VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Warlord [v1.1.2 Elite] [deepglugs]

Warlords is a bold attempt to augment top-notch Blender character and animation renders with AI backgrounds to complete a short AVN in a reasonable amount of time (developer claims it took 9 months).

The strengths of this hybrid approach are apparent early on and unfortunately so are its weaknesses resulting in a mixed experience where the good part is really good and the bad parts are pretty bad. Thumbs up to the developer for trying something new, but this certainly has room for improvement.

Story
MC is a peasant living his own life when soldiers from the empire raided his house, killed his mum and burnt his farm. He was saved by his sisters and entered into a contract hosting a succubus, Eisheth, who grants him powers to seek revenge.

The plot as a whole is good historical fantasy, but Warlords being a spinoff of the developer's other games has patchy story world building if one has not played the main trilogy. Some of the Patreon new content added post completion are also not well amalgamated resulting in inconsistencies - e.g. Zamara, a new character added into the MC's harem isn't reflected in subsequent dialogue and everyone talks like she does not exist.

Game Mechanic
Choices add either Chaos or Lust points and these points in turn affect the story and subsequent choices. There are three proper endings, one real ending and a few "game over" type endings, so save regularly.

Background / Character Renders
Background renders made using AI are adequate, but not great. Many a times they feel too new and pristine to fit the narrative - e.g. a dark narrow alley in a bad part of town looks too clean and bright, a peasant bar feels more like a posh restaurant, MC's room looks like a rich noble's quarters etc.

Character renders are top notch made using Blender which combines the benefits of HS2 and Daz - the females exude feminine features without looking too cartoonish. I especially like Eisheth's design - a combination of ethereal beauty, lasciviousness and dominance befitting of a succubus queen. Many developers don't get a Succubus right, quite often it's too slanted towards femdom or sluttiness.

However, the developer has obviously cut corners too aggressively resulting in insufficient renders to reflect what the text is saying. We sometimes read characters doing and saying something and yet this isn't reflected visually and all we get is a generic background pic.

Character Development
Warlords is an incest focused game and the three main LIs are your sisters, Cassandra & Alexandra as well as your aunt Thel. For a short story AVN, there is some minimal effort made on character development but not enough to make them multi-layered. In addition, there are a couple of side characters involved in sex scenes but otherwise little time is allocated for their background.

Sex Scenes
The animations, dialogue and camera movements are good quality comparable to some of the best games out there. Strangely, the developer does not use any still renders to depict sex scenes before, in between and after the deed. This results in off-putting scenarios where players read about what MC and his girl(s) are saying and doing without visual representation and then suddenly transiting into an animation movie of a blowjob or fucking.

Sound effect is inconsistent, some scenes have them while others don't. Not sure why it's this way. On the whole I've seen plenty of developers cut corners by saving on dialogue, sound effects or animations, but this is the first time I see a game with good animations and zero still renders during sex scenes...

BGM and Sound Effects
Most of the BGMs are from Scott Buckely and fit the story well, but quite often there are long periods during game play where there odd to be a BGM or at least some background white noise yet we get radio silence instead. Another strange development decision that I'm unsure of the rationale.

Conclusion
I like how the developer combines AI background with nicely rendered Blender characters - it's not perfect but acceptable. The narration is a hit and miss with holes occasionally causing some difficulties in understanding and a lack of still renders often adds to the confusion and banality. The animations though are very good and worth a look if you can overlook the obvious flaws.

All in I give it a 3.5 stars experience with areas for improvement.

Some solid animation... once you get past the endless stretches of staring at hideous AI generated backgrounds.

Just way too much panning and zooming into bad AI art while reading disembodied dialog.

Quetzzz made a perfect review of the game, can't really add much to it.

I actually didn't read all, to be fair, i dropped midway chp 4 i think?

Chapter 1 does a poor job of creating any connection with the family, i mostly should care about them just because they told me so, but ok.

Chapter 2 starts with one of the worst things, single dialogue options. If i can't choose something different, and it's not even the "cute" same option twice because you are being controlled or something, why even bother showing it? Just breaks the flow for no reason.

And the blowjob scene was kinda weak, so i lost my interest there, but

Chapter 3 was the proper start of the game, i guess. Everything outside your control is behind you and now you will start developing a connection with the LI's and building your character, right?

Well, not really, besides on chp 1 you were groping your sis and on the start of 3 you all are acting weird because you are naked, huh?
And your character goes and do the most stupid thing possible. Also why they burned down the farm? wtf

Chp 4: Yap yap, i started skipping and i think it was in the middle when i stopped. But even the background started to be "lazy".

I'm not usually a fan of AI CG, mostly because developers will go overboard and feed the AI prompts to create everything. This developer didn't do that. Sure, they used AI to create the environments, but that rarely has to look the same way twice. Landscapes are vast things and you simply can't get the entire game world in a single scene, so no one bats an eye if the environment of the next scene looks slightly different because AI lightning isn't striking twice. You chalk it up to a different street, a different building, a different set of trees, a different part of the lakeshore, a different view of the sky.

People are different, however. Without ridiculous amounts of makeup and surgery--or an assist from Father Time--you're going to look the same tomorrow as you did today as you did yesterday. So I was pleased to see the developer went with 3DCG for character renders. You have a saved copy that you can bend, shape, contort along the rendered stick figure; the outer texture stays the same. Always the same face, always the same features, always the same general body shape.

I will note that the black censor on the MC's face is stupid. This is not the first game I've seen do this, though the last game I saw do it got more backlash for it's stupid black square, though in fairness that game is far more notorious on this forum (I won't go into it further; if you don't know, you're better off). If you want to hide an MC's face, get more creative with the camera angles.

For the most part, the story is great. There are changes here and there from the better known parts of Greek mythology--for instance, Hephaestus was rather a cad at the time, but I won't get into it because it gets long--but it can be forgiven since the game dives into a lot of what if? For example: "what if it were real?" and "what if the now very real pantheon died a long, torturous demise?" There's a lot of good universe-building here, and it ties in very well with the series the developer had already released by this time that focused on the Gorgon sisters (the mortal Medusa and--her immortal sisters--Stheno and Euryale).

PS: To any dev reading this, please be careful when letting AI add animals to your scenes, at least in the year 2024. While the little rabbit was cute as could be, the deer from a couple of scenes earlier looked liked it had been carved that way from wood, with a head only Picasso could love. Maybe it will get better in time as we feed more deer to the woodchipper, I mean to the AI data model... but today is not that day.

Nice story, nice girls, multiple endings, most of them not good. The game offers some replayability because of that.
I think I got the good ending, not sure if the best though, a certain goddess was not in the harem in the end.
The choices and consequences are not very intuitive, so you will probably not get a good end on the first try.
Overall, quite enjoyable.

Reviewed on 2024/03/31, Steam version 1.0.0
Score: 4/10


TL;DR:
While my first impression of this game was good, it ultimately failed to stand out. In the Adult Visual Novel-space, there is an expectation that the adage of “show, don't tell,” is followed. This game does the opposite. While this game certainly is an Adult Novel, visually it fails to stand out or impress.


Adult:
With 24 lewd scenes, there's plenty of adult content to be had. A few scenes are NTR situations, most others include family members.

Our MC, Icarus, is blessed by his succubus with a gigantic penis. During lewd animations, this often causes clipping. I'm sure there are some people who think it's hot to see a woman dislodge her jaw, I'm not one of them. Clipping is an issue in pretty much every animation. If it's not someone's hair, or legs, then it's the penis itself clipping through body parts or orifices.

The lewd scenes themselves consist of 1-3 looping animations, with wordy text describing what's actually happening. It will say how the lovers are touching each other, but it will rarely be shown. This also causes a disconnect between what's shown and what's read. The MC will be balls deep on screen, while the text is still leading up to it. Usually, these animations just consist of a single motion. While the movement looks fluid and natural, it gives a lifeless impression. This isn't helped by filters that make the women look like real life silicone sex dolls.

When the MC's face would be visible, a black circle covers it. I don't understand why. Is the dev worried about the MC's looks, or do they think this improves immersion or would let players more easily self-insert? I don't know. For me, it's distracting. Honestly, if players are capable of immersion or self-insertion with the massive cock, I'm sure they can handle seeing the MC's face.


Visual:
“Warlord” mixes photorealism with cartoon-style visuals. A heavy use of filters can make renders and characters look washed-out and out of focus.
Many scenes feature particle effects like animated fire, falling embers or floating dust, and I think these are gorgeous. But, if I had to pick between these animations and actually seeing characters fighting or lobbing fireballs, I'd choose the latter.

There's also a certain lack of attention to detail with these animations. They'll just abruptly restart their loop, and don't always fit what the text is describing.
A few visuals and animations stand out, and I wish more games would incorporate these. An example of this is the transition from night to day in Chapter 4.


Sound:
The choice of music is on-point. Scenes have a track that fits the general atmosphere and goings-on. There are no tracks with lyrics, which, I think, is perfect.


Novel:
Yes. This game is a novel.
Joking aside, a capable writer has written the story. There's a call to action, struggle, and potentially, victory. Player choice guides the protagonist down a certain path, which can lead to multiple endings. There seem to be 3 main endings, and several endings that can happen during the story.

I think I've only noticed one or two spelling mistakes, which is exceptional.

There are some inconsistencies between what's shown and described. The text will describe four soldiers, three will be shown. Things will appear on fire before a fight has started in full, and so on.

Toward the end, the story feels rushed. An interesting character is killed off, and suddenly the MC will infiltrate to attack the “big bad” with his sisters and aunt. It feels as if large parts of his hero's journey were waved away. The group of followers he gathered were abandoned and never mentioned again, and a single choice involving the succubus decides which of two endings the player gets.


Conclusion:
When deciding whether I'd recommend this game or not, I almost had to flip a coin. In a vacuum, I would hesitantly recommend this game, but in the AVN space, I can't. Not only did the story leave me wanting, the visual presentation of an animated render per few pages of text just doesn't do it for me.


Remarks:

• The replay gallery isn't accessible during the game, only from the main menu
• The absence of a (configurable) textbox makes some text difficult to read on bright backgrounds.
• Many, if not all, scene animation noticeably restarts its loop after a while. Including the Main Menu background.
• The scene gallery shows 24 locked scenes, some are marked as ELITE
• Elite is an NTR mode, players have to manually enable this (every time) after starting a new game. The game doesn't inform the player about it existing, and doesn't ask if the player wants it enabled.
• Some visual effects are very disorienting. Like when reading a long conversation while the render is constantly zooming in & out.
• While lewd scenes often show cum shots, its viscosity is too liquid.
• Characters are shown through side-images, but they don't show emotion and don't have action poses.
• There's no music on the main menu
• Some music tracks are too silent compared to others.

Very entertaining.
A good sidestep from the already great main story line. Character developement of both the mc and Eisheth depending on your choices are well-made. I was a bit skeptical at first but liked the idea that a mortal could influence an ancient and powerful being trough their connection in the end.
Some of the character models looked a bit strange in some scenes but apart from that it's visually pleasing in my opinion.

Sexy AVN with a mildly dark plot. The story is relatively easy to follow, the models are very attractive, and the visuals are above average. My only issue with the story is that the MC should have been having sex like his life depended on it, because it literally did. I realize there was a gradual corruption element, but the collection of "Lust Energy" necessitated those kinds of encounters, with a very willing harem. The lust and chaos stats seem to get lost in the development of the story, with the AVN slowly morphing into a more simple kinetic story that avoids stats. Some choices have severe consequences and it's worth a few playthroughs to figure out the different endings. Very much enjoyed this and look forward to future productions of this creator.

This game started out OK as a mildly darker fantasy game with an interesting model art style and some decent dialogue. By update 12-14, most of the game has been replaced by incredibly bland AI art and character monologue. There are several scenes where instead of talking to the LIs, the selling point of the game, the character instead monologues and then it says that he then spoke to the LIs. There was a whole update with like, maybe half a scene worth of conversation with romantic interests and a sex scene it says you blacked out for and thus do not get to see.

Incredibly disappointing turn for this game, which was a solid four before this. Would not recommend.

The story and writing are really good but the visuals are underwhelming at best.
AI imagery isn't good enough by far and lacks cohesion, it breaks immersion instantly.
Animations and 3d renders are below decent.
This isn't a visual novel but a good regular novel with a lackluster illustration every 5 pages of text.

Good (really): Story and writing
Bad (really): Visuals

Besides maybe the first cumshot just awesome animations, voicing etc. Doesn't get said often enough but I personally really hate games that doesn't the freeze frame flashing orgasms and more animators needs to adapt animated cumshots and creampies.

This is one excellent little thing right there.

While it certainly could use more renders during the action scenes (battles and travel, not sex in this case), the game is pretty nice.

The art is somewhat different to what we're used to, but it works well, aside from the cum which looks absolutely ridiculous.

The story is pretty decent, and considering the settings of the game, makes sense as well.

Beware though, there aren't many choices so far, and some combination of choices, will seemingly lock you out of the "best content" (depending on one's tastes of course.)

The game, from its lore and choices, seems to be best played by trying to keep your chaos and lust in exact balance, which is incredibly difficult to do considering the few choices available, and the fact that just missing one, will very heavily throw you into the other path (locking you out of choices very quickly.)

interesting and emotional story
models are sexy and beautiful
in my opinion game can use more choices
i like the medieval games so i keep an eye on this one
keep the updates coming and good luck to dev

The most banal of the story starts: "hero village got burned down thus he rages and makes the contact with some dark and misterious power"
The only original appeal was it being dark and gritty but that got rework with tags being changed to a more vanilla and family friendly ones(pun about incest replacing rape intended). Making an already mediocre piece even more basic both story and porn wise.
The graphics/3D models are somewhat good when it comes to faces, even if a bit dated.
All in all:
Story 1/5
Graphics 4/5

So the Version I played was

Version: 0.5.1

I have to say I liked the game. I will be honest and say that at first I wasnt going to try the game because i wasnt a huge fan of the screenshots. I think what made me try the game the most was the name of the game.

When i hear Warlord i think of a conqueror or empire building. The death scene was tragic but it honestly served its goal.It made me want revenge but to not blind revenge. so i think you did a good job there.

Now though I got to kill the knights...now what. the vengence has been completed in a sense, so i am curious to see how the dev will make us see how and why we will end up as a warlord, or hero, or demon, or just guy trying to survival.

Warlord Review Version 0.5.1

It's kind of funny when you come across games. This one struck me for two reasons, some questionable decisions to start, and luckily, it had a style that appealed to me.

Now, I'm not gonna say the AI generated images are to everyone's taste, but I will say that the atmosphere of this game is very stylistic. It feels ethereal, like you're playing a game about the end of the world.

It's not quite that, but after what happens in the first scene, it might as well be the end of the world.

I'm not gonna do a full review cause the game is pretty short as it stands, rather I'll give my general thoughts.

First and foremost, there is very sad moment at the start of this when someone close to MC dies. There is a LOT of anguish and if that bothers you, like it did to a reviewer below, you don't have to play it. HOWEVER, it was set up very well. It USED to be a LOT more controversial prior to this most recent update with the character being raped as well. Luckily the Dev changed it, or I wouldn't have given it a shot.

Second, the story. We can talk about what makes a good story, but it's so short none of that really matters. What matters is the telling of the limited story and the Dev does a great job of setting up this tragic story and making it affect all those involved. And they clearly have an idea of the universe the characters inhabit because they have lore out the ass.

The MC is the part that I like. There are some decisions you can make that will probably determine some corrupt/good MC, but that's for the future. The MC is not just a dude going on his sexual impulses, he thinks about the scenarios and acknowledges the family taboo. The fact that he finds himself in such situations but manages to come out squeaky clean is awesome to me. We need more MC's that don't give in to temptation at the first moment.

Lastly, I LOVE the art in the game. Not the AI art necessarily, though it does its job, rather I love the models. I don't know what models the Dev uses, but I love the, this sounds insulting but it's not, plastic look from them. It reminds me of the hot video game characters of the past during the Xbox/PS2/Gamecube era. Just nicer and more detailed.

I'm happy to give this fledgling game a 5 because I like the style, it has an earnest attempt at something well thought out and the MC refuses to be a part of a sex game. So far

Good job on the changes @deepglugs

TDLR, v0.5.1, a very early version of the game, so take the review for what it is, but this seem to be a game from a dev that can manage both posing/renders/animations *and* story-telling and character building. That is quite rare and usually means the game will be good.

Pros

• Interesting story and take on classical mythology
  
  
• Unique looking models, unique looking cock for MC (not the same recycled one that can be found in so many Daz3D- and Honey Select-games)
  
  
• Very smooth animations
  
  
• Male MC bigger than female characters (what it looks like anyway)
  
  
• Choices matter. I think. You seem to choose if you try to stay on the narrow path or if you go down the autostrada of lust, violence and revenge. However, as mentioned, early game and it might turn out to be more railroad:ed than that, so take this with a grain of salt.
  
  
• Fitting and atmospheric music
  
  
• Good writing that mostly support the tone the dev seem to want to create.
  
  
• Deep worldbuilding that grounds the story.

Cons

• Non choices. A couple "choices" in the beginning where there is only one alternative. What's the point of that?
  
  
• Railroaded choices: As a counterpoint to what I wrote above about the choices seeming to matter, in the beginning there are a couple of formative choices where the player is forced to choose revenge and romantic interest for his sisters. The player can choose options that do not contain those elements, but all those lead to an immediate game over. Nothing wrong with the dev deciding that these two elements are going to be a part of the game regardless of how the player want to play the MC, but the fact that the dev choose to rub the players nose in how the MC has to be played in this instance might signify that the story will be more railroad:ed in practice than other choices presently seem to indicate. But once more, early on, we'll see later on.
  
  
• Minor errors in language and pronouns. For instance refering to soldiers from the empire as emperial soldiers rather than imperial soldiers.
  
  
• Minor errors in tone that makes the MC feel more like a modern person than someone living in the middle ages. But mostly it feels on point.

In its current form, this is not a visual novel. It's mostly walls of text with various bland background scenes. The majority of the "story" is in text only, you don't even see renders of the characters. The few character renders that are currently in the game are most for the H-scenes, which are rather unremarkable.

I don't see much hope for this "story" (it's really not a game) in its current form.

It was an okay game with renders that stand out enough to not be totally lost in the shuffle but since the dev decided to tone content back to please people who wanted the game less adult and more PG rated, it's less of a dark adult game and blurs in more with with dozens of other games with very similar plots. Still, I'll round a 2.5 up to a 3 for the renders being unique enough.

Version : Ch 4
Playtime : 1-2 hours (so far)

Models/Renders : Good
Story : Good
Dialogs : Quite good (proofreading needed)
Immersion : Good

I've just finished my playthrough and I really liked it. It doesn't have much content yet but it's very promising.

It needs a little proof reading to fix some dialogs, but the I really like the storytelling and interactions : not too long and not too short.
I like the dynamic foreground/background effects and the efforts to make the scenes more "alive".
I'll update my rating in the future, and I hope this will continue, because it's very promising and I really really like where (I think) it's going. I can't wait to give it a better rating because in my opinion you have a 5 stars material here.

Thank you for your hard work, I might support you in the future.