What is an immediate red flag for you guys?

[Levant]

People get accused of misogyny all the time for disliking those games but they're not written well and people do not have to like them. I'm a woman and I think most of them are written poorly and are examples of bad romance books. Then when you go to the author's blogs, personal blogs, or even their fans blogs they of course actually read the books I was thinking of.

The only gender locked fem games I've found and have personally played that aren't written badly are Scapegoated and Guenevere.

I'm considering reading Etreinte and this one other IF that is maybe about dragons? But I cannot speak for those two because I haven't played them yet.

"Holy Ordos" was a Gender Locked Fem one that I enjoyed heavily, to the point I even forgot it was gender locked. It's set in the Warhammer 40K universe and all, shame it was dumped as a project it had great potential especially the RPG elements, it is still a genuinely a great read in my opinion tho, especially if you like the whole weird sci-fi, morally grey to outright evil everyone including your char. Theres a archive here even

 

[Levant]

Gender-locked fem.
No, this isn't mysoginy.
It's just that I've noticed a majority of these kind of stories are...you know...booktok inspired.
Especially if it looks like inspired in asian themed stuff (like Korea)
But there are good ones too. It's just the majority. Majority.

Another is that if they release it's mostly just short stuff, then all of a sudden, nadah, they disappear, just like that. No more updates.

Yeah, and one could argue some people just genuinely like to self insert themselves so having another gender option is almost mandatory in most cases :/

Korean inspired and Chinese ones suffer from it because of the whole court dramas and stuff one can have with those settings, the concubines bs and all that is great for those types of stories and stuff, so no wonder writers would make a locked fem only. Still a bummer though

 

[f8butterfly]

Yeah, and one could argue some people just genuinely like to self insert themselves so having another gender option is almost mandatory in most cases :/

Korean inspired and Chinese ones suffer from it because of the whole court dramas and stuff one can have with those settings, the concubines bs and all that is great for those types of stories and stuff, so no wonder writers would make a locked fem only. Still a bummer though

Yeah, I get why too. I watch various dramas so I can see why women would be more interested in writing stories like that. Though, there were concubines who weren't women. I just realized that most likely any IFs about Korea will probably leave out the slavery and for Japan the caste system. I wouldn't know though since most historical IFs don't interest me because I assume they're not going to be to my standards.

 

[Levant]

Yeah, I get why too. I watch various dramas so I can see why women would be more interested in writing stories like that. Though, there were concubines who weren't women. I just realized that most likely any IFs about Korea will probably leave out the slavery and for Japan the caste system. I wouldn't know though since most historical IFs don't interest me because I assume they're not going to be to my standart

Totally get that. Though it would be absolutely amazing to have a well written story where you can just rise up trough that stuff, it has genuine foundation to it, especially if based on real historical facts.

Choosing to be ruthless to climb clan/caste ladders, assassinations, pacts and deals, having to always mind some words (or not) as you read a room etc. A IF like that would be great roleplay wise, especially knowing the kind of BS Chinese court would do lol, like planting fake evidence and having a whole clan be massacred just so your son could climb a literal step higher.

 

[God]

When the game has too many branching paths. I love when choices matter, so what I mean is too much variety.

What I mean is Broken Fable, Thousand of us, that system isekai or whatever, that magic school IF, that new superhero IF, and plenty more slipping my mind.

Those will never be finished, most are still in the prologue. It’s great to have branching where it’s the flavor text, or each is a slight different variation of each other. Not when you have to write seven different routes of each power or path. People don’t realize how boring it is to write 20+ of the same scenes over and over again. My friend is writing his IF right now, and that’s one of his biggest complaints. He was too ambitious when he started, and is in too deep.

It’s great to have options, but start with live five initial options of powers or such and expand with DLCs at the end if needed. Plus, it bugs me seeing twenty powers and people still asking for a specific one still. Like, I want to see this IF get finished. Most of these stories have great plots too, just too ambitious. It’s possible, Anon is a great example. But most of these newer IF authors are students or newly young adults, not realizing the time and effort it will take to do all the diverging paths. Time and effort they don’t have.

 

[Ksilver]

What makes you go "I already know this is gonna be bad from this start alone" when starting a new game/story?

When the author is way too active on answering Tumblr scenario asks. I've been in this community long enough to see many fallen into those voids.

Or when the author made an RO focused on another person, especially if we're pursuing that particular RO route. Yeah, no thanks. I almost dropped Blood Legacies because Hayden gave me that vibes I don't want to experience another Tales of Cucks.

 

[Serpent]

Boy oh boy, let's see.
1) When the demo is TBA, and the writer is too busy answering scenario asks on Tumblr, and never actually giving any updates whatsoever. That just means that you won't even see the work, or that the said work will be publsihed five years from the Tumblr acc activation (this is only a red flag if combined like this)
2) GENERAL LACK OF UPDATES. I swear, writers don't say **** when it comes to how writing is going, at least most of them don't (there are exceptions to this, who do give updates and I love them for it)
3) Too much patreon content, because that just means that that's where their focus is, meaning the public games will either be abandoned, or that we'll get ****ing gta 6 before those are completed, and we all know that we ain't getting that one
4) When mc is supposed to be tough **** but is useless asf
5) When stories are too linear (just write a book atp)
6) When mc just loves to complain like a little ***** about everything
7) Femlocked ifs (no hate towards female main characters, just that, as was mentioned, those read like retarded tiktok bs books and stories, because they do have those in mind when writing those)
I think that's all for now, but this certified hater will probably think of more

 

[daniellwtf]

What makes you go "I already know this is gonna be bad from this start alone" when starting a new game/story?

When the game gives you choices on how to react to something, but a few lines later, the characters act completely differently because the MC’s personality is already set. Treating the MC as a snowflake is also a major red flag for me. Oh, forced actions against logic just for more drama are also one of them; they are normally paired with the first one. Those are the ones I can think of right now. For those reasons, I never managed to play games like 'The Soul Stone War' for more than a few minutes before dropping.

 

[MatachinTower_01]

Definitely when author just released their IF summary and are only answering asks. It just feels like they just want to talk about their OCs with people who are hyped for them too While the fans are hyped cos they want the IF, the author just wants to flesh out their OCs. I used to follow them on tumblr before and 90% of the accounts just died after only answering asks.

And "gender changable" IFs but the MC is written with femMC in mind. Idk, you can just feel some of the beats of a romance fantasy book. (This is the same in VNs too, where "gender changable" means very little, and the male mc route is the exact same as the femMC's, with just pronoun changes)

 

[Serpent]

Definitely when author just released their IF summary and are only answering asks. It just feels like they just want to talk about their OCs with people who are hyped for them too While the fans are hyped cos they want the IF, the author just wants to flesh out their OCs. I used to follow them on tumblr before and 90% of the accounts just died after only answering asks.

And "gender changable" IFs but the MC is written with femMC in mind. Idk, you can just feel some of the beats of a romance fantasy book. (This is the same in VNs too, where "gender changable" means very little, and the male mc route is the exact same as the femMC's, with just pronoun changes)

I think I mentioned this before, but yeah. It is so obvious that even though they give you a choice to pick a gender for mc, no matter how mc is described to be, it is obvious that they have that damsel in distress mc where a big bad ro comes to the rescue

 

[BiscuitB]

Ones who post the most minusucle tidbits, as it some amazing post that will get alot of engagement. Consistenly plugging their patreon as a way to get sneak peaks when like a prologue and 1 chapter.
Another is POC always fitting a setreotype, darker skinned character are usually flirty, people of asian descent are nerdy or very straight laced just shows you how much effort you put into your characters. Always answering that abusive messages as a way of getting love from their echo chamber. Rewrites after a couple of chapters, not actually having a plan for their story set out and so it gets lost in the sauce.

 

[Glitch]

• The gender ratio of romance-able characters is off or when there are multiple female-locked LIs and a few gender-selectable ones. When there are male LIs but they get turned into gender-selectable simply because of demand, people liked them but wouldn't romance them as male characters.
• Your character is forced into a relationship dynamic with certain characters, or has a “best friend they’d die for,” even when you don’t care about that character at all.
• When you can’t set your MC’s sexuality. Or even if the game technically allows any orientation, your character keeps drooling over female characters and commenting on their bodies, even when you have zero interest in romancing them.
• The MC is “gender-selectable,” but random “he” pronouns keep slipping through. Or a LI is “gender-selectable”, but leftover “she” pronouns make it obvious the character was originally written as female and only reworked later because she wasn’t popular enough.
• Your character is forced into a rivalry with another male character who could also be a love interest, especially when the rivalry revolves around a female LI you don’t even plan on pursuing (like in Sword of Rhivenia, why does trying to befriend Clara get treated like I’m trying to steal her ? I just want to have a good relationship with the brother without sacrificing one with Clara).
• The story was clearly written with a straight male audience in mind, but then made gender-selectable as an afterthought to broaden its appeal.
• Female LI content is already out and the story is progressing, while male LI content is always “coming next update”… and then it doesn’t, and then it’s “maybe the next one” again or it will get implemented once the IF is finished because “I don’t know how to write male ROs for now”.

 

[O1O]

• The gender ratio of romance-able characters is off or when there are multiple female-locked LIs and a few gender-selectable ones. When there are male LIs but they get turned into gender-selectable simply because of demand, people liked them but wouldn't romance them as male characters.
• Your character is forced into a relationship dynamic with certain characters, or has a “best friend they’d die for,” even when you don’t care about that character at all.
• You can’t set your MC’s sexuality, or even if the game technically allows any orientation, your character keeps drooling over female characters and commenting on their bodies, even when you have zero interest in romancing them.
• The MC is “gender-selectable,” but random “he” pronouns keep slipping through. Or a LI is “gender-selectable”, but leftover “she” pronouns make it obvious the character was originally written as female and only reworked later because she wasn’t popular enough.
• Your character is forced into a rivalry with another male character who could also be a love interest, especially when the rivalry revolves around a female LI you don’t even plan on pursuing (like in Sword of Rhivenia, why does trying to befriend Clara get treated like I’m trying to steal her ? I just want to have a good relationship with the brother without sacrificing one with Clara).
• The story was clearly written with a straight male audience in mind, but then made gender-selectable as an afterthought to broaden its appeal.
• Female LI content is already out and the story is progressing, while male LI content is always “coming next update”… and then it doesn’t, and then it’s “maybe the next one” again or it will get implemented once the IF is finished because “I don’t know how to write male ROs for now"

And "gender changable" IFs but the MC is written with femMC in mind

This is something that I notice happening a lot on ifs

There's simply a bunch of ifs down there that were clearly written with a specific MC's gender in mind...so why don't they just genderlock it instead of dealing with the headache that comes with writing something that you don't want to write?

There's the author's who want to appeal to a broader audience yes...but is it really worth it? You're basically just inviting problems for yourself that way, what with a bunch of unsatisfied pissed off readers, that feel like you have a bias towards one of the genders of the MC

Just gender lock it