Ren'Py - Stellar Crossroads [v0.70] [Xavster Gaming]

This game lost me as I progressed further into it.

in short.
1. Story became inconsistent as event happen out of order later in the game.
2. to many big systems that are all interdependent to keep track of.
3. simple UI makes the big systems hard to read and understand.

You play as a no-name miner whose last living relative dies, leaving you a forgotten space station. This sets off a series of events. So far, so good—I can work with this.

Then the game shifts to sandbox mode, and you’re hit with the first major system you have to deal with: it’s the Mass Effect mining game. But that’s not all—the station has a rather complex system for handling ore. Since it costs money to sell it, you’re supposed to sell large quantities so that the one-time cost of a sale is less than the earnings. I failed at this and ended up with a total debt of 100,000 credits. Still not completely understanding the UI, I just left it running at something that generated a profit, hoping that it wasn’t important. (It was.)

Of course, the next system you get uses the ore you mine to fabricate materials, then components, and finally spaceships and fighters.

You can ignore it all and just buy the spaceships at a premium, but I have no idea how big that premium is. Honestly, I don’t think it’s worth my time to understand such a complex system. I was also hinted at a broker system, where—if you have the right components—you can sell them for a premium. However, I never found it, or maybe my mind was already glazed over from the sheer volume of text and numbers by that point.

At this stage, I tried to focus on the story and patched my way through the financial system, but the narrative started to fall apart. Events began to trigger out of order. Then, I was hit with two more systems: the Battle Fleets (which you must build using the earlier systems) and the Covert Spy system.

After clicking a few random buttons, I suddenly got invited to a planet for having saved them all with a Special Crop that one of my girls had apparently fabricated. At this point, I had totally lost track of the story and finally gave up.

To me, the story events triggered out of order, and there are simply way too many systems to keep track of.

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