most accurate depiction of living down in the blighty ever, down to the cost of living (Bailey's EXTORTIONATE rent prices) crisis. say what you will about the actual content but this is one of The most impressive twine games I've ever seen. as a twine dev. I tried to datamine it and ended up having to restart my laptop. also one of the games I refuse to play properly because I love scene collecting having a cute character and cheats. There are three other paragraphs to my review but I think there are certain things strangers on the internet should not know about me or my preferences and inclinations

It's kind of wild that an erotic noncon game is somehow also one of the most deep, complex, impressive life-sims ever made. There is so much to say about this game that it's kind of hard to put it all into words. From the fact that you can play the game for well over 150 hours and still be encountering new experiences. The way that the game somehow blends both scripted events and RNG in such a manner where you may never know if you've encountered a rare event or if that was intended to happen. The way that it has a brutalist social commentary on a dystopic world where morals are entirely decayed and your body is every freak's prize to be stolen.

All this on top of the raw freedom the game allows. You can play this any way you want. Want to play a purist, virginal person in the sex game, who resists every sexual advance in the game literally about how the world wants to defile you? Do it, in fact, here are special items and buffs to keep you safe. Want to instead lean in and live the exploitative, nightmarish hell of Saki Yoshida? Go for it, you'll have a wild ride, and there are almost infinite atrocity scenarios to rabbit hole down. Want to play a hyper-violent route, where every molester is met with fists of fury to the face and teeth kicked out? Not only will we give you special buffs, but you can even jack yourself up with pepper spray charges. Want to just be a lil cutie who goes to school and works a part-time job? Sounds fun, and we'll give you loads of social connections, romance options, and dozens upon dozens of casual gameplay encounters to enjoy.

There's a hyper-detailed body system, where all parts of your body affect physical and mental gameplay. There's a detailed fashion system, where you can decorate your absolutely adorable pixel-art sprite in the cutest and raunchiest outfits you can imagine. There's a detailed social structure, including with how popular you are at school, with students and teachers, with the police, and even with animals that you tend to. It has 12 separate fame mechanics, with additional hidden ones in the background, affecting how everyone - strangers and people you know - see and react to you. It has an increasing difficulty curve, so you can never get too comfortable. It has multiple end-game scenarios, along with multiple villains and quests. It has ongoing seasons, including weather and holidays. Bro, it even has farming mechanics.

On top of all this, it is also surprisingly sex positive, despite its noncon theming. It has an extremely in-depth fetish checklist, and if you don't like one of them, turn it off. The game compensates for your preferences. But maybe you specifically don't want one gender or the other to interact with your character. Simply change all the genders. Maybe you want an intersex character. Easily done! Only want big-boobed people, or maybe you prefer a certain size of penis. There's a toggle for that. Don't like the gender of a named NPC? Customize them to your whims. Don't want to get pregnant or get anyone else pregnant? Turn it off! Want to get pregnant the moment you hold hands with someone? Turn it on! It's as if the dev has literally thought of every possible interaction and outcome, and everything has been accounted for in one way or another.

All on top of this being an early access game, meaning that it is still being actively updated, even though the game is feature-complete three times over. And if that's all not enough for you, the game is also a sandbox RPG. You can play one character for as long as you want, or roll up a different character, and do as much as your heart desires, with no end. It has a rewind function in case you want to retry a scene, and it also has an "ironman" mode in case you want to be forced to commit to your run. Would you rather an easier difficulty, or to have cheats turned on so you can customize every detail of your character? The game allows you that accessibility. Does this game have an achievement system? Of course it does, what doesn't it have?

It's so hard to recommend this game based on its subject matter alone. Because, yes, it needs to be emphasized that this game knows what it is: it is an extremely explicit noncon erotic game. If the idea of non-consensual sex or lewd experiences upsets you, this is not for you. But if you can accept this game for what it is, it gleefully offers up literally hundreds of hours of content for your perusal. It may be hard to recommend this game, but if anything that I've said above seems even remotely interesting, I literally cannot sing the praises of this game enough.

Seeing the rise of western AVNs thanks to platforms like Steam hosting them piqued my curiosity as someone who has been into the Japanese eroge scene since the early '00s. I decided to give them a shot to see if any are worthwhile and quickly realized that there are a million of these "work in progress" one-man project Ren'Py games. You're gonna have to dig through dozens of trite Being a Dik clones before you find any treasure. Luckily, Eternum is one such treasure.

What initially drew me to check it out was the fact that it used models created in Honey Select 2, a game that I have spent countless hours modding and toying with myself. I knew nothing else about it other than that going in. Starting out, I nearly dropped it because it seemed like the same familiar setup. Moving to a new town, rooming with girls, starting your first day of school, etc. The only thing that kept me playing was the models. Once you start learning about the titular Eternum; an MMO that the characters in the game play, however, things start picking up very quickly.

The premise is similar to something like .hack, with the characters hunting for powerful one-of-a-kind relic weapons, engaging with hostile high-level players, and unraveling the corporate conspiracy behind the game itself. Being in a setting like this, where the changing of a game server can send you to an entirely different world or time period allows for an endless amount of creative and entertaining scenarios to play out, and it's taken full advantage of. This is balanced with maintaining your relationships with the characters both in the real world as well as the game. The characters here all have very distinct, memorable personalities that set them apart from one another and make for a great cast. As for the H-scenes, the animation sequences are well done and stack up favorably to other games I've played. If I have one gripe, it's the constant use of asterisk actions in the writing. It's not a huge deal, but it happens enough that it's worth mentioning, and there are better ways to convey information that aren't as annoying.

As of writing this, the game is on release version 0.5. Hopefully, the developer can keep up the pace and stick the landing, because I think they've got something here.

TL;DR: Fun ride. Luna best girl and Annie is cuter than anyone in your favorite moege. Disagree? 1v1 me on Ion.