Shale Hill Secrets

***MUST BUY FOR AVN FANS*** Getting it out of the way this is a 9/10 to 10/10 for AVN fans. I give the range because I don't typically herald any game as perfect but this is a masterfully crafted AVN game. This is Elite Tier AVN and goes right up there with Being a ♥♥♥, Acting Lessons, Leap of Faith, Chasing Sunsets, College Kings, etc. First and foremost, the art style and rendering are top notch. After all, with AVNs if it doesn't look good what's the point??? All the models & characters are beautiful, unique, charming, and interesting. Even the side characters are all fun and wonderfully designed and expressed. Secondly, the writing is ELITE. I laughed more often than expected, had my heart strings plucked as I empathized with various characters, was brought to the edge of my seat with each twist and turn, and was seduced by masterful pacing and narrative foreplay. All the intimate scenes feel earned and well seasoned with story-driven relevance. One of the best characters I've ever encountered in media (Valerie) has an intimate scene that takes numerous chapters to get to, but holy crap is the wait worth it. The tension, pacing, animations, descriptions, and story implications are IMPECCABLE. There are a ton of love interests, all of them interesting and beautiful. Each s*x scene is well paced, lengthy, and uniquely crafted. It makes each character s*x scene interesting and worthwhile--and boy are there a lot of them. However, I tend to agree with another reviewer that the story is so good that at times it can feel like the s3x scenes are in the way of the narrative at times. Which is crazy to say for an AVN and one helluva compliment to the overall writing and dialogue. I hesitate to get into specifics because the story here is one of the most unique and special stories I've experienced in a while. It's relatively grounded and personal and grows into something completely unexpected. ALL the endings are awesome and if you buy the Complete Experience you also get all the BONUS PLATINUM scenes (some of which are just one-off alternate side stories) which were previously only available to Platinum Subscribers via Love-Joint's Patreon. The best part is that you get access to them for ONE PRICE as opposed to a recurring monthly charge (I have the Patreon build and you lose access without continued Platinum membership). That alone warrants the purchase of full Steam build. This is like the 2nd or 3rd review I've ever left, but the quality of game here is amazing and a must play if you're a fan of AVNs. Hell, if you're a fan of great media period! Screw it 10/10 just play it already!

其实游戏质量没有差到不可忍受的程度，但基于他给我带来的挫败感和负面体验以及评论区一致的好评，我感觉我为浪费的十个小时打个差评也合理。 游戏卡在了一个尴尬的不上不下的位置，要说剧情其实是有的，而且比大多数黄油好，cg也还可以，但这恰恰带来了另外一个问题：当我想按照剧情发展自己作选择的话，我可能会被惩罚——进不了恋爱线拿不了cg。 通常如果提示比较明显，或者有立即的负反馈的话，这种情况可以在一开始就被避免又或者通过sl来解决，但当我对着流程找的时候我发现我第二章做的一个选择很可能导致我第四章没有解锁一个cg，而在这个cg发生之前的一切情绪铺垫都是正常没有问题的，包括公主抱环节、邀请过夜，暧昧的气氛拉满了，结果临到头要解锁cg的时候，人跑了。在我看来这也是剧情设计的一种失败吧，我确实可以回我第二章的存档重来一遍，但要命了，这游戏的剧情也没到我愿意打第二遍的地步。 总之就是很鸡肋吧，玩到现在有点食之无味弃之可惜。 对于有意愿购买并看到这条评论的人：如果你想攻略对应的角色，最好按全收集攻略里的选项选；如果你按照自己的想法去过剧情，就得承担毫无预兆地丢失几章之后的某个cg的风险，而且并非孤例。

主观评分：7.3/10 （1）设定：A。你们总说游戏的男主都是哑巴，这回真给你们来个哑巴了。游戏的悬念设置感觉也不错。这个游戏设定上最好的点在于窥私欲，算是一个很不错的切入点。对比很多黄油里类似超能力的设定，这个“recently”很强，但又不是无脑强， 加上了很多限制，这是一个很聪明的做法，至少可以在一定时间内避免剧情崩坏。 （2）笔力：B。优美的文本，散文般的描写。这文字水平在一众黄油中简直是出类拔萃，作者的文学素养深厚，许多台词诗句一样优美。得益于作者出色的笔力，虽然剧本发展平缓，但是初期阅读体验不差。同时，整个剧本比较接近网文的结构，也就是说在每一章结尾给你留一个钩子，提高对下一章节的期待感，很成熟的网文写作模式。但是这种慢节奏随着游戏进度的深入，会让你觉得很啰嗦，大量的描写中夹杂着少量的剧情推动信息（有效信息密度小），随着剧情的发展，良好文字带来的阅读体验慢慢变差（当游戏进行到25小时左右的时候，我的耐心槽已经几乎消耗殆尽了，作品的节奏确实太慢了，在主线推进的过程中，夹杂着大量无聊的日常描写）。我认为砍掉百分之三十左右的描写，让剧本更紧凑可能是更好的做法。 （3）剧情：C。虎头蛇尾。铺垫了40多个小时，游玩过程中我一直隐隐约约感觉作者圆不上了，果然不太圆得上。我还以为什么大阴谋呢，结果内核这么空虚和矫情？他妈的过家家一样。欧美这些黄油小作坊啊，还是水平太次了。问题集中爆发在第16章。你告诉我最后桑德拉为什么莫名其妙就同意回家了，主角的劝说话术和之前有什么本质区别吗？动机完全不够的好吗？基本就是为了收尾强行找个理由而已。怎么就非得在这个关键节骨眼上和黑妹来一炮？凑时长是吗？妹妹谜语人了好几章，我以为什么惊天秘密呢，结果就他妈一个表情？ （4）音乐：B。整体来说，音乐与作品基调基本吻合，不抢戏不出彩。 （5）建模：B+。建模精度比较高。但其实建模是有些奇怪的，主要是人物比例略显失调。不过主要角色好看还是好看的，而且正是由于这种失调的比例，几乎每一个女性角色都有幼态感，所以你懂的，你这个死萝莉控。这就使得这个游戏里几乎没有巨乳，都是正常尺寸（没有木瓜化），在黄油里这简直太难得了。更难得的是，男主的欧金金居然也是正常尺寸（正常AV男优尺寸，没有驴化），这种尺寸放别的黄油里会被耻笑的好吗？总之，太正常了，正常得不像一个黄油。 （6）动画：D。啪啪时候的镜头设计在前几章属于我最讨厌的分段式设计，后面也基本就是PPT加上一些几秒钟的GIF，还得手动选择姿势，几乎没有任何运镜，给人强烈的寸止感。当一个黄油有着高精度建模的时候，你很难不对他的动画提出更高的要求，但显然，动画是这个游戏最大的短板之一。 （7）角色塑造：B+。配角中，用于调节气氛的漫画式角色，比如蝙蝠侠、世界上最直的异性恋、还有到处当背景板的老板等，都很有趣，“埃米纳姆的粉丝”等也有着不错的刻画。主角中，大多数角色都有着自己独特的个性和完善的背景故事。这些都是得益于大量的文本刻画。大BOSS其实在游戏中也很好辨认，因为表情有种微妙的奇怪，因此我大概在第10小时左右就猜到了谁是BOSS，不过在30小时左右揭示谜底的时候，仍然有着不错的体验。 （8）容量：S。非常夸张的容量。我不能说这个容量又臭又长，因为他有着水准之上的剧本和顶级的文字，但是确实存在着大量注水。 （9）场景和交互：E。场景种类少得可怜，来来回回那么三五个，加上冗长的对话，游戏中期开始变得枯燥乏味。选项还是太少了。很多时候我可能连续点击一个小时以上都不见得能出现一个选项，这种设计在视觉小说中挺致命的，因为作为玩家的我完全不知道我还要看多少冗长的对话才能迎来一次选择（关键在于这些对话的信息熵较低，除去较好的文字以外，缺少足够的吸引力）。 （10)节奏：E。应该紧张的地方不加快节奏，还是公式地插入日常。给人的感觉是17个章节，每个章节平均2.5小时的固定流程，就非得是这个时间，很愚蠢的剧情推进节奏。可能只有第12章和少数几个章节的节奏还可以。 Subjective Rating: 7.3/10 (1) Setting: A. You always complain that male protagonists in games are mute, well here you really get a mute one. The suspense setup feels quite good too. The best part of the game's premise lies in voyeuristic desire — a pretty great entry point. Compared to many similar supernatural abilities in eroge, this "recently" ability is strong but not mindlessly overpowered; it comes with plenty of limitations. That's a smart approach that can at least prevent the plot from falling apart for a while. (2) Writing Quality: B. Elegant prose, essay-like descriptions. The level of writing is simply outstanding among eroge; the author's literary cultivation runs deep, and many lines are as beautiful as poetry. Thanks to the author's excellent writing skill, even though the plot develops slowly, the initial reading experience is not bad. At the same time, the overall script structure resembles that of a web novel — meaning each chapter ends with a hook that raises anticipation for the next, a very mature web-novel writing pattern. However, this slow pacing gradually becomes verbose as the game progresses. Large amounts of description are interspersed with only a little plot-driving information (low effective information density). As the story develops, the reading experience provided by the fine writing slowly deteriorates. (When the game reached around 25 hours, my patience bar was almost completely drained. The work's pacing is genuinely too slow; during the main storyline's progression, it's littered with a great deal of tedious daily-life depiction.) I think cutting about 30% of the descriptions to tighten the script might be a better approach. (3) Plot: C. It starts strong but ends weak. After more than 40 hours of buildup, I had a faint feeling throughout the playthrough that the author wouldn't be able to tie everything together — and sure enough, it couldn't really be tied up. I thought there was some grand conspiracy, but in the end the core is this hollow and sentimental? It's like kids playing house, for ♥♥♥♥'s sake. These small Western eroge studios really lack the chops. Problems explode in Chapter 16. Can you tell me why Sandra suddenly and inexplicably agrees to go home in the end? Is there any essential difference between the protagonist's persuasive talk and what came before? The motivation is completely insufficient, right? It's basically just forcing a reason to wrap things up. Why the hell does he have to have sex with the dark-skinned girl at this critical juncture? Just to pad the runtime, is it? The little sister's been acting like a cryptic riddle-speaker for several chapters, and I thought there was some earth-shattering secret — and it turns out to be just a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ expression? (4) Music: B. Overall, the music basically matches the work's tone — it doesn't steal the spotlight but isn't particularly outstanding either. (5) Character Models: B+. The modeling is fairly high-precision. But actually, the models are somewhat odd, mainly because the character proportions are slightly off. However, the main characters still look attractive, and it's precisely because of these off proportions that nearly every female character has a youthful, childlike quality — so you get the idea, you damn lolicon. As a result, there are almost no huge breasts in the game; they're all normal-sized (no papaya-fication), which is incredibly rare in eroge. Even rarer is that the protagonist's ♥♥♥♥ is also a normal size (normal for an AV actor, not donkey-fied). In other eroge, such a size would be mocked, right? In short, it's too normal — normal to the point of not feeling like an eroge. (6) Animation: D. The camera work during sex scenes in the early chapters is the segment-style design I hate most, and later it's basically just slideshows plus a few seconds-long GIFs. You even have to manually choose positions, with almost no dynamic camera movement, creating a strong feeling of being edged. When an eroge has high-precision character models, it's hard not to hold its animation to a higher standard — but clearly, animation is one of the game's biggest weaknesses. (7) Character Development: B+. Among the supporting cast, the comic-style characters used to lighten the mood — like Batman, the straightest heterosexual in the world, and the boss who pops up as background everywhere — are all very entertaining, and "Eminem's fan" and others also have nice touches. Among the main characters, most possess their own distinct personalities and well-developed backstories. All of this benefits from the extensive textual portrayal. The big boss is actually quite easy to spot in the game because their expression has a subtly odd quality, so I guessed who the boss was around the 10-hour mark. Still, when the reveal happened around 30 hours, it still delivered a decent experience. (8) Volume: S. A staggeringly huge volume. I can't say this volume is just overlong and tedious, because it boasts an above-average script and top-tier writing — but there is indeed a great deal of padding. (9) Scenes and Interaction: E. The scene variety is pitifully sparse, just three to five locations recycled over and over, combined with long-winded dialogue, which makes the game start to feel dull and tedious from the middle onward. Choices are still far too few. Oftentimes I'd click continuously for over an hour without a single choice appearing. This kind of design is quite fatal in a visual novel, because as the player I have no idea how much more lengthy dialogue I have to read before encountering a choice. (The key issue is the low information entropy of these conversations — apart from the decent prose, they lack sufficient appeal.) (10) Pacing: E. In places that should speed up to create tension, it doesn't; instead, it mechanically inserts daily-life scenes. The impression is of 17 chapters, each with a fixed routine about 2.5 hours long — as if it absolutely has to be that length, a very foolish way of progressing the plot. Perhaps only Chapter 12 and a few other chapters have decent pacing.

I didn't play much, but MC being a mute and having to talk through a text to speech app on his phone ruined it for me.

Great value for money! The story has me hooked. Playing more hours per day than I should, but I just need to know what will happen next (currently over 35 hours). The dialogues/jokes frequently make me laugh out loud. Played for about 30 hours in the free Demo version, then (of course) bought the non-Demo version to be able to continue. I did have to manually copy the save games from the Demo to the non-Demo to be able to proceed where I was. Some naughty scenes (obviously) appeal more to me than others. The best ones are where the back story resonates with me. And (spoiler alert) I had tears in my eyes when Maggie and Haley found each other. Love Joint developers: a big thanks to you!

Good story with 17 chapters. Great value for the amount of content. The scenes are a little vanilla but art work is very good. This was probably one of the best stories I have read through from the genre.

Good game

Wow the story was good, I liked the characters the intrigue, the nail biting points at which a episode ends and going through all the dialog possible (or so I think at least) was a interesting but exciting experience for me so based on this alone I would recommend this AVN. But you may want to wait for a sale, of course if You are rich and horny, scratch the sale :D . Of course I will also bring the pros and cons if you are wise enough to read up to this point: Pros: A really interesting story with well build character development, reach character past which defines their strengths and weaknesses always a sign of good writing, a buttumload of twists and secondary plots that kept me on my toes, and retrospectively speaking the games best attribute for sure was the story. The animations and spicy content I would also put under the pro section but as a little above average because if I compare it with other AVNs they could have done a better job The boo.s are normal size, I know that may not register to everyone as a pro but it does for me, in so many AVNs the devs are dragging the slider of the boo.s so far to the right that they look more like mini hot air balloons, it feels so refreshing to see more normal curves :D Kudos to the devs for withstanding the pressure :D Cons: Since I praised the story so much I must add a negative or oversight, there were some grammatical errors in the writing but they got a lot worse from the middle of the game or maybe from ep 10 or so, something during that phase of development changed, whether it was AI updates, translator or some form of adaptation led to mistakes in writing, mostly of the grammatical nature, that was rather taking away from the story, it didn't bother me that much because I was so involved in the story by that time that I had to continue but some players may not be so understanding. With the MC condition the devs may have created a more original approach for a MC but they also left themselves vulnerable to some defects, like mismatching voice app with sign language as well as the MC not being able to sign language in certain situation. Overall I enjoyed my time with shale hill secrets and I will be getting the DLCs although I will wait for a sale :P

No. Just no.

story is interesting - the lewd bits make it fun wish there was pregnancy options tip : make sure ur comfortable user interface cause there is alot of clicking / mashing enter to progress thru the conversationals