Episode 7 start - hints and suggestions

[gamehelp]

PM duly sent . . .

[Master]

I am unable to get to the taxi scene with both girls natilie and azumi any hints how to do that?

[JFR]

I am unable to get to the taxi scene with both girls natilie and azumi any hints how to do that?

Did you read this entire thread? There are a lot of hints and even some direct answers about this.

spoiler: show

The taxi scene comes almost automatically after you go to the Strip Club and have the private dance with Azumi. Try going to the sofa as soon as you enter the Strip Club and ask to see Azumi (the new dancer.) She will take you into the back room for a private dance. After that, pretend to pass out so she will help you and then try to get you to go to sleep. Don't fall for her tricks and she will get Natalie to help. Later, Candy will also help but then Azumi and Natalie will take you home in a taxi. It all starts with the Azumi private dance.

There are many pathways through the Strip Club scene. Some start at the bar, talking to Candy, and then go to the sofa, some start at the sofa. There are several ways to do the private dance with Azumi and a whole lot of ways to do the taxi scene. Try them all until you find the best.

[gamiller]

Trying to figure out how to get the "3 pillow" ending, what are the key steps in the cab/apartment that lead to it?

Glad you are enjoying the game.

That particular ending requires getting both girls "interested." It is pretty simple to get one or the other but tricky to do both.

spoiler: show

There are key steps on this path in the Strip Club, the Taxi and Home.

In the club, make sure you get through the private dance with pants unzipped. You do that when Natalie comes in and calms Azumi down. Do not get Candy so worked up that she has sex with Brad as she will zip him back up afterward. When Azumi comes back in, concentrate on pushing her points up. She is interested if Brad shows her that he can resist/detect her influence.

In the Taxi, don't be too grabby too soon. Talk to the girls first. When they notice Brad is unzipped, move to zip back up then go all in. Let Azumi move things along at first. You have to reach the point where Natalie gives Brad a very "special kiss" to reach the same sort of thing later in the apartment. This "kiss" is an achievement by itself. You won't get one later if you don't get it here.

Just FYI, my scores for the girls when arriving in the front hallway of Brad's apartment on this part were N=26 and A=29 with Reputation points at 11. This is just a ballpark. The scores could be a few higher or lower and still work.

At the apartment, keep earning points with both girls. Don't fall for Azumi's tricks - she will try more than once. At breakfast, be interested, not creepy. Take the "You still love each other" path. If you have enough points, they will go to the bathroom. Wait. Again, if points are high enough, they will dance for Brad. From there, keep going for the long-term choices. Hold off at every opportunity.

I must be really dense but no matter what I do I can not get near those point totals and at the apartment after breakfast they leave and my point totals are only 11 and 13
how do you get higher

I have tried many possibilities and find myself stumbling over myself so I am attempting to do it in sections the best I have been able to get leaving the club is 11 points for nat and az. is that a good benchmark to work from for the other sections.
I have had some successes at the apartment but can not seem to get the nat angry material.

[Wolfschadowe]

My advice. Don't look at the points.

I'm thinking about adding some kind of toggle so that a player can toggle the point's off and on. Maybe I'll mention that to Kexter (Psst... Hey Kexter...)

BEW was designed to be played without displaying the points. It was designed to be played by studying the text and the images and trying to figure out why the women are responding the way that they are responding. When I see people start focusing on points and getting frustrated from lack of progress, the best advice that I want to tell them is to just stop looking at the points and start looking at the women.

I think a lot of people don't understand how much time I put into thinking and even agonizing over the reactions that the women have and the choices that are made. For every response that a woman gives to Brad, I have a deep understanding of why they are responding in that way, at that moment. When there are various responses available, I can explain, based on their character, why they are responding that way. If I can't explain it, I don't put it in the game. Is there an empty glass on the counter at the bar? I can explain why it's there. Is there a car on the street? I can explain why it's there. There's a reason for everything.

Everything.

Maybe take this as an example about the points. Think of the points as gallons of gas you put in the car. (Or liters for most of you.)

If I put 10 gallons of gas in the car, how far will it go before running out of fuel?
If it's a ferrari?
If it's a prius?
How about if the car is driven hard?
How about if the car is driven gently?
How about if the car is driven hard uphill the whole time?
Downhill?
Cruising on the highway?
Stop and go in the city?

In other words, 10 gallons of gas has completely different meanings and ultimately, by itself, is a useless figure.
The relationship points are the same way. They have some meaning in the game, just as fuel has meaning in a car. But the meaning is so complex with so many additional variables, that taken by itself, it's somewhat meaningless.

But if you have your car, that you are familiar with, along with your driving style, and your local terrain, then you probably know how far you can go on 10 gallons of gas.

Each woman is their own car, with their own driving style, and their own terrain, and their own traffic patterns. Learn those first, and then the relationship points will have more meaning. The way you learn about the women is to play the game. ALL of it. Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. That's why I packages all episodes together. Even episode 3 has hints that will help you with Episode 7. Episode 1, 2, & 5 have hints that will help you in Episode 8. Episode 7 has hints that will help with Episodes 2 and 4. And etcetera. Now that you have played Episode 7, go back and play some other content where Azumi and Natalie are both involved from earlier episodes and see if your understanding changes. As you learn more about the women in each Episode, you may find new insights in earlier episodes.

This is how I designed BEW to be played, for better or worse.

Before I step off my soapbox, I just want to remind everyone, this is not a virtual date game. It's not a meet and fuck game. It's an interactive fictional adventure game. Adult Interactive Fiction. It's a story.

Just because I designed it that way, that doesn't mean you have to play it that way. Play it however you like, of course. But I think many of you might be surprised if you take a few steps back from the points, and start paying attention to the stories in the game.

There are stories in the text.
There are stories in the pictures.
There are stories inside the stories.

Slowing down and savoring the game may just reveal a whole new world.

Or..maybe not. It's up to all of you.

I'm getting off my soapbox and heading back for the schadowes now.

[infiniteignorance]

If the women are cars I want to take Faith for a test drive.

[JFR]

I am probably going to get a "pointed" PM here but am about to launch into a spoiler that will illustrate some of what Wolf said above about links and connections within the story lines.

Warning! The text below contains at least a couple of serious spoilers. Please do not open if you don't want to see that sort of thing. You should also probably not open it if you haven't pretty much completed all or most endings of the apartment scene.

spoiler: show

One of the endings of the scene in Brad's apartment has Natalie getting very angry and storming out alone. It says something about her. How does she react when someone she has feelings for disappoints her? Azumi made an earlier comment about how bad she is in a crisis but what does this scene say about how Natalie handles some unexpected things?

Think about the earlier episodes and consider what we know about another time when Nat got almost irrationally angry. What happened then?
What was Azumi's reaction? What might be her reaction now, after she put in so much effort to rehabilitate her relationship with Natalie? Does Natalie react like this often when things go badly? What might that mean for Brad and future situations where Natalie is feeling threatened?

There are a lot of similar links between what we learn in early episodes and what happens later. The story is an organic whole and sometimes things that seem unimportant at the time we learn them can become very important later. Learning who the various characters really are will pay off as the story continues. The story really is far more important to this game than many similar adult titles.

[Tao Dude]

That's why i love this game and why it frustrates me so much. If it was just about the sexy girls, i would have stopped playing ages ago.

Everyone has buttons that will make them react in a certain way, and sometimes you touch one without knowing it was even there, and before you know it, you are in an unrecoverable situation. Most other games don't do that, and most other games only have one or two, sometimes three targets, but with much less complex characterisations. To run with eight complex characters is a tour de force (alright, we haven't met them all yet, but even so).

I could witter on, but I'll leave it there for this thread.

[moskys]

BEW was designed to be played without displaying the points.

Actually the instructions (RTFM!) still say that

Difficulty and Value Display: Easy shows Relationship status. Medium shows Reputation. Hard only shows the menu page graphic.

I remember that including the score in Hard mode was a petition from some players after Ep3 or something like that. It was useful back then, when there was only a couple of active paths with Emily/Faith and Natalie: people wanted to reach the erotic content available at that point and looking at the score we could know whether we were on the right track or not. But that's not the case anymore. Even if we know we shouldn't look at points, I think we still look at points when chosing an option instead of another.

[JFR]

I have had some successes at the apartment but can not seem to get the nat angry material.

We got sidetracked in the "points" discussion and I missed this.

spoiler: show

If you have reached the apartment paths that have Natalie trying to pull Azumi off of Brad but Azumi resists by grabbing him around the neck, then you already know how to get this one. The difference is that when they continue past the point of the "fight," Natalie will take some action to force her way to her turn. If you had the "cock lick" from Nat in the Taxi, then she will feel comfortable enough to lick both Brad and Azumi, making them both cum and triggering the "2- or 3- pillows" endings. If you did NOT get the "cock kiss" in the Taxi but still reach this "fight scene," then Natalie will not feel okay with doing the "lick ending." Instead, she will jump onto both Brad and Azumi, making it a three-way and pushing Azumi further against Brad. That forces an unintended consequence. Depending on how they handle that consequence, one result is the "Natalie Angry" ending.

As for your points question, I agree with Wolf's comments but will add that I think you are still missing a few things during the bar/private dance scene. 11 and 11 should still allow you to proceed through the Taxi and Home scenes but there are a few more you could find if you experiment with your responses to Candy at the bar and Azumi and Natalie in the private room. Just don't get too wrapped up in the points. This is one scene where the preferred paths may actually see someone's points going down in places.

[p22]

Personally, I have enjoyed this game even more with debugger enabled, then with default settings, where hotspots, in game checks and flags are hidden.

Why?
Because, I like gameplay feedback. Like Taletalle adventure games ("he may remember this"), I like being notified when some choice is highly impactful, instead superficial small talk.

Also like go back button from debugger, so I do not need to auto save every couple of choices to try out different options.

In the same way, I like RPGs of old, there you see skill check you can not make due to low skill, as well as how much you missing to get successful check.

Due to all of this, I very much like visible reputation points, but I would like even more visibility from the game (reputation checks, marking dialogue with major branching, visible past decision with the character that can affect future relations, no hidden hotspots, explicit reasons why some choice lead to some consequence if some check was involved, etc...)

.

On the other hand, early episodes in this game relied heavily on reputation points in other to pass elite checks, unlike later episodes. This led to making players think more on how to get more reputation instead of exploring all dialogue choices and where they lead. Ep7 is much less about reputation and more about taking proper choices at proper time.

[Tao Dude]

I very much like visible reputation points, but I would like even more visibility from the game (reputation checks, marking dialogue with major branching, visible past decision with the character that can affect future relations, no hidden hotspots, explicit reasons why some choice lead to some consequence if some check was involved, etc...)

What you describe would amount to a simple road-map with way-points to tick off, as opposed to the intellectual challenge of getting inside the creator's head and their ideas of NPC characteristics, and as such would completely kill this game for me.

[p22]

Obfuscating things just makes game require too many replays. I prefer less replays, each with significant content, then replaying same thing a dozen of times unsuccessfully trying to figure out what was intention of author.

But it is a personal preference... For me intellectual challenge is to deobfuscate game scripts and to check what each of the checks does and then to figure out how to get to every part of the game with that knowledge known to me. It's more of the "tester" perspective then player perspective.

Ep7 was great improvement for me, since it relies much less of elite checks and more on previous choices (which mostly make sense).

.

Now, truth to be told, if game did not use any kind of reputation system, but all choices were based on consequences of previous choices, I would probably always play game naturally. But when you add reputation checks in the mix, things get way too obfuscated for my tastes. You can easily miss some check by couple of points never figuring that there was an alternate response at that place, since you never get feedback that you failed reputation check.

[Wolfschadowe]

I very much like visible reputation points, but I would like even more visibility from the game (reputation checks, marking dialogue with major branching, visible past decision with the character that can affect future relations, no hidden hotspots, explicit reasons why some choice lead to some consequence if some check was involved, etc...)

What you describe would amount to a simple road-map with way-points to tick off, as opposed to the intellectual challenge of getting inside the creator's head and their ideas of NPC characteristics, and as such would completely kill this game for me.

This is a great example of how everyone enjoys things differently. I always say to play the game in the way that's fun for you and here are two examples of two very different ways to play. I will guarantee that Debug mode doesn't make the game easier, just different. Sure, you can optionally see additional hidden information, but it's still a guess to know what it means for the future. Some people will see all that information and run screaming for the hills. Others will see it as a fun challenge to decode and chart.

Ep7 was great improvement for me, since it relies much less of elite checks and more on previous choices (which mostly make sense).

In the early game, there wasn't much history of choices to branch, so relationship and reputation were more important in branching out stories. As the game continues, choices will be more important than relationship, but relationship can't go away without either making the game 10 times more complicated than it already is, or much shallower than it is. Think of the relationship score as tracking how well the player understands the woman and consolidating all those small choices together. That way both the small decisions, and the major decisions matter. Without relationship, only the major decisions would matter, and I feel the game would suffer.

since you never get feedback that you failed reputation check.

Great observation. I didn't even realize that myself, but you are right, for the most part. I carefully made sure that there's feedback when doing something that lowered the relationship, (a frown, textual hint, etc..) and there's usually an indicator that a relationship check was passed, such as reputation increasing or an alternate branch opening up. But often there is no clear indication that a relationship check was failed. I'm going to need to think about this.

[Brocho]

spoiler: show

On the way to the "fight" where Natalie tries to pull Azumi off of Brad, there is a status check. If Nat did the "special kiss" in the Taxi, you will be routed to the "lick" scene where Brad selects the winner. If, however, the Taxi "special" kiss did not occur but everything else is equal, you will be routed to another path with two choices. If Brad comes early after Natalie joins, it leads to an achievement. If he holds on awhile longer, you will get the scene you found before where Nat gets very angry. That means you actually have to start this path clear back in the taxi.

I'm not sure whether this needs a spoiler, but I'll play it safe.

spoiler: show

I've managed to get to the end of that scene with the 'special kiss' and got the 3 pillows ending, but I can't work out how to get to the end without doing the 'special kiss'. All the different cab scenes I've tried which don't involve the 'special kiss' either don't get past the bathroom check, don't allow me to take off pants, or result in me cumming early, even though I'm making the same choices during the dance/lap dance scene as I did in the 'special kiss' version. By the way, I can get past the first point where Natalie can make you cum, but the option at the bottom of the screen to avoid the second one doesn't appear. Is there a particular path through the cab scene which is required to get to that choice you mentioned? I'm really struggling to find a combination which works.