Ren'Py - Time Loop Hunter [v0.74.00] [Hydrahenker]

Review based on v0.9
Short review: This game starts with an interesting story that involves repeating same days, average renders, but soon the player gets into this terribad grind gameplay that kills the game for the sake of being longer ?

The gameplay in short is a huge number of choices that lets u unlock new info and new actions by repeating the days, which is taken to a xtreme degree of grind that kills the game/makes it obtuse (just take a look at the walkthrough and were only with 2 days playable right now...).

I see that the developer tried to fix this by adding an option of u saving part of the time loop but that only proves to be most useful when u following a walkthrough and even then the game still feels 2 grindy and obtuse.

The solution to this problem is very simple and focuses on 2 points:
1- Drastically reduce the number of steps needed to advance each story (if ur just going to add grind with little to no fun/reward maybe better tone it down...)
2- Add significant content for each few steps so it is actually rewarding and fun

Time loops are fun, fits the natural method of play of most games where you wind up quick saving and going back repeatedly anyway. Huge potential for expansion and I like the way that discovery works as well as having actually meaningful decisions that make sense and are intuitive (you don't have to use a guide to find all the shit.) Unlike games that advance time and run out of content and have pacing issues the system lets you advance through the world at your own rate and in order of your own interests while still requiring you to figure things out to progress and unlock new content.

Increasing the clarity of the options once you've "discovered" them makes it easier for players to recognize new and old routes and as more days are added planning out what decisions to make and what things you need is a great form of gameplay. Especially since it keeps the player focused on the story, allowing the game to be lengthy without being grindy which is a problem for most of these games.

Having factors that reset every loop (events, story, relationships) and factors that don't reset every loop (skills, memories, information) is fantastic.

This is a cut above the cookie cutter 3d games where the way events can play out in a relationship or scenario is far more limited because most story scenarios/events in a normal game will not (and logically should not) be repeatable forcing the player to save scum or play the whole game again.

Complaints:

15 days is actually a ridiculous amount of time with how this is going to be played, i'd actually prefer a small number of days with a lot to do, being forced to choose between specific events and routes that change as you unlock stuff is what makes this good and dragging it out across a longer timeperiod makes it hard to give decisions the same significance for the same reason that CYOA games run out of content really fast.

Exp is a ridiculous grind right now - i'm pretty sure this is because it's balanced around a more finished version of the game but figuring out routes just to grind exp is no fun. Maybe big exp bonuses for discovering certain events, secrets, and lines of dialogue would be a better progression system as repeating the same events to generate exp damages the exploration aspect of the game.

There's a serious risk of over-complicating what's required to unlock content because there are so many numbers to keep track of. If you wind up looking up a guide to figure out what to do all the other stuff this game does well is worth next to nothing. The memory system is a great way of dealing with this problem but right now it's ugly and not very clear, polishing the interface and forcing the player to run into it in some way as gameplay progresses would help people from getting stuck and failing to find new content.

This is a solid premise and the graphics are alright. Once there's more content I suspect it might get a fourth star. HOWEVER, as of the current release (v0.08) the game is way, way, way, WAY, way too grindy. To the point that it would be simpler to teach yourself how to enable console commands and then cheat new stats in rather than grind for them. As in performing the same action 30 times to level, but each time you do the action you have to perform between 10 and 30 clicks to get to that action again. Tedious at best, definitely not good game design.

EDIT: On Later iterations, I have to rate down it from 5 stars to 4. I'd put it lower except for the 1 star review which I think is unfair. I'd stay it's solid 3 with a great mechanic, but it's really difficult to actually get somewhere and there's a lot of grind. Honestly, though, I have no idea how to fix this issue.

While the content is fairly thinly spread around the sprawling game mechanics, this is an excellent start. It's clearly one of the best games in this adult game forum when it comes to "game mechanics". Most VN's shouldn't have very difficult mechanics, because it detracts from the story(or porn). However, here is truly an interesting game mechanic that doesn't detract from it at all, nor make it unreasonably difficult, nor punish mistakes. Bravo. I can only hope the developer continues on this path. Giving 5 stars is a bit premature considering the actual content in the game, I am giving the 5 stars more as an endorsement of the idea and in hopes of much content in the future. There also seems to be a clear end-game in mind, which always a good idea as no one wants to see game that enternally languishes in half-way state.

UPDATE: The game seems to be getting more sprawling, but not meaningfully worse or better. It's much better in the sense of pure content, but it's slightly worse in the sense of the path to get that content is as opaque as it gets. Since there's no real "punishment" for screwing things up, by the virtue of the game's mechanics -- it's not an unmanageable problem but it does make it sometimes feel both very grindy AND like you're not getting anywhere.

Definitely needs some more guiding mechanics on what to do next.

But it is getting very complex to keep up with when trying to play as often you're really not sure what you need to do next.

Also the "you will remember this" needs to be displayed in some other way, possibly a pop up or maybe change/overlay the image with the text, instead of showing it in the text box.

It is a very useful hint, but right now it's displayed in very lackluster manner.

Waiting for more content but so far what has been delivered is interesting and has lots of potential in its premise. Due to complexity of the game it might be hard to fully realise but heres to hoping.