*Another long-winded review (although mostly rambling)

I left this game sitting around for a few weeks due to some RL drama immediately after I bought it that got me away from the computer for a while, and only just installed it last night. So was it worth the $20?

First and foremost, the game has some strange (albeit rare) glitches.
– On my first attempt to play it, it threw a bunch of error messages about not being able to draw missing sprites, and I had to restart the game. When I did, black screen – nothing. Once reinstalled, strangely, it started working.
– For some strange reason, and generally at random, it crashes my Nvidia drivers. Now, I don’t know if this has anything specifically to do with the game engine, since crashing is what Nvidia drivers do best (especially if you’re working on 3 or 4 hours of unsaved Premiere Pro footage…) but it’s still technically a glitch. Fortunately the autosave feature only means you have to restart the day.
– I think in one or two scenes there’s a text encoding error where an apostrophe shows up as a question mark. Otherwise there is very little in the way of mistakes, typos, etc. – I couldn’t actually find any typos myself and I’m a grammar nazi.

At first the game felt slow and cheesy. The graphics didn’t help much to alleviate the corniness of the plot in the beginning – it felt almost detached for me. It would have helped if there was some kind of short flashback or something to root Zell’s friendship with Roger and Troy, as both of them felt like total strangers to me at the start.

Fortunately around the time Zell is introduced to “the gang”, things started to pick up a bit. The graphics were still a bit odd (Troy’s “surprised” animation will probably stick with me to the grave) but now that the story started to make a bit of sense, it was easy to gloss over them. At first I didn’t understand the purpose of your stats, either – I sort of assumed that you had to level them up, so I did it naturally, and it didn’t actually become clear to me until near the end of the game that certain character unlocks required certain stat levels.

Being a novice at dating sims (I’ve only played one or two on Newgrounds’ adult section way, way back) I didn’t have much of a clue as to what I was doing, so I figured a shotgun approach would be best and I just worked on trying to get as many hearts as possible. This felt a bit strange, since juggling 8 different sexual relationships isn’t really my idea of romantic – and I am a strongly romantic, generally monogamous person. What surprised me was, by the end of the game I’d gotten 5 stars for half of the characters, and 4+ for the other half – not something I expected to get, especially as it made the final decision really nervewracking.

The problem here is that when I played the game again to get 5 stars for the other characters and generally ignored the others (with some exception that I’ll point out below) there was literally nothing to do except go to your job to make money that you eventually don’t need, gain stat points that don’t matter beyond the final requirements, and, well, visit people. So in the end, you’re given a surplus of opportunity, which makes the game almost too easy. Heck, I wish real life were this easy – I’d have all A’s, a boyfriend, and a wad of cash by now. (However, I haven’t yet tried to get a perfect game of 5 hearts for everyone – I’d guess it’s possible if you buy everything as soon as you have the money for it.)

Beyond that, the gameplay is simple and easy, which is to be expected for a dating game. Except the controls during the sex scenes – painfully convoluted. I didn’t know if I was doing anything by tapping the arrow keys or scrolling the mouse as fast as I could – are there really hundreds of speeds in each sex scene, or does it just take a while to switch between them? That could use some reworking with better controls.

But of course, I’m mostly interested in the story and emotional nonsense, so here’s my breakdown of the characters (alphabetically for fairness…):

AJ: A strange individual, albeit I saw his ending coming right from the start. Fortunately he gives a bit of “heterosexual sense” to the all-gay cast, if that makes any sense. Unfortunately he’s also the only top, which is a bit of a disappointment. Sadly his ending felt a bit awkward, and all of the unlocked scenes with him are slightly off, him being so shy yet the only dominant character.

ANDREW: I felt for Andrew from the beginning. I really enjoyed the distanced working personality that’d switch immediately into affection whenever he snapped out of it. The ending seemed a bit cliché aside from the “surprise”, and despite the clear bond, I didn’t really feel that it would blossom into an actual long-term relationship. But I still felt for him anyway – you just can’t say no to him. And what a body, fur or not! (Although it was strange hanging out with him the day before with his winter coat, and the next day he’s totally changed.)

BEN: It’s a bit weird talking about Ben. I’m in the same boat as everyone else on campus – I didn’t really warm up to him. I do kind of wish his character were fleshed out more. Sadly, he never really caught on with me, despite the strong ending.

CHET: Although Chet easily was rushed into the last few minutes of the game, “breaking” him was worth it. I honestly didn’t expect he would be an option for your final choice, given there’s no sex scenes of him and you never really warm up to him in a romantic way. But I loves me a secretly shy virgin, something about his hidden innocence just stuck in my mind. Unfortunately, he’s a bit of a twat throughout the rest of the game, so if it weren’t for the ending he would be way, way low on the list. Also liked the tie-in to Andrew in the ending, even if it seemed kind of out of place.

MAX: What can I say about max that hasn’t already been said? He’s a slut, and he doesn’t care. More power to him, but not my kind of guy, and his ending really wasn’t sold well enough for me. But there always has to be one of ’em, doesn’t there?

ROGER: Roger, sadly, broke my heart. The first time I reached the final choice, I wanted to pick someone else but I couldn’t tell him no. So, I picked him, and boy was the ending a bore. Now, I really do like the guy, and I feel for him probably more than anyone else, but I get the feeling that something is missing, and their relationship wouldn’t have been as fulfilling as the others. (Besides, in my first game they screwed practically every day, sometimes more than once… bit more of a desperate hornball than a solid partner.) Unfortunately, as much as it pains me to say this, I honestly wouldn’t pick him first overall.

SEBASTION: And Sebastion was the “someone else” that I wanted to pick. (Fortunately the autosave lets you try again!) I’ll admit it – I identified with Sebastion the most. I don’t have a new internet boyfriend every month, but like most furries (I presume) I’m shy, quiet, and a computer nerd with a secret hidden life~ Plus, his ending was really adorable – I can easily see a good long-term relationship coming from that. And he’s so cute! And his fantasies… I just want to snuggle him. (and maybe sneak in while he’s taking a shower)

TROY: Troy was a bit of a problem for me. At first he seemed too clingy, and I didn’t really get the connection that was there, but as time went on I felt really bad about prioritizing other characters over him. On my first playthrough I didn’t actually get to see his naughty little secret, so I wasn’t really keen on him. The second time around, though, it really solidified the fact that he trusted Zell, and at the end I felt as if he would be the best choice. Without that bond, I would have probably picked Sebastion – but Troy and Zell really do love each other, and as everyone says, they make a perfect couple. So overall, Troy is probably my favorite choice, despite what he does with his eyes when he’s surprised.

As for the other character, Surfer Fox, I honestly thought he would be one of them until Roger broke the news. First I thought Andrew, then Max for a while, then Roger once things started getting heavy. Kind of a disappointment that we don’t get to meet him.

That being said, the tough part – objectively, I don’t feel that this game was totally worth the $20 in and of itself. Don’t take this the wrong way – I enjoyed the game thoroughly, and I feel personally that you’ve earned my money, but if it weren’t a furry game it really would have been dangerously close to a flop. It feels more like a flash animation from 2006 than a standalone game, and that sort of thing wouldn’t sell well if, say, it were on Steam competing with really addictive $5 and $10 games.

The big problem here is replay value – the only reason you’d play the game again is to unlock things you haven’t done, and since it’s so easy, you’re bound to finish everything in just two playthroughs (or one and just a short redo of the last few weeks, really, to target the other characters). From what I could tell, everything is exactly the same except for the final dialogue with Roger, so a playthrough after that wouldn’t bring up any new material.

In the end, I want to play more, and I will unquestionably pay for more, but some things need to be fixed if you want this game to be a success. I don’t have your financial statements in front of me of course, but I’d bet some serious cash that with some graphical changes, interface tweaks, and a longer, more intricate storyline with a variety of different paths to choose, you would have a real winner on your hands. This is easily the best furry game I’ve seen (far better than that Corruption of Champions garbage) and you’re really sitting on a devoted, albeit small, fanbase that would really buy into a company that sells polished, immersive adult furry games. I would offer to help, but I’m no good at anything except PHP and some useless scripting languages… I’d gladly consult with you guys on interface design (the only other skill I really have) but you guys seem to have it down pat, besides the sex scene controls that I mentioned earlier.