A game with potential, if it stops getting in its own way.
This is a sandbox game that allows you to tackle mini-scenes in isolation. Complete enough of these mini-scenes and some major progression takes place involving one or more characters.
This game is the proper way of handling a sandbox game in the Ren'Py format. Nothing too intricate—no weird logging of days/times that forces you to interact with someone only on Wednesday afternoon, or awkward overcomplicated management systems where you have to grind a bunch of stats first. There's a simple resource system in this game: commit crimes for money and fame, then use that money to buy resources to craft items. Once the relevant items are crafted, the scenes requiring them are unlocked.
The lack of polish becomes more noticeable when you dive deeper into the game.
The crafting UI is terrible. You have to scroll through these items one at a time. It doesn't remember your place, so you end up needing to spend dozens of clicks to craft two items. And while the resources are simple, there's no real weight to it. Why do you have to change money into materials first then to exchange materials into crafts? Why can't you just craft from money or buy the relevant material from the crafting page? The simple system is nice, but even this simplicity exposes the game's technical shortcomings.
The renders are nice. The MC is abominable to look at, and while this is acknowledged in game, it really is played more for the Ugly Bastard kink than anything else. There's really no other reason why he needs to be so distinctly ugly (that sickly scrawny build and giant nose are recognizable anywhere, and yet in a game with a sea of bad jokes that never land, we never have a single jab at how "The Mind" is a horrible costume that fails to hide all the distinctive attributes of the MC? Poor form...).
Speaking of the slew of bad jokes, the dialogue really gets bogged down with them, to the point where the writing really suffers because of it. Every scene has tons of lines dedicated to setting up punchlines that don't really land. The developer really should stop thinking himself a comedian, as most of it is more cringe than funny. Worse, all the attempts to write dialogue as the setup for jokes really takes the focus from storytelling in general. There's no subtext to the writing, everything has to be spelled super explicitly. Sometimes the scenes are ruined because of the developer's overwillingness to really drive home their point, and overexplaining something that was already conveyed.
I appreciate games with a lighter, more whimsical tone, but the ten panel long back and forth banters to set up jokes that don't really land really need to stop. We really don't need 30 slides of dialogue playing up "Cindy is a dumb blonde" in a single short conversation. It wasn't even funny the first time. Nor do we need the repetitive back and forth every time the Dumb and Dumber minions are on screen. These scenes were barely funny the first time, and by the twelfth scene, they're just painful.
You have to really enjoy the character and, by extension, the developer's brand of humor and taste to like this game. There's a lot of immature humor, and a kind of simmering anger towards power structures and women in general that very vaguely (and let's be honest, borders on incel territory) fuels the MC's motivations. The MC is deliberately an angry loser who turns around and tries to take it out on heroes, many of whom happen to be assholes themselves. It's like pervy The Boys, but without any of the charisma, compelling characters, or social commentary.
The writing could also use a bunch of proofreading. There are a number of grammatical errors, and repeated instances where the developer makes the simple mistakes of using "he" or "his" instead of "she" or "her." A lot of these scenes can be edited down, or have genuinely human moments played up, instead of wasting so much panel space on shoddy humor.
However, to the game's credit, the world is generally well designed. The inspiration is obvious but the worldbuilding is done well enough that you can understand the frustration of being a nobody in a superhero dystopia. The renders are good overall, though the developer's complete inability to compose scenes and their flagrant disregard for the 180 degree rule means a lot of shots are dizzying to follow. Combine that with all the panels on poor attempts at humor, and many panels are borderline skip-worthy.
The animations are a nice touch. Instead of using them exclusively for sex scenes (of which there arent that many), there's many animations used for character introductions and action sequences. It's done well for the most part, though most of these video sequences are probably too low frame rate for the desired effect. To me, they gave me a bit of a headache because of the low frames, but with a little bit more polish I think they could be a really defining feature.
Overall, the game is a great start, and I think with some improvements can be a really strong contender.