A review with some perspective, some anger, and some hopefully constructive criticism.
I don't think I need to reiterate what everyone's said about the minigames, but I do need to summarize the comments to support mine. The game is frustrating, bewildering with no context, no clues, no mercy, repetitive, and thus ultimately rage quiting inducing. Except for a smaller percent who seem to like them. If this is the developers desired response, to engender hatred and get the majority to ignore/block their game, a niche game for an already niche genre... That's cool. The dev should probably warn people IN THE GAME, in the beginning, with a non-skippable question of acceptance, that this is a game of frustrating puzzles, designed to make you feel negative emotions towards the game as part of the narrative experience... That would help the negative feedback and still allow for the targetted audience to find and give it a try. This is an _insanely_ common sense issue in game development across the board... The game, and game loop, need to be _fun_ for the targetted audience, while making sure the target audience are the ones seeing and reviewing it.
So... constructive criticism #1: Put warnings, everywhere, that this game is NOT for the casual spank bank, that this game is meant for the feelings, is dark, and is designed to invoke those things in the gamer's mind.
Timing. Timed anything, but timing. Why put a picture on the screen you want people to see, in the narrative and spoil it with a minigame? Once I realized there were timed aspects, I stopped looking at the visuals if the timer popped up _immediately_ since that's the only way to proceed. this is a VISUAL novel and pictures speak a 1000 words... and if I'm not looking at your picture because I'm trapped into a minigame immediately, or without a pause to consume at the end... you're DOING IT WRONG. Sorry for the strong language, but this is a VISUAL NOVEL format, not a creepypasta, and not a horror flick, its the combination of the two. And lewd. Cause ultimately, that's what folks are here for.
Constructive criticism #2: Keep your audience's focus on the right thing, at the right time, with time to be individual about the advancement... want a timed puzzle to up the edgy frustration? Do that, but make the pay-off worth it, or put the picture up as a step, then let the player launch into the minigame.
Clever-puzzles but blind-stupid. This is a hard one to explain, unless you already understand it, but its also VITAL that any narrative author must understand... film, book, poem, game... you have to understand that just cause you think something is obvious, intuitive, simple, easy, common sense... doesn't mean everyone will think the same way you do. This is CRUCIAL for any narrative device designed to keep the user under suspense. Fuck, I'm gonna date myself on this but... back in the old days, when there wasn't an internet, we had narrative games that had puzzles too... Zork comes to mind. There was one puzzle that I could NOT figure out... I even wrote the game dev (snail mail... they responded with some hints even)... and even with his hints, I never got the puzzle figured out by myself. I eventually had to buy a book of walkthroughs "yes, that long ago" only to find out that the answer was insanely simple if you thought like the dev and obviously been thinking... but without any context and no clues... I would _never_ have figured it out....
Constructive criticism #3: You have to assume your audience does NOT think like you, does NOT get how clever you are, or how clever the puzzle/pun/trick/etc is... They're not stupid, they just aren't in your headspace when you thought up the puzzle... The weren't looking at the periodic table and going "I could encode a message with elements!" so don't understand the string of numbers is supposed to map to the elements to spell out the secret password... They just got home from a job, PTA, etc and are trying to relax by playing a game... So what does that entail... up to you. There are literally gamedev courses about this topic, and "release valves" or "clue loops" and "shifting mind spaces" but... generally... you've had the feedback about the game, and its very clear that the people playing the game, are not thinking like you did when designing/writing it out. Get them there like whodunnit's and suspenseful thrillers/drama's do in movies and books. Or find other ways. See what works about various "puzzler" games in the wild... and the indy's that flopped. An example... each puzzle success has a pay-off... strip poker games come to mind as a brutal example.
Narrative devices and writing courses. Look into them. Look into things like Catharsis in theatrical terms, where an some cases an audience has had their negative emotions so saturated that they start laughing at the drama... It's why Shakespeare inbeds humor into all of his dramas, and dramatic story lines in all of his comedy... Humans do weird things when they hit emotional limits. Understand that things like stressors are multiplicative, while tension is best done in waves and slow builds. There was no break in the tension, no pause or relief valve, and you kept ratcheting it up, timed minigames, missed pictures, confusing game play, hidden story, characters under extreme stress... and the player has no break, no relief valve, no way to untighten the shoulders... But you know the universal relief valve with media is? Close the book, storm out of the theater, rage quit the video game... and then go bitch and moan about it on the internet. Which is reinforced feel-good (and thus tension breaking) when other's chime in "yeah, yeah I rage quit too!"
Constructive criticism #4: You're almost certainly a freetime dev, doing this more out of passion and idea, than for money or as a "job." And in a genre that is... yeah. So a lot of slack is going to be given to any dev... But if you're going to go off the expected, you're going to get more push-back... example, if you put NTR in a game, you guarantee extreme reactions from the vast majority of the fanbase. At the same time, if you're going to go off the well beaten (all pun intended) path... you're going to need to understand the narrative process and how authors have through-out time, made their content work. An example of one way I think, and this is strictly my opinion, take it or leave it as just that... but you started out in a confusing state, and one that was narratively framed as sympathetic to the abused girl, and so each additional abuse, each additional frustrating puzzle, just adds onto the building tension.... but if you'd started the game off with the brat being her bratty self, in a bright, vibrant setting, clearly being an abusive little shit... THEN go to the dark room and dark-maze, you start the player off mixed on their feelings, going from "fuck this brat" to "huh... is she getting her cum-uppance" to "woah... whats going on?" and its a gradual slow-motion rug-pull. Which is different from quick little music quip that's 4th wall breaking so the audience thinks its the "author's word" not who the character is, then straight to darkness, clearly abducted and abused little girl who is confused, lonely, etc... and the only thing the audience can feel is for her plight, etc... Point is... you're intentionally choosing the hardcore mode (all pun intended) of being an author, but you need to know and understand the game well before you're going to be successful.... assuming people liking and wanting to play your game is what you're after.
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If you get this far, well done, congrats. I _deliberately_ structured this review to be tension building without comedic break. No smilies to break tension, no jokes, puns, soothing anecdotes, or otherwise things that break the constant,. drilling, tension. If only I could have added a timer on, that deleted the post to you and only you, when you first started reading it. Just more, and more negativity, no break, no relenting, no interspaced praise or acknoledging you done good at all. I did this for effect, hopefully, it holds a mirror up.
But I took time, and effort writing this up, and in the style I chose... why?
I see a lot of potential... you had me hooked into the story right up until I rage quit the game and swore I'd delete it. I like _good_ dark games, ones where things are mixed... where boundaries are grey all around, and you can accept bad shit happening for a potential greater good or redemption... Not sure, sorry didn't play through, but the scene with the bananna and milk, REALLY hit me strong as her hallucinating "bad things" into "good things" so she didn't realize she was sucking dick and being creamfaced... that she was that broken, a 5 lights, not 4 lights, breakdown. (If you WERE aiming for that kind of thing, well fucking done) You've got clear, raw talent, and I suspect if you stayed "in lane" (fuck staying in lane... but there are advantages...) you'd have a successful visual novel going on. But if you're going to go off on this path very much less travelled... do yourself a favor and consider what I said.
And no matter what I've said, no matter how you take it, know and understand that I salute you, I applaud you, and I admire you, for simply having the guts and the chutzpah to do the work you've already done. Make no bones about it, just doing what you've done should be a mark of pride... those of us who critize... have almost certainly never done... So stand tall, be proud of the work you've done, just never so proud that you think it can't be made better.
Edit- Thought about it... ignore any criticism from anyone who bitches about the AI art... first, its really well done, world class well done. second.... ffs... I'm old enough to remember ASCII porn and Laura Crofts massive triangles being fapbait... I can generate AI art... but making it good enough that you can tell a coherent story with images close enough that continuity stays? That's fucking amazing talent.
Edit 2, electric boogaloo- Before anyone points me to the mods... 1. didn't know they existed b4 I played the game, and rage quit it, 2. I don't believe mods should be necessary, and 3. if I need a mod to "fix" the dev's narrative... that speaks VOLUMES about things...
))) Even there are AI images, and it bother someone with untying game, for me that mini-game don`t bring any trouble to go through and was as extra to the plot. Anyway.
