Ren'Py - Sovereign [v0.10.1] [Zinikis Production]

This one is a terrible game. First of all, the story and characters have no interest at all, they are poorly developed and all the events flow in the same way for all girls. Boring. Add to that the fact that the game is a complete grind for money and points and it all goes worse.

Character models are decent, but there are no animations at all in the game and the sex scenes are rather poor. It has no sound either. At least it seems like it has no bugs.

But, in any case, you'd do best skipping this one. Not worth it.

"Then let's talk about gameplay. I kind of want to lump writing in with this because the two are tied to the hip. The main gameplay loop is a stat-grind sandbox style game. You have to repeat actions with characters over and over again to get a number in your phone to a high enough level. Some numbers are easier to raise than others. Often times you don't intuitively know what to do and have to rely on checking your phone (great that this exists but it should not be the expectation if dev wants gameplay to be average-quality or better). What this means, at least for me, is that I get in a flow of just skipping every line of text whether I've read it or not. I am spending so much time repeating mundane shit that even the new shit seems like barriers. The core writing fundamentals are probably average tier, but the gameplay loop completely dominates any positive or neutral opinions you might have about it. It's unfortunate as there are some interesting gameplay concepts, like the girls changing their appearance as you play (wearing makeup, then wearing cuter outfits, then sluttier outfits, etc). However, these minor details are suffocated by the annoying core loop.

So, yes, I don't intend to ever return to this title. These issues seem like core issues that would require significant investment to fix, investment that would probably be better spent on a fresh title, and so I don't expect the dev to take action to resolve (especially since they seem to have their hands tied with basic bugs). " -iron4doves

I second this sentiment, and will also be ignoring this awful game in perpetuity.

I'm going to MOSTLY ignore the topic of bugs and crashes in this review. I will at least say that, in v0.9.0, they are exceptionally plentiful. Fortunately you seem to be able to ignore MOST of them with no impact to overall game performance, but there are so many - takeaway here is that at v0.9.0 the developer does not care or have the capacity to play test their game fully, and I'm not sure which it is. Maybe this changes in future, it sounds like prior builds were less buggy.

However, the reason I am going to largely ignore this in my review is because even if these bugs were fixed, this is not a game I ever intend to revisit and update my rating on, and so I'd prefer to focus on topics that will presumably still be true even after the dev fixes these basic bugs.

The premise of this title is not particularly new, although there are some details that are a bit unique. To oversimplify, you are a man living in the near-distant future with a unique ability to influence the behaviors and inhibitions of women you interact with, and conveniently you emit bluetooth signals or something so this can be monitored on your cellphone... Honestly, I don't hate this! To me, porn games are only fap material, and I think this is enough meat on the bones to create a fappable experience around. I don't need thought provoking narrative concepts like The Matrix or Inception or something, and I don't really need anything completely revolutionary either.

So, let's talk about the next level: The characters. You live with a maternal woman and her two daughters. She's supposed to be your mom and will act as such if you tell the game to treat her that way. Yes, the classic archetypes are mostly in play - Loving mother, soft young sister, and harsh old sister (although the older sister isn't that harsh in this title). You also have a job in which you have a boss and a bitchy coworker and a timid coworker, and you know a few other women around town like your childhood friend and her mother, as well as a hot gym babe. Again, I don't hate this and think these are fine base concepts to build enjoyable characters around.

This leads us to where this game falls down: Art, and gameplay. Starting with art, the models in the art are pretty good honestly, but it's 2024 and I've come to expect animation in a title like this. Even just simple 1 second loops during sex are fine. Here we only have stills. It's a belabored topic but it has to be said that still images are insufficient for H scenes in 2024.

Then let's talk about gameplay. I kind of want to lump writing in with this because the two are tied to the hip. The main gameplay loop is a stat-grind sandbox style game. You have to repeat actions with characters over and over again to get a number in your phone to a high enough level. Some numbers are easier to raise than others. Often times you don't intuitively know what to do and have to rely on checking your phone (great that this exists but it should not be the expectation if dev wants gameplay to be average-quality or better). What this means, at least for me, is that I get in a flow of just skipping every line of text whether I've read it or not. I am spending so much time repeating mundane shit that even the new shit seems like barriers. The core writing fundamentals are probably average tier, but the gameplay loop completely dominates any positive or neutral opinions you might have about it. It's unfortunate as there are some interesting gameplay concepts, like the girls changing their appearance as you play (wearing makeup, then wearing cuter outfits, then sluttier outfits, etc). However, these minor details are suffocated by the annoying core loop.

So, yes, I don't intend to ever return to this title. These issues seem like core issues that would require significant investment to fix, investment that would probably be better spent on a fresh title, and so I don't expect the dev to take action to resolve (especially since they seem to have their hands tied with basic bugs). There a quite a few fun and workable ideas present in this title, but the lack of animations and, more importantly, the shitty gameplay loop drag all that down to a "poor" 2-star rating from me. If the bugs never get fixed, make that a 1 star.

The premise seemed interesting but as of v0.9.0, the game is unplayable as it errors every 10 seconds so either have to skip or rollback hoping that it won't error. Seems like it was better before this update but as of right now, steer clear of the game until these bugs are resolved since it just seems like a buggy mess that makes it difficult to play.

v0.8.1: 3.5 stars, rounded up.

I thought this was fine if generic. The grind wasn't too bad. At the start you need 5 influence to progress to tier 2 and you can get 3 a day and most encounters only take 10 minutes so it's pretty easy to progress with either all the work girls or all the non-work girls on any day. You need more influence/corruption as they level but you unlock more ways to get them so it works out. Is it a typical sandbox game where you do the same stuff four or five days in a row to unlock a new tier? Yep, but at least it's not 10 or 20 days in a row or five times but you can only do it once a week at a specific time or whatever. It all goes pretty fast in the current version.

The in-game walkthrough is also helpful although one problem is that corruption actions don't unlock until Influence tier 3 for most women but corruption tier 1 only requires influence tier 2 and will often be above influence tier 3 in the walkthrough so that's a little confusing.

The influence/corruption split is also a little weird. Corruption seems to solely relate to how the women dress while influence affects their relationship with you. So your "roommate" might be willing to have sex with you but not wear lipstick if you focus solely on influence. Small gripe.

I don't have much else to say, it's a very generic game: interact with women, get points, they become lewder and/or dress sexier. It's pretty well made, everything works, and I didn't have any real complaints.

Absolutely only deserve 4 stars, But I'll leave 5 due to the fact that so many review just very wrong in my opinion. Bug? I play it for 3 hours straight without encountering any bugs, so maybe check what you do wrong. Rewind? That the problem of almost every ren'py game, which is why developers advice not to use it. Lacking Story? Go buy some story then you cheap stake and stop insulting people who entertain you for FREE. As for lacking in bug fixing, go join their Discord and sent them the bug. They check it and respond almost daily, which is very commendable due to the fact they have a JOB, you basement dweller. The only recurrent downside of this game is how grindy it is.

P.S. If you find a bug in a game, report it instead of whining like a baby. I barely see people in the #bug of their Discord.

It is a very confusing game and so far I have not been able to advance in the story, so I do not find it entertaining, which logically is what a game should do, entertain.

There is a lack of a more linear route to tell the story, and if it is a sandbox, clarify objectives and make them practical.

Is it the best? Nah. At where it is right now (.8 at time of this post) I'd say dl it only to take a looksee on how it is coming along and to decide whether put it onto your watchlist or not.
Overall there ain't too much here to go on about. Most other reviews cover it well enough already. This is however one of those that makes up for shortcomings with good CG and models. Good foundation and all that. I look foward to more and wish the developer the best in working on it and hopefully they will live long and prosper enough to find the time to finish it... then I can come back later and up the rating and all that

Literally everything in this game is horribly generic. Generic models, generic backgrounds, generic gameplay, standard mind control plot, and worst of all, characters that are the same as not only any other zero-personality waifu template, but also each other in terms of the shitty generic lines they spew.

There are lines literally copy-pasted from one girl to another, and from one situation into another, which is probably the very worst thing you could possibly do in any interactive story-telling medium, like the ultimate form of dismissing characterization as unimportant when it is basically the only thing that is invariably important to any story.

And on top of that the dev wants you to first read his awful info dump of an exposition before the game earns that kind of attention from you, and then go through a tutorial that annoyingly overexplains an already simplistic and self-explanatory UI, before telling you to engage in the most unengaging, zero brain, zero skill and zero emotion kind of grind one could come up with, so you have to earn the right to access his """quality""" content, which by the way is barely there.

I'm giving Sovereign more than 1 star because it is technically playable and the models aren't the worst out there (if not actually good), even though part of me wishes I could just stop trying to be objective about this whole thing and just dunk this game's rating as much as I can with this one review because of what an infuriatingly misguided approach it takes to porn gaming.

Shameful. Just shameful.

The game is good, the grind is OK it's not too much, the girls are all hot, I feel a good potential in this game.
An advice: I see that you're showing new girls in new location with a " Coming Soon" message.
Don't add too many girls early in the game, at least not before you finished the whole content for one girl, so we will be able to see the whole corruption sequence.

Also, you should focus a bit more on story. Every event about the main story was really good! You should do more of them.

The 4stars is for 2 things:
1- The amount of content. I'm a bit disappointed by the amount of new scene released at each new version. I think I will be playing every 3-4 versions now.
2- The repeatable event: With some girls, each repeatable scene change when you level up the girl. Example: The massage with the mom. It'sgood.
For other girls, (like older sister), you still have the first level event when you do a repeatable event (workout with her for example). The scene is not linked with the level of the girl and it's sad, in a corruption game it's important to see the progression and the change of a girl at every step, not only unlocking new scene at every step.

I like the look and idea of this initially. I like mind control and sandbox games when done well. Sadly this one isn't. (0.71)

Firstly the grind is immense to get anywhere. Even after you have been grinding a point or two everyday I found the reward pretty minimal. It takes ages to build influence and then corruption which I would be kind of fine with if I felt the actions or repeat scenes were satisfying but they just aren't. One of the new options for touching characters is just a "..." Response.

Secondly the game at this point is 4gb but a lot of the readers are kind of grainy and the character models and lighting remind me of games from 10 years ago.

I genuinely wish the best for the dev. There is potential here but the mechanics need overhauling or the repeat scenes actually interesting to make the grind anything but an excruciating boring chore.

The renders of the game seem good to me, but they are very scarce. Also, I don't like at all that the cover spoilers the protagonist's transformation.
The game is not very good, in fact, I only recommend playing it with the money trick, to increase it to 99999 and from there buy UP and gifts to increase influence and corruption, otherwise it would be more boring than it already is .
In fact, in the latest update, you have to go to work quite a few times to be able to get promoted and corrupt your co-worker (who barely changes). To do this you have to go from Monday to Friday for at least two weeks and for 8 hours to be able to advance. This can't be achieved with tricks that I know of, just grinding.
Not recommended game if you don't do tricks, with beautiful but scarce renders and very small and short updates. If you've seen the cover of the game, you've already seen it all.
This review is automatically translated and manually modified. My main language is not English.

I think the game is very good, I played the 0.7.1 version. Maybe an easier access to the status of the targets would be good, for example a picture in a corner with the rough data like corruption level, relationship level or a tracker for even the different targets.
All in all, however, a good game.

It's a sandbox game but this one had me hooked. The concept/story is great and has good potential, especially if you're intrigued in becoming a great sovereign(master) with a plethora of ladies(slaves) to influence onto your dick.

I'm critical when it comes to character model appeal and these ones are quite noice (the Mom ). There are a lot of ladies(slaves) you can find in the game but alot don't have content. Luckily the Mom has the most content so concentrate on her.

The game is obviously at early stages as you can see alot of areas like the school hospital etc have no content, but it shows there is a lot down the line. So now i'm waiting with bated breath until the next update.

Overall entertaining game with pretty ladies(slaves) and decent gameplay elements. Look foward to when the Mom goes full slave.

I enjoy grindy gameplay (Shoot me please), but the in-between needs to have some substance and there's just nothing there. The dialogue is generic, none of the characters are fleshed out and share the same replys at times.

All you do is click the same stuff endlessly, so an arbitrary number goes up. There's no life to this shell of a game.

I am sorry, but you need less grind and more depth to make this even remotely playable.

Review as of v 0.6.0

sovereign more like Grind-reign

I don't like write negative review here as most devs are trying to learn things while they showcase their developing games here. But this seem warranted

Pros -
female character renders look nice
objectives/event tracking is clear and easy to follow through

Cons -
where do I even begin?
game banner art is deceptive marketing at best.
-banner art depicts Emily from normal dress to pierced & see through bikini. But game only has up to pink slutty dress. so last two clothes and corruption tiers are not available. "why would you fall such obvious ploy" I hear you ask , but in my defense game file size being 4gb with no animated scene (only static images) I least expect the banner art to follow its own game premise

-Too much Grind
in normal play through you will be grinding for money, strength & intelligence stats while trying to rack up much influence & corruption points possible.
Sadly I cheated seeing how slow the game progressing only to realize that there is not much content here

-bad game optimization.
while the content seem so less game size being is 4.45gb made me curious to check the render file size. Each image is 4k resolution averaging between 11mb-14mb. I have seen other games with 4k images that have 5-7mb without loosing quality. I shudder to think what will happen when game has more h-scenes

Has the makings of a good game but it's bogged down by WAAAAAYYYYY too much grind. Have to click through multiple frustrating interfaces in a sandbox that's too big for it's own good, just to make very small progression. Very repetitive tasks.

Big time grind with no animations. Renders aren't to bad. I like the story idea. Take out 80% of the grind and add in some story telling. It might be good. If this is a first time dev. I'd say it's a good start. Not a game I will return to.

Too much of a grindfest, you repeat the same events over and over, day by day, and then you are rewarded with a tiny scene that progresses your relationship with the character. Some of the girls look hot, that is the only redeeming quality in the game, avoid at all costs.

V0.5.1

Overgrind is my chosen description
i got bored with the grind after barely an hour with all the to and fro
not a fan of the mechanics.

visually it is fine. no wow factor for me but not a complete eyesore either. all characters are a cutout image on a background. event art is slightly better but poor angles chosen. it just becomes background to the grind though.

the plot is your basic adult corruption game plot and the writing is poor. needs some thought put into it.

the heavy grind quickly removes any enjoyment, and in it's current state, it also has little content with characters. only the mother has any content worth looking at and even then the images look unworthy of the related grind. mechanics just seem too much for such unrewarding imagery and story.