Review for Ch.1 Beta
With the idea that this is a beta meant for feedback that the dev didn't even think would leak, take this one with a grain of salt. Dev notes do state a lot is missing, but with it also stating the story content is complete and that being the thing I care about the most, I figure it's worth putting my thoughts out.
This is a weird one. I can appreciate an AVN that strays from the norm and doesn't reuse the same recycled ideas a hundred time over, and I think this game is at the least accomplishing that. It's what attracted me to it. However, while the concept is interesting enough, I am really not feeling the execution on the story telling.
I'll tell you now that overview (which I have learned is place holder) is not exactly indicative of the story, and I'd bet you couldn't guess where this game goes. Really caught me off guard myself. Ignoring that for a second though, I guess I'll go into detail on what feels like a sort of prologue.
Detail is actually the key word here. It's something I feel this is severely lacking. A lot of the story events that would have led up to where the MC is now are never shown. The game is almost trying to give you pieces on some of it with flashbacks and visions, but really all it's doing is showing you your dead daughter is dead with the nuance of a sledgehammer smacking you in the face. We don't see how the MC winds up homeless, where and what happened to his wife, anything about how we met Valerie or how long we've known her, etc. etc. There's always something to be said about show and don't tell, but the game doesn't really do either of those things on this front.
It's a bit erratic maybe on how it plays out. We wake up with Valeria and sort of begin our daily grift to get by as a homeless guy (and girl I guess, since she seems to be out partner). One thing that stuck out as odd is that there's moments where they ask each other about their childhoods, and it made me question how much/how long they've know each other. At one moment they feel like they've known each other for years but the next it's like they've only recently met. You meet a series of characters the MC has a clear history with that never get too expanded on, and eventually it leads you to a diner where the owners take care of you for some unknown reason. They even offer you a place to live, that Valeria turns down, for reasons that ALSO aren't elaborated on. You catching the problem here? It's those missing details again. There's like no fluff for anything. I also realized during writing this that I think a huge part of it is the MC having no internal monologue. I feel like a lot could be solved with just hearing his thoughts in a lot of situations.
The game then takes a rather huge turn/twist after this diner segment where the owner tasks you with a very (obviously) sketchy delivery. You go to drop it off, you run into some thugs who tell you to clear off, and for whatever reason the MC decides to just attack one and knock him out instead of walking away. The other thug has a gun, things do not end well. Or do they?!?!?!?!
I'm not going to spoil it, but this is where the "old lady from the past" comes in and the whole plot changes. Truthfully, this is where the game loses me. It goes from not telling you much to REALLY info dumping you with a bunch of stuff that frankly sounds a bit ridiculous in a bad sort of way. It's hard to describe without giving it all away, but it's a problem of lacking any nuance and fluff to the story telling, and because of it, a lot of the plot elements feel very contrived and thus hard to get into.
Obviously the lack of music, sound effects, the basic UI, and any other technical elements like that don't help either but I can't really knock the game for that right now considering how upfront the dev is that all of it was not ready and this build wasn't meant to be leaked. I will do the quick mention of liking the character models and the animations themselves looking nice.
I ended this demo sort of interested in what this game is trying to do, but I definitely am not hooked by it. I haven't gotten attached to any of the characters, the lewd scene felt kind of random, and I couldn't really immerse myself into the plot after a point. I think there's an interesting premise at work, but it's lacking a lot of the meat to make it work for me.
With the idea that this is a beta meant for feedback that the dev didn't even think would leak, take this one with a grain of salt. Dev notes do state a lot is missing, but with it also stating the story content is complete and that being the thing I care about the most, I figure it's worth putting my thoughts out.
This is a weird one. I can appreciate an AVN that strays from the norm and doesn't reuse the same recycled ideas a hundred time over, and I think this game is at the least accomplishing that. It's what attracted me to it. However, while the concept is interesting enough, I am really not feeling the execution on the story telling.
I'll tell you now that overview (which I have learned is place holder) is not exactly indicative of the story, and I'd bet you couldn't guess where this game goes. Really caught me off guard myself. Ignoring that for a second though, I guess I'll go into detail on what feels like a sort of prologue.
Detail is actually the key word here. It's something I feel this is severely lacking. A lot of the story events that would have led up to where the MC is now are never shown. The game is almost trying to give you pieces on some of it with flashbacks and visions, but really all it's doing is showing you your dead daughter is dead with the nuance of a sledgehammer smacking you in the face. We don't see how the MC winds up homeless, where and what happened to his wife, anything about how we met Valerie or how long we've known her, etc. etc. There's always something to be said about show and don't tell, but the game doesn't really do either of those things on this front.
It's a bit erratic maybe on how it plays out. We wake up with Valeria and sort of begin our daily grift to get by as a homeless guy (and girl I guess, since she seems to be out partner). One thing that stuck out as odd is that there's moments where they ask each other about their childhoods, and it made me question how much/how long they've know each other. At one moment they feel like they've known each other for years but the next it's like they've only recently met. You meet a series of characters the MC has a clear history with that never get too expanded on, and eventually it leads you to a diner where the owners take care of you for some unknown reason. They even offer you a place to live, that Valeria turns down, for reasons that ALSO aren't elaborated on. You catching the problem here? It's those missing details again. There's like no fluff for anything. I also realized during writing this that I think a huge part of it is the MC having no internal monologue. I feel like a lot could be solved with just hearing his thoughts in a lot of situations.
The game then takes a rather huge turn/twist after this diner segment where the owner tasks you with a very (obviously) sketchy delivery. You go to drop it off, you run into some thugs who tell you to clear off, and for whatever reason the MC decides to just attack one and knock him out instead of walking away. The other thug has a gun, things do not end well. Or do they?!?!?!?!
I'm not going to spoil it, but this is where the "old lady from the past" comes in and the whole plot changes. Truthfully, this is where the game loses me. It goes from not telling you much to REALLY info dumping you with a bunch of stuff that frankly sounds a bit ridiculous in a bad sort of way. It's hard to describe without giving it all away, but it's a problem of lacking any nuance and fluff to the story telling, and because of it, a lot of the plot elements feel very contrived and thus hard to get into.
Obviously the lack of music, sound effects, the basic UI, and any other technical elements like that don't help either but I can't really knock the game for that right now considering how upfront the dev is that all of it was not ready and this build wasn't meant to be leaked. I will do the quick mention of liking the character models and the animations themselves looking nice.
I ended this demo sort of interested in what this game is trying to do, but I definitely am not hooked by it. I haven't gotten attached to any of the characters, the lewd scene felt kind of random, and I couldn't really immerse myself into the plot after a point. I think there's an interesting premise at work, but it's lacking a lot of the meat to make it work for me.