Tl:dr: Realistic characters try to deal with an awkward scenario in a mature way, in an entertaining story, feat. (Borat voice) bobs and vagene, very nice.
I will be honest, before deciding to give this game a try, I was skeptical. First of all, the average rating was slightly below my usual threshold for games on this site. I'm also not a huge fan of Honey Select models, especially if they are to portray Non-Asian races. There were complaints about the dev's integrity and reliability in the reviews and in the thread too. Finally, this is the very first release, which I usually avoid anyway, due to the lack of substantial content and lack of proper reviews.
But that is when I realised that I played the dev's previous game, Stormside, which I enjoyed very much, not having noticed until now that it was abandoned. Obviously, it's not a good sign when a dev abandons a promising project this far into its development for a new project. The initial complaints and skepticism seemed valid.
Until I read the dev's explanation and project plan for Studio Hearts from his Patron, that was luckily shared on f95 in the Stormside thread (which is also pasted in the Developer Notes, I just noticed. Oh well).
This and the excellent and very fair and nuanced reviews from some of the smarter people on here, have finally convinced me to give it a go anyway.
Let me just tell you that I did not regret that decision. Other users have already summed up the game pretty well, and as I mentioned, the Developer Notes include some insides from the dev on what to expect from the game, so I don't intend to dwell too much on those general aspects.
I just wish to address a few things that have been discussed in the reviews and in the thread.
"The MC is a simp. Yuck!"
Is he though? To be fair, I understand where commenters are coming from. His behaviour is a little cringe and he definitely gives off an introverted loner vibe. However, I find his character to be refreshingly authentic. He is in no ways a hardcore simp that mindlessly and submissively allows for a stranger to use him, i.e. financially abuse his naivety. Does the relationship between MC and the cam girl seem natural? No. Is it supposed to? Also no. The dev makes a very good attempt at letting the player feel the awkwardness of the whole situation, as other reviewers already said. Both characters are aware that their connection is very much based on a conflict of interest, on an unbalanced scale between, essentially, a customer and a service provider. He is supposed to simply jerk it because she is hot, and she is supposed to like him for the financial support. But is this really all? Could there ever be more to it?
The game offers a very ambitious and unique scenario by providing an opportunity for this fantasy to play out: The viewer gets to romance the cam girl.
Now I understand that at this point a lot of people will roll their eyes at this. "'To romance', he says, ha!". While many will feel this approach is the epitome of simp behaviour, of a typical cuck or whatever, since she is a "cam whore", the dev manages to portray her believably in two different sets of light: Her "work self", the ever horny and flirty cam girl that likes to show of and entertain her viewers. And her "every day self", that is much more reserved, grounded and insecure. It becomes very clear to the player, that behind this "act", there lies a "normal" woman that is simply performing, working, doing her job.
Many people seem to be unaware of the irony when they look down on such a character, when in reality, most of us are not much more than "whores", working for a "master", performing our daily dance simply to be rewarded with the opportunity to live a life of our own choice.
"Shut up, simp, it's pathetic to defend a whore", some people might think now. Fair enough. All I'm saying is that the scenario provided by the dev makes sense, the girl is making a lot more money than most of her peers by, admittedly, following a somewhat questionable profession, allowing her to step up in the world. Because if you lot were truly honest to yourselves, deep down, you know that most of you would suck your own dicks on camera every day for 6 hours if that potentially paid you 5-20 times your current salary.
Anyways, enough of that. My point is that the characters are authentic. They act maturely and logically, they feel like actual humans. The writing is very competent, the dialogue feels natural and effortlessly funny at times, something that is rare within porn games that usually drift between unintelligible drivel with questionable grammar and robotic ChatGPT verbiage that sounds like aliens pretending to be humans.
Visually, as mentioned in the beginning, everything is based on Honey Select models and assets. Personally, it's not my favorite style, however, the dev is brining pretty much the best out of the engine, if you ask me, similarly to his previous work Stormside. Girls look like humans and only slightly like dolls, there are some fairly natural facial expressions and the animations are smooth and nice to look at, especially the cam loops. Even the MC looks fairly normal, which I rarely see in games using HS. Ethnically, characters look relatively authentic, the dev managed to make the models look less "Asian", which is fairly difficult using the HS character creator, in my opinion.
All in all, I don't see this aspect of the game as a problem at all. It might lack a little bit of the refined details from Stormside, I suppose. But it seems like the dev is keen to improve on it, it's still very much serviceable already.
Gameplay wise, opinions seem to differ from player to player. Personally, I very much enjoy the dev's effort to give the player the opportunity to engage in the cam sections of the game. I'm all for immersion and it's a nice touch that you get to actively interact with chat. The phone feature works well too, the game is generally programmed competently. I always applaud devs trying to include additional code to enhance the player experience.
The moderator part of the game, as engaging as it may be, does not seem to have an effect though so far. I personally would not mind if it did, as I am a fan of meaningful player interactions in such games. However, I understand that some players might be too lazy or anxious or whatever to bother with such things. Also, the dev is clear in trying to reduce any unnecessary branching and bloating of the game, which I am generally in favor of for one-man projects like this.
Which brings me to my next point.
"Fuck it though, I can't trust a dev who failed to deliver a finished project before!". Fair. However, I'm opting to give the benefit of the doubt in this case. I believe the dev that he simply overburdened himself with his previous project. After all, it is not unheard of for ambitious first-time developers to get crushed underneath their own expectations and heaps of ideas and characters that snow ball into an unmanageable tangle of routes, paths and endless threads. Making mistakes is human and while I partially agree with some of the criticism in how this was handled, I am still willing to give someone a second chance if I believe they learned from the mistakes, such as in this case.
However, as the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". The dev must be well aware that he is expected to deliver with this one.
What is there left to say now?
I wish the dev good luck in reaching his artistic goal with this project. It really is promising. I actually like this one more than Stormside, simply because it is more grounded in reality, both with the characters and the scenario. While it will most likely offer much fewer characters and story deviations, I am optimistic that the quality and consistency of this tile will benefit from the focus on what the dev really wants to portray.
That being said, I implore Atemsiel to not listen to too much feedback and trust in his vision. Usually, the end product will be better by staying true to itself, rather than trying to appeal to too many different tastes and voices.
Hate me for it if you will, but I give this a 5/5 as of right now, simply because I believe in the potential of this story.
