[Review for v1.2 Alpha]
I'm going to be more negative than the other reviews written, but I want to make the point that I think this COULD be a good AVN, I just think that atm there are some glaring issues and the experience overall is too tedious for me to recommend it for the time being.
First off, wanna say it's great seeing the style be adapted so well: the visuals are great, the universe has a lot of potential and we're shown the beginnings of that, there's a lot to like. I'm glad that the dev decided to have a rooms button, because as much as I like navigating around the rooms, it can get tedious to get from one place to another in the web of rooms. The inclusion of WarioWare-style minigames was also a fun addition, even if it's just one at the moment. I hope there will be more examples of them in the future. In fact, I think including them in the actual missions would be more enjoyable than the current system of assigning them to others, which feels more like a waste of time and can reduce the mood of some.
Now, I'll get onto the negatives. The biggest one is that it's very tedious and it feels like it's to extend gameplay more than actually improve the experience or create a sense of scale through time. Some AVNs do it well, but most don't, because when you are in the same unchanging environments, you don't NEED to feel like time is progressing. Progression is seemingly random, which again can be fine in moderation, but there is no moderation here. These two things combine to create a truly boring experience.
The best example I have is buying things. To buy things, you need quarters. The only things you can really buy at the moment are costumes, which are $5. If you're following along, that means you need 20 quarters. That would be fine, so long as some things were occuring: you could get multiple quarters, you got guaranteed quarters for doing particular activities, etc. You don't have that here. You can explore, which MAY turn up a quarter, but may turn up nothing. You can also only explore ONCE A DAY. This means you either talk to people over and over again (keep in mind you can talk to people 3 times for each time cycle, and there are 5 cycles), or you skip. So you can do 4 skips, explore, find nothing, then have to do 4 more skips again. You eventually get a mission that helps you find quarters, but missions last the whole day, and you can only find ONE QUARTER AT A TIME. That means that there is 20 days of NOTHING but one mission to actually afford anything. Oh, and it HAS to be with someone else, because YOU are unlikely to find quarters if you do the mission yourself.
These types of systems are made to make your time feel like it's worth something. They're not made to get a sense of accomplishment. These are stalling tactics. If they just had a little content but I could get through it in a reasonable amount of time, I wouldn't care, but they keep stacking on these delay tactics. Another one is mood.
I've seen mood systems before, so I thought I knew what to do: you usually either skip a day(s), or get them a gift. But there's no proper gifts to buy in the store, and I don't have money anyway. So then it's a time jump. But I jumped 5 days, and Number 3 was still angry for some reason. I know mood CAN improve over time, but I don't know if you actually have to do activities, or it's based on the days themselves. But if you DO go around seeing events, the vast majority have no true purpose, and can actually have people's mood ALSO REDUCED. Trying to interact with her also wasn't bearing fruit, and when I DID interact once I actually managed to randomly make her even angrier, so it took even longer. At a previous point, I actually gave her a gift that REDUCED her mood, so at what point am I meant to just hang up my hat?? I think it has to do with the amount of number generators going on, either that or the set numbers are very out of wack.
What makes these even worse is that I got soft-locked like 3 seperate times. I once got soft-locked because I didn't have the option to gift anything, but it was required before I could explore more and progress the story. I think a big problem causing it is that everything seems to happen randomly. And even when it isn't random, it requires some more time-consuming nonsense. I mean to be able to explore, you actually have to get a list where #1 says "go explore". And to get that, you have to press on the same desk FIVE TIMES. Like I get that it's meant to be jokey, but wasint people's time isn't worth the mediocre joke.
The overall experience feels like you're doing a very simple task in the most convoluted way possible, like you're mowing the lawn with nail clippers. I'll still watch the project and hope the experience becomes more streamlined and gets improved, but at the time of writing, it just isn't great to actually play.
I'm going to be more negative than the other reviews written, but I want to make the point that I think this COULD be a good AVN, I just think that atm there are some glaring issues and the experience overall is too tedious for me to recommend it for the time being.
First off, wanna say it's great seeing the style be adapted so well: the visuals are great, the universe has a lot of potential and we're shown the beginnings of that, there's a lot to like. I'm glad that the dev decided to have a rooms button, because as much as I like navigating around the rooms, it can get tedious to get from one place to another in the web of rooms. The inclusion of WarioWare-style minigames was also a fun addition, even if it's just one at the moment. I hope there will be more examples of them in the future. In fact, I think including them in the actual missions would be more enjoyable than the current system of assigning them to others, which feels more like a waste of time and can reduce the mood of some.
Now, I'll get onto the negatives. The biggest one is that it's very tedious and it feels like it's to extend gameplay more than actually improve the experience or create a sense of scale through time. Some AVNs do it well, but most don't, because when you are in the same unchanging environments, you don't NEED to feel like time is progressing. Progression is seemingly random, which again can be fine in moderation, but there is no moderation here. These two things combine to create a truly boring experience.
The best example I have is buying things. To buy things, you need quarters. The only things you can really buy at the moment are costumes, which are $5. If you're following along, that means you need 20 quarters. That would be fine, so long as some things were occuring: you could get multiple quarters, you got guaranteed quarters for doing particular activities, etc. You don't have that here. You can explore, which MAY turn up a quarter, but may turn up nothing. You can also only explore ONCE A DAY. This means you either talk to people over and over again (keep in mind you can talk to people 3 times for each time cycle, and there are 5 cycles), or you skip. So you can do 4 skips, explore, find nothing, then have to do 4 more skips again. You eventually get a mission that helps you find quarters, but missions last the whole day, and you can only find ONE QUARTER AT A TIME. That means that there is 20 days of NOTHING but one mission to actually afford anything. Oh, and it HAS to be with someone else, because YOU are unlikely to find quarters if you do the mission yourself.
These types of systems are made to make your time feel like it's worth something. They're not made to get a sense of accomplishment. These are stalling tactics. If they just had a little content but I could get through it in a reasonable amount of time, I wouldn't care, but they keep stacking on these delay tactics. Another one is mood.
I've seen mood systems before, so I thought I knew what to do: you usually either skip a day(s), or get them a gift. But there's no proper gifts to buy in the store, and I don't have money anyway. So then it's a time jump. But I jumped 5 days, and Number 3 was still angry for some reason. I know mood CAN improve over time, but I don't know if you actually have to do activities, or it's based on the days themselves. But if you DO go around seeing events, the vast majority have no true purpose, and can actually have people's mood ALSO REDUCED. Trying to interact with her also wasn't bearing fruit, and when I DID interact once I actually managed to randomly make her even angrier, so it took even longer. At a previous point, I actually gave her a gift that REDUCED her mood, so at what point am I meant to just hang up my hat?? I think it has to do with the amount of number generators going on, either that or the set numbers are very out of wack.
What makes these even worse is that I got soft-locked like 3 seperate times. I once got soft-locked because I didn't have the option to gift anything, but it was required before I could explore more and progress the story. I think a big problem causing it is that everything seems to happen randomly. And even when it isn't random, it requires some more time-consuming nonsense. I mean to be able to explore, you actually have to get a list where #1 says "go explore". And to get that, you have to press on the same desk FIVE TIMES. Like I get that it's meant to be jokey, but wasint people's time isn't worth the mediocre joke.
The overall experience feels like you're doing a very simple task in the most convoluted way possible, like you're mowing the lawn with nail clippers. I'll still watch the project and hope the experience becomes more streamlined and gets improved, but at the time of writing, it just isn't great to actually play.
