Ren'Py - Abandoned - Patronus [v3.2.72 Final] [DVE Games]

An otherwise great game ruined by awful UX/UI.

Artwork is fantastic, has its own unique look, characters are attractive.

Sound is great, captures the theme and region well - music as well as foley effects.

Dialogue is so-so, no translation issues but the MC is majorly unlikable from the start; yes the plot involves him being a slaver, but even taking a "seduction approach" to the girls you still get lines being unneccesarily demeaning - these make sense on a dom/submission route, not on a seduction route.

But the real sticking point is the UX. As the reviewer below me captured - EVERYTHING is difficult. Not conceptually hard to manage, but the way the travel and tasks are implemented means even the most mundane tasks require a series of many clicks and screens.

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Just to spell out an example in plain english:

In many games you need to obtain items from somewhere for a quest. This typically involves clicking a map, clicking a new location, buying the items, and returning home.

In Patronus, you need to click a travel button, click the location, add it to your daily itinerary, then finalize the itinerary. Upon reaching the new location, you interact with the merchant, go into a submenu, select the item you want, adjust quantity with a laughably small button, purchase, select delivery method, select cart addition, select guard addition, purchase, close menu, close vendor dialogue, click travel button, click home location, add it to daily itinerary, finalize itinerary. You will then return home.

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If that was annoying to read, just imagine doing that in game over and over and over again, especially because the special building projects are designed such that they require many visits to the vendors over multiple days. Traveling to different regions is equally obnoxious - why does "continue travel" require visiting 4 submenus and clicks? This is exacerbated by the game running poorly - so each of those submenus has a 1-2 second delay after you've been playing awhile.

There's potential here; if dev streamlined the UI/ux and made more day-to-day brothel content, it could be great, but in its current state: 2/5

While the game boasts an interesting story and engaging drawings, the game lacks decent game mechanics and systems to make it intuitive and easy to learn for the player. Adding more content won't change my opinion on this, since poor systems would make navigating the game that much harder. This is akin to making an RPG game, but fucking up the RPG game mechanics and systems. No matter how good the story and content, if the mechanics suck, the game sucks.

Traveling
The traveling system could easily be better improved on so that its less clunky and time consuming. Why not just appear at the location instantly at the cost of time. Why add an animation if it only makes the game lag? I see no useful purpose as to why the traveling system needs to be this complicated.

Management
For a prostitution management game, the way for a player to manage it is so unintuitive and confusing. You as a player don't even know what can be done to improve your establishment. Why not have a simple button or something easy to access to manage your brothel? Why can't you send someone to just get stuff for you? How the heck am I supposed to upgrade the interior of the brothel. The tutorial doesn't even do any of this. The management system needs some major work and improvement.

Character Stats
The character stats are also very confusing. Let alone does the game not explain anything about what each of the 20 stats do, they don't even show an important one for training your slaves. Plus, how do these stats even contribute to any of the gameplay? If this is a slave trainer and brothel management sim, then why do I have a combat stat? Why do I have to practice law? It seems that there are way too many poor mechanics and systems to make the base game fun.

Time System
The time system is equally as frustrating as the management system. Which is a problem since time basically controls what you can and cannot do in the game. It needs some major overhaul so I don't feel like I am wasting IRL time on this fictional time. Its so confusing.

Conclusion
This game attempts to add too many mechanics and systems which have not been ironed out yet. The core gameplay, which is around training slaves and running a brothel are confusing, frustrating, time consuming, and unintuitive.

Sure, its an early access right? They will fix this right? They could, but fixing systems and mechanics should be done before adding all the pretty drawings and story. What I see is a poor foundation for a game which has been in development for years. The game lacks the prototyping phase which should have ironed out these systems and mechanics to be fun and easy to use. Not clunky and confusing.

And I really want to like this game. Most adult games tend to face the opposite issue of not have enough content. But those games tend to perform better even with less content, since those games tend to have better systems and mechanics. Unless major revisions are done to the games mechanics and systems, I don't see myself playing this game.

Very good. Has lots of promise. The progression in training the slavegirls feels realistic and they have believable personalities. The animations are also top-notch. Hope to see it continue to develop.

ill leave it with 3 stars just in case i found some answers (thread is dead) and that game will be somewhat playable for now ill just ragequit.

k lets say idea and art and animations are good

execution is horrific. i cannot remember any trainer when things were that bad:
traveling and navigation is painful.
inventory issues (coins v weight) is there a bank or smth? no option to move half to your slave, max is too heavy.
trading is either buggy or uneven. like i cannot get things i sent or cannot get dresses for the gials
unskippable routines and repeatables(grooming,traveling, training)
...
generally things are counter-intuitive for me (plus untranslated from latin virtues, some names i have no clue about)
game is kinda slow and laggy (but could be my machine issue)

Complete using cheats

At the beginning I thought it was a normal game but with the increase of games that I have play over the months, these game keep popping in my mind and only big ones like treasure of nadia or summertime saga have made that happen but in a less degree, maybe is beause is different and beautiful art, the fact that I always hope in living a history like this or the unlimited potential that I see in the game. In resume if you are into a beautiful art (love that advantage of the place and the fact that is a game, to make such a perfect woman like the blonde one, very bad with names, something that a lot of artist forget trying to do the game more realistic), good sound and decent writing this is definity your game, but if you are looking for a profound and live changing tittle with perfect history accuracy better search for writing text game or a AAA like Uncharted 4 . Extra something that I would love, considering the kind of hate that I have for ntr the possibility of make the dialogue to change in case if the protagonist make money in other way keeping the animation so you could see yourself as a 'savior' adding a love in harsh way situation only changing the dialogue considering that and with a finish game for me at least would be a AAA in adult games.

I thought this game looked and had an interesting take on a game at first. But after playing for a few hours it just turns in to a grind fest. I really tried to get into it thinking maybe the grind might get easier after the beginning but it didn't it just got worse and worse. The performance isn't that great and UI is clunky as hell.

Great potential. The plot is intriguint and it's rare enoough to deserve attention. The art is also great, but there is still some issues with the ui(too many clicks, too much grind) that detract from diversion

Patronus is an interesting game with a setting in the Roman antiquity. The player’s mc is a Roman equites (knight class), whose family got into a huge debt. It’s your goal to repay this debt by successfully managing a brothel, where slave girls are offered to customers.

Patronus tries to be historic, but don’t take everything, which is in the game to be actually historic. The depiction of Germanics for example, which are wrongly called Germans (term only suitable for modern day Germans, not ancient Germanics), isn't accurate. These were no naked savages lusting for blood. That’s ridiculous. (By the way northern and central Europe is a cold place, so no point in running around naked… Some Celts were known to fight naked, but not Germanics - so the dev obviously confused Celts and Germanics here) Tacitus is the Roman source No 1. concerning ancient Germanics and this Roman author expressed a lot of respect for ancient Germanics. The devs clearly didn’t read Tacitus: Germania, otherwise they wouldn’t have implemented so many silly and unhistorical remarks about ancient Germanics in their game. The Romans didn’t see Germanics as they are depicted in this game. Many Roman emperors had exclusively Germanic bodyguards by the way, because it added to the prestige of the emperor having such an exotic guard, after all they were taller than the average Roman and therefore intimidating and Germanics were feared because of their ferocity in battle and not to forget as foreigners being completely dependent to their employer they were loyal to the emperor unlike the native pretorian guard, who could be bribed by usurpers. (This ancient Roman tradition was even kept alive during the Byzantine Empire by the Varangian guard) So in general Germanics were considered to be inferior Barbarians, yes, but Romans very much payed respect to these exotic northern Barbarians from their point of view and admired their beauty and warrior skills. In the game Patronus they are simply seen as naked bloodthirsty savages by native Romans, but in history it was way more complex. Even more ridiculous is the German-English of the Germanic slave girl Inka (absolutely not a Germanic name by the way, not with this spelling at least, most likely they meant “Inga”, which would be an ancient Germanic female name), which obviously can’t pronounce the English th (she uses the letter z in the game) or the usage of modern day German words like “Ja” for “yes”. Again ancient Germanics aren’t modern day Germans, especially not the Eastern Germanic Goths, which is the ethnicity of one of the slave girl mentioned above. Ethnogenesis is a very complex process and many tribes and different kinds of people contributed to modern day nations. (F.e. modern day Germany developed from different Western Germanic tribes [6 core tribes: Franks, Alemanni/Swabians, Bavarians, Saxons, Thuringians and Frisians] some Celts, even some Romans, including former romanized Germanics and Celts and not to forget Western Slavs of different tribes and Baltic Prussians later on, who were germanized over the course of time - that's just one example of how complex European national ethnogenesis can go. East Germanic tribes like Goths or Vandals by the way were never part of the German ethnogenesis, because they never settled in the territory of modern day Germany, but they left their mark on Italy and Spain and contributed to their ethnogenesis. For northern Italy the Germanic Lombards are very much noteworthy, too, having ruled most parts of modern day Italy for around 200 years.)
As somebody who has got expert knowledge on historic topics, some silly and ahistorical in-game content really annoyed me. But enough of that. If you want to make your game appear to be historic, please do your research properly and don’t mix in modern day stereotypes!

I also wonder why the Roman mc is a blonde blue eyed guy. The Romans as Italic southern European people hardly had those phenotypical features (blonde & blue eyes) which is a lot more common among northern, central and also eastern Europeans. But nevertheless there is the Latin first name Flavius (translated into English: the blonde one) and there was even an emperor dynasty, which were called Flavians. So, the looks of the mc aren’t totally out of place, but it was very rare that a Roman was blonde (most likely because of intermixing with Celts and Germanics at some point of the specific family history). But as a matter of historic fact Romans fancied blonde hairs in general, there was even a high demand for blonde wigs in ancient Rome, because blonde hair being rare in the Mediterranean was considered to be exotic and beautiful.

In general the setting is quite refreshing compared to other games, while the main story is reasonable. The research concerning Roman society is well done, unlike the depiction of Germanics as mentioned above.

The game could be really awesome and outstanding, but it isn’t because of many other reasons:

Foremost the insane amount of grind is a turn-off. Your mc needs to boost various skills, which can be done by hiring teachers and using those skills (chance for the skill to improve by the end of the week, if you managed a skill check successfully). It’ll take 4 in-game hours to acquire one additional skill point. The base value of your skills is around 20, but you’ll need around 40 or 50 for using these skills successfully. So you need to grind your way up to this level, which is just very tedious to do so. Since you’ll also want to train your slaves, which is time consuming, too and a way more urgent task, after all you’re high in debt and pay interest every week, so in order to earn money you’ll need to open the brothel as soon as possible and therefore training slaves is more important than improving your skills. On average you’ll acquire one additional skill point daily because of that. So now keep in mind how many days it’ll cost you to boost a specific skill from 20 to 50.

The grind continues by training the slaves of course. There are different levels of sexual acts a slave can perform. Only if you reach the “available” level with a slave, she can serve a customer. But “available” isn’t enough, because customers won’t find joy in this and therefore your reputation won’t improve, if a slave girl performs an act, but isn’t trained enough. You’ll need to reach “renowned” for every sexual act a girl can perform. Again this is a huge grind fest with redundant arts – doing and watching the same and the same again for hours… so tedious and annoying. I really wonder who considers this to be fun? I acknowledge the fact that the dev tries to simulate realism here, because a completely untrained slave girl won’t be a super slutty men seducing prostitute in no time. But still, it’s no fun at all to grind your way through this gameplaywise.

Gladly there are cheats, so that you can skip some of the insane grind. But still I wonder why the grind is there in the first place. Nobody enjoys grinding. Maybe it’s just there to cover the fact that there is just too little content for the time being? Currently the game features just 3 slave women and 2 non-sexual acts and 3 (one has got 4) sexual acts for each girl (hj, bj, aj + 1 vaginal so far, but only for one girl). During training you’ll watch the same art over and over again….

Apart from the grindfest, there are side quests you can accomplish, but the benefits are ridiculous, compared to the amount of work you’ll need to invest in order to fulfill them. During the Inka (it annoys me every time that they’ve got the spelling wrong, it should be “Inga” – the Inca/Inka are a Mesoamerican ancient people and have nothing to do with Germanics) slave girl quest for example there seems to be hardly a reward for the player. Same goes for the Roman slave girl quest after finding and bringing her brother. All you get is some meagre loyalty points, which don’t seem to have any impact on the girl’s behavior.

Furthermore the traveling mechanic around the world map (Latium/Lazio province) is also quite tedious. I also wonder why a former equites (cavalry) travels that slow by foot, instead of riding...

I could go on to rant, but I’ll stop it here. Again the game has got a lot of potential setting- and story wise. But gameplay is really fucked up. Sorry to put it that straightforward, but it’s true.

I’ll give it 3 stars being very much gracious, because the setting is unique and refreshing, some of the historic research is done well, other is not, but the game mechanics and game-play are a total lackluster and even more tedious. Not to forget there hardly is enough sexual or even story content to justify the amount of redundant grind you’ll need to go through.

I like bread manager and slave management games. And I've probably tried most of them too. Patronus has done really well, now the basic game works pretty well and I love it. It is also quite unique with holding slaves in ancient times.

I read the dev fixed the merchant bug so I'm giving this another go. This game has extraordinary potential and there seems to have been a lot added to the game lately. The grind is a bit much and maybe I missed something but there seems to be very little to indicate exactly what you are supposed to do for some of the quests. I don't want to be led by the hand but I'd rather not spend half an hour traveling to random locations hoping for a trigger either. Also don't know why the dev won't just do the thing everyone else does and put a relationship prompt for the sister setting the default to like "tenant" or some bs and allowing customization to appease patreon's superficial rules. Dunno why patreon bothers to even have them considering some of the stuff I've seem them allow that is way worse but If I were the dev I'd just do my show of contrition dance and get more funding so I could get more $$$ and make the game better. Even in it's alpha state I enjoyed it alot.

tl;dr great game but needs better indication of how to complete quests. I had no idea what to do after finding the merchant that sold the roman slave girl's friend off. It said search the forum or something of that other town and I did that but nothing happened when I went there. Not sure if I missed something but either way a quest log would be a nice addition to the game. With that and a bit less grind this game would be 5 stars.

It is not complete yet, but the slow progressing makes it really exiting for me, the punishing system is a lot of fun, getting to know the slaves background and side-quests are not so easy to complete what makes it really challenging into my eyes, if this game had more slaves, more quests and in general more content this could be a really big hit! keep the updates coming!

I really want to like this beautiful game but it's byzantine.

-Travel is unnecessarily complicated. Yes, more than 1 click is considered complicated for getting from point A to point B.

-Lack of thorough hints, walkthrough, guide. "How can I charm Charis?" is inadequate.

-Indicators for end of content would be nice. I tried extracting the resources but failed which further irritated me. I do so just to make sure I'm not endlessly clicking away at something pointless.

-Performance issues.

A two for reasons that don't need to exist. It takes amazing art and concept and buries them behind the mistaken assumption that grind is game play. Maybe with a walkthrough or mod, and definitely find the console commands, it would be something playable but right now it just isn't fun. More concerning, after something like two years of existence, the level of content is worryingly low. It has the potential for more, four or five maybe, but at some point you have to start questioning if that will ever be realized.

This one is difficult to judge because just about everything about it is ambiguous in multiple ways and it all kinda runs into each other..

It's been in development for over two years, so there's clearly some commitment to the project; BUT considering that it's been in development for two years, there is very little content; BUT the art style, animations, and authenticity of the setting are superb; BUT the writing is kinda meh; BUT then again, it's hard to judge because there really isn't that much of it to judge.

It's definitely not something I'd recommend to anybody in its current state because it's grindy, there's very little reward for putting up with said grind, and the many dead ends drive home the point that it's very much work-in-progess.

But the fact that it's still being worked on, that much work seems to go into developing the engine and basic systems (which is rather clearly advertised by calling it an alpha) all makes me very, very carefully hopeful that it might eventually turn into something interesting.

So, probably not something to follow zealously but perhaps something to put on your watchlist, forget about for a year or two, and to be (ideally) pleasantly surprised about when you accidentally stumble over it again in the future.

Time will tell.

It is a slave trainer game with very good/realistic dialogues, excellent animations(best i seen), good(sometimes buggy) game mechanics. I did give underline to game word cuz developer of this game is really wants to make his product to be have good game mechanics. (I personally love this) He makes his game with Ren'Py, he is sometimes struggling with that engine. I love Renpy but i guess Renpy is very simple engine to do "complicated" games.

I have to mention; developer of this game using subcribestar site for donations. He did lose lot of potential money just because he wants to have incest content in his game. IMO it is very important decision and it needs to be rewarded.

As others have said, the art is good and the premise is promising, but that's about it. Ren'Py is not designed for these micro-management RPGs with 30 minute time increments, complex action options, and multiple world/city maps. It's frustrating trying to play the game, which mechanically would be better in another engine.

On top of that, the game itself isn't good. There's lots of grinding, and the game provides a non-very-immersive tip screen telling you how to play, because you wouldn't figure it out otherwise. There's a quest screen that is largely not used (it could give us quests on how to progress instead of the tip screen) and so many locations and characters are just dead ends. I know it's a trainer, but having to seduce (or beat) the slaves day after day to teach them how to give a massage is just boring.

(This is based on the current state of development, version 3.2.0)

I really want to like Patronus, I really do. A slave management game set in the late Roman empire, this game has so much potential. And the developers have indeed capitalized on much of this; their love of the era and setting, as well as their dedication to investing in the art really shows through. However, bugs, broken features, and far too much grind overshadow their otherwise brilliant game.

Starting with the strengths--and boy, this game does have some strengths--first and foremost, the art. Across the board, this game shows top-tier quality and attention to detail when it comes to the art. Characters are unique, environments and backgrounds are beautifully detailed, and some scenes are even animated. It's hard to overstate how gorgeous this game is, and how much care has been put into the art--even the UI elements are lovingly detailed and add to the immersion.

Another strength is the setting and the story that the developers have been building. Set in the late Roman empire, the developers picked a ripe setting filled with potential story avenues: political intrigue, trade across the whole of the Mediterranean world (the game accurately includes slaves from modern-day Iran through to modern-day Germany), and a decadent empire with a sharp divide between the haves and have-nots. I wouldn't call the story a rags to riches story exactly, but somewhat close; you start out as the heir of a once-prominent household that has fallen on bad times and mismanaged many of it's assets. This once proud Patrician family, loaded with debt, must find a way to regain prominence and station, while avoiding infamy associated with operating a brothel. It's an engaging story and gives clear motivation for your actions, whilst still giving you options and choices for exactly how you will lead your family back to it's former glories.

Unfortunately, when you, the player, try to undertake this journey, the biggest challenges facing you won't be the intimidating moneylender that your father has left you indebted to, nor will it be hiding the source of your income; no, instead the biggest challenge that will face you is broken and murky features topped with a heavy heaping of grind.

At it's core, this is a slave management game, and you, the player, take on the role of slave trainer. The game includes some RPG-like elements, including stats that determine how skilled or inept you are at overcoming obstinate slaves or haughty senators. However, many of the skills, including the seemingly important seduction skill used to convince slaves to willing do their work, are hidden from your character sheet. Worse yet, the most surefire way to increase your skills is to train them; but training soon becomes prohibitively expensive with trainers charging 1000+ sestertii just to increase a skill by 1 point (and skills seem to cap out at 100 points). Just to put that into perspective, a legionaries yearly salary was around 1200 sestertii. And to top it all off, after you pay enough money to hire a decent guard for a whole year to get four hour's worth of training, it won't really make a difference; chances are slaves will still refuse to cooperate and Senators will still laugh at your attempts to start rumors.

Management of the brothel also makes little sense. You can purchase supplies to entertain guests (bread, wine, meat, etc.) as well as supplies (massage oil, clean linens, etc.) but the game offers no guidance on how much you'll need, or if you're making a one-time or monthly purchase (the game shows a monthly expense for operating the brothel, which increases as you increase the supplies you order, but it doesn't show you anywhere how many current supplies you have). At many junctures you'll click conversation topics or select options only to be immediately informed that feature isn't implemented yet; and while I understand that the developers intend to show what the game will eventually include, for the sake of immersion it'd be better if such options simply weren't included until there was something worthwhile there.

Perhaps most aggravating is one slave, who informs you that they are worried about the fate of their brother, a fellow slave. And so after you put in the weeks worth of effort--and I'm not joking, it will take you multiple days to track down the person to talk to, weeks of time to get the information you need--you can eventually buy the brother (assuming you have the cash to spare). With him safely tucked away at a family property, you take the sister there to meet him, and impress upon the both of them that you will use them as sureties against each other (that is to say, if the brother misbehaves or escapes the sister will be punished, and more importantly vice versa). At this point, you'll take the sister back the brothel, thinking that you've finally done it. All that work, and now she'll be the perfectly obedient slave she promised to be. Nope! As soon as you get back the first thing she tells you is that she'll still refuse, still disobey, still protest. So what was all that work for?!

The bottom line is that in it's current state, this game gets in it's own way. Maybe eventually, with enough content and fully fleshed out systems and side jobs (like serving as a Roman lawyer, which is partially implemented, or forming political alliances) there will be a more appropriate ratio between grind and content. Maybe with time, the half-implemented features will be finished and the bugs will be debugged. With time, the game might live up to the beauty of its artwork and be the new standard for slave management games, or even adult games in general. But not in it's current state, unfortunately.

Version 3.2
As others have noted the content is a bit sparse considering it's been in development for two years, but frankly there is a variety of games (if not majority) on this site, that don't reach the quality of this work. I also mention this because of the stupid word count requirement for reviews (if a game's groovy it's groovy my dude, no need to explain). Great art, great storytelling, and a great developer that actually know how to make a great game. Can't wait to see where this goes!

Review Version: Alpha 3.1

The aesthetic, art, and animations in this game are second to none. The fact that the creator is doing this without a Patreon (edit: further investigation reveals that they are crowdfunding using a different platform from Patreon, which I didn't see at first, so this isn't true) and turning out better content than games on there which receive thousands/mo is a testament to their passion. Yes, it seems that content is a bit slow, but it's hard to fault someone doing this as their hobby for that. Of course I wish development was faster, for purely selfish reasons.

I agree with other reviews that the game is currently a bit of a grind (maybe an understatement), but I think that's a result of the game being tuned with the final version in mind, while it is still in alpha. I think I can see something of a vision of a "finished", or 1.0, version of Patronus where there is more to do and see and fill the early days of the game with to make it feel more fluid. That being said, for the time being or maybe in general less grind would be a welcome change.

The daily planner feels a bit out of place, and I'm wondering if it was an earlier idea that has lingered or if there will be more use for it later on. Perhaps the dev is planning some kind of "automation" that would allow you to template days/activities and run through multiple days relatively quickly? This would help when you're working on leveling up stats, or doing other repetitive actions day to day. As it stands, the planner feels clunky, because there's not really a reason to have it at the moment. The same can be said for most of the systems in the game right now, like court, the baths, the farms, etc. It's early days and currently they are more placeholders and proof of concept than anything.

The training itself feels a bit grindy, but what trainer doesn't? It's part and parcel in the genre. There has to be something to gate the player from content, and the way it's implemented in Patronus feels fine to me. I'll admit, when I had figured out the game and saw the limited content I had left to unlock, I resorted to save scumming to accelerate the process. But overall I found it enjoyable, and especially enjoyed how even similar actions for different girls had unique scenes.

Which brings me to the art. The art is the reason I'm giving a full 5 stars to the game despite my complaints. Wow is it good. And it's basically fully animated as well. I can't think of an overall better looking game than Patronus when it comes the H-scenes. The game has shot to top of my list for "most anticipated updates", almost solely because of this. I cannot wait for more actions for the existing girls, and the new girls that have been announced to become available. I can only hope that as a passion project, it doesn't get abandoned like so many before.

This is an authentic ancient Rome game. It is realy early state yet but has great potential. In the game you are not only running a whore house but live a roman citizen life which is I think more interesting than the environment of average adult games. Artwork technique is realy unique and beautiful. My rating is an advance so the game is not excelent yet development is needed but realy unique. I didn't found something like that for a while despite I try lot of games.