HTML - Inner Empire [v1.7] [Defiant Explorer]

In my opinion the best game on this website.

The writing is absolutely great, I enjoy the approach of sparce and subtle artworks that inspire your own imagination while not distracting from the story. Also, the artstyle of the illustrations depicting your surroundings is really nice and sets a nice atmosphere.
I haven't explored different paths yet, though the decisions in my playthrough felt impactful.

In sum, absolute recommendation and don't let the heavy focus on text stop you from trying this game, you'll miss out!

A lot of text based games here become very burdensome due to excessive grinding, chores, shitty navigational systems and the like. This has none of these, which greatly works to its advantage.

Some of the background attributes do seem as though they would overlap (e.g., intrigue, mind and perception) and thus 1 or 2 COULD be removed, but I am being very nit-picky here. The general plot is also one that is not often seen - a girl in a historical setting seeking fame and fortune through theatre. Hopefully there will be a wide array of kinks. Whether it is the fmc working or fucking her way to the top of the socioeconomic ladder (which is more my taste), or making the wrong (or right) decisions into becoming a slave to another.

There seem to be a variety of paths that can be taken by the protagonist, and an array of characters the player can encounter along the way. There is a mixture of important and minor choices that can be made, and the player is able to somewhat predict what may happen given a choice (which is a good thing; the consequences need not be obvious but they shouldn't be completely out of nowhere either).

There is also some detail that is put into the birds eye views and maps, as well as some visuals via portraits of the characters. It would be nice to see visuals for particular scenes as well, but this isn't absolutely necessary.

Ultimately, this is definitely one of the better erotic text based games that you can find. Can't wait to see how this project develops!

It catch my attention because I was searching for a game with female protagonist and lesbian (my two greater kinks ;-)), and character creation tags.
So if you don't like female protagonist, this game is definitively not for you!
But after I started reading the comments on this tread, I wasn't sure if I will like it.
As @Defiant Explorer explain that the MC is straight at first and so is attracted by men. By choice the player can make her bisexual.
But according to the lore of this world, lesbianism (and male homosexuality I guess) is a sin. And in a world where everybody believed in the gods, you don't want to attract their wrath on you. So the MC will never become a full lesbian.
And what I like is lesbian FMC.

But, I decided to give it a try anyway.
And I was not disappointed, quite the contrary!

First I like the creation character system.
Nothing new, but it give me a vibe of a good old tabletop RPG creation, and I like that.
And I like the concept of Insight ability. Like hero or fate points you can find in other RPGs, that allow you to exceed your limits, and succeed a test you should normally fail. One important thing to know, to be able to use Insight points with an ability, it must be at least at level 1. So when creating your character, if you want to have at least 1 in all the 6 abilities, you have just enough creation points have 2 abilities at level 2, ou 1 at level 3.
The ethnos (race) and origin (your personal story before the game start) help flesh out your character. They don't affect your starting abilities. But your origin sometimes give you specific options. And NPC sometimes react at your ethnos (but I don't remember having seen an option related at your ethnos, yet).

About the game mechanisms, it's all about choices. Actions or dialogue lines you must chose from a list depending of the situation.
Some choices require a minimum level of an ability. It's where having some Insight points to spend may prove useful, to allow you to temporary (for that choice only) meet the requirement.

The arts are minimal. So if it's important for you, this is not a game for you.
But, it's a text based game after all, so I don't mind.
I even found that the MC avatar remind me of some 70's French/Belgium sci-fi comic books (more precisely Yoko Tsuno and Valérian, for those who know).
And the views from above have a vibe of decors a tabletop RPG GM will draw for you to put your miniatures on.

I like the story for now.
I'm not a English native, but despise what the dev write, I didn't find it's in broken English. I find it rather well written.
You can chose how the MC can react to the situations and people. Will she be honest or not. Will she impose her will, or go with the flow. Will she fall for a man, sold her body for a few silver coins... or resist to all the males.
I won't say she is really a lesbian, as there often mentions that she find some men attractive. But you could avoid sex with all of them, and only go with women.
Well there only one sex scene with a woman for now. But I hope there will be more with her, and with other girls.

The game is at it's begin (chapter 1.2), but I really enjoyed it so far.

Inner Empire [v1.2]

I liked the game.
Well written. An interesting world around the main character. In the open location, there are various situations in which the main character can participate, although some of them are present solely to study the lore of the universe. The intimate scenes are well written.

A BIG MINUS for me was the stats of the main character. In some situations they are not needed for the playthrough I made, and in others without a certain number of stats you can't even say no to another character (like at the end of 1.2) So the plot gives me a choice without a choice and I find myself in a situation in which I I don’t want to be and at the same time the situation is exposed as if I simply have no choice and this choice is the only true one. The ending of this version is very frustrating.

Thus, I liked the game and if it were not for the situation with the choice at the end of 1.2, then I would put the 5th now it's only 4.

Also, only from the second playthrough, I learned about the possibility of pumping stats. It's better for the author to make a hint about this feature, or if it exists and I missed it, make it more noticeable.

While the game creates the illusion of choice in dialogue, choice seems solely based on stats. As a result, one can play always choosing to not want a certain relationship, but be forced into it and into the character enjoying it with the explanation that according to the willpower test, the player's declarations for the protagonist were dishonest. This takes away any sort of player agency but also breaks the trust between author and reader: if the reader can't trust the words written, reading becomes pointless.

I was incredibly surprised, this is not an ordinary html game where you want to quickly skip the entire text, but you really read the dialogues and do not miss them. An interesting skill system, I will follow the project and wait for updates, no questions asked, rating 5 out of 5.

Review for update 1.2
ok, so currently I have only played one route. Despite that I want to leave a review some where.
tldr: This is one of the better text based narratives I have experienced, the characters have a stunning amount of character and it seems to have an well built world. In the end I highly recommend it.

Also despite it being obvious spoilers ahead, read at your own discretion.

The only route I have played was the redhead characters trauma backstory, and the writing was fantastic. I felt genuinely upset and an actual grunge form toward the slavers. Yet I also felt the characters fear towards them and understood well why she was fearful. (then again that may be because of my irl experiences idk and idc) I loved the intro to the town and the choices and I hope that the sister gets treated well, hopefully bought by a guy like the protag in teaching feeling. I can not wait to read more and and explore every nook and cranny of this game.
The things I did dislike was how there was a lack of choice in the choices. Which I assume will be remedied as updates are released so I have little worry in that. Another was the abilities, although I do understand what each means. It is a bit frustrating having three separate abilities for charisma. Although I also recognize the necessity for it in a text based game. This was remedied by the inclusion of points you could spend to make up for any lacking abilities .

All in all, I give this game a solid 9/10 for its true score and I hope to see what this develops into.

Review is for v1.2
Not really bad or good as of now. The beginning was excelent, going around exploring the town was *chef's kiss*, but once the traveling started, it became a railroad of boredom.
At the end of the day, I would say this is a good game, it's just not a game I will enjoy.

I agree with some players below. The game is too short for us to do a solid review. If we knew the story was actually linear and advanced it straightforwardly, the whole process would be around 20 minutes.

We must admit that judging something or someone with just 20 minutes of experience is inappropriate, especially when the author declares officially in the game it is now only 20% of the planned gaming. So, it is particularly NOT genuine and honest to give a game five or one-star review with that short experience. Hence I give 3-start(the median number); I think it could be an excellent game if the dev pays much more effort into it.

Pro:
1, The dev is ambitious to develop a massive story; 30% of meaningful reading is about the background, which feels a little irrelevant at this development stage(you can skip it, and it would not affect anything). I can feel a massive story has been brewing, but it needs much more time to be readable.

Con:
1, It seems you have a lot of choices, but none of those would lead to the story ramifications. The story is simply LINEAR.
2, many choices have no content; when you choose them, they would have no meaningful response or even no response. (bad gameplay)
3, The current story is actually very simple and boring: a girl wants to find her sister and joins a group of circuit performers. It is more like the premise of a story rather than a story.

So, the game/story hasn't even begun officially yet; I don't understand how some people could read "the greatest story so far".....anyway, best wishes to the dev; I think this could be an excellent game if she/he focuses on the game itself rather than other irrelevant/costly stuff.

One of the best writings i've seen, characters are good, and setting is quite unique or rare at worst, choices are plenty. What more can a person wish for? More content, yeah...

One thing that should be noted, it states [v1.0], but if i were to compare, it really is [v0.1] with how long it is, though i agree v1.0, v2.0 and so on for chapters just looks much better for F95 lurker's tired eye. Anyway, it can easily be described as a demo-version, since it demonstrates how it all works and what you should expect.

Now, for the most important part, dev part and potential - portraits look simple to make, great decision for the author. It will be easier to manage making new versions, without bothering too much with the artwork. One author usually has only one or two directions he's comfortable with, so it's good that the artwork wouldn't be an issue. It might avoid being abandoned at all, and it should be worth it to watch this thread.

There really isn't anything bad to be said about this demo. Nice job, will wait for the next versions for sure.

good writing, fun characters, would definitely play again. Hopefully they will increase content in the future! And not make to many varied paths if they can't finish them. It does seem very ambitious, but still the best text game on the site right now

From the initial premises, this game delivers on every aspects what exactly you would expect from a good text-based RPG, and I've played quite a few of them - adult and/or non adult theme, it offers interesting plot points and choices without getting too involved on said plots making it too confusing for the grand view of the story/plot points.

I have only praises and nice words for the game as I don't see any weakness/bad things from it yet, and sure I'm interested on seeing the game develop going forward, good luck.

An original idea, with some solid execution that stands out from the pack. The writing is excellent, with some surprisingly fleshed out characters even when they're there to fill stock roles, and a well thought out and interesting world based on historical civilisations. The gameplay seems to really understand what makes the text adventure genre fun and rewarding, unlike most NSFW attempts at it. This is a great start, and I'm very much looking forward to future updates!

I have to agree with other reviewers, this is very well done but I am also concerned that Inner Empire might be abandoned due to the incredible amount of content that would be required to fill this world.

But pessimism is no way to support content creators and when in doubt, for the accused. World building, narration, character design and RPG features are all top notch and I didn't feel that I miss out by not having more visual representation. It has enough visuals to flesh out my imagination and as an avid novel reader I don't mind HTML at all. The game does not shy away from difficult topics like war, rape and trauma and does not treat them merely as a kink either. You can start with a very very sad background story or find a more pleasant starting point for yourself, that's entirely up to you. From there it's basically streamlined sandbox.

Inner Empire could become a great adult RPG and I will follow the development very closely.

The game as it currently stands (1.0) is quite short but really promising and displays really interesting mechanics. I like the fact that it went for a RPG-style progression while having a story that always moves forward, thus preventing a grind.
The lewd parts were well written, I am not sure that I have seen them all or maybe all the tags aren't implemented yet (twins and rape for example).
Also we don't get Bronze Age settings that often and they will always get points from me, so I didn't hesitate too much before posting a 5*-rating.

Well, the writing is very good, the pictures/graphics are nice and fitting. The story is interesting and one wants it to continue. Furthermore the characters are well presented. But the "game" is VERY short. Ok, one can go through the different origins, sure. But for a "1.0" it feels like a demo with a add for Patreon/Subscribestar at the end. Probably it is really to be considered more as a chapter than whole game.

This was such a fun game. Very well written and the play scenes were just so funny! I didn't come across a lot of sexy stuff, so that is sad. But overall I had a great time with this. Please write a lot more!

Not only fun porn but a fun and actually interesting game. I'm honestly a little sad that I have to wait now to explore more of the world. The in depth and colorful character creation backstories is a particularly impressive touch .

I've got a couple problems with this game:
The tags and the version number are very deceptive - For 20 something tags there are only 5 sex scenes, that are not very descriptive and consists mostly of dialogues. And while the author tells you the game is at version 1.0 which gives the impression of a completed work - it is more like 0.1, there is only one chapter with about 20 minutes of content.
Another problem is the game is way overly ambitious, there are many origins and a large amount of texts that come with, as well as different dialogue trees according to these origins. There are also a lot of encounters that do not lead to scenes and only serve the purpose of worldbuilding which takes itself way too seriously. This sort of work much more likely than not end up being abandoned but we will see.

This game is really good, especially for a text-based HTML game. I recommend playing this game at least once.

The writing is really good; it isn't overbearing or lacking. It actually immerses you into reading what the game is about instead of you just clicking that blue link to progress through the story.

The world building in this game is very intriguing. The expositions are tucked away in a single hyperlink so you don't have to read through a wall of text all the time.

The humor in this game is also spot on. It's not trying too hard or a hit-or-miss thing. Same goes for the the dialogue and the event(s).

That being said, some of the dialogue choices are a bit... forced. That, however, will not stop me from being piqued and watching over the game.

As for character arts, I honestly do not care about whether some game has pictures or not so I do not really care. They do look pretty and good enough for the game.

All-in-all, this is a promising game, no doubt. Should the developer read this review, please do prioritize on progressing the story instead of fixing any minor issues that does not really break the game in some way or form. I saw and played a lot of interesting games such as this one and had their potential stripped away with endless bugfixes and "polishing" the same scenes over and over for the past 3/4/5 years.