Others - Vesper - Lust & Hunger [v0.3.2] [Starhound Studios]

This is a really high quality game. It is going to be absolutely amazing once it's finished.

As of now, while it's not complete, playing it is a bother. Every real mechanic is nestled among placeholder mechanics that don't do anything yet. The UIs hold space for scenes that are going to exist in the future, and you end up with less content than you were mentally prepared for. So there's no way to know what's real content, and what's a dead end.

The Pros: Literally everything I don't bring up is as good as it can be. I can't stress enough how high quality the game is

The few cons:

• Aforementioned placeholder buttons and UI
• the skip feature does not differentiate read and unread text and skips everything
• The storytelling is heavily skewed towards the female gaze. I personally was sometimes turned off by the things the narration was fixating on.

All in all, a game that is doing everything great and would be a top-tier game once finished

So for anyone who hasn't played it and is feeling discouraged by people saying that it is impossible to see H scenes without cheating, after finishing a few playthroughs I have to say this is hyperbole, and pretty extreme hyperbole at that. While focusing on journalism I was able to become fully resource stable within 50 days, giving me 40 days to spend doing a mix of staying stable via hunting blood from animals in the park and occasionally working to buy bloodbags from the store and to spend the rest of my money unlocking clothes, buying alcohol, or doing whatever else I needed to progress on a route. 40 days was not enough time to unlock all content, but it was enough time to pick a route and unlock all that route's content and to unlock additional side content to boot. I did another playthrough where I went thief and another where I went prostitute and found the same situation, spent a lot of early time getting stable but still had a bit over a third of the game's 90 day time limit left to unlock scenes, and for prostitute and thief I still was unlocking scenes along the way of building up to become stable, which I mostly wasn't during journalist.

So it's not impossible to unlock scenes without cheating. You will, however, be spending more than half of your playtime in a porn game not seeing porn. If that's a dealbreaker for you, I do not blame you, but I think it's important to be clear about what the game's faults are. The game could definitely use more scenes that can be unlocked early while building up your job experience. It could also stand to be clearer about what the stats do, it seems like speed, lust, and job exp are the only stats that matter, and you shouldn't bother doing anything like building intelligence or charisma because there's currently no use for those stats, and because more int/cha doesn't appear to make journalism, bartending, or prostitution make any more money. Speed you only need 50 in order to have no failure chance when hunting, and there's no point to speed training after that. It seems like a lot of the systems currently in the game are functionless, and that's not necessarily a problem, but it doesn't give players a good chance to judge what features will be important in the future but aren't in a current build. A stronger guide/explanation system would help with this a ton.


A lot of the things you can do with your time and money in this game seem pointless in the current build. it could definitely help players to stabilize faster and easier if the stats... actually did something? Like if int made you get more money from journalism, or cha more from bartending. That's pretty common in princess maker clones but from what I played didn't seem to be happening here. Exhaustion seemed like the only thing that impacted job performance. So with the game as it is now: speed training up 50 to make hunting work, jobs to make money, resting to keep yourself from having inefficient work, and masturbation to raise your lust level are the only tasks worth doing in planning. Relax unlocks scenes eventually but you're not going to be doing that until after you're stable. Meanwhile, buying blood bags from Lily's store is efficient enough once you've got a few promotions under your belt, but even if you become her pet for the discount the lust potions are never worth buying. Huge waste of money compared to just masturbating to raise lust instead of working to raise money and then buying lust potions. If there were some random ways to suddenly find yourself with more money than you thought you would (like critical success at a job or random money-giving events), the potions may be worth something to turn an abundant resource into a scarce one, but right now building money surplus is too consistent -- you can see it coming and decide "I have enough savings, time to raise lust" and not be blindsided and wind up taking the bad deal of the lust potions. Eventually they may be a worthwhile item, right now they're just a trap.

The game's art and writing are solid. I genuinely kept playing in spite of the pain in the butt that it was to get to porn scenes because even without porn scenes the story was compelling and the art helped me humanize and relate to the situations. This isn't to say they shouldn't add more porn scenes that are unlockable early, they absolutely should, but it is to say that this game has strengths. The mechanics are not a strength. The aesthetics are. This is a game that's currently not very good, but all of its problems are fixable, and some of them fairly easily fixable. This is a couple of balance patches away from being a really solid princess maker clone even in its early content-incomplete state. It's just not there yet, and the current flaws are pretty glaring.

I've been playing this game inconsistently, but I came back for version .3 and while they did add some nice scenes, it's still lacking for me. I might be over critical considering we're still in a very early version, but the game aspect of this isn't the best. You have 3 actions available each game day, managing a few stats one being hunger and fatigue. To get the next available scene, you have to grind certain stats to progress in your job. It gets boring pretty quick, as I did the prostitution route, but it locks you out of other job prospects. It's as interesting as it sounds, but this is still an early game version so it could be fixed or altered entirely hopefully.

Gameplay 6/10

Gameplay loop is limited by a day system that ruins the exp for me. It forces you to reply the game if you want to see all the content or at least that's how I see it. I couldn't unlock most things in a single playthrough . I failed to unlock the prostitution route as well and the stripper one is locked too. Not sure if they're even in the game as of now since they aren't marked as incomplete. My second playthrough I min maxed bartending and my blood levels and I still failed to unlock anything new. I got to a point where blood and sanity weren't an issue but still felt like content is limited.

Story 6/10

You become a vampire and you're trying to survive. More aimed at Bi people as the MC has a lot of interactions with females.

Art 7/10

Want to give it more but the lack of animations pushes it down for me. Other than that it looks good, the girls have realistic proportions for once. MC is a normal girl, not some bimbo and it works for this game.

Amount of Content 5/10

Really limited as of 0.3.0. and you'll need multiple playthroughs to get em. The grind is a lot and repetition of content is overwhelming in the job department.

Overall I like the game, but it needs a lot of work and the version number tells me that there is a lot more content coming (hopefully). Its a 3.8 so I'll give it a 4 for now. Will check this game again around 0.4

Unga Bunga

Translation:
"It's alright, I think the story is pretty interesting and I was drawn in to the idea of playing a vampire. It just seems like it could use more is all.

- Gameplay
So it's essentially a resource management/ corruption game. Have to keep your hunger, sanity, and fatigue low while also trying to work and essentially blend in. I don't think there's really any need to blend in atm, most of the stuff that requires higher skills are involved with feeding on animals or how high your lust is. It's fairly simple but doesn't hold your hand either, most of your time is going to be trial and error in how you proceed. You also have random events during certain actions, either for good or bad. Certain dialogue choices also give stats boosts too, prologue is the earliest place to find them and give a decent amount.

- Storyline
You play as Vesper, a journalist who has been looking into a disappearance and recent string of murders. Turns out the woman who disappeared was turned into a vampire, who then turns you into a fledgling/ young vampire. You must either embrace your new darker half or resist these new urges to remain as human as possible.

- Artwork
It's not bad, especially the prologue and the in room standing image. However it also takes a turn and looks slightly off with the actual in game scenes. I'm not sure if this is intentional, as in it's what they wanted to happen, or they are just placeholders until they rework them. Either way it's not bad. There was a mention for there to be animations if they meet their funding goal, I hope it gets to that point but we'll see.

- Overall
I think it's got a good start for being a year old game, like I said I think the biggest hurdles it has to get over is making the artwork look better or more refined but otherwise it's solid right now."

[v0.2.21.0]
The art lured me in; the balancing kicked me out.

While the art is nice, and the story is detailed enough for me, everything besides that feels either grindy or pointless

• outfits in the game are massively overpriced with no function other than to look good at home
• There is no in-game help for anything, or the help comes too late. Example: if your sanity reach max value, then it's game over, and during that game over screen the game tells you exactly that.
• There are "multiple" routes one can take, but one route seems to have a lot of events while the other soft locks you and forces you to restart the game
• Like most other games with a corruption mechanic, this game also suffers from a very grindy start (getting 5 points on a range of 100) and at some point you get like too many corruption points at once.
• Last but not least, there are a lot of buttons labeled "under construction"

[v0.2.19.0]
I like the art, but then again the difference in style between what is new and what was there is so jarring that it's off-putting. It's also weird that some things are sometimes animated. The wardrobe is pointless; she wears the default clothes in all scenes.

The gameplay loop consists of massive grind for very little reward since most of the game outside of the two "routes" isn't implemented. This makes progression feel pointless.

Progression, meanwhile, is just broken. You have minimal lust stat-gains until you break into the middle of the lust limit, then you start gaining a lot but without much to unlock. Same with every other stat; there is no reason I could see for raising your speed higher than 50 and there was no reason I could find to level any other stat because none of it seemed to change anything. Finally, some of the progression is locked behind RNG since you can't choose to get molested or put yourself in the path of the bum to unlock those scenes.

Perplexingly, there is even some silly sabotage mechanic that fills up one of my three time-slots with a rest-action; sometimes it puts it there when I am fully rested and sometimes it doesn't when I need to rest.

All in all, it feels like a game stapled together considering that none of the mechanics work together and the art is becoming inconsistent with its own style.

I had been following up on this game every couple months but the fact that development has stopped in order to redo old art is putting up a death flag for me and I don't see this game ever being completed. As such here is my review as though this is the finished product because in six months the only thing I can see that has changed is redoing old art. A massive disappointment since I quite enjoyed how it already was, even not animated, and is the only reason this broken game isn't getting 1 star. Edit: That, and the fact that all dialogue can be properly skipped; a must in these dialogue-heavy repetitive scene viewing games.

I played v0.2.18.0

A cool concept, and interesting story to start. Unfortunately, the gameplay is pretty unbalanced, and it makes it frustrating and unpleasant to play. I'll check back for improvements later.

Vesper - Lust & Hunger is one of the most compelling games in development right now. The artwork is stunning, with every scene and character, especially Vesper, beautifully rendered. The writing is strong, with an engaging story, rich detail, and a protagonist whose depth and growth are a pleasure to uncover.

Daily activities offer great variety, encouraging experimentation and long-term planning, and the adult content is handled with care and purpose. The menu is intuitive, and shopping for outfits adds fun variety. Overall, the game strikes an impressive balance between style, substance, and player choice.

For improvements, animation would take the visuals to the next level, though it is understandably a big task. The gallery could be condensed, and the 90-day timer, while narratively fitting, can feel rushed, perhaps allowing players to end the game manually after Day 90 would help. Skill progression is slow, requiring trial and error across playthroughs, which could use some fine-tuning.

Huge thanks to Starhound Studios for creating such an enjoyable and rich experience. I am excited to see what comes next.

The stat system is soo shit, you must do 3 activities a day by day two you would have maxed your hunger and gain insanity when that fills you instantly lose.

Does the game explain how to lose insanity nope got to figure that shit out yourself. You can only hunt once a day for an RNG chance of reducing your hunger and sanity less than what you would make in a days activity. You can steal blood once for free, or save money to buy blood bags from the the odd shop.

Now you want to play this game cheat, even if it's just money to but stack of blood bagsso you can play the game.

It's really good.
One of the faults I have with this game is that its grind isn't very pleasant. It is a young game though, the grind might change, the grind might be more responsive or rewarding or reaches a point of things helping you along to grind faster or more efficiently.
All of the art IS REALLY GOOD. Like yowza. It has a few of classic and good fetishes; like tentacle fucking and anal. It has a corruption mechanic, it is kind of good with telling a story. Like, it is telling a story more than a LOT of other games I've played.
Mostly because... I DO NOT WANT TO READ A LIGHT NOVEL. I don't need that many words. I just skip over through to play the gameplay on a lot of porn games. This game gets around that by a lot of 'show and response'. It shows you, physically, what's going on in the story. And it is responsive to your actions.

It's well made.
It has good art
It is a bit of a grind, but does have a walkthrough, so navigating is a lot easier. The game is a little hard, but without requiring some skill level or some set of equipment or - you get the point.
Where the story is there, it's quite good
Good kink layout

Kinda hard to judge.
A lot of stuff is not finished yet and plenty of options say "not implemented".

I know, it's all still in development, I guess.

But the overall amount of content we actually have already... Is not satisfying enough.

Overall a four-star-rating...

IF NOT FOR THIS TRICKERY!
This gif in the description made me believe, I'd experience a game with animated scenes!

Sadly, it's not the case.
All I got was static images in some "slideshow" (one after the other)
I was not even able to get to see the scene from the gif, iirc

[v0.2.14] Considering it's still pretty early days for this project, I think it has the potential to be a legendary game.

It does have some flaws, most of which surround progression feeling slow, and this version being capped to 100 days, it limits your ability to explore some paths. Some paths will take an entire playthrough, while other paths have next to no content and lock progression from other paths.

It feels like progressing paths, simply involves picking the same 3 "plan" events every day, and then drinking blood when your on the verge of going insane.

Issues aside, the art work is amazing, the fem protag is sexy, and the text about her descent into depravity is well written, and the event stages are sufficiently kinky. I'm excited to follow this one.

excellent setting - maybe be the F POV of this give unique vibe compared to other vampire genre games.
Game is not endless point and click spam, progress i well rewarded.
animations are good
performance could use some work, but i think it is better compared to previous version.
extra points for story for not dragging the progress or advancing .

This could be a very good game someday. For now it's just a scarcely organized, underdeveloped, easy to game over grind game with very little to do. I really hope i get to see a mature or even completed version of the game to give a stellar review rather then to see it abandoned in one or two years.

It's not great at all, there are many issues in this game.

Route lock - the game locks you into one of multiple routes early on, so you have to replay the entire thing from the beginning if you want to see more than 15% of game content. Moreover, some of the routes are incomplete and very short, with little content to show, you can go through 90 days seeing 2-3 scenes or less.

Clumsy stat system - 400 stat limit makes little sense, stat grind is annoying and choresome. And with how the game works you can only max out or use few stats. The stat implementation is not great. Much of the stats have no practical use in the game.

Time limit / deaths - there is no particular reason for timelimit to exist other than to hide lack of content and force players to replay the game with another route. Sudden death due to missing "insanity" stat going to 100% and lack of autosave makes it all worse.

Some scenes are triggered automatically after X days. You cannot really trigger them on your own. Some scenes are repeatable with a ton of text that you have already read, and need to skip over and over again.

Gallery is CG's only, no scenes replay.

I kinda liked the story, but the constant game-over choices and being forced to start over from start is just to idiotic and having no auto save or hell even manuel saves is even worse.

Also one of the game-overs where you choose to run away is the most stupid thing in the story, i mean you can be almost sure you got some old vampire coming for you wanting to kill you for getting hes girl killed and yet staying behind and wait for him is the right choice? running to away to start over somewhere else is game-over???? instend MC wants to get ready and get stronger? lets be real she wouldent lave a day before the vamp would find her....its stupid.

And thats just the freaking prologue as well? why the fuck have game-over choices in a prologue?

Then story goes even more stupid, MC steals blood and starts thinking that it might be better to become a prostitute instend of a thief??? what kind of idiotic writting is this? how would being a prostitute ever help her get blood? i mean seriously lol what the fuck.....
Next she gets cought stealing blood and this brainless MC gives the idiot guard her real name? and if you do nothing MC cant get away, i mean its not like she a vampire or anything right, she cant just knock hes ass out or kill him no no she can bribe or be a whore? and thats the one thing MC would want to avoid since she knows how that ended up with the one who turned her into a vamp......

This game has nothing to do with vampire or being the strong MC, its all about becoming a whore, not even corrupted but stright up just a whore training game, you can be prostitute or become someones pet and so on, its proberly the worst and most idiotic story for a vampire background.

Add to that all the grinds you need to do, it becomes a really boring sandbox with an awefull story that just dosent make sense, the real problem is when a game turns into a grinding game instend of story based and thats what this does, you grind and grind away to gain start points, blood, money and so on just to unlock next option for some porn to happen, it feels like work and thats just not my idea of fun.

As for the art its great but art alone cant carry a game in any way, there has to be a worth while story or its just not playable, the only reason i give this 2 stars instend of 1 is due to the art but thats about all that is good in this one.

Rare 5/5 for a game still in progress!

This game has sooo much potential so I'm excited to see what comes next. Do note H-gamers: As of now do NOT worry about stats beside lust, exhibition, and drunkiness. These are the only stats as of now that impact gameplay (Speed does as well when it comes to hunting, but you can get blood other more...interesting ways).

Vesper - Lust & Hunger [v0.2.7.0]
I grabbed the Guide, which was confusing to start because some of the first scenes for the Old Shop you cannot even unlock till later. It is best to look through the entire guide (if you're okay with spoilers) so you can focus on whatever path (thief, prostitute, or stripper) and how to trigger the scenes.

+ I love the art. It's beautiful, evocative, sexy, and the female MC is hot.

+ Nice writing. Even some of the scenes give enough dialogue and/or description that it feels like a mini, sexy short story (though really not that long).

> Even though there is a lot not working yet, I do appreciate the 'placeholder' pieces letting us know what is coming.

-- My only negative is there is no cross-over between paths. Once you're on a path, you're locked in and limited to those scenes. Which makes little sense that the MC is not allowed to be a stripper and prostitute at the same time...but maybe that will come in the future once all paths are flushed out and then crossover added later.

OVERALL:
I found the Mandatory Start in the discussion threads and that helped not waste time (no need to get Speed via Running higher than 51, no need to waste time on skills that don't help a chosen path, etc.)
I'm looking forward to future releases.

As others have said, the art is heavily carrying this game which is very disappointing given it has a good premise and early on it seems it'll have an actual story. As of v0.2.5.1 it's honestly a waste of time, the grind takes forever for barely any content, if it was more straightforward you could be done with everything in under 30m. Sure, it's an early version, but the game has been out for 8 months at this point, there's other games out there which won't disrespect your time like this.
Extremely repetitive, very few scenes, meaningless stats (like charisma)... If the save file format was different I'd just edit some variables and skip to the end instead of doing the same meaningless tasks everyday.