Unity - Archipelagates [v0.6] [RalivDev]

Great potential. Can't wait until more is developed. Aside from a few bugs when trying to seduce enemies it is a very easy learning curve. The upgrading system is well thought out and seems to be at baseline level so far. Unlocking future maps is intuitive and well thought out. Will be coming back for later releases.

Rating "Version 18" according to the Itch page at this time.

I'm giving this game an early four stars not because I think it deserves it, but because I think it has the potential for it. The first thing of note is the character creator, which is decently robust for such an early build... but it could certainly have a better layout, with items more spaced out so that you're not wondering if you're moving an arm or leg slider. The fact that you can choose between humanoid, canine, or dragon body features is nice, but every body type basically has a series of predetermined features—for example, the "human" ears are all pointed like those of elves; and dragons must have horns, and you can't alter their tail color. You can have equine genitals on your character, but you can't have an equine body build, which seems a missed opportunity, and other common furry types lack representation as well (felines, vulpines, lapines, etc). Hopefully this is improved upon in later versions.

As far as exploration goes... it can be simultaneously too easy and too difficult in various aspects. After five islands, I had over 1000 gold (the game only lets you stack up to 999 coins per slot) and nothing with which to spend them. The number of shops available on islands were abysmally low as well, meaning most of the time I had to either go to town with a full inventory and leave half an island of loot behind, or just not pick up loot at all beyond what I intended to use in my day-to-day. Eventually, I had a "standard mace" that dealt 33 damage, a pair of gloves that let me cast a fireball spell more reminiscent of a certain Italian-American plumber, and a two-piece bikini and thigh-high leather boots, giving me an armor rating above 50... not that that matters, because one hit ragdolls you almost instantly, and blocking doesn't mitigate damage at all. While I appreciate the dev made some effort to make a variety of equipment available, the patterning on 90% of items is just... god awful. If you get a high-statted item with purple and brown stripes, you better hope you find something in the shops that looks better and has equivalent stats or you're stuck with that ugly rag for who knows how long. Thankfully, there are dyes that you can apparently use on clothing... with no actual way to utilize them yet. Apparently that's coming in a future update.

The traversal is the best part by a mile—your movement speed on the ground is comfortable; you have a dash that can be chained into jumps to preserve even higher momentum for that speedrunner feel; and you can do things like air-dash, effectively giving you a mid-air jump (but only once per jump), and wall-jump to traverse stone structures and cliff faces. While the combat is nothing to write home about, the fact that you can do more than just swing blindly is also impressive. You can charge up a stronger attack, or leap into the air and come down with an aerial smash that, from high enough, creates a rather substantial shockwave. Honestly, even without the porn aspects, it's kinda fun to just run around and parkour off things.

Obviously there are things that I think could be vastly improved—the UI, the combat, the enemy variety, and surely a bunch of new equipment for even more variety so we're not just using maces or swords all the time—but what's here on display now isn't that terrible. And it's extremely light in filesize, being only about 700 MB unpacked. If you don't like it, it's hardly making a dent in your hard drive space.

Very good animations, not matter that it short!
The NPC looks like alive. This game have a potential, if dev don't abandoned this project it can be very good porn game!
Combat system so good for this type of game.
I'll follow for this dev and his work.
Recommended!

V1.3

Update: Everything below still applies. No sounds for sex scenes, still pointlessly tedious to actually get sex, and no new content at all. What a shocker that the overpriced tech demo is progressing slowly. It's almost like that happens when people flaunt over something that has 'promise' and nothing more. Sex scenes also still bug out frequently enough, meaning if you try to engage in one of the 4 available scenes, you sometimes just phase into them and then t-pose. At least that is entertaining.

I eagerly await the day people stop praising barebones trash for having 'potential' and review it for what it actually is. But I suppose that's just me.

This is a tech demo with a 15$ price tag. I think the price is a very big factor here because, were it 5$ at present, I'd give it 3 stars. Were it free, I'd give it 3.5 in spirit, since I can't actually rate something that on here. However, for the price point, the absolutely dismal amount of content in the game makes this an absolutely laughable Early Access title that should be, in and of itself, a free demo at present.

As for the great, there is the character creator. Though it lacks a lot of diversity in terms of species, as far as coloration goes, this is the absolute best furry character creator I've ever seen. It's got some weird discrepancies, such as having a dragon head but no dragon cock (only an equine one in its stead), or having 2 female presets for canine but a male and female preset for the dragon species. The heads are also kind of plopped on, meaning you can see the seams where they connect during creation.

Those little flaws aside, the character creator is downright amazing. The UI is pretty bad, but once you actually stare at it for a bit, you can learn to work with it a pretty good deal. I'd like to see sliders to adjust the size of color panels, but all in all, it's a really good tool for creating your sona. Seriously, if you have no artwork of your character but a good idea of it in your head, this thing will absolutely SLAP for getting a good 3D ref.

Sadly, that's the end of the great. The good is most of the gameplay. It's buggy right away, from clipping textures to blades of grass that stretch to the heavens. The hack and slash aspect, though, is actually fine. I've played a good handful of hack and slash porn games, and they're usually very mediocre or downright trash. This is perfectly acceptable...when it's not the entire focus. Smacking enemies early on is fun because they ragdoll, and the looting is pretty nice as well. Lots of chests, lootable enemies; the works.

The animations for movement are fine, too. Nothing special, but still a lot smoother than many EA titles. The ragdoll physics on your own character are nice, too, though the cock needs a bit more collision so it doesn't keep falling through the thighs. Traversal is fine enough with a wall jump and air dash, however they lack unique animations. There's a smash attack, though, and it does have its own animation. A nice touch. I did not play very far in, though, so I can only give those tidbits about combat and traversal. I killed 3 or 4 skeles before entering the town, and realizing just how shallow this game is at present.

You're greeted by soundless characters that don't grunt or squeak or make any sounds at all, be that when talking or lewding. This makes the entire lack of game sound all the more noticable, as you basically only ever hear your own footsteps. No music, no ambient sound; nothing. Dead silence. When you enter the town, it gets worse. You meet very bland characters with equally bland interactions, introduction to quests, and a broken "Follow" system.

After doing the mandatory slop of talking to all the characters, you finally get your opportunity to see the sex. This is where I stopped playing, because as a P O R N G A M E, this shit absolutely blows. There are two good things about the first (and likely all other scenes thus far) and nothing more.
1) You can choose to top or bottom. Nice.
2) The animation is very smooth.

That's it. I'll just fire off the glaring issues.
1) S H O R T. One animation for fucking, 1 for cumming.
2) Text box in the middle of the screen that won't go away saying ".."
If you click, it then has "CUM" on it, which also doesn't leave
3) Your mouse isn't locked, meaning if you want to pan the camera, it flings off screen. The tell tale signs of someone new to Unity.
4) No sounds. Even the dead make more noise.
5) No fluids.

In short, it's the most basic, uninteresting sex you can get in a game. That sentiment applies well to this entire game tech demo. This is a fantastic set of bones to build upon, yet they're acting like this is already some great feat. 15$ can get you a LOT of really good titles, especially when they're on sale. It's a genuinely solid chunk of change, even if not enough to break one's bank. It's a LOT to ask when you're an unproven dev, and even more so given the barren wasteland of content that this game has to offer at present. It's rather egregious to ask for 15$ on something this barebones.

On the flipside, it's admirable that they haven't (yet) gone down the Patreon route and are simply letting people buy it as a one-off. There are countless porn games I'd have paid 10-20$ for in a heartbeat, but they are always patreon exclusive instead. This is not one of those games at present. They don't get points for this because there's just not much here yet. It would be very easy to up and abandon this game at present, and you would not have your money's worth.

All in all, if this actually gets worked on for...2 more years or so, it can probably be something. Might even be worth a few shekels in a year's time.

But right now? Enjoy the character creator. That's the most bang for your buck here. Especially with great people here on F95 giving us glorified demos at the price they warrant. Thanks, you chads, for saving our time and wallets.