itch.io

I AM an RPG nerd so if you ever want advice feel free.  I come for the lewd for these types of games, but I stay for the gameplay.  The gameplay is definitely a bit more polished than the previous installment, and it's impressive that you were able to create such a fairly balanced game with little RPG knowledge under your belt.

And I agree entirely on the fact it needs to strike a tight wire balance.  :)  Anything outside of that is what difficulty sliders are for, but against common believe, making enemies damage sponges and hard hitters doesn't make an RPG more difficult, it's just the illusion of difficulty.  An RPG at its core is about tactics, strategy, and having options that you need to use for the most optimal solution to situations you're involved in, compared to action games that require you to know the fundamentals of your dodging and hitting and various skills.  Someone familiar with both game designs can easily make genres crossing these, similar to something like Parasite Eve 2.

You have a pretty good idea of what makes an RPG tick already, having enemies with different methods of operation, but that's true of many games.  Where it gets really difficult for RPGs is the balancing act as you add more elements, elaborate on pre-existing elements, etc.  Keeping it simple, but allowing for depth is where the cool factor comes in.  Such as an ability that makes an attack guaranteed hit next time - this may not seem like much, but given there's sometimes an opportunity to miss there are circumstances where planning ahead can come in clutch, it's all just a matter of knowing exactly what situations it'd be used in.  After all, it's easy to have moments where you're about to die and RNG just isn't on your side and you lose in traditional RPGs - in harder challenges with Pokemon for instance especially you need to play around crits and misses and have back up plans and prepared for each situation, very rarely letting RNG have its way with you like an unscrupulous dom.  :^)

I agree.  Though to be fair I also have the ability to fall into trance just from sheer energy space alone, even if I don't go fully deep.  But I'm also prone to wanting to relax, even if I try to resist.  There are a lot of elements to hypnosis, and it impacts everyone differently.  Which, while this is clearly fictional hypnosis in the regard that you can't really just throw someone under who's not wanting to (not without putting them through a whole load of stuff in forcibly relaxing them - drugs, binaural beats, occasionally visuals, certain comforting touches (given there's a type of hypnosis that relies on pressure points) - and even then it sometimes has to be consistent to really ingrain.  So don't even worry about trying to squeeze it into text, there are other ways.

Personally, I feel like you do a good job as is with the extrapolation on the process.  The gradual brainwashing and trigger-inputting process you get in the darkened room cutscene is pretty peak, and I feel like the nature of the art and various stimulus that cases the art to change is good enough to make the triggers feel real, palpable, etc.

I love doing hypno in roleplay and irl, I may be a bit of a Hypnospace Cadet.  :^)

If it helps, while I tried to avoid it as long as possible (the game's pretty easy currently as far as mechanics go for someone like me, so long as I don't act like an idiot) once I finally couldn't stand it anymore and really just wanted Mezz to go under and forced the issue I really enjoyed the choices you had.  Even if it doesn't really make a difference mechanically I do genuinely believe you should keep those.  We play NSFW games for NSFW, and ultimately this is a consensual experience.  We are roleplaying a noncon experience because horny brain is horny brain.  So never worry about it too much.  I know you gotta strike the balance, but that's also what tags are for, so people know what they're getting into.  I felt it was just voluntary/involuntary enough as it was to be hot.  And it didn't need to be fully fleshed out.  I feel like the sheer breadth of the fact Mezz is clearly a heroboy who is being put under against his will, at least initially, especially due to the dialogues he has with other characters, makes it pretty clear what this game's main fetish is - resistance play + being a cute herosub.  Or as some might put it, a Gyro.  :^)

Besides, you got time to potentially do so, no need to rush it all.  This is only the second chapter, you got time to futz with the mechanics and extrapolate on the basics over time.  Especially since programming will get easier the more you practice, to the point you can start implementing those more complicated things.  And the more code you have, the more you can start copy/pasting and reusing coding assets but changing bits and pieces.

It was definitely not too much for me.  :P

If it helps, I wasn't referring to the sex mechanics themselves, just the entranced part.  Because there's the bit where first they flash signs at you or click a clicker, and it's not only RNG whether or not they proc it, but after your Submission is up it's complete RNG whether or not you are able to get up out of trance after dropping.  And that's where my suggestion comes in, so you can make the chances of them trying such a thing a bit less rare (I had it happen maybe twice in three times as many battles, and the second I just reeeeeally wanted to... you know), and also makes it so you don't have to rely on RNG alone to get out of trance while in it.  But with the difficulty increasing with just small visual affects, you can ultimately make it less likely for someone to get out of it if they keep putting themselves in situations where they get to 100% Submission.  Or, you know, don't wear the charm.  :^)  And if you do this you can also include items like the charm that make it easier to do those puzzles, even outside of the options allowing you to turn that off to return back to the basic coding the way it was originally.

You are right though, no one wants to read a manual for a sex game. It's why all of my dice games, especially my Brain Tamers one, is rather simple all things considered.  All dice games and NSFW games should be simple enough to read half a page or two pages (or pick up on what is going on fairly fast, like how elements in a Mega Man game start isolated and separate, but eventually combine in later parts), but complex enough to have depth, with occasionally some extra stuff to use for people who want more of a thing to their thing.  :^)

I remember when this game first came out - the first chapter.  It was how I found you as an artist originally, through some fanart of Cruel Serenade.  I looked into it and you a bit after that, how you'd never programmed before and this was your first real foray into it.  All things start somewhere, the fact you have enough passion to have fun with it and feel proud of your accomplishments and milestones (which you absolutely should, no fucking doubt about that, coding and programming is really hard mate), is what really matters at the end of the day.  And I'm happy to follow this game no matter where you take it or how you take it.

Always let your inspiration run wild.  Even if it ends up not going the direction you wanted it to go, you may still be able to use pieces of what you came up with for something else.  :)