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

Ok let's start here : DfD was fine in my opinion while DH was bad... This one is still early but kinda in between.

The good :
well the engine of this game is now better. Still not the best but it get the job done. On my old Pc loading for animations were pretty slow but everithing worked so... No problem for me here.
While not the most impressive, visuals are fine, same for music. Some might find the girls to "cartoonish" maybe. By my standarts it's totaly fine.

The "less" good :
Mc is mute. That's a bold choice... Except not that much. There's not a lot of "special" interaction or... Anythiing with that. I guess you can say they want to proove that mute people are normal too (sure no problem they are)... But in a story, if you go for something "out of the ordinary", you can't really treat that like it's nothing. Can happen later in the story but for now almost nothing is done with that.
The investigations are... Weird. I understand you can't do everything in the same episode... But why I am only investigating for Sam & Halley in episode 4 ? Again, you can't do everything but here, it's likethe other problems doesn't really exist. "It's not the time so let's not speak about it". As a game I understand, as a story it feels really weird.

And the bad :
Problem is that the bad look like it's the favorite narative gimick of those love joint games (at least in DH & this one). You don't have any background at the start of the game. You have to wait aroud mid episode 3 to finally know what kind of character you are (and getting some infos for others too). And then you have choices like : Do I still have feelings for my ex ? Answer : How the fuck should I know ?! I just met the girl, I don't know how we broke up, how she is... Nothing !
Same for others. You will learn episode 4 that maybe you had feelings for one of the girls in the past...
I guest that if you are playing with a guide or only trying to get to "the good stuff" it doesn't matter... But those game focus more on narrative, they are not good game for a quick fap... So why going again with this weird choice of "you play a character but know nothing about it at the start"... Mc is mute, he doesn't have amnesya, I should know some basic stuff before playing the role.

Conclusion : the game is still early and can improve. For me it's still average or slitghly above which is a lot better than DH for me... Main drawback is still the writting... Maybe because they try to hard, bite more than they can chew (there's a lot of plot/subplot)...Only 4 episodes for now,I'll wait more to be sure but it need to improve

Ps: still french, still trying to be understandable in my writing

I would say... the best work so far from Love joint.

I really loved DfD and DH... but this is something even better so far.

And i dont know why people complain about the engine... its really a good one and the DEVs can do what ever they want with it... renpy has it good sides, but also flaws and its kinda a corset.

There are some things in DH and DfD which were annoying... there wasnt really a continuation of the actions you did in the episode before... some things were ignored, and than forced on you... for example in DfD i didnt pursued any other girls... but in the next episode the MC and girls kinda act that i did something with them, even had sex... which i didnt. So the actions didnt matter really... and only in the last episodes you could decide "what you want and with whom" makes most of the playthrough kinda pointless... same goes for DH. So beeing faithful or not doesnt count, i doenst has an effect on the outcome in the end... all that matter was the choice you make in the last episodes.

Hopefully its not the same thing with this game... I know many aorund here dont like to do multiple playthroughs, but for me its the better thing. To screw every girl without any consquences and in the end just to choose the endig you want is kinda weird to me. So hopefully there will be conequences if "you play the field" But if i look back to the other games, i dont think so...

Lets get back to it...

The writing is good, the story interesting. In DfD and DH there were some very very over the top and ridiculous angles in the story that were just way too much for my taste.

But in shale hill its kinda grounded now... nothing to "over the top"... the "recently" app is kinda comprehensible and works fine in the story so far without being completly unrealistic. Hopefully it stays this way... sometimes less is more i would say.

The mute MC is kind of unique but to be honest... it doesnt matter much for the game. The MC is talking just like any other person. Doenst matter if he uses signs or the voice app... to say it frankly, i dont get it why he has to be mute in the first place, it doesnt add anything to the game, kinda pointless so far to me.
But doesnt matter realy, its not a bad thing, but doenst add something to the game either.

So the renders are top, i dont know why, but the girls got some "big eyes", but its just the art-style here... they all look cute though. I really like different personas, some are likeable, some are not, but every person is unique... thats a very good thing cause in most games around here there are just some stereotypes recycled everytime... the horny slut that jumps everything, the shy cute girl with no confidence, and so on... of course shale hill does have these stereotypes too, but not too much and overall the characters are believable, kinda reasonable and overall comprehensible.

The sound is very nice, the music too... really a big plus.

I like the animations too, they are not at the top, but decent and good enough to be a plus too.

I love the Tosater-detective btw... really nice appearance after the events of DfD... cant remeber his name though, and i cant recall exactly what happens with him in the end of DfD... but i dont think there were events that lead him to be a homeless crazy guy now Doesnt matter... important thing, he has the toaster maybe he will be playing a bigger role and we get an explanation what happened to him after DfD in the next episodes.

Dont know what the plan is, and how much episodes youre planning... but there is already plenty of content, i would say at least half the amount of Double Homework for now... and double Homework got 19 episodes... if its going to be near 19 episodes with this one, it would be HUGE ;D

So overall... for now i would give 4/5. with more content and developing the story out it will get easily a 5/5 but for this i have to wait for some more updates... will come back to the game in a while for sure!

What happed to the usual art style? I don't get it why every character looks to be underage. This's not my cup of tea ngl.
Besides that everything else seems to be very polished, I can't stand the arts so I stop playing after 10 mins but this might be for you if you like the style.

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.