HTML - The Guide to Being Assertive [v0.3.2.3 Public] [AnonymousMan]

Reviewed at v0.3.2.3

The Good:

- The writing is engaging and plentiful, at least for the intro. There's a good base here, but it's only for the intro section which lasts a couple hours at most.

The Bad:

- The transformation is pretty much entirely handwaved away, why? No idea. Not even the barest macguffin to explain how the MC spontaneously transforms from a man into a woman (with associated sex organs). The transition happens pretty quickly, and while you do have some control over the body type you end up with it's not very clear how some early decisions map to the different outcomes.

- The intro is where most of the game exists at the time of this review, beyond it, once you get into the daily life cycle everything gets much more threadbare. Since many of the character arcs have yet to be implemented, there's very little point in playing until the game is complete. Based on other reviews, that might take awhile.

This review is for v0.3.1 Public

So I had been avoiding this game for quite a while now due to the fact that it just never appealed to me the first time I opened the game and got lectured about how actual BDSM works...for a fantasy porn game where you are forcing people to turn into your slaves...kinda pretentious and hypocritical if you ask me just right off the bat.

That little tidbit aside, the reason I rated this game poorly is because this game has been in development since the end of 2021, is largely text based, and yet has almost no content actually present.
You don't even have to play the game to see this red flag as just opening the image folders shows that most characters are completely incomplete, only having a series of different headshots IF that in some cases as several characters only have one headshot period.
So there is an extreme lack of content in this game that has been in development for over three years now.

So the lengthy development time, lack of content, and an affronting level of text on the main page of the game really doesn't do this game any favors.

The writing itself is decent, although there are typos and grammar issues, but the main issue is the sheer amount of text you have to get through for every single event including the intro.
Thankfully you can skip the intro, but skipping it actually kinda screws you over at the beginning because you don't get as many opportunities for things such as relationship points, BUT you also have to read between the lines in the intro if you want to have any hope of playing the game the way you actually want to play because if you make even just one wrong choice you will wind up with something you didn't plan for.

As for the concept, it is a neat one that deserves better treatment as there doesn't seem to be enough games that allow you to actually change the NPCs around you in so many ways, and most of the ones that do tend to either get abandoned or fall into the trap of being extremely grindy.

So overall, a game that has been in development for this long should already have at least several characters fully completed rather than the...one(?) that currently has a completed path in the form of Annie and should not have so many walls of text and vague choices when you are supposed to be a growing manipulator of men and women alike.
There is no sense of progression or accomplishment for the most part, and that really drags the game along to the point that it took me two sittings to even get through the intro because I was worried that it was just a VN in disguise because the intro is just wall of text after wall of text with very little control until you finally get out of it.

Like others have said, this game has a lot of potential, however as it stands there is a lot missing.

The biggest issue for me is the lack of time in a day to get anything meaningful done. After work you have little time to split between trying to raise kink interest or work on other things. There needs to be more time in a day to get things done.

+Kink system is interesting as well as the range of interests.
+options for being a friend or dominating
+character creation system at start is good (could maybe use a little more context to help you guess what might happen.)
+good range of initial characters that give you a sense of where you can take certain things in the future with kinks/progression.
+Good UI design at times.
+PC artwork doll for the face is well done, would be nice to see it expanded for the whole body.
+Good selection of images/gifs (I normally hate real porn but the selection here was well done)

-Bad UI design at times, things get a bit crowded and could be spaced out better.
-lack of content currently, but it's still being made so that is expected.
-overly grindy
-money system is a bit weird
-customization via clothing etc is non existent
-Days are short.


What's stopping it from being 4 starts + for me?

Lack of content (I know it's being worked on, this is a review for the game at its current state.)
Certain game mechanics feel off.
Days are too short to get anything done.
Needs a better UI design for task and NPC tracking.

I hope the dev continues to refine this game into an amazing one. You can see the light through the cracks, just depends if they get there or not.

Be advised, despite what it says on the front page, this game was first released on Wed Jun 24, 2020. Please keep that in mind when evaluating.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've given a game less than three stars, and so far I've always regretted doing so. I can say the same about The Guide to Being Assertive; I derive no pleasure in giving bad reviews.

The problem with this game is that it does not progress, and is instead mired in both overture and middle ground. Furthermore, the intense, monotonous, soul-crushing grind doesn't give any indication of progress towards milestones (if they exist) nor what the reward or game/story change might occur as a result of that milestone. Worse still, there are numerous examples where despite the aforementioned grind and seeing 'numbers go up' that there is in fact nothing to be achieved on those paths.

This should be good game. It very well could be a good game. As you can see from the numerous reviews, it has the potential to do so. Good writing. innovative concept, pleasing UI/UX, and an interesting cast of characters. But that's it. In the years that I've been following this game, I've never found reason to vocally support it because AnonymousMan seems to have no intent to create a meaningful game with meaningful progress. And when I say meaningful, I don't mean just sex as a milestone in the corruption of characters and the development of the protagonist (although that would be nice), but any sort of real development of relationships, plot, etc.

At this point, I'm done with this game. I'm no longer following it, no longer giving it any money. 2+ years was more than enough for me to learn my lesson. Until AnonymousMan decides to buckle down and start truly developing this game rather than self-indulgently (or fearfully?) dicking around in the proverbial "Act 1" -- I swear, this is akin to waiting on GRRM or Rothfus -- then this game is no longer worth my time, nor yours.

Excellent base! Quality writing and game design all around. Now it just needs to be filled out with content. It's such a tease that the storylines don't really go anywhere yet...

I hope the author continues to update the game!

Great writing, great potential, interesting story with a lot of branches. Visuals a well selected, although a bit scarce. However, this game has a major flaw: It is not balanced. Meaning - to get even the smallest amount of progress you need tons of grinding. A lot of the game mechanics is not explained anywhere and it is extremely masochistic to play without cheats. There are situations where the only way to move forward is to cheat. Otherwise it would take you 8-10 hours of grinding just to see if what should happen, would happen.

What can be improved: Reduced grinding, better statistics which show (for example) if watching porn has some influence or not. Does it matter if the MC is calm or horny? How does the clothes and shoes affect others (if it does)? Why I have maxed all of the NPC stats but I cannot progress further with him/her? Doesn't that make stats obsolete? Doesn't that make the game playable only with a walkthrough and cheats? Where is the fun in that?
Dev, please either reduce the grind, so we can uncover ourselves the mechanics of the events needed for progress or reduce the grind and provide in-game hints. Otherwise this game would be a lot of wasted potential.

The story is good. The interface is great. I love the way you can transform characters. The way their avatar changes.

The only problem is the HUGE amount of grinding this game takes. It's just ridiculous. It's my third day playing and I haven't even reached one sex scene.

Things I wish this game had:
1. A faster paced story
2. A shemale/futa NPC option (especially for sibling)
3. If not a faster paced story, then at least faster relationship increase (i.e. increase in obedience, friendship and decrease in resistance)
4. Perhaps a debug or cheat menu that can progress the story faster?

The potential is massive. Fleshed out, this game will be a gem. At the moment, its fairly barebones. The largest complaint that most people have is the game is a bit grindy, with unclear instructions on how to proceed for most events.

Requires an unholy amount of grinding and is overall very generic, leans heavily on mid tier images and gifs to provide sexual content has potential if given an overhaul and better dialogue/descriptions

I'll be honest, this might be the first time I have given a game -one that has most of the fetishes I look for, btw- a one star rating.

First things first, the intro: It's SO long I didn't even realize I was in one, it's insane, like honestly, it was so long I just assumed it wasn't even an intro to begin with, or that it had finished at some point without me realizing it. But that's whatever, long intro, so what? Not worth complaining about.

The problem however is... Well, the rest of the game, or lack there of. The grind is insane, like I must be two hours deep into the game at this point, there's no sexual content nowhere to be seen.

I thought 'well, this grind is a bit much to get a single scene but I can push through it', so I did. I gave the game another half an hour until realizing the scenes weren't showing up anytime soon, so I came to check the comments for help, because btw, don't expect some help from the game, no guides, no clues, no nothing.

When I checked the comments I realized a funny thing, which explained a lot of stuff tbh. There's no scenes to be triggered, because there's no content to be found in a game six months deep into development. A mostly text based game, at that.

You can't even call this a grind, because there's no stuff to grind for, other than a bunch of stats that don't mean anything, just a bunch of random numbers that MIGHT mean something in the future.

All in all, it's a disappointment. You might wanna give this game a try in uh... About a year? Right now, it's just not worth it.

Unless of course you happen to like clicking numbers and rereading the same interactions with a character again and again to get no reward whatsoever out of it. If that is your thing , then this might just be the greatest game ever.

Yeah, I'll be honest, this wasn't really my cup of tea.

It goes downhill pretty much from the get-go. You are immediately thrust into what is probably the longest intro sequence I've ever seen in a porn game, one which you are not allowed to save during (not through cookies or to your disk), so if something comes up while you're playing, and you have to quickly leave, well, sorry, but you get to replay it all now.

The intro sequence itself was really unsatisfying, too, because it pretty much skips the whole premise of why a lot of people play these games. A character who starts having thoughts that maybe they aren't who they thought they were, and their journey through that process of discovery and transition. However, again, this game skips that. Your character immediately goes through the transition to a more feminine body in the intro, and it's not very gradual either, like you wake up one morning, and you've already got some subtle bone changes and small breasts. You wake up the next morning, and you look even more feminine, your boobs and butt have grown more. And it continues like this, just rushing through the process. It's the same with the other aspects of the transition, as well. The process of slowly getting longer and more feminine hairstyles is rushed, the process of getting slightly feminine clothing and working your way up to outright feminine clothing and skirts and dresses and such is rushed. Everything is just rushed and forced on you in the intro sequence, and it leaves a really unsatisfying taste in the mouth.

As far as the character progression and questing/events go, I don't really have much to say because I don't know what to do. Normally in games like this, the quest is just you progressing along your journey of transition, again, slowing buying and wearing more feminine clothes, wearing make-up, etc... however, with this game, it's all already done for you, so you're left with the question of what the hell am I supposed to do now? The game certainly doesn't give you anything to work towards.

You just go to work and interact with characters. And as far as characters, you feel as lost with them as you do the game itself. There is no event tracker or message telling you to "get this stat to this level and this stat to this level and something will happen" or "go here at this time to see an event", you just aimlessly build stats for the characters and nothing ever happens.

All in all, the game feels very empty and lifeless, and leaves the players aimlessly clicking around wondering "what now", only the answer never comes.

Having loved their work since Cursed, I can say AnonymousMan hasn't lost their touch. This is an amazing concept, the foundation is laid amazingly well, they obviously learned alot from Cursed, and the sheer amount of content and written dialogue for just being a 'framework' shows that this rocket is just fueling up. This ones gonna launch with a big content patch and be as huge as any other. Might even knock Perverted Education or even Trapquest off its throne. I for one an thoroughly impressed and cant wait for more!

I played the game, interesting in the ideas and how it would work.
Probably echoing all the comments and reviews that will be posted at this point, but really grindy for the characters (I would recommend boosting the stat changes with every choice that happens)
I have some personal things I would change like the save system, I like to save often and go back to choices that i messed up, and probably a tab of what to do for each character in the game would be helpful to move on to the next event.

Game themes have great potential.

Sadly, it lacks game tips, and the clothing system needs to be strengthened. You can try to add boots and more abnormal clothes.

Finally, I would like to say that I am optimistic about the author and come on

I want to be fair, but jesus this thing is very, very grindy and there's no walkthrough or indication or even tips of what to do or when.
Interesting idea and plenty to do, but how to do it with people I don't know and how to use stuff even less.

Most problems can be fixed with a simple solution, like tips and/or a walkthrough.
I hope to see this improve in the future