House Party is a game that offers quite a bit. You have a 3d world which you have the total freedom to walk around in, a cast of characters with a pretty clearly defined goal to get in their pants, and controls that mostly feel quite intuitive. Hover over items to see what you can interact with.
Since the last time I have touched this, I noticed the system for dragging around items has changed a bit, though it appears all I can do is throw objects. This makes it pretty awkward, since I try to take an item out of the fridge only to need to throw it at a wall since I cannot just place it back in the fridge. The older system was much better here, plus there was a lot more freedom in regards to pushing things. The world here therefore feels a lot less sandboxy than the one I remember.
I also remember when a tutorial is added. That is probably for the best, because the microwave is still referencing it even though it seems the tutorial has been deprecated for some reason. I am not really sure why, it seems we downgraded back to just having a list in one of the submenus.
Then we have Ashley's top, which must be a more recent addition. She has it rather loose and it can be come undone, whereby she will hate you. Only real problem is that this is on a person, which leads to accidentially misclicking it when trying to talk to Ashley (happened quite often, I had to save scum around her, while it should only affect her back it appears the hitbox is so wide that I could trigger it from the front somehow).
The game is based off of Leisure Suit Larry and it is showing, there is a lot of comedy in this game. This leads to more interest in the game, since you are intrigued by what can happen and be said. Plus you have custom content to explore even further, a massive benefit.
The main problem however is essentially what the game is designed around. This is a puzzle based game, through and through, which some people might appreciate. I might appreciate it more with some randomization, but the game instead works where X object is hidden somewhere and you need to find it. This leads to two paths, you either spend hours hunting and possibly getting frustrated, or you look it up and then feel worse for cheating. Perhaps it is my mentality, but these games just feel like the type of game I cannot win, I either gain frustration or self-loathing. Not exactly what I want from what should be a pleasurable adult title.
Say you figure out that the hidden object that Rachel needed was behind a crack in the closet. This results in you hunting for a hammer to break down that crack, which is just conveniently placed between all the alcohol in the cabinet. This is essentially the type of game you are getting, one which focuses highly on finding the hidden object in an oddly unrelated place without being able to ask anyone about it. The problem is, simply put, that once you find the hammer you know where it is. You will probably be able to pick up the hammer preemptively because you know you will need it, leading to a sort of killing of the challenge. There may be multiple routes, but each single action you take is in turn exhausting the content, to the point where replayability is sorely lacking. It is bad enough you know how Derek would react to certain statements due to saying them before, it is worse when even the hidden objects become something you know about. And a walkthrough of course ruins it all the more since then you didn't get the glorious frustration of that first playthrough. With a title like this, you cannot win, you are stuck essentially destroying gameplay with the only real benefit being a lot of stress and the eventual promise of sex with a 3d model. Once you know the exact choices needed and just head to the sex, you might as well be playing a sex simulator, such as 3d Sexvilla.
Custom content expands the frustration thankfully, of course it probably is bad that all that can be offered is stress. This game offers a great 3d world with likeable human characters, something most games do not, but at the end of the day the only challenge offered is puzzles that will often feel arbitrary. If you look them up with a walkthrough, the game becomes all the more pointless, and yet that seems to be the only way to avoid hours of headache.
