Ren'Py - Abandoned - Desert Adventure [v0.3.0 - remastered] [Grumpy Eagle]

This review is for v0.3.0 of the game.

Hmm... another Beta Male fantasy game. The MC is such a beta and so inept at being dominant that he is a literal doormat for every other male and female around him. Even homeless street beggars are more dominant than he is. Somehow he is thrust into the situation where he inherits his missing uncle's property and debts and must become a slaver. The only slave he can purchase however is more dominant that he is and he is completely incompetent at being able to tame her in any way. So in typical beta fashion, he gives her a private room and showers her with gifts to try and somehow win her favor enough to get her to do things for him. Meanwhile she is stealing money from him and getting him into more trouble because of her actions and overall lack of respect for him. Only proving how weak and inept he really is at being a dominant male. There are even hints that his slave is secretly fantasizing about being dominated by other strong men, but the MC clearly is not yet that man or currently capable of being that man.

For me this entire plot and premise is frustrating and almost maddening to play through. I literally feel like I want to personally slap the living shit out of the MC for being so inept and weak.

Towards the end of this update I almost hoped that 'Yes, let his slave be brutally raped into submission because it is clear the MC is too weak to ever be able to tame her' but of course he manages to escape and prolong the agony of the current plot line. (Escaping while leaving the only female to possibly be submissive to him to her fate while he runs off - again too inept and weak to act.) I don't know if the future will see our MC actually grow a pair of balls and be able to be more of a man or not. But so far, its just agonizing to try and play and watch.

Pros:

1. Great graphics and overall render quality
2. Game seems relatively free of bugs
3. Story is somewhat engaging in the different quests and tasks and overall environment.

Cons:

1. Lack of main character progression. Will he ever grow a pair or remain a proverbial eunuch? Slave to the sultan and every other person around him?
2. Lack of sex or sex scenes.
3. Lack of clear directions on some quests. You don't always know where to go or what to do. If you miss seeing a dialogue you may get stuck. A simple description, map quest markers or next-steps in the quest log would do wonders here.

Absolutely brilliant stuff. Top notch game right here.

I mean, I've played several trainer games before, but this is the only game that I continued playing till the very end. And all in one sitting mind you. The story and characters are just that good. The quest system is really nice, and gives you the feeling of being in control. The game mechanics are well done. The characters have an assortment of expressions which suit every mood in perfect sync. The humor is off the charts lol. What more is there to say, just give it a try. You won't regret it.

Wow! Didn't expect so much fun. The game is awesome. By the feeling of it strongly reminded me of one game that I can't mention according to review rules... There were a princess, and sand, and a genie... And I suspect author also had that game in mind as a source of inspiration. Though it's 3D, not drawn, but it gave me almost the same vibe.

Pros:
- It has a decent story and writing presented to you through a well developed quest system. It's not like 99% of other slave trainers, where you're just presented with some slaves and you stipidly grind their stats 'enjoying' from time to time some random hentai images stolen from different sorces.
- Though it's a sandbox, there's just enough amount of grind. You just need to earn money, but that's rather easy.
- There are also mini-games. Quite a number of them. You can always skip them if you want, but it adds some fun.

Cons:
- Probably the only downside for me was the model choice. The main slave - Sadira, she's wonderful, but all the other projected slaves... they are just "meh". And I don't get this. Because author has PERFECT models in the game! All the prostitutes in the brothel are very hot! As well as some random women that you encounter sometimes. I would 100% change my planned slaves to those whores and random girls! Why author decided to stick to those rather mediocre in my opinion models as the main characters?? Till there is not so much content with them I strongly recommend to switch the models. That would make the game just perfect.

tl;dr: strongly recommend to try

To be fair this game have good renders , that is it , there is is nothing else to enjoy . boring grindy game play ,annoying girls,dumb mc,a story that dont make sense , instead of making a serious slave trainer feel to it you get a bed time story, the mc know already the 2 main slaves from childhood, one of them was like best friend and now he will train them , what kind of bullshit is that?this game dont take itself seriously as slave (trader)trainer and it is hard to enjoy.

This is a fantastic game. It is a fiction mixed world include ancient persian and egypt things. Story about trade and train of slaves so in this setting is something fresh for me. Sandbox is okay but you must think what you do because money important in this game so most earn quickly. If you don't like daily sandbox things like go to work go to home go sleep etc then this game is not for you. Characters are good they create funny and authentic dialogues so writing is very entertaining. Theres smooth animations in the game so overall very promising.

Renders: 8.5/10
Animation: 8/10
Scenes: 6/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Story: 6.5/10
Writing: 5/10
Music: 7/10
Overall rating: 6.5/10

A pretty ambitious project with great visual experience and decent gameplay. However the dialogue writing is mediocre at best, clearly amateur and does not shape characters and story well. I do not enjoy reading those texts with quantity lacking quality. Scenes need some improvement in cinematics too.

I enjoyed playing this game pretty much so far. It was the first release, so this review is more of a placeholder, but will be updated when more content is in here. The gametime is for the first release pretty long.

Pros:
The story is interesting. Immersion, concept and progress are great and the little cliffhanger of this update makes me wanna play more.
We can read in the dev note, that the game is planned to have a grind, but dont wants to overgrind. With the first part this goal is achieved. The grind is balanced so far. I never felt tired of clicking the "go to work" button a few times in a week to buy the stuff i wanted/needed.
The characters are interesting: The girls, the other slavers. Im looking forward to see how the story progresses.

Neutral:
I am not able to say something about the romance scenes, because there are not that many yet. The few I saw had potential, but it should not your main reason to play this game (but the dev note says that the romances need to evolve, so that's another achieved goal there).
Minigames are okayish. I dont know if i would miss them, but neither they are a problem in my eyes.

Cons:
I felt lost one or two times where i didnt exactly know what to do next. The game has something like a questlog, but it only helps you to know "that" you are missing something, not where you should look after it. Maybe some kind of hint system would be neat where to find something.

The things I dont know:
We cant say much about the pace or the quality of future updates. What we have so far is very promising and im willing to buy a ticket for the hypetrain. I give 5 stars not because its the best game on this platform, but deserves more attention and hype. Give it a try! I dont think you will regret it (if you dont play just for a quick wank)

Edit: Some things in this review got already changed, the dev is really quick in responding to the community. I will update the review after the next content update.

Over all I give this one four stars. It is an excellent VN/game. I enjoy the renders, the concept is really good. The only thing I dislike is the mini games. I will keep enjoying this one. Just a few fixes that need addressing. Fix the mini games, or remove them, and address the patreon perks problem. Why have that in the beginning if you can't use it? I restarted about 5 times to see if it would allow me to use the extras, but it never happened.

After posting this review the dev contacted me with plans to address the issues. I'm giving this a rating of 5 stars because the dev is creating a great experience for this community. Quick to address issues is something I haven't really seen from to many devs here. Keep up the good work.