Unity - Poker Master Tactics [Ep.1 v1.0] [Jumping Corsair]

Version Reviewed: Episode 1, v1.1
It's okay. There's some potential from the Dev, as they at least seem to be proficient in what they're doing. The game isn't terribly janky (the VN portion is (no backlog, auto, or any other creature comforts VN players need), but that's unfortunately totally expected for VN portions of Unity games)

The good:
There's some story, some dialogue, there's a bit of character to the girl. Not an awful lot, but there's some. A few of the images are very erotic, honestly. It's a minority of them, but those few are good.

The bad:
You're just deadass playing poker with fair rules and escalating disadvantages. There's no other mechanics, no peeking or cheating or powers. You are entirely expected to go into the game with increasingly stacked odds and just fight your way out fairly.
I don't think it's inherently bad, but I do find it uninteresting the scaling involved.
First you're going in with even odds. Fair dues, you can beat this AI at poker. It's not a genius, nor an idiot, maybe about the level of someone who plays now and then but isn't by any means 'pro'.
But the advantage gets steeper, and each stage between the story gets increasingly long, as you have a higher deficit to overcome.
600/400; okay, you can do this
700/300; right... should be doable, but it's gonna take a while. Your buffer for bad hands is kinda small, but there's room.
800/200; If you get a few bad hands and fold out, this is likely to be something like 875/125 by the time you can play. I had that experience 3 different times. And once you get something good, the absolute best you can get off that is down to 750/250.

The worst:
The content between rounds is so spaced apart that you won't retain any arousal or interest from a previous round.
The final scene is okay, it might be like, (cutting out the opening and ending of it), like 1000 words and 6 or so pictures?
But between rounds, you're getting like 8-20 lines of dialogue or eroticism, with some other lines for narrative.

The subjective:
I don't like the dialogue in the final scene, to be totally frank. It's very dudebro/douche coded, this is supposed to be a friend of a friend (yeah she rinsed you off-cam, sure), and the bro-tagonist is saying shit like "take it all you stupid slut", there's no branching (even though its AI images so branching isnt that hard), and there's no real progression. It just goes from "hey brotagonist I hate you and I can't believe you're making me do this shit" to "oh damn im masturbating while jerking off your cock, guess now im sucking it cuz it feels hard"
(I can't get quotes as the game resets entirely if you win)
The cum looks kinda goofy, imo (minor).

The tragic:
Taking this framework and making a more erotic game by replacing images and dialogue would take two good evenings of work. The 800/200 is really harsh and would probably need cutting, too.

My conclusion:
Escalating difficulty is okay, but escalating time between the erotic dripfeed is antithetical to the core mission of a porn game. Only play it if you really wanna just play normal poker with bad start positions, you'll probably be playing poker for few hours for ~8 minutes of erotic content.
I wiggled between 2 and 3 stars here, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt this time.
The developer is definitely capable of better, for certain.

Disclosure: After multiple failed 800/200 games, I cheated to win.

I had a lot of fun with the game play. Not too hard, not too easy (I am not an advanced player btw). Great graphics (I am not the typical finger counter, I look for the overall impression, and that is really well done).

I do not feel disturbed by some flaws other ppl mentione. Dev is in the beginning, and I get that he is willing to put out most flaws soon.

A few more updates, and the game will be great AND flawless.

Thought this was a really good take on the strip poker genre. It has a really involved storytelling aspect to the individual game, at least for the first episode. Makes for a more personal interest in winning as the opponent has a developed personality and banter.

Only area lacking in my opinion is the lack of animated erotic scenes. It's not a requirement by any means but it would elevate the game.

As for the poker itself, it wasn't particularly difficult but not so easy that it's pointless. A decent balance.

Good start. Hopefully future opponents are diverse and as fleshed out as the first in terms of personality and story.

Minus 1 star for the name "Master Tactics" making me think this wasn't just another standard strip poker game, when that is in fact exactly what it is.

Minus 1 star for not having a Call button. If the opponent raised, you press the Check button to call. If you weren't paying attention to see how much they raised, there's no way to know how much money you'll be adding to the pot until after you're committed. Also, after the opponent calls, it gives you a chance to raise, but it always just has the same three buttons (Raise, Check, or Fold), so you can actually fold when you have the same amount of money in as your opponent.

Minus 1 star (but I'm tempted to make it two) for the slow progression. You have to win 500 chips, with a Big Blind of 30, just to get her jacket off. Unless you're really good at poker, and/or very lucky, you won't be seeing much lewd content any time soon. I don't claim to be any kind of expert at poker, but I've done well enough at other strip poker games before. With this game, I like to think I lost (after getting two articles of clothing in) because continuing to play it careful and disciplined was just too fucking boring.

Good game, good flow, nice graphics. First poker game I've seen on F95 that doesn't seem to force the game to be longer than it needs to be. The only criticism I have is that I'd like a few more poses of the opponent in each round. Didn't seem to have enough eye candy. End game is good, though.