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School Dreams 2: Forfeit Fantasy Reviews
Author: GoblinBoy
Date: 2007
TADS
What does AIF stand for? Adult Interactive Fiction.
If you likely to
be offended by games with sexual content, you are advised not
to open these
files.
Reviewed by StormNinjaBlade
Basic Story:
Firstly, SD2-FF is a sequel to GoblinBoy's previously released School Dreams 1 -
Camping Trip. You play the same character, having newly returned from the
eponymous camping trip where you managed to finally win your true love Becky,
despite the machinations of Mike and Melissa. You also managed to experiment
with group sex and swapping with Becky, Mike and Melissa. Somehow Becky and Mike
have convinced you to take on the forfeit for the bet of who would take Becky's
virginity. Its now fallen to you to seduce Mike's little sister Molly and make
her a woman. Oh yes, let’s not forget that you have to tape it so that Mike can
watch it and share it on the Internet, and that in the next couple of hours
Molly is going to be completely deflowered.
Overall Thoughts:
Conceptualised as a sequel to Camping Trip, I find SD2-FF a disappointment.
Where as SD1-CT had a non-linear, mulitple-outcome interactive storyline,
Forfeit is linear and the only variation in outcome is if you quit before you're
finished ravaging Molly. Where as the original game was interesting and
engaging, the successor is entirely lacking in the qualities that made the first
game so entertaining. The Camping Trip posed a choice between the PC sticking to
his guns and chasing the girl he really wanted and loved or settling with the
far easier girl. There was competition between 'best friend' Mike and the PC,
the threat of screwing up and losing being with the person he truly loved. The
character was emotionally engaged with the situation, and his intended partner.
In comparison, Forfeit is a linear
puzzle-out-the-girl-to-unlock-unrestricted-access-to-orifices game, there is no
real emotional or intellectual engagement with the story, no threat of loss or
failure. In comparison to the old game, the new game is notable for its lack of
focus, allowing the PC to engage with not only the central NPC Molly, but to
visit with lover Becky, fuckbuddy Melissa and new character Alison. Although few
players would begrudge a game where there is a broad choice of sexual partners I
contend that the game might have been better had the extraneous characters been
excised allowing more emphasis on the characters that are meaningful to the
story being told.
The fetishised cherry popping scenario is hardly the most original premise for
AIF, or pornography in general, but the concept of seducing Molly, encountering
her boundaries and attempting to broaden her horizons is interesting. The
execution, however, is somewhat questionable, as well as the underlying premise
that you're doing this as a 'favour' to Mike so that he can not only record the
act but also jump his sister when its all over with (because incestuous sibling
sex is okay, but taking your sisters virginity isn't ). While playing the
scenario I couldn't help but feel like I was just some form of foreplay in the
eventual incestuous relationship between Mike and Molly, and sometimes felt more
like Mike's condom than an independent character.
In addition to the central focus of 'deflowering' Molly, the character may also
help out Becky with a problem, facilitate an incestuous union between Melissa
and Kevin, 'save' Alison from anal
penetration and engage a dog in hardcore acts.
Writing:
The writing is standard AIF fare, occasionally clunky descriptions or dialogue
that at times stumble along with repeated phrases that become tired. By far the
emphasis is on the sexual aspects of the story, with little to no description
given to the non-sexual game environment. The environmental design is repetitive
and bland, with very little devotion to creating an interesting milieu for the
sex or characters. The bedrooms, as personal environments of each of the
characters are underutilised in helping define aspects of the characters that
inhabit them. Some decorations are implemented but they don't really push our
understanding of the characters much more then the occasionally brief dialogue.
Beyond this the writing is technically proficient and verbose when it comes to
sexual topics.
The dialogue in the game is used to help with the main quest but apart from the
topics mentioned in the readme and some prop responses, it was difficult to
discover anything new to be heard from NPCs, and all of it ultimately
flirtatious. Dialogue is a good place to try and generate interest between the
PC and the NPCs, and although it’s not as sexy coding dialogue as it is the sex
acts, in some ways it can be considered just as important.
Sex:
The sex in Forfeit is technically proficient but there is a definite emphasis on
the mechanical aspects of the act over the emotional aspects. The sex is mostly
described in a hardcore manner,
with a fetishistic emphasis on ravaging, defiling or otherwise marring the PCs
partner. In addition to this there is a underlying emphasis of the PC's pleasure
before his partners. Often times the PC pushed the boundaries of his partner,
despite protest, and the descriptions lean toward describing the partner's
pleasure as almost incidental to the PCs own. At times such as during double
penetration with Becky, it could be read that the girl is almost little more
than an aid to the PCs masturbation.
There is also an underlying sense of meanness to the sex, especially emphasised
in the pornographic cut-scenes on the TV, videos, diary and magazines. A
coldness and mechanical
approach to the act that reduces it to little more than hardcore pornography.
The most brutal sex act in the game, tricking Becky and Alison into bestiality
is one such example. It’s difficult to read, unarousing, and indicative of the
PCs contemptible character. The worst part of the act is that there are no real
consequence to subjecting the girls to such behaviour, indeed they both consider
repeating the encounter. Alison doesn't mind because she's a 'slut' or epicurean
collector of erotic experience, and Becky loves you. Its one of the few concrete
references to love in the entire game, serving little more as an excuse to
engaging your girlfriend in non-consensual zooerastia without consequence.
Technical:
Forfeit uses a tick-tick-Boom arousal metering system, which can get repetitive,
with large chunks of recycled text. Two unusual features that were implemented
were the “position” action, allowing you to place the unlocked Molly in a
variety of different positions in her bedroom and the “penetrate” command that
allows the engine to change action descriptions based on location of the
characters genitalia.
The “position” command is interesting but becomes available too late to sustain
interest for long. And while it does change the descriptions and sometimes
automatically adapts to the changing scene, sometimes it precludes certain acts
and requires a break in the flow of a scene in order to reposition.
“Penetrate” allows the engine to track which orifice is being penetrated and
automatically modifies resultant action descriptions, allowing the PC to engage
in acts during penetrative sex. It does provide some longevity to scenes beyond
simple rub, suck, fuck.
Sex toys are available scattered somewhat around the game environment and where
implemented they work well, however their inclusion in to the game during a late
development cycle is shown by some characters refusing to use them while others
ignore them completely.
Forfeit uses a scoring system, that awards points for various actions during the
game, offering a total of 129 points and 12 bonus actions. The scoring system is
unfortunately bugged making it
possible to achieve 100 percent completion only because some points are included
that aren't in the total. A high score unlocks a secret bonus mode but this mode
lacks plot and sufficient difference to maintain player attention. Its only use
is to replay some of the sex scenes without having to resolve the puzzles. I
dislike the implementation of scoring systems like the one used in Forfeit
because it limits the players choice, the highest score representing the ideal
path the author had in mind, meaning there is ONE true solution. Scoring systems
seem to be a good way to encourage the obsessive members of the community to
work out a game, but it can detract from the idea that the player is dictating
the story's outcome.
There are a couple of bugs that stop the player from achieving a full score but
not from completing the game. There are also a couple of missing responses that
don't affect the game too much, beyond the minor inconvenience.
Enjoyment:
Forfeit is a game that I found difficult to enjoy as an example of erotica,
essentially because of the overall theme and subtext that permeates the game
from beginning to end. There is definitely a predatory and emotionless
undercurrent to the sex.
When SD1-CT first came out there was some controversy in a game that was
explicitly US underage characters, that also included an optional dream sequence
with girls as young as 12. I had
thought that GoblinBoy had attempted to comply with some of the criticism in
removing explicit references to age in later re-releases but here there are many
more non-explicit underage references. I don't want to get Da Vinci Code here
but there is a clear and consistent theme of 'young' girls as hardcore sexual
objects for 'mature' men. You are now 17 and Melissa or Becky appear to be in
the school year below. The assumption is that as Molly is not in the same year
as either the two girls she must at least be 15 years old or less thus underage
even for UK laws. Ask Molly how old she is and she responds: “Molly giggles and
refuses to answer”, as do most of the other characters, which sounds like a lie
of omission.
Along with the copious underage references there are the hardcore cut scenes
that appear in the videos, TV, diary and magazines. Pervasive themes of 'young'
girls engaged in hardcore sex with mature adults are rife. The pornographic TV
shows are uniformly hardcore and some feature 'young' characters, and all are
prime examples of the type of bad fanfic that completely ignores the source and
can be found on bad internet sites everywhere. I presume there supposed to be
ironic, but it lacks the wit to make it erotic, or even entertaining. There are
a lot of these scenes to wade through detracting from the enjoyment of the main
story.
I had a problem with the motive behind the PCs actions in deflowering Molly.
Mike, your best friend wants you to jump his sisters bones, so that he can not
only tape it for posterity, but also
publish it on the ’net or share it with friends. Ick. Then there is the strongly
hinted sexual attraction that Mike has for his sister: if you bone her, then not
only does he get a chance to see her doing the dirty but its a short step from
there to sleeping with close family members. If Molly resists or rethinks her
desire to go further than she's comfortable with the solution is to recruit one
of you friends and stage a hardcore instruction session. If she's still a little
hesitant then press on, because she'll thank you in the morning. Molly seems to
have genuine feelings for the PC but he acts very much like a cad in the
situation where she should be able to trust him. If he backed off a little and
let her dictate when she was ready I think the eventual climax of the game would
have been more satisfying.
These points all make the game difficult to enjoy in the manner in which it was
intended, in truth it makes it uncomfortable me to have the game on my hard
drive.
GoblinBoy is a talented and award winning AIF author, and he has authored some
intriguing games, and yet the themes and tone of this work are not in league
with his previous games. It is
clear to see that this game was intended to be larger in scope than SD1-CT and
that intended content was cut in order to get a release. It suffers from sprawl
and would have benefited from a
tighter focus on the central characters. I enjoyed playing SD1-CT but I believe
this puzzle based sequel to the plot based original cannot live up to its
predecessor. This is an in-depth and often
critical review, and it may have taken a lot of time to read, but it also took a
lot of time to write, I wouldn't have invested this kind of word count in
something by Vachon, because I agree with the rest of the community that
GoblinBoy is a promising talent that should be cultivated with both praise and
constructive criticism. Forfeit is an above average game in comparison to many
on the AIF game list but it fails to live up to the author's potential. With SD3
and Gifts of Phallius 3 in development I eagerly await a return to form, for the
author.
Rating: C+
If you can deal with some of the flaws, School Dreams 2: Forfeit Fantasy is an
alright second-tier game. Not an instant classic, lacking in overall longevity
once a walkthrough is produced and one of the authors lesser works.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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