It was thanks to
Fetish Stories: The Asylum that I have joined this forum and started playing more erotic/porn games, so obviously I consider it to be one of my favorites. Darktoz's 2nd game was made with RPGm, but has a lot of rendered 3DCG scenes, so there's a lot of pretty things to look at. What's even better, there aren't any fights here; quests are more similar to those from adventure games: the player is usually supposed to find specific item and bring it to someone or use it to open specific location. As such the game is motivated solely by its plot and relationships and not by the need to level up and obtain skills. And if you like femdom, then these plot and relationships have a lot to offer.
First of all there is a small, but very lovely group of dominating women dressed in sexy, often fetish clothes. Each domme comes with her own level of violence and her own set of favorite kinks, which means that the MC will be subjected to ballbusting, whipping, spit-roasting, verbal humiliation, electrocutions, face slapping, spitting, foot worship, pet play and many more. The player through his/her actions and the responses during numerous conversations builds relationships with chosen mistress(es) or even all of them simultanously, which in turn opens the way to various endings and additional scenes and/or actions. If for some unfathomable reason the player doesn't want to have fun with the ladies, s/he can also rebel against them with other males and try to survive long enough to find a way out from the titular Asylum.
The fact that the game takes place in a closed, rundown, secretive facility gives the game more oppresive setting, which strongly enhances the mood and is very much welcome in a game focused on domination, brainwashing and tortures. Darktoz however doesn't pull the player into completely dark and bleak world, he also has a nice sense of humour. Black, but still humour. Some interactions with various characters are very tongue-in-cheek, there are some occasional funny remarks and even a stray reference to
Femdomstories: BDSM Tournament, Darktoz's previous game. One more thing that I greatly appreciate – and a thing that is present in every Darktoz's game – is that whenever the MC speaks it is the player, who chooses what the MC will say. Granted, most of the choices are largely cosmetic and they boil down to agreeing/disagreeing or being more or less cheeky, but apart from the fact that the responses are connected to the relantionship-building mechanic, they also create a better illusion of freedom of choice and result in deeper immersion. There is no single instance when the MC chooses what to say by himself, it is always the player who „speaks”.
The aforementioned quests are fairly interesting, if simple and not greatly demanding, sometimes with the addition of slightly tedious clicker minigames. They are rather a series of obstacles raised for the player to have smth to do before s/he'll reach next erotic scene. As such they are not hugely engaging, but – as I said – fairly interesting, plus they don't require any grinding and usually are cleverly connected to the plot and lead to some nice femdom moments, so it's dificult to dislike them. As far as the plot goes, it's also on the simpler side: the MC was kidnapped, injected with some experimental serum and is now closed with few other (un?)lucky ones in the asylum full of dominatrixes, governed by a mysterious figure from MC's past. It's a simple, but effective setting; one may say it's only an excuse for presenting a series of femdom scenes and one would be right, but it's still a very interesting excuse, full of still more interesting scenes.
The game is not however a perfect one. The biggest problem that it has is that while the first 3 in-game days are really fun, the 4th and last day – even if still not without its many merits – feels much more rushed. What started as a slow-paced stay in sweet, painful captivity develops into quickly pieced together final moments that lead to rushed endings. There are a few extended endings with series of additional scenes (randomly occuring so the player is unfortunately forced to repeat her/his actions at the end just to be sure s/he witnessed every scene), but most of them are just 1-2 scenes, which sometimes feel more like an afterthought to the game than a proper finale. What is more, one of the announced endings, and announced within the game itself, is not even implemented as Darktoz forgot about it, being more involved in developing his
next game. So, while I had a wonderful time playing as a constantly humiliated and tortured guy, I finished the game with the feeling of mild disappointment and a desire for more. Despite this issues I am still inclined to give the game 4 out of 5 stars.
