Others - Skantish [v0.2.1] [Carpetwurm]

Carpetwurm has this weird knack for making two great concepts come together and ruin them both. A game that is great and can stand on its own, and porn that has a unique style and is well animated, and neither parts are good together in any way what so ever.

I actually really like the game. If you removed the porn elements you could easily sell this on steam to a general playerbase. Even if you like the porn though, the scenes themselves can't be skipped and are just there to interrupt the gameplay entirely. The actual game itself is a legit metroidvania type game with rpg elements like abilities and rarities on weapons. Pretty straight forward and with a map the idea of this game is that its just very unforgiving. Not impossible but definitely not fair either. Even if the porn was removed and this game was as is, I'd still give it a 3 star cause it's not for everyone for very obvious reasons.

The porn parts are, as carpetwurm usually does, very well animated and lookin good. However they're walled behind a hard as fuck game that the average player is probably going to struggle to play while people who don't play games at all are probably not even going to come close to beating the first boss. Everyone else figuring out the gimmicks and strats of this game are gonna be too focused on progressing to care about the porn. it's there to waste time because those who want it likely aren't getting it and those playing the game don't even care about it. They're well done but it's just so out of place and breaks up the rhythm of the game completely.

If the game was easier there wouldn't be enough porn in the game to justify a higher score, and if I was rating this as a game without the nsfw content then personally I'd say somewhere between 3 and 4. It certainly has something going for it but with Carpetwurm's track record I'm just waiting for the moment it either gets abandoned out of the blue or he somehow fucks it up entirely.

The art is the only redeeming quality. The combat is horribly obnoxious. Defensive abilities are super weak, the backstep basically stuns you. Why? Spamming the attack button is ironically the best defense. Enemies IMMEDIATELY react to your presence and attack you without any variation in behavior making this game feel like a rhythm action game more than a metroidvania. Red kobold: either jump over it or attack it before it can attack you. If you get hit once, good luck until you find a bed, your chances of survival are nearly cut in half.
If you're going to make enemies lightning fast, please make the player lightning fast as well. Also buff the weapons. Make the bow hit harder and shoot faster. Make the sword longer. Make hearts heal more. Make the dodge go in either direction and transition seamlessly into player movement. Or keep the backstep and remove the weird pause. I would have more to say but I couldn't play any more of it.

Great start. The art is just amazing in general and the animations are absolutely top quality stuff. The gameplay is great as well, fast paced and a tad unforgiving at times but really good. The combat may seem asinine at first but that's just because the game doesn't explain anything about it, each weapon has quirks and special moves the sword can block, clubs can charge attack the bow has a melee etc. just push some buttons and figure it out and once you understand it the combat becomes really fun. Please dev add descriptions of what the enchantments do tho bc while some are obvious (thorns, poison), others I have not a clue (luck, thickness).

imo so far on this version. great art, gameplay is fun needs some slight polishing, would love to see the defeat scenes animated as well as a animation for loosing different from the win scene. otherwise its a fun chill game or if the mood to see some great lewds is there something with great potential here. i look forward to seeing how this turns out and future content updates from carpetwurm. :3

This game has horrid combat. It's annoying and frustrating, making even the stupidest enemies feel like a burdensome chore. You can try running away from them, but in many occasions there will be one enemy covering the entire corridor, and you can't jump over them if there's not enough vertical space.
They don't respawn when you change rooms or die, but every time you die you get sent to the beginning, which is already annoying the first time, even more so the tenth.
And you die a lot, because there is no simple way to recover health. Small HP potions drop every once in a while, but they restore, like, 5HP. The bigger potions restore 50HP, which is still low, because you can easily lose that amount in a single fight.

The platforming is also imprecise, resulting in constantly missed jumps.

Few scenes. In fact, before the first boss, there's only one scene, which is the game over static CG when you die.

The pixel art is fine. Nothing fancy. Same for the music.
The controls are a bit bad due to making Z as the jump+accept and X as the attack+cancel, instead of the traditional attack+accept and jump+cancel respectively, as well as the use of the Up button to engage on dialogue and interaction, which is non-standard.

Overall, this game would be a 2.5 or a 3 if it had good combat and gameplay. Unfortunately, those aspects of the game are utterly terrible, so I'll give it an 1.5/2 score.

Review for v0.1.0

This one feels a little tough because I was kind of flopping between three and four stars, but it feels a little criminal to give this an average rating. Game is fun and a bit frustrating, while also kinda lacking in the lewd content department.

As a lewd metroidvania platformer it's definitely a more polished experience than others I've played. Movement feels good and I like how fast paced it is. Love the pixel art as well, and the animated sex scenes are pretty good too when purely looking at the sex itself. Combat balance feels wonky. Again I like that it's fast, but not having a dash or block makes maneuvering feel a little clunky sometimes with how quickly enemies throw out attacks. I like that there's variety in weapons, but I'm not sure why you'd want to use anything but the fast swords given how slow everything else is and how easy you get punished for whiffing an attack. Also getting two shot by everything isn't fun. Armor seems to be useless outside of enchantments on it that give you things like regen and dodge chance.

I can't say I like that playing as this warrior wolf girl kicking all this ass, her actual personality is meek and we immediately become submissive to everyone because we are in heat. You get scenes from winning the boss fights, and then said boss goes "I can tell you're in heat you're gonna be my slut now" and we respond with "ermmm ok master..." essentially. If they were defeat scenes sure, but they aren't. There really just isn't enough sex in general. There technically are defeat scenes, but it's a single static CG for an entire level no matter who defeats you and the first one was just implied sex. Some mini sprite-based scenes with the mobs or even some you can find with all the different NPCs would be cool.

It's early and has a good foundation so I'm kinda giving it the benefit of the doubt for now and hoping it really builds on itself and fills out more down the line.

I enjoyed previous games from this dev and bought em despite all the drama, i think they more than worth 5$ i paid for them.

Some real gameplay, which is unusual for erogame, especialy furry one, pretty fun, with some inventory/equipment managment.
Carpet pixell art is not mindblowing but still very good, and sexy stuff despite being very simplistic in terms of fetishes is still very enjoyable.
Good gameplay, good animations, no lgb stuff though(gay stuff was previous focus of dev), pure straight.

Personaly i enjoyed demo, if its on par on release with previous game of this dev i will buy it.

Version 0.1.0

It's a very interesting game, the artwork is gorgeous and is pretty much the main selling point of the game. I was pleased to see no visual aspect of the game was neglected; everything is on point. Same for the visual and audio effects, as well as the music.

The character feels very good to control overall, tho you'll need to setup you control scheme before starting the game. I couldn't get a scheme that fit my needs properly, so it felt a bit clunky at times, especially when the game asks you to do the more reflex-based platforming and combat sections.

Overall, there was a lot of polish put into making sure the character felt as good to control as possible, and that the game looked as appealing as possible for a good first impression. It feels very much like a game made by professional game devs, and for a solo dev, this is a very high praise.

The problems with this game lie more with the mechanics and the level design. First of all, armor is worthless. Every enemy will two-shot you without anything you can do about it. Even later in the game, when you start getting ranged weapons and more armor options, you will fold very easily to the next new enemy that pops up on your screen. Special mention to the kobold miners, who will snipe you from across the screen with very little you can do about it. Very annoying. I like the random bonuses the different equipment items grant you, but that's not enough to ignore the lack of balancing with the combat.

Secondly, this is a minor gripe, but the level design is a bit confusing at times. There are a lot of branching paths and interconnections between different sections of the level, and it's very easy to get distracted, thinking you're on the right track or on an optional one to get some treasure, only to discover that's not the case.

After the kobold village, I stumbled upon the second boss before freeing the kobold girl. And I didn't discover the first saving room until after I lost to the first boss, and so after my first defeat, I had to do the entire level all over again. Thankfully monsters don't respawn, but that's still anoying.

There are also a couple bugs here and there, like one when the game wants to pick up more than one item at a time, or a freeze when changing levels in the kobold mines that made me restart the game twice. But nothing that can't be solved with a quick bugfix.

It was a nice experience, tho a bit frustrating too with the lack of balance of the difficulty.