Ren'Py - Stellar Crossroads [v0.60] [Xavster Gaming]

Playing 0.6.0

A deep and engaging story, solid world-building, great characters and visuals. Held back by a somewhat clunky resource acquisition and shipbuilding system.

Suggestions;
-Mining automation isn't clear, and the inability to mine more than one resource at once is a pain when you have several mineral hoppers to fill. We have robot run fighter craft, why can't we have robot miners?
-Ship building and deployment is almost too deep. With dozens of parameters to be tweaked and adjusted depending on what opponent you're facing. Simplifying the system to Triangle (Rock-Paper-Scissors) would make the gameplay better.
-Showing a proper build queue for the manufacturing would take some of the mystery out of when items would be ready. Also, being able to reference or see contracts when in the manufacturing tab would save on clicking.

I like this game (v0.50) very much. It's one of my favorite games right now. It is a kind of sci-fi management game with a good manufacturing and trading system with a political aspect as well. MC can choose his political relations to 8 alien nations and 3 trading corporations.
MC choices do matter! In example they have impacts on each fraction lore.
With this version MC can start to build military power and support allies in battles if MC wishes to do so. This improves the possibilities of the game.
MC can deepen his relations to girls on his station and can visit a club on an alien planet to perform some erotic actions.
A kind of "to do list" helps the player to progress with the game.
The writing is pretty decent and the renders and animations are above standard. The story has a great potential to be developed further.
I'm looking forward to the next update.

I love this game. It's one of my favorite games right now. Always look forward to the next update. I especially like the trading and manufacturing system. However, it can feel a little repetitive to progress in the game.

Good Art, compelling story, reasonable amount of grind, relatively quick updates with plenty of content and sci-fi too. What's not to like about this one?
Upgrading does require some grinding, but it's not excessive (the griding can be done along with the story).

This game is just bad mainly because there is nothing gripping, that x factor that will make you remember to check the game later on just not here. Weak story. bland mc and the sandbox aspect is terrible. especially compared to the dev previous game and with his history of misleading players pretty much assured of getting a fake/crappy ending as well.

Render are decent but so is most of the games nowadays so not enough.

As a fan of the prequel, which I think is excellently written, I see that this has a great deal of potential. For me, when it comes to this IP, I think the eroticism is rather secondary. I genuinely enjoy these for the story primarily. I hope that the team behind these works will not be dissuaded by the unimaginative, and continue working on this project until fruition.

In 0.10 i would have given 5 star because :

It was an interesting idea
Good render
Well created personality of personage.
No bug as i have played

The con would had been the length of the update and some inconsistency in the story of the first release.

But the honeymoon ended in the 0.20 for the drop from the 5 to 2 star :

Seeing that the personage introduced at the end of the 0.10 is useless.
Having a nauseous amount of sandboxing, like 80% of the game is now a sandbox, this amount of sandbox isn't funny at all.

Because the game pass from "story telling with choice" to "management game", if the sandboxing continue to be more than half of the game (money making first and story second), i would drop it totally.

On the good end the sand-box even if so present that it become too much, i don't have seen bug in it.

So briefly : good story, good render, good idea, too much sandbox in it (sandbox is ok but not this much because it become a work (to have money) rather than an enjoyable game).

If you like management game go for it, if not ... [(See the edit)wait more update].

Edit : Nothing have changed since this review i drop it and so drop it to 1 Star since this game is not funny at all and is a chore to do.

TL/DR A fun concept twist on the super common trope "uncle left you a hotel in his will" premise. You get a space-station instead. Pacing was way too fast and I'm skeptical if the plot will end up being compelling or not.

Pros
+Space
+Some cool looking alien dudes
+Developing the space station could lead to some interesting stories
+Some clear narrative goals for the MC to work towards.

Cons
- I don't like how the MC looks at all. A reedy lil fop.
He looks like he should be be on stage singing love songs to tweens, not an adult man that just worked a decade of his life doing of hard labor for a mining company.
-Pacing was wayyyy too fast. You barely start the game before you get yanked in a totally different narrative direction. It would have been far more interesting if the player was given time explore what it was like to live on the mining station and build rapport with the characters in their previous life before getting jettisoned to a new segment of the plot.
-Your uncle left you 'residence X' in his will is one of the most overtropped premises in smut games.
- You are the last of a ancient bloodline is one of the other most overtropped premises in a smut game .
-No alien chicks.

Neutral:
*Low key disappointed when the gnome-looking character's daughter wasn't actually a short-stack
*No H content yet- so I didn't consider it when making my rating.

So for an intro it isn't that bad. There is just enough plot to get you interested and then it stops.
PROS
The writing is pretty decent
The characters are a little bland, but have room to grow
The story isn't bad
CONS
No harem tag. LOL
Seems like it'll be a grindy VN(hopefully not)
OVERALL
Story is decent enough to grab your attention and keep you interested with how things progress.
Has a feel that there might be some grinding involved some where down the line of updates, but maybe not.
I recommend giving this VN a try. Hopefully there won't be months and months between updates, and that it won't slip off of the radar.
Good luck to the Dev(s) I'll keep my eye out for further updates