Cheddared Grizzly Reviews: ICSTOR and bad game design

[cheddaredgrizzly]

So going through the internet for some games, since LOK Forums have been pretty slow lately, I stumbled upon ICSTOR and the games he has produced. ICSTOR has developed Incest Story 1&2, Milf's Vila, Milf's Control, Robot's touch, Taboo Request, and is developing a new game Milfy City

His games are focused mainly on male protagonists having relations with his Mom, Sisters and Aunt (With other female characters depending on the game). Despite the fact I came in with high hopes, Overall, I am disappointed with the games I have played, and wish to discuss why the game design of these games make them a chore to play rather than fun.

The two games I played were Incest Story 1 (The first game he produced) and Milf's Villa (The most recent game finished).

The first problem with these games is that they are not very intuitive. Many of the Puzzles in ICSTOR games follow Moon Logic to complete, and are impossible to figure out without having a guide with you. For example, In Milf's Villa, to have sex with the Shop owner, you first need to speak to her about buying alcohol, when she refuses you, you must check all the fridges, when you realize there is nothing in the fridge you must take a random table near the top of the store, use the awkward grab mechanic and drag it down to the bottom right corner to open a secret switch to the basement then steal some alcohol and them some weird looking drugs, and then approach the shop owner again. No one would know to do that unless you had a walk through, which ICSTOR does provide on his site, but the fact he must provide a walk through for every game he made is absurd. Even if you know what you need to do, you must go through every step in the process to activate the event. For example, to get body lotion (same game), you must speak to the guard at the gate first and then go to the tool shed, the body lotion only appears when you speak to the guard. Sometimes the answer to the puzzle makes no sense when looking at your game's inventory, for example I need to extinguish the fire place to get a syringe, so i must get a bucket outside the house and then fill it with water to put out the fire. The puzzle itself isn't the problem, the problem is that I already had a Watering can in my inventory, but couldn't use that to put out the fire.

The second problem is that scenes drag out...alot. In recent games like Milf's Vila, there are pre-rendered video cut scenes, but they last too long, and since there is no way to skip them, you usually end up blanking out, or distracting yourself with something else as you wait for the scene to end. Even with the games that don't have cut scenes, there are usually so many descriptions and useless dialogue that you tend to blaze through dialogue out of boredom, only to have skipped over a new mission detail at the end. Speaking of which...

Busy work missions are very prevalent. I frequently found myself pulling un-marked weeds or refilling a watering can 3 times to water a garden, or finding a key outside a building to enter a room to progress to the next part of the game. Maybe story wise, it makes sense to do this, but it's a chore to refill your watering can three times to water a garden just to progress with the aunt. If i wanted to refill my watering can multiple times in a game to water plants, I'd play Stardew Valley.

Another problem is that all the characters are kind of the same in ICSTOR games. The Son is a bit of a psychopath who manipulates, cheats, lies (and in the case of Incest Story, guns down people) to get what he wants, The women in the family are either jerks to the main PC or openly willing to fuck him. Blackmail is almost always involved. After a while, it simply feels like your playing the same story of one guy adventure to have sex with his family.

Some games are worst than others. Incest Story 1 being the worst. If your in a area where you need to fight, you won't take five steps without being in a Random encounter. But what you soon realize is that you can escape all random encounter 100% of the time. Meaning you simply escape every battle that comes up, except for the mandatory battles. Also, running around with a golden SMG as I broke into a warehouse controlled by gangsters to steal drugs, made me feel like I was playing an RPG maker prototype of GTA rather than the plight of a teen trying to sleep with his mom. (And honestly, I think a RPG maker GTA game sounds much more fun)

Milf's Villa is better because there are no Combat scenarios, but the game is hard to get through without a walk through, and that makes things boring.

Despite the fact that ICSTOR is working on Milfy City and it's 60% done, I just don't feel like playing that game. I'd rather simply watch the cut scenes in a video clip then play through the game.

Once I finish Milf's Vila, I'm deleting all of ICSTOR's games. There not fun to play, and honestly, the only reason why I think you should play these games, is to understand what not to do in your own game.