Ren'Py - At the Crossroads of Life: Lily [v0.04a] [Empress Games]

For me, it's a great game.

The main positives are:

I like the many choices and the point collection.
The protagonist's mission.
The protagonist's intelligence.
The dialogues.
The side characters (especially Amber and Donna).
The combination of story and sandbox elements.


What could be improved:

More content in the sandbox.
More sex scenes.

All in all, I think it's a good game with huge potential, so for me, it's a 5 out of 5.

The idea is great, but the execution is lacking for now.

The models are nice... until they open their mouths.

The smiles make them look either stupid or just outright unnerving, and kills the mood rather quickly.

There's also the issue of Amber on the Submissive Bisexual route in that the game basically railroads you into a relationship with her if you want to be labeled as Bi.

The author desperately needs a proofreader to keep characters coherent, and perhaps a second writer to help him improve the dialogue overall.

The sandbox is empty, with only the gym, motel and mall having any content at all, but that could just be a curse of being in early access, so we'll have to see on that.

VERSION: 0.04a
SUMMARY: "Cheap" look and feel game, built around time wasting sandbox elements.
RATINGS: (out of 5):

NOTE: The following are my own criteria and may require more context, so keep an open mind.

1. Models: 3
2. Animations: 2
3. General Visuals: 2
4. Characters: 3
5. Story/Pacing: 3
6. Writing/Dialogue: 3
7. UI & Gameplay: 2
8. Content Quality: 2
9. Sounds & Music: 1
10. H-Content & Fetish: 2

Average: 24 of 50 possible points giving a 48 % rating i.e. 2 stars.

PROS:

1. MC looks good, but renders and blending of characters into environment is just bad.
2. Writing is decent, structured well and reads easily
3. Dialogue is generally good, conversations seem often good, intelligent and thought/effort went into that.
4. Story is simple yet planned decently and has a reasonable pace to it.
5. Point system and shaping the character is not badly done, at least from what I could tell.

CONS:

1. While music is present, the loop is short and causes hitching and quality is poor with clicking noise, I refer to the into music particularly. Otherwise the music is actually just poor, cheap, midi like sounds from some 8bit console or worse.
2. Voice or sounds are not good either, the "surprise" voice sounds very fake and cheesy, just not good, i'm sure there are other open source options online that are much better.
3. Renders are washed out, stark, bland in a way, that does not blend well with surrounding environment, like snap shots taken and just dropped over the layers without any extra work to them.
4. No opacity setting for dialogue box, basic setting yet left out. So we have a white band taking over 1/4 of the screen...nice...
5. Free-roam and sandbox are a waste of time, necessitating that the player go to each location, just to check if there is any content. This being the main reason I detest sandbox. More often than not, there is no new content and there are no choices to make at these locations, driving again that pointlessness home.
6. Pointless questions for free roam, e.g., go to MC house, next screen and get prompt to go in or not? Why? The player went there for a reason, if they want to step out again they will. Further compounding wasting time not playing a game, but navigating one...
7. In terms of content, its not much, it only seems that there is because of the slow pace, thanks to sandbox type elements. Furthermore some points are confusing, as sometimes points go down or up, but you don't know why exactly, which could lead to the player not having enough points for certain actions they would have preferred. So implementation of points needs work.

FINAL REMARKS, OPINIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

• Music is not good, I just switched it off...
• Free roam is a waste of time, many locations have nothing happening at them, which requires the player to go back to each location when there is a free roam event. Its stupid, tedious and snuff any joy out of the game. Opting for a VN experience that is linear and asks the player to make choices which further shape that linear experience to its conclusion is much better and avoids the busy work bullshit that sandbox drives.

While the developer built a reasonably good story around a fairly complex point system that allows you to shape the MC. The game looks and feels cheap. I am sure on a coding and even story level, the developer has a reasonable skill set, the art work, design, implementation and execution of the content may need someone more skilled in those sections.

In the current state it just not good enough, creates player frustration, what content that there is, is not really good enough to outweigh the negatives and is a far cry from a 4 star game, let alone a 5 star, making me also doubt why this game got high ratings to begin with...

What a great game!
Finally a female protagonist game where the hottest girl is the protagonist.
I love the dicision system, I can make a lot of choices in the game, it so exciting.
it good that tho other caracters are hot but not can compare with Lily.
It also exciting that Lily can become lesbian, sudmissive, dominant etc.

I love this game! Lily is beautiful, and I really like that there are so many choices to make, it allows you to 'customize' her character. The story is interesting and well-written, and I appreciate that the protagonist is an intelligent woman rather than some dumb bimbo. What I especially like:

- Lily's beautiful appearance,

- the fact that she's a smart and intelligent woman,

- the many decision-making options,

- the way Lily’s personality changes based on those decisions,

- the slow corruption before Lily, and the other characters.

What I feel is missing: there could be more content in the map section. I kept clicking 'continue the main story' after day three, so I hope more is added later. In any case, I think it's an excellent game—5 stars from me.

review v0.03b
horrible experience... not recommended
ugly characters and very simple renderings.
fake sandbox, I explain: it's a visual novel that tries to be sandbox at the same time and doesn't get it, once you do the dialogs of the main story, you go out to the map and supposedly you can do things (very limited)
since you don't have a trading system (you can try clothes in the mall but you don't buy them... you enter in places like the tattoo store but if you don't advance in the story you can't use it, and also without freedom)
you go to the park is empty, the same the restaurant or cafe, you can't do any interaction.... the only thing you can use is the gym and it doesn't help much.
to continue you have to use the button “continue with the main story” which is basically the only thing that works, and the only thing you do in the main story is make decisions.
the sounds, made with reluctance and it shows... they are very unnatural (lily's I mean) when there are certain reactions...
the story and dialogues, quite bad, honestly they are not very well written, I would say that they have even been supported with AI, because they are not realistic at all, it is either that or they have very little imagination.
little or no future, or potential has this game.

My experience has been short, reaching one of the endings (which in fact surprised me how short the game is, and how fast I got to the end) and deleting it.
in fact, the only thing that the protagonist has done is masturbate at home, I have not had sexual interaction with any other character... after this I proceeded to delete the game, I didn't feel like giving it another chance to try another ending.
and I add something else, I think the 5 star reviews are fake, because it is not normal that such a terrible game only has 5 star reviews (with one exception)... very suspicious sincerely.

I recently discovered the game, and I really like it.

Finally, a game where we can control a smart and very beautiful girl.

I especially enjoy the fact that many decisions can be made, and it’s not just about reading long texts for an extended period.

This game also has a lot of text and dialogue, but since we can decide what Lily says and earn personality points based on those choices, the gameplay becomes much more exciting.

I also like that Lily’s sexual orientation can change in the game, which makes it even more interesting.

Version 0.02a

As I see, many reviewers grant five stars to games just because of their potential – especially if they are at an early stage of development. And what if one sees no potential in a game? Should one star only be assigned?

This is my problem with ‘At the Crossroads of Life: Lily’. Sorry to the dev – I appreciate the effort but I do see very little hope that it would become a high quality, interesting game in the future. Why? Because it would have to be a completely different game.

First of all, the visuals. They are subpar, to put it in the most delicate way. While the FMC is ok, the rest of the cast is not. Gestures, face expressions of all characters are awful. Framing of the renders is bad. The characters float above the floor or, for instance, above the couch or bed. The map: it hurts my eyes… like one of the FMC's dresses.

Secondly, the dialogues / internal monologues of the MCs. People don’t talk like that, both in everyday life and in business. It’s difficult to read and sometimes to understand. Should be rewritten from scratch.

The story. I expected (based on the overview) a nice corruption plot, not very far from real life. However, the story is extremely naïve... and corruption is carried out in a clumsy and extremely unreliable way. As I see, there is no characters’ development, the characters simply declare if they are straight or not, if they want to love or fuck.

Reviewing games quite often I complain about lack of choices. Here my complaint is different: there are far too many choices, in almost every conversation, and they are far from finesse. Simply put, they are very clunky, as are the dialogues.

I know, tastes vary. Apparently this game is not for my taste. As I see from other reviews (all of them are perfect fives, as of today), I may be alone in my judgments. But to me, this emperor has no clothes. Or, to be more precise, the empress (pardon the pun).

Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention the final rating. Considering the above, I would give it one and a half stars. But let's round it up to two - there are a lot of really really bad games on F95, and this one is only pretty bad. I just don't see its potential.

An interesting toy and most importantly with great potential. Simple graphics can scare someone, but this has an undeniable advantage, the size of the game does not take up much space on your disk, especially since there is a compressed version. However, the author managed to build the process so that the game captivates and you stop paying attention to the details. If you are really interested in creating a character, going through several paths of its development, then this game is for you. In my opinion, this game is one of those that you periodically return to in order to implement your new idea. Thanks to the author for the work, I will wait for the continuation, all the most interesting is ahead, tattoos, piercings, transformation, I hope bimbofication .

I really like the characters, the story, and of course Lily
For me, the submissive route is the closest, and I like that the game offers the opportunity to explore multiple routes. There is so much potential in this game.

For me, it's definitely 5 stars. Lily is beautiful, but Rita, Dylan, and Donna are also great characters.
The story has huge potential, and so far, it’s a very well-put-together, meaningful narrative.
The optional map where you can explore is also a nice touch. I think it's great work so far.

I really like it from the start! It's especially great that many decisions can be made, which modify Lily's stats, making her 'customizable.' Lily's character is also very likable, a beautiful, intelligent woman. It looks exciting how she can slowly change. I also like the map system, I enjoy the sandbox nature, and it's present here, but if I want to focus on the main story, I just need to click once and don't have to get lost in the details. For me, it's 5 stars.

For now, the lore consists of 3 rich women and a guy who works as a secretary (trainee) for the FMC, the women are standing their ground for who is most dominant of them, you can make Lilly go for the route of sub or dom, straight or lesbian. The art is humble but charming, in this release there are 2 animations, showers, and masturbation, nothing fancy, but decent. By the many apparent routes offered, I see a big FMC corruption AVN on the horizon.