Ren'Py - Sovereign [v14.0] [Zinikis Production]

V0.5.1

Overgrind is my chosen description
i got bored with the grind after barely an hour with all the to and fro
not a fan of the mechanics.

visually it is fine. no wow factor for me but not a complete eyesore either. all characters are a cutout image on a background. event art is slightly better but poor angles chosen. it just becomes background to the grind though.

the plot is your basic adult corruption game plot and the writing is poor. needs some thought put into it.

the heavy grind quickly removes any enjoyment, and in it's current state, it also has little content with characters. only the mother has any content worth looking at and even then the images look unworthy of the related grind. mechanics just seem too much for such unrewarding imagery and story.

It would be a terrible game 6 years ago when that kind of game still dominated the genre.

-There is barely a story.
-Progression is linear and boring (dress sexy -> touching -> make up -> ...) and always the same order for every girl. If you seduce a girl with a massage then every progress will make the massage sexier and sexier.
-Characters are barely decent
-No animation so we have 3 renders for every sexy scene
-To go from place to place is a grind on top of the grind you have to do to up the stats and when you chose to kiss a girl to grind her influence ......... you don't see the kiss.

If it's to put a total of 30 sexy renders in a game, just do a visual novel and don't bother developping a game.

Despite the fact that this game appears to be 3-5 years too late from a graphical and gameplay perspective, it is strangely compelling and addictive. For now not much of BDSM content is shown, but the very idea of MC corrupting/enslaving his whole family is very intruiging.

I hope we see soon start to see some interactions between the different family members. Right now all progression paths are completely isolated and very similar in style (makeup->massage->dress-...). MC fucks his Mom and kisses her in public on a date but the sisters (or anybody else for that matter) is completely oblivious to that.

Great game, some repetitive gameplay for some hot scenes is a decent tradeoff. The game at current (0.5) is at a very decent state with a fair amount of content, and a huge potential. Dev is responsive and friendly, so thats a bonus.

Well the game is great, not too much grinding. It's still an early version, so much of the text and, frankly, gameplay, is likely works fine.
There's still not that much content but it's definitely getting there.
Looking forward to future updates.

I think game modeling is great
The difficulty of the game is average for me.
Looking forward to future updates
Looking forward to subsequent slave routing or other routing
and more optional costume changes.
Well done. I will support it (if there is a STEAM version)

Very solid bones here so far, although rough on the writing and gameplay side. Similar to Corruption in premise, scope and style. I actually think this game will be quite good if it is consistently worked on and reaches the potential it's set up for itself- this specific flavour of very gradual corruption is a niche that is hard to get exactly right and I've found that similar games like Corruption go a bit too far, a bit too fast so we'll see where this one falls. I've been burned enough times, but I have hope it'll be finished. I like the models a lot, the setting and story is neat without being obtrusive and the number of girls that appear to be planned is quite ambitious.

It's still an early version, so much of the text and, frankly, gameplay, is likely placeholder, but a writing pass will be sorely needed at some point- outside of the dedicated scenes, where the writing is passable, the characters are devoid of any sort of individuality or personality. While not a priority, I think it would make the overall grind a bit more tolerable.

The grind itself is not egregious, but feels a bit unnecessary. This is definitely the kind of game where you go into the renpy console and just set the values up to the next threshold to see the next scene, and you're not really missing anything worthwhile by doing so. Either speeding it up or giving some sort of variety on how influence and corruption is gained would be much nicer than needing to cheat to make it bearable.

I waited until version 5.0 to try this. It's still pretty rough around the edges but I like sandboxes and the character models look hot.

Positives
- First time where the side characters aren't hotter than the main characters
- First time where the "landlady" isn't gross-looking but is actually pretty fucking hot. Good job.
- It reminds me of the classic old school, incest, sandbox games but with a modern update for the renders.

Negatives
- Not the worst grammar but it's still pretty bad. Maybe get a proofreader. If the game gets better, I'd probably just do it for free. Don't be afraid to start a sentence with "But" , "However", "Still", "or "Although" instead of saying "though" all the time. It just starts to sound like some sort of verbal tic.
- Some bugs were encountered. Seems like typos made while coding. (Mini-UP ends up costing the same as UP, Jeanne or whatever-her-name-is is called "Landlady" at some point, etc.)
- The game mechanics are there but just aren't that elaborate and feel kind of pointless. Feels like they're not quite there yet.
- Oh right. Also, gets kind of confusing when you can rename the "landlady" but not the "house mates". But honestly, any modder with spare time could just handle that. It's not really the dev's problem.

Some possible suggestions and other things I'm just neutral about
- A mini-hud or something that connects to the character hints so we don't have to go back and forth between the game and the character page.
- No animations. Not a big deal and I know how time-consuming/intensive it can be to render those so it is what it is.

Conclusion:
It's a basic plot line you've seen before. Nothing to write home about but nothing to complain about either. I kind of miss games like this that don't try to have such deep and "romantic" stories. Most devs can't write for shit so it ends up corny melodrama rather than deep and sometimes you really just want to see hot characters. This game delivers on that.

Honestly, terrible grammar and spelling usually turn me off immediately but I have a soft spot for these types of sandbox, corruption games because one of them being one of the first AVNs I ever played. Still, better proofreading would do wonders.

There's still not that much content but it's definitely getting there.

(Half-serious about proofreading it. We'll see what future updates look like.)

Great game. You can play it as fast or as slow as you want. If you want to speed run just enable console commands, give yourself 9999 money, and then load up on Great Gift, and UP, it takes three of each to increase a girl a level in control and corruption.

Game is a stat based sandbox so duh theres some grind, dev is consistently adding content, theres some engrish, but if dev sticks with it im sure this will turn out to be a fine game. The 0.5.0 update added lots of content.

Renders are good, story is decent, but gamplay is very grindy. Like for me it's not worth it at all. Maybe try to remove the repeatable events or at least try to minimize them so that it doesn't feel like a chore.
For now not recommended at all.

Way, way, too much grind in this game just to get to something, with vague goals for the mc. Played it for about 2 hours then deleted from my games. I try not to leave negative reviews without constructive criticism, but there is a first time for everything I guess. Do yourself a favor and give this one a pass.

Game in its current state just lacks content, grind not great not terrible but there is no content at the end of the rainbow, just wait for more updates.
Renders and character design are okay, everything is just okay. Giving it 2/5 due to not many spicy scenes.

Absolutely nothing to write home about.

The renders are subpar.
The characters are sub par.
The story is sub par.
The gameplay is atrocious and grindy in the worse possible way.
Last and not least, there is no content... just grind, pure simple grind with absolutely no depth or reason.

Absolute waste of time.

Wow, this has to be one of the worst games out there. As it is right now, this is not a game, it's an empty sandbox with outrageous grinding. And if that isn't already bad enough, you will also get NO REWARD for wasting your time. I'm speechless how somebody can release something like this.

For every character you have to do the same grind over and over and over again. And that is without any images, you just talk to them, that's it. On top of that, the game will even DECREASE your stats if you behave any different than the game intended, which will make the grind even longer.

I really regret wasting my time for more than 3 hours, just in hope to find any good in this, but no, nothing at all.
You will get like 5 images (clothed) and then the grind will start all over again for the next 5 images (no nudity at all).

The only nudity you will get is at the very beginning when the characters get introduced, stepping out of the shower.
That's about 1-2 minutes into the game, and that's exactly where you should close the game and delete it. At least, that's what I should have done.

Now I can only give you a warning, don't waste your time on this. It's not worth it. Really!

I will give 1 Star for the graphics. That's all there is right now!

Absolutely atrocious grind for no reward. I cannot understand how anyone would make this game and think people would genuinely want to play it without being annoyed. You have to grind for money, which you lose a large portion of every week, and you have to grind for content, which is extremely disappointing with very little to even look forward to. If there is even any content worth seeing, I don't have the patience to see the scenes by clicking through the same "catch up" and "touch" dialogue options for 30 days per character

This game is perfect for people who enjoy sandbox and corruption games, where each character has different stages of corruption, and change their customes and behaviour depending on each stage. The renders are also good.

There aren´t many games like this, so I appreciate it a lot.

I'm going to be more generous with the review here than I otherwise would be as I'll be honest, I have a bias for these corruption style games.

The groundwork is here for a really good corruption game and the first release has a good deal more content than would typically be expected. A bit slow burn and grindy to begin with but once you get an idea for what you really need to do to avoid the bad events, and raise you stats up to the current maximum, then the game becomes pretty easy if not still a bit grindy for my liking.

TLDR: Lots of potential, good amount of content for a first release, raise your stats and money first and the game becomes easy.

Because it's a first release I'm going to be generous and tack on a third star. There's potential here.

The renders are pretty good. The story remains to be seen, but so far it's got a place or two it can lead, and I don't mind sticking around a little longer to see where that might be.

BUT...

The pointless clicking has to stop. It's not a sandbox. It's a VN that makes you click to get to the next screen (one choice, such as "Go Out" to get from reading on your laptop to the next destination you just read out loud is where you have to go. Sometimes twice in a row, like when you're coming home from work and have to click once to get downtown and again to get home). Again, it's not the click itself, but the fact that there's a text box to click describing the one or two clicks you're forced to make. Just bring me there. I don't need a text box, and don't need to see downtown on my way home if I'm not doing anything there either.

And please, for the love of all that is holy find a proofreader. Statements such as have incorrect word choices and grammar that make following what story there is more difficult than necessary.

*EDIT* OK, I was a tiny bit hasty. There is actually a sandbox mode (the author calls it free-roam mode) after a quite lengthy VN-style prologue.