RPG Patreon Active RPG Maker [Cursed Atelier] VoidBound [Beta Expansion Release v0.4f]

[Cursed Atelier]

Uncensored trailer:

Spoiler

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Overview:

The Earth is sucked into a war between alien species, and the heroine has to venture to worlds never before seen by mankind to find a way to stop it. The game is a sci-fi ero RPG with a focus on variety in combat mechanics. The character’s abilities will be determined by a wide variety of equipable weapons, psi amps, and support gear, and each combat area will have its own unique spin on battles.

Controls: Standard RPG V Maker controls. Can use mouse or keyboard to navigate. Arrows keys to move, Z to select, X to cancel. Ctrl to skip text.

Thread Updated: 2020-11-25
Release Date: 2020-11-25
Developer: Cursed-Atelier -

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Censored: No
Version: Beta Expansion Release v0.4f
OS: Windows
Language: English
Genre:

Spoiler

2DCG, Animated, Female protagonist, Sci-fi, Adventure, Combat, Puzzle, RPG, Strategy, Visual Novel, Turn based Combat, Anal sex, Ahegao, BDSM, Creampie, Groping, Multiple penetration, Oral sex, Rape, Sex toys, Spanking, Tentacles, Vaginal sex

Installation:

Spoiler

1. Simply extract and run.
2. Old saves are NOT compatible with this version due to addition of new content and plugins. Please start anew to avoid crashes or bugs.

Changelog: Beta [Current Version]

Spoiler

v0.4f Beta:

• Removed snap for background and replaced it with an empty bitmap to resolve the "resolution" crash.
• Change particle setting options to off, min, max. Min will reduce the maximum amount of particles of each emitter to half, and doubled the wait duration of particle spawning in order to improve performance.
• Added Map Animation setting. Setting it to "Off" will set all animated parallax to be static images instead, while "Min" will have them skip every second frame and double the wait duration between frames.
• Updated the CacheManager to have it keep assets from a minimum of 3 maps to avoid unnecessary loading time. (There will still be lags when transitioning between maps/scenes, which is due to textures uploading to the GPU. We're currently still working on a solution for this).
• Forced the game to always launch in WebGL mode through the Community_Basic plugin.
• All animated parallaxes have been split.

Known Issues:
- You may experience longer loading times at certain sections
- Light sources might cause slight visual glitches at times


v0.4 Beta :
Known Issues:
The Escape command can be used while under restraint, but doing so will cause issues
You may experience longer loading times at certain sections
Light sources might cause slight visual glitches at times

A detailed changelog will be posted in a few days

v0.3 Performance Improvement Update:

• Improvement in stability
• Improvement in framerate
• Reduction of crashes
• Smaller Bug Fixes

Developer Log v0.3 Beta

• New outfit with 7 expressions and 3 clothing condition states.
• Three new locations on Henosis. (all locations in the pleasure and commercial district unlocked)
• Four new NPCs with standing art and expressions.
• Eight new NPCs sprite graphics, 6 with custom animations.
• One new musical track to accompany the new event.
• New graphics and animations for choice boxes.
• Brand new Outfit Manager with new standing art/outfit cards and animations.
• Five new parallax graphics and light textures for the new event.
• Over 250 new graphic images.
• Two new H scenes. (Part of the new event)
• Ten mini lewd events. (Part of the new event)
• Ground work for the next planet laid out.
• Work on the combat system has been done, will be seen in the next planet update. (New ATB system, AI improvements, new functions to allow for more dynamic enemy skills and destructable tiles/objects.)
• New Status Menu graphics and animations in progress. (For a higher quality and polish)
• Work has been done on performance and fighting memory leaks.

Developer Log vB 0.2.4:

• Fixed Tutorial Bug.
• Various attempts on fixing the random freeze bug during dialogues
• Various attempts on fixing the resolution crash for some unique cases.
• Added drop rate of materials to the soldiers.
• Added new lootable containers to the embassy.
• New dialogue variation in the embassy.
• New dialogue variation to Jem.
• Various Balancing changes.
• Fixed lamps that were passable in the robot dungeon.
• Fixed Panel behavior.
• Fixed FPS limiter not working as intended.

Developer Log: vB 0.2.3:

• Combat Balancing
• Better Enemy Behavior
• Changed the draw method from manually drawing in canvas to using WebGL renderer on the lighting system (Boost in performance)
• New Laser Sprite and Animation
• Fixed Light textures to lag behind
• Fixed struggle skill not returning the item selection in combat
• Fixed Enemies applying the restraints when actor was already restraint

Developer Log: vB 0.2.2:

• Fixed stationary guards facing the wrong way when they detect you.
• Various fixes on the Light Engine.
• Various Bug fixes.
• Robot Patrols fixed.
• New rendering/shading on combat cut-ins.
• New combat status picture variations.
• Folder clean up.
• Framework bugs fixed.

Developer Log vB 0.2.1:

• Fixed crash on loading a save at the side view map.
• Fixed a missing image call during battle.
• Fixed a crash when a choice pops up during a dialogue.
• Adjusted Guard behavior.
• Fixed false error call on start up.
• Adjusted precache loading.
• Adjusted combat balancing.
• Replaced Enter/Cancel/Loading SFX.

Technical changelog 0.2:

• Using newer NWJS version which increase the game performance.
• Game no longer paused when loading.
• New character sprite system, which can have more than 3 frames.
• Battle system tweaked.
• Complete controller and keyboard mapping support.
• Brandnew lighting (With raycasting) and stealth system.

Art changelog 0.2:


1) Finished custom Henosis maps:

• Henosis overview map (elite, slum, hangar, commercial, residential, pleasure)
• Pleasure district map
• Commercial district map

2) Finished backgrounds/scenes:

Henosis:

• Tripteen abandoned shrine
• Henosis spaceview
• Henosis overview map
• Hyperspace travel
• Brothel lobby
• Brothel room
• Cava's office
• Nightclub
• Hangar
• Dungeon exterior
• Pinup poster
• Caly crawling (3)
• Computer Screen 1
• Computer Screen 2
• Caly seducing (3)
• Mob defeat scene (10 x 2)
• Boss sex scene ((8 x 2) + 1)
• NPC1 sex scene (11)
• NPC2 sex scene (11)
• NPC3 sex scene (10)

Setek:

• Vas pulling the sheet from Caly
• Caly tried to seduce Haar
• Option UI overhaul

3) Finished standing art:

• Boss 1 (3)
• Boss 2 (3)
• NPC 1 (3)
• Ovden (3)
• Cava (5)
• NPC 2 (3)
• NPC 3 (3)
• Haar (holographic) (4)
• Jens (holographic) (1)
• NPC4 (3)
• Overhaul of the shading on Caly's Standing art

4) Finished combat assets:

• Caly combat status w/ new enemies (3)
• Cut-ins ((10 x 2) + 4)
• Battleback (2)
• Enemies (8):
• Urtu Shield
• Urtu Sword
• Urtu Rifle
• Boss 1
• Boss 2 (Buffing)
• Boss 2 (Weakened)
• Boss 2 (Defensive)
• Boss 2 (Offensive)

5) Finished weapon(s):

• New Rifle

6) Finished light textures (130)

7) Finished sprites:

• Caly nude
• Caly suit

Music changelog 0.2:

• H_voluntary
• H_involuntary
• Commercial Area Theme
• Pleasure Area Theme
• Sneaking Theme

Gameplay changelog 0.2:

• Added the option that players can knock out enemies from behind for a period of time
• New dungeon and various new areas.
• New dungeon enemies and bosses.
• 2 Boss fights.
• A new obtainable weapon. (Not useable yet.)
• Complete overhaul of all the existing lighting system. (Old dungeons feature new lighting.)
• New skill "Dash" for Caly in combat, for better and faster mobility.
• Added functionality for enemies to leap forward or backwards.
• Added Sideview maps with custom sprites and animations.

Archived Changelog: [Older Version]

Spoiler

Developer Log: vB 0.1

In-Game Changes:

• Spaceship "Setek" introduced. Player can now explore the ship and interact with the crew.
• Planet "Tripteen" introduced. Player can now explore and interact with the friendly denizens of the planet.
• New NPCs added to populate the new areas, some more friendly and useful than others.
• Six new BGM tracks added to complement the new locations.
• Three new SFX sounds added.
• New animations added in some areas for the sake of fluidity.
• Changes deployed on some artwork, complementing new developmental changes.
• New standing art variations.
• New battle objects added in the form of deployable Turret, Shield and Mine. [Found in player inventory]
• New Balance changes to the combat systems. Integrating the new battle objects without overpowering either Caly or the enemies, was priority one.
• The story gap between Caly's rescue and her first dungeon dive now filled. The newly implemented content answers a lot of questions thereby giving the player a clearer sense of the VoidBound world and the lore behind it.
• Based on player feedback, game intro has been revisited, resized and reduced to counter player fatigue due to "Wall of Text" syndrome. Players will now feel closer to playing a RPG/VN with "to the point" conversations, rather than reading a Light Novel with large text dumps.

Technical Changes:

• Cinematic completely revamped with High Def video elements. Player can also choose to skip them if they so desire by pressing "Shift" key.
• New custom elements and plugins added to the engine effectively expanding new capabilities, some of which will be discussed in later patches.
• Heavy polishing and optimization rendered to make the new plugins mesh properly with the old ones for the sake of smoother game experience.
• Experimentation with partial Voice Acting. Caly's character will now audibly exclaim her emotions in certain scenarios. Very limited implementation however and player can disable it if they so desire, though we'd be grateful for your feedback on VA's performance.
• Memory leaks patched after some players reported crashes under certain system specs.
• Enemy AI re-scripted. Bots will now move unpredictably and players will have to adjust strategy on turn by turn basis.
• This effectively finishes the demo and officially upgrades the game from Alpha to Beta.

Developer Log:- vA 0.1

• "Remember" command in menu options is non-functional.
• "Mods" on weapons are currently disabled. You can still install them but they will provide no stat benefits.
• Dialogue log system is still in the works. Same for temporarily hiding the dialogue box.
• Some sections of walls and roof appear warped.
• Lava bot sprite goes missing. The issue is being investigated but isn't game breaking.
• Random crashes might happen now and then. They are rare and we're investigating these instances.

Developer Log:- vA 0.2

• FIXED Caly climbing up/walking through walls and over some roofs.
• FIXED the wooden door near light puzzle entrance that allowed players to jump around different maps.
• FIXED msgimg_2 file missing error when multiple orgasms are reached during combat.
• FIXED lightning flicker when Caly enters or exits maps.
• FIXED some overflowing dialogues.
• Altar room was revamped and new game-play additions were made to make the goal clearer.
• Reduced the amount of enemies in certain sections of the dungeon to mitigate repetition fatigue.
• Buffed Caly slightly so she can finish combat faster.
• ADDED "Combat Tutorial Book" under Key Items that will allow player to trigger Combat or Sexual Tutorials at will.
• Caly's sprite does not update after she exits the server farm. Issue has been fixed but since it isn't game breaking and resolves automatically, no fix has been floated yet.

Developer Log:- vA 0.22

• FIXED some grammatical errors.
• FIXED Caly unable to orgasm during combat.
• FIXED Caly's sprite update issue when she exits the server farm.
• Slightly nerfed enemies.

Developer Log:- vA 0.31

• Added 2 new H scenes.
• New additional story content.
• New standing art variations.
• New characters introduced.
• New maps with additional "secrets" for players to explore.
• New sexual attack variations during combat.
• New tilesets. Furthermore, sprites updated to HD standard all across the board. Players will now feel more in sync with a futuristic sci-fi setting.
• New UI implemented. Saving or loading of content no longer limited during game play sections only. Players can now freely do so during dialogues as well.
• New soundtrack added to various sections of the game.
• Combat speed enhanced. Players can get through enemies quicker now.
• Combat balancing tuned further. New craft able mods should make the experience more interesting.
• Dialogue log initiated. Players can now access missed/old dialogues by a simple click. Presently limited to 20 messages only.
• Intro lore extended. Caly's story no longer changes gear abruptly after her rescue.
• Cinematic changed to a movie file. It's now possible to pause the game with "Enter" or "Space" and skip entirely by using "Shift".
• Gallery Mode added for players who would like to revisit sexual events.

Developer Notes:

Spoiler

Be advised, if you DON'T have a GPU that is WebGL compatible, you'll face crashes trying to play this game. If you do however have a compatible GPU but still experiencing crashes when scenes make transitions or choices get displayed, please go ahead and update your drivers and troubleshoot Window conflicts. To clarify whether or not your system is running WebGL functions, simply head to this

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here and test if you can see the spinning cube. If you can, your system is just fine.

Download:

Spoiler

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Sample Images: CAUTION! Mix of SFW and NSFW content!

Spoiler

 

[Ecroose]

Breaking news, local bee cute enough to end galactic war

But seriously, this game is great! It's also pretty well written. I think my favorite line

"How suicidal is your species?"
"That is a very complicated question."
seriously gonna patron this, its really good

Edit: Shoot, was so into the writing and characters i forgot about the combat style (think megaman: battle network) and combat restraint/rape, suit health is seperate from regular health, and the weapon system looks interesting.

 

[climhazzard]

It's pretty sweet. Especially with craftable items like the turrets, mines, , weapon mods, etc. I like pretty much anything with combat sex, and dungeons with sex traps, I hope there will eventually be more than robots though.

 

[Cursed Atelier]

Breaking news, local bee cute enough to end galactic war

But seriously, this game is great! It's also pretty well written. I think my favorite line

"How suicidal is your species?"
"That is a very complicated question."
seriously gonna patron this, its really good

Edit: Shoot, was so into the writing and characters i forgot about the combat style (think megaman: battle network) and combat restraint/rape, suit health is seperate from regular health, and the weapon system looks interesting.

I'm glad you like it! We post regular updates on our Twitter and the like, so that's a good way to keep up to date with everything VoidBound, and our Patrons have access to said news earlier than anyone else along with some exclusive content to go with that.

It's pretty sweet. Especially with craftable items like the turrets, mines, , weapon mods, etc. I like pretty much anything with combat sex, and dungeons with sex traps, I hope there will eventually be more than robots though.

Thanks for the kinds words. Our next next update will defintely have humanoid interactions, so you can look forward to that.

 

[DarkMist67]

Excellent first impressions, the foundation for all the systems seems fairly solid and the experience was enjoyable. The combat was decent, though i never figured out what the silver bar meant and the orgasm bar filling even when the bots were failing miserably was a bit weird. What kind of impact will sex stats have, and will any of it play a role in combat?

 

[Cursed Atelier]

Excellent first impressions, the foundation for all the systems seems fairly solid and the experience was enjoyable. The combat was decent, though i never figured out what the silver bar meant and the orgasm bar filling even when the bots were failing miserably was a bit weird. What kind of impact will sex stats have, and will any of it play a role in combat?

Thanks for the kind words! We're really trying to make this a memorable experience to everyone that plays it. As for questions, the silver bar is to indicate the durability of your suit,
and the sex stats are purely a visual/flavor kind of thing at the moment. In the future it will be tied into how the pleasure increases during combat and other various events.

 

[dood]

Sorry what am I supposed to do at the locked door after the you did the lava sequence and conveyor belt sequence. I accidentally skipped the dialogue and the only thing I saw was something about a bypass?

 

[Cursed Atelier]

Sorry what am I supposed to do at the locked door after the you did the lava sequence and conveyor belt sequence. I accidentally skipped the dialogue and the only thing I saw was something about a bypass?

I put the anwer to your question in spoilers as to not spoil anything for the others here. I hope it helps

Spoiler

You need to interact with the panels south to the locked door, and follow the pipes that start from the door to the panels.

 

[DarkMist67]

Thanks for the kind words! We're really trying to make this a memorable experience to everyone that plays it. As for questions, the silver bar is to indicate the durability of your suit,
and the sex stats are purely a visual/flavor kind of thing at the moment. In the future it will be tied into how the pleasure increases during combat and other various events.

Will the sex stats have changes outside of pleasure gains during combat? (i.e, new side art poses, dialogue, status effects, escapes becomes more costly/difficult etc?) Its always nice when there is some progression in that respect outside of story segments. Naturally if its not feasible or within budget its no big deal. Whats currently available in terms of game systems (combat, story, stats) is already good, so once the content is fleshed out and completed the game will only get better.

The pitch black corridors in the factory level were a bit annoying though with the light source being such a short narrow cone. I should at least be able to see vague outlines of walls and floor obstacles so im not constantly bumping into random stuff just looking for a door or interactable.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing the game progress!

 

[Cursed Atelier]

Will the sex stats have changes outside of pleasure gains during combat? (i.e, new side art poses, dialogue, status effects, escapes becomes more costly/difficult etc?) Its always nice when there is some progression in that respect outside of story segments. Naturally if its not feasible or within budget its no big deal. Whats currently available in terms of game systems (combat, story, stats) is already good, so once the content is fleshed out and completed the game will only get better.

The pitch black corridors in the factory level were a bit annoying though with the light source being such a short narrow cone. I should at least be able to see vague outlines of walls and floor obstacles so im not constantly bumping into random stuff just looking for a door or interactable.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing the game progress!

Sex stats will definitely have an effect outside of the battle, but we haven't settled on what exactly those effects will be. Thanks for the other feedback as well!

 

[DarkMist67]

Awesome, keep up the good work!

 

[wming]

Pretty good
There's too much text at the beginning , you can set an option to skip preamble .
Look forward to the rest

 

[KillerDxD]

Hmmm is there any plans on having multiple routes for this game or no?

 

[Renestrae]

Being pleasantly surprised by a game in 2020. And one in beta v0.1 no less. Wild. Here's my thoughts (wall of text incoming, take cover!!):

So the writing is one of the things that I remember most actually, while the start was very confusing and rushed (I felt), as soon as the prologue was over it slowed down a ton. So then I looked back and it actually makes sense, story wise, for everything to feel rushed and under-explained during the exposition, as that's what the MC would feel also. The prologue wasn't short, sure, but also not too long in my opinion. Plus, there's H in it. Neat. I also liked that the H-scene established that the protag isn't a virgin anymore while giving us something to keep happy during the read.
After the initial exposition the explanations are fun and make sense (in-world), like about how every alien is a sort of humanoid version of an earth animal: Haas makes fun of her for being confused about everything being so similar to earth, and the flavor text on the bed where it made her "question a lot of things about evolution". Lol.

Next up is the art., so the environments, the characters, the H. It's all really good in my opinion. It's pretty consistent too. I don't really know how to say this generally so I'll give some examples again of what I liked. Not only do both of her guns have specific art, they also change appearance dynamically based on what upgrades are installed (which are modular, not linear!). Another thing I especially liked was that there were some creative angles during H, like the one from below when she cums during the factory scene. It's just something that stood out to me as different than most of the thousands of other games I played, in a good way.

Oh and the map design was good too. I felt like the puzzles were fun, it breaks the monotony of grinding mobs that RPGs sometimes fall into in this genre, while not being too confusing or obtuse. Another thing just right, imo.

And lastly the combat, which I thought was decent. Choosing the tile-based tactics over standard JRPG/RPGmaker combat is a good choice I think, it could open up for some interesting gameplay later that won't necessarily devolve into attackspamming.

So all in all I'm excited for this. As long as this doesn't turn into a Patreon scam I think this has a good future ahead of it! And people should definitely try it.

I also have some criticism to share. I put it after the rest because I don't know how much of this is purely subjective and I wanted to get my main points across first. Also, while this section is longer, don't worry, that's just because I feel like the majority was good, so I can be more specific with the points where I have suggestions:

Firstly, with the writing I just thought the motivation for the first mission felt a little plucked out of thin air. Maybe that's me personally but that's something I noticed. I'm not a writer myself, so I can't really think of an obvious way to improve it, but I still felt like I should mention that. Also kind of random, but I was a little sad the "bee" couldn't keep the (nick)name Bee. I thought that would have been cute. The name Mitsu and how they came to it felt a bit random as well.
During the prologue H there was another thing that struck me as odd, and that was that I felt like it's weird how quickly she gave into it mentally. Maybe it can be explained as her being affected by the advanced alien tech just made for that purpose, but then again I feel like she'd be confused and overwhelmed by her body's reaction rather than give into it all in her internal monologue. I say this mostly when thinking in comparison to some of the factory scenes, where she seems embarrassed by Jens having the comms line open, but during this scene she mentions "fear, pleasure and adrenaline", but somehow no shame. And that's despite being suddenly exposed, completely naked against her will, multiple humanoid people staring and talking about her, while she's being pounded double penetration. Just made her seem like more of a slut than I think she is from the other scenes, that's all.

For the art I felt like some of the faces (especially the humanoid eyes) look a bit off in the standing CG, but not majorly so. I can't exactly point out why; maybe its the lack of a nose due to the stylized (anime style) rendering though. Maybe give the girls a little more of a nose? I don't know, haha
Her genitalia looks decent generally, but it's a bit unrealistically "puffy" if that's what you can describe it as? I personally don't object to that, it's just something I noticed and wanted to point out so you don't go overboard with it.

Nothing much to say negatively about the map design, so I'll use this to talk about H spacing/pacing: I feel like it was just a tiny bit sparse. I didn't lose in combat, so I didn't get those scenes (the difficulty was okay, I just played cautiously). I even triggered the "fall through floor" scene on accident, but I didn't get the "factory" scene until I saw it in the gallery (don't even know the trigger for that). This isn't to say I dislike conditional H scenes. Quite the contrary actually, I think the conditional nature of those scenes is part of what makes them great. It's just that a player who plays just a little bit cautiously would be able to beat the demo with just the prologue scene seen. I did make quite a few errors during the puzzles though, so maybe that could be a place to add some more? Like, the server electricity shocking/stimulating her, or some sort of security system triggering every second or third failed attempt. This could then also be made to get progressively worse every time it triggers, ending in a game over. That way you would kill two birds with one stone I think, as you'd remedy the H pacing while also adding a failure state to the puzzles, which is currently lacking I think. I get that it's a demo though and maybe you just didn't have time to add more scenes yet.

Although I said I liked the tile based combat, I feel like a lot of its' tactical potential went underutilized or at least wasn't shown off in the demo. While I like that it's possible to get surrounded, and how some enemies have attacks that only work in specific directions, I feel like the tile based nature is something that makes this game unique and something you could double down on. The first idea I had was that you could have an enemy throw something like a restraint (lets say leg shackles as an example), which then flies at a constant speed (2-3 tiles per round?) in a straight line. This way you have more of an incentive to move and make tactical considerations, other than currently where moving is mostly just a way to keep out of engagement distance to all but the enemies you want to deal with at the moment. I feel like the game needs some attacks you need to dodge, like a thrown restraint, or a field of say 4 tiles on the ground that get marked one round and electrified the next, taking Caly out of the fight for a while. If you implement something like that, I also feel like it would broaden tactics further and make it even more fun if you added some movement skills that allow the player to travel further/faster than the current 1 tile, but with costs/cooldowns associated with them. That way the player has to make decisions every time, on whether to tank whatever is coming, or to incur that cost associated with the movement.
In general I feel like more player decisions are almost always good.
That's why I like that you have different struggle types with different costs. I personally think the struggle system could still be further improved by adding different kinds of unique debuffs you can struggle free from, instead of just a binary "bound"/"not bound". I feel like I suggest this for every game I review, I guess I'm just an Unkomorimorimaru fanboy or something, but things like the leg restraints that only restrict movement would work really well with this combat system I feel. Or her blaster/coil gun being knocked out of her hands and she has to walk a few tiles to it to pick it back up? Lots of ideas, sorry, . But I feel like integrating combat mechanics directly into the tile based nature would definitely be cool.

So, that's it. I'll definitely be following the development of this game, and am considering pledging in the future. The reason why I am still only cautiously optimistic is that sadly there's been a lot of ambitious projects on Patreon in the past, some of which had a promising prototype as well, and it turned out they weren't able to even get their game past the prototyping stage. I thought I'd never be hopeful like that again and yet this demo changed my mind on that at least. It has so many of the core gameplay loop systems already in place. Good job.

 

[Cursed Atelier]

Hmmm is there any plans on having multiple routes for this game or no?

No, but there will be some branching.

 

[Cursed Atelier]

Being pleasantly surprised by a game in 2020. And one in beta v0.1 no less. Wild. Here's my thoughts (wall of text incoming, take cover!!):

So the writing is one of the things that I remember most actually, while the start was very confusing and rushed (I felt), as soon as the prologue was over it slowed down a ton. So then I looked back and it actually makes sense, story wise, for everything to feel rushed and under-explained during the exposition, as that's what the MC would feel also. The prologue wasn't short, sure, but also not too long in my opinion. Plus, there's H in it. Neat. I also liked that the H-scene established that the protag isn't a virgin anymore while giving us something to keep happy during the read.
After the initial exposition the explanations are fun and make sense (in-world), like about how every alien is a sort of humanoid version of an earth animal: Haas makes fun of her for being confused about everything being so similar to earth, and the flavor text on the bed where it made her "question a lot of things about evolution". Lol.

Next up is the art., so the environments, the characters, the H. It's all really good in my opinion. It's pretty consistent too. I don't really know how to say this generally so I'll give some examples again of what I liked. Not only do both of her guns have specific art, they also change appearance dynamically based on what upgrades are installed (which are modular, not linear!). Another thing I especially liked was that there were some creative angles during H, like the one from below when she cums during the factory scene. It's just something that stood out to me as different than most of the thousands of other games I played, in a good way.

Oh and the map design was good too. I felt like the puzzles were fun, it breaks the monotony of grinding mobs that RPGs sometimes fall into in this genre, while not being too confusing or obtuse. Another thing just right, imo.

And lastly the combat, which I thought was decent. Choosing the tile-based tactics over standard JRPG/RPGmaker combat is a good choice I think, it could open up for some interesting gameplay later that won't necessarily devolve into attackspamming.

So all in all I'm excited for this. As long as this doesn't turn into a Patreon scam I think this has a good future ahead of it! And people should definitely try it.

I also have some criticism to share. I put it after the rest because I don't know how much of this is purely subjective and I wanted to get my main points across first. Also, while this section is longer, don't worry, that's just because I feel like the majority was good, so I can be more specific with the points where I have suggestions:

Firstly, with the writing I just thought the motivation for the first mission felt a little plucked out of thin air. Maybe that's me personally but that's something I noticed. I'm not a writer myself, so I can't really think of an obvious way to improve it, but I still felt like I should mention that. Also kind of random, but I was a little sad the "bee" couldn't keep the (nick)name Bee. I thought that would have been cute. The name Mitsu and how they came to it felt a bit random as well.
During the prologue H there was another thing that struck me as odd, and that was that I felt like it's weird how quickly she gave into it mentally. Maybe it can be explained as her being affected by the advanced alien tech just made for that purpose, but then again I feel like she'd be confused and overwhelmed by her body's reaction rather than give into it all in her internal monologue. I say this mostly when thinking in comparison to some of the factory scenes, where she seems embarrassed by Jens having the comms line open, but during this scene she mentions "fear, pleasure and adrenaline", but somehow no shame. And that's despite being suddenly exposed, completely naked against her will, multiple humanoid people staring and talking about her, while she's being pounded double penetration. Just made her seem like more of a slut than I think she is from the other scenes, that's all.

For the art I felt like some of the faces (especially the humanoid eyes) look a bit off in the standing CG, but not majorly so. I can't exactly point out why; maybe its the lack of a nose due to the stylized (anime style) rendering though. Maybe give the girls a little more of a nose? I don't know, haha
Her genitalia looks decent generally, but it's a bit unrealistically "puffy" if that's what you can describe it as? I personally don't object to that, it's just something I noticed and wanted to point out so you don't go overboard with it.

Nothing much to say negatively about the map design, so I'll use this to talk about H spacing/pacing: I feel like it was just a tiny bit sparse. I didn't lose in combat, so I didn't get those scenes (the difficulty was okay, I just played cautiously). I even triggered the "fall through floor" scene on accident, but I didn't get the "factory" scene until I saw it in the gallery (don't even know the trigger for that). This isn't to say I dislike conditional H scenes. Quite the contrary actually, I think the conditional nature of those scenes is part of what makes them great. It's just that a player who plays just a little bit cautiously would be able to beat the demo with just the prologue scene seen. I did make quite a few errors during the puzzles though, so maybe that could be a place to add some more? Like, the server electricity shocking/stimulating her, or some sort of security system triggering every second or third failed attempt. This could then also be made to get progressively worse every time it triggers, ending in a game over. That way you would kill two birds with one stone I think, as you'd remedy the H pacing while also adding a failure state to the puzzles, which is currently lacking I think. I get that it's a demo though and maybe you just didn't have time to add more scenes yet.

Although I said I liked the tile based combat, I feel like a lot of its' tactical potential went underutilized or at least wasn't shown off in the demo. While I like that it's possible to get surrounded, and how some enemies have attacks that only work in specific directions, I feel like the tile based nature is something that makes this game unique and something you could double down on. The first idea I had was that you could have an enemy throw something like a restraint (lets say leg shackles as an example), which then flies at a constant speed (2-3 tiles per round?) in a straight line. This way you have more of an incentive to move and make tactical considerations, other than currently where moving is mostly just a way to keep out of engagement distance to all but the enemies you want to deal with at the moment. I feel like the game needs some attacks you need to dodge, like a thrown restraint, or a field of say 4 tiles on the ground that get marked one round and electrified the next, taking Caly out of the fight for a while. If you implement something like that, I also feel like it would broaden tactics further and make it even more fun if you added some movement skills that allow the player to travel further/faster than the current 1 tile, but with costs/cooldowns associated with them. That way the player has to make decisions every time, on whether to tank whatever is coming, or to incur that cost associated with the movement.
In general I feel like more player decisions are almost always good.
That's why I like that you have different struggle types with different costs. I personally think the struggle system could still be further improved by adding different kinds of unique debuffs you can struggle free from, instead of just a binary "bound"/"not bound". I feel like I suggest this for every game I review, I guess I'm just an Unkomorimorimaru fanboy or something, but things like the leg restraints that only restrict movement would work really well with this combat system I feel. Or her blaster/coil gun being knocked out of her hands and she has to walk a few tiles to it to pick it back up? Lots of ideas, sorry, . But I feel like integrating combat mechanics directly into the tile based nature would definitely be cool.

So, that's it. I'll definitely be following the development of this game, and am considering pledging in the future. The reason why I am still only cautiously optimistic is that sadly there's been a lot of ambitious projects on Patreon in the past, some of which had a promising prototype as well, and it turned out they weren't able to even get their game past the prototyping stage. I thought I'd never be hopeful like that again and yet this demo changed my mind on that at least. It has so many of the core gameplay loop systems already in place. Good job.

Carrie here, VoidBound head writer!

First, thank you for your kind words and the time you put into them. It's humbling to read so much ink spilled on something I helped put together!

Since this is only VoidBound's beta release, the text is subject to change--and improvement. I hope to be able to smooth over any bumps in the story.

To your points:

On shame in H: I'm specifically planning to revise the first H scene. Shame was probably omitted in the first place because I'm far out of touch with the experience of sexual shame. It's always good to notice when too much of yourself leaks into your characters!

Ironically, having forgotten something so obvious is a little embarrassing, tho. ;;

On H pacing: VoidBound is obviously an erotic game, but our first focus is on making a good game and telling a good story. Erotic content is always going to be a central appeal of VoidBound, but we also want the combat, story, and characters to draw players too. Come for the H, stay for the game.

Having that goal affects the pacing of our H scenes in that we don't want the game to feel cluttered with them, or for the H to feel gratuitious. This is bound to disappoint some players, but our hope is to produce a game that's the the better for it.

However! It's pretty common for players to miss the factory H scene in particular, so we do plan to signpost that one at least!

Thanks again for your kindness. This was post was a lovely read.

If you have further questions for me or the team, consider joining the discord!

 

[Renestrae]

Carrie here, VoidBound head writer!

First, thank you for your kind words and the time you put into them. It's humbling to read so much ink spilled on something I helped put together!

Since this is only VoidBound's beta release, the text is subject to change--and improvement. I hope to be able to smooth over any bumps in the story.

To your points:

On shame in H: I'm specifically planning to revise the first H scene. Shame was probably omitted in the first place because I'm far out of touch with the experience of sexual shame. It's always good to notice when too much of yourself leaks into your characters!

Ironically, having forgotten something so obvious is a little embarrassing, tho. ;;

On H pacing: VoidBound is obviously an erotic game, but our first focus is on making a good game and telling a good story. Erotic content is always going to be a central appeal of VoidBound, but we also want the combat, story, and characters to draw players too. Come for the H, stay for the game.

Having that goal affects the pacing of our H scenes in that we don't want the game to feel cluttered with them, or for the H to feel gratuitious. This is bound to disappoint some players, but our hope is to produce a game that's the the better for it.

However! It's pretty common for players to miss the factory H scene in particular, so we do plan to signpost that one at least!

Thanks again for your kindness. This was post was a lovely read.

If you have further questions for me or the team, consider joining the discord!

Hey Carrie, thanks for reading, and even taking the time to get back to me!
Your explanations make a lot of sense, and I especially like that it seems like the team have set plans and limitations for your project. While sure, I'd always love moooore H, it's really a green flag for me that you say you have a realistic goal in mind first. Content like that can always be a stretch goal, haha

Oh and thanks for directing me at the Discord too, I missed that in the OP. Joined.

 

[Caernarvon]

I feel like at-least in battles the H mechanics are meaningless at best or preferable to being hit by an actual attack at worst. Don't know if there's other ramifications though maybe cumming should drain HP or stun for longer for instance?

 

[Cursed Atelier]

I feel like at-least in battles the H mechanics are meaningless at best or preferable to being hit by an actual attack at worst. Don't know if there's other ramifications though maybe cumming should drain HP or stun for longer for instance?

At the moment the H mechanics in the game don't have much impact, that will change in the future.

 

[Cursed Atelier]

We thought it was time for another update on the progress of VoidBound! Welcome to the Henosis pleasure district aka red light district! Implementing the character sprite is still a work in progress, but this give you a good idea of the quality we're aiming for. Expect it to be improved upon even more!