#4
Post
by mysterialize » Tue Dec 21, 2010 6:08 pm
While this game was at least of slightly higher quality than most first VNs that people post here, it, as a whole, it struck me as kind of odd. The premise, and use of it, seemed strangely at odds with it's presentation. The concept of you and your friends being kidnapped by a dealer of sex slaves, with the goal of the game being to both free your friends, and seduce the man who kidnapped you, seemed like something that would feel more at home in a full on hentai game. I'm not normally one to suggest making a game more smutty, but in this case, the entire way you set the story up felt like it was with the goal of providing a sex scene at the end. Similarly, I found it rather unusual that you censored a lot of the curse words, despite the game in general being made up of otherwise pretty "mature" content. I think if someone can take playing a game about sex slaves, they're more than old or uncaring enough to not be offended by an unblocked f-bomb or two. Also, if you for some reason really want to go the clean language route, it would probably be better to just use alternative words, rather than starring out the curses. It just looks jarring and unnecessary.
I also agree with the person above me about how quickly the whole thing goes by. The romance wasn't built up at all, and I was utterly baffled when it turned out that the "best ending" involved me getting together with the obvious madman who kidnapped me. Maybe I would get it if there was some character development between both him and the main character, and the main character... well, had any sort of reason to fall for the guy at all, but neither of those things happened at all. It was just "You kidnapped me and the people I care about! ... I love you." If you want to keep working on this, try adding more scenes between the two of them, and give them actual conversations between each other about personal things.
Maybe give the kidnapper a more sympathetic reason for kidnapping all of you, such as being in some sort of extreme, desperate debt to someone, or not knowing how to see humans on the same level as himself due to his upbringing. As it is now, he seriously does seem to just be doing it because it seems fun to him. Alternatively, you could also imply that the main character is gradually getting corrupted by his influence, and starts to fall for him, not because they find him to be a pleasant person, but because they start to find a grim fascination with him. Stockholm Syndrome, basically.
Outside of the story, you may want to consider getting a proofreader in the future. The writing was somewhat sloppy at times, leading to some slightly odd mistakes here and there. The weirdest one was when, if you pick a male character, your kidnappers still call you a tomboy.
On the positive side of things, your art is really quite nice, and made up for the writing's flaws by a good bit. Not only did they look nice and clean, they did a very good job at telling the story where the writing failed to do so. I was absolutely impressed by how the entire game was made up of nothing but CGs. It's obvious that you put a lot of work into the artistic side. If you manage to get involved with a project with a more solid story, and a proofreader, it seems like you'll be able to produce something of rather high quality.
Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh, but I honestly did mean it when I said that this is still better than a lot of first projects I see around here. Keeping in mind that this is your first work, you could have done a lot worse. I just strongly suggest that you practice a bit more on the writing and storytelling front.
Good luck with any future projects!
