Well, first – sorry if it sounded like I hate the game, and because of that, I wrote that comment.
It’s NOT like that, I do understand that the game development process is challenging and require a lot of time and resources, and I give you credit for that.
But my reason to say all this is opposite to hate – The things I hate I usually ignore.
Hi again Lost_Enternity ^_^
Thank you for the clarification, and for the apology. Much like how you commented that your reason for providing feedback is because of your interest, I always think it is only fair for me to make responses, as it would be rude of me to not explain myself and properly take in what others have spent time and effort to say about my work.
One thing I think it's important to note before we get into things properly is that creating a solid sandbox of options is in my opinion the important first step of creating a game like this which offers choices to the player. That in turn might make the game not feel deep, but without those choices the more complex layer of choices and outcomes cannot truly be added. Now, there are certainly limits to what I can do, and commitments I have to produce specific content first (either through commissions, polls, or promises), but I try my best to provide what my players ask for whenever possible.
Ok, next – the ways that you can “customize” your gameplay looks more like masturbation, at least the ones with increasing upkeep, because objectively it’s a straightforward approach and there only one way to solve this – grind more, do the same repetitive jobs over and over again, it’s a monotone process that turns “game” into “work”.
The second thing about progression – I didn’t mean only the main quest. (BTW – the goal of “escape” not viable in some cases, because IF the plyer “volunteer” why should they want to escape ASAP?)
For example – stat like “Submission” is it even does anything? Does it restrict anything? You can join as a super-defiant, involuntary thug and end up as a brothel whore on the first day – does it sound like something consistent?
I do understand that you tried to keep all options open for everyone, but because of that – a lot of actions look inconsistent, and just breaking any immersion.
Anyway, sorry for being straight – I don’t like dancing around the bush.
This game has a nice concept and great potential but the approach… I do wish you luck with this game and hope you will keep this up.
I have to disagree that the customization options are just masturbation. First there are the content-based customizations that allow you to choose what fetishes you'd like to see, and what focuses the game confronts the player with in terms of sexual interactions and transformation. I don't think there is too much to say on these options, as mainly they serve to gate player preferences to make the game more accessible to people who like/dislike various areas of sexual content.
Next, whilst there are options like the increased starting upkeep that have only minor effects that you can argue just change the grind of the game (I'd argue that they serve as an excuse for players who want to engage in sexual/fetish content whilst still presenting a resistance to do so), these aren't the only customization options that affect gameplay. For example, the increasing upkeep options put a ticking clock on the player to escape before they fail. At the same time options that remove certain job types, require the player to train a certain amount of times a day, or offer a random selection of available jobs, all directly influence how the player plays the game. This in turn allows for those players to either have a more unique (non-repetitive) experience, or to again have an excuse for why they've suddenly made the sexual/fetish choices that they have.
Finally, you have the selectable Trainer content, which whilst somewhat limited at the moment serves as both a progression system and a way of forcing the player towards certain areas of content. Want to play a resistant Pet-Play enthusiast, take the Pet-Play Trainer and slowly have more of it forced on you, same goes for the ABDL content. In the future there will also be a Submissive/Slave Trainer, and more content for the Fem/Sissy Trainer, though again those are works in progress.
Between all of that I think the game is viable for a much wider degree of players. Some come for the submissive content, some come for the experience of resisting and being forced into it, some come for the feminization/masculinization angle, some just want to play through their specific fetishes, others come for a more game-y experience where they optimise their options and tailor their difficulty. Now I'm not saying all of these work out equally well, but I think it's far from just a token 'difficulty' slider that makes the game into a grind.
Heck, one of my main aims when creating the game was actually to avoid grind as it's an awful mechanic just meant to pad play-time.
From your comments about progression and limiting choices I really do think that the eventual Slave/Submissive Trainer (or possibly the complete Fem/Sissy Trainer depending on your interests) might be what you're looking for out of this game. One of the issues is that I've tried to partition that forced submissive/slave content somewhat out of the main gameplay because of previous complaints (mostly players more interested in specific fetish content), though this is also partially because of crack-downs from certain distribution/financing platforms. But out of everything there and planned, those are the areas of content that are going to give you the tough decisions and slow but increasingly impactful descent that it sounds like you're after.
All I can really add here is that I'm trying my best to please everyone, and that is a slow and tiring process.
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On the matter of why the player might want to escape if they'd volunteered to be there I somewhat agree, though you can make some distinct arguments for it. Primarily, that the player was not sold the experience as being enslaved for life, nor do they know what the quality of that enslavement might be. Though, you can also make the argument of buyers regret, in that they made the decision on the spur of the moment.
This is just one ending, and primarily the first one I've written as it's a relatively simple option. My notes on the multiple day auction ending content that's basically a game in its own right are so extensive that they kind of scare me off from getting around to it
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The submission stat is a tough one, as it's more a mark of your repeated decisions. Do I think that players might come in tough and resistant and then go work in a brothel ... yeah. I think that if the player character is making the decision to work at a brothel then they would be far more willing to do so rather than being forced into the experience, and if you disagree then you don't have to go work at the brothel.
There most certainly are decisions that are gated by the submission/dominance stat, though generally the values are pretty low either way and it's mostly used in reaction text. I do this partly because I dislike overly gating content (I can only produce so much and the more I gate in turn means I have to produce dramatically more content to fill the gap created), and partly because even if you're highly submissive you might have good reason to be resistant to a specific instance (for example you might hate anal).
I can understand where you're coming from here, and in another game a very cut down options system might be appropriate, but I disagree that it works here. My aim has always been to create a game that is somewhere between Corruption of Champions and Girl Life (not sure if you've played those), so effectively a sci-fi sandbox life sim with quests, dating, and choices that impact the game world. There are a lot of other things to say on the submission stat, many I've said to people before in this thread and over on the TFGames thread, such that I'm worried I'd end up rambling more than I already am.
In reality the biggest concern is that it would require such a huge reworking of the game that it would mean I'd be doing nothing else for months and the end result would have half the player-base requesting I change things back to how they were before anyway.
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I think I've responded to everything there, and I really have taken your criticism and feedback to heart. None of this has been meant as an off-handed dismissal of your concerns, if anything I'm worried I've rambled on for way too long. As I've mentioned before I really do appreciate conversations like this as they help me figure out what I need to work on in the game
From all of this the main take away I've had is that I really need to get the Trainer Content sorted. With that I think the need for more focus, progression, and rationalization for the players change in behaviour would all make much more sense.
It's getting late here so I'm going to wrap up this extremely long response. Thanks again for the feedback, and happy gaming ^_^
