufot wants to discuss could be respected, and all it takes is a little respect and maturity. Far too little of that going around. Yes, this is an open forum, but that does not exclude threads that have a target audience, no? No reason why we can submit to being civil and obey the yield sign.

 

[moskyx]

Fortunately next week we'll be talking about "Gemini", the next game in the Elsaverse. It's insanely good and, most importantly, it's a story-first game and not some offtopic meta discussion.

 

[365 others]

Fortunately next week we'll be talking about "Gemini", the next game in the Elsaverse. It's insanely good and, most importantly, it's a story-first game and not some offtopic meta discussion.

I lost track of the Elsaverse after Saving Chloe. I thought it was the last one with the same universe (or characters with intertwined stories). Is that one a continuation of the same universe?

 

[Tlaero]

I lost track of the Elsaverse after Saving Chloe. I thought it was the last one with the same universe (or characters with intertwined stories). Is that one a continuation of the same universe?

First, credit to Moskys for the extreme amount of work that he did on this wiki:

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Depending on how you count them, Gemini is either the 7th or the 10th game in the Elsaverse.

The first five games are in the Omnibus Vol1, along with 5 visual short stories, 4 text short stories, and a text novella. The games are:
Dreaming with Elsa
Redemption for Jessika
Finding Miranda
Saving Chloe
Darkness Falls

After that, it goes:
Elsa's Nightmares
Elsaverse: Transitions
Chasing Beth
Elsaverse: Past, Present, and Future
Gemini

Links to all of them are here:

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Gemini will be released to the public on Tuesday, and I'll add it to the above about page.

Tlaero

edit: If you don't want to play all of those games, a good place to start is Chasing Beth.

 

[camube]

Fortunately next week we'll be talking about "Gemini", the next game in the Elsaverse. It's insanely good and, most importantly, it's a story-first game and not some offtopic meta discussion.

Or Zero End. It has a new release too