Unity - Vampire's Knight [v0.13] [NubeeDev]

An already excellent game, and it's even better that it's just at start of development.

Pros:
+ Overall nice graphics & sound.
+ Lots of enemies and H-content (already 8 and it's only v0.13).
+ Great gameplay, and excellent difficulty. Stamina management seems difficult at first but fair once you understand it.
+ Excellent design for a female-protag game. Most enemies have surprise attacks, hide themselves, or lay traps, etc. which mean you'll see a lot of sex animations without having to force yourself to lose. Yet at the same time HP and saves are generous so you don't lose progress for losing.
+ X-ray view during sex is a great touch.


Cons:
- Graphics are a little too pixelated for my taste, although it's still quite hot, and will probably improve as the dev gets more experienced.
- Default controls are awkward. Just use AutoHotkey while the dev implements key remapping.
- It would be great to be able to toggle the x-ray ON/OFF during the sex scenes, as it sometimes obstructs the view.

Many of the bad ratings point towards a severe git gud issue. This is a H-on-lose, the r*pe is presumably why you're playing this, you are NOT supposed to struggle out of the H-scenes. The QTE system is basically perfect for this type of games, as it's hard the first time your heroine gets caught -so you will see most of the animations once- but it becomes easy to struggle if you're getting caught by the same enemy too many times.

Also you can recover simply by pressing Up after letting the enemy fuck you, not sure how so many people failed to figure out something so basic, yet spend 10 minutes to write a negative review. Again: SKILL ISSUE

I love my struggle systems in H-games but my brother in christ this is just bullshit.
Having your dash AND heal tied to the same source, the finnicky QTE struggle systems and the tiny amount of stamina you have just makes this not fun as a game, let alone an H-Game. It's not fun to get grabbed ONCE and go "welp i guess i may as well restart, cuz the QTE wont read my taps or suddenly go off-key so i'll get stuck in an HP-damage grab".

Animations are fine, but the gameplay is just that bad from a balancing standpoint that it sucks the fun out of everything.

My biggest recommendations, should the dev ever read this, are to:
1. separate dashes AWAY from the healing mechanic, so they're tied more to stamina. On this note, stamina should be buffed at base to facilitate a full combo AND a dash irrespective of the blood gauge.
2. Revise the QTE system. I'd sooner have a Siren of the Dead esque key input than this weird "match the thrust rhythm" minigame that doesn't seem to register my inputs or goes randomly offkey a majority of the time.
3. Make H-animations a BIT less punishing. Being grabbed should take HP, but having it leak THAT fast under an H-animation with a finicky h-minigame and being forced to engage with it rather than (literally) riding it out just speaks to needless handicapping of the player's control over a situation. I get the idea why, but it doesn't work, and I think its better to revise it wholesale rather than force this H-system that punishes you way too hard way too fast.

For a demo, looks very promising. Run around levels, open locked doors, fight enemies. A unique feature here is the H-scene struggle mechanic. You need to time your button prompts with the tempo of the H-scene itself to break free, otherwise game over. Definitely a well designed rewarding mechanic. To make this game a masterpiece it needs the following features:

1. Remapping of the controls, otherwise you will go insane.
2. Upgrades from blood points.
3. Difficulty selection.
4. H-scene moan audio.
5. Map.
6. Story/Objectives/Boss Fights/More skills.

Prefix- My score is not a slight on the creator of the game. It's strictly based on the current version of the game, knowing full well that things will change and that I like the work their doing.

First, I like the art style a lot. It's very unique and I hope it stays in the final iteration. I also like the verity in enemies in the current build, although there's no such thing as too many so I look forward to seeing more.

As for my problems, my main one is the controls are not good. You essentially have to have a weird jointed thumb to hit the space and "V" keys unless you want to abruptly stop to do an action. I pesonaly believe arrow keys should be motion and "ASDF" or "ZXCV" should be actions keys unless you make "HJKL" or something similar your action keys to keep "WASD" as movement. Also, the escape mechanic is not well calibrated and very punishing. I have no issues with a rhythm based escape system, but the indicators are very faint and they're delayed. If these 2 issues where addressed, my final rating would be an easy 4/5 stars.

To the creator: Keep up the good work and keep improving! We believe in you!

Controls are weird. Ran into many bugs. Got knocked down while jumping and got stuck in the air until I was killed. Got knocked down again while jumping and just floated away. No way to get passed the goblin without getting jumped. The timing on the sex mechanic is obtuse. I would fill the bar for 3 or 4 pulses then it would just stop working. Then it hard locked my computer and I had to do a full restart.

Review of Version 0.13

A very promising but rough diamond. You seem to be a Vampire Knight, hence the title, duh, fighting your way from left to right while deafeting your enemies and using their blood.

Cons:
-The game has a serious issue with its flow of gameplay. Instead of embracing the freedom of mobility and flow of a side-scroller game, this game hinders you in too many ways:
-Limited stamina. The idea is not a problem in itself, many games have it, but these game do not drain your stamina if you jump. Being able to jump and dodge while you cant attack is the goal of stamina. Limtinig your attacks, so you need to also to dodge while recovering your bar is the dynamic of stamina. But you cant also limit mobility with the same resource.
-Blood Bar. The blood bar is a relative unique mechanic, letting you perfom two actions with this bar: Dashing and Healing. The problem here is that in a platformer which essentially builds itself on movement you cant block of the dash with a resource. Also the bar itself is a limiting factor but in addition to that, there are also cooldowns on the blood abilities. Usually the bar should be the limiting factor not time. Choose one of the things not both. But the idea behind it is good. Just place a special attack or a block into the ability not the movement. But I can see the reason for the cooldown since you generate blood on yourself (which is odd for a vampiric idea).
-The struggle mechanic is not good. Pressing V in a pattern/rythm can be VERY hard for people. Not everyone is good at holding a tact or can react to the flahes of the letter. Because of this reason many games decide for mashing, which is a way better way of doing it.
-World is a bit empty right now, but this can very much change (the cave was very boring for the eyes)
-Not being able to block, the combat boils down to who hits first and whos got the bigger range, since your are discouraged to use mobility (since using it hinders your ability to heal and attack) you are always trying to get out of range of the weapon of your opponent and rush them down until your stamina is gone. But sometimes the range of other is higher and then you see your limitation and the non-existent fighting dynamic.
-No keybinding.

Pros:
+Smooth controls. I had to play many japanese games with awkward controls so using two hands (one for movement and one for attacking) did not really bother me. Jumping, attack range, responsiveness every thing very good. I did not had the feeling I lost control over my character, I was only limited by limited resouces.
+VERY VERY good pixel sex. Only about 3 steps behind castle of temptation which is a great fucking feat. The animations are smooth. The internal view is great and the artist is using every pixel very well. Also nice choice and variety of positions.



Personal Point
-Ledge graping is in my eyes always a wrong step in a game where movement is the core element of the game. Your movement does not flow because the level design is not built around you reaching your points with a precise jump instead with jumping against it, to trigger the little useless animation carrying you up the obstacle. Its just a time waste for no reason, except to force me to push another button when jumping and slowing me down.

Conclusion:
So all in all a very flawed game, but only the gameplay mechanic and not in the art or programming. I will keep and eye on its development.

easily the worst controls and defeat/struggle mechanic of all time.

just make the controls make sense - V for attack makes absolutely no sense.

no options to change controls in settings.
cant skip tutorial?

enemies look cool. animations seem pretty good. hoping theres more variety and more animations per enemy - that is what will actually make this game enjoyable (different types of enemies, and, each enemy has several animations/positions).

before you do anything else dear Dev, for the love of god, change the controls and enable user changeable keybind controls.

play the game CRESCENTSOUL.
the controls are amazing.

0.13

i give it a preemptive 5/5. i think this game is really cool. 2d pixelated handdrawn sex scenes. combat is meh. but i like the escape. it's not that easy. you have to time your escape button multiple times to a rhythm else you just lose stamina. so it's easy to get fucked a lot.

but so far it's missing a lot of stuff. like there is no consequence of you getting fucked, no corruption, no stats about fucks, few enemies, short game, lots of stuff under development.

but it's a cool game. i think it will be good. (although if it stays like this, i would only give it max 3/5 i think, cuz so far that's what it deserves max with how short it is and how there is 0 story and combat is not that interesting)

I'm really excited to see where this game goes!! I think it has some issues with combat at the moment and how 2 dimensional said combat is (pun not intended), but for a game labeled as a "prototype" it's doing damn well, and the lewd content itself is NICE. I'll be watching this game's career with great interest.

V.1
===TLDR===
I think this game has potential. Its a bit rough since its a prototype, but there are some changes I want to see, and I hope dev sticks with this game.

===Gameplay===
As of right now, its a prototype so its no surprise gameplay feels rough and a tad bit janky. Combat at the moment is really basic with only a 3 attack combo, a dodge button, a stamina bar for dodging or attack, as well as the mask from hollow knight essentially which fills up each time you kill an enemy. The mask has 3 charges which can be used for healing, or for dodging since it uses stamina and a charge. I don't think it will, but i hope this part isn't part of the main game and dodging is only a stamina thing.

I do have a couple of issues with the gameplay, like the keys for attacking, healing, and dodging being wierd (V, E, and C while movement is WASD), so I hope key binding is going to be a thing in later builds, or the keys are just changed to something more comfortable.
Theres also not a lot of content in the game with the only enemy I encountered being goblins, but so far its feels like it takes about 3 minutes to beat and its a prototype so its not that big of an issue.

===H-factor===
So far, I only encountered goblins so there's only one scene I know of, but I like the struggle system since it requires more tact through consuming stamina to get out of the sex, while timing each button presses to the plaps. It takes some time getting used to, but its better than developing parkinson's disease through similar games, and I can appreciate how this game tries to make the sex minigame feel like an actual game.

===Stuff I Want to See===
While I don't have a lot of things I particularly want out of this game, I do want combat to become a bit more complex, like adding new weapons or adding a skill tree, or maybe just strip down combat into something more basic but versatile, kinda like hollow knight
(I think the first option is more likely, but I can see more basic combat working out as well).

I think these parts might already be planned, but I think it would be nice to add a couple of spells which use the blood bar. Also, if there is going to be spells in this game, I want there to be a way to suck out blood from enemies without having to kill them since I can easily imagine some bosses being a pain without spells, or especially without healing.

Also, to reiterate some stuff I already mentioned, I want there to be key bindings, more enemy variety, dodging only needing stamina, and maybe a bit more variety with the sex minigame (just different rhythms will be fine)

There are some good and some bad as a demo:
as good we have good pixel art and a simple gameplay
as bad we have strange keys (like v for attack), a stamina bar that consume a lot for a single attack and a grappling escape minigame that's impossible to win.
Overall it could be a good game

Review written at Public Demo v0.1 release.

This is really good. I have a new game to look forward to.

Pros:
- Good pixel art
- Good UI
- Good Music
- Smooth platformer
- Good-looking MC
- Resource: Blood bars - blood bars are used for healing and dashing. Each action costs 1 blood bar each, and there are 3 blood bars in total in the current demo. One blood bar will naturally fill over a short period of time, but you can stack up to 3 blood bars by killing the enemies and get blood orbs from them.
- Skill-based escape system - players have to manage stamina and time the escape button with the sound of the enemy plapping at you.
- Enemies can ambush MC - goblins can hide in the bushes; players can anticipate this by looking out for glowing eyes in said bushes.
- Enemies can go for another round at the downed player after they're done with them (only one enemy can go at a time for now).

Cons:
- Controls use WASD with E, C, and V as heal, dash, and attack commands. These are all too close together. Moving WASD controls to arrows could help.
- Escape system - in-game instruction has yet to inform players about the timing and the stamina management. Currently, it only says press V to escape. This shouldn't be diffcult to address.
- Escape system #2 - Standing up after the assault requires pressing the W button. This isn't mentioned anywhere in the game, but should be as easily addressed as the other issue.
- X-ray system - current H-animation doesn't have enough room to fit in x-ray inside the character. Perhaps the x-ray could exists outside instead?

It'd be really nice if more than 1 goblin could target the player; even better, if it could call for its nearby allies, but this one might be asking too much.

Look forward to more from this game.

(Ver 0.13)
- There's a trap that can make you trip and become vulnerable to grabs for a few solid seconds. Player can use dash to trigger and avoid it at the same time.
- New enemies: 3 humans, 1 hobgoblin, 1 slime, 2 more goblins? not sure.
- New dungeon: More ledge grabbing. There are also locked doors, which you need to look around for lever to unlock it.
- Breakable stone wall: for fun I guess.. ?
- H-animation now drains health. I'm not a fan of this.

Good Start I liked most things just the "struggle" mechanic wasn't my kind of taste. Scenes are good thou will watch this for its future. One thing for people who click too fast at the start if you press anything else at the disclaimer screen that your spacebar it will crash to desktop.

Great game potential, please support the creator as on their patreon, they stated that there are more updates to come!

I've had their latest build and its quite nice play and see the H-scenes they've made.