Ren'Py - Completed - Of Devotion and Despondence: REBRED [v1.0.3] [Earliestbird]

-the combat is fun and does not feel like a grind at all but it all depends on how much grind each person can tolerate. You basically complete a part of the story then go to base management and girl stat management then go do some battle. rinse and repeat but still fun.
-the story is good enough to keep you playing.
-decent amount of H content but only 1 or 2 images to per scene.
-more than half of the h scenes are not animated.
-animations are just 3 second loops.
-ai art and animation are used properly
-2 separate endings.
-you only really get a complete ending with one of the Li. The other 2 are there but you don't get a complete ending like you do with the main Li.
-a fairly long game. took me about i would guess, 20 hours of play to get to the end
-creator is still adding content to it such as animation, even though it says it's complete. So you can play something else then come back to this when the game is truly complete. Would be an even better experience.

-overall a solid 4 out of 5. When the creator truly finishes the game i think it can be a 5 out of 5.

+ Interesting Setting
+ game is complete and has 2 different endings

= Somewhat linear but some choice sidequest wise
= Gameplay is a mixed bag, it becomes a slog eventually ( long fights ) and certain abilities are broken in comparison to others, like parry and dodge when upgraded for example, which basically makes you unhittable when done right.
= Decent characters
= AI art doesn't bother me, neither does the devs obsession with coating women in obscene amounts of spunk

- Bland plot
- Slog to finish, tedious near the last 1/3 of the game

Let me start with that I have nothing against AI art, with that said.

The premise is nice, the first 20-50 days the gameplay feels not bad... but then it goes nowhere.

Most of characters have a single scene, even the main ones. There are around 25-30 scenes in the game, 5 in church, 4 in residence and the rest just sparingly sprinkled around. What's the point of using AI art if you skimp out on the quantity of it?

The combat and stats look customizable and interesting at first glance, but it really isn't.

The intro is written as if the game has some grand adventure to show, bragging what the MC will achieve, but it goes nowhere, nothing really happens.

The character stat grind is slow, but kinda rewarding at the beginning, until the second gate, where the stat gain accelerates and feels irellevant.

TL&DR: The beginning is nice, but it goes nowhere. There is not enough content to justify engaging with the simplistic and repetitive gameplay loop, grinding stats. The AI art is not coming with more scenes to compensate, quite the opposite. Writing is nothing special either.

It's a nothing burger, 3-4/10, waste of time.

This game has some things going for it, but it uses way too much AI. I don't necessarily hate AI art, but when you use AI in backgrounds, dialogue, and every single character, you end up with soulless AI slop. You can tell that there isn't intention in many areas of the game. What I liked was the gameplay since that had some thought put into it. I enjoyed the combat since it had some complexity and required you to think. Day cycles were short and repetitive, though they was always something to do. I see a lot of content in this game, but all of it needs more work and direction to be interesting.

Got to be one of the best AI-assisted games made on this platform, and with actual cohesion with its playability. Good story and plot, tho at the end it kinda gets a bit difficult but not impossible. But overall it is enjoyable.

There is not a single redeeming thing about this. Dialogue feels like a bad translation of a bad translation. Animations are a mess. UI is terrible. I cannot comprehend how or why this is highly rated and on top of that people actually pay money to support the creator. Wild stuff. I saw another review stating that it's " Simply one of the best games played here so far " and that is the most unhinged thing I've read all year.

This is a beautiful game with a gorgeous soundtrack, but although it's marked complete, there are still parts of the game that claim to be incomplete, to be completed in further updates, typose and grammatical errors in grammar.

Overall: 2.5/5
Art: 1/5 Someone should look at the AI images to confirm that the new "outfit" doesn't change race or height for example. Just a quick look to confirm it is the same person. Very very inconsistent overall and poor usage of AI.
Gameplay: 2/5 The map is premade and so are the encounters. The only thing random in the game is the gacha cards. I like the combat concept and pre planning and theory crafting but in the end there isn't any variety of equipment/skills/enemies. There is other "classes" but really it is just starting traits and once you get past a certain point in the early game, they are all the same. Difficulty scales DOWN instead of up which is something I see a lot of new devs struggle with. Also, there is A LOT of grinding.
Sound: 3/5 I really like the BGM. I don't know what language it is in but I like it. I wonder if it was also AI or actual singers. With all that said, the announcer says the most cringe things I have ever heard in my life. Just remove that and you get perfect for sound.
Story: 2.5/5 The writing is good but the amount of text in this game is unbearable. You can't skip text with ctrl so oil up your space bar because that button is doing half the gameplay. This is so sad because it was made in RenPy, the worst image scroller engine with the best feature, SKIP.

Final thoughts: if you love reading a lot of text, this game is for you. Otherwise, just skip. The amount of preg fetish in this game is beyond extreme, if you are so into it, you might wanna see this game (AI warning). I tried to finish the game before posting this, in case I missed something. I couldn't finish some gacha cards because some counters were bugged. (unmade killed counter was stuck at 16). Also I couldn't figure out some quests but really I just wanted to click the quit button.

The biggest negative is that there is a lack of consistency in the Art and Story. Maybe it works for some people but this reminds me of the old steal a bunch of art games where you have the red, blue, and yellow haired characters with CGs from 10 different authors for each character. The worse problem is how often you uncanny valley which is honestly worse than bad CG. I find it unpleasant too often.

If you dont like AI this game wont change your opinion. AI can assist to make a good game better but the AI is the driver on this bus so it crashed into a wall.

A Renpy RPG that showed promise but got lost in the AI's meanders. The graphics were entirely AI-driven, resulting in modest results and no animations. The story was a bit rushed, with uninteresting quests. It's a shame because the gameplay could have been vaguely interesting, especially for a Renpy-developed product. No, I absolutely didn't like it, and I don't recommend it.

TLDR it is a very well done rpg with an interesting story.

The game mechanics are rather well balanced. You are required to pay attention to your resources in the early game and set your base up well. You will not win every encounter at the time of unlocking them without using the gear crafting, card system, and character/resident talents.

The art is the weakest bit of the game it uses quality ai cgs as an accessory to the writing. The images are hot and accompany the vast majority of text but are not anything that would on their own carry the game to a high rating.

The writing and scenarios are the strongest part of the game I particularly found it interesting that the scenes were given a cost and benefit trade that give power scaling but come at enough of a resource cost to prevent it from becoming a 0 to 100 fuckfest. The overall plot is well done especially high quality for porn game standards.

The music and sound effects are good and appreciated I couldn't pin down the exact reason if asked but when games have no bgm/sound effects it makes the world feel dead and empty.

A somber-toned RPG with a unique setting.

Once upon a time, three Gods clashed and brought ruin to the world. It is a world that is slowly dying, scarred by AI-generated assets forces of entropy that bend the fabric of reality, and cursed by its former Creator. Our protagonist finds himself stranded in this barren world after being exiled into a dimensional rift--a sentence intended to be lethal. He soon finds that his life essence is bleeding out at a slow but ever-increasing rate. He must use this second chance at life to discover purpose and meaning in this post-apocalyptic world--before the little time he has remaining runs out.

I was immediately captivated by the unusual setting and themes. This is a story for fantasy enthusiasts. It's a tale of stoicism: grit in the face of adversity. There's romance with the three love interests, but there's also quite a lot of (often goofy) casual sex. As it turns out, the protagonist's affliction is not unique: it is a curse that affects all males, and therefore he is the only male we ever meet (intelligent life only persists because the world's female inhabitants don't age). Yes, it's a setting contrived to justify tropes and indulge fantasies, but it's done fairly convincingly. The casual sex is not for everyone, and in my opinion many of these scenes are shoe-horned in, pander to very particular fetishes, and their goofy excesses doesn't fit with the somber tone of the rest of the work.

The gameplay is a mix of resource management and turn-based combat. The resource management is straightforward and has a pleasant sense of progression for most of the game (though once you've built everything the challenge and fun evaporates). The combat can be tricky if you're not skilled at stat optimization (protip: optimize for damage and spam Parry); enemies tend to hit hard while your own defensive options are limited and fairly ineffective, which means you don't want to get into battles of attrition. Thankfully, unlike the resource management, the combat remains relevant into late-game and doesn't wear out its welcome.

This is a mostly text-based game with AI-generated music and art. That said, this is one of the best uses of AI-generated assets that I've seen. The dev is a talented writer who is using the assets as props to tell a story. This is in stark contrast with shovelware where AI-generated assets ARE the primary content.

Of Devotion and Despondence is not a perfect game, but if the idea of playing a fantasy novel appeals to you, it's definitely worth a try.

Without doubt one of, or possibly the best written game on this website. Wait, that's not doing it justice - this isn't just good writing for a porn game, it's damn good writing in general. It feels very professional. It doesn't try too hard to sound smart, but the writing is very intelligent and ocassionally profound.

The storyis both very original and yet actually very simple to understand.So many fantasy writers spend pages and pages explaining the background lore, but this game doesn't need to. It shows you the shape of a rich, deep world and lets you work out the details for yourself.

I really enjoyed the RPG elements too. Even though there was a lot of moving parts, you are never penalised too heavily for doing the wrong thing, as long as you remember to save. You can ocassionally feel the game straining against the limitations of its engine. I'm not familiar with it but it really doesn't feel designed for this kind of complexity. But they made it work.

One thing I would like to see the dev's work on is the late game balance. I'm at the end of the second major area, and as I see it there are two problems here:

1) I have 4-500 of every resource, including essenece. I have built everything, and there is 0 chance I will run out of them.

2) At the same time, the difficulty curve spikes very hard. some of the things you have to fight feel impossible without very high fortitude. I can't do damage fast enough, or live long enough to beat them. And I can't work out how to increase my attributes beyond the ocassional point.

Now the game does have a rogulite/ NG+ type thing going on I think, and that might be whatI'm experiencing right now. If that's the case I'd suggest a little nudge recommending first time players start again, as they will find it difficult to make progress.

But yeah, congrats to the devs on making this very memorable and fun game.

I personally really liked it.

The writing: 5/5
Very well done. I don't know how to praise it other than saying it was well thought out. The world, the characters, everything writing related was good imo.

The Pics: 3/5
(I don't mind the AI pictures personally, if done well, but they weren't the prettiest still. There were a few good renders though,)

The soundtrack: 4/5
There isn't much, but what is there, sets the atmoshpere quite well imo. . Very good.

I hope the dev will make more games of similar, but hopefully a bit higher quality. Maybe hire an artist?

A lovely game.

The story plays in a not quite standard isekai world. You can enjoy a creatively crafted setting with rather unusual natural phenomena and strange encounters.

I like the generally serious and mildly depressing atmosphere. It also becomes quickly apparent that the developer is generally a good storyteller which makes everything even more immersive.

The art is quite excellent and I absolutely adore the collectable cards of MCs offspring which all grant a specific bonus.
Overall a greatly enjoyable game.

What I would enjoy in future versions:
Personally, I am a big fan of management games and think that there might be more potential for refined management gameplay. Currently, you gather the resources for a building, build it and simply receive a certain bonus for your skills (with some exceptions like the forge). Furthermore, beyond the one time resource costs for buildings, only a small amount of resources is required to train companions. However, every management aspect is purely focussed on improving your skills or the skill of your companions. At some point in the game you have so many resources that you can't really do something with them.

Maybe it could be nice to actually build up a slowly developing village / city that continously requires resources. Considering how dangerous this world is, it is rather odd that MC decides to keep living in an abandoned place with a handful of companions after figuring out that e.g. a faction with a huge and secure temple thinks of him as a holy being. However, if he would actually found a village as a safe place for settlers and his offspring, it would make total sense that he stays there. There could also be a dimplomacy / reputation aspect paired to the village/city building - afterall there are other factions including an actual city.

Maybe my mistake downloading the game. On the start it comes up with choices which you have no idea about and goes further building up character who you have no idea what is going to do or achieve ....
The first thing that suppose to up is the introduction & instructions how to set up and what the choices mean .

DEVLOPER...put yourself in the shoes of someone who has no idea... than start by sharing some information ...
i give you 1 star because waste 3 hours trying to work and than gave up.

Amazing game, from the music to the voiceover artist to the writing, to the art. I love management games and settlement building games, and I hope those aspects are expanded. This developer deserves your Patreon support if they can keep delivering at this level of quality.

Extremely overrated game, I can't even say one good thing about this game. Linear story with pseudo choices, grindy gameplay with zero fun, no actual reward, the closest thing to okay is ironically the AI Generated art.

There is good world building, excellent character building and exquisite storytelling mixed with a bit of turn based combat, some strategic building and a lot of exploring. that's a lot of qualities that reflect the time invested in this lovely game

Simply one of the best games played here so far.

One thing that I genuinely can point out, by force of my profession, is, that even the metaphysical structure of the 'universe' of that game is truly reasonable. It is an invented world (I suppose) but nevertheless has a logically traceable structure. I can not point that out clearly enough; many 'fictional worlds' are invented only to support the according lore. Hence, as its only purpose is to give support to a coherent story, the surrounding universe consists of a load of orphaned concept that risk to be not only illogical but even in contradiction. This might be a main reason for me to avoid games with much lore - until now.

You actually can trace back the reason why you come into a world boosting of 'lusty' women while - of course!- being the only man that can solve that issue. And even the fact that by helping these women, the male hero gets weaker and will eventually die is not too far away from grim reality as we might know it from the world that evolves us.

I don't like reading belletrist texts but this games lore here was that well written that I actually got very interested. The character design is utterly astonishing and I wonder how one can imagine multiple characters who are that versatile with only one mind (which I was wondering already before).

Next positive thing is the aspect of empire and character building. It is still not very developed but its base offer is already very rich. The characters you encounter, do not all fit into the same category, mind the goblin for instance or the "aspects".

The graphics are that good that I lack words to describe it. And the overall aesthetics of the game allow you to enjoy depictions that do not fit into the usual preferences (of the author), as for instance the encounter with the feral being. However, it is regarding the aspect of graphics, where I dare to utter a timid objection: The action described by the texts sometimes largely overpasses the visual scenery you can witness.

One last point: As we are in a fictional world, I am of course interested in the possibilities that fiction gives us. Hence, I endorse if natural limitations which would be in vigor here, on the users side of the computer screen, are trespassed (according to my taste ). Thus, that you actually are almost a confectioner with a magic cream bag is warmly welcomed.

There could have been even more prose from my part if I wrote the comment earlier.

Hats off to the developer,
your explorer.