playingstory | Ecchi Sketch

Name: Ecchi Sketch
Status: Complete
Site: newwestgames.itch.io/ecchisketch
Pairing: f/f
Description: Bang all your yuri manga coworkers
Controller Score: C - Can't hit all start menu options without mouse but there are no extra mechanics to trip you up when you're playing.

game title screen

This game is about a young lady who is looking for direction in life. She is a big fan of yuri manga and an aspiring artist in her own right, but she doesn't think she can really jump into the industry until she literally runs into another women who sees her art, loves it, and offers to giver her a job at her studio. Once the MC is there your choices are basically picking who among the rest of the staff to have a conversation with during the break. You can speak to the writer, who speaks in non-sequitors and seems to have her head somewhere on another planet, the secondary artist, who dresses a little like she's five years old even though she's older than the protagonist and is not doing a great job at making sexy art because she wants to draw magical girl stuff, and the owner, who is trying to get the studio off the ground and sort of deflects about her own sexuality by talking about how her bigwig father is letting her have this project but doesn't think she can do it.

The choice system in this game is not great. Basically, you pick the meeting you want and you get your scene, and then if you pick one girl enough times you're locked into her route and then there are no more choices left. There's no warning that you're about to make the last choice in the game either so I got locked in to my least favorite girl and was a little grumpy about it but saw the route through. As a game then there's not much there, but the story does go on for a little bit and the plot was cute and concise on the routes I accidentally took. And after you finish, the entire gallery for all routes unlock. I don't know if that's a bug or intended. I also weirdly only got one boob shot in the end and that was for a different girl than my route in the censored version.

The dev has also made the decision to remove all of the more explicit scenes, which need to be patched from files they have on their site if you want the full game. Without those scenes the moments where the sex is happening is kind of weird, because it's clearly happening, but in a very euphemistic way. I don't feel that removing the actual porn cut scene and editing out references to explicit parts of the body really moves the needle away from this being a fully adult game. For example, on the first route I played without the patch and it the MC clearly had ordered her LI to spend a day with a buttplug or a dildo or something inside her. I just didn't know which because the language was so vague. On the second route with a patch I got full X rated cut scenes which at least make more sense in the context of the scene. But I'm not into porn with women and wasn't into the story enough to complete the game.

Writing was ok. It's simple and straightforward, and I do like that it's setting is not a Japan that behaves exactly as if its America. There are some references to the specific difficulties of being gay in Japan and some touches of corporate culture that are a little more Japanese. It also feels like something written with a female audience in mind. Since f/f is not my thing I'm not sure how much of the yuri market is tailored towards women, but this game feels like it is? Maybe? It didn't feel too exploitive at least.

I don't know if I should recommend this game or not. The gameplay is just short of being Kinetic and the routes are ok but nothing special, but if you're looking for explicit f/f that doesn't seem tailored to the male gaze, maybe it's worth a look.