HTML - Completed - Rogschard, Lords and Loyalty [v1.1.0] [Nranchs]

I wanted to like this more but the gameplay is just so all over the place. Dropped after getting the vampire maid.

Gameplay
The world, the story and the characters are all interesting enough. The gameplay however has some truly bizarre decisions.
Why does this game need three different fighting systems?
I like the battle fucks although those are only against random enemies and grow old rather quickly because you can just do whatever and still win easily. Also not enough variance in the descriptions.
The boss battles are puzzle fights. I could do with fewer of those but they are decent enough in general. It's just a shame that those puzzles pretty much always have just one solution and they completely ignore your stats.
The overworld battles are ass. Clunky navigation on the map and in the menus, completely underwhelming presentation.

Navigation and menus are pretty bad in general. You can navigate via the compass menu. Problem is that always shows up at the bottom of the current text. That text differs in length. So the compass is never in the same place for even just two screens.
You can also navigate with the keyboard. But you can only move like that. Opening doors, picking up loot? Need the mouse for that.
The inventory is really clunky. Everything is just a list. Finding stuff is annoying. Comparing equipment is borderline impossible.

H
Lots and lots of interesting characters and everyone is down to fuck.
The only character that I had some issues with is unfortunately the mc. There's not a lot in the way of influencing your character. You very much play a fixed character. And some of their actions and words are just a little on the icky side for me.

What a rancid game. As in, once it might have been good, but now with poor care over too much time, every part has rotten and festered.

It looks appealing from the outside; interesting art, quirky but engaging introduction, a premise that seems to be promising some grand adventure full of adversity and buried secrets.

But then you get past the tutorial and you have to actually play it. And oh boy, playing it is miserable. Combat comes in three flavours of turn based, I don't know why they didn't just make one, but all of them are terrible. In the overland 'sprites on map' battles, you go through multiple dungeons which are entirely too long and are packed full of respawning health sponge enemies. These enemies will hide behind doors and wait for you. They will attack you through walls. They will have ever more ludicrous health pools as the game goes on, but for some god awful reason, your attack damage does not increase with stats, so get used to fighting 200hp enemies, with 10-20 damage attacks.

In the one on one 'this is actually a puzzle' battles, you'll not have access to any of your skills from the main battles, and will have to flail around between timed blocks, to trying to talk, to sometimes attacking for a fixed 7 points of damage per swing, until you reach whatever arbitrary conditions are needed for that one specific enemy to end the fight. Fortunately these battles only happen with select enemies, and often have the decency to at least reward a sex scene. You know, when the game remembers it's meant to be smut.

The final kind of battle is the least painful, it's just repetitive. The sex battles are like a trimmed and simplified version of the ones from Lilith's throne, in which you need to make your opponent orgasm a set number of times. These fights are more common early game, so I wonder if the dev cut them later on because they took more work. Every one of these encounters can be won the same way, strip some clothes off, strip enemy, demand sex, repeat sex, win. That's it.

Oh, and how did I forget the soul numbing grind'a'thon for materials to upgrade your base? Well... mostly because it's entirely pointless. The only reason to upgrade your base is to be able to make your own enchanted equipment once you're done waiting on the rng to give you anything worthwhile. You send minions into the world on a timer, or you hunt for materials yourself. You cannot control anything about the minion raids, you just set'em and forget'em. Eventually you will get enough materials, and reserach points, to unlock crafting purple level gear, and that might make the combat a little quicker... might.

So that's gameplay, what about writing? Mostly bland, with some fun, and a lot god awful. It really feels like a project where the writer lost their enthusiasm, and their original notes, tried to cobble something together, and rushed it to the finish as quick as they could. Two characters even repeat the same plot arc they had in the first quest, as part of the final quest. It went from a story with some dark implications for what happened to your character's predecessor, to a goofy marvel style "We're all a bunch of fuck-ups, but we're friends so we win" plot.

Just, don't.

Gameplay: Terrible, awkward interface coupled with a system where you have to press the same combinations a hundred times, pisses you off in the first few minutes.

Plot: Nothing interesting, another game about a loser who was lucky, but instead of telling a story about becoming really strong, you every time, until the very end will be told how insignificant you are, and coupled with poorly placed text, only makes it worse.

Art: Well, it's interesting, it's quite distinctive and attractive, there's not a lot of it, but it's enough for a text game

Characters: Every other one (or even all of them?) is some crazy nonsense, the characters personalities don't hold up from scene to scene, even the main character's actions are often different. In short, the ideas are interesting, but the realization is lame.

Better play CoC (XiaXia)

Version reviewed: 1.0.0.6

An interesting setting ruined by everything it intersects with.

Writing: Verbose and cringe. So cringe it makes your middle school fanfics blush.
Everyone replaces "hey" with "'ey". And they use it often. I found it very unsettling to keep picturing Fonzie in these interactions.
Typos are minimal. They're there, but there isn't enough to complain about.

Combat: Comes in three flavors
Instance: Enemy gets a sprite, you can attack/talk/use items/flee. Oddly enough you cannot use the spells you've learned.
Sex: Enemy gets a sprite, enemy clothing changes do not affect their sprite. You can strip yourself/them, request/demand positions, and preform dominant and submissive actions. If you don't want to have a sex fight with an enemy you have the option at start to skip and they disappear.
Overworld: Enemy does not get a sprite, just their on-map appearance. You can attack at different ranges with different weapons equipped. You can actually use the spells you learn here, and that's why it sucks. To use a spell you have to click the spell list icon, scroll through to the spell you want, and click the enemy/yourself from a list to fire it. Attacking with your weapon works similarly, sans the spell list. As far as I can tell none of your stats actually effects the damage you do. Towards the end of the game these are the predominant fights you'll be engaging in—including the final boss. It sucks because it's a huge grind where you're tossing the same AoE spell repeatedly while chugging HP and mana potions.

Mechanics:
Dungeon building: You're able to build facilities in the dungeon to passively gather building materials, increase guild power, or sell you items.
Dungeon monsters: There is a mechanic to build monster nest(s) to serve as dungeon raiders who you can send out to...collect building materials. However, you can only build the single slime nest.
Planting: There are roughly 5 planting squares you can use to "farm" plant items. Kinda cool, but loses it's purpose by the time you locate the second square as money quickly becomes too abundant to bother.
Pregnancy: There's an odd mechanic which limits the number of people the player can impregnate at a time, which is two for humans and one for all other races. I don't really understand what purpose this serves.

Smut:
I hope you like dicks, because aside from tree stump and mushroom vaginas they'll be the only genitals you see.
I skimmed a lot of the lewds, because they didn't interest me. But, the stuff that did interest me and I didn't skim did nothing for me.

Player agency: This, or rather the lack of, is what I'm mostly aggrieved about. In a game like this it's generally expected that opportunities to shape their character's personality. Indeed in the prologue there are some greyed out dialogue options which imply it was intended. But the end result is being railroaded to the dev's tune. Whether it be deciding to forgive those who attempted to send you to your grave or flat out refusing to kill an enemy who tried to kill you twice, there is zero choice. Not for the important events nor the minor events, only the ability to skip/not consent to stuff. You don't even kill the final boss!

To top everything off, once you think you've gotten to the meat of the game—it ends. Feels like a severe case of the dev losing interest and rushing out an ending to work guilt free on new interests.

A very well written modern/fantasy hybrid, it's like Bright but without Will Smith and actually good. The gameplay itself is serviceable and doesn't feel like a chore to get through, though the UI does feel pretty cluttered even compared to other games of its ilk like TiTS or Lilith's Throne. The true star is the writing though, so much so that I could see it (and kinda wish it were) as a hit light-novel likely to get an anime adaption. The main negative I have is the ending. It's not a bad ending per se, but it feels like the creator, while still wanting to give a decent conclusion, wanted to finish it as soon as they could so they could move on. The ending feels like it should've been the end of the first arc that introduces the long-term conflict, but then just solves it in the same arc and ends before the story felt like it really got started. Still, I had a fun time reading through it.

oh and the sex stuff is fine. a little too subby and gay focused for my liking but eh

Overall it is a good game and I liked playing it very much.

Engaging writing, interesting concept of technomagic (or in this case techno turning magic) is an elegant way to include game stats in otherwise magical world.
I simply love the idea of in-depth base development in a hentai game, but there is not enough need for meta progression as of now, an the map fighting system is in my opinion somewhat rigid. You simply have to use one spell and drink a lot of mana potions to power through all posible enemies I might also add that abundence of skills and spells makes it somewhat hard to use them in the current system. I can recommend adding some sort of tabs alike to those in the inventory system.
Characters are cute and the smut is top-notch, species and races seem well-developed and there is infinite yet untapped pottential for growth as not only mythological but also sci-fi creatures can be added.

Version: v0.2.3.2

most people barely consider HTML games a game, considering most of them are simple and narrow in their gameplay. Yet this one stands out for having far more depth then most other HTML games i have played.
Although early in development and quite glitched, id still say this game has quite some potential to be a great game (by HTML standards).

Good game, give it a try or maybe wait for more content updates.

This game has a lot going on.
Great writing and character design.
Sex scenes are well described to help you visualize the scenes.
A pretty & slutty wolfboy .
And honestly, it's just kind of obvious that people who are creating have a faintest idea of what they're doing, which is more than I can say for some others.

Only really small problems that bring the score from 5/5 for me, all of which will (hopefully) be changed in future versions:
- Small amount of content, not unusual in case of such an early build but as I said I'll change the review once this is no longer a problem.
- Despite pretty cool and well designed pregnancy system, as a female (and I like to play as a female in these kinds of games) it is very difficult to get normal-pregnant. A great majority of content on the receiving end is anal. Like, so much of it. The only way I found (in version 0.2.3.2) was repeatably grinding on Fluffpaws and then riding him. This meant a fight (which I could reliably win but still took long cause my stats are so low), then a sex scene, then a random chance to get pregnant or not. The developer really ought to add vaginal versions of certain sex scenes.
- Biggest gripe: leveling is slow and increasing your stats is slower. Right after the tutorial the game drains your stats to 8 while most of skill checks at the VERY START of the game require 12, 13 or even 15(!) of a given stat. And you have 6 different stats. And every level you can get ONE stat to a +2. And as I mentioned, leveling is slow in this game, and according to what I read, limited in number. Look, I know the game is about a weak office shmuck trying to survive, and I think not being able to succeed on any skill checks on the first boss was very cool to show how screwed we are, but the skill checks against normal enemies and out in the field are just as hard! I think a number of low-level skill checks should be lowered to 10 or so, since it's a one thing to be weak and pathetic and another to meet these almost insurmountable walls every step of the way. Right now you need to concentrate hard on ONE stat and then you'll be able to make this one, sole kind of skill check OUT OF SIX andby the point you reach around 15 in a stat the content is pretty much over.

Sorry, this wasn't supposed to be a complain-review, but it's hard to speak about good things at such a great length. I guess I could add thinks that this game has not, like memory leaks or dialogues that sound as if they came from google translate? Just trust me, this game has the potential to be up there with the giants like the aforementioned TiTS and LT, and I hope the developer will realize this game's potential.

an engaging little adventure, even in its early access state.

while not without its flaws, the writing is -- as it should be -- far and away the best part of the game. i'm a sucker for porn games with stories that would work outside of porn, and while i normally don't care for isekai anime RPG-mechanics-in-real-life stuff, the setting feels remarkably grounded and cohesive for what it is. it's most reminiscent of Shadowrun, just without the cyberpunk focus. think something like 1980s magical realism; there are no computers, but you start the game in the IT department having to shoo fairies out of your office printer. it's good stuff!

that said, a lot of the actual porn writing is rougher than i'd like. it leans hard on dialogue; it's the stilted kind of dom-sub Ao3 fanfic writing you probably liked as a teenager. i personally prefer a more sensory approach in my smut, but i'm the kind of person who hardly talks during sex anyway, so YMMV. if anything, i found the dynamic sex combat to be generally more interesting than the scripted scenes.

of Rogschard's three separate combat systems (more on that later), the sex combat is easily the best. it works sort of like the hybrid combat in other text-based porn RPGs, but the sex part is the name of the game. it isn't just "deal 100 lust damage to win;" you have to probe your enemy's weaknesses (literally), figure out if they're a top or a bottom, and capitalize on their preferences before they make you cum. it's great for pacing, as it turns almost every random encounter into a dynamic scene instead of locking the scenes behind victory.

this system is so well-developed that it makes me wonder why there are two other types of combat in the game at all. first, there's map combat, where you fight enemies on the map grid; second, story fights, which are sort of like puzzle encounters. the former serve to slow you down on the dungeon map, and the latter seem like they could be more elegantly integrated into the existing sex combat. having all these separate systems isn't terrible, mind you, but why not just keep the best and pitch the rest? it's just a confusing choice, if anything.

speaking of confusing choices, the player character is the only one in the game that can be either clothed or unclothed. A few NPCs have their dicks hanging out, but I was a little disappointed by the lack of nude portraits for at least the main supporting cast. it's a shame -- they're charming characters, but you can only picture them naked.

bottom line: if you've got the active imagination for text adventures and can appreciate a unique setting, then this is something you'll enjoy.

v0.2.3.2 Updated to v1.0.0.6
This game is fucking weird.

Attributes seem to have no explanation in-game or in the wiki. Inventory is.. Well apparently it wasn't a priority as there seems to be no way to sell/drop junk. Characters are.. Hmm.. Bizarre. You can now sell/discard items. Skill selection is somewhat of a chore. There is a favorite system for the skills that brings them to the top of the list, but it's still hard as a wall of text is often not visually distinct enough.

You can essentially skip sex encounters with a 'My body, my right' where enemies are brought to their knees by the sheer power of needing your consent. I mean, there probably could be a better way of skipping encounters or whatever without making it seem weird, but maybe there's some political agenda at play here. Can't say.

Despite all the weirdness... It's good. Monster girls are always a huge plus. There is femboy and male content too if that's your jive. Actually, there is a lot of focus on femininity among the character roster currently.

There's 'scripted' combat, map combat, and then there's the sex combat.

Sex combat: The sex combat has some complexity, which is a great thing to me. There is an hp bar, but draining it just stuns the enemy. You have a control bar which basically dictates changing position and such. You also have the lust meter to make the opponent orgasm. Your main goal is to make them orgasm of course and each enemy has their own weaknesses you find and can exploit. While that's nothing particularly new, I find that type of combat enjoyable where knowing your opponent is part of the battle. So a big plus in the that department.

Map combat: I'll be real, it becomes a slog as the game goes on. Especially at the end where you are getting ganged up on by high level enemies who also spawn/summon even more enemies. It was frustrating and boring towards the end. It became my least liked part of the game.

The narrative is pretty enjoyable. You're a loser. A weak, pathetic loser. Yet you end up stumbling upon a grimoire that makes you a guild master. However, that doesn't change the fact you're a weak pathetic loser and everyone is expecting you to die and fail. Despite not being the ideal powerful ruler, you make things work through the power of sex, management, and uhhh circumstances like possessing oddly specific artifacts. You are the hero the guild needs, not the one it deserves. But hey, you get to fuck monster girls so that's pretty cool....
Toward the end however, I essentially became the Doom Slayer and roflstomped everyone. The final boss was framed as if he's so much more powerful than you.. Except he really wasn't due to high resistances and the fact I could deal 50-60 damage per turn.

[Review of v0.2.1.2 on 6/8/2022]

I've played a few games like this before. Corruption of Champions, Trials in Tainted Space, Flexible Survival, Lust Doll, etc.

They all play like those old DnD-style NES and SNES RPG games, with cardinal-direction movement and long text descriptions of events that aren't built to happen dynamically. It's like an interactive book, really, which is fine, as I do like reading my smut sometimes.

That having been said, there's some rough limitations. It seems like the development focus is primarily on playing a male character at this time -- you can play a female, but the vast majority of scenes involving penetration outside of the sex combat involve ass-play. It's also clear from the number of female characters and enemies that playing a male character is the intended method of play to get the most encounters. If you were hoping to play as a woman, then I hope you like anal.

There's also a significant number of bug-women in the game. Personally, that's just not my thing, but to each their own.

I didn't see anything too off-the-wall, no guro or scat content, although there's references to death and blood draining. I don't expect there to be anything truly disturbing to be described, but I might be wrong -- even so, the game makes all scenes skippable, and provides distinct warnings on the content of each scene before it is allowed to play. There's nothing to be afraid of here.

So... yeah, this is okay, but ultimately just didn't have what I wanted. Hopefully you enjoy it more than me.

Good potential, unique art style, regular HTML game structure, skippable adult content, good writing.
If the developer continue with it, it can be a nice game that can cover some desire for some people.

Good writing with interesting plot and characters, as well as simple but nice art, it has great potential to be one of the best text-based games out there if it keeps getting updated. I'll definitely keep following this game's progress.

I’m having a lot of fun with this one so far. Seems like there’s a lot in this world. It is an actual game. You don’t have to do any sex scene, but you can top, bottom, and have any gender you want. I’m doing it all!

REVIEW POSTED AS OF V.0.2.0.5 (5/18/2022)

I was impressed with what is here already. I've learned that a solid presentation is important for any game no matter what engine you use, and in my opinion this game looks pretty damn solid and the gameplay foundation shows promise. Reminds me a lot of Corruption of Champions or TiTS, which isn't a bad thing.

To give at least some criticism, it can sometimes be a bit hard to tell where you haven't been on the map. I will also say that no matter if you use single screen or scrolling there is a bit of awkwardness, although it is far from making the game unplayable.

[Rev @ Rogschard, Lords and Loyalty v0.2.0.5]

Feel like I've been bukkaked by a thesaurus.

Art is irrelevant; it's a HTML text porn game. UI theme is fine and portraits aren't bad.

Writing is ... a smidgeon oververbose for my own personal preferences. IE it's wordy as fuck. Voice is strong, but combined with a humor that didn't land for me.

Any game that prioritizes picking pronouns before privates puts me on a weird "spot the Twitter politics" vibe that I don't care to have in my porn. Bonus points for then not giving me futa options on the same screen as the they/them selection option. I'm a huge pregnancy fan. I'm a huge not-fan of mpreg and anal preg.

TLDR: early version worth checking back in on. Godspeed.

Great game so far! [v0.2.0.5]

The basic mechanics all seem to be in place, sexy text-based RPG with a tile-based map. I quite enjoy the story thus far and the world sets up plenty of possibilities for the future. 1-2h of content thus far.

Art is good, as can be seen the preview. Writing is good too, and the game is good with not throwing new text unexpectedly in the middle of repeated passages (like in combat).

As for combat, thus far it seems to be balanced in a way that you can beat any fight as long as you enter it with near-full HP, and pay attention to how the enemy reacts in combat. This means grinding is rendered unnecessary, which is great! The game generally seems to respect your time, and quests etc. are clear how to handle.

Looking forward to new updates from this project!