Ruler by Default

* A free key of the game was given to me. Even so, that didn’t affect my opinion of the final product.
Ruler by Default is a medium length visual novel with fantasy, comedy, and drama elements developed by Pistachi Studio. It tells the story of a young nameable protagonist that one day finds himself being transported to another dimension, and once he's there, he ends up being crowned as the new Overlord of that foreign kingdom.
It's a simple plot yet it works fine since the story is well-written. There are five romanceable heroines: Mori, Summer, Elincia, Miyuki, and Rhoslyn. My favorite character was Mori, her route was very good! According to the developers, a new route will be added soon, featuring June. There are multiple endings, at least two good endings per heroine. Once you've reached all good endings of all girls, their images will unlock in the main menu of the game. There are a lot of bad endings though, making it necessary to save your progress with frequency. I also missed an in-game list of endings, to know which ones are still missing for me to get.
All heroines are very charismatic, and it was pleasant to read their routes and interact with them. Speaking of routes, I've noticed some bugs in this visual novel: on Summer's route, there are various sprites missing, so we get an error message in-game often. Same with Miyuki, but a bit less. Happens in Rhoslyn's route too if I recall correctly.
I personally liked the art style. It's a simple one, but it's cute and it fits in the story. The BGM is also pleasant, but I must say that it felt very repetitive after a while. Also, it took me ten hours approximately to read all routes and reach most endings. Like I said before, an ending list would be great here since there are over forty possible endings according to the developers.
7/10. I recommend getting this visual novel if you're looking for a well-written story with good characters and fun dialogues/situations. For its current price tag, this game is actually pretty good and offers a lot of gameplay time.

I've played quite a few VN's, since I like a story which can help the imagination along with character imagery and scenery for backgrounds.
At first, I wasn't sure what to expect, and if I was blatantly frank I wasn't sure I'd like the art style or the storyline much because I had the bias of coming from super-high-budget games... But I'm happy to say that feeling went away pretty fast.
The artwork is surprisingly charming, you can tell each avatar and scene was made to detail and with care to convey a character or setting, instead of just copy+pasting 3 avatars over and over like some I've seen, so it's very well done!
The story is also amazing, too many people go in looking for 18+ content or eye-candy moments, but this VN actually makes you (or me, at least) care about what the characters are up to, why they're different from one another, and fuels curiosity into how they fit into the story.
The routes are all so unique as well, each story has something you will likely not expect!
As a tabletop GM, I actually found it like I was playing through someone else's RPG in a sense... Decisions don't feel hollow (you can tell one or two are fixed, despite your choices) and the story really does change depending on what you choose to do. For the price, this will kill a few hours and entertain the whole way, I absolutely enjoyed it, and plan to continue.
TL:DR section
Pros:
+ Unique artwork, not too many recycled avatars like some VN's, characters all have unique appearance and charm
+ Good soundtrack
+ The dev's have an excellent sense of humor, it's not often a VN gets a laugh/chuckle from me as often as this one did
+ Characters are all unique, have surprises you won't expect
+ Good story length... Long enough to be interesting, short enough not to take weeks to play through
Cons:
- Some bugs here and there (history error, very rare avatar MIA), but I'm sure patches will solve this (not a complaint as much as an observation)
- An occasional typo (self-admitted grammar fascist, but see above point about patches)
- Still haven't been abducted to this game's world yet

This game went through an extremely turbulent development process and that definitely left its mark - there's a lot of minor errors throughout the whole experience and tons of leftovers from removed dating sim mechanics (like non-existent skill checks and flavour text about stat gains). It does, however, offers some great storytelling and characters that really made me look past most of those faults. Even the art, while simple, was very nice too look at and the sprites were very expressive, giving a lot of personality to the whole cast and the music was very pleasant to listen to.
The main thing that made this game special to me was Mori’s route. While I enjoyed all the other characters, the writing and execution of her story were absolutely brilliant, from the first encounters to the both positive endings. Everything else was still pretty solid, but usually didn’t even come close to the enjoyment and emotional impact of that one story-arc. To sum it up though:
Pros:
+ Great cast of characters
+ 5 distinct romance routes
+ Good comedy
+ Great emotional moments and (tame) romance
+ Appealing art and music
Cons:
- Routes vary when it goes to writing quality
- “Evil Overlord” theme is mostly just used for comedy
- The protagonist is sometimes too dumb/naive
- A lot of small bugs
In the end, this was a surprisingly enjoyable game, offering a lot of quality content. For 10$ it’s an absolute steal and I hope that the developer will be motivated to fix the minor issues plaguing it – and, especially, ad a full character route for June – I would definitely be happy to pay for it as a DLC, if that’s necessary to make it happen.
Please, buy this game if you can and support the team that made it happen against all odds – they really deserve some recognition and reward for years of work that apparently went into this project.
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PS If you're interested in more quality western VNs, check out my curator page.

After playing Cristalline and Assendant Hearts I was looking for any more Isekai (Differant World subgenra) stories. I came accross 'Ruler by Default' whlst going through a list of vissual novels in the steam store and I am very glad I did.
While it can't boast the production value of games like Cristalline, or Nekopara it still exceeded my expectations. The characters may not be animated, but each one has more poses and expressions then I was expecting. The soundtrack may not be memorable, but it fits with the story and enhances it apropriatly.
'Ruler by Default' gave me exactly what i was looking for. A fun and funny story with a number of differant routs. I have very much enjoyed it, and would recomend it to other borderline western otakus.

I don't play many visual novels or dating sims, but I gave this one a try and I'm really glad I did! I haven't run every path of the story, so I can only speak to about two and a half-ish different runs' worth of content, but so far stories have been engaging and the characters fun and friendly. It reminded me of Arcade Spirits in that some of the paths seem more geared toward general friendship or finding your place in your life in the odd world that you're in. Unlike most other games I've played like this, the game almost takes a "Choose Your Own Adventure" path that allows you to just focus on the story line of one character at a time, or to diversify your approach with the limited time that the game allots for you. I think the closest analogue to something like it I've seen is Long Live The Queen, only here you pick who you spend time with rather than what classes you pursue.
For a few quick pros and cons...
PROS
-Great story arcs and fun characters
-Multi-tined story progression allows for quick dives into the game.
-Varied endings, with different story paths allowing impacts in others (not sure how deep this system goes yet)
CONS
-A few grammatical issues here and there.
-At a first glance, some of the story progressions appear to assume that you've gotten a certain distance in some others that you might not've. Summer's arc kicked off with a feat of magic that didn't quite seem to fit the general level of magical ability the rest of the story implied was available, though on a replay while looking for alternate paths through Summer's arc it didn't seem quite as off to me.
-The visuals for the "scene selection screen" every new week don't quite match the rest of the game in a way that was initially jarring. It's not bad, but I wasn't expecting the character designs and backgrounds to suddenly shift, and it took some getting used to.
-Broke my heart with, like, three different Summer endings, and then revealed that the game merely considers those to be Neutral endings instead of Bad endings, so now I'm terrified.
All in all, it's a fun little set of stories.

Well worth the time.
It might be a small studio, but you can tell a LOT of heart went into this game. I just finished playing through the Mori route (and seeing all the different endings), and I can't tell you the last time I got this attached to a VN character. There's just an unbelievable amount of charm, humor, and empathy.
Looking forward to digging back in and seeing all that Summer, June, Miyuki, and others have to offer.

It was really cute, I was worried that the writing was going to be overly sexual and cringy but i was surpised by how nice it was. I'm glad I backed this project so long ago! While the routes are rather simple I found the characters very cute ^.^