Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
(+5)

I finally managed to play through the full game a second time with the idea of a full review in mind. Keep in mind, of course, that I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who is just studying creative writing so I'm still an amateur when it comes to critique.

  Let's get the negative out of the way first, because honestly, there are probably a lot more of them than I'm willing to admit because I do genuinely love this game so I just want to get that part over with so that I can focus on the positive.

  The biggest negative aspect of this game is that the MC doesn't really have a personality. Now, I understand that in a VN like this, that is often kind of the point as the player is supposed to put his/her own personality into the protagonist, but I feel like there should be more POTENTIAL for personality. Of course, I have to keep in mind that the game is still in development so a lot of things are obviously going to change, but the point that I'm trying to make is that it would be useful to introduce a bit more dialogue options that give the player a chance to determine the kind of person they want the MC to be. Do they ACTUALLY want him to be the kind of person who tells Lin to sit on Kali's face? If so, do they want him to do so directly, cleverly or jokingly? That kind of thing.

  Now that I've got the boring negatives out of the way, let's focus on the positives.

  First of all, I have to mention - and this is all personal - that the android's (I'm just gonna call here Diana from here on since that's what I named her and it just feels natural at this point to refer to her as that) story is extremely well-made. As someone who's incredibly interested in philosophy - and is actually interested in getting a further education within that field - it's excellent. It naturally makes the player question the nature of sentience in a way that just flows with the story without FORCING the topic onto them. The philosophy is never the primary focus, apart from a few scenes, and yet it manages to introduce it. It allows for Diana's plot to continue developing without the topic of her AI ever getting in the way while it still stays in your mind throughout the entire thing.

  Secondly... while I personally don't consider it the most important thing, especially not in a game like this, I just find it very interesting that a NSFW VN game actually manages to at least somewhat pass the Bechdel test... Lin's story was without a doubt my favorite. She's the first character properly introduced, and - at least at this point - she has the most intriguing storyline. I remember having to go through so much grinding in order to be able to continue her story once I got to the point of having to spend a lot of money (I'm trying to keep this as spoiler-free as possible) in order to go on with it. The scene/scenes afterwards (you know which once I'm talking about) were DEFINITELY worth it. Not just for her character or for the fictional world as a whole but for the MC as well. It felt like Lin's path was the one that gave him the most amount of depth and emotion. I appreciate how the reason for him caring so much about the liberation was left ambiguous. Does he care at all or does he just want Lin to be happy? Has Lin simply inspired him? Does he want to make sure that Lin will be fine once he's dead since she will outlive him? That's up to the player. One of the areas where I actually think his lack of personality actually works to the story's advantage, which might contradict what I said earlier but also not really. It's a lewd visual novel, let's not put too much though into it.

  Last but not least, I DEFINITELY like that the characters actually interact with each other and not just with the MC. I often like to compare this game to Lucky Paradox. They're both excellently written VNs with a nuansed and fleshed out story that gets you hooked and keeps you engaged outside of just the sexual scenes, they both include a time-of-day-mechanism and they both require you to spend time with every character to keep the plot going forward. But that is one of the areas where I feel this game beats LP. Now, I don't want to insinuate anything because I know that LP is also still in development so a lot of things are going to be added but the fact that there are scenes between the girls without the MC just makes them feel like ACTUAL humans with their own lives.

  There you go, that is my take. I'm certainly looking forward to what this game has to offer in the future, and I'm without a doubt happy I found it. Keep it going!

(+5)

Thank you so much for the feedback! This is my first time writing a story and I didn't go to school for this type of thing, so it means a lot :)

One of the biggest complaints I've seen people having for H games is that the main character is unrelatable. Maybe he's rapey, a dick, a super alpha, a super beta, etc etc. So I decided to go to the route of games like Legend of Zelda and Half Life where the main character is a self insert. In fact in most of the beginning of the game, he's mostly mute but as the story went on he started to have much more of a voice. But still to this day, I don't see MC as the actual main character, he's just the player. The 8 women in the hotel are the protagonists of their own stories and the player character is a supportive vehicle for their narratives.

Runey42, I'd like to ask you a question ....Do you intend to keep this game up indefinitely, or is there actually going to be a middle and eventually and end to the game (story) before you move on to other games or interests? Just wondering.

I could see after an extended amount of play that even the most avid player would get tired or move on to something else so I was curious of your end goal.

Thanks

I will definitely be finishing this game, and maybe move on to HH2 after this. I've had some solid ideas for a very interesting sequel for some time.