This tale of transformation is not for the faint of heart - there are heavy themes such as NTR, humiliation, and sex with monsters. If that doesn't sound delicious to you, don't partake! This is much more degenerate than my more vanilla transformation game, X-Change Life, which you can play here.
When Aldric, a revered hero, gets locked into a magical collar and transformed into a buxom beauty, he's ensnared in a life of torment and arousal, forced to serve a devious goblin master.
Changelog (1.0 vs the Chapters 1-15 version)
- Completed story (all 20 chapters + epilogue)
- Many more CGs - much more consistent art - 221 new images, many of which are used throughout chapters 1-15. There are still a few drawn panels but they are rare
- 11 bad ends (some much more detailed than others)
- One bad end is in the form of a 4-page "diplomatic report" so keep an eye out for that one!
- Spend redo points to unlock "high willpower" options that your character doesnt have the stats for
- Whenever you get a "game over" now, it will let you rewind to the last major choice that led to that game over so you aren't left guessing.
- A cheat menu where you can zoom to any point in the story (but it treats you as if you have made all "canon" choices - so you are still incentivized to play it).
- A hidden gems detector, so it lets you know if there is an alliteration on the current screen, so that will make it much easier to know if you are missing something or not. However note it requires you to switch this setting on from the cheat menu (no downside to doing so, you just have to find the hidden menu!)
- a couple story branches around chapters 17-18, which can merge back into main plotline if you make the right choices
- Better sound design throughout. Many scenes make use of positional audio - headphones recommended!
- Revised earlier chapters with additional options and some additional scenes
- All music is now purely instrumental
Feels like the rumblings of a new era at TFGames. Bold, innovative, and very hot. Hopefully, this helps inspire a new generation of TF gamemakers.
I'm a bit torn on this "game", I definitely like it, but there's a few shortcomings that I had some problems with, at least from my initial playthrough.
First, the good. It's hot, definitely fappable to say the least. Has a good Joe Forrest vibe if you're into his stuff. It's got actual preg content that's not just relegated to a bad ending, which is always good to see. The visuals (which I do have a critique I'll get to), are servicable when it comes to the purpose of choking the chicken. Finally, the presentation, while basic, is alright. The dev, Aphrodite, does a good job of keeping page layouts somewhat fresh, and sprinkling in images to break up the monotony. Shoutout to the bit with the background near the end where you enter The Depths. It's a small, but very nice and appreciated touch.
Now, my hangups.
The images... While I said they were servicable, probably more than that to the "average" fapper, I'm a bit of a hardass and connoisseur. The dev claims to use a super "unique" approach to the visuals, taking Daz renders and spicing them up with AI, but frankly, I just don't think it looks good. I'm not entirely sure if it's just an AI filter, or it's a complete Img2Img job, but I think it's been done with way too light a touch. Images still reek of Daz. To a trained eye, you'll notice bad lighting, obvious "Daz" meshes, and messed up geometry where limbs are positioned wrongly and warp (another shoutout to the goblin missing his asscheeks in Chapter 20, classic 3d blunder). Speaking of the goblin, it's the default Daz goblin you see in literally everyone's porn image made with Daz that has a goblin. It's really hard to pull my mind away from it.
Overall, the images just look like high-ish quality Daz renders. I wouldn't even call the compositions all that competent, I've definitely seen better Daz fare in my python-polishing sessions. Which is kind of a shame. I think the workflow can definitely work, it just needs a bit of a heavier hand to really separate it from that Daz look.
To be fair, I do rather like the painterly fantasy images that are in the story. I think these work really well. I don't think they'd work all that well porn wise, but they do look good.
I also like that some of the images are animated. The movements aren't super fluid, and they're mostly like animated sequences/timelapses, but I appreciate them. I'm not so simpleminded that I'd bend over backwards and spread my buttcheeks apart for any 3d animation that comes my way, I'm an animator myself and I have principles (and standards), but motion in an otherwise static game does break up the monotony and they're used in good spots.
The writing... While it's definitely hot, it's definitely good, there's A LOT of it (I realize the irony in writing a long review that no one will read). We're not talking a 5th grader's thick ass Eragon book "a lot", probably more Goosebumps length, but for a "Sam's happy time..." or "special alone time with myself" session (my name isn't sam btw), there's a good chunk of writing that's gonna space out pumps. Prepare to be edging for a while. There's also a shit ton of overly elaborate prose, so much so that the dev even made a scavenger hunt for especially "egregious" snippets. Still, there's enough breakup and dialogue that you can skim most of it and read the dialogue and get the gist, and save the reading glasses for when things get especially steamy.
My last nitpick with the writing, and the length, is I think it might mostly be generated. I can't be 100% sure, and there's definitely a good bit of curation and hand-writing present to make it coherent if there is, but it is something that did seem likely. I don't have too much of a problem with that, and it's definitely not bad, but there are a good chunk of passages that feel like they drag on for no reason because the text generator (if used) didn't know when to stop.
There's also a fair bit of "world building", and lore snippets that pop up, but personally I don't really find these to be that necessary. We're talking pretty standard-fare fantasy elements, if you skip out on these, and you can easily pick up what the author is puttin down.
The "gameplay".... I don't mean it as any kind of insult, but you'd be hard-pressed to call this any kind of game. Definitely more along the lines of a kinetic novel, or a Goosebumps CYOA with some extra steps (though not much more, since they did have some basic inventory management... "If you grabbed the stake on page 81, turn to page 69"). Again, this is fine. There's a few "stats" the game keeps track of, though they're pretty opaque as to what they affect. The wife's love is pretty obvious, heroism is a bit nebulous (seems to be corruption), the town's respect seems pretty much nothing, and gold is essentially meaningless (and forgotten about). There's a few stat checks here and there, but it's mostly based on heroism and wife love, and you can pretty much retry any choice, apart from one pitfall that seems impossible to actually retry (the ending of chapter 20 is a softlock if you haven't farmed enough wife love). Retries cost "redo points" which you get for spotting those snippets of text where the author/chatbot got a little too eloquent, but unless you're retrying absolutely every choice, you'll most likely have 1-2 in the bank if you're skimming. Unfortunately, "lore pieces" and certain checks require them as well, and more than often they costed quite a hefty bit (5 or so), which I feel is a bit too expensive for, what I imagine, is just flavor text about certain world elements. Still, you can somewhat get by farming them by keeping your mouse cursor over whatever chunk of text you're reading, actually reading everything (who's got the time or edging endurance for that?), or by using the "cheat" which just tells you when there's one on a given page.
So yeah, not quite "gameplay", but I don't really think that's the focus.
And my final hangup, the endings.... Saved this one for last.... you know, because endings. They're a bit weird. Not like, "woah this is so freaky", but in terms of how they're presented. Often times, you'll end up on a bad end path without knowing, which is fine (great actually), which can span for a good few passages or more before you hit a brick wall. The problem, is that you hit that brick wall going 80mph+ . Just when things are getting good, or when things are starting to pick up, and reach a tiny bit of a resolution, that's when you hit it. You hit it and you're greeted with a single sentence. The little image on the synopsis bragging about "lots of bad ends!", and showing that single sentence? Yeah, that's kind of just it. No elaboration of what happens after, no real ending where things are tied up, it's the bad end highway leading into a "tunnel" painted on a wall by Wile E Coyote. "I went down the bad end path and all I got was this stupid T-shirt with a stupid sentence". Don't get me wrong, the lead up to it is more than enough to rip-ride your rocket, but if you're looking for that big climax, it's a bit of a killer to hit that brick wall where it says "You live out the rest of your short day's as Grokk's breeding bitch" and you know, actually reading about it. Gimme somethin to finish off to, ya know?
Another little irk I have with the endings is the sudden perspective switch. The entire game is presented in first person "I do this..." meaning you've got a clear separation between you the reader and the character that's narrating, but all the endings are presented in second person "You do this..." It's a weird thing to get fussy about, I know, but it'd be nice to have some consistiency. Obviously the main character can't narrate their own death, "I die being pierced by Schlok's massive Schlong", but 3rd person would be perfectly servicable in these situations, "Elise is eaten by a grue." It's the little things, ya know?
But yeah, overall, I'd give this one a 3.66666666 (repeating) out of 5, or a 69/253 for those of you using metric. Definitely a lot to love here, and I don't hate the game, but there's a few things that I did have problems with. I don't think most other people looking to choke the chicken, spank the monkey, doodle the noodle, *insert euphamism here*, will find all that much to complain about. Coom-brain is a powerful drug, it's just that mine has reached a buffer overflow and I'm super picky about what I'm Jackin' the beanstalk to. Still, this ain't a bad one to Yankee doodle to, you could definitely do much worse. Not to mention, that if you ended up reading this entire review, I doubt you'd really have much of a problem with the amount of text in the game.
**Slight addendum**
I wish that the character's profile view updated a bit more closely to what's going on in the story. For the most part, aside from the stats and outfit change, the text is mostly static. I wish that it'd reflect a bit more closely with bodily changes, and mental state. Gimme some breast sizes, and ass sizes to ogle, and some thoughts from the MC about their current overal predicament/look. I'm a sucker for that shit.
The audio is alright, and I respect the effort. I don't usually bop the balogna with audio, but I made an exception for this to see how the dev was gettin on. I wouldn't call it a gamechanger, but there's a nice bit more than the *plap-plap-plap* of asscheeks slappin together. You get to hear the goblin tossin in some insults, which is nice. Only problem is they're extremely hard to make out. I do wish there was some volume sliders to turn down the music and turn up the speech, but we're already stretching the limits of what Harlowe is capable of doing. Aphrodite seems to be the sole wizard in existence that can make that engine dance to his tune.
Some color coding for speakers would be a nice touch to make things a bit more readable. While layouts do change, THE WALL™ (of text) is ever present. In lieu of breaking up the text into even more, smaller, passages, adding a bit of color coding for speakers would help readability a bit.
**Addendum over**
In any case, shoutout to the peanut gallery reading this in the Discord screenshot. Well, that's the review, I've gotta go massage a doughnut.
Amazing writing and a unique approach to interactability throughout the game. The only thing that I wish was better was the amount of images and the consistency between the art works. The 3d renders vs the 2d art feel as though they counter each other and that there are quite different artstyles. It did bring me out of the moments in the story BUT, this is a phenomenal game. I have been running around trying to figure out if other people have ever written something as great as this while still being interactable and interesting.
Phenomenal writing, even without the graphics. New enhanced images are icing on the cake. Truly amazing work, well worth a play.
Truly fantastic amount of work and incredible experience if you're into the content.
Very impressive effort.