WARNING: LONG RANT INCOMING
What I'm about to say has been said by so many others before me, but I feel that this needs to be restated because the success of the game hinges on this issue. Maybe not the commercial success since it may sell very well in the future, but as a game and as the vision that you sold during your KS pitch. This rant not only points out the issues, but hopefully some sensible solutions as well. If you read all the way through I think that in the end you will fully agree with me.
Mere words cannot convey the sheer disappointment that I have felt after seeing the PANDORA content. I'm not talking about the quality of the animation themselves. While they are certainly not the best 3D H animations out there, they are of good quality and more that one could as for in a video game today.
However the fact that they are almost completely out of context is the biggest flaw. This is what happens when you try to please everyone: you end up not pleasing anyone. I know that the main reason this was done was to not turn off certain players, and this is fully understandable. Sex is a very binary thing: people either are turned on by something or completely disgusted by something else, and there is almost nothing in between. But a much more sensible option would have been with a simple trigger warning before an exotic scene happens: “Warning! You are about to see tentacles! Do you wish to continue? Y/N”.
Because let me cite you from your KS page (another user on the Steam forums kindly pointed this out): “Whilst walking past the Laboratory, the player can hear sexually suggestive moans coming from within as a bipedal alien stud called Bulgetto pleasures your Chief Science Officer. There is nothing you can do about this, so don't even try.“
So here is what I imagined would happen in the game: after recruiting Lily, the first time that I clicked on the Laboratory button, a 10-20 second animation would appear having the captain hear strange noises behind the lab door, opening it and seeing Lily get drilled by alien appendages, afterwards him saying humorous quip from captain like “oops, seems like I barged in at the wrong time, sorry for disturbing!”, and seeing him leave while the moans can be heard from the background.
Instead I saw nothing of the like when I entered the laboratory. The player goes to a completely separate screen where he spends some in-game currency to watch a short, non-interactable, albeit well animated .gif. Where's the context, where's the plot, where's the dialogue? Nothing.
Sex scenes without context are completely worthless. It's like if watching an anime, finishing an episode, and then going to some porn site to look for gifs of the characters fucking. What is even the point? I'd rather have fewer scenes, if it meant the quality was higher.
Instead of acquiring the scenes through a currency, why not unlock them through either a quest or a dialogue sequence.
Example 1: You walk to the lab, click on Lily and see a dialogue option “ask about experiments”. This prompts a dialogue with her telling you that she is experimenting with squid DNA bla bla bla and she needs some sample from some water planet bla bla bla. So this is now a quest. The player find the water planet, does a tactical fight, returns with the item, and afterwards is rewarded with an appropriate lewd scene. Even if a player does not enjoy a particular fetish, at least he is still rewarded with the XP and loot after the mission. Players do missions REGARDLESS, so why not integrate them with the acquisition of porn, instead of having the two utterly disconnected from one another?
Example 2: The player goes to the bar, takes a seat, and invites a waifu for a drink. During this date there is extensive dialogue between the two. However here I want to point out another massive flaw of the game: you are never presented with dialogue options, everything is on cruise control. Give the player dialogue options, have him talk to the girl during the date. Depending on what options he chooses he can end up in bed with her. Even better if the scene necessitates for the player to have a specific item in the inventory (perhaps acquired through a previous quest * nudge nudge, wink wink *). The dialogue option shows the item that you need, and is greyed out until the player has the respective item for example.
So for instance instead of having heard Killi's story about her homeworld and THEN go to a separate menu to look for a completely non-related sex scene, why not trigger it after such a date? See how much more fulfilling these methods of acquiring lewds are instead of buying them?
Now I don't think that the PANDORA concept is totally bad and needs to be scrapped. On the contrary I think it should be kept but improved upon. For one it serves as a gallery of previously unlocked scenes and this is a good thing.
This suggestion I have seen from another user in the Steam forums: have 5 slots (but not every slots need to be filled). Slot 1 is the Tease Slot. Here you add those little teases. BTW these small animations can be acquired with PP, I don't think this aspect needs to be changed. Slot 2,3,4 is the actual sex scenes (HJ, BJ, penetration, whatever). Slot 5 is the happy end slot.
You should also be able to set this up as an automated slideshow, with the ability to set a timer for each slot, instead of manually changing them. Manual changing can still be an option of course.
Speaking of which this is a good point to move to the next biggest flaw of the lewd stuff: they aren't interactable enough. The irony is that your minigames from Newgrounds have a ton more interaction and thus much more enticing.
Let's imagine this scenario: using PANDORA I have created the following scene with DEMI: 1) tease, 2) BJ, 3) sex, 4) sex. So the scene starts with the tease. If I click on stuff here should be some dirty talk initiated. After that I can say: “DEMI, come here and suck it” (2 proceeds to play). Then I can initiate another conversation “DEMI, get on all fours (3 plays). Then I can say: “DEMI, come here and suck it” again (2 plays again). Then say “DEMI, ride on top of me” (4 plays now) etc. etc. etc.
As for shorter scenes, perhaps the ones where the captain is not present, there should be dialogue as well. Look at how eroges do it. A sex scene is a collection of succeeding images (in your case animations) that have lines of writing interspersed throughout. Have the sex scenes contain autoplaying dialogue like you do in the cutscenes. Simple words can be very powerful in eliciting stimulus in the mind. They can help fill in the gap left by an animation, which not matter how good it can never be perfect. Ignoring the power that words can have on the imagination would be a mistake.
Being able to move the camera freely, or at least being able choose different pre-established camera anges would also be a highly welcomed addition.
Anyway this is my critique on the lewd content. You know, surprisingly enough this was the one section that disappointed me the most about the game. I mean the other parts of the game could still use a lot of work, but overall I enjoyed them more than I thought I would. Guess this is what it means to have your expectations........... Subverted.
One other thing that I would like to talk about that isn't lewd related are the dialogues. Why exactly are there no dialogue options? Why is everything on auto-play? How am I supposed to identifiy as the character that I'm playing if I have zero input on the matter? The Captain is not me. The Captain is an actor, and I am watching a movie which in which the Captain is the lead actor.
I understand that this is you first foray into game development, but this is something that everyone MUST be aware of: video games, unlike any other form of media outhere, have a unique aspect which sets them apart and that is they are INTERACTIVE. No other form of entertainment does this. So why not take advantage of the medium?
Look, I know that branching storylines and choices and consequences are beyond the scope of this project, however giving dialogue options goes along way into helping the player establish a connection between himself, the character he is playing as, and the world that he is taking part in. Even if the choices are fake, they are still better than being a passive spectator to it all. So please add dialogue choices.
Also the writing itself is kinda meh, to be honest. The game is in a desperate need of a good editor. Some scenes are too long, others too short, sometimes there's too much exposition at once, some characters appear too soon in the story, etc. I think that the story and the writing are pretty much set in stone right no and it's too late to salvage it. I mean, it's not awful, but it shows that it was amateur work. Please hire a good editor next time, it will pay off in spades.
I'm not going to critique the other aspects of the game any further. Other people have done an excellent job in giving advice on how do improve the SHMUP and tactical combat sections.
In my opinion you need to focus first and foremost on what this project is best known for: the lewds. There is almost no one that expected this to be the next Tyrian 2000 or the next X-Com, but there sure are a lot of people who expected this to be the best western H game on the market. As things are right now, Subverse is far from that.
Thanks for listening and good luck!
PS: please increase the fonts in the interface and menus. Even people with perfect eye-sight are struggling with it.
