HTML - Blue Swallow [v0.7.3] [Blue Swallow]

Blue Swallow is a text-based game that makes all the choices for you.

"But," you might protest, "look at all those choices the game offers you! Ten dropdowns per passage! How can you say it makes ALL the choices for you?!"

And that question can be answered in one word -- "intentionality".

Most of the best character customization in games stems from intentionality. In other words, you have an idea in your mind, and using the tools provided by the game, you shape the desired character out of it. It's how character creation works in pretty much every game.

Blue Swallow tries to innovate on the idea of character creation by taking your "idea" and allowing you to roleplay as that in character creation, shaping your character naturally through the events of the game. It's a neat idea, don't get me wrong, but it completely removes player intentionality and control from the experience. This results in a frustrating experience where you want your character to do something or go in a specific direction and the game just tells you "no".

This wouldn't be so bad if the game was a little more transparent about what your choices actually mean. All of your characters' stats are kept completely hidden from you, including which choices raise and lower what. It turns the intended experience of getting immersed in your character's story to me scrolling directly to the dropdown and trying to mind-read the author to make my desired character.

In conclusion, Blue Swallow is not really a "game". You can "make choices", but at the end of the day, you don't even know what choice you're making, and the whole thing just feels like a crapshoot as the author leads you down what feels like a random path. I think the production value is why this game is rated so highly (4 stars as of writing this), as the game looks very polished and has decent quality writing.

However, I'm giving it one star. Being pleasant to look at isn't enough to save a game that feels like it's lying to you about what it is -- even being interactive. Save yourself some effort and buy a book instead of trying to play this not-so-visual novel.

It’s a common sentiment in this industry, to be fed up with how many of the aspiring projects falter and stumble over the same issues that their forefathers ran into. Surely someone can learn from these mistakes. You can make your own game, with blackjack and hookers. With so many mistakes witnessed and documented over the years, it can’t be that hard to do it correctly now, right?

Right?

Female Agent has rubbed a great deal of people the wrong way. What was once an ambitious attempt to give players a vast amount of customization and freedom in the way that they can tackle the main plot has now been reduced to what is little more than a linear kinetic novel. Blue Swallow aims to rekindle that original vision of FA almost beat for beat. You start off as a child and slowly build your character as you guide her through school and (potentially) college. The oddity here, however, is the dev’s staunch decision to make your stats hidden. While you are told what attributes increase and decrease with every choice that you make, unless you’re keeping track of all of this on paper, it’s rather annoying to gauge what your current build is. Imagine playing Disco Elysium, but you can never access your skills page. It’s THAT baffling.

Another strange design detail is the sex traits that can be chosen twice throughout the current game. It is unknown if these even do anything (outside of exhibitionism), and some of them seem to be entirely moot. You can spec into anal, but the dev himself has stated that there’s no focus on that content as it’s not his kink. If that’s the case, then why is the trait even there in the first place? Even if you don’t want to write about anal, you could perhaps pitch it as a way to reduce the chance of the protagonist getting pregnant by just being a buttslut all the time.

Another fallacy that both games commit is too much of a focus on school life. A big joke about FA in the early days was that it was hyping up this grand spy mission that you were going to attend in Bangkok, and after years of buildup, the rework ripped out everything except the Bangkok mission (thus leading to its current issue with linearity). BS also ends near the outskirts of its main spy plot, and god knows if the same mistakes will occur here.

The only positive I’ll say is that the paperdoll for the protagonist is well done, and the few animations that are currently present are passable. All of the other graphical assets appear to be either heavily filtered stock photos or ai slop. I’d give it another year or two to bake to see if it deflates like Female Agent again or not.

I love text based games and I love female protag games but I can't give this more than 3 stars.

There are some great ideas here and the execution in a lot of ways is impressive.

The main issue is, I was reading through this game for around an hour and, because of the way the game set up, basically none of the characters you interact with are developed.

Because it simulates growing up in so much detail, you get introduced to characters and situations that are interesting and then it just flashes forwards several years to something new until you get to college.

It just kind of feels like your reading the diary of a teenage girl for a lot of it and there is little character development outside of yourself.

The writer of this game is talanted, but in my opinion the beginning should be almost completely scrapped and just jump straight into college after you create your character.

Then it should focus on developing your relationships with other characters and telling an interesting story with changes based on your choices in the character creator.

As, in writing, there are no stakes to stories where a random girl named jessica did x thing. Whereas, if Jessica formed a relationshp with the MC and we got to know her and we got to know the person she was doing x thing with and some of their friends, then x thing becomes an interesting thing to the reader.

Most of this game feels like reading about characters you know almost nothing about. This game really needs some character development.

The title of this games says: "American Spy Thriller", from what I played, there was no spying, or working for a spy agency at all. Maybe that happens later but by the time I got there I was too bored I had to stop playing.

This may come across a bit harsh, as the game is really good in some ways, it's just my opinion.

And, I also think not showing why your character is reacting in some ways is a bit of a mistake. If I knew that a choice I made earlier in the game was affecting the MC, at least I could get a sense of the MC's character development based on my choices.

Also, creating a game this ambitious seems like a nightmare amount of work. The branching paths and dialogue almost have to be puddle deep in order to allow for the developer to have time to complete it.

TL;DR:

Pros:

- This game has some really ambitious and interesting ideas
- The writing of the game is in some ways quite good
- The character creator and "paperdoll" or whatever system looks really nice

Cons:

- Game kinda feels like your reading a teenage girls life story in her diary
- Game doesn't allow you to see how your choices in the character creator affect the MC (other than multiple playthroughs)
- Because of the way the story tries to tell a complicated origin story of the MC, you never develop any relationships with other characters (maybe you do later, but I played an hour)
- Because of the lack of character development, you might read "omg did you hear that Jessica was backstabbing Sarah?" and you either don't know who they are at all or have a very faint idea of them so you just don't care about what's happening.

Really fun concept. The gameplay makes the story feel more consequential, a quality which most nsfw games lack. Beautiful art style as well. Definetly keep this on your radar, that's what I plan on at least.

Well, this feels kind of like a Deja-Vu, but here goes.

The game has TONS of potential. The writing is solid, the developers seem to be very dedicated, and the premise of the game is still as fascinating as it was when "the game that shall not be named" was released 5/6/7? years ago.

Unfortunately playing the game has been mostly a frustrating experience for me. Apparently it is intentional that you play "blind", meaning stats are hidden and you just have to follow your gut. While I absolutely understand the intention and appeal behind this idea, the execution imo is really flawed.
I was utterly lost. I had absolutely no idea what kind of MC I was playing. You can try to play a certain type of character, but chances are you are going down a completely different path without even knowing. On top of that, many paths have VERY strict conditions that make it nearly impossible to find them without looking at the code (which should definitely not be something required of the player).
Combined with the plethora of choices, playing this game can turn into an absolute nightmare.
Also, there appear to be many bugs or the amount of choices is simply so overwhelming that it's impossible to represent them accordingly, but I had several immersion-breaking situations where I thought: "This can't be right."
I feel like "less is more" would do the game a lot of good. Why give the player the option to have an affair with the dad/step dad when you can't deliver and he treats you exactly the same.
Last but not least: We are still in the prologue part, how the actual game will play is still a mystery.

This game is basically basically a what if scenario where a project possesses all the great qualities that one looks for in a NSFW text based game. The writing quality is terrific, with the UI alone being a great indicator for the passion and effort put into this project.

Unlike other projects where the how well you progress in a story is mostly an illusion draped into the flavor text alone, in Blue Swallow your choices and actions truly bring fast and tangible results that reinforces your player agency.

The above mentioned factor greatly reduces the friction in creating a new character or starting a new play through as each runs feel fresh and unique, unlike the repetition and railroaded starts prone to this genre of games.

Seeing the Dev's posts gives me hope that they are grounded in the same reality of us players. They sharing the same frustrations and criticisms we all have experienced with other projects who guzzle funding with little nothing to show for it.

Interesting start. I wish there would be more games like this.. and if there are I have totally missed them... I personally would have wanted more "choices to advance moments" but this was really entertaining and enjoyable.

Game version reviewed: 0.4P Public

I like this game. The writing is believable and good, and the transition within and between scenes are fluid. Overall, the narrative could do more with developing side characters or at least introducing them with a bit more substance. It occasionally feels segmented.

This is the game that female agent once promised to be but has completely deviated from.

8/10 Writing, with solid update schedule and good content makes it a 10/10.

Can easily become a top 10 fav.

Choices seem to have actual different paths which is great, and developer is pretty on top of handling updates and bugs.

Much better than a certain other game that reset it self every 3 months, and only adds 10k words in a update, when a bloody webnovel will update 1-2k words a day straight for 3-4 years. SMH

Almost 6 months since posting and still no sign of the spy component of this story. This is already appearing to be one of those overly-bloated games which is going to take forever to reach any significant level of progress. There's also the plethora of choices given to the player which do seem to have impact (so far) which will likely slow the development down even further than it already is due to having to account for so many variables. On a less objective note, I don't understand and dislike the character development system. I made every choice to shape this character into a totally horny slut, yet she still refused some sex scenes in Africa, despite the implication that it's possible. It doesn't make sense to me at all, and just frustrating given how many choices I have to keep tweeking to try and get my desired result. Ultimate conclusion, game has too much going on and too little control. Based on the description and comments in the thread from the developer this might be what they're trying to convey with their game, but I don't see it having much appeal beyond a niche audience.

Nice game.The various possible routes and influences on the protagonist's personality make the game very interesting. I hope that soon it will be possible to use the skills acquired during the game and that more images will also be added.

This has great potential.

Pros:
- Good update schedule. It has made a lot of progress in a short time!
- Lots of choices. Can pursue a lot of routes. But it's unclear how many of them are truly meaningful.
- Good amount of text. Enough to build the scene but not a wall of text.

Points to improve:
- The avatar kind of sucks and malfunctions a lot. That needs fixing bc it breaks the immersion.
- Replay value is lower than it should be due to how clunky the start is. The opening is fun the first two times you play it. But it would be great to have an "accelerated start" option to just pick the key attributes and get going.

Keep up the good work!

For v0.3.2P
A text-based game with a female protagonist and some paperdoll and scene art. You set up some genetic factors and customize your character and story by selecting behavior and activities at certain milestones (i.e. childhood, highschool, college).

I liked the aesthetic, the *idea* of the mechanics, and the variety of character origin/personality/archetype customization.

The cons for me were that consequential choices were unclear about their outcomes (maybe I was playing it wrong, but I never ended up with the character I was specifically trying to make/be) and, this is primarily a "me issue," but I'm not into games that force hookups on me. All of my playthroughs had trysts either done as cut-to scenes or injected into my character history with no opting in on my part.

Giving it 3 stars, since 2 seems too low, even if I ultimately didn't care for it.

There are a lot of what seem like choices, but if you go against what the base storyline seems to be, eventually you'll just get railroaded into the same final plot point.


A kinetic novel is fine, a kinetic novel with some options is also fine, a kinetic novel pretending to be fully choice driven while constantly trying to railroad you (and eventually, just taking away your choice in the matter and doing it anyway)--- not so fine. Why make me choose 100 different things, if the end result is basically the same narrative?

Just go kinetic and spend less effort on adding superfluous layers to the onion, and more on focusing on the linear story you truly want to tell. This was, in fact, the same exact flaw in the other game that's like this. A bunch of fluff choices that didn't actually change the narrative whatsoever a few pages later.

Well, shamelessly stolen idea, but since it brings back just the part of the original game that was lost there, it fills a long-lost gap brilliantly.

I'm just curious if they'll continue to just steal the ideas or if it will develop into an independent game.
That's also what makes it so hard to give a reasonable rating here. In the end, however, I decided on 4 stars.

As some have already said, it's a robust character creator at this point. And when I say robust I mean the most detailed and intricate i've ever seen. Giving you as many as ten options to describe things like personality traits and background. Will it all mean something down the line? I respect the devs mad dedication to be so thorough but did find myself just clicking through. hoping to arrive at something that felt like a game.

Beyond that, the paper doll avatar is a nice amenity. In the actual game though, there needs to be more pics and gifs. If you love detective, spy games though you probably want to support this.

very good game, highly recommend. Can't help but feel it was inspired by female agent. If thats the case, i genuinely hope the creator has the discipline to keep a consistent update schedule and stick to the original vision

The game is still in its early release. The quality is top-notch, from the customization, to the "lore", to the graphics. I hope it will be continued. It has the vibe of the early "Female Agent", but so far I'm actually preferring this version.

I really appreciate the amount of effort the dev has put into the storytelling, but something about it just feels off. Most of the time I have to read a line more than twice to know what that line is saying. It just seems that perhaps the writing is not as clever as it was in the writer's mind. Other than that, so far I enjoy the premise and the core mechanics of the game.

Updated review for 0.6.2
So, it's been nine months, and while a lot has been added to the game word-wise, its basic problem remains: it is a "spy story" that has almost no spying. The devs actually got the MC started on the spying mission but that lasted ion a few days before the MC "cracked" and gave up. Clearly, the priority would be to fix that (and maybe fix the utterly stupid "test" of the agent where the agency gives the MC, who's never handled a weapon before a live gun with the safety turned off and then had her fire at unknown objects in the air, all while they were in a room in a busy school building) and continue the story, but... nope.

The devs abandoned the story and started adding fluff about the HS life of the character, as though anyone really cared except the devs. The game is more bloated but no more fun. Still can't give it more than three stars.

Sept 2023 review:
Another game design that shows some promise but starts in the wrong place and ends up being just a soap opera about a girl growing up and doing nothing at all interesting. The fact that saves don't carry over just means that a player will have to re-live the entire boring life over and over with each iteration, never getting (yet) to anything interesting.

The problem here is the problem that 90+% of devs make: they want to create an action game, but decide to start it in the most boring place possible, hoping that fans don't drop below critical mass before the devs ever get to the game they actually wanted to make.

The devs would be better off if they just dropped the whole life story part until the meat of the game - the spying - was established and player had a reason to care about the choices in the life story. It's not too late, but I am not hopeful.