This is an interesting idea for a game genre, it’s basically a roguelite visual novel. If that makes any sense. But not in the Hush Hush sense where it’s a dating sim with NG+ for the true end. It’s a vn with meta progression and short burst gameplay.
Okay, the rogue part is kind of a lie? Maybe? The whole roguelike genre is kind of a weird thing. It’s hyperfixated on very specific parts of the game Rogue, so people can have very different ideas of what a game needs to be like Rogue. Usually it’s short runs with death resetting most, if not all, progress. It’s also common for the game to have most content be randomized, such as items or potions and floor layouts. That second part is why it’s iffy if Cabin here actually counts as a rogue title, as nothing is random. It is short runs with most content resetting with a goal of making meta progression for the next run. So I guess I can call it a -guelite?
Anyway, Cabin is a game that has made me spend countless hours over the years playing it. I get kind of obsessive over achieving run goals, so it gets the one more run thing roguelikes tend to have right. I would then drop it for whatever reason to only come back and reset progress again, basically every year. The game has finally reached the final of it’s 10 girls for progression, which means the why of the loops is finally happening and I decided to finally catch up, accept the parts of the game that are broke, and have a final save even though the game has a bunch of unlock buttons making a save kind of pointless.
So the actual gameplay is basically visual novel. Lots of text with some choices. Choices sometimes only being choosable based on past actions or stats. Between the vn bits you get a map of the camp and choose who to hang out with, these varying based on time of day and other variables. There are 4 days of the camp, half of Friday, full Saturday and Sunday, and the start of Monday. Each has it’s own share of event time segments and usually a run is aiming for something on late Sunday or early Monday. You have a flowchart that fills out as you make choices and see scenes, showing you consequences, stat/event requirements, and unlocks of your choices. Filling this out is a big part of the gameplay as it helps immensely in planning out runs.
The general goal of each run is to hit a corruption. These aren’t the standard 18+ game corruption porn things but more like corrupting reality with the power of dick. The actual 18+ stuff is mostly consensual, the few times it isn’t you usually get punished right away. Anyway, a lot of corruptions are just sex acts, these are red nodes. One of the main goals is to hit the other node colors, as those usually unlock something permanently like skipping a mystery segment with a bunch of steps or getting a mail in the between run screens acting as a post story bit based on your actions and a goal based cg gallery. The other main goal is to corrupt the girls themselves.
In the first uncontrollable run everyone is kind of miserable? They are all gathering to this reunion of friends from a long time ago, and none of the girls the protags age really wants to be there. The adults are only slightly less miserable. It’s not a fun time. Just as the reunion ends though you get to make a choice and open the can of worms that is the loops. The girl’s corruptions are both how to get the 18+ content, and helping them through the mental blocks that are ruining their lives. So therapy, the time looping h game.
The first few runs are basically blind runs to fill out basics in the flowchart and get used to the flow of events. You can probably do a few characters 1st corruption by accident during this but the later ones tend to require pretty specific event flow, which the game does provide a guide for. Character corruptions are turn off/ons kind of things and affect a lot of what happens. About half the girls final corruption right now is being pregnant, as they just show up at the reunion already a few months carrying. Of the h games I’ve played this might have the most content with the girls actually being pregnant instead of just an ending slide or a scene or two. Here they have like 5+ each, there’s even a few threesomes and more that only happen when multiple girls are pregnant.
Eventually you are adjusting corruptions to get events with other girls or the entire group. There’s really nothing else like this in the market of h games, and for some reason it always grips me pretty hard when I sit down to play it. I don’t think a lot of people will like this, the boobs are way to large for a lot of people, the h scenes short, and it is repetitive. It hits all the fun parts of my brain though. So I finally got caught up. Maybe I won’t start over the next time I open this up.
Every meta progression thing unlocked except two broken ones. Three saves to scrapbook events, which are basically in run cg galleries. No real scene gallery.