Once a Porn a Time

I play it for the story line I swear.

EDIT: IT was a bug that has since been patched. Good times. The game can be a bit grindy, but for those looking to fool around with classic princess characters in a fantasy-themed Westworld, it's worth it.
OLD REVIEW: When I pay for a game on Steam, I expect to be able to play the WHOLE game. I get to the end, just before the coronation, then I get a box saying 'The Coronation is for Patreon Patrons only' or some such nonsense. I PAID for this game, why is there a patreon lock on this version of the game? Not Recommended.

First and foremost, it's important to note that I played the entire first chapter when it was available on other platforms. Therefore, my playtime on Steam doesn't reflect the total time I've spent on this game.
Now, about the game:
While I'm not a die-hard fan of erotic and sexual games, I've tried quite a few. The ones that stand out to me are those that offer more than just a generic porn session.
This game doesn't have voice acting. It doesn't have highly time-consuming and costly 3D animations or a leveling system. Because, in my opinion, this game doesn't need them. I'll just nuance here: there ARE animations. The whole game is in this cartoonish 2D design, which I love.
Games from this developer have always made me smile at situations or worry for certain characters. I've always enjoyed learning more about them, and it has never felt "forced".
Let me explain.
Many erotic games have a sort of "attraction bar" that you have to fill by interacting with the character, which means you can choose a character to seduce first. This game is more linear, but that gives it the strength to focus on better dialogue writing and allows for references between characters.
Moreover, I've played games that were just a scrolling text in situations with occasional 3D animations, where the player's choice is somewhat (or not) important. Like the games Walking Dead or The Wolf Among Us. A good example of this type of game is "Ripples" (note: I'm not knocking it, I appreciate the effort of the story, on the contrary). Once a Porn a Time as a game, despite its linearity, still allows you to see several different characters per day, and has mini-games to earn in-game money, providing a semblance of gameplay.
Some might say it's boring, but I find that it gives a more active sense of reward to farm occasionally to get something. Not in an obsessive way, but you will spend two or three in-game days (so about three minutes in real-time) playing the mini-game to have enough to buy components.
However, the heart of this game is the effort put into the dialogue, as you start to appreciate the characters for who they are, rather than simply as "targets" to seduce next. Sure, that's the case at first, but as you learn more, you become interested in them. And even if they're still a "target"... you start to care a bit more.
I find it to be a good, well-balanced game, so I've placed it at the very top of my list of erotic games. I recommend it.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☑ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☑ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

Important thing to note about this game. At present (September, 2023), this is Chapter 1. There is more to come and that will eventually come to Steam, but it looks like it will be a sequel (judging from the patreon which is referring to current development as "Once a Porn a Time 2". THAT SAID this game does have real conclusion to all of the "corruptible" characters it introduces and I find it to be a satisfying experience while leaving you with the understanding there will be more to come.
About the game as a whole and the plot... The description does a pretty good job, but to quickly summarize- you've crash landed on a seemingly empty planet, turns out, it is Westworld with lots of fairy tale androids but was abandoned for lack of popularity due to the creator's strict censorship (i.e. no sex or sexual activity of any kind). You work with the former CEO's assistant who was left behind and a handful of others you meet to "corrupt" the various characters in the park to greater deviancy with the goal of re-opening the park for massive amounts of money. All of the characters in this game other than you (including the co-workers) are female. You can guess where that leads.
In terms of the gameplay, this is mostly a text game with a few choices and point and click elements. It is VERY low stress, you can save tons of times at any point you want and even in the flow of the game. You can go back and forth to see different answers/reactions (potentially all of them in a single play-through). The game strikes the balance of being very forgiving without being annoyingly obvious/easy.
In terms of progression, typically you meet a character, they start out either naive or hostile with serious boundaries that are slowly broken down through a series of quests/acts. Many of which consist of buying/creating new and increasingly revealing dresses. Some of the later characters move a little more quickly so as not to slow the story down too much whereas others (Snow White, the first character you meet) felt like an Odyssey to get over the line (but in a good way).
The only downsides in my opinion... the engine can be a touch clunky at times where things don't ALWAYS highlight when you're hovering over them (they do always respond to what you actually clicked on, I never had a mis-click) and occasionally there are typos but honestly, I barely noticed. For the amount of text in this game (and the size of the team working on it), it's kind of miraculous there are not more. There are also points where it becomes a grind, but I found turning on the cheats (which you can do in the store interface) solved anything I ran into in terms of resources quickly. I don't recommend abusing the cheats, just using them to make the grind a little less tedious. Some people don't like the manual drone mini-game but just do it every cycle. A lot of good things come from it.
Obviously, this is an adult game with hand-holding galore, but it is honestly pretty well written, enjoyable and funny. It is sexy and kinky without crossing the line into gross at any point. I've completed the main story line (as it exists) but I will be going back to a few previous saves to try and collect anything that I missed and to experience some fun parts of it again.
To me, this game is a little like your favorite sitcom... after a few hours, it becomes comfort food where you go to work every day with co-workers you look forward to seeing and a job you actually like. There's a joy to it and, at certain moments, it feels a little wholesome without straying away from the stuff you came for. It's just WAY more perverse than anything you'd see on network television.

This was a lot of fun. Good humor. Writing was solid but lacked grammar and clarity in some places.
Biggest issue - and this seems to be a relatively common problem among 'crowd-funded' (e.g. patreon) AVNs. The early portion of the work seems full, vibrant, and full of promise. Then, suddenly at about the 50% mark, the content and 'fullness' of the game drops significantly.
In the case of this game, that translated to suddenly there being few things to craft and a number of 'skip' days as you just tried to grind currency. There were fewer characters, fewer scenes, etc.
It's almost as if the devs got to a point where they realized they needed to eek out a finished product or their fans were going to get surly. So, instead of continuing on pace and making each moment feel full, they started to rush.
All that being said, this game is good and is worth the price. I was pleasantly shocked. The visual art is great. I think one guy said that he was into 'games not art' and so he didn't give it a thumbs up. But that's pretty dumb when a large portion of a visual novel's quality is determined by the 'art.' Cause it's visual. So don't be like that guy and make sense, instead.

Wait ... This isn't dreamlight valley?