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I tried to play twisted scene but it just didn’t gel with me personally. Idk I’m kind of a grammar snob in a way, so if I see sentences that don’t make sense I sort of tune off (that’s no hate to the author btw as I could NEVER write in another language that wasn’t my own!!) I did like the Italian RO called gia tho, he was cute :slight_smile:

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Same thing happened with me in Twisted Scene, the grammar and the writing style put me off the first time so I didn’t finish the demo. I came back later, played the whole demo and enjoyed it!
I’m gonna romance the ex best friend with the crappy attitude. Unfortunately, gestures to him and Seven it seems that I have a type.

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I can usually hack it if I know that an author doesn’t speak English natively. Writing in a second language is tough.

But if it’s an English speaking author who can’t seem to get a handle on English, then I start having concerns - I don’t outright drop the story, because it might be a case of someone trying to work through a disability and I don’t want to be an asshole, but I do start getting wary.

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I usually romance all the ros with different mcs because fomo :upside_down_face: as for Victoria I feel sorry for her too, and since the game forces me to meddle in her marriage, most of my mcs always end up helping her in the apartment scene with G.

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Okay so I come bearing my uncalled-for opinion regarding the night market ros, now that a mixture of boredom and health issues gave me an excuse to read the story. Aside from a variety of issues with the game I personally had, which I won’t discuss at length since this is not the place for that, can I just say that I disagree with the consensus that the male ros are assholes? If anything, I could understand someone telling me they’re boring. Cause Gabriel especially felt like a drag at the start, before he became a standard ro (for my taste.)
Obviously the uh circumstances at the start do paint him like an asshole, but sadly I’m not the best judge of character cause 1) spoilers spoilers 2) I still plan to romance characters such as Leon lol.

Oh and also, regarding the issue people have with MCs feeling too much like something unmovable, let me say my two cents: I dislike when readers complain about xyz, because ultimately the MC is a character in the world you’re meant to follow. However, given the nature of these games, I don’t think it’s fair to not give your audience at least the bare minimum in terms of freedom. Example: I don’t like the night market mc, they feel too set in stone (it feels as if choices don’t really matter) while I love Sidestep, who obviously has a path to follow while also giving the reader a lot of flexibility regarding their personality, how they act and think etc. etc.

Apologies for breaking up the current talk, I shall now go read the fifty-something replies I missed sdfjsk. Also I should probably check out infamous huh. :eyes:

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In general, I don’t see a point of writing RO that WILL romance another RO or regular character if MC don’t pick them up. Of course, there are exceptions when it makes sense (when political marriage is a thing in a setting or story spans an entire lifetime or it’s a big plot point, etc), but usually it adds nothing to work except problems for various groups of readers.

True, but there are other ways to achieve this. If RO romancing another character not directly a vital part of the plot, then it not add anything unique that would be lost if the author did not make it that way.

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It’s fine, we kind of did take over the thread to talk crap about Seven for a bit too long :smile: You should check out Infamous, for all my complaints about Seven, it’s a fun game and I really enjoy it!
After all the talk about Night Market, I went and tried out the demo and yeesh. Milo isn’t bad but thats just because it’s only the demo and he hasn’t ripped out my organs or whatever. As for Gabriel… he does kind of do a turn around for no reason after threatening to sell us for body parts. He irritated me alot but what was worse was that he just didn’t care when my MC insulted him or was rightfully angry at him. Like hitting a brick wall.

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I went into Infamous planning to do a Seven route, but after seeing how they treated my MC (who voted to keep Seven in the band and generally tried to be nice, conciliatory and apologetic at all times) as an emotional punching bag honestly I’m glad they broke up. Like I could understand if Seven was giving as good as they got, but at this point I think they owe my MC an apology (at minimum) way more than the other way around.

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If anything, I like this, characters are written the best when they have their own thoughts and actions outside the MCs involvement

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It’s so funny that you say that the Night Market MC is set in stone because that (and Milo Next) are why I dropped that IF haha. I read a lot of it (up to chapter nine? ten?) months ago and I stopped when I realized how little “choice” we really have in the story or the romances. Especially when compared to works like TGR or FH that feel like true interactive fiction where the PC is a fluid, believable and moving character in an alive world.

I’ve noticed that a lot of WIPs are popping up and I think that’s amazing but truly - some of them, like The Night Market, would be better served as a linear story. Milo Next is the only IF RO that has genuinely given me major ick lol.

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Hoooooo boy when you see Gabriel :joy: I would argue Gabriel is significantly worse, though at least you know what he is like from the beginning if you refuse to lie. I still can’t believe Leon got beat on my ‘most hated RO’ rankings, I never thought that possible. (There are probably worse ROs out there, but I generally don’t read books that I know going in I won’t like, so usually I wouldn’t get far enough to feel one way or another.)

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Ahhh. Honestly, I found Gabriel boring so I didn’t intend on doing his route. So it was interesting to read your thoughts on him. My plan after Milo was to do Hazel’s route but unfortunately I never made it that far and never will because I won’t be returning to that series.

Also the Leon love/hate cycle is one of my favorite things on this forum haha. I kind of love to hate Leon but I can’t say the same for Milo.

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If you are curious, this was my initial reaction when I opened to play the fnished game, I hadn’t checked it out since I read the demo and romanced Gabriel (who was apparently significantly changed in final release to be… much… much crueler. And less realistic. For some reason?)

The thread goes on for almost 100 posts where we talked about the Night Market in detail. But safe to say… Y I K E S

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The longer this thread goes on, I’m more convinced that some people just really can’t handle any amount of character conflict

I’ve always been confused by how contentious of a thing this is, and why people take such an issue with it. The way some people talk about it here, they make it sound like it taints or ruins the purity of their romance route. It’s a level of character possessiveness that is super off putting to me. Makes it seem less like they’re allowed to be characters and more that they just should be dolls for the reader to smoosh together

Like, maybe it’s because I’ve done this song and dance over a decade ago when it comes to video games, but I live for characters that have lives outside of an MCs orbit, that have relationships of all stripes with others in the cast. I want characters to make actions that make sense to them, in service of themselves and the story, not just to be puppets strung to a players fingers

This isn’t even touching some of the… out of pocket assumptions people are making about authors as people. Like the assumptions something must be wrong with the author because they wrote something that makes you uncomfortable, or that character actions are something the author personally condones. Like I get it, a thread to vent out about characters you don’t like, it’s gonna invite some people saying things out of frustration, but it’s still inching way too close to that moral puritanism that’s festering in a lot of literature circles

Also also, the assumption that authors should just write novels instead of IFs. There’s room for all sorts in the medium. As an example, Hideo Kojima makes very cinematic and story heavy video games, and people often trot out the “he wants to make movies” critique. No, he wants to make games, a very specific sort of game, and none of his work would translate to a different medium. He uses the medium in a very specific way, and that’s fine. It’s not gonna be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s the same here. It’s limiting to the medium to say “it has to be X way.” Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s own merits

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My issue would not be the relationship itself but rather if it is written with the intent of flaunting and saying ‘haha isn’t this making you jealous? You (as the character) are jealous, right now. You must be! There is no other way to feel about this situation!’ Like, a character starting a relationship with someone else? Great! An RO starting a relationship to make you jealous? I’m down for that too! But then-- This is the really important part for me. Forcing the MC to be jealous about it would be a step too far.

Let my MC be indifferent! Let them find it childish, let them point out how they want to date them even less for it, or flirt with someone else in response. A range of responses for this kind of thing feels really important since it’s an element of characterisation that will really matter to a lot of people. At least, that is how I feel.

Mind you, I haven’t read Infamous enough to make a judgement on that specific WIP, but that would definitely put me off to be told how my character should feel about that kind of thing. Specifically, being forced to mourn your relationship even after you make a choice saying you had moved on would push my buttons in all the wrong ways.

Response to @RenataC :

Oh no the people in the “ROs that you hate” thread are saying things about ROs that they hate

:skull:

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Oh no the people in the “ROs that you hate” thread are saying things about ROs that they hate

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Yes, big surprise there, huh? I tend to avoid threads about topics I don’t like, but that’s just me…

And, OMG, people think that having a MC that is too locked in, forced to be a punching bag, and has almost no choices in anything they do makes for a miserable experience and is better fitted to a novel, rather than an IF… umm… I guess that opinion isn’t allowed anymore?

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This is more for the disliked mechanics thread, but the main issue (among others) you have with games you don’t like is the amount of branching paths and lack of choices that would give you some flavor text to read?

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Unironically, I wish I had an RO who was more of a piece of work, so I could justify having a ‘we are done here’ scene at some point in the future to allow for the freedom of just… Leaving the relationship. I don’t think it would have the same catharsis just having the option to end a pretty normal relationship.

This is more for the disliked mechanics thread, but the main issue (among others) you have with games you don’t like is the amount of branching paths and lack of choices that would give you some flavor text to read?

No, in general it’s more about being forced to be treated poorly by an RO, you are locked in so even if you get the chance to end the relationship you can’t start a new one… And even then, usually instead you don’t have that choice at all. Instead, you are always treated like garbage and never aloud to voice a complaint or be enraged. You just as a character are forced to accept how you are being treated.

We can agree to disagree, but I definitely see this as a character writing issue more than I see it as a mechanical or branching issue. The issue is the assumption that the main character will be okay with these things, not just the ‘amount of branches’ or something of that nature.

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Well, yeah. That generally enters into the branching path category and meaningful choices, and choices that give you flavor text to read.