Well, I consider a happy ending to be one where you survive and can be with the one you love.
And...y'know... ideally without being trapped in their basement or something. I like my freedom.
(I care less if anyone else survive tho. lol)
Ah. That's probably the game I'm mixing it up with!
I think I've played Limbo Line. It was interesting enough, but nothing overly special.
(Mid-range good I guess.)
If it helps, my current favorite game is The Kid at the Back.
But I also have, like, a list on my profile listing my favorite games. lol
I like dark games with dark endings, but I prefer a more Bonny & Clyde than Romeo and Juliette, if you get what I mean.
And I think the most horrible endings are the ones where you don't get to be with the one you love at all.
(Not a fan of being locked in someone's basement either. Again: Love my freedom.)
And I don't mind mature stuff. Considering one of my favorite authors is Marquis de Sade, I'd say everything that's actually legal to put in a game is pretty tame by my standards. lol
But it's not necessary for a game to be good of course.
Even if I do like NSFW stuff. Or at the very least a hint that it exist without being explicit.
Asexual people exist, but they're far from the norm.
So it seems logical than most yandere's will also have those desires.
Even if the game only hints at it.
I think a yandere could, in theory, be asexual.
But it's a pretty low odds, when you consider the percentage of asexual people in the population as a whole, and the percentage of yandere's in the population as a whole, and the odds of those two traits occur in the same person... it's a very slim chance, but it exist.
I know some people tend to think that obsession isn't love, but they clearly have never studied psychology.
(Romantic love IS obsession. I won't bore you with the details, but that's one reason why people with less to do tend to get more obsessive in love than people with a full life. Obsession grows in empty space. As long as it has a focus.)
Although I suppose I shouldn't speak too loudly on the topic, considering I'm biased.
I understand how the yandere mind works a little TOO intimately.
For all that I wouldn't quite call myself one. Probably.
Why don't you make it so that you have to play the game and get certain endings first, and allow that to unlock other endings?
It's a tricky balance in many games, but I think that because you already have chosen your love-interest, and it doesn't block the other love interest's path, only certain paths for the already chosen one, it should be fine.
And people love to find "secret endings".
If you in addition add something like in Perfect Love, where you make a list of the endings that can be found, and mark the endings found as achievements, lots of people tend to like that.
(I personally love seeing what choices of endings that exist --even just the hint of it in the name--, while other people have a 'gotta catch them all' mentality.)
It'll make the game more enjoyable in the long run, and make people want to actually buy it so they can keep replaying it.
Huh. That's an interesting reason behind it. oO
Never tried those myself, so I have no clue what it would be like.
Yeeeeeah...... I've never read the end credits to anything in my life, so I can see how I'd miss that. ^_^;
But that DOES give you something to work with for other endings tho.
As you said; they could add to it, or subtract from it.
And you control what the doctors and police might do, if they got involved.
Perhaps I should have said 'more well-written endings' is always good. lol
If you've ever played Particles of Reality, you'll see what I mean.
The game is excellent, and it has more endings than I can count. In triple-digits I think.
And those are JUST the bad ways that one game could end.
(It's kinda their gimmic to only have bad endings. Tho I have found a few I personally think is good, but extremely few.)
I do agree with you that pointless endings is, well, pointless.
They need to be well written, and make sense with the rest of the game.
But you strike me as someone who is capable of actually writing well-written endings.
I guess it depends on what you like in games...
Particles of Reality is, admittedly, filled with bad endings.
And SOME characters are really crappy.
But Sebastian is super-sweet. He bends over backwards to please the mc. (Which you can name)
He loves her so much he'd even kill his own twin brother if he thought the guy hurt you.
And he's never-ever harm you if he could help it.
He even hates the thought of locking you up. (But in some rare few ends he might, for your own good. And I agree with him it IS for your own good in those cases.)
Then you have Brandon, who's route you have to download cuz it's so abusive, incestuous, and in general shitty that they're not allowed to post it on Steam. lol
And the other guys are somewhere in between. With a secret love interest revealed after certain endings unlock him.
If you decide to play it; Unlock the "What if" section to find the two only truly good endings in the game. For Sebastian.
If you made the game in less than a month, I am seriously impressed tho.
It takes me about that long to write a single fanfic chapter. lol
(To be fair, I write 5-10k words, and procrastinate like hell. I suck at getting stuff done.)
I get the fun of writing for a competition tho.
You always get some of the most creative stuff done under restrictions.
(I took a photography class once, and since 90% of the class was girls, the theme ended up being "shoes"...much to my despair...
So I ended up with a murder mystery photo-shoot where the only link was a pair of cursed shoes. xD
I also wrote a story for a Lego competition as a kid that ended up to be a horror story, so I guess it's easy to see my interests.... lol)
Time limit constraints is always a pain tho, so I get you.
But when you go back and polish it later you can often make it a whole lot better.
Which is nice. ^_^
Ah, yeah. I know a lot of people have those trigger things...
I can't say I really understand that personally, but I have to admit that I am the kind of person who vamoshes if it gets too heavy.
(Which mostly translates into: I think my bf might actually kill me. Which has happened.
But everything up to that point, I don't really mind, sooo.... I don't claim to be normal.)
But I get that you don't want to use your own trauma for fantasy worlds.
I can imagine it's not what you want when you aim for something fun.
....I guess having the sound on would have helped... Welp. ^_^;
Good to know it has a function at least. lol
You can always try reading "Save the Cat Writes a Novel", or maybe the screenplay version is better for game creation?
It's very good at least.
And maybe Stephen King's "On Writing", but he's more geared towards professional career writing paired with tips all around than the easy-to-follow recipe in Save the Cat.
Nothing wrong with being self-taught. Many great artists are.
(Many billionaires too, for that matter. Tho they are rarely artists. lol)
I think your game has pretty good writing.
It's on the line with a dark and twisted version of a children's book.
(Perhaps not quite Roman Dirge's 'Leonore', but not too far from it.)
Oh, PLEASE go back to working on Darling Duality! ^_^
Unless I'm mixing it up with something, I love a certain blue-skinned twin.
(Or whatever you'd call it.)
But I also really want to see Blue Blythe....
If it helps, I think I dropped out of high school about 4 times. lol
Mostly because I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to educate myself to be, and my country had different schools for different work-related classes.
(And I also got put in art school because I apparently am 'creative', and my mom couldn't be bothered to actually ask if I wanted that, the first time around.)
Education isn't everything. And these days, it's not worth anything at all unless you plan for a career in a line of work that require it.
(Like psychologist or doctor or lawyer.)
Maybe 20 or 50 years ago school was important, but not today.
Artists can easily be self-educated, and the best ones often are.
Haha. Well, sadly your clones wouldn't actually be you tho.
But on the bright side you could always raise them to be super-smart by forcing them to study in exchange for your affection and manipulate them into obedient little workers from they're babies. ^_^
....not unlike raising children in general.
(Although I am not sure how smart it is to take advice from a self-proclaimed villain like me. lol)
I look forward to see the updates for your games at any rate, when they come out. ^_^