RPGM - Onhold - The Rise of Vruk [v0.19] [KilljoyTRV]

I really like the idea of this game.
But, uh... there's a problem.

You see, my type in games is an explorer. I won't rest until I click on every tree in the forest, try all the answer options to find the best one, explore the whole map, etc.

And it would seem that for such players - this game should have been perfect.

But it isn't.

Even being as meticulous as I am, I was not able to normally do a single side quest.

The conditions for completing them are just too strict. This game requires you to have some incredible intuition and proper timings to successfully close something other than the main storyline.

I realize it's rogue-like, but even so... Even with a text-based walkthrough guide in front of me - I couldn't fully understand it and do the quests.

In other words: this game is too difficult. The author has clearly confused the purpose of porn games. I mean, they're more for relaxing and unwinding, not jerking off pixels and counting hours. Right?

Even though the game doesn't penalize you in almost any way for not doing sidequests, it's still unpleasant.
The author should increase the time windows for doing certain actions later on. Then it would really be possible to pass normally.

However... That's just a dream. I do realize that the game is abandoned and will probably never be finished.
Too bad. Because the idea is incredibly good. As well as many other aspects of the game. But I feel a need to change approach to complexity a bit.

the lockpick mini game is super redundant, which is required if you want to progress specific characters. i was using the apk with chromebook, and that meant using a mouse, which made he game very difficult. i had to try over a hundred times just on one door, which you have to try multiple times to access other events.

So to start off, I was a big fan of the original game (A Goblin's Tale) this was based on. Unfortunately, the dev gave up, and someone ended up taking over a sort of spin off project. These games are very similar reusing many of the old plot points, which is fine. However, the extremely slow pace of development, along with the game-breaking bugs, and poor game design (i.e. no decent quest journal + repetitive tasks) make this game very difficult to recommend.

This game had some potential as it plenty of ideas and storylines from its predecessor. What the end result is after a year or so of development though is disappointing. So many repetitive tasks (getting gold especially) make the game extremely tedious. It makes it laboriously time-consuming to get anything done in the game.

The poor game design is related to the dialogue mechanic, wherein you have to read many walls of uninteresting, or poorly-written, text with grammatical errors to find the hidden objective of the mission. The journal only gives you the vaguest idea of what to do. Some missions are time-sensitive, and if you're not aware of exactly how to complete them, you could run out the invisible timer and break your game, not being able to advance the story.

The lack of H-content is also seriously disappointing considering how much time (hours) you have to put in to get a new scene. For an H-game, this is really bad. People mostly play these types of games for the erotic content, and this game makes you really jump through hoops to get to it, and it's not satisfying at all once you finally see some. Even if you don't think the H stuff should be the primary part of the game, it's still rather lacking. There has been a new wave of these goblin type games that came out since A Goblin's Tale, and they do a much better job getting straight to the content, and the writing for these games is much better; the goblin protagonists have just as much if not more character development/story in those games.

In my opinion, this game is under-supported, and it's not worth more than looking at the CG pictures in file explorer (most of which are on the main page already). There are similar games that do the job better. For these reasons, I can't recommend this game. The spinoff hope was fun while it lasted.

i cant skip time and so the game is not progressing i cant continue to this game game have many time skip bugs game story to continue time skip very slow due to time skip i have to go somewhere else The story is not bad, but the gameplay is very difficult sometimes I get very angry because the story progresses very slowly.

Poorly designed in the context of lewd games.

There is so much of skipping time and nonsense traveling between locations because a) you have to be in right time in a right place and b) game's journal/hint system/dialogue is just terrible at doing it's job. Like your character says that you should break in to someone's house when they are not there, but there are nothing to do there when you get there. Or the journal states that you should visit someone at X location in the afternoon, but actually you need to first talk to them in Y location at noon.

There are game braking bugs that make progression impossible. Game also likes to kill you for smallest of mistakes because designer seems to think it is fun to reload your saves. There are instances where autosave can save you in unavoidable instant game over situation.

Renders are mix of subpar to medium quality and "animation" of switching two images back and forth is plainly ugly.

Add to this all the default rpg maker junk that makes these games insta skip for some (like standard grindy battles against usual rpg monsters) and you get something that is best to be avoided. Game's main problem is just very bad core design and on top of that is sprinkling of various crap with very little anything unique or worth of your time.

Character development is like this:
That girl is a whore but she doesnt know it yet, or that girl is a whore and im gonna fuck her.
The game doesnt take itself seriously but the girls are stupid as bags of rocks, or horny whores, or n the case of vera "a strong independant woman submitted into a whore by the power of plot.
Renders area atrocious, camrawork is pretty default, most of the sex scenes are 1 static shot with 2 poses to simulate and animation.
Game progresion logic is weird and quest track is as simplistic as a journal with a vague description.

Autosave is well... I just went to a place and died, and the autosave saved before the game over. It is really attrocious. Really really really low quality.

Generally good and fun goblin corruption game in development, taking away one star for the poorly operating and designed lockpick minigame that is difficult to use but also worse, buggy / freeze prone.

Some of the missions / paths are quite hard to properly unlock. But just get a walkthrough.

Otherwise I love it. Nice buildup,. girls are really hot, writing is good. Most of all nice cock and huge loads

Pritty good game with a nice corruption path and an interesting story. It gets regular updates und the story is interesting.

You will have to read the story and fallow the hints otherwise you wont be able to conclude the story and cant play the game.

Fun game with a compelling story. My only issue with it is the fact that it relies on dialogue to tell you what to do. On its own this is good, but it can cause grief if you unintentionally skip past it as there is no way to look back. Fortunately the coming addition of the journal should rectify this. (review is for v0.15)

The base game is interesting but the lack of proficiency in some aspects spoils everything a bit. To play the mac version I came up with everything and in the end I had to create one myself. I look forward to the next update with a lot of expectations

So, i don't like games with male character (it's my fetish ), but this game really interested me and i like story in this game, characters and graphic design. Maybe, this game not for everyone, but if u like to be a monster, fu#k some girls and make your own tribe (not yet implemented in version 0.14), this game for u!

Reviewing v0.14 of TROV.

I think writing in this "variant" of Vruk's story is a lot better than previous iterations. Clearly the writers are laying down some foundation for a bigger story, and while sometimes convoluted, it generally works to the benefit of the developer.

Combat systems are decent and not a total grind, which can be a huge + with RPGM games, and there seems to be added functionality on the way. I will say that grinding for money using bat wings can be tedious, but not too overbearing.

The parts that I think need the most work are just the quest log and hints. This is an adult game, and the dev has to consider that people are going to skip dialogue for the naughty bits. In a similar vein, the game over systems can be annoying. While I'm not saying get rid of them totally, being a little more lenient (or adding some stronger hints/directions in the quest log) could curb some critics.

I'm going to say 4/5 for now, because it has a lot of potential and is being developed at a faster pace than previous "variants". This may change later but for now, it's worth watching.

The Rise of Vruk (v.014)

This is one of the examples of a rpg done wrongly. The abandoned predecessor by Pupsi "A Goblin’s Tale" was actually somewhat better.

The quest design of this game is terrible and super annoying and works like this: skip time, go A, go B, skip time, collect X, collect Y, skip time. If you might miss something on the way, the quest might not be solvable any more.
Actually the rpg genre can't be blamed, since quest designs can be a lot better. Hence it's the problem of a bad developer, which does bad game design decisions.

For the time beeing no help nor hints are provided during quests other than the initial quest dialogue. Therefore the player is forced to remember every silly dialogue, instead of having a proper quest log including most of the required info like most other developers do. (Or including at least a dialogue history so that people can scroll back and see, what they might be missing, if dialogues are that important.)

If you happen to be at the wrong time (there is morning, noon, afternoon, evening and night), but in the right place, you can waste countless time in this game trying to do the quests.
Most often quests won't even show in the quest log, like the Gita one, which includes a 3 day timer to solve it - if not you are screwed, because you'll be blocked from all future erotic content with her.

So you have to remember all the necessary info from the dialogue, which most often isn’t enough. If asked on f95 or discord, the dev will give cryptic or snippy answers, if any. (At least he and his team used to be extremely arrogant; he might have changed this kind of behaviour just recently.)

Minigames like the lockpicking are also annoying, if you have to do it again and again. There should be an auto-solve option, if done 5 times successfully, instead of this tedious redundancy.

The game also includes a lot of annoying grind, because the money distribution is horrible.
I wonder what kind of game testers don't complain about this terrible grind? (Earning money and costs for crucial items might be more balanced in future versions, but for the time beeing it's totally broken.)
Without extensive save editing/cheating it's not enjoyable at all in case you don't want to do pointless, redundant tasks over and over again in order to grind money and therefore wasting your time within the quite ugly rpgm engine.

For new players it's not possible to see in-game by some kind of notification, if a quest is finished and can be solved in the current build or not. The dev leaves this open in the quest log, so you might find yourself wasting hours in this sorry excuse of a game, trying to do something, which isn’t finished, yet.
Of course you could read the changelog of every version to find out, but better devs simply include a notification in the quest log, if something can’t be finished in the current build.

Unfortunately the dev is very much stubborn and thinks everything is perfect with his game and people just don't pay enough attention to the plot and “great” dialogues. But if several people ask the same questions again and over again, there might be something wrong actually with the quest design and the provided in-game hints to solve some quests. Unfortunately people complaining are treated very much disrespectfully by the dev and his team. (In their eyes everyone getting stuck in this game without properly working quest log is either stupid or too lazy to read the dialogues properly.)

Even the just recently provided official walkthrough for this game is incomplete, deliberately btw. The dev wants to keep some scenes a secret even in the "walkthrough" in order to reward players, who waste countless hours exploring every corner and every ugly pixel. This is really annoying, after all it's not another Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2 with a beautiful game world, where people gladly spend hours of their free time.
I seem to have a completely different understanding of a walkthrough and what it should provide to be called a "walkthrough". Some people don't enjoy trial and error, don't mind spoilers and lack the time to explore the graphically rather ugly game world for hours, but just want to play-through and see all the relevant content a game has got to offer. Unfortunately that's not possible with this dev.

Also the animations of this game are pretty bad. It's most often just 2 or max 3 images put together in a quick loop. That's it.

Furthermore save games aren't compatible to new versions. This means, you've got to start from scratch again, when a new version comes out, which is really annoying.

Finally updates are very irregular.

All in all I really can’t recommend this game, including the behavior of the dev being not capable to bear constructive criticism. The poor rating is well deserved.

Review on 0.14

The story writing is hilarious, I don't get how somebody does not like it. I usually never bother with stories, because" hey it's just a porn game", but the way how this whole town is about to be corrupted is really intriguing. At the same time Vruk has to be on cosntant watch not to be found out. Really nice tension there. While the story is interesting it does not bore the player to death with tedious text walls.

I see the major flaw only with the in-built walkthrough. It often doesn't show what to do next or update the quests properly. Also it seems like it's important to play the quests in a certain sequence.

Also, renders and stuff could be of a little bit more quality by today's standards.

Review for v0.14.

I quite enjoyed this game but it isn't without its flaws.

Firstly the renders aren't my cup of tea; the scenes often have poor lighting and camera angles with poor backgrounds. The characters and sex scenes are good but the image flickering that is regularly employed to simulate motion is just nauseating. Perhaps some crossfade with smaller differences in the images would alleviate this problem?

The storyline is a bit weird; the pregnancy and corruption storylines are good but as the story goes on you are suddenly being presented as Vruk being some kind of husband/fatherly figure. It just doesn't make sense. This is a goblin that has been intentionally manipulating everyone to use his cum to drug and mindbreak any woman he can get his hands on with no remorse and you want me to believe that he is a good guy at heart? Come on! If the creators want to create this kind of story then they need to invest a little more in showing Vruks good side by dribbling out hints that he isn't just the sex mad goblin we think he is. Just dumping some undercooked prose on the player just isn't going to cut it.

Next is the mapping. The map used is almost a direct cut from the game that inspired Rise of Vruk, and thus carries its same issues. If I'm being honest the creators need to let the original map die to create a better one in its place, one more suited to their needs, because at the moment several elements of the story just don't gel with the current map. For example; the recurring quests being placed an absolute mile away from the home base, the dual cellars in the same building (one should really go into the attic) and the god awful bat fighting areas.

The gameplay is your typical jrpg fair, so apart from the tedium I have no real complaints. I think if Vruk was made substantially weaker (with ridiculously high evasion) to necessitate him taking a 'companion' along to hunt bats it would add something to the overall gameplay/storyline. I personally found the lockpicking minigame annoying but I imagine some players enjoyed it. Maybe if the game could be played solely on the keyboard it would make it better? Other than that quicker times Lydia transfer times in the beginning might be a good idea.

Overall though this is a decent game at the moment and its just at the beginning of its development. Truly looking forward to the future updates; particularly if the creators can get a handle on some of the issues I indicated above.

Writing: 9/10
Imagery: 8/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Kinks: 8/10
Overall: 8/10

A step up from the game that inspired tRoV.

I was pretty hyped for what was to come from A Goblin's Tale, but sadly Patreon saw an end to that. (thanks dicks)

So now we have tRoV, taking many of the same ideas from A Goblin's Tale but refining them.

The story has seen a vast improvement, with writing that is far more high brow. Vulk isn't just some fucky-fucky goblin from Goblin Slayer, now he has plans and is willing to wait while they simmer on the back burner. His corruption of the mother is more tactful and less questionable to the daughters, his training of the youngest daughter is more actual training now with subtle hints of the corruption to come, and his interactions with the eldest daughter are more playful to her jabs than outright annoyance.

A lot of the assets are reused, BUT, I can see the beginnings of new content coming in. We have a farm girl who is into the goblin dick, and her hot mother who I have no doubts will eventually be adding goblin spunk to her daily nutritional intake. There's more areas around, but less sporadic content. No shaman goblin, no oil queen, but now we have a hot human queen and a princess? Ok, I'll take it!

There's also plenty of potential to be had. Messing with the women while they're sleeping is super hype, there's plenty of empty homes waiting to be filled with sexy women, and plenty of story left to get to.

Hoping to actually see this one reach it's fruition.

Very ambitious, hopefully it will grow into itself.

You play Vruk, the lone goblin survivor of his tribe after they were wiped out by orcs. You've fled to a nearby kingdom and proceed to plan to turn all the women into your breeding slaves and eventually take revenge on the orcs.

It's got decent renders and a decent plot. I especially like the outfits that seem to be promised for the future. The combat feels forced (like it does in many RPG Maker games). My big gripe at this point is that it's too ambitious. There are screens upon screens of empty buildings that may someday be filled. Meanwhile, the gameplay is very confusing. I have no idea how anyone would find the cave if they hadn't played AGT. It's also really unclear if you've reached the end of current content or just haven't gone everywhere during every time slot.

I'd much rather prefer a game with two or three screens where everything worked and made sense.

That said, this shows a lot of promise and hopefully it fills out and gets some polish.

I love everything about it. The combat is easier, the story is more realistic, sex sound is better and that hot crotch tattoo.


Ps: please DON’T add the cumming face of vruk like in “goblin tale” cuz that disgusting. Who the hell wants to see a guy’s face while his cumming?! Also can you please do “internal view” in the future?

A good game that is steadily adding more with each update. Very humours and engaging to play. Still early days so a little bug prone but they all seem to get resolved or at least explained. Has promise and a wicked sense of humor. I can't wait to see more!
The Dev is a poopy head! Don't know what's going on in this one or what to do next! I step in a fire and die. Try to enter a "peace full" village and die. That and the game is full of non-descript game breaking bugs, so many i can't name a single one. A horrible minigame that takes less then 3 seconds to beat stops me each time i want to break into someones home while they sleep so i can do things to them. Rainys are grender on top of having to move slowly from one place to another, i need a quickerway to get from one spot to another even though the whole map can be crossed in 5 seconds. The autosave is hot garbarge and i can't be arsed saving the game myself so i've lost many hours of progress. And don't get me started on how Lara leaves me even though i hadn't put anyeffort into her and cucks me. NTR if i had read the tags and had seen this "game" had rape or NTR in it i would have never of played 5 hours of it. I just don't get why i have to move around from place to place and click on stuff to see if they work or do stuff this should not be a RPGM game should be a VN because i want to just breeze through the "dialog" and just fap to the ladys as paying attention is for suckers. And look i'll be the first to say that the Dev can make the game however they want to but could they at least cut out all the sarcasm bits in the game that insult me the player. Oh and could someone tell me how to kill that damn Batman CHICKEN piece of SHIT!!!!!