Version 2.0
Tjord managed to outperform himself with Valdana, the second part of a sci-fi brainwashing trilogy. Building on the experience from its predecessor, Isis, Valdana is slightly longer (~8 hours of gameplay), fixes some of the issues raised by Isis players and features a much more robust story world.
If you like Isis, you're gonna love Valdana more. If you find Isis somewhat passable, Valdana ought to provide a better experience.
Story
The plot follows roughly the same format as Isis - this time round you play the role of a state religious leader of the kingdom of Valdana who's a bad egg involved in all sorts of vice activities including slave trafficking.
The Queen and all her henchmen are out to get you and the only way you can get out of it is by slowly brainwashing them into sex slaves with the Slave Maker machine developed by no other than the MC in Isis.
It uses the same plot device of the famous Japanese hentai game, Battleship Prison, but expands the story with a much more holistic world building featuring believable politics, space battles and multiple LIs to be corrupted.
Game Mechanic
A largely kinetic novel with only one decision point you need to make near the end to unlock four different endings.
Background / Character Renders
Good enough Honey Select renders that fit the story. One significant point of improvement compared to Isis is the before and after brainwash differences in physical appearance.
There were a lot of comments from players that all the brainwashed LIs in ISIS ended up in the same gyaru mould which lacked diversity and broke immersion as we are supposed to believe nobody realizes a girl has changed despite such significant transformation.
Tjord has toned down on this significantly and provided much more variety in physical transformations, not everyone is tanned skin, mega boobs, fat lips and slutty eyes after brainwashing which ought to appeal to a much wider crowd.
Character Development
One of the key highlights of the brainwashing genre (be it by tech or by magic) is the ability to contrast before and after of the brainwashed subject. To that, Valdana has done well in this area.
The game devotes substantial time and space to build up the character of many of the LIs pre-brainwash so that the juxtaposition is amplified when we finally see them post corruption. It's also quite cool to see some of them retaining certain aspects of their pre-brainwash character after corruption instead of single dimensional sluts.
Sex Scenes
Pretty good and varied across the board - all of them are well animated with multiple angles and positions. Dirty slave talk also boosts the maledom / submission kink of the scenes. Only thing is the lack of sound effects which I hope can be added in the future.
BGM and Sound Effects
Valdana retains the same flavour in BGMs used in ISIS - loud and bombastic techno music is used during brainwashing and sex scenes while modern generic music is deployed for other story driven scenes. There are some minor sound effects here and there though not many.
Conclusion
Valdana is an improved continuation of the trilogy that incorporates most of the feedback given to its predecessor. It's an upscale in both quantity and quality while still maintaining a complete upon release development cycle.
I'm looking forward to try out the third instalment, Valkyrie and hope we can see more games from Tjord in the future.
Tjord managed to outperform himself with Valdana, the second part of a sci-fi brainwashing trilogy. Building on the experience from its predecessor, Isis, Valdana is slightly longer (~8 hours of gameplay), fixes some of the issues raised by Isis players and features a much more robust story world.
If you like Isis, you're gonna love Valdana more. If you find Isis somewhat passable, Valdana ought to provide a better experience.
Story
The plot follows roughly the same format as Isis - this time round you play the role of a state religious leader of the kingdom of Valdana who's a bad egg involved in all sorts of vice activities including slave trafficking.
The Queen and all her henchmen are out to get you and the only way you can get out of it is by slowly brainwashing them into sex slaves with the Slave Maker machine developed by no other than the MC in Isis.
It uses the same plot device of the famous Japanese hentai game, Battleship Prison, but expands the story with a much more holistic world building featuring believable politics, space battles and multiple LIs to be corrupted.
Game Mechanic
A largely kinetic novel with only one decision point you need to make near the end to unlock four different endings.
Background / Character Renders
Good enough Honey Select renders that fit the story. One significant point of improvement compared to Isis is the before and after brainwash differences in physical appearance.
There were a lot of comments from players that all the brainwashed LIs in ISIS ended up in the same gyaru mould which lacked diversity and broke immersion as we are supposed to believe nobody realizes a girl has changed despite such significant transformation.
Tjord has toned down on this significantly and provided much more variety in physical transformations, not everyone is tanned skin, mega boobs, fat lips and slutty eyes after brainwashing which ought to appeal to a much wider crowd.
Character Development
One of the key highlights of the brainwashing genre (be it by tech or by magic) is the ability to contrast before and after of the brainwashed subject. To that, Valdana has done well in this area.
The game devotes substantial time and space to build up the character of many of the LIs pre-brainwash so that the juxtaposition is amplified when we finally see them post corruption. It's also quite cool to see some of them retaining certain aspects of their pre-brainwash character after corruption instead of single dimensional sluts.
Sex Scenes
Pretty good and varied across the board - all of them are well animated with multiple angles and positions. Dirty slave talk also boosts the maledom / submission kink of the scenes. Only thing is the lack of sound effects which I hope can be added in the future.
BGM and Sound Effects
Valdana retains the same flavour in BGMs used in ISIS - loud and bombastic techno music is used during brainwashing and sex scenes while modern generic music is deployed for other story driven scenes. There are some minor sound effects here and there though not many.
Conclusion
Valdana is an improved continuation of the trilogy that incorporates most of the feedback given to its predecessor. It's an upscale in both quantity and quality while still maintaining a complete upon release development cycle.
I'm looking forward to try out the third instalment, Valkyrie and hope we can see more games from Tjord in the future.