Greetings, readers! It has been a bit over two weeks since the official launch of the demo, and it’s time for a little review. We will take about the reception of the game and go in more details about some of the feedback, and what it means for the future of the game.
For readers wishing for a TL;DR, and these who simply want to know what to expect in the future, do skip to the very last section.
An overall positive reception of the demo, but with some warning signs
Let’s start with a quick summary of the results from the first wave of answers to the survey about the game. The goal of the survey, meant to be filled in after completing the demo, was to let me know how much players enjoyed it, what they liked and disliked, and what they wish to see in the future.
As of January 23th, it has been filled in by a total of 19 persons, 12 of which reported that they enjoyed it a lot, 5 a little, and 2 not at all (I stuck to these three choices in the closed-ended question to keep it simple). That’s quite positive, and certainly has me hopeful for the future. It is important to note, however, that a good chunk of the most positive answers is likely to come from people who know me personally, and thus suffer from a halo effect.
Despite their small numbers, the less enthusiastic answers raised some very legitimate concerns which are worth discussing. Of course, the most positive review also had a lot of useful feedback and suggestions, so we will also be discussing that. But the harsher criticism gave me a good idea as to what could really bring the game down. Without addressing any of the received answers specifically, as that would make for quite the long post, let’s address what stands out in broad strokes, and see what it means for what comes next. With a sample size of 19, it is hard to make any sort of generalization unless some criticisms are cited by the vast majority of respondents. However, some criticisms stood out to me none the less: the abrupt start and lack of context (which I put together as one feeds into the other); the length of the scenes and narration; the lack of variety or progression in term of situations; not enough interactions with the environment.
An abrupt start with little context given
As a demo, the game, in its current state, lacks a lot of what a finished game would feature. This includes, of course, a propre introduction. This is part of why the player can feel like they are thrown out of a situation very suddenly, with little clue as to what is going on.
A proper introduction is definitely planned for the final product; however, player can expect to still be given little clue as to what is going on even after the introduction. There is a reason for that, albeit I cannot tell if it will be perceived as a good one.
The current plan is to make figuring out how Tia ended up in this situation a side objective while playing the game. Why? There are several reasons to that, but first, let’s give a bit of context about how the game came into existence.
The game is part of a larger story, and does not depict, on its own, a particularly crucial part of this story. Instead, it happens between key episodes of the narrative. I wanted to try my hand on telling part of this story through a video game, and wished to start with something simple, both to develop and in term of number of assets. It so happened that one of these key episodes of the story provided the perfect opportunity for this: as you know, Tia ends up stranded, entirely naked, in an unfamiliar territory. With such a premise, it is quite easy to cook up a small hentai game without need for a lot of resources.
Thus, the game itself feeds little into the larger story, instead focusing on Tia’s perils on her way home, and on the possible outcomes. I believe that it has a lot of worth on its own, but being given most of the story at the beginning only for it to play little to no role in the actual game seemed like a bad idea in more ways than one. Imagine being introduced to Terminator and its whole universe in the first minutes of the movie, only for the rest of it to focus exclusively on the robotic protagonist’s quest for clothes!
To keep a sense of mystery and deliver a story to the player while keeping the game true to its original design, I designed to distillate “memory fragments” through the game, which will each play back part of what happened right before the start of the game. These fragments are “text only”, but if players manage to find all the fragments, they will unlock the opportunity to play the whole scene illustrated with full voice acting. It’s not just about the story, as the full scene will be very “sex-centric”, like the rest of the game.
That brings me to the next point, as we are touching on the narration, which was another criticism.
Lengthy scenes with divisive narration
While a majority of the respondents (11 of them) thought that the length of the scenes was just right, and that the balance between setup and sex was fine as is (9 of them), I do believe that the length of the scenes is a friction point, mostly because too much time is spent on Tia’s “partners”.
In term of numbers, this friction point is identified by a significant minority of respondents thinking the scenes too long (6 out of 19), and that the focus should be on sex (6 out of 19). Along with the actual remarks, it leads me to believe that the scenes should be shorter, especially the setup, with a lot less lines focusing on what the residents Tia encounter have to say.
Consequently, I do plan on making future scenes shorter by relying more on descriptions instead of dialog (without completely removing dialog). For example, instead of going through a full-length back and forth of Tia being berated, a simple descriptive paragraph could replace such a scene. This will make scenes shorter, less “cringy”, and consequently easier to skim through when hunting for variations and endings. I will also go back to the scenes from the demo to streamline and shorten them too.
This is going to be a big change, with two clear benefits:
- a lot less work for me on each scene, as writing them actually took most of my time, allowing more time for other tasks (and potentially a greater number of scenes in the final game);
- the game should feel less repetitive that way, as the vast majority will be themed around rape, noncon, and dubcon, and are thus likely to have very similar dialog even if I try to give each character distinct personalities.
Of course, this is not without its drawbacks:
- While taking less time, the streamlined scenes will be harder to write, because I still wish to use these scenes to make Tia shine, and the goal of providing meaningful choices remains;
- People who liked the scenes as they currently were might be disappointed, and feel like they lost something.
So, if you are happy with this planned change, great! But if you would rather see me keep the current approach, please let me know!
A lack of variety or progression in term of situations
As I mentioned a bit in the preceding part, Tia’s Path Home is a game which focuses mostly on a specific theme, that of perils, rape, and nonconsensual encounters in general. It is also a game that takes place in a larger story with a planned canon ending alongside a variety of “what if” endings (and to be clear, the “good” ending won’t be the canon one, the canonical and hardest to get ending will see Tia come out of this ordeal mostly but not entirely unsullied). Lastly, and more importantly, it is a game about a specific character, Tia, who comes with her own personality, attitude, and quirks, which the game intends to explore.
All these elements limit what I can put in the game greatly, such as the variety of fetishes, what can happen to Tia, and how she can possibly react to what is happening to her. While all these restrictions do not bother me given my intent in creating this game, it does limit what I can offer players a great deal.
I consider these limits necessary and unavoidable because of what I am trying to do with this game. It will not be as good a game as it could have been ideally, but I do hope that players who become interested in Tia, or perhaps invested in the larger story over time, will forgive me for this and still see value in the game.
With that said, it does not mean that the lack of variety and progression cannot be vastly improved! In fact, a lot will change on that front. For example, Tia will always start naked; she will always remain the spunky and standoffish tomboy that she is in the demo; and most of the content will remain nonconsensual with Tia on the receiving side. However, it does not mean that clothing won’t be featured nor play a role in the game at all; new options will still open-up despite Tia’s personality as her ordeal goes on (and as her willpower is potentially eroded); and there is still room for different kind of scenes from the straight-up rapefest.
There were a lot of useful suggestions among the answers which are likely to find their way into the game. Actually, quite a few of them touched on elements and features which were already planned for the final game! This touch to both gameplay mechanics and themes/fetishes.
One last element that the game lacks is non-sexual situations. There appear to be a desire to see more non-sexual scenes into the game (10 respondents answered that they would like that a lot, and 2 “a little”), and it also touches on a very-well written criticism about the game being “too overt in its lewdness”. Of course, the game is very “porny” to its core, but it does not mean that there is no room for non-sexual bits. In fact, I initially relented on including any non-sexual situation because I misread my potential audience, and thought that there would be no interest for such content. Therefore, I will definitely be adding a bit more non-sexual elements into the game, including the potential of peril scenes which, while retaining an element of danger, are not of a sexual nature. Doing so will have to indirect benefit of making it easier to add a sense of progression, and of escalation, into the game.
While taking the elevator will still escalate things dramatically, going through the floors one by one, the player should, in the final game, get a sense of progression in how much danger Tia finds herself in, how sexually-intense the scenes turn out to be in case of failure, and in term of general difficulty. As Tia goes down (and then continues into the streets), the player will also have to rely on actual gameplay over choices more and more to overcome obstacles. Naturally, stat pools will also play a bigger role as Tia progresses.
Not enough interactions with the environment
This is the last of the main takeaways from the survey and one indirectly answered in the paragraphs above. More interactions with the environment are definitely planned for the final game, with more and more involved interactions the further the player makes it into the game. The updated version of the 9F encounter in the demo gives a very basic glimpse of that, and the intent is to have encounters which necessitate more involved interactions with the environment further down and in the streets.
More interactions with the environment and more non-sexual situations will also play into one another, as the interest for non-sexual situations justifies putting more scenes which do not involve NPCs into the game. It will give me a reason to expend on some environmental interactions. There won’t be a lot of them, as the scope of the game must not become too ambitious, but there will be a few. Of course, these non-sexual situations can very well still be sexually loaded on account of Tia’s nudity alone.
Summarizing what to expect
As a closing statement, let’s review what players can expect from the upcoming game based on the feedback from the survey. Do note that most of it was already planned for the final game, but as covered it while discussing the survey, I will put it down here none the less.
- The final game will have a proper introduction sequence, as well as a different title screen;
- How Tia ends up naked in the beginning of the game will be explained through “memory fragments” hidden through the game, and finding them all will reward with a fully voice acted hentai scene;
- The scenes, both old and upcoming, will be shorter with less emphasize on dialog;
- The flow of the game will be different from the demo, with more tame scenes near the beginning, and increasing danger and sexual potency as the player progresses;
- There will be more variety in situations in the final game, although a lot of them will still be themed around peril and noncon with Tia as the victim;
- While relatively simple at the beginning, gameplay will grow more complex as the player progresses through the game;
- Stat pool management will also play a bigger role as the player progresses;
- The game will include non-sexual scenes, although most of them might still be sexually loaded on account on Tia’s nakedness;
- Tia might be able to get clothes in the course of the game, but promises cannot be made on that yet;
- The final game will have more interactions with the environment, which goes hand in hand with the complexifying gameplay, and the addition of non-sexual scenes.
Because the final game will have a different flow from the demo, I will continue my work on a different build from the demo. As a consequence, the demo won’t be updated with new content, only bug fix as needed. However, there might be new demos coming in the future. As for the release date of the game, it is still planned for the end of the year, time will tell whether or not this estimate holds!
See you next time, and, as always, go check out the demo if you have not already!
-Chirutai
