Ren'Py - God among Kings [v0.25] [SolidDoc]

Game is in a very early stage of development (0.1), but what I saw impressed me enough to write a review. I fell this game has some potential.

The story follows young lord, who fights and conqueres lands and beauties on his way. He is charming, brave, flamboyant, little fruity, quick-tempered, but otherwise quite smart and reasonable, reminds me Alexander the Great, I like him. Power fantasy part is probably the best and the hottest part, sadly all the scenes and interactions with other characters now are too short. Usually this kind of games overwhelm you with ton of dialog about nothing and lore dumps, but this is step too much in the other direction. I would love to see longer and more sensual sex scenes, deeper conversations and character development, get to live in a MC skin a little bit and not just being thrown into a short vignette.

I usually prefer to follow pure VNs, without sandbox or other game elements, because porn devs usually don't have what it takes to make both good game and good porn, but the game mechanics here actually work quite well. We have simple tactical turn-based combat with diffrent classes that balanced on the "Rock Paper Scissors" principle and xp-leveling system. You have to think how to position units on the map, who and how to attack, quite simple and fun (although I don't know why it square, and not hexagon-based). There is also strategic layer, gathering resources, upgrading units and buildings to open new scenes and progress the story. With some polish and quality of life improvements it can create quite an engaging gameplay loop. Visually game uses frankly outdated HS models, but I like the designs themselves, so won't complain there.

So in conclusion I will say I have high hopes for this project and will continue to follow it.

Version 0.05

Sorry, man, but this turn-based battle system sucks. It's not well done, limited attack options, and the machine always has the upper hand. I lost in the first battle. This game should have a visual novel mode to skip these battles. I know some people like it, and I do too to a certain extent, but in this game, it's just not working for me. I hope the game keeps evolving, and good luck to the author.

version 0.05

This is a good start, I can see the Dev put a lot of thought and work in the combat system and combat scenarios. I wish it was hexagons and it feels weird that I can't attack diagonally and that archers can shoot point blank but those are just personal preferences. Also this game does formation battles better than in most media I've seen, during some of the scenarios it's like watching an action movie in my head if that makes sense. The sex scenes are nice, I enjoyed the casual theme where MC does it with everyone at any time. The kingdom management is not developed enough to comment on.

Here is some feedback:
- combat requires too many clicks, is clunky and lasts longer than necessary at least party because of the UI, if I select a character I should be able to left click an empty square in range and move there immediately without extra clicking, same with attacking into an enemy square, just this would speed up combat considerably, also do we really need 3 waves for the last bandit fight, 1 or 2 should be enough
- would be nice if combat was "sexyer" more animations more poses etc.
- sex scenes should be significantly longer and more elaborate, perhaps sprinkle some extra surprise sex scenes during combat - once you reach an objective or something

I hope the Dev sticks with it and continues to improve, because I really enjoyed the relatively unique (for a ren'py) direction this game is going so far. I think there is a lot of potential.