The Nature of Magic

One more point before I leave this be for a few updates – because the story on it’s own merits is very good (it could be improved with less femdom – a little less banter when topics are actually meant to be taken seriously and NOT undercutting the “self taught” MC who’s also mastered an “entirely different” school of magic by blowing smoke up his fiancees’ ass the whole time)

One BIG problem with the walkthrough as stands is that the STORY talks up the importance of all stats to win the girls to stay – and thusly be part of the intended harem; the walkthrough DOES NOT state in MANY cases which choice out of the two sets of opposed values is the CORRECT choice to earn the harem path. You are going to need to be careful of that. Like I said, and yes this would probably be a pain to code out = you only actually need the two bars. Affection > Trust & Respect. They equate each other. So keep affection, keep the last bar for all girls that is distinct, and you get a LOT less conflict.

= I know this is probably a newer game – but there is ONLY SO FAR you can actually get away with cock teasing. They are meant to be married; but again – no one says that Cerys is the ONLY one that MC should be allowed to marry. She can tease a little bit, but MOST of the freaking game revolved around introducing the characters – and a VERY FEW scenes of FOREPLAY. Not sex. There was properly ONLY ONE sex scene. During which even though the main female STATES that she does want MC’s kid… she’s “not ready.” Just one problem. Check their ages. She’s 29 FUCKING YEARS OLD. Even with MAGIC there’s no guarantee that she’s GOING TO BE FERTILE enough that she can afford to wait. If she were an elf like Aine, fine. Fair enough = it’s still blue balling the player too hard about something that is a DRAW to a decent chunk of the harem audience.

Contraceptives do NOT need to come into play. It will happen with a binary choice that says “Cum Inside” or better still “Impregnate Her.” Beyond that you don’t need to explain why it doesn’t happen. Hell STRESS and the overblown desire to achieve having a child together CAN fuck it up. If you really want to get technical. The way you implemented it does give SOME control > but since she cock teased about the actual sex so much… it also took away in a vein that it didn’t need to, for her to be automatically ON birth control. Besides, if she can tie his tubes – she can tie her own. So there really was NEVER a need to mention pregnancy at all. UNTIL they were actually willing to GET ON THAT POINT! You’re actually contradicting her stated desire which leads some dominant minds like myself (which is why I have a problem with FemDom – and no; Dominance is NOT Switch. It’s not a LIGHT BULB. You DON’T JUST TURN IT ON AND OFF. It’s NOT a fucking game, or a ROLE to play. It’s who, and what you are. Period. So she can either Submit to MC because she wants to; and she’s already willing to allow him the Harem BULLSHIT or she can be the little cock tease and RISK LOSING HIM if the PLAYER decides she goes too far. [There. IS. Only. So. Far. You. Can. Tease!] ) not to trust she means what she says. Given this assholes imposed mental scarring from how he grew up > the second she was aware of that, she should have dropped ANY pretense about teasing if she wants something. Or TAKING CONTROL AWAY FROM HIM!!! >.< You’re the one that wrote that psycho analysis pal, and you didn’t think that maybe DOMINANCE is the path he would naturally as a male; and a male with ACTUAL POWER, fucking WANT?!?

If you are a female dev: You have NO FUCKING CLUE how hurtful it is to say X wants MC’s kid… and then take that away because YOU want to dick the audience around. Until YOU ARE READY. Not her. She shouldn’t be that bloody stupid if she genuinely doesn’t want to lose him. Because kids are a major life choice and very much CAN and WILL be a dealbreaker. That IS a problem in the narrative. And it’s not even the one I wanted to discuss. The issue I did want to lay out is the fact that in the last battle scene before the end of the update – there are several character icons that present; and DO NOT TELL THE PLAYER WHICH ONE IS RIGHT. There’s a choice between Fiadh and Luther; and later between the half giant and the fire bug. I do not know if either of them actually matters, but they bloody well should. And there was NO GOOD REASON to make the MC fade away like a freaking dainty PRINCESS! [YOU stated this asshole was “The Daemon.” Badass merc extraordinaire… and yet, against basically ANY fucking woman in this game so far, he’s a PUSH OVER. In more than one sense. So – PICK. ONE!]

The game does have potential or I wouldn’t be so irked by flaws in it mechanically, and in characterization. Laela isn’t going to be any more or less compelling if you uncomplicate the bloody issue. (When you decided to do a sadist point about Orl’s ears; I’d actually thought you’d taken the smart route and avoided the topic of rape… ONLY FOR YOU TO MAKE IT METAPHORICALLY THE SAME DAMNED THING! GRRRRRRRRR!) You cock block two characters entirely for no reason, with that retardation. Just to “slow burn = let me freeze your nuts off in real life Player.” I do appreciate the fact you made Orlach soften and Laela SHOULD auto doubt her family’s methods without a bar for it if she’s gone to Grym for a warding. Period. Her accusation against Grym – if she wants MC on her side or INSIDE of her at any point, is not as clever a piece of writing as you think it is. Just because he’s not ENTIRELY altruistic doesn’t make him the BBEG. It’s fine if she’s not willing to accept her own family are mostly pricks > you DON’T need to confuse your damned audience.

All of that said, I did like a good deal of the game. Some things were less subtle than they could be and FAR too many shots are taken at the MC’s expense considering the girls are ALL SUPPOSED TO WANT TO FUCK & BREED WITH MC (The Half Giant by the way shouldn’t be threatened if MC says he’s not opposed to breeding with the larger members of her line – so long as you allow the Player the option to be clear that he wants to KEEP her. You state that Grym himself was as respected as he was for being WILLING to breed amongst the families. So DO NOT deny potential avenues for actual alliances because you want to focus on “main” girls) and you seem to forget the guy is a prodigy; by having him get his ass handed to him by his girlfriend. Who should KNOW BETTER THAN TO DO THAT. You do not set up a fight you know IS NOT FAIR and expect MC to be bound by rules that you know are stacked AGAINST HIM. She could have kept to spells that she knew he could counter, or tactics she knew he had. I will very much say FUCK RIGHT OFF WITH THE KNEEL BULLSHIT if MC doesn’t get the absolute right to do the same damned autocratic thing with HER. Without mind magic, and without a fight about it.

You’re going to need to be better with the pacing of the actual SEX scenes. Lay off the foreplay. Especially when you’re using it to abjectly BLUE BALL the actual sex for days longer than you should, if she was all that bloody concerned about the other houses poaching him… and tone down the insults. Your job is to build HIM up as a force to be reckoned with, so that the girls who ARE ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED OR RICH will actually WANT HIM. I do not know how so many of you Devs fail to get that point. He is a fucking HEDGE MAGE. She is the “star pupil” of her line’s PATRIARCH. You CANNOT make him seem like the bad ass (or the Ace, or The Dragon) if you’re going to put her that far above him in terms of magical ability. Doesn’t matter whether by raw power in output, or studied practice. And his new path is basically halfway USELESS the way you have it currently implemented. It has massive potential, but at the moment you’ve not actually SHOWN it.

I will still hope to play more of it – I’ll hope you actually finish it as well. But I’m leaving off for a few updates because I don’t know how big you’re gonna want to go with each of them, and more is better. I can be patient, when there’s merit; and despite how some will take much of what I’ve written, I wouldn’t go to the trouble if I didn’t think the game might be worth it. End of the day, the issues I’ve expressed probably won’t bug as many as they did me. So if Harry Potter mixed with My Dorm or Cozy Cafe or Nephilim sounds like a good time and you don’t mind CBT the game might be for you. Also, I really need to work on shorter comments…