Recommending Story-first games

[noping123]

You know, I came across this thread, and decided to use it to promote my own game. (Alive, link in sig). But rather than just promote it (although I fully admit that's what I'm doing), i'll talk about it a bit in the context of this thread.

First, the intention and the goal is for it to be completely story-driven. The story was fully written from day 1 before I ever did a single render or wrote a single line of code. While some things have changed as I've gone along and characters evolved differently than I anticipated, the overall story hasn't, and won't ever change.

Now that said, it is my first game - and as such, I've made a couple mistakes. The biggest one being, a sex scene in the very beginning of the game which most certainly does NOT serve the story at all. When I first started making the game my thought was 2 fold #1 "It's a game in this genre, if it doesn't have sex scenes no one will look at it". #2 "I have never done any sort of animation before and this is a good excuse to learn". If I could go back I'd change things to remove that scene. (There are a few other sex scenes that may seem like they don't serve the story.... all I am willing to say is that is not the case). The intention is most definitely a story-focused game, but that's the 1 glaring stand out to me.

The second thing I'd note : I'm releasing chapter 3 via patreon in a few days. (Early next week - likely on tuesday unless something drastic changes). Now I'm not asking for support here, it'd be dumb to ask for support on something sight unseen - but I'm also going to release a public version a couple of weeks after that - so it'd probably be better to wait to try it out until then if you're going to. Biggest reason being - again, first game. I made a couple coding errors (Not so much errors as omissions) that I'm fixing with the Ch3 release, which means forcing a replay of the entire game so nothing breaks. Also, Ch3 gets into the actual story a bit more than the earlier stuff. My original intention was to release CH1+2 simultaneously sort of as a "setting the world and framework" sort of thing - I ended up doing just ch1 on it's own, just to try to get feedback on what I was doing - and I did get some valuable stuff that prompted some changes (That I, in retrospect, should have done from the beginning anyway) so it was probably the right call. Still... so for anyone (which I assume is everyone in this thread) who really is into the story stuff, I'd suggest waiting a couple weeks for CH3 because Ch1+2 is only a little bit of story (definitely some, but not a ton) and a lot more about setting the world, introducing the characters a bit, etc etc.

The 3rd thing I'll mention is - I'm always looking for feedback. Obviously I'm an attention whore like every other dev out there, and want nothing but praise, but I'm cool with the negative stuff too - as long as it's fair. "you suck dicks" or "This isn't a harem game go die" isn't very fair "I disliked it and this is why" or "I think this bit is bad" is totally fair. Actually, while I obviously love hearing when people like stuff about it, I'm much more interested in what people DON'T like about it (which is the feedback usually hardest to come by at least so far in the few months I've been doing this), so if anyone has that, I'd love to hear it... even if it will bruise my ego a bit. It doesn't mean I'll change anything based on it, especially if what they don't like is the actual story (that isnt ever going to change), but it's still valuable information in my opinion.

Thanks for reading my TL;....did read? idk.

 

[moskyx]

Damn... you're making it very difficult for me to ignore this game. Now I really want to see what kind of pornographic content it has with an automobile AI

None so far. First step is getting her out of her current shell, to replace it for something more... functional, I guess. But no kidding, Artemisia's is probably the most wholesome love relationship in the game.

 

[Raife]

But please jog my memory, isn't BaDik one of those games with a lesbian couple that falls for the male MC?

Groan. Don't remind me... it's the worst element of the game... although it's both better and worse than you imply, Jaike:

Spoiler

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That scene reminded me so strongly of the worst aspects of _Acting Lessons_, the dev's far more problematic first game, that I abandoned BAD for some time... which was a mistake, because BAD developed some outstanding features. The three best are:

MC character and agency. The Dik-Chick personality/points meter initially struck me as yet another dumb lightside-darkside scale, but it's much better than that. It really does allow you to gradually shape the MC's personality development in ways that feel organic... and that eventually cause him to behave in certain ways, or reject certain options out of hand, or open/close entire plotlines, because of _how_ you've shaped his experiences to that point. Not only do different paths open or close with other characters or LIs, but the MCs dialogue, deportment and even his facial expressions shift.

Of course, the gradual evolution of the MC's personality would feel bogus if he were a different character... but as an 18 year-old feeling his way in the world, it works.

LI character development. The LIs, with the partial exception of the couple you described (and even they are growing on me) are mostly fantastic. They start out as apparent college game/film cliches, but gradually reveal emotional depth that can surprise the player when you 'peel back the onion' a bit.

The non-LI characters. Are many, varied, and generally not simple types... although, again, they can be mistaken as two-dimensional when you first encounter them.

The MC has a father... and he's great! He's not dead, or evil, or psychotic... rather, it's the MC's mother who has died. That gives him a rather different emotional hinterland than most young male MCs in these games. His father serves as his conscience.

Don't get me wrong... BAD is not my favourite game. It doesn't hold a candle to Corporate Culture or Nothing is Forever. But it's surprisingly good.

 

[moskyx]

Oh, come on. I thought this was a story-first thread. How can BaDIK be even mentioned here when the whole story is hold by an impossible bunch of coincidences and connections, an ill-explained tuition fee system, and a astonishing lack of the most elemental curiosity from a college student. Half the plot could have been already solved with just 2 basic questions (what's her name? what's your last name?), or at least one single rational comment from the MC when the choice arise (Quinn is pimping girls out). Because that's the other thing, player is presented with options that lead you to think your MC is going to say something... yet he's unable to properly say it as any functional human being would. I just couldn't get past of Ep5.

 

[Raife]

You know, I came across this thread, and decided to use it to promote my own game. (Alive, link in sig). But rather than just promote it (although I fully admit that's what I'm doing), i'll talk about it a bit in the context of this thread.

First, the intention and the goal is for it to be completely story-driven.

The 3rd thing I'll mention is - I'm always looking for feedback. Obviously I'm an attention whore like every other dev out there, and want nothing but praise, but I'm cool with the negative stuff too - as long as it's fair. "you suck dicks" or "This isn't a harem game go die" isn't very fair "I disliked it and this is why" or "I think this bit is bad" is totally fair. Actually, while I obviously love hearing when people like stuff about it, I'm much more interested in what people DON'T like about it (which is the feedback usually hardest to come by at least so far in the few months I've been doing this), so if anyone has that, I'd love to hear it... even if it will bruise my ego a bit.

Thanks for reading my TL;....did read? idk.

Hi noping -- thanks for dropping by and soliciting input. I'll certainly take a look at sometime over the next few weeks. Fair warning, though: you've chosen a fairly challenging and highly niche group as reviewers.

For example, we want to see well-devised, cleverly executed narratives in games, with credible characters that behave in ways that are true to themselves; consequently we _hate_ dumb porn tropes, such as 'magic penis-ism' (i.e. all the LIs are irresistably attracted to the MC for no obvious reason).

But I can certainly promise that our feedback will be thoughtful, constructive and respectful.

 

[Raife]

Oh, come on. I thought this was a story-first thread. How can BaDIK be even mentioned here when the whole story is hold by an impossible bunch of coincidences and connections, an ill-explained tuition fee system, and a astonishing lack of the most elemental curiosity from a college student.

Now Moskyx, I don't want to _defend_ BAD from the charges you've laid against it... that would be a bit like defending the merit of a film like _Last Action Hero_.

Besides, everything you say is true. The story is cheesy, melodramatic and frequently boneheaded. But the point is... it's a story. It's not a _good_ story, but that isn't the point. It exists, in its messy, incontinent, melodramatic glory. And I think it's at least as essential to the success of that game as its porny elements.

Besides, literally half of Charles Dickens's novels turn on ridiculous, impossible connections and/or secret relatives. (Heh, the comparison is hilarious.)

 

[noping123]

Hi noping -- thanks for dropping by and soliciting input. I'll certainly take a look at sometime over the next few weeks. Fair warning, though: you've chosen a fairly challenging and highly niche group as reviewers.

For example, we want to see well-devised, cleverly executed narratives in games, with credible characters that behave in ways that are true to themselves; consequently we _hate_ dumb porn tropes, such as 'magic penis-ism' (i.e. all the LIs are irresistably attracted to the MC for no obvious reason).

But I can certainly promise that our feedback will be thoughtful, constructive and respectful.

Oh hey. I literally just woke up. I'll comment on this though since you mentioned it - there is 1 instance of that. (The 'magic-penis-ism' thing). Well, not really. It's more like the 2 characters first meet, and it's more of a "Hey youre hot hey you're hot too" thing. Aside from that, I will say (ignoring the one scene I mentioned in my previous post which I admit now was probably a mistake) everything else.... even if it seems like that, it isn't. I'm just intentionally holding stuff back. It might not be the best story-telling method, idk, but it's what I'm going with. CH3 will reveal a bit more about that, Ch4 (which I won't have ready until probably april or so) will mostly lay all the cards on the table. So while I can't really ask for a fair review of stuff that I haven't released, I will note that I do have an actual plan, for what that's worth.

As far as challenging or niche goes, I don't mind. My goal when I first started this project, was to tell a story. I did it in this genre because it allowed me a lot more freedom - I could do so with no real restrictions. Of course being in this genre came with a whole new set of challenges I didn't anticipate, but I digress. If you looked at it, with a focus on the story, and said "This could be good", then I did well. If you said "I'm not so sure, I'll need to wait and see more", I can deal with that, if you said "This fucking sucks", that means I've failed in my goal and maybe should re-address how I'm approaching things.

Anyway, thanks for the comment. Now I need to go get caffeine.

Oh and hey. Last action hero was a great movie! It may not have been the pinnacle of cinema, but sometimes you just want a fun mindless action movie and it was great for that! (Ok it wasn't great. but it was good mindless fun.)

 

[jufot]

Oh, come on. I thought this was a story-first thread. How can BaDIK be even mentioned here

Yay, now there are three of us who aren't completely spellbound by BADIK

noping123 welcome to thread! I gave your game a shot

First, the intention and the goal is for it to be completely story-driven. The story was fully written from day 1 before I ever did a single render or wrote a single line of code. While some things have changed as I've gone along and characters evolved differently than I anticipated, the overall story hasn't, and won't ever change.

It's great that you're already starting with a written story. So many devs try to make shit up as they go along, and the results are usually not so pretty.

As you've acknowledged, the first two chapters aren't really story driven. It felt like a series of encounters with a bunch of random women, who are all inexplicably into the MC for some reason. But you say chapter 3 will get more into the story, so I'll look forward to that.

There are a few other sex scenes that may seem like they don't serve the story.... all I am willing to say is that is not the case

Yes, this is another pet peeve of mine. Tonya's scenes especially seemed to have come out of nowhere, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. I'm also not a fan of the random porn playing on MC's TV at all times. It seems weird.

It also seemed impossible not to go on a date with Nikki, is that correct? It's fine if it is, I was just wondering if did something wrong.

Finally, MC's thoughts can sometimes feel inconsistent with his actions. If you're going on a date with Nikki and reject Mary, MC thinks it would've been wrong to say yes to Mary, given Nikki. But then, if you reject Erin's drunken advances, MC thinks "She was pretty hot. I should have gotten her number." Why is it ok to ask for Erin's number, but reject Mary?


I also have a few a technical notes, I hope they're helpful:

• Rollback is broken. Sometimes it stops working at all, sometimes a single turn of the scroll wheel goes back several scenes. The first time you go to the coffee shop, if you scroll up before talking to Nikki, you go back all the way to the gym.
• Workout minigame tutorial could be better. Instead of showing both tutorials at the same time, show only the tutorial for the chosen minigame.
• When you reply to a text, it doesn't scroll to the bottom automatically. I have to scroll manually after reply, which is annoying.

Oh btw, I loved the Fight Club reference

 

[noping123]

It also seemed impossible not to go on a date with Nikki, is that correct? It's fine if it is, I was just wondering if did something wrong.

The date is a forced event. It's not skippable.

I'm also not a fan of the random porn playing on MC's TV at all times. It seems weird.

That... lol. The "idea" here is, it's a popular TV show in that universe. What it really is, is me adding random nsfw renders I do in my spare time into the game in a ham-fisted way. But through the story, pretty much everyone "watches" that TV show.

But then, if you reject Erin's drunken advances, MC thinks "She was pretty hot. I should have gotten her number." Why is it ok to ask for Erin's number, but reject Mary?

I'll have to look at that - I thought I had provided additional dialogue depending on a couple of things. I'll have to check if I did or if I somehow left it out. I know it's in my notes, but I did rush the last ~day or so of development of CH2 because I wanted it out before the holiday so I might have missed it.

Rollback is broken. Sometimes it stops working at all, sometimes a single turn of the scroll wheel goes back several scenes. The first time you go to the coffee shop, if you scroll up before talking to Nikki, you go back all the way to the gym.

Rollback is shut off intentionally a few times because it was completely breaking some of my code and I could not find a way to make it work without shutting it off in a few areas. Although the "single turn goes back several scenes" isn't something I've ever encountered before, and it works correctly for me in testing. Are you sure it's not just your mouse? While it's definitely possible I made some coding errors, that completely flies in the face of normal renpy behavior so it seems weird that it would happen. I'll test again later, but I haven't noticed this so far.

Workout minigame tutorial could be better. Instead of showing both tutorials at the same time, show only the tutorial for the chosen minigame.

I'm honestly not sure how I'd approach this, I'll consider it but idk. The way it is now, the minigame shows once (first time through) and then never again. The only decent way I could find to do that was to have 1 tutorial explaining both. I'd have to figure out how to split it, and have it show properly for each one separately, and still not show again. I'll have to think on it.

When you reply to a text, it doesn't scroll to the bottom automatically. I have to scroll manually after reply, which is annoying.

That's another one of those "I'm not good enough with renpy to know how to fix it" issues. It was a pain to get it working properly to begin with so that it didn't completely break, and you *could* scroll at all. My first try at it, scrolling was just impossible until after the fact. (10x more annoying!). If I ever figure out how to do what you suggest I definitely would - it's just a matter of "I don't currently know how to code that so it works the way I want".

So yea, TL;DR: Regarding technical issues, I just don't know how to "fix" those properly. If I ever figure it out, I probably will. Nikki date is unavoidable (although you can dictate how it goes and how she feels about you/you about her trough actions, but it's not avoidable) - I need to look at that bit of dialogue cause it should be variable, and sorry but the "Everyone on this planet watches porn regularly" is staying. And Tonya... she's my 2nd favorite character. The encounter with her is semi-forced (avoidable if you don't go to the bar, but if you do, then it will happen).

There is one other thing I've been considering - I won't do it for Ch3 because I have a release window I've set, and it'd push me well outside of it, but it's on the table for CH4 and beyond - Character bios like you see in some other games (likely accessed through the phone). Reason is, there's a lot of stuff about the characters that *I* know because I created detailed bios for everyone that no one else knows. Some of this stuff I'm detailing as the game progresses, but some of it I don't actually know if I'll ever get to in the course of normal dialogue.

The one example I'll mention is something that I know I currently had no plans of addressing in the game (Or at least, no idea how to address it naturally) - Stacey (who is present at the very end of CH2). She has a couple of ... lets say character traits, which are heavily alluded to through her actions in CH3 and I tried to demonstrate through her scenes as well - but it's not ever actually stated - and going by what I have planned, so far I don't even know where I could put it (except possibly way towards the end of CH5 or 6 maybe). That seems late to get to such an important character trait.... I'll have to workshop it.

Anyway thanks for the feedback. Technical stuff, not so much I can do about that right now unfortunately. The rest though, I'll have to look at. Thanks for taking the time!

 

[LorgarAurelian]

Oh, come on. I thought this was a story-first thread. How can BaDIK be even mentioned here when the whole story is hold by an impossible bunch of coincidences and connections, an ill-explained tuition fee system, and a astonishing lack of the most elemental curiosity from a college student. Half the plot could have been already solved with just 2 basic questions (what's her name? what's your last name?), or at least one single rational comment from the MC when the choice arise (Quinn is pimping girls out). Because that's the other thing, player is presented with options that lead you to think your MC is going to say something... yet he's unable to properly say it as any functional human being would. I just couldn't get past of Ep5.

I give you credit, you lasted longer than me, I felt like I wanted to strangle most of the characters(including the MC) and gave up after Ep.3.

Yay, now there are three of us who aren't completely spellbound by BADIK

+1 to that
I usually just lurk in this thread, as it's a great place to find interesting games.

 

[Deleted member 3365639]

https://f95zone.to/threads/scarlet-spire-final-alleykat-games.27145/

Scarlet Spire

Female Lead, No sexual Content.

 

[Deleted member 3365639]

Acting Lessons

https://f95zone.to/threads/acting-lessons-v1-0-2-drpinkcake.12181/

 

[moskyx]

The date is a forced event. It's not skippable.




That... lol. The "idea" here is, it's a popular TV show in that universe. What it really is, is me adding random nsfw renders I do in my spare time into the game in a ham-fisted way. But through the story, pretty much everyone "watches" that TV show.



I'll have to look at that - I thought I had provided additional dialogue depending on a couple of things. I'll have to check if I did or if I somehow left it out. I know it's in my notes, but I did rush the last ~day or so of development of CH2 because I wanted it out before the holiday so I might have missed it.



Rollback is shut off intentionally a few times because it was completely breaking some of my code and I could not find a way to make it work without shutting it off in a few areas. Although the "single turn goes back several scenes" isn't something I've ever encountered before, and it works correctly for me in testing. Are you sure it's not just your mouse? While it's definitely possible I made some coding errors, that completely flies in the face of normal renpy behavior so it seems weird that it would happen. I'll test again later, but I haven't noticed this so far.



I'm honestly not sure how I'd approach this, I'll consider it but idk. The way it is now, the minigame shows once (first time through) and then never again. The only decent way I could find to do that was to have 1 tutorial explaining both. I'd have to figure out how to split it, and have it show properly for each one separately, and still not show again. I'll have to think on it.



That's another one of those "I'm not good enough with renpy to know how to fix it" issues. It was a pain to get it working properly to begin with so that it didn't completely break, and you *could* scroll at all. My first try at it, scrolling was just impossible until after the fact. (10x more annoying!). If I ever figure out how to do what you suggest I definitely would - it's just a matter of "I don't currently know how to code that so it works the way I want".

So yea, TL;DR: Regarding technical issues, I just don't know how to "fix" those properly. If I ever figure it out, I probably will. Nikki date is unavoidable (although you can dictate how it goes and how she feels about you/you about her trough actions, but it's not avoidable) - I need to look at that bit of dialogue cause it should be variable, and sorry but the "Everyone on this planet watches porn regularly" is staying. And Tonya... she's my 2nd favorite character. The encounter with her is semi-forced (avoidable if you don't go to the bar, but if you do, then it will happen).

There is one other thing I've been considering - I won't do it for Ch3 because I have a release window I've set, and it'd push me well outside of it, but it's on the table for CH4 and beyond - Character bios like you see in some other games (likely accessed through the phone). Reason is, there's a lot of stuff about the characters that *I* know because I created detailed bios for everyone that no one else knows. Some of this stuff I'm detailing as the game progresses, but some of it I don't actually know if I'll ever get to in the course of normal dialogue.

The one example I'll mention is something that I know I currently had no plans of addressing in the game (Or at least, no idea how to address it naturally) - Stacey (who is present at the very end of CH2). She has a couple of ... lets say character traits, which are heavily alluded to through her actions in CH3 and I tried to demonstrate through her scenes as well - but it's not ever actually stated - and going by what I have planned, so far I don't even know where I could put it (except possibly way towards the end of CH5 or 6 maybe). That seems late to get to such an important character trait.... I'll have to workshop it.

Anyway thanks for the feedback. Technical stuff, not so much I can do about that right now unfortunately. The rest though, I'll have to look at. Thanks for taking the time!

Consider check the developer help submenu whenever you feel blocked by the coding. There are a couple of helpful guys who basically live there and try to help everybody out.

About the character bios, please note that I haven't played the game so maybe it makes sense to add them, but I'd be initially against it. In the example you've given, there's no need to actually state on a explicit way those traits, as long as you succeed on demonstrate them in her scenes. You know she is like that for x reasons, as you did her characterization, now you have to let us know about it. But telling us on a bio card kind of cheapens it. Trust on your writing and your players intelligence to theorize and jump to conclussions thanks to the clues you give on the scenes.

 

[badtimetales]

Oh, come on. I thought this was a story-first thread. How can BaDIK be even mentioned here when the whole story is hold by an impossible bunch of coincidences and connections, an ill-explained tuition fee system, and a astonishing lack of the most elemental curiosity from a college student.

Come on, that's too harsh.

BaDik isn't a Agatha Christie's story like, I agree.
From a devs view it's a story while trying to bring in successful keywords.
Can't blame the dev for that, can you?
And it's working.


If you do so I guess you haven't watched any movies/shows in the last years.
There was nothing new, only remakes and copies adjusted to the actual .... lifestyle (I have other words for this, but .... let's keep it friendly).

There is only one movie I can think about worth watching and that's John Wick.


So ... BaDik is not a the best story based game, but it HAS a story.
And the decisions DO matter.

 

[moskyx]

I just say it's a bad story. Technically, the game is almost perfect and people love it. I get that it's terribly hard to make work a coherent story with so much branching and choices and all. But there's just so many plot-conveniences I can stand when everybody is telling me that's a masterpiece. It's a cheap soap opera, that's what it is to me. The fact that the setting is not exactly my thing also helps, I guess.

 

[jufot]

Rollback is shut off intentionally a few times because it was completely breaking some of my code and I could not find a way to make it work without shutting it off in a few areas

Ah ok, good to know it's intentional.

Although the "single turn goes back several scenes" isn't something I've ever encountered before, and it works correctly for me in testing. Are you sure it's not just your mouse? While it's definitely possible I made some coding errors, that completely flies in the face of normal renpy behavior so it seems weird that it would happen.

I'll see if I can reproduce it on video. I have seen the same issue in other RenPy games before, so I imagine it's a common problem.

So yea, TL;DR: Regarding technical issues, I just don't know how to "fix" those properly. If I ever figure it out, I probably will.

No worries, I'd say you're doing great for your first game

Nikki date is unavoidable (although you can dictate how it goes and how she feels about you/you about her trough actions, but it's not avoidable)

That's completely fine. I like it when not every story point is up to the player, it makes for better stories.

Character bios like you see in some other games (likely accessed through the phone). Reason is, there's a lot of stuff about the characters that *I* know because I created detailed bios for everyone that no one else knows. Some of this stuff I'm detailing as the game progresses, but some of it I don't actually know if I'll ever get to in the course of normal dialogue.

I disagree with moskyx, I think character bios are a good idea. I like reading the codex/lore book/phone contact list/etc in games, it helps with world building.

https://f95zone.to/threads/scarlet-spire-final-alleykat-games.27145/

Scarlet Spire

Female Lead, No sexual Content.

I tried to get into this a while ago, but just bounced off, hard

Acting Lessons

https://f95zone.to/threads/acting-lessons-v1-0-2-drpinkcake.12181/

This used to be in the OP, but I've received too much feedback that it doesn't belong there :/ I disagree, but...

 

[badtimetales]

This used to be in the OP, but I've received too much feedback that it doesn't belong there :/ I disagree, but...

It should be.
And since when do you care about what people think ...
Imagine I would do that *scnr*

 

[badtimetales]

It's a cheap soap opera, that's what it is to me. The fact that the setting is not exactly my thing also helps, I guess.

but a soap with a story
So same as the TV shows.....

I agree and I don't want to play any high school setting any more, except it has a believable story and really great renders.
But I can understand ever dev trying to do it, as it sells. Good. Really good.

 

[Jaike]

Just got home from work and have to get prepared for something else, but I wanted to pop in with a short message. Raife, Jufot, I just say I'm generally unimpressed by the "male MC seduces a (previously) lesbian couple (and then the entire relationship comes to depend on the MC)" trope, even if it is explained as a realisation that they are bi. I can elaborate on this later, but I tolerate less inconsistency of character with NPCs than with MCs who are guided by player choices. Beside that its only purpose is to stroke the ego of a subset of male players.

You know, I came across this thread, and decided to use it to promote my own game. (Alive, link in sig). But rather than just promote it (although I fully admit that's what I'm doing), i'll talk about it a bit in the context of this thread.

First, the intention and the goal is for it to be completely story-driven. The story was fully written from day 1 before I ever did a single render or wrote a single line of code. While some things have changed as I've gone along and characters evolved differently than I anticipated, the overall story hasn't, and won't ever change.

Now that said, it is my first game - and as such, I've made a couple mistakes. The biggest one being, a sex scene in the very beginning of the game which most certainly does NOT serve the story at all. When I first started making the game my thought was 2 fold #1 "It's a game in this genre, if it doesn't have sex scenes no one will look at it". #2 "I have never done any sort of animation before and this is a good excuse to learn". If I could go back I'd change things to remove that scene. (There are a few other sex scenes that may seem like they don't serve the story.... all I am willing to say is that is not the case). The intention is most definitely a story-focused game, but that's the 1 glaring stand out to me.

The second thing I'd note : I'm releasing chapter 3 via patreon in a few days. (Early next week - likely on tuesday unless something drastic changes). Now I'm not asking for support here, it'd be dumb to ask for support on something sight unseen - but I'm also going to release a public version a couple of weeks after that - so it'd probably be better to wait to try it out until then if you're going to. Biggest reason being - again, first game. I made a couple coding errors (Not so much errors as omissions) that I'm fixing with the Ch3 release, which means forcing a replay of the entire game so nothing breaks. Also, Ch3 gets into the actual story a bit more than the earlier stuff. My original intention was to release CH1+2 simultaneously sort of as a "setting the world and framework" sort of thing - I ended up doing just ch1 on it's own, just to try to get feedback on what I was doing - and I did get some valuable stuff that prompted some changes (That I, in retrospect, should have done from the beginning anyway) so it was probably the right call. Still... so for anyone (which I assume is everyone in this thread) who really is into the story stuff, I'd suggest waiting a couple weeks for CH3 because Ch1+2 is only a little bit of story (definitely some, but not a ton) and a lot more about setting the world, introducing the characters a bit, etc etc.

The 3rd thing I'll mention is - I'm always looking for feedback. Obviously I'm an attention whore like every other dev out there, and want nothing but praise, but I'm cool with the negative stuff too - as long as it's fair. "you suck dicks" or "This isn't a harem game go die" isn't very fair "I disliked it and this is why" or "I think this bit is bad" is totally fair. Actually, while I obviously love hearing when people like stuff about it, I'm much more interested in what people DON'T like about it (which is the feedback usually hardest to come by at least so far in the few months I've been doing this), so if anyone has that, I'd love to hear it... even if it will bruise my ego a bit. It doesn't mean I'll change anything based on it, especially if what they don't like is the actual story (that isnt ever going to change), but it's still valuable information in my opinion.

Thanks for reading my TL;....did read? idk.

I promise to check your game after the next chapter is out, but I can't say that I give feedback soon. What can promise is that I will try to be charitable.

Consider check the developer help submenu whenever you feel blocked by the coding. There are a couple of helpful guys who basically live there and try to help everybody out.

About the character bios, please note that I haven't played the game so maybe it makes sense to add them, but I'd be initially against it. In the example you've given, there's no need to actually state on a explicit way those traits, as long as you succeed on demonstrate them in her scenes. You know she is like that for x reasons, as you did her characterization, now you have to let us know about it. But telling us on a bio card kind of cheapens it. Trust on your writing and your players intelligence to theorize and jump to conclussions thanks to the clues you give on the scenes.

I mostly agree with this. Character bios are okay if they are light or if they contain information that the MC already knows, but if they are all lore dumps they are a bad idea.

 

[Raife]

I just say it's a bad story. Technically, the game is almost perfect and people love it. I get that it's terribly hard to make work a coherent story with so much branching and choices and all. But there's just so many plot-conveniences I can stand when everybody is telling me that's a masterpiece. It's a cheap soap opera, that's what it is to me. The fact that the setting is not exactly my thing also helps, I guess.

That's completely fair: it _is_ objectively cheesy, and has numerous plot kluges. This is a subjective argument. You think it's a dumb, boring story; I think it's a dumb, mostly fun story, a la _Last Action Hero_. (I also got lucky: my MC's plot through-line was quite coherent, but others ran into some really silly errors.)

_Last Action Hero_ is not a good movie (although for some inexplicable reason, Arnie himself seems to like it) and its story is rather dumb... but I think it's 'fun dumb, not dumb dumb.' (Admittedly, it's much better after a couple of beers.)

But BAD does have a genuinely complex (albeit often messy and absurd) narrative, character development, and meaningful time devoted to non-LIs. It's a story-driven game, not just a porn game -- unlike, by way of illustration, WVM... which is 100% porn stretched over a pseudo-narrative carapace.