Wednesday, May 02, 2018

Wrapping up Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] and moving on

I was going to go into a little more detail on the gameplay and mechanics, but I think people are getting antsy for me to move on... :)

Not much more to say.  As a game MQ:P just about holds up, mainly on the strengths of the characters, story and the wide variety of weird, wonderful and mostly sexy monster girl designs.  The JRPG elements are still too grindy IMHO, and not the best fit for the femdom-esque Bad Ends, although the series does have a harem element not present in the original series.  Overall, I think TTR's baby, while still very good, is in danger of being dethroned by other up-and-coming whippersnappers.  Tokinokogiri's Succubus Prison is probably the benchmark for hot succubus/monster girl Bad Ends now and even Dieselmine managed to raise their game with Monmusu Labyrinth.

She really likes to give you a good squeeze (Succubus Prison)

The main thing MQ:P lacks now is animation for the Bad End scenes and I'm not sure how easy that would be to add given that the Monster Girl Quest series' greatest strength has been the sheer number and variety of monster girls.  That's a lot of dicking around with puppeting tools to get all those boobies bouncing around in a pleasing manner.  Used selectively, maybe...  One of MQ:P [part 2]'s biggest weaknesses is that all the monster girl queens fought later in the game are repeat encounters from the original series.  A little bit of sneaky puppeting/animation might have given those old sex scenes a fresh twist.

Boobies bouncing around in a pleasing manner (Monmusu Labyrinth)

Anyway, that's enough on Monmusu Quest: Paradox [part 2] for now.

I suspect you're more interested in the moving on part.

I definitely want to get back to some original fiction.  The odd blip aside, the thrice-weekly posting schedule I used for the MQ:P series worked pretty well for me.  I'd like to apply that same discipline to my original fiction and see where it takes me (ideally the raw material for a new book I can submit to my publisher every 4-6 months).

What is something I haven't yet decided.  I'm still in the middle of some upheaval as I have another trip (this time for work) scheduled to knock out most of next week.  Getting back to and finishing off "The Heart Squad" seems like a decent interim project before I decide whether to launch into Succubus Summoning 301 or something completely different.

If work on "The Heart Squad" starts flowing again, expect that to resume Friday (or Monday).  If it's still stuck, expect a bit of wibbly-wobbly inconsistency while I pick something else to work on.

There is something else I've been tinkering with recently, an old project dragged off hiatus.  That does appear to be going somewhere, but I'll hold off on posting more about it until I have something a little more presentable.

Does this mean you're done with Japanese monster girl games?

I think I'll lay off the extended "Let's Play" series for a while.  It's been too long since I last submitted a book to my publishers and I need to concentrate on my own fiction for a bit.

Ideally, I would like to keep reviewing the good ones as they come out, but there is an issue here unrelated to clashes with my other work.  Windows 10 appears to be in some kind of weird arms race with the tools I use for text-hooking and machine translation.  Every Windows 10 update broke my tools.  I was able to keep going by reverting the Windows updates, but in the end I was in a race against time to actually finish MQ:P before a deadline where I'd have to either accept those updates or leave my machine unsupported.  So, as of now, I'm back to having no means of hooking and auto-translating Japanese games.  This currently makes playing and reviewing them rather difficult.

Assuming I can fix this, I'd have to have a long think before doing another big series on MQ:P [part 3] when it comes out.  It would be nice to do it to complete the series, but I'd have to think carefully about how to do it in a way that doesn't swallow up all of my time.  Running two series alongside each other doesn't work for me (as you may have noticed when my schedule went to hell right after starting posting "The Heart Squad"), so I might look at some kind of one month on, one month off schedule to prevent my blog being completely swamped by MQ:P stuff.

I suspect that will be a long way off though.  I imagine TTR still has plenty to do before unleashing the final chapter of Paradox on the world.

Lest we forget MQ:P also has some very nice succubi (Monmusu Quest: Paradox)

Anyway, I hope those of you that enjoyed the series, enjoyed it, and apologies to those who felt it ran on for way too long.

Friday (or Monday) I think it's time we found out what happened to that software engineer on his very special Valentine's Night...

10 comments:

  1. Hope things work out in ways you're happy with on all fronts. Whatever story you end up cranking out, I'll be happy to read it. Admittedly, I am more than a bit curious about where the Heart Squad story is going to end up.

    On the other hand, you've presented a lot of ideas the last several times you mentioned original works that you were contemplating doing, and most of them sound like things I'd love reading. I'm sure whatever old work you've pulled of the back-burner is likely the same, so here's hoping your muses give you what you want them to in a manner that works for you.

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  2. Hi, long time lurker here and big fan of your works, I think I have bought everything you have on amazon. Normally I don't get involved with this stuff but I think some of your fans are right. The game walkthroughs are entertaining and amusing, however I feel it is suffocating your own creativity. I think most of your fans follow you due to your writing styles and the world you have imagined and built around your stories.

    The question is what are your next steps? do you continue the sandwich series, succubus summoning 301 ect. I personally would like to see a project you mentioned a long time ago, creating a text based game with the possibility of art pieces being created later on. This I think would allow you to flesh out your world from a certain perspective, allow your fans to donate using some method like Patreon and open your self up to a larger audience. A poll might be a good idea to see what other fans would like to see.

    Thank you for your efforts and works, everything I have wrote is purely my opinion and do not want you to feel that I am trying to disrupt any of your original plans.

    Alo_x

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  3. But.........Hydra amigo. You haven't answered the single most important question of the entire part 2 of MGQP.

    Does sonya have any additional request available back at the castle once her apoptosis form has been ulocked :-)

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    1. A later patch added some additional CGIs of Sonya milking Luka in various ways. I don't know where they are in the game as I haven't updated to the latest patch.

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  4. I'd love to see you take on an interactive work, like you were contemplating for An Evening With Ceptophthorié.

    There's a handful of erotic choose-your-own-adventures on Amazon's Kindle store, but nothing that can really be described as erotic horror, so it's definitely an unfilled niche.

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  5. Hey Hydra, just wanted to say, I've been following your MMQ Let's Plays over the past year, and they've been really fun to read. You're a wonderful narrator (both voice & humor are great). Keep up the good work - looks like part 3 won't be out this year (no surprise, given the size of part 1 and part 2), so there's plenty of time to relax & recharge. Looking forward to when part 3 comes out - both the game and (hopefully) your journey.
    And... I'm sure I'm not the only person who checks in a few times a week but remains invisible for the most part. Just wanted to point out that, as the #1 MGQ Let's Play blogger, you probably have a much larger audience than you'd expect.
    Cheers!

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  6. Desert Eagle18/05/2018, 17:42

    Have you played a game called "Rule of Succubus"? It's made by TechnoBrake, it's on DLSite, and it's great! And even better, the game has an English translation.

    The story is nothing too complicated. A group of guys hears about an island filled with buxom, vixen women. Then they ask themselves: "Dude, why aren't we on this island yet?!" And they set sail! Unfortunately for them, while the island is VERY welcoming to all (male) visitors, the package doesn't come with a return ticket! Unfortunate indeed.........

    Genre-wise, it's a survival-crafting game. You forage food, collect rocks and wood, craft tools, camp out in the woods... and occasionally take a bath so that the girls agree to speak with you. It's simple enough that you can get into it, and has enough content that you can keep doing it. The gameplay's been a pleasant surprise to me.

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    1. I tried out the demo and found the H-scenes a little short (had the same problem with Lust Grimm). It sounds different enough that I might check it out. Also, being in English is a big plus considering Windows updates have finally nuked all the translation software I was using.

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  7. "The main thing MQ:P lacks now is animation for the Bad End scenes"

    Reading this bit, I had an idea. You remember how the original MGQ had "ending" scenes in the epilogue, where you could choose to fall into the obvious traps of various monsters and become their sex slave for life (and if you didn't, you end up with Alice)? What if only these scenes were to receive animation? It would clearly distinguish them from the rest of the game's H-scenes and make a decent reward for the player for completing such a long game.

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