Dear Impy thank you for this game, don t get me wrong the game isn t THAT amazing but it s somehow very catchy, and I don t know.. I really like the style and it s gameplay concept. I m not exaggerating when I m saying that Secrets of Bastion is a banger and it made every day of my life exciting for an entire month.
I am very against telling creators what to do but even so if you are planning on making a sequel I advise to focus a lot more on the card game mechanics and card variety, cause while the card battles were pretty cool in SOB, I do believe a lot more synergy between cards and interesting new mechanics would be a strong charm for the game, enemies could also have special moves, passives and traits making the fights a lot more exciting and different from each other ( for ex. while card scale with atributtes they could maybe offer certain advantages when stats are lower instead of higher promoting a more in detail and complex strategy while also making the player look forward for a new game plus or simply a new attempt at beating the game. I honestly see a huge potential in this semi management semi deckbuildder, 100% NTR and a bit humorous indie gem of yours. AND YES, i love playing *Corruption* games like Karryn s prison or The Agnietta and try to go for a total pure virgin run, and I gotta say I had a really fun time trying to get a no event no scene no temptation run without any boosters, almost would ve achieved it if it wasn t for Ben s horny ass.
WARNING! Only read if you are curios and have a lot of time and patience:
So maybe consider making the gameplay core an : try to get everyone to do their jobs without letting bad things happen to them IF you REALLY think that you as the player achieve that and then really draw layers and layers of options and difficulty upon these idea, making the gameplay revolve around building efficiently and making the best out of tough and cornered situations that the player finds himself in. Maybe have bad things ( not horrible or tragic ) happen to the characters and guests when the player doesn t focus on achieving the main important tasks, maybe that way you could draw a guiding line as to what paths are the good endings path while other paths are falling into corruption, depraved, weird, harsh and peculiar fates in which while the characters are still happy in their own way, things definetly went downhill compared to their initial intentions and personalities. And make each of those branching paths a certain fully fledged way of playing the game, the player doesn t have to choose only between the good ending and game overs, no, there aren t any game overs, there are just different ways of aproaching the gameplay, even if the characters are tempted, corrupted, leaving the Bastion because they quit, the games goes on until you get an ending based on the sum of events that accumulated in your playthrough. I m basically proposing what if there was more than just one way of playing the game? What if the game is actually more than just a try to not get Ntr ed or view all the scenes and enjoy the show type of game? It s maybe crazy and stupid to make a lewd game only partly focused on porn and actually having a lot of mechanics that focus on strategic gameplay and story/lore, giving the player the option to experiment with a lot of different scenarios, since many players just open the game expecting to fap. Yet this can work, since a big group of people find NTR punishing, making it the perfect motivation for thinking, planning and being immersed in the decisions and plays that they make. The players will find it exciting figuring out how to avoid ntr events especially if the playable characters grow on them, and even if they want to see them go wild they still would have interactive gameplay in front of them, all the different ways in which they could aproach the game and play it by choosing in which way they want the characters to get corrupted, only by lust or by greed, or by envy and jealousy, even maybe by all of those combined will provide a huge array of interesting scenarios they could play while enjoying the Ntr sex scenes route. Making NTR defeatable, instead of almost impossible to avoid, but while still being a mighty and cunning foe (yet not too mighty since being way too difficult would actually withdraw motivation from the player instead of encouraging them) could open up different paths of playing the game, like you could focus to get a true ending by gathering a lot of secrets and conspiracies from the Bastion, you could get a greed ending by maximizing profit and savings through any measure moral or imoral, you could get a friendship ending by making a strong and united comunity, like having high friendly bonds with each character, you could have a best manager ending by being extremely respected by the guests of the Bastion, a waifu ending for having very high romance with a character and marrying her/him and of course we all want the endings in which the guests win over the hearts and bodies of the characters you play as. When I said combining greed with lust here s an exemple Mei and Mio Genie ending in which they become the owners of the Bastions, BUT if they only developed high lust but NO greed than instead of Mei and Mio being king and queen they just become the Al s servants while keeping the Genie with them so they can make up with Al. So playing clumsy and chaotic could lead into traps, gimmicks and sabotage as characters become more and more lewd, permissive, confused, distant or dissapointed permanently altering the encounters and endings that the player can choose from. These obstacles aren t meant to keep the player away from the good ending, they are instead made to make the characters change as persons leading into the more corrupted ending that don t only limit to lewd scenarios, no matter the outcome the characters still grow but they grow in ways which aren t innocent anymore. Maybe losing a fight or failing to meet quotes and completing tasks shouldn t directly punish the player by making them not receive any reward and should instead shape the character futures, the more they fail the more frustrated, motivated, tired, uncaring, aware or whatever they become and losing a fight could take away something from the player like a certain room or secret/ability but the losers path would actually also open up new options and upgrades that wouldn t ve been possible if they won and had a perfect run. For exemple if the characters are in a bad spot they will become desperate and blackmail certain guests of the Bastion for information and resources, but they wouldn t have dared do such a thing if they were not in that desperate losing spot. Losing and falling doesn t keep away characters from events, they just unlock new ones that belong to the branching path the player is on right now. Opening up this new story lines based on the bad outcomes of the event, checks and fight has tehnically already been done since you unblock new cards by getting sexy events, but what I m trying to say it that this concept should be applied to a wider area of events, not just the temptation ones, Like for example if 2 characters start disliking each other they stop having synergy in their cards and work worse togheter, yet their bad mood could empower other aspects, like them working harder at the gym, or a good mood could also increase their bond level with each other when interacting the break room, or when having really bad luck and getting close to a game over something like a magical trickster can propose a deal to you to get increased loot in the dungeon room but forcing you to visit them once a day, taking away one of you r action points by doing that. Give players more options than just avoiding NTR or falling for it, give the player a variety of options even if they decide to go for a pure run, a.k.a more than just one virgin ending, but make NTR a real threat that hunts them thorough the enitre playthrough and combine it with other bad factors that themselves pose an ending and event route. Also fuse the sexual temptation aspect with the other aspects, characters can grow hornier and greedy at the same time, leading to a different effect in the sex scenes if they were rather just horny. In short characters getting sexually corrupted shouldn t be THE ONLY threat, but instead ONE of the MANY threats that fuse togheter and can actively shape the story ending and characters. Every bad caracteristic that a character can have has it s own ending variation and direct affect on the gameplay and story. The state of the character worsens as EACH of their bad habits grow, not just their sexual addiction. NTR basically isn t THE ENEMY anymore, it s just ONE OF THE enemies, money is a real problem too that seeks to make you lose you footing and good endings, the characters lack of rest and sleep at night because of certain things like staying awake to masturbate or reading a book about secrets or being way too stressed out will also change their fate and make the player stray from the good endings
And of course, there should be a variety of bad endings and sexy endings like in Summer Sweepers, but I didn t mention this earlier because it s what you do best and I m sure you will implement it in most of your projects
Sorry for all the ranting I m not saying you should actually draw your ideas from here, I m just trying to get my vision across and I respect they way you re making games, keep doing what you want to do. It was exciting for me to share all this and I do indeed believe making the game a multiple diverse path scenario instead of a good scenario - lewd scenario and the rest are game overs could really bring some light and make Secret of Bastion stand out a lot from other games
Overall an interesting yet underdeveloped on some parts game that could impress you if you give it a chance. The game is not a click and fap, it requires a minimal understanding of it s mechanics for the gameplay to hit you, but when it hits, oh man it becomes a bit addicting. Also the fetishes are not really for everyone, so if you don t find pleasure in NTR, Futa or Interspecies then don t blame the game for you not liking it from the start.
Btw played Monster Moonson and it s great! You definetly amped up the quality with this one.