I'm not6 a huge fan of the X-Change universe, but there was a lot to like in this game. The overall play, the sales minigame, the blackjack minigame when playing blackjack, the clothing... all of thise worked. The other mingames... did not. Identifying penises is so far from my thing that I lol'ed when I got to that minigame. The twitch minigames were hugely annoying (as they always are, to me). Blackjack minigames for the sake of minigames didn't do it for me. BUT (and this is a significant but) the dev wisely chose to allow the player to bypass the minigames in favoor of skill checks, so all is right with the world. Bravo to them for that choice.
The only real complaint with the game was that blowjobs were the only sex. I love getting blowjobs, but I don't love watching them. Those scenes where the female protagonist is too aroused to turn down sex would have worked if the game's idea of a sexual encounter wasn't a highly aroused woman giving a guy a blowie and then running home to masturbate. I'm hoping that that was because the images for actual sex-sex just aren't incorporated yet (the independent scenes have sex-sex).
I'm crossing my fingers for this to turn into something really good.
I'm quoting you in this, but really this is a response for a lot of the people in the thread.
The thing to remember is that the game is still an EXTREMELY early release, despite the amount of quality and polish.
The quality and polish of the game makes it seem like it should be further along than it actually is, but essentially, right now, the game is just a testbed for the mechanics the dev is adding. To use a game-dev term, XCL at this point is a
vertical slice of what the game
could be a year or two down the line. The game is a prototype still.
The systems that are there currently are there to test how they work, and implement them, with the intention of building out the rest of the game's systems as time goes on. Really, to put it bluntly, if the dev released the game in a more typical manner the game would probably still be under-wraps for another year before anyone would play the alpha.
That's not to say that what's there is bad, in fact it's far from it. The quality of the game is honestly held to such a high level of standards it should be commended. But I see a lot of people expecting a lot more from the game right now than they should, simply for the fact that there's a public build, and the quality is so high.
To use a dumb example; From the standpoint of baby to adult, with an adult representing a finished, 1.0 game, the game is still a 3-month old newborn that people are confusing for a toddler, and expecting that baby to be walking and talking.
The game's just not there yet, but the dev was nice enough to take us along for the ride in the early development process.
Was it a good idea? That's not really my call to make, but I do think it's important for people to recognize the extremely early state of the game and temper expectations for now. Put ideas out there sure, offer commentary, but don't expect the world and criticize that the game doesn't offer it just yet.
I know you can put up the argument that "
game-name-here is in alpha/beta and it does x or y!" but I really think that this game is a real exception to the usual game development process, and the way its released and being publicly developed like this in such a prototype stage is very atypical. And I think it's important for people to at least on some level recognize that before jumping to conclusions about a game that hasn't even really started.
To put it simply, this game is
EARLY early-access with the quality and polish of a late alpha. Cut it a bit of slack, grab some popcorn and good seats, and watch the show.
