This is on version 0.4.3.3.
Of all things, Degrees of Lewdity reminds me of AdventureQuest.
For those unfamiliar, AdventureQuest is a 2002 flash game loved then for its freeform engagement and multitude of questlines. In present times, AdventureQuest is known more for its inconsistent design choices, lack of player interaction, and massive number of bugs.
I believe you can see where I'm going with this.
Let's begin on the last part, because that's always a negative. Degrees of Lewdity is very buggy, regularly forgetting the actions of the player and triggering events that should be impossible in the current circumstances.
Most commonly this is seen within the clothing and sex system, where the way your clothing is removed or shifted is often illogical. The prime example I have of this is when my character's bra was removed, revealing their...jeans. What's funny about it is the left panel had it right, stating that my breasts were now exposed, but the text for the ongoing interaction simply could not figure it out and for the remainder of the scene no action taken made any sense.
During sex, penetration sometimes happens through clothing. Your pants can still be on fully (there are stages to removing garments), yet direct contact is still often stated to have happened.
Clothing is prone to changing colors at random and duplicating in your wardrobe. I owned one pair of white panties one night and the next morning I had three pairs of black. I had four copies of the starting sundress at one point.
Something is broken there.
Shaking the paw of a dog out on a walk takes your "handholding virginity", but eating a woman out doesn't touch your "oral virginity".
The tutorial encounter states specifically that screaming for help will end the encounter for the tutorial. This isn't exactly true, the encounter always went on for 1-2 more turns afterwards, sometimes allowing the attacker to do something henious and starting me out with significant debuffs. This wasn't an issue in a previous version of the game I played a while ago, wherein the tutorial encounter was always ended immediately.
Sometimes the amount of money promised and given for tasks does not match with no commentary on why or any acknowledgment of it. For instance, when picking weeds on Danube Street you're promised $120, then paid $100 despite it stating that the employer was satisifed.
I want to make a special mention of the option to show exact percentages on chance-based actions as well, because it doesn't work. Some places it does, but at an estimate, it does not for around 85% of actions in the game.
In terms of the inconsistent design, let's talk skulduggery. Skulduggery as a stat generally determines your ability to perform dishonest actions. This includes crimes, lying, cheating on exams, etc. Yet, while skulduggery allows you to talk your way out of chemical manufacturing plants, crack safes, and even convince a doctor to drink their own poison, you know what it can't do? Allow you to steal your identification papers from the orphanage head so you can live freely. Nevermind the fact that withholding them is a crime, because Degrees of Lewdity operates on a whole different reality of what is allowed by anyone but the player.
Of course, if you want to work in the strip club, you need identification, so there's this whole quest to get a fake ID for it. But of course you can't just use that fake ID to rent an apartment or anything. That'd be ridiculous.
Speaking of crimes, the police have the omniscient ability to know at all times when a crime is committed - by you at least. Doesn't matter if there are no witnesses, doesn't matter if there is no trace, they know. Of course, the daily sexual assault you undergo is either not a crime or their all-seeing eye doesn't apply there.
You have social stats for the general opinions your teachers and student peers have of you. I'm not entirely sure what these are supposed to do, because for me they did almost nothing. I would assume that teachers considering me an "ideal student" would result in them siding with me in events. This didn't happen, and they would regularly assign me detention when I did not allow myself to be raped every class. Getting detention then lowers their opinion, so they shortly hated me. The stat for student opinions didn't seem to have much of an effect either, as I would assume that results in students having lower chances to assault you, or other students stepping in when you were assaulted. Neither of these were the case, and every day multiple students would continue to sexually assault me, despite the social menu stating the student body loved me. All I actually saw was the occasional flavortext that I was greeted in the hallway. From my experience, these stats either really do nothing or are largely nonfunctional.
There are actually a lot more examples I have in mind, but as this would be insufferably long if I went on, let me put it this way: Almost every ounce of content in the game is half-thought out, disjointed, and does not mesh together in any way. Everything is completely separate and nothing plays together.
Going back to my initial point, what about player interaction? Well, Degrees of Lewdity is all about getting raped. Yea, that's it. Sometimes by people on the bus, sometimes by the doctor, sometimes by the school principal, sometimes by a dog, sometimes by a spider, but it's all about the rape. To be fair to the game, it is
initially upfront about this, stating when you open it that it is a game where you'll never be in the dominant position. Of course, that's actually a a bold-faced lie, you're
sometimes, inconsistently, in the dominant position. Pass a girl in her locker at school? Feel free to forcefully grope her. Literally anything with Sydney? Time to act like the randomly generated NPC who just raped you three screens ago. Want to have sex with the character you're in a relationship with? Not that one actually, you can't do that. Yes, I'm serious, you cannot initiate sexual encounters with your own lover. If you want to have sex with them, you're going to wait till the RNG hits you with it. Don't worry, there are guides for triggering it on the wiki. Yes, I'm still serious. Oh, you can do NPC's homework for them and sort of act like you're about to assault them. That part is very weird and poorly written though, and you also can't actually do it, you just finish the homework and get paid $5.
This game
desperately needs proactive player content because without it the player is stuck unable to directly engage with the game outside getting raped. Even something as simple as being able to pass a skulduggery check to pick the lock on Robin's door while they sleep, then molesting them.
So what about the content that
is in the game? It's about 5 hours worth - stretched to 40 by several significant grinds and RNG. I would say about the first 10 hours of gameplay left me unable to do anything because I was stat locked. Every single one of the player's stats start as low as possible (with the exception of grades, which start at 'D' rather than 'F', at which point they have neither positive nor negative effects), and raising them is a lengthy chore.
Once you finally get to the content, it's a very limited amount. Sexual interactions are essentially generic text, where the player's ability to get off is dependant almost wholly on their ability to emotionally invest in the idea of the scenario, and not in any way what the content of the game provides. Now, for the dynamic sex system that is completely fine, good even (provided the bugs with clothing are addressed), but for static text it's very poor. Static text needs to be able to
set the scene.
Let's take, for instance,
Part of the issue with the content and associated grind is it isn't intended to be completable. The developer seems to view this game as a roguelite of sorts, intending you to complete a few objectives and restart with some NG+ bonuses those objectives unlocked. There are a lot of issues with the system, but let's start with this: The objectives and your ability to start with bonuses only relate to your most recently saved game. If you are keeping saves for certain events or just scenes to re-view (you know, as if it were a porn game), or are running multiple characters, the system will not work. Of course, the mere idea that in a game with a 35 hour grind players are intended to restart regularly is absurd, but here we are.
I have a lot of things I can say about Degrees of Lewdity that I cannot possibly fit in here. What I do like is the idea of an open sandbox where you can define yourself, meet characters, and take action. But Degrees of Lewdity really is not that kind of game. It's a buggy mess of inconsistent mechanics and contrived scenarios, where the player is not capable of deciding on a path due to a devotion against agency and any real variation in content. It is not a sandbox nor an RPG, leaving you with no roleplaying potential.
Degrees of Lewdity in its current state is honestly no more than a proof of concept at best. It's a bold claim, but I honestly believe it needs a complete overhaul and has a desperate need for design documentation.
Play if you're looking only for a temporary immersion into submission, and wanting for nothing else from the title.
