I hate making it about money but the sheer amount of it that this title rakes in compared to how little movement development makes has made me feel like I have to reconsider my previous rating for this. That's a big pot and it could easily support some outsourcing, especially since the developer's passion for working on this title themselves appears to have pretty much hit rock bottom.
What is here is great, don't get me wrong. Fantastic renders, good characters, attractive female models, and decent writing even though you're playing more through a series of scenarios than a specific central story it seems.
And the fact that there's no solid story running through it might be why the passion has gone.
But that's no excuse.
Just a small portion of what Icstor pulls in each month could sustain a small team that could work on this if he doesn't want to, and he'd even get a sizable paycheck just for having started the thing if he stepped back and outsourced everything while progressing onto other projects. Instead, supporters are left paying each month with little to look forwards to other than a sharp end.
Characters and events have been teased with some placeholders even scattered around and I can foresee these being cut in favour of a speedy exit from this project on the devs part.
This used to be one of the best ero games out there in my opinion, and it's been left to rot.
It now gets 2 stars from me, and it gets to keep those based partly on what I previously wrote about the game (see below). If I were in a better mood today it might have gotten to keep 3, so feel free to imagine this more like 2 and a half or something.
That last line at the bottom of my previous review bit me in the ass.
-- I previously rated 5 stars --------------------------
Here's what I said...
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Some of the most attractive models I've seen in a game and each character brings their own individual personality with them.
The animation is some of the best I've seen in a Ren'Py game so far, with the buttock fucking after one of Caroline's shoots being a particular favourite of mine.
Each character's narrative has been interesting, even for characters I didn't think I would be as interested in.
The gameplay is simple enough that there's no frustration and even if you hit a dry spot as far as sexual content goes you can always take a bath, call in on someone at night, or video-call a teacher for some repeatable light titillation.
Overall it's a relaxing experience and you just keep hitting it like a piñata until the sex falls out, you can't really go wrong.
I'm excited to see what joys ICSTOR brings us in future updates and I'm not even picky about what that content may be. At this point, I trust the dev team wholeheartedly.