Others - Vesper - Lust & Hunger [v0.1.29.0] [Starhound Studios]

Intro is a banger !
Art is one the best I've seen here, story is great, writing too...
Intro is the main reason for my positive rating because I still hope the rest is WIP and will look more like the beginning even if is doesn't go VN.

Then comes the rest...
As I didn't want to go too fast into corruption I chosed to try to live normally as a journalist. I quickly found out that the low money I made wasn't enough to survive (it's fair, i'm fine with it) and animals (i run a bit to catch them more) weren't enough aswell but that was expected.
What was not expected tho is the (very few) events that occured in the game required me to have higher stats which was not possible as I had to run, work and rest to surive I couldn't get naughty at all. And once passed they didn't trigger anymore. I was caught stealing to the hospital and made a thief so couldn't prostitute anymore.

Basically my whole game was spamming, hunt, steal, work, rest and drink at the end when I made enough money.
The promising intro was far behind as I reach the end of the game as nothing happenned anymore. The maybe 2 or 3 events led nowhere (maybe bcs of my low stats ?) I tried to farm intel and charisma but seems like it's useless.

Game looks great, intro is great but the rest is endless griding, no more story (what the point of the intro at this point ?), just spamming the same action to trigger the next scene but once you've saw it 10 times it becomes pretty boring... Most stats seems useless and the lack of events and connection to the story made me forget about the initial statement of the game and got me bored.

I add 1 star to my initial 2 stars as the intro really hyped me and because the game is still WIP and at an early stage of dev but still the gameplay part doesn't look promising at all. If I could I'd go for 2.5 rating, went for 3 as I have hope that it turns out being better with time and not boring grinding with no events, no story and senseless playthroughs where all you have to do is to farm and wait to trigger next scene is each place.

INTRO
So on the surface. this game is unique, its fun for your first two play throughs. however, after an hour (if that), the cracks begin to form, and the flaws begin to show. now i enjoyed the premise of this game and its foundation, but it ultimately fell short with the amounts of inconsistencies with the gameplay, and elements that are either not finished at all (most of the scenes), or broken and unbalanced progression. but lets get on with the good points

PROS
1. Normal looking female MC, which i prefer, so gg on that
2. Monster MC, having to manage it, and it factoring into the sexual side too
3. it seems to be leaning into an open mind when it comes to kinks.
4. different and varied looking partners
5. its hot asf
6. story seems to hold some potential


CONS
1. most of the systems are so unbalanced, its unreal. the blood management is fine, but the money you get from a journalist/bar tender playthrough isnt enough to survive, let alone progress. i spammed the hell out of hunting, and only 20 percent of the times (being generous with that percentage) succeeded, whilst the other 80 percent failed, forcing me to buy blood bags, or forcing me either into prostitution or messing around with the hospital guard. it almost feels like it forces you into either selling your body for money, or at the hospital for blood. as doing the normal jobs dont pay. and eventually after exploring the extremely limited scenes as a prostitute, you get paid pennies, and no longer does it feed you blood (although it says it does)..

2. most of the sex scenes are not even finished, the cgs being uncoloured 70 percent of the times, and none of them are animated either.

3. the scenes it has to offer are extremely limiting. no anal sex at all, no anal, no ass eating (recieving), just one vaginal scene, mostly teasing and flashing. i wanted to do an anal only playthrough, and some fucking liar on the thread claimed theres plenty. ive done five different playthroughs at this point, and yet to see anal sex, ort any other vaginal sex. although my main kink is anal, so id be aiming for an anal only playthrough..

4. it just gets boring after a couple playthroughs, once you realise all the teaser cgs are misleading, and youve discovered all you can sexually. everything is pretty much teasing and flashing, with the two vaginal scene, and a blowjob scene.. i eventually got sick and tired of the unbalanced systems and called it. as it become a fucking boring chore.


SUMMARY

This game could be top tier 5 stars, amazing. however, it needs more time to cook. the developer should focus on getting scenes finished and coloured before releasing them, and expand on the sex systems. and make some tweaks to money rewards and blood tasks. i really really enjoyed this game for the first hour. i really did. and its no means a bad game. but its just barely resembling a functioning game at this point. it gets boring FAST. negative stuff aside. this game is extremely promising, it just needs to be fleshed out, and expanded upon. take user feedback into account too!


WISHLIST
1. ANAL ONLY playthroughs. i wanna do that, her butt eaten and played with alot, fucked as her only hole (besides her mouth), give us that option to do a complete VIRGIN route with anal only.

2. sexual animations, it would make this so much better. as it has the animated tag, which is misleading.

3. R*PE scenes. i wanna see her get molested. her ass eaten against her will, her ass played with and fucked, her boobs fucked and played with, her mouth fucked. (i dont care about vaginal, as i wanna do anal only).

4. finish the damn scenes, colour them! expand upon the existing systems. you have a bestiality tag but i saw nothing of the sorts, ive seen anal sex (on other sites), and nothing of the sorts. give us variety, dependant on our lust and state of mind

5. take your time man, dont rush scenes out, let it cook. id rather it come out the oven tasting amazing, then rushing it out, due to being hungry and impatient and then not eating/enjoying it as its undercooked.


just take contructive critique into account, take your time. your art is amazing, your writing also. but some things need tweaked, stuff needs finished before its sent out, and alot of stuff needs expanded upon, or added. this is likely to be one of my favourite games in time, but it needs time to cook.


edit: i also found that the days offered just restrict the gameplay too much and add to the already existing grind and chore of it all. like im not just grinding, but im trying my best to grind my arse off to get scenes, before i get booted to the main menu, and forced to restart over again. ITS ANNOYING. noone liked when DEAD RISING DID IT, I CERTAINLY DONT LIKE WHEN THIS DOES IT. its all fine and dandy having the limited time/race against the clock be a factor, once the games fleshed out enough, or finished. but this early on, its just a punishment. as this early on, we're trying to get a feel for the game, and we're not just put up against a big ass grind, but also against a time limit too. its way too limiting. if youre not up for/able to remove the time limit until it actually has a meaning for it, then add alot more days. ideally, remove the boot to menu thing.. as you think it adds to replayability, but really youre forcing players into a new save, with more insane grind. so if youre gonna add it, add it when it makes sense, cause rn theres not enough to the game story wise, feature wise, sex wise. its more a hindrance atm than anything. i originally had this as a two star, but put it to a neutral 3, because for the first hour i REALLY enjoyed the game. and intend to play again when its worth playing

Idk why people rewiew game so high, to me 4.5 the game is nearly perfect and once again i got trapped into wasting hours trying to like the game and in the end, its just a really badly executed game the story is so bland i feel like this would have been better just a long story with choices like a vn rather than a sandbox with 50 "one still image game overs scenes" if anything is good only the art but then again its a still image with 50 things happening in the scene but you don't see anything of what the scenes tells you, to me this looks like a an art flex i guess they managed to pay the mods or whatever, get a high rating like this cause there is no way this game is 4.5 out of 5 people are getting delusional . I guess people are giving it a high score cause they believe in the art but then again what's good art if the rest is completely badly implemented or written this game is not even done and id think remaking the game would be the play here cause the games feels like it doesn't know what it wants lol

The art is excellent. Love the themes and the vampirism. Vesper is a very attractive protagonist. The gameplay is pretty standard sandbox type stuff, thought the 90 day limit is sort of a bummer. Also restarting runs is a little troublesome since you could miss out on stats that affect the main gameplay, and skipping is a bit slow compared to visual novels made in Ren'Py. Overall, very good game and I can't wait to see more.

Some advice I would give to the artist is that making one CG per scene is not scalable for a game. It would be great to have new CGs for everything but that is definitely not happening without some serious time invested into making this game. While key scenes are fine to have brand new CGs, it's fine to use the usual visual novel "talking sprites" format for usual conversations.

In addition don't be afraid to create nude sprites for characters and use those for less important scenes as well. Drawing backgrounds is tough work!

Review for version 0.1.15.2

this game for me, is a breath of fresh air in a sea of VNs and Japanese RPGs. while the prologue is still following a VN format, the main part of the game seems to be management-focused. the system has its ups and downs, but overall it's pretty solid and can potentially lead to a fine gameplay loop.

Art is the best feature of this game and the competition is not even close. some scenes are just sketches and half-drawn, but the completed ones are quite fine and erotic.

the writing is a bit hit-and-miss. it's definitely above average, but it's not on the level of art for sure. it's not problematic and I think that's acceptable.

the problem starts with the gameplay loop. you have a bunch of resources that should be balanced with activities that make money for you. each day consists of 3 activities and based on what you choose, your stats grow, you get cash or you lower your exhaustion, which if you ignore, will limit your actions per day to 2.

the problem surfaces when the game tries to make you choose a "route". for example your "hunger" stat can be satiated in different ways and two of those are stealing blood from a hospital or selling your body and feeding on your client in the middle of it. but if you even try hospital once, you get locked out of prostitution which is like half of the scenes in the game. if it had some kind of story logic I could accept it, but not like this.

also, in trying to limit the players even more and increase playability, grinding is dialed up so much that you need to at least spend half of your time just making money while having a time limit! for now, stats like speed and study doesn't have that much of an effect, so they're worthless. on the other hand, to make more money you need to level up your job, which is a slow and tedious process. Not to mention that I don't think being a vampire brought anything to the table other than a hindrance in the form of "hunger".

the game has some neat ideas and great art, but the coding and the gameplay balance need a lot of work. definitely something to keep an eye on for now, but I won't recommend playing it in the current state.

Vesper - Lust & Hunger [v0.1.15.2] review

I'm incredibly unsure about how to rate this "game". The flashes of brilliance this dev shows are tremendous, but the coding is absolute ass.

Let's start with the positives: The art and writing. Both are superb. If that was all this "game" was, I'd score it a 5. But this dev really likes to get in his own way, it seems.

It's super over-the-top grindy for absolutely no reason and it's built for multiple playthroughs(!). Just no mate. Why would I subject myself to multipe hours of grind of the same 3 scenes for multiple playthroughs? In a version of the game that's pretty much only a proof of concept demo? Yeah no. Hard pass.

It's not clear what content is in this build. Most stat points do nothing and going to the hospital to beg for blood locks you out of the prostiture path. The sex toy you can buy seems to not do anything. Oh and there's a time limit. Dude, just no.

So yeah. Coding + game design: 0/5. Art + story 5/5. Rounding up to 3/5 stars.

This is my first review of a game on this site ever. I've been on this forum for about 6 years now, I've seen a plethora of games and their developers. But this is my first time seeing someone so passionate about a game.
The Dev litterally updates the game everyday on their patreon. the dude is online everytime on discord and hears out what he can improve upon. And thats saying something coming from me a watcher who seen a lot of devs.

The gameis not done yet, you can see that, I dont even think that its 3 months old.
I would highly recommend veteran users to support him on patreon, if not then check out his discord and give him advice on how to progress with the gameplay and story. He/ she is extremely passionate.

Thank you!

As for 1.15.2 The game is great. But it was a bit overwhelming for me. The Hunger stat despite going up real quick does not in fact kills you as soon as it reaches 100% but it affect heroine mind first. I did not know that. There is a chance the game told me that and I forgot, but I doubt it. Because of that I have this uncomfortable feeling of missing some events since I was too focused on hunger, leaving my stats behind. The art is great, but there are still a lot of placeholders. The story is creative, but for now I have a feeling that there is still not much to say about it, since there's just an intro and I have not encountered any significant events after that. I'll come back here later when the game will be much further in development, but for now I have high hopes for this title.

Absolutely amazing game so far. There are functionally no "vampire" games available, especially ones of this quality of design, animation, story, etc, wonderful game I cant wait for more. It's still pretty early in the storyline so hopefully that continues to develop a bit however I also am not a fan of long story focused porn games so having a mix of the story with the emphasis on actual gameplay... man this game is perfect.

Pretty great, probably one of the best games with concrete art, sex scenes and story all in one.
Only thing I'm knowingly nitpicking is how it releases updates with half-baked arts, although I do like the possibility of the game dev releasing this updates ass early as possible to give us content, but still releasing colorless scenes destroys the immersion in the game... I'm tempted to give it 4 starss but the potential of the game is undoubtedly good and with that It's a 5 stats for me!

I like the art style of the game, but the prologue and the after part don't fit well together. The gameplay of the second part is very monotonous and boring.
I think continuing the game as a visual novel (like the prologue) would have been much better.

(translated via google, sorry for the mistakes)

The best feature of this game is its art (which is why it gets a 2), if you're playing it for the writing you'll be disappointed. Honestly, the story writing is just weak; the prologue/beta is nonsensical in direction and the character writing isn't much better. It feels like the game takes itself too seriously without the needed depth of plot to justify it.

All in all, I'd only recommend playing it for the CG gallery.

Reviewed as of v0.1.06

Shaping up to be one of my most anticipated VNs of the year. Amazing graphics, a compelling story and all-round solid mechanics for a VN.

Seriously considering supporting the dev seeing such high quality on initial release.

Amazing art, compelling premise, and a really good overall direction indicated by the developer. Available for purchase from the Itch.io page, so you can support the developer and the project without having to use patreon.

It's still early, so if you're strapped for cash then by all means grab the free version. But if you have money then this is one of those projects that deserve the support.

Strikingly crisp art and an interesting premise. I will have to watch this game with great interest. Also the dev promised us dogs, total chad. If the hot heroine gets knotted that's good enough for me.

Release the hounds!

great artwork, love the classic open ended game play.
story seems decent so far. I really like that you already show off the plans for CG gallery and a way to see all possible endings.
looking forward to how the game comes along.

Evaluating this as a Demo. Its very unique and well though out so far.
Love the art and the idea. The developer is active and is taking feedback and improving on what is being said.
Also has a pretty awesome 'sandbox' mechanic to progress skills and story.

A promising erotica in the old-school style of the early Lesson of Passion games, a mix of life simulator and visual novel with well-drawn and intriguing comic graphics. It is not very progressed as of now (v0.1), but contains a dilligently written prologue and the first few days of a 90 day (blood) sucking survival challenge. You should definitely keep an eye on this one!

Art is great, and I like Vampires. The bonding and whatnot is rushed at the start, when you talk with the missing woman. From Vesper's point of view she seemed to just be empathising with the woman and growing to understand her, calling it an obsession and Helena seeming near in love is very sudden and kinda creepy.

Regardless, it hardly matters when it's purely the prologue.

As of now, the gameplay loop itself is massively, overly punishing.

You need to work at least twice a day to gain money reasonably, and after a day or two, one slot is mandatorily a rest slot which you can't unassign to take some fatigue in exchange for money - for some reason - meaning that you have to really just spam journalism twice a day every day.

You only get three slots a day.

There's no time to train up to get good at anything else, and there seems to be literally no point to the bartending, as its just a far worse way of making money. Journalism almost always gives $30, whereas Bartending gives an average of $10-15.

The very first random encounter on day 5 or so, the hobo in the alleyway, only unlocks an additional option at 150+speed.

You gain 5 per training. Even if you did nothing but train until you got this encounter, it's completely impossible to get close enough in the time you have.

Not because you can't reach 150 - although you can't - but rather because you'll get an unceremonious "You went insane" ending long before that, because it only takes a couple days of work for your blood bar to hit full, and a few days after that too until your mind fucking breaks apparently. When your blood gets full you then use most of if not all of the money you have buying $150 worth of blood, then the blood bar does not even fully reset, and you gotta do it over. If you get the hobo encounter, it takes so much money that you're basically doomed.

Way too much micromanaging and grind to get any semblance of balance, especially for a game with no save and load. Maybe give the character more time than "under a week" before she goes completely insane and the game ends if you make a mistake. She's set up as being basically the lowest tier of vampire, literally described as her body fighting to stay human, so it makes little sense that she can go full blood frenzy in a few days flat.

I hope to see this rectified highly in the future updates of the game, along with perhaps some helpful actual description and tutorial for exactly what improving your stats will even bother to do.

As I said, I like vampires.