CAUTION: SPOILERS BELOW
Summary: A turn-based tactics, Fire Emblem-esque game, with various unit types and 2 different leaders.
My Experience:
My immediate impression of the game was "how the hell did they make all of this in a week?", and my second impression was just how well everything had been done. The menus are clean and easy to use, the units are all specialised and diverse (though not at all balanced, as you'd expect in a game jam) and there's 6 different missions across 2 different mini-campaigns led by distinct leaders. I've always been a fan of this genre, so the kinky twist and gameplay appealed to me greatly and it didn't disappoint. The graphics are simple but clear, the restraints really shine through on the unit sprites, the writing is fun, the variety is good - it's very easy to imagine this being a much larger game, with a lot more substance, and honestly, I'd love to see it. That's not to say it's flawless - one consistent annoyance is that the special move for rope bunnies has an AoE that also binds allies, and is at the top of the menu without confirmation that you want to use it, so pretty easy to mash into by accident; however, it's also quite funny, interacts with the theme and isn't an issue if you pay attention. Another would be - it's just not easy to memorise which units do what, and in lieu of a quick tooltip when hovering over the unit, i spent a fair while in the first 3 mission referencing and re-referencing all the unit ranges and stats to see if I could be more aggressive. Neither of those bugged me too much; in fact the only major mark against it - and sadly, it is pretty big - is that interacting with the bondage aspect against enemies seems to be a bit pointless. Almost all fights are won faster without using it at all, and in many cases, the chip damage is much more impactful than binding someone. Because it doesn't represent a win condition, it's quite easy to ignore. I mean, you probably won't, because it's a bondage game, but I would've preferred it if the end goal was to fully bind the enemy commander instead of nuking them with range 2 units and brat tamers. On the whole, easily some of the most fun I had playing through all the game jam submissions.
Theme Fit:
The units get tied up, each restraint type has some interesting mechanics, it's fun to do - but as in the last section, it's not a path to winning and it's often best not to do it. That's a shame, because there does seem to have been quite a lot of though in how to separate each type visually and in game. Ignoring that (fairly big) issue, I think it's about as well integrated as it could possibly be.
What Could Be Improved:
- Tooltips: It's not at all clear what units do from their sprites, other than the commanders and rope bunnies, and there's so
much info you need to play. Not a problem to have a complex game, but it definitely could do with holding the player's hand a bit more by showing expected damage, binding, etc when hovering. Similarly, some terrain is impassable and while it's clear what is and isn't visually, it's still be nice to have something which tells you that. - Make bondage matter more: Beating a dead horse at this point, but if binding represented health more (or maybe exclusively even!) then the game would be elevated to a good level, and probably possible to turn into a product, if that was desirable.
- AI improvements: It's a week long game jam, so I get it, but the AI is very much "I push forwards" and doesn't worry about things like shielding their leader or untying themselves. You can cheese it a fair amount if you don't care about time limits, so something to consider if the game goes any further.