Ren'Py - Town of Magic [v0.69.007] [Deimus]

I've played up to version 0.38
I've enjoyed it a lot and the interactions between all the characters.
The main character gets to interact with a decent chunk of characters, and it cleverly uses the other characters as mechanics, as an example Nel the ghost can unlock an auto grind feature for you where she does so by taking over your body.
Unlike other renpy games tho, you cannot skip through scenes that you've already seen as that feature seems to have been disabled.
The grinding can be annoying, and there's a lot of it, however, thanks to nel, you can just keep it running in the background while you do something else.
The rates however were bad in v0.19, but after i updated to 0.38, that was less of an issue as the items to increase your chances have been upgraded.
Getting used to Nel though, makes it a bit awkward to have to start farming again when a new area gets unlocked and can't use her.

With update 0.38 i wish there was a better way to communicate to the player what to expect with dealing with the succubus. I don't know if i should've killed her or let her have her way with me. But since Celica the main character let's other creatures always have their way with her, I went with that route, and gave me another fight i had to let her take advantage of.
I wish there was an auto wait button until you want to snap out of it, so i don't have to spam next until i get violet the slime, the succubus or any other monster i want to try out to see how they violate Celica.

Pros:
- Good art, the sprites are pretty and sexy
- Neat combat, while not revolutionary it is pretty good
- Unique ways to have a character build of some sort
- Lots of events to uncover and stuff to collect

Cons:
- RNG up the ass, literally everything is RNG
- Insanely, and I mean ridiculously, grindy due to the RNG
- You can get stuck in Status+Sex loops forever
(Get hit by a paralysing/sleeping status and then orgasm, both of these things stop you from taking turns. This can loop forever if you can't take a turn between paralysis/orgasm loops.)
- Takes forever to get anything done either because you have to randomly explore places to progress, randomly find random rare treasure to progress, etc.

This game sucks but the art is fine. That's all I've got from it.

Honestly, not a bad game. Major problems are:

-The grind is a little intense for very little pay off.
-No gallery.
-Art is average to below average, depending on the scene.
-I liked most of the H-Animations, but some of it is poor.
-Development is slow, particularly with adding new enemy variety.
-Sometimes you can get soft locked into H-Animations for a few rounds, it's not the worst thing in the world but it can feel like a waste of time.
-Direction isn't always clear, i.e. leveling up the ghost past 2nd bar.
-Low appearance customization, and the few items that do exist are locked behind a lot of progression / grind. Appearance is usually for fun (though some of the items do add stats in this game), so I don't really understand why this is.

I will say that the ability to let the ghost basically act as a bot for you to farm materials is a good addition, it's just unfortunate that getting that far takes a lot of grind.

I'd say it's worth while to play if you have time, and the game looks like it could be a lot better in the future, but for now if you're only interested in the H-Scenes just download the save to save yourself hours of grind.

I really like this game. I like the art, the character. I quite enjoy the 2d stye art games and this one is not exception. I do have one complaint, however. The grind is really bad. It needs a fix. I put up with it because games like this are rare, but it's really pushing it.

[v0.28.651]

It breaks my heart to rate this 2 stars because the animations are top notch and the story / events are great but THE GRIND. It's seriously unfun to spend 30 min trying to loot an item for a quest in a porn game by spamming you keyboard and mouse to waste as few hours as possible. It doesn't help that the game is extremely slow in the controls, there is no way to skip anything and the transitions take far too long.

If you somehow can remove the grind ( either by cheating or modding ) then play it because this is the only issue this game has. Or the dev could add an option so that people who dislike grind can avoid it, making it a win win for everyone.

Edit : I lowered my stars to 1 after seeing a 17.50$ tier on patreon for cheats and developper options. I absolutely hate when the dev(s) create a problem and sell the solution, I highly doubt the grind will be reduced, time will tell.

It is unusual game on Ren'Py. Good animation, old school graphic art, but be ready to the grind.

So core gameplay of this game is rpg with turn based combat. There is already alchemy, some good quest.

That good game deserve more attention and i think in the future this game deserve be released in steam.

v0.19.708

Fantastic retro visuals, combat rape, fun plotlines, and a lot of promise. It's a quintessential grindy turn based sex RPG. I can only hope that the sex elements expand to include the hot NPCs that accompany the main character.

The game has a lot of exploration and slow expansion, as various choices one by one lead to new areas unlocking. It feels very linear in a pleasant, undistracted way, while steadily showing more and more sex enemies and options. It slows down towards the end of the content, but that could easily be remedied by including sex with party members besides the main character.

[v0.55.502]

Amazing game! (5-2) / 5

What's the -2 for? (lack of direction; GRIND)

A -1 for lack of direction, there's plenty of characters, many of which have their own relationship level, locations, and items.
BUT they get unlocked at different times under different undescribed conditions, interact (or don't) under unknown and combine in mostly mysterious ways.
While the seer can guide you about relationships and barkeep about vague story progress direction, for item crafting it's either normal item crafting (item _> gold -> mithril) or a unique combination to figure it out;
additionally it doesn't help that every time you want to interact with an item it shows them all: clothing, equipment, alchemy regents, story items and makes a mess

B-1 for the GRIND, experience and loot are completely dependent on a random number generator via chests that can show up instead of a monster, then whether it's a common resource, an uncommon material or precious rare usually progress related item, so grinding them is a must, even with maxed out gear to get luck and chests end up spamming explore and run or having the ghost do countless runs to get equipment EXP, chests or resources so you could grind further.

BONUS- You currently cannot max out spells if you go for mana, life; or hardly useful cleanse and charm spells; relationships are a grind too- repeat the same event enough to reach a threshold to go a tier up.
BONUS2- you have to spam through some lengthy debuffs and the interaction buttons shift places depending on who you bring

These aspects completely change the game from incredible and a recommended unique experience to an 'endurance test' with necessary AFK grinding and spam clicking segments.

Warning: the version I played is horrendously grindy with sluggish combat. (Edit: version number 0.13.310.)

The mechanics and RNG can be atrocious (getting key events to trigger was a pain, and the clock is always ticking), but the horny content and writing are solid, even worth the headaches. Good paranormal possession is very hard to find, especially as its own plotline! Same with decent lesbian content mixed in with other sex acts and sexualities. The retro visuals are refreshing and well done throughout. The numerous combat encounters and struggling scenes are promising for future variety.

The game is a feat of what the engine can be made to do. I forgot that I was playing a Ren'Py game. Some of the mechanics do need to be streamlined to do what RPG Maker already does by default (mainly thinking of speeding up text and random encounters, click prompts are a chore).

Once the gameplay is streamlined, this game will be truly excellent. The content can only improve from here.

Wow, just wow!
The game in its state (0.13.310) pinned me down for two evenings, until I've made it to the very end of the beta! This is extremely rare, to be honest…
So, let's start with the 'minuses'.

CONS:
1) Slow pace of fighting. Unless you're using autobattles, which can speed-up the experience gain if you click very fast. UPD: 0.38 Still slow, including autobattle sex, even with announced improvements.
2) Non-stoppable autobattles take great amount of time. I literally launched an autoclicker, and left PC to wait for the character's stamina to be depleted.
3) Autobattle fuck, if you've made all preparations --- autobattles will take extreme amount of time. Luckily, you can avoid autobattle fucking if you don't use allure skills beforehand.
4) Player can't select the map for autobattles. I guess there is some script or algorithm about it, but I didn't find a way to return to lower level maps to rewatch autobattle-fuck. For example, I got the maximum allure for autobattle-fuck already after the first two locations became obsolete. UPD: 0.38 Not anymore. At some point of relationship, you can select the map where your character will be guided.
5) Ally is useful only in the very first battle, when you can opt to do this together. Later on -- they are almost completely useless when you do the main quest together. UPD 0.38: The ally is still weak, but can be used as a cannon fodder if you want to go on with the story.
6) Everything in the story is rather expected. You even can guess what would happen in the updates. Or maybe it's just me feeling old…
7) Quest notifications. None. It's possible to get stuck not knowing what to do next. Well, there is a bartender who tells some hints, but a quest journal would really help. UPD 0.38: Not anymore! The system is not ideal, and there are still hints, including relationship advisor -- but much better than it was earlier.
8) Ally is not force-fucked during battles. That's really a shame! She's hot, literally
9) Can't skip through the text with the usual RenPy hotkeys.
10) Loot drop is random, but hell I've made so many runs to actually get the freaking enchanted thread for crafting. UPD 0.38: Clearing / looting a whole map still takes ridiculous amount of time, even with golden artifact to search for items. You may expect 0.5-1 hour of autobattles per map.

I think that's it about the negative, but the positive overlaps anything written above!

PROS:
1) Pixel graphics and animation. Done great. The characters, battles, events, moving ---- all is next to perfect
2) The porn genre. Tentacle monsters, slimes, hornets, fairies, spirits, eagle rays. NO males!!!111one UPD 0.38: Not anymore, there is now a male demon/zombie, unfortunately.
3) Multiple variations of a battle-fuck.
4) The corruption is NOT forced! You can quickly increase Lewdness, or avoid it whatsoever.
5) Alchemy is useful, easy, and can be automated. UPD 0.38: The only issue is that you can't use alchemical potions on companions, except 2 resurrection potions -- which are limited!
6) Underleveled enemies don't hurt you whatsoever -- which is great for watching the scenes.
7) For the version this low 0.13.310 --- VERY much content! Every time I finished a quest, I've expected the end, but no, I could play for more UPD 0.38: The development dynamics is a bit low -- only a little of content between 0.13 and 0.38 version, compared to version 0.13 alone.

To the developer:
This is a masterpiece candidate! Even with the flaws, your combination of the style, content and genre are a rare occasion (if not one and the only).
Wishing you to stay true to the spirit you've set up so far.

Surprising amount of complexity so far. Game mechanics, menus, crafting system, all solid. Lewd animations, particularly the newest ones (the electric jellyfish) are quite good, but in general there isn't an extreme amount of content here yet though. The ghost possession plot is great. All this game really needs more is narrative content as the core is very well done.

It reminded me of Fairy tale almost to taste of it.
Not that hated it but had feeling it almost was clearly different. There no summon creatures thankfully or strange dragons in guild.

Celia joins a guild where she learns one spell and she has to work killing slimes.
I found that dull and sometimes over time hard because clothing shop didn't have any clothes make it better, Potion shop sold once blue moon stuff you needed.
Guild-master didn't appear only if you made enough money they could tell us hey he be there when earn enough.

My suggestion add more areas to hunt. expand the town, have underground area, rogue guild, Lord or mayor. Add more mobs too!

Like : no need create a new character, or name character. It role play environment.

Dislike: Limited areas to explore, wish to see more.