Regarding the rules

I mentioned it a bit in my previous post, but since right now only the higher tiers have access to it, and I noticed there was more confusion about it than I thought there was, I decided that I might as well dedicate an entire post to it.

I don’t know how many people were misled into thinking that the rules between Laura and Luca were going to be chosen by the reader, but this isn’t the case. There are no choices regarding the rules. The idea is good in theory, and I did think about it early on in the development cycle, but there are just too many downsides for the idea to be worth it. I could enumerate a lot of reasons, but I’ll only talk about two.

Mystery

I’m only interested in writing mysteries. I think the best NTR stories are those where the tension is high, and where you’re left wondering. That’s why I made sure the game could both be played from a restricted point of view, as well as from the perspective of the three main characters. The only way I’m able to achieve this is if the choices are made from Harry’s perspective. If we were able to choose what Laura does, then Harry’s perspective—the mystery perspective—becomes meaningless. Harry doesn’t know that the rules exist and those who want to play the mystery perspective first shouldn’t have a lesser experience in my opinion.

Complexity

If the story was anything but NTR, I could see the rule system dictated by players be a good addition to a story. But in a NTR story, what matters is the evolution and intentions of the characters. If people could dictate what rules Laura chooses, then as a writer I would be left with two choices.

1. Or every rule is impactful, but if that’s the case, it would mean that every time the reader decides on a rule, it could potentially split the story in two. Rules can dictate how Laura and Luca interact with each other and the world around them. It’s what makes them evolve—her in particular. For NTR, it’s extremely important since that’s how the corruption is done. The thing is, I’m a solo developer, and my time is limited. Laura’s route alone will be around 150k words. Then there’s the common route at 50k words (the first two updates). Then there’s Aya’s route which I still haven’t even conceptualized yet. But I bet it will be at least 100k words. If the rules were to be decided by the player, and they were impactful, then the length of the game could easily double. I don’t have that kind of time or budget. As of right now, it’s too much of an undertaking for me, unfortunately. Ambitious projects are often dropped for a reason. That’s the last thing I want.

2. Or every rule is not impactful, in which case, they serve no purpose. In fact, not only do they serve no purpose, but they are detrimental to the story. Take the ‘no kissing’ rule, for example. If this rule could be chosen, and it wasn’t impactful, the only thing that would mean is that there would be two versions of the same scene, one with kissing, the other without. The thing is, kissing in NTR is not ‘simply’ kissing. Kissing means that the character—Laura—is pushed further toward a version of herself she didn’t even know existed. Her familiarity with Luca changes. The way she sees herself changes. The way she interacts with Harry changes. So if every sex scene becomes somewhat modular, then the whole corruption crumbles. Sex scenes are where corruption is done, and every sex scene should have a purpose.

Some people seem to think that choices or gameplay in a story are a net positive. I don’t agree with that. I personally think the best stories are those that the writer has the most control over—those where he/she knows exactly in what direction everything is going. The moment there are too many gameplay/choices elements, the grip the writer has on a story can lessen. Of course, I think there are very unique ideas with gameplay/choices that can make a story incredible. But in general—even more so in NTR—I prefer a game with fewer choices. In my case, the choices in this story will be used to expand a bit of the universe and answer some questions the reader might have while still trying to lead to hot situations.

Of course, I’m open in the future to make games with more gameplay elements, but I’m always kind of fighting with time in order to keep up with monthly releases and I personally want to be as productive as I can. Thinking about how to reimagine how I tell a story right now would be kinda suicidal since I want to concentrate on trying to make a name for myself first.

Here’s where people became confused, I think:

The in-game prompt that shows the rule option in the menu probably made people think it was a tutorial of some sort. Some might wonder why I made an in-game graph listing the rules in the first place, and at first, I didn’t plan on it, but as the story progresses, and both Laura and Luca start having 10+ rules, it quickly becomes confusing. If I didn’t integrate some kind of graph to visually show the rule, I would have to re-describe each rule whenever a character mentions them.

I’ll be removing the in-game prompt from the game. The graph will still be there, but not putting any emphasis on it is the only way I could think of to make it less confusing.

I didn’t plan for this explication to be this lengthy, sorry about that. And I’m also very sorry if I misled anyone. It really wasn’t my intention. What’s important to me is the story. I want to write the best NTR story I possibly can. And I don’t think leaving the choice of the rules to the reader is how I will achieve that. I might be wrong, but that’s still the decision that I’ve made. If anyone feels betrayed and wants a refund for the month, then please send me a private message. I’ll gladly oblige.