Incredible effort for a solo dev project. Despite some pacing issues in the plot, this VN features an interesting mystery, great graphics, a stellar atmosphere, much H content and even engaging game mechanics. This all serves to make for a VN, or in truth an actual game that is dramatically elevated above most of the competition.
Mist focuses on a small cast of characters - save for the MC, the heroines, and the antagonist there are no other characters at all. Each of the heroines is distinct, given different things to do, and is of importance to the plot, all in a very well executed manner. There are many different H scenes that are animated and even integrated into the game mechanics. H themes are mostly vanilla which is a good thing, with a certain leaning into male domination which I would have been fine without but is certainly better than the opposite alternative if you ask me. The harem route is the only route, which is a good thing as far as I am concerned. Our very first heroine, Robin whom we meet right at the start, is a blonde blue-eyed virgin farm girl with no experience with men. You had me on board right there Brother! Also the epilogue features several H scenes with the harem which is always a boon.
It's hard to describe how meticulous the setup for the story seems to be. You are up on a mountain by your city, inspecting your deceased grandfather's cabin which he left to you when THE MIST appears with no warning. It spreads through the forest and covers everything save for your cabin, and from it strange creatures emerge to attack humans. Away from the rest of the world with no way of knowing what is happening beyond your immediate area, you and a lone camper join forces to survive. I was hooked in the first few minutes, the setup and execution of the very beginning is great. Though obviously inspired by Stephen King's "The Mist", the story goes in its own direction immediately and expands to provide a more or less satisfying explanation for most answered questions. Some of the writing is excellent while some relies on heavy contrivances to work, but any shortcoming in the writing isn't big enough to be annoying and is more than made up for by the high quality of every other part of the VN. The story is decently long, and the end of what I imagined to be act 3 took me by surprise when we entered an unexpected "act 4" that was decently fleshed out too. The game also benefits from a distinctive graphical style and overall incredible production values, animated backgrounds, camera pans and so on. The BGM is just ambiant and atmospheric outside of battle tracks but really hits the vibe right and gets you immersed. The amount of effort here is incredible for a solo dev and near the midgame I started thinking that this must have been made by an actual team only to be proven wrong.
The biggest faults that I noticed relate to some pacing issues, especially at the start and a weakness in the game mechanics. The pacing first - in the opening scene we rescue Robin from a mist creature and she joins us in our cabin. We gently begin building a relationship with her based on mutual attraction, except that we spontaneously begin groping her tits on our second day together. She forgives us and we decide to do a first date where the shy reserved Robin tells us she wants to make memories. So we'll just hold her hand or perhaps give her a shy kiss as we the MC are stated to be sexually inexperienced also? No, she jerks us off. I guess the dev was feeling that he needs to get to the H content and that perhaps he feared too much time might have been spent on plot and game mechanics, but this really ruined the pacing for me and took me out of the immersion that I was 100% deep in. This does improve as you progress through the game.
I really liked the game mechanics. They are best described as a day/night cycle where at day you can go to the forest and later other areas to collect food or look for items to progress the story, and at night you can deepen your connection to the girls. The more girls you've rescued the more your daily food needs increases. I chose 'survival mode' instead of 'feast mode' at the start but even then I only felt pressured for food 2 or 3 times the whole run. During expeditions you navigate the area like in an old school dungeon crawler and you have to manage a capped stamina bar and kill monsters for experience. Experience is used to upgrade your character. Later these mechanics expand to incluse 'base building' where you send out one of your girls to collect resources during the day to construct buildings near your cabin, and also quick time events where you need to click something fast enough in tense situations. The usage of the stamina bar which limits what you can do on any one expedition is really good to be honest and is very well used to make you feel like you're doing gradual story progress each time you go to the woods and accomplish missions or parts of missions. If you have sex with one of your girls before going to a mission, you have a 'morale boost' of more stamina, which is a very clever way to integrate the porn with the actual game.
The issue with these game mechanics is that there is a half hearted commitment to them. There is an inventory screen but it serves no purpose except to show you how many of one item you have, because all other items are plot required and used only once. You have to equip weapons manually into equipment slots, but it serves no purpose after the first time you equip a weapon at the start of the game, because better weapons are linearly unlocked and there is always only one best choice. There is experience and levels but they serve almost no purpose after the super early game because you max out 2 of the 3 skills you have very quickly and there are no builds. There is base building, but you only construct like 3 buildings over the course of the entire game and have no choices on what to build when [in fact, at one point our entire cast is away from our cabin for several days, but if you have given a 'collect resources' order before and check the totals after, your girl has apparently been collecting resources the whole time]. There is the food counter and survival mode, but collecting food is super easy and never a challenge. One day spent fishing gives you enough food to almost forget about the mechanic. There is a farming mechanic with an actual choice between gaining passive food or a helpful item you need a little amount from, but this also feels like it is underdeveloped. There are affection points with all the girls but it's not clear what they do except perhaps for unlocking optional H scenes. The quick time events are okay and improve immersion. It is great that the dev wanted to add game mechanics to this VN and the result is really good, but I wish there had been a full commitment to make the mechanics more important or to have less used mechanics completely removed and made into passive +1 item gained every few days. The game even does this with the farming mechanic in "act 4", which is funny.
On the side: from the very start I had a suspicion the developer was German and this was proven true when we find some plot-relevant documents that are in German. It is later made obvious as well. I would have given an extra star for this, Deutsche Spiele sind die besten but since I'm giving 5 stars already this is not necessary at all.
In conclusion this is an extremely good game that had me really engaged and fully immersed for actual hours on end. I am very looking forward to seeing 395games' next project "Morn" in a completed state. If it is like Mist but with the weaker sides removed or polished, it will really be a game to leave a mark, and I believe this developer has the potential to make a true masterpiece.
