*Review of Common Ground
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January 8, 2013 at 2:16 am #1496Where to begin? I don’t often write reviews for games but I felt like this game deserved a proper review. I loved playing this so much. It is the sort of game I’d wanted to play but never found. I was browsing FA and saw a banner ad for the game. I was intrigued at the mention of a “furry dating game”, hoping it would be gay for once I clicked on the link. When I first saw the index I was wondering what the game was like, so I read about it. An all male dating sim? With such cute characters? Considering I’m gay that was fantastic! After a while I discovered the demo. At first before I installed it I thought it would be some kind of online based social RPG/second life esque game, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t (not that there is anything wrong with that kind of game). And in fact was a really well thought out design. After getting to week three on the demo I was like…”This game is AWESOME!” and bought it soon after. The writing of the characters is great, it is what made the game for me. Instead of just meaningless sex scenes forever you actually lived the life of the character with the added bonus of the great sex animations. At the end I felt as if I knew the other characters so well it made the decisions about them hard to make. (Not to mention their adorable faces!) You did a great job of creating each character and their personality. It was like reading a book. Personally I liked all of the characters, but my favourites definitely are Troy and Andrew. They are just so adorable :D. For once in this sort of game I became attached to the cast, they are really cute, believable and well designed. As is the music and environments. I spent an entire night on this game and I can safely say it was money well spent as I will be replaying to see the different outcomes. I would like to say thank you for a great experience and I hope to see more! It would be great to see this website and game grow more and become much more popular because you certainly deserve it! I will be looking out for the next game of common ground :3
A big fan of your game
– Sir FolfJanuary 9, 2013 at 1:05 pm #1500Thanks! We’re happy you enjoyed it ^^
Would love to quote you for the game’s review page, if it’s okay (assuming it’s OK since you posted this in the forums.)
Can’t thank you enough for the support. It means the world to us 🙂
January 9, 2013 at 1:18 pm #1501I would be honoured to have it posted to the review page ^.^
You deserve the support, thanks again :3
February 12, 2013 at 9:53 pm #1591I kind of posted a review in the thread for future game ideas, but I’ll post it here too:
I liked a lot of the aspects about Common Grounds, but I think that the activities (outside of the relationship visits) felt kind of shallow. I actually kind of felt one of the lines with Chet and Troy summed it up, where they said Roger was afraid Zell was “becoming a shut in”. It seemed kind of weird considering the point was supposed to be Zell getting out there and meeting people (to boink ;-> ), but I thought they were correct.I realize that every intricacy is more and more programming, but if there were another game like Common Grounds made, I’d like to see more depth to the player’s improvement and choices. For instance, in the game, Ben repeatedly talked about going out for the swim team. It could be made a choice for Zell to do so as well, both to get closer to Ben and open the possibility for other activities and character interactions (AJ could also be impressed, as he’s a bit of a jock). Joining would have a minimum stat requirement, giving another way for people to see advancement and accomplishment, rather than feeling like they’re grinding to get the next cutscene. Upon joining, swimming laps at the pool could add variety to the jogging/weightlifting for the exercise routine, obligations could change because of swim meets, and new relationship opportunities could present themselves. As is, all the relationship options were more or less presented right at the start, but joining the Swim Team could have been how the character met Ben in the first place if the game had been made with that in mind.
Similar activities could be made available that take advantage of other attributes. Zell’s “Ability” score seems to be tied to graphic design, so he could land a position in the school paper or something, high Focus might land him a spot with a more academic group, so on and so forth, scattering the romance options and opportunities to be found through the game in multiple playthroughs. You wouldn’t have to have unique situations and activities for every single character or anything, but having a variety of activities available that could influence your game’s outcome and romantic options would both make the experience feel more organic and add replay value.
All in all, I thought that Common Grounds was thoroughly enjoyable, I just couldn’t help feeling like I sped through it. The meat of the game (the relationships and storyline) were very solid, and the background elements of graphics and music were both appropriate and fun. Something like this, but expanded just a little bit I think would make it cross the line from good to great.
February 12, 2013 at 9:57 pm #1592Just realized that for a review, that sounded overly negative. I liked the writing for the game a LOT. Everyone had personality and soul, which is kind of hard to find in writing for a video game. Making the game twice as big, but losing that spark would not be worth it in the slightest. This game was a great first step, and I hope that a future game gets made which is just a bigger and better version of what was on display here.
February 14, 2013 at 1:52 pm #1603I’d like to see more depth too in the game department, and your ideas are more or less what really needs to happen in the next one. Something on that level. Very smart ideas, like taking a single activity and branching it out into sub-activities, but also keeping it connected with the story and characters.
Really appreciate the feedback!
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