Probably more of a 4.5 stars but there aren't half ratings. For someone looking for a quick explanation of what type of game this is, it's largely an adventure game where you play as a vampire and attempt to gain a stable of hot vampire thralls. The primary challenge is in figuring out where to go and what to do, as well as some of the puzzles (although they're generally optional).
The artwork is very good, it makes effective use of static images with transition and pseudo-animations (e.g., 1 interstitial frame between two poses). The sound effects and movement of assets gives a good impression of motion and punctuates the actions that are occurring in a way that text heavy games with pictures often don't manage.
The premise is solid, the narrative is "ok". It's a little bit of an "and" plot - one thing happens, and then another thing happens, and there isn't much self directed behaviour so much as there is just the protagonist reacting to new situations as they occur. But narrative doesn't have to be excellent - it's porn - and it doesn't detract too much.
Probably the criteria that is most important in a porn game is whether or not it's hot. And for someone into MC content, I think this is a resounding yes. It's not the hottest or best MC focussed game ever, but it is a good one, and the heat is where it needs to be. This won't attract the audience who is into vampire romance, but it should interest people who are into the d/s side of it.
I think the biggest weaknesses, and the areas that I hope the author will focus on for future releases, are
- The relative instability of the game
- The user interface
- The stat based mechanics
The first point I know the developer keenly aware of, because they include various hotkeys you can use to get yourself unstuck from some problems. Hopefully this will improve in future.
The UI is serviceable mostly, and I do like some of the touches (like being able to drag items over people), but it can also be a bit fragile. Sometimes items will get stuck outside of containers (visually) after you close the bag / container. The save/load interface is a particular problem, because if you click "load" or "save" first, it errors and tells you to try again. It expects you to select a save slot, THEN decide if you're saving over it or loading it. This is back to front to how most games and commonly used game engines tend to work with it. It also takes a few moments for the save slots to populate as the game reads data, so this sort of tricks you into thinking that the reason there's nothing there is because you haven't clicked save/load yet. Even after realizing this was an issue, I still buggered this up maybe 10 or 12 times while playing. Oh - and one last UI thing - I'd like to have the game clarify whether a stat loss is temporary or permanent (e.g. "-3 charm" and "-10 energy") when you do something. I never felt save using various powers because I wasn't sure - when you level up you'll get "+10 energy" but then when you use a rare ability it suggests you'll lose energy - does it mean just a tiny amount for today, or is it for good? I still don't know, I never ended up using them as a result!
Finally, I would like to see one of two things happen in the future with the core stat based mechanics - either simplify it greatly, or add a reason for it to exist. It currently seems like a classic case of overdesigned mechanics that were put in place before the game came together, and now are largely superfluous. The game will often give you choices that let you act in certain ways, and this gives random bonuses or penalties to stats, but the stats didn't seem to have a powerful influence and it was fine to get by with just default strength and speed stats the game doled out. Ordinarily I would expect a game that has stats like this to either have some kind of combat that justified them, or to have skill-checks that allow you to take different options in the game. Currently it doesn't seem to have much here. I *think* Charm is supposed to make it easier to persuade one of the NPCs to come with you, but it's currently not implemented.
Ultimately, I don't mind whether the game simplifies or expands their use - the game works fine as a more classic adventure game - but currently it's a vestigial limb.
