HTML - Abandoned - Free Cities: Origins [v0.0.2.2.7] [Mimus Studios]

I think this game gets a bit of a bad rap for the name. So no, it's not Free Cities, and certainly nothing like the Pregmod variant - don't come expecting lolis and weird pregnancy content or any of the extreme stuff. It's more like Masters of Raana, but seen from the slaves' point of view - Slaves of Nipon, if you will. On the other hand, it is definitely set in the world of Free Cities, and your master is a budding Arcology owner/developer. Fortunately for you, apart from some Edo Revivalism and Japanese-centred racism, he's more into Slave Professionalism and Paternalism, and apart from sucking his cock every few days (be aware of this if you choose to play a male character) he's quite easy to please and gradually earn more liberties and even some money of your own. Thereafter it gets into Masters of Raana style training via books, combat, whoring etc, to try and improve yourself and, eventually, the slaves that pass under your control.

There is a plot, and it unfolds as you start to explore the world, and you can make a very consequential decision as it does so. However, while the game borrows MoR's interface and hence looks pretty good, it doesn't have the same amount of content and depth. And like MoR, but perhaps even more so, it is pretty grindy, especially in the early days. But keep your master happy, your obedience up, and do your allocated tasks every day, and you'll find yourself rising from Low Slave to High Slave without too much trouble, and that opens up a lot more of the gameplay. There are plenty of other house slaves for you to interact with, and you can even buy one of your own if you don't mind a lot of grind (or a cheat) to get enough money to do so.

I found it an interesting diversion, and generally fairly well done, but it doesn't have the long term playability or complexity of either of its parents, Free Cities or Masters of Raana, so for that it gets four stars.

The game suffers from IP title dropping that's so common in today's market. The thing is, the dev of this game has no connection to the original IP, so to name his game after what is essentially a genre legend is pretentious/bold/uncalled for/rude/deceptive/etc. So naturally you'll notice that almost every review here starts with mention of the real Free Cities. Mine included.

Ok. Having gotten that off my chest, the game looks and feels much more like Masters of Raana than it does Free Cities. The interface, the setting, the general state of the world and plot delivery. I suppose MoR: Origins would be a title that would've gotten far less exposure, though. In any event, the dev has no connections with that game either. A point we keep coming back to. Hell, Stationmaster's core gameplay is 80% Free Cities, but even that guy doesn't need to name drop. Just saying.

On its own merits, there are some good ideas, and I'd be a lot more impressed if the dev team were interested in building a world of their own rather than attempting to build on the lore of something that isn't theirs to begin with. The game plays similar to Raana in a satisfying enough fashion where I find there could be value here. I'd rate it a 3.5, and penalize liberally for shameless namedropping.

[v0.0.2.2.7]
Nor good, nor bad.

-Story, Originality
Mideaval setting with text adventure.

-Renders
Some pictures and okay 3D models.

-Sound
Don't remember hearing any.

-Playability
You can play for hours, but I managed to play only 30 minutes...
Game is too raw for now.

-Performance
It works (looks like QSP game [or I am wrong]).

-Bugs
Didn't see any.

-Animations
Still pictures.

-Voice Acting
Don't remember hearing voices.

-Grammar
Didn't see any mistakes.

-Amount of content
Well it is average "forever game" that will have some new content every "input time period".

I like better "Fenoxo Blog" works and "Lilith Throne".

TL/DR: I like playing these slave trainer games as a benevolent sort of liberator type who doesn't send gals to work in the brothel, abuse gals, ect. The viability of this sort of play-through in the in game economy is awful.

v0.0.2.2.4 review

Pros:
+ Core plot progression is somewhat interesting
+ Sexual progression system is somewhat fun.

Cons:
- Playing in a Japan analogue doesn't really fit the overall vibe of the game.
- Game is grindy as hell, particularly for my chosen play-style.
- Blocks of identical text in the various slave girls progressions
-Most of the in game locations aren't fleshed out
-Tons of the characters have very little dialogue
-Lots of broken systems and unfinished code blocks. Game play features such as raising most sexual stats are currently non-functional. Or at bare miniumum not fully functional / don't list your gains and losses.

Models are ok and it looks like a lot of effort is going into making this a successor to the original, but there is forced gay interactions that you cannot avoid because you start as a slave to a guy. Game does not have this tag but it's there.

I love that kind of game, but, in this one, everyone treats you like shit. I rage quit after i realized you can't take revenge. If that doesn't bother you, you can find it to be a decent game. However, it doesn't have much in terms of CG.

Eh. I gave it a thorough shot, and it bored me really.

It is grindy as all hell with rng gains. That is like 90% of the game, just repetitive clicking. No excuses of "management game" saves it from that.

There were some visual glitches of the few models in it not appearing sometimes. Annoying but whatever, it's mostly a text game anyway.

It had a couple things I enjoyed. Like when I discovered I could I liked that addition, but that grind of stats to do things... ruined it.

Maybe soemday when it's a complete game and you have even more hours of senseless click grinding.... eh... nvm, the grind isn't worth the payout honestly. That needs pulled back heavily.

I did find the theme interesting and the story wasn't bad.
Just... not worth the effort in the end.

tldr: Grind to content ratio not good enough to bother with, yet. Hopefully it changes.

HTML is not my favorite format but this game is different.
It has a nice, well thought system and an interesting story as well.
The devs are very friendly and open for suggestion.
Also they seem to have a very clear plan for the game in the future with even more feature to be implemented.
Really looking forward to it.

Hey,

first i have to admit, I really love Free Cities – even it lacks of a nice UI and some nice Pics – but I love(d) the Slave-Management.

Alright - Lets have a look onto FCO.

At first sight its a little bit annoying not to be the “Superhero” from start.
But you (the Player) start as a “Low-Slave” in Game and you are owned by Shin - a traditional japanese-culture-loving Master.
To your luck you can climb the ladder of Slaves til you reach Slave-Status…
Nice to have this Status – because your With-Slave-Girl Mei is a Low-Slave-Girl – and now you got a higher Status and you can do some nasty things with her.
Best thing is : You can send her to work for you in a Brothel… OK, Shin gets the most of the profit - but you are able to get your first passive income.

I have started with the 0.0.1.5-Version which was a pretty early release.
But I joined the Discord-Channel and i discovered, that the Developer Mimus often is present at his Channel - he replies to General-Talk and he seems to be open for suggestions and requests.
Actually the Gameplay is truly very limited – but updates come quite quickly.

Til now (0.0.1.8.5) you (the MC) cant get free – that would be the first step to build up your own Slave-Household… But you already can get and train several Girls.

A own Wiki is coming up in which many open Questions for new Players will be answered.

My Facts to the Game :
Nice Slavery-Game – actual some nice Renders – but only a few.
The Developer still spends his time mostly for coding the Game – the optical delicacies are promised to follow if the Game is on a nicely playable Status.

With that it seems to me to get the most promising Follower who is stepping in the Shoes from FC – and I think we should give him the chance to take further progress with the Game.

I like it, and I hope the Developer keeps it active – so I give 5 Stars for his work til now – and his efforts to keep it going.

Free Cities: Origins is a game still in early development, but having played the game for 15 hours or so, I can see that the mechanics and systems are well thought through to future development of the game.

Currently the game progresses day by day, and the stat growth of your slaves is slow along with your income, this is because the game isn't to the point where the developer can coherently add a skip week or month option which is indeed in the works, probably to be accomplished within 3 or so major updates.

Free Cities: Origins has quite a few aspects, most of the focus is on the slave training part, the slaves have many attributes, such as Intelligence, Strength, Dexterity and the like, there is also sexual skill levels, such as Oral, Vaginal, Entertainment, Bondage, and Other. On top of attributes and sex skills there is also, another subset of skills, Education, Melee, Ranged, Survival. Those are going to be used for a combat system in the works, as there is an arena in the city.

The economy system is pretty complex with prices of the commodities change by the day and trending over the course of weeks. You can trade with three different commodities, Iron, Silver, and Gold. At the moment the difference between the buy and sell price is dependent on the difficult chosen and a few other factors, only the easiest mode is balanced enough at the moment to be able to make any money off the market, and is what I recommend to play on if you want to get to what I could call the end game of the current version.

The story consists of you being a slave under a man named Shinatani, he's isn't an abusive master and only punishes you if you don't obey his edicts, which are mostly working your quota for the day, he has three other slaves, that are female for you to interact with plenty of sex to be had, two of witch you can control to a certain extent, sending them to work at a brothel, or working in the mines, studying, or training with the army in the barracks.

Overall, even though the game isn't polished, nor is it that close to being finished, what is there and the potential of this developer and their game is awesome. The mechanics in place and the development plan are very organized and thoughtful, as long as this projects continues it's sure to be a great experience.

I've waited to give my review of this game for a little while to see how it was going to develop. Long story short, I have not been disappointed in the least. The game is a well put together RPG/management game right now, with lots of room to expand and develop on. There's a good amount to do, even though this game is clearly still in it's infancy, which is something I'm pretty surprised with.

The bit in the beginning, where you start as a slave, and have to work your way up to having a bit of freedom (and thus are able to explore a bit more of the world), is a nice touch. I know some people won't enjoy being treated as a slave and made to do boring, repetitive stuff for a while, but it all pays off as you get to finally enjoy your freedom. From there, it's good to see how far you can grow your abilities.

One thing that's really cool about this is the fact that it adds onto the lore of the original Free Cities game. The creator isn't trying to copy the older game, but instead has done a great job coming up with a decently unique backstory, which I'd like to think could spread into a detailed world for players to explore. Also, it seems updates are rather constant, with issues and bugs being taken care of within the next update or two. So, knowing that this game is constantly being refined and updated has me really enjoying playing it.

Really good game so far. I like it alot and now i support the game. Its still young but in good shape. The dev is on it as much as they can. Am sure its gonna become a great game in no time for those who like this type of game.

I'll be low on words, the game is fantastic and i have nothing to complain about it. But what makes the game "fantastic"? The team behinde it which is dedicated to the game, hard workers and most improtant... kind and social with their players every single day on discord!

Love the atmosphere created by this game. This game kinda plays out like Masters of Raana but within the universe of free cities. Lacking in content for now sure, but it is sure to keep up with free cities if devs keep on continuing. Would hate to see it abandoned, plz devs do not abandon this gem. Try it, you're not gonna regret it.

Game has been about 1 week in development and already it has solid base to go on and honor the Free City's legacy. Rpg element makes it special in genre especially that its text based and not used graphical game engines.

Nice touch is that its origin story not another spinnoff, so you can pave you path to glory.

Im realy excited to see how he solves idea of cross generation story.

Effective sleep molestation scenes. Its not particularly grindy compared to other games in the genre or site. I chose the hardest difficulty on an early iteration of the game and it was not particularly difficult or tedious.

The ability to increase the sensitivity/fetishes of character in their sleep is quite erotic.

Game is a little lacking, but still a very solid game with quite a bit of potential. It's worth a try at the very least.

(Giving it an extra star, 5* rather than 4* due to it being early in development. Its got the potential to be worthy of a 5* star rating)

V0.0.1.4

This game is a unique spin on the Free Cities genre by providing an origin story for it. The initial part of the game as described by the post is a bit of a grind, but actually, on the easiest difficulty, you can get past it in around 1 in-game week or 5 minutes IRL if you just spam work and sleep.

After being a normal slave, you can interact with the world, there are around 4 quests to do right now, but not too much dialogue between some of the non-slave NPCs.

The game has a really complex economy and even after reading what the dev wrote about how he modeled it, I still have no idea how to "play" the stock market. Currently, all stats are able to be risen, but it is a bit lackluster because there aren't too many descriptions.

As for the sexual content there isn't too much right now, but the between the management options and the molesting it is pretty good for such an early version.

The game also has some nice renders, but nothing spectacular.

Finally, the reason I'm giving his game 5 stars is due to the potential in it. While the story itself isn't as good as say Masters of Raana, this is one of the most technically complex HTML games I've played outside of the actual Free Cities.

Summary: This game has a lot of potential but currently lacks much content.

First up, I'm a big fan of slave management games, and this one adds a twist where you start out as a slave yourself. This is an interesting concept and sets it apart from most other games of the genre.

Second, while it takes its premise from the game "Free Cities," this is a much different game. While "Free Cities" is a management game with some porn sprinkled in, "FC:O" is fully a role-playing game where you (hopefully) rise through the ranks of society from lowly slave to ruler of your own city-state. There are of course management and economic elements to the gameplay, but these take back seat to your character's journey.

The character renders are decent but bare-bones (static full-bodied pictures), but this is to be expected with a Twine game. The game has pleasant background music which is a nice addition. The writing is solid with no noticeable spelling or grammar mistakes.

However, because this is a first release there is little content, and most options are currently met with a "work in progress" screen. In addition, some dialogue options do absolutely nothing when selected. Whether this is a bug or the dialogue simply hasn't been implemented yet is unclear.

Nevertheless, the strengths of the game outweigh its weaknesses. I gave the game 4 stars because it has the potential to rival some of the other great slave management games on this site. Here's hoping Free Cities Origins lives up to that potential!