Recommending Story-first games

[bacienvu88]

I agree with a lot of the complaints about Emma but I also love her to bits at times and want to pat her head.

Thing is, if she had been allowed to actually be 13-14 years old Emma would have been almost perfect and MC would naturally be a doting father / uncle without anything sexual going on with her.

Started Summer Scent and came to see if it had been discussed here. I see a few people mentioned it.

It's quite melodramatic but I'm enjoying all of the characters. I'm only on my first branch right now but I was struck by the way the sex scenes were written. It's really giving me insight to the LI in ways most games don't, and they're much more realistic in some ways - such as the MC not being very good at first, and having normal anxiety about his performance and looking up how to get better.

Yes, the strength of Summer Scent is the portrayal of the LI:s. And how consistent those characters are over different routes. The more routes you go through, the more insight you get into the characters. The MC comes across as a bit emotionless and opinionless in certain routes, but is otherwise fairly well written. It is some of the best written characters across all VN:s here in my opinion.

Don't remember why jufot hasn't included it on the list. Is it the incest (though incest is completely optional)? Or that the MC becomes a manipulative jerk in a couple of routes?

 

[moskyx]

Thing is, if she had been allowed to actually be 13-14 years old Emma would have been almost perfect and MC would naturally be a doting father / uncle without anything sexual going on with her.

If she's not involved in sexual acts, Patreon is not the problem (they allow minors in non-sexual scenes), but Steam (they don't allow any minor portraited in an adult game, no matter the actual nature of the scenes they are on)

 

[bacienvu88]

Also, 14-16 year olds are more mature than Emma. Apart from the fact that Emma designs over sexualised dresses that is.

I'll clarify this a bit. Emma is portrayed as a mix of different ages. That is why things feels so weird with her.

Her maturity is about 12-14 years old.
Her school seems to be a high school.
Her appearance is 18-19 years old.
Her education/profession suggest she is at least 20 years old.

These things do not go together.

 

[bacienvu88]

If she's not involved in sexual acts, Patreon is not the problem (they allow minors in non-sexual scenes), but Steam (they don't allow any minor portraited in an adult game, no matter the actual nature of the scenes they are on)

Regardless of that, it is the choice of the dev to have her as an LI (if that is actually what the dev intends) and still portray her as very innocent and immature.

 

[jackofarcades]

Don't remember why jufot hasn't included it on the list. Is it the incest (though incest is completely optional)? Or that the MC becomes a manipulative jerk in a couple of routes?

From searching the thread, jufot complained the MC can kind of whiplash between personalities pretty quickly.

Also now I'm following a guide to get some different branches, intentionally got a bad end, and laughed really hard at how ridiculous it all is. Like super grimdark stuff.

 

[jufot]

Don't remember why @jufot hasn't included it on the list. Is it the incest (though incest is completely optional)? Or that the MC becomes a manipulative jerk in a couple of routes?

Mostly the latter. See here and here.

 

[bacienvu88]

Mostly the latter. See here and here.

I actually argued quite a lot with the dev about the MC role a while back in the game thread.

 

[realjitter]

If she's not involved in sexual acts, Patreon is not the problem (they allow minors in non-sexual scenes), but Steam (they don't allow any minor portraited in an adult game, no matter the actual nature of the scenes they are on)

I'm personally with Steam here because i'll never understood why alot of Developers feel the need to include children into their games ..Most of the big ones have them (Intertwined, Artemis, Summer's gone, and many many others). I know most of them do it for storytelling reason or because they thing it's cute or whatever, but at the end of the day it's just very short sighted thinking and totally unnecessary...

 

[bacienvu88]

From searching the thread, jufot complained the MC can kind of whiplash between personalities pretty quickly.

Also now I'm following a guide to get some different branches, intentionally got a bad end, and laughed really hard at how ridiculous it all is. Like super grimdark stuff.

I really like that bad ending. While it is over the top, it still shows that there are actual consequences to your actions. And only thinking with your dick may end up being really bad. I would love more devs doing bad endings.

 

[realjitter]

I really like that bad ending. While it is over the top, it still shows that there are actual consequences to your actions. And only thinking with your dick may end up being really bad. I would love more devs doing bad endings.

I hear the mention of a bad ending? Well look no more

https://f95zone.to/threads/sisterly-bliss-dont-let-mom-find-out-eye-phon.18588/page-6

After reading this little, innocent AVN every bad ending people encountered so far will turn back into a happy ending=)

 

[vneotpolemus]

FWIW, I think SS' biggest issue is you're meant to play with a walkthrough. So long as you follow the predetermined routes the stories are reasonably internally consistent. Not super realistic, and some routes are better than others, but it hangs together alright. The problem is that if you step off the path you get the personality swings Jufrot mentioned.

In other news, I've been playing Price of Power and enjoying it. Another good recommendation from this thread. I'll probably post more thoughts once I'm caught up.

 

[desmosome]

This is precisely what I think is going on, here. I see her as circa 14-15 -- somewhere during the first half of her high school years, in American terms. Highly intelligent and talented, but naive and quite sheltered due to her extremely overprotective (arguably, for good reason) mother. That's how the character is written -- and that's how she's treated by all of the other characters (not just Charlotte and the MC).

Zach (RIP) and his crowd are written as older: maybe 18-19 year-old HS seniors. The player needs to ignore the Patreon-related age shift for Emma in order for the plot to make sense. If Emma's character is not transforemed into an LI (I do not think that she will be) this will be a prime example of how Patreon rules make it more difficult for devs to create compelling stories/NPCs.

Don't blame patreon for bad writing. It's easy to make a dark patch to lower her age, or they can actually write a character that acts her age. It's not like she is locked in the basement by her deranged helicopter mom. She can interact with her peers at school and has access to TV and internet, which makes it rather unbelievable that she can be developmentally stunted to that degree, even accounting for the poor parenting.

When I see characters like this, the only thing I can think of is loli bait without the balls to actually go for a loli character. The Tyrant has basically the same type of character in the younger daughter.

We all have our preferences that could let us overlook some poor aspects of the story. Since Hillside definitely doesn't fall within my preferred style/genre, the weaknesses in the writing sticks out like a sore thumb. Granted, I only played an earlier version like 2 years ago, but I thought it was pretty bad.

 

[Tlaero]

I'm personally with Steam here because i'll never understood why alot of Developers feel the need to include children into their games

In my case, I had a game with two adult (late 20s, early 30s) sisters who were extremely antagonistic towards each other, and had been for a long time. In one scene, the MC is at their mother's house and sees a picture of them as children playing together on a swingset. He uses that as a conversation starter to ask their mother about why they're like this. There was nothing even remotely sexual about the swing set picture. But, for Steam, we had to remove it because it showed children in an erotic game.

And then, that wasn't enough, because Steam decided to ban our publisher for having a non-sexual teenage character in one of the games they published (different dev completely unrelated to us). All games published by them were banned as well. No appeals allowed. No request to remove the "offending" content. They just banned us all.

Valve/Steam has every right to make whatever rules they want to make. But this definitely has an impact on the stories and games that are created.

Tlaero

 

[realjitter]

In my case, I had a game with two adult (late 20s, early 30s) sisters who were extremely antagonistic towards each other, and had been for a long time. In one scene, the MC is at their mother's house and sees a picture of them as children playing together on a swingset. He uses that as a conversation starter to ask their mother about why they're like this. There was nothing even remotely sexual about the swing set picture.

Does the Mother just points at the picture or does she takes it in her hand and we get to see a big screenshot of it?

 

[jufot]

Does the Mother just ponts at the picture or does she takes it in her hand we get to see a big screenshot of it?

Does it / should it matter?

 

[perkO]

Medieval, conflict, wholesome banter
=Milf Warrior= v0.1.5 [CheeseCake]
=Inner Demons= v0.30.1.9 [Graytshirt]

Humour, superpower, we do a little trolling
Taffy Tales v0.85 by Uberbie
=What A Legend= v0.5 [MagicNuts]
=Warlock-and-boobs= v0.353 [boobsgames]

RPG
https://f95zone.to/threads/tail-of-desire-v0-77-blue-bone.55497/
https://f95zone.to/threads/warlock-and-boobs-v0-353-0-2-boobsgames.18692/

maybe maybe
https://f95zone.to/threads/summer-story-v0-2-0-logo.73885/
https://f95zone.to/threads/the-secret-reloaded-v0-4-9b-aorrta.49470/

Hyper, hbimbo
https://f95zone.to/threads/terminal-desires-v0-10-alpha-jimjim.18947/
https://f95zone.to/threads/demon-deals-v0-03-2-breadman-games.97458/
https://f95zone.to/threads/twisted-world-v0-5-public-snatsgames.70143/

How do I link just title, not whole url?

 

[copoarmy]

hmm why Eternum isnt on the list? i think it fits almost all the criteria

 

[jufot]

hmm why Eternum isnt on the list? i think it fits almost all the criteria

Of the five criteria in the OP, I'd say Eternum violates 2, 3, and 5. I might revisit it in the future though.

 

[realjitter]

Does it / should it matter?

I'm just trying to understand the reasoning here since this is an extreme example. I guess when we get to see a screenshot of them you could make a case for showcasing them?, i don't know.. Sadly we live in a world where even things like Youtube deactivate the comment section of a Video because there's a Child on an album cover. Like on my Channel..

Appearently tings like this are concerning

You must be registered to see the links

 

[moskyx]

I'm just trying to understand the reasoning here since this is an extreme example. I guess when we get to see a screenshot of them you could make a case for showcasing them?, i don't know.. Sadly we live in a world where even things like Youtube deactivate the comment section of a Video because there's a Child on an album cover. Like on my Channel..

Appearently tings like this are concerning

You must be registered to see the links

The reasoning is that there was a picture with 2 underaged characters. That's the red line for them.