Review of v0.32
This is easily my favorite indie porn game.
I'm not even in the target audience for some of the central fetishes like incest and mind control / molestation, but they don't bother me either. Similarly, I don't generally like sandbox games, but I enjoyed the other aspects of the game enough to not be put off by the sandbox elements.
Enough about what I merely tolerate.
The game has great writing and gameplay! Writing means many things: dialogue, story, characterization, plotting, structure. The story is unexpectedly interesting, and there are some fun twists (even if you see them coming). There are many unique story elements, and no soap opera or filler mundane plot beats.
The women are strong, independent characters. Each gets a character development arc which involves more than just them falling in love/lust with you--though you must advance the character arc to have sex with them too. (Nighttime visitations tide you over until you get that far.) I'm not sure how intertwined the character subplots are with the main plot; because of the sandbox nature, probably not very tightly, but at least on my first playthrough it wasn't obvious since I didn't know whose paths were really important, so it all felt mostly like one plot with reasonably matched subplots.
For gameplay, the clue system manages to make you feel like a real participant in solving the problems, discouraging you from just trying every option and instead encouraging you to actually understand. I guess you can brute force it, but I generally knew what I was looking for. Linking much of the clue system (and character advancement) into mind-controlled nudity is a weird (in a good way) and unique touch. I had no idea I was looking for good gameplay in a porn game but it was compelling enough to make me finish the current almost-complete version over a single weekend.
The sex scenes are varied and in varied contexts to fit the characters. Much as soap opera plotting is avoided, all the situations in which you have sex with the characters are pretty different (except the sleep sex scenes, which unsurprisingly have similar options and flow). Most of the sex scenes are pure POV, which I for one appreciate.
The graphics are pretty good. I like all the character designs. In the later parts the renders are great. I think in some of the earlier renderings the backgrounds seem a bit mushy; maybe not that well-lit or maybe it's just that the stone texture environments don't lend themselves well to looking good, but if it bugs you, see if you can push past it anyway and if you're anything like me you'll be rewarded.
The ambient background noise is a nice touch and seems to be a rarity in these sorts of games.
Could anything be better? Sure, smoother, longer animations and maybe lengthier sex scenes. I got stuck a few times and had to check the forum for hints. At least one of those, I just couldn't find a clue that I had and knew I had but had forgotten the picture for it, so some way to see the clue text without mouse-over would have helped that time.
No doubt if the author could magically spend twice as much effort on it in the same amount of time there'd be other things that could be improved. But why would I bother trying to think of improvements? It's already my favorite indie game on this site.