Unity - Completed - At the Mountains of Friendship [v1.3] [Apollo Seven]

I played v 1.3

A unique experience. I found the writing quite humorous, with an interesting premise. The art is good, too. The gameplay is well executed, but admittedly not for me. I found the battling to be a bit repetitive, but I have a low tolerance for such things. I think it's well worth a try.

This was maybe one of the oddest games I've played. And I am genuinely confused of what was the vision with this one. I like Cthulhu stuff, I like porn, but blending the two was... strange.

Basically, you're an otherworldly entity who wants to interact with the world but can't because you'll fuck it up, so you get humans to do it for you which requires fighting monsters for some reason. You pick a selection of characters, each with a specific fetish, and you align their stats against an enemy and you MUST be able to defeat the monster or its game over. Game play got old after like 2 minutes and I stopped trying to figure out nuances as it kind of seemed pointless.

The porn was also lack-luster. IMO the drawings weren't great, but that could be a preference thing.

I was going to give it a 2, but I decided last minute to give it 3 only because of the strangeness of blending these two things. There's tons of games that are so bland that I don't remember them after exiting the program, but this one I will remember.

one of the best auto-game about magical (?) girl VS lovecraft monster.

The game is balance and it's easy to make absurd combo who can "break" the game, even if i ended-up with some insta KO my own team.

average.

the autobattler concept is a good fit for porn, given you typically engage with both one-handed. AtMoF unfortunately doesn't leverage this strength enough: all of the actual porn is condensed into (you guessed it) visual novel cutscenes.

it's not that the scenes themselves are bad, per se; they're just... mid. the art is above par for a non-furry western work, but the writing is pretty beige, and the existence of each character is nakedly dedicated to the exploration of a specific fetish. it is literally spelled out above each one's head when you recruit them.

i wouldn't take issue with the flat characters if the obligatory VN skipping-through-dialogue was, instead, replaced with combat sex. you're fighting Lovecraft tentacle monsters all game, but the worst they can do is rip someone's skimpy magical girl outfit off. a missed opportunity if i've ever seen one.

speaking of tentacle monsters: i mentioned earlier that the artwork was above par. part of that is a clear "no colors or body types left behind" policy, which is a breath of fresh fucking air. you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a game that can satisfy my raging jungle fever these days, or to see a fat bitch in a game that doesn't ruin itself by being about vore.

on top of that, the scene variety is excellent. each character has a main questline that explores their aforementioned fetish, plus several of them have additional relationship scenes unlockable via having them fight together. great concept. no notes there.

the presentation is a little fucky, though. the game essentially has two different art styles: the usual cel-shaded western stuff, and also incredibly detailed royalty-free John Blanche creatures plus UI elements beyond mortal ken. i figure that this juxtaposition is supposed to help portray the sheer alien-ness of the Lovecraft creatures, but it feels more rushed than otherworldly, and the minimal animation doesn't help.

all told: it's fine. certainly not exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad. it is complete, though, and it's nice to play something that's not in pre-pre-alpha for once. points for that.

Meh, the battle mechanics had a lot of potential but ultimately where poorly refined and that is a huge waste. The story suffers from something similar it has a really interesting introduction and the lovecraftian design is better than in other horro space games but thats it, each character is mostly boring and the relationships feel extremly boring. About the art again a lot of potencial the hoerines/heroe feel lame but some monster have a very interesting but unrefined designs

So if you're okay with the art, anyone should at least give it a try.

As a game, it's a simple rogue lite with somekind of autobattler mechanic. Quite easy to master, might be a tad too repetitive if you try to unlock all the gallery by yourself but who does that anyway. As any game, there is a lifespawn to the gameplay, with this one it might be one to two hours, but it's definitely good hours, and once you get bored you're one click away from unlocking the gallery at any time.

Content wise it's already nice, any girl is released with her fullcontent i believe, which is 4 solo scene and a few shared one as there is an affection mechanic, quite like a retro fire emblem. Don't be scared by kinks that arn't yours, you can totaly skip on it.

Story wise it is simple but it's well made, it get straight to the point. Some might be to your liking some won't but in the end it's serve it's purpose and efficiency is a quality.

It is a good and simple game that doesn't try to bullshit, it's tagged as completed cause you give it a go and get over it, which is a refreshing experience nowadays. Does not mean it wont or shouldn't get more content though. Nor that it's lacking quality, on the contrary, it's pretty well refined. A well thought recipe.

I wasn't expecting much, but this was quality. The eldritch horrors contrast with the cute/lewd magical girl art style at first felt cheap, doesn't help that the gameplay presentation is a bit mystifying but getting past that was quite easy after a few rounds.

The story is entertaining although considering the wide variety of fetishes included, you are just as likely to be aroused as you would dislike the things you see.

The gameplay is simple but really the interactions between the characters and their own stories are what you're really after.

Quality wise it is beyond the usual single-developer game level of polish, but has far more heart than the company-produced hentai game.

Other than the questionable introduction to gameplay, its a great. I wasn't expecting voice acting, let alone such a diverse cast.

At the Mountains of Friendship [v1.1.0]
(Nothing against the game, just the comment section is very misleading, so I put this up for anyone who care about Gay Contents)
To anyone who wonders what Type of "Gay" contents This game offers:

• There's One Trap;
• The dev said they are working on an Male to Female, when asked about "gay contents".

I wouldn't waste time on this game if you are looking for "gay content" that's not Femboy / Trap / Sissy / Feminization / Trans.

If this game wanted to be a fun autobattler, I think it largely failed to achieve this goal. Combat really feels more like some fairly plain board game. I mean, your goal is literally to divide 5 girls between 1 to 3 targets in such ways that the sum of your numbers is greater than enemies' numbers in every division. Gerrymandering: the game. Yay. Let's just say this game does not tickle your inner Johnny. (It also doesn't tickle your inner Timmy, and sure as hell your inner Spike.) This game would need a serious overhaul of girls and items so they have more complex behaviours, with clever emerging strategies that would feel satisfying to discover. However, given the version number (1.1) I doubt there's even a slim chance of that. Best we can hope is UI tweaks, which, yeah, are needed in some cases.

And there aren't even any flashy or sexy combat visuals to distract us with a spectacle. A 5v5 battle in Teamfight Manager is at least a bit fun to watch, even if your team sucks. Here, a game about magical girls fighting monsters, and it does not have a battlefuck component. Talk about wasted potential.

Aside from that... There are some other fundamental design choices I did not like.

One, girl choice as proxy for fetish selection. It would not be such a big deal, but the design of the combat system simply requires having a large roster of characters. That's totally fine, from mechanical standpoint. What's not fine is that every character has an entirely unique fetish, and a solo storyline to explore it. Large number of girls plus the reality of limited resources allocated on art leads to low amount of scenes per girl, leads to shallow exploration of each fetish. 3 scenes per girl, and 2 more as "crossovers" with other girls. So, five scenes per fetish maximum. Is this really satisfactory?

Two, linear story. I feel like an interesting premise, that you play as a lovecraftian horror beyond comprehension, this premise deserves a bit more depth than what we have here, which is basically nothing. Same for girls, another natural consequence of a large roster of girls is that their stories don't branch. Resources per girl stretched too thin and all that.

Three, scenes removed from gameplay flow. It seems like a minor flaw, but it really hurts the enjoyment of these scenes. And four, which is connected to three, the way the scene gallery is made is... no. No. Not like that. The entire point of a gallery is that I open it, and pick any scene, any sequence of scenes, in any order I like.

Overall, I did not find it very entertaining.

I wasn't really familiar with the auto-battler format, but talk about being perfect for an adult game! A great way to boast an extensive and diverse roster, and all of the girls felt unique.

In terms of plot, I love the cosmic horror/magic girl inspiration; very much "Madoka Magica: The Porn Parody" by way of HP Lovecraft. Things are dark where they should be and lighthearted elsewhere, and it all comes together in a coherent package.

While I love the concept and much of the tone, the individual girl scenes' effectiveness will probably give folks different mileage depending on tastes. The humiliation/domination/cuckolding/impregnation stuff doesn't do anything for me, and it was pretty prevalent across the various girls storylines with only a few exceptions, although, like I said, tastes will vary. I imagine if those are things you're interested in, you'll be in for a treat!

The overall sense of style is great, though the quality of the girls' illustrations aren't particularly standout. They get the job done, though!

Overall, a really solid game that I hope gets developed further! Would love to see some more body types and fetishes (although my first picks would likely run afoul of Patreon...) introduced.

Long story short, cool concept, the inspiration from roguelike-deckbuilding games is seen very clearly. However, the optimisation and smoothness leaves to be desired. To be a 5 ⭐ game, it urgently needs UI overhaul. I understand it can be kind of a hard thing to do, but without it the game is simply not enjoyable despite being interesting.

To make it short: This has great potential but is still quite buggy and lacking in terms of UI.
As this isn't a finished version I won't be too hard on it. The art is decent, the voiceacting quite nice.
Bugs I had:
- I didn't unlock any scenes for some reason? Seems like a core element of the game to me, idk

Wishes for improvement:
- more actual story, there barely is any right now
- If I open a UI window, please lock the one below, accidentally clicking/hovering over stuff behind my open UI window feels bad
- confirmation when getting a girl (also when getting her a second time to change ability)
- more things to do with "mana" or eldritch whatever it's called. Just 4 exp boost and endless rerolling does not feel great
- some more monster variety in both visuals and gameplay (and possibly scenes with them (?))

Love Apollo 7 (even bought his SFW game on Steam), and really enjoy the gameplay of this. That being said, the fact that there are no saves, so you essentially NEED to go through the scene gallery to actually experience the character stories, makes this a bit of a disconnected experience.

I completed the game the first time without unlocking any scenes.
You cannot select the same girl multiple times - it just replaces her abilities.

The game could use a tutorial, but so far it's looking good.

It is broadly the best title I have seen on this page.
It shows that it needs work but the game system is very entertaining, also the scenes are very well balanced with the gameplay, the music and art are very enjoyable, if you like autochess themed games this game is for you, yes I miss some scaling mechanics as well as a couple more bosses, but if we take into account that the game is under construction, it is a title with great possibilities, gj

Brilliant game! I've been hopelessly addicted for a while now. Once you figure out some of the controls you realize this is a real gem. Dev says some of the controls confusion is because of a tutorial bug thatll be fixed soon so until then just search the thread for the dev's comments and you'll figure out the buttons.
But man the game play is just awesome! So many strategies and also wanting to balance out your own kinks and attractions with how you want to or need to play the game. Really cool! If youre tired off all the same old games on the site and want something new definitely give this game a go!

Simple, original game. It would gain in adding some mechanics after a few fights, and maybe some better mechanics introduction at the beginning. I have a few problems after playing a while:
- cannot accelerate animations/skip voice dialogues in combat, it starts to be repetitive once you have unlocked everything.
- the game is not complete, or requires dlc to fill the gallery? hovering some gallery panels say we need to vote on patreon

Possibly the best Apollo Seven game, which is saying something in a list that includes plenty of good games.
Pros:
- Good game design
- Interesting story and premise
- Good characters.
- Good gameplay art (character outfits, monsters, animations, items, etc)
- Fun to play
- Good art on H scenes
- H scene text is very well written
- Good variety of scenes
- H scenes are not too easy or too difficult to unlock, good accessibility

Cons:
- Some UI is buggy, such as the combat screen
- Some systems are initially unclear/tutorial and instructions are lacking
- Text advancement is buggy
- Volume control is bugged
- Girl progression is a bit redundant on new playthroughs since you need to watch all of their scenes in order (mabe a gallery style would be better)

Overall the cons should be considered minor as the game is very well made and the pros far outweigh them.

Honestly? I wish this game as 2x as long because I would play through all of it.

[Review of v1.0 on 9/23/2023]

Apollo Seven! How've you been? I haven't played one of your titles since TF Card Battle. What have you been up to? Oh really? Oh... Oh wow. Yeah, that's a lot. Okay. Yup. Nice. Okay, yeah, I'm down. Let's try it out.

---

At the Mountains of Friendship is pretty good. While the game is not necessarily mind blowing, I do think that this reflects Apollo Seven's relatively high skill and experience in the porn game space.

Let's do a quick overview.

The game is split into two phases -- preparation and battle.

The battle phase is fairly simple; split your party of up to five girls to do battle with up to three eldritch horrors and find out if they are strong enough to save the world.

The real challenge, however, is in the preparation phase before each battle. You can spend eldritch power each preparation phase to either add a new girl to your five-girl team, buy an item for a girl, add a boost to a girl's experience so she levels up sooner, or to swap out the active ability of a girl you already have. Each girl has a unique play style or intended use that is implied by their unique abilities, and figuring out how best to level them and team them up (or keep them solo) can change how effectively they can grow in strength for future battles.

As the girls battle on your behalf, your eldritch influence starts to make them horny and highly susceptible to their own unique sexual kinks. During preparation phases, you can watch short story snippets showing how much their corruption has grown. Depending on your team makeup, there are also scenes involving two girls at a time (and their relevant kinks).

The artwork is honestly just okay in my opinion, but the writing is pretty good, which helps the scenes a lot. Each girl has their own personality, which helps sell their kinks and styles of play.

However, I suggest only watching scenes the first time you try a girl out, and then watching the rest of that girl's scenes in the scene viewer later. Since scenes have to all be watched in order for every new playthrough, it can get a little annoying to halt all preparation phase planning just to hit the skip button on a scene you've already watched.

Altogether, I spent a few hours enjoying this game, and I found a scene I liked to finish it on a high note. This gets a hearty recommendation from me. Good stuff!

Its a rougelite puzzle battler. And, well, I really don't know much how to describe it beyond that. You get points every round to spend on a random selection of characters, buying them equipment, or giving them extra exp. Points can also be spent to reroll the current stock, and characters can be repurchased to change their random modifier. Then you take your crew against eldritch monsters, divvying them up against your foes and watching the battle unfold. Its actually all remarkably in-depth, and I found myself actually engaged with the systems, a rare find on this site for sure. To top it all off, there is a full range of difficulty options that make the game remarkably fun to progress through. My only complaint with the battle system is you can't return to the "shop" area and retool things once you have viewed the upcoming battle.

Story is more a framework then an actual attempt at narrative, and more a collection of small character pieces. Character stories progress as you use them and level them up, with every character getting at least one dedicated scene with every other character as they fight together, which is actually quite a bit of writing given the roster. Some stories feel like they have more depth then others though, but they're all interesting little stories nonetheless, and I am rather fond of how their progression goes, and how it is reflected in their appearance as it goes on. A nice touch for sure. Oh, and there is also a small amount of voice acting. Its just for combat rather then the VN-ish part of the game, but the voices are really, really well done.

Scenes are good, with really well done and interesting character interactions. Every character has a specific fetish you can see when recruiting them, and every character has at least 2 scenes for maxing out their relationship with a specific other character. None of the scenes are amazing or anything, but are still very well done for sure. Plus, all scenes can unlocked from the start in the options, for those who just came for a wank.

I was wishing for more by the end of it, and while I first assumed that Apollo might give it some updates as they usually do for their games, there was no point in assuming, as its clear from the menus that adding more content is the plan, and I eagerly look forward to it.

(Review made for V1.0)