![coming out on top review coming out on top review](http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/I6SxzzNrEQQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
Ian is trending towards being almost running gag level bi-curious. The core cast have their own concerns over stereotyping. Again, he needs to be more than a meat head. Please make him awesome and don’t dilute him to make him more palatable. But in many ways Jed’s character is problematic in current representations of gay men. Jed is the ideal fuck buddy/ promiscuous gay guy. But here is what I’ve noticed: Alex is the ideal boyfriend who mixes hot professor and hot nerd. In many ways, it is still too early, especially with Jed, Phil, and Brad. Maybe archetype that could become either fully fleshed out characters or stereotypes. Thinking over it again, maybe steretype isn’t quite the right term. And it is also the fuel that can light the fire for one’s own projects. They’re the kind of criticism that wants to see a project be the best it can be. (These criticisms aren’t the negative kind. And the football team will likely cause trouble for Mark and Brad (if his doucheness doesn’t scare Mark off first).ĭespite my criticisms of the game, I’m passionate about it. Zoe will be a roadblock to a possible Mark/ Ian relationship (she is Ian’s ex-girlfriend). Bluetooth, I suspect< is either investigating Alex or the football team. What role they play in the game remains to be seen, but I have some guesses. Outside of the five romantic possibilities and Penny, several other characters are introduced. Phil and Brad don’t come off as exactly likeable in their first meetings with Mark, but it is entirely possible that they will grow on the player as the game progresses. When I played the demo, I found Alex, Jed, and Ian the most likeable of the five. Penny tries to set them up.īrad is a football player who Mark is hired to tutor.Īnd finally Ian, Mark’s other roommate, who may not be so straight himself. Phil is Penny’s (one of Mark’s rommates) cousin. (He’s also the easiest to have sex with, I think). He’s a “bad boy” that forces Mark outside his comfort zone. They hit it off, but Alex is the professor of Mark’s anatomy class. But until we see a similar game created by a gay man, the question will remain unresolved.)Īlex is an attractive older man Mark meets at the only gay bar in town. ( Gaymer also raises the point that Obscurasoft, as a woman, might have added more women to the cast when a gay man creating the same game might not have. Whether or not these stereotypes will evolve into fully functioning characters will have to wait until the game is finished and released. And I’ve expressed some concerns about Mark’s characterization. The five romantic possibilities do tend to conform to some stereotypes of gay men. I know these scenes are intended for humor, but they are more troublesome unless they serve the plot (like the introduction of Jed).Ī final concern, as pointed out by Gaymer, is the fact that Obscurasoft is a woman creating a game featuring a gay man as the protagonist. Hopefully, the narrative text will show a greater range of adaptiveness as Mark’s character changes based on his romantic choices.Īnother issue is the interrupted jacking off sessions. I don’t know if this is a narrative bias or the demo still being (slightly) geared towards Alex (as he is the sole romantic interest introduced in the first demo). However, the narrative text doesn’t seem as touched or affected by that event as one should expect. But, Jed is the first (I suspect) romantic interest that Mark can have sex with. The narrative indicates there is a strong infatuation towards Alex, the first possible romantic interest. This is best illustrated when players compare the narrative takes on interactions with Alex and Jed. And at times, the narration seems to have a decided preference for Mark to act in a certain way. The narrative text is at times repetitive and slows down the action. Some of those choices lead to increased chances of dating the romantic possibilities and others lessen those chances. At various times during play, the player is given several options to chose from. The game is played through scroll text and decision making. From coming out to his two roommates, Mark must navigate a dizzying and nerves inducing dating scene with five romantic possibilities. So, what is Coming Out on Top? It is a gay dating sim that follows Mark Matthews, a newly out gay man beginning his final semester at Oberlin College. And the demo has only whetted my yearning for it. I want to be reviewing the finished version of Coming Out on Top, the gay dating sim from Obscurasoft.