I have played and enjoyed GGGB (v1.2) quite a lot, with several playthroughs and variations on playthroughs. Overall, I feel it’s one of the best indie
erotic porn games/VN I’ve ever played and, in my opinion, can easily compete with some of the best commercial hentai games coming from Japan. It has enticing, sometimes even moving storylines, a cast of interesting characters, good-looking and functional art, and an easy way to get in gameplay. And, of course, loads and loads of sexiness with a nice variety of kinks.
However, I do have a few minor gripes, plus a number of gripes that are me getting on my PC high horse, and lastly a major problem with the
Eric goes to Summer Camp Somalia plotline plot device.
So first, a few minor gripes:
- Sometimes decisions lock you into a story path, but that they are fairly momentous decisions of this nature is not clear (the example that comes to mind is with Arthur when the choice is between – and I’m paraphrasing – “I’m just a slut” and “I love doing this” where the last option locks you in on the Arthur-path. This is especially vexing since the Arthur ending takes precedence over many other relations you might be developing). At other points it’s made much clearer that choice is important (like between ‘commit to relation’ or ‘keep cheating’).
- It might be made clearer that blue/red choices are not choices that necessarily give you good girl/bad girl points, but choices that become available because you have certain level of good girl/bad girl.
- I find it a pity that bad girl ash choices of attire are more or less trashy slut, bimbo or gangsta, and classy slutty is not really on the table.
- The Jasmin storyline feels a bit stapled on the rest of the story, almost like an afterthought.
- Some characters feel like a little bit more could have been done with them or might have been interesting to explore a bit further, in particular Jolene and Enrico, but even Jasmin’s storyline could have done with a bit more work on it. And for example, for Enrico Ashley ending up as his (exclusive) lover and sort of consigliere, especially if she doesn’t completely give up her studies, could have been interesting.
- After several playthroughs the reuse of dialogue and art, mostly in sex scenes and especially towards the end, becomes a bit obvious (most blatant examples the threesomes of Ashley with Jack and another girl, threesome with Tyrone and Jack or Hugo, and later scenes in lesbian routes (Jessica/Eva))
Me getting on my PC high horse
- Introducing the only transwoman in the game with a more or less sexual assault in the showers is a bit problematic and plays into a very harmful stereotype about transwomen. The rest of Jasmin’s storyline redeems this to a certain extent, especially when playing as good girl Ash, but few will play it that way, I think, since most people on the good girl path will not take the option that allows you to continue Jasmin’s storyline. So that could have been done better, maybe with at least another (goodgirl) option to get into her storyline.
- Talking about stereotypes, the “black monster cock destroys white pussy and ruins them for anything other” stereotype is another stereotype that has a quite troubling backstory. I know it’s a porn staple and I understand why it’s in the game, but just be aware of it, and maybe look into it a bit how it came to be. The worst of it in the game is with the entourage of Tyrone, with on top of that character art that presents, to say the least, borderline offensive caricatures of black people. It is to some extent saved by characters like Tyrone himself and Jacob, who while they lean heavily into the stereotype, show a bit more nuance.
- And also, just about any Hispanic character we encounter is a gang member…
- This problem could be mitigated by introducing a few less stereotypical black or Hispanic characters, or why not, asking from time to time when you write a character before reverting to the default, which is alas for many people still the white male, if the character could not be black or another ethnicity. For instance, in the story, Ryan could very well have been a black character without this changing the story much and have contributed a counterweight to the more stereotypical depiction of black people in the rest of the story. I think for writers, especially white and male writers, this should be more of a reflex when writing characters: “Does this character need to be white and male?”
- Apart from the one transwoman, we see far less variation in body type among the women (that are involved in the erotic scenes) than we see among the men that run the gamut from superhunk Jack to wimpy Eric and come in a variation of white, black, and brown. The women are uniformly slender and are fairly samish in body type, with some minor variations in butt and breast size. I also understand that getting the same variation in body type among the female characters as among the male ones will probably make the game less shmexy and no one really wants to see Landwhale Rosa nekkid. But a bit more variation? A few more curvy or athletic ladies, or tomboys, might be nice. Though it’s also true there are less female characters than male characters and I understand that plays a role.
- The same for the race of the ladies. While there quite a number of black men around there’s not a single black lady to be seen in the game, which is a bit bizarre. Eva and Jasmin are a bit more ambiguous, but still. This comes back to my remark about considering the race of characters when you’re writing. And here, for instance, I think of Jolene who could have been written as a black character without any major repercussions.
And lastly we come to my major issue with the game, which would be less of issue for me if it wasn’t there for every playthrough and forms to some extent the backbone of the story, if not the timeline of the story, namely the “Eric goes to Clichafrica” storyline.
My issue here is not with any kind of racism or a desire for political correctness, but just a desire for
some correctness. The whole Eric storyline is such a display of casual and indifferent ignorance that it’s still hard for me to grasp that you can get so many things wrong in one relatively compact storyline. That that ignorance is probably shared by about 99.9% of people that play the game doesn’t make it any better.
Added to this is how the whole storyline for me makes Eric not the kind-hearted boyfriend that he is supposed to be, but a highly obnoxious character that I couldn’t get Ashley to dump quickly enough in my first playthrough (it helped that I was going for a *slutting it up* playthrough)
Moreover, I don’t see a way to rewrite the storyline so it would be somewhat OK, while also keeping its function as a plot device within the story. So, this is more to get some things of my chest and as maybe a warning for any future endeavours by writers to either “write what you know” or do a tiny bit more research in a subject they might not know a lot about, especially if that subject is as large as a continent.
Eric’s character – even before the whole Summercamp Somalia storyline starts of – is already grating, especially if you don’t buy a present for his birthday (“I don’t get a present?” really Eric, really? And then guilting your girlfriend into sex?) and follow the bad girl path, but it becomes especially so in light of his decision to leave. Let’s count the ways:
Leaving for a humanitarian aid mission in an African country is not like some holiday trip. It takes quite a bit of preparation (intake interview, preparatory briefings and formation, getting your shots and medical information, getting your passport and visa, etc.). So, when he announces to Ashley he’s going to Somalia, he must have been already preparing for that since he’s leaving some three weeks later or so. Moreover, at some later point he also mentions that “It wasn’t in my hands to choose... The organisation plans the dates of the mission.” – which confirms that he was in contact with this organisation before he announced his decision to leave since he already knew when he was leaving. So, he takes this decision and most of the steps to get there without consulting his girlfriend (or even his family most probably). Then he presents her with a *fait accompli*. This is not the behaviour of a loving and caring boyfriend.
Then there is his actual announcement and how he reacts to how Ashley takes the news. Each of the choices you can make for Ashley (“be supportive”, “respect his choice” or “get mad”) shows a facet of what’s wrong but it’s taken in combination that it shows a lot that is wrong with Eric’s attitude and his relationship with Ashley.
- If Ashley is supportive (ie behaves like a good adoring doormat as Eric is apparently used to), there is not even the least bit of an excuse of springing this kind of thing on her, no contrition, and a smarmy “I knew you would understand” and some patronising comments how hard it’s going to be for him to be separated from her. Not the least inquiry about how she will cope being separated, he’s so great it won’t be a problem waiting for him for three months or more.
- If Ashley is somewhat less supportive (but, let us be clear, still not questioning his choice) the cracks in the mask of congeniality start to appear, and nowhere clearer than in the phrase: “and to be honest, I thought you would be proud to have an adventurous boyfriend” – because everything seems to be about Eric and how Ashley feels about it all is still not taken much in consideration (though at least he admits it is “a bit selfish” what he’s doing, and thus when she pushes back a little bit promises to make it up to her which is at least some recognition there is something to make up).
- Now when Ashley gets mad is where the real interesting remarks come up. The game tries to have Ashley come off as somewhat unreasonable in this and by not having Ashley mention the problem with Eric not even discussing this with her, it succeeds to some extent. However even as such Eric’s reactions are again telling, again just assuming she would be supportive even though he didn’t show her any consideration in making the decision, and his main argument here is “This is very important to me”. He does say his relationship with Ashley is even more important but at no point does he show that, at no point does he indicate that he has even thought about how Ashley might feel about this and all he is about is how he expected her to go along, and she disappoints him in not doing so. And of course, that nice canard of “you’re overreacting”, which is just shy of “you’re being hysterical”.
Here I have a first major problem with the game. Ashley is full within her rights to be mad, and this should be much clearer indicated, but somehow, we have to accept that Eric’s decision is noble and Ashley should just roll over and accept it, even if he didn’t make the least effort to involve her in the decision making process as could be expected if you’re a couple that has been together for almost two years.
Also, when Ashley asks for the open relation, and they are relatively mad at each other, Eric says: “What do you mean? You can’t wait less than half a year for me? Or you want to go around fucking other people?” – That kind boyfriend mask slipped pretty far by now.
Also side remark:
Erikl “I’m not going there to get laid! I’m going to do humanitarian work! I’m not thinking about sleeping with anybody else.”
Oh, you sweet summer child. Let me tell you, you put a bunch of fairly young people in a stressful situation, far away from home, in a place they’re not going to stay for ages, with not a lot of distractions or entertainment outside work and there is gonna be fucking. Tons of fucking.
What Eric comes across as, is not the nice boyfriend as the talk in the game would have us believe (both in the introduction by Ashley, as in later conversations, especially with Eva), but a controlling jerk, who expects his doormat of a girlfriend to go along with whatever he decides.
Also, let’s talk about how noble Eric's decision really is and the whole charade of Eric’s motivation for going to “Somalia”. If it is about helping poor people without families and such, I’m sure Eric could have found an outlet for that in the US without have to leave his girlfriend behind. Plenty of volunteer work that can be done to help the homeless, volunteer in soup kitchens, and similar work. Africa does not have a monopoly on poor, destitute people.
But we already know that helping the poor is just an excuse, because as mentioned earlier, when challenged Eric exclaims: “I thought you would be proud to have an adventurous boyfriend” – note: an “adventurous” boyfriend, not a kind or charitable boyfriend. And in the supportive discussion lines he certainly doesn’t mind Ashley calling him a hero. Later, he basically admits he goes to “test himself” and that, to paraphrase, it will look good on his resume.
“But Corneel24”, you might say, “aren’t the needs in Africa even greater than at home and isn’t Eric a good person wanting to alleviate those even greater needs?” And you might have a point if it weren’t that Eric will be next to useless in the context of any “Somalia” real or semi-fictional, especially at the cost of flying and lodging him there.
Let’s count the ways in which Eric is completely useless for the purported mission to Somalia:
- He will have finished his second year of college, so he’ll be fairly limited in whatever skills or knowledge he can bring to bear to help people. Goodwill alone is not sufficient. This is especially true since it’s mentioned that the main objective of the mission is to bring healthcare and education to any mentioned poor people and Eric is not mentioned as having done any studies in either of them and admits in at least one path that he doesn’t know the culture or the language.
- Most of the basic work of actually helping people would normally be done by national staff (ie in this case Somali staff) – local teachers, local nurses, local doctors. Often the problem is not the lack of human resources but the motivation of those people, a lack of material resources and a good working framework with adapted protocols for the situation. So, any expatriate staff would have to contribute something that local staff can’t. Expatriate staff largely can contribute in three distinct areas:
- Expertise: they might have a certain expertise that is quite difficult to get from local staff. It’s hard to see how a second-year college student like Eric would have any special expertise to contribute.
- Management and control: helping with the organising and management of humanitarian mission in difficult circumstances, while ensuring funds are used in an efficient and accountable way, is another point where expatriate staff often play an important role. Again, nothing indicates that Eric has any competence in this and even if he had some training in such, you wouldn’t start him of in a complicated context like a war-torn country but start him of in less demanding conditions and with a smaller mission to take care of. Also, these are tasks for which a commitment of at least 6 months, but more often a year is required.
- Independence: international staff have the advantage of not being beholden to local interests and/or being relatively immune from the pressures of different power groups. However, more complicated contexts still require a bit more experience with dealing with such problems and a war-torn country with a multitude of factions and clans and an Islamist insurgency is certainly one of the more complicated ones.
- This is even more the case in areas and situation with important security risks. It is highly irresponsible to send expatriate staff into situations where they are highly likely to become targets for kidnapping and/or attacks. For instance, in my current employment, our offices in the north of Mali are fully staffed by local people and we are not even allowed to go and visit. If we have things to discuss and organise the relevant people come down to Bamako.
- With all of that it’s very unlikely any responsible humanitarian organisation would send someone like Eric on a mission somewhere, and especially not in a context with high security risk. Moreover, he might be simply refused a visa by the host country as he’s clearly not up to any standards for humanitarian work. For example, when I was working in Rwanda the authorities allowed only a limited number of non-medical expatriate staff for NGOs and people had to be vetted by the authorities.
And this brings us to a point that has less to do with Eric as such, but with the portrayal of how humanitarian aid works.
- Humanitarian Volunteers aren’t lodged by the dozens in some camp, except in very, very exceptional circumstances (like when giving aid to massive refugee camps). Teams are almost always a mixture of (a few) foreign staff/volunteers and (a lot of) local staff, with the expatriate staff housed in actual houses (with usually at most half a dozen people per residence). The kind of summercamp mission that is portrayed in the game is at best misleading and at worst utterly false and misleading.
- There is also the point of the timing of the mission, especially if we consider that providing education is one goal. Well, summer break in the US coincides with the similar big break in the educational year in much of Africa, to a large extent because of the rainy season (things are different in Southern Africa, because it’s in the southern hemisphere). And in general activities are at a lower intensity at that point in the year because of the difficulty of travelling around.
- Again, no mention is ever made of local staff, who are the real backbone of any humanitarian intervention.
And neither does the story get anything right about “Somalia” – basically code for “Extremely poor African country that needs our white saviours oh so very much” – without at any point considering what Somalia and Africa actually are. Somalafrica is very much reduced to clichés and jokes.
- The name of the terrorist insurgents is “Baka Harambe” an extremely jokey name playing of Boko Haram (mainly active in Northern Nigeria, a few thousand km from Somalia). This jokey name is in stark contrast with the seriousness of the situation as it is presented. Also, there is a terrorist Islamist insurgent group in Somalia, al-Shebab, so need to invent anything.
- Islamists wouldn’t ever use a gorilla as a symbol. Or any representation of a living creature. There is some Islamic animal symbolism (mainly eagles and lions) but purists would even reject that, let alone an ape. (Also, gorillas live neither in Somalia, nor in Northern Nigeria).
- There is no “jungle” in Somalia. It’s overwhelmingly dry savannah.
And many, many more signs that the author hasn’t the slightest idea what they are writing about, apart from memes and clichés.
All this would be less aggravating if it wasn’t part of the basic story and thus comes up e-ve-ry playthrough. If it was some sort of sidequest it might have been tolerable, but it is very much part of the main story.
So therefore, a game that would otherwise be a 5-star game is for me at best a 4-star game because of its (mainly racial) stereotyping and utterly getting things wrong in a main story line.
