I really like this game. I first tried the tech demo before I even heard of or played the original game. I thought that the tech demo was disappointing. I stared a girl's thighs, walked around a room, and picked up trash. Like, oh joy. How can I get excited about a Unity tech demo that shows one or two game mechanics and then most likely will never get another update again, much less get completed? Seems like there are way too many Unity tech demos like that out there that get one or two small demonstration updates and then become abandoned. So anyway, I eventually played the original game, not even knowing that Lust Is Stranger was a parody of it, and I loved the game a lot. The side story is really boring for me though, so I haven't been able to finish it. So today, I finally got around to playing this 0.3.2.3 Beta version and I was pleasantly surprised. I was in for a real treat. It was incredibly sexy. I was already excited by the time that I checked out Victoria's behind and I liked how I scored some affinity points with her by just being brave. Then I saw Kate in the hallway, and I don't know what it is about that girl but I just like her a lot. I'm really happy that I get to corrupt and do things with her. Then Brooke? Wow. That situation escalated nicely. Max accidentally grinding on me on the bathroom fllor was nice, and honestly she looked better naked later on than I thought that she would. Then back to Kate and her handjob. I can't wait to go all the way with her. This game is going to be a lot of fun. I can tell. I wonder if Joyce is on the table. So this game is incredibly good because you can do things that you can't do in the original game, like walk around and use camera movement. The characters have been expanded on. So you see stuff like the skateboarder doing a bit of hustle on the side after getting an internship job. The dialogue is crazy good, exactly how the real characters would talk. The quests have been fun. Everything has been great. There are some complaints though. So I will address those now.
1.) The game audio was on full blast when I started the game, with no way to lower the sound from the Options menu. I hate games and websites that have sounds on full blast. The audio on some websites is so loud that I have to turn the volume down from anywhere from 1-4 on a 1-100 slider. I actually had to install a persistence volume extension in my browser so I wouldn't hear the video blast every time that I refreshed the page. At least some Ren'Py developers are smart and they have the default volume at 25% and you can then turn it up if you want. But some Ren'Py developers are really bad in that they purposely make their game loading music and sounds super loud, like they want to excite you and make you think you are on a thrill ride or something. It's a very poor tactic and I don't like how this Lust Is Stranger developer is doing the same thing. He should have added an audio adjuster in the game in the tech demo version. The fact that it is still lacking one now is pretty bad. And even if he adds an audio adjuster later, that does not change the problem that the default volume was way too loud. It needs to be lowered to 25% or at least 50%.
2.) The game has serious camera glitches when first interacting with people. I first noticed it with the janitor. You click on him and the camera just spins wildly nonstop. I reloaded and replayed that part of the game many times and also tried talking to him later in the game, and most of the time the camera will glitch and spin nonstop when talking to him. Then like three or four other times with various characters the camera will point at the ground or sky and not show the female you are talking to. And that will last a couple of minutes until your dialogue has progressed enough, and then you will be able to see them once the scene changes. I noticed this when Kate was sitting on the bench. And some other times like when sitting next to Kate in the restaurant or right when Max entered my bedroom.
3.) I don't like the mini game difficulty too much. I wish that the level of speed and difficulty was turned down some. For instance, when I wanted to tap my foot with the Principal or punch Warren's face, the game would clearly stop and freeze on my desired selection. Even after I pressed the spacebar on my desired selection, my desired selection was selected and remained selected for a few seconds. Then suddenly it would switch to some other random selection, and then I had to repeat that part of the game all over again until I was able to get what I wanted selected. Then the smooth talking events wasted a ton of my time. I must have repeated Kate's like 30-50 times altogether. Like a dozen times per afterschool event. That just takes away from the game, not add to it. I've gotten a bit better at it, but I just feel that the minigames speed and difficulty need improved some. It should be a slight challenge not an almost impossible one. No one should have to repeat the same part of the game countless times. Even repeating it once or twice is bad. But once or twice is far better than 12 x 3 = 36 times for smoothing talking or 5-6 times for quick dialogue responses.
4.) That's pretty much it. I wanted to keep taking money from the one kid, but I could only do it the one time. It would have been nice if I could have taken $1 from him each of the following days but he always tells me that he is out of money. I was hoping to see Chloe again too so I could buy some more weed or follow up with her on Prescott. Even if that is a future update, I would have liked to see her NPC with the words "No more content till future update" in dialogue. And this was a big one for me. Almost getting Max to go all the way, her leaving, and me being kicked to Main Menu and having to start the game over from before I invited Max over. But I guess these things are trivial and are just a reflection of nonexisting content. I just think that it could have been done better. Have the Max event end with you going to bed and starting a new day. Having Chloe around but not be able to progress further. Stuff like that.
5.) I'm kinda surprised that things progressed with Max so fast. I was expecting a bit more of a challenge. I was happy with Brooke and Kate, but Max was like "okay I'm getting naked now because you think that it will help my photo submission." I'm not complaining. I don't want it to be tedious or a chore. I was just surprised, that's all. On some doors that you have two options - open door, don't open door... I wish that it would just let me go through the door without slowing me down like that. If I make the wrong choice, I can always turn around and go back through the door again. I wish that there were some juicy easter eggs in the Principals office. Like be able to find three or four items that I could benefit from while he was in the parking lot. And I wish that I could have walked in on the one girl in the restroom after I beat her friend Taylor at the smooth talking game. I wanted to personally give her the bracelet that I found and then get intimately close to her in the restroom, since I already made her like me a little earlier by mentioning a TV show that she liked and "minions". It was really disappointing when I didn't see her after that, so I decided to just corrupt Taylor instead of giving her the bracelet. I'm not really thrilled by the idea that smoking weed decreases intelligence if used too often. Hopefully it won't be till like every 3-5 uses, and hopefully intelligence only lowers by one point. I am just greedy and want every point possible and don't want to lose points here and there because one item that increases points also decreases them. That's a bit annoying. And finally, even though the dialogue was crazy good, there were some really bad spelling mistakes made here and there. Like using the word she instead of her. And a few other bad spelling mistakes. It almost felt like the spelling mistakes were made intentionally by a master of the English language just so that he would have an excuse later if people ever complained about the dialogue.
I was really enjoying the game until now.
