It has been over one hundred years since The Great Exile that saw nearly all of humanity in a desperate flight back to their ancestral homeworld. Now Aphrodisia is in more chaos than ever with a great multi-factional demon civil war all vying to call themselves the one and only Empress of the Demon Empire. After spending the past century trapped as a prisoner-guest of a mysterious Enchantress, you now return to the ruins of a kingdom you once called home and fulfill your destiny in The Restoration of Aphrodisia!
The Restoration of Aphrodisia is an adult (18+) role-playing game with transformation elements.
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FAQ
Is the game free?
Currently, yes! Download it on Itch.io.
The early alpha releases of the game are free and are meant to gather feedback from the community. The game will remain free for at least several months, but we may make it a paid game similar to The Exile of Aphrodisia 2023 in the future as it matures. Like last time, patrons meeting a certain lifetime payment will receive FREE copies of the game.
What transformation themes are there currently in the game?
Sex transformations (primarily male to female), inanimate transformation, absorption / body part transformation, mental alterations, and bimbofication. You can enable or disable some theme tags to suppress quests that involve them from being discovered and started started. Sex transformations are core to the game's plot and cannot be disabled.
What feature/content do you have planned next?
[ADDED] Random events system! Small, short repeatable encounters that happen due to a) your current map, b) certain transformations within the party, c) certain items in the party inventory, and more.
[ADDED] Afflictions! Like in the previous game, some transformations may progress into worse states if they are not treated quickly enough.
More companions! The third companion, Aros the lustful, poetic satyr man, is currently in the designing stages.
More companion relationship quests! Currently only Willow has one in the game upon a total relationship status of 10, but other companions will gain these private, sentimental events as well.
More quests and more transformation! Duh.
More terrains! As the party explores more of Aphrodisia, you'll return to the desert, jungle, and snowy mountain environments present in Exile.
Is this game coming to Steam?
Eventually yes. The store page is currently a work in progress--we just need to film the trailer and submit it for review by Valve. The game will most likely be a paid product when it actually releases on Steam, similar to Exile 2023.
Will you be adding mod support?
Most likely! The game has been built so that almost all of its content is higher modular via XML files with extensive validation scripts. That said, there are some limitations around custom artwork and maps, so those are not yet mod-able at all.
Depending on public interest, will will continue to make these more user-friendly and make the addition of mods more seamless.
How does this game compare to The Exile of Aphrodisia?
The largest change is that this game is an RPG (role-playing gaming). It is NOT a survival/simulation/Oregon-trail-inspired game like Exile was.Transformed party members stay in the party as often as not. Forms have advantages and disadvantages both in combat and in quests. Another large change is the player can and will transform many times throughout various quests. This does unfortunately mean that most transformations are quick and straight from form A to form B (poof transformations). This is because having inbetween stages for any two forms is not something we can do.
The new hexagonal battle system also adds a tactical element to the game that some tester have described as Fire Emblem-like.
You are a human from shortly before the events of The Great Exile that lead to most of humankind fleeing from the demons. You have been spent the last century unaging and unaware as an unknowing prisoner-guest on the island of a mysterious woman simply known as the Enchantress. In your absence, the human kingdom has fallen, and the island-continent of Aphrodisia is now embroiled in a war between several demon factions that raid and recruit from the rest of the continent's population to fuel their machines of war.
Now that you are back on the mainland with your loyal companion Willow Hawkwing (formerly Wallace Hawkwking), you are free to choose your own fate, for better or worse. You land on North Shore to see it just a fraction of what it once was in your prime, and from there your adventure to restore Aphrodisia begins.
You will meet many characters throughout the game as NPCs, so we'll focus on the current companions here. Companions are party members in your inner circle of friends. You can talk to them privately and learn more about their thoughts on their current body, completed quests, and more. If they leave your party due to too low health or too high lust, you'll be able to find them again in a few days time. You build relationship with companions over time by having them be in the party during quests, by choosing certain words or actions that align their values, or simply by traveling with them over time.
V0.3.05 (Oct 3, 2024)
New game content (quests/writing/art/etc):
- Added a point of interest in the pirate cove popup dungeons, a wooden pirate who asks the party a riddle for treasure.
- Added an encounter with a raccoon wildwoman in the Giusburg Outskirts near Lake Polomac. Launches via a trigger zone when the party comes close.
-- The follower-up interaction introduces the Raccoon Bandit follower form, including the recipe and transformation potions.
- Added new music for Camp Kestrel. Music is by caeluswindcat.
Miscellaneous
- Added the "book read" and "do not eat" icons for items that appear in merchant inventories to make it easier to know which books have been read or which food items are marked as ignored for party consumption
- Minor spelling corrections
Bugfixes:
- Fix for dual pistols combat ability being usable every turn instead of having a 1-turn cooldown similar to the musket
- Bugfix for popup dungeons sometimes expiring while the party is still inside it, leading it to that map not resetting upon leaving that particular dungeon map layout.
- Bugfix for popup dungeons still being visible on the world map despite having expired earlier
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V0.2.10 to V0.3.04 (Oct 1, 2024)
New game features
- Added support for hostile enemy parties to encounter the player party on water
-- When two seafaring parties meet, a new ship battle map is used to represent ship-versus-ship boarding action
-- Hostile NPC parties should no longer be alerted by or attack the player party when traversal methods differ (one party is traveling by foot, the other by ship)
- Added Popup Dungeons
-- Popup dungeons are local maps that can be encountered traversing world maps that are dense in loot, but enemy parties and traps as well.
-- Popup dungeons are revealed by a random chance when the party comes close to them, similar to resource nodes. Particle effects spawn from popup dungeons that are visible to make them more noticeable.
-- Popup dungeons expire once the party enters and leaves them, meaning the player will have to wait for it to reset after a number of ingame days, and then re-discover its location.
-- Popup dungeons are not involved directly with any quests. However, completing a particular quest may allow for new ones to appear in the future according to the main story in the future.
-- Popup dungeon maps reset completely when the party exits them, creating a regenerating source of loot.
-- Popup dungeons have a 2 hour cooldown between failed discovery attempts to avoid easily triggering them by moving inside and outside of the detection radius repeatedly
-- A popup dungeon in the same location in the world map may load a different local map layout. In the future, some contents may be randomized as well, like certain points of interests with random challenges appearing only for certain dungeon seeds
-- Current popup dungeons are:
--- Small Pirate Cove, found on the small islands in North Shore. Two possible layouts. Intended for players level 3-5.
--- Enthralled Mermaid Cave, found on the small islands in North Shore. Two possible layouts. Intended for players level 3-5.
--- Satyr Warband Camp, found in Greenridge Valley. Two possible layouts. Intended for players levels 7-10.
--- Corrupted Bog, found in Greenridge Valley and the Vivian Plains. One possible layout. Intended for players 9-12.
-- Added potion of De-Arborification which can reverse inanimate tree transformations. The potion is sold my merchants, as well as the recipe to brew it yourself
- Some maps are now considered unsafe for followers, and dismissing them does not permit them to travel to a safe location for potential later collection.
-- These maps currently include popup dungeons, Coalnose Quarry, and the Hatfellow Estate.
-- This information is displayed to the player in the confirm dismiss panel so it should not come as a surprise to anyone.
New game content (quests/writing/art/etc):
- Added a new world region, Giusburg Outskirts, southeast of the Ashe Woods. The next main story quest, Spelunking for the Signet, will be here.
- Added Bimbo of My Enemy quest
-- This quest can be found in Giusburg Outskirts in the northwest and is enabled when the Inanimate and Bimbofication theme tags are enabled.
-- This quest is difficult and traps the party inside until completed. Be sure to keep a save game file from before you enter! You have been warned!
- Added new quest, The Wingfawn.
-- This is Vyndaii's first relationship quest and can be started when her relationship is 20 or higher and when the party has met the fawn bonemender in Camp Kestrel.
- Added form-based random event for when a party member is transformed as a harpy
- Added form-based random event for when a party member is a fairy coruptee
- Added new unique artwork for Queen Barthuria. Art is by returning artist AnthroMage.
- Added artwork for the Goddess Sekaram. Art is by hermes3smegistus
- Added Shivers, a Realm Traveler. She can be found patrolling the southeast wall of Whitetail Watch.
- Added a encounter in Giusburg Outskirts with a returning character from Exile, the kitsune Meeky who transforms others into new fox tails. Requires the Absorption tag to be enabled to be seen.
-- Added a followup random encounter with Meeky that begins once Meeky has been previously encountered
- Added Armaega the Realm Traveler from patron Shivers. She travels alongside Shivers patrolling the east wall of Whitetail Watch.
- Added new Corrupted Bog popup dungeon for higher level players. These can be found in Greenridge Valley and the Vivian Plains.
- Added a battle pose artwork for the false queen in the Prisoner of the Twisted Grove quest. Art is by Moh Mohpd.
Miscellaneous
- Closing a loot container should run the quest advancement check to give the player quicker feedback when collecting a quest-essential item
- Added Nourished status effect which can be gained from the end of feast in Sword in the Grass, in the Horny Sparrow in Camp Kestrel, and the wandering dwarf from the random event.
- Battle loot has been tweaked to split the total value between raw gold and loot items more evenly.
-- Previously, battle loot was represented 90% as dropped items and 10% as gold. Now it is a roughly even 50%-50% split.
-- This should make it easier to keep the party's overall gold levels higher and reduce reliable on merchant gold amounts somewhat
- Added support for more organic concealing-map fog for locations like caves that won't follow a grid structure as closely as a more artificial environment like mines
- Any sacks of coins looted from the Take All button in loot containers now automatically converts all sacks of coins into gold.
-- This does not happen when the sacks are gained in a point of interest effect or for resource nodes.
-- This behavior can be disabled in the Gameplay Settings panel if desired, leaving all sacks of coins to be opened manually as before
- Added an alchemist vendor and alchemy crafting station in Camp Kestrel on the west side
- Added a few gold stash loot containers in the Hatfellow Estate vault room
- Bathing in the blessed mountain springs now gives all party members the Refreshed status effect
- Vyndaii should now have the Rooting combat ability when she is in her base form
- The graphics for the "reverse [transformation]" spell books now have a pink tint to the pages to differentiate them from other recipe book types easier
- Added trigger zones that can randomly trigger one of several possible outcomes instead of only just one, assuming conditions are met
- Added ability to spawn in quest-essential items such as keys so that they may not always be found in the same chest. The exact location is determined by the game's campaign seed.
- The short and long delay turn buttons now disappear when it is too late in the round to delay turns (fewer than 5 turns remaining) instead of being visible but doing nothing.
- Added tutorial popups for concealment fog and popup dungeons. Migrating save game files from older versions should launch these when applicable, even if the tutorial was previously dismissed.
- Added Pair of Pistols as a primary weapon equipment, giving the user the Dual Pistol Blast and Pistol Whip combat abilities.
- Added Telescope offhand weapon, giving the user +1 precision and the Enemy Ahoy! combat ability.
- Added Sharpshooter Musket, giving the user the Longshot combat ability.
- New Game panel from the title screen has been reworked so enabling or disabling tutorial messaging is independent on whether the game beings on the Enchantress' island or North Shore.
- The battle balance of power now excludes battle entities who have betrayed their team and are fighting on behalf of the other side
- When followers have betrayed the party and will participate in a battle, the count of them that could join now displays at the bottom of the hostile NPC party interaction panel
- Tweaked some battles to give more or less loot upon victory.
-- Mainly this is used to limit the amount of reward the party gains from defeating groups of bimbos in The Bimbo of My Enemy as individual enemies are made weak and rely on numbers and the infection mechanic to do damage.
-- Most enemy parties in popup dungeons also provide reduced loot due them being in "home base" where a bulk of their wealth is already being stored
Cheat/Debug controls (patreon-backer builds only)
- Added ability to teleport to some regions in Giusburg Outskits
- Added debug command to reveal all popup dungeons in the current map
- Aded debug command to reset all popup dungeons
Bugfixes:
- Bugfix for followers bouncing back and forth between their correct veterancy level and one veterancy level below that
- Saving is now also disabled entirely between when a scene begins loading and about a second after it completes loading
- Bugfix for hostile NPC parties sometimes spawning one battle entity too few due to the max range being exclusive
- Restored missing background graphics when speaking to companions
- Fixed an edge case where loot containers were never spawning the max quantity of an item due to max being exclusive.
-- Generally this means loot will be slightly more abundant.
- Fixed a duplicate item name for headgear "Crown of the Battlemage". Now one is named "Crown of the Wrathful" instead
- The player portrait should now display in the endgame panel when appropriate again
- Fixed incorrect graphic display for prismleaf flower
V0.2.10 (Sept 5, 2024)
Miscellaneous
- The Self Maid Mansion quest now requires the player to be at least level three and have six or more followers in the party for Hatfellow to issue the quest.
-- Additionally, when first entering the mansion but before becoming trapped, the player is warned that they may be stuck inside for a while and to come prepared.
- Reworked how autosave and quicksave worked to avoid spamming the savegame folder with many save games files.
-- Now, the game has a limited number of slots for quicksaves and autosaves. By default this value is 10, but this can be changed to be between 3 and 30 in the Gameplay Settings panel.
-- The game now remembers the index of the last autosave or quicksave and each time a save is performed of that type, the index is increased by 1.
-- Upon reaching the limit, the save game index loops back around to 0 and overwrites older save game files.
-- Manual saving is unaffected and the same default naming schema has been kept.
-- Note that characters with differing male and female form names will generate additional autosaves/quicksaves because the player's current name is used in the generation of save file names.
-- More recent save game files are still sorted to the top of the save/load game list, as long as valid metadata exists for it.
Bugfixes:
- The player can no longer package up more palace food in the Enchantress' Palace banquet hall when the party already has 10 more baskets of palace food, regardless of its eat / do not eat designation
- Fixed a bug for gendered name overrides on the Player Customization panel sometimes loading with incorrect values
- Fixed a but where followers waiting in the guest quarters of the Enchantress' island could leave and break quest progression if the player was waiting when the start-of-day logic was run
-- Added a migration to insert the required number of missing followers straight into the player party for anyone affected by this who has:
a) completed Another Fine Morning in Paradise quest
b) Not yet opened the First Steps into the Fray quest
c) Has Truth and Deception in Paradise open or Escaping Paradise ope
V0.2.09 (Sept 3, 2024)
Bugfixes:
- Further bugfix work for ourney into the Ashes not migrating properly, leading to the inability to interact with the ruins in the Vivian Plains required to progress the quest.
-- This bug has been very tricky to deal with as it has not been reproducible on the development PC. Various hardening has been implemented and additional logging has been added to better figure out what is going on.
-- If Journey into the Ashes closed prematurely and Spelunking for the Signet (the next main storylinequest) has not yet started, Journey into the Ashes should be automatically restarted upon game load.
-- In the meantime, it is highly recommended to make a backup of your save game file from 0.2.07 or earlier.
V0.2.08 (Sept 3, 2024)
New game features
- It is now possible to (briefly) have more than twelve followers in the party. However, when the follower limit is exceeded, party movement speed to dropped to 0 until enough followers are dismissed to return to at or below the limit.
- Dismissing followers now transfers them to the nearest point of interest where followers and companions can be transferred in and out of the party instead of removing them from the game entirely.
-- There may be some exceptions to this in certain "dangerous" maps such as in the Hatfellow Estate in the future.
-- Various party size requirements have been removing, allowing the player to accept followers joining the party in quests and random events more often.
-- In the future, some maps such as Blackjaw Crag and Hatfellow's Mansion will have the Dismiss behavior remain the same with the follower vanishing from the game entirely.
- Followers now have a 3% daily chance to leave the point of interest they are being stored at. This occurs first thing in the morning, the same as when the party's followers are paid.
-- This check is ran world-wide, not just the map the player is currently on.
Miscellaneous
- Removed the party size requirement in Amour Aquatic, First Steps into the Fray, and some random events that involve followers joining the party.
-- This will now allow the player to welcome prisoners into the party and choose who to dismiss if the party becomes full
- Added pagination controls for points of interest where followers can be transferred in and out of the party
Bugfixes:
- Hopeful bugfix for Journey into the Ashes not migrating properly, leading to the inability to interact with the ruins in the Vivian Plains required to progress the quest.
V0.2.00 to V0.2.07 (Aug 31, 2024)
New game features
- Added a Short Delay and Long Delay turn for battle entities.
-- Short delays push back that battle entity's turn 5 to 7 rounds.
-- Long delays push back that battle entity's turn 10-14 rounds.
-- Each battle entity has 2 days per turn. A long delay counts as two delays, so a battle entity can do either one or two short delays per turn, or one long one.
-- Delaying turns is only available before that battle entity has performed any move or combat abilities. The number of movement points has no effect.
-- The AI does not ever delay their turns at this time.
- Implemented Random Events system. These are repeatable, random events that can trigger when:
-- a specific companion is in the party
-- a certain transformation / form is present in the party
-- a certain item is in the party's inventory
-- the current map allows for it
- Random events have cooldowns defined on a per-event basis, so the same event should be unable to trigger within fewer than N many ingame days
- Random events should never trigger when the party is waiting or are being delayed at a point of interest
- Added support for gaining or losing items from a loot container definition to allow for some more randomness in certain interactions
- Added random min-max range of gaining or losing money in interactions so the value doesn't always have to be a fixed amount
- Battle entity base initiative values now display in the Deploy stage of a battle and vanish when the first round of battle begins
-- Be aware this is BASE initiative. Each battle entity's initiative is determined with a slight random variance at the start of each round.
-- Enemy battle entities have these values displayed as well, though this might change in the future
- The party's best Healing and Soothing skills now passively affect party member health and lust.
-- Every 8 hours, all party members gain health equal to the party's best Healing skill and lose lust according to the party's best Soothing skill.
-- Note that these are absolute and not percentage values, so 8 Healing restores 8 health, not 8% of the target's total health.
- Implemented Patreon Enlistees
-- Enlistees replace a random follower matching the right conditions (sex, species, particular form, etc) in a recruitment group and changing them to match the given enlistee name and some of the color tones if specified.
-- Once hired, enlistees will no longer show up in any recruitment pools.
-- If an enlistee is in a recruitment pool but not hired, then that pool is refreshed, that enlistee will only be eligible to spawn the next time the game is launched. This is to prevent "clones" where the same enlistee is generated into different pools at the same time.
- Added a campaign customization option available when starting a new game. This applying a modifier for:
-- Follower recruitment price between 0.0 and 2.0 of the game's default value
-- Follower daily upkeep price between 0.0 and 2.0 of the game's default value
-- Merchant initial gold quantities between .5 and 3.0 of the game's default value
-- XP gain modifier between .5 and 3.0 of the game's default value
-- Healing and Soothing services prices between 0.0 and 2.0 of the game's default value
-- Post-battle loot amount slider
-- Battle difficulty slider that can make battles easier or harder due to status effects assigned in battles to the ally team and enemy team
-- The campaign customization panel can now be opened at anytime from the Escape panel
- Added a victorious post-battle-loot slider in campaign customization
- Introduced Feral transformations where companions or followers can be transformed completely into an animal as part of the Whey to Curdshire quest.
-- Feral companions and followers are invalid for more story events
-- Feral companions do not provide any Adventuring skills to the party
-- Ferals can be either Peaceful or Agressive. Peaceful ferals will not join in the start of any new battles.
-- Ferals in battle are put under AI control. Peaceful ferals wander randomly and do not attack, but can still be attacked.
-- Feral companions cannot be spoken to
-- Feral companions DO gain passive relationship by traveling with the player, but not from quest involvement (likely to change)
-- Feral followers still require daily payment
-- Feral followers and companions still eat from the party inventory as usual
-- Companions who transform into a feral form have all their equipment move back into the party inventory
-- Feral companions cannot equip any items
-- Feral companions cannot be leveled up
-- Battles now end in a loss for a team when all battle entities on that side have been transformed into peaceful ferals.
-- The notice that displays encountering hostile NPC parties and at the start of battles informing the player some allied followers are sitting out now mentions peaceful ferals sitting out as well.
-- Feral companions now automatically transform back to their base forms if they depart the party due to low health or high lust
- Willow and Vyndaii also have random events that could pop up in any map (for now)
- Carrying Hatfellow's Cane in the party inventory (not equipped on a player or companion) also has a chance to transform the player or follower into submissive maids
New game content (quests/writing/art/etc):
- New Quest, The Whey to Curdshire
-- Extra thanks to Forefox for many proofreading / grammar / general textual improvements
- Completed Journey into the Ashes quest
- Added Demon Commanders, heavily armored demons. Art is by hermes3smegistus
-- Demon Commanders now appear Greenridge Valley and Vivian Plains Imperium patrols.
- Added Elf Swashbucklers. Currently these are only found in Blackjaw Crag. Art is by Icy.
-- Swashbucklers have the new Saber Storm combat ability
- Added Elf Pistoleers. Currently these are only found in Blackjaw Crag. Art is by Icy.
-- Pistoleers have the new Dual Pistol Blast and Pistol Whip combat abilities.
- Added Elf Sharpshooters. Art is by Icy.
-- Pistoleers have the Long Shot and Enemy Ahoy combat abilities.
- Added the first Realm Traveler NPC into the game, Evelyn Wildwood. She can be found in Lily's Pleasure Palace.
- Added Camp Kestrel, a camp where Empress Sephora is staying. It includes some basic amenities (healer, soother, merchant) in the Ashe Woods
- Added mini-encounter in Whitetail Watch with a sneezing dogwoman caravanmaster
Miscellaneous
- Level 1 followers cost 50% of the previous amount to recruit to make early game a little easier. Level 2 followers are 25% cheaper and level 3 followers are 10% cheaper.
- Implemented some fallbacks for the rare case that the save game metadata fails to load, usually because of a sharing access violation (the system attempts to read the file too quickly after writing to it or vice versa), or due to data corruption in a scenario like a computer crash.
-- Metadata (saves.meta) stores informations about the save game files. It is not strictly necessary, but is useful in displaying information to the user.
-- When metadata fails to load, individual save files' save datetimes and version numbers display as "unknown". The actual save file itself should load up fine, however.
-- The Continue button on the title screen should be disabled when metadata fails to load. In that scenario you will need to select the save game file manually by its filename.
- Dagger Swipe and Twin Dagger Swipes combat abilities now have their own unique graphics
- Reworked some art displaying logic so that faces can now print separately from the character they are associated with to reduce unnecessarily game load time and download sizes. Visually nothing should be different--if anything is, that's most likely a bug!
- Added new Enlistee, Keth Stone who spawns in as male dwarf musketeer
- Reduced the price of Alchemy jars from 40 gold down to 24.
- Status effects can now also affect global party movement speed. The new status effect Heavy Lactation does this.
-- These effects do not stack for the same status effect at the same stage. However, two status effects at different stages in the party do. (likely to change)
- Added a couple more loading screen pieces of artwork showing off the new pirate swashbuckler and pistoleer, as well as the new demon commanders
- Added Old Waraxe and Sharpened Waraxe equippable weapons that grant the Axe Chop combat ability.
- Re-added quest descriptions
- When a quest is open, the game now automatically scrolls to the bottom of that quest in the quests panel.
Cheat/Debug controls (patreon-backer builds only)
- Added debug option under Misc panel to reset all cooldowns for random events
- Added button to force-launch an eligible random event in the Misc panel
- Added teleport option to Vivian Plains near Curdshire
- Added teleport option to Ashe Woods near Leanan's cabin
- Added option to turn the selected battle entity, or a random one, into a feral form (for now only the dairy cow is a valid form)
- Added ability in Misc debug panel to try and trigger a specific random event by its id.
-- The event will not launch if not all of its required triggers are met, but it can bypass some other conditions relating to random event tags
- Added teleport option to Camp Kestrel
Bugfixes
- Some bugfixes for delaying battle turns not updating UI elements properly
- Minor bugfix for equipment tab on battle examine companion not removing red highlighting when tabbed away
- Fixed Cuniculbur not actually being removed from the party inventory at the end of The Sword in the Grass quest
- Fixed incorrect attributes on Anklet of Soothing
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V0.1.04.1 (July 26, 2024)
Bugfixes
- Cynthia Scissors should actually keep recipes in stock
-- Existing save game files that have interacted with her will need to wait for her next inventory reset
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V0.1.04 (July 26, 2024)
New game content (quests/writing/art/etc):
- Added new music for Whitetail Watch. Track is by CaelusWindcat.
- Added new merchant in Whitetail Watch, Cynthia Scissor, who specializes in selling recipes for alchemy. She can be found in the garden just outside Herbs and Happiness.
- Added new merchant in Whitetail Watch, Darla's Deeply Discounted Delights. This pixie currently only sells one item, the Ring of Blindness, which imposes a -10 perception.
-- This is intended for players who are interested in reducing their perception to deliberately reveal more traps for curiosity's sake.
- Added new event, the Kitsune in the Corner. Currently she can be found in the Mad Mare tavern in Whitetail Watch, but will likely be moved to a new tavern near or in the Vivian Plains in the future.
-- This event is about 30 pages and involves inanimte content. The inanimate tag must be enabled for this to be interacted with.
-- This event is written by a first-time community writer, Morowins.
Miscellaneous
- The bartender in The Drunken Starfish tavern in Aledock Town now has some dialog option to offer tips on where to seek healing, as well as suggests the party do some fishing for Joyce the fishmonger
- When zero followers are transformed in a transform follower effect, no log is displayed at all instead of the log stating "0 followers have been transformed into..."
- The point of interest attraction buttons (trading, recruiting, transferring companions+followers, healing, etc) should no longer be hidden after selecting any choice buttons.
-- To prevent sequence-breaking, they should be visible but non-interactable / grayed out anytime the Leave button is not also present. If the leave button become enabled again, the attraction buttons should also become interactable again.
Cheat/Debug controls (patreon-backer builds only)
- The Jump to Random Trap button is no longer covered up the newer Forget All Read Books button
Bugfixes
- Possible bugfix for Settings panel now loading when the game is currently running with an unsupported resolution, such as 2400x1600.
- Fixed rounding issue with battle AI damage calculations leading to Hatfellow to never attack the player when they are completely alone in the battle against him
- Fix for companions in a female form showing them losing male genitalia and gaining female genitalia + breasts when multi-transformations occur
-- This was happened in the Amour Aquatic quest upon being transformed into mermaids.
- Bugfix for asking how Vyndaii feels about you breaking the conversation when relationship with her is exactly 10
- The kitsune form should now give the Lustful Impulse and Distracting Illusion abilities, the same as it does for followers.
- Bugfix for post-feast battle breaking in the Deployment stage when the party has exactly 4 combatants
To preface this review, I played on the middle difficulty, with mostly normal settings, with one exception. I chose to make the upkeep cost for keeping units nonexistant. I generally think that games such as Fire Emblem, or RPG's in general, excell at building up a party, and having to focus on keeping people paid AND alive is a bit of an overreach. Along with that, with me using transformation potions to alter my party members and followers, I found it a little bit more than tedious to have to worry about having enough gold to keep them on deck. Now to the meat of the review.
Restoration of Aphrodisia is fun. I'll say it. Many times, I'll find games on this site that are these long text bogged slogs, where my screen is filled with paragraph after paragraph of text with no gameplay to speak of. However, where those games fail, this game triumphs. The combat is fun. It's allows for strategy, challenge, and a genuine feeling of accomplishment. Some of my favorite moments were when I was surrounded on all sides by the bimbo virus townspeople and having to strategically maneuver my units in order to keep the strong ranged ones out of reach, while allowing the new dark elf companions to take some of the heat, or when I was in the slime mine, having to manuever around the tricky terrain on the battle map. The combat is very Fire Emblem esque, with stakes similar to it. I found myself building up my Willow with a spell based build, then realizing that she could excel at a seduction one. I was regularly switching her transformations around from Fairy, Dryad, Poisonweaver, etc. And the same with my character as well. I ended up finishing with the bunny transformation due to the Cuniculbur, and going strong with reflex toughness and strength. The opportunities build variety are great, and finding different ways to approach combat was always enjoyable.
Now on to the follower system. I found it to be less than perfect in all honesty. The disconnect between companions and followers was a bit dissapointing. I found myself having numerous weapons and equipments that I had no use for since I had already perfected my companions, and the lack of follower customizability outside of transformations leaves a little to be desired. On that note however, I do recognize the benefit of lack of attachment to individual followers, and the ease at which they can be lost, along with the easier time with game development that keeping customizable characters to solely companions brings.
Outside of basic gameplay, I'd like to talk about some of the other gameplay systems. I found traversal to be, while basic, simple and robust enough for a game of this scope. The simple act of clicking on tiles for movement works fine. However, within combat encounters, zooming out causes the readability of things to take a hit with them seemingly not scaling with the level of zoom, and that would cause some light tedium when trying to maneuver the camera around. Along with the readability, on many occasions, when the camera was focused on the active unit, upon the next turn start it would send the camera all the way to the bottom left corner, a small glitch you might want to be aware of.
Now let me talk about the quest system. It's basic. And thats wonderful. It's easy to understand what the quest wants you to do, and it's phenomenal. I love the easy to understand checklists and the quest hint helps when you are in dire need as well. Now on the quest bit, I encountered a bug where the game believed I had not left Tidswell mine, and was unable to complete the quest, which was unfortunate, but I do understand that the most recent content has many WIP quests, and since the game had already delivered so much content, it wasn't that big of a deal.
Now this next bit will be a bit more critical, and looking at other reviews, I can see that I'm not alone. There is too much dialogue. I am already a serial dialogue skipper, but this game has so much dialogue, it's not even funny. Every encounter bombards you with paragraph after paragraph of information that, frankly, for a porn game? I don't particularly care to read. Some of the dialogue I DID like was that with the final boss of the manor, or basically anything with Willow, or Vyandaii. That dialogue would always be fun and interesting, and was a nice change of pace from the exposition dumpers like the mayor of the first town and the like.
I'd like to finish off with some miscellaneous points. I really like the 8x speed being an option, however, and this may just be me not knowing where to look, I'm unsure how to access the hints/tutorials again, as sometimes I found myself looking for a bit of clarification on certain points. Other than that though, I found the music to be more than fitting, and in some cases fantastic. On the topic of some of the maps, the bimbo virus town is a personal favorite of mine, with having to route around the wandering encounters being some of my favorite moments. On a completely different note, I found some of the differences between the art and artstyles to be a bit...jarring. For example, the satyr wardancer and fairy have a VASTLY different artstyle from that of the poisonweaver or mermaid shorewalker. Frankly, I think this game needs some more time in the oven before becoming a paid game. Quests need to be finished, bugs need to be squashed, art needs to be normalized, and more. But as it stands? This is a fantastic experience, and I can 100% see it being a full fledged game in a few years time. Keep up the good work, and I hope to see what more blue fairy media does in the future.
To be blunt, I'm not seeing quality worthy of a game that intends to go fully commercial here.
The game has inherited all the issues of it's predecessor and gained some new ones to boot.
Credit where it's due the writing is good. Unfortunately just like in EoA the level of detail is excessive. Even for a mainstream game this would be a bit too much, and for a TF game this is a TLDR hell.
This, btw, is something of an ever-present issue with this game (and EoA to a bit lesser extent). Or maybe it's just me? Either way, the game expects you to be able to switch gears between it's TF side and it's game side on a dime. Chat up a whole town, hire a team, get provisions, level characters, plant a course and... read about that team being turned into maids in a mansion... then back to feeding and paying them... until it's something else again. You'd ask what's the difference between this and any other TF game? The difference is that this one takes it's gameplay a bit too seriously. Who gives a fuck about provisions and crew salary in a TF game? Well, maybe when it's a TF version of Origon Trail, but this one is not.
Surprisingly, despite our crew needing food and salary, being an actual trading caravan isn't a thing. I was really disappointed when I realized that “trade goods” is just the game's cruel way of saying “junk to sell at the nearest merchant”. Kinda weird that we pay for both mileage and safety in numbers yet don't even try to make any money from it...
But the real downer is combat. It's clunky and boring. There's an initiative system in play, yet somehow you never see enemy units act between yours or yours between theirs. So it would seem that it's only there to enforce a turn order between your own units. Which is a major pain in the ass because no unit can pass where another one stands. Yet there are no threat zones, no interruptions, and not even movement penalties. Meaning the only way to guard your rear line is to literally form a wall of bodies between them and the enemy.
And as if that wasn't bad enough the game has no concept of technique knowledge. Character actions are determined by their form and in case of the “chosen 3” their equipment. Picked up a bow? Congratulations you can fire a volley of arrows. Picked up a staff? Congratulations you can cast fireball. Want something other than a fireball? Go find a different stick Harry, cus you're no wizard, you're a joke. Don't get me wrong you CAN specialize your chosen 3 characters using something as boring as stats (into a magical DD or lust DD for example) but the main draw of RPGs is off the table – you can't make them learn any combat skills. Even battle brothers, stagnant as it was, had passives to learn, and BB's tactics were crazy good (aside from being stagnant, obviously) while the ones in RoA are literately the worst I've ever seen. Not exagerrating. Mean it. Yes, really. And no, I DID see a lot of really bad ones. This one just managed to take the cake somehow.
I'm honestly not sure if I should be saying what I'm about to say, but … if you're planing to make money from this, FFS, hire someone to do proper QA. If you want your players to treat you as a working professional, how about you start by treating your future clients as a working professional should? Maybe I'm too much of an idealist but when I see developers go “give us free feedback to fix our gig then pay us for it” route it makes me wanna bonk them all on the head a couple of times. Well, at least they are being upfront about it...
I really like this game.
Especially the Improvement of having a couple fleshed out characters. Adored Willow almost immediately. Shes great.
This game is cool as hell!!!
Love the lore and the characters. I like the combat, and have done quite will with it.
There are a couple of quibbles I have with the economic side of the game, but all together, it's a cool and coherent universe. Definitely playing this one!
A fantastic game with story and good amount of content. defin worth spending money to support this content creator with how much time they spent making this game.
