I've read the AVN Shale Hill secrets over the last couple of days
What a long ass, fucking game.... I don't know how many hours it took me to get to the end of the last chapter, but it's been a few... So was it good?, bad?, ugly? something in between?
Apparently this AVN is developed by more than one person and it thankfully doesn't show. The production value is overall pretty high. Good visuals, above average lewd animations, very good usage of ambient sound, decent writing (most of the time that is).
The game is pretty story driven/heavy which is a good, but also not so good thing. I'm not gonna go too much into it, but it's kind of a blown up, conspiracy, corruption, secret computer programs, whatever story.. Overall a bit too much for my taste considering they're all supposed to be just college students.. But the slightly too convoluted story isn't the main problem here. The "problem" is that the other part, the "dating sim" part, takes a bit of a backseat at times. It builds up until you have sex with your LI, but like in most AVN's it doesn't go further until probably very late in the game which is obviously quite common in AVN's, but in this game i'd say it's a bit of a wasted opprtunity. I think a better mix of story and "dating sim" (i hate that word) would make for a slightly better game experience. Especially here where the MC is just so busy all the time trying to make sense of what's happening around him..
I've stumbled over more than 1 occasion where the writer missed out on an opportunity to make it a little more personal/intimate. (imo) For example
To be fair though, i don't know how far we are in this story and how things will develope...Maybe we're still in the early stages? That'd be fucking crazy considering the lenght of the game..
The female cast here is somewhat diverse. I mean there are some stereotypes, but at least they tried to give most of them a little spin to their overall persona. Alexis for example or Alexa?. She's like this bitchy kind of person who insults the MC all the time and tries to take advantage of him for her own agenda.. I didn't like her and that's a good thing in my opinion. She's written consistant which is the most important part here. Or Maggie who's interesting just due to the fact that she's probably the shyest girl ever written in an AVN... It's almost a bit too much, but the writer was clever enough to give her some character growth after a certain point (And yes, that certain point has something to do with the birds and the bees..)
In my run i went for Maggie and Emily, the MCs ex girlfriend. Kind of an odd choice because, even though she's the first person who has a lewd scene in the game, she clearly gives the MC the vibe of her being over him for good and that she has "outgrown" him or something like that..
There's also Leah your "roommate". It was kinda late in the game when i stumbled over a menu in the game where you can change the MC's relationship with her. So yeah, she's definitely supposed to be your sister which makes alot more sense within the story while reading it...
One thing that bugged me a little in this game is the good ol white knighting. You end up helping basically every single girl with something... Well, at least the motives here for doing so aren't the same as in most AVN's. Here you help mostly for the sake of helping.. but it's still abit annoying.
So what's the verdict?. I only played one route, so there are alot of aspects i can't really comment on, but overall it's a pretty solid AVN with a passable plot (so far) and some pacing issues here and there...
