Ey, glad you finally finished out the game Braixen!
And...interesting feedback. I will say, you're probably one of the first to say "Where's all the lore, give more lore, give me worldbuilding!" I think for me it really comes down to context. The CS games are first and foremost horny games: they've gotta do that well, and they've gotta do that front and center. Story, setting, characters and so on exist as a support structure for this, because sex stuff is hotter if it occurs in a context and has meaning. But there's a limit to that.
I've actually given a lot of thought to this, and mentioned it in the past. I always have a kind of spectrum in my mind, with a little indicator arrow on it. "Porn" on one side, "Story" on the other. If you go too far one way, there's no depth and it's just flavorless sex scenes. If you go too far on the other, it's...just a story, with some explicit content here and there. Which is fine, but not what I'm shooting for. I have, for better or worse, played a LOT of these games, and the conclusion I came to long before making my games was that it wasn't really possible to be on the knife's edge of this spectrum: you either had to fall on one side, or the other. So I very deliberately have the CS games fall on the side of "Porn, but with a lot of character and story to support it".
I explain all this because I want to make it clear I've definitely thought a lot on it, and again, the games are how they are very deliberately, because I want to make a horny game with some flavor and identity, not an in-depth character drama with a little sex here and there. Itch is FLOODED with VNs like that, and I've just never been interested in that side of the spectrum. If you're going to have more sex in your story than an R rated movie, I really think it should be pushed over to the other side of the spectrum. The bit in the middle is...kinda lukewarm and doesn't really work either way. At least for me.
So it's an identity matter, but also just practical. MOST people would kill me if I spent even more time on story/character/setting etc. For most I was already pushing it a bit with how much there is in GT, but I wanted to have a LITTLE more context for things, especially going forward. And of course I only have so much time and energy as well. The more of the game I make that's story stuff, the less time in the budget there is for another scene where Mezz gets his brains turned to mush via sex. Always a balancing act.
BUT, that said, I'm glad you care! I'm glad you enjoy what is there! Just know that I arrive at the mix that's there very carefully, via an attempt to balance a lot of different things. That lore is on the computer because it would bog things down immensely if I tried to mix it all in somewhere.
Also, something that's very important to me, high up on the priority list, is AVOID ANNOYING PLAYERS. I have played so, so many games that just don't value their player's time or experience. So as much as possible, I try to carve things out and make things optional. You CAN read the lore on the computer, but you'll get the basics via osmosis and you can carry on playing the game without digging through ancient history if you prefer. You CAN play the game "legit", or you can somewhat cheat your way through in various ways if you just want to sight-see and don't care. It costs me very little in extra dev time to design like this, and I think it makes the games much more enjoyable to more people because they have that flexibility.
Ha, and all that said, I'm glad that putting my chips on the sex did at least pay off with you (it usually does).
"was it successfully conditioning me?"
You joke, but that's a very deliberate design intention of the games in general. There are many surprises and ambushes in the games, but nothing is every truly forced. It should be entirely possible (although extremely difficult) to go through both games without being "defiled" at all. Everything always has a slight air of "well, you let your guard down, you were sloppy." In-universe, to Mezz, but also to the player. It's this thing of "Well yeah, but you keep letting this happen. What does that say about you?" It's a very subtle meta humiliation kink thing. That's why there are only a handful of full ENDS, everything else just loops and builds, one slip up after another, and another, and another. That's not just hot because of what happens to Mezz. It's hot because YOU KEEP PUTTING HIM THROUGH THAT. While, to some degree, self-inserting.
I am very happy to hear you like Porno 1 - D, because DEAR GOD was that an obnoxious pose to work on, and I'm still not super happy with it. One of the weaker ones in the game IMHO. But that's why I've learned to never talk about stuff like that beforehand. Most of the time, the stuff YOU hate or think has issues as a creator, most people won't even notice. Lot of room for variation there.
And yes, game is definitely dark thematically (literally too, had to scale up the lighting from the earlier versions in some cases). I try not to go too extreme with it, or for too many of the scenes, but fundamentally these games are about psychological sadism and masochism. I like dark stuff, it's hot. I will say though, that it always has to fall into a kind of cartoony zone still. Fucked up cartoony, but still cartoony. Like Secret of NIMH is a DARK movie for its genre, but it's still not some psychologically devastating war movie or whatever. I hate things that are nihilistic, pointless, hopeless, that make you feel dead inside. But I DO enjoy stuff that has that sharp, bitter, stinging flavor here and there. It's so much more fun that way. Even cartoons and fables need STAKES. You said Mahir was flat for you, but I'd say that scene (and a few others) say a lot about him as a character, at least on a basic level.
Also, again, remember WHY Mezz is now brokenly serving cock in a hidden back room. YOU put him there. It didn't have to be like this.
"My first playthrough was an accidental Slut mode route, one that was meant to be Pure but I kept sucking."
This is literally the intended median playstyle. "Ok, I guess I'll play a clean playthrough first for reference...oh ooops. Oh, huh. Well, since I'm already HERE..." And thus the descent begins.
Oh I should say while I remember too, thanks for documenting play times. Like I said, I like to keep track, get a rough idea to quote people since MY playthroughs stopped being a representative sample a long time ago (if they ever were). And glad the patch/improvements are working well!
Alright, let's work through the issues raised:
-I've talked a lot about this, but the battle system is what it is. You'll notice it's better than CS at least! But again, limited time, limited energy. I always prioritize making the sex stuff work before having an amazing fight engine. Sorry to hear the battlesex didn't quite hit for you either, but that was more or less where the focus was. It is unfortunate and a little silly that there are effectively only three mob enemies, and two are just variations on the base. But unfortunately art is a huge time sink for me, and dev time would increase dramatically for every additional enemy added. There's also the complication of battlesex, because every new enemy either has to not do sex stuff (boring), or have some NEW thing that it does.
There are basically two ways you can go with this: have a bunch of enemies, and just have one, simple thing that they do sex wise. Many enemies, dead simple battlesex. Or you can have very few, and a more complex battlesex system. I opted for the latter, because again, this is a porn game. I want the porn stuff to have the most depth. I'd love to have BOTH the battlesex and the ordinary fights be deep and have a lot of variety, but given limited resources, a lot of choices have to be made. I'm banging together rocks here, I'm just happy I can pull off what I can.
-Basic UI: Again...think of this all like buying a run-down house cheap and fixing it up when you can. I get the basics working first, and then slooowly build out and improve fancy things when I'm able. UI is frosting. The basic one works well enough. I have considered tweaking it at various times, but doing so in a way that doesn't make it WORSE is harder than you'd think. Good UI design is a pretty big time sink, and one I just haven't been able to afford.
-On the battlesex again: I will say that the theming around GT is different than CS. CS is much more traditional and basic: you lose x number of times, and that's it. There are a number of games I've played that had a kind of "momentum" design to them, to play off the humiliation aspect, where it wasn't just a matter of winning or losing: you could keep picking yourself up, and fighting, but the more you lost the harder it became to fight legitimately, until it kind of became this "in denial" thing where you COULD fight, but it was utterly pathetic and you might as well give up. I built a slight bit of this into CS, but much, much more into GT. For someone interested in the lore, remember the context here: Mezz has already been COMPLETELY brainwashed into "entertainment" before even starting to fight through the Gutter, it's only a frail, artificial mental framework that's holding that back. So the Pure playthrough is supposed to be somewhat frustrating, especially after a few losses, because once that ball starts going down the hill it picks up speed FAST. Personaly if I was doing a "pure" playthrough (not 100% pure, just enough for the next game), I'd save scum and avoid ANY losses to the mobs, because once that starts you get stuck in the tar pit REAL quick.
To be fair though, and open to criticism, it is possible that the game would be better if the gameplay BEFORE that initial loss was a little easier. Then again, hard and easy are notoriously difficult to judge in a general sense. I DO "Mario Maker" my games, I play through stuff to make sure it's at least possible, and make note of the experience. But everyone has different expectations for this stuff, and a lot just aren't thinking in RPG terms (like topping off health after every battle, conserving items etc).
"Despite that, I found the battlesex to be quite neat, and when I didn’t care about maintaining purity, it was quite enjoyable. "
This is the unfortunate limitation of the games I think: because of the design priorities, Pure playthroughs are always going to be a. Very hard and b. Somewhat boring. That's why I elected to put Scratch's stuff on the pure side, just to have SOMETHING on that route. But you should really think of pure playthroughs as that mode a lot of games have where you deliberately make it harder just to prove you're up to the challenge.
-Sorry to hear the slutmode stuff in the lair didn't work for you. I will say I did understand that it is a lot of work to get through, which is why I only did it there, where you only have a handful of mobs to fight through. But it's there for a reason: that's the mechanic you use to "fight" Khazeem in that mode as well, and I needed to tutorialize it before the boss fight, or people would be confused when it hit suddenly.
-The kitsune stuff is very basic, yes, but I had to have SOMETHNG on the normal route besides just the fights. You have to have some downtime where it's more problem-solving for pacing issues. But yes, absolutely filler, but without them the whole thing would feel too short, and too basic. I will admit they are very basic elements of the game though.
I'm honestly surprised you still went with 9/10 given your frustration with some of the more "ordinary game" aspects of the game (and entirely valid complaints!). But I think this may underline my point: I'd love to do EVERYTHING great, but with limited resources only SOME things can be great, and you have to put the chips where you think they'll have the highest return. That 9/10 tells me I put them in the right place.
Regardless though, I'm glad you were finally able to play GT, and that you enjoyed it overall. And absolutely, I'd love to see a translation when you can manage it! Will take a while, but of course, no rush.
Edit: Just noticed re-reading: "(also the text box cuts through Mezz’s hole and covers it in Slut mode Khazeem’s game over and that’s just unfortunate I wanted to see that gape :c)"
As in most VNs you can toggle the text box at any time by right-clicking. Enjoy :D.