Reviewing v0.11
This game nails the buildup and anticipation with each character in a remarkable way. You spend your time in a sandbox with a handful of women, performing activities that give you stats and conversation topics. These will then be used to subtly influence the women, unlocking different archetypes for them. When a woman is converted to a new archetype this unlocks additional scenes, and gives more uses for the stats and conversation topics.
I loved seeing the influencing pay off for each character. For one example, early on, you might encourage an interest in fitness, resulting in that woman start an afternoon exercise routine. Later on, as your influence becomes sexual, so does that exercise routine. It gives the relationships a lot of room to breathe, building in more and more sexual tension. Then, through scenes you find organically in the sandbox, that tension gets released in creative and interesting ways.
Once you get a handle of the mechanics, you'll be juggling many tasks at once. You might have just unlocked a new archetype for one woman, so you scope out changes in her daily routine. At the same time, you might want to encourage an interest in romance with another woman, so you spend some time watching romantic movies. This also gives you experience in trivia, which you the player need to increase some of your stats. Then you use this trivia conversation topic with another character for another goal.
For a long time this loop felt exciting to me, and not like a grind. I think this is because all of the women you interact with are written to have a strong individual identity. As the relationships progress you become a part of their life as much or moreso than they become part of yours. The story for each woman is completely different, and all scenes are very specific to their personality and interests. This means that when you encourage interests and see the resulting scenes, you can directly observe how and why the woman behaves the way they do. It's very rewarding.
Eventually this loops does feel like a grind. You unlock a new archetype, and finish watching their new scenes, but increasing their interest in fashion or something from 0 to 100 does not sound appealing. This is the main problem with the gameplay loop. It has already outstayed its welcome and the game doesn't feel close to finished. At least you can use a cheat mod or edit your saves to eliminate the grind.
There are some major problems that can't be solved by a cheat mod. Navigation through menus or through the game world is slow. Vital information is hidden multiple menus deep, and it was common for me to have to revisit those sub menus multiple times when planning one action. You need a topic with incivility? You can't open your inventory outside of your house for some reason. And maybe you don't have something explicitly tagged with incivility, but you do have topics tagged with aggression and rudeness. Do those count? The answer is in an entirely different menu. If you're not using a cheat mod, you'll also be checking what each character's likes and dislikes are, which are in other submenus. You might find yourself in a situation where a woman likes sexual topics but dislikes perverted topics. Is nudity sexual or is nudity perverted? Blowjobs? Who knows. Every woman has 6 likes and 6 dislikes, so this can get needlessly convoluted.
But despite these pretty massive flaws, I'm still giving this a 5/5. The high points are incredible. When the games has its hooks in you, it's an experience you won't find anywhere else. I don't disagree with the negative sentiments expressed in other reviews, and unless something changes, these flaws will only become more pronounced as development goes on. Despite this, my experience with the game was overwhelmingly positive.
