Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to be a Baron of Hell vying for supremacy in the infernal pits of damnation? How about being a general manager at a retail store? What does the latter have to do with the former? Why, they're practically identical.

It's 5:45 in the morning. Your shift begins in fifteen minutes. Getting there on time will require you to take a wet-wipe bath, down half a bottle of Niacin, slam a Monster Ultra and speed the entire way to work in your 2005 Ford Fusion while blasting Papa Roach's seminal hit from 2000, "Last Resort". That ♥♥♥♥♥ Carla has been stirring up drama and went over your head to complain to the regional without observing the chain of command — looks like someone just acquired open availability on their weekends. There's a promotion available in the Twin Cities that you really want, but you're pretty sure that the brown-noser who hand-makes posters for store fundraisers is going to get it. Thankfully, you've got the ace-in-the-hole in knowing that she's been sleeping with her subordinates — and more importantly — the texts to back it up. Promotion secured. The day will run smoothly as long as the homeless people don't ♥♥♥♥ in the public bathroom's sink again. You don't get paid enough for this. You still have to find a babysitter for Friday so you can go to court and press charges against the crack head that was trying to steal condoms at 2:42 in the morning and assaulted you at the register. Thank God for CCTV.

One day it will all be worth it. All the blood, sweat and late nights binge drinking alone in your car while doom scrolling Tiktok and daring to dream of a better life beyond the 9-to-5. One day you'll break the cycle and avail yourself of the chains of post-industrial indentured servitude. You can dream beyond the borders of your squalid Dollar Tree for the pristine, Swedish, Elysium fields of an IKEA.

My brother in Christ; you know whether you're going to buy this game or not. You see the hexagons. You see a polished UI. You see animated, lovingly crafted avatars for the principle personalities of Hell. You've been promised subterfuge, politicking and conquest. You already know. If you need the last little push, then fine; here it is:

Buy the game.

It's good.

Your objective is simple: entertain the bag-of-cats known as the Conclave of Hell enough to win their support to become the new Dark Lord. The Conclave is responsible for the myriad of byzantine rules, regulations and forms that make up the bureaucratic viscera of Hell. Getting anything done is similar to trying to get Comcast to give you an extension on your bill only with slightly less threats to your family.

Wars are short affairs known as Vendetttas with clear objectives - kill that army, seize that place of power. It's essentially the same as having a brother or sister. It's your turn to play Playstation but your weasel sibling woke up earlier than you believing that, that entitles them to the game. Show them how incorrect they are by faking a medical emergency and making it look like they intentionally poisoned you. You now not only get a controller, but a couple days off from school while your beloved kinfolk face criminal charges until the cops untangle your web of lies. Hug it out a couple days later because ultimately you share the same house until you're legally responsible for yourself and let's be honest; in this economy, the likelihood of sharing the house after your parents are dead isn't 0%.

Build an army and conquer the ash-blasted vistas of Perdition. Or use that army in Theodore Roosevelts wet-dream of gunboat diplomacy by constantly demanding things from your adversaries fully-well knowing that they're going to cave or face the wrath of your legions. Erode the foundations of your opponents economy with rituals and intrigues. Constantly make fun of Beelzebub's stupid hat and force his hand into declaring a Vendetta against you so you can humiliate him further on the fields of battle. Go full war criminal and do something so heinous that even the politicians in Hell find you repulsive enough to kick you out of the Cool Kids Club, stripping you of your protections and more importantly, your need for their superfluous rules and regulations. With the same determination and knowledge of impending self-destruction as a man planting lawn ornaments onto his yard in front of the HOA President, you sally forth into a new world and shape it in your image - no Gods, no masters. Become the Morningstar.

The game is deceptively simple, but without sacrificing depth or choice. The order economy makes each decision feel meaningful and keeps you wondering whether you made the best use of your actions. I hired a deadly Praetorian and constantly challenged my rivals to duels, with nearly all of them declining to participate for fear of losing their precious Praetorians to the killing machine I selected as my champion.

Sure, it could use a little work. Some additions to the Encyclipaedia Infernum to clear up some of the finer mechanics like dueling. Some people don't like the models for the Archfiends - I'm fine with them. Sure, if they had gone with a less stylized and more realistic approach it would have better fit the gorgeous artwork - but it's completely serviceable. The AI doesn't appear to be able to play the game very well at this point in time. Having to combine currency is a small bit of tedium that they added to basically make unlocking certain things take two turns and is easily the most mystifying part of the gameplay. But there's a lot of charm, heart and love here - as you often find nestled within the most forgotten of places. I am sure with time, further development and content it will iron out some of these wrinkles and go from a 'good' game to a 'great' game. Oh, hey - and the game actually works the day it came out. Isn't that something?

You really only have to ask yourself the following: Wouldst thou like the taste of butter? A pretty dress? Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

I guess it doesn't really matter if you buy the game or not. Given the trajectory of world events we'll be able to play this in real life in a couple months as we're all sloughed off the edge of oblivion and into a lake of fire of our own making while the monoliths of our shattered world topple and crumble to dust, heralding the arrival of The Great Dragon in the twilight of our species.

Have fun!

EDIT: Regrettably, the studio didn't recoup their finances and have basically gone into "contract for work" mode. I have never personally see a studio recover from this moment, having seen at least four do this and never pull back out. RIP. It was a good game and a fine studio.

This game sets critical feminist theory back several decades and I'm here for it.

You play some wimpy looking twink slinging an absurd slab of meat that flies in the face of the Geneva Conventions. I presume that's why you're in some banana republic where international law can't hold you accountable for your indiscriminate use of a weapon of mass destruction. Have you ever seen the movie "Porky's?" Of course not; you're a zoomer. If "Porky's" was a person, he'd be the protagonist. Peepin' on babes. Forced innuendo. His dong leads him through the world like a blind man's cane. He's obnoxious and full of himself, but occasionally he'll surprise you. Example. At one point he's like, "Yeah, I'm trying to bang you but you're also super smart and I bet if you apply yourself you'll show up your old man one day." Or there's this time he really upset his friend and he gives her a nice comforting hug — only to immediately ruin it by whispering, "YoU cAn CoME tO mE fOr SEx aDVIcE ANy tiMe aNd IT wiLL bE oUr liTTLe sEcrEt ;)". Did I mention that he wants to be a treasure hunter like his dad, Idaho Johnson? DOCTOR Idaho Johnson? Doc Johnson? Yeah, that’s the sorta game you’re playing.

Along the way you meet your future harem. There are 12 of them. Some are more memorable than others. I’ll give you an introduction to a few.

Alia: Alia is an entire sorority packed into a single person, complete with experimenting with girls and an inability to complete tasks more complicated than basic functions like breathing and blinking. Naomi’s daughter. Slender, dark-haired and olive-skinned.

Naomi: Naomi is to chastity what the Spanish were to the Mesoamericans. Her entire character is summed up when she proudly proclaims “I want to share your ♥♥♥♥ with the world!” with the same energy Moses delivered the ten commandments from atop Mt. Sinai. Alia’s mom and Sam’s wife. Busty, mature, brown-skinned and dark-haired.

Diana: Diana is what you imagine happened to Lara Craft when she got older. Or Angelina Jolie, for that matter. Your body isn’t what it used to be, your opportunities are drying up and your debts are being called in. Soon you find yourself doing things you never thought you’d do, like selling precious artifacts on the black market or marrying Brad Pitt. Comes in two flavors: librarian and jumanji expedition. Black hair, pale complexion and athletic proportions.

Pricia: Pricia is a love letter to Asian culture. I knew that I was going to get a nuanced and thoughtful portrayal of the struggles of a first generation South East Asian attempting to assimilate to their host country the moment she said “NO HAPPY ENDING FOR BAD TIPPERS!” Looks like Connie Chung. It’s okay if you don’t know who that is - I’m old.

Emily: Emily is an heiress to a vast fortune and like any rich kid she’s trying to crawl out of the shadow of her dad. She’s what would happen if Walter White was a hot chick who sold molly. She’s literally wearing the outfit from Brittany Spears “Hit Me Baby One More Time” music video. Sandy blonde hair in a cute perm, tight butt, small chest and white. The gentleman’s choice and the closest you'll come to the patricians choice of DFC + Wide Hips combo.

Tasha: Tasha is what happens when you get tattoos while you’re drunk. And that drinking started at 13. And continued until your liver was on the verge of failure or were convicted of vehicular manslaughter. She’s what every biker wants before they settle for a haggard, middle-aged woman with more lines on her face than a topographical map of a canyon. She was probably super bummed when Live Journal stopped being a thing. Red head, tattoo’d, buxom… look, you know the type. Super tsun-tsun.

Sam: You don't screw Sam - at least not physically. Sam spends every day of his life making Beef Jerky while his wife flagrantly has affairs with younger men. Sam worries about patching up holes so his family doesn't hurt themselves while the dashing young adventurer ♥♥♥♥♥ his daughter in the next room. Sam hates social functions; but Sam loves his family. The world has set upon this man every conceivable hardship and he endures for the sake of his adopted daughter. When this great wicked world is at last swallowed up by whatever eldritch horror emerges from the collective stain of our souls, Sam will be spared. Sam is an idyllic anthropomorphic representation of the Christian virtue of suffering in stoic silence. Sam is the indomitable will of the human spirit to survive. Sam is all of us. God bless you, Sam.

There’s more. A lot more. You can tell the developer really loves MILFs. But thankfully there are some low-fat options, too. There’s a pretty good spread of fetishes on display here. Hotdogging, thigh-jobs, arm-pit jobs, anal, facesitting, oral, multiple partners, creampies, voyerism, exhibitionism, ♥♥♥♥ worship, mutual… you know what, this just sounds like an RP profile on Fur Affinity. There’s a lot to make you happy. Or unhappy. Or maybe you don’t feel anything because you’ve been playing porn games so long the dopamine receptors in your brain look like German harbors at the tail-end of WW2.

The animations are very good. At first I thought they weren’t. They only consist of a couple frames. They’re not as smooth as some blender / sfm stuff out there - but they are detailed, and the girls rarely make faces or expressions that are alien or serve as nightmare fuel. Stuff looks suitably drippy. Breasts bounce. The girls look as good as this style of animation can - that is to say, that odd uncanny valley where everyone sort of looks like a barbie doll. But they're pretty! The SFX are a bit low-quality and what little voice acting is serviceable but not remarkable (Clare stands out as pretty good, as does Emily).

My main complaint is that as the game goes on it becomes clear the girls suffer from homogeneity when it comes to their sexual identity. All of them are up for anal, girl-on-girl, ♥♥♥-swapping — they exhibit no strong likes or dislikes. The problem is further exascerbated when the sex dialogue all starts to bleed together and the girls feel like they're part of a hive-mind controlled by an AI algorithm that generates Brazzers scripts.

Let’s talk about the game. You can spend a lot of hours on it. But make no mistake - it’s padded. There is a TON of backtracking. It’s a point and click adventure. Thankfully the dev appears to know you’re not here for the story and gives you a ‘Soul Crystal” that tells you what to do next. Mad-man logic only shows up in the optional Ancient Temple puzzles. ♥♥♥♥ those things.

As you progress you can spend all the money you got from selling vital, ancient artifacts of a mysterious culture to the CEO of Hobby Lobby on upgrades to your house. Upgrading your house impresses babes. Impressing babes lets you get them into your bedroom to use collectible Karma Sutra pages, which are basically extra sex scenes that have no dialogue or context (appropriately called “Booty Calls”). It would be cool if there was some writing for these, but there isn’t. You find new equipment as you adventure. Most of them either let you get past obstructions or make the grind for treasure less painful. My advice is advance the story quickly as money becomes more plentiful later. Or just cheat.

Look. I’m a simple man. I see booba; I like booba. As long as you’re here for “PLOT” and not plot, I think you’re going to like what’s here. Watching this guy conduct his love life is like bearing witness to a war crime - an endless stream of depravity and thoughtless self-indulgence that eventually consumes Cape Vedra whole. There comes a point where any loving God would blast the island to salt to save it from its own degeneracy; but He sits in silent inaction as the inhabitants tumble into a vortex of debauchery rivaling even the most blasphemous bacchanals of Pagan, blood-soaked Rome.

It’s worth $15. Emily is best girl. I can’t stop busting.