Taffy Tales (v0.68.2a) is buried under so much tedium and bloat, I find it difficult to recommend the game to anyone. The character designs are nicely done, generously endowed and proportioned, all carried by a visually appealing 2D art style. However, most of the drawings are traced and reassembled from other sources, and this leads to noticeable inconsistencies in the art; characters vary in looks, and often the same poses and renders are recycled in a mix-and-match manner. This choice results in serious limitations in how the sex scenes are depicted, in terms of what positions are shown and in what order, which specific girls, and so on.
The gameplay aspect is pointless. The minigames, text choices, and the switching of character perspectives serve no purpose other than to frustrate the player and artificially lengthen the game. There's a code to bypass the minigame aspect, which makes their inclusion all the more baffling. The music is throwaway, played on a loop. The songs lack any emotional or visceral impact, and are completely disconnected from the scene.
The writing is easily the worst part. When the script isn't riddled with typos and misplaced bits of code, the writer desperately gropes for comedy in recent events. The humor is juvenile and nonsensical, and the characters disappear as soon as they are introduced (in the case of the neighbor and every classmate besides Danny and Becca) or neglected (Gerda, Chantelle, and Tiffany). The character development which took place with Clara (her deadbeat husband) and Priscilla (her suicide attempt) are forgotten and meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The dialogue is wildly inconsistent. MC turns into Sinatra at some point, calling the girls in his harem "doll". It's more plausible with Henry calling people "sport" since he's a scion of high society, but why does Red talk like he's part of the Rat Pack? Unintentional or not, the script is sloppily written, and the writing is unrestrained in a bad way. There's no buildup and payoff to any of the progression between the relationships, a discontinuity arising from the lack of any character arcs. Every character is interchangeable and defined exclusively by their relation to the MC (friend, family, or rival) and nothing else.
Every sex scene is written the same way too. The descriptions are stock, and boilerplate, and match the same redundant feel of the gameplay. Eyes must roll white during a female orgasm, no exceptions! Worse, the ratio of the dialogue to the images is five to one, and the writing hardly match the actions in the images. The potentially compelling aspects of the premise, the Red/Blue split between MC's dominant and submissive personalities, is abandoned for dumb comedy asides. Red's a bull and a psychopath, and Blue's a cuckold and an easy mark, a pushover. There's no nuance in the psychology of the characters, nor is there anything sexually stimulating or interesting about them. The rape, corruption and blackmail aspect is played for cheap laughs, and the interactions between the two selves are void of any tension or seriousness. The stilted writing is at odds with the serious tone implied in the beginning, and with the fetishes introduced later on.
Taffy Tales is undergoing a "remaster" process; a telltale sign the game is severely lacking in direction and new ideas. Despite the yearly pacing, the development process has the feel of improvisation. Nothing is thought out or planned in advance except for which character gets fucked next. The developer should focus solely on producing the art, and take a minimalist approach to other aspects relating to the game.
The gameplay aspect is pointless. The minigames, text choices, and the switching of character perspectives serve no purpose other than to frustrate the player and artificially lengthen the game. There's a code to bypass the minigame aspect, which makes their inclusion all the more baffling. The music is throwaway, played on a loop. The songs lack any emotional or visceral impact, and are completely disconnected from the scene.
The writing is easily the worst part. When the script isn't riddled with typos and misplaced bits of code, the writer desperately gropes for comedy in recent events. The humor is juvenile and nonsensical, and the characters disappear as soon as they are introduced (in the case of the neighbor and every classmate besides Danny and Becca) or neglected (Gerda, Chantelle, and Tiffany). The character development which took place with Clara (her deadbeat husband) and Priscilla (her suicide attempt) are forgotten and meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The dialogue is wildly inconsistent. MC turns into Sinatra at some point, calling the girls in his harem "doll". It's more plausible with Henry calling people "sport" since he's a scion of high society, but why does Red talk like he's part of the Rat Pack? Unintentional or not, the script is sloppily written, and the writing is unrestrained in a bad way. There's no buildup and payoff to any of the progression between the relationships, a discontinuity arising from the lack of any character arcs. Every character is interchangeable and defined exclusively by their relation to the MC (friend, family, or rival) and nothing else.
Every sex scene is written the same way too. The descriptions are stock, and boilerplate, and match the same redundant feel of the gameplay. Eyes must roll white during a female orgasm, no exceptions! Worse, the ratio of the dialogue to the images is five to one, and the writing hardly match the actions in the images. The potentially compelling aspects of the premise, the Red/Blue split between MC's dominant and submissive personalities, is abandoned for dumb comedy asides. Red's a bull and a psychopath, and Blue's a cuckold and an easy mark, a pushover. There's no nuance in the psychology of the characters, nor is there anything sexually stimulating or interesting about them. The rape, corruption and blackmail aspect is played for cheap laughs, and the interactions between the two selves are void of any tension or seriousness. The stilted writing is at odds with the serious tone implied in the beginning, and with the fetishes introduced later on.
Taffy Tales is undergoing a "remaster" process; a telltale sign the game is severely lacking in direction and new ideas. Despite the yearly pacing, the development process has the feel of improvisation. Nothing is thought out or planned in advance except for which character gets fucked next. The developer should focus solely on producing the art, and take a minimalist approach to other aspects relating to the game.
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