A24

I felt the need to comment since a couple of the reviews have said something that I don't entirely agree with recently.

It's been mentioned that there isn't a lot to do within the setting and that the game has content down one path but not others.

The first is untrue.  The game currently has more than 100 interactive scenes and probably +500 scenes in total within the game, and is growing rapidly.  For example, I received three submission scenes, wrote six small scenes, and write a little ofer half of a larger scene just yesterday.  The game is growing in leaps and bounds.   Recently I even removed some of the conditions for scenes to make them easier to find until our coding help can get a proper movement function into the game.  As of the last time I checked, the game totaled over 700,000 words of content, so contrary to what the previous couple of reviews said, there IS a ton of content to explore.

The second is subject to opinion and interpretation.  Up to this point in development, I've been focusing largely upon the "Nice" path for both girls, with just a little bit of content for the other paths.  This is because I want to make the game playable, make it so that people feel as if there is something to do down the path they are playing.  Just a couple of builds back, I started to add some of the darker content and am beginning to ease into some of that content.  A game doesn't write itself over night, these things take time.  You can look at any game of size on this site, production does not happen in days or weeks, it happens in terms of years.

And for the naysayers.  When I began Wanton Cove, I received countless messages saying "It can't be done"  "It's not everything you said it would be" "It's too ambitious,"  And other things.  Even toward the middle of development I had quite a few messages coming in that said "It will never be completed."  "It's too ambitious" "Just like every other game with promise, it will eventually be abandoned"  and the like.  Yet in spite of that, it's a complete game, I accomplished everything I set out to accomplish within the setting, and it is among the most popular games on the site. 

Have a little faith, and if the game isn't growing fast enough for your tastes, then consider offering a bit of help.  We're looking for people to help with the wiki, people to help with coding, and written content submisions are always welcome.

I hope you all have a wonderful day, . . .  now I need to get back to working on the game!

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A3

@ thepizzazz

A mistake on my end.  The "Free" version should now rout you to a free build of the game.  Sorry about the confusion.

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A2

@Thirsk

It just seems to me that its unessessary and redundant on the grounds that the game is clearly marked as Patreon with a Support link.  I've always viewed the tag cloud as a way of expressing the kinds of content presented within the game rather than commentary about the format, presentation, or commentary.

All of that said, you are right in saying that its probably not a big deal when one stops to look at it objectively.  With some of the other tags that have been attached to my projects in the past, I find myself somewhat irriated at times when people post tags that are not relevant to the content in the game, and I apologize for calling you out about it the way I did.   That should teach me to post late at night when I'm tired and lack my better judgement.

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A1:

@Thirsk

Was it really necessary to tag the game with "Patreon Advertisement"? (Yes, I can see who tagged the game with what, as can anyone else who mouses over the tags.)  I make no secret of the fact that I'm making use of Patreon both to pay for art that goes into this (And my other) game and to pay my bills so that I can continue to work on my projects full time instead of having to work a regular job.  The synopsis of the game right here in the database entry clearly indicates that this is a Patreon early access project, with the public gaining an update as new ones are released to Patrons.  I even go to the trouble of detailing what people can expect from each version and what various pledge levels cost in order to gain early access and other perks.  Tagging the game as you did seems a bit, . . . . redundant, . . . .

@Tevildo77

Thank you for the kind words, and I'm overjoyed to hear that you found the intro so moving.  I hope that you enjoy the new content as it becomes available.  The A1 build includes 4 interactive scenes with more in the works!  Expect to see the game grow significantly in the next few builds as the content I've been writing over the last year gets added to the game!

@jwk95

Yes, the game still needs a little bit of balancing as this is the first build to include interactive content outside of the intro.  Hope that you enjoyed playing the game so far!

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Movement Test Build:

@Mugen Kagemaru

I've chosen to interpret it as "Game has piqued my interest.  I feel inspired!" (Peeks at their profile a second time to see if there's any new release.)

Seriously though, I'm really excited about this project.  So far the public response has been better, and more enthusiastic than I've seen for Wanton Cove in the past.  I can hardly wait until the last few mechanical issues get sorted and it can enter active development!

@fixsxd

Going to be honest here.  I find your post cryptic and am still trying to make sense of it.

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Concept 2 Build:

@WolveNZ

Any chance you can point out some specifics where you think the protagonist isn't consistant?  I'd like to take a look at anything that seems out of place in an effort to improve the work.

I'm all for a bit of criticism, but without some context and feedback associated with it, its really difficult to make use of it.

Review is for A21 free

I like what they claim the game is, unfortunately that isn't the game they've been making. Like many games that split paths early on (and retain the split), the writer seems to be having issues with making content for all paths ( 4 paths: nice to both, mean to both, and both styles of nice to one, mean to the other). The game also suffers from a psudo-sandbox style setup, leaving you in a large mansion (aprox 30-40 areas), most of which have little to no content (5 or so rooms with what i'd consider beta levels of content, the rest have 0-3ish scenes, many of which have very specific path/time of day conditions). If you want to do anything really, you need to go onto the authors patreon, and sort through all the releases to see whats been added and try to figure out how to trigger the conditions for said event based off whats written (most conditions are fairly specific, and some occur in areas that the game outright tells you are not used e.g. pool scenes). To make matters worse, the author is either very hesitant to come across as someone who enjoys fictional accounts of slavery, or is outright uncomfortable with the concepts of slavery and bdsm (most content being geared towards being nice). The review prior to mine comments about this as well.

Transformations: There's a non-functional lab that hints at the future addition of some TF options and a few references to growth stunting in the past, but after 2 years of updates, it appears to still have no transformation. It's possible that there is a scene containing something hidden somewhere, but it's not a theme of the game by any means. It might be possible to argue corruption given how vague the term is, but the closest I can find to that is falling in love, which doesn't exactly fit my definition of corruption.

All in all, the game has potential if you believe the claims and ignore what they've actually been doing. It's possible that will change in the future, but they're essentially trying to make 4 games with the same framework (scenes work for 1 -2 paths depending on how any girls they involve, they rarely/never seem to make a scene and do variants for all paths). If you follow along and replay the game every release for a few new scenes you can probably get to know most of old content, then go for the new content based on the changelogs as new releases happen, but ultimately most people will get sick of grinding the same events repeatedly. As it is, I can't recommend this, it's basically a barebones dating sim with minimal erotic content, not anything they claim it is.

I feel like the poster just before me told everything from a professional, in-depth perspective, so I'm going to say a few things from the perspective of someone who invested ~45 minutes into the game. I want to be clear: I'm not writing this to be an ass, I'm writing this to try and help this game improve.

By the time I reached the "How to play" part, I was pretty sure that I'd have my work cut out for me to fix the two girls, so when I saw the books in the master bedroom, I jumped right in to dig up some info, though beforehand as I explored the interface, I bumped into the page giving links about IRL slavery, which I should have recognised for the red flag it was.

See, there are books and notebooks spread out across the fuckhuge mansion (using a map for each floor to move around would make things incredibly easy but I'm not a dev so it might not be possible), and the more you read (which was the bulk of what I was doing), the more you find yourself in having to delve into the memories of your sick fuck Uncle Dave. This is where, I believe, a major miscommunication and misunderstanding makes everyone's life unnecessarily difficult.

From the writer's perspective, which I'm only guessing at, they wanted to create a story that is not afraid of going deep into the psychology of slavery, or any particular detail of it. From what I've seen, they're doing a great job with that, for which they deserve credit.

From the player's perspective, there are two possible routes: either be nice, or be Uncle Dave 2.0. There is obviously no "both" option, since they are mutually exclusive.

From what the game tells you, most of the content is about being nice to them. I found it silly considering the stuff I read through, which is by the way necessary because this is a "sandbox" game, which in practice means you're in a barn full of hay looking for nails, just like in this game. Going in, you have no idea what's gonna be important or not, so you have to go through everything just in case. Strive for Power is a sandbox game done right: there's a story, sure, but you really just do whatever you want. Here, there is a clear roleplaying situation with very clear story elements that function as the bread and butter of the content, which pushes it toward an RPG and away from a sandbox game. I admit to have only scraped the surface of the content but I think that with such rich story, you really should stop calling this a sandbox game and just roll with having a two-route visual novel. I could easily be wrong though.

I'm sure you can tell what the problem is by now: if I want to be nice with the girls, I don't want to get dragged into the shitfest of hardcore slavery; if I want to use and abuse them, then I don't give two shits about how wrong it is. This is where the player and the writer reach an impasse: the player wants a slice of the cake, the writer only gives whole cakes.

Since this game has a Patreon, I'm guessing the makers want this to be financially successful, so here's what my nitpicking ass would recommend: if you need lab notes about lab stuff, use an impassionate lab assisstant's character (it fits the dehumanisation of slavery perfectly); if you want to get into how the personal relationships went in the mansions, use diaries left behind by previous slaves (which creates a lot of storytelling opportunities as well); when you have to delve into the Uncle's PoV, then keep two sets: one that is must-have information for both routes, and a second one for the torment route that only shows up if you go down that path. One way or another, you have to drop trying to tell people that slavery is bad: those who care already know, and those who don't care certainly won't be swayed without a first-hand experience on the other end of the leash.

Personally, I think that the writer has a very clear idea about the story but said story can't really bloom in a sandbox environment; I don't think you'd want (or should) drop the story, but I do think that if you should drop the sandbox, and set things up in chapters or stages (Harem should be a great example), and create content accordingly. This is more of a project management thing than game development but I think it would be a valuable perspective that could benefit both the team and the game.

The following is less review than a response / open letter to the current Inheritance version.
Please do not take the following as anything but a subjective opinion on what the game lacks and their hypothesized solutions. It is still a very early Alpha version.

First of all: Inheritance concept is great. I love the intro. I'll just smack you with the good ol' "It has great potential.™" saying.
You'll basically manage your day-to-day routine of exploring your newly inherited mansion and steer Anna and Eve towards fearing you, trusting or build affection with the PC through randomly occuring events.
However - it currently lacks a clear direction and goal you steer towards. There are some vague mysteries set and you can decide for yourself what path both girls will walk; but I'm left wondering if Inheritance will solely focus on managing Anna and Eve sandbox style or dwelve deeper into the backstory of PC's uncle and the world.

Anna's and Eve's progression so far can feel jagged. It's probably a biproduct of the fluid nature of the TF states you're currently going for. I do like their chemistry - though I feel that there's much room to explore with their relationship - to exploit or synergize.
Some sort of individual milestones / achievements for their training would be great that once set are hard to revert. Small details like never referring to the PC as master anymore, gestures like learning how the PC likes his coffee or new obedient stances / behaviors the PC conditions them to. Such milestones would enhance Inheritance with a RPG-esque element and provide small time goals the player may or may not work to.

Due to the free exploratory nature of Inheritance's concept grinding and large parts of non-content currently cripple the game. There are dozens of rooms desperately waiting for content. With no indication of what events and scenes even exist finding the well written - albeit given by their nature - generic scenes is tedious and enjoying all of its variations becomes a chore.
That's nothing new - most TWINE CYOA games face this problem where only experimenting and exploring may lead to new results. But it goes double for a "sandbox" game like Inheritance: The player takes greater responsibility to be even more thorough in order to satisfy their curiosity. I'm probably not the only one finding pleasure in exploring such story games to their fullest. Not giving a guideline on what is and what isn't twists my desire and turns it to a self-imposed grind ordeal. A journal noting timeframes locations and requirements to a greater or lesser extent would immensely help picking what is deemed worthwile by you as the creator for the player to experience while reducing their downtime.

Also I'm not fond of the way the game currently handles the passing of time and mansion traversal. Granted - the finicky and limited controls may be in part due to limitations of the TWINE engine. Yet I can't say in clear conscience I'm happy with the way things are handled - it's easy to be spoiled by the unnoticably convenient UI designs professional games offer. A dozen clicks to get from one place to another just feels to cumbersome.

It is likely most of the aforementioned critics get solved whenever a healthy amount of events are present. Afterall these factors in of themselves aren't critical but amplify each other.
If nothing else try the intro of Inheritance, decide if you like its concept and wait a few versions.

@GateKeeper
If you readily admit this game is a Patreon advertisement, then why are you opposed to that information being a tag? 
To me, it's as if a game was an RPG, and then the developer got pissy because someone labelled it as an RPG. It's also tagged with "Slave" despite you already having that in your description, but you're not upset about that. If, for whatever reason, you are ashamed of what you are doing, then why not change your behavior? If not, why does it matter that the game was tagged as such?

>Yes, I can see who tagged the game with what, as can anyone else who mouses over the tags
I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here. It's inconceivable that anyone wouldn't know about an obvious feature like this, so I really don't know what you're attempting to do by explicitly stating that you know about it.