They bring up a lot of genuine criticisms, but they also seemed to have missed/misread a lot. One thing that I find hampers their review severely is that they said they played 7(?) times but didn’t romance anyone. Now I get that the beginning misrepresents the game a little bit, but if you read the description, you’d see that it’s a romance game about vampires (honestly there are a lot of problems they had that could have been solved by reading the description). The ENTIRE game/series is designed with romance in mind. If you don’t want romance, then why are you playing a romance game?
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To be blunt, it’s generous to call this piece a “review.” I say this not in defense of Wayhaven, because I think its overwhelming acclaim and reception speaks for itself, and I also don’t think it needs me to defend it. Regardless of intra-fandom interactions, I like to think this forum encourages constructive criticism and feedback, so I’m not criticizing out of a personal bias towards the story (I still haven’t read the second book).
But a review is supposed to be a formal or critical examination or appraisal of a piece, usually with advice to the prospective readers or buyers about their decision to read/buy the piece, and almost always with actionable, constructive points that can in turn be appraised and potentially countered and argued against.
Pretty much all of this is ranting and venting, not a review. There aren’t many points you can counter because they’re so couched in personal preference, subjective opinion, and mostly vitriol and anger. It is a lot of words for something that could be boiled down more succinctly, and for that reason I believe it’s more of a emotional “rant” than a legitimate review. It reads as more of a way to get clicks by inciting fans’ ire—in other words, clickbait—and does not seem to be written as an actual review meant to convince or advise readers to go one way or another.
I am very much enjoying Brian Rushton’s —another COG author—reviews of the COG catalog!
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I mean, I’ve already opened it. Not much I can do about it now, except be prepared to get slammed for it. I walked into this knowing exactly what I was bringing down on myself, too late for me to regret it now.
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Can’t deny that. Getting me worked up enough over a story to make me go to this length means it was still engaging, otherwise I would’ve just dropped a one star and moved on with my life instead of playing it so many times for the saying “familiarity breeds contempt” to catch me red-handed.
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It’s a matter of personal opinion, ultimately. I’ve made mine known, there are plenty of people here who think opposite of me. Only way to know for sure which is correct to you is to experience it yourself and make your own decisions, which you have done.
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On a total sidenote, if you’re going to respond to multiple people you might want to make it 1 post with @insertusername before each response just to clean things up a bit.
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To that question, I ask this: If the author wanted me to have a romance, why did they include the option to opt out?
I’m aware that it’s a vampire romance story. I’m also aware that I found none of the romance options very appealing, and the author gave me the option to not engage. If me choosing that option 99% of the time (I romanced Nat precisely once, and it was a thoroughly unsatisfactory experience) means I’m playing the game wrong, or shouldn’t be playing it, then why does the option of opting out even exist in the first place?
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Just chill out. It’s fiction. We all got preferences. I’m not a Wayhaven super fan or anything, far from it. I massively respect Wayhaven’s author because of their writing abilities, even if romance isn’t my biggest thing. I agree that the detective aspects were never fleshed out, much to my own disappointment as well.
But remember, it’s all fiction. It’s fake. Not real. These characters do not exist. This plot never really happened. It was written by a passionate person for your enjoyment (and money but money is good so shrug). They were under no obligation to write this in the first place.
Chill out. Seriously. Don’t post “reviews” like this if you don’t want to get slammed. It wasn’t really a review. It came off as a rant. Express your opinion. Don’t be a dick. That’s like… rule number one in my book. Being a dick just makes your point seem invalid, even if you did have many valid points in your rant, they are overshadowed by the sheer meanness of the whole post.
I’ve seen this on a lot of steam reviews. You were most likely emotional at the time of writing, and all that managed to do is make your points less valid. If you just calmed down, took a breath, chilled out and then made a nice, organized, rational review, nobody would have cared.
You shoulda seen this coming. Now you don’t just have the Wayhaven fans against you, but basically the entire community. If you just calmed down, none of this drama would have happened.
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Honestly, I think that’s because of the overwhelming need to be inclusive that is present in the forum/company. It’s a great idea, but it does lead to some games adding in options, that otherwise wouldn’t be there, just to satisfy everyone (and often failing to do so). When people see that a game has something they don’t want, or doesn’t have something they do want, the pushback is pretty big. The mods and leaders are trying their best, but this is the internet so there will always be someone.
The amount of times I’ve seen someone go on a rant about gender-locking or romance-locking(?) is crazy.
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Might be too late for you to take it back, but it’s never too late to reflect. “Pride comes before a fall” as the proverb goes. Doubling down isn’t a good look, but defusing and admitting fault sincerely almost never fails.
And as for this question:
Probably because of genre expectation. There’s a lot of people uninterested in romance who play these games. It’s fair to critique unsatisfactory non-romantic routes, but the why is a given for choice games in my perspective.
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Honestly, I don’t really care how good or bad the blog is. It’s for me to fart around in whenever I get a wild hair up my ass, and nothing more. I think it was more residual anger that made me decide to post this here, and I’ve had a bit to cool down from that now.
I think one slip that some readers (and even writers) tend to make is assuming that because they don’t like a character, it means the character is badly written. In this critique, you suggest that all of the characters (except the ones you like) are badly written, because they’re mean, rude, annoying, a brown-noser, careless, etc. You not liking a character because of their character flaws doesn’t mean it’s a badly-written character - it just means that you dislike them.
Further, critiquing the games as if they were mystery novels/action games rather than romance games negates a lot of your points. Of course the author wants you to know that the story will change if you don’t choose a character to romance - because that is the purpose of the game. To review it as if the purpose is not to pursue a romance is disingenuous.
The author chose to design the game so that you won’t “lose” or die or fail out for making bad decisions. The stats are still helpful, and used for determining the outcome of your actions, but not in such a pass/fail way as you might see in an RPG title. Again, this doesn’t mean that the game is bad just because you don’t like it. Most people playing a romance game don’t want to fail out of the story, so it wouldn’t make sense to allow the player to fail. This is a game design choice, not a failure of design, as you have indicated.
Still referencing Twilight every time you talk about vampires? I feel like we’ve all gotten over Twilight being the epitome of cringe culture. Actually, I’d argue that cringe is dying. We can all like what we like now.
It seems like a lot of this critique is based on your misunderstanding of the genre. While you are free to rant about whatever you like on your personal blog, labeling this as a review or a critique is very misleading. You have done no work in this blog post to understand the basic mechanics of the game, the genre that it is a part of, or the audience that it appeals to.
I would suggest you retitle this “SC Rants,” which is a much more honest appraisal of what you’ve written here. To call it a critique is essentially false, because you have not offered any critical analysis of the game, nor any actionable suggestions for its improvement. You can flame all you want, but I’d suggest being more honest with the titles of your content.
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Oh no worries, I absolutely saw this coming. This post was made full in the knowledge of how people would respond. I am calmer now, and I get that I’ve probably shot myself in the foot considerably, but as I said in another reply, it’s too late for me to be regretting it now. It’s out there, I could apologize a hundred times and somebody will still find this post, read the blog post, and without seeing a single comment in this thread, tell me to go fuck myself. Only thing to do now is be ready for the backlash already in progress.
So you wrote that blog post, knowing people would rest negatively.
And then published that blog post, knowing people would rest negatively.
And then you wrote up this post on the forums, knowing people would rest negatively.
And then you attached the link, knowing people would rest negatively.
And then you pressed publish, knowing people would rest negatively.
Why would you do that. You had so many opportunities to not. It was not worth it.
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Well I’ll say this about you dude: posting this, on this forum, about this game, at this point in time is pretty f*cking ballsy. So at the very least, respect 
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Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It’s already done at this point, all the “why I did” or “why I didn’t” talk at this point is pretty moot. I did it, and I’m reaping what I’ve sowed, that’s the part that matters.
I did notice that I happened to post this right as the author debuted a preview of the third story, which was completely unintended on my part.
Lampshading an error does not make it less an error. Awareness is not the same as self-awareness. So, some worries you might say. 
Sure they might. But I do notice that you haven’t actually apologized. Not once. You could always give it a whirl regardless. Because contrary to what you said, that’s the part that matters.
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Sorry, but pretty sure this is exactly what you were aiming for. You were looking for a fight when you posted this here… but haven’t yet got one. Sucks to write 12000 words and not get the response you were looking for I guess? 
Who exactly has been “slamming” you for your review? Maybe need to take the feedback you’ve been getting constructively instead of continuing on the angry train. If you’re going to give advice, be prepared to receive it too.
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I mean, he shouldn’t have to apologize for giving his opinion, crazy as it might be. If people don’t like it, just file it under all the other reviews they don’t like that EVERY game gets.
I’m pretty sure the Playstore is known for trashing CoG with bad reviews and being otherwise unhelpful, so it’s not that uncommon. @my.quothy.raven Now I’d advise him(?) against antagonizing people repeatedly, but he’s free to dig his own grave.
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