No Trace of Luck

This review is for release 29 (v0.9). MECHANICS The UI is workable and attractive. Spoiler: Details Options are clearly labeled, the text is readable, and the colors won't strain the color-blind. Notifications of success, availability of wallpapers, new actions to take, and available options were clear, concise, and attractive. The game's responsiveness is overall very good. The music suits the mood. The addition of speed boosters to the phone/texting interface showed that the game designer took player feedback to heart and addressed the issue directly. Spoiler: Issues On startup if a smaller monitor (than what standard, I don't know) is detected, the "Small Resolution Detected" message appears and obscures the bottom two controls. Probably ought to place the elsewhere. Also, the game starts in windowed mode but the menu bar isn't accessible in Windows until after full-screen is selected and then windowed mode selected. The game is responsive aside from when loading saved games: it could use a simple "loading" indicator to let players know that the load selection was registered as it just appears to hang for a couple of seconds. GAMEPLAY The gameplay is extremely easy and intuitive. Spoiler: Details The minigame with Lisa was the only place where I felt the need to read the directions. The two forms of poker shown you could figure out after a single hand. Playing poker, on the other hand, could be challenging. However, the workarounds with cheats addressed that nicely and sufficiently in my opinion. It didn't seem to need further balancing. Also, the ability to replay dating questions with feedback about how much you had successfully completed nicely addressed potential player panic. STORY The story is entertaining, after a slow start. Spoiler: Details The player starts out as a bit of a loser fanboy, bullied by almost everyone he encounters initially, but evolves into someone not distasteful to play. However, starting that evolution sooner would probably keep some people playing who would otherwise be turned off by his rather craven behavior. However, the LIs are entertaining (when not being generic assholes) and really bring the story along. By the point where each LI had decided the player wasn't a waste of skin, his dialogue and their behavior were in tune enough that you could look forward to further interaction instead of wondering why he was putting up with them. After that, the player's persona solidified into a kind-hearted smartass and that worked well. The text interaction with Amy felt real and unforced. Also, in the Christmas episode with Ashely, kudos for finishing a story that most people won't think to scroll back and complete. Well done. The story itself is simple and engaging enough to carry the pretty lightweight drama it's given. Not too much, and the lack of worry about sequencing means the player can play without worrying about who to talk to first. The fact that all content has to be seen to proceed is a mixed blessing - I would have ditched Ashely early given the option, and that would have been a shame. Spoiler: Bug The multi-paragraph warning by Pluto showed up early in another LI's text feed. May have been Ashely's. ART The art is well-done AI, and the girls are attractive and wonderfully expressive. Spoiler: Details The art is obviously AI, and continuity issues are there if you look for them (Lisa is the passenger on both sides of the car, for example). However, it's attractive and the girls look great so far. The abundance of renders makes scenes less static, and provides some nice eye candy. Not spending time tuning all of the little details works out by giving more time for making sure the important parts of the images are right...dark silhouettes of one character in particular stood out as quite beautifully-done. ADULT CONTENT Very little thus far, but the story is picking up speed. Spoiler: Details So far it's limited to low-key topless scenes and mild displays of affection (petting, kissing). However, as the story arcs proceed you can tell that the intensity will increase shortly in line with progress in the strip poker segments. I suspect patience will be rewarded, although I also suspect that the reward will be vanilla-flavored. As one of the players not fond of femdom or NTR, vanilla beats some of the alternatives quite a bit. There's plenty of that available elsewhere. SUMMARY It's a fun game, with some sexy content present but not in the forefront yet. I enjoyed playing it more than I expected, and laughed aloud at a couple of spots. I felt disappointed when reaching the end of the current content, and that's always a good sign.

Great strip poker game with a unique vibe. The characters are fun, and the gameplay is fun with a solid mix of little strategy and teasing. The art is nice and the writing is engaging. Definitely worth a try!

I sincerely regret downloading this game to check it. I can basically say I took it for the team, so you don't have to. The game has some decent art despite being AI, so you think you can have some fun, strip poker sounds like the girls are supposed to strip, but once you start playing it becomes crystal clear that this is all tease and no reward. It's like blueballing is the whole premise of the game. Or maybe it's more for adolescents than adults. First of all the game is designed to make you waste time. 1. Poker mechanics are like poker - outside of making decisions that based on probabilities should be correct you have absolutely no control whether you win or lose. Yes the game has very limited number of "cheats", making you win one hand, but the number of hands you need to win is so high they barely make any difference and very often opponents need to win less hands than you. So be prepared to repeat poker games over and over and over and over and over. Until you get lucky. Great time sink. Enjoy the card animations. No, you cannot disable them. 2. Skip button in the narration mode is also deliberately disabled until you fully clear the chapter and the dialogues are standard AI slop quality and the mc never grows balls so it's a waste of your time. The best you can do is to set text speed to max in the options and bash your enter on repeat. 3. Phone messages are so slow it's unbearable. There is a button to set speed, but it doesn't feel like it speeds up anything.. The game is very realistic as to how long does it take for someone to answer you message. You'll spend 5% of the time reading the messages and 95% of the time waiting. There are very nice animations for waiting, enjoy them. No, you cannot disable them, skip them or make it go faster in any way whatsoever. Now the most important thing for a game that is calling itself a strip poker, that is the stripping. Well you get to see boobs in the first match. Then you get to see some more boobs in the middle, maybe a silhouette of a naked girl in the dark, then you get to see some boobs for a final fight. The ultimate boss of the game is basically a girl you will try very hard to convince that she doesn't have to strip, but she wants to try to get better at poker or some childish bullshit, but at the end won't strip anyway. All this after a lot of training matches of strip poker with no stripping at all. And some dates in between, clothed of course. Your ultimate victory power move is to make her drop her hands so she stops covering her boobs. And conveniently dropping panties isn't even mentioned. Oh and you can also give her a kind massage, but she puts back clothes for that. So that's basically all, you'll never see any pussy, not to mention any sex or other better action, the game could be as well tagged with no sexual content. I give it 2 stars mostly for the looks, but maybe it's better to just generate some AI yourself.

Standout game on this site. Mostly want to put this here as encouragement to the dev to continue focusing on this game, it has the potential to be something really special Girls: The 3 main girls this version has focused on are varied and have really great personalities to dig into. I like that the 3 girls start at very different levels of comfort of strip poker, and Ashley is a great intro girl to get you acquainted with the H part of the game. Vibe: This part caught me off guard at how well it's designed. The game starts strong but you realize the actual artistic chops of the team when you get to your first poker game with Ashley. The vibe in that dark poker room with the music and the amazing art, it all just meshes so damn well. It's also focusing on the core strength of the game, strip poker. You wait a bit to get to this point, so it really pays off when you see that this is going to be the bulk of the game's mechanics Others said they don't feel the music matches the setting sometimes but I disagree, I think it for the most part has been excellent. The track for this section stood out to me Gameplay: Strip poker, the highlight of the game is it's strength. I love that the game dabbles with other forms of poker like texas hold em with betting (though it felt like a teaser demo part of the game). I think it's worth going the extra mile with the Lisa mini game, takes a second to grasp but overall I think it's a fun addition. The dating mini game at first actually blocked my progress, I wasn't reading carefully enough to know my true mission of each date so I'd fail and not see why I failed. That's on me for not reading but maybe it can be made more obvious, at least for the first round of this. I think how it's set up is totally fine AI and Art: AI is a tool and if used correctly can increase the production value of a genre that typically lacks it. This game accomplishes that better than any I've seen thus far. The girl's styles are exactly my type and still remain varied. And the hardest part with AI art is consistency, but this game nails it, so kudos to the artist. Having AI art also means a lot of CGs, and this game delivers, especially given how early it is in development. The ability to reward the player with tons of pictures for completing dates makes the AI usage worth every bit of it Desires: Continue focusing on the strength of the game, strip poker. It just works so well in this medium. Allow speeding up the text messages. Allow tapping outside the dialogue box to continue the dialogue, not just a small button (I know spacebar works, but it's nice to have mouse as a better option. Overall, incredible start to a novel idea, with high polish in the areas that matter most. Highly recommend this game, keep up the awesome work!

Amazing game, I've played a lot of the strip poker games out there and this one has a lot of heart and soul put into it. I'm a fan of slow burn/teasing (aren't most people who play these kinds of games?) and the dev is a fantastic writer with the descriptions of scenes and the camera angles. Frankly I wasn't expecting the "dating sim" aspect to be as good as it is. Usually with strip card games there's barely a story at all, but the dev has gone out of their way to incorporate a fun story. The girls are all varied in personality and looks. It's definitely worth your time to play this.

I am really enjoying the game so far. I really like all of the characters so far (excited for next Ashely update) and the short paths the dev made in each character chapter. It made me enjoy reloading a save and completing the gallery (besides the latest Anna chapter that kept bugging out when I would load back but I'll let it pass since I enjoyed the story a lot). Great choices of AI art as well. I would prefer it if the mini-games stayed strictly poker, maybe not just texas holdem. The Lisa beach date mini-game was fine but... I don't know I want to play with cards not this. Keep up the great work though, I'll be back in the future when a new update drops!

Solid characters with natural dialogue. The poker theme isn't common so it feels unique. Some of the dating success, messaging, and gameplay elements could be improved but it's still early and the dev is working on them so no concern. The visuals, personalities, and pacing of the game are great ( if you like slower burn).

Was pleasantly surprised with this one. The dialogue and writing in general is really solid (although sometimes a joke will go on for a bit longer than necessary) and is the backbone of this game. The AI art is generally pretty consistent which is always nice to see. My only complaint is that there are still quite a few bugs to polish up (not a big fan of Godot) and the timing of phone messages is WAY too slow. The phone conversation with Chad actually drained a few years off my life. Other than that, I really like the pacing of things and that there is genuine build-up in the romances, you don't just smash on day 1. Overall I wish the dev the best and hope they can continue to polish the game up a bit and add more content in the future.

As a poker enjoyer, I'm very happy with the game. Would like some more Texas Hold'em, but that's a personal preference More importantly, though, it is well written and the relationships build up well. The scenes make you want to go further and the models look good. Besides that, it has great humour! Would only second what another person already said: the phone scenes take too long. This almost made me lower my rating, but the game is just so damn good. Great job!

Written at the time of V05 and fully played the content: I recommend you at least try this game, sure AI is not 100% consistent all the time, but this developer is doing a much better job of making it consistent enough compared to a lot of AI games. Plus, it even has some animations, which is super rare as I have never seen one in adult games. I'm not sure if all the music is original, but I haven't heard any of them in other games, which is a huge plus for me because it doesn't have those repetitive, overused free BGMs that all other games use. Different characters have different personalities and intentions to interact with you, which makes them interesting. Some will even push you away because they are in a relationship (for now?). But even this game has some minor flaws, such as no option for explaining different card games just in case, one unlocked picture is not in the gallery, the AI arts could've been more consistent, and the gallery needs to be much easier to navigate. TLDR: Good written story, hot characters, different personalities and motives, different gameplays, and character development is good and not rushed. AI arts can always be better, but it's nothing that important or immersion-breaking. For me it's a 4.5 out of 5.

Gameplay: 4/5 The gameplay loop is pretty simple, you'll progress through the story virtual novel style until you hit various milestones where you have dates/poker games with various ladies. The date minigame is somewhat intuitive, where you and the girl you're speaking with go back and forth, asking each other questions which give out backstory about each character. This conversational flow/topics were well done and I never felt like I was bored. I was a little confused about some of the date resources, as some questions would earn you what look to be heart points, diamond points, and others which veer into areas the girl doesn't want to go earn negative mood points which appear to, if you collect too many, end the date prematurely causing a date-restart. The poker games are interesting. Thankfully, while not an experienced poker player, I do know the hand hierarchy so I felt like I never had any issues stacking up the wins. Though poker is luck based and I think I had to redo a poker game once or twice due to just not getting the cards I needed. Still, it never felt like it was grindy. I removed a star partially because the date minigames weren't explained (or if they were I missed the explanation), but, even if they were, or are later, I do think having the poker game be as it is currently there is a bit of a 4/5 hard cap (compared to what other h-games offer in terms of gameplay) due to the way the poker game is currently set up. It's not intrusive, boring, or grindy, but it's not all that exciting either. Still, the game is in early development and is bound to improve. I wouldn't consider the gameplay a con. Adult Content: 5/5 There aren't any sex scenes, at least in version .05, that I've come across. The game treats you with some sexual content up front, which was very well done, and again later with one of the girls, which was extremely well done. I'm not sure how the dev will handle sex acts, but the teasing is *chef's kiss* wonderful. It is a bit of a slow burn, but I think it enhances the story and characters. Which leds me to... Story/Characters: 5/5 The story is about a guy who has a knack for poker, and due to story reasons, ends up playing poker with several beautiful girls. Without going into spoilers, there are some minor twists and turns you likely won't see coming - which is always nice. There is some humor sprinkled in as well, the "fineapple" and "orange traffic cone" lines got an audible chuckle out of me. All the women feel real. Or, as real as women tend to get within h-games. They're all interesting, have their own personalities that are deep enough as to not be tropes with tits, and very unique. I hit it off with all the women, but I think everyone will find at least one who really checks their boxes. The MC is probably the only weakness here. I'm getting slight blank-slate, self insert vibes, but only minorly. He does have his moments where he shows strong personality, though, but I won't get into it for potential spoiler reasons. While I did mention this, it's not enough to remove any points. Graphics: 5/5 What can I say, the girls are hot, their poses are hot, the angles are hot, it's all great. There are two attempts at animations, and while you can tell it's an AI generated animation, they're pretty damn clean. The clip Chad texts you does give a girl literal ghost nipples (it's not that they're pale, it's that they're not there at all), but it's a random girl from a party and not one of the ladies you play against so I'm not subtracting points for it. I'm sure its a bit of an ask, but I do hope the dev continues to play with these animations. Music: 2/5 Music was the only noteworthy issue I had with this game. On occasions, it feels out of place. For the strip poker sections I'd suggest something more sensual. That said, I only noticed how the music felt off in 2 or 3 scenes, but when I did notice it, it was pretty apparent. Overall: 5/5 How did I come to this? I didn't add a lot of weight to the music score, and came away with a score over 4.5, so I rounded up. If F95zone allowed for half stars, I'd have to begrudgingly give it a 4.5/5 rating. But I'm happy they don't because, despite my complaints, this game does have some sort of X-factor that made it extremely enjoyable and, despite it's rating, still somehow feels like a 5/5 to me. And this is in its early stages... I suggest supporting the developer (I will do so after this post). Sure, it's AI generated content, but that genie is out of the bottle and this is some of the best AI content I've seen on this site. I can tell the dev doesn't just crank out images and use them, there's a lot of manual correction going on, and it really shows.

My first time rating a game after many years of enjoying this site without contributing. This game is excellent. Of course, it’s not perfect, but it’s been a long time since I had such a good time with an f95 game. The atmosphere is perfectly balanced. The dialogues are often funny. The poker game, while simple and clearly luck-based, is rather enjoyable and encourages multiple retries. The conversation phase can feel frustrating because you don’t know in advance which dialogues will unlock all the images, but I didn’t mind too much having to restart or experiment to find the right combinations. Beyond all that, the most important thing is that you really want to know what happens next. All the characters are endearing, and you’re eager for more. The cherry on top: everything is free. Great job, and thank you!"

Like what the creator has going here. Playing this at v04. My only complaint is please speed up the phone parts. Even at top speed its a bit slow. Other than that, hope to see this one take off and be completed.