Post by Consequencey in Extracurricular Activities comments

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A few criticisms for anyone considering picking up this game, but especially for Dyne:

(Spoilers, obviously.)

- Extremely repetitive dialogue. I can't count the number of times a conversation was pretty much just the same few sentences slightly reworded a dozen times, and I'm not sure if it's just poor writing or purposeful to bloat the word count
- Constantly teasing threesomes in nearly every route and never once following through, the only actual threesome shown is a bisexual threesome (in a gay game, though the woman is offscreen)
- Constantly putting gay men in bisexual/straight situations (Initial dream sequence, Spencer's career, Chester's rape, Dozer's whole exhibitionism thing technically, Darius wanting to see Maria nude?????, the MC watching softcore bi porn with Richard, and so on, and so forth)
- Forcing players to indulge every possible fetish/kink to get a good ending
- Inconsistent characterization
- We literally did not get to see our future father-in-law in his OWN SON'S ROUTE (Chester) and instead were only introduced in an entirely unrelated character's route
- Introducing a random man in an epilogue and focusing 90% of it on him instead of the actual character the epilogue is meant to be for, for some reason. The character could've been interesting enough... had he not been shoehorned in at the literal last possible moment
- To be clear, nothing wrong with polyamory and threesomes etc. The issue here is how abysmally it's handled. I'd love to see a VN with proper, well-written polyamory, but this ain't it.
- Officially seemingly throwing away any semblance of a decent plot to focus on the fetish content, especially in the latest routes. Whatever my personal feelings are about the character, Richard's route is a particularly egregious example. As someone else said, "It's like watching an addict relapse. It's as if he somehow forgot the entire reason behind his divorce, which is definitely out of character since he'd repeatedly shown remorse and sworn to do better with the MC before Daniel happened. I feel like two different people are writing this route; the first one who cares more for character establishing moments and character development wrote Day 1 - 15 while the second one who only cares about fetishes is writing the days beyond that."
- Again, nothing wrong with fetishes (even ones I'm not into, I guess), but seeing everything this project had thrown away to focus purely on that is just plain tragic. Could've worked better as side stories or something along those lines.

Overall, for a project going on this long, you'd think it would improve, but alas. There's still time, I guess, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I know this comment will probably get deleted and me blocked, because I've heard Dyne doesn't take criticism well (and neither do avid fans of this project), but I felt it all needed to be said anyway. Mostly because it's infuriating seeing something that had genuine potential fall apart this badly.
Plus, I feel like the people actually paying for this over on Patreon should be getting their money's worth.

Ah, well.

TheMaxx155 days ago(+13)(-4)

You summarized it perfectly thank you very much.

WolfBite Interactive LLC155 days ago(+6)(-5)

Phew, that's a lot to take in there. I won't respond to each point, but there's some stuff in here that's accurate, I'm sure.

I haven't read some of the routes from start to finish in a long time, so keeping up with repeated dialog over the 200+ days can be a pain. Sometimes I play it off as the characters forgetting, but other times it's just me forgetting. I mean, I've been the only writer for over 8 years, so I'm bound to forget, hah.

Again, it's been a while since I've gone through everything, but I don't think you have to be involved in the fetish stuff to get the best endings. Some of the older choices -are- tied to it, but there should be enough leeway that you can decline it and still be fine (something for me to look into at some point!). With Richard and Dwayne, you can decline a lot of that and it has no negative impact. Dunno if you cared enough to try that though, but it's okay! There's a lot to read, so not everyone has time to try everything.

You know, it's funny, cause Chester's dad didn't even have a design till long after Chester's route was done. I never really planned to introduce him (cause most of what I write isn't planned). It just kinda happened in a spot I thought worked. I also had my qualms about the epilogue for the exact reason you mentioned, buuuut at the same time, I still felt like it highlighted Chester and how their relationship has progressed. I honestly struggled with his epilogue though, so it might be something I revisit in the future.

Not everything you have gripes about is without warrant, but I think some of it's weird. Some things I might never think about since it's not pointed out. Either way, it's feedback to think about! Things can definitely be improved still~

Consequencey155 days ago(+5)(-3)

True about the 'writing over a long time' part, but this is something that happens even within the same conversation.

Hm, which ones would you consider weird?

WolfBite Interactive LLC149 days ago(+5)(-2)

Well, the comment about putting gay men in straight/bisexual situations.

All of the things you listed play with the characters' story and their personalities. Spencer likes dancing/stripping, so the audience for him doesn't matter. He just gets more out of it when it's men praising/watching him. Chester's straight friends, who thought he was also straight, put him in a really bad situation. They didn't know he was gay and forced that on him. Dozer, I don't really get where you're going with his and how that plays into the straight/bi thing. Darius is just sex-positive and all for that kind of stuff. He can appreciate the male and female body. Ladies don't do it for him, but he's definitely gonna support the situation. I also don't really see the issue with watching soft-core porn, especially when it goes on to talk about the strange plot and attractive male lead. Like, why can't a gay man enjoy something like that in some way?

I am a 100% gay man here, and I, personally, don't see any problem with gay guys being in these kinds of situations. I just thought it was a weird thing to comment on. Reminded me a lot of this guy in the past that -really- hates seeing bisexual guys in the VN.

Consequencey141 days ago(+4)(-3)

To be fair, those are all things you as the author decided to include.
I can't understand it, and it seems I'm not the only one?
(Regarding Dozer, I mentioned it because it's in extremely public places where they can be caught by anyone of any gender or age, which I personally find awful to do. I'm of the opinion that consent includes viewing sexual acts, not just being directly involved.)

Also, here's an example of repetitive dialogue someone sent me; I'll show more when I see them:

To me, personally, it just feels like a rather unnatural way to speak? It reminds me of the sort of dialogue you see in English textbooks, actually. (Here, at least. Our country doesn't .)

There's quite a few instances of this sort of thing.

Relond141 days ago (1 edit) (-8)

"I am a 100% gay man here, and I, personally, don't see any problem with gay guys being in these kinds of situations." Neither do I.

@Consequencey, don't you notice how ridiculous your arguments sound? Do you need to be a bi to admit the beauty of a woman's body? Or if you're gay, you can't even look at a photo/video with a very hot pornactor in your opinion if he is there with a woman? Can you answer these questions? Is that "yes" for you? The argument about Dozer is totally ridiculous. Like if two men kiss in front of a woman, that makes them bi. Don't you understand how stupid that sounds?

And now about the repetitive dialogues. Thank god you are finally agreed with me (in a strange way, but agreed). At first, in this comment, I wanted to point out that this can happen. It was in point 2 of my questions to the game (if you even could read). However, to my great surprise, I could not find this dialog! I used notepad++ and could not find these lines, even searching for them by individual words. But let's come forward and imagine that it is really present in the game. Even if you are unfamiliar with the code of the game, you can understand that most likely this happens at the intersection of some choices in the dialogue or its consequences. Thus we can come to the conclusion that these are not repetitive dialogues, as you describe, as if the characters have something wrong with their brains. It's just a small inconsistency in logic and a hole in narrative, that you can get into from different initial dialogues. (if anyone can confirm the presence of this dialog in the game after all). In some cases that can sound weird. Anyway, this can be corrected just by adding "Yes, they are my....". In this case, this dialogue begins to sound absolutely normal to me.

Even if this time your criticism is still far away from reality, that was a good try. Not good enough, but still. Progress is noticeable. But just to make the feedback even better, you need to point not only to the bug itself, but also to the specific place where it occurs, so that the developer can find it and fix it.

WolfBite Interactive LLC140 days ago(+5)(-1)

Hey, Relond. That dialog -does- exist within the game. He's playing the Patreon build (most likely a leaked one, as he's already made it clear he probably wouldn't support VIA Patreon). The chosen point isn't so much repeated dialog but just a repeated word that's easily remedied. I know I have a habit of repeating words like that, and I might not notice until I'm reading things over at a late date, bahaha.

Also, you should try and dial back your behavior. I can appreciate that you're passionate about all of this, but it's starting to come off as childish in some instances and only feeds into one of his earlier comments about the fans (another odd comment, since you don't usually see that here either, but that's whatever).

I appreciate you enjoying the project and such, but it's probably best just to let this conversation go. It's not really helping anything at this point, and people are better off screaming into the void. I'll take things I've found useful and think about it, but there's no reason to keep this going anymore.

Relond155 days ago(+4)(-9)

Want to say my few words (dude, no one give a fuck). I won't talk about Chester's epilogue, since I don't have access to it and haven't played it.

1) Repetitive dialogues. I do not deny that this can happen from time to time. But the number of such moments, according to my memory, is negligible. Maybe I didn't pay attention to it, but it was the recurring thoughts that I didn't meet. Only unless there is an agreement with some character about something, and when it comes to this event, he asks you about your choice. However, I agree with the following: I don't speak English, and in my language it is painful to read the same word in each of three lines in a row. Even if it's the core subject of the dialogue. In my case, this problem can be fixed by various synonyms in translation. I do not know how this thing feels for english-speaking users.

2) I will not discuss "bisexual/straight situations". What are you talking about? Some of your topics I don't remember or I missed. But it has no point to me. Is rape of a gay man a straight man's situation? If someone is bi, his partner can't watch bi porn with him? I don't know what you are implying.

3) Threesomes. Many will disagree with me, but that the current structure of the game seems good for me. The routes of the main game are focused on a certain character and all events happening only around him. I think it's good that a threesome (mostly after confirmation of player's interest) is only teased in the main story and never appears (yet). (although I will give respect to how well it was teased. When you play the game for the first time, you hope everyday will be the day when it will happen. the way it bothers you proves once again how well the author does his job). I believe that such content can be introduced as special episodes (and that's probably how it will be). The final of the routes and the choices during it give room for imagination. Especially for polyamory. If you need to see this in the game with your own eyes, then I'm very sorry for you. Use your imagination

4) Indulgence of fetishes. I can't say with 100% certainty, but I've been digging through the game's code and I think I can also confirm that indulging your companion's fetishes is not necessary for a good ending. It just changes some of the dialogue and adds some more scenes. My condolences to all those achiehunters who cannot restrain from watching unpleasant scenes for them, just to see all the sex scenes and make sure they complete the game by 100%. (I can mention the "Daniel situation" here. You also mentioned him, and I see that many people are also so concerned about it, that Dyne almost had to speak in person by Richard's mouth on one of the days. The game indulges your choices. If you don't want Daniel to step into your relationship with Richard, why are you encouraging them on it and then whining about it? Game gave you choices and you made it.)

5) Focus on fetish content. I disagree again. As I wrote above, it is optional. And here I can only applaud Dyne for such a variety of it. Everyone can find something of their taste. I can't even imagine what other fetishes exist and can be added. Unless only the harsh one, but if someone is complaining about the current ones, then it's hard to imagine what will happen if, for example, some kind of gore/vore content appears in the game. In addition, it is worth noting that this is not stuffed randomly into the game without a back thought. It matches the personality of the characters.

6) The introduction of characters. Here I will agree and disagree with the commentator at the same time. The game is in development. From our perspective we can see where and what can be added. But we have this idea only because the core of the route is crystal clear. We think about how we can take a step aside at one time or another. but for this, a straight path is needed, which arose thanks to the author's imagination from absolute nothing. After you saw 14000625 futures, it is logical that these questions arise. "Where is Chester's dad on his route?" It is what it is. Maybe sometime in the future it will appear after rework. Maybe not. He's not there now. Is it bad? No. Does his absence make the route incomplete? Hell no. Is this thing logical only for me?

7) And finally. I would like to ask, have you forgotten that this is still a WIP, right? It's just that you treat the game as a finished product. I understand you've been here recently, and you don't know how much the game has changed after all the time (hello to everyone who caught the game with CursedMarked arts). Even considering that I disagree with you in many ways, I am sure that your review was very useful for Dyne.

And now what confuses me about the game, but has not yet been mentioned somewhere above:

1) The game feels like a fairy tale. Yes, there is a pattern in the game that some kind of shocking event takes place in each and every route. But I initially know that everything will end well. There are no truly dark endings or events in the game.

2) The dialogues are not always consistent. In order to figure out the code of the game, I had to draw the connections like on detective boards. Such branching sometimes makes itself felt, but it is a solvable problem. It is only necessary for people to give feedback in which places and under what circumstances there are inconsistencies in the dialogues. (And all of it also turns the life of the creators of the fan translations of the game into a living hell)

3) A striking difference in the quality of writing of game days. The first days of classic characters, written 8 years ago, look a little pale compared to the quality of the new ones. You can see how the author is growing above himself and that's fine. But in the end, it will be good to recheck the old content when all routes are complete. And I think that's how Dyne is going to do it. routes - reworks- translations(?).

4) Sometimes the gaming experience is disrupted. For example, at this stage, many routes lack facial animations or they do not correspond to the situation. Or sometimes BGs are missing. Although this can be fixed, I do not think that this is a priority uno for Dyne. Polishing of the game will fix it eventually.

5) And also that Dyne does not read the mail.) Especially when there are written about bugs and include a ready-to-go solution for the problem that can simply ctrl+c ctrl+v into the build. (i know it is painful to go back and fix some not game breaking bugs right now, but still)

tldr. Let's be patient, give our feedback to Dyne, and let him do his work.

Dutiful Stroom154 days ago(+3)(-3)

I wish people would provide examples for the repetitive dialogue which is such a common complaint that I apparently completely missed during all of my playthroughs... Of course the dialogue can be a little slow at times but it was never even close to being bad enough for me to consider putting it in any kind of review especially for a game thats intended to be very slice of life.

Consequencey154 days ago(+4)(-3)

I'll try and do so when I get around to opening the game again

Relond152 days ago(+2)(-9)

Aaaaand... He's gone((( Since he can't prove his point, maybe someone who upvoted him can? Or is it just trash talking?

Consequencey151 days ago(+3)(-3)

1 *they

2 I can prove my point perfectly fine, but I do in fact have a life and haven't had the time to reread this thing for examples. I'll get to it when I get to it.

Relond151 days ago(+2)(-10)

I don't blame you for anything. We will not get an explanation of your words. It was clear from the very beginning. Sorry mr. busy man (if it is appropriate to use to they/them). You only have time to create an account and write a long controversial review. Therefore, I am not asking for an answer from you, but from those who share your point of view. Are there any here?) It's just when someone says that 2+2=5, I want to know if I was blind to the truth all this time and didn't see the obvious reality.

I'm not defending the game or the author. I think I made this crystal clear in my message above. The game can be criticized at the current stage, but not for all what you described. The only valid argument that you have given and with which I agree is the difference in the quality of the narrative of the days written 8 years ago and the recent one. The rest has no point, subjective and does not correspond to the reality. Am I wrong?)

Relond150 days ago(+2)(-10)

Yeap. I had no doubt that I would win this discussion, but I didn't think it would be soooo easy. General advice for everyone: learn how to formulate your position on topic if you decide to speak out. And be ready to confirm your point of view with arguments. Otherwise, if you will call black white and white black without arguments, everyone will look at you like you are crazy. <3

peach145 days ago(+8)(-2)

people have lives, and as they said they cannot reread the entires game dialogue for u to get a boner by debating with them. u put ur word as god and see urself as the moral compass and high ground, yet you are nobody in this conversation. you do not hold presedent over what is right and wrong. they are allowed to criticise, and they are allowed to take their time in a response. get your head out of your ass.

Relond142 days ago(-7)

No problems. Hater came to give his opinion. I have proved that a person can't read. My arguments were and still indisputable. The discussion is closed, the winner has been determined. Chill out:)

Aokami_320150 days ago(+4)

I definitely agree on the situation with Chester's epilogue.

Also I feel the hinted at threesomes in every route felt really awkwardly forced. Maybe I'm just too monogamous for my own good but I don't really enjoy Eric basically setting himself up to be in a cucking situation (specifically in Harold's route and Spencer's route.)

I appreciate that Dozer's route only has that pop up if you have Chester's perfect ending but even then, that kiss CG at the end with the three of them put Eric in a third wheel position and I didn't appreciate it personally.

All in all, I still love the game despite it's occasional flaws (and my personal annoyance over the way that dishwashers are talked about in most routes as if the other person had never heard of one in their life)

Relond149 days ago(-7)

I love proving people they are wrong. You are wrong) First of all, about Chester. I haven't seen his epilogue yet, but as I understand, everyone has a pain in the ass because his father doesn't appear in the epilogue. Does this, in your opinion, spoil his entire route? I don't think so either.

Now for the threesomes. If you read the message above from Dyne, you will find out that it is not necessary for the best ending. The fact that you got such scenes is FULLY the result of your intentional choices. You mentioned Dozer's route. For example, although I went through the best ending of both routes for Chester and Dozer, until recently I did NOT EVEN SUSPECT that there were such scenes in the game (shower, threesome kiss etc). I emphasize that I not only didn't see it, I didn't even have HINTS of its presence in the narrative.
It's the same for Harold. Your choice can only come down to the fact that other characters will admire your partner (in this case, I assume, you mean the whole situation about Richard).
The situation with Spencer and Darius is different and a little more complicated, there are other initial data. You can see their interest in each other from the beginning. And in some other characters, if we talk about naughty Darius:) And YOUR choices affect how the story will go.

Long story short, what you write is not the games but your complete failure in choosing the most obvious options in dialogs. The game almost asks you head-on if you are interested in a threesome, you say "yes", and then you are complaining: "how so?! I wanted a monogamous story!". It is a bit weird, don't you think so?

Aokami_320149 days ago (2 edits) (+5)

First of all, I wasn't complaining about Chester's dad not appearing in his epilogue. It was towards the major focus on some random new dude instead of on Chester. I will admit that I could have made that more apparent.

>"Your complete failure on choosing the most obvious options"

I replayed the routes multiple times to avoid any sort of polygamous thing so don't come at me as if you knew what I did. Never once did I say that they were bad or wrong, just that they were awkwardly implemented. Not to mention that I never claimed that they were required for the perfect endings???

No offense dude but just because someone has complaints about something, it doesn't mean you need to talk down to them.

Relond149 days ago(-7)

I'll be waiting for Chester's epilogue to come on itch. What you're describing actually can look strange. But I can't judge it yet.

As for the other points. Threesomes. Are you sure they're really implemented awkwardly? It would be awkward if Chester wasn't the third in Dozer's route. That would be awkward, wouldn't it? XD And if in Harold's route, the third one was not Richard, but for example Diana))) Did you get my point?)

And about good and bad ending, as we've already figured out, you don't have to indulge fetishes (how TS mentioned it) and do what you don't like. This applies to many aspects. It's great, isn't it? Everyone can take from the game only what they like. And here we come back to your comment. I personally haven't heard any specifics about what you think is awkward and what should be paid attention to. That's what I didn't get.

Or did I somehow misunderstand you and the whole point of your words is that you wanted threesomes, but you didn't like what the game offered you? Anyway, it's pretty subjective, don't you think so? Maybe you didn't like the implementation of these moments because of your personal qualities? Have you thought about it? How should it be to satisfy you? In that case, do you have any suggestions for Dyne, how could he have done it better? I personally did not see any problems in implementation of threesomes (except that there are none of it in the game. kind of. at least if compared to Taigher_28 artworks. that is threesomes!), and I would also be interested to hear another opinion and look at the situation from the outside.

And I'm sorry if my words look too aggressive and arrogant, that's not my goal (at least in discussion with you)

WolfBite Interactive LLC149 days ago

There are deeefinitely a variety of things I can write better and go back to rework and give the players more choices on how they interact with characters. I'd rather them not be put in situations they don't like, especially if it's not exactly relevant.

Your comment about dishwashers though... What do you mean? I didn't actually have one for most of my life, so maybe that comes across in a weird way that I'm not aware of, hah

Aokami_320148 days ago (1 edit)

It's not something bad or anything like that, it just feels weird seeing someone like Maria have to explain how dishwashers work. I'd have to go back and find exactly what I mean but I absolutely recall it happening in Harold's route.

Sorry if that's a weird thing to be bugged by btw, it most likely stems from the fact that I've had a dishwasher in every house I've lived in.

WolfBite Interactive LLC148 days ago(+1)

Haha, no, you're fine! I'll have to look at too, cause even now, to me, that sounds odd! Harodl's route -was- the first one I did, and that was right around the time when I FINALLY lived somewhere that had one, bahaha

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