I'm in a very mixed spot with this game. This was probably one of the more promising projects I had been keeping an eye on. When I first found it, it was around 2018 when the project was picking up additional staff like writers and the like (this is back in 2018 with the 0.2 update).
I think the last time I played was around 2023 it looks judging by older saves.
The game as it stands now is in a weird spot I think where it definitely feels like it could have used a a lot more polish in the places it already had, and clearly was rushed in the places where it was rushed.
Small things like some naggling bugs here and there that I don't think should have happened. Some being that I was able to get the MC Mom living room scene at the start of a new game, or Effie appearing at your place during a rain storm occurring twice over causing that plot thread to loop for a moment. There's also some text that just overflows some dialogue boxes or even choice boxes.
The big sex scene after the dinner with the mom has sound effects to it that are honestly unnecessary, and I have no memory of them being in an older version. Given that none of the other scenes I have gone through have audio, it's bizarre to me they have the sound of an emptying shampoo bottle farting for this one series of sex scenes.
Speaking of, there's a hilarious amount of sex scenes you can just basically get without much hassle. There are characters where clearly you should have been able to just have a "Wanna bang?" option much later in their story that you get pretty much ASAP, there's side characters you can just chat with and they'll have sex with you and that's the only interaction with them. There's one that I can't tell if it's intentionally there or just another "fuck it, put this sex scene there", but if you work two shifts at the ice cream place you occasionally can fuck Alanna because the two of you get locked in an ice cream freezer.
At one point, I'd been unable to get to the other world of this game by any natural means of play. The game was stuck telling me to explore the town and university til I meet everyone. So for a bit, I was sort of soft locked by some person I wasn't fully aware of. Turned out that Jacob has all sorts of family you can only really meet by going to his place at various hours and knocking on his door.
I really get the feeling they had a bunch of story lines thought out and then decided the scope of them was too much when you're also juggling an end game story line about a town cult. In my play through, because I had already progressed through every possible relationship, the game basically became a simple VN with the sex world plot in mind.
Speaking of, it's through playing this part of the game it becomes abundantly clear that this is an unfinished product. There are some moments where there is art being shown to you as these scribbled sketches. The first time it happened, it was through a computer screen. The second time, it the background the characters were against for dialogue. These are some small moments, but might as well have been the breaking point I had for any attempt to reason away little issues. In the last stretch of the game, the part of the game that probably should have had the most
I really like what there is to this game, and I've loved this game for years. But to see it get basically shoved out with a seal of approval that this is a finished product is fucking bonkers to me. Their follow up project looks okay and I might take a look at it, but I'd been following this project for six years and honestly this all is deflating to see.
Given the already zany nature of how ready most of the characters were ready to bone and fuck anyways, this game easily could have tossed out that whole plot of an other world and just focused on the characters in the town itself that we had. In fact, because of how I experienced this game in my recent play through, I nearly didn't experience any of the other worldly shenanigans because of the failure to meet one of Jacob's family members. If I wasn't aware of that aspect of the game, I'd actually have just thought this game had no real ending and was incomplete. Now I know it does have an ending and is just a rushed and abandoned game that quite frankly shouldn't have been.
The best parts of this game to me was between its art, which I think the earnest and competent attempt at it makes it better than most of the slapped together 3D games out there, and its writing. I could not go through the games CG and enjoy myself without the context of the writing and it is what kept me thinking about this game for years and wanting to see how things came together.
I'm ending this by bitching again about the placeholder sound effects for the mom sex scene. I can't believe that was added and left in. And yes, honestly the mom and sister routes were probably the better parts of the game, and I can't tell if that's bias on my part or just clear bias on the part of the writers on this game. Little bit of column A and B I suppose.
EDIT: I learned soon after there was a whole line of stuff with the Mom and Sis. I wish I could say this redeemed everything I said before. But also it's REALLY funny how I feel like this only emphasizes my last point.
