I am new to this genre having only discovered Ren'py novels in December of 2021 but already have bought and read some 40 or so. And to-date, Lockheart's products "Avalon" and "A Petal Among Thorns" have proven to the best produced, best written, and engaging stories I have yet come across. Although controversial in the some of the subject matter, the treatment is excellent, the approach careful and thoughtful, and the range of emotions represented well-crafted, and in my experience so far some of the best works in this genre.
If I had a criticism it would be in the font color choices for gamesave titling which on my system's default color scheme come out as a light green on a pale yellow background which is nearly invisible,
On the plus side is that the background for the main dialogue text can be adjusted in the preferences to increase or decrease the opacity to make the text easier to read. Most authors I have yet encountered using the Ren'py engine don't exploit this ability.
The Musical background, mostly consisting of solo piano works of a theme and tempo appropriate to the dialogue and scene are also carefully selected and appropriate.
Many of the novels I have read so far that involve incestuous relationships attempt to address the social taboo problem explicitly while ignoring the factual basis of the issue which leads to taboos. While some effort is put into blaming prudishness brought on by religious orthodoxy originating with the Abrahamic religions, I thought the real issue was the potential for the propagation of recessive genes in the offspring of incestuous relationships. My cursory knowledge of human reproductive biology doesn't equip me to expound on the merits of that issue. But I am left wondering how big a problem that is. Just as the current somewhat nonsensical actions regarding the spread of Covid-19 by various governments worldwide don't appear to match actual statistical evidence as to severity and threat model, so it would seem that the social taboo against incest might not have good evidence to support the zeal by which incest is decried by society, particularly where modern contraception techniques exist. Not saying there aren't other issues with incest, but the principal driver that fuels the religious fervor against it likely comes from the actual experience of the effect of the propagation of recessive genes through incest over millennia.
So when novels of this sort attempt to rationalize incest I am concerned with the common theme of having the females "crave" creampies with no exposition on the use of chemical or mechanical birth control to allow it. Kind of a nit I suppose but having seen this subject addressed multiple times in other novels of this genre before where some kind of contraception was discussed I was surprised to not see such taking place here in this novel collection.
But otherwise, this is the best work I've seen so far - keep up the great work!
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