RPGM - Secrets of Mind Domination [v0.7] [Mindusky]

Lazy animations can't even put stuff in the right place, bad writing and spelling, unnecessary combat mechanics, and some of these lazy animations are locked behind a damn paywall. I kept playing to see if it improved but up to Chapter 3 (these chapters are incredibly short) it was still terrible. The only part of this game I could actually compliment is that I like the UI compass that points to current objectives.

[As of v0.7]
This game clearly has a lot of effort put into it, I feel bad about not having much good to say about it; so I'll at the very least start with what I think is good.

The Good
Animations - This one will show up in the other sections too, it's a mixed bag. But there's a LOT of animations, and they certainly beat stills or just sprites from the same program. There's outfit variations and the room is included in all of them. Well above the standard of what I've come to expect from RPGM or Ren'py titles
Plugins - This isn't just base RPGM, the effort has been put in to make waypoints findable using a compass, there's skipping dialogue and combat isn't just the standard UI. Say what you will about the gameplay itself (because I certainly will), effort was put in to rise above anything approaching the bare minimum.
Clarity - SoMD has lots of little things that make getting lost basically impossible. Quest markers, labels for side content, prompting you to save on decisions. At no point are you going to have to tinker around to make a scene trigger.
Organization - The game comes with save files for skipping to parts of the game, an interactive gallery and expanded save slots. All a big plus.


Next, the things that come down to interpretation, things that I personally found were harmful to the experience not in a vacuum, but in this particular game.
The Mixed
Buildup - For a game that sells itself with a heavy focus on the mind control tag, the mind control element, the rate at which sex including forceful rape occurs and how suddenly it happens really diverts away from expectations. In the very first scene you can get outside of your house, someone just pulls their dick out and asks you to play with it. Your character agrees with no external influence, your only choice as a player is how she does it. From the very start this game has the feeling of the last act of a corruption game. There's a lust stat that you can skyrocket to the max value in the first minute, and I'm not even sure how much it matters. I suppose there's nothing objectively wrong with this approach, but it certainly didn't tickle my fancy.
Cameos - This game is arbitrarily inundated with characters from other works of fiction. It doesn't feel like they add anything to the experience other than familiarity, which I personally find jarring on account of the characters' actions not being related to their source. I'm sure there's a huge audience for this idea, I'm just not in it.
Animations - Hello again animations. Why are you lewd in every scene even if the scene is mundane? Why does this game open on the protagonist just casually browsing her laptop with her tits out? I get that we all know what we're here for, but it cuts any visual story telling at the knees. The idea that I'm going to be reaching between my legs while they're trying to explain what the blue and the white pills do at is just silly, calm down Mr. Dev.
Combat- There's a lot to say about the combat system, but most of it will be later in the review. The subjectively question part is the choice to mix combat and sex combat by making both of them a one way road. Each enemy has usually 3 animations that they'll run through with 100% success regardless of context. As the player you dish out damage and use healing items. It's a little weird that some of these encounters just immediately start with them sticking it in you. It feels off that nothing either character does can really be contextualized in the other characters' action.
Format - It sometimes feels like this didn't need to be an rpgm game. The combat system in its current form could work on any other engine including visual novels, while the exploration is always a simple matter of getting to the other side of the room. There's these stealth sections that you could argue justify it, but I personally didn't get anything out of that experience.


Objective Room For Improvement
The Animations - There are undoubtably issues with these renders, things clipping through themselves, inconsistent jiggle physics, bug eyed frozen faces and mismatched textures. I've never used this software or any other animation software so I can't speak to possible causes of these issues, but they're impossible to ignore.
The Dialogue - The issues here are twofold. 1) Grammar. Not in the way where a developer seems to be typing how they send text messages, something a bit more fundamental is going on here. Whether its a need for proofreading or an ESL struggle, it doesn't read well. 2) Consistency in speakers. The dialogue doesn't ever seem to express anything in the delivery. Characters don't distinguish themselves with mannerisms or having unique reactions. Without the swirling animation to indicate mind control, you wouldn't be able to tell who's acting "out of the ordinary" because characters are always speaking in whatever manner will most swiftly progress the scene.
The Plot - Our protagonist and her traits are not necessitated in any manner whatsoever. She's overtly sold as a genius, scenes where she has perfect grades and the such. At no point does anything that happens to her seem to require her to be that genius, or does she express that genius in a manner that the player can see. The scenes you find yourself in seem to all have nothing to do with you as a character other than you were there before some other attractive girls was, and she plays the role as such once it starts. As a result this game really is just a string of H-Scenes that can have any theme or tone at the drop of hat, context agnostic.
The Combat System - Nothing in the combat is a real decision. Hit your highest damage option and heal when you're too low. You get the same dialogue and animation for skills no matter what(Our protagonist never gets tired of calling people 'pig' it seems), and guard is never the correct move, since your opponents all are just doing consistent damage every turn and you're never punished for attacking. Items are all percentage based and are dropped at rapid rate, when there's only a few fights where you need 1 or two potions. There's scripted losses and wins which should have just been scenes to make them less jarring in the moment. There is no making builds and there are no choices in level progression. There's no shame in not having a combat system, I really think this title should jettison it entirely.
The Overworld - What makes this title succeed in the clarity department comes at the cost of the gameplay. You are just going from point a to point b for everything. Sometimes there's 1 option to stop and get extra scenes, but this game is not free roam. Mr. Dev can't seem to make up his mind on what a day in the game will consist of. Sometimes you wake up in your room and need to bathe and get dressed. Sometimes you just need to get dressed. Sometimes the game gets you dressed and you just need to walk out the door. Sometimes the day just immediately cuts to school. The day ends quite the same. Sometimes it ends when you get to the train station. Sometimes it ends when you get to your house. Other times it ends the moment a scene ends. Almost EVERYTHING is hard coded in this game, there is no actual day/night cycle, as a result the transition from one day to the next has likely been done by hand each time, resulting in major inconsistencies and a complete negation of the need for the maps.
Patreon Implementation - To be clear and not accidentally break rule 3, I have no problem with the pricing or intended restrictions to non-paying players. I do literally mean how it's implemented in the game. It's incredibly awkward and jarring. Stop opening your patreon in my browser without warning. And the password system is threefold detrimental. 1: The passwords are all in the data/.json files, it's basically not a paywall. 2: The in game justification of the password system means that all the patreon content involves using something like a laptop check security cams, unintentionally shoehorning all of that content into voyeurism. 3: Every time you interact with something that is patreon related, with or without the password, it will give you two to four lines of text telling you about the patreon. Even while having the password I feel like I would have had a better time if those scenes weren't there at all. Again, monetize to your hearts desire Mr. Dev, your work does deserve a pay. But it's definitely time to find a different way to structure it.

To start with the positive, the scenes, while generally short, are pretty decent if you like the art style.

The rest of the game is meh at best, though I appreciate that at least the run-of-the-mill boring RPGM combat doesn't pretend to be more by featuring a dozen utterly pointless skills for padding.

The author would probably like me to say the world doesn't feature any distractions, which is to say, it feels completely lifeless.

The writing is dogshit.

[0.47]
Kinda boring game. The story is whatever, can't get the reason why you have to run around the map and the koikatsu models are okay.

The Scenes are short loops and not that good but they are sometimes custom made with studio, that's a plus.

Good luck to the dev with the future of this game.

Rev @ Secrets of Mind Domination [v0.37]

Art's fine, but since it's somebody else's render software I award no points.

Writing is so bad the title should be Secrets of Mind Destruction. Scenario's trite, narrative is disjointed, characterization doesn't exist and I've gotten better pacing from the action of clicking into a gallery.

Porn's fine if limited thanks to the alpha-level release, but again it's somebody else's hard work.

The RPGMaker mapping is sloppy use of the stock assets, and more work went into the requisite Patreon gladhanding than the actual plot.

TLDR: The executable started up. That's a plus.

0.25

rating a relative demo is hard but i will try to be fair.

english 2/5. understandable but nearly every sentence has a mistake. google translate would have been better.

length/gameplay 1/5. game is over in 30min. couple of bugs already.

H-scenes: 2 fights in train, one of them is unlosable (unless you use a bug of hitting yourself and stuck in a loop forever) and 1 unwinnable (unless you defend his 3 attacks then after 50+ attacks you kill him... and get stuck in a loop forever)

(furthermore there are 2 short scenes with patreon codes). that's it. but:

Koikatsu engine, so content can be made rather fast. scenes felt a bit lifeless to me.

but it's rape + mind control trope which i like. so what can i do im biased.

this game is probably AT BEST 2/5. right now this version is a waste of time 1/5. but keeping in mind the potential and that i like the tags, i give it 3/5. even if the graphics and english will be garbage throughout the game, the sex tropes/fetishes can make the game decent. although i doubt it but i think a 3/5 is more than fair.