Skip to main content

On Sale: GamesAssetsToolsTabletopComics
Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
(1 edit) (+2)

I've got a lot of thoughts here so I'm just going to try to organize them as best I can:

General: The scope of this game is impressive, especially for such an early build. I was genuinely surprised by how much it just kept going - about 10 days in or so I was shocked that there were still new class lessons and that at least Luna's route was essentially fully completed. There are a LOT of bugs to work out but this has the foundation to be really cool.

Bugs: Kinda just want to get some of these out of the way - music cuts in and out and I'm not sure why. My first time playing the game it actually just didn't play at all, and in subsequent sessions it usually works for a while, then gets choppy, then cuts out completely. Not sure why this is. 

At some point, all the talk options with Luna just kind of stopped working correctly. I can choose talk, then choose an option and proceed through the conversation, but eventually it'll get to a point where she's just standing there and no text response is appearing. I'm not sure when exactly it started but it's definitely happening for every talk option at level 10. I think it may be during the last stage of each of the dialogue branches but I'm not sure. EDIT: tried doing a second run, issue starts on level 8. 

Some achievements don't seem to trigger correctly - I've done several dates with Luna and never got the first date achievement, and I think managing to trigger confession and first kiss at the same time caused only the first kiss to register. That one's weirder - confession shows in her status bar during conversations but not in her contact profile. Also, the achievement notifications for the ones I did get (kiss, official, sex) pop up every time I start a conversation with her. EDIT: triggered the achievements separately, but same issue. Also, I don't think any are working for Ryker.

Had one weird dialogue glitch where there were multiple text fields overlapping for each dialogue option. Unfortunately I can't remember what stage that was at. EDIT: On second run, I think it happens when Luna transitions to "crushing". 

Not sure if this is intended, but during one of the first classes I accidentally double-clicked, causing me to choose a wrong answer to the quiz. I tried to reload a prior save to try again, but even though I was still on day 2, going to class triggered the next lesson. Trying again caused the third, even though I was still on the same day. Not sure if that's supposed to be a persistent variable to prevent save scumming the quizzes or if that's an error.

Worldbuilding: First here I want to acknowledge that this might be the first college-based dating sim I've played that actually involves like, going to class. Not just an activity that you click on to advance time and increase your stats, but like actually learn things about the world in. It's a fun way of both delivering lore about the world and selling the college setting, and the "lectures" are delivered with a well-balanced level of detail that's not overwhelming. There's clearly a lot of time and effort that went into generally designing the alternative anthro earth as well. Little details like the industrial revolution providing a plausible breakdown of species divisions do a lot for selling it as more than just "earth but furries".

With that said, I questioned some of the logic of the MC's backstory. I don't see how homeschooling the MC and then thrusting him back into college would help the way things are currently described. Like, if anthros think humans are a myth, wouldn't it help more to have them more acclimated to a human rather than just dumping one in with them at a university? It seems counterproductive and risky to me, and I think you could've handled this a bit more smoothly by keeping humans as a rare but not unheard of species, and having a mixed anthro/human family be the more unheard of part. Since we already hear about ingrained biases in lectures, a human being adopted by an anthro couple could be a more plausible reason for conscious or unconscious discrimination that forced MC's parents to move frequently and homeschool him, as well as provide more of a justification for why MC appearing at the university is a novelty but not like, a worldchanging event. 

Conversations generally: I like the way character interactions are currently organized, but there are a couple things I'd prefer to be added or changed. First, a "back" or "nevermind" button for dialogue options. Like if you go into "personal questions" and then decide you don't want to ask any of those options, or if you find that you've already asked all of them, you can back out without using time/energy and/or triggering a repetition penalty. 

Second, there needs to either be a more general intro line for interactions or there needs to be a way of more quickly skipping through dialogue. Seeing the same long, multi-stage intro for each level gets very old very fast - I think they're great to have the first conversation after you gain a level, but then there should be more of a simple "Hey, how's it going?" after that so the player can quickly get to the rest of the conversation and not read the same six paragraphs again. 

Third, someone else made a similar comment, but in trying to click past already seen dialogue, I clicked on the character, causing them to become very offended because apparently clicking on them means actually touching them. There's nothing that really gives any indication that this is a feature unless you do it, and I'm not really sure why it's there in the first place since the penalty for accidentally doing so early is so severe and even when you get to a stage where a partner is okay with it, you only get like one line of dialogue in return. 

Dates/hangouts: I'm assuming these will be more fleshed out over time, but at the moment they feel kinda useless. They use a ton of energy and provide way less relationship gains than conversations or gifts. They increase your stats, but on that note...

Stats: I have no idea what stats even do in this game. Like, I've developed my intelligence and charm, but I don't know what effect that has, if any, since conversation choices determine relationship gains and grades are determined pretty much directly by reading comprehension. Unless there are plans to significantly develop these down the line, I wonder if they could just be cut to avoid unnecessary scope creep.

Time/energy: Would be helpful to have clearer indications of how much energy actions will use (especially on dates/hangouts). It feels kinda weird that asking your friend how football practice was yesterday takes more energy than stacking boxes for four hours. Also, as others have pointed out, more granular control of time while waiting would help too. So many actions take less than an hour that it's not uncommon to end up with an awkward 20 minute gap before your next class and no good way to fill it. If it doesn't really matter that you're available right at the start of class, make that clear too. Also, it would help if all actions had time required listed for them, especially longer actions like studying or napping. 

Characters: Well. I'm a former linebacker with a literature undergrad degree that played D&D and watched anime in college. I feel seen, I suppose. More on each of the main LIs to follow. 

Luna: Visually, she looks great. Very cute with some great expressions. (since I'm not going to delve into them directly, want to point out here that everyone looks good - professors included). That said, Luna's personality is... to put it gently, a bit underbaked. Aside from liking books and poetry and such, every part of her personality revolves completely around loving the MC. Dreams for the future? Stay close to the MC. Fears? Losing the MC. Interests? Poetry about the MC. Secrets? Has been obsessed with the MC forever. It's not like terribad but it does leave her feeling a bit thin, especially since relationships built on that foundation tend to be unhealthy and/or end poorly. Some of the dialogue, especially levels 8+, can get really saccharine and melodramatic, and it could probably be toned down a bit. 

Not as big of a deal, but I did get a bit of whiplash from Luna turning from "are you sure? Are you really really sure? Can we just sit here and talk for an hour first?" virgin to "pull my tail and choke me" turbo-horny literally overnight. I know it's tricky to write that in-between stage between sweet and horny but it feels like there's a step missing here. 

Ryker: Full transparency, I'm not fully caught up with this character yet. He looks great and all, but I prefer girls and I've already been playing this for a while and wanted to get my thoughts down. Thus far, he does come across more interesting than Luna - "jock that is secretly a nerd" isn't like, groundbreaking, but it does give him much more room for depth. That said, a lot of the interest dialogue does seem very... superficial? Like, unfortunately as mentioned above I do speak fluent football and, I'm not going to get too deep into details here since this comment is already exponentially longer than it needs to be, but it seems from Ryker's dialogue that you don't, and those bits came off kinda rough. (I am absolutely willing to be a resource if you need Xs and Os dialogue lol).

I'm also a bit confused by his backstory. He's been playing football since he was 7, and has been pushed to continue by his father, but was bullied in high school for being a nerd? That doesn't really track - was he a high school football star or not? If not, how on earth did he become a college star with pro prospects? 

Also, Ryker's theme absolutely slaps and is the best BGM in the game, hands down.

Miscellaneous minor details: Is there any point to the library other than additional lore? Sometimes it registers that I've read a book and sometimes it doesn't, and there are no resulting stat changes or conversation/class impacts as far as I can tell. Also, when reading a book, a popup notification says an hour has passed but the actual time consumed is way less, like 10-15 minutes.

The only job I did was the box one - it had the highest possible pay and as someone who has, for better or worse, matched many 3s, I found it extremely easy. Besides changing colors to help with visibility, more distinct shapes and patterns in each of the squares could help players differentiate as well. Also, it would be nice to have an "autocomplete" or something that unlocks if you've gotten 100% in an activity before, or that replicates your best score. The minigame is fine, but it does get old quickly. 

I know there's a lot of feedback above, but I really did love what I've seen out of this so far. Will be looking out for more updates, but I think with some improvements this could really go above and beyond into being truly awesome. 

(+2)

Appreciate everything you have written out! Thank you for describing the bugs, I'll hunt for them to see if I can find them. It would help tremendously if when you run into one, do a quick bug report in the settings menu and then email that file to animaugame@gmail.com. There is a lot here so I'll try to cover the most  I can as quickly as possible. I'll be taking notes of your review as this was a very good one.  At the moment this is more of my concept to gauge interest, I'm tempted to start a pateron as I wish I had more time to put into this but my day job takes up most my time and focus.

So thank you.

---

The Human Controversy:

Right now, it falls flat due to the missing context. There is a pretty big reason why the player was homeschooled and why they are at the university now.  The only human aspect is actually a big part of the story I have planned, just none of the actual story has been revealed yet. The parents actually don't want the MC to go to university, but the opportunity was too big for the MC to pass up. The fear and the work that went into getting to the now aspect in the beginning of the game is missing at the moment.

 Regarding Luna: 

 Levels 8-10 for Luna really haven't had much attention, a lot of my speech is just placeholder text that I plan to completely revamp again. It is left over from the concept when I started. I agree she is a little flat with the obsession of the player. The conversations are going to be a bit more involved with the world once the world building is even more fleshed out.

Ryker:

I'm no where near complete with Ryker. He was added initially for testing to make sure the relationships wouldn't blend between two different characters and help me figure out the template I will use for adding more characters. I may have to reach out for some Ryker dialogue when I get into building him more.


Jobs/Dating/Library/Stats:

The Library was built to kind of help me keep working on the world building, This will be also used for finals or homework. 

Dating is literally nothing at the moment, I have just added the scenes and some very barebones options to make sure scene changes work. Dating/Hangout is actually going to be a very big deal in the game for advancing the relationships, they also will end up being very high risk high reward.

I want even more jobs to break apart the repetitiveness of it, also plan on increasing the difficulty for them because as you said, it is easy to get 100%.

Stats WILL be important, but there isnt any use for them yet.

No problem at all - I appreciate the detailed response and will use the bug report feature when I do another run, whether that's for the current version or once you put out an update. Always glad to hear that my feedback is helpful!

Understood that a lot of stuff is still in placeholder territory, so looking forward to updates that'll flesh things out.