Welp, I've been seeing these "Phone Game" things for a while now, but I honestly had no idea what they're about or how they work, so I decided to pick one up to see what's what. For all that I've played all sorts of H-games over the years, this format is entirely new to me. In the end, I picked this particular set because, unlike a lot of other examples out there, it's actually complete, and it's the 1st one done by this particular Dev (at least, if their list of games on itch is anything to go by).
Having messed around with both games, I'm honestly not sure what to think of this style of "game" right now. Might need a bigger sample size before I really decide one what's my stance on them. On the purely objective side of things, it's easy to note that English is not the dev's 1st language... though some of the errors might be intentional to give a more authentic "texting" feel? I dunno. Regardless, the feel of it all is... strange... when the "girl" texts bunches of times in a row and the guy barely replies. It's even weirder when the attempted sexy stuff happens and the guy barely reciprocates.
I've seen RPs in various chats that had better interactivity between the people involved than these characters...
One thing that's clear is that this format of game relies pretty heavily on the quality of its writing. Perhaps even more so than VNs in some ways, since it can't use narration so everything leans heavily on the "voice" of the characters involved. Obviously, having hot art helps, but if the way the character texts isn't perceived as hot, it's gonna flop really badly.
Also, I don't know if they're all like this set, but these two are both fairly short, you can finish a bunch of "playthroughs" in a single hour, depending on one's reading speed and how much they enjoy the art. Speaking of, no, I don't care that it's AI art involving generic elf girls. Though even I noticed that it was supposed to be some kind of Zelda parody, but apparently the dev backtracked on that? They didn't get all the references out of the text though. I'm not sure why Conan tho...
Moving on, the fact that the gallery is just for images would be kind of eh, if not for the fact that it doesn't take long to play through a session this thing. Though remembering all the choice permutations to get the various "scenes" can be a pain.
In any case, I suppose I can see how these things could be used for a quick fap/schlick/whatever, but not much else. There's a notable lack of substance after all... I'm not sure why anyone would pay any money for this. I've seen CG sets with a lot more substance than this going for less than 9$.
Oh well, I'll probably try out a few more of these things before I decide what to think about the format as a whole.
In the mean time, I'm going to list the passwords I've seen working for the second game's gallery and what they do. I'll also note that it seems that the application of the passwords doesn't get saved? Or I was doing something wrong... but it seems like you need to enter them every time.
Passwords:
Pure Love - Secret Gallery 1
Kingdom's Slut - Secret Gallery 2
My Little Princess - Full Normal Gallery Unlock