An idea for new development and a potential dlc of this one: more sound effects :) I liked the static,mono like sound the ultra camera gives, however I was left wanting to "upgrade" those the same way I wanted to upgrade the low end cameras. So maybe professional mic to the store? Also male grunts to the scenes please.
Enjoyed the game :+1:
Some ideas:
Slower burn. The models in the screenshot and Jack the brat are nice but rushing to nude/explicit stuff kills the tension. And, imho, you want to build tension between your characters because that keeps the player engaged and wanting to get to the next thing. So far I have seen a couple of ways other games achieve this. To put it briefly, avoid revealing stuff too fast and avoid making your main interest characters too "porno" in the early game. For example, I find most of retsy's games do both of these really well - early naked scenes are blurred or from angles which keep things sexy and hot without gluttonizing on the graces of our main interest, and characters typically do not wear porny or skinny clothes (like they do e.g. in milftoon games).
So - peeking, touching (with progression hand, leg, butt, side tit, etc.), kissing (cheek, lips, tongue) and of course backlash for when things are taken too far for example touching breasts or trying to kiss on mouth then Jane's reaction should be reserved as in "that is not right" and if repeated "what the hell are you doing? / go to your room!".
With clothes you could also try a progression system. Baggier and less revealing clothes depending on characters stats, and progressing to sexier stuff if the character gains more confidence during the game.
Story arcs. What causes Dan and Michael to grow an interest toward Jane? Perhaps they are part of a "bodycount" club at school and want to go for the ultimate prize, or perhaps the recent divorce has stirred up some unhealthy competition between the guys in the sense of "who does mommy love the most?", or perhaps the competition has been going on for sometime and played a part in why Jane got divorced. Or perhaps one of the guys is a good kid who tries to save the family unit, while the other has some darker goals.
Or perhaps the dad characters is not yet totally out of the picture and Jane is trying to work it out but Dan/Michael has different oppinions.
Give the player more control on how sex scenes progress and especially where to finish - inside, tits, back, face, mouth, etc.
Don't forget the male sounds. When conquering the ultimate prize there needs to be grunts of victory, especially so during the climax :)
Limit the amount of characters. Jane, 3 kids, (maybe a dad / some other antagonist) + a couple of supporting characters. That is already 4/5 main characters and 2/3 supporting characters. And each new character means new content. Imo, few deep characters with plenty of content per character is always better than plenty of shallow characters and little content per character.
Bonne chance with the game!
Hi retsym,
What a fantastic game you have made! The setting was great, the audible environment was playful and "vacationy", the models were delicious (especially Karen) and the game had a progression that I could not wait to complete. You have managed to conjure up the feel of a beachside resort vacation that the lucky of us have had the pleasure of experiencing - the water slides, the hot sand between ones toes, the scent of coconut oil, the cool evening breeze and the grilled food by the boardwalk Add in a big dash of fantasy and we have a great experience in the making.
As a whole, Sunkissed is one of the best works you have produced thus far. My personal favourites are Housewife and Recently Divorced (albeit it being short and lacking a proper ending), and Sunkissed goes right into this mix. 9/10 - excellent work!
That said, there were bits here and there which I think could be improved so please take from these what you feel is relevant.
Gameplay Mechanics (I played on Android):
- Dialogues: I would prefer a two-click method that e.g. RenPy games typically use - the first click renders the entire frame immediately and the second click moves the story to the next frame. The current method made me either accidentally progress before all of the text was visible or wait in vain for text to appear. A two-click method would make progression more predictable.
- Minigames: Games were pretty tough mostly because the controlling finger gets in the way. Separate controls/meters on the side might make the games more fun to play on mobile. Besides this, most minigames were pretty fun and challenging. Kudos on those!
Immersion/continuity/story:
- Karen's dry hump scene felt that it broke Karen's character. Since Karen was depicted to be someone who complains, is in a troubled relationship with Dan's father and clearly was reserved with closeness to Dan then a more subtle approach would have worked better. Eg. Blair's vacation boyfriend + romantic walk + weed for removing inhibitions was brilliant and something similar could have helped establish a deeper connection between Karen and Dan and made her corruption feel more plausible.
- Karen's relationship with Dan's father was hinted to here and there. It could have been more present in Karen's dialogue with Dan. This would have given the player a chance to plant and grow the idea of Dan as his dad's vacation replacement in Karen's mind.
Scenes:
- More jiggle. Imo, the best thing about full-figured characters is that there is plenty to grab and jiggle during thrusting motions. More of that please :)
- Cum in mouth or facial finishers pretty please :)
- Prankster videos were a nice addition, however, both were cut short right when the going was getting good - Dag nabbit, you pranksters!
- Sauna scene with Karen would have deserved to be longer. It would have also worked well earlier in the story with similar mechanics which we had in the shower scene.
- Character based ending scenes would have been awesome. Also corruption/star based ending scenarios would have been a nice addition ( just text + still images, no movie scenes necessary)
Some final random thoughts:
- Please consider updating some of your earlier games. Eg. new scenes, endings and sounds.
All in all, brilliant work! I cannot wait to experience your next game!
Hi Retsym,
One additional thing I think would be nice to include in the next game is the POV mode that you had for POVMan in Atomiquest, however, POV would be from Daniels point of view, and this would of course affect the POV camera angle.
As a second thing, I had an idea to pitch to you to put into that large bag of already nice ideas: a slice of life in a school dance / prom setting similar to HouseWife in that the game would have two parts but with a more story driven approach of The Goodtown Mystery. The first part of the game would be the days leading to the dance and the second part of the game would be e.g. the day before, the day of and the day after the dance. In the first part the objective would be to make a plan, get the interest to go to the dance, and do preparation stuff (eg. hotel bookings etc.) and in the second part the player executes / observes the outcome.
Replayability could be introduced by persisting some "stimulations" or "knowledge" between the plays which unlock new approaches or even new characters. So for example, perhaps in the second part of the first playthrough the player observes that some character is lonely or jealous of players attention to someone else. This would then unlock new interactions with that character during the subsequent playthroughs.
k, thats my 2-cents : )
Ta!
First of all, I have to say that the renders and the characters are looking good. I also like vacation as a setting because it allows for a set period of game time and a plausible setting for passing time.
Characters
When people go onto a holiday they tend to bring a lot of clothing. Day-time clothes in a warm climate would tend to be more loose and ordinary while for night time activities the characters could put on something with more bling and show more cleavage (but not too much) especially when attending dinner or going to a night club.
As for the number of characters, I would much rather have a story, build up, interactions and content for a just a couple of characters than shallow content for many characters. Some supporting characters can help sell the main story better and make endings feels more "real" e.g. in this game one such character could be the father figure or a rival who can cause an early game over scene such as: After failing to woo Karen, the game skips to the end of the vacation and screen follow with text: "Family <surname> had a wonderful vacation. Karen found the spark with <father> once more. Blair had a summer romance. And Daniel... well he had fun too" with Daniel all grumpy and kicking rocks. A father-figure rival actually would not need to be physically in the game but could be present in the character's discussions. For example, perhaps Karen confides in Daniel and talk about her marriage.
Build up and mini-games
I find that build up is one of the hardest things to get right in these kinds of games. Usually devs just jump to the spicy content after some lukewarm dialogue. I would like to see the level of intimacy between the characters increase slowly. For this, mini games like the dancing mini-game is a great idea! Other activities like that where the character can slowly but surely explore new territory will help sell the progression better.
Which brings us to the important point that development of the relationship between Daniel and Karen should not be a linear grind. For example, suppose there is a domination path for Daniel where he tries to swoo Karen. So Daniel will try to make advances but Karen should realize that what is happening is inappropriate and wrong, and set him straight in a very strict manner. For example, too eager touching would be met with annoyance and scolding, and a first attempt at a kiss on the dance floor will cause her to pull back in "what in the earth are you doing?" manner. It should be up to the player to get past these obstacles, and even if you did everything right, the story should be done so that there are always some ups and downs.
Game and scene endings
Speaking of endings. I would much appreciate more contentful endings with more control on how content ends. Regarding the game endings, ideally there would be both bad endings (like the one above) and good endings. And the endings could be more than just summarizations of how you did during the game. As an example, the ending of the Housewife game could have been a playable epilogue from the kids perspective. The family would be back home again, the playable character is the kid, it would be night time and he is in his bed, credits and scores roll on the side of the screen but the player can choose to click on the bed to go to sleep OR (if you did well enough) click on the door and wonder into the mom's bedroom and "drive" home the victory.
With scene endings I would like to be able to choose where to finish (face, mouth, tits, ass, etc.) especially so if the route the character is on is the domination route.
Phew, sorry for the long write. :) Super excited to see Sunkissed when it is out - it is looking great!
Overall, I liked the game and will be looking forward to the next one!
Some feedback,
The setting and characters were good. I like dark hair and big tits so that was a slam dunk.
The idea of different routes worked pretty well, however, it would have made a nice addition to the game if normal daily actions would have varied depending on your progress.
I especially liked the manipulation route pink actions and the romantic dinner date. I am usually not a big fan of romance in games but in this one I think I liked the romantic route more than the manipulation route.
The art was ok, at times it did feel too pixelated but other times it did not bother that much.
Scenes were good, however, I really would have wanted to see a missionary scene and a more assertive blowjob scene in the manipulation route.
The length of the game was ok. Toward the end of both paths it did start to feel a bit repetitive - I would just do the daily actions, go to bed and repeat until I got the max levels. Balancing that out is tricky and I noticed that managing Frustration turned out to be most difficult part of the game.
I found myself not enjoying the exploration element nearly as much as I did in Desperate Days or in Goodtown mysteries. After obtaining enough money and the items it felt unnecessary.
An enjoyable little game. Thank you, sir! I will be looking forward to the next one.
Two hints that allowed me get the scenes that I wanted (mind you I do not aim for 100% scenes during a single playthrough)
- Get to the library and get the stats needed to borrow the lewd books. You can then spend your free time (the time before anyone is home) reading the books in the bedroom. This will get you the stimulations to level up the stats you need for the scenes.
- Be wary of spending money before the vacation starts. You will need around $60-70 to get everything you need to get all the scenes when the vacation starts. I do not remember the exact amount but it around that ballpark.
With these you should have no problem unlocking all the scenes for Tom(?). For the camping trip scenes I remember seeing a walkthrough somewhere here in the comments. I have yet to unlock the cafe-helper scenes but the stimulations from the books should help gain those stats as well.
Hope that help!
Great work! I have bought and played almost all of your games and can't wait so see some more. My personal favorites have so far been "Recently Divorced" and "Housewife" for the settings, character models ("Recently Divorced" especially for the mc) and the progression mechanism (ie. the stimulations). In your latest one, "The Goodtown Mystery", I really liked the addition of sounds in the dialogs and scenes, and the story driven approach. I am hoping to see similar things in the future : )
If I may throw in a suggestion or two for consideration for future games:
- Give the player more control over how the sex scenes progress and where to "unload".
- Give the player more control over the MCs character especially with regard to the main interest. For example, in "Recently Divorced" with the kid as the MC the player could choose to be supportive, lovable and build a "romantic" relationship, or be an assertive, guilt-tripping "ahole" and seek for Sharon's submission.
I will be looking forward to your next games. Keep up the great work!
