Recommending Story-first games

[Sunzuut]

To have this discussion is a little crazy. You mention Ocean and GRRM in the same sentence? One who is an accomplished writer and the other who couldn't put a plot together if his life depended on it.

Credit where it's due, GRRM has published dozens of novels and is by all accounts a very, very accomplishments author.

But he has, quite literally, lost the plot with ASOIAF. The first three books came out within 2 years of each other and after that he lost all ability to deliver and when he does he goes into long tangents to the story that didn't advance the plot but built the world out. Look at the Brienne chapters in the latest book, it's a lore dump of backstory and unnecessary world building of events from 30 years before but doesn't actually affect the main plot in any way. He could have cut all that out and not a single thing would have changed.

You can't rework a published book in the same way you can rework an in development game, but I would count devoting a significant chunk of your page count to the historical significance of an apple orchard 30 years ago to be bloat.

He started really good, but at this point he isn't making any progress. I am a completionist and like playing games to death before moving on from them and never returning. I just can't see myself getting that heavily invested in a game that has an expected completion date of 2050 and also a tendency to rewrite everything that's already happened. Same as I won't start reading a book series where the author can't get a book out within a decade.

So I mainly go for completed games if I can, or if not, I go for games that are relatively linear so I can just pick up where I left off later.

 

[raynarnab]

To have this discussion is a little crazy. You mention Ocean and GRRM in the same sentence?

I think you missed the point of my post if you think I was comparing Ocean in the same quality on par with GRRM. The point is to appreciate the adventure for any piece of work even if it is unfinished. Your life can still be enriched by it.

 

[MrPocketRocket]

I think you missed the point of my post if you think I was comparing Ocean in the same quality on par with GRRM. The point is to appreciate the adventure for any piece of work even if it is unfinished. Your life can still be enriched by it.

No I get it.

 

[365 others]

No I get it.

Not that I disagree with your opinion, but out of curiosity.... who would be the dev you consider a good enough writer to compare with GRRM? Or what dev would you say writes the best stories?

 

[yossa999]

Not that I disagree with your opinion, but out of curiosity.... who would be the dev you consider a good enough writer to compare with GRRM? Or what dev would you say writes the best stories?

 

[MrPocketRocket]

Not that I disagree with your opinion, but out of curiosity.... who would be the dev you consider a good enough writer to compare with GRRM? Or what dev would you say writes the best stories?

And it is just that, my opinion, nothing more. To answer your question though, I don't think there is a single dev that should be compared to GRRM (whether its for writing or long development time), it's just not a fair/good comparison. There are a few that do a good job at entertaining me though. Ripples by

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tells an interesting story and has a plot. New Antioch by

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has some really good dialogue and as I mentioned above, Race of Life by

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entertained me.

That said, there is no AVN with the complexity to it's story of any novel you will find in your bookstore. What is a bookstore you ask? Well, once upon a time there were bookstores AND record stores. Nobody knows if they were real life locations or if they are just mythical occurrences like Olympus and Atlantis.

 

[desmosome]

I just found this game called The Last Challenge and I think some of you here should definitely try it despite it being just one chapter out for now.

For me, "this game's characters feels like actual people" is extremely rare in AVN because most AVN game I've played, when the devs write characters or put their characters in events, those characters don't have a unique voice. The characters speak their lines and they may have a character archetype but by and large the characters are interchangeable with other games.

Character archetype A of Game A is interchangeable to Character archetype A of Game B, and C, D.

Deluca Family is not like that.

I remember a lot of Deluca Family's character names even until now, maybe 1 year+ after I last played their game because Deluca Family main character's have their own unique voices, they feel like actual people. For Deluca Family, absurd people, but still people nonetheless.

I found this to be the same with The Last Challenge.

The dev has a talent on writing scenes that display his character's personality and voices through their interactions. The characters in their game feels like actual person that have their own thoughts, their own slight depth, and the way each of them acts in situations is how you would expect "that type of person" would react in "that type of situations".

It's really great, some of you all should try it.

And unlike Deluca Family, this game has a lot more characters being put in the scenes so to me that highlight dev talent even more.

I don't know about story-first because it's just 1 chapter but through the very few events so far that we played, many of these characters have their own personality shown through those very few scenes we saw.

The combination of how few scenes is currently available, how many characters appear in those scenes and through that showing us these characters all have voices is pretty amazing. I really appreciate how efficient the dev can show those characters.

There are many famous games in this site, even acclaimed ones that I feel is not good at showing their characters voices.
Usually I don't remember the names of the characters some weeks after I play them, cuz they are interchangeable.

It's really rare for me to still remember characters names long after playing, and usually I remember those character names because they feel like people.

And The Last Challenge manage to show those characters and make them feel like people
Highly recommend checking their chapter 1

I don't have as much time to play through VNs these days, let alone story-first ones that are not for fapping, but I occasionally still check out this thread. I played The Last Challenge and it was quite unique and well written.

It's true that most devs fail to write believable characters. Here, there are a lot of characters but they are all rather fleshed out and behave in ways that doesn't take you out of a scene. The details really bring out their personality and group dynamics. And all this through organic interactions among the characters in long (LONG) scenes. I'm not talking about sex scenes, but like a scene in a film. You can read up on the biography to learn a bit more about their backgrounds and relationships among each other, but by and large, they are just interacting and we pick up more about them as it comes up in conversations (and your choices could reveal more or less about them to the player).

The initial set up about a pandemic cutting off a town for a decade is a bit farfetched, but we don't know the specifics of it yet. Maybe there could be a plausible explanation. But even if it's just an outlandish set up, the characters that inhabit this world behave realistically given the situation they are in. As group that lived and worked together for 10 years starting from uni, there are a lot things going on between them. They all pretty much know everything about each other. And they behave as college kids that were stuck in college for 10 years would behave.

Also, I'm glad to see a dev that tackles relationship webs between a large group of young people without worrying about what some NTR-phobic idiot might say. Others have relationships, your friend gets some too. And it's canon that the MC and his buddy spitroasted some chicks over the years lol. This is all done without a single indulgence of NTR vibes or pandering to harem sensibilities. That's pretty rare.

I guess the only one that could behave a bit off is the MC, since the dev has given choices that range from rapey, intimidating, humorous, to good guy. I'd say the default MC, as he is written in parts that are not tied to a choice, is an honorable Chad, so some of the more fucked up choices might seem uncharacteristic. Such is the fate of many MCs in VNs though since it's a tall order to write multiple scripts accounting for all types of MCs at all times. They have to come up with a baseline behavior of the MC, and it often conflicts with the more extreme choices.

But I don't know if it will be story first. We got to know a bunch of characters on the bus ride home, but once they get home, everyone got their own lives and we will certainly be introduced to many more characters. What is the scope of the narrative? It could be unsustainable, and I don't know what the dev has planned.

 

[365 others]

And it is just that, my opinion, nothing more. To answer your question though, I don't think there is a single dev that should be compared to GRRM (whether its for writing or long development time), it's just not a fair/good comparison. There are a few that do a good job at entertaining me though. Ripples by

You must be registered to see the links

tells an interesting story and has a plot. New Antioch by

You must be registered to see the links

has some really good dialogue and as I mentioned above, Race of Life by

You must be registered to see the links

entertained me.

I already played Ripples, and I agree with you. I'll have a look at the other ones, I have seen them mentioned in this thread from time to time, but I have not yet added them to my to-read list (until now).

That said, there is no AVN with the complexity to it's story of any novel you will find in your bookstore. What is a bookstore you ask? Well, once upon a time there were bookstores AND record stores. Nobody knows if they were real life locations or if they are just mythical occurrences like Olympus and Atlantis.

Oh, bookstores, I miss them. I belong to the last generation that knows how to rewind an audio cassette with a pen, to blow air into Nintendo cartridges to make them work, to give "percussive maintenance" to TVs to adjust their image, and to dial in a phone with a disk.

 

[MrPocketRocket]

I already played Ripples, and I agree with you. I'll have a look at the other ones, I have seen them mentioned in this thread from time to time, but I have not yet added them to my to-read list (until now).

Oh, bookstores, I miss them. I belong to the last generation that knows how to rewind an audio cassette with a pen, to blow air into Nintendo cartridges to make them work, to give "percussive maintenance" to TVs to adjust their image, and to dial in a phone with a disk.

We are cut from the same cloth;-) And who doesn't like the two way street of percussive maintenance!

 

[realjitter]

I played The Last Challenge and it was quite unique and well written

Good timing since I also did check out "The Last Challenge" due to a mention here from Cambue.


You already pointed out most of the things I wanted to write about =\. One thing you didn't mention though is what the last challenge actually is =/. Well, it's

Spoiler: Drum roll

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From what I remember this is avoidable. Still, this kinda sets the tone for what's to come I suppose. Although, now that I think about it, this challenge should also include his

Spoiler

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Extra point from me if that's true, which of course it ain't..

Aside from that, the story itself could be interesting since we don't entirely know what happened to the rest of the world. Is it all like before when they come back?. Will there be anarchy or something?. I'm probably overthinking this and it'll be mainly a harem game and the story will be just like an afterthought... I mean, the setup is clearly inspired by covid. Which got me thinking, why didn't they just give Kenny "OG" Copeland a holler like we did when it all started?.

Spoiler: Hallelujah!

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For the rest of it?. Like desmosome already pointed out, there's quite a lot to like here. The writing is solid and, just in general, the developer tries to do a little more when it comes to the options and overall approach. The highlight is certainly the the bus ride sequence. That one alone is worth checking out imo. Having 10+ people interact and play off of each other was quite impressive to see and the developer did an outstanding job here.

Another thing worth mentioning is the MCs sidekick, Donnie. He seems to be inspired by Jonah Hill from Superbad. To me it was a bit of a hit and miss when it comes to him and his humor... Pretty over the top, but over the top is also the name of the game here. The MC on the other hand is kind of a chad. He's the challenge king, a established womanizer which is probably more of a good thing for this kind of AVN. I don't know, it's hard to tell after just the first release.

One thing that I found a bit "concerning" is the potential scope creep. It's not as extreme as, for example, Summer's gone, but... you know... So many characters are already introduced and we're not even back home yet.. It feels like one of those "mega projects "where it's hard to get really excited about. IIRC, the first season will be about 10 chapters long and then there'll be a S2 and maybe even more which puts us already on a cool 20+ years development cycle.... Yikes....

Still, i'd give this a thumbs up for trying to do something more with what you've seen a thousand times before already. Worth checking out for sure. Probably safe to say though that this won't be a story first game . But maybe it'll be a fun porn/pseudo "dating" game?.

 

[camube]

I don't have as much time to play through VNs these days, let alone story-first ones that are not for fapping, but I occasionally still check out this thread. I played The Last Challenge and it was quite unique and well written.
....
But I don't know if it will be story first. We got to know a bunch of characters on the bus ride home, but once they get home, everyone got their own lives and we will certainly be introduced to many more characters. What is the scope of the narrative? It could be unsustainable, and I don't know what the dev has planned.

Yeah I like it.
I don't like the fact that the last challenge is incest but if the rest of the game is good, I'd still play it.
Generally speaking, incest bored the crap out of me.

Good timing since I also did check out "The Last Challenge" due to a mention here from Cambue.

You already pointed out most of the things I wanted to write about =\. One thing you didn't mention though is what the last challenge actually is =/. Well, it's

Spoiler: Drum roll

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....
Still, i'd give this a thumbs up for trying to do something more with what you've seen a thousand times before already. Worth checking out for sure. Probably safe to say though that this won't be a story first game . But maybe it'll be a fun porn/pseudo "dating" game?.

Yeah I think it's gonna have scope creep too.
There's far too many options and while it's fine for Episode 1, it may not gonna be fine at Episode 5. I hope the dev find support though.

 

[raynarnab]

Has anyone tried Sophie: The Girl from the Zone yet? The premise looks interesting but I wanted to hear if anyone has tried it before giving it a shot.

 

[365 others]

Has anyone tried Sophie: The Girl from the Zone yet? The premise looks interesting but I wanted to hear if anyone has tried it before giving it a shot.

I have. It's changed a lot over its development, but overall I like the story.
A heads up, however. There are crude scenes that might upset some players, and lately (IMHO) they have been abusing the paradox effect.
As per the latest chapters/updates, it's getting harder and harder to distinguish what is the real story and what is a hallucination.

 

[raynarnab]

As per the latest chapters/updates, it's getting harder and harder to distinguish what is the real story and what is a hallucination.

Okay that sounds fun! I am a huge fan of shutter island and so if a story is being able to do that well enough, I am onboard! Thank you!

 

[365 others]

Okay that sounds fun! I am a huge fan of shutter island and so if a story is being able to do that well enough, I am onboard! Thank you!

Then If you like (or at least can endure) the crude scenes, you'll be up for an excellent story. Despite the issues they had at the beginning (frenglish, abrupt change of art/render style, a bug here and there) it's one of my top 10 VNs because of the story and the character development.

 

[MelanColic]

Hello there! New dev here. I've been lurking on this thread for some time now, and decided to show up. I'm currently working on a my first VN. I've opened a discussion thread here, if some might be interested. I'm not sure I'll make the cut to be on this thread's list, nevertheless, I'm always interested in what you guys and gals deem good storytelling. I'll be taking notes... and maybe share some thoughts too. See ya around!

 

[Canto Forte]

You will do fine in the wide open web .. as dragons of ice and fire with tame inbred blondes as protags are set to serve another acclaimed hit to the media in the coming months.

I'm not sure I'll make the cut to be on this thread's list

The witches look more appropriate than actual young adults from witch accademy series on the small screen ... anything that looks like the 7th gate with such full blown women shold be a winner.
- action is the name of the game, as opposed to exposition pieces or narration to put most man children to sleep - which are the top competing pitfalls of story telling in any interactive environment.

• Well-designed, internally consistent, coherent story with a beginning and an end - i.e. no games where the devs make shit up as they go along.
• Characters that are actual human beings, with lives, personalities and interests outside the MC.
• Sex scenes should serve the plot, not vice versa. If there is no story-relevant reason for a scene, it shouldn't be there.
• No Engrish. Non-native speakers are fine (I am one), but the dev should at least use Grammarly or LanguageTool.
• No cheap tropes (e.g. every woman lusts after the MC's magical dick).

The man living in a monastery for the occult babes where theyu can mold him into a weappon of ... womanhood destruction and desperate urges conqueror is a sure hit.

Do remember that Oppenheimer literally turned the male lead into a ruthless, conniving, God given gift to every woman he meets - dastadly whoremonger - who would put most porn actors, not to mention almost everyone in the games from this thread to shame.

 

[MelanColic]

You will do fine in the wide open web .. as dragons of ice and fire with tame inbred blondes as protags are set to serve another acclaimed hit to the media in the coming months.

Oh, fuck me! You are right. HOTD will have a new season soon. I must ride that dragon too. This is actually perfect, my VN will have dragons, people will thing this is just like House of the Dragon, but with busty witches. Maybe I will add some inbreeding too for good measure (jk, but maybe.. )

 

[365 others]

Hello there! New dev here. I've been lurking on this thread for some time now, and decided to show up. I'm currently working on a my first VN. I've opened a discussion thread here, if some might be interested. I'm not sure I'll make the cut to be on this thread's list, nevertheless, I'm always interested in what you guys and gals deem good storytelling. I'll be taking notes... and maybe share some thoughts too. See ya around!

The art looks nice, but if I could suggest something... maybe a bit more variety in body types? I don't have anything against busty women, but all of them have the same type and are within the same range of size.

 

[MelanColic]

The art looks nice, but if I could suggest something... maybe a bit more variety in body types? I don't have anything against busty women, but all of them have the same type and are within the same range of size.

As the story progresses, a few more characters will appear. They will vary body-wise, especially some of the elven folk.