Post by 3hoursonly in Give or Take comments

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This looks quiet promising albeit it is also a bit barebones (as expect for a 0.1). If you are looking for an example of a hypnosis related visual novel Penlight is excellent. I don’t expect you to be as accurate about hypnosis as that visual novel, but being aware of it i find the Elene (occult) route has huge pacing issues with things going way to fast. Would you be interested in more elaborate feedback?

Do you have plans to track the sub dom choice ratio and give different choices depending on that in the future or will it stay “memoryless”?

Also was the going to the beach scene jumping into the water inspired by some movie or as a murder weapon in a crime drama?

IllAdvised3 years ago(+1)

Thanks for the feedback!

The pacing of hypnosis content is still pretty difficult to me, I'll look into it a bit more, thanks for the recommendation BTW :)

The Sub/Dom choices will result in different routes so they will impact game play later as well.

The beach scene wasn't really inspired by anything in particular. I was just looking for an image that would be serene and relaxing.

Thanks for taking the time to play my game! I hope you will stay interested in future updates.

3hoursonly3 years ago(+1)

pacing is difficult

I totally understand that. Besides studying references (such as the different routes in penlight) having a conversation about it with your community is probably important in particular in the early phase when less is set in stone. I have stopped myself from giving more elaborate feedback as i wasn’t sure you if you welcome it and i don’t have a clear idea of your vision.

recommendation

You should play the “tell Nozomi you’ve been practicing hypnosis”&date routes for an idea how fast a hypnosis relationship can progress at most even if both are already familiar with hypnosis which i don’t think is the case with your main character. I have some ideas how to address this elegantly which i would like to talk about but i don’t want to be a unwelcome giver of advice either.

beach scene

It reminded me of a plot point in one episode of CSI Las Vegas which is why i was curious.

I hope you will stay interested in future updates.

Yes.

IllAdvised3 years ago(+1)

Lol the csi similarity's are real, cool that you found that!

The hypnosis in Give or take doesn't have to follow a realistic pace, I'm fine with characters being put into a trance easily. I have a lot of ideas for hypnosis related content and I intend to have Elene focused solely on hypno content. I'm also trying to keep different events somewhat similar in length. This is because I have a limited amount of time available to me and I want to try out a bunch of different fetishes and routes within the story.

Haven't had time so far to play penlight, I'll give it a go tomorrow.

As for my vision, every club will have a fetish that it focuses on, for now I'm planning on five different clubs so I can fill up a school week. What those clubs are going to be is a secret for now.

Feedback is much appreciated and giving advice is great as well. However don't expect me to follow up on every point of advice, sometimes it can simply be too much work to change minor details after the fact.

Thanks for the elaborate comment, I appreciate the time you are taking to give me some feedback!

3hoursonly3 years ago (6 edits) (+1)

I hoped you had fun and dread with Penlight. Planning to have 5 clubs makes a me hold you hypnosis content to different standard then if it was one of two routes. I also replayed the Elene branched trying to figure out why it seemed so rapey. I see conflict between

the main character being doubtful about the power of hypnosis
MC nailing the induction

MC going to install triggers as the first thing he does and MC being comfortable with such wide ranging consent without further consent questioning makes him kinda seem like a psychopath or utterly naive but super studied in hypnosis. I also wouldn’t call that what happened with taking the gem out of the hand consensual hypnosis. It is at best (but i think it would just be non-consent) consensual non consent (CNC).

I have a suggestion how to fix it with minor adjustments that would also play into an object already established in the game world (a notebook). Would you like it to hear it and be free to use it if you like it[1]?

Independent of that you might want to steal the “record with phone for consent to trick” from penlight. Benefits i see:

Realism: Subjects can lose memory of what happens even if there instructions not to forget anything in my experience
Hotness: Elene could admit that she relistenened to some files and really enjoy it
Interaction between clubs: having the ability to listen to certain files (which might also come from the internet and not just Elene) before a certain club interactions might work well with some club kinks (pain resistance, better pee/cum holding, getting/not getting hard, extra immersed in roleplay , … [2] )
(spoiler) A way to do memory play: A session can just be blank with triggers that play out in the later days the player is not aware off and gets resolved later when MC is given the recording/transcript.

As for CSI, yes ones i remember the punchable of face of some of the characters i got a feeling that it was some CSI think and not bones or a similar show.

[1] No obligations or strings, I don’t insist on credit.

[2] Random kinks that could work with that and that shouldn’t influence your club choices

IllAdvised3 years ago(+1)

I like recording the sessions on the phone a lot, had some other plans with audio files as well (bit of a spoiler I guess). Recording the session would really help out on the consensual side of things. I also find the current explanation for preventing memory loss a bit shaky.

I intend to keep clubs separated for the most part with characters interacting mainly with the player and others in the same club. The amount of possible routes becomes exponentially bigger when two characters with multiple paths meet.

I'm more interested in concepts than fleshed out ideas, I want to write my own story's and telling me an idea would almost prevent me from using it since I didn't think of it on my own. Concepts like recording the session for instance are great!

So far I'm having fun with Penlight, but with the comments I've read I'm sure the dread will set in pretty soon. :P

3hoursonly3 years ago (4 edits) (+1)

Ok, i tried to abstract my fleshed out idea into a concept.

The MC doesn't need to have any expertise in hypnosis in the first session if Elene keeps a "Hypnosis Journal" where she writes down things related to hypnosis like

inductions (that could be read off in the first session)
formulas for hypnosis content (like Induction, Deepener, Suggestions, Awaken) also an excuse for all sessions to share some structure when you are lazy with writing
triggers (which might already be planted)
likes, dislikes, kinks, consent stuff

Elene doesn’t need to expect MC reading other pages then the one she handed her book/notepad/notebook open with.

Do you intend for the hypnosis content to be able to hypnotize a player or would you rather not have that happen?

As for the combinatorical explosion that i find easily manageable. If actions in the previous days can unlock a different route for every club in the next week you have <50% more content (first week does only have 2 routes per club and 2(dom+sub)->3(dom+sub+secret) is 50%) however that would be excessive in my opinion. If just X clubs every week have a secret route that can be unlocked depending on choices made by the player up to then it’s <X0% new content. All assuming the secret routes are as long as the dom/sub route.

Anyway i wrote that to possibly dispel the notion that routes grow out of control to give your more room for creative freedom. Also it doesn’t need to be secret route or dom route or sub route choice it can also be first secret route (or skipping it) then dom or sub choice. Anyway my analysis kinda assumes all clubs will have sub and dom routes don’t feel constrained by that.

But most importantly have fun.

IllAdvised3 years ago(+1)

Elene recording her own progress in hypnotizing herself could be fun, and I am just working with static images for now so actually hypnotizing the player is not within the expected scope, would be pretty cool though. :P As for the exponential growth point, like I said before I plan to have clubs MOSTLY separate, some choices will come back in different clubs. Hard at work on 0.2 for now.

3hoursonly3 years ago

You look to be on a good path. If you need any advice, thoughts or just to bounce some ideas around you are free to ask me for time in a manner convenient for you. I will play the next minor release or the minor release after that. At the moment i don’t have to say more then keep up the good work!

3hoursonly3 years ago

dread

Whether you see any strongly on the routes you take.

itch.io

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