by Slayerhero90 » Sat Sep 01, 2018 1:37 am
Okay, having revisited this every now and then, still having not sat down and pushed to beat the game, I'd like to adjust and add to my previous criticique, where I had said I don't care much for how much of the game is based on random generation.
I still think that, but more specifically, I think that what this game critically lacks is player motivation. The excuse plot is an objective, sure, and those are always fun to strike off a list, but after being dumped into the world, there isn't much to encourage the player forward besides, say, a desire to see what other environments and enemies were designed and an interest in the rudimentary NPC courtship. My experience playing this game is that I dick around in (0,0), grinding the easy XP until I can just walk up to literally everyone and eat them in the first turn of combat. Then, after playing the save-scum guessing game with potions for a couple minutes, I get bored and close the game to, in theory, pick up later. I don't think I've ever been beyond the meadows. The Ring of Whatever has no value as a goal to me and so I just don't ever feel like pursuing that. I don't even have the game's setting to keep my interest; it's very generic furry medieval fantasy.
Frankly, I don't see much of a way that all of this could be fixed without a redesign of the game entirely, so what I'd like to suggest is that, instead of tacking on more features, you consider taking what you've learned from IVG2 and make a different, more structured game, with some actual substance in the plot and friendly NPCs that people can actually care about as nuanced characters instead of interchangeable game objects with different hats. I can understand if that strikes you as daunting, of course; you said that this game was something you made in your spare time and you don't gotta do anything to please me; I'm just some unqualified critic on the internet.
I don't wanna sound like I hate this game or think it was a resounding disappointment. I wouldn't have commented if I didn't see merit in it. Like, I fucking love when my vore stuff's got sound. You made a lasting impression with that. This is also the first turn-based vore game I've played with vore as a combat technique instead of a reward for victory in combat. Finally I can be the predator chewing through the battlefield like an implacable behemoth. Moreover, the gate between the player and predation is mercifully not locked behind any particularly challenging progress wall; too many games all go for that and the sheer glut of that template sorta ruins the catharsis of finally being able to do unto one's hungry foes as they been doing to me for however much of my free time.
Ways to improve IVG2 if you're dead set on that:
- Volume adjustment. The sounds of ecstasy are much louder than my music and I'd like to be able to choose to lower them to my needs.
- Echoing a sentiment cast by plenty of others, I would love to have access to forms of vore other than oral.
- More specificity in what can be present in the world when setting up. I like being able to say "I don't care to interact with men in this game" but it appears to me that setting the world to all-female went beyond my desires and nixed NPC females of the herm or solely bedicked varieties. If I didn't look closely enough at their nethers, let me know.
- Trim the skill list, either by merging/cutting some skills or creating an alternate system of advancement which some of these skills are placed on instead. For instance, VCo and VCa might be merged (perhaps VDi too) and turned into a new type of statistic called, say, an Attribute. This and other attributes could then be, perhaps, advanced using a single point given to the player every level.
- More liberal usage of italics and bold in the in-game text or anything else to make it a little easier to read the menus. Hell, even some context-sensitive clickable buttons in the sidebar would be an improvement.
- Sidequests. I'd wage that not only would sidequests allow you to balance the XP system by chipping just a little off of combat's importance to the bulk of progression, but they'd also introduce a way to earn an NPC's affection in a less flavorless and repetitive way.
It's a fine game. I'd love to see what you do gamewise in the future.