Ren'Py - Abandoned - Despot Desires [v3.8] [The Armory Sword]

It's a good 2D game, it's nice and easy to handle.
The gameplay is simple but nice. The story is correct.
The graphics are of good quality on the characters.
I invite you to test it by yourself.
To make you an idea.

excellent game, the pictures are nice and the story too (special mention to the nun) but it would be necessary to update the tags because some of them are not included. Now more case wait for the next update and maybe some tags will be used.

Considering I had hopes for this game and I've been sorely mistaken, I felt compelled to leave a review.

Despot Desires is a game that had an interesting premisce and an introduction that left us wanting for more.
Why am i rating it 1 star out of 5 if my first words about the game are this positive ?

It's because after years and years of developpment, the game still feels like an introduction...

This game :

• Has been plagued by bugs and errors from the start,
• Went through a complete overhaul that took an enormous amount of time but did practically nothing,
• Is barren content wise and tries to make you think that grinding the same events over and over with the slightest of changes is good gameplay,
• Has a pretty terrible UI considering the amount of time and effort that apparently were attributed to it,
• Lacks momentum and a coherent story if you take into account the story centered approach taken by the developper.
• And worst of all, the dev made the "interesting" choice to remove what little sexy content there was at the launch of the game and replaced the lost gameplay with braindead minigames... No joke.

This project went from promising to underwhelming and undesirable which, to me, is pretty sad and upsetting.
I'm keeping this review as polite, objective and respectful as possible considering I shouldn't even have the right to critic the game in the first place as I am a non patreon.

But let me say this, to you that are patreons and reading this review, i have a simple question :

Are you ok with supporting a developper that is either :

• A) A scammer that puts minimum effort into his project to collect as much money as possible.
• B) A fool that promised the moon without even having the most basic skills that are required in game developpement such as good coding and a clear vision.
• Or C) All of the above ?

I'm sorry for the harsh words but I deemed them necessary for this particular situation even though I would have much preferred to leave a good review.

I last played this on v1.7 and it had some promise but going back to this on 3.5 this actually has less content somehow I'm not sure if its because one route has less content than the others but if you have one route that actually has scenes and one that has none its no wonder some people think the game has no content.

Using a renpy unpacker i find out the game does actually have scenes but either im on the wrong route or i have no idea how to find them.

Either way for a game with almost 2 years of dev time this is terrible either way.

This games development history might as well be printed onto a "Patreon Scamming for Dummies" Book. I'm not used to downright shi**ing on a developer, but let me just say this.....Indian Scammers dream of him and lazy Kickstarters want to be him.

For the unsuspecting people that don't know:
Game has been in development since 2019 and is NOT (and I repeat NOT) in a playable state. It has many bugs that can lock you out of progession and the "progession" that can be made is minimal.

Conclusion: Don't throw your hopes into this dark abyss of disappointments.

Alright, holy fuck, this is the first game that I just need to trash on. I remember when this game was first released before it even hit version 1. Yeah... fuck.

So, fun fact, this game used to actually have a sex scene. You could choose to leave the demon queen alone or rape her. It was clear he was trying to build a love and slave route. Turns out he couldn't figure an if-then statement or branching dialogue and the slave route was scrapped.

The dev for this game doesn't know how to code. The game was unstable for I don't know how fucking long.

Alright, let's talk about effort and labor. So he removed scenes. Then instead of developing the game, he adds stupid fucking minigames that no one fucking wants, and the only lewd art is now in the puzzles.

I'm honestly really fucking disappointed in the development of this game. To the Dev of this game: if by some miracle you pull this around, I will change my review. But holy shit, it's a miracle that you still have patrons. If you were able to pull your head out of your ass, you'd be making wayyy more money. Seriously. Your game had enough attention when it was first released to blow up. Oh well.

Had potential, but after 2 years the game hasn't made any progress. in fact from what i remember it has actually gotten a lot worse.

It's not clear how to get anywhere, a bunch of stuff that's visibly in game doesn't seem to actually be working and there's basically no content.

Wouldn't recommend playing this game atleast untill a final version comes out (which at this pace will never happen). it's a waste of time right now.

The game was originally about taming the female demon lord.
There was an asshole/rape options, and a clearly planned revenge/corruption ark against all other waifus. Hence the name.

To sum up what happened next - the original was gutted for mah moral reasons, and then its skeen was slowly filled with buggy shit and uninspired attempts at rom-com, while the author tells his pathreons that slow speeds for 1.5 year are due to COVID.
I belive right now, the game still has less content compared to what it use to have prior the cuts.

game starting setting is a copy past from "Reizoku Maou " but vanilla was added, which i thought was nice but since the first release, the game got less and less interesting, because the content was cut, but the bugs stayed, then some content was added above a flawed base and from there, bugs started getting more upload till the current v2.72 bug version where there is far more bug than content a nice (copyed) idea that have gone to shit

Its literally a scam they dont add content they cut content and put a higher number on it. To be sure its a china like scam watch the developer site BIG WORDS WITH MANY EMPTY PROMISES!!!
Its pathetic you can download the pictures on other sites and wonder how many they cut off wth?

I gave this game several chances to improve, but the simply fact is, it's bad. It's buggy, clunky, and the story is both dumb and has really, REALLY terrible English. And this isn't the terrible English of someone who only speaks it as a second language, it's the terrible English of someone who flunked out of high school and simply does not give a shit. And it's been in development for YEARS without going anywhere- in fact, in some places development has gone BACKWARDS. Even if the art is reasonably decent and the Overlord is a passable bit of sexy demon ass, this is just a waste of time.

Still only a milking cow ! dont try it, not worth your time for the next 321 updates....

as mentinoed theree is nealy any contet and it doesnt change for years now, although the words of the developer are sooooo nice and shiny well you must give him yoour money realy!!.....

Horrible garbage. The only term to describe this clusterfuck of a "game". They stripped an entire route from it and didn't even bother creating more content for the remaining route. This game updates backwards because every new version comes with removed content and more bugs...how? HOW?!?!

Pros:
- Art

Cons:
- Removed overlord asshole route
- Game breaking bugs
- Empty sandbox and very linear
- Content getting stripped instead of added

I've followed the first release of this game but almost 2 years later, it feels more empty than it was at release. I wouldn't recommend to play this ever.

First time review on this site and sadly it has to be a poor one . Before i go over the bad stuff ill go over the good stuff(Also this is a review of the 2.20 version)


Pros+

1. the artist has good drawing skills.
2. There are no more pros

Cons-
1. very glitchy and repeated some events multiple time by accident
2. Bad grammar but this is pretty minor
3. The book isn't very clear at telling you what action to take with the character your trying to interact with.
4. There are very little H-scenes( I really mean this there like I got 2 and one is an intro scene but I heard there are 4)

Overall takeaway I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone YET . considering how little content there is and how glitchy it is which is strange considering it is in 2.20 (NOT at the beginning of development) and considering on patron they are on 2.30 and and seemed like they have a large amount of content with some holiday content . Unless I'm missing something big this was pretty disappointing when the artist is talented

I am posting this as a review as well since I think this is important and might be buried under discussion.

Seems like this game is getting a lot of heat and after reading through it I think some of it justified, but poorly expressed. So in an effort to offer a more objective take on the game in its current state I am writing this. Now also it is worth noting that I am as layman as it gets in terms of coding or game design so I will focus on aspects that I see, rather than the backend stuff. So these are the things I would like to point out in version 2.0 of the game:

1) Where the hell are the triggers - after replaying the game twice (once the nice route the other the dick route) I haven't found a single hscene beyond the ones that are linked to character intros. There are 4 in the game currently and I found not a single one. I even started skipping days thinking it was a timelocked thing, but nope that ain't it chief. So that raises the question: Where the hell are the triggers?

2) Grammar - Is it good? Nope. But is it bad enough to the point of the player not knowing what is going on? Also nope. It is serviceable at best and somewhat broken at worse. You can ask Patrons or people playing public versions to give you feedback and proofreading.

3) Bugs - on my second playthrough as the dick the game was losing its mind. Events that were tied to previous events were playing before the prerequisite. The main example is when the Sister came to the Hero's house, before I even went to the church to meet the character. Good lord is it a mess if you try to reload an earlier save.

4) The map - It needs to be more fleshed out since the areas that you can visit are not even highlighted. Took me a bit to find the way back home after visiting the city since there is no arrow leading back like all the other areas. Just add a bit of a lighter outline to the places you can visit. Now the game does highlight the building when you hover over it, but the fact remains that you cannot know where to go until you do hover and see the highlight.

5) The hint system - while it does fulfill the most basic definition of the concept by telling you what to do it does not, however, tell you what to do for the scenes nor progress. It just says "talk to x" or "do y" without telling you how to unlock scenes. Now this is probably the most moot and nit-picky thing here and it might also be due to broken triggers rather than an actual broken hint system; but the fact remains that the hint system does not offer accurate hints to the main meat of the game - the hscenes.

6) The ending - for those of you that have played 2.0 have you noticed that the game gives you the end of content message when you enter the Church and meet the sister and yet there is content in the game after that point - even including the sister from said Church.

In conclusion I think the game is kinda bad. Ye the art is good, but you cannot see it in game since the triggers break. The game is version 2.0 not 0.2 and there is a severe lack of content and not a severe lack of bugs. I mean for a year+ to only have 4 actual scenes, broken triggers, bugs, one scene removed and a tone of typos that does not a good game make. Overall it might pull a No mans sky and rise like a phoenix, but as I can see it now that is about as likely as Eromancer finishing a game.

Update: February 15, 2021
The game, visual novel, or social experiment in frustration continues. Another dev cycle lifetime and no real perceivable progress, Except they are still correcting grammar and hiding their lack of effort by blaming Covid-19.

I can no longer justify the two star rating and have now downgraded the game to one star.

(October 2020)
Seems the dev is doing a rewrite. Why? Who knows?

Good news is the early story does flow better from one scene to the next. Unfortunately there are not that many scenes just repeatable events that are pretty much the same ones we started with. A least one scene has been removed from the game, for... Reasons! important ones! Honestly, I don't think there is a script just 11% of a plan, which is barely even a concept.

The character/hint book is a useful tool to gauge progress. The inclusion of a "that's all folks" for each character alleviates the frustrating grind waiting for something to happen, that never will. That being said it is unclear how many times the MC has to help clean the house to progress with the Overlord. I stopped, for now, at 25. Nor do we have a clue of home many times we have to talk to Coraline to progress her route either. With the game in the current state it is in, who knows if it actually does progress or continues in an endless loop.

A lot of frustrations still remain in this version, due to some sloppy programming. Why is the blacksmith "Charis"consistently referred to as Coraline in the header of the text box? Simple quests are still in hold mode, and question marks still hold places that should provide game activity. By now, some or all of these should have been corrected.

Some odd switching of avatars in a couple of scenes occurs; granted it only for a click or two but it just adds to the frustration with an already frustrating development cycle.

The eternal optimist in me, still has hopes that the dev will get their act together; and do this once promising game justice.

The game has never worked and the content is non existent
I have tried to play this game 4 separate times and got the same amount of (or lack thereof) scenes. There just seems to be a bit more story but never anything that matters. Waste your 25 minutes of skipping through bad dialog and "grinding" for gold on an RPGM game instead.

Nobody seems to vote unless they like games here, and I was on the fence about 1 or 2 stars, so one star it is.

• Development is painfully slow, especially for all this talk about a "brand", "team", "backend", "funding", and "Patrons". In trying to sound professional in your patch notes, you undermine yourself by showing you've clearly either got the support to put out much more content than you have, or that you're yanking our chains about this game's development. Countless projects of similar scope with less funding and support have pushed forward far further than this game.
• Developer excuses. No, "COVID riots" aren't preventing progress on this game, that just isn't a thing in most of the world right now and it's sick that you'd use that in the patch notes as a reason for late releases to appeal to emotion and not lose supporters.
• Horrible, broken English. If you're not a native English speaker, please make your games in your native language or something. You say you have Discord supporters, why not run dialogue by them before putting spelling mistakes in the official releases? You're asking money for this project, be a professional and use/hire a spellchecker. It isn't that hard.
• Bugs. Bugs everywhere. More bugs than Starship Troopers. How you could play this game and not think "maybe I should fix that real quick before releasing in a week/day" is beyond me. Game becomes an absolute frustrating mess.
• Artstyle is inconsistent at best, albeit it generally pretty nice overall. Upscaling the graphics to 4K means nothing in terms of quality or style, we've all fapped it to some 8-bit sprite in the past, resolution isn't important here.

I'm being harsh, but read the other comments. Blows my mind that this game is sitting at a relatively high rating for how shitty it is. Can't wait for the [Abandoned] tag.

Edit 2/15/21:

Of course the developer is continuing to blame COVID-19 for their lack of progress, and posts nonsensical changelogs (with spelling errors, " -Grammer changes" as one example), shifts blame for lack of progress (and to pad the changelog), and has consistently REMOVED more content than they've added. Seriously, pull your Patreon now, this game isn't going anywhere and these scammers don't deserve your dollar. The art isn'teven that great.

Yo imagine having a game where you seem to have a decent looking story, sexy and cute characters, and finally some nice looking lewd scenes? Well shit man don't bother with this because no matter how much content the dev decides to add, this is a buggy as fuck. So far I have encountered:
-Demon Townsquare bug
-Blonde girl keeps 'conversating' about the town repeatedly and nothing else changes with her.
-Working with blacksmith will not pass time so it happens infinitely.
-Fucking the Demon when Nun visits house will lead to the game shitting itself. You need to ignore error 6 times before the game teleports you to mid-blacksmith scene.
-Nun is infinitely praying no matter what so you can't interact with her.
I'm honestly done with this because I got no idea how to progress. If you want to be disappointed, go ahead else don't bother.

Never have I ever played a more buggy game. dead ends everywere, and misinformation. conversations repate, and you get the same "quest" over and over again. andf this is litteraly 1 year into dev.
Made by bethesda?! ..