Recommending Story-first games

[camube]

I have been helping out with a translation of a game, and something I struggle a lot with, is how to give the characters individual voices. A sentence in english might be translated in two completely different ways, depending on the character. And I noticed after having written a lot of lines that many of them sounds similar. I guess they are probably close to how I would sound, which is really bad if the character is a 20-something girl.

So a creator that can write in different voices sounds like a very good quality indicator to me, will check it out!

"unique voice" is probably an inaccurate way to describe it, my fault.
It's moreso the characters have unique reactions to the situations they are put in that makes them feel like they are actual people to me instead of just a simple archetype.
Despite my use of words inaccuracy, yes it is pretty rare. Remembering the character names long after i play those games is a quality indicator to me too.

There are so many AVN games, even the ones I think is above average that has forgettable characters. Cuz they are just characters filled into archetypes. They don't feel like "people".
By this point I regard the characters of most AVN I've played like this, it's as if the dialogues they say is from this one writer feeding lines to different avatars.
All these characters may have background, history, and development but their lines just read like mere lines.
They feel like characters speaking the lines fed to them through the author script.

Uncle Wilfred is a side character in Deluca but he sounds like an actual person, so does some characters (male ones) in The Last Challenge.

 

[forthewins]

I have been helping out with a translation of a game, and something I struggle a lot with, is how to give the characters individual voices. A sentence in english might be translated in two completely different ways, depending on the character. And I noticed after having written a lot of lines that many of them sounds similar. I guess they are probably close to how I would sound, which is really bad if the character is a 20-something girl.

Yeah, I think this is relatively common, and to me it's one of my biggest pet peeves when I run across it. If every character basically sounds like the same person then it's basically impossible for me to get into the story. And just having slight personality differences is not enough to stop this from happening.

 

[Ramagar]

I have been helping out with a translation of a game, and something I struggle a lot with, is how to give the characters individual voices. A sentence in english might be translated in two completely different ways, depending on the character. And I noticed after having written a lot of lines that many of them sounds similar. I guess they are probably close to how I would sound, which is really bad if the character is a 20-something girl.

So a creator that can write in different voices sounds like a very good quality indicator to me, will check it out!

I am not sure this is what you were looking for or not.

As a published novel writer, I find that most new writers (and some older established ones) tend to not develop personalities for the various characters. This is bad. Even if you put just the basic personality to a character, you will find that you are seeing/speaking/thinking through their point of view. The more developed the personality, the more distinct the character will be. I tend to have well defined personalities for all my characters, even the bit or throw away ones.

 

[Palos69]

Love this thread. It's hard to find good story-based games. Does the first page post have all the vetted recommendations? Or do I have to go through all 231 pages.

And does anyone have suggestions for games with complex story branches? I'm looking for ones that don't feel like you're on rails for a path the entire game.

 

[yossa999]

Love this thread. It's hard to find good story-based games. Does the first page post have all the vetted recommendations? Or do I have to go through all 231 pages.

And does anyone have suggestions for games with complex story branches? I'm looking for ones that don't feel like you're on rails for a path the entire game.

Yes, this thread is awesome! A curated list of the games is on the OP, but in addition to that there is an automatically generated list of games mentioned in the thread, sorted alphabetically. Big thanks to bro Kotte for that!
https://f95zone.to/threads/jufots-story-first-thread-compiled.186795/

 

[Dessolos]

Yeah this thread is a great baseline for anyone's backlog there is some games I don't agree with not being considered story first and what not personally but that's just me. I always look at this thread when i have no idea what to play or just want to add something to my backlog .

 

[camube]

I am not sure this is what you were looking for or not.

As a published novel writer, I find that most new writers (and some older established ones) tend to not develop personalities for the various characters. This is bad. Even if you put just the basic personality to a character, you will find that you are seeing/speaking/thinking through their point of view. The more developed the personality, the more distinct the character will be. I tend to have well defined personalities for all my characters, even the bit or throw away ones.

The Last Challenge have that (the characters have bios of their history) so yes, the characters feels distinct.

Deluca Family also by now have codex of the world history. Deluca's characters also feels distinct. At least some of them.

 

[365 others]

You must be registered to see the links

Now it is official!
I'm really glad that the project didn't end up as abandoned.

 

[camube]

Friends in Need has a new update out.

FiN should be on the list of story-first games because Neon Ghost is really good at writing dialogues.
And he understand how to move the story along too. You don't feel that the dialogues are wasted, things keeps moving along in a good pace.

I was really impressed when I read the story of Nikki back then in early updates, and this update had Neon Ghost wrote a story about Risa, and it's pretty good. Like Classy Lemon, he's very efficient at telling his story. Really worth a try if y'all haven't try it and wants to try some game.

Speaking of another game, Noping's No Such Luck has it's third chapter out. It has an interesting hook, it just finished "character introductions", so to speak. Next chapter would probably start going into more of the story. I like one of the character's relationship dynamic with the MC.

It's a good enough game. I'm not jonesing to read the next update and i'm not gonna drop everything to play it right at launch but it's serviceable and definitely is good enough to fill time.

 

[FatGiant]

FiN was a Brutal deception.

The kind of deception that turned me into actively hating anything related to it.

So much so, that I think that anything related to that Author and his game should never be discussed with decent company, should always stay in the dens of depravity and abuse that that thread has devolved into.

And to think I had it on my signature as a recommended game. I still feel close to vomit to even think about it.

Peace

 

[jufot]

I like one of the character's relationship dynamic with the MC.

It's a good enough game. I'm not jonesing to read the next update and i'm not gonna drop everything to play it right at launch but it's serviceable and definitely is good enough to fill time.

Agreed. Felicity was the highlight for me. She's the first character since Alice to hold my interest.

I haven't played Friends in Need, but I heard concerning things about it, and tags like rape, sexual harassment, and blackmail don't inspire confidence. And no, I don't care if those are optional. If you can be as evil or as good as you want, it means an empty self-insert MC, and I'm not convinced that a good story can be told with one of those.

 

[Canto Forte]

Friends in need is a game like Game of Thrones if the choices to kill your father and your fiancee, like Tyrion, were of a different nature ... or make peace and take the life hits.
Peter jokingly said his character is a coward with no fighting scenes of skills and that his action scenes are pathetic - like strangling his finacee in bed and killing his father on the loo - yet for some reason fans say they loved the disgusting character he got to play
The story is a clusterfuck of bad life events that we see for MC.

The optional bad choices are there if you wanna make MC hate life back, the way his life hates him and sends him spiralling downwards in exasperation a lot of the times.

Short story of the plot and the meandering heartache in there:

MC is middle aged, skinny, pining for his younger collegue - she never sees MC, like countless anime heartthrobbs that Lis overlook for plot reasons. There is a new hire, a young jerk assswipe whom the girl falls for - comical century old trope of the jerks who land the girls just because.

You can take it from there - MC is locked in this heart bleeding monologie between his brain telling him to be celibate and his heart telling him that maybe, maybe this girl or the next girl will actually see him not as a handle or a door knob to use to get out of trouble, but a human being.

I was really impressed when I read the story of Nikki back then in early updates, and this update had Neon Ghost wrote a story about Risa, and it's pretty good. Like Classy Lemon, he's very efficient at telling his story. Really worth a try if y'all haven't try it and wants to try some game.

Speaking of another game, Noping's No Such Luck has it's third chapter out. It has an interesting hook, it just finished "character introductions", so to speak. Next chapter would probably start going into more of the story. I like one of the character's relationship dynamic with the MC.

FiN was a Brutal deception.

The kind of deception that turned me into actively hating anything related to it.

I haven't played Friends in Need, but I heard concerning things about it, and tags like rape, sexual harassment, and blackmail don't inspire confidence. And no, I don't care if those are optional. If you can be as evil or as good as you want, it means an empty self-insert MC, and I'm not convinced that a good story can be told with one of those.

You can be decent and share the heartache with MC or become Tyrion the slayer of his fiance and of his father. The choice is yours.

 

[camube]

FiN was a Brutal deception.

The kind of deception that turned me into actively hating anything related to it.

So much so, that I think that anything related to that Author and his game should never be discussed with decent company, should always stay in the dens of depravity and abuse that that thread has devolved into.

And to think I had it on my signature as a recommended game. I still feel close to vomit to even think about it.

Peace

I almost never read the thread. I read it very early on when people want to get rid of Nikki, lol.
Nikki was my favorite part of the early games, the other characters early on, not so much.

So when i read many posts complaining about Nikki, I realized it's probably not something that I would enjoy reading, so I rarely ever read it.

and tags like rape, sexual harassment, and blackmail don't inspire confidence. And no, I don't care if those are optional. If you can be as evil or as good as you want

It's not optional in the sense that it's part of the choices. The option is not even there.
You have to go out of your way to install it to even have those options presented.

The first time i played it, i didn't even know those were an option. There is a "taboo patch" but i didn't know the patch was dark paths, i thought it was the usual incest renaming and reaging and i initially skipped it for some time.

I think that regular version eventually became a patreon version that is called Friends Indeed.

If you only do patreon instead of f95zone download, you got Friends Indeed. Not only are those options aren't there, you can't even install Taboo Patch on the Patreon Version.

You need to restart from the beginning with the taboo patch on it to even get those options activated.

The first time i installed the patch out of curiousity, I found the installation process to be tedious cuz what I had is a different version with saves already there.

Simply copypasting the patch didn't work. The options doesn't appear even after i put the patch in the game folder.

I had to download the different version and then replay it from the beginning to even activated that patch. It was honestly a really tedious process, at least for me.

I don't really know which MC is self-insert and which isn't cuz unless it's something like Our Red String or Mass Effect where the choices actually do bring about various consequences, I mostly play from a third-party perspective.

There are very few games like that which gives the player differing consequences of choices. On those games, I look forward to see what are the effect of the choices I, personally as a player made. But most of the games I just see how the story unfold as if it's a TV show.

So in most games, the MC is not where I pay attention to.
This is even more true in AVN than other entertainment medium cuz most AVN games are simply "choose your own love interest path (if not harem)".

It's the characters in that world that matters to me. And the world itself if it differs from our world.
Like Deluca Family is quite fleshed out after the addition of Codex to it's Steam release. So that's memorable.
I care more to see the stories in the Deluca world like how Luna's story with Mysterious Six would unfold.
The MC themselves are always secondary to me.

Neon Ghost is a good storyteller.
I would put him above DPC when he wrote Acting Lesson. Acting Lesson is great but it's great cuz of the drama. Neon Ghost can tell human stories and say it with brevity. I still remember the rollercoaster of emotion I felt when i first read Nikki telling her story early on. "Oh my god, that is so bad, that suck" was my reaction.
I had similar reaction when I read Risa's story this chapter.

The characters backstory prior to the game is really rooted in reality, in that you can see it happening to people IRL, and you might even be able to see it happening to people around you.

I would say he's great even. Cuz he understands development cycle limitation, pretty brief with the way he write his story events, and doesn't waste time rendering things that aren't necesary (so many AVN devs waste time on unnecessary renders). Like Classy Lemon, he's a great at managing scope.

If mrsilverlust has a talent on writing hot dialogues, Evakiss has a talent on interweaving choices and consequences, and Classy Lemon has a talent on making every chapter feels like a complete TV episode with clear open-middle-end, then neon ghost has a talent on writing backstories of it's characters in a way that is human.

it's good i really like it.
I would still read a non-sexual neon ghost story.

Is it my favorite game? no but it's up there.

 

[Éama]

You can take it from there - MC is locked in this heart bleeding monologie between his brain telling him to be celibate and his heart telling him that maybe, maybe this girl or the next girl will actually see him not as a handle or a door knob to use to get out of trouble, but a human being.

I've never seen this level of complexity on the MCs part. He is rich and influential and that gives him practically free reign throughout the plot. There is rarely any focus on the emptiness he is feeling or what it does to him. If he was considered a door knob, he wouldn't have the option to abuse every other scene. In fact, you would see women manipulate him and take advantage of him. Many golddiggers are smart women who know which buttons to push.

And I think that's what jufot meant and I agree that it takes away some of the quality of the writing. His complexity is reduced by the power-fantasy that his wealth brings with it. It makes his progression very linear and the relationships are top-down because he is basically untouchable.

 

[Canto Forte]

That is the choice and here lies the very close proximity to Tyrion:
- was Tyrion justified to revenge on his only family that had in the past given him anything - a love life from the fiancee and the standing from his father - just becaue they both shagged and colluded to bring him to execution? Yes, he was.
-that path he took to actually revenge on them both was chosen in the series for Tyrion, but here, MC can be a door knob the asshole girls will use and abuse - while playing the neutered Friends inDeed version with no dark path options, MC will only belly up the money if he wants anything from anyone.

His complexity is reduced by the power-fantasy that his wealth brings with it. It makes his progression very linear and the relationships are top-down because he is basically untouchable.

The strength of the game is that there is a version where MC can be Tyron and do the dark revenge comepuppance choices as canon, ensuring MC gets things not because of his money, but through other means.

 

[FatGiant]

Friends in need is a game like Game of Thrones if the choices to kill your father and your fiancee, like Tyrion, were of a different nature ... or make peace and take the life hits.
Peter jokingly said his character is a coward with no fighting scenes of skills and that his action scenes are pathetic - like strangling his finacee in bed and killing his father on the loo - yet for some reason fans say they loved the disgusting character he got to play
The story is a clusterfuck of bad life events that we see for MC.

The optional bad choices are there if you wanna make MC hate life back, the way his life hates him and sends him spiralling downwards in exasperation a lot of the times.

Short story of the plot and the meandering heartache in there:

MC is middle aged, skinny, pining for his younger collegue - she never sees MC, like countless anime heartthrobbs that Lis overlook for plot reasons. There is a new hire, a young jerk assswipe whom the girl falls for - comical century old trope of the jerks who land the girls just because.

You can take it from there - MC is locked in this heart bleeding monologie between his brain telling him to be celibate and his heart telling him that maybe, maybe this girl or the next girl will actually see him not as a handle or a door knob to use to get out of trouble, but a human being.




You can be decent and share the heartache with MC or become Tyrion the slayer of his fiance and of his father. The choice is yours.

The part that led me to hate anything related to it, is simply this:

I get on the thread, after an update, to be met with several posts proclaiming the joy those ... things... felt by being able to rape and beat one of the girls in the game. Over and over and over. Protected by a Moderator that removed any post that was against that type of content or it's discussion.

I am not easily offended, but, sincerely, that revolted me high and above anything good the game could possibly have.

It's not the path I took in game, but the simple fact that I am playing a game that has a dev that relishes that type of content (even more than anything else, by his own admission) it is simply too much for me. The fact that there are Moderators here that protect that type of discussion as if it is a sanctioned act, is even worse.

Reading pages and pages of praising the ability of the author in allowing players to brutalize the girls, to allow a black girl to be branded as slave mostly because she's black, relishing in filth like this in the same thread as other people tried to discuss the lighter paths of the game, while being "shamed" for not following the rape paths, telling people to put the offenders on ignore instead of cleaning the thread. That's what made me classify that game as a HATE game. It is not meant to be played in the light mode, that hasn't even been updated this time. It is meant to be played has the most disgusting abusive and rapist way possible.

I will do my best to not think bad things of anyone that plays it. It's extremely tempting to do so. But, I also know that those people that play a game like this, relish the fact that they are branded has rapists, racists, xenophobes, homophobes and the like, so, pleasing them is NOT in my plans.

FiN, is NOT a story based game. It is a game that is meant to be played with HATE. Playing the light path is actually ridiculed by the author. Do with that what you want.

Peace

 

[Éama]

The strength of the game is that there is a version where MC can be Tyron and do the dark revenge comepuppance choices as canon, ensuring MC gets things not because of his money, but through other means.

That's still the same power fantasy. Just a more archaic version of it. I don't think you do Tyrion justice when you put him in the same basket. His trait was that he was actually never powerful, not even when a position of power was given to him. He shot his father sitting in the loo, because facing him head on was out of the question. When he tried to fight in battle he got mutilated. His impotence was the basis for his complex character.

A power fantasy on the other hand thrives on control. And the MC in Friends in Need is clearly in control, even when he struggles there is never existential desperation as Tyrion experienced it.

 

[Dessolos]

Honestly I do agree with camube about friends in Need being story first but I do have a different opinion what story first games means to me than others on this thread as some games that feel story first to me aren't considered as such here. Nicki is probably my favorite story ( i'm waiting for the update to not be the demo build , so I can't comment on Risa yet). Ashe also is really good once you learn about her past and why she talks the way she does. Even the stories that had some set up but need more to flesh them out like Pepper , Britani, Isabella all seem really well written better than most games ive played in terms of the character stories. Now this is all coming from a Light path Dark path is much different i've only played it once or twice but I did ctrl skip past the lewds on the Dark path. I honestly hated the dark path it felt like it was just there just for the sake of being dark to me no real reason I could think of. To me FIN feels like it meant to be played the light path or in the middle and not the dark path. However alot of the player base on the thread does prefer the Dark path a bit more it feels like at times.

 

[FatGiant]

That's still the same power fantasy. Just a more archaic version of it. I don't think you do Tyrion justice when you put him in the same basket. His trait was that he was actually never powerful, not even when a position of power was given to him. He shot his father sitting in the loo, because facing him head on was out of the question. When he tried to fight in battle he got mutilated. His impotence was the basis for his complex character.

A power fantasy on the other hand thrives on control. And the MC in Friends in Need is clearly in control, even when he struggles there is never existential desperation as Tyrion experienced it.

I really can't conciliate your defense of FiN, with your signature. One of them doesn't fit.

Peace

 

[Éama]

I really can't conciliate your defense of FiN, with your signature. One of them doesn't fit.

Peace

Maybe because I'm not defending it?