@WinchesterPremium I swear you're probably putting in more effort writing these up than they are making the 'game'. Fun to read though!
There's nothing about Airihi that seems masculine from the hair, the face, or the poorly drawn stiff body stance. Yet their immediate reaction to meeting a man is to internally fume about 'Rancid cis man energy' while they themselves want to be a man and pass so badly. It would be giving the group working on this garbage heap too much credit to think that they may be intentionally being critical of that way of thinking but they're inadvertently doing a fine job of it.
So far it seems like acting like the shitty-spirited people that they are ends with them being utterly miserable or being mocked. If I was trying to entice the market that would want this kind've stuff I'd think they'd do something else.
..Then again this is the group that has spent the lion's share of their kickstarter money on merch for this yet finished Visual Novel.
Malik says there is a trashcan just outside and pulls their hand to show them it. Setting off the alarm with sound effects. Protagonist ends up passing out and wakes up with a mystery mixtape in their pocket.
This is one element of Arihi's storyline that confused me when I played it. Why would the store entrance alarm go off for a pack of ibuprofen, of all things? I'm a Britbong and here ibuprofen costs about 3-4 quid for name brands or like 50p for generic store brand. Not nearly pricey enough to warrant a security tag. Is it more expensive in the US? Is it stolen often enough that CVS BVS pharmacies would normally tag it?
If someone was creating a visual novel, with the intent to be as offensive as possible to as many minorities as possible, what would they do differently from Vali-Date?
If someone was creating a visual novel, with the intent to be as offensive as possible to as many minorities as possible, what would they do differently from Vali-Date?
This is one element of Arihi's storyline that confused me when I played it. Why would the store entrance alarm go off for a pack of ibuprofen, of all things? I'm a Britbong and here ibuprofen costs about 3-4 quid for name brands or like 50p for generic store brand. Not nearly pricey enough to warrant a security tag. Is it more expensive in the US? Is it stolen often enough that CVS BVS pharmacies would normally tag it?
It's basically Tylenol that's sold off the shelf. But if I'm right, those things goes off if the barcode wasn't scanned, but it's essentially an coin toss on whether those actually work
But we do have security devices that will go off, like those spider wraps that Wal Mart uses on their electronics.
If someone was creating a visual novel, with the intent to be as offensive as possible to as many minorities as possible, what would they do differently from Vali-Date?
This is one element of Arihi's storyline that confused me when I played it. Why would the store entrance alarm go off for a pack of ibuprofen, of all things? I'm a Britbong and here ibuprofen costs about 3-4 quid for name brands or like 50p for generic store brand. Not nearly pricey enough to warrant a security tag. Is it more expensive in the US? Is it stolen often enough that CVS BVS pharmacies would normally tag it?
How do you make Malik out to be the worst guy when this one literally does the classic Karen move.
Also: An outfit change has been achieved! ...And it only makes the lack of outfit changes stand out more. Eh, it is a demo still, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of these artists can't make good outfit changes.
I think she meant more in general than specifically the stress of buying things, but she did have an anxiety attack over realizing how repetitive her life is while having a positive conversation about restaurants, so who knows?
I think there are two routes left for me to review/summarize. I'll go with Airihi, the final new character, next. Pronouns are he/him and the only choice is the allegedly straight Malik, so I'm not getting my hopes up for a fade to black here. He doesn't pass despite being a drawing. There is something feminine about his face, between the hairstyle and earnings, that makes him look like a girl. A boyish girl if we're being generous.
The opening finally makes sense now that I know this was originally going to be about a dating app. It seems to be vestigial from that, it looks like you'd originally pick strangers from a list rather than having them on your phone for some reason. Presumably the story would actually integrate the opening too. Here we get a strange rant about how friendship is a scam. The title is "Two Assholes walk into a store", so presumably we're not supposed to agree with either of their behavior. Another new writer, Oscar Gao. Lets see if he follows the same formula as the others did. I'm betting he will.
Our protagonist starts by complaining about their normal supportive family having raised them. We then get some character building about how he likes marriage counseling because he gets to see other people's problems and can pretend they have worse lives than him. He then attempts...and fails...to pick up a bottle of ibuprofen (name not changed!). Three times. He spills them over the floor and Malik breaks the cash-register-curse to come out of nowhere and helps pick it up. You get the choice to thank him or to be a jerk for literally no reason. I picked be a jerk and our protagonist flips out demanding not to be touched. This surprisingly isn't leading to a bad end and our protagonist apologizes and blames their behavior on being sick. The protagonist blatantly checks out Malik and Malik comments on this.
Next choice in this "dating sim": Just walk away or You're Not My Type. I put Just Walk Away and the protagonist says they have to throw away their trash at home. Alone (?), Malik says there is a trashcan just outside and pulls their hand to show them it. Setting off the alarm with sound effects. Protagonist ends up passing out and wakes up with a mystery mixtape in their pocket.
Rollback to "your not my type". Malik demands a fistbump, which protag refuses to provide due to being sick. Malik insists until he gets fist-to-fist contact. I'm pretty sure this next line was posted here before, but...
So far the protagonist has been a jerk and this is probably intended to go along with that personality, but still. Malik asks if she likes music.
"Nothing is stopping you from hurting this man.
Maybe the Law. But that's about it."
Malik offers him a mixtape and protagonist tries to ditch him. Malik says he's being nice because protagonist is clearly into him, and uses the "bro kinda gay" line from the previews.
"God. Has there ever been a man more worthy of being punched in the face? You're a pacifist but..."
Protag walks away...and somehow finds a mystery mixtape in his pocket. Lol.
"This week, you have a burning hatred for cis men"
Protagonist goes on a rant about how all the men at her job are terrible and if he had a wife he'd be a total Nice Guy who'd be the best husband ever and treat woman with respect. Protag gets an outfit changes and head over to Bopeyes. We get a mention of Emhari, a character who isn't implemented in the demo, in the first vague hints that people other than the two focus characters actually exist. Malik isn't as lucky, and gets described as being in an orange uniform despite clearly being in his casual cloths. Protag goes to order chicken and they have some banter. He, unprompted by anything, thinks he's better than Malik since he works fast food and brags about have three masters. In an actually kinda funny comeback, Malik pretends to mistake these for BDSM masters.
Malik calls her a bitch (the actually word, rather than just implying) and says he is the manager. Karen here thinks internally about how he is still better than Malik (lol). Malik asks protag to rate his disrespect out of ten giving us our next choice: 7 or you just lost a customer. I picked the customer one because the others recommended it, Malik calls the protagonist a drama queen and he's #triggered because that is a feminine term and misgendering him and he passes and the protagonist goes into a tirade about how he's going to ruin Malik's life. Malik casually kicks the protagonist out. Small children laugh at him and he cries.
Picking the other option, protag calms down and thinks he isn't as bad as the dudes she works with. He really hates those dudes. So He orders chicken and we immediately get to the next choice: Tip 10% or 20%. I'm picking 10% cuz I'm cheap. The protagonist continues being a jerk and goes on a rant about how they don't have to be nice to strangers, another bad end with the protagonist crying.
So I hit 20% and the protagonist complains on how his parents taught him never to pay that much for tip. "You really wish your parents didn't believe so wholeheartedly in capitalism". Protag sits down and pulls out the mixtape CD just in time for Malik to show up and talk about it. They get in another almost amusing one liner referencing the earlier conversation ("So am I an eight not? A nine? Twelve?" "Yes, I would gauge you at twelve years old"). Malik steals a piece of chicken from Arihi (lol). Then protag promises to listen to the mixtape and we get an epilogue saying maybe they'll be friends.
The end! Malik fails to pull of a hat trick, thus far he has only been able to sleep with the fat chicks. Put that in a rap song. They barely screech by with a friendship. They spend the entire time antagonistic to each other for literally no reason, the protagonist is a jerk with no hope of improvement. Having said that the character interaction is slightly better IMO, while it is quippy and consists mostly of trading barbs they're at least playing off each other and responding even to past conversations. The main protagonist is developed as a terrible person, but at least they're developed. While I'm faintly praising the game I should mention that the soundtrack isn't bad. Its kinda elevator musicy, but its just generic rather than being offensively terrible. The characters still have no chemistry and there is no story aside from the characters, but as above it didn't stand out as much since there wasn't really any relationship. I could almost see it developing into a tsundere thing, but it is pretty clear that isn't the angle they're going with. I'll give him credit for being less formulaic as well, though it doesn't really deviate that far it at least changes the order from "Go to get chicken, meet guy, date" to "Meet guy, go to get chicken".
Everyone's character consists 20% of quirks, 30% of hobbies, 50% of flaws. Thus far Malik has been the closest to a normal person, and that is mostly because the flaws are all in the internal monologue. They didn't decide to make anyone an outright good person thus far.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but a dating game based around pairing up other people instead of a strictly self insert fantasy sounds kind of neat. Like expanding the support system of Fire Emblem games (which is what most modern players play it for, lets be real) into their own game. I just wish it was done by someone competent.
Also, I didn't see anybody point out from the kickstarter that it says there's supposed to be 'over 30 routes' across 20-30 hours of gameplay? That's less than an hour per route.
Nah, Divinity Original Sin 2 has that feature and it's pretty cool. You can design your own character or choose one of your would be companions to play as instead, and then romance your companions as that character. You even get different dialogue options. But, yeah, we deserve much better games with that feature.
Y'know, I used to jokingly ask how these types of folks went about dating. But with each route of this demo I'm coming to realize that they're so socially inept that they literally don't understand how courtship works. Heck, I don't think they understand how building friendships works. And that baffles me to my core, to the same level as coming across grown ass adults that literally don't know how to use a broom or wash a dish because they've "never done it before" (which is a whole other rant I won't get into here).
So...what? Have these people seriously not interacted with other human beings growing up? Are they so self-centered that they never took the time to truly understand how other people work? Do they seriously know nothing of icebreakers, small talk, and flirting? Do they really not know how to connect with other people on any meaningful level at all??
I mean, I'm an awkward, antisocial loser with zero interest in relationships of any sort that DID avoid human interaction growing up, and even I understand the hows and whys of this shit!
they really did make ahiri an absolute karen stereotype. bitter, angry, confrontational for no reason whatsoever, judgmental, and rude to minimum wage employees
thank you validate team for proving that the karen mindset is not limited to only whites. truly groundbreaking smashing of stereotypes
Finally caved in and am playing the demo right now. Anoki spergs about her trauma two whole times. Life is whack. For a dating sim, it's pretty boring and way too heavyhanded. On the first date too? Is this actually their first date, or?
Really seems like this is a bunch of bored artists playing with their OCs. The story is both bland and dumb, the characters are all assholes in various ways, there's no direction whatsoever. There's nothing but art. And merch, which means more art. So much unwanted art.
You know this is a group that is still angry that their self insert transgender coffeshop One Direction fanfic/fanart on Wattpad didn't get the respect they felt they deserved.
