The former has the focus on the story and/or the gameplay with sex added as a bonus. It is not uncommon to get to "the juicy part" after 20 or 30 minutes of playing the game already.
The latter has the focus on sex with story and/or gameplay added as a bonus. Often the story is purely meant as justification and the gameplay is "press let mouse button to advance". It is not uncommon to get to "the juicy part" right after you pressed "New Game" i.e. you are greeted with a sex scene.
Awesome! I'm glad you like it so far! And I'm pretty proud of how the Weekend 2 events turned out . Consider review the thread please? So far the game only has one review here .
Oh. As for Trix's key...hmmm. That is a good point. I hadn't considered the conflict there. Might have to see about adding a check to make those scenes incompatiable on a single playthrough. Or maybe not. They should become somewhat naturally incompatiable over the long haul, as one requires a Submissive inclined MC and the other a Dominant.
I mean...only a little? I never show off enough images to actually spoil plot, just give hints. But if you're already familiar with the game, those hints might be enough to spoil some stuff? That's sort of the way hints work, though...
I can of course rate Left Hand Magic, it's just I really don't love rating games that aren't finished (and still do it way too often)cause I don't want to give a game a perfect score (5 stars) before even knowing how it turns out in the end, but I also feel as if 4 stars isn't entirely fair here either, cause this game would be a 4.5 star (which means 5 cause there are no half stars here) or more, if it stayed at the current level of quality, but became noticeably more lengthy. I think I need some time to decide how to best rate and review this game. It would help me to know how much more stuff will come, will the game cover multiple months (for example), 4 weeks, a year?
For what it counts I want reviews I write be more than just "oh yeah 5 stars cause not bad & i wanna be supportive" or "1 star cause i dont like the game for entirely subjective reasons", I hope that people who read reviews trying to decide if a game is for them can read mine and take away at least something.
In regards to the key...1 additional thing I am a bit unsure how to feel about is the sub/dom thing, cause both Revina's and Trix's solo routes (and therefore some of the scenes I needed to do weekly to even get to the poly route) seem to cater towards a dominant player character and even give dominant points, but that really doesn't fit as much with what happens in the poly route.
Same goes for the threesome stuff with Talia & Arianne, and their solo stuff, which seems to be focusing on the player character being submissive.
If I am to be totally honest I think it would be more immersive to have a dominant and a subby variant of all the routes, but I 100% understand how much work that would be and therefore actually do not advocate for it.
I also don't have a bright idea how to change the current way things work, so just take this as me expressing simple confusion/uncertainty about the current way the feature works. I genuinely ended up being worried if the (kinda unavoidable, I think) increase of dominance in some of the solo scenes with Trix & Revina would somehow end up locking me out of the subby poly route. Same with Talia & Arianne, aside from just would be preferring the pc being the sub in those scenes, I also wasn't sure if any of the stat increases would have negative effects later on.
Again, just describing my feelings and impressions here, I have no doubts you would always make it so stuff that _has_ to go together doesn't block each other out, but it just didn't feel entirely organic, in lack of a better word.
The most "natural" feeling solo route has definitely been Talia's, the poly stuff with Trix & Revina feels most natural in regards to the emotional aspect (well, so far, but there's a big dependency on how it will develop in the future, but this is again just my subjective impression) cause they clearly are emotionally invested in each other.
Also, as a final thought, I can't tell for absolutely sure how much of this is simply me preferring playing a submissive character just in general, when the dominant character is 100% wholesome. So take my feedback with a grain of salt for sure.
I can of course rate Left Hand Magic, it's just I really don't love rating games that aren't finished (and still do it way too often)cause I don't want to give a game a perfect score (5 stars) before even knowing how it turns out in the end, but I also feel as if 4 stars isn't entirely fair here either, cause this game would be a 4.5 star (which means 5 cause there are no half stars here) or more, if it stayed at the current level of quality, but became noticeably more lengthy. I think I need some time to decide how to best rate and review this game. It would help me to know how much more stuff will come, will the game cover multiple months (for example), 4 weeks, a year?
For what it counts I want reviews I write be more than just "oh yeah 5 stars cause not bad & i wanna be supportive" or "1 star cause i dont like the game for entirely subjective reasons", I hope that people who read reviews trying to decide if a game is for them can read mine and take away at least something.
That's fair . I can appreciate wanting to wait until a game is farther along to give it an accurate rating. I'm not going to push you to do it early ;-). Though, just to satisfy your curiosity, the game was originally mapped to cover 6 weeks + Epilogues. I've been considering expanding it slightly to 8 weeks, in order to give more time to build the plot up a bit more, as I'm a little worried it might end up feeling rushed as is. But I haven't actually made the decision one way or another yet. Content is actually intended to get a bit more dense as you go, changing the formula to have more options with each girl in later weeks, to allow more full exploration of their kinks and personalities. But I'm unsure just yet how much that will help. On the flip side, I don't want to extend the projected total development time unreasonably. My original development timetable for Left Hand Magic was roughly two years from start to finish, which I felt was reasonable given that I'll also be working on Haven's Port through most of that time frame. Adding additional weeks means adding additional development time, so it's not a decision to make without careful consideration.
In regards to the key...1 additional thing I am a bit unsure how to feel about is the sub/dom thing, cause both Revina's and Trix's solo routes (and therefore some of the scenes I needed to do weekly to even get to the poly route) seem to cater towards a dominant player character and even give dominant points, but that really doesn't fit as much with what happens in the poly route.
Same goes for the threesome stuff with Talia & Arianne, and their solo stuff, which seems to be focusing on the player character being submissive.
Routes are intended to be as follows:
----
Arianna Solo Route - Submissive Player
Revina Solo Route - Dominant Player
Talia Solo Route - Submissive Player
Trix Solo Route - Dominant Player
Arianna + Talia Threesome - Player is a Switch
Revina + Trix Threesome - Submissive Player
----
That said, it's intended to be possible for the player to be a switch in general, and just embracing whichever side of that is relevant to the route. I will note, though, that the farther we get into the game, the more routes will be closed down to players with the wrong dom/sub points. Right now it's still fairly forgiving, since even with Build 5 we're just getting to the point in relationships that kinks are being explored. Starting with Week 4's content (which will likely be Build 7, since Build 6 will be the Weekend 3 events), it will start to get a bit more restrictive as you fully start exploring the girls' various kinks.
Regarding the Threesome Routes specifically. The Arianna + Talia route actually makes sense fully, as it's intended for a switch player. And some content going forward will feature the player being more dominant toward Arianna, but at least somewhat submissive toward Talia. Writing convincing 'switch' characters is always difficult to get the balance right, hence why there's only one route specifically for that -_-. The Trix + Talia route is a little more of a stretch. The key to remember with it is that Revina is actually a switch. Arianna and Revina are switches, Talia is pure dominant, Trix is pure submissive. Thus, with a route that involves a submissive MC, Trix, and Revina...Revina becomes the dominant by default.
The logic does check out...but I fully admit it checks out because I designed it to. The reasoning is somehwat of a spoiler, though...so...
If I am to be totally honest I think it would be more immersive to have a dominant and a subby variant of all the routes, but I 100% understand how much work that would be and therefore actually do not advocate for it.
I also don't have a bright idea how to change the current way things work, so just take this as me expressing simple confusion/uncertainty about the current way the feature works. I genuinely ended up being worried if the (kinda unavoidable, I think) increase of dominance in some of the solo scenes with Trix & Revina would somehow end up locking me out of the subby poly route.
A completely logical worry. If it helps, though, the Threesome Routes are going to become less reliant on the solo routes the farther into the game you get. I made them reliant on the solo routes at the onset as it made sense to me, from an immersion standpoint, that you would need to get to know both of the characters before you could attempt a threesome relationship with them. Weekend 3 will actually offer threesome route 'solutions' to it's event, though. And Week 4 will start expanding the threesome routes so that they have multiple events of their own in each 'weekday' set. The Revina/Trix/MC route in particular will actually lock you out of most other content in the long run for...well, reasons related to the spoiler.
Same with Talia & Arianne, aside from just would be preferring the pc being the sub in those scenes, I also wasn't sure if any of the stat increases would have negative effects later on.
Again, just describing my feelings and impressions here, I have no doubts you would always make it so stuff that _has_ to go together doesn't block each other out, but it just didn't feel entirely organic, in lack of a better word.
*shrug* As I've mentioned, the Arianna/Talia threesome route was actually designed with a Switch MC in mind. I felt that people might want at least one route that was like that.
The most "natural" feeling solo route has definitely been Talia's, the poly stuff with Trix & Revina feels most natural in regards to the emotional aspect (well, so far, but there's a big dependency on how it will develop in the future, but this is again just my subjective impression) cause they clearly are emotionally invested in each other.
Also, as a final thought, I can't tell for absolutely sure how much of this is simply me preferring playing a submissive character just in general, when the dominant character is 100% wholesome. So take my feedback with a grain of salt for sure.
That...doesn't really surprise me. The 'natural' feeling thing, that is. As I outlined above, Talia & Trix are the two 'pure' characters, in that Talia is a pure dominant and Trix is a pure submissive. That's bound to effect the feeling of their two routes to an extent, I think? And if you prefer playing a submissive character in general, than Talia would click more for you than Trix. So, honestly, that actually feels like a pretty good sign that the routes and character personalities are doing their job .
That's fair . I can appreciate wanting to wait until a game is farther along to give it an accurate rating. I'm not going to push you to do it early ;-). Though, just to satisfy your curiosity, the game was originally mapped to cover 6 weeks + Epilogues. I've been considering expanding it slightly to 8 weeks, in order to give more time to build the plot up a bit more, as I'm a little worried it might end up feeling rushed as is. But I haven't actually made the decision one way or another yet. Content is actually intended to get a bit more dense as you go, changing the formula to have more options with each girl in later weeks, to allow more full exploration of their kinks and personalities. But I'm unsure just yet how much that will help. On the flip side, I don't want to extend the projected total development time unreasonably. My original development timetable for Left Hand Magic was roughly two years from start to finish, which I felt was reasonable given that I'll also be working on Haven's Port through most of that time frame. Adding additional weeks means adding additional development time, so it's not a decision to make without careful consideration.
Routes are intended to be as follows:
----
Arianna Solo Route - Submissive Player
Revina Solo Route - Dominant Player
Talia Solo Route - Submissive Player
Trix Solo Route - Dominant Player
Arianna + Talia Threesome - Player is a Switch
Revina + Trix Threesome - Submissive Player
----
That said, it's intended to be possible for the player to be a switch in general, and just embracing whichever side of that is relevant to the route. I will note, though, that the farther we get into the game, the more routes will be closed down to players with the wrong dom/sub points. Right now it's still fairly forgiving, since even with Build 5 we're just getting to the point in relationships that kinks are being explored. Starting with Week 4's content (which will likely be Build 7, since Build 6 will be the Weekend 3 events), it will start to get a bit more restrictive as you fully start exploring the girls' various kinks.
Regarding the Threesome Routes specifically. The Arianna + Talia route actually makes sense fully, as it's intended for a switch player. And some content going forward will feature the player being more dominant toward Arianna, but at least somewhat submissive toward Talia. Writing convincing 'switch' characters is always difficult to get the balance right, hence why there's only one route specifically for that -_-. The Trix + Talia route is a little more of a stretch. The key to remember with it is that Revina is actually a switch. Arianna and Revina are switches, Talia is pure dominant, Trix is pure submissive. Thus, with a route that involves a submissive MC, Trix, and Revina...Revina becomes the dominant by default.
The logic does check out...but I fully admit it checks out because I designed it to. The reasoning is somehwat of a spoiler, though...so...
A completely logical worry. If it helps, though, the Threesome Routes are going to become less reliant on the solo routes the farther into the game you get. I made them reliant on the solo routes at the onset as it made sense to me, from an immersion standpoint, that you would need to get to know both of the characters before you could attempt a threesome relationship with them. Weekend 3 will actually offer threesome route 'solutions' to it's event, though. And Week 4 will start expanding the threesome routes so that they have multiple events of their own in each 'weekday' set. The Revina/Trix/MC route in particular will actually lock you out of most other content in the long run for...well, reasons related to the spoiler.
*shrug* As I've mentioned, the Arianna/Talia threesome route was actually designed with a Switch MC in mind. I felt that people might want at least one route that was like that.
That...doesn't really surprise me. The 'natural' feeling thing, that is. As I outlined above, Talia & Trix are the two 'pure' characters, in that Talia is a pure dominant and Trix is a pure submissive. That's bound to effect the feeling of their two routes to an extent, I think? And if you prefer playing a submissive character in general, than Talia would click more for you than Trix. So, honestly, that actually feels like a pretty good sign that the routes and character personalities are doing their job .
That literally answers all of my questions, it makes sense the way you describe it & it also is a logical solution to the question how an "involuntary" increase of the stats at the start will not interfere with anything later, cause the routes fully split.
The only thing I would kinda like to know, though I can see why you might want to not spoil it, is if the Revina/Trix route will have the player character be an actual part of the relationship in a romantic way as well, since so far the threesome content I think sounded more as if their interest is based on appearance, though the 2 weekend scenes ofc are a different story.
Personally I am not exactly into chastity stuff, but I don't think it will stop me from playing the route at least once. It's kinda pretty cute how Revina stumbles around being dominant.
In regards to Arianna/Talia I feel as if I simply got the wrong impression due to the 2 first scenes. Nice to know that there will be switching for the player character there at some points as well.
Edit: Also 8 weeks would be pretty good I think, a lot of stuff can happen in 2 entire months so it would give things a more immersive feeling, imho. In a visual novel a decent length makes a difference between good and more than just good in my eyes.
The only thing I would kinda like to know, though I can see why you might want to not spoil it, is if the Revina/Trix route will have the player character be an actual part of the relationship in a romantic way as well, since so far the threesome content I think sounded more as if their interest is based on appearance, though the 2 weekend scenes ofc are a different story.
Not much of a spoiler, so I'm okay with saying . I try to make every relationship in any of my games healthy ones, which means...yes there will be romantic-variety encounters in the threesome routes once they split! Once the threesome routes fully split, they will operate similarly to the solo routes. Meaning that not every scene is a sex scene. And even the scenes that do involve sex may also include a date or similar.
Not much of a spoiler, so I'm okay with saying . I try to make every relationship in any of my games healthy ones, which means...yes there will be romantic-variety encounters in the threesome routes once they split! Once the threesome routes fully split, they will operate similarly to the solo routes. Meaning that not every scene is a sex scene. And even the scenes that do involve sex may also include a date or similar.
Sorry to be a bit of a pedantic but, The "companion golem" as shown would be classed as a Gynoid as opposed to an Android { Andro meaning male; Gyno for Female } Thanks for making this game.
Sorry to be a bit of a pedantic but, The "companion golem" as shown would be classed as a Gynoid as opposed to an Android { Andro meaning male; Gyno for Female } Thanks for making this game.
Sorry to be a bit of a pedantic but, The "companion golem" as shown would be classed as a Gynoid as opposed to an Android { Andro meaning male; Gyno for Female } Thanks for making this game.
You aren't wrong about the Gynoid thing...but you aren't right about the Android bit either . Android is the general term, with no specific gender (
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). Some specific sci-fi novels or series may further make androids specifically male, but the vast majority use it as a general term. As Project Aurora is for a series of sexbots in general, rather than specifically female sexbots, it's still better to use the general term. Particularly as fewer people are familiar with the term Gynoid.
was released early this morning. Build 5 added almost all of the Weekday content for Week 3 (only the Trix/Revina Threesome option didn't quite make it in). Build 6 added that final missing Threesome from the Week 3 Weekday options, then went on to add the Weekend 3 Events for each girl (though not the Threesome Routes). Build 6 also finally has a chance for the MC to end up in chastity herself ;-).
Both builds added around a dozen animations each and 100ish still renders, with Build 5 having more-but-smaller scenes and Build 6 having fewer-but-much-longer scenes. More details are in the release notes for each build.
------------------
Download Links for Build 5:
Windows/Linux:
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Mac:
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Android APK
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Build 5 Release Notes:
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Build 6 Release Notes:
Build 6 contains six new scenes, five major and one minor, with twelve new animations split between them. In addition, there are 108 new still renders, making most of these new scenes pretty sizable. Overall, the build completes the Weekday content for Week 3 and kicks off the Weekend 3 event set. It contains:
-1 New Major Weekend Event for each girl
-1 New Threesome Event for Revina/Trix
-1 New Masturbation Event
-The Ability to Repeat some previous masturbation events.
-A Refresh of all Sprites. They'll need completely remade at some point, but they've at least been enhanced to match the environment quality/lighting better.
-A replacement render for the Ruins Threesome scene in which Arianna had glitched panties.
-Numerous minor fixes, including adding some dom and sub-points where you should have gotten some previously and didn't. Typo correction and some audio issues were also sorted out.
-Gallery and Credits updated.
Known Issues:
-You can't repeat the new masturbation scene via the Gallery yet. I realized too late that I'd hit the point where the gallery needs multiple pages. Given the game release was already delayed, I wasn't going to take the extra time to figure out and put that system in. I also need to evaluate if I want to keep putting the Threesome scenes in the MC gallery, or create another galley for them.
- Previous saves with the Trix/Revina threesome events completed might not work to unlock the new event. This was a mistake where I hadn't added a tracking variable previously. Sorry :-(.
- I've become aware that the Dom/Sub points are...not quite what I'd hoped they would be. I need to take a hard look at that system and see how to better make use of it.
I notice that Left Hand Magic has the lesbian tag and the MC is female. Does the term "Left Hand Magic" have anything to do with the Latin American superstition that being left handed can cause you to become gay? I haven't experienced it in my family, but I heard this Bolivian guy talking about how when his parents found out he was left handed, they tied his left hand behind his back and made him write with his right hand to force it to become his dominant hand. He was NOT gay, but I just wondered if this had anything to do with that. I know it sounds ignorant as fuck to say this, but it's what I heard.
Besides that, i like how vibrant this game is. The colors mesh really well and there is no shortage of purple and red haha. Renders look good as well. I don't play Female MC games much, but I might make an exception
So glad this Dev joined the dark side and went full RenPy 3d! Some of their other stuff had solid story and good worldbuilding, but custom engines are a bloody nightmare.
And Lesbo protag, even better!
Was about to get super excited, but the more I saw the more nervous I got.
Femdom kind of seems to be a central theme of this game.
Not into Femdom, giving or receiving, it's one of my least favorite fetishes. I much prefer romance, with basically equal relationships. Am I just SOL for this game?
Also, MC is super cute, does she have a fair amount of futa scenes?
Anyway, even if this beautiful game isn't for me, best of luck Dev! I hope it does great!
I notice that Left Hand Magic has the lesbian tag and the MC is female. Does the term "Left Hand Magic" have anything to do with the Latin American superstition that being left handed can cause you to become gay? I haven't experienced it in my family, but I heard this Bolivian guy talking about how when his parents found out he was left handed, they tied his left hand behind his back and made him write with his right hand to force it to become his dominant hand. He was NOT gay, but I just wondered if this had anything to do with that. I know it sounds ignorant as fuck to say this, but it's what I heard.
Besides that, i like how vibrant this game is. The colors mesh really well and there is no shortage of purple and red haha. Renders look good as well. I don't play Female MC games much, but I might make an exception
No. I was unaware of that superstition. It's a reference to
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. There are several differing useages of the term. Specifically, this setting separates magic into the Right and Left paths. With the Right Path being constructive magic useful to a peaceful society, while the Left Path are magics that are seen as corruptive/destructive. The whole premise of the plot is that a group of Left Hand magic users are trying to prove that their magics can be used for good as well.
So glad this Dev joined the dark side and went full RenPy 3d! Some of their other stuff had solid story and good worldbuilding, but custom engines are a bloody nightmare.
And Lesbo protag, even better!
Was about to get super excited, but the more I saw the more nervous I got.
Femdom kind of seems to be a central theme of this game.
Not into Femdom, giving or receiving, it's one of my least favorite fetishes. I much prefer romance, with basically equal relationships. Am I just SOL for this game?
Also, MC is super cute, does she have a fair amount of futa scenes?
Anyway, even if this beautiful game isn't for me, best of luck Dev! I hope it does great!
I've used Renpy before and I'm honestly not really a fan. Twine and Visual Novel Maker were my attempts to get away from how coding-heavy Renpy is. But Twine is too limited and Visual Novel Maker was a nightmare that I desperately want to forget about. So...back to Renpy T-T.
So...the femdom thing is very much a question of how you define that. The game does heavily feature dom/sub relationships, with Bondage being a common theme. But they are not the poisonous version of that you see all too often. No deliberate humiliation, rape, attempts to force people into anything, etc. I always do my dead-level best to portray healthy relationships, romance included. Where a couple or triad might enjoy kinky bondage fun in their sex lives, but treat each other as romantic and/or professional equals outside of that. It's always a bit of a precarious balancing act with an H-game, but that's what I aim for.
The MC only currently has two scenes AS a futa. Transformation turned out not to be an overly popular option for my patrons this time around, oddly. There is a Futa character whose entire route is, by extension, futa. But the MC is on the receiving end there.
So...the femdom thing is very much a question of how you define that. The game does heavily feature dom/sub relationships, with Bondage being a common theme. But they are not the poisonous version of that you see all too often. No deliberate humiliation, rape, attempts to force people into anything, etc. I always do my dead-level best to portray healthy relationships, romance included
Thank you for the reply, and the explanation. I agree, Femdom is generally portrayed as a means to an end for a bitchy character to get what she wants, and rarely lovingly.
The bondage can be a nice touch if well done.
I don't typically like Maledom either, but in Hail Dicktator I think it is done well with a heavy emphasis on bondage, and always with consent, I think the relationships are pretty loving, though hardly equal. Though only the MC is Dom in that one.
I will give it a try and see how it feels. There is definitely a shortage of female MC lesbian games out there.
Thank you for the reply, and the explanation. I agree, Femdom is generally portrayed as a means to an end for a bitchy character to get what she wants, and rarely lovingly.
The bondage can be a nice touch if well done.
I don't typically like Maledom either, but in Hail Dicktator I think it is done well with a heavy emphasis on bondage, and always with consent, I think the relationships are pretty loving, though hardly equal. Though only the MC is Dom in that one.
I will give it a try and see how it feels. There is definitely a shortage of female MC lesbian games out there.
Absolutely. In fact, a good chunk of the reason I got into making H-games at all was that I was super super frustrated by the way things like bondage always seemed to be used in the most poisonous possible manner. My very first game attempt (Eros Academy) was done as an attempt to show how bondage and other kink content could be sexy without being hateful or non-consensual.
I've only played about halfway through Hail Dicktator, as I got frustrated with several of the characters and the way it forced you to do all of their content to advance despite them being unlikable. But I played as far as I did specifically because it at least tried to go the consentual route with things. It was a bit heavy handed at it. But an effort was made, which counts for a lot with me.
As for the lack of lesbian games. Yeah, that weirds me out, honestly. Everyone thinks lesbians are hot. And even most women acknowledge that Boobs are the Sixth Fundamental Force of the Universe, accept no substitutes. Yet the already rare female-protagonist games are mostly about...banging every guy they see? Or being corrupted and forced to do the same? Usually with little to no lesbian content at all? What the heck even?
