First of all, I appreciate you posting in a way that wasn't just hyper critical and hateful for no reason. Everyone has their own preferences and it's just unfortunate that we have some misalignment. But I don't really understand specifically what you said about Mary. It sounds like you dislike the option of going for an NTR path? But for Mary in particular, there's a very clear path where she doesn't have anything to do with other guys, so I'm a little confused as to what you dislike there. Do you feel like even having the option of NTR is a negative thing?
To your last question, yes and no. The fact is, going into this game, it was Harem first and only. It was a story that reinforced the import of the main character. In literature and in almost every other media, there is an understanding of where a character stands and where it will resolve. A trait that tells you the reason they exist. Mom is the forbidden aspect; aunt is the lonely/attention seeking aspect; sister is the naive love aspect; older sis was a love lost aspect. In this respect, this game did this pretty well. There was an very interesting push and pull with MC's mother that kept it interesting and more importantly, REAL. Sure, you were gonna add sharing with MC's friends in school, the brother and sister, but it made sense for this way. I wasn't going to do it, but the option was there and it was fine.
That said, the author has the responsibility to see a specific character's trait to the end. Mary's WHOLE story is that she's fucked up and MC's aunt tells you to help/heal her. In the game there are often times when you can abuse that trust and take advantage of this way. There is a complex aspect in that kind of storytelling, I won't pick it, but I respect it being told. A character born of some purpose needs to fulfill that purpose and until adding the NTR, you WERE fulfilling that purpose.
In my view, you decided that it was no longer important to focus on that purpose. Instead, you wanted fetishes. NTR is one, and you added it with Mary arbitrarily. The girl who's whole angle is healing, all of a sudden has a rape/NTR path? You asked me if having the option bothers me, it does because the conceit of her character, in my opinion, is thrown out. The character built up by your earlier updates amounts to a fetish folder of the most fucked up things you could add. THAT is why it bothered me.
I'm also a writer and have a game. But even if I wasn't, I wouldn't do that. You could have made ANY new character and added a story like that, but you choose to do it with Mary the one person in this VN that could use a break.
Anyway, I don't mean to batter you with my critique. It's your game, you do what you want. I'm just disappointed cause through all the other people complaining about the game and the bugs and systems/sandbox, I really enjoyed it. It sounded pretty wholesome, not so much anymore.
If you wish to talk about it more, send me a private message. I'm sure you can find me
I agree with most of what you said, but that path isn't just a fetish. For me, Mary was the best one for the NTR option, because it represents the extreme regression and essentially falling back into the dark pit forever after being given a glimpse of the light. As the mc, the choice was yours to pull her out fully and be her shield or fall in with her.
I certainly could've written it better as I do not claim to be a particularly good writer, but I feel the concept is still faithful to Mary's theme.
Anyway, that's the last thing I'll say. Appreciate the insight!
Well, I have told Bella that I don't want anything to do with her.
For now, we only share Gabriella with the MC's sister. If other guys appear later in her story, she will have to be discarded unless we can avoid them.
I've finally moved on from continuing the Scarlett's story, I hope it doesn't affect the story of the rest of the LIs.
Ok, as long as the lesbian content is limited, I think I'll stick with Gabriella.
Since I accidentally deleted the save game, I think I'll play the least posible the Scarlett path and avoid doing her sex scenes.
I will keep telling Bella that I don't want anything with her. As long as she continues to have sex with Derek, my interest in her is nil. A shame, because she could have been an interesting LI.
The fact that Evelyn seduces guys for casual sex isn't something I'm excited about, but as long as she doesn't fuck anyone else while she's with the MC and he can have a romantic relationship with her... there's a chance ( remote) that I decide to continue her route. On the other hand, I have no interest in knowing how many guys Evelyn has shared with her mother, in fact simply knowing that has happened (without knowing the number) significantly reduces my interest in Evelyn. In fact, if there had been an option to break up with her the moment the MC finds out, I would have chosen it.
In the end I have decided that it's not worth starting the Scarlett route: I'm not interested in her or Evelyn, so it's best to ignore them.
Regarding Mary, I still have to start her route to see if she interests me.
I have a question. Why can you reject Bella and Gabriella, but not Scarlett and Evelyn?
I haven't really made a rejection functionality for the paths. You can reject Bella and Gabriella because a third person becomes intertwined in their paths. Evelyn has history but won't have others if you don't want. Scarlett is obviously sex-focused so I didn't bother with her. At the moment you basically just don't do the quests if you don't want that content.
With all due respect, Scarlett is a slut, so I don't know what reason my MC could have for wanting to be with her. In my opinion the further away from her the better. And her daughter Evelyn is another slut, so I'm not going to touch her even with a stick. So I personally think an option to tell them you don't want anything to do with them would be nice.
Regarding Bella, there are three options: Start a relationship with her and continue with Derek and sometimes the three of them have scenes together, start a relationship with her and continue with Derek but without Derek participating in the scenes with MC and Bella. , or not start a relationship at all. Of course, my MC isn't going to start a relationship with her while she's with Derek, so the first two aren't even options. What annoys me is that until you can reject her you have had several scenes with sexual content with her that you cannot avoid in any way.
Actually for a harem game, Scarlett and Evelyn are lousy characters, and Bella would only really be interesting if there was an option to make her break up with Derek. Honestly, as how they routes are developed, I think the best option is to pretend they don't even exist and don't even start their paths.