Unity - Completed - Becoming a King [v1.0.0] [Becoming a King Game]

This could have been a great game, were it not for how the story starts to fall apart.

The debatable downsides are AI art (I don't know if it's actual AI, but it's very much like AI), and gameplay loop.

I, personally, don't mind AI, since it's mostly to give you a visualization of the sex scene and not the point of the game. As to the loop, it basically consists of having 50 weeks, and during each week you have to go around every "map" and talk to everyone. This can be somewhat jarring if you play it in one go, but not a complete dealbreaker.

The actual issue of the game is the story. The king and queen die, and the council of high nobility look for a bastard to fill the gap. Thing is, they're pretty much all against you, in the sense that if they decide they don't profit from you being a king (after 50 weeks), they can just decide to kill you instead.

This could be an amazing story and in the very first weeks it is interesting. But there are no other characters of note that could give you an edge. The story lacked other powerhouses that could give you a faction to stand with. Instead you keep talking to random characters like the local witch, local bard, two random guardsmen.

If the game had went full intrigue and actually made use of the 50 weeks, that'd be great. But it just ends up with you being powerless and your decisions, more or less, don't change things that much. As to the possible wives, it's also underwhelming. They're not bad, mind you - but they aren't that great either.

It would have been great if you could actually change their mindsets, and that would compound into the endings. But mostly you can choose them as wives and that sets you on their path - not yours. Choose the conqueror queen? Well, she won't war with you anymore. Choose the noble's daughter? Nobility is at your side.

What about actually dominating the conqueror queen? What about getting the noble's daughter to betray her own father? This game falls into a rare problem which is that it has tremendous potential and then lets it go to waste. Were it just a "conquer all these women and fuck them" storyline, I wouldn't have been nearly as harsh.

Also, no harem ending. Should you play it? If you have nothing else to do, I guess. But there is much better stuff out there, either that actually realise amazing stories, or just fuckfests. This is neither.

TLDR: Tedious, unmemorable experience. The waifus / H-scenes are well done though, so maybe go in with cheats and just speed through the lackluster story (avoid the 1.0 version).
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Like most I feel aversion towards AI-gen churners. However Tophouse & CO appear to be one of the better actors in this crowded space. There's some actual effort here, some intentionality, curation, and even a bit of artistic flair. The great waifu designs also signal they get what gooner brains crave.

Nevertheless, sloppiness is still what sinks "Becoming A King" but it's the common kind that most porn games struggle with; monotonous gameplay and shoddy storytelling. I'd speculate that their fast turnaround doesn't allow for much personal playtesting and they don't notice how poorly moment-to-moment stuff ends up. Which is a shame, I think if they slowed down even just a little to level up as creatives in these areas, they'd reap more sales long term.

THE GOOD:
+ There are definitely human artists involved with AI-gen doing the heavy lifting. The hybrid art is overall good, even great at spots. Quality, polish and anatomy is consistent. The pleasant anime style minimizes the uncanny AI vibes.
+ The female character designs are excellent and scratch a lot of Fantasy genre fetishes.
+ The H-scenes are hot and have good animation.

THE BAD:
- The plot, dialogue or storytelling are sadly mid. None of the twists and turns land. Overall still perfunctory but because it's presented in such a disjointed piecemeal fashion, it never gains momentum.
- No extra bells or whistles to the H-scenes. Most H-games go for at least one extra thing (speed control, different camera angles, choices about where to coom).
- No harem route

THE DOWNRIGHT UGLY:
- Pretty much every gameplay aspect; everything is tedious flash-game filler stuff solely added to gate content. The mechanics aren't inherently bad on paper, just not correctly executed. What's worse, there's tons of friction points (e.g. walking slowly) that makes moment-to-moment gameplay miserable.

Overall 3.7 rating

WARNING
-If you dont want to read plenty of dialogue and engage your brain you will have a bad time. (do not play in that case, tiktok brain/new gen zoomers stay away).


ART

-Character design and models are very good. The H scenes however are just good for the most part. Scenes are animated but nothing crazy just evolving loops of the scene. Music is ok. Small amount of dialogues are voiced, but its not voice acted. Mostly its just grunts, sighs, giggles etc.


STORY

-The story and dialogue is engaging for the most part, but nothing special. Good overall. However some parts of the story, especially the ending imho is stupid and makes no sense. Reading dialogue is fairly important.
-Choices matter and they matter quite a bit sometimes. From just relation gains to new dialogue/option unlocks and complete story shifts. Choices are not braindead and require you to think and read most of the dialogue beforehand. Especially because you are restricted in your daily "action points" and with how many people you can talk to with "Conversation" option.


GAMEPLAY/CONTENT

-Scene clicker. Point & Click. You click on the map to move in between scenes and on characters to interact with. You move around talking to different characters trying to improve relations, each week there is new dialogue.

-You have 3 stats that you have to level (these matter)

-Each week after you have exhausted your AP, you can go to your room to "Plan" which will replenish your AP to 10 and end the week. But also here you can choose if you want to improve certain stats or relations with certain characters.

-Each week you get 10 AP - action points. You can spend AP on:
-Training - 2AP - certain characters can train certain stat
-Conversation - 4AP - advanced dialogue option with characters.
-Minigames - 6AP - you get stats and gold if successful.

-Minigames

-Gold, you get gold from various activities, dialogue etc. But mostly from minigames.
-You can spend gold at 2 locations: -Keep in mind there are different tabs here for different items that could be quite beneficial.


CODING/CONSTRUCTION & POLISH

-Fast forwarding dialogue exists, but its not very practical having to click the button every time. However the dialogue often gives hints about stuff happening in the game so reading it could be important.
-Saving exists but its not good. You cannot save in most dialogues, choices, even some locations. When you do load your save it will reset that day...so you start at the begining of that day. Quite annoying, so plan carefully. This however gives things more weight which is kinda nice actually.
-Gallery for scenes exists, its ok could've been done better.
-There is a relationship status info button which is nice.
-Dialogue history exists but its kinda janky with scroll wheel (needs fixing).
-Performance, i had 0 issues with performance on a older setup i5 9600k ,rtx 2060, 32gb, 1920x1080, win10.
-Moving in between scenes, clicking too much wish it was constructed better. So there is no submenu clicking.



Wish it had more characters and more content per character, feels too short even though the game isnt too short. Also some QoL is needed for a better experience. The games base has serious potential.

Wow, what a disappointment. This so-called adult game should come with a warning: “Get ready to talk, talk, and keep talking until your virtual throat dries out.” Literally, you spend a whole hour listening to endless dialogue that goes nowhere.


Where’s the sexy content? Where’s the part we’re all here for? Three scenes in over an hour. Three! And when something finally happens, it’s so poorly done and dull that it’s not even worth it.


It feels more like a simulator for awkward conversations than an erotic game. If I wanted to read this much text, I’d just pick up a boring visual novel from ten years ago. Seriously, if you were looking for pacing, meaningful choices, or at least some action, run away. A tedious, slow, and completely anticlimactic experience.

Rating: 1/10 — Endless talking with a frustrating payoff.

Let's get the bandage out of the wound in one well swoop, shall we? This is an AI-art game; if you don't like any aspect of it, you'll not enjoy this game at all. I submitted myself for it, so you don't have to.

The game's 'art' is so obviously Gen-AI, cause it looks identical to dozens of other soulless Gen-AI games. The disclaimer on the store page is just the saddest, mealy-mouthed attempt at obfuscation; pretending that putting the Gen-AI output into Photoshop, slapping a filter on it or doing a smidgen of touch-up work and pressing 'Save As' is somehow a meaningful step that separates it from the original output...

Also, this 'studio' has put out 11 games in 2 years. Look at the others, then look at the 'publisher' they're teamed up with. It's all copy-paste Gen-AI slop. This studio is a slop factory.

With that out of the way, it's not that bad, and there are some salvageable aspects of this project. The heroines are reasonably charming, the story is serviceable, and your choices do have severe consequences here.

But the game has enough flaws outside AI-usage as well, there's a bunch of russian text still left in the code even when selecting english, some heroines got the short end of the stick, lack of CGs and adult content in general, and the gameplay loop is extremely repetitive, but that's the nature of most time-menagement SLGs, good ones solved this problem by automation though, which is clearly not the case with this one.

The most unfortunate thing about it is that this game was made to be highly replayable because, again, your choices really do matter here. But gameplay really hurts in even going for a second run, and no New Game+ throbs even more.

A good game held back by bugs and repetitive design.

The good:

• Actions have Consequences: It's possible to mess up. In fact you probably will mess up. Characters will die. But you can still salvage something out of the wreck.
• Interesting Characters and Dialogs: There's a variety of characters with their own storylines, and also dialogs that interweave with the main plot.
• Well-animated H-scenes: The animated H-scenes are genuinely hot due to attention to detail. More than just fluid animations, there's dynamic facial expressions, changes of position and speed within the same loop. It's some of the best 2.5D H-animation I've seen.

The bad:

• Bugs: There's bugs scattered about. The worst of these corrupt the game state such that you can't save, while also corrupting the auto-save. Sometimes locations don't unlock correctly when loading a saved game, forcing you to reload and replay the previous turn. These issues can be gotten past by progressing forward one or two turns without reloading, but they're like landmines in a game that is already strewn with intentional landmines.
• Frustrating Save System: The game can only be saved at the start of each turn. If you like to optimize / save scum, get ready to redo things over and over.
• Flawed Translation: The translation is decent overall but appears to have relied on AI: there are some lines that don't quite make sense.
• Plot Holes: Some of the events don't quite make sense, in part due to the poor translation but also due to conceptual flaws.
• Repetitive Design: Most of the game consists of traversing empty maps to talk to characters over and over again. Should've gotten rid of the map movement and done everything with a menu or point-and-click interface. Mastering the mini-games is also repetitive due to questionable design choices that force you to progress through trial and error.

Ooooh, I sometimes like to download some AI cringe just for this kind of experience. To make sure everything is as usual and nothing has changed. This project might appeal to a complete hentai newbie but nobody else. I honestly don't understand who would like such a project. It's obvious that this is a standard scam, because even in the main menu there are these "wishlist now" ads, clearly hinting that the author is already preparing another 2 slop project at the same time. Honestly, MY RESPECT for this guy because the project is complete crap, but he's making a ton of easy money out of it, out of nowhere. Hat's off to him, bec it's so based and clean.

The style is bland; it doesn't stand out in any way, like a vanilla-flavored base sprinkled with vanilla on top. The animations are smooth but lacking any real flair. Seriously, they're just basic animations, nothing special.

The texts are written 100% by AI. Not the kind that you can torture people with, of course, but at a level that's roughly equal to the level where you can simply turn off your brain while reading because it won't be needed in the process. Even if you don't read anything, nothing much will change. Why?

Because the plot is garbage. Like, I don't even want to discuss it, it's just a classic "rags to riches" story, completely unremarkable except for the hentai parts lol.

Seriously, the entire game is just WALKING AROUND AND CLICKING ON NPCs TO INCREASE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM AND ADVANCE YOUR FURTHER. I KNEW this and I WANTED to see this and I SAW it and I'M HAPPY with what I saw because NOTHING CHANGES.

Has potential (and hopefully will get balance patched) but yeah this is a clear case of good concept but mediocre execution. First and foremost the English localisation is truly awful and clearly a ChatGPT style job. Words are spelt correctly and placed in the correct part of the sentence but the text is nonsensical because it clearly didn't understand the context (an example being that a secret passage is referred to as a loophole or that the save menu says "rewrite" instead of "overwrite"). This really is at present basically a fatal flaw to the experience because of the game's format.

Beyond that though the characters themselves would be fine but there seems to be lots of hidden and poorly-explained conditions all over the place. "Optional" activities are in fact not optional, you'll fail conversation lines and relationships for no reason because the nonsensical writing doesn't really convey what you should be answering for each person.

The art itself is clearly AI to some degree, though I suspect it's a general gloss over because of how consistent the style is and remains, along with AI animations given how short and repeated they are. Overall though it's pleasant on the eyes and perfectly adequate for what it conveys, reminding me of that Match-3 dating game that was the rage in the mid 2010s as one of the first big "adult" games released on Steam.

Interesting game with a nice plot and some kind of gameplay. Unfortunately bugs might ruin your game as it happened to me, and I'm playing the steam version. So unless the release a final patch I do not recommend

This was one hell of a rollercoaster of a game, and I don't mean in a good way. The game starts out meh, then it feels AWESOME and that it has potential, and then when you get to the second half, the player REALLY feels the poor gameplay mechanics that outright ruin the game.

Where do I start? This is a management game where you need to careful choose your daily/weekly schedules in order to build relationships with BOTH the smushable characters, but also the male bureaucrats in the city that are judging your competency. At first glance, this seems okay, as when you get the first H-scene its like wow, this is great! I'm not entirely against AI but its done poorly so often. That's not the case here. This might be the best use of AI ive seen. Things were all looking bueno until a certain story piece came up, and a light bulb went off in my head that screamed "uhh, what in the fuck?"

So, this game uses a extensive stat system, but in things like stamina and charisma, but also in terms of how your relationships are measured. Fill the meter, the girls like you more, and therefore more pound town? Right? WRONG MUTHERFUCKERS.

What this game doesn't really tell you is that choices matter, a lot, but not just CHOICES, it is also whether or you not you completed a hidden condition matters to the point where your dear smushables literally just, like, DIE. They are like "you know this adorably fuckable character that we made you spend 2 hours romancing? Well lets put a literal bag over her head and murder her because you didnt say "pardon" on day x after talking to random dude y after getting this other girl to affection level z".

There's also these minigames, such as the theatre and trial, where its narrative based where you are supposed to read the text and put in the most sensible answer, but it seems excruciatingly random, and whats more, I'm pretty sure they TOO are at the whims of what choices you make previously. The problem is, and I cant re-iterate this enough, YOU DONT KNOW WHAT ACTUAL CHOICES THE PLAYER DOES OR DOES NOT MAKE TO IMPACT THESE THINGS.

This might not make sense if you haven't played this game, but it's a critical issue, game breakingly bad.

I beat the game, only after realizing my playthrough was ruined becuase something (?) I missed, and didnt get the "bad" ending I dont think, but it wasnt good. I unlocked about half of the H-scenes, with a lot of the earlier ones being locked despite maxing out their affection.

Enough venting, but all in all the devs tried to do TOO much with this and the "choices matter" genre does not pair well with hentai games. I'm sorry, I dont want to waste my in game energy talking to the kingdom administrators, I want to talk to the smushables, but if you DONT talk to them, they, just, like, kill your waifus. Why is this a feature? There is also no full unlock when you beat the game.

Theres other issues with difficulty spike of mini games, but by the time that happened, I was already frustrated that I kind of given up, because every time you fail a mini game (and its very much guess and check type games), your progress completing this hidden conditions are set back. So its not like you can just keep trying and figuring it out unless you save scum.

This game could of been a 4 or 5 but man, them devs started really hitting the crack pipe half way through. To any hentai devs out there: if you're half done the game and you suddenly wake up and think "WE SHOULD PUT HIDDEN CRITERIA FOR MY HENTAI GAME THAT'LL RUIN SOMEONE'S PLAYTHROUGH", maybe you guzzle down some melatonin and just go back to bed.

OMG I love game so much.



The story is amazing and super captivating. The characters are beautiful. The scenes are spicy. All by the book. They really did great job. I cannot wait to try more games from this creator.

Only problem is localization could be better....

The good:
The game is beautiful.

The bad:
Localization is poorly done, many things in russian even when English is selected.

The ugly:
Randomness in events prevents key parts of the game from unlocking at the appropriate time, like the forest where you can earn money and stats, but if you are unlucky with events, it will never unlock

Really happy with how this is turning out so far, especially for a first release version. I was surprised to find myself as interested in the writing as I was. The game's original language is Russian, but the English translation is pretty good. There's a couple sentences with typos but the majority of the dialogue feels smooth.

If the art is AI like the tags say it still looks great and is consistent for each character. Its super clean with no artifacts or deformities, so there's definitely been some extra processing and work done with it rather than just using raw outputs. The design itself is great too with a good variety and a mix of interesting and normal looking characters.


So far the only thing I would like to see touched on is how the stat system works and how important it is to prioritize each one. Is it important to have certain ones levelled up by certain points in the story for things like character relationship progression? Any kind of explanation on the system at the start of the game would be great.

Really looking forward to seeing more of this.

Really good thus far. I am really looking forward to seeing how it plays out. The art is really quite nice, and the animations are of a quality that I don't see often on here. I've put it high up on my list of games to keep an eye on.

They did a nice job making sure the overview was in English, and certainly a very nice job posting links where they ask for everyone’s money, but couldn’t put the game into English or even post notes on how to change it from whatever it is? For that you’ll need to scan/search the forum.

When in windowed mode, you can’t resize the window.

You have to click on the “Are you sure” button every time you want to go somewhere. Click...Are you sure?….Click...Are you sure?… I believe you also have to go back outside the castle even when you just want to change rooms.

If you accidentally double click on some text, you can’t go back to read it.

You need to go to the bedroom and click on the Plan book in order to rest/sleep.

The names are terrible and they should allow you to change them.

Depending on where you are on the map, the characters just look like bodies with over-sized heads.

You just need to click around to figure out what do do. Sometimes clicking on someone doesn’t do anything.

I found it to be really boring, mainly just click then lots of reading, then repeat. You plan your day, click next, next, skip a scene w the jester, click next….then go look for somebody to click on for conversation.

The colors and artwork were nice and AI assisted? Not sure about that… But there weren’t any errors to speak of and hopefully it will be successful for them.

(Posting at the time of v.0.1.1-- Review may change as updates release.)

The first thing you'll notice about Becoming a King is that the artwork is noticeably AI-assisted. This isn't a major problem in my eyes since the characters look very nice and don't look too different from games with beautiful art like Love Esquire, and the one H scene animation looks surprisingly good, but I worry that the range of expressions and poses the characters can make will be limited as a result.
I think H-scenes with, say, Estelle should involve some seriously exotic posing and I'll be disappointed if the animations remain standard so the AI can handle it and characters faces are always "Mildly happy" or "Mildly angry" or "Mildly stern."

The dialogue is serviceable and gets the point across clearly. I think it's originally in Russian and if so the translation is pretty good (Outside the brothel sex scene, where it feels pretty stilted).
I've basically only just met most of the characters by the end of the current content so I won't go too into them, but I will say I hope more of a voice emerges for each the LIs as we progress and get a better read on their personalities.

The stat-building management gameplay is what drew me more than anything and for right now it's a bit barebones.
You have three stats; Stamina, Intellect and Charisma, and ten points of Energy to use when you venture outside your castle.
You use four points of energy each time you speak to somebody to get some lore or develop your relationship with them, and some of them also act as trainers in the prior three skills for two points of energy a visit.
When you use all your energy you go back to the castle, rest, and plan out a week of activities à la Princess Maker.

For Stamina, independent sword practice gives you a +1, Horse Riding gives you a +2. and Sparring gives you a +3.
I think there's likely going to be a stress/fatigue system later on because the bigger reward activities have no adverse effect on the player compared to the lower reward activities, and characters make reference to the protagonist needing to make sure not to overwork himself or head to the brothel to blow off steam in exchange for a hefty 8 Energy points.
There's also a slight balance issue with leveling, I think. To get a +6 in a given stat you need to occupy three slots of your week, while the trainers give you a +5 basically as a freebie. You can get a weekly +5 in every stat and still have enough energy left over to go on a date with your favorite waifu.

For now, your levels don't do much of anything. I think there was a stat-check for when I spoke to Estelle asking for a job, but there wasn't anything to let me know if I was being checked or how high I needed to clear to meet it if I was.
A simple "I'm well-read and can assist your bookkeeping! [Lvl 5 INT Required]" would be helpful.

Small additions I think would also be nice:
- An option to change the protagonist's name -- I always like to see this when it comes up but it's obviously not totally necessary.
- More artwork during weekly training- For now Stamina, Intellect and Charisma training is all represented by the protagonist reading a book in an armchair. Seeing him racing on a horse or socializing at taverns to match the day's activity would be fun and show the devs care about details.
- Some kind of feedback animation or sound when you click a dialogue option to let the player know whether they made a good or bad choice.

The potential of this game is actually really good and I'll follow it's development. The demo is something like an hour long so it's worth giving it a try to see for yourself despite any criticisms in this review.