redle wrote:Yes, the ILSWriter thing is what had me bringing up being unsure how the mods would react. I tried to be clear in my response that all images were perfectly acceptable. For the most part I was trying to point out the direction many game designers use to avoid the discussion, as people have named several direct examples. (I brought it up in what I hoped was a calm discussion in hopes of preventing the first post of the matter to be a panic-stricken OMG which snowballs into flame-wars and arguments [although the lagoon is better than most in this area]).
Age, maturity, and sexual awareness are three separate measures. They advance at different rates for each individual, as well as different rates from each other. Eighteen is a rather arbitrary boundary point. Age is generally completely irrelevant to gameplay. The only reason it normally is put in is to give a point of reference to other events in the game. I want this to happen in a school setting, so what age are people in school being the most common. In your game it's more about giving credence to both people living under their parent's roof and the parent having enough authority to 'send the boy away'.
The age fails this 'giving credence' when talking about the photo contest. I still don't see how you can possibly make that work in the current setup (I assume you have a plan how you will advance that part of the story). Suspension of disbelief is all well and good in games and movies, but it only goes so far. Maybe you will end up claiming they both just wanted to do the act and never had any intention of submitting an entry. They were both just using it as an excuse to explore with each other. But you certainly can't have them entering it, let alone winning it.
Anyway, I appreciate the time it takes to make a game, as well as the designer's right to make the game they want (which has nothing to do with my opinions). Just for me, if I've got to suspend my disbelief somewhere, I'd rather disbelieve that an 18 year old would act so immature, than that the person I'm trying to undress isn't the underage age it states (if I'm already pretending she's the 21-year-old in the picture, then it doesn't make so much sense to not call her 21. Perhaps that's just me). Imagine I'll still check out a future release and sbjects lying around... I can steal nothing, or steal everything. But either way it's more about going through the motions. It's much more engaging when I only steal Some things.)ee where it goes. When a game drifts into the societal taboo zone, I just tend to enjoy a game more when it walks the top of the fence rather than one side or the other. (like an rpg with a lot of o
Thanks for your long, and well considered and balanced, reply! You lift some very valid concerns, which I hope to now clarify. You're right about the age thing. Emily is 14-15 (15 in the latest build), and hence very naive, and she knows practically nothing about sex, or at least that's what she wants to portray to the PC (but seriously, what 14-15 year old girl doesn't know about sex?). It seems you fail to consider this from Emily's perspective. Maybe she's aware that her brother likes to tell her about sexual stuff, and just let's him do it? Maybe she's even acting the way she is in order to advance their relationship with her brother to something else. Obviously the reasons for your concerns are based on what's in the demo currently (and rightfully so), but as I've previously said, the demo was released primarily to show of the graphics, story and characters. You have no idea what happens after the demo ends, and to what point the relationship between the characters progress, or in what way it does. Maybe the demo sends the impression that Emily is just this dumb, stupid 14-year old blonde that doesn't know any better. Rest assured, she's not (if it's one thing I hate, it's "stupid" female characters that lack depth and is only in the game for sexual purposes and who lack personal ambition).
Regarding your thoughts on the photo contest, I fail to see how this would be a problem for you. You must assume Emily doesn't want to do the photo contest, and that the PC has to convince her to do it? By playing the demo, it should be pretty obvious that Emily is extremely "curious" about her big brother. A lot of her responses and hesitations in the conversations should hint pretty strongly at this fact. You also seem to assume that the goal of the photo contest is to actually win the contest. This assumption is false, as it's clearly stated in the game on at least a few occasions, that the PC just wants to see her naked, and that's practically all that matters to him (you don't yet know what Emily truely wants). When you talk to her about the contest the PC even says she could have demanded the entire sum of price money, and that it wouldn't care, because all he wanted was to see her naked. And why wouldn't they be able to enter the contest? They're obviously aware of Emily's age, hence it makes sense they would lie about it to try and enter the contest anyway (they talk a lot about the money, don't they?). Whether this will work or not is not revealed in the demo and again, you don't really know both characters motives.
In closing, if I've interpreted your post correctly (which might not be the case, as I'm currently hammered, lol), you feel that Emily's behaviour is not in line with a real 14-year olds. You also seem to feel that the game is neither too controversial, nor too politically correct and that it instead tries to walk a fine line in between the two extremes. This has been done intentionally. First of all, like it or not, siblings do actually fall in love. It's actually not that uncommon. And when at this age, a lot of siblings do experiment the way the characters do in the game (well, at least what you've seen one of the characters do). If this behaviour is okay or not okay is not my objective with this game, that's basically up to you to decide. The point of the game is for the player to try and and look beyond the obvious black or white legal issues that's associated with this theme in real life. Basically, I want you to love/like Emily so much, or be attracted to her so much, that the story in itself is actually believable, and credible. So far you've experienced a few hours of game time from the PC's perspective, and your assumptions of Emily are therefor, logically, based on what you've seen thus far. However, as stated above, you only know Emily from the way she speaks to you in the conversations in the demo, nothing else.
Again, thanks for your reply and I'll be glad to answer any more concerns you might have. I would also appreciate more comments on the game that's not related to the premise. I.e, are the graphics good, is the game too hard/easy, are the characters believable, is the story progressing in a realistic fasion, do the conversations seem realistic and do they give life to the characters, and so forth.
![[img]images/icones/icon10.gif[/img]](./images/smilies/icon10.gif "smile")
![[img]images/icones/icon18.gif[/img]](./images/smilies/icon18.gif "bizarre")
)![[img]images/icones/icon5.gif[/img]](./images/smilies/icon5.gif "mecontent")
