Infinite Game Works Episode 0

Like other people already said: the story had potential, but it feels unfinished and the gameplay has issues. I found it very easy to do the tasks, there was no challenge at all. Also, the interaction part with the girls felt so shallow. I hope that the gameplay will improve in the next episodes, because really, there’s not so much to do even tho the characters are making a game.

Oh, and the art style is quite pretty. But the BGM is annoying, I had to turn it off because it’s basically the same song over and over again…

3/10.

Good game but quickly became repetetive. Very easy to finish a game in a quarter of the time, very easy to reach any monitary goals.

Have some conversations but the gameplay is so repetetive that even playing thru the game once was on the edge of "too much".

Still goto recomend the game though, it atleast earned that.

I was expecting more of a VN and less of a time-management game. While the concept isn't bad, there's close to no character development; virtually all of your time is given to creating your game. The timing and pace of how long it takes to make a game is vastly unbalanced; you can easily get everything to 'amazing' and have nothing to do for thirty more days, and the controls don't allow you to simply 'rest'. With two time periods a day where you /have/ to make a decision on how you spend your time (a 'repeat' button allows you to keep going on whatever skill you have selected beforehand but doesn't work for resting), that means a lot of clicking and - for lack of a better word - busywork. That's about 180 (OR MORE if you've got more than 30 days free) clicks to do nothing. It gets even worse when you've got your girls doing nothing for over a month but still have to shell out cash to keep them on retainer. There's issues with skipping dialogue as well; pressing the spacebar down solidly helps everything go by fast, but it also manages to bypass any crucial decisions you need to make about game aspects and pricing, which can screw you over when it comes to selling games. There also seems to be an issue with how many games you purchase and are able to sell. Even if I purchase an excess of the first game I make, none are sold at later conventions, which makes it a complete waste of money. If the purpose is to have a decent amount of product to sell and keep getting revenue, then why does the game erase any copies I have left over from my inventory?

This game has a lot of issues, and doesn't work as either a management sim or a VN.

As a word of warning for anyone who sees this, let me be clear. I will present what the game does correctly and what they don't. I will proceed to expand upon it in a short paragraph. If you're looking for a seething review that tells you what you already know - not to buy this - I'm sure you can find it elsewhere.

First off, the story is good. It's not the best, but it's not the worst. It has a lot of potential; the execution is the problem. The only issue I see is a bunch of foreshadowing that's never really wrapped up, which would suggest a sequel, and I really hope this game doesn't get a sequel unless it's done MUCH better.

The mechanics are also relatively good, which is to say, they work. There's nothing astounding about them, but, for the most part, they work. However, the fact that they don't have a "rest" button in the main choice menu and that they don't tell you that the lack of an actual "order" button in the "Order Advertisements and Game Copies" are both major oversights, especially considering how quickly you finish a game.

Now, the character development is mediocre at best and almost nonexistent at worst. The two love interests are there only long enough to make the major decisions and develop the relationships as far as you can, then they leave, and next thing you know you've won the game. As for the main character, Justin, it really doesn't take long to figure out that he's your average prickish main character. Normally, a prickish main character doesn't bother me, as long as they're designed properly. However, it becomes increasingly clear as the game goes on that Justin is just an asshat for no reason, constantly complaining about legitimate problems as if he has it so bad making games in his spare time. They drop the O-bomb (orphan bomb) for no reason about a third of the way into the game. Then, out of the blue, he pulls a complete 180 when he kisses someone so he can "be selfish for once" (pretty direct quote). As for the rest of the characters, they tend to follow a pretty similar development, except for the main love interests, who stay pretty constant throughout the game.

I mentioned earlier that it's really easy to finish a project in this game. I was constantly finishing my projects with 50-60 days left, and wound up paying Cleo and Aki for resting. After the first few games, that wasn't really the problem, but it got awfully annoying having to go back to the riverside to rest for a majority of the game. Way too much clicking for 0 progress.

The writing was poorly constructed most of the time and downright irrecognizable at its worst. Like I said, the story was alright until it started getting foreshadow-y, but not for lack of major confusion at what exactly I was supposed to be reading. I'm not sure if this was translated from another language, but it needs to be looked over by someone who actually understands the English language, regardless.

I really hated the scale of the game. You started in a shitty position where spending was frugal, and pretty much doubled your revenue with every release until the end. There was no challenge past not buying too much of something, and it wasn't as if you really had to do much with costs (I got so used to not needing to worry about money that I didn't buy advertising and game copies until roughly a week before a given convention). It goes from selling all of your copies or running out of them early to not having to worry about buying 4,000 copies too many in an instant.

A couple of things about the conventions themselves. First, there are only two advertising options for the entire game, and you can only get up to 0.06 percent attraction rate. Second, you have no way of learning how long a given convention will be. This is what makes me feel, more than anything else, that this game was rushed out before it was finished.

I'm not sure how I feel about the music. It wasn't super annoying, but I turned it off after a while to put something else on in the background.

All in all, this VN feels unfinished. That's all there really is to say. I would not recommend buying it unless it's on sale or the price is lowered by a lot, and you might not want to buy it even then because unless you think you can wade through the mangled English in order to actually find the underlying story, where it exists.

If you want a good VN, look up Dysfunctional Systems Episode 1: Learning to Manage Chaos. It's the best one I've ever played. The story, while episodic, is very self-contained and immersive to boot. The characters are great. I was unable to find a single grammatical error. The music and art style are both stunning (I routinely check up with the artist for new things, and I listen to the soundtrack on a near-daily basis). It's not your typical VN story or feel, but it's definitely the best, from a game design standpoint, I've been able to find, and you can 100% it in an hour or two.

It.... sure is a clicking simulator. Nice idea, nice art. To mujch clicking repeat to make numbers go off, not enough payoff for all of your clicking.

I went for this game after playing the previous title by the same group. That one was rough around the edges, but enjoyable. I had hoped they had learned from it and polished this one up a bit. Unfortunately when I played this one the engine itself was flawed to unplayability- several times I was barraged with scenes from random points on the timeline with no idea what had supposedly happened in the meantime.

What little of the gameplay and storyline I was able to get through sequentially was poorly planed. There is barely any emphasis on character interaction, and the game development that makes up the rest of the experience is tedious and uninteresting.

I sincerely hope that their next project, this title's direct sequel, will 1) actually work, and 2) rebalance the various elements of gameplay. Since they are a fairly new team I will still cheer them on, but I recommend donating the money rather than buying this product.

The game is quite sort, it dont take long to complete, however is was quite interesting and very emotional.

I'm afraid I couldn't get past the ridiculously long narrative, the terrible translation into English, and the fact that the frame sets were all over the place, and the text boxes unreadable. This was a huge disappointment to me and a complete and utter waste of my money.

Well through sheer chance i saw this game at the greenlit-alrdy-in-shop-section and since i like the topic and VNs in general i decided to give it a try.
I shall give you the pro and cons of this game and a Conclusion.

Pro:
- Interesting Characters
- meaningfull choices in the Storypart
- different endings
- Refreshing topic
- nice Art
-insiderjokes about "Fate"

Con:
-only 2-3 musicpieces (really only 3 come to my mind, might be more but only 3 important ones)
-"gameplay" gets too easy after your 2nd release
-no way to forcefully met with the different characters (all in "seemingly" random events)
-short (got through it in 2 and a half hour)
-Only 3 real characters and a bunch of chat-"nerds"
-I was kinds dissapointed with my own ending //spoiler:n0t b313ng ab13 t0 m337 4k1 and 7h3 c1iffh4ng3r 4b0u7 MC//

So did i enjoy this game ? Yes i did, might gonna replay it. (also : GIVE ME THE FUCKING CODE)
Do i want a sequel ? Yes, i would love to have one.
Is it worth the price ? No, w8 for a sale unless you have sparemoney like me.
Who would i recommend it to ? Interesting for you if you like VNs and don't mind a little romance, nerdism or simulation.

I don't even want to go back and look at this game for the "proper" sort of review. So I'll just say this. No. Don't touch. Save yourself some money. Or go to a movie in the theaters.

Just don't. Leave.

Why are you still reading? Get the FFFFFFF--- off of this page and never come back.

Okay, first things first, i enjoyed the time i spent with the game and at a lower price i would reccomend it, however at it's current price, even with the 20 percent off i can't give a good reason to buy it.

This game is a visual novel with Sim elements too it. You're playing a character who makes video games. The problem i find here is that the system is extremely shallow and a lot of things doesn't make all that much sense. The worst offence i find here is that there is basically no challenge to it at all.

The story is mildly interesting, hinting at some bigger plot but is never really fleshed out so that at least i could see where it would go after the story concluded, this could possibly be explained in another route i didn't go through or to be explained in another episode.

The character progression is really akward as it jumps ahead through the very few interactions you get with them and it gets hard to believe their progression from beginning to end. so while the characters and story are what drives you forward, the fall short of expectations in the end.

The game is also quite short for a VN, while i played about 2-3 hours, quite alot of it was spent in the sim part of it, which after the fact felt more like padding to the game than an integral part to the experience. While the game has you set all the characters actions each day try and get the project they're working on finished, you'll quickly notice that you're done way ahead of deadline each time and just skipping along waiting for more of the rare story moments. Considiering the repetetive nature it would have actually been better to make the planning weekly instead of daily, as the Sim part is not worth spending all that time on.

In the end the game feels very unfinished and so i would recommend waiting for more "Episodes" or until the game was polished up before considering buying it.

I bought this game because for $10 I figured I could waste a couple of hours, but it turns out I just wasted $10.

The red flag started when I first booted up the game and experienced no sound. So I went to the preferences section to test out the sound driver using the handy "Test" button, which did absolutely nothing,

Ok, so I figured I'd play without sound, until the game started up and music began to play. Okaaaaay. I have sound now, great. So then I see some horrid 640x480 style windows with absurdly pixelated text. Once again, I look to up the resolution. Nope, there isn't any of that borthersome technical stuff to encuber THIS (horrid) game.

Sigh, Ok. Now on to the actual game play, which is sporadic at best and inundated with an insane amount of mindless clicking of the "Work" (or repeat) button. Basically, it makes a slot machine look complicated in comparison.

The actual story line seems to be a series of sporadic (at best) random encounters with two students whom you eventually hire to help with your computer projects. You get a few basic Visual novel style choices to make, none of which seem to make any difference to the outcome of the (so-called) multiple endings.

I'd continue to beat on this game more, but it's like thrashing a dead horse. Only so much you can throw at it until you are exhausted yourself.

Do yourself a favor, and avoid this game at any price above $1.00.

This game does have its faults and is quite repetitive, but I enjoyed it probably because I've played other games such as this. Eventually you get used to clicking repeat all the time and the system itself wasn't thought out very well, (seeing as how that pencil stick scroll ball needs to be pulled with the cursor) you will lvoe this game 100% [DO NOT] Buy! :D

If you enjoy clicking "repeat" hundreds of times over and over again until in a stupor you accidentally click through the rare plot then this game is for you! Also whoever had the idea to have the scroll bar be a 1 pixel wide green line should PROBABLY RAISE THEIR GAME DESIGN HAHA it's a joke that those of you who are foolish enough to buy this game will get.