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Zen: A Gay Sequel

A gay, planner-focused, stat-based, dating sim set in college. Also the sequel to Yearning: A Gay Story (YAGS). · By bobcgames

Quick Thoughts on the Demo (v.1.1.0423)

A topic by wonmynihilist created Jun 17, 2021 Views: 225 Replies: 1
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Hi, thought I'd start with how I love the YAGS game a whole lot! I got the game a year ago, but I only started playing it a few days ago... And then kept playing it ever since lol I finished four(?) routes on that, then came to play ZAGS. I just finished it, so these are my quick thoughts on it. I tend to ramble, so I'll use bullet points so check myself.

  • Having Carlos as the MC this time around surprised me, but I love him so I'm excited for this! For that reason, I tried my best to be in-character as much as possible when making choices. It wouldn't feel right to me otherwise. At least for a first run.
  • Chris' appearance didn't bother me in the slightest. I was only confused at first because I didn't recognize him, naturally, even though we were going through older scenes. Also, it seems like you like hearing what players imagined YAGS' MC to look like. I'm an Asian enby, so I imagined him as an Asian with naturally tan skin, between 170-175cm tall, and had dark hair a bit longer than Carlos'.
  • Chris' personality surprised me, though. It got a bit strange right away simply because I never once gave YAGS' MC a reserved/quiet personality in my multiple plays of it. I'm changing his name back to Chris next time (I kept my custom name from YAGS), because this is just so different from me now. Not a bad thing, of course. He's not the MC anymore, after all. 
  • The stats-rising element is amazing! I actually really love it because of Winter Wolves' games and Royal Alchemist VN (in case any other lovers out there want some reccs). Truthfully, having it introduced with Carlos as MC lowkey confused me because he's not the type to plan things out (Adam said as much in YAGS), but I'll happily take it!
  • In addition to the above, this is the first time for me that characters actually say in dialogue/narrative what their schedules are. And that ends up being what Carlos knows. Like wow, it's so simple, but I appreciate it a lot.
  • The profiles look really good. I read every single one (sorry, there's a couple of typos btw), and I love that 'Carlos' wrote them all with what he knows. It's always really fun to see characters more in-depth with even simple things like this.
  • The ending of the demo was... Emotional. I got really upset, but I just tried to focus more on how much of an ally Adam was being, and just absolutely adoring him. 
  • For the puzzle mini-game, could you please add a small picture of the finished puzzles on the side for reference?

That should be it. I'm looking forward to the finished game! Thank you for all your efforts and bringing these stories to life.

Developer

Thank you for the detailed thoughts! I'm glad you enjoyed the demo

You're totally right that Carlos doesn't usually plan things out (especially given how his weekends go!), but I wanted to do a more stat-based game with a planner system for my second big game, so that's just how it ended up working out... think of it less as "Carlos is planning out what to do this week" and more "The player is choosing actions across five days all at once instead of in a story-based manner" :)

A small reference for the finished puzzle is actually a great idea