HTML - Fresh Starts [v0.8.0f] [LordOfChange]

The "Mess"



This game is a grindfest, and not in a good way. Progress feels slow, and most of the gameplay boils down to mindless clicking with little payoff. There’s barely any useful information to help you figure things out, so you’re left guessing most of the time.

Events are a nightmare. Some are hidden behind random conditions, and if you miss one, it’s gone forever—no second chances. On top of that, some parts of the game straight-up don’t work, which just adds to the frustration.

Unless you enjoy wasting time on pointless grinding and unclear mechanics, I’d say skip this one!

No going back.
Dated event without knowing their dates.
Random events once per playthrough!
Click click click click

I really want to review this well, but having tried several times the game really suffers from a few major problems. The writing is fairly solid, but the nature of the game itself keeps me from recommending it right now. I will probably re-review once it gets closer to a 1.0 state, but for now:

The game is a time-focused sandbox, and doesn't handhold at all. It's entirely possible to miss events completely because you forgot about them or weren't in the right place at the right time. School events only happen once and never again, so if you progress past the end of the school semester there's zero content to see, even if you missed content throughout the semester.

The early game is purposefully punishing on the player and very much a micro-management simulator. Buy food, buy soap, buy razors, wake up at exactly this time, take exactly this long to get to school, take exactly this time to get home, make just enough money to scrape together rent and tuition. On its own this is entirely surmountable, and "only" lasts for a few in-game months, but...

Because the game is so heavily time-focused, each update functionally requires you to start from the beginning again. This is SO frustrating, as it means you must endure the start of the game repeatedly. You can somewhat mitigate this by choosing "Rich" starting criteria, but it still means you're slogging through the early game often, which is incredibly off-putting as a player.

All said, the game has potential, but in its current state I would avoid until closer to more fully-fleshed out so that you're not repeatedly re-starting the game. Come back in 2026?

Hits a good niche for me, decent level of sandbox with enough writing to keep it from being plain. I like the current level of not forcing the sissification on the player, but letting the player force it on the charachter. I'd like it if some more attention was paid to your interactions with strangers and minor npc's and the UI needs help

The game is very tedious and unforgiving, also there is BARELY any direction.
You can just watch sissy porn for 1 day and then you are ready to immediatly buy female clothes and nobody reacts to it. It makes no sense.
This game is not well thought out and is too much of a beta sandbox for me.
It has some potential but even after all this time I still dislike the whole direction the game is going.

Edit:

Thanks to numerous, uncountable new bugs, this game really changed into a 1 / 5. Abandoned any hope. 6 years of development and this is what is presented? Even 100 years at this speed wouldn't produce something acceptable.

Too boring and tedious. Not enough feedback. It's like the dev enjoys making you doo all the tedious time management and wardrobe management shit. All that for a couple gifs every 10 minutes. Just not worth it.

This game doesnt work plain and simple. There are 2 characters one of them is the same bar event later on and the other is just a npc you go to get quest. There is no progress there is no scnes no characters I dont know why you guys like this game when this game has been empty for some time. I reallly struggle to find just a bit of content

Really nice, sandbox but with defined goals that make me come back to it pretty often. No real story content as of yet but a satisfying progression. Plus, some replayability thanks to the different university courses possible. Wondering about my own identity now

well colour me impressed! a HTML game with sissification content, in which the MC does NOT get blackmailed, bullied or forced into sissydom... a refreshing change!
the writing is decent enough, the caracters are interesting, and there is lots of options that increase replayability.
the story is a bit bare bones but given some time and support this might turn into a real gem!

The grind is real. This one is a little bit harder for me to rate. it's got a lot of good going for it. Lots to buy and lots of things to do. The downside is that there is no direction. I ended up just sucking dick at a gloryhole, and not even knowing there was a story at the club. By the time I went there I was already a full on sissy and at that point the story didn't make sense. I would also like to see either a decrease in prices for the body mods, or a way to get a discount on them.
All in all, it's a really good game. I just hope there is a lot more content coming to fill in the down time that the game has right now.

Update for 1.1a:
A lot of the same issues. Still feels very directionless, and a lot of things just feel meaningless. Like does going to collage even do anything? I sure as heck don't know. Took off a star since after a year I feel like nothing has really changed.

Excelent game! And being "Alpha" version and still having a ton of playtime! I would suggest to dev to add more pictures for certain events. That would freshen it up even more! Good luck with the next releases!

This is probably the first trap/sissy game I've played that's actually good. Most of the time, the sissification stuff is forced down your throat (heh) in any game that has the tag. In Fresh Starts, nearly all of it is 100% your choice and utterly optional. Also, being a submissive isn't forced on you, either. It's actually kind of refreshing to see a dev that doesn't make a game that obviously only caters to his/her own very narrow fetishes.

So far I've come across quite a few things in the game that I think can use some work, but most of my problems seem placehold-ery and the game is fairly fresh (heh heh) so I'm fine with overlooking for now. These issues, in no particular order (and this is mostly for the dev since he looks to be fairly active on the site):

- Funds early in the game are a grind before you get a laptop and streaming equipment, and then it's too easy. The easy mid/late-game funds explosion is probably fine if the dev plans to add more expensive things to buy, like real estate (which does seem to be in the works).

- All the fetish stats being tied to watching various types of porn watching is also super grindy. Even the "filter by lengthy videos 15min+" isn't 100% chance to raise a sex stat and it's still quite tedious. Would be nice if you could spacebar skip them while still hovering the mouse over whatever button you're spamming.

- Sex stats are grindy, and the point value calculations need work. Looks like it takes 1,000pts to go from 2 -> 3, but doing anything sexual only gives 3pts max or so. Understandably, there's next to no content that actually considers these stats in the game at the moment, but it's something to consider for the future.

- Traveling seems wonky at times, mainly going to and from the Red Light district. All areas need, and currently lack, the HTML game staple of "Wait here for..." option. Everywhere in the game opens and closes on a schedule but there's no easy way to pass time.

Anyway, I think that's all the things I remember. TL;DR, this is definitely the game to watch if you're into trap/sissy/crossdressing/sandbox stuff, but it's very early in development and it shows.

God, this is so incredible, I legitimately do not know why there are not tons more life sim games like this. This one is incredibly engaging as well, the writing is already a lot better than most games.