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markamadeo

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A member registered Aug 18, 2020

Recent community posts

Just want to disclaimer that this is meant as constructive criticism, thought provoking, and to add to the discourse and not said out of hate.  I wish you guys success with your art and the game.

That being said, this doesn't really seem like this is the type of game I would enjoy.  The game seems to send a lot of mix signals and I'm not sure if this is just because its a demo or you plan on keeping in the direction you are going.  I specifically take issue with how the male main character seems to be pretty homophobic in the path that I read (Cameron).  I chose the option at the beginning to only be interested in the male ROs so the dialogue was kinda weird.  To me this didn't really seem like an "LGBT-positive game" as it doesn't seem like I could play a gay character.  I wouldn't have even minded if I was roleplaying a more closeted character, but it is very difficult for me to connect with this character because he seems to be very unlikable.  Are you planning on having more roleplaying choices on the type of person Jace is in the final product?  Or are you set on the character?

And I find it a bit odd because the intro seemed to say that Jace's defining personality traits were that he is a narcissist and easy-going (I could get behind that).  But from what I read, I didn't see either of those at all.  I didn't see that he was overly narcissistic and he seemed to be the opposite of easy-going (he seems to despise Cameron and constantly nags/guilts him).  From what I saw I would say his two most defining personality traits are that he hates m/m and he finds his family annoying.  Which as a gay player, its kinda difficult for me to like as a protagonist.

My last point of the demo and path I read was that for a romance game it really wasn't very romantic at all.  Like I'm all for character growth and story, but there wasn't even hints at Jace's potential attraction to Cameron like you would get in most stories where the protagonist starts closeted.  And I'm not really sure that Cameron's flirting was really helping make the mood more romantic either.  Jace made it very clear that it made him uncomfortable so it made me as the reader very uncomfortable.  I get as a gay man that I'm probably not the target audience for this game, but I would seriously question whether this is something that bi men are going to be interested in and not insulted by.  I would imagine that anyone picking up a visual novel of this type is expecting some form of romance.  And I'll note that I restarted and tested out the beginning of the Adrien path to see if there were any big differences.  Just read the intro with the sister, seems like the big difference is that Jace doesn't hate Adrien like Cameron so it seems like a softer relationship but Jace still has all the negative qualities.

Sorry about the wall of text, just wanted to write my thoughts.  I'll end on what I liked.  I liked the sister as a character.  I remember thinking while Jace was talking to her was how interested I was in the idea that she may be pursuing one of the other romance options in the full game and how I was interested in interacting with that (supporting her through her arc, roleplaying the "protective twin brother", etc).