Unreal Engine - Hilichurl's Girl [v0.1.2.2] [LilCocogoat]

A decent enough H-Game... emphasis on the decent part.

The game loop itself is more of a Lethal Company/Pilgrim-like than the last few versions.
At the time of writing, v.0.1.2.2, this game is in its most polished state to date, which isn't saying much.
Before the concept reboot, I had the issue of being spawned in dead end cave seeds with no way out, lack of prologue direction (and ladder prompts), and generally finding the H-Scenes in that game difficult to accept as a trade for a collect-a-thon in pitch-black.

I*DO* like the vibes of this iteration with the dungeon itself, and the entity therein is GENUINELY spooky and gave me a good frighten once or twice.
*Though do note: I am kind of a pussy in horror games, so YMMV

In this sense, I think it could work well as a horror game. But as an H-Game? And as one using the G**** IP?
Idk.
The Hilichurls have seemingly been taken away from the spotlight, no more sexy body paint or attempts to use the "Churled" idea for character customization.
They're not even plot-relevant anymore let alone a driving factor in the scenario, as enemy types encountered in the dungeon (afaik) and as characters. For the most part its a trader (iirc) and a ritual room where you fuck one for reasons.
The cute ears on our protagonist are gone (at least I think they were fox ears) as far as I can tell.
And most of all, any and all H-Scenes relevant to gameplay outside of rituals and segments that could just be skipped have been seemingly axed for a more straight forward horror experience most of the time.

That begs the question then:
Why is this an H-Game beyond "fair enough" H-Scenes segmented away in their own quarantine zone and some nudie outfits.
And if it must be one, why must it retain the Hilichurl (and G***** branding) at all beyond the clear usage of models and assets?
Because now, scenario-wise, it reminds me way more of something from Moeymoey (ala Breed Laboratory or Breeders) than it does anything G*****. And the characters themselves feel more slapped on than ever.

Better polished? Yes.
A better game, especially horror game? Yes. Especially after taking a foundation from Lethal Company-likes such as Pilgrim for its atmosphere. This is a compliment. This genuinely gave me a little frighten.
But an H-Game?
Ehhhhhhhhhhh. Not quite. And to some extent, it seems it doesn't want to dive into the spooky H like its preceding versions tried, instead opting for a scene-viewer that can be entirely skipped.

And I just wonder, why bother?
As nifty as the horror mechanics are, if the H-content isn't as good as other games, then what sets this apart?
...The IP that it doesn't seem to want to use?
Perhaps I'm wrong on this and maybe there's some deep lore that ties into this but... the game's called Hilichurl's girl. And now it's taken the girl away from the Hilichurl's outside of a quarantine zone in the ghost dimension. As funny as the last game was, collecting shrooms for a buncha churls in the woods/caves so they can get high or something, at least it felt like it lived up to the name and premise, and tied to the IP in a clear way.
Right now? It reminds me of the Joy of Creation reboot vs the original Joy of Creation fan-game. One that tries to be more standalone and spooky but seems to lose the framework that made the original interesting in a meta/fan-work level. The reboot is better, technically and horror-wise. But it lacks that clear cohesion and "ah this could only work with THIS IP", if that makes sense.

To put it bluntly, and perhaps a bit crudely,
you'd be better off whacking it to G***** porn of your favorite big, small or flat chested anime girl on a second monitor as you play an actual lethal company-like ala Pilgrim or Pit of Goblin that fit the same aesthetic... and even let you play WITH FRIENDS!

I must note:
in spite of my harsh summation, I do have some hope that this game will be okay, if not outright good, as a standalone spooky game. I'm just not satisfied with this as an H-Game, given the current content and seeming trajectory of future content.
I do hope I'm proven wrong for my skepticism and lukewarm reception to this latest version of the game. But time will tell.

(Also why am I saying G***** instead of the actual IP name?Because I noticed others avoiding saying it like its the new N-Word so I figure it may be best to just sidestep the possible issue by using a censored label off-the-rip)

Looking forward to what comes in the future. Also I love the fact that its more scary now, it actually made me jump and feel uneasy at parts, so looking forward to more scenes and characters, so dont give up on the project, although it's a big one.

People saying that this is developer's first game, so i will lenient a lil bit. But still, 2 stars for current version
To be honest, Horror is my least favorite genre, but if this game is done with or even better quality animation (at very least like the first post's thumbnail gif), better camera control, and more choice of monster and style, i will come to fap (Because Sucrose).

[Gameplay]

• If you ever playing REPO minus the friends, ok you kinda get the point; gather items, burn it, have ritual, repeat. you will get bored rather quickly because you needs 3500 souls and a trip with 4 inventory is around 100 souls, (Torch is mandatory, you effectively blind on the room without torch)
• Energy is allright, at least for me.
• Idk why there's lock and vase on shop
• Nope, so far i seen no rape scene if you defeated, or i just havent found mob that do so.
• The mob usually you met is damn passive, i stand beside it and it start to attack me after 10 seconds, the pig one incredibly aggressive, however.

[Animation]

• The animation is kinda below the average 3d porn, not the worst, but some aspect havent been polished yet
• I would say the camera is very lacking of control, aside of POV.
• That big hilichurl (i played G-word but lemme use this term), animation isnt work at the version i currently playing, the first doesnt show action, not even the bar is moving up.
• Speaking of action finish (C), the action finish is extremely lacklustre

[What i would like to add]

• Add Gallery for defeated cg with enemies. put that on ritual place.
• More Control on sex scene, Speed, Camera, Climax...
• I would like if we change the 35 times sex ritual with giving 3500 souls by either ritual or "donation" with multiply of 100
• Some changes on character, maybe tattoo, or pregnancy like some say, or bukakke. if you add that, also pls add third person perspective so we can see, kek
• Self sex action, or maybe group sex, maybe? xoxo

Verdict: If you looking something to fap, currently 3d G-word porn video is like... everywhere. If you come to playing, you can try now to give some feedback, or wait for later day.

{Note: why the game reset when i press alt+tab on ritual transition?}

Cant see anything, the scenes are mediocre, only pov shots are decent, but the rest are so bad, you should be able to look the complete body of the caracter or move the camera freely, stamina runs out super fast, opening doors, grab items, shouldnt be an interact thingy that takes like 4 seconds to complete

The opener:
No prerequisites installer even though that's literally a default Unreal option so you have to chase them down yourself. The intro is the default Unreal text object. Zero effort dialogues with pointless "choices" at every step. Run around trying to find out how to play the actual game until you realize that you don't get into the cave by running at the cave, but by talking to an unmarked NPC.

The gameplay:
Literally so dark you can't do anything meaningful unless you're the dev and you already know the monster behaviors and level layouts. Turning on a torch gets you mobbed by monsters the second you step foot inside the level. Poor indication of what you're supposed to gather. Tons of missing basic effects- not even placeholders- so you can't even fall back on that to figure out what's going on in the pitch black. A handful of scenes that would be okay if they weren't so poorly lit the girl looks like they have gangrene.

The verdict:
Play this if you want to help an amateur dev learn. Not if you want to enjoy yourself.

[ EDIT - This review reflects opinions on version 0.0.35 ]

I really like the idea of this game, strong ambience. There are a few issues that I can see with it so far, not sure what the devs continued intentions are for additions to the game, but I figured it might be helpful to list some of the issues I see.

Gameplay Mechanic Issues

No Driving Factor - Other than upgrades there is no real reason to go out and grab materials. The problem of course is that means I'm gathering materials... so that I can better grab materials. I think a decent solution would be for the goblin things she's interacting with to be constantly charging her rent or for transportation. If she doesn't have the cash, she can pay in...*ahem* other ways. The goblin sex scenes could be repurposed to this end.

Things are also worth WAAAAAY too much money. She should struggle to get rent and pay for services (because of course the goblin things will overcharge her because they want to fuck her), so you should be incentivized to take greater risks to fill your packs with more worthwhile items per trip.

If she fails enough times and morale gets low enough (see below) or something, it's game over and the girl just falls into being a goblin fucktoy or monster fucktoy.

Additionally, different more secure lodging could cost more money. Otherwise, sometimes after sleeping for a day she gets raped.

No Failure Penalty - Sure, the monsters can be kinda gross. But I'm here to see the sex scenes. There is no gameplay incentive to not just go out and get caught. The girl has no morale or corruption to keep track of. Morale or corruption could possibly make it harder to collect things, or reduce speed. The point is it should provide some kind of overall detriment to moreso align the player's goals with the girl's goals, since I assume she doesn't want it to happen.

No Failure Penalty Pt2. - I LOVE the whole dragging her away little cutscene. That would be wonderful to expand upon, where instead of being transported back to the hub, she instead wakes up in the nest without equipment and has to escape. After a certain amount of failures to escape the goblin things could rescue her... for a price.

Underwhelming Scenes - The monster scenes only involving foreplay acts seems like wasted potential. Additionally, please introduce the climax aspect at the end of the scene. Not including a climax for either party leaves the scene feeling incomplete. Additionally, the girl's face could use with more expression. She looks like she's uncomfortable because someone cut in front of her in a line, not she's being sexually accosted.

Torches and Sound - I like that different monsters are attracted to different things. However, in the first area it's literally a detriment to turn any torch on at all. Plus, it's bright enough that I can already see. It's too easy to get around the monster's detection capabilities. Also, the timer on the torch does not feel good if I'm already disincentivized to use it for other reasons. Either infinite charge with penalties for using it, such as attracting attention, or at least let it recharge and have some visual indicator of how much torch I currently have.

Gathering is too Painless - Gathering should take time, and attract monsters. Potentially being interruptible. It's really easy to just sprint about the area spamming the grab key and then yeet out with no penalties or real interaction with the environment. Locking your camera to effectively blind you for a few seconds could also heighten the tension of doing so.

Suggestions

First Person Lock - I actually rather like the whole locked to first person thing, it's really unique. That being said, being able to see what's going on would also be nice. I know we can switch it to third person, but it sort of loses some of the ambience the locked perspective grants. So my proposal would be to include mirrored surfaces at strategic areas during certain scenes so you can still see what's happening but are still locked to first person.

Pregnancy - Obviously this one is hard, and it's completely personal preference. It would be an interesting detriment to continued sexual exposure though. Increased rent prices. Potentially allow the girl to buy condoms or allow a minigame of sorts to avoid getting creampied during scenes.

More Diverse Monster Behavior - Include additional vectors of mitigating monster behavior such as a level of agitation. Take the first area where shining your torch is a death sentence immediately. Instead, let them slowly increase in agitation as you do things they don't like which increases their speed, their proclivity to attack, and their willingness to continue a chase. This could persist between trips to the general area and could progress to a point where she is actively hunted even without lighting a torch and could increase the severity of sexual abuse she is subjected to during scenes.

Lowering it could include sexual favors that she doesn't want to perform or simply avoiding the area for long enough. Additionally, grabbing the most expensive items from each area could also increase agitation especially if there is a nest for the creatures where you could take things they personally collected.

Knowing how much agitation is in a particular area could be yet another goblin service she has to pay for, like a goblin surveyor.

Grabbed - Potentially allowing a creature to grab and drag the female protagonist and require some kind of struggling mechanic might be interesting, though understandably that might be on the difficult side.

Stamina System - Some kind of stamina system, with penalties to max stamina based on her morale or corruption might also be interesting. Could also introduce other activities in the main hub she has to pay for to increase these statistics, such as taking baths or purchasing tasty foods. As it stands now, the girl is an olympic athlete capable of sprint at mach 2 outrunning everything is the caves with no detriment.

Torches and Darkness - The game is too bright. I know people complained, but I think that's because the torches themselves weren't luminous enough. As it stands now, there is little incentive to use them as I mentioned above. Upgrades could reduce agitation instead or make enemies not want to approach a few times. Torch should cast tons of light, but the environment should be basically pitch black outside of a few scant light sources.

More Forceful Animations - I love the fact that the girl has slight jiggles when she moves, but the sex animations are often so gentle she doesn't jiggle at all. More sharp thrusts and more rough treatment of the girl seem more fitting due to the subject matter of the game. Save the gentler stuff for when she approaches them for things she wants.

Also, I love the little bulge she gets when the goblins go to town on her, hopefully that gets expanded upon with bigger entities.

More Monsters - Duh, but I thought I'd add it anyway. The more monsters, the more animations, the more nests, and the more unique interactions the better. Even include contradictory monsters, such as in the first area where some monsters are attracted to the light, but others in the same area could be repelled by it. Introducing a balancing mechanic the player has to engage with.

Body Markings - Ability to turn these on or off. I'm not sure what the symbol over her womb is, but it looks out of place to me.

Speech Bubbles - No need to go all out on a voice budget, but just a simple pool of dialogue for her to draw from so we have a better idea how she is reacting to what's going on. If the perpetrating entity has nothing to say in response, just include elipses (...) to show that they heard her protestations but are just apathetic.

Simple lines like : "Please stop...", "I don't want to do this...", "Are you almost done? Please...", "Please let me go...", "Will you let me go after you're done?", "I'm scared, please stop.", "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to take things from your cave. I'll leave if you just let me go..."

All of that can go a LONG way.

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That's all I've got. As I said, I love the idea of the game and I'm not sure how much you have already planned out, but I thought I'd shoot some ideas out in case they might help. Feel free to ignore or use whatever.

I sincerely wish you luck dev and hope you can turn this into the game you want.

Pros:

1. Sexy model
2. Smooth movement

Cons:
Horrible lighting (it's still horrible after the increase)

1. Camera is at somewhere around the height of MC's knees
2. Very little content

The game may turn out good (I'm pretty optimistic about this particular game, since the control and model are both pretty good), but it's not there yet at the moment.

Suggestion:

1. fix camera
2. massively increase light radius. Make it dim if you want the atmosphere, but the actual size it lights should be at least 3x what we have now
3. increase hitbox of items
4. decrease enemy attack windup time and increase reach

Wow, that was boring.

1-Enter a cave
2-Collect shrooms
3-Get caught by monsters you can't avoid
4-Lose your clothes
5-Get raped in POV where you can't see anything
6-Get back to camp
7-(RNG) get raped in the camp, still in POV so you still can't see anything
8-(RNG) get raped in the camp, still in POV so you still can't see anything
9-(RNG) get raped in the camp, still in POV so you still can't see anything
10-I think you got it
11-Sell your inventory for dirt cheap
12-Rinse and repeat
13-Buy a torch a upgrade! Nice now you can see a meter away from you instead of barely seeing you feet!
14-Rinse and repeat
15-Be bored
16-Leave a 1 star review

EDIT: Sep 2024 - dev has improved a lot of these points, so raising the rating by 1 star. (Although graphics are still not there yet)

Many good ideas for a game, but there are too many fundamental problems and I don't think the dev will have the ability to fix them. This is very unfortunate because the 1st person POV is a great idea.

Pros:
+ First-person POV is a unique idea and could carry the game by itself because it's so original and immersive.
+ Horror ambience and monster design is well done. The game is creepy.

Cons:
- Lighting is terrible (the problem is not just that it's dark, but it's completely unrealistic, the torch barely lightens anything, and all the lights look pre-rendered. You can do such beautiful lighting with EU5, why does it look like a 2001 Gamecube game?)
- Everything looks too low resolution and lacks details. The grain filter is bad. The girl model has too low res, you can clearly see the polygons during sex, the animations are poor and have no creampie. It seems like the developer runs on a very bad PC with low graphics.
- Game teleports you to a sex room on game over. Why can it not use the current location where you got caught? I know it would be technically more difficult, but for now it's like watching a glorified gallery.
- The 1st person view does not make the girl model very hot to look at. Usually in 3D games, watching your girl walk is erotic by itself. You need to find a way to make the 1st POV more appealing, maybe there should be boob giggle physics or something.

Review written as of version 0.0.23

A good, simple premise, with quite a lot of potential. Submissive POV games are quite rare to find, and while there isn't much content yet at time of writing, what's here gives me quite a lot of hope that this could become something very enjoyable in the future.

I will, however, echo a few of the criticisms others have raised; the game is DARK-- literally, you can't see shit, even with a fully-upgraded torch. This, combined with the strange muffling effect on the sounds that the monsters make, causes it to be very difficult to actually detect the threats around you, detracting from the horror angle somewhat. I can't creep around in fear if I don't know there's a monster, and since I'll never actually know the monster is there until it's already chasing me, why bother hiding from it when I could just sprint across the map grabbing loot?

Additionally, I think the penalty for defeat is a bit harsh, especially since getting defeated is the main method by which you can view H-scenes. Contrary to popular opinion, I think lewd-on-defeat is a perfectly acceptable design, but losing all of your hard-earned upgrades the moment a monster catches you makes me question why I should be bothering with upgrades in the first place. It might be a better idea to allow the player a chance to go back and recover their upgrades after getting caught, a bit like bloodstains in the Dark Souls series.

Female POV games are rare. It just needs a little bit of sound and visual work with variations. Other than that, it's just a matter of time when this game hits top 50 on this site. Looking forward to this developer.

Unique little game, would love more animations (optional third person?) and maybe a liiiittle less dark but other than that, a first person horror H game is actually pretty refreshing. Good on you dev! Looking forward to future updates