I'm so embarrassed by my absentmindedness... I created this thread, and I guess some pretty, colorful thing with lights must have strolled by because I completely forgot about it. (Perhaps I was expecting a notification through CHYOA? Foolish of me if so.) I'll bookmark this to avoid this later.
Whoo! Well now, though I'm incredibly late (my apologies for this), I'll chime in!
Nemo of Utopia:
1. Indeed, "Non-Consent" was my second tag for the story (after "Mind Control"), and even the moral grandstanding by the MC is supposed to be incredibly flawed: effectively raping not only the bodies, but very free wills and lives of the women he ensnares, there can be no moral high ground for his actions. It's compound rape, and the "Morality" stat only serves to gauge his tendency to revel in cruelties or abuse of his victims. That being said, that is my intention, and I respect anyone's decision to stop reading on account of their tastes or morals. There will be more awful things that happen to women, presuming I can keep my wits about me enough to write the alternative to his usual, half-bumbling impregnations.
2. Khan (who issued a response of his own) touched upon a topic that I suspect is one I'll freely share: the game is meant to be more difficult, and require more evolutions, at future levels (HUBs). That being said, there's only so much difficulty to pump into branching paths before I'm overwhelmed, and the evolutions act as my "shortcut" to that: women who prove more intelligent, shrewd, and able to avoid his overt chemical influence will have a number of dead/bad ends in pursuing them, or so I've vaguely planned (we'll see if I'm able to deliver). Success for these more difficult encounters will require a very narrow, thorny path of normal choices, and a few shortcuts with powers. Your criticism is still entirely valid, of course: these first girls are, in fact, "easy". I can only offer that they're meant to be.
3. It's a curious issue of perspective: you are looking at how addiction works in real life and going up from there, and that's not only valid but also the more realistic an approach. From there, this seems like a reckless power fantasy (it more or less is). Myself, I was coming "down" from how many chemical mind control stories go, with instant gratification on first dose or some such (not that there's anything wrong with that). Really, mines is barely "down" from that so far, and again only time will tell if I can deliver what I envision to be the more difficult, drawn-out encounters, but that was the OOC reason for this wildly addictive stuff: the first tag on the story is "Mind Control", which is home to little beyond said power fantasies, and I feel that such is the category by which his absurd pheromones and sperm should be judged. Like #1, I respect anyone's distaste for it, but can only offer that respect.
3a. As to showing examples of them resisting, well... stay tuned. (Presuming I'm not a COMPLETE hack, and merely a disappointing one.)
4. I don't know how to quantify or phrase, properly, a defense for the MC's "regular Joe" persona. I feel like there's some literary term to encompass it, but instead here is this ramble: in planning the first chapters, I just saw myself drawn to the idea of someone entirely unprepared for the power to dominate the world or, at least, every woman in New York, someone who was left feeling like the world owed them something, and with the women outpacing him in every way save his bizarre new power. I guess that means it serves as the power fantasy but, instead of engaging it from a position of immediate superiority by one's genius, by rising up from a bitter, mediocre origin. Also, I occasionally get an urge to write comedy in my wanton rapefest so... bonus? As for rewriting... never never never!
But I'll consider that kind of protagonist when/if I ever start another story. I'd recommend the fairly sharp gentleman (rapist) I wrote on a branch in the AGS story, but I fear he's having too convenient a time so far to overcome the other issues you have with Apex Seed.
5. I use first_name and last_name, and hopefully fuck up using them less in the future!
Sthaana:
If I can ever get off my lazy arse to do it (and I may force myself to do so, as I wanted to finish all prologue routes before finishing the first chapter/HUB), I do intend to connect the different prologues to loop into the HUB. In those scenarios, Devi will be a guest, and will wear a Hazmat suit while she goes about researching you and your victims (along with her own post-HUB scene...), but that also entails writing alternative paths whenever I had Devi show up as a slave elsewhere... ah, but that's on me, and I'll do my best to get to it (and hopefully not strike the other prologues in frustration. Poor planning on my part, sorry about that). P
er your request/suggestion, I've made a "Skip Prologue" entry on the Introduction page which zooms you to the rules pages right before the HUB. I can't promise you'll enjoy the game anyways, but I hope you do!
fyreant:
*looks behind him* *points to himself with a confused expression while silently mouthing "Me?"* *looks behind himself again*
Seriously, I don't deserve a lick of that praise, particularly from one whose work I jealously read. >///> But thank you.
Khan:
I appreciate your responses, and by extension your praise. I'm not particularly appreciative of the tone you used in some responses, but I know you meant well. Also, ignore the rankings on CHYOA: they're all jacked up anyways. Apart from that, I do appreciate the views, favorites and bookmarks (unhealthily so perhaps), and will strive to justify them. Also, re: nametags: I did change the default to "Derek Peck" just to avoid John Doe. I also can't stand that default name! Maybe that helps encourage players to type something in, but for now Derek remains.
