Ren'Py Pill King [v0.25 Remaster] [Effx Games]

[PimbyBoink]

I support several projects and have supported many others in the past. I mostly go for small teams, many times just one dev in them, because they need the help the most. Let's face it, they're all doing it for the money because these games take a lot of work to create and you need to incentivize them to keep at it otherwise it is only natural that they give up because it's not worth it.

Now, I usually don't comment on the following much because I feel it falls in the category of personal preference, but feedback can also be important for those projects that are just starting out and who knows how many devs might read this in the future and be influenced by it.

So, I've been a gamer for many decades. I have even created some smaller games many moons ago, stuff that would be akin to the millions of game apps we have on our phones. Therefore I know by now what I recognise as a quality game and what doesn't. I UNDERSTAND that a dev, many just starting out, get a nice tickle about creating stuff but please, for the love of god, before you do, sit down and really think about it. The appeal of a basic and simplistic minigame or grind for some sort of stats is utterly non-existent. Who wants to play these porn games to click some moving circle on a screen multiple times, or do some memory games to earn money and so on. No one wants this. Sandboxes? They are great when well implemented, they add to the immersion. Choices? Brilliant, not everyone has the same kinks or likes the same types of men and women. But simplistic minigames and unwanted repetition in content aka grind, totally pointless. Do a poll on this and I'm sure 9 out of 10 will agree.

Most of these "games" are kinetic novels with choices and that's how it should be. Even if you have a sandbox they are still KNs. People are here to get immersed on a story and then enjoy the porn which many times takes years to arrive. Most devs feel they need to delay and delay because if they give ppl what they want too soon then they lose interest. This is true in most cases but that doesn't mean you can't have both. Just figure out a way to adjust the pacing of your story so that you always have something interesting and erotic happening in each update.

I'll take this opportunity to add another pet peeve of mine to an already stupidly long piece of commentary. KN with no porn. They have a place to exist somewhere but please, f95 shouldn't be that place. Maybe put it on instagram or steam. A game like for example "Hillside", a game with some good models and a fitting story to follow but that after some 2 years of development has almost zero porn in it. And the point I'm trying to make is that these stories, they are not even worthy of a tv soap opera. This is some silly shaite with basic dialogue and tropes. It's fine as a filler for the porn but as standalone? Good heavens, go read a good book if you're that desperate for some story or watch a decent film. We already use a lot of CTRL to get to the good bits and if there are no good bits to get to...

So, TL;DR, please no minigames, please no grind, please find a way for the player to never see the same scene twice, implement a good sandbox if that's your style, implement choices if you can handle the extra work and please no stories without any porn it.

 

[Cryptist]

lockpicking will be more useful in the next update, where you will be able to see much more content.
Training this skill now, it is more of a calculation for the future

Three weeks work for lockpicking (2 weeks at $10 per day and a week of practice) should have been two days. $10 a day ain't minimum wage, Dude.

 

[thatsmerod]

What's up with all these characters using celebrity faces?

better question is who gives a shit lol

 

[Francis8rock]

Thank you so much! This bug will be fixed in the next version.

NP

Just so you know I went back and skipped the option once I noticed the bug and even after I got memory 5 completed it still skipped Sat and spawned me Sunday morning. So the option before the flag and day skip are independent issues. Unless you intended to skip Sat intentionally.

 

[redle]

Ah, so this appears to be another one of those Kinetic Novels hiding inside a Sandbox framework...

I like sandbox games. I prefer sandbox games. That said, these masquerading sandbox games drive me a bit crazy. The game appears to be pretty much 100% linear and requires the player hunt to find the singular correct spot to trigger game advancement at every single step. There are ballpark 10 rooms or so averaging 3 actions or so at any given hour and 168 hours in a week. That means there are roughly 5,040 different clickable objects to cycle through one at a time every time to try to find the only one that has meaning. The alternative is to Open Journal; Read Next Task; Skip to Task time; Click on Task Action; Repeat, repeat, repeat (at this point no one is playing a game, they are just copying a walkthrough). Journals/Task-lists in a quest oriented system are certainly needed for reminders or when stuck. But they are supposed to be the backup help system, not the only way to accomplish any steps ever.

I'll also add that consecutive steps like.... wait until Sunday at 9:00 and do X followed immediately by... okay, now wait until Saturday at 23:00... basically the player is forced to click wait and sleep the maximum number of times possible to cycle all the way through a full week. Such a delay benefits no one.

Other "features" such as -take this online class multiple times- and then saying, okay, today is Saturday. The player can not leave the house. Every character but the player is going to leave the house. You have a whole day ahead of you, and for now there is not a single action you can perform but "wait"... okay, this would seem a natural time when a person would go study an internet course. For no reason at all this lone feature (your own laptop) that you still have access to when the rest of the world shuts you out says, "ah ah ah, no no no... you can't use me on the weekend." What?

Any game where a player spends almost every one of their turns clicking "skip turn" means there is likely a major flaw in the design (made even worse because choosing to sleep at 0:00 or later often causes a full day to be skipped rather than a 5-8 hour time advancement... this might have only been Sundays that got skipped). The beauty of a sandbox game is that the player can move around and everywhere they go they get to "do things." Most of these things all advance the game and the player can pick lots of different paths to accomplish most goals. Currently this is not such a game and does not appear to be heading in that direction.

The game does not currently indicate where actions exist (a player must click everywhere to find out if there is an action or not). The game does not indicate where there are new actions. Maybe 80+% of all clicks result in the player finding out "there is no click available here, try somewhere else." Of the maybe 20% that actually causes something to happen nearly 0% of it causes any stats/values/stories to change or presents unseen content.

Your game does show promise in terms of artwork and framework for the GUI. The story could also develop nicely. I do wish you well and hope that you find a path forward that develops a nice game. I do suggest that you take a moment to consider though... either continue down this linear story path and convert the game into a pure visual novel rather than a sandbox or... redevelop the game's actions into a sandbox world.

 

[Dark3DX]

Тeam solyanka\Сборная солянка

 

[AleXiC94]

another good looking game with sandbox, damn

 

[NinaSver]

Holy moly, i mean you did warn this is grindy, but this is something next level. You have to learn stealth 5 times, before you get it level 1 and you can do it only on weekdays 10.00am. As nice as art is, this just ain't fun to play. i got 2 first pages of memories and lost my mind with this grind. Gl for dev, i hope this is even little less grindy in future.

 

[theickobicko]

kind of boring to be honest.
first, i don't see the point of this being a sandbox game, other than the ability to replay previous scenes by repeating the same thing on the same day. just add a gallery for that. other that that everything is linear, you don't have choice on what to do, because there is nothing to do actually. you just skip time until the next event can occur and trigger it. and there are a lot of skipping. in this new update for example, you have to train your stealth till 14:00. but you have to go to work at 12:00. so what happens is either you earn money for the day, or you train. and then you skip...
i'm not sure if the dev doesn't realise this is stupid decision, or is making it so the game feels longer, extending the "gameplay" by forcing you to spend more time skipping

if we ignore that, well there are like just a few scenes per update that, as said take a lot time to unlock, just because most of the activity you do is skip time, and then you have to grind slowly to unlock the next actual scene. and those are like 2 minutes themselves.
so what happens is you grind and skip time for what seems like hours, and in the end you unlock a 2 minute scene, and as a consolation price, you can repeat that scene. which is boring on itself, but if you actually do then you take even more time to unlock the next scene...

basically a badly design game.
the story is almost nonexistent at this point, the characters are not that interesting because you don't really comunicate with them that much.
so what you have in the end is just models that are based on celebrities...

i'm not even sure if i want to finish this update

 

[Akabakka]

I'm both weirded out and interested . My gut tells me that there is no way this won't be dropped and will lead to something complete or even good . Yet somehow , i wanna see where it goes

 

[Akabakka]

That said, these masquerading sandbox games drive me a bit crazy. The game appears to be pretty much 100% linear and requires the player hunt to find the singular correct spot to trigger game advancement at every single step.

The beauty of a sandbox game is that the player can move around and everywhere they go they get to "do things." Most of these things all advance the game and the player can pick lots of different paths to accomplish most goals. Currently this is not such a game and does not appear to be heading in that direction.

Yes precisely , that's the issue with many "sandbox" tagged games around here . They aren't real sandboxes and open , they just abuse the inherent grinding mechanics that you would find in sandbox games to slow progression , and hide the scarcity of their real adult (or story and plot related) content . Hiding having only a few meaty scenes and renders , through hours of time based activities and stats fueled grind .

It also gives the genre a bad name ... so it's no wonder that so many just groan whenever they see the tag and mention

 

[Sonny86]

I have read some of your comments and negative feedback regarding grind. Your comments have been taken into consideration. I will try to make the less grind , and easier \ faster MC progression in the next version, so that skipping days and time will not be so frustrating, which will allow you to get content faster.

And how about Android version too?!!

 

[Hysni]

Npc's are good looking but gameplay sucks - Honestly i would expected better

Memory = WTF -cant we enjoy just Mc having freedom to seduce and corrupt his Family make emma give first bj of course in game she is virgin and Mc teach her
Memory = Makes Mc not doing those action like in Dream State
Character 8/10 if Mom and Big sister where Monica Beluci (Mom) Eva green (Big Sis)

 

[kwiatos]

Boring

 

[OgnjenaRavenWolf]

Nice Emma Watson.

Can you make bonus game but to put face of my real life sister (a gold digger whore who i hate) ??

Ill pay you if u can pull that thing as i want.

 

[TomUK]

So Patreon is a version ahead of this release?

 

[only MILF]

Of course it’s a pity that it’s a sandbox. I only play because of my mother.

 

[Taboofan]

Okay, so I'm seeing complaints about sandbox. Strike one.
That Hermione face on that body is weird. Way too adult for that body and looks almost unresponsive, like it's stuck in one expression. Strike two.
And then I see Redle's comments about not actually having much choice despite being a sandbox game. Strike three.
Gonna give this one a miss, unless someone tells me that you can actually impact the plot.

 

[Alextsai]

the sandbox made it too grindy unfortunately

 

[ghostrider2023]

no sex scene nothing wth is this game????