#love loooove when a game's rejection options are just as good as the kiss

[simeonist]

And here's what happens if you abandon him on the streets instead. Just as fun!

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

why did I play wayhaven chronicles book 3

A list of grievances and observations as I played this heck of a game

Spoilers for all of it because I don't care and you shouldn't either

How is the writing getting worse. HOW IS THE WRITING GETTING WORSE. DON'T YOU HAVE EDITORS? BETA TESTERS? AUGH.

there's so much stage direction it's unbearable. people smile, smirk, chuckle, roll their eyes, shrug, scoff, groan, all of it, always, often for no reason, often to just fill word count, often so unnaturally it reads like they're all robots.

descriptions and dialogue are repetitive as fuck, and the prose quality is so poor. i feel like you could write a better game faster if you just had a better editor. or AN editor, really.

It really is a game that bit off more than it could chew so it didn't chew anything at all and just spit this back out.

I encountered like 3 major bugs in my first playthrough that would've broken the plot/game, if any choice actually mattered and the vampires didn't just swoop in to save my ass no matter what I did, so I guess no harm done ????

MAKE A SMALLER GAME THAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY BOTHER TO PLOT OUT AND CODE

You can't keep bragging about how much you loooove adding variation when seemingly no or very few options actually impact anything

No seriously, the amount of times player agency is discarded just because nothing is allowed to matter is staggering (why couldn't the detective confess their love for Mason? well because it would change the dynamic uwu!)

Speaking of Mason, look how they slaughtered my boy!

I refuse to believe M is this fucking stupid, they clearly know enough about romance to realize that some other people might want more than they can offer (in fact they say this exact thing if you reject sex in book 2) so like ?? why wouldn't they be able to recognize or even entertain that that's what's going on? sorry i get not realizing initially but the longer it goes on the more annoying and less realistic it becomes

But that's a non-issue right? Because the romance develops in this book? Sure, it does, and that's one of the few good things about it, that there's visible romantic development with M at least, but it also just completely doesn't care how you approach the romance at all. If you try to approach M's romance as a slow burn, it's not taken into account. Because the game doesn't seem to track which kiss is actually your first, ANY of them could be, so they're all written as equally important, meaning none is allowed to be more important than the others

Same goes for the sex scenes. You're waiting until the best in-character moment to fuck M? Well fuck you. it'll be the same as any other. This was the first time? cool cool, the game doesn't care. headcanon your own emotional weight of the moment, asshole. first time my detective had sex with Mason was written with pretty much the same weight as any previous ones I read, and we didn't even get a morning-after scene when Mason ditches their ass. I'm sure your slow-burn, slow-to-trust, emotionally motivated detective is tottally chill with their lover leaving in the morning after they finally brought their guard down and let Mason in, right? no? well fuck you. it's a week later now and they have no comment to make.

"oh but it's sooo hard to code alll of these variations! you can't expect the writer to take your headcanons into account!" they're not headcanons. i can reject Mason's advances at every step of the way, but the game doesn't care about this beyond the next page where the rejection actually occurs. anything else plays out like it does regardless of whether it's your first time doing anything or not.

Here's a simple, cure-all solution to writing choices that are too complicated for you to handle: don't! just don't put them in if you don't honor them! DON'T FUCKING PUT THEM IN IF YOU DON'T HONOR THEM.

Speaking of fuck you, if you're playing as a nonbinary detective and you have sex with M? congrats on having ghost genitals. your "detailed" intimate scenes are so vague and noncommittal that it's difficult to tell who's doing what with what body part. it's all so vague and bland that there's really no point in picking the option at all. Pro tip, cissies: nonbinary people have genitals, too. I know! Wild, right?

What's funnier, you always get to pick if you "initiate" or not (I assume this is code for topping). But if you're NB, regardless of what you pick, you don't really find out what your character is doing, even though Mishka gave herself a perfect out to write player-based variation. Everyone's got holes, man. It's not that hard.

Basically the game insists you have sex with M ASAP because there's no material reason not to, but if you dare to be nonbinary and fuck M, good luck on figuring out that sex scene, bitch!

Rebecca is still getting so many excuses and second chances that it's getting genuinely triggering to read at times. Your character keeps having to confront her about their relationship and it's like it wants you to forgive her because it's #feelgood. Plus, if you decide not to work with her at one point, you get a shorter climax where you're a cringefail idiot who can't do anything right. If you work with her, everything works without a hitch and you get to waltz out being all cool and badass. huh? huh ? huh ???? i hope this is just something me and my pals who played this are missing and maybe there's more variation??? but man oh man the Rebecca stanning going on in the narrative is so uncomfortable :')

We really peaked with Falk. This new villain is barely a presence and doesn't even get named until like halfway into the story. We meet him once and then he's defeated.

Sin, who got a lot of hype and buildup ... is not of any consequence. He just leaves.

You don't even find out what his deal is if you go the combat training route. Oh you thought this was vital info that would be delivered to you regardless of your personal character choices? fuck you.

Addie, the face of the victims of these gruesome kidnappings? comes back at the end as a non-speaking character you never even talk to personally.

The whole entire kidnapping+human/supernatual trafficking thing is just so ... bad. It's all so poorly constructed and not thought-out at all. Why would you go here with your silly vampire detective romance? Who thought this was the place to do that?

The detective's emotional breakdown is triggered by a random nameless victim who never comes back into the story again

The detective's emotional breakdown involves them being naked in a shower with their LI. This is (in M's case, at least) never brought up again and barely has any impact on the romance (because you can avoid it, so it can't matter too much<3)

The blood drive that was set up as being a potential major issue and would maybe tie back into the alleged "main plot"? Easily avoided, explicitly in-universe boring, and literally of no consequence

After all this, after three books of being dumb as shit for no reason other than idk cringefail cheap angst? Mason confesses his love for the detective via a NEVER-HAVE-I-EVER DRINKING GAME.

NO REALLY. I'M FUCKING SERIOUS DON'T WALK AWAY FROM ME I AM 100% TELLING YOU THE TRUTH RIGHT NOW

This is, of course, not touched upon at all and the detective (who, at this point, is pretty much aware they're in love with M) barely reacts at all

THE FAMOUSLY EMOTIONALLY IMMATURE HORNY SLUT CHARACTER, WHOSE REALIZATION SHOULD ALLOW FOR SO MUCH ANGST AND JOY IN ANY GOOD ROMANCE, CONFESSES THEIR LOVE VIA DRINKING GAME

honestly it wouldn't be so bad if it were acknowledged or discussed afterward or if it had any fucking effect on anything ever but it's barely even played as a joke so we can't have that! Why????

Because the book is over. if you're an M-mancer the book ends with a drinking game indirect love confession and you don't get to react to it at all

But here's a cheap stinger about the detective's relative who's totally evil and will totally be a main antagonist eventually!

did you have fun??? no?? well fuck you.