VN - Others - Completed - Shale Hill Secrets [v0.18.9b] [Love-Joint]

An interesting VN with good dialogue and very pleasant-looking visuals, especially the character design.

The story revolves around plenty of mysteries and personal drama and generally is well-written though not sure if most dialogue choices matter much. And some minor gripe, the MC tends to overreact and make things way more serious than they are and the dialogue is at times a bit too prolonged shorter but to the point would make reading it more fun... keep a well-balanced tempo.

Gameplay-wise the UI is easy to use and functions well and the only bug I encountered is characters' eyes blinking animation mispositioned to the center of the screen.

The sex scenes are well-structured and optional with additional animation and options, and the sound and music being used are pretty standard but fitting.

Overall, so far I enjoyed the game and its presentation as a whole. The only thing that might change my opinion negatively is how the story and character progression and their behavior will play out further. Hope the devs will keep it simple and not make things too convoluted.


Edit: Sadly the game's writing gets worse in later updates, should've kept it simple. Visuals still look good though.

Review of 0.4.2

Gameplay:
This is terrible, borderline unusable. I can't progress to the next line except by skipping text which then frequently skips more than 1 line this is just a very poor engine. It doesn't detect spacebar, enter or left mouseclick for just progressing to the next line. Then between the vn stuff is a sandbox map on which you have to do linear actions.

Story and setting: all of this is pretty stupid not going into details but i don't like it.

Art: They are going for something more unique and at first glance I thought it looked "cute" but the characters are all malformed and it is not really appealing.

My recommendation is you skip this one, it is not worth it at all.

This game is expertly programed and i love it! they programed it to detect key words and i greatly appreciate that little but enjoyable attention to detail! i would highly recommend the game based on the art and story by themselves too. everything is sublime with this and i cant wait for it to be completed!

Its a real nice game, Story ok and renders are good, but the Bug! getting stuck if you played previous versions and cant complete tasks (you have already done) is a complete Failure.. in 1000's games ive played this has never happened ! (apparently you have to delete the (game data/folder hidden) its no renply SO GOOD LUCK to NOVICES and ANDRIOD USER FINDING IT ! dont quote me on this ! EPIC CODING FAIL ! 2 stars from me ! should have been 4! damn shame Read the latest comments !

That's really an impressive game, I'm loving it. Love-Joint and Palmer had a history of quality games but with pretty big flaws, and often revolving around the overused incest fetish. This game I think gets a lot of things right: graphically it's good and this customization of the characters models gives a lot of personality to the product. The engine is better used this time, instead of having to download the single episodes. Writing is VERY GOOD, really, it never gets too verbose, unlike previous games, also the inner monologues are limited, and it conveys useful informations, almost always, another big improvement. Characters have personalities, they are well rounded (at least those who had enough screen time) and dialogues flow smoothly. The story is interesting and the tension/drama is not forced, unlike many other cases, included previous games.. also the over the top characters are limited, and are side-characters, unlike for the antagonist of DH. It's still low on the lewd stuff but I hope it will improve on that. Overall a very nice game, keep it up.

I've played Ep 2 and I have to say the story is really interesting, but the girls' big eyes aren't mine.
You can download the game and play offline (in other games from the devs you must play online in your browser). You dont have to download all Episodes to play them because in the latest Version of the Game the other Chapters are included.

Story 5/5
Character Design 5/5

Hmmmm.....I am intrigued. The story seems to be interesting. I'm definitely eager to play the next update. I look forward to seeing what is next.

Also, I like the twist with the MC. He is mute. I am interested how this will affect the storyline and how the female characters will interact with him.

I just finished v0.1.2 and I must say, it's quite good as far as first impressions go. It's pretty much like checking out a restaurant you went to before the owner died, only to find they still got it.

I was initially skeptical when I read the description, having played numerous superpower fantasies already. Boy am I glad it wasn't. In short, you play as a mute and cute college IT support who stumbled upon a privacy-violating app that until proven wrong, we will definitely blame Hank for creating. It's nice to have another somewhat defined player character instead of another whiteboard. This premise also feels like a relatively safe bet that still manages to bring a breath of fresh air, so I'll look forward to the next release.

I also like what they've done with the gaming app. The old one was decent, but no way as convenient as Ren'Py. I also see they've decided to keep the episodic story structure but also keep the entire story within one app. I'm assuming this has something to do with save file transferring issues? Feel free to correct me.

Overall, it's nice to see Love-Joint make this pretty solid comeback. Perhaps I'll keep updating this review as soon as updates are posted. See you when I see you.

The art style is amazing as always it never disappoint me and the storyline so far is great I have higher hopes for this game and I believe it will be successful game just like the DFD and DH. Good job guys even though Palmer is not around you still continuing his legacy. Good luck guys I hope I see more update on this game in the near future!

i will keep it short sincee dev is known for some of the best games ,

Visual 10/10
story 9/10


cons :- not on renpy so some renpy based features are not there.

game looks solid as usual , i loved previous games as well, story is well divided into episodes.