Really glad I played this & Once in a Lifetime - these games have consumed my winter holiday break, once I started reading I could not put them down! If you're on this page to download the game I urge you to do so immediately!
Since I see that the good man of the house Caribdis himself sometimes reads these comments, I wanted to take a moment to leave some words of appreciation and reaction, as well as be presumptive enough to make a few possible quality of life suggestions. Feel free to read or ignore this entirely! *Spoilers follow for Once in a Lifetime, Acting Lessons, and Being a DIK*
I discovered these games through the recommendation of the Being a DIK AVN subreddit and community. Meaning absolutely no offense to present company, I do consider DrPinkCake to be perhaps the GOAT of the AVN scene (and, to be honest, maybe even the entire VN scene, including Japanese VNs.) However, I do believe it is entirely possible to argue that DrPinkCake has perhaps suffered from success - the scale of the community, the sudden influx of fans and enormous amounts of money, and the piling expectations have seemed to conflict with the man's massive ego, tendency towards micro-management, and gatekeeping. Coming from this situation, I was astounded to discover that Caribdis has not only cultivated a friendly, welcoming space (as evidenced by his gracious replies in this comment section) but keeps both Once in a Lifetime & Eternum 100% free. Wow! Nothing could have convinced me faster to become a new Patreon supporter. I am especially hopeful about Caribdis' next subscriber goal - hiring additional help. Though I certainly understand AVN creator's desire to keep their creations 100% within their total control, I think the DrPinkCake situation has shown the real downsides of this approach and I really hope that Caribdis is able to gather the resources and grow his team!!
Now some remarks about the actual game:
- Great soundtrack & VFX work - and especially in sex scenes, which can really be challenging to sound hot! My one suggestion here is that I would love to more easily be able to find out what the name of the song currently playing is. Ideally, there could be a "now playing" text bar perhaps in the pause menu, but as an easier alternative I would also appreciate a list of songs in the Credits section (especially if it's broken out by version number to make it easier to identify specific songs).
- I love the wide variety of genres that Caribdis has been able to incorporate into Eternum! The whole game just feels like he had so much fun making it which really makes me enjoy it more.
- This is my own personal subjective taste, but I personally felt that Lauren's first sex scene in Once in a Lifetime (as well as the second) was one of the hottest I have ever seen in an AVN - period. A wide variety of porn mediums are able to fulfill a certain type of erotic fantasy, namely that the MC (and the viewer by extension) is some kind of sex god who magically attracts women and has mind-bending sex without any kind of effort. If I just wanted to see some hot women fuckin and suckin without any narrative, I could turn on any porn tube in seconds. But what AVNs are able to do uniquely is present a different (arguably more 'realistic' or 'persuasive') kind of fantasy: to, through the power of storytelling and narrative, present a situation where the sex doesn't feel like acting but rather feels like speculative fiction - namely, that if this fictional world became reality and I was placed in this situation, I could actually have these sexual experiences.
In DrPinkCake's games, the narrative creates hot sex scenes through emotional choices and sacrifice - you can't achieve harem endings, so you are forced to make trade offs; main girls die and suffer, and the MC can realistically fail. I find his storytelling very compelling & emotional in this regard, which is why I view his works so highly. Caribdis has quite a different style. In both Eternum & Once in a Lifetime, the harem endings are not only quite easily achievable (even without the walkthrough, the instant feedback always lets you know when you've made a bad choice) but in some ways they feel like the default ending.
I do sometimes feel like this story structure can make the MC's story feel like 'unrealistic sex god.' For instance, Jasmine's route in OiaL is basically premised on the idea that MC's sex is so unique and incredible that she just overcomes her tsundere BS and voluntarily joins his harem. I see signs of this creeping into Eternum as well. For example, the prostitute in an early chapter breaks the rules to fuck MC and charges him nothing because his dick is so big. That's well and good and I understand that this might be an appealing fantasy for some people. For me, however, the memorable, outrageously hot sex scenes are the ones that feel 'earned' - where the MC's relationship with the girl has steadily grown; where I feel convinced that the girl genuinely likes and lusts for the MC for understandable reasons; where sex has been teased and blue balled.
I know that Caribdis has said vaginal scenes soon, and I know that more than likely Eternum will probably follow the stock AVN 'sequential pyramid' structure where every girl gets a nude scene, then every girl gets a handjob/BJ scene, then every girl gets a vaginal scene, and we end with some anal or group sex scenes at the pinnacle. This is of course tried & true, and fits well with linear narrative structure and emotional development. I go through this lengthy digression, however, to point out two takeaways I hope Caribdis keeps in mind, either for Eternum or his next VN (I must caveat here that I am sure Caribdis has his plot planned out entirely, and I 100% feel that he must stick to his artistic vision. I REALLY would not presume to give suggestions to 'change the story' or something to suit my own personal tastes.)
1) What made Lauren's initial sex scenes in OiaL so hot to me was the build up. The massage scene, where MC stopped just before sex, was absolutely crucial to anticipating the real thing. HOWEVER, more than just this build up was a second element, namely that through the dialogue there was this real element of tension or uncertainty in Lauren's first penetrative sex scene; I was totally convinced that Lauren had sex against her better judgement because she succumbed to temptation and that had MC hypothetically played it differently the scene could've 'gone either way' so to speak. Contrast this to Judie's first sex scene, which also had great buildup and was of course quite hot; nonetheless, it was premised on quite a different kind of situational fantasy, namely that Judie had already become fully seduced by MC's outrageous charms and made the decision to fuck well in advance of her first scene. Well the buildup still of course resulted in great payoff, this meant that her first scenes lacked this same element of situational ambiguity and tension.
It is really my hope that some of the first round of sex scenes in Eternum can replicate this same adrenaline-inducing tension of Lauren's scenes. In the real world, this is exactly what makes flirting so fun - that there's a real ambiguity about whether you're gonna get laid or not. Because AVNs are structured linearly, it creates definite viewer expectations of sex, and subverting this expectations + leaning into the will-they-won't-they feeling REALLY pays off for me.
2) Jumping off point #1, I also want to make the suggestion that it could be OK to progress the main girls at different rates. Not only do I think this could feel more 'natural,' in that some main girls personalities seem that they would be down to fuck pretty quickly whereas other girls seem more reserved, but I think that it could make each girl feel more unique and create exciting tension. If all girls always progress at the same rate, it can hard to be dodge the feeling that each sex scene is a reskinned version of the last. This is of course already happening to some degree in Eternum - for instance, no Luna scenes so far. Great! It just makes me anticipate future releases that much more.
Combining these points, I want to issue one final plea: please feel free to torture us viewers as much as you would like by dangling & delaying full penetrative sex scenes! I'm really hoping that one of the girls gets Lauren levels of slow burn tension - or maybe even more! If their vaginal sex scene came one 'round' late, I think it could easily be that much hotter! I want to want it bad!!
I've written way too much so I'll stop there but let me say again THANK YOU for developing such an enjoyable, free (!!) AVN and injecting some real joy into my holiday season!! Can't wait to support you for the rest of this game & beyond!