RPGM - Claire's Quest [v0.29.1] [Dystopian Project]

I've quite enjoyed this game so far. Very fun game if you enjoy high stakes and avoiding bad ends/scenarios. Fast travel could be a bit less annoying, but otherwise one of the best RPG-M games out there. Pathing actually works for once and you don't run into walls if playing via a mouse! Wow!

That said, I do find at least 50% of the H-scenes in this game unfappable; either too nasty or cruel for me personally. Some of the bad stuff, however, is worth experiencing like the Meat Pits. Is it awful and dehumanizing? Yes. But, it makes the thief questline a lot better when it comes to plotting Lector's downfall.

I just wish there were a few more vanilla scenes to make overcoming Clair's trials more worthwhile. For a FMC game it is pretty surprising there is only one vanilla male relationship in the game. And it's your potential girlfriend's barely not a shota son... *Sigh*

If you enjoy corruption, rape, monsters, and animals you'll probably enjoy the H a lot more than I did. 80% of the time I stayed flaccid and grim. Spider god bad end was pretty hot though.

There is a gallery and ingame cheats, but I don't think they are all that necessary unless you need the ranch and sub ranger content right away. I played all the questlines except the brothel and ended with 25-40-40-40 as my stats. Only had to grind money for the ranch, which was pretty easy at 40 intrigue pickpocketing in Portside.

Given the development time and seemingly wasteful Ranch time I can't in good consciousness recommend subscribing to them however. And the Steam version is censored... It feels like this game will need at least another 5 years to be finished at this rate unless the scope of the game gets drastically cut. Rathpike is at best 50% done and Valos seems to be nearing completion at least. But, there are still 2 more islands and going back to the continent left. Only reason it loses a star for me even despite not liking most of the fetish content.

All and all, despite being a fairly vanilla normie, I enjoyed this game. Recommend trying it out.

Very very very good, I like the writing of it a lot, and also the exploration element, which not many games do very well. I have not even finished all of the content yet but wanted to give it a rating because it is already a 5 stars for definite well done dev

Love this game, the amount of effort that's gone into it is incredible.
No tedious grindy combat system like most RPGM games, and instead the gameplay focuses on stealth, raising social stats (Defiance, Intrigue, Seduction, and Depravity) through completing quests and dialogue option selections.

More interesting still is that the choices you make are actually reflected in the game. If you get thrown in the Meat Pits in Act 1, you have to go through some pretty harrowing events to get free; but the people you meet and help free actually talk about what you went through later. Fantastic attention to detail.

The example given above is also one of many diverging paths you can take in the game, and you can only see that particular content if you follow a very specific pathing through choices of where you go, and how you handle quests, which means this game has ENORMOUS amount of replayability without feeling like you've done everything before.

Really looking forward to seeing how this game looks when it's finished, but so far it's definitely one of my favourite RPGM titles around.

Overrated

This game has been around for 8 years and some questlines still aren't complete. How come?

A first time player, seeing such a big world is likely to be amazed first, but frustrated soon...you explore and find a quest. But has no idea how to follow it, as things aren't explained properly in game and it's easy to miss content. Eventually, you'll find yourself in a dead end and that's it. Have you missed a step? Is the quest incomplete? How you are supposed to get enough stat points do proceed? Many questions, no answer.

So, you decide to enter cheat mode and realize that:
a) the game is at this point more of a evolution of scenes available than of consistent gameplay. A final game is unlikely to ever come, only scenes and more scenes.
b) even tough you like hard stuff, much of the content here is very niche and may not suit your expectations. One might just get this game thinking that the nice blond getting corrupted down the road might be doing a lot of kinky stuff and while there's such content, a considerable amount of the game is getting raped by monsters, animals or fantasy creatures, what isn't everyone's cup of tea.

It's actually an incredible game. The only problem about the game is that there's still many quests that doesn't have final yet. The game has a huge potential and I look forward to play it again once it has some more content (not that it has few content, but I wish it had more)

It was my very first porn game and it is still the best one. Too bad it is not finished. Which is the only bad thing I can say about it. Everything else - art style, story, writing, and gameplay are great. Can't recommend it enough.

Incredible freedom of choice and beautiful art.
One of the few games that would be fun and interesting even without the adult themes. Since you play as the protagonist, it is up to you to make the decisions rather than the typical "convincing" and coercion typical to games with similar themes.

Review made on version 0.27.3.
I really wish I could rate this at least 3/5 but after revisiting to give it another shot I just can't.

TL;DR
Claire's Quest does some things right, and the unique artwork is a great hook, but as a game it has clunky issues and is too open-ended without quality control -- the worst being player engagement to the narrative and respect for time.

If you are OK with a pure walk-point-A-to-B gallery unlocking H-game, then it's probably worth a download for a few sessions, but otherwise put this on the backlog.

What I think is Good
The art is very good, both in H-scenes and playing around the map. Could use some animation, but it works. Claire is sexy -- no idea how a review below mine can tag her as "obese". The story is passable and better than bottom-feeder H-RPGs, though nothing special. I don't mind having no combat.

If you like the art, there is a lot of it. It just takes time and exploring to get to. If you're OK with gallery explorers, then this game should be fine for you.

I appreciate the no-combat rather than being a sloggy RPG-M fight-fest, however it does have a slight learning curve and can take extra time.

RPG Mechanics & Stats
There are choices to make at certain times where you choose a response or action for Claire. They tend to be dysfunctional/awkward. Two examples:

1. You pick one of three options as Claire. You're a bit bored so you choose to "push" a more lewd option, but Claire won't because of her stats. Now you're stuck into another option without being able to go back or end the dialogue, so you either have to reload a save and grind/explore for stats or just move on.
2. You want to roleplay as a pure Claire so you pick something like "give him comforting advice" which leads into Claire acting sultry, then gaining +1 seduction. Huh?

This ties into how the stats are awkward to use. In my first playthrough I coincidentally ended up having like 11 defiance with every other stat at 1, which led to Claire just punching her way through every situation, especially those that may have been lewd. To me it was just roleplaying what I would expect her to do early on, thinking she'd potentially change to lewd desires - nope, it's just so open for the player that I paved my own path to that awkward stat allotment, so I decided to restart and explore different options.

Corruption, or lack thereof -- including other tags
The "corruption" in this game isn't really corruption, sorta like how the "slave" tag doesn't take precedence in certain F95 games. While player freedom is technically fully there, it's behind stats required to get resolutions. Claire isn't so much corrupted or changing as she's just guided by what the player wants her to be, and it makes it feel like there's never a narrative base for the player to attach to -- it's just too open and sandboxy to retain a flowing or consistent story.

Claire is often not "forced" into choices like the narrative wants to try to push ("she's a poor refugee and has to do XYZ"). Though you can occasionally end up raped (usually not a game-over) or H-loss raped (which is always a game-over). With regards to the four stats, some scenes get changed, but overall it's like a switch flipped on or off.

The open-ended and sandboxy nature of the game can make Claire a rather inconsistent character. Two more examples:

1. You'll land at a certain place, some guy will ask Claire to show her tits for a coin and she'll say "No! That's preposterous!", but then 10 minutes later she'll be hot-dogged by 15 men in a secret lounge because you chose to race through a quest line that allows you to see that content.
2. Claire's working to get by and has yet to do anything lewd. Well, this kid drew a picture of her so she's going to jack his cock now, unprompted by any corruption or events other than him being moderately attracted to her due to budding puberty. This makes sense, right?

Don't get me wrong, those are fine H-events when separated from the bigger picture, but because there are so many questlines that don't align, the only grounding the game has is the four stats -- Claire is more of a vessel for you to unlock lewd galleries than a character who shifts or changes based on her situation, or has outright goals to pursue in any anchored story arc.

I also wanted to put a blurb in here - I love player freedom and expression in H-games, but usually it's best caveated based on the game's setting/story - a basic example being a corruption story where you can avoid corruption altogether by putting a bit of effort in. I find Claire's Quest to be too open to the point I can't even engage with it by trying to roleplay.

General Gameplay Loop
Most of everything is a fetch quest, which is... fine, but wastes player time. At some point it becomes comical how many quests are "go to A from B" and then "go to B from A", repeated multiple times over. Sometimes there will be a stat requirement at the end of the line as well, which will waste a trip or two.

I found myself getting bored attempting to keep up with dialogue/story. It's engaging early but at some point later on if you're deep into a "walk to this spot, then walk to this spot" quest, you pick up more and more how the game has no real direction in mind, and that will likely lose your focus -- since what's the point?

The map can be confusing but isn't awful -- I just think it's too wide with too much, and a condensed story with basic playthrough branches would be preferred.

There's really no backlog and the quest viewing system is irritating to use (having to scroll often, having inconsistent controls between clicking or using WASD/arrows). It's easy to get lost during quests if you aren't familiar with the map and sometimes the "most updated" part of the quest log won't give you the right hint. This also multiplies if you revisit the game after a break and were unsure of what you were doing.

Because this game appears to be in forever-development, there are a number of questlines that end in a "WIP". There are also event locations around the map that just say "WIP".

A weird time-waster; I appreciate that the game is a click-RPG so I don't have to WASD everywhere -- that being said, why is the Status screen not clickable, and I have to click escape for it?

Lastly -- what is up with the audio mixing? H-scenes seem inconsistent for what audio will or will not be there, but at times there will be droning ambience or loud noises in areas of the map. It's just something I picked up on after playing a while.

Conclusion
I have an appreciation for the art of this game, so as a simple gallery collection and maybe a jack-session or two it can fulfil the purpose of a download. But the gameplay and engagement are dysfunctional and it just seems like an open-top game that will never condense to be quality.

If you appreciate this review, see my profile; I list all of my reviews in a comments thread. ☑

Way too many people are praising a game that started 8 years ago. You know, around the same time as cyberpunk 2077. And still is only on version 0.2.

That in itself is insane. And leads me to believe this game will never be finished. And this affects gameplay significantly. Because you'll do a quest, y'know? Then you'll come across the "WIP" message that this quest is incomplete. Bitch, this quest was incomplete 3 years ago, why is it still?

This game just bothers me, because it gets so much praise and has a solid rating. Which shouldn't be the case, because there's other ACTUAL complete games on this site, that's been done in half the time of this one.

Besides the development issues, the game itself is just "okay". Just a scene collector where you usually do fetch quests.

This game is mid, it is not bad, there is plenty content, but it is not great either.
Heroine could do well with losing some weight and stop being overweight/obese. You are building your game on a single heroine, and it should be obvious if she herself is mid as a character both visually and in personality, the game itself will suffer.

Other significant downsides is an ancient engine, and almost 480p resolution of the game, so it runs in a tiny window, making it bigger worsens the image quality significant so not really an option..

I think the story starts well, I have picked "hard" prologue, which was not actually hard, alright in general, but it quickly loses its compelling points as soon as you move from the prologue location. It turns out first into errand running, and then in "WIP", this quest is not available in this version of the game message.

The plot lost its cohesion and any kind of sense, and from there on it is just random quests or "slut yourself at this brothel" kind of event.

There is always a feel that something is missing in this game, but I cannot quite explain it.

The stat and quest system is not bad in itself, but you quickly realize that a lot of quests have zero rewards at all, and most of the stats leveling can/is done via trainers by simply paying silver coins.

P.s. I was about to upgrade review to 4 stars, as Temple quest arc turned out to be hot and have some mildly interesting developments, only to run into "WIP" This Quest is in progress, wait for future updates.

Let's start with the pros, the fact that the game is addictive and the art and choices in the game are good, although not much, like press this to get a scene or press this not to get and fight, well, there are a lot of stupid moments about quests, because sometimes it's not at all clear where to go or how to get what, well, the game it's old, so we'll write it off, but the only thing I'm lowering my rating for is that after some quests, bandits attack you along some paths and the game ends, so you have to save every time, and I've had it after 10 quests and it's not clear, how it had to be removed and it is not clear why they attacked and that it is impossible to fight them back

One of the best RPGM games, a gigantic open world, an innovative gameplay style, lots of content and lots of sex scenes.

POSITIVE POINTS:
STORY: It tells the story of a girl named Claire (FMC) who has her place attacked by green pigs and ends up separating from her mother and running away. Claire then begins to explore the world around her, doing tasks, making allies and surviving.

PERSONALITY: Claire's personality can be shaped by the player, you can make her stronger and tougher, you can make her more calculating and seductive or you can make her a complete depraved slut.

GAMEPLAY: The gameplay seemed terrible at first, after all, Claire is not a fighter, there is no combat system, but you will enjoy exploring the places, collecting items, and unlocking sex scenes and it is not linear, you can choose your path.

SETTING: The setting of this game is incredible, well-made and has its own charm, especially in the forest areas.

SEX SCENES: The scenes in this game are on another level, especially if Claire's personality is depraved. I dare say that the scenes are the best among all pornographic games.

It is one of the best RPGM games I have ever played, I highly recommend it!

I like the this approach without fighting in rpgm games. The plot for dark fantasy setting is good, art is fantastic. World filled with references, systemized information, great work! Ive benn played 50+ hours on my first run and it was fantastic, cannot wait when game will be released.

A very good game, the advertisement deliver your many of your choices affects the route and story, the game's not finished yet but there are already a lot of content that can keep you for some hours.
The thing i dont like is just my bias, in this game most of the corruption not really forced to the mc instead it's the mc being lewd, there are of course events whether it main or sub events that force terrible things to the mc,
and other things thebranch of a sub story can branch depends on your stats and dont let you choose what will you do, for example

This game starts out pretty dark but gets fun very quickly. If you are not into dark rape and dire circumstances, which I am not, this fairly quickly turns around and becomes about choice and corruption. A very enjoyable game.

Good plot, nice pictures and a lot of other interesting things. I would like to say way more about game, but i don't know english enough for this
Хороший сюжет, приятная рисовка и множество других интересных вещей и событий

In my opinion, Claire's Quest is the best independent adult game of any genre that currently exists, The game is impressive and several factors, You feel really alive in Claire's shoes in the choices, Each choice has to be chosen intelligently, You always want to explore more and more of the game...I've played almost all the adult games, I still say, Even without it being 100%, It's the best game in the adult genre in my opinion, Thanks to the entire team at
Dystopian Project for the incredible game!

This game could be really amazing, sadly its far from it. There are many clear issues, since its big game i will make it short as possible:

- too ambitious, world is simply too big, there is too much of everything, its too easy to get lost, exploring takes forever to figure out and RPGM engine doesnt help with that (slow animations/cutscenes/dialogues). Game makes you feel dev first created whole big ass world and then started to take care of basics, which he failed.

- hunger and exhaustion mechanic sucks, simply as that. Whole hunger thing takes you to buy few apples from a merchant (or better food) and eat it before going to sleep, cus you lose hunger only when going to sleep. Exhaustion is more annoying than anything else, you get sex scenes that make you exhausted and now you cannot run and have to go to sleep, and it repeats a lot in many places around the map, what a not cool idea to force player to not be able to run and take it slowly to the inn every time, so immersive!

- writing is silly, just starting from the mansion and guy obsessed around his sister, its simply weak and forced to move on cus there is other stuff that dev wants to show player. Again too much content instead of less with good quality.

- H scenes are decent but not animated with no audio so its rather mid.

- music is so out of place, very loud and super epic for no reason on some random ass parts of the map, it reminds me Tales of Maj'Eyal music a bit, but worse and not fitting at all.

About anything rest i cannot tell cus i need to play more, although i dont think i change my rating.

Incredible game with a lot of scenes, lot of writing, the grind is really not that heavy. I think the beginning can be a bit slow but after chapter 2 it's pretty fine.

Still impressed on how the team handled that huge project. The old art is not as good as the last ones but damn it became something, almost every kink is covered in this game.

It's been what, 8 years now? I remember playing this years ago and there are still quests from back then that are still unfinished now.
I'm sorry but no matter how well made it is, if its still at 0.2 for years it will never be a finished game.
It does not deserve to be rated as high as others on this rating that were created in a fraction of the time this game has been in development and managed to get way more content, mechanics, art than this, it's honestly quite unfair to those games that are released as full games that don't scam their customers.
Besides this, it was really promising initially and the game at start is unique and quite fun, but after half a hour of game play you'll run into these unfinished quests that will likely never be completed.