A compelling game with an enjoyable premise. I enjoyed what content I understood and want this project to succeed so I'm going to go over roughly what I liked and what I believe can be improved. Please bear in mind this is but one man's opinion so feel free to disagree. I can only comment on the current state of the game in the English translation so I apologize if I miss anything that's in the Chinese/Japanese version.
As a side note: to move the furniture Press B then press Z
Strengths
+ Love the furniture options
Haven't seen this in an RPG maker game before, but the possibility to design my own house/shop is very compelling. Adds an interesting gameplay loop, possibility of crafting? possibility of gathering resources? possibility of shops to buy new furniture/upgrade/expand facilities? Possibility of furniture granting stat bonuses? Possibility of expanding the parlour through upgrades? Really good idea, looking forward to seeing more about it.
+ A lot of content already
This speaks for itself, if more of the game is able to be translated I believe there's already a lot of content to be enjoyed by players.
+ Good art!
A lot of assets have already been made and the quality of the art is extremely good! Whilst I'd love to see more CG scenes rather than sprite art, it's already very promising.
+ Wide range of characters
Whilst I can't speak to the depth of the characters or their relationship with the main character due to the limited dialogue currently, the wide range of designs is interesting. I'd definitely recommend creating a few furry characters, but that's up to your preference.
+ Sound Design already!
Music isn't annoying and from what I've seen, fits with the zones. Already small sound effects are scattered about here and there which helps with immersion.
Weaknesses and Possible Solutions
-The menu nearly stopped me from playing
Possibly the biggest issue I found so far, especially for something which seems relatively minor. The game doesn't immediately present an 'English' option and starts up in Chinese, I, therefore, assumed the translation was broken or I installed the wrong file. If I was in a different mood I would most likely have uninstalled the game and played something else (I would imagine other people at this stage would do the same thing). I really do think this should be fixed asap.
Possible Solutions:
- I think this one is a fairly easy fix, start the game up in English depending on which language settings are installed on the PC (probably quite complex)
- Include separate download files for Chinese, Japanese, and English
- Include an option on the title screen for changing language. This could be with a flag (if you have the technical know-how) but it should be very easy to spot
- Necessary gameplay instructions should be translated asap
Much like above, anything which requires an in-game description in order to advance (quests, etc) should be prioritised. I struggled to pick up furniture and place it due to not understanding the instructions (No Z instruction given). Solutions for this should be obvious!
- The English translation reads poorly:
Whilst I'm no translator, I'd imagine that whoever is doing the translations currently is able to get the gist across from Chinese into English. I've found this game to suffer from the same problem as Uncle Neighbour: a game which is understandable in English, however, breaks the player's immersion due to the way it's been translated. I.E, wrong tenses, wrong pronouns, strange way of wording, or the occasional nonsense sentence (imagine machine-translated Chinese).
Possible Solutions:
- Leave it as is, focus on translating as much of the game as possible and hopefully fix it at the end: This was the goal of Uncle Neighbour, but sadly due to whatever reason it didn't happen.
- Hire a professional translator, this will solve the issue of English Translation but would be extremely expensive depending on scope. I.E. following along the same vein as Hachienden Heroes. This game receives small but regular updates monthly to very high translation quality.
- Continue with translation services as they are and set up a discord for the game. Using the discord try and find native English speaker volunteers to edit the script in order for it to read well. If you know any native English speakers willing to help out, try asking them. The obvious downside is you will potentially lose the original meaning/or intent of the writing. This is my preferred solution, but it's not my game.
- Words are cut off at the end of sentences:
Following in the same vein of the English translation being off, the cut-off words break the flow of the story as well as immersion. I'm no programmer so please ignore the solutions if they don't offer a fix or are downright wrong.
Possible Solutions:
- I'm unsure of your proficiency in English but if it's to a conversational level, play through the version in English and edit what words are cut off. If not, try and find someone to go through and find potential issues.
- Check whatever you're using to program the game to see if it's able to identify English words, if so, is there an option to automatically go to a new line? For example, what I'm typing right now when I reach the borders of the textbox and my word isn't finished, it will automatically go to a new line.
- Some content is too extreme for a more casual player:
Honestly, I'm a degenerate so I'll like almost all content apart from super extreme (I.E. shota, scat, gore). However, as a commenter below mentioned, they tried to skip a WS scene. No matter what 'solutions' I propose here, it really depends on your vision of the game. I also wouldn't call these steps particularly vital at the moment, just things to consider.
Possible Solutions:
- Include a preference section OR an option to 'skip' the extreme content before the CG appears
- Fade to black instead of a skip, keeping text but removing CGs.
Conclusion
A game with combat, house design and lots of areas to expand and is well thought out. Glad to see more Chinese BL games being brought over to the English market, God knows I want to play them but am limited by my language skills. Would love to see corruption/mind control content but that's personal taste.
Whilst the weaknesses/solutions section looks dense it's mostly reiterating that the game is currently difficult to understand from an outside English perspective. I'd highly encourage setting up a discord server and looking for help from native English speakers to help translate certain texts or give feedback.