Hello flyRenders, just finished playing the 1.2 version and had some thoughts for you:
1. You may want to consider adding a ruined building or two (possibly still smoking), to show that the town has been pillaged to set the ambiance. A ruined barn and possibly some dead animals would make sense if you should use this idea. For that matter, you may want to expand the road to some distant point that is blocked off to show how the MC got there (since it wasn’t by boat).
2. You may want to consider expanding on the introduction to Alvilda by adding an opening combat scene where the MC (main character) is attacked by one or more bandits. For example: the MC gets to the village and sees Alvilda tied up. He manages to free her when he is attacked by a bandit. While the bandit is busy, Alvilda attack from behind, allowing the MC to give the killing blow. This would show that Alvilda is no shrinking violet, that she could be useful later in the game as more than just a sperm bank, and also sets up a sense of duty on Alvilda’s part to repay the MC’s efforts to help move the story forward. The idea does require changing how and why Alvilda wasn’t captured with the rest of the village, possibly due to being knocked out while hunting a deer (maybe it charged her unexpectedly) – and Alvilda slipped on a rock while tracking it and lost consciousness, breaking her bow in the process. When she woke up, she found the remains of the village and was captured just before the MC got there (she was unarmed and didn’t go to get her other bow because she saw the smoke and wanted to see what it was).
3. Alvilda is dressed weird. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like T & A as much as the rest, but it doesn’t make sense – especially if you are going for a realistic historic vibe. She would probably have been dressed like Merida from “Brave” rather than the skimpy attire she currently has. If later in the game she decides to become a warrior to help save the villagers, then she can take a level in badass and dress more aggressively, i.e. like Aela the Huntress from Skyrim, but even then she would have more clothing than currently. I would also like to add that she should probably have pubic hair at this point – the MC could ask her to shave later, but at the beginning, she should be either unshaven or trimmed. You may also want to work on her dialog so that she is more… Viking-y, or at least the way it’s portrayed in popular fiction by having her curse at Loki or saying phrases like “by Odin’s spear!”… then again, maybe you shouldn’t.
4. The MC is too much of a blank canvas. I imagine most Viking men would have long hair with braids, possibly a beard, and body hair. They would also be uncircumcised, but this one’s not a huge problem to ignore as much as the rest. He might even have some blue tattoos, but that might not be possible due to game engine and model limitations. I would also imagine a blacksmith to be burlier from the heavy workload required in that profession.
5. The UI (user interface) needs some work. The map is decidedly unhelpful since you can’t zoom out far enough for it to make a difference and the player just winds up stumbling along without the map or toggling it on and off every three seconds. The quest objectives should also be visible, perhaps in a corner, to let the player know what they still have to do. You should also add the third-person view hint (press Tab) to the first sex scene rather than the second.
6. You may want to work on the sex scenes timeline a bit to make it more believable and frankly, erotic (in my opinion). For example, the first reward should probably be a hand job. At night, there could be a scene where Alvilda brings water for the two to bathe, and winds up sharing the bath with the MC… to conserve water of course. The MC could get another HJ, possibly leading to a BJ while the MC cleans her thoroughly. You could also stick a 69 somewhere at this point too. The next step would be a full sex scene, possibly several with variations due to different locations, and the final solo tier is anal. I would also hope that eventually the MC will be able to ask for sex without a quest prompt.
7. It would be hard to believe that Alvilda would wait all day, a night, and presumably another day after the villagers were captured before setting out to free them. The way I figure it, she would have gotten her backup bow, made some rations, gathered some gear, and set off on the trail after them. You need to introduce something else to keep the MC and Alvilda at the village – possibly the MC finds a wounded villager while searching for food and they are forced to take care of them before setting off?
8. Perhaps you should consider rewriting the plot a bit so that the MC is a shipwrecked sailor instead (possibly still the son of a blacksmith, but filled with wanderlust). This would explain how the MC got to the island (or is it a peninsula?), why the MC has no horse and cart, how they MC is able to fight, and the MC’s lack of gear. If you make it so that the enemy that caused the shipwreck were the same guys who raided Alvilda’s village… that would give the MC added incentive to track them down (the dead raiders from #2 would have the same icon on their tunics as the enemy ship has on its flag). Revenge is a powerful motivator, and I think would fit the Viking mentality much better than being a do-gooder for do-gooding’s sake.
9. Alvilda has a sister and mother and aren’t mentioned beyond her having them. Were they captured as well? Is the mother dead? I imagine this will be fleshed out in future versions (including sex scenes with all), but the lack of mention stands out.
10. If I may make a request about the sex scene atop the bale hale – could you make it so that Alvilda has her legs spread open and that the MC actually does something like stroke her back, hold her hips, or fondle her breasts? In the other scenes the MC’s passivity makes sense, but this one stands out to me in a bad way for some reason.
11. Just out of curiosity, how dedicated are you to realism? I ask because it might be cool to add more supernatural elements like runes giving weapons actual abilities (a flaming sword for example) rather than wizards and dragons (although you could add that too). While cliché, the MC could find some sort of god-weapon like Thor’s Hammer or some other powerful object to help in the quest. If you want even more clichés, how about if Alvilda’s father knew the location of some ancient tomb with the McGuffin and the main villain somehow found out and sent his/her men to get that information.
Well, I think that’s about enough. Good job so far, and good luck for the future!
Hey, thanks for the long and detailed feedback and ideas.
1. We are currently adding more models to the village, some of them have broken parts like wheels.
2. This sounds good, but as you said it requires a lot of changes and a lot of mechanics implemented beforehands, like combat, that's something that we are working on currently and will take awhile before it's complete.
3. We got a lot of suggestions to change her clothes and we are going to run a vote poll soon and let the users decide what kind of clothes she should have. You can also see my previous response about the pubic hair, if we are going to add that, it's going to be optional, since it may turn some people off.
4. At first (2 months ago), this game was only first person, then the users suggested to add a third person view during the NSFW scenes and we did that, but the character didn't have hair previously in order to save performance (because the hair's mesh is really heavy). Now that we have a third person view, we can add hair to the main character.
5. We finished working on a mini-map, so it will be in the top right corner of the screen and the user will be able to extend that to a full screen map. Also the first sex scene does not support a third person view. As I said it wasn't planned at first and all of the animations in the first sex scene have to be reworked if we plan to support a third person view for that.
6. This is a really good idea, we may rework some of the things when we have more NSFW content.
7. We are going to add a new character very soon, but also the player has to gain skills, since he is just the son of a blacksmith and doesn't know how to fight yet.
8. Another good idea, we are going to have a boat model in the village very soon and that will also explain how the MC got there.
9. There are actually mentioned, we have a full dialogue that explains that and you can see it after you take the bow & berries quest and go back to talk to her (without completing the quest). We figured out a lot of people will just go on a mission and won't return unless they are ready, so we are going to re-use that dialogue in the next build and add it after the latest sex scene.
10. This month, we started adding "mini-animations", that are more like interactions during the NSFW scenes, since that's something that a lot of games don't have and it's a really cool feature, so the player will be able to "slap","grab","squeeze" and do things like that (all of that is optional).
11. We take inspiration from the mythology as well, so things like that are very possible, also creatures like trolls, dwarfs and elves may be coming in the future to make the game more interesting.
Again, thanks for the feedback, this was the longest post about our game that I have read, but has a lot of valuable information that we can use to make the game feel better!