The Art of Diplomacy and... Love

Here we go, another game where the dev is completely in love with his own plot, probably thinking he’s the new Dostoevsky. It’s all about the plot, which might appeal to the usual barely-teen audience. The game is packed with so-called 'choices' that are really just annoying, adding almost no value and relying on the typical hidden statistics that nobody actually cares about. And then the 'juice'… the adult content. So far, the MC has had a few sexual interactions that are absurdly short, badly written, and hastily thrown together by the dev… because, you know, sex isn’t important in this game… it’s all about the plot . The renders are okay, not great, not terrible but this is not really an adult game. There is no sexual tension, no eroticism… there is only the plot that the dev is so eager to shove down our throats. Really low-to-mediocre effort, considering that an adult game should actually be about adult sexual relations, about eroticism, sex, and perversions.

Good VN! Loved the characters and how their affection develops. Graphics were decent but story makes up for it. Free roaming was bit confusing though. I like the fact that protag is not some looser. Waiting for future updates.

(Full-feature review with HQ screenshots on our blog) The Art Of Diplomacy… And Love (v0.16) (7.5/10) DS23Games is back with a new game, filled with fairmaiden and noblemen. Travel to simpler times in this game of diplomacy and deceit. After the heavy The Point Of No Return, I was curious to see what the developer’s next project would be. Turns out two games are in development currently, with each of them taking a different route to storytelling. Today we'll discuss the medieval game, all about diplomacy and love. STORY In the historical lands of Thessaralia, a peasant farmboy grew up in taverns among mercenaries. Taught at the Imperial academy and eventually expelled, his luck ran out after a thieving score went wrong. One day, he is at the receiving end of a nobleman’s pester. The young man steals the nobleman's identity, while aiming for a new life elsewhere. The Art of Diplomacy… And Love is relaxingly paced, which works well for its fantasy setting. Your goal is to live a life of opportunity while faking to be Lucius of Fuerto, troublemaker and third son to the baron of Fuerto. You are offered an apprenticeship at the castle of Khalifa, and through it, learn about noble life in the area. While the game is only a few days long as of yet, DS23G made sure the writing is faithful to the environment. Like in earlier days, Noblemen care little for peasants and servants humbly roam the castle. The game’s focus is literally in the name; you learn about diplomatic measures, solve conflicts and engage in loving behavior with servants and other fair maidens. Whether you are taught in diplomacy by Beleghor or visit the enchanting House of Joy with many distractions, it all serves to sell the fantasy of life as a nobleman. Fancy getting frisky with servants? Seeking to corrupt an innocent virgin? Or perhaps lust for the skilled pleasure of the women of joy? Although the game states there can be consequences, many things are too fun not to try. While most men are fairly dominant and most women are slightly submissive due to the social structure, each love interest has her own story and way of dealing with the main character. Bodyguard Neela and servant Alycia are rather easygoing, while Apprentices Gyla and Aleta as noblewomen have a mind of their own. It is too early to tell how the plot will further influence gameplay, but the dev takes all the time necessary to properly tell stories. Sometimes small in the form of a heated argument, other times long in the form of a budding romance. Mastering them is truly an art to the main character. Special mention must be made for the Encyclopedia you can acquire at the Scriptorium, the local Library. It contains a lot of backstory on the lands, the many people and other interesting topics. DSG23 has thought out the world far beyond a ‘servant simulator' and it shows in the characters presented and stories told. PRESENTATION By 2025’s standards, The Art Of Diplomacy…And Love’s renders look a bit basic. There’s a certain 2000’s style to the renders, not to mention the UI is in full Medieval style and writing. The first 15 minutes might feel rough, but thereafter the game grows on you like a well brewed ale. While the names of characters can be hard to read for people who are not proficient in Olde English, the base font used for writing works well and adds a handwritten personality to the look. Same goes for books, scrolls and menus in-game. The MC looks like your typical medieval young adult, while characters like the count and teacher all have their ‘important and wealthy nobleman’ looks going for them. It works to sell the story, in combination with the lore and writing. A love game isn't complete without fair lasses. The game offers quite a bit of diversity in love interests, ranging from a pink haired elves to dark skin white haired humans. The fantasy element really comes into play here, while servants actually look like they came straight out of a medieval painting. There's also room for a bit of intimacy with women who are not on your love interest list, but you'd do best to find that out yourself. Just know I had quite a challenge finding sexy screenshots that don't expose bodyparts. Environments are detailed and recognizable. These include a luxury bathhouse, a dining hall, several bedrooms, the courtyard and many other places you can get into trouble at. The frequent use of wooden furniture against masonry really helps sell the world, even if fantasy characters pass by unbothered. The game has some nice traditional medieval background tracks which add to the medieval vibe, and stop-motion animations made of a couple frames stitched together. Intimacy is on display here, although most of the women are pretty reserved about sexuality as of now. You are able to influence the women, so this will most likely change over time. Before you get to any of them, you can admire them from afar a few times. While the game overly depends on medium shots and more variety would be welcome, the renders work well to sell the fantasy and show us details of the world the characters live in. The presentation might feel a bit ol fashioned, but only because it fits the vibe of the game. TaoDaL is graphically sound and works well to convey the temptations of the empirical life. GAMEPLAY TAoDaL is a visual novel that expands into a sandbox-type game after roughly one hour. The main character has multiple personality- and skill scales, which change depending on your in-game choices. Your choices will allow you to become anything between a ruthless, corrupt tyrant or a chivalrous, honest nobleman. The game currently isn't long enough to actually experience a huge difference already, but it's subtly noticeable. The sandbox element works as a series of location buttons that you can click to visit, like the Bathhouse or the Scriptorium. Enabling tips in the settings will show you which character is currently where, as well as point distribution for the choices you pick. That might feel like a bit of cheating, but it helps to keep things manageable for those who like to play light. Each sandbox day is made up of a daytime, evening and night schedule, which all allow you different activities. Each of the current love interests have their own personality scales, in addition to an affection scale that you influence through loving actions towards the love interest. The personality scales add an extra factor to the gameplay, allowing the MC to influence and change their love interests. The big question is, do all these sliders matter? Yes, you will almost definitely miss out on content and need at least one extra playthrough to see the other side of things. Because the affection stats are based into the story, I don't think it'll be possible to experience that same path at a later moment in the game. Unless the developer finds some kind of way to start a convincing day loop, which probably won't work at this point. The combination of gameplay elements creates an intriguing nobility simulator as DS23 mixes the diplomacy decisions with the evolving love stories that our main character gets involved with. OVERALL The Art of Diplomacy… And Love is an intriguing game, trying its hand at showing you the life of a peasant who gets lucky. If solving deadly conflicts and charming maidens of a medieval kingdom sound great to you, TAoDaL is a good time. We’re looking forward to see what the future holds for our new fake noble. Rating: 7.5/10 Developer: The Art Of Diplomacy...And Love by DS23G

The setting is fresh and unique for a VN, unfortunately it seems a bit too ambitious. A couple of the character paths are getting rushed, while others have not really even begun. I also think the game would have benefited from not having a branching path of working with the count's cousin - as it slows down the VNs progression significantly by having to make 2 versions of every scene. It has a lot of promise, but its probably worth waiting a couple episodes for it to get further along. I fear the dev likely put more work on their plate than is feasible to get a finished product out.

Let us get away with cons: The sex scemne are load of statics and litte motion, it is for those who are in here for only sex scenes. For everybody else: This is how dxd types avn should be doen, it is not a dxd but it achieves the feel of dxd gives to us through minutes choices that have drastic roll on effect, each of it For ex nort taking certain action in one path will change sex scene or might entierly cut off a potential route. This is the kind of story I live for. Moreover the plot amd world is lore deep and character motivation and decision have deep subtext. For ex one of the route is only open when you understand carfully the political dynamics of the place, which is not spelled out for you. Moreover what I specially like about cheat version is that it itself is not an open bbok i.e, it only tells immediate manifestation of our action the future result of them might be entirely different. Only message to dev is the cons at the top. To all the readers give this one a try , it is best of the games out there.

Heavily underrated, I started the game not having high expectations, but I was proven wrong. The writing is generally great, and the path variations are of top quality as well. I liked most of the main LIs, each one of them is unique and their paths are shaped pretty well. I know it may be wishful thinking, but I would like Joy as a main LI.

A hidden gem among porn games. It has great story (it's basically an adventure with some spicy scenes), even better characters and very good gameplay. There are simple management mechanics here (nothing annoying mind you, in fact it makes the whole experience even richer and more enjoyable), there are various paths and all of this with some gorgeous female models. All in all it's a great game with even greater potential. Goes on my watch list definitely and I've just become a patreon (at least for a while since my budget is very limited).

[v0.15] ⠀⠀⠀Summary: we take a role of a young peasant dude that basically got no family, no home and no backstory, except that he spent his childhood either on the farms or in the tavern. Nowadays he's a small-time thief and his latest endeavor failed almost fatally. The story starts with him kinda chillin' in the woods and accidentally killing the passing by noble. The noble had a recommendation letter from his parents to become an apprentice of some powerful count of these lands where nobody knows him personally, so our lad decided to pose as this noble guy, because he's got nothing better to do anyways so why not? ⠀⠀⠀Writing is actually spot on as it uses some old vocabulary, sentence structure and idioms for immersion, finally a medieval setting where the characters aren't just a bunch of millennials that look out of place. We have fantasy races like elves, goblins and even furries, but this doesn't appear to be 'high fantasy' as magic so far seems to be a foreign concept and Gods are more like stuff out of legends. This has nothing to do with writing, but the selection of visual assets and music is spot on, which enhances that immersive feeling. The MC is pretty nice fella, not autistic, fairly capable, but also not omnipotent and not a natural chick magnet. I'd say his persona is well-balanced all around. The story presents several conflicts throughout the narrative in a form of obstacles for out protagonist, so far they are: 1. goblin girl, who's blackmailing MC 2. other men who serve as a competition 3. MC needs money to pay rent or it's gg. There are it seems seven love interests in total and right off the bat I'm going to complain that this pool doesn't include the dark-skinned servant girl with freckles. Why make her so cute in the first place and then just not use the assets? Though there are a couple of erotic scenes with her, which I missed on the first playthrough, but she's still just a side character unfortunately. Anyways, the girls aren't just blank slate barbie dolls but actual people with interests and personalities. Speaking of which, they have initial stats (traits) too, which can be tweaked one way or another depending on the player's choices. ⠀⠀⠀Speaking of choices , there are a whole plethora of them, so folks that are constantly complaining about kinetic novels will drool all over here. Choices themselves seem pretty complex too and even the build in hint system (kinda like a walkthrough) isn't always clear about the consequences. There are character stats and they will dictate what kind of choices will be available to the player going forward. There is also money which you can earn and spend in various ways. But there is no grind as money serve more like a gatekeep to how many opportunities/decisions you have. Keep in mind each day you will need at least 2 silver to pay rent tho. This is definitely a VN at it's core but there are some sandbox elements. I've already touched on the finance management, but we also have limited free-roam sections. These mostly perform a function of skipping undesired content, like if you don't want to talk to a certain girl or go to the brothel, you may skip them altogether. UI for free-roam is not point&click interface but rather just a list of activities, so you will not be getting lost. On a side note some choices can lead to different outcomes based on RNG, and there are quick time events. Not a big fan of both in renpy games to be honest as they seem out of place here and just add frustration. You can re-roll undesired results of RNG infinitely and rollback all failed QTEs (or fail them on purpose, that's an option too). On the topic of netorare : definitely not a focus of the game. Personally haven't found any, maybe I've missed it, which is rather easy with this many choices, maybe it's simply not added to the current version. Anyways if even the mere possibility of ntr is too much for you, there is an option in the setting to disable it completely. I myself like it ON with the ability to avoid it, which makes romance more impactful in my opinion. ⠀⠀⠀On the topic of erotic content : there is not much yet and what's already there is rather unremarkable, as there are no animations (slide-show doesn't count), no sound effects, very few renders, not a lot of build-up and stage direction leaves a lot to be desired. If you want to see more scenes then I'd generally recommend going for "libertine" choices. You probably shouldn't play this just yet as there is not enough content and definitely not enough lewd scenes for a proper adult game. But if you're curious, sure go ahead and check it out, as what's already there is pretty good, with an exception of porn that is. I think this has a potential to become an outstanding AVN for medieval fantasy enjoyers but it's not there as of now. Playtime: 2-3 hours

Really loved the game, it contains many good and hot models, as well as a very engaging story. Can't wait to play the next steps in all the routes since it provides entertainment to various tastes Hopefully we will get a little more of Neela and the blind chick

I'm actually really surprised how little traction this game gained here on this site. This is by no means a must-play, the game is too average in many ways for that, including the very underwhelming sex scenes, but it's definitely one of the better games you can find here. I liked the MC, which is actually a really rare thing these days, he isn't your usual Gary Stu, yet still capable, you can also shape his personality to some degree. Same with the LIs, who have stats like submission and purity, which is really nice, though it's still too early to say how impactful these changes will be in the end. Same with the kinks, how will the game handle sharing/swinging/NTR, which seem to be planned. The writing is not too verbose, which is a BIG plus. I'm skipping through most games because most porn devs are pretty bad writers, so it's really refreshing to play a game that's not trying to bore me to death with walls of meaningless text. Anyway, a solid 3.5 with the potential for more. Best of luck to the dev.

Great First arc to the game ! The premise of the story is interesting, the LI are diverse and really pretty, and the RPG elements (influencing your character and the LIs) is really interesting ! I just wished that, if locked out of a choice, it would still appear at least greyed out to give pointers to other possible ways of playing ! Keep the good work going !

v0.14 The game has very interesting premise. Even if there is no clear bigger goal to aim for, the goal to integrate MC to noble society does create enough problems for the MC. The story’s structure is fragmented, making it difficult for the narrative to flow smoothly. This has been fixed by having a menu, where you can always choose the next conversation. But this does not fix the underlying problem, that the story does not flow smoothly. Writing is really good. It does fit really well on the medieval setting. I really like how formal some conversations are and how MC is trying to act like noble. It makes it easy to get absorbed in the story. The game is weird mix of economy handling, diplomacy, seduction and adventure. Game is trying too hard to make MC a ultimate handyman for all the problems. The sex scenes have not been that good. At least the game has few beautiful ladies and there has been enough nakedness to keep things spicy. Most of the women look good enough. Sadly the game is trying to be so many things, that it has no time to create meaningful personalities. Maybe at some point.

Great game so far, I enjoyed playing it. I think maybe it's a bit of a slow burn, there is a lot of nudity and teasing, some handjobs, one tit job, maybe one blow job? There hasn't been any penetration yet that I've seen, but besides the lack of that, I think the story, the MC, the girls are all great, it's got a very solid base, I just think the game could definitely ramp up the sex.

Very cool game like the characters with their distinct personalities, the gameplay is also good, so far you got only one situation where depending on how you handle it(like a diplomacy choice driven mini game) you get a different outcome. So far a promising start let's see where it leads.

This game is great. All of the characters are very distinct, likeable, and attractive while also having a wider variety of body types than most games like this. The pacing feels great and it never feels like you want to rush to get to the next scene. Hoping this game continues

Always get my guard up with Fantasy-style stories as it becomes all to easy to fall into the general fantastical tropes of over-egged world building dripping with uninteresting walls of pseudo-fantastical drivel text. As of so far (and it is very early days yet) we've managed to keep fairly light and to-the-point, which has allowed an otherwise somewhat basic 'peasant steps into nobility' premise to breath a little bit. Certainly has potential and I'm rating the title right now with where I'm feeling the quality will be at if we remain at this level. Whether there are more engaging story hooks incoming or interesting character development opportunities still remains to be seen- but I am hoping for such so this doesn't sink into 'slice of life' meandering. No offence to slice of life style games, mind you- I just think this game could be deserving of more.

Nice start. The story is interesting, the girls very attractive, long ears or not. For lewd scenes we have to wait a bit longer I think, but that is okay at this stage of the game. But one suggestion to the Dev: Please offer larger letters and style for the text. It is difficult to read. Then I will add the fifth star.

This is really a great game. Characters look good, men are manly, women are sexy but everyone looks unique. The women run the spectrum of physical and personality as well. There seem to be several stories going on at the same time, with the MC at the center of each. All of these stories are interesting and well written. The choices seem to have impact on the story with quite a few options. So far the game is a bit short but it has a great start thus far.

VERSION: 0.12 SUMMARY: Good start, nails it on most fronts, a decent fantasy setting with solid writing and plot. Decent looks models on most fronts (nothing over the top) Writing is pretty good, structured well Story is pretty good, its something different, not odd, believable almost and characters are mostly interesting making you curious to see how things develop. Renders are decent looking, nothing earth shattering but not bad. UI interaction isn't bad, built in walk-through and option to dsiable NTR, which is all good. CONS: No animations, only still renders Sexual scenes are few and far between and that that is there is rather vanilla. Not much to see yet, though there is a decent amount of story. FINAL THOUGHTS: WRT the vanilla sexual content and or lack thereof, this is probably in some way to be expected, though there would have been ways to introduce more action without causing too much fuss over progression with main love interest. Could be a fairly good game, lets see what develops and how its developed further. Some more TAGS for what we could expect to come, vanilla is...well vanilla...so

Review for [v0.11] Honestly, a fantastic beginning to an AVN, and I think the best contributor to it's quality is that it isn't over-enthusiastic. It isn't promising us the world or delivering this amazing and in-depth beginning that is totally unsustainable for a full release. The expectations are set, and they're contained, which gives me hope that this won't be one of the dozens of initially good projects where the development slows to an absolute crawl, or is swiftly abandoned after the dev realises they bit off more than they could chew. Now, what do I mean by these expectations? The story is set that you're a small-time pickpocket who ends up accidentally killing a noble and ends up replacing him for personal gain. This isn't some "omg you're the chosen one, born to defeat the ultimate evil!" It's "you're a crook who gets lucky". The good news as well is that in a medieval setting, his position DOES allow him more privileges than most, so his actions in many circumstances are valid. They work for the world. Many women would want to cozy up to a man who's the son of a baron (even if only the third son). It also gives potential for the future, with the chance for interacting with other baronies, royalty, as well as the family of the man he's impersonating. You see the potential for the future, and so you find what is happening NOW as interesting. Speaking of the now,what's on display is a good package. Is it amazing? No. But I don't think it claims to be. Airplane isn't Schindler's List, but that doesn't mean it isn't an amazing film. It (for the time being) absolutely meets the expectations. The description I have is: simple, yet effective. Visually it's good, the girls are hot, dialogue isn't bad, the choices make sense, the choice system is easy to comprehend, it's a solid package. I am happy to see this come out, and within it's first 6 months it's doing well. I hope that the progress for the AVN continues and it gets the support it needs, and I recommend anyone else who's looking for a project to support to support this one (obviously, I have literally zero personal interest, I am just a dude who reads porn games). If it fails I'm certainly gonna be disappointed.