New Heart's Choice Game! "Never Date Werewolves" -- Raise werewolf cubs while seeking true love!

Loved it! I know it’s ironic after all my bemoaning about the lack of M/F content on HC but it’s definitely the female specific MC games between this and Pirates Pleasure that I have enjoyed most so far. Having two solid romances with developed backgrounds definitely works better than eight generalised ones. The kids interactions and non romance content is also fantastic.

Now if I can basically do my own version of this in… I dunno, Galway but with Sentient Dinosaurs and Martians, I will be on a winner! :grin:

I know, if you were I definitely wouldn’t be enjoying the game lol. But my character is still sexually attracted to a man when the description said you could be a lesbian, and attracted to other characters in general when it says you can be ace. It’s a little jarring.

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I agree, but they should maybe change the description of the next kind of these kind of games. You can’t be lesbian and ace, because your main character is by default always (physically) attracted to at least two of the love interest.

So maybe date just write date men, women, etc…

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This game, in particular was restricted because of it being a short-story.

The more choice you want to give, the more broad (and wordy) a game becomes. Zombie Exodus and Safe Haven are a poster-child example.

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Again, the problem is not with the game. At least not for me. I understand why a romance game needs to have the MC attracted to the romance options.

It’s the DESCRIPTION of the game. This blurp:

  • Play as genderlocked female; gay, straight, bi or asexual.
    They just need to find another way to say this ^, for further games.
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This was so cute I really enjoyed it!

First of all, I like the premise of the game. The kids were amazing and lovely, Ayaan was a wonderfully supportive friend and probably the best adult character of the story. The writing did flow nicely for the most part and I appreciate the subtle humour and the portrayed difficulties and feelings of a mother of six werewolf kids.

I had my problems though, which are naturally mostly of subjective nature. I put most of them under cuts because they are full of spoilers, and it’s quite lengthy. If you don’t want to read my thoughts, then you don’t have to this way and it doesn’t clutter the thread unnecessarily.

For one, I agree with @DreamingGames that the description of “be gay, straight, bi or asexual” does not fit. Almost by nature of the story, the MC is bisexual as she will always be physically attracted to Chafiq and has been in a relationship with the kids’ father years earlier, so you can’t quite play her as strictly gay. You can go for the straight approach by avoiding flirting with Ayaan and making Alix male, that is true. The other way around doesn’t quite work.

The "asexual" tag

I am aware that there are different types of asexuals, the range is wide. However, for me it was incredibly awkward just how horny the MC is when she first meets Chafiq and Alix and on their second scenes (bandaging Alix’ arm, Chafiq doing the dishes). When MC first meets Chafiq, one of her kids just fell down the stairs and is crying. MC still has room in her thoughts to check out and physically admire Chafiq in great detail, which seemed incredibly odd to me. Couldn’t have this waited until things have calmed down and they were outside? Just relocating that to when they stand in front of the house would have made that less awkward for me. The way MC is overly attracted to Alix on their first meeting was also odd to me, it felt as if MC wanted to eat them up right there on the spot cause they are ‘so cute’.

Again, there are different types of asexuals, some would perhaps react like this. To me though, “asexual” doesn’t simply mean you don’t want to have sex right of the bat with a person you basically just met. To me, it has also to do with sexual attraction not being the first thing coming to mind when meeting a person, definitely not in the great detail that MC displayed. My personal understanding and experience as being asexual doesn’t quite work with this type of fast paced short-stories. Sure, I will read a character’s physical description to see who I am drawn to more, but never on this level of horniness as the MC does. And I usually want to see more of the character’s personality, getting to know them before I decide, which is naturally at odds with this type of story and thus on me.

In summary, what DreamingGames said. The sexuality descriptors don’t seem to fit which can lead to reactions like “the description says MC can be lesbian. MC is clearly not lesbian as she is automatically attracted to men without giving me the choice to examine him neutrally or sexually.”
An idea for similar future titles might be to give the player an option like “what do you see?” and then let them choose whether they see an incredibly attractive person or use more neutral descriptons. I don’t think that this would make the story any more wordy

The pacing

The pacing overall also felt too quick. You meet Chafiq and Alix twice in a day, and the next day they invite you to a date and confess their utmost emotional secrets to you. I know that other stories take place over a short span of time as well (Evertree Inn for example) but they felt less awkward to me in terms of getting to know the characters.

As I said, that’s a subjective thing. I understand what Eiwynn means with the story being restricted as it is a short story. Still, personally I would have appreciated a slightly slower pace, not just a few days span of time to actually get to know these characters in a more natural way.

The ROs

Ayaan is in my opinion the single best romance and character in this game simply because she’s supported MC for years already, is a wonderful friend and also there for the kids. She stays great throughout the entire story.

Chafiq for me starts out relatively strong (saves your kid, checks up on you when he fears you’re attacked), but gets weaker as soon as the date takes place. He does have a reason to be mistrustful of werewolves, and it’s nice to have the option to storm off right there when he says that. However in the end, too little happens to have him experience that werewolves are good people as well or that humans can be just as much a monster as werewolves to make his “Now I see what you mean” at the end in the romance understandable for me. I would’ve liked more moments between him and the kids or Ayaan so he can have positive wolf examples.

Alix is the other way around for me. They start out weak – I don’t understand why you lose points with them when you display being a caring and loving mother in front of them instead of being solely interested in them when your kids are around. I would have thought that a werewolf teacher who is at odds with their own nature would be somewhat appreciating of a human mother of six pups who gives them all the love and attention they need. I like them more in the latter half of the story however.

Anti-Werewolf Mom

Aside of the pace of the romance, there was one other thing that put me off. On Chafiq’s route at least, you can play an incredibly anti werewolf MC. Saying in front of your very kids that you “can’t stand werewolves who can’t control themselves.” Agreeing that a werewolf who has never displayed any sort of violence or aggression against you or your kids in the slightest has to stay away from you no matter the cost, you haven’t seen them lose control, you only heard that they have. How can the kids be trusted to a mother who starts doubting a so far friendly wolf, speaks ill of werewolves in front of her kids?

It felt like an option/path added in because you have to give the player options how to play the MC. But to me at least there seemed to be no reason for MC to behave like that. Yeah, sure, Ulric and Larry both have difficulties with their emotions, but they are kids and are still learning. MC can be supportive and help them learn. But all the adult wolves you meet are friendly, understanding, scared of society. You only ever hear about real werewolf violence instead of actually seeing it, experiencing it firsthand. There was too much tell and too little show in that regard.

This is why to me, being able to be so anti-werewolf was incredibly out of place and groundless and I wanted to take the kids away from that type of MC.

I am probably too critical of this story, expecting it to be something it is not and that it can’t portray as it is a short story. It was still a nice read at times, but for me it ultimately jumped from nice moments to awkward “why” moments too often.

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I understand but it is a rôle playing game. It’s not Always easy, but rpg can be fun playing someone we aren’t. Their is only one thing that I dislike and can’t play, it’s a cruel evil character.

Personnally I’m straight but I don’t mind playing a gay character.
I’m pacific and sociable but I found that playing a violent (but not evil) can be fun (I prefer a more furtive approach thought).
I’m a man but I prefer playing women characters.

Rpg IS about playing tout idéal self or playing someone different that you could really like and deeply respect. Or playing you’re exact oppose (I’m not fan of this but I understand).

I think @cottoncandy’s point isn’t about roleplaying, but the ‘false advertising’ feel of the description saying you can play as asexual or a lesbian, when your character has previously been in a relationship with a man (which happens with some lesbians but isn’t guaranteed) and you’re further forced into being physically attracted to Chaqif. I’m (probably) asexual, and I’m not entirely happy with how the MC is automatically attracted to Chaqif, although originally I assumed I got that dialogue because I was pursuing a romance with him.

Given Heart’s Choice is, from the start, a much more restricted range of protagonist options than the Hosted Games or Choice of Games product lines, I don’t think it would be very controversial to just change the description to “straight or bisexual”. Because you absolutely cannot play as an asexual character in this game - refraining from having sex isn’t necessarily related to asexuality, it’s just about whether you experience sexual attraction. And the MC is physically/sexually attracted to Chaqif, so I don’t think it’s accurate to say you can play as asexual, or as a lesbian for that matter. If it was more “aesthetic appreciation”, then I wouldn’t mind, but the MC is pretty thirsty for him, lol.

About Chaqif, though

On that note, I feel somewhat… divided about Chaqif in general. His introduction and early scenes are great, but I agree that his route goes downhill pretty fast after the date. And given it’s pretty obvious his attitudes towards werewolves are meant to be an analogy to racism, well. I feel a bit uncomfortable with that, just since it’s such a well-known racist stereotype about Arab people, especially men, are more bigoted than white Europeans, and it feels a bit like Chaqif plays into that.It’s great that he changes his mind at the end of his route, but given what we see in-game, his change in mindset feels very weak and tbh I see little reason for an MC who’s trying to be a good mother to be involved with someone who is so open about his dislike of werewolves that the MC’s young children not only pick up on his disdain, but confront him about it. Like, I genuinely found that moment quite heartwrenching, and that actually stopped me romancing Chaqif the first time around because the kids were so obviously upset and angry at him.

I will say though, I’m not Arab, so I’m open to correction if people disagree with me, especially since there’s Ayaan who is a werewolf and an absolutely fantastic friend to the MC. I really can’t wait to play her route later, in all honesty, and I kinda wish she got more screentime in general - I’d love to play an entire non-HC game just of her and the MC running their fashion business, those sections were really nice.

Alix’s route is also nice, although I agree with some of the stuff about how you’d think they would appreciate the MC trying to be a good mum to her wolfy kids, and I feel like that also suffers for how short the game is.

I’m looking forward to playing Ayaan’s route later, as she’s great too, and having ended up playing the no-romance route (after attempting to romance Chaqif) the first time round, that’s surprisingly good as well. The kids are adorable as well, and the author definitely did a great job of giving them very different personalities, which actually impressed me quite a bit. Writing kids is super hard, let alone six, and given how much overlapping screentime they had, it was genuinely quite amazing to me how well they were all written.

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Hi,

I’ve updated the description to:
Play as genderlocked female; date men, women, non-binary individuals, or no one at all!

EDIT: if you see the old text somewhere, feel free to point it out to be updated.

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I played this game and at first I thought, like Choice Game’s “Parenting Simulator” you’d get to choose your own gender prefrence at the start. I understand going old school and keeping it locked for story reasons…but this is a choose your own adventure game. One where you can be gay, asexual, or hetero on top of being a parent.

In The Parenting Simulator you get the chance to play as a single father if you so choose. Your kids have a background that you and your partner had a surrogate and you got left with the kid.
I’m just saying this story could have been expanded upon if they looked at details a little further. Such as proving to Chafic…or however you spell his name, that humans can be just as bad as werewolves. Or to Alix how kind humans can really be to werewolves. I do applaude the writing, it takes a lot of work to write the kid’s parts and it keeps interest. The story is very buyable and I highly reccomend it. I just also highly recommend the author to not allow themselves to stand in their in their own way. GET CREATIVE, give us more choices that allow us to define our MC along the way. Let us have more time to get to know these wonderful characters before you end the story too soon…

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About Chafiq. What I think is he wasn’t racist (yet) or a big racist.
He is grieving from his lover’s death, wich is pretty recent. It’s more than he was deeply hurt and Bury himself in work… To be confronted with a trial in wich the accuse wasn’t punished. He was a grieving widow that saw injustice and twice it was about werewolves.

It’s not hatred that he is feeling toward them. It’s anger to himself, but he don’t understand it. Either je is fleeing his own guilt or misunderstanding it…

He is not sure at all about his préjugé and seek counsel to our mc, even knowing that we are very tolérant. He know that he isn’t on a right path but IS too hurt to change. Somehow he is seeking help. Hé know that he could become a bad person and doesn’t want it. It’s his grief that is speaking.

About Alix, it’s not his werewolf condition that really trouble him. It’s what he did and the fact that justice let him go. He admit it himself.

I would have liked more passage where he can talk with Ayann or the kids but his change if heart, for me, wasn’t forced. But a bit more content with good werewolves could have been good idea.

None of the character are bad people, they are just troubled and need help to go forward. Well, all except Ayann who is really great.

The only person that can be bad is the MC, but I don’t know… It seem forced to me. I understand that her ex hurt her feeling (he is a dick, I can agree on that) but with Ayann, her kids and other werewolves that she know… Well… She can’t be racist. I don’t understand this route.

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I agree with everything that has been said with @Sylveranty @theredwoman and several others about the choice of being able to choose your sexuality of the game only to be attracted to Chafiq if you chose to be a lesbian. I am glad that these comments were looked at and the description was changed to reflect this. Thank you.

But to add to their statements, and this is my opinion and I’m sorry if this comes out rude for that’s not my intention, but I feel like at times this cog simply put in choices because its a choice game. Like did I really need the option to be openly racist infront of my children? I felt so ill at that part and the game continues on like I didn’t just basically throw in my disdain for their kind.Why add choices if they don’t really seem to matter other than increasing your stats or relationship points? I felt like there were no consequences for certain actions or comments where there should have been some.

With Chafiq

Spoilers

I was so heartbroken since his route was what I was excited for the most. I pictured this broody neighbor who slowly warms up to the MC and children but instead starts off great only to come off as a bigot(imo). You get choices to end your relationship with him and tell him off but I feel like that was unneeded in general to have this at all. You can also call him out and still be in a relationship with him but I could never see why. You can get him to change his mind about werewolves but it comes off with the MC telling him why he shouldn’t be and Chafiq just responds with “Okay” pretty much.

I felt like this game had a lot of potential and did have its moments that made me smile and happy, it just fell flat in my honest opinion.

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Alrighty, I’m back after playing this game! I was excited to play this after the demo and definitely enjoyed my playthrough, though I’m not super eager to replay this title anytime soon.

Pros

There are many pros for this game. The largest one is definitely the MC’s boss, who in my opinion, was the best character in the game. She always has the MC’s back, she’s fashionable and pretty funny. I actually was drawn to romance her rather than the other two individuals. Another pro was how much I felt like a mother while playing. The options where you have to decide between heading to work early, helping your kids with the art project, helping coach your alpha, etc. really made me feel the pressure of juggling all these things as a single mom. I also thought this writing was super fresh and engaging…a light airy reading.

Cons

Now for the cons…or rather, the weaker points of the game. I agree with everybody else in saying that the game seemed rather short. Once I got to the epilogue, I was like…already? Surely a few more scenes could be added in. As much as the ex was referenced to, I was half expecting a scene with him showing back up as a conflict point between you and whomever you were trying to romance, if anybody.

How quick the two romances seemed to move put me off a bit as well. When the MC was remarking that they felt as if they were being forced to choose a side, so did I! I had barely met these individuals yet they were throwing themselves all over me. At least another scene or two involving them before they try and take you out on a date would’ve been nice. Like Chafiq works at a courthouse? Would’ve been nice to see him in his element as you could with Alix and the boss.

I ended up romancing Chafiq and I don’t know…it was nice and he was hot but I felt bad for doing so since there wasn’t enough time to see if he really will be more open-minded towards werewolves (and extension my children). If I’m being honest, I think the best path for the game is probably the one with you and Alix :laughing: she seems to be the only objectively great character in the game.

Finally, the plot point with Wolfgang potentially being interested in transitioning, becoming a girl or becoming non-binary in the future could’ve been so much better had we seen more of this conflict in the game. Yeah, they’re still young, but I felt as if another scene or two referencing this would’ve been nice. Them bringing it up once in the beginning and then once at the end made it seem like it was just thrown in to be thrown in.

Overall, this is a great quick read if you want your werewolf fix, with a bit of romance thrown in. I likely won’t replay this game for a while, but I do think everybody should at least give it a chance, if nothing else but to meet Ayaan and develop a good relationship (romantic or otherwise) with her!

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Well… I liked the game. But because of him, it made me watch Ame and Yuki the Wolf child once again.

My favorite anime with Princess Mononoke and the grave of the firefly.

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Hi there! I have thoroughly enjoyed this story game.
Has anyone found out how to obtain the Pledge to the moon: Get Alix to make a promise achievement?

I never thought I wanted to be a mother of six, but here I am. Give me back my wolf babies, it was too fast! I wanna see them grow! I wanna see them thrive! I wanna go their graduation with my wife/business partner Aayan! C’mon!!

Anyways, what a good and wholesome furry game :’)

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Me: I don’t want kids I’m not sure I wanna play this game.
Also me within 2 minutes of playing: I love all of my kids. Wolfgang is soo cute🥺

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Ok, as a utahn from a mormon family, Alix’s joke was just to freaking hilarious!