One sexual orientation left out

Please correct me if I’m wrong, if I missed it somehow. but I never saw an option to make your character Asexual. I know it would kinda nix any romance in the story, but being Ace myself in real life, I would have liked to make my character ace too.

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Yep. It’s left out - can’t have your list of crushes not include Black Magic.

Oh, bless. Another ace. Hello! I’m a grey-ace. If you want to talk to someone about aceititude, I’m here!

It’s sad that you can’t really not pick Black Magic as a crush, but maybe you could think of it as a romantic or aesthetic squish?

Not if you don’t hate her completely, she’s not. The game isn’t ambiguous about telling you that they’re your full-on cream dream - reading the scene, it gets pretty specific about how you’re lusting after her like a horny teenager.

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I see. That is rather sad. Hopefully this kind of stuff will be a little more vague in the future.

In Heroes Rise, that’s unlikely - HR is pretty up-front about the railroading and doesn’t give you as many options to decide on your own reactions as other games do.

Comparing it to Slammed! in particular makes for a good lesson in how to railroad well and how to do it not-so-well. (Though it bears mentioning that Heroes Rise is the most popular series on the site, so my opinion means only so much - but I wasn’t the only one complaining about how the initial version of HR forced you into sex with BM, full-stop.)

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I had very serious issues with the railroading in the first installment of that series too, but i didn’t mind the fan crush on BM so much, but I can see how it would bother those who are Ace. I’ll give the author credit for listening to the feedback and putting together a significantly smoother sequel.

I’ve just started playing The Lost Heir - The Fall of Daria, and it has an option to make your character asexual.

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Could you give an example of how the railroading works well with Slammed!? I found myself agreeing with a lot of the railroaded reactions in HR so I didn’t really notice it as much as other people did. When I work on my own stuff it would be nice to have a point of reference.

The railroading in Slammed! tends to be either forced by circumstances (being with Ecstasy means you can’t turn heel while with them), by game premise (the fake choice where you’re asked what you think of joining the GWA), or by your bosses (Alex putting you in as a face for the second arc). You also aren’t railroaded into a romance, which for me is a reason I’m firmly turned off Heroes Rise.

My own mantra on romantic options, which I often recite as a playtester, is “never push a love interest.” What this means is that you shouldn’t tell a player that this character is supposed to be your romantic interest or that your character is supposed to be attracted to them. Plenty of players will want to romance any available romantic option (and often characters who are unavailable), but there’s no need to force it down anyone’s throat. About the only examples of this I can think of that I’m not against, are the Companion in the Empathy route of Choice of Robots, because the player did choose that route to begin with, and the Taylor/Tyler crush in Psy High - which I don’t like precisely, but I know why the author did that and they went out of their way to maintain player agency.

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I wasn’t aware humans COULD be Asexual. My ignorance is showing, sorry.

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@Xman321

We’ve a few other topics on the subject, where it’s explained in a bit more depth.

https://forum.choiceofgames.com/t/asexual-characters/16558

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Meh, for all intents and purposes I’m an aro asexual; maybe not in the future, I don’t really know, but in games I often enjoy the romantic aspect of it exactly because it’s something that I’m not interested in in real life. I don’t enjoy it at this moment, but my MC’s do, and it seems to fit more in here than in real life.

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I’m sorry if this sounds ignorant but what does it mean for a human to be asexual? My knowledge regarding that is limited to plants.

Non-sexual. Having no sexual orientation. At least that’s what the logical meaning would be. I don’t know what people who identify as it consider the meaning to be.

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I suppose that makes sense.

The most agreed definition seems to be: Someone who feels no sexual attraction.

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