#teo talks steamy

[teo-garden-bugs]

Teo Talks Steamy: Aurelia

The Overview

So I’m gonna start this review series alphabetically and just feel my way out from there. That said, our alphabet starts STRONG with Aurelia. Published by Critical Bliss on steam in 2024 and developed by MirthalGames, Aurelia bills itself as a sort of old school visual novel rpg. And at a glance it leaves a strong impression with that via its remarkable spritework.

Gameplay

As mentioned above, Aurelia plays like an old Visual Novel RPG. The bulk of the gameplay is traveling between various beautifully rendered locations to engage in conversations and tasks with the similarly beautifully rendered characters. As you help out the villagers, the large cast of female characters will often pull you aside to reward you by increasing the game’s maturity rating.

Some of these tasks may involve small minigames that incorporate your characters stats which you increase by leveling up or manipulating with temporary single use consumables. For example there’s a siege defense archery minigame that has you defeating swarms of demons for a crafting material windfall the longer you can keep them at bay. The variety of minigames is enough to be interesting but much of their gameplay can be a bit shallow. The exception to this being the Dungeon Crawl.

Rather early in the adventure you unlock a magical dimension presented as a randomly generated dungeon. You travel between rooms collecting treasure and money and “defeating” the various monster girls that accost you. These dungeon encounters account for a large portion of the games H-scenes.

Unfortunately as the game progresses, you’ll max out stats fairly quickly, and the later half of the experience seems to devolve into simply hunting for the last cutscenes for the gallery.

Story, Tone, and Theme

Aurelia begins with your male main character (whom I affectionately named Brick) inheriting a summer house in the kingdom of Aurelia. Soon after he moves in he finds that his inheritance isn’t quite that empty. A runaway witch has been squatting there, and after a brief accident and misunderstanding our generous hero allows her to stay in the guest bedroom indefinitely. With some mutual benefits. From there the game goes on the be about your character exploring the town, building relationships with his neighbors, and discovering some of the more fantastical elements of the world he finds himself in.

The sexual connections of the game tend to be about the female villagers wanting to thank you for your help then establishing that that’s the kind of relationship you’ll have. That said, if you’re sensitive to cheating or NTR themes, the openness of these relationships isn’t necessarily explicit in the text and some characters refer to the MC with a clear passion. Interestingly the dungeon minigame being a magical dimension, the defeat of the monsters in the game is in-universe presented as sort of altering the code of the realm to change their programming and the immediate situation to be horny. There’s no egregious instance of sexual violence I found in my time with the game.

Overall though the writing and story is charming. There’s an interesting backstory to the world and its characters, the girls mostly feel three dimensional, and the variety of situations, archetypes and quests are excellent.

The Porn

The meat I know you’re here for. The porn….

Is good! Before I go into more detail the porn scenes are mostly all straight couplings, with a small number of threesomes and even one small foursome scene I recall. All of which involved the male hero surrounded by sexy women. So if you’re looking for LGBTQ stories, this one probably won’t scratch that itch.

If that IS what you’re looking for the sex scenes in this game are plentiful, varied, and gorgeous. The smut itself is very grounded in the world, with surprisingly little porn logic dictating the story. You’ll see plenty of light BDSM like bondage and some impact play, and all consensual, but it never got harder than that while I played.

That said, the caliber of the porn can be a bit swingy. Some key sex scenes are tremendously gorgeous animations presented in lushly detailed pixel art. Other sort of interim scenes might present themselves as charming animations with a much simpler less detailed palette. And then many of the dungeon scenes are more akin to slideshows. Very pretty slideshows. A change of still frames shifting between different levels of pleasure and messy sex. Given the sheer variety of scenes, situations, and characters present though you absolutely can’t hold that against MirthalGames.

There’s a LARGE variety of monster girls as well (which Im very weak to), with some pretty hot, cute, and funny writing between them but again they don’t really get out of “big boobs and tentacles” territory. Not necessarily a mark against it but if you want eldritch horrors this isn’t it.

Closing Thoughts

I would call Aurelia a must play for those horny gamers reading this. Its strength in presentation, strong visual style, consistent engaging writing, and depth of gameplay should be the standard for any adult game to set itself to.

[teo-garden-bugs]

Teo Talks Steamy: Castle in the Clouds

Overview

Castle in the Clouds was released on steam in 2021, published once again by Critical Bliss and developed by pixel-teishoku and Libra Heart. It follows the story of Lily, a bounty hunter that finds herself in a small village after an incident trying to find a dangerous bandit queen. From there she hears about a lost treasure filled castle in the clouds and the rest is history. It’s a game that wears its inspiration on its sleeve, clearly taking many design cues from old Castlevania titles with a dark palette and metroidvania style gameplay. Once again boasting a clean pixel art style, it sets itself apart thanks to its moody atmosphere which I’ll talk about further in the Story, Tone, and Theme category.

Gameplay

The core gameplay of Castle in the Clouds revolves around its old school Castlevania style action platforming. First starting the game out can be a bit of a hurdle if you aren’t used to old Castlevania mechanics. Such as when starting a jump you COMMIT to that jump. You can’t really back out midair, and if you miscalculated your trajectory to put you on a collision course with some projectile or enemy, it’ll knock your character around.

The game progresses through a central hub village with a few charming conversations, sidequests, and merchants. But when you’re ready to depart, you’ll pick your level from a world map that opens up as you progress. Mostly. There was one instance where a level was locked behind an expensive store item that I had little interest up to that point. I’d not been careful with my money and had to spend a good minute grinding out money in order to advance. (Buy the axe quickly if you play yourself)

The start of the game can be a bit challenging or even frustrating to that end. But if you can stick it out for a bit you’ll fairly quickly start finding upgrades and abilities that make the middle portions of the game a VERY FUN action platformer. With just a few health and weapon upgrades you’ll find yourself blazing through enemies and performing satisfying acrobatic maneuvers across the levels.

That said, as the game nears its conclusion the fun begins to turn downwards again. When a character is so powerful, it becomes a challenge for the developers to make the final stretch appropriately difficult. The last few stages have slogging moments of frustrating platforming and enemy placement. And those final boss battles similarly fail to take advantage of the platforming abilities that you’ve gathered across the adventure. My own playthrough saw me mostly standing still and attacking while tanking the hits against the final boss thanks to my own monstrous health pool.

On the porn side of gameplay, the game smartly decides not to make the heroine fall victim to enemies on defeat as many other games do. The sexual cutscenes are mostly awarded from quest completion or scripted parts of gameplay. Which some interesting exceptions. Some wandering enemies will appear with hearts over their heads. If Lily is hit by these enemies, you do get a sexy animation as they take advantage of her, but afterwards the game continues. Lily gets a stat increase and the sex actually clears enemies from the screen, making these sex scenes essentially bombs that you can use to advance more easily in the game. But if you get overcome by lust, Lily will begin to move sluggishly until she stops mid level to rub one out, leaving you vulnerable for a brief moment before continuing.

Story, Tone, and Theme

The story of Castle in the Clouds has some interesting concepts on paper but ultimately is nothing to write home about. It is very much a title held up by its gameplay. Lily as a main character has little to say for herself over the course of the game. What little she does say though doesn’t do much to inform the player about her opinions on this or that.

What the player can see of the world,however, tells much. The world is not particularly friendly or bright. A pervasive darkness dominates the games atmosphere both through the aesthetic and story. Lily is taken advantage of both sexually and otherwise at a number of instances throughout the game. That said, the writing of these instances doesn’t seem interested in exploring these circumstances any further than just a sex cutscene. For those sensitive, the context is there, but the violence never feels egregious.

The Porn

The porn aspect present in the game is a bit less baked in than some other titles. Lily’s sprite looks fantastic through regular gameplay with her generous proportions. But the actual sexual content is presented at certain moments in cleanly animated cutscene windows. These cutscenes look absolutely gorgeous with smooth animation and smart framing capturing all the fun they want in small limited window.

The content of the sex itself is mostly straight. There are a few instances late game of Lily getting a good close look of other women rubbing themselves silly, but (from what I remember) no actual sapphic animation is present.

As mentioned above as well, there are a good number of these sex scenes involving no or dubious consent. Though the game doesn’t really go out of its way to explore that tone further than surface level. And even then, Lily as a character isnt particularly hesitant to use her body to similar ends elsewhere. Potentially good for those into that but may not be for you if you’re potentially sensitive to the subject.

Outside those, the kinks you can expect to see animated are mostly all vanilla. There’s no harsh bdsm, extreme size play, or anything else of that caliber present. The human sexual partners keep pretty tame outside the issue of consent and an instance or two of multiple partners.

There are a few instances of Monsterfucking throughout the game but mostly limited to slimes, tentacles, and zombies of all things weirdly. I could stand more variety but I’m not necessarily disappointed with what is there. Some of the boss enemy sprites are fairly evocative but don’t get the same cutscene treatment I’d like.

Closing Thoughts

Castle in the Clouds was a fun experience though maybe not one I’d recommend for just everyone. It has some trouble getting off its feet to start, and doesn’t really stick the landing at the end, but the game was very enjoyable as a fun easy platformer through most of the experience. The porn was artfully executed and sexy but not particularly well written or consistent in tone. Truly a mixed bag but a bag I find more interesting for being mixed as I go back to write this. If you decide to see forward I’d love to hear how it’s found through your eyes!

[teo-garden-bugs]

Okay for my nsfw game review series Im thinking about formatting as such:

Overview blurb: talking initial impressions and development quirks may know

Gameplay: self explanatory. The gameplay loop, the controls, level design and other game details

Style, tone, and theming: Art direction, music, story stuff. Is the smut fun and frivolous or are there some more troubling implications to watch out for.

And finally the actual porn element: what kinks does this appeal to. How isthe sex presented. What lgbt options are there and just generally how hot do I personally find it

Then just finishing out with a closing thoughts

All this I’ll be posting under the tag #teo talks steamy

That said I’d like to incorporate screanshots and visuals and what have you. But I’m kinda really not sure how much I can get away witch on tumblr lol