First Contact by dott. Piergiorgio
Playtime: 43 minutes
The one with a: three-way meet-cute at magic school
This game is unabashedly committed to its premise, which I respect. It was pretty early in the game that we get beats like “what matters is my relationship and feelings towards the natural force lying raw and untapped behind my pubes” which pretty well clue the player about what lies in store.
- overall approach
This game has very few game-like elements. The player pretty much clicks to advance screens, or occasionally exhausts a list before clicking to advance screens. I would like a LOT more to do as a player. I think the first step would be making the different topics optional so the player can move on “early” if they want. By my timer it took me nine minutes to make it off the initial page of mandatory links. (I like reading worldbuilding, but even for me the oath and the obligations in particular were too long and unnecessary for the beginning of the game.)
Setting aside the amount of interactivity, the written material is sort of a combination of a TTRPG sourcebook and a novella. This is an awkward combo because the infodumps from the sourcebook parts keep you from getting purely into the story, but if you’re there for the infodumps you might wonder why you have to watch people making out.
I think others have suggested chopping the infodump sections and only putting in worldbuilding where it can be naturally merged into the narrative. This would make the overall result more novella-like. That’s certainly one possible approach and would probably be an improvement.
I’ll throw in though: we could also address the issue from the opposite direction—if the material really wants to be a TTRPG sourcebook, let it! Maybe there’s some in-game encyclopedia or journal etc. that the PC is carrying around and the player can click in there whenever they want to read relevant lore dumps on the culture, magic system, etc. I think that would also be an improvement to get the material cabined in one place where the reader had some control of how and when to engage with it.
- plot elements
The romance section dragged for me. I agree with those who mentioned that including the soulmate element and everything up to the special marriage was too much content to cover in the game. The natural scope of the game felt like it should have been the first day of class, set up the relationships, do the remembrance, then leave it there.
I also needed a lot more details to sell the romance. It seemed like most of what we got was generic statements that the PC found the other two mystically compelling / “beautiful” etc. It would have helped me get more into it if there was more specific details about what exactly the PC sees in each of them. As a reader, just thinking “oh, they’re beautiful then” is difficult.
It might also be useful to try to develop a unique dialogue voice for each character. I got the sense that Atuzejiki was a bit more impulsive, but the other characters (Etuye, Lan, Miryarai) all sounded similar to me when they talked.
- worldbuilding elements
OK, I do have a lot of inherent suspicion about the concept of a Great Peace that was formed by . . . one powerful faction making war on everyone. And I would have needed a lot more explanation of how everyone was prevented from engaging in revenge afterwards.
Setting that aside, there were some points that where–given how much worldbuilding I was getting on other topics–I was a bit disappointed not to get worldbuilding on:
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time scrying and soulmancy? The PC mentions that she has these, and I was like oh cool can’t wait for the explanation but . . . there wasn’t one. Later she says that it will pair well with the other’s abilities but that didn’t conjure up anything specific for me because I don’t know what time scrying and soulmancy do.
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I’ll bite: if we’re doing this, give me more breastfeeding-based worldbuilding! [Since it hasn’t come up thus far in the review, I should note that a lot of the game is about a large breastfeeding ritual and also it’s implied that people commonly breastfeed each other, including for dinner between friends.]
- how common is breastfeeding adults, culturally? I was confused at the start of the remembrance scene. The PC has a kind of surprised reaction, and I couldn’t tell if that was a “we have a breastfeeding taboo” reaction or just that the concept of doing the specific remembrance with Lan was shocking to her. (Later the impromptu dinner scene I think cleared that up for me, but it would have been better not to be confused.)
- What does breastfeeding someone else mean in this culture, specifically? The main characters seem to think it’s a casual way to have dinner, but is that because they’re already friends? How does this vary among cultures / the different species present? Is there inter-group conflict (group A thinks group B is backwards and unsanitary, group B thinks group A are a bunch of libertines)?
- If you’re riding the fantasy!Amtrak and you get hungry, is it socially acceptable to ask a breast-having person for a drink? As a breast-having person, is it socially normal to say no to people who you find annoying or is that considered a bit aggro?
- Does everyone just lactate all the time?
- How are they getting around the thermodynamics problems? (i.e., a human woman producing 300 kcal of milk needs to eat MORE than 300 kcal additional because it takes energy to make milk, so people cannot just all feed each other in a closed loop). Is there a magic explanation?
- It’s mentioned that dragons like Lan have a prodigious output—is there some kind of storage or transportation system to get this distributed to the smaller species? (I’m picturing here the truck from Mad Max: Fury Road).
- How do men (or women who don’t lactate for medical reasons or whatever) feel about the cultural significance of milk? Do they feel excluded from nurturing /caring for others? Have they developed replacement rituals where they carry around granola bars to offer people or something?
(Plz note, I am not saying I want the answers delivered as like, a 10 slide deck, but I would have enjoyed if the plot addressed any of these issues).
Front matter | ||
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Could better set the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game | Successfully sets the table for the game PLUS |
Overall, a niche product with some roughness in execution, but you know, I was interested enough to want to keep reading at every point