I love that the art style is often hectic, hazy sketches, like the protagonist is seeing only rough outlines of the world around her because she's not all there at the time. I loved this so much more than realistic, 3D model sex scenes.
jan_cho
Recent community posts
I completely agree with your values when it comes to how we depict sexuality as artists. Exactly to that point - my criticisms were more so considering how we're being introduced/primed by art we consume to interpret tomorrow's real life situations and act in them. As a game on its own merit, the only thing that I found lacking in some haikus was the lack of clearer visual cues.
The rest was more feedback on the responsibility of using a medium to send (implicit or explicit) messages and its implications on real-life problems. I still think that (as a medium) your game nudges the genre in the right direction, hopefully others take inspiration and learn from it.
I'll consider joining Discord, haven't used it in a while. I'll for sure keep you in mind when I reactivate it :)
Oh wow I'm amazed to see you're still active! I've not explored much in terms of adult games tbh, almost everything I've seen is either a pre-rendered animation or an interactive story. I assume people are in it for the visuals rather than the mechanical aspect of it. Plus I imagine it's hard to convey realistic erotic scenes without slipping into uncanny valley (which a lot of them do with pre-renders anyway).
I tried playing all of your Haikus, some of them I either don't get the mechanics of or just am not good at. My favorite by far is Traumfaenger because I have the most control in positioning the subject and ropes to see how she reacts. It also allows for more body movement, which you managed to program so believably - Her bending over in ecstasy, moving her hands down to her crotch (when she's allowed to), the ability to flip her on her back/stomach, it's all so simple yet effective.
If you're looking for feedback, here's my two main takeaways:
I wish there were a sliding scale of stimulation, as well as negative feedback the player can react to and adjust. As far as I understand the current scale is static - with enough stimulus in the right spot/rhythm subjects always reach "enlightenment"? :D One thing that would make it feel more natural would be for Her to start off softer, with a gentler sensitivity and gradually build tolerance to rougher stimuli as She gets used to it. It would require the player to watch/listen to her body to provide the most pleasure at any given point and watch out that they don't overdo it. That would probably also require an "overstimulation" mechanic, something like a "negative/pain glow" when the stimulus is too much. I have no idea how difficult that would be to implement though. I feel like anyone who's attracted to this game concept is probably interested in BDSM dynamics in real life, and IRL it's essential to understand consent and communication (throughout, not just at the start) and adjust based on the subject's feedback so everyone has a good time, not just the one who's in control. With the above mechanic the player would be able to develop that interpersonal skill (practiced in your simulations) to real-life scenarios. I fear the lesson they learn (as is) might be that the ideal Dom will incapacitate their subject and keep going at it until She inevitably glows. I feel this change would turn Her from an object into an NPC , and go a long way in de-objectifying women. That's also my main criticism of a lot of adult games, and granted a lot of them are fine with objectifying women. But good BDSM never does that in a dehumanizing way. Yours is already leaps ahead in that regard, at least requiring the player to consider how to provide pleasure to someone, not just pick the cutscene closest to their fantasy.
The second one is a nitpick, but what you did for Him in Canon I felt was lacking for all other subjects. That is, there's not clear enough player feedback once She's reached climax (or maybe I just need to git gud with them haha). I think She twitches when at Her highest glow, and then ragdols for a couple moments before defaulting back to the original state, indicated by a desaturated body hue? In Canon you had both an audio cue as well as the canon itself exploding once He's climaxed. That's probably overkill to implement to each haiku, but compared to that I can hardly tell when She's been satisfied fully.
Can't wait to see what you have in store!
I love low poly games like this, thanks! I think the map boundaries should be more visible, I kept hitting invisible walls until I learned what the play area is. I don't think presents should have collision, if I have elves at my heels I don't want to stop moving when I'm aiming for a present. Or, if that's the point, decrease the elf speed an make me pack the present before collecting or something, so I have to calculate whether I have enough time to stop and pick it up
I love this concept! The game runs very choppy for me, could it be a compatibility issue? I'm running it on Windows 10 (tried Windows 8 comaptibility, seemed to be a bit better but still difficult to play). It's not a gaming laptop but it's got a decent processor (AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx 2.10 GHz). Any ideas as to what could be causing the lag?
Is there a reason why there's a health bar and a "dream" bar separately? Depleting either ends the dream so it seems to me like they could be merged into one (though I haven't gotten to far into the game, might make sense to keep them separate down the line).
I played around half an hour in total so take my feedback with a grain of salt. I'll definitely come back to it but as is it's really hard to play with the choppy visuals.
Can't wait to see where it develops!
I love this! The art style and the blinky snowball are so cute! The inertia of the big ball vs the jumpiness of the small ball are so intuitive. That being said, when I'm an big inert snowball pacing back and forth ever more sluggishly, hoping to amass enough snow to double jump, it can get tedious. It might come later in the game (I couldn't get much far) but I think some levels would benefit from slopes, planned falls down curves that the player has to time before restarting the level to try again (sort of like a Sonic the Hedgehog type of level where you launch youself). I think the horizontality of the game doesn't give the concept enough of a playground. Still very nicely rounded and original, I had fun!
I love the vibe of this game, the graphics and cloth physics seem expertly made. I was getting too often stuck on invisible geometry so I never made it up to the Guardian. I fell down the rocks, got stuck between some trees and gave up. I think either opening the forest to make it less linear or clearly marking the edge of the map would be a great improvement.
It runs smooth. I like quick movement, the NPCs are just as fast so I just have a second or two to react though. If the columns moved (or the map changed in some way) I can imagine this being a fun survival arena. Sorry if there's more than the static map, I don't think I survived longer than a minute any of the runs (sometimes they'd sneak up behind my back). Maybe give the player two or three hits before they die?
I loved exploring the map (until water dropped below 25 and made me sluggish, I think). I'm not entirely clear on how I'm supposed to replenish those. I tried finding my way back to the base and get more nurishment (I suspect that solving the objectives gets me credits for food and water?) but couldn't find my way back.
I wish the pixelation filter was a little less harsh - everything is constantly fuzzy and it's hard to look at the distance. Maybe 50% more depth of view and a crispier surrounding would make it more manageable.
Definitely going to return to this one and follow its development! Great job!
This is such a delight! I did end up walking up air at certain points (when the platforming requires dropping to the far-down platform instead of going up I ended up on an invisible wall somehow). I also fell through geometry a couple of times when the slope/edge suggested I should be able to climb it. Other than that this was a wonderful experience, like climbing a fairytale.
I think I played an earlier version of this game (snowy mountains, not as many heights and fewer terminals). This is definitely an improvement, I enjoyed it all. The flashlight didn't do much for me, I think it only illuminates certain textures while ignoring trees and failing to light a path in the distance. Also I can't seem to understand the NPC logic, what they're attracted to (light, sound or just proximity) and how to avoid detection. Perhaps their lights could change color depending on what state they're in? Like green for idle, yellow when they're on my trace and red when they're actively chasing me?
Ironically while the protagonist was looking for freedom in the hills outside the city, I was trying to break out of bounds and get back into the city lol. I got to the other side of the city-blocking hills and realized there's no ground to stand on there :(
I love this concept and art direction!
As far as gathering clues goes, I think it would be more effective to flip the shadow's replies from "I don't understand what you mean" or "You're not making sense" (odd if I'm giving them back their own words) into something like "You only repeat words without understanding their meaning" and "That's not what this is about". I think it would make the shadow's story feel more like a puzzle the player needs to interact with and decipher to earn another glimpse and earn their next piece of the puzzle in the family's story. The way it is now they seem more confused than cryptic.
Also I think organic hints would be useful (though this is harder to implement) - If I've failed to highlight a key word in a previous passage and continue to focus on useless words, could they reply to a useless word back with that not-fully-utilized passage? Maybe not every time, that would make it too easy, but after two or three misses in a row? Like "It's not about [useless word], you don't follow. [repeat previously unlocked passage with unhighlighted key words]"
I can't wait to see where this concept goes!
I love how the animations flow into one another, and the minimalistic art style really creates a cozy atmosphere. The controls feel weighed down and are slow to react, in spite of all the cool things I can do it doesn't feel good to control. The jumps sometimes lag around a second after the input which makes platforming really hard. I was so surprised when he grabbed the ledge and climbed on top of it, I wasn't expecting that. Also when I actually read what F does I couldn't stop gliding around. I can't wait to see how this develops.