RPGM - Completed - EMPTY-66822 [v9] [Lonery-Moon]

One of the best erotic horror games I've played.
I've already laid out my thoughts about it in the discussion thread so I'll keep the review brief.
+ Amazing atmosphere.
+ Cute and interesting characters.
+ Great writing that leans into mystery and fear of the unknown, revealing just enough but never fully lifting the veil.
+- Personally never encountered any game breaking bugs but by some of the comments it looks like many others have, your milage may vary. As for missing collision and things like that, I'm not bothered by it personally.
+- Game has good enough direction, but I did have to follow the guide to make all endings available.
- Bummer ending that feels undeserved for the characters.

I just finished it after 6 hours and I really liked it. I've been following the game for a while now since I think v1 or v4. It is at v9 as of writing this.

Bugs - There were some bugs that ended with me being soft locked. The Bus stop next to Mari's place is open during the second half (everything after the radio tower). If you enter it without progressing the story to a point you get locked inside. Another time was in the bathhouse when they're looking through the hole and the friend gets spooked ). I also noticed that when your traveling around with the servant you pick up her sprite doesn't show. I found this out after I ran around with the girl at the end (there's just a empty space were a sprite should be). I don't even know if she's supposed to be there or not. I do remember certain interactions will cause visual bugs but I did not get any as of writing this. Hopefully they will be fixed in any future versions.

General Gameplay - Unless you've played the previous versions or are just willing to venture around to find stuff its gonna be difficult to do things. The walk through (v7) is good for the first half but not second half for now. Once you know your way around its gonna be fine. The characters tell you mostly everything you need to know to do things. I do feel like I missed out on some content or maybe I accidently pasted them when playing. There's a scene with a nurse that got reorganized so I don't know if I missed it or if it got taken out. I'll have to go through the game to find anything I missed. Also, save often and don't save in the same spot. I used all 24 slots just so I could double back incased I missed something and or see alternate routes.

Combat - The combative section of the game still isn't good. After unlocking the trader I just got orbs and either escaped or slammed the monsters. The first and last boss really bring this problem out. The lead up and intro for the first boss is something I really enjoy and the other ones don't have that same energy/detail. It would need more testing but to be honest the combat is probably the weakest part but the characters and story make up for it.

Characters and Story - There's has been a decent amount of story and characters added since the beginning. The artwork is what really sold me on this game combined with the general atmosphere and the lack of direction (good and bad thing). It feels like your taken from your home and tossed into some nightmarish version of the world. There are *scary* bits but not many. I assumed there would be more. The main line of characters are good and it has some comedic parts. The NPCs have mini stories if you interact with them which is nice. The endings are interesting. Not what I Imagined based on previous versions but they do fine to wrap it up. I am assuming there is gonna be a sequel game based on one of the endings.

Overall I enjoyed the game. It definitely stands out compared to other games I've played even in terms of art and story even though can be pretty annoying and frustrating at times. I am looking forward to see more regardless.

On the surface this seems like my kind of game.

A big part of why I play H-games is to find obscure little gems and the rough, childish art style like we see has marked some good games; Black souls, Mercenary Tales.

Empty lives up to its name. The atmosphere quickly evaporates after the intro, the combat is RPG maker standard, the story isn't currently fleshed out and the world is big and empty.

I could see this project turning out pretty good in the future, but when the already small H-game community thinks of Empty, this demo has probably cemented it in their minds as mediocre.

Keep it up though, I would tighten the map design. Focus on your settings strength, its atmosphere. Its hard to pull of a large and scary map, scale down and its easier to build tension.

The place where you get the screwdriver. Need I say more?

But seriously, I'm okay with a game-deciding not to hold your hand and let you explore, but you need some environmental guidance when you do that. If you can beat this game without a guide, you're either the most patient person in the world or the creator.

I quit after finding the screwdriver. Save yourself some time and don't play this trash.

TL;DR: It's a buggy yet interesting erotic horror game that needs more erotic content and quality of life features.

EMPTY-66822 puts you in the shoes of a faceless high-school student who gets dragged into a world of surreal horror after some chores down in the family basement doesn't exactly go as planned. Everybody you know has suddenly vanished, monstrosities now lurk around every corner, and the only person who might have answers is an enigmatic female soldier you find slumped up against the walls of your bathroom...with both of her arms violently torn off.

While it's definitely rough around the edges, the prologue level does a fantastic job immediately establishing the mood, the mystery, and the stakes. And what little smut you can access in this build (played v6.01 at the time of this review) gave me serious Black Souls vibes, especially with the artstyle and a decision to assist or "enslave" the aforementioned soldier.

However, as soon as you wrap up the prologue and go into the main game, EMPTY-66822 sorta takes a nosedive. Exploring the open world doesn't feel as scary since you can travel during the day rather than the night. Since the maps are so ludicrously massive with no proper direction, you're gonna be lost wandering around while running into an enemy every five seconds. And since combat is intentionally made to be as unfair as possible to encourage you to run away instead, you can see how this can get annoying REALLY fast unless you plan to cheat.

With some better world building, a more focused aesthetic (the fantasy style mages and knights suddenly showing up in what is supposed to be a modern city with no explanation was immersion breaking imo), and some grammar and bug fixes for good measure, EMPTY-66822 has the potential to become something memorable. Decent erotic horror is hard to come by these days, so if you're interested, I'd suggest keeping an eye on this and wait for the dev to come out with a bigger content update.

Here's to hoping that update includes more L-412 and Bartender smut!

The author is very activity great at fixing all the bugs and made an very compiling narrative the only problem I have is that is very addictive game and some minor combat issue .
I both dread and looked forward to the journey this game is going to take us through

Hey tbh great game with a lot of potential. Love the artstyle, reminds me of Lobotomy Corp and Library of Ruina. The starting section (in the house) is sooo great, the sense of mystery and horror is there and its awesome (I was expecting a jumpscare, sad that it wasn't there xD). The act after that becomes less of a mystery and falls off maybe cous its day now and you can see everything clear. The bar and baths seems a little out of place with L412 being like a member of some kind of hightech corp or facility or specops and suddenly the are mages and all of that but oh well I hope it all makes sense in the future.
Btw who thought of a boss that keeps summoning was fun - it wasn't. I killed it but it wasn't a pleasant experience.
Overall a great game with a lot of potential - gona place it in my "watch list". I think you need at least some kind of explanation and worldbuilding and there is too much space to wander around and as a result too many enemies. But hey for your first game not bad at all. Keep up the good work.

As of right now this game is a huge mess. You have absolutly no idea where you need to go 99% of the time, and you find yourself wondering around until you find what you were looking for.
Aside from that, the art style is rough, so don't go in if you don't like rough art styles. Lastly, in terms of content, right now there's pretty much near to none.
I'd advise waiting for this game to get more updates and to hopefully be more clear as to where to go. But as of right now it's not worth spending your time on.

I'm being generous to give it four stars, it will need the edge because a lot of people here just hate RPGM games.

This is a decent game, but it could be quite a bit better. It's quite buggy and feels a little unfinished in places. Save often and don't save into the same file slot all the time. The combat mostly isn't (you should run away or cheat most of the time). My game glitched into a half speed walk pace which drove me nuts given the large maps some of which are mostly empty. There isn't a lot of sexy times stuff in there at all, but what there is is ... well, sexy. Some graphics are just 'finish this later sketches'.