So I played a bit of this game a few years ago, however I wasn't really into it. Especially since at the time it had very little content and I was pretty new to this genre of games.
I've decided to give this game a shot and have played a decent amount the last few day.
So far I'm about 65% into the game and I'm enjoying so far.
I won't put a review right now since it would be unfair towards the devs, but i'll give my first impressions with some pointers.
-The dialogue and the way scenes are described through text are phenomenal. It really adds to the scenes and helps differentiate the dozens of personalities. Outside of a few spelling errors here and there it's pretty solid, even more so considering how much there is in this game.
-For the art, the environment looks great and most of the characters are very well detailed with most having a unique look to them. That being said, I do find it odd that the art style sometimes changes at some parts and reverts back to the older one(this doesn't happen too often though).
-Sex scenes are pretty great for the most part. I do think some of the art doesn't match the dialogue or is fleshed out enough(needed more pictures).
I found it odd when they reused a earlier sex scene from the Gerda storyline when the MC went to go to Harry's house for answer for the pills and his father(during the Mary storyline), it really didn't match the dialogue IMO.
-Sandbox elements are alright, this was probably one of my biggest issues when I played this a few years ago and it's definitely improved by a ton.
-I think the fetishes in this game is what separates it from a lot of other games on here. There's a ton and many more to come, this also leads to controversy since not everyone enjoys most fetishes.
I don't discriminate so I'm for more of them being added/expanded, especially if the devs do a good job for them to fit into the story.
-The red/blue dynamic is really fun and makes MC a lot more fleshed out compared to most other MC's. I thought the back-and-forth would be annoying at first, but I ended up finding it really cool.
-Characters are mostly well-written, but some do need to be more fleshed out or just do out of character actions to progress the story. I'll give credit that there's a huge variety of personalities here and there's a lot to choose from as your favorite depending on your preferences.
-Decisions and the impact they have. This is one of the weakest points here, a lot of decisions don't seem fleshed out/not finished and are so scarce that it really seems odd to implement them here atm. From what I've read there'll be three paths, which are: The corruption path(current one), NTR/Cuckold path and sharing/friendship with Darnell path(correct me if I'm wrong though). It seems like this game will be more fixated on being a straight forward/linear game after you choose which path you want when they're all implemented.
-Pacing, this was pretty good up until the 40% area of the game. My main issue is random characters being put on the sidelines in the middle of their stories, the first example that comes to mind being the Sara storyline being put on hold for a long period out of nowhere. I also find it odd when there's a conflict going on and MC just kinda forgets it for awhile until it come back a week later, this being with the Gerda getting kidnapped storyline in the middle of the Mary arc.
-Progression/guidance. I found the notepad pretty useful, but a few times I had to look in the thread for some clues since they were written in a cryptic manner which was difficult to follow. Overall it's alright and could use a bit of work.
I won't say anything about the grinding aspect(money and stats) since I used the cheats to boost all of it at the beginning. This is because I've already dealt with this stuff often in games like Summertime Saga and I'm just tired of it in most games lol.
Random thoughts on this project:
- The music seems to cut out during scenes later into the game and would only play during the sandbox areas, this will probably be fixed later down the line though.
- This new update added and remade some scenes/characters. That being said, I don't really understand the point of Taksh character tbh. Even if we're early on in his story, I don't get what he really adds to the overall plot.
- This also goes for Roger, however he seems to have a purpose for which I don't really get. IMO Roger is just there to make Darnell look less of a bad guy and be a bad influence on why he is who he is.
It seems like they're trying to make Darnell more of a sympathetic character who's a victim of a destructive surrounding. It's probably to set up the friendship route between Darnell and MC, but I don't think it was needed. You'd have to rewrite a bunch of Darnell scenes too match his personality from the new scenes.
MC is also a pretty shitty person too(almost on Darnell level), so I don't get why the friendship route can't stay the same without Roger.
- The principal seems like a better antagonist instead of Roger for the Darnell/MC teaming up route IMO.
- "That" NTR scene with Mary. Let me just say that I am for NTR, but I like to be done right with a good build up.
I liked the pretend mind control from Mary, it was a cool way to build up the corruption between her and the MC.
I didn't get why Darnell randomly began stalking MC and Mary though, I felt like something was missing there in between. They could fix it by adding a scene where Darnell finds out about MC telling his sister off at the gym and aims to get revenge which lead to the stalking.
I felt like the non-NTR/NTR option should've been put at the school. For example, MC decides to either keep the remote to bring into to class or leave in his locker which will lead to Darnell stealing it.
The scene itself had great tension build up and I understood why Mary stuck with pretending to be mind controlled for the sake of MC. Dialogue and description of it was good too.
However, I thought the MC knowing about it and watching it without taking action made no sense. The MC/Peter with him being either Blue or Red would've stopped that on the spot and would have not stood by and watched considering his level of confidence at that point of the story. I think it would've been better if MC had no clue about it since on this path he's become more confident with the help of Red and doesn't have much fear against Darnell at that point of the story.
Red also randomly disappearing in this part was just a weird decision too.
Biggest flaw with it is the scene itself, there's literally no proper groping or any BJ scene there. If you're gonna put the scene in the game at least put effort into it, if not just wait until the full NTR update.
-For the future of the Darnell/MC rivalry, it should be them trying to one up each other. Like MC trying to get with Darnell's sister or Darnell's trying to get with Mary/Tiffany behind their backs.
I also think Darnell is a solid antagonist for the main and NTR path.
In conclusion, I'm glad I gave it another chance and hope the future is bright for this game. I'll play the rest soon as well. It's also nice to know there's a dev in here who's pretty interactive with the fans!
Idk how often this game gets updated or in how large each update is, so that's something I'll look out for in the future.
If there's any extra info you guys can tell me about, go ahead and have a great day!
PS: sorry for the long text, I didn't expect to write this much lol.