NecroNomNomNom: Eldritch Horror Dating Reviews

I dated a being and submitted myself for consumption, then manifested my own will within their being and consumed them for which they returned the favor in a ballet of cosmic hunger. Truly Beautiful

So, I will say I liked what was available in this 'demo' which basically is all it is. However, the game is all but abandoned. Hasn't had any updates in a year. I was hoping for more dating options. Or at least build on what's there. But nope, nada.

I did enjoy this game and I love the idea of mixing dating and Lovecraftian mythos. I do hope the devs will keep updating this game.

I enjoyed this game, but I found out that the art and several other aspects of the game was made with AI. This is not communicated on the steam page to my knowledge. If you have a problem with AI generated content, do not buy this game.

Regardless of how you feel about the use of AI-assisted art, the current Early Access barely has 30 minutes of content so you not exactly getting a good experience for $12, as I understand Valve now has a policy against it but it's unclear exactly when it becomes a problem, like do they have to approve the assets prior to publishing, or do I treat every game as innocent until someone files a copyright? I have played some decent AI games in the past, a few years ago AI art was like a vaporwave tool, and now some consider it theft - what happened to ***** with a statue of David, or is AI art only bad when the artist is still alive? It's a bit of a grey area, I guess if you are technically using your own assets and freeware images it's okay, as long as you can prove that you made them. I think the logical action here would be to refund it, with that said I still think it's kind of a **** move considering that I technically played the whole thing, and I was not really offended by the game or the use of AI tools, more so disappointed in overall content and presentation, I still want to comment on my experience and hopefully at least point the developer in a better direction. In the past I have played some good AI-assisted games, Purgo Box or I Live under your House, you can still make a game that is compelling, but this one didn't have enough context for me. You can date 3 different characters here and to be fair the art in this game does not look bad in terms of being organized by color, but still, the dialogue choices felt rather dry, the game comes across as a meme, turning the eldritch universe into a joke, and maybe it could work under different circumstances, but it didn't work that well here. So right now it says that game has 3 eldritch characters to date, with each route taking roughly 10 minutes, it also says it will have 12 characters at the end of Early Access, so that sounds a bit strange to me, like you are comfortable asking $12 for a quarter of planned content? My personal problem with the length was not even that I wanted more monsters to date, but more so that the experience felt very limited, you are pretty much stuck with the characters at the table for the entire playthrough, and at the end, you get a nice looking ending. I think it would make a lot more sense if the game had more of a graphic adventure format, change the scenes from the table with the same characters, visit more locations based on choices, and maybe keep the dialogue a bit more immersive, the writing just has that Hatoful Boyfriend vibe and it's not working for this game. [h1] Pros: [/h1] (+) The only positive thing I can say is that this AI art feels nicely organized in terms of coloring, the game does not look completely random, and honestly, 2 of the endings had rather nice-looking visuals, granted again these days I can't say for sure what is original if you are indeed using the AI art. [h1] Feedback: [/h1] [u] Content/Variety [/u] - again, 30 minute game, it's very low for a visual novel, and you are stuck at the table with all of the characters. Maybe if each character took you to 5+ different places it would work a little better, rely more on the choices to visit different locations and have some weight to your actions. [u] Writing [/u] - the game kinda feels like it's halfway between trying to be immersive and being a meme, but it fails at doing one or the other because of it. You are never really fully immersed because it feels so casual, and you never really laugh because the game is still trying to insert some eldritch philosophy. [b] Overall Thoughts on current EA 8/8/2023 [/b] I am not usually someone that uses time as a metric of quality, but sometimes the game needs more time to deliver the impact, and having 3x10 minute routers is not exactly acceptable for this price range. While the atmosphere was serviceable, I still felt like the writing was a mix of trying to be funny, and trying to do some world-building, and it really didn't work for me. The biggest thing I didn't like is that I was stuck at the table for each path, if you doing AI art you might as well give me more choice-based locations, and make it a graphical adventure. Honestly, I imagine people won't buy this game anyway, I just don't really care what I buy these days, but if going to do the whole 12 characters anyway, I probably would say make just 6, and make them longer, give the game more locations and perhaps some picture to picture navigation. Weird, normally I address review directly to the developer, but I guess I am talking to a software now, write better AI! [code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]