Recommending Story-first games

[Tlaero]

New update of City of Broken Dreamers and... oh, how it pains me to write this, but if I were in charge of this thread, I'd be seriously considering removing the game from the list. It wouldn't be fair, though, but still... so much wasted potential, so much disappointment. I basically agree with all that ename144 said here, and dropped my two cents in here. Any thoughts?

What you're seeing is the financial incentive to continue doing updates forever. It's the same driver that brings us large numbers of sequels and remakes in Hollywood. Something brand new might do well, or it might not. But you're really likely to get a sizable percentage of your first movie's audience if you make a sequel. And by the time you're at the 6th sequel, you're pretty much guaranteed to get the entirety of the audience you had for the 4th installment. (Who goes to the first 5 and then stops?)

In the 80's, before Science Fiction was mainstream, there was a reason why many of the good science fiction movies starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was because people went to see Arnold movies, regardless of what they were about. So, with the guarantee of revenue, the studios were able to do "risky" things like Total Recall and Running Man.

I don't know Philly Games' financial situation, but I certainly understand the pressure he's under.

Tlaero

 

[jufot]

New update of City of Broken Dreamers and... oh, how it pains me to write this, but if I were in charge of this thread, I'd be seriously considering removing the game from the list. It wouldn't be fair, though, but still... so much wasted potential, so much disappointment. I basically agree with all that ename144 said here, and dropped my two cents in here. Any thoughts?

It's hard to find anything disagreeable in ename144's post. The pacing's all over the place, the story demands more and more suspension of disbelief and what is supposed to be a high stakes, life or death, imminent threat situation keeps getting interrupted by narratively pointless sex scenes.

This is partly caused by the MC being a blank slate, with no inherent personality whatsoever. He can be an utter psycho on one path, and a kind gentleman on another. And because it depends on player choice, nothing in the story can depend on his personality. Which is why everything he does feels so... lifeless. I can't bring myself to care about him at all.

A bigger problem is that the game suffers heavily from the "everyone is an LI" syndrome. The group is supposed to be in a David vs. Goliath showdown with the most powerful company around, but we know there are no stakes, no real threat because MC is surrounded only by his pseudo-harem and any friendlies who aren't in it are already dead.

As for removing the game from the OP, I'm inclined to agree. Anyone has a good reason I shouldn't? I'm open to being convinced

 

[noping123]

It's hard to find anything disagreeable in ename144's post. The pacing's all over the place, the story demands more and more suspension of disbelief and what is supposed to be a high stakes, life or death, imminent threat situation keeps getting interrupted by narratively pointless sex scenes.

This is partly caused by the MC being a blank slate, with no inherent personality whatsoever. He can be an utter psycho on one path, and a kind gentleman on another. And because it depends on player choice, nothing in the story can depend on his personality. Which is why everything he does feels so... lifeless. I can't bring myself to care about him at all.

A bigger problem is that the game suffers heavily from the "everyone is an LI" syndrome. The group is supposed to be in a David vs. Goliath showdown with the most powerful company around, but we know there are no stakes, no real threat because MC is surrounded only by his pseudo-harem and any friendlies who aren't in it are already dead.

As for removing the game from the OP, I'm inclined to agree. Anyone has a good reason I shouldn't? I'm open to being convinced

Personally I gave up on the game a few updates ago.

I still recommend it to people, because it's visually one of the most stunning (if not the single most) games around, and I think that alone deserves attention - but since that's not why I personally play games, I realized it just wasn't for me and moved on.

Friendly reminder that the final chapter of Leap of Faith drops on friday. It's the one update I've been looking forward to for a while now personally - I might actually pause development on my next chapter for a day or two while I digest it.

 

[Raife]

As for removing the game from the OP, I'm inclined to agree. Anyone has a good reason I shouldn't? I'm open to being convinced

It should be removed. It deserved to be in, but the issues you mention are serious. You are right about the blank slate-ish MC... it did not seem that way early on... but that's the way the dev has taken things.

 

[moskyx]

What you're seeing is the financial incentive to continue doing updates forever. It's the same driver that brings us large numbers of sequels and remakes in Hollywood. Something brand new might do well, or it might not. But you're really likely to get a sizable percentage of your first movie's audience if you make a sequel. And by the time you're at the 6th sequel, you're pretty much guaranteed to get the entirety of the audience you had for the 4th installment. (Who goes to the first 5 and then stops?)

In the 80's, before Science Fiction was mainstream, there was a reason why many of the good science fiction movies starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was because people went to see Arnold movies, regardless of what they were about. So, with the guarantee of revenue, the studios were able to do "risky" things like Total Recall and Running Man.

I don't know Philly Games' financial situation, but I certainly understand the pressure he's under.

Tlaero

I half agree with you here, but I'm not sure if it's just a financial issue. I mean, sure, he's doing pretty well, he gets around $12k monthly, plus the Steam revenue from the first half of COBD, but he has already completed a first game that was a reasonable success and doesn't look like one of those who would drag their story on just to cash in some more bucks, he would just start another project as he did after completing Depraved Awakening (he has dropped some vague ideas about that third title on his discord). What I feel is that he just planned something like "and then they come and go for a while, trying to evade their chasers until Victoria finally finds out the truth" and didn't exactly plan the scope of that part. Or, more accurately, he thought this second part should contain at least 7 more chapters, as he sold the Book1 as the 'halfway point' of the story, and didn't take into account that a hide-and-seek game can only last so much before getting tiresome and boring as the protagonists are bound to always escape, which kills the thrill after the third time or so. And this being a porn game, you fill those chapters with the mandatory sex scenes with every LI plus some other casual flings, and suddenly it feels that the whole story has been pushed aside to make room for those lewd scenes.

As I said in my post in the game's thread, the rework of the previous chapter's last scene (that sets up this whole episode) shows that he didn't quite know how to tie everything up: he got the main protagonists' group divided into 2 smaller groups and he needed to reconnect them somehow to get them prepared for the final confrontation. But when he wrote that previous chapter some months ago he didn't plan for it to happen this way, or even now; however, now he felt it was necessary to have them already reunited (probably because he felt it was starting to be too much). So I think he's trying to fix those past sins and has finally reached his planned point to start the game's grand finale.

Which is why I think it shouldn't be deleted from jufot 's list just yet. We'll see how it ends, but all things considered I still think is a story-based game, even if it loses its path a bit in the process.

-Edit- ename144 is probably the greatest analyst in this whole forum.

 

[jufot]

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. City of Broken Dreamers is off the list.

 

[Hildegardt]

what is supposed to be a high stakes, life or death, imminent threat situation keeps getting interrupted by narratively pointless sex scenes.

The sex scenes seem really out of place, which is weird for a supposedly cyberpunk game. It's such an inherently sexual genre, but in this game the story takes a break every time there's sex scene.
My biggest gripe with the game has always been how shallow it is, when it comes to exploring its genre, the same way Depraved Awakening tried to copy the look of film noir, but didn't really explore any of the themes. Besides having a corporation as the antagonist and a single character wearing a transparent neon skirt, there's nothing really cyberpunk about Broken Dreamers. Like, the augmented LI could just aswell be in a generic landlady game.
Instead we get succubus horns (because these Daz assets are more readily available I guess) and psychic powers. Gloria showing up to save the day before fainting from exhaustion was like a copy/paste from every second anime.

As for removing the game from the OP, I'm inclined to agree. Anyone has a good reason I shouldn't? I'm open to being convinced

On the one hand "story first" is a preference rather than a quality thing imo, so even story first games could have fudged pacing and nonsensical stakes. On the other hand the story getting interrupted several times so the PC can go on joyrides to fuck the ladies is pretty damningly not "story first".

 

[desmosome]

I half agree with you here, but I'm not sure if it's just a financial issue. I mean, sure, he's doing pretty well, he gets around $12k monthly, plus the Steam revenue from the first half of COBD, but he has already completed a first game that was a reasonable success and doesn't look like one of those who would drag their story on just to cash in some more bucks, he would just start another project as he did after completing Depraved Awakening (he has dropped some vague ideas about that third title on his discord). What I feel is that he just planned something like "and then they come and go for a while, trying to evade their chasers until Victoria finally finds out the truth" and didn't exactly plan the scope of that part. Or, more accurately, he thought this second part should contain at least 7 more chapters, as he sold the Book1 as the 'halfway point' of the story, and didn't take into account that a hide-and-seek game can only last so much before getting tiresome and boring as the protagonists are bound to always escape, which kills the thrill after the third time or so. And this being a porn game, you fill those chapters with the mandatory sex scenes with every LI plus some other casual flings, and suddenly it feels that the whole story has been pushed aside to make room for those lewd scenes.

As I said in my post in the game's thread, the rework of the previous chapter's last scene (that sets up this whole episode) shows that he didn't quite know how to tie everything up: he got the main protagonists' group divided into 2 smaller groups and he needed to reconnect them somehow to get them prepared for the final confrontation. But when he wrote that previous chapter some months ago he didn't plan for it to happen this way, or even now; however, now he felt it was necessary to have them already reunited (probably because he felt it was starting to be too much). So I think he's trying to fix those past sins and has finally reached his planned point to start the game's grand finale.

Which is why I think it shouldn't be deleted from jufot 's list just yet. We'll see how it ends, but all things considered I still think is a story-based game, even if it loses its path a bit in the process

I haven't played the update yet, but I've had this pegged as a "story-second" game for a long while now. Even more so than Depraved Awakening. The porn plugs in DA didn't really detract from the noir narrative. It fits rather well actually.

Dreamers had a good start for sure, but the core narrative gets lost in the basic porn game formula where you progress the LIs rather than the story. Personally, I actually never felt like the story captures the cyberpunk or even sci-fi narrative. It's way too focused on LI interactions that everything else takes a back seat.

Let's take a quick look at Desert Stalker. It's porny for sure, but it's a mad max world. All the porn fits in with the narrative and world building way more snugly than what we see in Dreamers. Also, that game actually does focus on the plot and tries to frame the LI interactions in a way that advances the plot.

Not sure if some people remember, but I made a distinction between story driven and character driven narratives. Personally, I lean quite heavily to the story driven side if I am considering something as story-first. At minimum, if it's a character driven narrative, I believe the character interactions should be tied to some sort of overall narrative and goal (Corporate Culture, for example). Dreamers sort of fails at this imo. Many of the character interactions are kinda like compartmentalized dating sim situations within some "grand" plot requiring urgency.

 

[Tarmogo]

New update of City of Broken Dreamers and... oh, how it pains me to write this, but if I were in charge of this thread, I'd be seriously considering removing the game from the list. It wouldn't be fair, though, but still... so much wasted potential, so much disappointment. I basically agree with all that ename144 said here, and dropped my two cents in here. Any thoughts?

Figured I'd throw my two cents in on the converstation too. I've been trending down on the game a lot since chapter 10 came out myself. I initally was really high on the game and found it's story very engaging, but over time it started to lose some of it's momentum for me and with the latest chapters I find myself not caring much at all now. Presentation wise the game is still extremely good, but that can only do so much. When it come to the lewd scenes, I never really cared for them even from the beginning of the game. The majority felt out of place narratively, but the rest of the story was good enough to keep dragging me along. Once the story started to wane, I didn't really feel any draw to continue. I also personally never really got attached to any of the LIs, so that didn't help at all either. I agree with it being removed from the list.

 

[Tarmogo]

I'd like to thank everyone for recommending The Entrepreneur. I've been playing it for the last several evenings and I'm finally caught up. It's really good!

I gave this a try myself after seeing your write up here and I definitely agree that the game is great!

As for the main LIs, the only one that's been a hard pass for me is Alexa. She's cute, but a teenager is still a kid, despite her protestations. She is clueless about relationships, sex, and even basic human anatomy. It just feels wrong to pursue her. Besides, could you really be in a relationship with someone who enjoys Sunshine Love? I'm glad we got to see her acting and meet her friend group. It shows that she has a good life outside the MC and while she wants him, she doesn't particularly need him. I really like that!

Lucy is nice, but feels underdeveloped. She's little more than MC's sidekick and doesn't really exist outside that relationship. She could use some attention from the dev.

Valentine is lovely. I admit I've found her off-putting initially, but she has shown tremendous improvement in a very short time, perhaps to an unrealistic degree. I find her job irksome (as I do IRL) but it doesn't seem to dominate her life - it's just work. And then there is Sam. I'm glad he isn't a clichéd monstrous ex. He's merely an ordinary man who lost his way and made some terrible decisions, but he seems to be on the right track and genuinely wants to make amends. His presence provides fertile ground for Valentine's character growth, and I thought it was handled very well. Svetlana pushing Valentine towards forgiveness, and encouraging her to talk to Sam despite his abusive past was great to see.

That brings us to Laura. Hot women with dead husbands are an AVN cliché. It's usually nothing more than a story device for a sexually frustrated woman who simply must have MC's dick. Well, Laura is anything but that. I love the way the game deals with unexpected loss. It's very gentle, careful and realistic. By all accounts, Andrew was a great man and Laura is still deeply in love with him despite the passing years, and feels horribly guilty for being interested in another. She knows her reaction isn't rational, but grief rarely is, and MC is uniquely well positioned to understand that. It wasn't rational for him to abandon his education and a promising future career to revive a derelict bar either, but he did it anyway. It's a nice juxtaposition to Laura's situation, and gives them common ground. I particularly liked her dream where she accidentally mentions MC to her husband. It's a compelling way to address her inflict conflict, and trying to make sense of her past and present. She is the only one I have eyes for

I initally was on the fence with Alexa, but after watching through her "training" scene I definitely fall firmly in your camp regarding her. Up until that point I don't think she came off too overly innocent/naive/childish, but the way she is in that scene was enough to make her a hard pass for me too.

Underdeveloped feels like a bit too harsh of a word for Lucy, but I did find her the least interesting of the four. I'm typically a sucker for the longtime friend into romantic interest scenario, but she just never really stood out to me.

When it comes to Valentine and Laura, they both stand well above the other two for all the reaons you mention. That being said, I did feel that Laura was sort of missing for a decent stretch of the game after the dressing room situation. She would pop up here and there, but there wasn't a whole lot of development until the later half of chapter 3 when things really picked up with her in a fantastic way. As things stand now, I'm still leaning heavily towards Valentine myself, but that could definitely still change pending what the final chapter has in store for both of them.

I wasn't aware of this, but it explains the presence of mutually exclusive choices in episode 3. Having to choose between attending Alexa's play and keeping Laura company on the day her husband died is quite significant. I am glad to learn this was the penultimate chapter, though. Slice-of-life stories can easily become mundane and overstay their welcome, but the dev seems to know what he's doing.

I'm guessing that we'll see similar scenarios arise in the last chapter as well to help further cement our LI choice. The game made it super clear that this choice ended things with the character you didn't choose, so this seems like the way we'll narrow things down to our final LI.

Alexa's reaction to not being picked here is also probably my biggest critique with the writing in the game. Her dialog felt so unnatual for what a normal person would say in that situation. I understand from a gameplay perspective the desire to make the dialog reflect that her path is ended here, but I think it could have been handled much better. As it stands now it feels more like the dev saying "you've locked her path" then a real conversation.

 

[worthlesspeon]

Elvensang (a game I only know about thanks to you folks!) has an

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. Public release should follow in a week or so.

Came across this thread and this post... man what a game. I'm not one to hold my nose up and pretend I'm better than everyone else, I'm on this site mostly for porn - but occasionally I do like a real narrative and this delivers it. I ended up reading it all in one shot, missed out on some sleep, and of course was exhausted at work. Been a while since something captured my interest like that. Can't wait to see where it goes.

I have to say, this is one game where the inevitable(?) incest actually makes me a little uncomfortable. Not because it's poorly written, but because the mother actually feels like a mother. Reminds me of my own if I'm totally honest, which just adds to that ick factor. Not at all a criticism to Worlaix - in fact it's really a testament to his writing.

 

[desmosome]

Came across this thread and this post... man what a game. I'm not one to hold my nose up and pretend I'm better than everyone else, I'm on this site mostly for porn - but occasionally I do like a real narrative and this delivers it. I ended up reading it all in one shot, missed out on some sleep, and of course was exhausted at work. Been a while since something captured my interest like that. Can't wait to see where it goes.

I have to say, this is one game where the inevitable(?) incest actually makes me a little uncomfortable. Not because it's poorly written, but because the mother actually feels like a mother. Reminds me of my own if I'm totally honest, which just adds to that ick factor. Not at all a criticism to Worlaix - in fact it's really a testament to his writing.

There won't be incest if you don't apply the patch.

 

[EndlessNights]

I have to say, this is one game where the inevitable(?) incest actually makes me a little uncomfortable. Not because it's poorly written, but because the mother actually feels like a mother. Reminds me of my own if I'm totally honest, which just adds to that ick factor. Not at all a criticism to Worlaix - in fact it's really a testament to his writing.

I'm not so sure it'll be inevitable. In the Developer Notes on the game thread, it only mentions Sunny as a forced LI, and Elvensang is a game that has a lot of choices and tends to respect them. There's a fair bit of tension of the nonsexual variety between the MC and Anasteya due to her secretive nature (which extends to refusing to tell him who his father is even as an adult). In my initial playthrough, I've tended to challenge her to a point, but not gone with the most extreme dialogue options. At the end of the day, I see her as a mom who completely loves her son and will always do what she thinks is best for him...even if that involves royally fucking his life up from his perspective. She's great, but I can't help feel wary of her and everything she keeps to herself. I definitely have zero sexual interest in her as a character despite her physical attractiveness.

I think if I were the MC I'd move out and head for the Moon Prince's realm with Sunny. Anasteya would get lots of letters.

 

[jufot]

That being said, I did feel that Laura was sort of missing for a decent stretch of the game after the dressing room situation. She would pop up here and there, but there wasn't a whole lot of development until the later half of chapter 3 when things really picked up with her in a fantastic way.

Agreed. Laura could have used some more screen time as well. As it stands, the focus has mostly been on Alexa and Valentine. Especially the latter.

Alexa's reaction to not being picked here is also probably my biggest critique with the writing in the game. Her dialog felt so unnatual for what a normal person would say in that situation.

I think her reaction was very childish, which is very much in character. A teenager is a child

I have to say, this is one game where the inevitable(?) incest actually makes me a little uncomfortable. Not because it's poorly written, but because the mother actually feels like a mother. Reminds me of my own if I'm totally honest, which just adds to that ick factor. Not at all a criticism to Worlaix - in fact it's really a testament to his writing.

A while ago on this thread, we've discussed the inherent difficulties of having incest in a story-first game. The mere idea of it tends to imply porn logic, but I think Worlaix could really be the first dev to create realistic incest. A lot of this depends on Anasteya's personality. Her amoral and indifferent nature removes most obstacles that such a relationship would face IRL.

 

[jufot]

Tentatively recommending Alpha, Omega by Ezykeyal. I realize it's quite out of character for me to recommend a college themed game (I can feel Raife's gaze already) but this one has the potential to be something special.

This first chapter is a very short intro. Marcus leaves his grandma's home to go to college seeking an MMA career, where he meets some interesting characters. It's surprising how many genre and trope defying details the dev has managed to cram into this already. Given the length, anything else would be spoilers, so I'll leave you with these

 

[Hildegardt]

Tentatively recommending Alpha, Omega by Ezykeyal. I realize it's quite out of character for me to recommend a college themed game (I can feel Raife's gaze already) but this one has the potential to be something special.

This first chapter is a very short intro. Marcus leaves his grandma's home to go to college to seek an MMA career, where he meets some interesting characters. It's surprising how many genre and trope defying details the dev has managed to cram into this already. Given the length, anything else would be spoilers, so I'll leave you with these

View attachment 2030833

View attachment 2030834

The main plot hasn't been introduced, yet, but I really really like what's there already and I like what's being promised. The MCs have diverse and consistent personalities, the PC is neither a blank slate nor overbearing and the choices are immersive. Imo this will be good even if it turns out to be a pure dating sim.
Also, I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but I think this game will be softcore only, so porn-first might already be out of the question depending on your definition of porn.
Also also, the introduction has already three different outcomes that I can count. This combined with the immersive choices I mentioned will probably make for very fun gameplay.

 

[Ezykeyal]

The main plot hasn't been introduced, yet, but I really really like what's there already and I like what's being promised. The MCs have diverse and consistent personalities, the PC is neither a blank slate nor overbearing and the choices are immersive. Imo this will be good even if it turns out to be a pure dating sim.
Also, I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but I think this game will be softcore only, so porn-first might already be out of the question depending on your definition of porn.
Also also, the introduction has already three different outcomes that I can count. This combined with the immersive choices I mentioned will probably make for very fun gameplay.

Glad you enjoyed it! You understood correctly. I'm planning softcore only.

 

[noping123]

So. Last night I was less than sober, and wasn't in the right state of mind to work on my own game, so I decided to try some out. The main one I gave a shot based on this thread, was the entrepreneur. I actually did a whole writeup on it, which I then deleted because.... again, not sober, and the entire thing was completely incoherent.

My first thought though was "Well, it's probably best he quit school to to handle the bar - that seems like a terrible life decision, and if he thinks it's a good idea, he probably wasn't cut out for law school."

There were some bits that bothered me (Such as sending a completely random dick pic to someone you just met on the street was apparently the GOOD decision.) but overall it was decent.

My biggest takeaway though was, the characters I sort of cared about towards the beginning, I began to care less and less about as the story progressed - and the ones I either didn't like or didn't give a shit about in the beginning, became more and more interesting as the story went on.

I also found myself much more interested in the central story than the characters at first, and again, as the story progressed that flipped - by the end the central story almost felt like more of a backdrop, with the characters themselves being much more important overall.

From what I read it seems like the game is almost at an end? I'm interested to see how it turns out.

The one thing I didn't like too much, was how the MC could be either a "decent guy" or a total creeper, and it didn't seem to make any difference at all. I think I would have preferred it if the MC constantly making creeper decisions had more of an impact on either his interactions, or personality than it did.

 

[jufot]

"Well, it's probably best he quit school to to handle the bar - that seems like a terrible life decision, and if he thinks it's a good idea, he probably wasn't cut out for law school."

That's a good point, actually. It takes grit to go through law school, knowing that you might end up

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There were some bits that bothered me (Such as sending a completely random dick pic to someone you just met on the street was apparently the GOOD decision.)

I actually liked that! Nadia knows what she wants - to be fucked by a good-looking guy who'll leave her alone. She is not interested in small talk or any lovey-dovey stuff. She is sexually aggressive and is attracted to such aggression, which is why the dick pick works for her.

The one thing I didn't like too much, was how the MC could be either a "decent guy" or a total creeper, and it didn't seem to make any difference at all. I think I would have preferred it if the MC constantly making creeper decisions had more of an impact on either his interactions, or personality than it did.

I don't remember him being a creeper, do you have a particular scene in mind? If you're thinking of the Alexa/Elena situation, that does have impact. It basically ruins MC's relationship with Alexa, which he has to rebuild from scratch.

 

[noping123]

I don't remember him being a creeper, do you have a particular scene in mind? If you're thinking of the Alexa/Elena situation, that does have impact. It basically ruins MC's relationship with Alexa, which he basically has to rebuild from scratch.

You have multiple options through the game to peek in on people/grope them in their sleep. That's the stuff I was referring to. The one that sticks out in my mind the most was when you could do it to Lucy when she was hungover, but I definitely remember that sort of situation coming up multiple times.