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Crap! You just made me think about kissing hot vampires. Need a mind cleanse now. :wink:

I get that angst is supposed to happen between the MC and the LI but it’s a team environment. It would feel much more satisfying if they—oh, I don’t know—worked as a team when caught in precarious situations. I would feel absolutely horrible in group settings about everyone getting hurt. Watching the whole team being flung across the clearing would be angsty!

This book introduced the BFF as a lockable route so we’ll only interact with our two favorites from now on? It’s a cool concept I haven’t seen in other stories but it is still supposed to be a team effort, isn’t it? Now that I’m thinking about it, I guess not. B2 had the MC always breaking off with just two UB members in order to have the opportunity to increase the relationship meter with either of them.

So true. I should stop trying to make sense out of the senseless. I am here for the ride, after all, and the roller coaster hasn’t come to a stop yet. More like a Ferris Wheel maybe. :ferris_wheel:

This would have made sense, too! Just piggyback on the LI and have them quick-run over to the trees…while melting and blushing over the bodily contact, of course. Don’t know how strong Sin was supposed to be but it would make for a cool scene to have him uprooting trees from the air trying to reveal the MC’s hiding spot, like searching for a field mouse amongst a bunch of debris.

Nice, the overly sarcastic MC’s are my favorite to play. I usually go for the Charming/Snarky personalities because they’re typically the most entertaining and fun for me.

Maybe I didn’t understand what self-insert meant, but I don’t base an MC exactly off myself. I usually choose personality traits that I also possess and tend to select options/choices that I’d probably personally select in that moment, but it’s not me in the story. If there’s a particularly juicy-looking choice that I just really want to see the result of, I’m going for it.

I tend to want to get the “good” ending first then go back and look at all the other options. I think that’s something I developed from early video games where it was clear there was a ‘good’, a ‘neutral’, and a ‘bad’ ending.

I had the same MC for all of the vampires and they all ended up morphing a little differently depending on who the LI was. For A, the bold flirting options felt like harassment so that MC became very patient and pushed back very little. The sarcastic options felt the best with M so that MC had a blast handing back what M dished out. N is just so agreeable overall so not much felt like a better option over any other.

Technically, your suggestion for Oathbreaker had 3 votes so I pulled that game up yesterday as well as finding a saved link I already had for Mind Blind. This Chromebook transferred over weblinks I had saved to my PC’s desktop and I’m still not sure how to feel about that. I didn’t know Chrome kept track of desktop statuses. I guess those are stored in a synced Chrome browser somehow. I’m old and out of touch, though. Shouldn’t come as such a surprise. :sweat_smile:

Anyway, playing as the super sarcastic one in Oathbreaker is such a joy! No one gets butthurt and they usually snark back. The dialogue is really fantastic and the plot gets going without hiding things for very long. When the MC is confronted about a secret they explain the situation and work out a solution with the other character. Immediately. The plot is then free to move forward. Love that.

I think I might try creating specific MCs to RP with now. The most interesting things happened in B3 when the MC kept failing so now I want an MC who fails at everything all the time. “Whoopsie! My neck slipped and fell onto your fangs. Sorry about that!” :joy:

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I think F was actually onto something with that salt and pepper demonstration:

Watch from 8:21 - 9:42 :rofl:

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@Requiem

It doesn’t even feel like the MC had much time with the bff, either. There was the intro, of course, and then a very brief moment of the bff checking on the MC after the first Sin attack. And much further into the story, the bff is the one to tell the MC they’re no longer a prisoner and can go back to normal. So, like, three?

F is there in the morning after the date, no matter who your bff is. A and M, and N and F, interact with each other when the LI is waiting on the MC to come back from the facility. And the final scene outside the MC’s bedroom, the bff interacts with the LI (after you choose your bff). F seems to offer the MC some level of support with their LI (or make things worse, most times), but that’s about it. A never spoke a word to my MC about Mason–no warnings, worrying over how it will hurt the team when M moves on, nothing. Considering no one found out about them being vampires, she’s damned alone in the whole M thing, with no one to talk to, vent, or to offer support (not that she’d ever ask for it, of course). It seems the bakery scene could’ve been an opportunity to prompt a discussion between the MC and bff (same with A and their hot/cold BS).

There are just so many lost opportunities to deepen the relationships even more in b3. But that isn’t allowed.

A Ferris Wheel where you’re getting water boarded on the way down, lol.

My characters won’t let me do that for their canon run, but I’ve started forcing things here and there out of curiosity. Then I play them the right way…

They follow you everywhere. It’s creepy as hell. There’s no privacy anymore, unless you use Tor or other more stringent measures to avoid being tracked. Even then, your cell phone is the worst culprit in spying on you. That and any desktop with a newer Windows OS.

Me too! And it’s such a joy to have characters behaving like adults. Not to mention, communication is allowed and the angst in it is not a constant deluge, so it holds more meaning (Virion broke me at the end).

That’s Jax! She got bit on the neck by Murphy and doesn’t care. She thinks the scar is cool. She doesn’t have any fear (but, unlike Dezh, she doesn’t have skill to back that up), insults everyone because she thinks she’s funny, and fails at everything and doesn’t really care about that, either. And when F tries to be overly flirty, she barely notices and doesn’t flirt back. It’s fun to play her, actually, though Felix is getting on my nerves as a reader.

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Now I’m genuinely interested in why this is such a rarity. My usual type of character always falls down head first into things that break his in certain games, and there isn’t really an option to opt out or do it in a different manner, even if you play as a stoic. Especially if you want to opt out of angst.

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That’s true, actually. Depending on who the BFF was, certain vamps felt like they disappeared for the majority of the story, too. I think 3 out of 4 of my saves had F as the bestie at the very beginning and after the wet PJs scene with N walking the MC to breakfast, N pretty much disappeared the rest of the book if s/he wasn’t the LI. B2 seemed to have A and F in pairs and N and M in pairs. I think my M run ended up with N as the bestie because of those pairings.

The MC was bored while stuck in the warehouse…could have been a perfect opportunity to increase relations with the BFF. Honestly surprised there was no group hangout in the game room. Have 'em play Texas Hold’em for chore duties, or something.

I’m curious why the BFF is lockable. Sera must have a stat track she wants to follow? Instead of letting the player choose who they want to hang out with in a given moment, she wants a stat to determine it will be the BFF? With how much she loves Dragon Age, I’m kind of surprised there are no “campfire” scenes where the MC can choose to talk with everyone before retiring for the evening. Would work great in the warehouse, with the MC wandering around trying to find each vampire and discuss current event things with them before heading off to bed.

I’m really enjoying the stories I’ve encountered lately where the MC can choose who to spend time with as a major point of the story.

The Night Market does this really well. Once locked into an LI route, certain scenes will end in interacting with the LI but the player can choose which characters to hang out with throughout the story. They don’t always have to do things with the LI and none of the other characters are ‘hurt’ if you have the MC go against their suggestion and do something with someone else.

Blood Moon is great at this, too. You can pretty much talk to everyone, no one, or just a select few that interest your MC.

This is curious. A talks with M about it. M talks with A about it. They voice their concerns to each other about it. They don’t talk to the MC about it. It’s as if the MC has no agency here… :face_in_clouds:

:joy: :joy: :joy:

Of course. It’s what we have to do without a save function or back button feature. It’s why I buy these stories on the web so I can follow along with the code. I bought a few on mobile when I first found CoG/HG but those purchases didn’t transfer over to the web side. Sounds like Steam has a save feature and those purchases actually do transfer over to the web side, so I might actually try that at some point.

I held out for as long as possible clutching onto Windows 7, then my motherboard went bad and had to get a new one. Decided to also upgrade the graphics card and processor and the comp tech said he had to install Win 10 so I went with Pro because I heard you could turn off automatic updates. You can. I’d go back to XP if I could, honestly.

IKR? It’s nice having the characters explain their motivations or worries without it crippling them. Then, more snark carries them forward. :joy: I like the blue guy, so I’ll have to try Virion next! And, my goodness, every race has an earring fetish. Cool character designs, though. And, you know, half-naked cat people.

Haha nice!

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Bruh, Fernweh Saga is a worse version of Wayhaven, it takes a lot of the same mistakes Wayhaven does and makes them worse.

6451

Name one.

6452

Imma be real here, I like Fernweh Saga but if you were holding me hostage and I had to choose between Wayhaven or Fernweh Saga. I’m picking Wayhaven, the writing is much smoother and prose are near pristine. I can sit down and get through Wayhaven, I can’t say the same for Fernweh Saga. The writing feels very clunky and awkward at times, my english is already ass, so I didn’t have a fun time reading this whatsoever. I had to put it down a couple times to register what I just read.

We can crap talk the characters in Wayhaven all day everyday, but at least they have grounded personalities and sense of self, the way sera writes them is engaging, besides the grandpa, the dog and S mom, I cared for no one else . Sera wrote Bobby so well, folks want a redemption route for them. That’s astounding, because Bobby a whole slime ball but from my recent play through I can see why. Then I keep forgetting that their 4 love interests in Fernweh saga, because B has no significance in the story, if they did, I must have quickly forgotten or overlooked that shit.

As much as I want to bash A and their childish antics, I would choose them over J. I love stoic and harden characters, that’s my bread and butter with a side of strawberry jam. J just wasn’t hitting the mark for me, and I think it was due to the restrictive writing. Their dialogue was more a line with someone reading words off a script, not a mysterious childhood friend turned town detective with secrets to keep.

I know there’s room for improvement, the author writing like five books. But as of currently the first book didn’t leave a good impression on me.

Edit: Also the banter is alot better in Wayhaven,

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Personally, Fernweh Saga mainly worked for me because I’ve treated it like a 90s horror schtick and the character I’ve played as was far less angsty about his feelings towards Reese and grandfather. A lot of Fernweh and Wayhaven both fall flat to me because I tend to dislike small towns (you can blame Russian classics for that) and because they both feel very… setpiece-ish.

I can’t imagine them as real towns and I’m not sure I’m supposed to, especially when in Wayhaven the main issue are Agency and hot vampire singles in your area, and in Fernweh it’s mainly creepy scary forest and the theme of coming back to your roots and burning them down with a bucket of gasoline and a lighter. Supernatural in both games feels more of a plot tool, but Fernweh is less blatant about that in comparison to Wayhaven’s vampires. Honestly, I thought they were fae at first.

Generally, if I were to pick between the two, I’d choose Fernweh mainly because it feels lighter, more similar to popcorn horror movies and doesn’t force my character to angst about his feelings - I’ve mercilessly trolled Reese at every possible opportunity and his relationship with my character managed to progress with a fairly pleasant and satisfying pace. Romances there (R, at least) seem to get more progression per book in comparison to Wayhaven.

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In fairness, Fernweh has 1 book right now (as much as I love it and bee-lieve that Bee is best RO). While there was a lot of romance progression in Book 1 (there is a kiss from W and a possible love confession with B–B in general seems very close to a relationship upgrade if you romance them consistently (until the end)), I’d wait until Book 2 comes out to compare romance progress rates.

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Unfortunately for me, the writing in Fernweh made it impossible for me to get past like chapter 2 :skull_and_crossbones:

What i sort of appreciated about twc in books 1 and 2 as a non-native speaker is how easy it was to read and digest. The writing quality plummeted in book 3 imo and now it’s extremely hard for me to get through some of it, but the issues here are different from those in fernweh. Both make me cringe due to different reasons.

I can’t articulate exactly why fernweh felt so bad because i tried reading it a long time ago, the only thing i remember was that a lot of scenes and dialogues were constructed in a somewhat underwhelming and unengaging way, and the writing was confusing at times. But the worst part was that it was simply boring.

Which is a shame because i like the premise and i want something similar to twc’s vibes. Contemporary, small town, supernatural. But i need the writing to be good too.

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I’m the opposite, loved twin peaks and played a lot silent hill as a kid. Small home towns are my favorite destinations for mystery or horror. It feels very intimate and claustrophobic. At times the story was spooky I will give the author that, forest sections were creepy.

I hated when you had to choose who was doing what, like R picks up the walk-in talkie or J did this for you. Unless I’m in their specific point of view, let the characters do whatever.

I really hated the dialogue, it was not good. You’re right because it was underwhelming and to me very irritating. Once in a while I would get confused with certain characters like S and J because they literally sound the same. It wasn’t until I saw their full name I remember who I was with. Like I said for B, I kept forgetting they existed. R has got some spunk but I still can’t stand them

ANFM all have distinct voices, if you showed me a group of lines they said, I can pin point who said it.

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If you mean that Fernweh’s writing is at a different reading level than Wayhaven, sure, that’s true, in the same way that Coraline is at a different reading level than “See Spot Run”.

Oh, come on, you can’t tell me that if the Mayor, the Captain, Rebecca, and the entirety of the Chamber died off-screen between today and book 4 you’d give a crap.

Folks will want a redemption story for anyone. I know this, because SSW has a dude that’s literally worse than Hitler and they want a redemption for him, too.

Gods, why? If A had died half-way through book 1 I wouldn’t give a crap.

I’m firmly on the camp that everything in Wayhaven that isn’t the RO interaction is basically meaningless. Fernweh might very well be a set-piece IN UNIVERSE, complete with a stagemaster. I’m pretty sure its set-pieceness is on purpose.

EDIT: @Snowflower beat me to it. XD

I mean, there’s a REASON that’s pretty much 90% of Stephen King’s settings. XD

EDIT:

Who said what here:

(this isn’t me being facetious: I literally can’t tell who says what here, except MAYBE the first line of the second quote, who might be N? I guess?)

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Here small towns were mainly used for social satire and comedy. The idea of backwards small-town noble being made an utter ass out of is a staple of tsarist Russia comedy. I half-expected Wayhaven to go all police of morale on me, given the fact I’ve seen some staples of that comedy in characters even in Book 1.

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Joke’s on you, nobody in Wayhaven can police anything. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Neither can the Agency.

Edited to add:

I found it amusing that Rebecca knew about the auctioneer, the Agency knew the auctions had been going on for a long time, but nothing had been done about it. Instead, they pat themselves on the back for their shitty success rate and ignore the fact that human trafficking runs rampant because… they can’t do anything about it? Instead, they appoint agents to shadow anyone who knows about the supernatural, ready to mind wipe their ass if they step out of line.

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I read more complicated pieces of literature difference is that it flowed between each page. The sentence structure and grammar in Fernweh is not good. It reminds of when I was first learning to write English, it didn’t flow at all and was too “tight” . A mess. Shadow society was like this too but it was a lot more fun than this book.

I care about the captain and wish we could spend more time with him. I wish sera allowed us more time to get to know other side characters like we do Verda and Tina. I like Rebecca as a person, as a parent not as much. But I personally would be upset if she was killed off. Meh if the Mayor and Chamber got axed that would be fine. The mayor is a pos and the chamber is a circus.

You’re absolutely right and it’s true but I eventually played a route with them in it and it really surprised me. I want to see more of them, plus they make things alot more fun. I’m a skank for drama.

Because A had charm too me, and I wanted to know more about them. J bored the shit out of me, if homie got murked in the first section of the story. I couldn’t care anymore than I do now. Like I said the dog, grandpa and the S mom were the highlight to me. Hell yeah R bitch of mom was keeping my interest more than her kid.

Who? I apologize… I’m not aware of who that is?

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You’re not wrong, but I meant Wayhaven the game not Wayhaven the town. The Agency LITERALLY can’t police its own parking lot.

They assigned Unit Victor to it! It’s not their fault none of the auctions took place checks notes underwater. :expressionless:

But tell me again how the Agency is good, Sera.

O_o
o_O
O_o
o_O
You like mystery and horror and never heard of Stpehen King? Oh, have I got a reading/watching list for YOU! :smiley:

This can’t actually be A, who is, at this moment, still entangled with not!Murphy behind the car. Those two lines are M and F, but hells if I have any idea who says which.

If these two are M, that’s just poor writing, as there’s no indication they’re said by the same person. I THINK one of them is F.

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Hold on a second, isn’t he that American author that had a child ***** scene in one of his books? Wasn’t it with the clown???

You got me there you cheeky son of gun, I’ll give you that win. But I did hesitate and thought that it was F not A because F is more sarcastic driven.

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He’s the author who turned a cancer into a demon as plot twist.

Legends say the monster under the bed and the one in the closet were terrified that King would come to get them during the night

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