playingstory | Entries tagged with fantasy

Name: Baked:Magic
Status: Complete
Site: https://red-baby.itch.io/bakedmagic
Pairing: F/F
Description: A short game of witches, baked goods, and sometimes love triangles.
Controller Score: D. Gimmick elements were not optimized.

This is a short, largely linear game. It's about 30 minutes. You're a witch who used to be a member of the army, but now that the war is over you're a baker, and have recently picked up an apprentice who is just recently also learning the witchy arts. Your old army buddy, Jane, is a palace guard and in close with the Princess. When an event is held to give the princess's hand in marriage to the warrior who can defeat her champion, your friend comes to you asking for a potion to turn her into a man so she can compete.

This isn't a trans game or anything. There's some discussion about how Jane is at a disadvantage for being both female and an elf but it's not the focal point of the game, neither is any sort of gender bending, which without spoiling too much I'll say doesn't end up figuring into anything. Also without spoiling anything, while there are about 4 or so choices, you have limited control over the narrative. It's mostly a short love story that can be a short love triangle, if you chose certain options.

There are a couple of small additional gameplay elements around choosing ingredients in a kitchen and mixing a bowl by clicking on the targets. These were simple but only marginally functional on a controller, and didn't add all that much to the game.

Given the nice art, short playtime, and straightforward story, this is a nice, free little VN to spend a sitting on. Because there's little in the way of choice or narrative complexity, it barely squeaks out of the kinetic novel category. The art is very cute though.

got_quiet

It's that time of year again. Seems I'm only paying much attention to these little VNs during Yaoi Jam. And I'm yet again going through all of them. The first one I tried was a demo for the game How to Defeat a Demon Lord. For a minute there I thought maybe I made a mistake and was playing the Yuri Jam games. Character art is very feminine. Sort of like a reverse DaVinci where the pillowing in the color makes them look like they have boobs on top of their feminine faces. Maybe I've just been away from yaoi for too long but it was a little disconcerting. You start out as a wannabe hero that fails pretty much immediately, but that failure gives you an opportunity, as a random knight explains that the corruption you've been exposed to gives you an opportunity to infiltrate the demon castle and attack the demon lord by surprise.

The fourth wall breaking is unnecessary, but at the same time it's kind of nostalgic. Reminds me of the days back when it was common for authors to interject in the middle of the fic to express some random, irrelevant thought. For example: holy shit there is a lot of cleaning that I need to do. Anyway. The demo is short but there is promising humor, and the characters are intriguing. You've got a small, violent yandare, the slutty middle child, an loyal and submissive guard, and a DILF. There's an eldest sibling too, but he didn't have much to do in the demo. Even though the writing is rough on a line-by-line basis, there are some choices, and promised branching, and it might be worth a look if the thing ever finds itself completed. Most VNs don't allow for too many fail states, and would prefer to nudge players through certain bottlenecks, but you can basically fail the game in your very first choice, albeit with a cutscene as a reward. The other options are less fatal but there does seem to be at least a little variety going on.

got-quiet.livejournal.com

Name: Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem
Status: Demo
Site: http://sevenkingdomsgame.com/
Rating: PG -13?
Pairing: M/F, F/F
( Read more... )

got-quiet.livejournal.com

Name: TUSKS: The Orc Dating Sim
Status: Demo.
Site: http://mitzialexander.itch.io/orc-dating-sim
Rating: R
Pairing: M/M

Description: "Tusks: The Orc Dating Sim focuses on a newly-formed family of gay orcs who are travelling from the annual orcish assembly to the Highlands of a semi-mythical Scotland! Along the way, the player can begin friendships and relationships with the various members of the group, including a selkie a long way away from home, a gentle-giant orcish warrior, and a polyamorous trio of orc chieftains."

In the demo you join up with a group of orcs that are essentially going the same way you are, have a nice chat with some of them, and then settle down for the first night on the road.

Art: Unusual for this sort of format but I got used to it quickly. The target audience for ORCS is bear lovers, not bishie fans, so the characters are stocky and plump, with stretchmarks, moobs, injuries etc. An effort has clearly been made to create a more realistic and inclusive depiction of what a nomadic people who encounter danger on the regular might look like. The art style itself feels a little sketchy, but like I said, I got over it quickly.

Writing: Very good. There's a strong sense of worldbuilding that doesn't require much in the way of straight exposition, the conversations you can have are interesting, and each of the many characters have strong personalities. Because even in the demo there were a lot of opportunities to step away and get to know the other orcs one on one, the large number of options (8 IIRC) didn't feel like too much, and instead created a lot of replay value.

There's also some interesting themes already popping up within the text, including issues of belonging and identity, and the building of family and community among gays and lesbians. My eyes narrow when games try to make a statement, because the last thing I want out of them is a hamfisted sermon, but the light nature of the text, and the clearheaded, sensitive, and introspective way the topics were addressed worked for me and I felt that they really added value to the story.

Choice: 13 choices made in the demo.

There's a lot of choice in this game. Some of it is simply choosing who to talk to, but the first day at least is focused on conversation, and depending on who you converse with that conversation can go 2 or three choices deep. The choices are also meaningful in the sense that they have a clear effect on the pathing. Most of the time there are 3+ choices at any given juncture. As far as options are concerned, this is one of the better demos I've seen.

Gameplay: There are some very neat things added to this game which makes me eager to see the end product, including some randomization that I suppose you could stick with the buzzword procedural generation. In the beginning you have the option to turn on AI agency, which comes into play once in the demo during a vote to decide on the name of the troupe. And during the first night the leader will choose different orcs to go on patrol, effective limiting your choices of who to talk with at camp, which again adds replay value. I'm not sure how that choice is made, if it's randomized or when, but I really enjoy things being a little different on playthroughs. It makes my least favorite part of renais more bearable.

Overall: I want to see this game made. I want to see it badly enough that I threw a few bucks at the creator's Patreon. The art put me off trying it for a while but I'm glad I decided to check it out. The script is polished and complex, and I want to get to know the characters better.

Plus I want to hang out with the flower chief some more.

got-quiet.livejournal.com

I've been playing through a lot of renai games lately so I'm going to do this to keep track of them.

Name: The Sun Misses The Moon
Status: Demo.
Site: http://gamejolt.com/games/the-sun-misses-the-moon/45012
Rating: ?
Pairing: M/M?

Description: "The Sun Misses The Moon is a LGBT visual novel with elements of college-life, unrequited love and supernatural alternate dimensions. It has been under production for over five months and early versions can be found on Game jolt. The story continues to grow and gather strength in concept each day.

There are currently several characters that make up the spine of the visual novel itself; Sol Kasmay, Lukas Archibald, Marvin Archibald, Turi Sisiro and Shin Kwon. Each of these characters have up to eight unique emotions and their own theme to go with personal situations.

The story is focused around Sol who is a young freshman in college attending with his best and only friend Lukas Archibald. Like most people, Sol has no idea what is in store for him in the near-future. However one thing IS for certain, the protagonist isn't always the center of his/her own story."

Art: Pretty good. Cohesive style, UI is clear, the character designs are cool and the character art is clean and cell shaded. The POV character Sol in particular is a cutie. My only gripe was over Lucas' pose. I wanted to push his hand down the entire game. The backgrounds are photos, slightly blurred, and they're also nice and clean, and for a demo there are quite a few of them. At one point you go from one room on campus to another and this is animated with a series of shots down a stairway. It was a nice touch.

Writing: For a demo there's a lot of it, and it's decent. All of the characters have clear voices and the dialogue feels natural. There were a few spots where the script seemed to jump a little. Either things got rehashed, or a jump wasn't smooth, but those issues were minor and rare. The story as it's revealed in the demo sets up some interesting questions and includes a major cliffhanger, so there's some promise here.

Choice: 1 (ish). This is where most games and I part ways, as I'm in the "more is more" side of choice in VNs. There were technically two places where I had to click something but in one case there was only one choice. In the other case there were two. Since this is a demo it's hard to tell how divergent things will get in the final product, but as it is it is only hitting the minimum required to keep from being a straight up kinetic novel.

Gameplay: There were no additional gameplay elements.

Overall: If a complete game is released I think it would be worth checking out, though a lack of routes in the demo is concerning.

Put your hand down!

Another main character.

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Playing games with an emphasis on story.

Entries tagged with fantasy

Baked:Magic

Yaoi Jam 2018 - How to Defeat a Demon Lord

DEMO - Seven Kingdoms: The Princes Problem

Demo - Tusks: The Orc Dating Sim

Demo - The Sun Misses The Moon

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