I do appreciate the effort that goes in to this game. Its clearly a labor of love and the writing and art is top notch. While many of the girls don't appeal to me-but those fucking ELVES, ughhh, and Lady Mad mmmmmmm, oh and Gomira-while most of the girls clearly appeal to me, and its fun to play around even with the ones who don't (sorry Rose), I do have one complaint.
I don't actually think the sex writing is any good. Like, at all.
This is i think a problem glaringly highlighted by the overall high standard from the rest of the game. Its like having an amazing meal of perfectly fried chicken, fluffy mashed potatoes with gravy, a crisp caramelized apple, and in the center, an uncooked fish that the chef thinks is fine.
I really think its the dialogue, although i personally don't think looping animations are sexy either. Now don't get me wrong, in a way, its a symptom of the overall tone and quality of the rest of the game.
Do you know why Pornos are so over the top ridiculous? Its not that they CAN'T write better dialogue, its that by writing these characters as non-humans, we turn off that empathetic part of our brain. We trip a switch that makes it easy to masturbate to them, instead of empathize with them. WaL does the opposite. I CARE about Lana's drinking. I want to earn Lady Mad's respect. Which means, despite their inherent sexiness, I have a harder time seeing them as purely sexual objects.
This isn't to say its not possible to have a sexy scene or hot smut even, in an otherwise non sexualized piece of media. Plenty of films and books have hot scenes, between characters we care about, but they need to be handled with care, so as to have both smut AND keep the characterization we value.
Lets talk about the latest update, which i found lackluster, now I'm not a Rose guy, but many of my complaints could be applied to Myrtle as well, who i adore. Probably the hottest scene (for me, anyway) was either when she was a demon, or just after flying. The threesome, the bed sex, all the other stuff i've forgotten about was pretty boring. I was literally more interested in finding out about the giant demon than getting into Rose's skirts. Contrast with Lana (who before her update, i was completely uninterested in), every scene with her is hot, every scene is exciting or memorable. She blows you back to life, you masturbate together on a hot night, she rides you, then leaves in a fury, you bathe together after a successful mission, fuck each other's brains out in public.
Why is this so much hotter? The tension. There's tension leading up to, or following all of these scenes. Emotion, change, growth, whatever you want to call it. With Rose, the situation before a sex scene is almost identical to the situation after. There's no building sexual tension, or power dynamic, or even a mistake. The characters like each other, they hook up and enjoy it, then they are right back to where they were before. It's kind of like being married. The thing is while, sex is fun and if you're blessed enough to marry your best friend (guys, this is incredibly important, you want to marry someone you LIKE), its very satisfying, we can't get that same sensation from a piece of visual art. Art is meant to stimulate us, it either brings up memories, or stirs imagination. And CHANGE is the engine that drives it.
Art that is static is dead. Its why art is constantly reinventing itself. Singers have to find new sounds, actors have to look for different types of roles to play, painters find new muses. Its why when you turn a TV show on, they have conflict, we wouldn't watch a show were everyone was just happy and successful, we WISH characters we like happiness, but watching it is boring. Having all happy sex with no changes or tension in a porno is the same. Incest works great for this*, not because we are all in to fucking our family. I'm guessing most of us have never had a sexual thought about a close family member in our lives. But what makes incest good (if done well) is the CHANGE. We watch a relationship, shift, watch taboos bend and break, see progress forward, see progress backward and once become lovers, usually the story is over. But its the tension, and the build up that make it so filthy and fun.
Some of the parts of the game have this, see Lana, but so many others are simply flat. Go hear, look at huge boobs, win her affection, yay, you get to hook up. Done. I suspect part of the issue is that the MC isn't a driving force in the story. Things just kind of happen to him. I mean, the guy has a bag of literally unlimited gold, and he basically stumbles from plot point to plot point. Its comedy, sure, but that's a cop out. Even still, with a weak MC, you can still have tension and build up, but the Dev has got to punch up that dialogue a little. Thoughts and words, those are what we relate to. Emotion shoved in to the story. It can't just be, 'ooooh i like you so much', and 'ohhhh, you feel so good'. Again, it feels like filler, built to repeat during those god damn looping animations. Nobody like filler.
I know the devs have better things to do than read my little rant, but I appreciate the time they put in to this work and I truly hope it gets better, whether they take my advice (they really really should take my advice) or not.
*please don't do incest, incest is so badly overdone and so badly done, its truly pathetic, that well is dry, the aquifer is drained, the local crops will wither and die, the community will dry up and the people will leave
