this game has astonished me with quality and I'm not even halfway through it. so no spoilers. I don't normally play Light novels but when you are wanting to scratch a particular itch there isn't many options. the game started out rough. Really rough. to the point where I almost dropped the game. but I'm glad I didn't. the first part of the game where you go threw the day in the life of normal Zach. and it just dumps so much info on you. and at the start of any story there is supposed to have a hook. sure the description of the game got me threw the doors. but my mental basket can only hold onto so much when I have so little investment in the game. it was grueling and I unfortunately skipped most of it over dropping the game. Giving it a second chance.
now I have no right to tell anyone how to develop their FREE game. but I can say as a player or reader. I wish there was something in the beginning to more quickly draw me in. when you boot up the game your probably horny lets be real. and the tone that it sets threw the lecture grinds me down and forces me to think. Because I almost missed out on enjoying the parts that followed. the amazing attention to detail that the dev put into taking you threw the experience of a sudden body swap. and I loved every moment of it. the mental gymnastics and the coming to terms was so well done. and I save scum a lot to peak into all of the routes and I ended up going with the "trans" route. (According to the save) and it was honestly shocking how well the writing moved me. there was no talking down to. there was no political messages. just harsh reality you and how you feel. I started getting emotional. (god dam you. this is a horny game! how dare you make me feel things!) especially because the game has awaken something in me that I needed to beat back down into the recesses of my mind. (funny because the game goes over something like this) I appreciate that choosing to admit it wasn't turned into a joke. and it wasn't turned into messaging. the music lets up. sure the situation was whacky but the developer i feel like took time and care into writing this. as with the rest of the amazing story. I can't stop thinking about this game. after playtime is over. my ability to not stop thinking about this game is why I'm writing this. I need to say it.
they art is amazing they put so much detail into the facial reactions I find myself looking at the eyes as they shift around. the sound design while was a bit off taste for a bit. i have really warmed up to. and I'm now in love with it. I was skeptical at first when the dev told me the game had good audio. boy do i love to be proven wrong. they blend moments and set the tone so well for the scene ahead. as I played I started to wonder if the dev had majored in psychology. Because I was LOVING exploring these small details. alongside learning about zachs life and his chosen best friend. I needed more of this! and then it hit me. the start of the game that I had skipped over probably had all of that. but NOW I CARE ABOUT IT. I need to go back and reread all of it. Because it will most likely set the tone for this amazing erotic game that explores these things. i feel like the dev explores all of this without ever telling you that they are doing it. and that is a masterclass of writing I wish I had.
TLDR = amazing game. you should absolutely play it. it's a bit rough to start but tough it out. good audio, good sprites, amazing writing. hot as FUCK erotic scenes. 10/10 would get fucked again. I will be turning this game from a free to play into a pay to play as soon as my bank account agrees with me because the dev or dev's deserves it.
Before I throw my own wall of text at you, thank you for writing all of this out. I know more than most typing takes time and effort, and I'll make the effort to match.
I know people have issues with the intro, but re:Dreamer is meant to one day be a long visual novel (at least 40 hours per main route). In that context, an intro of an hour or less (much of which you are given the option to skip!) is not just justified but mandatory.
I very firmly and passionately believe gender bender is a kink of contrasts. I'll skip the pseudo-intellectual lecture about how it's a genre uniquely suited to building around the singular pillar of what is ultimately the only story a person can ever tell when you strip it to its base element (what it means to be a person) and jump ahead to the pith: knowing more of who Zach is as a person before the transformation even happens is necessary for giving the type of contrast I need for the story I want to tell with him.
To that end, I have given Zach an intro that sets the entire tone of the game as most of its topics and themes, such as:
- The process of "showing the work" of who Zach is and how they change matters far more than the destination.
- The ego Zach has built about their self-styled maverickish intelligence is a crutch and protective wall of isolation that is making them miserable but which they cling to because it's easier to be smart than it is to be wise.
- Their toxic relationship with their mother, who acts as a sympathetic antagonist where it's up for the reader to decide if she's redeemable and someone Zach or Zoey can trust again, a dramatic foil across generations who herself is a victim of an abusive mother, a black hole who has shaped and warped Zach's views of women (often for the worse), and a larger-than-life figure who casts a suffocating shadow over him or her, both as an impossibly high bar to match and as a control freak.
- That re:Dreamer is going to be a psychologically-focused story with a very introspective protagonist, as shown through a lecture that also introduces the concept of a personality matrix (as it is a feature in the visual novel) (I don't have a psychology degree, but I have taken a few semesters of it at college and have maintained at least a passing interest in it).
- How Zach is stuck and wanting to change but needs a powerful catalyst and someone to react with to make that change happen.
I'll readily admit that there might have been a more condensed way to do that, but all my thinking on the intro over the last few years has only reinforced my view that it has to be there and it's about as lean as I can make it without cutting away the meat of the story to compromise brevity over depth. It acts as a sort of skill gate, because to be honest, if a player stopped after less than an hour, there's not much of a chance they'd like to stick around for more nor care that I think context makes porn way hotter.
I have many thoughts about gender (as you might suspect lol), but I'd like to think I have enough respect for the topic to avoid pandering with easy layups that I know would please certain crowds. Doing so would be a disservice to readers when I know could deliver something better and more meaningful. re:Dreamer isn't really "a transgender game" as some have tried to frame it and I reject that limitation; in fact, one of its design goals is to widen someone's views of identity and present a more nuanced view than "this character was always a girl." It's a weird celebration of the uniqueness of identity meant to be thought about with deliberate ambiguity meant to foster that. I'll sometimes use modern queer terminology when it makes sense and I can't claim I don't find myself rambling on my soapbox every so often, but I'm hardly a gender guru. I'm a weird person with a weird genderfluid identity who doesn't have anything even close all the answers, but I have confidence in my ability to ask good questions.
I love having a lot of attention to detail and like when someone notices the time and effort to put into it. The expression system helps sell the nuance of the story, and I'm shocked that neither my method of separating faces into distinct eyes, eyebrows, and mouths and the exponentially greater range of facial expression I have access to nor focus on sound design is common. I wanna be a quirky bohemian auteur, and I can't understand how people hate making the parts of a visual novel I love to tinker with. It's a multimedia format, and the more I embrace that aspect, the more those parts synchronize to tell a story that punches far above its weight class in impact.
I just learned about your illness after stumbling around this page. and it was heartbreaking to read. one of the worst things that can happen to someone. and one of my greatest fears.
now i feel bad that is distracted you from creating this masterpiece. even if it was for maybe 10 to 20 minutes . don't need to waste your time responding to me but I heavily appreciated the response! and yes I think you have truly tapped a few times into something powerful. between all the jokes and horny scenes. or maybe I'm reading way too much in-between the lines of this story here.
and for clarification I love buildup and context for erotic stuff. I just wasn't prepared for the start. I wasn't prepared to sit threw a lecture and my brain was far too deep into excitement from the premises to pay much attention to the lecture. and because I'm stubborn I didn't skip either with getting on my phone. my main frustration stems from an alternative timeline where I backed out too soon and missed this amazing story. but this isn't a call for change I'm trying not to come off that way. every reader is different. if you don't think anything needs to change then that's that. I'm a writer too so i totally get it. just my unfiltered thoughts about the game from my point of view. and now my greatest fear is not being able to see this game get finished.
so just know I'll be invisibly cheering you on from the sideline. Sexually frustrated and begging for more.