Vanilla Villain

Intro

"Vanilla Villain" is an incomplete comedy game developed by four people using RPG Maker 2003 that was created for a contest on GamingW. A contest that was offering up to $450 in prizes and tasked participants to build a game around the themes of pandas, antagonists and a rag tag team. As for why this game was left incomplete is anyone's guess though the in-game explanation seems to be that YDS tends to start a lot of projects, but either never finishes them on time or leaves them on indefinite hiatus.



I suppose in a way that means YDS has a lot in common with mangaka Yukiru Sugisaki whose infamous for leaving her stories unfinished. And for those that have never heard of her before she's behind such series as "D.N.Angel" and "The Candidate for Goddess". The last entry being rather infamous for laying down a bunch of potentially interesting plot threads, but never resolving any of them since Yukiru decided to stop working on the series after completing chapter 26 while the other series went on two lengthy hiatuses that lasted several years. Though at least it was finally completed sometime in 2021. Though, I suppose I'm getting off topic at this point and should focus on covering the story of "Vanilla Villain".

Story
Summary

We play as Vanilla who works for a pair of pandas that produce shady pornography since Pandas need porn in order to get into the mood. The problem is that porn is about to be banned world wide by a hypocrite that's subscribed to at least 12 of their shady magazines. So it's up to us to sneak into this hypocrites house and snag proof of his love of weird porn such as "Ghetto Fab Girls Vol 4" in order to blackmail him into stopping his crusade against the porn industry. Unfortunately the game effectively ends at this point so we'll never know how much blackmail it takes to bring this guy down.

Comedy

I suppose the comedy is largely meant to be a byproduct of just how weird the game is. After all, were playing a girl on a crusade to save pornography so pandas can continue to reproduce successfully. A plotline that sounds like something born out of a fever dream or someone on a high from LSD, a drug that was tested by the U.S. government to see if it could be used to mind control people.

I suppose the porn titles are also meant to be a bit of a joke as well, but we live in a world with porn titles such as "Samurai Sluts from Hell" and "Dick Black the Adventures of the Black Dick". So your going to have to try harder then the developers did to get me to laugh.

Greatest Strength/Weakness

It's pretty clear that were not meant to take this game seriously so it's pretty easy to get into the mood to enjoy this game for what it is. Unfortunately it's incomplete nature also means the story ends in a way that leaves a bitter taste in the player's mouth. I suppose that could be lessened by changing the game's status from complete to something more befitting it's current state such as cancelled or on hiatus.

Gameplay

Oddly enough this game features some run and gun mechanics. This is introduced when we try to use a weird warp system to reach the target's mansion. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective this aspect of the game is incomplete. According to the game your supposed to suffer a point of damage every ten seconds while within the confines of the other dimension your using to reach the target' house faster, but this doesn't actually occur. Of course, you'll still take damage when you come into contact with enemies, but can easily dispatch them with a single round for your gun. And even if you do take damage you can recover by either consuming potions found within the various houses contained within this dimension or by killing five enemies. So it's probably a good idea to gun down the various geeks, stars, and naked people you come across.

Graphics

Graphically the game is pretty solid, but the other dimension contains a few mapping bugs as well as looks incomplete. Though some of this might be by design since the other dimension does contain a few rooms that seem a bit on the trippy side to say the least.

Sound

While the game's title and a decent chunk of it's intro lack music. The overall package once you get past those sections is pretty solid and is probably the best aspect of this project. Though, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised since GamingW was known for it's music back in it's heyday.

Conclusion

"Vanilla Villain" is an incomplete comedy game that has potential in my opinion, but how much potential is unclear. After all, comedy tends to be rather subjective which makes grading such projects a pain in the &^% in my opinion. As for if you should play this game or not I'd generally lead towards no since this project is incomplete and will forever remain in this state. At least that seems to be the case, but if your curious I suppose it wouldn't hurt to play the demo. After all, it only takes around 15 to 20 minutes to get through it.