Forest of Gayblins

Intro

"Forest of Gayblins" is an action RPG being developed by rpgLord69 that comes across as the work of a horny teenager. At least that's how it comes across in my opinion.



And while the dialogue leaves me feeling like if I did a Let's Play for this game I'd need to age restrict the videos. The far bigger elephant in the room is the controls which leave a lot to be desired in my opinion. While I'm aware this is a prototype. There are so many basic issues that need to be addressed in the first two fights alone that I didn't even bother finishing the demo before I decided to write a review discussing it's issues. Though, I suppose I should cover the story.

Story
Summary

You play as Aurora, a newlywed, whose set out to get revenge on Duke Gaylord Rottingham for reinstating the right of the first night in order to sleep with your husband on the night of your wedding. As part of this plot she goes to the lake and asks the fairies to help her so one of them changes her into a spell slinging warrior.



A transformation that just adds to my opinion this game was made by a horny teenager. Though, I suppose this just adds to the well known trope of female armor getting more powerful the skimpier it is. At any rate with our new found power it's time to set out and confront the duke and his hordes of gay minions.

Strengths/Weaknesses

Oddly enough the best and worst aspect of this game's narrative are inherently tied together. This is because the game's constant supply of horny jokes can be amusing if your in the right mood.


How does she know the length of the Duke's penis?

On the other hand it can also hinder it greatly since if your not in the right mindset these jokes will get old really quick due to their juvenile nature.

Gameplay

On the combat side of things the game features at least two combat systems that I'm aware of. And this is already a mistake in my opinion since it means the developer needs to balance two different approaches to combat instead of ironing out the kinks in a single system. A task that would already be difficult in my opinion due to how action RPGs aren't particularly well supported by any of the RPG Maker engines in my opinion. Though even before the first battle we run into a few red flags.


For starters the game has a shortcut system, but this system doesn't assign certain slots to specific letters on the keyboard. Those letters preferably being the home row for the left hand on the keyboard. Instead your able to switch between spells using the the q and w keys or clicking on the spells icon with your mouse.

Secondly you throw spells at your enemies using the mouse which means you need to remove your hand from the arrow keys in order to attack. This is a mistake since enemies in this game can spam long distance attacks. And stopping to attack your enemies is a very quick way to get hurt in a game like this. So it would be far better if you launched your spell via the keyboard. I suppose this would mean you would need to face your enemy in order to attack them so you'd lose access to the ability to sling spells in the opposite direction your facing, but this feels like a price that just needs to be paid. Other wise you'll need to spend a lot of time picking your attack opportunities which would result in battles that would be slower than if they were simply turn-based.

Thirdly the game doesn't give the player access to any sort of melee attack. This is an issue since the player doesn't automatically recover MP.



Instead you need to hit a girl that enjoys being caned in order to get it back which is highly problematic in the middle of a fight since you can't afford to stand around long enough to hit her in some cases. This is especially true if the battle takes place in a narrow hallway like the battle with the gayblins. While it is possible to create opportunities to do this. It requires the player to spend time on drawing the enemies towards the other side of the screen before they can hit her without fear of getting hurt. She also doesn't give the player enough MP back to make this process feel worth it since you only get five MP for every smack. And this just once again adds to the horniness factor of this game.

The second battle system though manages to be far worse. While the first one has issues that could be fixed to a certain extent by just reducing the attack rate of the enemies, taking away their ability to fire long distance attacks, or giving the player MP regeneration overtime. The second system just throws way to much stuff at the player at once. For starters you can't move around in this system and instead need to block an enemies spells using magic. This is problematic since it requires the player to stay focused on the wizard in order to pick the proper spell as well as activate it at the right time for the block to be effective.

Secondly the wizard gets a pair of healing statues that you need to deal with first. This would normally just be annoying since you could just fire spells at them while the wizard is preparing to cast their next spell, but these statues are constantly teleporting. As such you need to actively keep track of them in order to score successful hits on them which means you'll take a hit from the wizard if your attention lingers on them for too long.

And finally if you run low on MP you need to hit a crystal in order to recover MP, but this crystal doesn't just stand still for an easy hit. Instead it's constantly bouncing up and down meaning you need to predict where the crystal will be when your spell gets over there to recover MP. To make matters worse the recovery rate on the crystal is three points which isn't even enough MP to cast a blocking spell. So much like the previous system the MP draining spell is far too weak to be useful. Seriously this MP draining ability either needs to be seriously buffed or the player needs to be given rapid MP regeneration or infinite MP.

Graphics

Graphically the demo is alright, but a lot of the assets are from the RTP. So this game really doesn't have a particularly unique visual identity going for it. Though I suppose this being a prototype means the developer might be using the RTP to provide placeholder assets while he tries to get feedback on the combat systems.

Sound

The game utilizes a few tracks with lyrics. Though, I'm not entirely sure where these songs came from. I know a few tracks in the game's audio folders are marked DLC. So I'm guessing at least some of the tracks come from an online audio pack. The others tend to have such basic names they seem like something you'd probably find in the RTP like Water1 or Town4.

Conclusion

"Forest of Gayblins" is an action RPG that needs a lot of work in my opinion when it comes to it's combat systems. So much so that I'm not sure the developer could even convince me to come back and play the finished version of this game, but seeing as how this is a prototype for a game currently being developed I won't be assigning a score to this project.