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“Pimp.” Obviously the game is as it sounds; you play as a pimp. Sadly the demo is extremely short, and doesn’t seem to hit any features… to be honest I’m not sure why such a small demo was uploaded; it might have been better to wait until later and finish some content, and then upload a demo.

First let me point out all the bugs. The tutorials are “bugged” so to speak. For learning about the suppression skill, I can’t use it. I went to the skill in its menu and tried to use it but can’t. The items tutorial also lacked content; you talk about the different items but you don’t give the player any items to experiment with… you should reconsider. There’s also a bug when you enter the police station; you first enter and tell the guy to let you pass. But, when you return, and tell him let you pass so you can leave the building, he moves, but then you can’t move. The hero’s movement is stopped, and you can’t do anything. Also, to get to the area where those cars are, there’s only one teleport all the way to the left of the street.

Gameplay:

Well the demo was relatively short, there were no puzzles to speak, at least I don’t think there were, and there weren’t any battles aside from the beginning tutorials. So there pretty much isn’t any gameplay at all except for the tutorial battles. Those are relatively interesting and informative, straight to the point. Although, I really wish you could have possibly waited and created more content before making this demo, it would give me more to critique on.

Graphics and Mapping:

Some of the mapping is done quite well. There’s some custom sprites such as the pimp, as well as interesting maps like the city, which gives a realistic feel. Although some maps seem to lack a little aesthetics. The city for example doesn’t have a whole lot decorating it; then again I don’t really know what you could add to make it more interesting…

One thing I should mention is the text. I appreciate the fact that you tried to make your own font, I really admire this fact. But it seems the font isn’t too legible or easy to see… which is… well an important factor of font. I gotta be able to read it. So maybe you could change it? Oh also, I noticed with the street lamps, the upper part of them don’t seem to be passable… of which you’d think they would be. You should make all but the bottom chip of the street lamp passable and overlap the hero; it would work better in my opinion.


Music and Sounds:

I don’t have much to say on this either, though I never really did in most my other reviews. Despite their large size, the music is good. It fits the scene. I guess those other mp3’s could be effective too if used appropriately. Although, I think I only ever heard one song play. Seeing how the demo was only like 10 minutes long I guess it makes sense, but I hope you’ll implement more songs in other places. I didn’t hear a whole lot of sounds, which I think was fine since I don’t think you really could have implemented any; maybe some background noises of cars honking or something would be cool.

Atmosphere and Setting:

One thing I liked that was “atmospheric” was the little intro. The fact that the pimp is talking to obviously one of his “workers” and how he tongue lashes her very easily gets you into the mood of the game and makes you feel that the main character is pretty bad ass. Other than that, there isn’t a whole lot that adds to the atmosphere aside from the city graphics and the music.

No information at all was provided about the setting or the world. I think it would be best if you could at least give the player some sort of insight as to what the world is like and what’s going on, so that they know what type of people are in it. You have a city chipset, which clearly shows that the world is somewhat modern, but how modern? What time/year does the game take place? You need to elaborate more on the setting.

Story:

There doesn’t seem to be any story aside from the rather short intro, which was an interesting piece of work. The little intro shows the main character, and shows that he is a pimp; I actually thought this was interesting, no lie, what with his swearing and attitude it shows you that, he is indeed, a pimp, and this is his line of work. But, after the scene there’s nothing else. Although it’s obvious to find out where to go, you need to guide the player, tell more about the story, what’s going to happen, explain about the world and stuff like that.

Okay, so I enter the city and I see this npc, I try talking to him and I pay him no mind since he seems useless. So I check out a nearby building. I enter this building with a path that’s blocked by this dude. I get past him and walk around; I find there’s nothing to do. So I leave. Next I get onto this roof of a building, and I find this guy there. Apparently he sells things… on a roof of a building. Can you at least explain why he’s selling stuff up there etc? Aside from that, there’s nowhere to go on the roof.

I decided to go back to where I was, and take the other street. I get this weird message “I should follow that fool in black.” I liked the actual little foreshadowing and insidiousness right there, but some flaws. What guy in black? You mean the one I didn’t pay attention to and thought was useless? You should have made a cutscene when you enter the city stating that the pimp has seen the guy and should follow him, and then block off all the others where you don’t want the hero to go with the message “I should follow that fool in black.” That would be more appropriate I think.

So anyway, I restarted the game and followed him this time. I followed the guy into an “abandoned warehouse” and noticed there were some stairs. I tried the stairs; nothing. So I decided to go back out. I get this weird message “It’s jammed remember?” No I don’t remember; there was no cutscene, there was no jamming occurring. So I look around for a door or something somewhere that I can use to leave. Nothing. So I had to restart the game. Please don’t let the player enter areas that aren’t finished. This is inconsistent, annoying and obviously doesn’t serve a purpose if the area isn’t done.

One last area I checked; the one with the cars. The cars were nice graphics by the way, although there was no where to go, so I decided I should go back. But there’s no teleport anywhere… so uh yeah. I think there’s much you need to fix in this game, and it mostly concerns what you plan to actually do. I think you need to revise what you intend the game to have and plan where and what will happen, because there’s nothing to do in this demo, and this makes the demo practically pointless.

What I liked: I liked the concept that you were a pimp; a lot of potential to go in terms of the story and whatnot. I also liked some of the ideas you implemented into the battle system such as that whole suppression fire thing; even though it’s just really a common status effect, the way you displayed it made it seem much better than it really is.

Closing Statements: I think this game has a lot of potential; it’s just that nothing at all has been revealed about it yet. I think maybe you should make content first before making a demo, this way people will have something to critique and comment on.

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