Unity - School, Love & Friends [v2.12] [Walkius]

Tried the game. There is far far too much grinding and repetition just for the sake for it, a lot of people don't have the time for that myself included. But what really bothered me is how he cut content from the game only because some ntr hater kept spamming for it. A lot of people wanted that kink but he just listened to the haters. I canceled my pledge and judging from the 15% drop of the average support a lot of others did the same.

Way too much grinding and the school map takes way too many clicks to get anywhere after the dev. decided to update the old way it used to work. Unplayable mess of a game.

CGs are good I guess but I can't get to them without braking my monitor.

The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs...

(02/02/2018 - Original Review - v0.7)

This is a heavy grind game, that includes the oh so overused Family Sex stuff...

The visuals of the characters are excellent, and no weird body proportions... The downside is that all the erotic scenes are short lived, as in they don't last long... There are a few semi-mini-games, such as when the male protagonist masturbates his younger cousin, or the locker room scenes... The backdrops are decent looking, although not sure they are unique... The UI is pretty easy to understand, and I love the school map that shows where characters are...

The script is pretty good, as I ran into hardly any spelling/grammar errors... The plot (what little there is) revolves around a male protagonist student, who moves in with his aunt and two cousins while he goes to school... From there you basically grind out personal skills, money, and relationship stats with different characters... The further you get in all those, the more content that opens up with certain characters... There is a task window that gives you subtle hints on what is needed for each characters story line, but no specifics... You need to figure those out on your own... The tasks are broken down by category as well...

Because of the grindy nature of this game, expect to see repeating content... And for people wondering if there is a guide and/or walkthrough, sadly I couldn't find one... I had to pretty much goof around and go to places over and over to figure stuff out... You can look up some answers to progression questions, but it is a tough road... After spending over half a day playing this game, I've come to the end of my rope... Even though I still have tasks to complete... Mostly because some of them require very specific circumstances, and some require a lot of time goofing around before they rear their ugly heads... And after repeating the same things for a long while, waiting for some random event to pop, so you can continue, is hog wash...

Overall, the game has very nice character visuals, and you do get some sense of a few story lines including love/romance with some characters, but the relationships feel artificial, mostly because each step of a characters story line is short lived, and the rewards are short lived as well... This is mostly a porn fest, with hardly any story, even when there is story...

Even with it being a grind based game, it could have been better than it is, if only more story had been added to each characters story lines (not more sex scenes, but actual story)... The potential was there, but it's not really what this game's goal appears to be... I had some fun now and then with this game, but the grind sort of wears on you after a while... Will I revisit this game? Maybe after it gets to completion and only if someone makes a guide or something for those moments when you haven't a clue what to do next... Because the game doesn't give you enough hints in some cases, so you're left in the wind, blowing from here to there, without getting anywhere...


(03/25/2018 - Review Update - v0.9)

Ok, well it's not completed yet, but I decided that I'ld give this game another go... This time around I decided to spend a little extra time and complete this thing entirely (as far as at most one of the girlfriend options, not both)...

As to my prior comment that there are moments when you feel clueless as to what to do next, that still holds true now and then, but the game does try to give you hints, but not always quite as obvious as you might hope... Also, sometimes the story line hint system shows a line as done or waiting for future development, but there may still be variants to the end portion of that story line that you have not seen yet, which requires re-visiting those events again as you continue playing, and trying different things or choices...

An example would be the Twins Group story line... Once you've gone bowling with them all, the game shows no further hints on content, just telling you that you can use your phone to go bowling as you feel like it... So yes, that story line is done, because going bowling was the end of the story aspect... But there is still a small amount of content to be experienced when going bowling again and again... Such as sex in the alley and getting caught by the twins having sex in the alley, and so on... This occurs in a few of the story lines now and then... To include the lesbian cheerleaders line, as sure the hints section shows it's done, but there is still more variations of visiting the girls by the pool... Same with the sleepovers, trying different variants of who passes out and how drunk certain women get... So just be aware of that kind of stuff... It's not always the case with every story line, but it does occur in a few...

There is a NTR antagonist, but he can be optionally taken care of in the current content, before he actually gets too far with any of the current characters... As you can blackmail him into either leaving the household alone, or just blatantly going away... The developer tries to hint on other websites, that by blackmailing the guy and making him a friend, that a lot more content will be available in future releases, rather then just getting arid of him via his girlfriend... So it's up to you how you handle him... In either case, he no longer is a current threat after the blackmail... What the future holds, is up in the air...

There isn't a huge amount of new content since the last time I played, but there is a decent amount... I did feel like I ran into a bug, where at one point the older sister asked the protagonist to go shopping with her, and afterwards her bedroom interactions seemed to have reset... Having to do the first aid again, and then being able to go back to doing all the sexual stuff afterwards... Unsure if that was intentional or a bug...

Overall, this game is still VERY GRINDY... Having to cycle through an entire game week to do another interaction at the school for certain story lines, repeatedly, just adds to the grind, because unlike a Ren'py game, you can't space bar through text and so on, since it requires so much moving the mouse and clicking to get through a game day... As this is not a normal visual novel at all... Sure there are occasional visual novel type story elements, but it really does not feel like a visual novel at all... Just too much repeated content, and repeating game play mechanics, and nothing that allows you to easily skip past repeating content... Will I revisit this one again at some point? Probably after a lot more content gets added... It's a HIGHLY time consuming game...

To be honest it is a copy of another game but like all good copies it takes the good things of the original and expands it.

+ good characters, they have a minimum personality and the MC doesn't rely on gimmicks to get the girls.
+ the world is populated with numerous characters, it's nice to see so many people and the possibilities for the future.
+ mini games, fairly good dating/massage mini games, they add some replayability as the player is encouraged to check different combinations of choices.
+ models, they look nice, all girls and boys look unique and recognizable.

- it's grindy, very much so
- lack of keyboard integration. Maybe it's personal, but I like to use the keyboard to pick choices, skip texts.
- unfinished/rushed content, not counting the content that will certainly be added, lots of stuff look bad like the journal missing entries and badly organized, and the texts and buttons look bad.
- some clumsy gameplay, again it could be fixed in the future, but in the map, cellphone and some points of school it's a little confuse to navigate and the lack of a back button can be frustating.

Good game, really enjoy it. The grind wasn't too overly long nor complex. The graphics are bit off, but it's nothing too distracting that warrant to stop playing. Story wise, is pretty simple yet effective, with lot of potential to branch out if needed. Really looking forward to the next version.