Post by Typical_Name in Caliross, The Shapeshifter's Legacy comments

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Cool to see that this is still being worked on. I've been holding off on finishing it for a while, because I'm waiting for it to be complete before I reach a dead end. :)

The only real criticism I have is that it's basically impossible to keep Erica's free will and brain intact without a guide. A lot of times, you get thrown into fun fetishy mind control content without any reasonable way to know it's about to happen. You decide to take up what looks like a simple farmhand job? Congrats, you're a cow now. You're doing a quest, and do the sensible thing of reporting to the local authority figure? Surprise, she's secretly been brainwashed by the bad guys and now she's brainwashed you (unlike many such instances, you don't get an option to resist with high enough willpower). You talk to the lonely-looking person in the bar? Enjoy the vampire route!

At least in most cases, it's thematic (it's not like the guys drugging and kidnapping girls are going to give you the chance to consent). There's also some exceptions where you're given ample opportunity to reverse course before the point of no return, like the Queen of Hearts turning you into a bimbo, which I like. Luckily, my compulsive saving makes this not too much of an issue, but I could see it annoying some people.

Anyways, when I went to type the above, itch.io popped up with the draft I had from last time. I was trying to report a bug, but couldn't post it because for some reason itch.io wouldn't let me attach the screenshots. You may have already fixed this by now, but just in case, here's what I was going to say more than half a year ago...

The schedule system sometimes breaks cutscenes. For example, I was doing the quest to investigate the Zanti Farm, and decided to help the farmer investigate the vandalism in his barn. The time cut to night. However, because I was scheduled to do a shift at the Queen of Hearts at night, it instead teleported me there, but it's still playing out the dialogue of the cutscene...

mdqp214 days ago(+2)

The main quest is complete, so if you want to, you can jump in whenever you like. Also, saves are retro compatible 99.9% of the time, so you generally won't miss anything by starting to play now (the only exception being if I add new content to old paths, which seems unlikely at this point).

On the plus side, the farm and the vampire don't instantly lock you in their respective paths, you need to go there for a while before the effects on Erica materialize (that's my way of giving a buffer to the players, as you noticed). Yeah, there is a limit to what makes sense and constantly asking players their input is also bad for the flow of the scenes, so it's a balancing act. You can however play the entire game without seeing a single sex scene, if I remember correctly, so I hope that's good enough in the end.

Thanks for the bug report! This actually never came up before, believe it or not. Since the schedule was introduced late into the game, it's likely that there are still issues out there. If you know of more scenes that do this, tell me about each one individually. Sadly, because of how the game's logic works, there isn't an easy way to find and replace all the bugged ones, so I'll have to do so manually whenever I hear about one.

Typical_Name208 days ago

Okej, wow, finished it more quickly than I expected. Chapters 5 and 6 definitely felt shorter than the ones before them.

Hrrm. Overall, I'd say probably a solid 4/5. It's sort of an inversion of The Last Sovereign, where I'm very invested in the overarching plot to the point where I found myself getting annoyed at the sex scenes ("blah blah blah tits blah blah blah pussy, tell me how the economy is doing!") - here, there are many great scenes, but they don't come together particularly well as a story. The whole is less than the sum of its parts. Still a fun experience for me, but I'd only be able to recommend it for others if they had the same kinks.

Also, it's sometimes very difficult to find things without the guide.

Btw, question - I never tried altering my body because I liked Erica the way she started, does stuff like tattoos, body piercing, and changes to butt/breast size show up in the CGs?

(btw, for any bystanders reading this, spoilers below)

Also, I kinda want to see the "bad" ending where I side with Hanatora, but I dunno if I want to put in the effort to re-find all those statues from before (I specifically avoided them and reloaded upon reading their text because they sounded sinister)... I guess the deciding question is, does she have an actual ending, or is it just a nonstandard game over, like becoming a tentacle mommy or fornicating with the men in the cursed/blessed village too many times?

Finally, minor quibble - I was told that siding with the Merchant Guild regarding the expansion of Golden Leaf would grant access to unique items, but I never saw these. Their only operation in the area seemed to be a store selling consumables.

mdqp207 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Hi!

Yeah, chapter 5 and 6 are shorter (I might try to expand chapter 5 a bit with some short quests, but there aren't going to be many big changes).

I am glad you liked the story. The scenes are kind of their own thing, as you noticed. There are various reasons for that, but probably the biggest one is simply that this was my first open(-ish) world game, and I tried to give it variety and make as much of it accessible from the get go, so it ended up being a patchwork of various ideas.

The alterations do not show up in the CGs, only in the "default" busts that I use here and there (it wasn't part of the original budget, and afterward it would have been too expensive and awkward to try and "patch it in").

Getting all the statues doesn't lock you into a bad end (although it makes one available). You get a different branch gameplay-wise in the demon world, so if you are interested in a slightly different castle section or if you want to see Erica jill-off to her obedience to the demons, you can go for it. It's not a major ending, however (as you noted, it's more similar to a nonstandard game-over).

Smoke screens and Yellowpetals are unique to the new store, if I remember correctly. Did you want something different available? If it's not a huge overhaul, you can give me your suggestions, and maybe I'll take a second look at the stores, the items available and/or the interactions you have with each one.

Typical_Name207 days ago

The open world aspect is a good thing in some regards but a weakness in others. You pretty much have to have a guide to know who to talk to if you don't want to miss things, or else just make a point of regularly talking to every NPC in the world just in case they have something new (a task made even more tedious by the fact that in this game, some things are different based on time of day). It's difficult to do well, I don't think I've seen anyone pull it off perfectly.

The story itself is alright, but feels a bit short once you account for the fact that most of the game is spent on things entirely unrelated to the main plot. It would also have been nice if the sex scenes tied into it somehow, ie, if you brought your partner(s) with you on expeditions to temples or supported your quest in some way (or, alternatively, indirectly undermined your quest, which is what I expected from, say, the Queen of Hearts or the Zanti), but that would get very difficult with the number of potential partners the game has. Many scenes are great individually, but the characters don't get developed - some characters seem to exist basically solely for their sex scenes. It would have been nice to see the characters interact with each other more (ie, you'd think people would notice Sonya bimbofying you, and that some people would have something to say about it - an amusing example I just thought of is a hypothetical arms race between Sonya and Professor Selina as the latter continually tries to re-brain you because she wants you to do well in her class).

That reminds me, some lore thoughts I had on the Queen of Hearts, now that I've finished their content after the main quest... how does their business model work? We're explicitly NOT granting men release there, so why are they spending all their money there and not just going to the brothel, which is much cheaper? We were able to convince that one green-haired woman to join us, but given how well Sonya pays her workers (significantly more than "normal" jobs like the bakery, at least), we can't do that with EVERYONE's wives. And what do we do when we get too old for most people to find attractive (I'm assuming that eternal youth magic either doesn't exist or is economically inviable, since old people exist in this world)? Sonya presumably makes enough money to retire comfortably, but what about her bunnies? Does she care enough about them to make sure they're alright after they're no longer fit to hop for her? I never could get a good read on Sonya, if she's like Hanatora and just wants to use Erica or if she genuinely thinks that her bunnies are happier being dumb (which is probably true, based on Erica's reaction to her). (Some dialogue implies the former, but if she's really only in it for the money, there's surely a better way to exploit a famous countess than just having her work as a waitress/stripper, right?)

Ah, yeah, so the consumables were the unique items. I thought they meant unique GEAR or magical artifacts or somesuch. I definitely wouldn't have had just some extra consumables be a point in favor of the Merchant Guild had I known, though Kira's panties might have still been enough of a winning argument anyways.

mdqp206 days ago(+1)

The game isn't perfect, that's for sure. There could have been ways to make the open world less painful, but it also makes it feel more "narrow". For example, you could get quests only from guilds or other specific NPCs, meaning that you'd only have to check those for new quests, and/or use more the balloon to indicate the availability of new content. I don't like that approach, though, since you are just moving from marker to marker at that point. The best approach would have probably been to not use a chapter system, so that everything is available when you enter an area (barring quest chains, but those would usually give you guidance on where to go for the next part), so you don't have to search the same places every chapter, and/or open up the world a bit more gradually as well as making travel a bit more involved, so that you work your way up to the full open world. There are trade-offs no matter what, though.

While I do have some amount of interactivity between the factions you are a part of and some quests, that can quickly spiral out of control if you have characters interacting consistently. I would have had to cut the number of characters, most likely.

Sonya just likes to be the queen of her little reign, that's why she doesn't go far with manipulating a noblewoman. She just sees Erica as another one of her girls (even if Erica is definitely one of her favourites). The QoH has gambling, sexy bunnies, strippers and a VIP area (which is usually very expensive and exclusive, although you gain entrance in different ways), these are all activities which make a ton of money, and she also has all sorts of special deals for rich customers. Also, don't forget she can effectively bamboozle everyone that comes in with her powers, to an extent, while the brothel is just a "regular" brothel, at the end of the day.

Kira's panties are the top 1 unique item in the game. XD

Anyway, that's more or less my thought process behind the game as far as these elements go.