VN - Ren'Py - College Kings [Act 2 v6.3.15] [Undergrad Steve]

College Kings is a lighthearted but engaging story, very pleasant to play. It’s not overly heavy or dramatic, but it keeps you interested with its mix of highs and lows. The ending of Season 2 felt a bit rushed, but it was still great to see all the girls’ stories come to life.

There’s a lot of replayability thanks to the many characters and relationship paths, each with their own vibe. I also enjoyed how the game deals with “cheating”, since if you get involved with someone else, you’ll end up facing the consequences. It’s a small detail, but it adds tension and makes your choices feel more impactful.

UndergroundSteve did a solid job, and you can clearly see the improvements chapter after chapter. Even if some characters might not seem super deep at first, they fit the setting perfectly, and over time you end up getting attached to them, even to Imre or Faris.

I honestly can’t wait for Season 3, this game has been fun, unique, and memorable.

Feels like there are so many holes in the rudder of this story, which is locked in place, circling the slice of life drain.

There are choices, which block options due to the 3-types of "personality", but this is basically a harem or pseudo-girlfriend-the-system-can't-see-harem. Or something?

Pros:

• Story feels long, or slower, which is both good and bad, but mostly good.
• Characters do feel unique enough and some have their own vibe and voice. e.g. Lindsey is essentially Chloe with a twist. Riley, Penelope, Lauren all feel different. Nora and Samantha feel generic, Aubrey has her modelling, etc.

Neutral/Mixed:

• Despite the intimacy animations being small and simple, the characters do seem to be changing a bit as it goes along. The sex isn't all samey as well, or at least, feels like it's different. But still pretty much no development with it.

Chloe the horndog is...crazy for sex. Could be a leader...has a kinky side...and that's about it.
Lindsey the horndog is...crazy for sex. Could be a leader...has a super kinky side...and doesn't have a mother.
Riley the horndog is...crazy for sex, but in a polyamory way. She also likes journalism.

And there's the issue: the backgrounds of the characters are there, but not developed enough. Why? This is what we need more of. Not random slice of life everyday small talk, flirting, and silly walkabout events. Some characters get big moment in the plot, then poof. Viva la slice of life.

Cons:
Bloated, but in a slow, not too terribly disgusting way.

(Recently in the story)

• One of the main, serious sounding choices, was actually a non-choice. Meaning, the MC is forced to destroy his buddies drugs no matter what you choose.
• "All the drugs in the city" fit into a floorboard in his apartment. Which is either worth several thousand dollars or multiple millions.
• MC can "save" some of the drugs, and instead of keeping one packet worth $1m or so, he immediately snorts what's on his fingers, even if you never choose to have drugs throughout the story. What.
• Buddy calls him next day on how relieved his drugs are gone. What.
• This causes dirt on Meinken (?) to appear and he exits the story. Because of some criminal charge of confinement? Background checks are done for anyone applying for a job, so this shouldn't be a big deal. So did he get this expunged from his record, and that was done illegally?
• Mr. Rose, dude who told MC to destroy drugs, now becomes the antagonist, because he owns everything. Literally referred to as Lex Luthor.
• Immediately a huge fight competition starts, now that anti-fighting guy Meinken (?) is gone, and Mr. Rose is funding/organizing? Was this needed?
• Immediately visits MC for him to throw a fight, because illegal betting. Conflict! He owes Mr. Rose for some reason? Didn't that get taken care of with his drug dealing buddy?
• Nora gets angry at this, as Mr. Rose is her dad, and they fight at the venue, and she finds out he's a big evil criminal, like...we're just having a family discussion on what supplier of bread we've been eating for years. What.
• Mr. Rose is in the venue, immediately talking to all the fighters to throw their fight. Publicly. Like he's selling hot dogs at a kiosk or something.
  • (Wait a second, don't we have a Ms. Rose character? Completely unrelated? Did I miss something? Can't the writer simply use different names?)
  • On that note, Ms. Rose seems to be getting side-lined, and locked out of scenes due to the 3-personality system.
• Nearly all the ladies want to jump MC's bones, who apparently have abs and muscles everywhere and fighting gets them going, but the MC literally has the physique of a 14 year old boy while he fights muscle heads and wins. Apparently, also, multiple sexual partners in-between matches can't slow our MC down. Choices matter?

And, using the story builder, one can assign multiple girlfriends, and they don't seem to care? What.

• In multiple scenes, Nora and Chloe will kiss you one after the other and not know about each other. And, you can later ask for Lindsey or Samantha to be your girlfriend. Meaning...girlfriend choices have no conflict, or the system doesn't even care. Which means there is 1) the actual open relationship/man-whore route is now moot or at least redundant, and 2) a multiple girlfriend route with Riley saying "don't you have a girlfriend?", while she and others have sex with you anyway.

It feels like this is planned out, but for many wrong or poorly constructed reasons, and other things completely neglected.

As if there are multiple chefs in a vegan kitchen, who are all trying to do their own thing, and in some cases well...but ultimately with no meat and substance. The characters who had arcs and special moments (e.g. Aubrey, Chloe) are just...along for the ride. Life goes on? (Lindsay does seem to have issues with the/her past.)

And have fun with multiple walkabout scenes (worst so far is the boat party) trying to figure out where to go, or where faded-white-passage buttons are. Edge of the screen? Bottom? Top? Silhouettes?

No new music. Sometimes, no music at all.

And the worst: the phone app, or at least the chat feature, is borked. Frozen. And almost every other transition in the game involves a message where the user has to reply to a friend in the phone app, that you're coming to their place. Sometimes in a dialogue choice, which has to then be repeated in the phone app...? It takes 30 seconds to 2 minutes for anything to continue, with your PC saying "This application isn't responding." The heck is going on?

I loved the story and especially the female characters. In my opinion, it lacked an Asian character to represent it. But overall, the game is quite fun.
It would also be fun to add twin sisters.
I'm following the new updates and would love to see how the saga unfolds.

Luv this game. Thx for sharing!!!

I Just Love This game I don't why people compare it with that shall not be named both are perfect and well shaped products with their own very unique perspective and characteristics, I still remember when I started play AVN and this type of product College King was the first Team Chloe all the way can't wait for CK3

A classic that has fallen hard since its heyday. But is it really that bad? Also, this is my second AVN.

Pros:

1) A very good cast of LIs. Most people will find someone fitting their tastes here, and picking a LI at the start is really difficult.
2) Specific girl: Nora. This goddess has managed an extremely unlikely feat of beating both of my first season favourites (Chloe and Lauren), and now rules supreme as my favourite AVN girl of all time. I'm genuinely happy spending time with her.
3) A lot of different guys too, making the setting feel alive.
4) Good variability, including the option to pick a frat.
5) The humour can be pretty good at times.

Cons:

1) Bugs, including the infamous non-working save transfer. The game also doesn't run as smoothly as most other RenPy games.
2) The visuals are a bit dated early on and only mid in the later chapters.
3) The MC's model doesn't fit an amateur MMA fighter.
4) The devs pay too much attention to fans when writing characters, giving most of the screentime to the popular ones and basically abandoning the unpopular ones. While it's commendable, it's detrimental for the story when once prominent characters disappear while underdogs overtake the story.

Still, I give this game 4 stars for the characters. While unable to keep up with some of the newer hits, it's still good and worth trying.

Here's the rub (lol)
The game has its moments and it has its failings a lot of which seem to be while it was chasing another game. It had a decent first season and rough start to the second but its picked back up. Anyone claiming this the "worst ________ ever" are being overly dramatic. There are lows at certain parts, but they aren't the game crashing and burning, its just some updates were kinda boring. However some updates are also amazing.

The girls will also win you over depending on your taste and path (I'd kill for a Riley/Chloe throuple). While the sex scenes were a bit vanilla from the start they have gotten better and the animations have greatly improved. Its not the best, but pretending its boring is also a bit much.

Like I said the story has its highs and lows, and there is no harem so there are various paths to explore and it seems like the dev has finally started finding his footing again. Just as a caution the trip abroad is more boring than it should be but its not bad. The pool party is much the same.

All in all giving it a go is a good idea. There's a reason people keep coming back to it.

Also Riley is best girl.

First episode makes this seem like your typical generic AVN with no real purpose, but as the story progresses it really becomes something amazing and unique.

Story is great, it's quite grounded but has lots of fun plot twists that really keep you hooked. You have to do multiple playthroughs if you want to see everything and experience all girl paths. (I was sad there was no harem path but the game isn't about that so not punishing it for that). The game being quite different depending on the major choice you make at the beginning is great and increases replay ability.

Let's move onto the characters, well simply put they are amazing. Not only are all the girls incredibly hot and sexy but they also got more to them just good looks, they got their own problems and their own side stories which really makes this college feel alive. Even the side characters are amazing and you grow to care for them.

Music is ok, it was lacking in some parts and there were big gaps of silence which I didn't like. But when the music was playing it was enjoyable and fit the scenes well.

My biggest complaint is about the sex scenes. In first act they aren't that great, not the best quality and quite repetitive. In act 2 the quality is very good but they are still quite repetitive and very short which I didn't enjoy.

My other major complaint is about the fighting. It being a crucial part of the story you'd expect it to be refined and fun. But in the end it's very dull and not well executed. Making the fighting more engaging would be a big improvement.

Overall College Kings is a great game with a fun and exciting story without anything too over the top, amazing characters but lack-lustre sex scenes. 100% worth playing.

This AVN could be one of the best but it's a mess... and all of that is caused by trying to make it realistic an AVN cannot be too realistic because it becomes boring and tedious
But at the same time, ironically there are some parts that throw realism out the window... For example, when Aubrey and Chloe gets upset because you date both but days before Chloe declared to everyone that she was the MC's girlfriend and now Aubrey is surprised?
Or when Nora is upset when she discovers that she is not the only one but from the beginning she always knew. When the MC finds her she tells him that she knows that there are more people involved but that she still wants him, even the game demands to have the confident personality to convince her or as on many occasions the story implies that all the girls knows what the MC does, they talk to each other about the MC ooohhh but they don't know that he slept with everyone, seriously? What realism does that have? It would have been more real if the girls pretended not to know to compete for the MC without him knowing... That's only a few examples
But the worst of all, this AVN you have to play it with walkthrought in hand and do different playthroughts... Any AVN that forces you to play it with walkthroughts is rubbish and with this AVN you must forcefully play it with walkthrought or you miss many paths... Not to mention how tedious replayability is, in fact such a long AVN shouldn't even have replayability you should be able to see most of the scenes in a single playthrought
Too bad because I was really enjoying the game but it's poorly done

VERSION:Act2 v.6.0.4
SUMMARY: Not bad, but not great, many out there like it and better.
RATINGS: (out of 5):

1. Models: 4
2. Animations: 4
3. General Visuals: 4
4. Characters: 2
5. Story: 2
6. Writing: 3
7. UI & Gameplay: 3
8. Content (amount): 3
9. Sound & Music: 4
10. Fetish & kinks: 3

Average: X of 50 possible points giving a X% rating i.e. X stars.

PROS:

1. Nice looking models, at least with regards to the LIs
2. General visuals are good
3. Animations are rather good and seamless, smooth transitions.
4. Sexual scenes are often
5. Several choices so there is replay value to try other things, but best to just go with the walkthrough that gives you most scenes.

CONS:

1. Biggest gripe is child looking MC, most guys, myself included looked at least older than 12 when we finished school. This MC is simply a child and I can't stand his look. That look works fine in something like a mother son incest kind of game, because he looks like he still suckles...FML.
2. Sexual scenes are all good and well but they are pretty vanilla and boring, I mean cum shots are rare, creampie shots are...are they in the game? Just a bit dull
3. Story is fairly straight forward and boring at this point, done before countless time and honestly its not really "fun" there are other games that have a lot more funny shit going on that is pretty much a requirement for college setting games as its a fun time for young people.

FINAL THOUGHTS & SUGGESTIONS:

• Overall the LIs look really nice, animations and general visuals are good, but the game is pretty boring and dull with a babyface MC that attracts woman like no mans business escapes all logic. There is nothing attractive about him and his "confidence" is forced and hardly enough to cause him to become the local Don Juan, its all setup just too conveniently for this little MC and in all honesty, while the game has some pros, there are better options out there IMO

Overall enjoyed the games.

TL;DR
loads of content, some pretty girls, some pretty hot interactions but all very vanilla

Some minor spoilers ahead.

What I did like
some of the girls are really pretty and also memorable. My favorites looks wise are probably Nora, Chloe and Aubrey, in no particular order. After getting to know them a bit better, not picking Nora or Aubrey as girlfriend actually hit me in the feels just a little bit.
Despite the college setting many of the cliches and tropes apply but not all of them, making it a tad less formulaic.
There is a lot of content. I am at it for days now and still not at the end of the current content. As there are two main fractions and content is to some extent determined by the fraction you belong to, replay is probably factored in by the dev. However, as they are so long I'm not sure I can make myself do it.
I actually liked the mini games like the murder mystery, the campaign planning and some more.

What I did not like
The fighting - but there is an autowin button
The timed challenges are a bit pointless because of the roll back function but whatever.
The 3 relationship states - friend, fwb, girlfriend - sometimes change inexplicably. Chloe loses her fwb due to a random thought that pops in MC's head and we never get her back to intimacy until much later in the game. Similarly for Aubrey. For Nora it is on the other hand quite convincing. After she throws herself at MC and you reject she goes back to being friends only, makes sense. I don't dislike the status changes themselves, just the inconsistency.
I am not sure how to handle the personality traits and the categories that determine them, i.e. bro, boyfriend and troublemaker. At one point I was desperately trying to get troublemaker points to keep the personality as it was (some kind of party where I wanted to talk with Nora, quite at the beginning). However despite going back to 2 saves before and playing half a day and all the party there was no way to change the outcome because the points were coupled. Each action would always give, I think, troublemaker and bro combined. That made it impossible to get the right alignment.
Also, as much as I understand the need to de-clutter the interface, the points should be visible without the phone because managing them is crucial to pursue certain paths.
The use of the phone was annoying to me. I lost count how many times I clicked beside the phone and had to go back to the message app to continue a conversation.

Neither
There seems to be no direction or narrative. Things just happen. There are events (field trip, election, pool part etc.) like milestones in a project plan but no overall story.
There are animations and I suppose they are functional. Some parts of it like facial expressions were quite nice, motions in general not that much.
I did not use the path builder feature yet, perhaps I'll play around with it. That said, keeping track of your various relationships and points is tedious, especially when the ladies change their mind on a whim. I also don't quite understand how a girl with fwb status changes to friend only just because I don't ask her to become my girlfriend. No input from her side is required and she should not be aware of my decision. Still, from that moment on she refuses to put out. Does not apply to Nora as she is asking directly to become more than friends at one point and we have the choice to accept or refuse. In this case the consequence is logical, i.e. downgrade to friend.

I'm sorry but this game is horrible.

- Story's pacing has to be the worst I've ever seen in my life; you cannot connect with anyone in my opinion and I could not care less who xyz was due to it. Theres not really any college here it might as well be called Frat Wars.

- Writing is also pretty bad, I'm not perfectionist in grammar/etc but hallmark movies do a better job than this.

Its just trying wayyy to hard to be this deep consequence thing and its not.

The history is generic and the characters are a hassle and you can't overlook that because the animations and images are boring, it's so ugly to watch, you cant even feel like the characters are touching each other. The story move at a good pace, not to fast and not to slow, no grind and you can even skip the fights. But for me the most important thing is the art and the animations son i can't like this.

Overall what you would expect for a college type game by hooking-up with coeds. Overall the artistic quality was good and the girls Hot. Also, the story moves at a relatively good pace without a lot of grind. Nice functionality to where you can automatically review intimate scenes. With that being said, the intimacy was not very imaginative .

Really nice and ejoyable game with a lot of different paths, decisions and girls to play with. The gameplay is exiting with interesting conversation and minigame. It's a game for every player who wants to try NSFW game.
Some graphics are a bit odd, but in general is good.

By far and away the best ever Renpy VN game made and I have played nearly 200 of the buggers.

Regardless of what people say about part 2, it IS even better than part1 and part 1 was outstanding. This game is very well written, outstanding renders, great animation, lots of choices and paths, brilliant UI and very well polished. Just a outstanding piece of work.

If you were to make a blueprint of how to make a proper VN game this would be it.

More like a slightly higher than 4* game, will round up a bit since I see its currently at 3.5

Slice of life game, there is not some overarching plot. Writing is overall decent for a VN, not a lot of spelling mistakes. Most characters have a unique-ish voice. Some of the characters are poorly written, but most of the main ones are decently done. Some of the character development doesn't make a lot of sense though, particularly in some of the more recent episodes.

Graphics and some aspects of gameplay are a bit dated. The text messaging feature is overused, and occasionally you have to save and reload it in order to progress because it otherwise gets stuck.

There is a ton of content. You would be hard pressed to find many VNs with more content, and most of this is in the B to B+ range for quality.

This game is a buggy mess especially College Kings 2. Its a DAZ college clone game done worse. I gave it two tries but I can't give it anymore of my time.

College Kings 2 was slow as can be, skip function would not work. Without or with using dukes mod it crashed.

CK2 import ignored CK1 events. Why bother playing CK1 if it won't import right into ck2?

Worse is to play every path i feel like I'd ahve to commit way too much time. The path builder is ok but it needs to be more advanced to be useful.

Some characters aren't bad but Ryan and Imre need to go away. Mr Lee is kind of a secret badass.

This game was great, It has great models, and pretty good renders overall, but the game has more recently been plagued with inconsistent writing and variables, You may make a choice and later on in the story a character acts like you never did this, things like this bring the quality of the game down some, but it is a great setting, with great girls and romance, and with more consistent writing could be something really great

It's as if the game purposely tries to screw you up whenever it can. Everything is hidden under layers and layers of cover that one single wrong choice a decade ago in the game impacts important events.

I think it was pretty good in the beginning, but then quickly falls apart in Act 2. Feels like the writer changed in between acts. Some characters just act out of character and become annoying. It's a porn game, so you're obviously going to be having sex with as many girls as possible on the first run. But this will only punish you heavily later on. Why?

I can understand that maybe the dev didn't intend on this game having a harem tag and they only want you to pursue 1 or 2 girls. That's fine. But if the game is designed for repeat playthroughs, then why do you have those god awful Cell Phone segments where you have to pause, slowly check the text messages, and then scroll through text on the phone clicking one by one. This makes any subsequent run extremely tedious and boring since you can usually just skip through all the text in other Renpy games. It also lags quite a bit on these phone sections for some reason, and I have an extremely beefy computer that can run all of the latest AAA video games on Steam with max settings. There's no excuse for the cell phone segments being this unoptimized and laggy.

I was kind of an idiot and picked Apes instead of Wolves. Later on, I realized that this was an awful choice. Samantha barely has any scenes and I think she was effectively written out of the story tbh. And the dev is adding way more scenes for the teacher which is only exclusive to the Wolves path. Seems like another poor design. If you're going to play favorites, you shouldn't have made them exclusive.

You can probably get by a lot of these issues by just installing multi-mod and setting all the relationships to Girlfriend to get all the sex scenes, but this might create bugs and Renpy might throw a lot of python exception errors on your screen. I am not faulting the dev for this, because these errors may have been due to the mods.

Overall, it had a lot of promise in the beginning, and I would probably rate the first Act as a 9/10. But then the game just becomes really bad later on. I don't know if I will come back to it. The renders are obviously very good, and the sex scenes are passable enough. 3 out of 5 stars is fair.