Unreal Engine - Kalyskah [v0.25.9] [Nobre Lobo]

An incredibly ambitious game with a few very very hot scenes at its current state.
Normally ambitious is not a compliment for the standard Patreon funded game on this site as I've only seen that cripple progress and stagnate updates in the past but in this case, the developer really does have a vision and a clear goal/roadmap for achieving it and delivers regular updates monthly.
What's more is the developer is very responsive to feedback from patrons.
Normally I consider Patreon subscriptions in terms of products I receive for the money I spend. With this developer I consider my contribution more of a declaration of belief in the developer and their vision. I give this game five stars to encourage others to do the same and support them as well.

As for the game itself, you play as a female MC vampire. The dialogues are voiced and the game so far has content to get you through the first dungeon where you start (genuinely fun gameplay, albeit a bit janky and lacking in any meaningful porn content (some sandboxed sex scenes on dying and a boring scene with a follower))
Out of the first dungeon you get into an overworld which shows the true ambition of the developer. Followed by some scripted story scenes and the start of a "Witcher 3" like quest to enter the nearby town (can do so via sex, money, or dialogue).

This game is the beginning of something great. Try it.

Elements of the game are excellent, so why 1/5?
A simple word

Scale

The game is hamstrung by scale. They are attempting far too much as the 5 years of development attests to. Their idea and the direction they’ve aimed towards is replicating a game like the Witcher3 or skyrim with (less) tits. Admirable, but a massive mistake that has doomed the game in it’s present form and trajectory.

The game in the ruins of the castle is pretty good. Combat is simplistic yes, you can’t get that mechanically deep with it, you don’t have any magic, etc. but it’s by far the shining pinnacle of polish and gameplay here. You have a solid early game progression of “tactical” choices in approaching enemies and the equipment lets you do some minor experimentation with playstyle. (and discover the estoc=win, but I digress) Culminating in a bossfight that is pretty underwhelming but hints at a soulsebornesque killing field in front of a boss arena type playloop.

Then you get into the main game and… they squander it. Open world sandbox paired with a massively discordant shift in game feel. You go from mowing down dozens of vampire hunters to squabbling with bandits over trinkets and suddenly the only solution is to suck cocks. They played way too much witcher, and like witcher they’re stuck far too long in the damn starting town (A starting town these devs have rebuilt multiple times, yet still haven’t managed to populate with quests or vendors) doing bitchwork quests for no discernable purpose compared to your grand quest. And then the game ends, there simply isn’t more of it.

The building blocks are here for something and yet the scale they’re attempting has 100% doomed it.

5 years of development doesn’t have to be wasted, but they do need to take a different direction as quickly as possible. To take the building blocks they’ve developed and cut back that scale into something that actually can be completed.

1. Design around a central hub
This should be a castle or “coven” or something. The gameplay loop begins and ends here. It has a place to sell loot, a place to meet and recruit companions, and various other side quests and intrigue to get up to. Have more vampires, demons, and monsters and make them optional romancable companions and rivals.
2. Radiant dungeon combat loop
Structure forward progression around “dungeons” instead of open world. Use hellgates/teleporters at the beginning and end that go back to the central hub. Starting with the first they already have, then the most recent crystal cave, then etc. Make these locations farmable and repeatable. Clearing one unlocks the next via information or macguffin and drops the gear you need to realistically progress. It also plays into point 3
3. Companion progression through combat/romance
Partying with an NPC and using them in combat should be the backbone of a companion progression system. This allows you as devs to stop focusing on forwarding content via forwarding the metanarrative and instead use a framework of companion interaction mechanics as a vehicle for pornography and romance. Succubi may be sluts but a vampire rival would be hard to bed. You can cut your teeth on the writing and VA of meaningful characters instead of voicing/needing to voice so many pointless one time use NPCs. These companion progression “quests” should be the true backbone of story building and erotic content within the game world.

These changes may seem monumental and may seem to change the overall game, but think about how much is actually here to change. A monumental change to what, 3% of the total game? In exchange that 3% of the game turning into the framework for a whole game.
It needs to happen or everyone backing this project will ultimately be disappointed; another 10 years of development on this track and you’ll still have fewer quests and fewer hours of gameplay than Witcher’s White Orchard yet still barely scratch the surface of kalyskah’s epic (scope) quest.

Scaling back her quest to something more direct, like a quest for personal power alongside rivals of a coven, would do well to rein in how much they need to tackle with her currently. Dungeons that give upgrades, upgrades that allow for more dungeoneering. KISS to lean heavy into the best parts of the game, the combat progression playloop, then integrate porn through a companion system so the sex elements would have actual meaning.

As is it's a 1/5 as it can't be given a vote of confidence. It'll never be finished if the devs insist on treating it's scope as that of a 200 man team studio project. The good in what's here is far outweighed by the fact if you picked up the game in 2016 you don't have much more game in 2021 and you'll probably be able to say the same in 2026.

Personal Opinion
>ditch the female protagonist framing
Sex on lose, sex through coercion, sex via being a dumb slut contrary to characterization and character framing. It’s always shit. The game as is isn’t any worse than any other female protagonist game, but they all suffer for their shortsightedness.

Make the player character user customizable and male or female (or futa) and a nonvoiced skyrim style protagonist. Make one of the first women you interact with be Kalyskah and actually dig deep into her as a character instead of “suck this guard’s cock or don’t” as she is currently. You have the models and modeler now, you have the male and female variants of the armor.
Make her the focus, but not the player. Give her push-pull about being given the slutty variants of all the dungeon loot. Make her resent or fall in love with the player-rival she dungeon delves with on a quest for power stolen from her. Then do it again with the next vampire, demon, succubus, etc. you can add to the game utilizing the same combat loop without needing to spend thousands of manhours forwarding game progression.

★ Chef's kiss: excellent dialogue and voice acting

+ Decent writing and plot based from what is given in the intro and the first few quests
+ Good quality models and animations
+ Has a great idea for gameplay mechanics and combat; a cut above most other games that use the same engine
+ Like I said: voice acting
+ RPG elements like character builds and multiple ways to complete a quest

- Combat and UI can be clunky
- Cutscenes and animations are often buggy
- Many NPC models/renders look the same

> Overall, this game has very good potential given time, dedication, and development especially with the 'planned implementation' of branching quests and different ways to complete missions. After completion and polish, this project can very well be more than 'just an adult game'.

I think with all 3D games you need so much polish in so many areas that if one is lacking it will hurt the overall experience. Fortunately this game is decent at many things and it doesn't have any major flaws. With some polish i could see this game going places.

I think the intro is the weakest part. The dialogue feels stilted here. It does improve later on. The voices acting is nice i think and unlike pretty much every single porn game, the recording quality is good.

The combat is good and could improve into "great" territory with more telegraphed attacks and if you could feel more impact with hits.
I think there are a lot of things to like about the game.

One thing i really liked was the variety of items that you could equip. The equipment system is very nice. The only thing that annoyed me was trying to close the windows at times, since pressing ESC falls like a natural habit, but you need to press I. Maybe that's nitpicking.

For sex scenes the game uses an animation system. It's not polished and it's a bit stiff. I feel like 1 custom animated scene would be better and probably a smaller workload on the developer.

I stopped playing once i beat the first boss. Which was ok. The acting is a bit hamfisted, but it works ok.

Overall, playable, ok game. With time will probably get even better.

Player be warned, as of 0.15.2 , the game is buggy. Whenever I load an autosave, my level resets to one. Skipping cutscenes too fast causes character models to do strange things, such as fall through the floor, and stairs are hard to climb down. There are many smaller bugs as well, however, despite all that, I thoroughly recommend this game.

The base of a great game are all here. It's combat, while janky, is interactive and fun. It's game world is decent looking and feels alive, void of awkward open spaces or empty rooms where assets should be that some early access games have. But don't expect anything fully fleshed out. There still seems to be plenty of placeholder text and characters. There's also a story that's mostly easy to follow, if you're into that.
I haven't played many Unreal Engine Adult games so I don't have much to compare it to, but the sexy things people do with their bits are easy to find. Character models look nice and the animation is fluid.

Overall, 4/5 stars until they smooth over the rough patches. There's a real game in here waiting to break out.

Version: v0.15.2

Review:
There are some things I liked about the game and many others I didn't, I played this game for the first time a long time ago and today I decided to test it again and nothing has changed much. But anyway, what I really mean is that it’s not just that, but of a difference that you will understand.
If we talk about an adventure game, that game is more recommended, but if we talk about a porn game, I don't see that it works well in Kalyskah.

History:
I didn't quite understand the concept of the story, but it seems that the protagonist was imprisoned in the dungeons of a cave in a castle and a guy comes to set you free. It seems that the castle has some connection with the protagonist, since everything around her has changed, all those people have been corrupted, and Kalyskah is trying to find the person who did this. As I said, for an adventure game it may work, but as for a porn game, it's hard.
Gameplay:
I thought the gameplay was good, the movement is good, the character can run, jump, crouch, climb attack, defend and even dodge. There is also the use of magic, but the combat is still bad. There is difficulty in this game, in which you can choose the most difficult option, but I doubt you would select it, since the combat is difficult to be executed, it is not very difficult but it is not solid. The items, as equipment works well, the RPG present in this game is good. Being able to equip armor, some clothing accessories and improve your skill tree. The customization of the character is not very advanced, let's say that the only things you will change are the breasts and hair. There is no mini-map, you end up getting lost, and the map is huge, giving you the feeling of a walking simulator. Some locations are far away, it is possible to find other characters or enemy creatures.
Graphics & Sexual Content:
Remember when I said that this game is more about adventure than pornography? I'll explain, but nothing against a female protagonist, but there are things that don't make any sense. The scenery graphics are good, but the female models all look the same as Kalyskah's model. What will change is just the color of the skin and hair. Talking about sexual content, I didn't think it very pleasant, this is because there is a mini-game that you have to satisfy Kalyskah in some choices in some actions during the sexual act. But you can also disable it, but the scenes, even though some of them are good, I didn't feel much pleasure about them.

Why I did gave 2 star?
This game has a lot of potential for an adventure game, but for a porn game it ends up being left behind. The game has a good structure, if the combat system and some bugs are corrected, and also, if there is an option to skip the cutscenes. But for a game where we control a female protagonist, I don't see much point in making a vampire warrior woman submit to make sex (unless it's specific cases). On the other hand, I think that little things should change, having sex will completely restore your HP bar, or, get EXP or something else like gold/money. After all, I don't see much sense, besides, the sex scenes are good but at the same time not very pleasurable, I didn't see much slutness, I don't see much content like that, which makes the protagonist a slut or something. But I may be mistaken. Anyway, if you’re looking to try, you need a PC with a great CPU and GPU, and that your OS is Windows 10, because I had trouble running it, causing the GPU to stop working twice even putting in the graphics settings on the low. So, if you are looking for 3D porn game, unfortunately I cannot recommend this game to you.

This game is awsome, rly nice!
Great story, absolut stunning world, cool characters!
Keep going with it and u might have something fantastic to sell!
Maybe tweak the sex minigame a bit so it is more fun (its a bit random guessing i think) but the rest is fantastic so far
(i mean small bugs sure but the game is in alpha state)

This is great game, much worth a try and a like! The content offered far exceeded my expectations, and it actually contains the stuff that's advertised! It actually feels like a game, It's looks good, has good voice acting.. It still needs work, yes, but I hope to see more of it,! I'll be watching.
Thumbs up to a fantastic project!

The game is a head above most of the games I've seen on this site. Didn't expect so much content in the demo version. The dungeon is stretched out but made interesting, haven't gotten any further yet. Very pleased with the options for equipment for the main character.

Excellent game. Highly recommend it. Long way to go but I've enjoyed every release I've played. Only suggestion is for the game to integrate a creative way to incorporate the sexual content into the RPG mechanics itself. Not based on stats like Endurance, but some other reason to interact with NPC's in that fashion at all. Unbelievable effort, a game I play over and over again and has been well worth every release!

How did I miss this rough gem?

This is a gorgeous erotic ARPG with a female Vampire protagonist.
Think of a sexy Dark Souls/Bloodrayne hybrid on Unreal engine.
The combat is fun but still a tad janky, voice acting is great, sex scenes a bit rough and need synced a bit better. need more quests, but the promise this game shows is awesome. The devs have potential for a polished jewel here.
Keep up the great work, this game deserves more attention.

Look forward to more future content

Version 0.11.2

The game doesn't have a lot of quests on the surface yet, but the dungeon exploring is quite fun, and I also liked the combat (even though it seems a bit too easy but they said that they will change it).
I think that their approach on the erotic side is not as heavy as other games that we can find here but still, the animations that the game have are cool (The ones I could see on the sandbox mode) and the voice acting is great!

I'm voting 5 for the sweat that we can see that the developers have put on this game =)

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this game is insane. it has actual voice acting thats like... actual real professional voice acting. the graphics are amazing for a sex game and since they changed the combat system the combat is actually entertaining. the protagonist and the story are both really interesting. if there would be no sex in this game i would still be curious about the full release, not hyped but curious. the game is by far better than almost every other game on here in all aspects but one. sex. there is very little of it in the actual story. Thats also the reason for the bad reviews im guessing

Been following this awhile, the renders are good, the motions of the scenes are great and the voice acting is amazing. Minus the fact that the combat and core mechanics are not perfect, one must remember that this is still in the early phase, and things are subjected to change.

I hope that people keep track of this as updates come as they change the core mechanics as time goes on

Once I finally accepted only playing at a horrible resolution due to the resolution breaking the game. I got a gander at the actual game play. It's terrible to say the least. Constant clipping of everything in the game world. Combat is completely broken as is difficulty. The voice acting is great and the character models are as well. Hopefully this game gets better with the updates bu for right now the game is an absolute mess.

Update: Based on v0.10.4

The good is still good. And the combat system has improved pretty dramatically. There are still some interface issues, and it is difficult to know what buttons to push sometimes. The game needs keyboard options that can be easily gotten to via ESC or similar.

I'm bumping my review up to a 4 just because I really enjoy the gaming elements and the story.

However, don't go into this game expecting good fap material. The sex "mini-games" are impossible to figure out and there is currently zero guidance.

The Good:
--gorgeous renders and pretty good voice acting
--it has a unique Vampir Masque, Skyrim kind of vibe.
--The background texture is also gorgeous

The Bad:
--Sex "mini-games" are impossible and no coherent instructions on what to do.
--many of the controls are still not intuitive. Some followed typical game controls others didn't and it just didn't always make sense.
--If you reload the saved game it resets everything, including the combat. Nice if you want to save scum for experience, but annoying if you want to move through the game and just want to reload after a really bad encounter.

Based on the quality of the renders, the story, the atmosphere, and the backgrounds I've bumped it to a 4, especially with the significantly improved combat improvements. Still not great, but the other good things I mentioned make it worth the gameplay. , I'd normally give this 3 stars, but the gameplay and combat were so bad I deleted the game not long after the first disaster of a fight.

This game needs a lot of work to make it playable. They still need to focus more on the combat and on improving the UI, the controls, and now the sex mini-games. It's much more playable now than it was, but it really needs a map feature, and to improve the sex mini-games. They sex mini-games are so bad I stopped trying. But, the renders, story, and combat now make the game playable and interesting even without the sex.

Version 0.8.10

This game is... difficult to rate. It's clear the devs are putting a ton of work and effort into making a decent product. The graphics are quite beautiful and, despite the reuse of a lot of assets, the atmosphere is really nice. The voice acting is decent and they get kudos for adding it at all. The cut scenes were also a nice touch. So far the story is pretty good as well, not giving the player everything all at once but telling the story as one proceeds through the game. Sadly, these are the best things going for it right now.

Bugs, bugs everywhere! They start with the character customization. I found that any color change, and I mean any, takes away Kalyskah's red eyes. Strangely enough, with all the eye color options you can choose through the palettes, there's none for red. That being the case I didn't bother changing any colors. Red eyes, pale, black hair... sure, that's vampirey. Good enough. I gave her some pubes and made her tits bigger and was off to the races. Breast sliders are always fun to play with. She's a good looking creature even without changing her skin, hair, blush, eye colors.

After starting the game and ooh, aahing over the pretty graphics, I moved around. The camera controls are... adequate and that's the best I'll give them. Targeting and picking things up is OK. As a veteran of Skyrim I'm used to the over-the-shoulder, press E for every interaction bit, so it wasn't an issue. Having interactive things glow and show the name when you get in range is a good feature. As I said, adequate.

Now... combat. Yeeeeeeeeah. First and foremost, the Tutorial contains wrong information. Fortunately for myself, I checked the player controls on the startup menu ahead of time, which are correct, so I knew what to press. Combat in this game sucks and makes for a really frustrating experience. The controls are sloppy, slow, and glitchy and the camera makes it even more annoying, especially when fighting multiple enemies, which happens frequently. Having to press Q to start fighting correctly was a pain considering the poor camera controls and the speed of the enemies. They were frequently around corners where I couldn't see them and would stab me two or three times before I could properly target them. I appreciated what the devs wanted to do with the surrender options of trying to turn tables, enchant them with sorcery, or surrendering to try to screw them into letting you go but the RNG chance of success made it annoying as hell. If I saw Kalyskah get stabbed in the gut one more time I probably would have punched my monitor. I started getting the hang of it and finding better weapons and armor helped but it still sucked enough to make me want to stop playing.

I can't say much about the sex playstyle because, honestly, I only saw one scene. Except for possibly fooling around with the succubus, which I didn't try since I was annoyed by the time I met her, most of the sex seems to be when you surrender to enemies and that's a little on the creepy side for me. One shouldn't be rooting for the bad guy to beat your character up just to see the naughty bits. The controls were kind of odd, mostly changing camera angles and movement and a choice of what the positions are. Unfortunately, the enemy that I'd seduced with sorcery ran out of Stamina and the scene ended in a very short time. After that combat began again quickly since I was fighting two enemies at the same time (naturally) and the one that hadn't gotten the killing blow on me just stood there waiting while her buddy got his jollies. It was kind of awkward and I spent most of my time trying to get the very quick camera to give me a good angle of the sex. Controls are rough and the action stops too quickly.

The final bug that killed my play time was when I finally met the succubus. Unfortunately, I'd already been up in the guard quarters and retrieved the key to her cell BEFORE I met her. This apparently screwed the quest over because, even though I released her, my quest log was stuck on "Find a way to release her." By that time I was so annoyed with the combat system and having no map that I just gave up.

All in all I gave this game three stars, mostly for good intentions and a HELL of a lot of effort. It's easy to tell that the devs are working their asses off to make a really fun, good game with an intriguing story, a sexy main character, and interesting options. Unfortunately, at this point, it's just not there yet. I hope they work it out and find a way to make the combat less of a chore because they have something special here that could be professional level. I won't understate just how much effort must have gone into making this because it's got to be tremendous. I feel badly I can't rate it higher because I could tell it's a labor of love. The devs have all my admiration and I hope they keep going with it and put out a really quality game by the time it's finished.

Version: 0.8.10

I gave this game a second shot based on the word of the developer, and it was better than expected. I have revised this review accordingly (rating from 2 to 3 stars).

TL;DR: But... it looked so good... It's a real shame that's about all it has going for it.

Gameplay

The combat system in the game is pretty bad. I get what they were going for, but it feels terrible to use. The stamina system is a wannabe dark souls, but just feels bad in comparison. The guard system is poorly explained, it took me most of the first level to figure out that I could attack enemies in the zones they are not guarding. Having to go into and out of a combat mode (even when you are ambushed or not paying attention) is terrible, and your health bar is pitiful. Some random enemy you didn't see behind a door smacks you and knocks off half your health.

It took way too long for me to figure out on my own that the "vampire enhancement" or whatever it's called (alt-key) is how you heal (or that you can hold the drain button to keep doing it, why would you not want to always drain as much as possible? it should be cancelable, not continuable).

Quests can often be unclear, or will show up as complete even though you didn't do what they say... triggers be weird yo. There is nothing guiding you as to where most of your objectives are. Where is the first skeleton key? At the end of one of the explorable paths of the level, in a fairly non-distinct and uninteresting location. I literally looted the chest near it and missed it the first time I was in the area. Put it in a glowing golden chest or something maybe?

The sewer was overall decently well done with light to guide you through, though it did not lead to everything in the sewer that mattered (or was not laid out very well maybe).

There are often hidden requirements to progress which encourage you to explore at the expense of feeling like you may have bricked your game and lead to time wasting. (I got through the sewers without finding the key for the door and assumed I had to go back up the one-way pipe)

I got lost for a while on the second level (in the graveyard) and then quit once I ended up in the (unskippable) bandit cutscene. It's weird that some scenes have dialogue skip options, but others don't.

Graphics

Everything is super dark, a little weird considering you're a creature of the night. When you get too close to some things they look kinda bad, but they're probably mostly meant as set dressing. Other than that the game looks great, character models are pretty well done.

Sex

I played 1 level, and got access to 1 sex scene. It referenced the other character as "him" even though it was the demon female, and was confusing as hell, and then suddenly I was out of stamina. Very unsatisfying.

Bugs

Yep, boy are there bugs. Things hit through walls/doors or beyond what you would think possible. I also ran into this great bug where a rat I consumed got stuck to my hand for most of the level, including the sex scene.

Original review below

Review: I customized my character and that went well (the morph system seems to work pretty well) enough (a bit odd what they'll give you RGB sliders for and what they won't, shame the posing controls are all sliders rather than mapping to left/right-click+drag/mouse wheel/etc, the "short hair" isn't very short and doesn't look good, breasts are really the only thing there are morphs for).

After making her look just right I saw the "Adult Scenes" option on the menu, so I figured why not cut right to the chase? I dropped into a scene and nearly vomited when moving the mouse, it felt like the camera controls were attached through rubber bands and prayers. I couldn't imagine possibly playing the game while having to control the camera like this. Oh well, might as well enjoy the scene... Wait, why does the control to add/remove a collar also move the camera? Wait, why do the controls for change position and slap ass not clearly do either? Wait, why does her hair blatantly clip through the hat?

Meh, let's check out some of the other adult scenes... Wait, why are they just standing still facing each other? Wait, why is there audio of them having sex, but they are still just standing there? Ah, fuck it, I'll come back in 2 years.

This game is incredibly well polished in some areas but severely lacking in others and overall very buggy from the few minutes I bothered to put into it. Did they spend all of their money on outsourcing the modeling (or just buy some assets that did all of this)? I look forward to trying this again after a while, these are certainly issues that can be overcome.

First impression was: Awesome!

Then I had my first fight... it went downhill from there sadly.
I didn't even bother to fight anymore, I just let them win and try to talk my way through. If it's not working I just have to do a little legwork.

A few enemies further I released him after he won. After that my Character was wasn't standing (and walking) straight anymore rather then diagonally.
I saved at this point, and loaded that save... made me start from the beginning... Items still there, but I was back to lvl 1.
Quit Game.

I didn't even get to the Skeleton Key.

Might give this some more time and revistid it in a few month because right now it is too buggy and the fight system kinda sucks (no pun intended).