Can I just take a moment to say how fantastic this game is?
I'm not going to formally review it yet, because I never review a game until I'm done with it- meaning either until I'm reviewing the completed game, or until I've given up on it because I've decided it's too crap to waste any more of my time on. But seriously, I just want to express how much I'm loving this game so far. If everything remains on track and we eventually see completion, it's almost a dead certainty it's gonna be a 5-star game. And unlike a lot of people, I don't throw out perfect scores willy-nilly to everything that mildly amuses me ("yeah I guess it's alright, 10/10").
Firstly and most obviously, the art is simply gorgeous. The world is vibrant and bright, the characters are all visually distinct from each other (apart from the guards, obviously, which is part of the joke), and the women are, for the most part, simply stunningly beautiful. The gameplay is, well, it's basic for this kind of game, but that's a good thing- the puzzles make sense and the solutions aren't obnoxiously obscure. I hate it when developers try and make progress artificially difficult in the name of fake "gameplay"- it's an erotic visual novel, OK? We're here for the story and the porn.
But the best part about it is the story, by which I mean the characters. The plot overall is a bit average, bordering on cliche, but the characters make it. Most importantly, I really like the MC. He's more than a bit goofy and can come across a bit dim sometimes, but he's never portrayed as so shit-thick I want to slap him (unlike SOME moron protagonists I could name). More importantly, he's blatantly perverted, constantly thinking with his dick and occasionally brushing up against the edge of being a bit of a creep, but the important thing is he never crosses that line- he may perv on Myrtle while she's bathing and sometimes try a bit too hard to pressure her into doing sexy things with him despite her clear commitment to remaining faithful to her husband as long as he could be alive, but he's always kind and genuinely respectful towards her (not just "if I act nice to her I'll get her pussy eventually"), and he may think Holly is hot, but he means it when he says he's helping her because it's the right thing to do, not for her body. I've played some really good games that are undermined by what an utter douche the player character has to be in order to get laid (most notably Lust Epidemic, which would be a top-tier game if Brad wasn't such a complete fucking tool), but a little perving here and there can be excused when you can wrestle Holly into submission (explicitly winning the right to do anything you want to her by her own admission) and then say with a straight face that you're not going to even so much as grope her if it's not what she wants. And I love the little details like petting the baby fox and even winning over the mother just for the pure love of cute animals. No matter how much of a goof he is, the MC is a guy you can respect.
The girls in general are great, because there's so much variety to them. It's mostly humans so far, although the elf women, Maple and Gomira offer great promise of more exotic types (I always love me a halfling, gnome or goblin girl), but even the human women provide a great deal of variety, from the classic, shy beauty of Myrtle, Rose's exotic, secretive, gypsy spiciness, Holly's spunky, short-tempered farmgirl fire, the unashamed sluttiness of Anne, the dusky aristocratic beauty of Madeline, the milfy curves of Gretta, even the too-good-to-be-real "darling Celestina". It really exemplifies the advantage of hand-drawn 2D art over 3D model packs like Daz or HoneySelect, where every girl ultimately looks pretty much the same. They have great stories and personalities as well- Holly is bitchy and short-tempered but not a genuinely nasty person (the scene with her in the well where she thinks about what will happen to Abe if she just decides to accept exile was a great moment) and simply kissing her felt like a real accomplishment, while Myrtle's story has so much more to it than just "get over your missing husband and hop on the big new cock". Serena is hilarious in her arrogant self-centeredness, but not just a vapid airhead, and is also refreshingly sexual- her refusal to fuck you really is entirely to do with class-conscious snobbiness rather than just prudishly acting like she's too good for such dirty things (the scene where you titfuck her image, which she can feel every bit of, while she watches and frigs herself is probably the hottest one in the game). The sex scenes in general are fantastic as well, with a great deal of passion and intimacy to them, rather than just mechanical IKEA erotica- the first time you make love to Myrtle in the cave in particular was just amazingly sweet as well as hot.
It's not JUST the women either. I love the way you can make friends with a bunch of men, who often feel like either an afterthought, or nothing more than an obstacle or threat in games like this. Junior and Kevin in particular are characters I just really like because they're nice, friendly guys who help the MC and he gets along well with them. Not EVERY male NPC in a porn game has to be there just to threaten to cuck you, or for you to cuck, and it's cool that the MC can just have a couple of good mates he can hang out with. Junior in particular looks like a stereotypical big goofy loser character, but is actually a lot smarter and more reliable than he looks. I hope the story goes far enough to let you meet Junior's fiance, I hope you help them sort out any further relationship issues, I hope you get invited to their wedding, and I REALLY hope that there's no possibility of you cucking Junior AND that his fiance is actually conventionally attractive, rather than comedically homely just to excuse you not getting to have sex with her. Seriously, don't make her ugly just for a laugh at Junior's expense, not even as a chin-stroking "beauty is only skin deep" moral about how there's more to a woman than just looks; there are enough beautiful women in the world to go around. Just let him have his beautiful bride, dammit, because he went WAY above and beyond the call of duty helping you and Myrtle, and bro deserves a happy ending. Not EVERY attractive woman in a porn game has to be fuckable by the player character, y'know. Besides, I'm sure we're going to meet his "ugly twin" sister eventually and it's going to be obvious he was either just joking about her looks, or only considers her that way because they're siblings. And Kevin's such a bro. He actually brightens up the game every time he shows up. When you actually get your hands on a permit to get into the city legitimately, you should meet up with him at a bar to celebrate. I think it'd be funny if you met his wife and she looks just like him- in that she always wears full-body armour with a face-covering helmet with expressive eyeholes too.
Speaking of which, the game is also REALLY funny in places. Like genuinely funny, not just trying to be funny (which rarely ends well). Bits like the wolf being set on fire, running across the forest map to dive into the ocean, only to be eaten by a passing shark are literally laugh-out-loud hilarious. Which is another thing that helps the story stand out against its contemporaries.
Honestly, as far as actual feedback goes, I really can't think of anything that needs to be improved. I'm seriously trying to think of a part I don't like that I think should be fixed, and I'm drawing a blank. About the only complaint I can make is the trivial observation that during the sex scene dialogue the girls have a tendency to draw out consonant sounds other than "n", "l" or "s" (or vowels) for too long in a way that's actually unpronounceable ("It's so BIGGGGGGGGGGG"- how would you even say that, "biguhguhguhguhguhguhguh"?). That's about as much as I got. As far as suggestions go (apart from the ones I made earlier about Junior's and Kevin's women), I just have to say that I love how almost every woman is slated to get pregnancy content because that is literally my favourite type of content- I just wonder how that's going to play out long term? Will it go as far as birth like, say, Summertime Saga or S.H.E.L.T.E.R, and what happens afterwards? Just hoping you think it through properly in advance- rushing it can lead to poor results, like Corrupted Kingdoms, which caved to audience pressure to rush preggo content into the game and ended up implementing it in a very contrived and unsatisfying manner, which would now be almost impossible to fix. My recommendation would be that the women are able to get pregnant and give birth ONCE, and after that it can't happen again because Reasons (not because contrived unrealistic reasons, just because narative Reasons). Unless you want to actually individually code in options for each woman to be able to give birth to and raise multiple of your childen if you play for long enough, which would be AWESOME, but also ridiculous amounts of work, when the game looks like a ridiculous amount of work already.
So in short (a bit of a comical thing to say after I've gone on for this long), great job on the game, keep up the good work. Can't wait for the next update.
