VN - Ren'Py - College Kings [Act 2 v5.3.0] [Undergrad Steve]

My friends wanted me to play that one. And WTF is this? I've been told that CK has great story, nice characters and BEST COMBAT EVER MADE.

Nope, it hasn't.

Stereotypical american movie kind plot. In the very beginning we have almost "straight line" storytelling which branches after into 2 huge paths with zero actual difference. In latest updates i feel like jumping between girls with no idea whats happening.

There are a lot of girls. They are really good looking but sadly they are all the same. Poor character development made me forget ALL of their names in next day (lol).

Gameplay. Typical modern VN with Ctrl pressing, some FreeRoams and a Phone. I guess phone is the reason of all that BUGS. But wait, we have one more to discuss.

Fighting... Dude, the IDEA is great. It really is! But realization made with '00 style short animations? Meh, not for me, sorry

Also i should mention TONS of BUGS in every fckin update. I've been told Dev has quite a team so PLEASE maybe worth considering beta test?

Music - nothing worth mentioning. Typical non-immersive

Renders - Well, well done sir Undergrad Steve

Animations - good but nothing exceptional

TLDR
Plot - 2/5
Gameplay 3/5
Music 3/5
Renders 2/5
Animations 2/5
Bugs 5/5 - best feature CK has

Nothing exceptional and not worth playing.

UPD. Just played CK's last update (0.9). This just can't compete with quality of other games. I'm tired of constant bugs. Instead of playing, i'm browsing f95 looking for fixes for fckin phone. If you can't propeply code phone fckin remove it. Quality of renders still pretty average.
From VN with good ambitions to ashes. I'm done with this game.

At the script and technical level, it is a good graphic novel, but the developer has to work more on the quality of the renderings, almost all his renders have "noise", they look dirty, it's a shame because the great work behind it, recommendation, if you don't want your renderings to take so long, limit the scenes and reduce the less relevant characters in your story, beyond this, I recommend it.

Game breaking bugs.

Advertised renders are cool but its nothing like it in the real game.
Looked average for me.


Horrendous management on file size!? compressed version is under 1GB and the released size is 8GB + and possibly more in the future!?

Im going to rate the game according to render, animation, models choice, story.
render 3/5
animation 3/5
model choice 4-5/5
story 4/5

overall 3/5 because the render just can t retain my attention to follow through the above average story.
On the bright side, the developer has tried really hard to improve on the criteria i stated above with each new update.
So should you download and play ? Well if you don t mind with average render, the story is nt bad. However, if you want some A plus experience, wait for few more updates for the quality of its renders and animations to improve first before trying it.

I will definitely re rate it again in the future.

This has quickly become one of my favorite games in the industry. The dev clearly is dedicated to his craft and I hope he continues pushing forward. I really enjoy the fact that you there are two different major paths, and then a ton of smaller choices throughout the game.

At first blush, College Kings may seem superficially similar to other college-set games. There are dorms, classrooms and fraternity settings, copious gorgeous women, hot teachers, male rivals at an opposing frat, etc. But it is a game with a distinct voice and approach, namely that you're attending Fight Club: The School.

College Kings's unique angle is that the frats are basically MMA training centers. Having downloaded based on good experiences with similar games and CK's high rating (and not reading any summaries), I was pretty surprised and found it a refreshing take. Other games have the fun, frat life on lockdown, so the take of, hey, let's make this sexy-times college also a light action RPG is great.

My one gripe, and it's a minor one unless this drags for years, is that the 0.7 version numbering is misleading. There are a couple of actual sex scenes, and an adequate number of lewd scenes. But go in expecting a game that's 70% finished and you'll be disappointed. Other top rated games listed as 0.7 have 50+ sex scenes. It's possibly 70% done with chapter 1 of 5, so bear that in mind.

That said, the writing is sharp and funny, the models are super hot and the animations are good with a noticeable improvement as the game progresses and the fighting mini-game was a nice challenge without being a pain. Really good game that I only imagine will get better.

So far, this is definetly a good game. The girls are very hot, the story is good and i liked the MC (he is not a douche nor an wimp). I also liked tha amount of choices and the atempt to make it looks like reality.

My problem was: the hottest models are the ones i wouldn't like to stay, while the "ugly ones" are the ones has the personalities i personaly like.

The ex girlfriend is hot and likes the MC, but cheated on him before, so its a no go. Chloe is also hot but will probably cheat on MC with is roomate and is a manipulative bitch, so, perhaps, there is an incoming NTR tag for her. Albrey is the third one that is very hot, but she is a total slut and doesn't like romance... this is hard.

Thats only my opinion tho. I liked this game a lot and recommend it.

This is clearly a game for teenagers...I know it has a college setting, but still the whole thing is average for my tastes. I could not get very far into it as I quickly lost interest.
It's overrated IMO.

- Some typos. Writing is flat, dialogs are plain. There are some painful "funny" lines/jokes' attempts that just made me facepalm myself.
- MC looks dumb
- Renders are nice but sometimes people have strange facial expressions
- Music doesn't fit the situations...at all

Just played through all the main girls' paths (Chloe, Riley, Aubrey, Lauren, Emily, Penelope), and I must say I really love this game a lot.

While the college setting is a background that I may be too familiar with, the story is told in a way that it really distiguishes itself from other games.

The girls all look great, and each have their own set of unique and very endearing personalities (haven't seen anyone that I dislike yet). Looking forward to the events with each of them.

Also, being a fan of MMA myself, the fighting tournament between the 2 fraternities Wolves & Apes is pretty good.
Fight mechanic I admit can be challenge to get it right, but it's also pretty interesting.

Looking forward to seeing how MC's story unfolds, and his road to becoming the champ.

Nice game. Likeable MC and female characters. Renders are neat and so the animations. The story is interesting and easy to follow. Very recommendable for anyone who wants to have a good time and like school setting games with a good background

It's not bad but, the renders, the the sex scenes, the plot, all of it, it fits comfortably in it's genre but there's nothing here that stands out either. If you're a fan of the genre it's a new one to play and it's decent enough at what it does if you're cool seeing renders that don't particularly stand out. If you're not, it won't convert you but you probably won't hate it either.
It's 2-3 range, it's not the best, it's not the worst, it just is.
I round up to 3 because it has a bit of walkthrough/gallery mod support, which does make me want to round up, and because I would say it's slightly improving, so if I had to guess if it might jump to 4 or drop to 2, I'd give it the benefit of the doubt.

Previous review: Steve is an excellent writer and a constantly-improving artist who elevates the college setting AVN and makes it something better. The comparisons of this game to others are, frankly, unfair. The voice here is wildly different, the characters more nuanced, and the choices far more impactful. Easily one of the best games currently in development.
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Current review: Keeping my previous review intact for posterity's sake, but unfortunately College Kings went downhill fairly quickly after Steve gave up most of the duties on the game. A revolving door of writers only exacerbated the issue, and now we're left with this Frankenstein's monster of a game that had tremendous promise once, but is just not great anymore.

It's a shame. I was an early supporter of CK, and to see one of my first favorites fall apart like this is disappointing.

I should start the review saying that there are 2 girls so far, the rest either reject you, or they are directly unavailable.
The other one allows contact inside a dream and is not connected to the plot, and you barely know her, so you could dream about her, or dream about some street lamp you saw some time, both have the same relevance.

The game is just too short and the plot its just a thing that is there.
The Mc is someone who has a shiny blue ball in her room and he always forgets to bring it to a girl that he is interested in. Is not like he lives in a mansion, that ball is impossible to miss. Well, plotholes i guess.,

Overall not worth the time, or the 3.9 GB, i seriously dont know how its so big and so short on content.

Started playing with the last update, and I am REALLY hooked on this story...

and yet I'm grading it pretty low. Stick with me on this.

At first glance, it seems a bit derivative of another college life game that includes fighting, but it's really not. If anything, the biggest resemblance to that other game is an innovative and original system that uses your choices to define a sort of sub-metric that feels much more natural than the standard "This choice will give you love / lust points for this character". This is fantastic, and probably the absolute best reason to keep up with this story.

Speaking of story, it is great itself... mostly.

You see, it's still too early to tell, but there are very strong indicators that the author Undergrad Steve has a very clear set goal in mind for you as the MC to take. This is fine, but it leaves me a tiny bit worried that this central story will end up over-riding that oh-so-innovative metric. You see, that metric is actually cool enough to make you as the player WANT to play as, well, yourself. That metric is for your personality, so it's just too juicy to ignore.

The problem is that by sticking to your own personal choices, you might just be breaking that central story. Might is the operative word as far as this point of development, but the indicators are just a bit damning. Try this for example;

Try playing as a pacifist, and only actively pursue the NPC's you really like. For something really funny, try to not pursue any of the NPC's (<ahem> waiting for Ms. Right). Just give it a shot.

It's pretty awesome that you can actually do this so far, but only barely. The pacifism streak actually works perfectly. The choice to not chase everyone though seems a bit strained. I can already tell that there is an element of how your personality will influence your interactions (AWESOME!!!), but if you abstain from most or especially all of the girls...

Your character's headspace seems to believe that you are actively pursuing everyone, and actually trying not to pursue certain people forces you to make choices that make you into a bit of a douche. In my own "personality" playthrough I found my character absolutely besotted by someone with whom I really did not have any interest in. Heck, in my hardcore test where I tried not to pursue anyone I ended up having girls chasing me... I guess it's because they liked being treated like crap?

The reason I decided upon what for me is an early review is because this particular update (as well as the very name for the story) has me believing that pacifism will not be an option soon, and I don't know if the author will give me a compelling enough reason to keep following the story.

Have you ever met a really big guy before, and they had the personality of a cuddly teddy bear? We do that on purpose, and it's hard to break out of even when we are playing a fantasy. We enjoy actually being able to interact with people without them being afraid of us, but our physical size is all it takes to genuinely leave a lot of people trembling. That teddy bear act, or over-acting, is often the only way we can even make eye contact with nearly anyone we meet. We even avoid fighting because "authorities" tend to look at the big guy in a fight as the bad guy. Don't even get me started on how much worse this can be when we have had to deal with anger management.

This puts me in a strange place in this particular story. I have no issues with pounding someone to a greasy stain so long as I am protecting another person, but myself? Hit me all you like. I've ended fights just by letting some angry little dude hit me until they got tired. I don't even get hurt the same way as other (littler) dudes because my size allows me to soak up a lot of hits.

So this update is really making me feel as if I will be fighting, and I still have no real incentive. Okay, maybe whatever has my character so stunned at the end of this update might be it, but I'm having a hard time imagining what it might be... maybe my mother is chained up at the frat and they'll force me to fight?

The thing is, both in pursuing women, and in fighting, there needs to be a bit stronger incentive to do one or the other, or else the choices simply don't seem to matter. This may sound funny since Undergrad Steve does use a few good forces to make you travel some paths, but forces should be used sparingly and have some element of story to drive them.

So my ultimate suggestion to the writer? Make me want to follow this path please. I love the gameplay, and I am very interested in the story, and I will continue to follow this VN for quite some time, but if you need me to follow a particular path, you need to make me follow it. Force the player to fight with a story, not by arbitrarily making them do it. Same with the women. I think we need a particular personality to get any headway of the women, but so far I seem far more irresistible than I am comfortable with.

Thank you for the great game Undergrad Steve, I hope to stick with you for quite some time!

This game is fun the college vibe is very good. Renders of the characters are nice so girls are beautiful. Story is engaging sometimes funny. Choices seems matters. I'm looking forward the next updates in the future.

It is a really high quality game. But...

The MC's look is the same as we've seen in hundreds of games. For some reason, the producers are reluctant to create a character look of their own and I don't understand that. The game is really good, but the fact that the main character's appearance is almost the same as other games changes my perspective on this game. I want to put the game in my favorites, but because of the factor I mentioned above, I couldn't take the game seriously. Remember, all the best games have one thing in common: a unique looking MC. I think the game does not aim for the best and the producers do not respect the game they make. For me, it's just a average school setting game right now.

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks that way. Or I am over-thinking, I don't know. I just want the game to be better because the game is good.

Updated review
for v.11.0.1, reducing the rating from 5* to 3*

The models are mostly pretty, the characters are basically lovely, but the recent updates, especially v11, have lower quality:

- Instead of correcting bugs, they add more.

- The protagonist is made pretty helpless, for instance:
(1) Two cute bisexual girls he loves start a lesbian session in his room. He doesn't even have a voyeur scene, not mentioning a threesome. Instead he goes to sleep.
(2) A schizo narcissist obsessed manipulator tries to ruin all his relationships. MC does nothing to counteract this.
(3) If you play not a monogamous person, there are no other options than having only 1 girl at a time and hide them from each other. For instance, no way to explain to Lauren that the more lovers the merrier; and if she discovers him with another girl then there is no other option than to mumble that he made a mistake.

- The game is ambitious with all those branches (though why would I want to join Apes instead of Wolves?), but it's hard to get the actual content without looking into the game code and cheating through the console. So it feels like there is not that much content, especially the juicy parts.

- There are just hidden parameters that prevent you from taking some routes, and you have no idea why and how.

Previous review text (5 stars):
v0.5.3
Not so much content yet to evaluate the story, but the writing is good; the renders are sharp and the girls are nice and cute.
Supporting characters help to create rich environment.
(Often though it's not so clear how the character traits affect the choices, and what exact numbers are there for particular parameters).
Anyways, this game rocks, and it seems to have great potential!
Keep up the good work, Steve, my man!

One of my favorite games on this website. Steve has done a great job with development so far. The characters are great with good personalities, the renders are really well done (some of the best I've seen) and the lewd scenes (although not many as of 0.5.3) are great. I'm super excited to see how this game progresses especially with it's unique KCT system. Good luck on future developments

Very Good Game. One of my Favourites. Good Graphics. Interesting Story. And the one thing I like the most is the MC becoming a fighter and a good one perhaps. This game is a good combo of action and romance. Best Action-Romance game ever. Most Recommended. Hope there will never be NTR in the future. Thank you. Keep it on.

review after v0.5.2

While this game starts very promising, it quickly becomes a bit messy. The game is about a guy starting college and it's pretty much what you expect from this type of games. Some friends, some enemies, lots of beautiful girls, and you basically choose what kind of person he is and who's girl he's after.

Pros
The girls are stunning!
Beautiful renders and the one sex scene was decent which means in the future they're gonna get better.
The writing is good with some humor and nice grammar

Cons
Some of the choices don't make any sense. It's like two completely opposite choices and there's no room for middle ground. It's like you're forced to pick a side even if you don't completely agree or disagree.
I find the whole consept of college guys settling their differences with violence too extreme. And it seems more extreme because there's never room for discussion. They act as if the whole idea of talking first is not "alpha male" attitude.
Very short updates for my taste. I think the dev needs to have a good talk with his patreons and ask them if they'd prefet frequent but short updates or taking his time to provide with a bigger update.

Overall, this game is a 3/5 but i gave 4 stars because i see the potential it has. It's never gonna be a 5stars game, but with some changes it can easily become a loved game by this community.