Ren'Py - Influencing [v0.1.17.8] [Golden Crow]

After countless (same old) virtual novels I found this game.
It's hard to find Ren'py games with such detail and complexity as this one. I am not a coding expert but it's easy to see that there is a massive work here - So many things.
I haven't tested v0.1.15.2 and have found few bugs here and there, but nothing massive that stopped me to continue.
The F95Zone is full of people who like those novels that you simply click on the space bar throughout. In this game they won't be able to do that so for sure this won't be their cup of tea.
The game is great but I would like to share some ideas which I believe could help it become even better.
- Visuals: The first and most obvious one is the visuals. I wished this would have 3D renders which the best quantity, instead of these current 2D.
- Diversity: The game has some diversity but it would be nice to se even more. More clothes, different bodies and body features, more faces, more facial expressions on the animations, this to help creating more distinct and unique NPCs. Being less repetitive and with more unique characters is something that will make this game even better. Another thing that would help would be diversity of sounds and voices.
- Shops: It would be nice to see more objects/items available in shops
- Map: t would be great to have a bigger map, with more locations.
- User interface menu: It could be improved. Sometimes it's difficult to control the NPCs' questions.


Well done Mr. developer!

The TLDR; short of a big overall update, this game is in dire straits and I foresee future problems. Bad gameplay, Bad emergent story, and poor erotica.

Gameplay
There is hardly a game here besides “talking” to characters. But dialogue isn’t intriguing or interactive or fun, it’s a slog. Go up to a character. Spam the same dialogue option until desired result or they say that you’re saying the same thing and then switch to a different option to spam. In a game where you’ll be seducing/being seduced you would’ve thought this would be abstracted to a mini game or something to make it engaging and non-repetitive. There is very little in the way of non-sex things to do as well. I’m not totally bombing this project for the fact that there’s an impressive amount being done on the Renpy engine here, but at the same time, I can feel the jank of the engine show through. Things like buttons not responding until I click them multiple times or lack of QoL conveniences like being able to press tab to select different options. QoL here is generally not great. Lack of rollback on a Renpy game is odd, I get they’re trying to go for a Sims-esque approach but the difference there is that sims you can set a conversation going and then leave to forget it and pay attention to a different character and it’s fairly easy to get back in a characters good graces. If you put on auto mode conversation there can be problems like the dialogue going by too fast, inability to see what the question was, or just generally clunky/uninteresting dialogue (a natural problem that the Sims avoided with Simlish). That is to say, if my Sim says something stupid in dialogue then I can remedy it or play along and it feels good. If my Influencer says something stupid in dialogue, I’m forced to do more of the thing I don’t like… engage in dialogue. Very ambitious sandboxes NEED content and large amounts of it. I understand this is a small-time developer, but that’s the problem. If this game is to shine, it may need a team helping pump out content faster and implement more QoL stuff if possible. And also fixing dialogue to either make it a “set it and forget it” kinda thing or an engaging mechanic.

Story
Being this is a Sims-esque game, the story here is meant to be largely emergent. I should be able to tell fellow sex fiends about the wacky adventures I got into this game. In this genre of games what makes emergent story-telling is the usage of “Yes And”. As said before there’s a lack of gameplay here and for what there is there is a lack of consequence to gameplay. I joined the discord to see if I was missing stuff and it seems key consequences are missing. No pregnancy. No fighting. No rivalries. Which means there’s no “Yes And” moments. There’s never a point where you do something and it causes a major shifting alteration later. Playing for about 6 hours, I felt nothing really happened. I just sucked a lot of wieners in the gym bathroom and that’s it. No drama whatsoever. I think the developer again needs to improve here by making more emergent systems that have big life-changing consequences so that the player feels they truly have a story of their own. There’s already hints of this with other characters getting jealous, but they don’t do anything about their jealousy. They don’t try to sabotage your relationship or fight you or try to reconcile with you or blackmail you or anything that would create intrigue and tension.

Erotic
It is truly impressive how the developer was able to use their talents to make it so that you have a wide range of bodies to have and have sex with. That is the games saving grace. Otherwise, sex in this game is boring. You have sex in one place, you’ve had sex in them all. The sex mechanics are clunky and not engaging. Also I can’t see what a character likes in H-scenes with them so I have no idea how to improve sex until it’s over. The developer needs to make environments interactive and restrict the amount of sex positions in an environment. Example of what I mean: in the gym bathroom stall, there could be only 3 available sex positions, the toilet could be integrated like a character using it as a chair or something to get their leg up (even something more taboo involving water sports or grossness). Additional mechanics like sound or cellphone calls from romantic partners could be integrated. There is an overall lack of taboo content. I understand Patreon restrictions and all that, but this may just require moving off Patreon because it’s such a severe damage to the game. You have to go to the discord to get a mod that enables incest, but it may as well not be incest, no character comments on it whatsoever. In my incest-run, my Influencer’s mom walked in on her dad creampieing her and the dialogue was just the same as though this was normal cheating which she was okay with (which before I spammed at the Influencer’s mom to be okay with being cheated on). I understand I can’t fault the developer for the content in a mod, but this should be content shipped with the game instead or in one of those “unofficial patches”. Any game that wants to be a sandbox sex simulator needs taboo content so that there can be a level of progression into degeneracy noticed and for there to be player freedom. So the developer needs to make certain sex positions/scenes exclusive to the environment, change and add sex mechanics, and needs to add taboo content that the game world recognizes as taboo.

Love this game. The only problem with me is that everybody is insanely jacked even if you try making a chubby character. Believe it's gonna be more customizable in the future, unless the lore here is that it's the universe where every day is a leg day or something.

Otherwise, great stuff. Looking forward to what's it gonna become.
________

UPD: the legs are fine now and are only jacked for muscular characters

The game has potential, but as of September 2023, it has one big issue, it's poorly optimized. I have a Ryzen 7 4000 series CPU, a GTX 1650 Ti GPU and 24 GB ram, and it forces the game as much as Skyrim, and lags a lot.

As for the game itself, it's a good starting point with something that is missing in these adult games, which is family customization. I couldn't play for much due to the lag and load of the game on my laptop. I suggest optimizing it before increasing its complexity.

Again, it can go very well, or like life play, but good job and good initiative so far.

This one of the best (if it's not the best) sandbox game on f95. After years of frustration with Lifeplay, I discovered this little gem. Even if it's made by a solo dev, even if it's ren'py (which can be surprising at the beginning) and even if it's 2D, in this game you can trully enjoy freedom and sandboxing.

However keep in mind the development is in active progression and this is not a final game. So "long term" run play is at the moment a little bit weak but the basic is here and the game (as the dev) is opened to modding. Which is amazing and easy to do.
I think in the future that will be the 2D H sandbox we dreamed.

For NTR haters don't worry it's fully avoidable.
Keep up the good work dev

Is it just me or is this game improving? The sex scenes seem to be increasing, with some nice new variations of some. The bugs have been getting less and less common. Even playing on android seems to be more stable than it used to be. This game is truly one of the few games I find worth following on this site as far as sim games go!

It's very promising game,it has so much freedom and has great sex positions.I think this game needs more content like new jobs ,new sex positions,pregnancy and raising the baby (like sims),random events,and after talk about when you or your partner caught cheating. That's all I can think rn.

good sim based game, alot of potential. dont let the art style put you off, the only thing ill say about it, is its lack of consistency during scenes. one minute my partner has pubes, the next they dont.. i think the consistency and quality of animation should be reworked to match all round.

more gameplay styles should be added, non con, slave routes which can open up an entirely new form of gameplay that adds to his replayability value, kidnapping, non con, and then add trainer type features.. so are you a master that is gentle and patient? or are you a master that is brutal and takes what you want regardless? do you bathe them, feed them etc? or dont you? all should give you a positive/negative, or just simply a negative stat that helps your style of gameplay.

also, more animations need added for male partners, more foreplay animations, all round. ass related stuff, ass play, gaping, cum dripping, pubes, ass eating on the giving side, fingering, worshipping etc.. spreading asses.. just general ass play features, and just more sexual activity and positions.


the openness of allowing male female or trans characters to be your partner, buddy, etc is cool. expand on it. this makes this game unique with its sim aspects, so expand on that too.. give faith to your players, and allow them to pursue what routes they want, as explained above with either legally abiding or none legally biding, you could make profit from breaking slaves and selling them, or breaking their mind with a more brutal approach and selling them, or using them as sex workers. which having said brutal routes could also expand on the use for the police force, do you bribe them, do you try to keep under their radar etc? does a slave escape mediocre security that you've not upgraded and tarnishes your reputation around town, affecting friendships, spreading rumours, and also gaining heat from the cops in the meanwhile? i think it could suit this game.

pretty fun game, thats why its three stars for now, which doesn't mean its bad.. just needs longer to cook, with more to do, more to explore, and more options with sex, and career paths etc. could see this being five stars if the above is added. alot of grammatical errors need fixed too, as there's alot of broken English in there, but you can still understand what they intend to mean. this game is really fun and unique! give it a try!

Influencing [v0.1.12.2]

Pros:
cool concept

Neutral:
Artstyle (will change in the future)
The World looks copy and pasted
Customization (will change in the future)

Cons:
Bugs
No rollback
Gameplay
Sex Scenes
Stats

Now, I know that this game is far from finished and that the game will be polished, but I can only rate what I see.
I think it´s a very ambitious project, but it´s still far away from being a good game experience.
The game feels too grindy and overwhelming with it´s countless dialogue options and things you have to keep in mind all the time, like your money, stats and kinks of your partners during sex. The sex scenes feel annoying because of that and you need to fill a bar which feels frustrating.
I really wish all of this would be simplified. It would also be cool to add a cheat menu.
I first tried to play the game with joiplay so I can use URM, but I couldn´t go past the world generation because I got an error.
The Android version runs decent, but the rollback function is needed because you have to save all the time before an error occurs.
I wish the Dev all the best in his development of the game and will follow his future updates.

Never have I found a game so simple in art form yet so tempting to play! Influencing is a game that may look unassuming and plain in art and animation, but holds extreme potential and as of late is becoming much less buggy. I find myself drawn to this game for it's overall features and not for any specific feature, plus more is soon to come in the near future.

Pros:
- Mechanics are diverse for 'influencing' characters
- Help system explains almost any mechanic you're not fully understanding
- cheat system accommodates for anything you're struggling to control
- sex animations are simple yet kinky enough for a fair sized audience
- Sex sounds and moaning are a plus
- Ability to customize character and customize generated world
- Rather broad variety of options to mess with for generated worlds
- Game isn't difficult, and made easier through help menu
- Game allows you to have residents who you can 'control'
- artwork isn't super detailed, but enough to be enticing
- New modding section has been added to their discord!
- Dialogue between mc and npc can be diverse, if not a little repetitive

Cons:
- Customization of characters is somewhat limited, however this may change
- Limited choice of clothing relatively speaking
- Can't customize character while in generated world (so make save before starting new game)
- Can't roll back time on game so make lots of saves/quicksaves
- Limited number of sex scenes, though they do vary based on gender/pref
- Sex animation and sex sounds can and will be improved in near future
- Dialogue can become a bit of a grind
- game can lag more or less based on your pc specs
- sometimes game can crash. As gamers just remember that save instinct
- jobs are limited and not fully fleshed out yet.
- The dev is working by their self on this project. Not bad for one person
- Updates are typically every 1-2 months (refer to previous con)
- locations are copy and pasted, could do with various rooms generated

There's absolutely a lot to say about this game. It has a lot of positives, and a few things it needs to improve upon. Sure the game has an 'Archer' art-style and some limitations, but you'll be pitted against 100-300 npcs, so you will be more busy with quantity over quality in interactions. I've been tracking the developer's discord and they've been making big moves lately on bug fixing and improvements. There's even big a big announcement about a change to the art style of the game which may involve some new 'flow' to the hundreds of npcs you could meet. This game is not bad for what it is currently, and any issues with it are heard and read by the dev, which is more than some devs' actually do out there. There is a lot of potential to be had here as it is improved and patched in the next year/s to come so I will be updating this review when I find things have changed in any way. Thanks for reading, f95 .

"Influencing" seems rather promising. What's currently implemented is fairly rough around the edges, but in a way that actually shows signs of what's to come as opposed to being deployed almost totally devoid of features like far too many early-in-development games.
My largest criticisms would be that the UI is somewhat unwieldy, sex scenes are lackluster and tedious to go through, a fair number of the characters will generate with rather off-putting visuals, I couldn't find a way to change my or anyone else's clothes, and there's little if anything in the way of influencing people with fear

As the game continues to be improved, my review score will likely follow.

My review of Influencing [v0.1.12]

An extremely barebones unplayable shell of a game.

My first gameplay impressions
Need some money for... nothing really, so I apply for a job as a college professor.
At the interview, after insulting and groping the female college director, I get the job immediately with no experience.
Get to work right away, masturbating in the girl's bathroom and fucking a female student.
Go to the police station to turn myself in.
I can't turn myself in because the police station is just a placeholder.
Enter the slutty tutorial girl's house and fuck her instead - she loves it.
Fuck her again on the next day (making her cum multiple times) - she suddenly hates it.
The game bugs out and throws an exception every time I change location now - have to restart from the beginning.

Some more details about the game
- The "65+ locations" is more like 5+ locations where you can actually do something and 100 identical apartments.
- Conversations are extremely incoherent, repetitive, and boring
- You have like 50 dialogue options but getting someone to love you just requires spamming the same one for 10 minutes
- Sex is just clicking a position to make a bar go up/down instantly + watching small animation for some positions
- The game can randomly bug out, so you have to do frequent saves, since rollback is disabled
- Simple stuff, like opening a specific menu, is enough to softlock the game because the Close button is behind another UI element
- No background music, but has some fake moaning sounds (bound to the Music Volume slider)

I initially wanted to give this game 2 stars, because it at least has some basic gameplay, but releasing it in its current state is honestly an insult.

The game keeps making improvements by leaps and bounds! First the character creation and now the generation AI ! Amazing. First of its kind!
I am as an amateur coder, very intrigued with the inner workings of the game, and as a player happy with the playstyle.
A sims-style 2D game that has left me impressed. Well done dev.
I will change the ratings as the game progresses.

After playing games for about 5 or 6 years, I have never seen a game so ambitious as this, I think in a few years this could be the best porn game ever.

Only the graphic side needs to be improved, but the creator is transparent with his work and is working on it.

I love Influencing, i play it since June 2022 and it keeps getting better, from Update to Update!
Crow really keeps in Touch with the players, to improve the game!
I know the Graphics are not for everyone, but it really feels like a Real game, cause your choice matter!

It does not deserve to be as low as 3.5 stars for what it is, so let me fix that a little.

Don't misunderstand, this game is not finished, it's not enough for a person who really wants to fap furiously. It's more like the bones for what will come later, it's a demo that shows all the basic stuff, and i judge it as such. And on these bones the flesh will be placed... which can be called "the game just needs to be fleshed out".

Now, as a demo it shows that it will be somewhat like Lifeplay, but 2d. Your 2d avatar will even be able to participate in sex scenes, which is kinda more impressive than 3d. There are apartments for npcs to live in, there's customization for what npc you will see, there's a job system, random movement for npcs, random personalities... so yeah, Lifeplay. The only complain i have is that in this version i need to show initiative with every single npc for anything to happen, and i love it when they do it first, and i answer. Sure hope they will be able to talk to me first in the future.

Art quality might seem "low", but i'd say a different style is better for the eye, plus it's easier to make more content. If it were any higher quality i'd imagine it would've been abandoned, so consider that if you're looking at it and think it should look better - it would've been too ambitious to have both content and great looks, and you would've never seen it being finished, just adding another game into [Abandoned] pile.

Is it worth playing now? Not really(And as of 0.1.11.3 it seems you will have better luck getting laid IRL than in this game, good luck trying to earn something to fap to). It needs a lot of stuff added, and a lot of bones too. You can check it out for a few hours, imagine all the possibilities with this system, and close it.

Is it worth adding this to bookmarks and watch this thread, though? Absolutely. Which is why 5 stars, i sure am looking forward to seeing this game much more filled with content after a year or two, provided the dev will not get "life-circumstanced".

I've been following this game from it's early days and I have to say that it's already grown quite a lot and does not feel like it'll stop anytime soon.

This game is a true sandbox in which you can do whatever you want to, the game can feel a bit overwhelming at first until you learn the ropes and can also feel a bit grindy as others mentioned if you don't come in with the right mindset as each character comes with different stats in which some are easy to have sex with while some are actually impossible as they're loyal to their partners.

In case the grindy aspect is not for you then you can always enable the cheats and cheat character's stats to speed up the process as well.

As for the developer himself, I have to say that I absolutely love how friendly he is and how he listens to everyone's feedback and actively responds both here and on his Discord, it's a quality that not many have which is why I'm rating this game a 5/5 even though there's still plenty of work to be done to make it a perfect game but I'm sure we'll get there sooner or later.

The game definitively has potential, the character customization is great and allows for a lot of variety. The influencing part is cool once you get the hang of it but can be a bit grindy sometimes.
All in all I like it, this game gave me a lot of content!

A real sandbox game, looks very promising. The developer is very nice, active and open to suggestions.

The GUI it's easy and very intuitive, the gameplay is dinamic and the world is reactive.

It's very easy to start a sex scene, you even have a cheat menu if you want to skip all the grind.

Awesome game must give a try, has all the elements that a good games should have , a good map ,wide variety of npc , good mechanics , well make character coustumisation , god player and npc traits that actually matter, variety of implementable options ,