Ladykiller in a Bind

A game where I felt like I was a pawn in a grander scheme of things. But honestly, what hooked me in was the soundtrack and how... INTIMATE this VN could get. I did like the resource management with votes and suspicion you had to keep track of, but in terms of difficulty to get the results you would want, it's not that hard. Even a pawn has their moves, after all. All in all, I'd say it's raunchy with elegance and in my personal experience, had me feeling very strong emotions. Rich people are the worst lol Overall, I'd say it's a pretty alright read for my friends who enjoy reading sensual topics with a side-dish of smut.

this is a tough recommendation for me. I wish there was a "maybe?" option. But it's not a hard "no" so I guess I'm marking it "yes". Most of what I'm going to talk about isn't spoiler-reliant, but I will indicate when I'm going to get into spoilers. If you still want to give this game a spin, don't read beyond that point, probably. something to keep in mind: - this is a 2016 game, and it *shows.* Be ready for not only dated memes and cringe, but also the prevailing queer discourse of the gamergate era. A current era remake could do wonders for it - I, in particular, have a taste for really messed up dark romance and horror and bad people. Those who are more sensitive to those things may have a harder time stomaching some of the things this game does, both intentionally and unintentionally things I liked: - the game itself is very concerned with your, the player's, consent. It not only gives you the option to skip adult scenes, it asks you to continue playing after every chapter. I wish more games in general did that nowadays - the core "mechanic" is really pretty cool; you can make dialog choices at any time, or you can continue listening at the risk of missing your chance to speak up (or in case it's going to give you an option you like even *better* that only shows up once you have the context to say it) - the choices' consequences are clearly laid out, in accordance with the game's interest in your consent. Sometimes you may have to choose between a couple of consequences, but you're never surprised when the game punishes you for behaving in a certain way - the bdsm scenes in specific are *VERY* concerned with consent and boundaries, and even show aftercare. Honestly the character who does it was the only person on that screwed up boat who I felt really understood or cared about consent, in and out of the bedroom - the characters were (mostly) likable and funny and well-written, and it was easy to get invested in their stories - the mc is kind of terrible. I like that in an mc. Make them a sleazy jerk who's pretending to be an even sleazier jerk and they use that to give themself a free pass on being a sleazy jerk with no self awareness about it. Give me a character who would believably choose the unkind dialog choices if I let them. Yes. - the adult scenes (with the exception of stuff that requires spoilers to talk about imo) are well-written, thoughtful, and hot things I disliked: - the payoff for the premise, which I can't get into in depth because I hit the character limit for reviews - the way a specific character and gender was handled, see spoiler zone - there really could have been a little more care when handling diversity. There's only so much I can handwave away by saying "it was 2016" when it could have received updates at any time - the tonal whiplash. In particular, at the end, I feel the game had a hard time committing to being either too comedic to take seriously or too dark to brush off - some of the faces are a little wonky from some angles, but it honestly didn't bother me too badly -THE SPOILER ZONE- abandon hope all ye who enter so let's not mince words; this game was pretty clearly pitched for cis lesbians who are into cis women. Which is fine. Not everything has to be for me. I get it. I also get that this was, as I've said ad nauseum, gamergate time. The direct result of this is that the way it handles men and gender broadly is kind of Weird. there is a character who you may call the Stalker, and she behaves in ways very similarly to a character I called the Flower. The Flower is a self-reported cis man who crossdresses (though the achievement implies he is an "egg" I will continue using he/him pronouns as the game does, if nothing else because it's more charitable for the game to be treating a cis man rather than a trans woman the way it does), while the Stalker is a cis woman. The protag makes a point of claiming they're not equivalent because one character was pushed into confessing her feelings while the other admitted them in a way that put pressure on the person receiving the confession. I personally feel this is nonsensical. The protag walks the Stalker through better ways of conveying her feelings, but acts as though the Flower is completely unreasonable for not just being clearer. The protag coaches the Stalker into positive self-talk, but seems to think the Flower is just toxic and pathetic for talking himself down similarly--even when it turns out his crush refused to give him a straightforward answer to his confession. Options treating the Flower kindly are labelled things like "Deceit". now, it's one thing for our unreliable narrator to have a double standard, but how does the narrative reinforce this? By having the Flower FUNCTIONALLY ASSAULT YOU BY REFUSING TO LET THE NARRATIVE MOVE FORWARD UNTIL YOU FORCE YOURSELF ON HIM (or let it be implied that this or the other "transactional" cut het intercourse occurred). After, of course, Flower steals your phone to send an unsolicited d pic to his crush. This scene in particular makes me ask "who is this for?". It's not for the cis lesbians who are only interested in cis women (especially in the moments the lesbian protag gets into it). It's not for the dark romance girlies because it is such a severe whiplash from everything else--I, the player, felt for the Flower. I didn't see him as the walking red flag the game was so eager to tell me he was. Why are we doing this? Why is he refusing to help rescue a kidnapping victim just because he's horny and sad? this is unreasonable, even for an unreasonable game. If the character were trans, this would really, really not be a good look when "trans women are predators" is such a vicious narrative. It has gotten more prevalent since 2016, but it also has always been a stereotype. He was even crossdressing in an attempt to get closer to his crush. It's gross. I'm sorry, but it's gross. Something like this could have been done, but it would have had to be earned with more complete characterization. none of this to mention the cut "transactional" het scene with the Rival. In the current version of the game, the option to choose his outcome to advance the narrative still warns you about the scene, but it doesn't seem to be implemented anymore? Which is a relief, not only because it'd be another "who is this for?" bit, but also because it would make absolutely no sense for his character. We are given no reason to believe his opinion on saving his kidnapped fiance would be swayed by soliciting him. It's insane. It's an insane thing to think and he says as much when you try to go down that route. The route's content can be found in a pastebin somewhere but I have no interest in reading it. all of this adds up to a really weird view of men. There is the Athlete who, as far as I can tell, isn't anything worse than a mildly obnoxious dudebro, but I'm so afraid to go down his route only to find he's a closet r'pist when he's one of the more endearing characters. All the rest of the men are seemingly bad for the sake of it--the Rival is genuinely a reasonable person, but the narrative keeps trying to frame him as a bad guy. The Prince, obviously, is bad (but in a way where I think it wants me to see him as nuanced?). The father, obviously, is just cartoon villain levels of bad. The one bad woman is the one black one, who is dressed as a maid. And she's bad because she... wants to start a terrorist cell to dismantle capitalism?? With the Prince?? HOW?? This is where the messaging and tone and logic completely falls apart for me, but I'm running out of characters, because apparently there's a character limit. anyway, if you're not scared off yet, get it on the cheap. Just be ready to swallow some 2016 bs, but I really did enjoy about 80% of it, despite my frustrations. Just, imagine a world where any one of the love interests had been trans and it had been handled as thoughtfully as the bdsm...

i like it when the hot lady is mean to me

Empty and short. The story doesn't make sense and the characters aren't cute.

I probably expected too much from this game, with all the hype it got. It was really tempting to press Skip Scenes just to get to the ending. Everything just fell flat for me, sorry.

i'd follow christine love to the ends of the earth but also this game has visual novel dialogue choices integrated in a way that feels organic and not like people are stopping for you to take your turn every once in a while and thats incredible. also i like women

Here's the irony of the vast majority NSFW games on Steam: They are supposed to be for adults. Well, I find those dialogs and that level of implausibility both in the premise and the plot, very, very hard for any adult to tolerate. Their entire plot revolves around immature, schoolish attitudes that really make no sense to an adult anymore. It's hard to give some examples, without spoilers to those who are really into the game. The premise itself is the epitome: you are a lesbian, pretending to be your twin brother. of course, this is something we knew from the game description, even before buying the game, so, it's not my main complaint. We can forgive a couple of far fetched assmumptions, as long as the whole game is not like this. Then again, the risk of being recognized due to behavior, seems rediculous right after this. You want to make them confused? Keep it consistent. Don't tell me that they didn't figure out anything of your stature, your voice tone, your breasts, your facial expressions, but it was not being an a*s what alerted them and endangered your disguise. A woman passing as a man is one thing (and can even be believable if supported well), a woman passing as a man that they already knew as their classmate is a whole different beast. Then, there's a voting and a prize to be earned. For the outrageous prize given (for no reazon), you'd expect them to act like a version of Battle Royale in that ship. Instead, they play it cool. Good for them, the altruists. Or perhaps they are not yet old enough to understand money's value. Another typical example of the plot (roughly, in my words): NPC: he pushes me to give him my votes. PC: give them to me instead. NPC: oh, thank you so much, you saved me, come tonight to show you my gratitude. Yeah, makes sense. For an x-rated movie, it could be a typical depth of scenario, and truth to be said, if the X-rated part was sufficient, I wouldn't even complain. Don't get me wrong, I hardly ever complain about dialogs. I don't even mind errors in grammar and syntax, if the games has other admirable qualities, or if I even suspect a meaning that the creators wanted to communicate. But a visual novel *is* its plot and its dialogs. It's not that it has some stunning graphics and gameplay that'll make you forget its drawbacks. It has to be good somewhere. Some admire the "replayablity" of this game, a common cheap trick of choices-(should)-matter games to manipulate their play duration, but for me, it can only make things even worse. Playing a game that feels incomplete in one pass and having to read (mostly) the same dialogs one more time to see different outcomes, based on senseless choices, is nowhere close to entartaining for me. Lots of s*x scenes, guys? Once per night, a couple of spicy images? Did we really play the same game? Besides, most things are described by words rather than pictires, the images are static and the art is poor, which is unacceptable, given the initial asking price of the game. What can I say, it's not my thing.

Utterly confused. The game dev didn't bother giving character names but instead let us decide a nickname. And the game starts with a full box of swear words making it even more confusing.

i don't really play games about sex, but i was in the mood for romance and happened upon this. totally revolutionized my perspective on what games with a lot of sex in them have the potential to be. i loved it. it's funny, well designed, hot. it has a really interesting mechanic during the dialogue which allows you to choose a dialogue choice while it is relevant in a conversation and then takes it away when it is no longer relevant. it creates a more organic flow of conversation. after all, in real life you don't just have one chance to say things. and you also don't know precisely when the topic of conversation is going to change. it's genius and makes dialogue more engaging than run of the mill branching. sex scenes deliver on the promise of freak. because it's kink there is a psychological aspect to it to be explored in the dialogue. the scenes take their time to build tension. the character art is of inconsistent and the ending is kind of random, but i don't CARE!!!! i love it anyways. the beast is the butch i want to be for real. well, besides the part where i have to tell my brother all that.

Very nice