RPGM - Court Magician [v0.15.9] [Sin and Salvation Games]

I'd rate this 3.5 if I could because its a passion project.

For every good thing about Court Magician there's a bad thing. I really like when smut games put effort into making a living world that includes characters that aren't just the protagonist and the love interests. The various systems at play are here interesting. It does a good job of setting up the "spurned man" revenge and corruption motivation. Everyone is incredibly mean to the MC so it plays into the fetish of him getting one-up on everyone. The graphics and UI have a 90s LucasArts adventure game feel.

The bad parts is everything feels clunky as shit. Weird choices abound. The one that stood out to me was this: the game uses the RPG Maker battle screen as an Aventure Game dialouge screen. Attacks are dialouge options. Enemies are characters that belong to enemy factions. Whenever a character from a faction talks, the music changes to their theme. This is fucking annoying because there will be times where 2-3 factions are having a conversation, the music tracks changing every time you advance the dialouge. A sound effect would be better. I had to to turn off all the music because that shit is dreadful.

Screen transitions are constantly clunky. You enter a new screen, it loads, then the screen effect (sunlight/darkness/etc) loads with a quick fade-to-black. Not optimized.

The art style is wildly disparate. Plenty of characters don't look like they're from the same game. The protagonist looks like a bad fan art of Gargamel from the Smurfs cartoon. Some NPCs look good. Some look traced from real life porn. It's all over the place.

Finally, right now, there's just not enough content to bother putting up with the bad stuff. I'd say wait for refinement.

Really great beginning. Just wish there was more content now.

I really love the kink of being the ugly magician tempting women around the castle. Great interactions with different characters. I love that you can change other characters' dialogue toward you by manipulating them.

The art is amazing, love the story and for some reason I just can't stop playing. There is something unique about this game and I think other's should try it. Keep up the good wrok, can't wait for new updates!

v. 0.16

Here's the thing about The Court Magician: the developer could strip out all of the adult content and I'd still play it. There's some real game mechanics here, like an old-school adventure game, and I never thought I'd see that. That alone makes it one of my favorites. It's not a deep puzzle game or anything, but there's some points where I had to think about how to progress a quest. I made choices about which things to do each day. The fundamental mechanics are solid.

As of this patch, there's still not a huge amount of content. I ran into some bugs and a few janky moments. That doesn't really bother me, since it's still a beta. This game is still at a point where I mostly care about seeing good fundamentals; if you're looking for loads of content, bookmark it and come back later.

Also, the spanking content is pretty satisfying. I haven't found many games that have it as a big thing, instead of a light flavoring, and I'm glad this one leaned into it. One of the better choices for dedicated spankos.

Overall: This feels like a game for people who want a game with their adult content. It's really good if you're kinky in the sense of enjoying power dynamics more than leather outfits. Praise Moloch and pass the paddles.

I like this game. The theme and the slow sense of build is phenomenal and it is all bolstered by high quality and original feeling art. Writing is pretty decent too. This is the kind of game that if completed to its full potential with its current level of quality will easily be a masterpiece.

It currently does suffer from some minor issues. Biggest being how early on it still is and how herculean of a project it seems. There isn't really THAT much here unfortunatly in terms of sex scenes and so I wouldn't blame you for waiting a bit longer for things to evolve. Also the game suffers from the jank of any modified RPGM game. Its a bit buggy, objectives are kind of unclear at times, physically moving across the world to complete objectives is a chore. If the game is fully completed and the world becomes a dense and rich place this will become emersive and cool, but right now its just slow and dull.

A 10/10 for potential and creativity, a 6/10 for current experience. I am optimistic this dev has it in them to realise this project however.

[v. 0.12.3]
A very interesting proof-of-concept for a corruption/trainer adventure/simulator game.

The best part of the game is undoubtedly the commitment to the bit of playing cartoon-villain evil mage. The socializing-system that represents gaining levels of control over people is a very cool concept, and the game very smartly puts a lot of emphasis on your ability to use it as part of the story.

The art and the thematic cohesion is unique, and the broad strokes of the central characters are well executed. A lot of stuff is smartly put together.

But as it is now, most of the game feels not only rough to play, but it feels that in a way that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the game.

It feels like the scope of what the game is trying to do is just a little bit beyond it. Like, it's fine that the sex/corruption scenes aren't all there yet, but the supporting systems for that corruption also seem to be only half-done. The balancing for the corruption/socializing and it's leveling needs to be properly balanced and progression-gated, the storylines for corrupting major characters need to be plotted out and those storylines should have some kind of meaningful gameplay behind them. A proper minigame/gameplay system for gathering alchemy-ingredients would be welcome etc etc.

There's so many things that still feel like they need work, without even mentioning all the art and story-content for major setpieces, that it feels like the game is just going to end up struggling to fill the space between it's better-written, more interesting and more interactive major story-moments, due to a lack of resources. And that just leads to defaulting to all the bland, boring RPGM-things, unless you have strong gameplay-systems holding the game together. Having to struggle to do so many things makes it harder to make the things you do want to deliver on more focused and higher quality.

I like the concept but....

I will say the biggest problem first, the artstyle is way too inconsistent, and it doesn´t really fit, the map looks weird with the characters, some characters have different artstyles it just isn´t appealing to look at. I appreciate that this game doesn look generic but it needs more than that.

The dialogue is pretty boring and sometimes difficult to read.

The characters are boring, and flat.

The UI is very bad and confusing.

Music is generic.


I wouldn´t recommend it.

It's a game that I desperately want to succeed, but one where I suspect won't.
Pros:
-The characters. The females are hot and have their own condescending personality. Greely himself isn't the sterreotypical "ugly bastard": the dude is actually just dealt an unfortunate hand in life. Your minion, Weasel, is the kindest soul that you will feel utterly horrible in disciplining. So on, so forth.
-It's all set up to where the game could be an untouched masterpiece. Stats, free roam, multiple quests, etc.
-Everyone is an ass to Greely, so it feels good to "get them back".

Cons:
-I can't believe I'm saying this, but...the scope is concerningly massive. The dev has set up too many things that will either 1. Get ignored for years, 2. Be completed in years, or 3. Serve to demotivate him and cause him to scrap the project all together. I would LOVE for his vision to be met, but I just can't see it happening.
-Constant bugs. Now, they aren't really game breaking and the game's menu has an antibug tool, but it's still annoying.
-You are constantly low on supplies or stats. Sure, this game is a "no time punishment" style of game, but you can't even forage for mushrooms without losing Willpower (the stat you'll be using the most).
-QoL things: The game slowing down every time Greely leaves the castle, the damn waterbarrel next to the water well (you know the one), etc.
-Because the game is so big while being in such an early state, you'll encounter TONS of npcs that you'll be excited for...only to realize that there is nothing. It kinda sucks, but I get it.
-Differing/inconsistent art styles and quality. The portrait looks nothing like the CG, random FPS drops, and so forth.
-Not much CGs in the game atm.

All in all: I want this game to succeed. I adore trainer games, and this one could take the cake if it's polished. However, it'll take YEARS of work to finetune this game, and every time a project has something like that...it get's dropped. I do hope this one isn't, and I'll be keeping an eye on it!

I give this 4 stars. As many other reviews say, it's a very promising sandbox looking forward to many possible ways to do corruption.

Right now there is very little content, basically no H-Scenes and primarily the base structure of a promising game. It has multiple interesting characters and I have high hopes for the game. A complex sandbox which promises slow corruption of multiple interesting characters and an evil MC. It could resort to grind, but from the looks of it all should be fairly non-grindy.

considering the dev started only a bit more than half a year ago, I will revisit in 6-12 months. People who expect a intersting game: Only download if you want to see the groundworks of a game, there is not really a reason to play it now except for 30minutes of story

good luck dev - and a tip: don't get to hung up on mechanics. Games live from their content and the raunchy scenes, not if I can theoretically do thousands of things that, in the end, make no difference in the scenes.

Review as of [v0.11.3]
This is actually way better than I expected. I downloaded it on a whim, swayed by the good score and I was pleasantly surprised. The game has many mechanics that were unexpected but not unwelcome and though it might still be in its beginning stages it feels like it has the potential to be a game with a lot of depth and breadth.

Doesn't hurt that many of the girls are very appealing.

Something I wish to see, besides polishing of mechanics is being able to get the slave girls from the goblins. I don't enjoy leaving them there.

Anyway, don't let the ugly MC stop you from playing, this is a very fun and promising game.

The writing and story are quite nice, however what kills my experience are the multiple debilitating bugs the game has. Sometimes dialogue will fade to black and you can't see anything on your screen. Some quests like the face cream one has bugged dialogue where it puts you in an infinite loop if you advance dialogue too fast. Some art is also missing. A lot of this is probably due to RPGM, but the game does deserve some polish.

now this is something else, amazing graphics and animations, waiting for future updates, the gameplay is very confusing in the beginnig but with some time anyone can get it, i dunno if i miss something but maybe the side menu should have access using the keyboard too

I don't usually bother with games in development, but the creator clearly has a real passion, and for that, I have to commend them. I was impressed by the amount of work in an early game. The base of the game seems pretty fleshed out already. The story has a logical path from now on, and again, I respect that the developer seems to truly be passionate about this project. interested to see how it progresses.

Very impressed by what I saw.

A sandbox corruption trainer isn't an easy feat to pull off, with many more failures than successes, but the bones/mechanics are already completed.

They also got potions, divination amongst others spells which are an interesting feature even without the full corruption yet in, which is more than what I expected.

The narrative and potential candidates are also already planted, you can roughly see who are the targets. The outline is there just need to watch the rest fill in. Watching this title with great interest.

Seething with potential and some surprisingly compelling writing.

Don't be fooled by the screenshots however. At present there is little more H-content than a couple of spanking scenes with the maid and a BJ from a slave.

Games in the industry being as they are, I would say check back in later, like at least a year, so that you might be better rewarded for playing the game with some more scenes. That being said, this honestly has the quality to become a good game. I found myself enjoying even in it's current state AS A GAME (not as a method for whacking off xD)

*** Edit ***

Something worth noting is that the scenes in-game are all animated and achieving this, and coding it all, is a massive pain in the ass for the dev not only because animation takes time but RPGmaker is a prick of a software.

And speaking of scenes: there are variations based on your choice of mask later on (Wolf is saucier), as well as some hidden art here and there, and some disciplining scenes with the Baroness if you fancy grinding her out a bit. I'll be waiting for while before returning but if you give the game a go do check these out.

Very promising little game.

The graphics are nice, and the mechanics not to complicated. The training system seems promising, with a somewhat complicated world with different factions etc. I liked the story and the writing is good.

The game is still early in development without too much content - and a few bugs.

[v0.10.1]

The game is fun, i really like it. Not too grindy. I didn't feel there was much content though.

One less star because the game has some bugs and sometimes they prevent you from going on with the quests. Other times the game might crash, so save often.

This game is honestly gonna be something great given time. The writing alone is a 5/5 and the gameplay itself shows just as much promise. The only cons is the MC is REALLY ugly and there's no way of avoiding that sometimes, though given the whole point of the story I understand why. Still that would be my only "criticism" I hope they might create some way for the MC to transform themself, maybe into a Goblin or Orc in the future to at least make an ugly character with that "ugliness" being a trait of the race itself (it would also make sense for the story) rather than just the MC being in general ugly to be ugly.

Keep an eye on this game, in a few months or year you'll have something really unique to come back to.

This is a new and very ambitious game. It is focused on the concept of corrupting and dominating all sorts of beautiful ladies from a peasant girl to the members of nobility! You play as a hideous and scheming magician, and you will use every trick and technique to get into their panties.

Positives:
- well developed world and lore
- the feeling of guilt and corruption on the women is well done
- many mechanics from verbal skills, to potions to master add variety
- many different girls to make yours

Negatives:
- the game sometimes has bugs, like one which the screen goes black and you need to hard reset
- some assets clash in style with each others, like one character looks like stock rpgm and the other looks like western fantasy characters, but I suppose this will disappear as the game progresses.

To summarize, Court Magician is a nice addition to the fantasy, corruption, and netori genres, and I totally recommend you checking it out!

Five stars for the writing. Honestly, this game is hilarious. The main character is at this perfect balance between relateable and monstrous.

The art is great, the content is a bit lacking, but I can't find it in me to give it any less than five stars.


The only complaint that I would level is that, getting through the content the game does have, I spent a bit more time than I would have liked doing some menial stuff like reading all the books. Maybe if the introduction was a bit more scripted, this early release would flow better.