A short scenario by Harem's author that includes the usual shenanigans in Stream of Consciousness Power Trip scenarios like complete lack of human logic, empathy, and usage of power regardless of any morality or ethics, but does not bring anything new to the table and ends up too soon without leaving too much to enjoy to any kind of possible demographic it might have.
Guys that mentally slaves his crush, a guy that possesses his mother and sees her naked body, it offers several ideas, but well, it ends them up all soon too, just like any other.
A few things to mention about this scenario is how it tries to create its own magic lore, setting up the action on Spain, and present magic "rocks" with different kinds of power, but all backgrounds are taken from real-life pictures and applied a posterized effect that doesn't look actually good (cartooning real-life pictures is usually a complicated process, after all), people told me that there was also a version with real-life photos of people, but I didn't see it anywhere and it probably isn't available either.
People who want a bit more of the whole madness of this kind of scenarios might check it out since it also has a few unintentionally memorable and pretty crazy lines, but people who want the scenario for its sexual appeal might end up dissatisfied since everything ends up so quickly, just like so many other recent scenarios. People who new to this kind of scenario with the ironic appeal should rather check Harem or other scenarios that have a lot more content instead.
Basically, just another Power Trip scenario in the vein of Harem, just with a lot less content. John is unhappy with his current family, Sandra didn't wake him up for school in time and Holly is distant, so when he gets the remote he changes his family to his own desire.
Depending on the choices he will make Holly his little servant sister and his mom, Sandra, either his girlfriend, sister, or close friend. People who appreciate morality on the side of the protagonist should probably skip this one, otherwise, you can check it out if you are into Mind Control and Incest, it will be either hot or plain creepy. Even then, is also pretty short, with only around 10 minutes of content.
This is the issue with most scenarios, all of them are not just incomplete, but also abandoned at their own very beginning, they create a setup and they just end, and I have tried to be as positive as possible about these stories in the past, I say, well, it is not a good story, but they offer good ideas, I try my best to think about someone who might fit the demographic the scenario is aiming for, but the truth is that checking stuff like this at the very end will be frustrating for a lot of readers, any kind of readers, even if you are the person who likes this kind of stories, you are just going to get teased and then left completely with your pants down!
If you are going to write a scenario in the future, I would say work in giving either a complete story or at least... one hour of content? At least in that way, you will make sure that there will something for the people who decide to check your story. What are you saying? Publish something as short as this as a proof of concept? No, don't, we have enough of those already, and people end up abandoning those "proof of concepts" most of the time anyway! I am sure we can discuss the concept you want and the story with you in the forum or the Discord.
Now, there is just another little thing I can mention about this scenario, let's talk about the how-the-protagonist-gets-the-TF-device-trope!
So far in the community, we have seen:
A car dropped it by accident and I picked it up (Press Switch, Bodysuit 23)
Aliens gave it to me (Student Transfer Remote)
I found it in an old abandoned old place (Student Transfer Magic Book from Kat's house, PDA device from a library or so, I think)
There is also other stuff like magical events in Freaky Friday and stores that when you try to come back do not exist anymore. In this case, we have a variant, John gets the remote thanks to an old guy who offered him "a universal remote that does whatever he needed" but I feel that's the worst variation of the trope, why somebody would give a remote like that to a stranger? Just because they are the protagonist? Anyhow, for fetish and sexual-focused stories, it does the trick, but for more serious stories, I think is something you might want to take into account if you are going to write them.
Chasing Setsuna has proposed so far the most interesting and intricate ideas for a drama that I have seen in the community, and its concept a lot holds the potential for an awesome story in itself.
What is the plot about? Nemuri dies for unknown reasons, and because of a mistake made by Setsuna while trying to send him to the eternal realm, Nemuri ends up as a ghost and decides to escape, since he wants to continue living, but Setsuna, as told by him in his life as a priest, can't let him wander around like a lost soul.
Why so? Well, in this story ghosts end up losing everything that they had as humans in their past life, their own personality, and everything that made them themselves alive beings, and due to their desire of living, they end up possessing people and causing mischief. Nemuri himself ends up possessing a girl by accident and starts liking it, then, due to his increasing nature as a ghost, he starts to like it more and goes on a rampage looking to possess more girls as he pleases.
After possessing a girl while trying to hide his aura from Setsuna, his own obsessions as a ghost turn to Setsuna, which he decides will be the best body for him to possess. This just opens the possibilities for an amazing drama and an engaging story, the implications for Setsuna are either to take her father, already unrecognizable from what she knew, back to the spirit realm or lose her body and life in the process.
The scenario ends pretty shortly, but the idea is simply amazing, Setsuna would be trying to chase Nemuri with the help of her friend, half spirit half-human, Izuna, who has a contract attached to her, and Nemuri would try to weaken her mental state controlling people close to her so he can find a chance to take over her body. This would allow giving a lot of tension to the story.
It is overall, two people who love each other, or that at least loved each other before, Father and Daughter, try to win a chase one over the other. In this case, we are sharing the perspective of the antagonist, which allows the audience to see some fetish focused action like MtF possession and where Nemuri gets the advantage of the bodies of who possesses, there is also some mind control since all the thoughts he has and actions he does while possessing others are felt like their own by the possessed when he gets out.
While it sounds like Setsuna doesn't stand a chance due to her lack of experience as a priestess, her friend, Izuna, is shown as a powerful being who carries a sword that can kill any ghosts and aberrations without any difficulty, and overall her character is given a mysterious aura; as I have said before, she is a half spirit half-human who was taken care of by Nemuri as a kid and now, respects him a lot, because of that, she is ready to keep Setsuna away to help Nemuri live his new life, nevertheless, due to her contract, if she is ordered by Setsuna, she has to take care of Nemuri; that just adds another layer to the whole picture of things, touching topics like loyalty, friendship, and some High Fantasy since Izuna is part of the spirit world.
Some people would say that this version of Nemuri takes too many liberties by making him the same as a horny teenager, but I think this depiction is quite fair with his nature as a lost soul. Nemuri going from a respected priest to lustful ghost plants a lot of questions and implications for this character, a complete mind degradation so to say. In the end, he could become an evil being with his plan of taking over Setsuna and become the new priestess of Izuna. Izuna as a half-spirit character that has to take both sides between the father and the daughter is interesting as well because that morally ambiguous, completely loyal, and skilled character interpretation, fits her a lot.
Sadly, this scenario was put on hiatus in very early stages, and even when it hasn't been totally canceled the last update was done 3 years ago, and this time it hurts a lot because the story and the plot it's just so good. It has several leads and has a big fetishistic appeal, yes, it's true, a lot of the possessions are used just to make you feel horny, but the story in itself can offer a lot for those who want some great drama, if you do not take it that seriously and let the scenes that are only for sexual appeal be themselves, you will enjoy this scenario, it really seems that it can offer the best of worlds, but the rest of the story is yet to be seen.
Overall, in the state it is now, I can recommend it if you want some MtF Possession action (sexually-focused) as well a bit of mind control, but I can also recommend it if you want to check out more about the whole concept by itself, which is sincerely awesome, even when not a fully-fledged story. (it ends just as it starts and plants the plot) it's a good concept for a compelling story.
Novels like Student Transfer and Press Switch offer a wide range of options in stories focused on a related thematic, TF, it is natural that some scenarios and spin-offs get born in offering their own anthology of stories and routes based on more specific topics or ideas. For example, as I said before, I wanted first Into the Janeverse to be an anthology of MTF transformations. For this scenario, Escape the Manor, we have an anthology of transformations based on Identity Death.
Now, I have said that I like long stories to even if they become linear most of the time due to how they are fleshed out, I have reviewed some linear scenarios in the past, but I haven't mentioned a scenario like this, that has a completely opposite approach.
Everything starts with a group of people who have to find refugee in a Manor when they get stranded in the middle of nowhere during a downpour; after that, the characters will realize that something inside there is going on and they will have to choose to try and escape or fight what it is within. In Escape the Manor we have a lot of choices, and by a lot I mean a lot, counting 43 endings (54 including placeholders) which offer a variety of events all across the presented story.
What kind of endings do we get? Oh boy, where do we start, since most endings show different characters and monster girl tropes all coming from High Fantasy standards. We have Bee Girls, Dark Elfs, Succubuses, Slime, Maid Servants, Immortal Wish Benders, Posession Demons, Mirror Demons, Weight Gain Fat Girls, Centaurs, Gyarus, Bimbos, Spider Girls, Isekai Girls, and so forth...
According to Narg, the ultimate goal was to provide a wide range of TF options with a large number of ways to achieve Identity Death, so, all these endings and routes, despite being so varied and different, are connected all together by this one theme, in particular, mind control and identity death, giving a somewhat consistent topic inside the scenario.
What is most discussed about this scenario however is the execution of these transformations, which might not be likable for some. While in Cold as Ice we have slow drama and introspection ending in two main events revolved about the death of an ego, most mind control and identity deaths in Escape the Manor happen quite fast actually. The implications of losing your identity and forget who you were or who other people were are not touched here, the drama there is involved and the implications of the transformations are limited to being mentioned that they happen.
Since we are talking about content explicitly focused on a fetish, it is to be assumed that a lot of people might enjoy this due to its sexual appeal. In that way, Escape the Manor works, it showcases an Identity Death happening, if you can get sexual appeal of hearing the Identity Death alone, this scenario will work for you since this is what it does best, the characters get their memory erased in a lot of different kinds of beings, and it has variety even for everyone.
If what you are looking for is the mental and social implications about Ego Death, Escape the Manor is not really the scenario for you, all due to its fast pace and approach. Most "deaths" go in a similar way, somebody applies some magic, and the characters forget what they were doing, after the other person who is mind-controlling them tells them who they are now, they adopt a new identity rather quickly losing any hesitation and personality they could have had. Sometimes characters might struggle, sometimes characters might be aware they aren't who they used to be, but in the end, most of them end up engulfed by their own mind control.
Now, while Narg says this was not intentional, the truth is that Escape the Manor as a final product is something that has to be enjoyed right quickly or rather instinctively, without analyzing it too much. As I have said before, this scenario stands for its sexual appeal rather than anything else, if you think about it the more you need, or if you judge the scenario in a more serious way than what it should, it simply falls apart in its own logic: From the unremarkable personality of the protagonists, the lack of having a different cadence for each character, through the way the casually take everything that is happening, the vague magic that is used as a plot device only, the characters that sometimes morph to different bodies while being mind-controlled and sometimes not, to the villains that have such enormous power to use telepathy and mind control in anybody in the mansion at any time but don't do it just for the sake of the plot.
With TF, there are people who enjoy the content for its mental, psychological implications, and there are people who enjoy it for the sexual appeal. It is something that I like about TF since it offers content and ideas for several kinds of audiences, Escape the Manor might be enjoyed more by the latter group in this case.
Yes, this scenario has a very characteristic stream of consciousness method, and just like in scenarios like Harem or John Sudden Lifechange, its appeal results polarizing. My recommendation is that if you like Mind Control and Identity Death you can check them out taking into account the quick and to-the-point approach it uses, it doesn't offer any further deconstruction upon identity itself but it gives a wide catalog of ideas with diversity and range.
Due to her lack of understanding of social clues and obsessive nature, Carrie becomes a good candidate for a Power Trip scenario, being a female counterpart for Kiyoshi in that matter; but aside from letting her go batshit insane, Carrie also carries (heh) the potential for a lot of character growth, and that is what this scenario focuses on.
After deciding to take a shortcut unlike in the main game John goes to the park and finds Carrie waiting for him, and John, therefore the player, will have to choose a way to deal with her.
The options are quite organic and logical, you can either erase her memories of the encountering and send her home, erase her memories, send her home and remove her obsession, or you can either try to make up a story or even then tell her the truth about the remote.
If you decide to mind control her you can finish the whole issue (and therefore the scenario) quickly, cut or burn the knot, without any consequences, which felt quite nice, being able to let the player choose the right choice, and let the story end even before it begins even if the player wants to, it makes you feel as you can actually choose what make to happen.
If you decide to tell her the truth, John will also end up sharing his memories about her, making her realize her own creepiness, after a breakdown, Carrie invites John to her home after school, and John has to discuss with his friends what should he do about the situation, unfortunately, the scenario ends in a placeholder there.
The longest route and probably the one people will pay more attention to is the one where you try to make up a story, which ends up in an accidental body swap. After this, Carried ends up taking over and with some commands, she puts John in the verge of identity death, even then when not quite, John has no memories but he knows who he really is, which makes up for quite a chunk of interesting internal dialogue where John is trying to keep his identity intact and not to let himself go to the programming.
It is interesting seeing him pull and push with his own brain as he has to act as Carrie and discovers more about her life and background and the reason she is that way, all this is pretty short and happens in the span of a single day, but it is pretty great too see.
At the end of the day in this route, John might or might not decide to try with Carrie again and convince her to turn back, and if the right answers to her questioning are given, it can result in John finally fixing up his relationship with her or even stay back in a limbo of uncertainness.
Overall the scenario has no more than 30 minutes of gameplay and most of its paths end in a placeholder but I still think it is worth checking out if you are interested in Carrie and give yourself some ideas about how to make her grow as a person, this is the starting seed to make her a great, fully-fledged character.
So far I have covered some scenarios focused on lewd content and some focused in more elaborated stores focusing on the mental and social aspects of TF in the wholesome side, but there is a side I haven't covered of this branch of mental and social side focused stories: the one focused in darker stories, in bleak drama and pain.
Just as with many other scenarios, Cold as Ice's routes vary in quality and consistency, therefore it is better to judge them individually, like seasons on a TV show. Cold as Ice features three long routes that are linear for the most part aside from the decision each one has to give out two different endings for the audience, if you do not like linear stories you might still get successfully bamboozled by the illusion of interactivity in the story. For me, linear stories are preference sinve most of the time an author that focuses in one linear story it usually ends up fleshed out well; what about the endings? Well, that is something I will talk about in a few minutes...
The scenario introduces Irene as the main character while depicting her as a somewhat tough girl with anger issues, but with a big heart for her best friend Allison and good people who meet her, she ends up getting the spellbook but since she isn't from the Blackwell family, the amount of spells she can do is limited and it also a lot more hurtful for her, taking away her energy at times.
The first route that was completed, and curiously the route most people play at first, is a route focused on Brad, the Brad route, for short.
This one starts when Irene discovers Brad and Eric, who have been genderbent for an unknown person. Eric leaves and Brad ends up teaming up with Irene who offers her help to find out how to turn him back despite her lack of powers. To help Brad cope with being a girl she gives him some of her memories about being a girl, which also causes Brad to slowly become more and more female-minded, so Irene and Brad have to find a way to swap him back as soon as possible.
Overall the scenario behaves mostly like the main game, focused on the social relationships of the characters and how do they deal with the TF, there are also certain parts of comedy and the whole route has a taint of mystery that keeps you engaged, around the end it even gets to be thriller-esque and even when the route is linear until that point, it is nice to see Irene getting more and more clues. Another good thing to mention is how reduced the spell library Irene can use is, that is, to avoid escalation issues, which is something that normally is not taken into account in the main game.
Is the route good overall? Well... no, the truth is that the reveal is the most random and nonsensical thing ever, somebody who didn't take any participation in the story, or in any of the other routes for that matter, creating a big plot hole in the whole scenario as well. It is a person that you would never expect because she has no actual motivations related to the characters or what they do, it just doesn't make sense.
This villain is literally like the one shown in the ProZD's sketch.
Now, I said that I would talk about the two ending formula later, right? In the Brad route, you get an extremely bad ending and an extremely good ending. The curious thing is that you end up preferring the bad ending by far because it is a lot more interesting than the good ending.
Hizack mentioned he did the good ending by obligation, and it shows, the good ending is insipid, cliche, and lacks inspiration. The bad ending on the other hand might feel a bit too cruel for some but it has an interesting concept reminiscent of Being John Malkovich movie.
So, the route has good stuff on it, but it is simply ruined by its laughable ending. Hizack said he didn't really want to bother changing it, and just as the experimental ending in Stone to the Head, it remains as a failed piece in the Student Transfer history.
But don't worry, it gets better from here.
In the second route, Irene's sidekick is not Brad but Cornelia. The plot starts with Irene and Allison switching bodies out of curiosity and after an incident with Sayaka, Cornelia ends up stealing the book giving it to her thinking Irene and Allison are planning to prank her with it (not sure how though, she opened, and only see a bunch of gibberish) and then, the worst case happens, Sayaka gets magic powers, a lot bigger compared to the ones Irene has.
Here we just do not see a bigger background about Irene and Allison's friendship but we also get to see more development with Irene towards her classmate Cornelia, who now has been forgotten by Sayaka due to her new powers.
While the route lacks the mystery of the first, it still keeps you engaged as you read how Irene and Cornelia try to turn things back to normal and take the book away from Sayaka before it's too late, it's also a more cheerful route than the previous one, at least while not including the ending.
The issue with this route is the characters, starting with the main antagonist, Sayaka, who, as seen in other scenarios, acts like a complete psychopath without any actual empathy, she is the best she is and nobody can defeat her, to the point she becomes practically cartoony and one-note. A lot of the people in this route are treated as if they lacked enough intelligence. She offers to duplicate money to everybody and people start to form a line asking her for wishes, but even then Sayaka's mind controls half of the people that come to her (according to Irene), like her classmate Zoey. Yui and John also seem to lack intelligence and feelings and they believe whatever Irene tells them, not even getting angry about what is happening in the process.
Now, since Sayaka is a psychopath, the depiction of Cornelia also changes, she is not a loyal friend that has been with her since the beginning like in Arch Nemesis and she isn't an obsessive, insecure friend as shown in the main game, in the Magic Sayaka route, she is a total victim and a tool used for Sayaka just as anybody, a person who is desperate of having a friendship and that needs help as well. So, choose your version, for better or worse, there are several interpretations of the story that can explain her character. Personally, I like to see her cutting ties with Sayaka altogether, but Sayaka as a character doesn't even work here, she is practically just a walking plot device, doing things of her will, and no actual good qualities are given to her so we can feel her more alive.
Aside from that, I do think the route is quite solid, and also in contrast to the Brad route, it features a complete improvement in the concept for both endings, and I think it is really important to mention tit since it might be useful to anybody who wants to write fiction.
While in the first route we had an extremely bad ending with interesting concepts an extremely good ending that turned out to be pretty insipid, this time we got two, interesting, bittersweet endings in which where the protagonist still loses and wins something in exchange. There is no really a correct ending, or an ending where pain can be avoided, in both cases, something bad will happen, Irene will lose something, and in both cases, only some stuff can be solved. Some people would argue that having two "bad endings" is actually pointless, but there is a difference between them: who will you choose to save? Irene, or her friends and other people instead?
This format is important because making the protagonist lose something no matter the ending makes the endings feel more real and less idealistic, the issues they went through feeling more real because the errors the character committed will still have consequences the rest of her life, there is no Deus Ex Machina, no magic solution for everybody, the pain we felt along the way is real and will stay there in some way or another for the characters, it makes the story actually mean something in comparison to the cheap happy cliche ending of the Brad route where quotes are seemed to be taken of a random generator and do not actually feel like they mean anything, this is something, and it's great.
It is true that Irene's decisions are a bit stretched out for the sake of this format and she could have found another option to fix everything again, but well, it is something that can be forgiven, this is the first time the two bittersweet ending format was made in the scenario, and both endings are certainly interesting even if one lacks a lot more logic than the other.
The decision to if I will make completely happy endings from now on too is up to me to choose by now, but with Cold as Ice, I have learned that stories can have a bigger bearing in the story is not everything is solved around the end, not all the issues leave, and the bittersweet feeling, if used well, is a good resource to make the story feel more realistic, the character has lost something due to their own actions and there are consequences to those actions. While it is not done simply for the sake of it, it can be great, since I still feel that fictional characters can be treated with kindness too.
I don't want to spoil too much about these two endings either, and I already said that John and Yui's depiction is pretty flawed in this route, but in one of the endings I just saw them in a certain state that caused me a lot of feelings and emotion. The execution there was wonky since well they both acted pretty casual about everything, but the concept made me feel so excited that I even jumped from my chair several times. How can I say it without giving spoilers? Maybe something like ID pseudo-selfcest romance, or something like that, and done well could make up for the best romance story ever, and I hope to write a story for the concept one day.
For the very last route, we have Yui. After Irene uses a spell that she can't reverse due to her lack of magic abilities (even when the spell had it' own warning) she and Yui get body swapped and get stuck. Their only hope? To find a true Blackwell heir that can use the book and switch them back.
This route also features some curious ideas like the fact that Yui and Irene are slowly getting their identity erased and slowly getting into believing they are each other even when they have completely swapped bodies, implying that their own brains contain their own sense of self and that swapping souls only allowed them to take their previous memories temporarily.
While I do not get quite the logic behind that mechanic, since to me body swaps could be seen as a complete memory swap, this is a field that allows a lot of interpretations and points of view. Do souls exist? Does a puppet with your memories have its own soul? As far as the main game goes, I think the consensus is that there is a soul which puppets don't have, according to Yui Spellbook Continuation, a puppet who stays in a body long enough can grow to be a real soul, the "memory restoration effect" is another take in the mechanics of body swaps which its own rules, which in this case are made to give a sense of urgency to the story.
New characters are introduced, like Sam, Yui's playful and sassy cousin, a character that hasn't been shown in the canon game up to this date but she gives a new dynamic to the Yamashita family.
I could mention and make more nitpick about the story, but overall it is what it is, the story is about to find Blackwell, so Irene and her friends make people in all school touch the book waiting to see if the gem inside it shines, so they can identify the real Blackwell, Irene starts to get closer to Natsumi since Yui doesn't usually give her enough attention, and the story develops into Identity Death around the end. This route features other two bittersweet endings where there is not a solution for everybody, will you sacrifice Irene? Or would you rather sacrifice someone else? Who is going to lose their sense of self?
Now, let's talk about Identity Death (or ID for short), what is identity death? Basically, it is the term used for when a character forgets about themselves and who they really are, starting to believe they are someone else and become a different person at the cause of this, in other words, it is the death of an ego.
For a lot of people, this concept is failed on its own and represents a deal-breaker, the point usually given is that is nothing more than a flawed tool to change the perspective of the story and giving urgency, which many fail to write in the first place. If a character forgets everything about themselves and what we went through with them before, doesn't that make the story pointless? Anything they could have learned along the way is simply forgotten, what they were, everything, it is murder for some, and not different than normal death for a lot, what is the point of writing stories where we will just end up with a different character at the end?
Well, my friends, I used to believe all this too, all this, indeed, but Cold as Ice has shown me the actual potential of the whole concept. The point of Identity Death is not how the affected people deal with the death of their own ego since they are basically... dying, the point of Identity Death is to see how the people related to them deal with the "death" of the person they knew before, will they accept this new person or will they try to bring them back? Do they really consider this a new person? It makes up for a good source of Drama and an interesting option to show how some people grasp the concept of identity: Does the body represent the person? Is being with friends with the new person the same as being with friends with the person you knew before? Does any of their qualities stay before this ego rebirth?
Yeah, it is a complete mindfuck on its own, and even when Identity Death stories will usually end up with a sad or tragic tone, a lot of the stories it can tell to deconstruct even more the sense of self can be really interesting. Consider that Identity Death is not a mental fetish, but more of a social fetish, since the point is not exactly how the own character deals with their own death but how others around them do.
The big issue with this route is... that is not completely animated! After a bit, the path ends up in a placeholder, but the whole route is there, you have to manually open the rpy file and read the script from there, there are no animations so no visual clues (like Irene and Yui's eye color changing is given), but it is perfectly readable this way, even when a bit of a chore.
When I did read it I made some screenies with what I imagined what was happening in the story, here is Riley (best boy in the whole scenario):
What we can wait for is that somebody ends up animating the rest of the story, now that Hizack is gone from the community.
Overall, while it has a lot of flaws and issues, I consider Cold as Ice a fantastic scenario, recommendable to people who love introspection and drama in TF. People who are looking for wholesomeness and more happy stuff might need to look somewhere else but those who look for bleaker endings and stories might enjoy this scenario. If you think Identity Death is all bogus and nonsense, I would say also that Cold as Ice is the scenario for you to try so you can get an idea about what is the whole appeal of this TF subgenre. I have to admit, overall, it has a lot of fantastic ideas and some great characters too.
Absurd, surreal, and goofy. Based on a text adventure game from the 70s, Kwumpus Hunt offers a fantastic comedy wrapped up in puzzle-like gameplay that any Student Transfer fan should check at least once if they want to try out something different and refreshing.
The plot centers around Mel and her quest for the Kwumpus, an evil entity that has taken over the school changing everything and everybody to his liking. With the help of her friend and guide Flavia, Mel will have to find out what is happening and strike in the right moment to free the school of its perdition.
The gameplay is nonlinear and even randomized. Now, before you flip up about randomizer use, I have to say that this is randomizer use done right. There are several characters that appear in different rooms every time, the location of the villain is also randomized so you will never know where to actually attack. The rooms without characters offer to the player the possibility to watch pieces of the past to collect clues about the evil Kwumpus to make sense out of the situation.
The rooms with characters will not let you get any clues from that room, so, to get all clues, you will need to replay the scenario several times; even then, the scenario lets you get the right ending with a single playthrough. Replaying the game is very enjoyable anyway thanks to the 7 different endings you can get in total (9 countings some small variations according to Mech, but I didn't see them anywhere, to be honest).
Each room gives you a limited selection of other rooms to go to, if you find end up walking to a room with the wrong character, you will get a bad ending; you have to learn how to go through the right combination of rooms to navigate through the school without being found by the villain or one of the mind-controlled people before time.
One thing I found a bit annoying is that the rooms do not follow a certain pattern, naturally. Being in the stairway doesn't give you the option to go to the roof, and being on the gate doesn't necessarily let you go to the courtyard, you have to go through several rooms until you find one that lets you access the room you are looking for. While some people might find this a small inconvenience that could increase gameplay without adding any actual content, I found it to be just a small nitpick in the otherwise interesting random mechanics of the game. Because yes, that's right, this is not just a visual novel, this is an actual puzzle game where you have to press the right buttons at the right time.
A lot of the TF events like gender-bending, possession, and twinning are used either just in small amounts or are relegated for comedic gags, so overall I would classify this as a Mind Control focused scenario since it is after all the main threat destroying the school.
While I would not recommend it to people who want a thought through serious TF narrative or to lewd and sex-oriented TF fans, I think Kwumpus Hunt is a great choice for anybody who is looking for come comedy-oriented TF content. It is not just very interactive but also very funny and one of its kind.
Curiously enough, it seems there have been more transgender-focused narratives in Student Transfer over the years, and Help Me Be Happy is one of them, does it succeed? Well, yes and no.
Using ST characters and backgrounds (since this was done in the era where no custom assets could be added), the scenario presents us a set of all brand new original characters: Jeff and his friends James, Tessa, and Jadon, as well his family and classmates.
We get a lot of information and exposition with every character and then, the remote is introduced to us by Tessa, who found it on her home's door. The characters believe her right away and a swap between Tessa and Jeff is done for the day.
What follows next is a casual story of friends that want to have fun with the remote swapping and switching their sexes. In one of the routes, Jeff tells Tessa that he wants to stay as her, following a placeholder.
In the longest route, Jeff confesses wanting to stay as a girl, which his (her) friends accept right away, Jeff switches as a girl but at the mall, he decides to switch back for a moment as a man. At that moment, he meets a girl and takes her to his room to talk more with her.
Based on what I can see, and one of the sentences Jeff says as a guy "Would you rather be in love with a girl or stay as a girl?" Since he knows that switching back and forth will just damage the remote, unfortunately, the scenario ends there and has been abandoned. What we see now is just characters doing things, with no actual plot whatsoever.
What the scenario has to offer at the moment has very low stakes, the characters act way too casually and calmly, always supporting and agreeing with each other, even when Jeff and Tess were a couple before, they still hang out as friends, and even James who knows this does not seem to care, even when swapping bodies between each other.
Jeff, or Jess, mentioned that the characters were being too nice to her, which is when she realized she had given them a mental command without realizing when she was about to sleep, the characters get out of their apparent trance but still act relatively the same way towards Jeff, with no drama and a lot of comprehension.
Is it a recommendable trans story? Well, even when the character of Jeff/Jess is acceptable as a trans portrayal, very little of the social worries about being transgender are given to the audience to identify with, her parents are gone for the weekend, so they don't have anything to worry about, aside from some indecision from Jeff, we don't see too much about the mental issues he goes through, and the story doesn't do anything with the transgender element aside from the initial confession from Jeff. Even then, I think it makes for a cute and wholesome time.
If you want some slice of life story without too much conflict, I would say you can give this a shot, but even then you have to take into account that has no more than around 1 hour of content and it doesn't seem is going to get an update ever again.
Probably the most recommendable Power Trip scenario. Now, what is Power Trip? When playing and reviewing scenarios, you usually find certain patterns or certain criteria that repeats in some releases, so naturally, for me, the idea of giving that pattern a tag becomes a necessity so these scenarios that share certain characteristic can be grouped together and recommended together. (Classification is just such a beautiful thing <3).
The term "Power Trip" was coined by Student Transfer Developer Narg when we were discussing a way to classify this kind of scenario in TF fiction, and is a term a lot of people agreed with. What does Power Trip mean? A scenario in which the protagonist abuses power with impunity without negative repercussions, often so the reader can vicariously experience being powerful. In Power Trip scenarios, the ethics beyond the limit of the protagonist's powers are often ignored, letting the player experience the story without mental repercussions or remorse.
In this way, we can group scenarios like Harem, The Tale of the Loser, Body Switchers, and even new ones like John Sudden Lifechange. Now, the idea behind the Power Trip tag is having the protagonist being the one who has the power to change things, if another character has the power to change everything and the protagonist is part of the victims, that would fall into the label of masochism. Even then some people could argue that the obscure Takeover route of Student Transfer has a character that could be a way to achieve power for the writer even when the events are told from John's perspective. I accept that the tag is still a bit wonky and the concept is a work in progress, but by now I propose it to you to group certain scenarios that follow this format.
While Power Trip might be infamous among people who like TF due to the psychological implications and the possibilities of creating conflict around the struggle of an identity change, it is true that Power Trip has its own appeal, normally between people who like TF for lewd reasons more than for any psychological or dramatic reasons. I would define it as some sort of dark, freeform Wish Fulfillment that doesn't take care of real-world ethics.
Going back to A New Life, the scenario offers a new take of Claus, the most respected person in school due to his grades and his intelligence. Once a new student arrives, Michelle, Claus loses his spot as the number one student and looks for a ghost trying to make a wish so he can get revenge. The spirit, Faith, tricks him and steals his body, making Claus a ghost unattached to the shrine that needs to have a body to exist. If he stays without a body for too long, he will end up disappearing.
The scenario at the moment goes through a big amount of decisions and flairs but offers overall two main routes (with a big new Sandra route coming soon) and it has something that makes it stand over a lot of other scenarios, detailed animations all over the story to enhance the experience. For the most part, there is all sorts of boob bouncing, boob bouncing with dresses, with sports shirts, boob bouncing with all kinds of poses, if you love lewd content you will certainly enjoy all these animations that really make you submerge more into the story.
The main route starts when Claus possess Allison and due to her assets, decides to stay as her for the time being, Irene discovers the truth and after some time Claus discovers how to mind control her as well as Allison, making them both praise him and obey him as their master, Claus also concedes Cornelia her wish of being her friend Sayaka instead in exchange of having Irene take her place in her body so they all can live in her mansion. What the story points out now is that Claus is presenting his new self to school and is planning how to get to the top again and avenge Michelle, but Buggs writes the story as he imagines it so things are pretty much unpredictable, really.
The characters are very one-note, Allison is treated as some sort of dumb airhead that only knows about her boobs, Claus is very much a Mary-Sue with incredibly high levels of intelligence and no regards for the feelings of others, and Irene is treated as the tough girl of the group, but I have to admit she is the one that feels most natural of the tree so far.
Overall, what else you can ask for? It's an over-the-top, bizarre story where you as a protagonist have no limits, there is also (some sort of) plot, which makes it different from previous Power Trip scenarios where things just keep happening without reason. The descriptions about Allison's body and breasts are very detailed and that added to the superb animations Buggs has carefully crafted all over make this route a favorite for me and a solid recommendation for any Lewd scenario fans.
The other route focuses on a male-to-male possession where Claus enters the body of Stevie and some days after confronts Mel who is picking up on Stevie. Things happen, and Mel and Claus start to get closer to each other more and more while he is in Stevie's body. While it is interesting to see Mel feel intrigued and confused by this new Stevie as if she develops her feelings for him, I found it ironic that the whole route is based on fixing the relationship of these two while Mel is just talking with somebody that has possessed Stevie, not the real him. Claus overall acts the same as he does in the whole scenario, trying to show his superiority and being apathetic to her advances even when externally giving up to them until they have sex. If Claus stays in Stevie's body, he is probably going to get somebody to reach for, but Claus overall I felt he was the same until the placeholder, with little to no character growth, he wins them all, and he always has the reason.
This route is overall a mixed bag, it is one of the few or probably the only one with Male to Male possession in the Student Transfer scenario catalog, and thanks to Stevie's huge penis, it is probably a good option for guys who want some variety and want to feel who it is to be a more "gifted" person :P. But the thing is that Stevie overall looks too young and that might be a deal-breaker for some (the initial release had to be deleted since Stevie was described as underage). Buggs says that he can't really write about a boy who isn't girly enough since if he isn't then it isn't really different enough to Claus and therefore not interesting to write, which is a fair point as a writer, but still something I would mention to people who want to check the route out, Stevie is basically a girly boy with a really huge penis, which plays in the irony of his appearance.
Even when I do not usually enjoy lewd scenarios, I found the Allison route quite enjoyable and recommendable, all things considered, and I am waiting for an update soon.
With a playtime of around 15 minutes, The Tale of the Loser offers a story similar in style to Harem where the player can swap and possess different people with no consequences in a sort of fetishistic wish-fulfillment without limits.
The small routes that this scenario shows have:
1. Dominic becoming a famous actress, Gwen, after copying her body from a show on the TV screen. Gwen coincidentally arrives at his house at that same time and sees Dominic morphed as her.
2. Dominic stealing Connie's life and make her continue his life as Dominic in his old body
3. Dominic swapping with Flavia, Allison, and Cassie, each one in different routes.
Overall, most characters act like normal human beings unlike in the dream world Harem shows, Dominic swaps with all kinds of people without taking care of their feelings, just like Kiyoshi, but he shows a little remorse for his actions that are completely taken care of by his own desires.
An interesting thing to note about this scenario is that it seems to point about Abbyswap route or a route related to Abby, some characters talk about an incident in school, making everybody taking the day off, apparently, Abby and John got in some sort of trouble that is never explicitly mentioned.
The narrator also talks directly to Dominic in several parts of the scenario, including the beginning where he apologizes to him for giving him such a bad story because he lost 900 lines of coding while working on the story, recommending also to other scenario authors to make backups.
The scenario is overall pretty short and already discontinued, aside from the Abby and John plotline, it is mostly focused on the sexual appeal of these stories for the reader, if you can get off in less than 15 minutes, well, check it out, I guess.
Following the example of the main game, some authors started creating some scenarios with several stories and lore, and Sister Swap had big ambitions for what its story was going to be.
Based on the scenario thread, Sister Swap was one of the first scenarios to ever be made after Stuck and even had a general outline and even a big twist planned before the author dropped it completely.
There are several routes in this scenario raging a variety of concepts, not just a Sister Swap, which is only the event that starts things out. In this world, the protagonist is Riley and the swap starts with his sister Allison in a discussion Riley started while being picked up by his sister, it's easier being a girl.
Turns out that Riley comes from a family of mages that can change reality and saying "I wish" out loud triggered the first manifestation of his powers, a body swap with his sister.
The summary of the routes goes more or less like this:
-In one of the routes, Riley goes to his house neighbor Marty and due to their sexual desires they end up having sex, Marty and Riley (in Allison's body) swap again due to Riley's still unconscious powers, and they have to act like they other while they figure out what is happening.
In another route, is Allison (in Riley's body) that ends up having sex with her friend Cassie due to their own sexual desires, after that, Cassie and Allison go back to Riley's house and ask Riley to swap them so Cassie can fuck herself, they believe Riley has he power since when they try to swap between themselves, it does not work, Riley accepts with the condition of borrowing Allison's body for a little longer, Allison accepts saying that she wouldn't mind having Riley's body permanently.
In another route (ditto), Riley (in Allison's body) asks Yuuna, one of her Mom's friends to swap with him out of curiosity, Riley goes to her home and has sex with her husband Greg, the next day after waking up in her bed Riley goes back to his home to ask Yuuna to swap back, Yuuna doesn't remember anything, neither Allison in his body, he tries saying I wish out loud, it doesn't work, what happened? According to Tgsquirtle, what was planned for the route was revealing that Riley liked Yuuna's life so much that he unconsciously wished to stay as her and he affected the memories of other people as nothing had happened.
This is one of the first interesting ideas the scenario shows, an interesting approach in Reality Change based on a subconscious wish.
Another swap that happens is Riley (In Allison's body) swapping with his mom out of curiosity, her mother tells him about his power and she accepts, afterwards, her little sister, Olivia, asks her to get bathed together since she's used to it since she is still a kid, Riley first refuses but due to his sister's cries he accepts and does her hair showing the first glances of maternal instincts.
The last route shows Olivia growing up to an adult by accident due to Riley's words and ends up in Olivia morphing her mother into a kid while trying to trade places of mother and daughter so she doesn't have to be told to go to bed or being bossed around by her again, Olivia seems to have the same powers as Riley and be simply saying it, she can morph people, control their actions, and also their memories, this plants an interesting villain that has basically the mind of a child but also unlimited power. Unfortunately, morphs done in this route violates the TFGS rules due to the depiction of minors in sexual situations, which led to ST developers removing it. The option for the author to rerelease the scenario edited is still there, or even continuing it, but according to Tgsquirtle the project is now completely dead.
The main plot also depicts Yoshinori as a wise grandfather that Riley calls in for help, Yoshinori teaches him about how he will be able to control time and space in the future and how he will teach him to control his powers, he uses magic to make one of Riley's Mom's friends go into a vacation and he morphs into her so he can take care of the family in secret due to issues that happened with her mother.
All the routes end up there until I explained them, the scenario is no more than 30 minutes long so far, but Tgsquirtle mentioned a whole outline they had for the story in which (spoilers) it's explained that Riley's dad is actually Olivia, morphed by his brother, Riley's uncle, in undefined events, apparently, Riley's uncle had the same abilities as his father and developed a God complex, even then, his whereabouts were unknown in the final state of the scenario.
Riley's dad, Claus, lost all his memories and he would be able to recover them only as an adult, once he grows up as Olivia, making his own wife take care of after him.
Tgsquirtle mentioned being reading a lot of fictionmania stories at the time which inspired the routes in the scenario, even the story "where someone gets turned into a baby and loses their memories until they reach adulthood".
In general, the execution of all these concepts was no better than your average TF doujin, characters act rapidly, nonsensically, thinking only about sex, the animation was very limited and poor, with static characters across the screen even in sex scenes, but bringing up all those TF concepts and ideas into a visual novel narrative was an interesting idea that was getting known at the time thanks to PS and ST, the whole family magic and lore of the scenario was vivid and interesting. Overall, even when not playable anymore, this scenario shows an important step for the ST community and TF in general.
Just like Natswap in the main canon route, Alien Jess proposes the idea of losing control and identity as an adult, but it doesn't move past showing the single idea.
John goes to Kat's house to tell her about the remote and find Jess instead, to test the remote he decided to clone himself on her, and due to her protests when seeing herself morphed, John mind controls her so she feels comfortable in his body and gets his own mental abilities.
When Katrina arrives, John tells the truth, but in a turn of events, Jess decides to lie and make John take her place because due to her programming she doesn't feel comfortable as a kid anymore, she also uses the remote to don't let him use the remote to swap back if he ever manages to get it back or say anything about who he really is to anybody, still, Jess lets him conserve his identity.
In summary, the scenario is too brief, inconsistent, and illogical to be considered worth checking, the idea of John experiment on a child is also something out of character him, but some might prefer this take in the accidental adult to kid swap in contrast to the feeble idea present of Natswap where John swaps with Natsumi only to let her play video games, which has been considered a dumb move on him by some part of the community.
Despite the infamous reputation the character of Kiyoshi has in the canon game and even more thanks to the scenario Harem, a lot of people have gotten away of Kiyoshi-related stories, but one of the first published scenarios actually depicts a very fun take on the character and his surroundings.
In this scenario, Kiyoshi is abducted by aliens instead of John, and around 1 ending and three placeholders are given in 15 minutes of playtime.
Some people might expect a dream-ish hell hole like in Harem since Kiyoshi is the character that seems is the one that is most expected to abuse the power of the remote like Harem did, and he does in one of the routes, but at the difference of the previous scenario, the author actually acknowledges Kiyoshi's mischievousness and shows empathy for the students that are going to be mind-controlled by him and in an actually funny way. The story ends there on a placeholder, but for what it seems like, it seems that the author planned in Kiyoshi actually learn from his action, but nothing can be said aside from that.
The other routes are less impressive, Kiyoshi becoming Zoey, breaking the remote, and meeting Brad, which seemed to point into ID or PD but it ends too soon as well.
In the other one, Kiyoshi tells John about the remote and they use the possession function of the remote (explained in a conveniently and clever sci-fi way) and also ends soon in a placeholder.
Although the scenario doesn't contain enough content to be considered a story on its own, it offers a lot of great jokes, even some at Kiyoshi himself. In the only ending, the scenario has now he decides to not accept the remote and asks the alien bunny girl to have sex with her instead of proposing interspecies intercourse since the alien can't get data now with Kiyoshi experimenting with the remote, she decides to examine him through his rectal cavity instead.
In general, this scenario is everything that Harem should have been, it has a more human depiction of Kiyoshi showing that a funny story can actually be made around him possessing the remote, and overall offers a good, short blueprint for any people interested in writing a story with him as a protagonist.
In the story of the Student Transfer community, Harem has become one of the most well-known scenarios although the reasons why are rather unfortunate, and Harem has become for a lot of people to what not to do with a scenario.
The story follows Kiyoshi in a rampage of actions that in the end do not make too much sense and confuse the reader. The scenario is written as if no second thoughts were given about each plot element, the concept is so primitive that most people will be able to identify with it due to its dream-like logic throughout the whole story.
What makes Harem bad for a lot of readers is how things are developed, Kiyoshi ends up mind controlling every person he encounters without giving anybody the opportunity to react so he can create his own "Harem" dream, including his relatives like his Sister and Mom. No empathy is given to anybody without any feelings of remorse or thoughtfulness to the people who are mind-controlled. For those fans of TF that like to explore the psychological and social aspects of TF, this makes the scenario null in worth since it does not do any work to explore any of these aspects and goes straight into some sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy that end ups being boring for most people since everything ends up being "perfect" for the protagonist, and asks more suspension of disbelief that any story is allowed to ask for.
The protagonist does not suffer any consequences (in almost all of the routes), nobody can't react to his new powers for too long, since everybody ends up being mind-controlled, the protagonist is happy, the people are happy, but underneath we have a psychopathic-like character that has no limits and a cast disposed of their own identity and opinions, giving the scene a very dark and "macabre" feeling.
The sexual scenes are mostly lackluster as well since they consist mostly of the time in repetitive blowjobs with not too much describing of the situation. Even then, the scenario has gained a certain cult following due to its ironic appeal, the scenario is so erratic that can it even be considered funny for some, it is absurd and surreal in an unintentional way, comedic in the same way The Room is; there are also people who are able to ignore all of these issues if they do not take the scenario seriously either, going straight to the point merely to jack off.
