Version: 0.2
True DeDICKtive is a very cute VN early into its development, but it shows a tremendous amount of promise.
The game plays as a stock standard sandbox VN that you've probably seen a thousand times before. You play as a young detective coming back to his hometown for the first time since he was little. The hometown is supposedly filled with weird paranormal happenings, but you primarily focus on solving more down-to-earth mysteries relating to the several love interests around town.
There is no gameplay to really speak of. As of right now, with the limited content available, it plays out mostly as a kinetic novel where you essentially just click around the world map, watching different scenes, then going wherever the game tells you to go next. There is nothing to manage, no stats, no money, and an infinite amount of time to accomplish everything. Sometimes, progression is a bit arbitrary. You will just have nothing to do in the game other than skipping time to get the next event to trigger. But that is more of a consequence of how early in development this game is, so I won't be too harsh on it.
The art in this game is quite refreshing. It has a charming art style, reminiscent of YA graphic novels, that sets it apart from its contemporaries. All of the character designs are unique and distinctive, while still being appealing to look at. The backgrounds in the game are especially nice. They are lovingly handcrafted with tons of little details that help you get immersed in the world and make it feel lived in. The animations can be a little stiff at times, especially for the mom surrogate character, but there are some quality ones as well that make me excited to see more from the artist.
The writing is the highlight of this game. It is light, fluffy, and fun. I quite like how the main character, while supposedly a detective, is a dumbass. Oftentimes his antics trying to solve a case will blow up in his face, but in a charming way that moreso endears rather than annoys you. Additionally, the game does a good job of slowly building up the relationships in a more believable manner when compared to most other H-games. It's not the extreme slow burn of a trainer game, but it takes its time enough that it can build up personalities for each of the love interests outside of sex.
The world itself is really pleasant to spend time in. I love how you can click around on different objects and get a short little lore blurb. I wish more games would do that, as it goes a long way in helping you get immersed. One area the writing kinda drops the ball on is the mysteries it is trying to set up. There are a lot of little lore clues about cults, ghosts, werewolves, and stuff strewn about the map, but the game currently does very little to address them. There are a couple of moments where this gets brought up, but it is quickly brushed aside and never referenced again, choosing instead to focus on the interpersonal dramas going on in the love interest's stories. I love a good H-scene, but is anyone even remotely worried about the ghosts and ghouls that seem to be haunting the town? I assume this will get fleshed out in later updates, but I wish there were a bit more setup.
The H scenes are nothing crazy, but still very sexy to look at. Like I mentioned earlier, the slower build-up made the scenes more cathartic to experience. Currently, there are two seemingly fully complete routes with several H-scenes each. You aren't going to get blueballed by an unfinished questline, however, you'd better like one of the 2 characters available right now, because you aren't getting anything else. I liked how the end of a character's route wasn't the end of their content. You could still find them around town and unlock new scenes with them if you wanted. I just wish there were some sort of gallery option to rewatch scenes without dropping a save, and to let you know if you are missing anything.
There is very little music in the game outside of a kinda bland and repetitive loop in the world map. Usually, that doesn't bother me, but some of the emotional impact of scenes could really be punched up with a nice BGM track. In terms of bugs, I found a Ren'Py scripting error when talking to the librarian that forced me to roll back the dialogue, items not appearing in the backpack, and May's lower jaw didn't line up quite right in some of the animation, which was quite distracting.
Overall, I really like the game. Its writing, art, and world-building are all fantastic. It is somewhat marred by being so early in development, but I will be watching this game's future with great interest. Best of luck to the devs, who seem very active on the forums too!
True DeDICKtive is a very cute VN early into its development, but it shows a tremendous amount of promise.
The game plays as a stock standard sandbox VN that you've probably seen a thousand times before. You play as a young detective coming back to his hometown for the first time since he was little. The hometown is supposedly filled with weird paranormal happenings, but you primarily focus on solving more down-to-earth mysteries relating to the several love interests around town.
There is no gameplay to really speak of. As of right now, with the limited content available, it plays out mostly as a kinetic novel where you essentially just click around the world map, watching different scenes, then going wherever the game tells you to go next. There is nothing to manage, no stats, no money, and an infinite amount of time to accomplish everything. Sometimes, progression is a bit arbitrary. You will just have nothing to do in the game other than skipping time to get the next event to trigger. But that is more of a consequence of how early in development this game is, so I won't be too harsh on it.
The art in this game is quite refreshing. It has a charming art style, reminiscent of YA graphic novels, that sets it apart from its contemporaries. All of the character designs are unique and distinctive, while still being appealing to look at. The backgrounds in the game are especially nice. They are lovingly handcrafted with tons of little details that help you get immersed in the world and make it feel lived in. The animations can be a little stiff at times, especially for the mom surrogate character, but there are some quality ones as well that make me excited to see more from the artist.
The writing is the highlight of this game. It is light, fluffy, and fun. I quite like how the main character, while supposedly a detective, is a dumbass. Oftentimes his antics trying to solve a case will blow up in his face, but in a charming way that moreso endears rather than annoys you. Additionally, the game does a good job of slowly building up the relationships in a more believable manner when compared to most other H-games. It's not the extreme slow burn of a trainer game, but it takes its time enough that it can build up personalities for each of the love interests outside of sex.
The world itself is really pleasant to spend time in. I love how you can click around on different objects and get a short little lore blurb. I wish more games would do that, as it goes a long way in helping you get immersed. One area the writing kinda drops the ball on is the mysteries it is trying to set up. There are a lot of little lore clues about cults, ghosts, werewolves, and stuff strewn about the map, but the game currently does very little to address them. There are a couple of moments where this gets brought up, but it is quickly brushed aside and never referenced again, choosing instead to focus on the interpersonal dramas going on in the love interest's stories. I love a good H-scene, but is anyone even remotely worried about the ghosts and ghouls that seem to be haunting the town? I assume this will get fleshed out in later updates, but I wish there were a bit more setup.
The H scenes are nothing crazy, but still very sexy to look at. Like I mentioned earlier, the slower build-up made the scenes more cathartic to experience. Currently, there are two seemingly fully complete routes with several H-scenes each. You aren't going to get blueballed by an unfinished questline, however, you'd better like one of the 2 characters available right now, because you aren't getting anything else. I liked how the end of a character's route wasn't the end of their content. You could still find them around town and unlock new scenes with them if you wanted. I just wish there were some sort of gallery option to rewatch scenes without dropping a save, and to let you know if you are missing anything.
There is very little music in the game outside of a kinda bland and repetitive loop in the world map. Usually, that doesn't bother me, but some of the emotional impact of scenes could really be punched up with a nice BGM track. In terms of bugs, I found a Ren'Py scripting error when talking to the librarian that forced me to roll back the dialogue, items not appearing in the backpack, and May's lower jaw didn't line up quite right in some of the animation, which was quite distracting.
Overall, I really like the game. Its writing, art, and world-building are all fantastic. It is somewhat marred by being so early in development, but I will be watching this game's future with great interest. Best of luck to the devs, who seem very active on the forums too!