HTML - Blue Swallow [v0.9 Public] [Blue Swallow]

Excellent idea, choices, and customization. Looking forward to this project going forward! Currently replaying with different choices, trying to find all the different paths...so many!
Hair options, piercings, tattoos, clothing, jobs, hobbies, sexual partners...
Like most games it does favor straight partners, however I do have a playthrough where her 88 partners are all women (until going on missions).
It does have some glitches every now and then, usually around forces clothing changes where the pictures don't load correctly. The image you are running around naked, but the text says differently. Still an excellent game!

This game shows a lot of promise, with its insightful details and overall design. I believe it has the potential to become even better, and I encourage the developers to consider adding more features in the near future. It's definitely worth giving it a try!

Good text based CYOA, decent amount of branching for where it is in development & as a bonus, it's been actually developed with expanded content for what is released plus new content (not like that one game I won't name).

Is good, go try it.

This game has 100% potential of being a highly rated game on this platform and others.

The art is absolutely banger. The choices regarding character creation are also nice. The customization is substantial and good.

Being a fan of a Choices matter games like Witcher 3 and BG3, this game has one of the longest prologue with so many branches that you would never expect in an HTML game. The prologue is what makes the game interesting. Pro Tip: Never skip to Act I, do the prologue.

Coming to the spy part, I have played Girl spy and female spy games previously which makes this game feel quite familiar. Though there is not much content into the main game yet, the prologue does fulfil that hole for now.

But as this is still in development, I also have quite a few nitpicks or suggestions:

1. Needs a proper dark mode
2. Needs fixing of the skintones of the character.
3. Needs to have an optional wider textspace on the screen, because the large quanity of text combined with the squeezed readspace makes it difficult to keep reading.
4. The option to change the character's wardrobe should be made more visible, or all the options under the"journal" needs to have seperate buttons if possible.
5. The art in the character icons and the character sprite feels detached.
6. This very well has the potential to be a open world sandbox game too, similar to Course of Tempation or Girl Life. Dev may very well manufacture another masterpiece if this can become a open world game like CoT.

"Not worth it" is how I would describe it.
Short version: Weird choices that don't add up or the game goes without letting you know how exactly your character is doing. Too many walls of text, hard to understand for not native speaker and game won't explain anything to you, even abbreviations. "Main" part of the game with options to do one quest or the other doesn't really work well because the text suggest you did something already, but you clearly didn't yet. Didn't like the character art as well tbh, feels like it would be better to either not have it at all or more simplified to just clothes, idk. The actual spy part, at least so far, is just silly, they let you do whatever you want, you had zero training before that and they aren't giving you any, just test your shooting skills while giving you 9mm in the GYM for the first time in your life, yeah...

Long version: A lot of "walls of text". Quite often it's hard to understand what exactly people mean if you are not native speaker, you may know what exactly all the words mean, but it wouldn't make any sense because it's just some specific phrase that the author expects you to know, and the game doesn't care to explain, not even abbreviations, quite annoying if you ask me, considering I can play most of the games here just fine. Good amount of choices that makes your character sort of unique? Well, I guess, but the choices are made in a weird way so you don't exactly know what you are doing. A lot of those choices are just left behind, for example, I chose to do modeling during high school and it was like two short scenes and nothing after that until I went for more modeling in uni which resulted in the same thing, the game doesn't tell you why you didn't have more jobs there or if you had any and was just wasn't worth to describe or whatever. I also went for the "athlete" route in school and at the end on the school the game is like "ugh, you didn't study hard so you failed your final exams" and there were ZERO mentions that your character didn't do well in school before. You also have to choose birth control implant type at some point and all the game tell you is the name... Pretty sure it doesn't change anything, but if you are giving it as a choice for the sake of a role play or whatever at least let me know what is the difference, no? Okay, then we go to the "main" part of the game and it's pretty much "you are an agent now, do whatever you feel like to complete the mission, duh". You get some shooting exercise... Or actually, nope, they just let you shoot some freebies INSIDE the gym with a beretta when you haven't touched the gun in your life... And you HIT most of it... Totally believable. I wasn't expecting it to be too serious, but it's just too silly for me. And as of now, on version 0.9.1.1 there is only a few quests in the main part of the game, basically I had just a few quests and did a first day on a job in that club as a bartender and it's over for now. The character art feels weird as well, I like the pixel style pictures illustrating locations though.

It's actually quite sad, I wanted this game to be good. Considering the state of "the other" game about female spy you can say we won't be having a proper one for quite some time, guess it's pretty hard to task. But maybe in a few years it will get better, just hoping it would improve to good enough and don't suffer constant reworks from the scratch, ugh.

Subjective POV:
A good game that has a bit of everything.
( rpg , choices with impact, narrative, customization etc.)
Maybe not everyone's cup of tea but give it a try!
(also might be too much text but u can always skip it , some ppl like heavy text)

Honestly, in my humble opinion this text game is much better than others out there. There is a lot of details compared to the others. Although the story hasent progressed that far hence the 4 stars. Will need to wait for the rest of the story.

In a nutshell, the game Female Agent would've been 5 years ago if CrushStation wasn't the bastard lovechild of a writer too bad for 80s sexploitation B movies, a developer who worked on the E.T. game, and a con man.

(Amended with link because apparently, there's so many people young enough the world almost forgot that historically significant disaster.)

The RPG mechanics are interesting, if a bit janky, and unlike certain other projects with similar themes, they actually update the game with new content

Would recommend if you like the genre. If youre looking just for a sandbox experience, there are options that may be better for your tastes, but I think this hits the right notes across the board and is more polished than most HTML games.

Everything in this game is overly-complicated.

Make a ton of choices for your character, then dazzle as you fail scene after scene because one of those choices fucked you over. Which choice? Who knows! The game practically goes out of its way to be as obtuse as possible in letting you know.

Walls of text "improved" by the text

s

l

o

w

l

y

appearing on the screen. No option to disable that crap.

It's insane.
This game is insane.
The writers love using the word insane.
Everything is insane.

Inconsistencies and continuity errors everywhere. For example, I chose to dump my current batch of friends to try and become popular. Sometime later, those same people I dumped were all too happy to help me become Prom Queen. (I didn't win, of course. Despite being the most popular and beautiful girl in school, I wasn't popular nor attractive enough for some reason!)

Do yourself a favor, find an older version of Female Agent and play that instead.

I like the game which is well constructed and written and really like that some of the consequences of choices are not immediately obvious as in real life you make choices and sometimes the result isn't what you expected. However, for me there are some issues...
Pros:
Well written.
Great replay-ability with different characteristics.
Nice art, which is likely to improve over time.
Cons:
The text can be very long (sort of wall of text).
The game is written for an American audience so if, like me, you are not au fait with the US and didn't go to college or a university some of it is difficult to follow which leads to not fully understanding the story and therefore making decisions 'blind'.
Suggestion:
To reduce the amount of text by either breaking it down to smaller chunks or adding more artwork.
To provide hints for non-American players for some of the story choices.

I'd like to give it 4 stars as it's an above average game but given the 'wall of text' and understanding issues it's a 3; for now anyway... Good luck with your project.

A very good game already with a lot of potential for the future.

Pros:

- Well written (which is a must for this sort of game) with solid pacing which does not waste too much time on the mundane and offers erotic content at frequent intervals.

- Nice supporting art, the HD art is in its infancy but is also looking good.

- A lot of content already, considering the age of the project, and a steady release rhythm


Cons:

- Can be a bit opaque as to which choices impact which outcomes or how to access certain routes

- While that's good for replayability, the content (early on especially) is a bit scattered across lots of routes

- Needs a lot more save slots

Love the Game. Great and unique presentation, the UI works well, there is a lot of variety to fill every niche and it is quite addictive. I have found myself playing it again and again to see what I might have missed. Can't wait to see where this one goes.

Alright, I've played Blue Swallow [v0.7.3,1] by the developer with the same name; Blue Swallow.

I have some criticism to share about this game. This review will primarily revolve around things like pacing, story, writing and decisions. All in all I went with 2 stars as the game currently do not actually provide the spy story that I expected it to.

Pacing:
Pacing is very important in all stories, but especially so in text based games as you don't have spicy visuals to back you up.

Now, imagine settling down, you've decided to watch a James Bond movie. Then the first scene is James Bond getting born. He proceeds to go to school, high-school and college. You might think that all of this is unnecessary, but in the case of Blue Swallow, the dev wants to show you how the protagonist got to be spy and how her personality is. To continue the example, we indulge it a bit to see how James Bond was formed into the formidable agent he becomes, though its not really interesting at all. It's actually fairly mundane.

For a spy game or a James Bond move this would be done in a few cut-scenes, or in the case of a text based game by being provided a few options like "I was book oriented/athletic/whatever in high-school". "My family loved/hated/ignored me" etc. But no. This game takes you through the long winding path towards the protagonist becoming an agent. All of which has nothing to do with the protagonist being an agent.

It feels like the dev wanted to make a story about a young woman going through puberty and early adulthood in a slice of life fashion. Then at some point the dev wanted to make a spy game. Instead of making two separate games they decided to strap on a spy story to the college story. The result is weird with a strange focus and very slow pacing. There's really no point in it.

Choices
The game has choices, which is nice. I don't really mind that I can't see the stats. This is game about character and decisions and not about stats, even if they mechanically must inform what happens.

That said, the tons of text is a bit much to read through without meaningful interaction in-between. Remember those old books where you'd make a decision and it'd say "go to page 257" and you'd do that and so on. Well, in those books the text was about 1 paragraph and 5-7 lines worth of text before the next decision. That should be rule of thumb for Blue Swallow as well.

To end this, all of it really would've made a lot more sense, if the story simply started with the protagonist being chosen as an agent because the agency saw potential in her. You could easily add choices like how the protagonist was raised, academic/school credentials, her romantic experiences, spare time jobs and so on and then just tag on a small explanation of why she was chosen over other prospecting agents.

That was a bunch of text on its own, and I didn't even add any decisions. So, you can just skip it and read the short version here, if you want:

The Good

• Well written with few or no spelling errors
• Decently vivid, enough to at times get a good idea of visuals and characters

The In-between

• Sometimes its a bit hard to follow the time-line. It might be down to me expecting a spy-story and not getting it.
• The prologue would be alright if it wasn't the prologue to spy story. I'd expect the prologue to a spy story being about completing some assignments to be chosen as an agent. I don't expect the whole child-hood story.

The Bad

• Weird pacing
• If feels like the dev wanted to make slice-of-life college story then changed their mind and strapped on the spy part
• The entire part with schools, college and all is not meaningful to a spy story. I understand wanting to show what shaped the character, but this takes way too much focus from the spy part.

Spy stories are kind of boring in and of themselves. I'm sorry, but it's true. What this game does right, and what makes it compelling, is giving you a robust lifepath to define your special agent. Who she is is as important as what she does, and this game and its main character is far more engaging and interesting than a quick sexpionage romp might be expected to be. If you actually want to read and engage with the material of the world presented here, this is a great game that does more right than most of its more straightforward contemporaries.

So give them a chance and let them cook, because the "main game" - which I feel is disingenuous because the whole thing is the main content, but whatever - is shaping up well too. Having played the latest release, the spy content has been worth the wait. It is both sexy and fun, and has felt acceptably dynamic for my different Spies on different lifepaths.

In short, it's a really good spy-themed life sim with a very customizable and well defined main character.

One of my favorite games I have played on this website. The amount of options and paths make it one of the best games in my mind. The options allow you to shape your FMC in the way you want to create her. I've replayed this game a bunch of times choosing different options.

Currently, you can play the game up until you start your spy arc, allowing you to play through the FMC's high school arc, and can play through a gap year, college, or go straight into the spy portion of the game. I'm very much looking forward to seeing future updates of this game.

One of the most bs cc systems ive ever dealt with. Tries to innovate by making your choices shape your character naturaly but instead it removes all control and intentionality. There's good reason why every game ever lets the player see the char stats you know. You have no idea what your choices actually do stats are hidden and you're left guessing. its giving you options but you’re just along for a blind ride. the writing is decent but the lack of transparency in how choices affect anything makes it a confusing mess.

EDIT: Changed rating from 1 to 4 stars. Update added RPG-like start and being able to see our stats.

That was perhaps the most frustrating character creations I ever had the displeasure to experience. This is terrible game design. I understand the idea behind it, but there's absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel.

Give me an option to be able to see what I'm changing, how it's affecting the character I'm creating, etc. It's infuriating to go back and forth or outright wipe progress with a restart because the character turned out way off track to what I had intended.

A few options/locked options also are entirely nonsensical to me. My character's only able to "hit the club scene" if she grew up in New York? Why? Are there no clubs in California?

Like, sweet Christ on toast. I don't think I ever got actually mad creating a character before.

Light on visuals but makes up for it with immersive writing and a real sense of choice and getting to define your journey. If the eventual story is as rich as the prologue/character creation process this will be a gem of interactive erotic fiction.

Blue Swallow is a text-based game that makes all the choices for you.

"But," you might protest, "look at all those choices the game offers you! Ten dropdowns per passage! How can you say it makes ALL the choices for you?!"

And that question can be answered in one word -- "intentionality".

Most of the best character customization in games stems from intentionality. In other words, you have an idea in your mind, and using the tools provided by the game, you shape the desired character out of it. It's how character creation works in pretty much every game.

Blue Swallow tries to innovate on the idea of character creation by taking your "idea" and allowing you to roleplay as that in character creation, shaping your character naturally through the events of the game. It's a neat idea, don't get me wrong, but it completely removes player intentionality and control from the experience. This results in a frustrating experience where you want your character to do something or go in a specific direction and the game just tells you "no".

This wouldn't be so bad if the game was a little more transparent about what your choices actually mean. All of your characters' stats are kept completely hidden from you, including which choices raise and lower what. It turns the intended experience of getting immersed in your character's story to me scrolling directly to the dropdown and trying to mind-read the author to make my desired character.

In conclusion, Blue Swallow is not really a "game". You can "make choices", but at the end of the day, you don't even know what choice you're making, and the whole thing just feels like a crapshoot as the author leads you down what feels like a random path. I think the production value is why this game is rated so highly (4 stars as of writing this), as the game looks very polished and has decent quality writing.

However, I'm giving it one star. Being pleasant to look at isn't enough to save a game that feels like it's lying to you about what it is -- even being interactive. Save yourself some effort and buy a book instead of trying to play this not-so-visual novel.

EDIT (9/29/2024): I've bumped my review up to two stars. One star is a very strong rating, and although I still don't recommend the game just yet in its development, it absolutely does not deserve the same rating as much of the other slop featured on this site.