@starkatt so, I finished my initial playthrough of LKiaB & then I went back to reread what you'd written about it & I think I see at least some of why we had such different experiences of it. For one, I never went back to the Hacker's room after the first, mostly-chaste visit.

Looking back at the game, I find it really *weird* at how carefully the game labels the moral choices for daytime scenes -- but never for the choice-of-where-you-spend-the-night. Most of the conversational options come with an explicitly-labeled judgement, even more often than they come with game-mechanics-guidance. But late-night comes only with the mechanics.

@starkatt and second, I took the framing as an explicit signal that the protagonist was a person-of-questionable-morality, and came at it as a piece of interactive-fiction rather than a roleplaying experience where I was supposed to have agency. Which I think gave me some distance?

@sev

It's definitely clear that the protagonist was set up as a person of questionable morality. I mostly saw it as a roleplaying experience, but it's still hard to not feel like the decisions I made reflected *something* on my choices, at least?

Spending more nights with The Hacker is definitely a big part of why I feel the way I do about how the game treats consent -- I think you saw my post about mixed messages.

@starkatt I felt like the flashback structure really let me off the hook with regards to how much my choices matter (though a second playthrough suggests they mattered more than I thought they would).

In my second playthrough, where I was purposely going for points above other goals, I didn't feel like the game was trying to tell me I was still in the land of properly negotiated consent.

But my first time through I got a bunch of the "I'm a good person" content and a lot less of the manipulative jerk -- just that first night with the Hacker, which felt so iffy I didn't go back again...

@starkatt ...so I can totally see how a middle-ground playthrough could get you both the questionable-consent content from the hacker but also the opportunities for the protagonist to moralize about consent during the day, and that sounds like that's the experience you had.

And I'm still bothered by the contrast between the clear labelling of being-a-jerk (complete with color-coding!) for the daytime content vs. not, for the who-to-sleep-with choice. (also, no "neither" choice was uncomfortable.)

@sev Yeah, during my playthrough I tried to win the points game while not (for the most parts) acting completely unethically. I still acted hella unethically. That probably contributes a lot. I was a manipulative jerk who tried to keep a good opinion of themself anyway.

@sev And yeah, following more of the night phases with The Hacker probably contributed a lot to my opinion.

I said this in another thread, but through the second and further encounters with The Hacker, I kept having the though "this is *exactly* the kind of thing where someone might verbally say yes in the moment, then a week later question whether they actually *wanted* to."

@starkatt that was my response to the first night. Actually, it was "this is exactly why I stopped kissing drunk straight girls" but, yes.

@sev I might have had the thought during the first night. I honestly don't remember. Regardless, the fact that it's something we *both picked up on* is hella telling.

@starkatt yeah, my take on it was: this game totally gives me the option to be gross and skeevy! I don't think that means the game doesn't treat consent meaningfully -- but I also don't feel like something needs to have mechanics attached to it in order for it to be important in a game & I know not everybody agrees with that.

Given my particular proclivities I felt generously rewarded for choosing to walk away from the Hacker. But somebody's who's not a piggy bottom would have a different experience, I'm sure.

@sev I don't think something has to have mechanics attached to it to have relevance in a game, but I do think mechanics have an important role in shaping player perceptions and choices.

Thinking more about it, the *purpose* of the points game was to give players motivation to behave manipulatively, yeah?

@sev And I think a game about "hey you're a skeevy-ass fucker who lies to get into people's pants" might actually have a purpose, but getting a gameplay incentivization to be a duplicitous asshole feels really jarring in a game that I feel was framed as sexy lesbian funtimes.

@starkatt I think when we chose to manipulate people in order to score points, we felt like assholes -- which holds in real life, too.

You're not wrong -- nothing you've said in this discussion, either today w/me or previously -- is incorrect. The game totally has lots of places where the mechanical reward isn't synchronized with good behavior.

@sev I'm not even saying I think the mechanical rewards ought to be synchronized with good behavior?

More like... the game has multiple warring visions about what it's trying to be, and those multiple threads actually clash really badly when it comes to consent.

@sev For the record, the three competing primary threads I read in the narrative are "carefree, spontaneous lesbian sex is fun", "situations of compromised consent are kinda hot", and "being a manipulative asshole is tempting but not okay". And those can't really coexist when the player can make choices that slide between any of them.

@starkatt Yeah, I can see how moving back and forth between those threads makes for an incoherent narrative.