Ladykiller in a Bind

Ladykiller in a Bind is an interesting visual novel, and a good introduction to BDSM erotica. Its plot is on-the-nose, it has few characters I could relate to, yet I was hooked by the kinky comedic writing and the originality of its mechanics. Here are some of the highlights.
Dialogue options appear progressively throughout a scene, as if the protagonist was coming up with witty comebacks mid-conversation. You get to choose when to butt in, which makes dialogue between three or more characters feel much more natural. The game is also kind enough to tell you when staying silent will unlock further options or attract suspicion.
Options are also prefixed with their tone (Diplomatic, Ruthless, Flirty, etc.), preventing the far too common problem in games like Mass Effect, The Witcher, or Baldur's Gate 3, where you select a tame line only for the character to say something overtly flirtatious or extremely racist. Ladykiller in a Bind goes out of its way to convey exactly what each choice will do mechanically and narratively.
In this game, you play as a girl pretending to be her twin brother. Acting too out of character for him will attract suspicion, and if your suspicion maxes out, the game's over. On the flip side, being especially nice to certain characters can earn your some favours, or votes for the popularity contest you're all taking a part in. The game clearly identifies which options will earn you votes and suspicion, or unlock/abandon a character's route, so it's up to you to decide if you just want to work your way into someone's bed, do anything to win the competition, or just stay out of trouble.
These mechanics tie into the game's exploration of BDSM during some erotic scenes. At night, you can let a certain someone do whatever she wants with you to lower your suspicion, and you can take advantage of a certain someone else to earn more votes. This gives a certain transactional aspect to all the sexual encounters in this game, and exploring how that makes you feel is the whole point of the game.
That said, this game's visuals don't get much steamier than what you see in the trailer. The art is only there to assist the immersion. If you're used to explicit smut made to provide cheap thrills and appeal to the male gaze, you might want to adjust your expectations. Here, it's all about the foreplay, the roleplay, and the aftercare.
PS: I haven't played this game recently, but I figured I ought to write a review for it since it has been sitting in my favourites for a while.

A game where I felt like I was a pawn in a grander scheme of things.
But honestly, what hooked me in was the soundtrack and how... INTIMATE this VN could get.
I did like the resource management with votes and suspicion you had to keep track of, but in terms of difficulty to get the results you would want, it's not that hard. Even a pawn has their moves, after all.
All in all, I'd say it's raunchy with elegance and in my personal experience, had me feeling very strong emotions.
Rich people are the worst lol
Overall, I'd say it's a pretty alright read for my friends who enjoy reading sensual topics with a side-dish of smut.

Ladykiller in a Bind has a lot going for it. It’s got some really interesting characters, a great setting, and an interesting story. It loses a lot of the momentum as it goes though. It is a game that takes place over the course of seven days and it makes you choose how to spend your time on the ship which means on a single play through I not only have to spend time with some characters that I didn’t care about but also couldn’t spend as much time with those I did. For instance my two favourite characters were the Photographer and The Swimmer but you have to choose between them early on so right off the bat I can’t spend time with both of my favourites. I also am forced to spend time with The Hacker or The Beauty each day. I didn’t mind either of them but I enjoyed my time with The Bro and The Lieutenant more. The game does have a lot of customization to it which is nice. You can choose custom nicknames for pretty much every character. You can choose to skip lewd scenes. There was one choice that still wasn’t much of a choice though. There is one borderline non consensual sex scene that you can skip but it still happens because the dialogue afterwards still implies it took place, you just didn’t have to watch it. I would have preferred that skipping it means it takes it out of the plot. The sex scenes in any case are mostly dialogue as there is little but still images on screen and even then many just involve sensual touching or acts rather than full blown sex. Basically if one were to play the game mainly for the lewd scenes they will come away disappointed. Even if you don’t come just for those you still may. By the end I had many questions about just what the overall goal of The Brother was and what role certain people played. They just randomly did things with little to no explanation and then take random potshots at capitalism. The visuals had a pretty good style and the music was decent. The menu system was pretty unique as many Ren’Py games end up with really similar menu systems where Ladykiller went for their own style.
I played Ladykiller on Linux. It had a weird issue where it froze on my three times. If I left it there for about twenty to thirty seconds it would unfreeze on it’s own. This was really strange because I have played hundreds of visual novels over the years and I can’t remember any of them freezing on me, the genre is usually pretty bug free. The game has a manual save system with no save game limit I could tell but you can’t save at any point however it is almost any point. One of the biggest technical drawbacks to the game was the lack of a back button for the text. Basically as the dialogue progresses and you get to make a choice that isn’t the only choice you get. If you let the dialogue keep going without choosing you can sometimes get additional choices but other times you lose the ability to make some or all choices. I really disliked this system. I would have preferred we get to see all choices at once. This way I clearly see what my options and and don’t lose out on any dialogue. This system is especially annoying combined with the lack of a back button I mentioned earlier.
Game Engine: Ren’Py 6.99.6.739
Disk Space Used: 654 MB
Game Version Played: Build 786
CPU Usage: 5-12 %
System RAM Usage: 4.2-5.7 GB
I would say that Ladykiller in a Bind ended up as a good game. It started off great but sadly a combination of technical issues and choices with the weird twists to the story hampered it. The other issue would be it’s current price. It retails for $25.99 plus tax CAD which is pretty high for a visual novel. I finished my first play through in five hours and fifteen minutes. I’d say that the price range of $10-15 would have been better. The length seemed fine as what the game needed wasn’t more content but a more cohesive story and better freedom with what characters you spent time with.
My Score: 7.5/10
My System:
Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Intel UHD 770 | Mesa 23.0.4 | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Trisquel 11.0.1 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.9.5-gnu

Yeah, yeah ... sexy, queer, kinky masterpiece and everything, but can we talk about the dialogue interface?
This is one of the most interesting innovations I have seen in the RPG genre for a while. The ability for dialogue options to appear and disappear as the conversation flows is a little thing, but it makes the conversation feel much more natural than the stilted turn-taking of most RPG dialogue. It provides an interesting choice between interrupting to say something versus letting the other person continue to speak, knowing you might miss your opportunity to say something pithy. A very clever piece of design. I wish more designers would follow this example.

I liked this game a lot. I played this through it four times because I wanted to try different play styles/ choices.
This game draws you into it's quirky story telling and makes tough choices fun.

Genuinely fun! The voting game and trying to keep under cover is such an engaging little bit of intrigue and makes a great backdrop for the zesty stuff. I don't typically play this sort of game, so I expected this to be pretty corny, but it pleasantly surprised me with being well written and illustrated. The song when you spend your night with The Beauty slaps.

the game was pretty fun! 10/10 will play again and make different choices to see what happens.