HTML - Sluttown USA: Hometown Corruption [v0.55] [AmusingOddity]

I've been eyeing this game for a long time and finally pulled the trigger. It is a solid 5/5 game, with a story of corruption across multiple characters. The progression is simple with a good enough story and dialogue in between. What makes this a 5* is that most characters have a different sexual genre. In most games of this genre, you'll have 10 characters but the progression of each feels very similar. Will be the same plot and type of corruption. This game, instead, focused on a different fetish per character. Other than the incest, you might encounter a character who is into "free-use", another that is into "exhibitionist", etc... This made is so the path of corruption of each felt unique.

I won't penalize the game for this but I do feel the dev shouldn't offer routes that are incomplete. While the dev has been clear that one route is being done before others, certain characters offer the alternative routes which have little to no content.

Version 0.14.7

This is one-of if not the best male protag, real-porn, hypno games on this site (and TFGames also). If you're into those genres, then you definitely want to check this game out. Here's why:

Disclaimer: there is feminization content and unavoidable male-on-trans sex scenes in this game. If that's a dealbreaker, then you may want to look elsewhere. However, if you're tolerant or even curious? Then please continue. You won't be disappointed.

Pros

• Writing. It's lurid and raunchy in the all the right ways without being inaccessible in its vocabulary either. Scenes aren't giant walls of flowery text, but instead presented in language and spacing that makes it easier to consume. Yes, it's sort of a sandbox, but this is a sandbox with story too. It's also not Engrish. AmusingOddity had very few obvious typos or other errors -- it's obvious that they spend a lot of time editing and proofreading.
  
  
• Characterization. The women of this game aren't just a bunch of generic paint-by-numbers insta-sluts, and there are a wide variety to play with; it's like a theme park. While each of their corruption stories are linear, it takes time and logical steps to get them from Point A to Point Sex Bomb. Along with their distinct personalities, this makes each pursuit memorable. I'm not saying that Amusing Oddity hasn't employed known tropes, but they've executed those tropes well enough that the player will be invested in their conquest-journies with earned love and hate in equal measure.
  
  
• Images and Videos. There are some exceptions, but for the most part, AmusingOddity did a positively smashing job of picking models that they're able to stick with for every scene. That's a lot of work! They even found a model that started out heavy-set and got fit! On top of that, they also know how to remove audio and compress their images and videos so the game isn't a gajillion gigs in size.
  
  
• UI/UX. While there are distinct improvements that can be made in reducing click-through, and some inconsistencies in info windows, for the most part this game is not hindered by its user interface or user experience. There's a map for easy navigation. If there's an interactable NPC in a location, there's a thumbnail telling you so (usually). If you're not sure how to progress with a NPC, there's a guide (and you can pin their tips to your main screen). If you want to review your progress with a NPC, there's a window for that too. All of these windows easily backtrack. Otherwise, there aren't a million different windows to find every details you need, nor are there one-off events that if you don't get your timing just right you'll never see again. You can take your time without being punished for not discerning some arbitrary "golden path." Furthermore, AmusingOddity is remarkably active with the playerbase on every website. They answer questions or comments in a matter of days if not hours.

Cons

• Sandbox in Name Only. This is a negative for some people (not me), but it bears mentioning: this is more of a visual novel within a sandbox rather than a true CYOA. There is only one path forward with every NPC to see their story. There are very few actual choices, and some of them (e.g. private slut or public slut) are incomplete as of the time of this review. If you're expecting multiple paths for every NPC, you will not find it here.
  
  
• Pacing and Resource mechanics. Be ready to tuck into this game, because you're gonna be here awhile. Unless you hack Sugarcube variables with the browser console, you will be spending a lot of time building up the currency necessary to hypnotize NPCs and then many days revisiting NPCs because the hypno action functions in a tick-tock model: day 1, perform hypno -> day 2, see the results. Repeat. Furthermore, many NPCs are only available at certain times of day, simultaneously, and pursuing a story event with one NPC will advance the time period such that another NPC may no longer be available that day. This aligns with the currency model, because as mentioned above, acquiring it can be painfully slow. This is only made worse by the progressive cost of hypnotism such that you may be grinding for days and days just to get some of the latter events. For example, as of this version, on average you can grind about 10-15 currency per day (depending on how much you like typing and matching mini-games). Advanced story points take over 100 currency -- 7 to 10 days of clicking through the same mini-games just to advance the story for one NPC.
  
  
• Bugs and Incomplete Areas. Bugs happen - while there is a plethora of really good content and polish already present, this is still a game in the throes and struggles of development. Regrettably, some of those bugs can be gating, preventing access to other content, and aren't easily troubleshot either. Also, while there are image assets in the files for future content, that doesn't necessarily mean the story to use those assets is actually in-place yet. Lastly, while AmusingOddity has done a decent job of fault tolerance and hardening, you will still encounter instances where the logic scripting falls apart a bit, making references to scenes you didn't witness (e.g. spending currency on a NPC in one room or time of day rather than another), or getting stuck because you didn't trigger events in the expected order.

All the above aside, this is a really good game. AmusingOddity is obviously very invested in its development - not only in completing their game, but making their game good. Sluttown USA is worth your time, and maybe even your money.

One of the best HTML sandboxes in the site, Sluttown got a good selection of "real porn" content, and a lot of different girls you can get.

My only problem, and the reason why I didn't gave 5 stars, is than it's needed a lot of grind to get the girls, and that doesn't work for me (fortunately, it's easy to cheat).

So I think this is a rating overlooking what might be major issues to other players. I'll lay out what I like and then get to that.

Minor spelling errors aside, it's good writing. Better than that, it's good corruption. Better than that, it's multiple types of good corruption. We've got a sister/mother thing going. There's your cute secretary who want to know how to do her job better. An innocent college girl who needs some motivation. There's the college bitch/bully who needs tearing down a peg. We've got also a sex-crazed MILF down the street with a son to sissify, and what I can only assume is Xev Bellringer's real backstory*. That's not even all of them.

Each of those characters is well written and needs actual convincing. Personally, I can lose interest when corruption comes too easily. I like the build up, the chipping away to a slow reveal. I mean, sometimes it's nice to jump to the end goal but I appreciate what Stuttown is going for. There's a sense of progression to it and each stage is progresses the character as well the interaction. I love that.

So what's the big downside? Well, so far, there's a lot of game that doesn't lead anywhere. The first thing you'll notice is a large game world full of places and rooms. You'll not be using them. As of now they serve no purpose. The second thing is that there's a lot of character progression but very little pay off relative to it. It's great to have a range of well fleshed out characters but it's thinned the game out so much that none of them are complete.

In one sense, it's a good thing. I've hit "end of current content" with all of them and there's not one I don't want to see more of. On the other hand, I've played a lot of game to still feel a long way off. I'd like to see some characters rounded off or at least given a little bit more end result (porn wise) over continuing to broaden the game ever more.

The mini-games are okay. They only really provide for one main resource (charging your hypnosis app) but they do get stale quickly. And they very much have that feel that they're inserted to make this a "game" rather than because they're entertaining. I don't think the game would lose anything by giving you far more resources given the only "balance" they add is by costing the player time. There's no pressure to have enough beyond needing enough to advance.

I feel like that's fair warning to new players. And I feel like ending by saying that I really, really enjoy each character and how they're dealt with. If you like slow corruption with a wide choice then this is a great game. But more than most games you'll play it's really suffering from being incomplete. A finished game of this quality would be a standout classic.

*not really, but in my head it will be

Review of 0.7.1
Good game, played with cheats so it's kinda like a VN with extra clicks --> which is supposed to suck, but it didn't bothered me.
Good choices for the actresses, some unusual, which makes it better.
Has quite a bit of content so far, altough you have little choice to what happens in the game.
The amount to time to get to real content with each woman is inconsistent tough. I suppose it isn't bad, but I don't like it.
The girls are pretty different from each other, yet, the scenes... aren't? Could have some fetishes choices I guess.

Very few bits of eye candy (if any IMO) worth even thinking about which is the main reason you go for these sorts of titles. Frankly the majority of the women in there are painfully unattractive at best.

The few bits of flashy women in the game you see are just stolen insta-pics of co-eds or something to keep your attention while your toiling away at the stat progression side of things.
There's a lot of 'rooms' in there that are not utilized, but sit empty with no interaction potential, seems wasted on this title(?). The navigation of them is sometimes confusing and annoying.

To make matters worse there's a tremendous amount of stat grind with little or no payoff.

If your just really really bored and want something to waste time on, this could be your thing.

As with most of the real-porn Twine games on this site, it's a huge improvement if you just cheat through the actual game part and treat it as CYOA-style erotic fiction. Use the included guide and edit variables in the developer console. The actual game part is bad -- there's no way to make an engaging game in Twine! Stop trying!!

The game is also suffering from a regular early dev issue, which is spreading too thin too quickly. There are too many incomplete paths here. Dev needs to really focus on what he thinks this should be. The dev seems to be tying in even more branching paths to cater to people who just aren't into the fundamental concept of the game. As someone who is into the fundamental concept, that's a shame and is going to lead to super long development times. Alas.

that said: what I like here, I really like. my buttons have been hit. worth a shot.

This is a promising game held back largely by a cluttered and slow UI, and grind.

First the clutter; SUSA:HC has a lot of unnecessary screens and options. There are a huge number of unused locations that serve only to distract the player and make it difficult to navigate. I'm glad that the dev wants to create a believable world, but when only one out fifteen classrooms is used then it's time to draw back a bit. If the dev were to just cut out all uncesseary screens, like the screen in the minigame that simply says 'point gained' the game would flow better.

This game suffers from the general grind that a lot of similar games do. It takes a long time to progress with any given character, and the vast majority of that time is spent clicking back and forth between a handful of screens.

There are a few of mechanics and design choices I really like though. I like the puzzle element of the app charging. If you want to avoid it you can, but you earn more points by playing manually. I hope that more types of puzzles are added in the future to keep you on your toes. I really like how any points you spend on someone above the necessary amount are automatically refunded.

I really hope this games sees more content and a streamlining in future updates, as the setting, premise, and writing are all iteresting and well done. I would also like to say that it's better for a few characters to have a lot of content than for a lot of characters to have a little bit of content.

so im going to give this a five star even though as of writing this id say its a 3 star. my reason for doing this is because i can definently see this being a five star game if certain easy to fix issues are fixed in the future and dont want a permanent 3 star review to bog down the game. the main issue i have with the game right now is the grind. like the ammount of times you need to hypnotize people to get anywhere at all is ridiculous. i get that it is realistic as you are breaking down their mental barriers and rewriting their common sense but seriously it takes like 5 sessions to make a girl willing to give you a kiss. also on what should be the no ntr path theirs ntr. i personally dont mind it but i know alot of people do and those people tend to be very very picky about it so you might want to make sure that theirs no ntr on the ntr paths. again these are relatively easy to fix issues since at most they involve removing content rather than adding it but regardless they are issues that need to be adressed if the game is to reach that oh so sweet five star rating. keep in mind a longer game is not always a better game and more content does not always equal a better game either. if 95 percent of the game is waiting to get to the good part then you have a bad game even if the last 15 percent is really really good. nevertheless the game looks really good and if you adress these issues i can see it being one of the all time best html mind control games out there.

Actually a promising game, writing is good. But it currently is too broken and "grindy":
* Going into sis room, you are told that you should try again at breakfast. But there you have no possibility.
* Used app on Mom, but now i can't "go further" with her"
* feels like 500 locations arranged in a tree for maxmimal confusion. You do not know where you are or where to go in college. 95% of the locations are just empty.
* I put "grindy" into quotes. There is grindy, where you have to repeat boring tasks to get somewhere. And there is "grindy", where you just do not really know what to do, and try to advance by trial and error. Some grinding is ok, but just not giving the player any clue is just bad.

Advice:
- Introduce some sort of "quest log"
- College does not need 100 rooms. Reduce, and show them all at once, so the player does not keep to click through everything every time.
- Highlight the locations where something can be done.

Writing: 7/10
Imagery: 6/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Kinks: 8/10
Overall: 6/10

I believe sandbox should be added to the tags, because it sure feels like one.

The beginning is good, really good, I read it all and it got mr invested. But then came the drop, I was on my own with very little direction. Where was everyone, did I miss something? Was I suppose to grind out days trying to figure out who is where and when? So far, the answer is yes.

Avoiding the bugs people seem to be complaining about is easy enough, just don't change any of the girl's names. So I didn't experience any of them, which is great, as many are pretty game breaking.

Sadly this didn't matter much since this is new enough that there is very little content yet. The main character talks like he's gonna be having all these girls gargling his shaft and bending over to take a pounding, but boy is he going about it damn slow. You work on getting enough charge to "mind alter" a girl, but there's little to no reward. Maybe the next time you see them they have changed their picture to something a little sexier, but you can forget the blowjobs and butt fucking, they exist only as dreams in the game's current state.

My suggestion is to either make the travel a whole lot easier if sticking to this sandbox theme, or ditch the sandbox and go for a more direct route. Give player's choices that matter, don't just offer them dead ends. So what if you can go to the beach, what does it matter if nothing is ever there right now? Maybe make a tracker that shows where the girls are at any given time, and clicking on their location makes the character travel directly to them.

Really good for a first attempt. Good PS selection, decent run of fetish material and amazing room for expansion. Dev seems to have a good grasp on what to write and how to communicate with people so there's certainly hope for the future. 10/10, would recommend.

Incredibly grindy, with minigames for the grind that don't function properly and character routes which end at dead ends without a "continue". Would just be another Real Porn game with the same handful of familiar actresses if the developer didn't have John Carmack's ego.