Ren'Py - Supermodel Snapshot [v2.1.0] [Belle]

Maybe I'm being unfair, but I really thought this was gonna be a sexy game that was primarily built around a TCG-style card game which gamified the slow buildup of trust and heat that happens during a photo shoot. Maybe I just had unreasonable expectations, maybe I was drawing too much of my expectation for this game from News Desk, one of my favorite sexy games due in large part to its TCG-style card game. But no, I think I was being perfectly reasonable. I think my expectation that the card play would be central to this game was based primarily on the fact that Belle released the card game as a standalone demo before a single word of dialogue from the VN was ever seen. I think it's reasonable to take that as a sign that the card game element was gonna be the centerpiece of the game.

Well, it isn't. If you're here because you're looking for adult games that have actual gameplay as the central component, keep right on looking. This is the usual extremely wordy, lengthy, "barely even counts as a game" VN, with a few photo shoots sprinkled in. The VN goes on for ten chapters before you even get a tutorial for the card game. And once you get there, the card game really doesn't matter at all, as far as I can tell. All you have to do to unlock the next chapter of the VN is beat the card game once on the lowest difficulty. If there's any kind of branching paths or different progression as a result of different outcomes in the card game, there certainly isn't any clarity or guidance about that. The card game is just a brief pit stop in the middle of the VN, and it's so ancillary that the preferences screen includes the option to skip it entirely. I can easily imagine that someone who checked that box would be left wondering where the card game was even supposed to factor in, given how inconsequential it is.

I followed the development of this game for a while, so I wasn't surprised about any of that by the time I actually played it, but it's still a pretty huge disappointment compared to what I was hoping it would be when the standalone card game was first released. It brought to mind some older sex games I played online, where the player character is a photographer, and you try to seduce the model or slowly get them more comfortable with taking their clothes off over the course of the shoot. Not only is the card play not a central element of this "game," the photoshoots that they're simulating aren't even sexy.

It's just a complete disappointment all around. I'm not gonna give it 1 star because the card game did take some thought and effort to make, but I wish the dev would've actually built a *game* around it, instead of just shoving it in the middle of yet another entry in the endless slew of barely-interactive VN's.

I'm so confused how the dev of one of the best vn's ever decided to make a crappy card game - and it is crappy - the entire game is decided by whether you get a confidence 1 card in the first 2 rounds. nothing else matters.

Its nothing but dragging some numbers around a supper unbalanced playing field. I guess it's supposed to be a battle of wills but the 'model'has challenge cards which completely remove your cards yet you dont have the same.

At the moment theres no scenes related to this 'game' but the description does imply that is coming, even then I can't see how you will get into it if interactions are governed by a card game

The UI is polished and smooth as you'd expect from this dev. The game is descriptive so you can understand what to do as a non card-game player, but it's not enough

Realistically based on this gameplay i'd give it a terrible/one star. I increased it a little bit since it may just be that i dont 'get' the idea of having a card game in an adult game

Since this is a concept-demo, rather than a game, you can ignore the rating.
I'm giving feedback on v. 2.1.0.

I played a couple of games, and the feeling I got was that the system was perfectly fine for what it's designed for, which is to support the story of a VN. The more detail, specific moods and emotions you can convey through this card-game, the better it will work. That, of course, might conflict a bit with the generic nature of some of the engine-cards and such, but I'm sure this is the kind of format, where very designed, thematic "gimmick" encounters, especially for the late-game, would be very appropriate.

Some specific stuff I though about during play:

- The discard-pile should be public information. Pretty obvious, and probably just a case of an early version.

- You could probably highlight a little square or space somewhere that you could also drag/flick instant action-cards in, while also keeping the current function of just dragging them to the center of the screen (on top of engines). This is just a small thematic consideration I have. Now that I thought about it, I wonder if it would be better to keep played instant cards "on the board" until end-phase, just to future-proof balance issues...

- Obviously, this game shines through "status-effects" like burnout, which force you to make choices with your plays and deckbuilding, and I hope you design the late-game encounters around that.

- Overall, everyone is going to have their own tolerance of where the line of "not thematic enough" goes, when it comes to card-design. As I said, I prefer very thematic cards, and for me, cards like "Tripod" and "Coffee" went a little bit to the boring side, if you think about actually playing them in the scenario. "Mutual Understanding" and "Encouragement" were the type I liked, in that their theme fit what the card did, and also fit what you would be trying to do in a shoot.

Lastly, the BIGGEST issue I have with the gameplay, is that is literally puts the heroine in the background, when she should be at the front. This is an issue of the visual presentation not quite living up to how you want to convey the "heat" of the shoot rising. The current system of background-images just isn't quite good enough, in my opinion, even if you were to add something like progression to the heroine as the heat rises.

As a kind of minimum, I would hope that the final product would have a more animated heat-gauge, with the Heat-UI refleting more on the level of sexual tension through more evocative visuals, than just the simple, though readable, blue-to-red.

The screen is already quite full, so the space for expressing further mood and escalation is limited, and the game is probably quite far along, but I would still hope to see some kind of small consideration of "focus" on the heroine within the play-screen. It could be as simple as a face-portrait in a corner that changes through the shoot, evocative cut-ins or a sprite. Just something about the focus of the shoot, that is on the foreground.
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I really enjoyed your previous game, so I hope this project does well. This was just my opinion after a very brief time with the game, so you probably disagree with a lot of it. I recon I could be wrong on a lot of things, except for the thing about putting the heroine in the foreground (in more than her cards).

The biggest reason I can't see this system quite standing on it's own, is that you couldn't build very different decks with it. I'm aware that it's just a concept, and that it's bad form to just say "I wish there was more/different content", but this system feels more like one that is better suited to having a core that you tweak for certain scenarios, and not one where you can build many different kinds of ways and express yourself, which is a bit of a shame, but ultimately not a great concern if it's purpose is to support a specific story.