I enjoyed the previous Strive quite a bit. character/inventory Management, exploration, combat, and sex mechanics all worked well. The writing was sparse, but serviceable. My only complaint was the lack of images for sex actions (Most Slave management games I've played have either generic or character specific images/gifs and for me these add a lot to the experience).
Thoughts on this demo compared to the previous game:
Cons
- The timer gauge feels kind of tedious. I prefer having limited actions per day, or limiting actions with a fatigue/stamina mechanic
- I find numbered stat ranks easier to parse than descriptive stat ranks (e.g. "5" rather than "Great").
Mixed
- I'm ambivalent about the differences in the kinds of stats included.
- I have mixed feelings about exploration. I like the details on race/population shown for regions, but I find it less intuitive to navigate. It's cool that there's an option to send multiple parties to different locations. It might help if there was a button on the character's screen to go to their current location
Pros
- I'm a sucker for games with lots of advancement options: I like the ideas of an expanded class system with class trees/advanced classes and new upgrades for your mansion.
- The new actions for things like farming and smithing bring more variety and I like the idea of classes focused on these activities
- I like having a shared class system for both protags and slaves rather than having backgrounds for protags and specializations for slaves.
- I like having more races to choose from for my protag and starting slave/assistant.
- The info windows that appear when hovering the mouse over icons show up more quickly than some of those in the original Strive.