Game Review 1: Tales Of Androgyny.
Game Review 1: Tales of Androgyny.
Note, this is a personal review, I'm not a games journalist or anything.
3.5/5 - C
ToA is a game with 3 segments and approximately 1 theme. It's a text-based adventure game, it's a shockingly complicated combat system, and a gallery where you get to view the game's one and only theme: watching an effeminate man be structurally redesigned by penises, sometimes male, mostly otherwise.
First, the adventure game.
The adventure and role play mechanics are surprisingly weak, but are made up for in the skill check system and descriptions. The game has very vivid and imaginative descriptions, which, when coupled with the visuals, are highly effective. The mechanics are a lot weak, but what I find more interesting than the skills you get from levelling up are the skills for failure. When you fail enough in combat, get your organs rearranged enough, or even choose to seek out noncombat deviancy you obtain as red skill associated with that depravity. I love the idea of developing skills without a clunky menu, where your actions just make you more effective at those actions, but it's used almost always as a debuff in this. Ironically, though, the complexity of skills and difficulty of the game seems to ask you to play longer for content that repeats itself and grows stale quickly, especially considering it's penchant for bad ends that just make you reload.
Second, the gallery
The art of this game is extremely hit or extremely miss, depending on your tastes. It seems to be designed to appeal to hentai addicts that looked a little beyond their comfort zone. For me it sits firmly in the space of 'i'll find this art disgusting the moment I'm done' but, to be honest, due to the game's very high raunch factor, it kind of works to the benefit of the game's theming. It feels like something you're not supposed to enjoy, so if you can get into the headspace of a first-time kink discoverer, it's really very fun. I'm not sure how much of that is intentional or incidental, but y'know, death of the author and all that. Overall, the large spash-screen pictures are good, and the little zoom-in you get in combat or text are very fun and usually are distinct based on what enemy you're fighting. The morph-image animation ends up being fairly smooth and doesn't take you out of the action. Plus, I'll admit, watching my character get assembled like Ikea furniture by absurd phalli is always a blast.
Third, but not last, is combat.
The combat system of ToA is big. Like, really big. It consists of a flirtation system, attack, defense, dodge, mid-combat intercourse, and the most stressful of all stances. Most of these are exactly what you expect. Turn based, increase enemy flirt meter, try not to die or get seduced yourself. Classic. But stances are the bread and butter of this system. Basically, each stance you get into has a number of associated actions, some of which are attacks, flirts, sex, the usual, and some that change your stance through doing them. Some are straightforward, you can't swing a sword while prone, so you spend a turn getting up into a crouch. But some are closer to 'i'm in a guard, I'll make a shield bash which will set my opponent into the off balance stance and me into the reckless attack stance, I can chain that into hammer down which lets me put an off balance opponent prone, and puts me off balance, I'll ignore off balance by laying atop the enemy once they're prone and now I can proceed to ride them cowgirl, the one sex stance I put all my points into-' -gasp ok you get the point. It's complicated. Most of that wasn't even far from the truth. It's, to a beginner or consumer without much time to invest, completely esoteric and nigh impenetrable, but I don't dislike it at all. A lot of games of this ilk are just too complicated for anyone's good, and this seems like it really rides the line. It's got an interface that tries to explain what each thing does, specialized icons, and like, at least it isn't maneuvering a hex map. The UX does a lot to mitigate how confusing it all is, and early fights need little strategy so you end up picking it up as you go. To be fair, it's genuinely trying something different and makes sure not to just yoink what already works, and that counts for a lot in my books.
Lastly: pornographic content
Part of the reason why I first chose this to be my initial review is because I find this game to rank firmly in the middle in terms of depravity. If you think it's too depraved for that, you may find my blog a tad distressing. If you think it's not depraved enough for that, you're probably right, but the ugly bastard style of art makes me read it as a little deeper than it is. I will likely talk about games that are more vanilla in their themes, but that I play because they are exceptional in other ways. The specific content of the game in question is almost entirely watching a twink get Yoda death noise'd by every cylindrical piece of salami in a 3-mile radius, a grand majority of which, although changeable by a setting, is (by default) held by a number of amazons and monster girls, with notable exceptions I'll leave out here. Its content, while vanilla, is largely up my alley, and I find it misses a lot of opportunities to spice things up. I'd say if you are a recovering hentai addict, trying to see the best that the world of the internet has to offer, it's a great place to start but I wouldn't end here by any means. It's in this part of the review that you will notice that I've gotten to a point in my life in which I have forgotten that the ordinary amount of depravity is zero out of 100. I don't mean kinkiness, I do genuinely mean depravity in the sense of being devoid of value. This is a game for people who are sitting at 10 maybe 15 on that scale, and I think I'm just at a point in my life where I don't find that particularly engaging without anything else to prop it up. The game has little to no story, the writing is largely insulated to specific scenes, and the major villains don't seem to be all that important other than being very difficult to fight. So if you're still using the word 'Futanari' to describe what you're into, this is probably a decent first step into being a person of real culture. Maybe when the orcs and elves are not so novel, you'll be ready to move on to something a little more advanced, like that werewolf from early on in the game.
Overall:
It's certainly a high-effort, high-polish game, but misses out on a whole world of Anthro, Beast, Monster, and other more exotic kinks, and lacks a great deal of depth when compared to text-based games of a similar style. If you really want to fall in love with your characters, experience some transformation, or get down and dirty with less vanilla partners or more interesting activities, you're better off looking elsewhere.
3.5/5 - great for beginners.
More Posts from Aroacekinkdiary and Others
It’s okay to not want to have sex ever. It’s okay to never even try it.
When I talk about how I don't like sex, it's so people like me can feel "more normal" and not so "broken". Not so everyone else can feel "less normal".
Can't believe we still have to say stuff like that all the time in any context of advocacy but this isn't about making things worse for you. It's about making stuff a little bit better for everyone so everyone can be seen. Not even necessarily understood. Just seen.
(PS: I don't wanna put a disclaimer on literally all of my posts to say I mean no ill to allo people. That should be implied. With that said, to all the allo people who DON'T react like that: thank you. Y'all give me hope.)
Another dnd character ref- Tristan, my human fighter
Okay, you know the whole 'that emoji fuckin' works' bit that makes the rounds from someone's standup show?
The BDSM quiz is a game changer, because if you answer honestly, it gives results that work, dude.
I took the BDSM quiz today after hearing about it on a JAnderson Stream Vod. I thought it'd be fun to plunk around and take it while slacking at work.
And here I am, looking at the results. They're accurate to what I answered but seeing it all laid out like that is. Uncomfy.
I thought I had reached a threshold of shamelessness that I would be able to send this to my friends but the results are ones I'm feeling weird about posting to my Kink Diary Tumblr that has No Connection to my Real Name.
I gotta work on my shamelessness. Shame is for the Catholics, man.
Idk. If you got questions, concerns, or criticisms about my kink preferences, send an ask or message and I'll answer it.
Something I struggle with is the question of if I'm 'strong' or 'weak'.
Not to steel-ball-run my words but I mean in the sense of a protagonist. Some protagonists have a mind of steel. They take hardship on the chin and take on the burden of responsibility, or honor, or martyrdom. The stories I love to read the most are characters with little to no talent. They grind at the wall of talent and background until nothing remains, through the power of concerted effort and their only true talent of the iron will.
But I don't have that. I never have. I don't even find it relatable. I have spent my entire life keenly aware of it. I coast on talent, I lean on familial benefits, I give up when the going gets tough, and I choose the path of least resistance and most stability.
When I grew up the faculty of my school always would put the word GRIT on the walls. This hard won effort and willingness to endure that they advertised as the height of true internal strength. At the time, I was far too mentally ill, and found it insulting. Don't they know that some people can't afford effort?
Then time passed. I stamped down some illnesses and corralled some others, I become a new man a dozen times. And every time I'd check. Just maybe I'm strong now. Please. Please make me someone who can withstand hardship. Because I lived in fear of falling into hard times and being unwilling to survive them.
Other people lived in spite of circumstance. They fought and whether they win or lose it let them grow as a person. I just built myself from spare parts. I did not grow organically, I just kept replacing pieces of myself until I looked like a real person.
So I wondered. Did I live well under an unfathomable weight, and now I simply do not feel it? Or have I always lived it on easy street, whining over something small? Or is it some combination, and if so, am I stronger than I was when I was younger? Or have I grown complacent?
It's meaningless. I know it is. There's no way to quantify it. I'll just have to live without knowing if what I'm fighting is strong enough to warrant my current standard of suffering.
the funny thing is that i don't think younger people - and i mean those under the age of 40 - really have a grasp on how many of today's issues can be tied back to a disastrous reagan policy:
war on drugs: reagan's aggressive escalation of the war on drugs was a catastrophic policy, primarily targeting minority communities and fueling mass incarceration. the crusade against drugs was more about controlling the Black, Latino and Native communities than addressing the actual problems of drug abuse, leading to a legacy of broken families and systemic racism within the criminal justice system.
deregulation and economic policies: reaganomics was an absolute disaster for the working class. reagan's policies of aggressive tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, and slashing social programs were nothing less than class warfare, deepening income inequality and entrenching corporate greed. these types of policies were a clear message that reagan's america was only for the wealthy elite and a loud "fuck you" to working americans.
environmental policies: despite his reputation being whitewashed thanks to the recovery of the ozone layer, reagan's environmental record was an unmitigated disaster. his administration gutted critical environmental protections and institutions like the EPA, turning a blind eye to pollution and corporate exploitation of natural resources. this blatant disregard for the planet was a clear sign of prioritizing short-term corporate profits over the future of the environment.
AIDS crisis: reagan's gross neglect of the aids crisis was nothing short of criminal and this doesn't even begin to touch on his wife's involvement. his administration's indifference to the plight of the lgbtq+ community during this devastating epidemic revealed a deep-seated bigotry and a complete failure of moral leadership.
mental health: reagan's dismantling of mental health institutions under the guise of 'reform' led directly to a surge in homelessness and a lack of support for those with mental health issues. his policies were cruel and inhumane and showed a personality-defining callous disregard for the most vulnerable in society.
labor and unions: reagan's attack on labor unions, exemplified by his handling of the patco strike, was a blatant assault on workers' rights. his actions emboldened corporations to suppress union activities, leading to a significant erosion of workers' power and rights in the workplace. he was colloquially known as "Ronnie the Union Buster Reagan"
foreign policy and military interventions: reagan's foreign policy, particularly in latin america, was imperialist and ruthless. his administration's support for dictatorships and right-wing death squads under the guise of fighting "communism" showed a complete disregard for human rights and self-determination of other nations.
public health: yes, reagan's agricultural policies actually facilitated the rise of high fructose corn syrup, once again prioritizing corporate profits over public health. this shift in the food industry has had lasting negative impacts on health, contributing to the obesity epidemic and other health issues.
privatization: reagan's push for privatization was a systematic dismantling of public services, transferring wealth and power to private corporations and further eroding the public's access to essential services.
education policies: his approach to education was more of an attack on public education than anything else, gutting funding and promoting policies that undermined equal access to quality education. this was, again, part of a broader agenda to maintain a status quo where the privileged remain in power.
this is just what i could come up with in a relatively short time and i did not even live under this man's presidency. the level at which ronald reagan has broken the united states truly can't be overstated.
Something I've noticed in recent years is my habit of rationing out the things I enjoy. I take each bite carefully of the meals I really love, just make sure I don't miss them. I rotate the games I play and the books I read so I don't end up too deep in one when it runs out. Hell, there are some fanfics that I've had sitting in the wings for a rainy day.
I'm not sure where it comes from exactly, but there's a real sense that there's simply not enough of the things I truly like for me to consume. Webnovels, even with thousands of chapters, run out, either because it's ongoing and I've caught up or because that's all that there will ever be. It's part of the reason I read them. They last long enough to fulfill my ability to hyperfixate.
But the better the thing the stronger the fixation, and I still find myself hungry for some games, webnovels, or fanfics, even years later, and a part of me wishes I'd taken more time to savor the meal. I'm the media equivalent of a broke 22 year old dude kicking himself for buying a pizza when he was 16, I know, but you can't experience anything for the first time twice.
No matter how much you enjoyed it the first time.
A blog for me to shitpost and expose my deepest secrets. Jason Fakename, He/Him, mid 20's
142 posts