Just some thoughts about the game

[Sancraid Phann]

In one of the discussions, the developers mentioned that they “aren't done with MLW”, so I decided to write. My Lovely Daughter was a good game. Not that sort of game that you would want to play again after you finished and gained the true ending, but still, a good game with an interesting concept. My Lovely Wife, on the other hand, lacks nearly all of the positive features of the first game, unfortunately.
First of all, the main character. In MLD, we had a harsh, heartless alchemist, almost a complete monster, but he was experienced enough and knew what he was doing and how. As soon as he woke up and assessed the situation, he was not at a loss, restored his notes and immediately set to work. His creatures considered him their father and did as they were told, but even so, they could still become completely disillusioned with him and run away.
In MLW, our hero is a whiny, always groaning man. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but his endless sighs of horror at almost any phrase of any character are laughable. Unlike Faust, he has no idea what he is doing at all, and when you see how he begins to engage in summoning demons with the words like “eh, probably something like this”, you expect some nightmarish consequences for such an irresponsible creature. But there are not. In MLD, I repeat, the homunculi considered Faust their father, but even so they could escape. In the case of the laughingstock named Jake, it's hard for me to imagine why he wasn't smashed on the wall by the first demon summoned, ending the story. However, his constant sighs in the dialogues were so funny that Im even don’t want to complain about them - if the authors wanted to make a dark comedy, then they definitely succeeded: it’s impossible to perceive this hero in any other way.
Second, the gameplay. In MLD, it was not particularly difficult, but at least it existed: it was necessary to select the right ratio of emotions, monitor the mood of the townspeople and “daughters”, and “daughters” should be sent to the right job, “daughters” should be given the right gifts and so on. In MLW, the gameplay brings to mind a stupid Russian fairy tale built on endless repetition - “The priest had a dog, he loved her, she ate a piece of meat, he killed her. Buried her in the ground and wrote the inscription: the priest had a dog…”, which can last until the heat death of the universe. To be honest, there is almost no gameplay as such in MLW. There is only an endless sending of demons to 2-3 buildings, with whose owners, unlike MLD, you cannot even communicate. “Jake had a succubus, he loved her. Increased her parameters by 200, and then killed her. Buried her in the ground and summoned a new one. Jake had a succubus, he loved her...”. There is no need to take care of the demons in any way, no need to give them gifts (which appear too late in the game, when you just don’t need it already), and even the traits that they can get by chance do not affect anything and often contradict each other. There is simply nothing to do in the game - the last time I was so disappointed was with the Cultist Simulator, which turned out to be more of a "Simulator of a clerk shifting papers in piles."
And finally, the most important thing. In MLD, the authors managed to make the player feel at least uncomfortable, and, sometimes, like a bastard, especially given the ways Faust deals with his creatures. How did they achieve this? First of all, the player had a choice - the most important thing in such stories. It was even possible not to kill the very first "daughter" and just wait right there, which would give the appropriate ending. In MLW, there's almost no choice: killing demons as the only way for a hero to gain new skills means that players will care about them no more than a torn cardboard box. There were many ways to avoid this effect - after all, if the hero had to choose between his wife and demons, let him really have to choose. For example, to limit some tasks in time and give an easy way to solve the problem through another murder and a much more difficult, but still achievable bloodless alternative. Let his "guests" have their own requirements that you really need to fulfill so as not to be killed yourself (or worse - after all, we are not talking about almost defenseless "daughters" from MLD here) - someone may even demand to kill another demon. A laughingstock like Jake shouldn't just sit lazily on the couch and issue commands to creatures a hundred times more powerful than him without any consequences or difficulties.
I am writing this all primarily because the concept of the game itself is interesting, but at the moment there is simply nothing to do in it and it could definitely get better in some future updates.