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(4 edits) (+1)

I finished a playthrough recently. Bravo on the execution on the end. It's going to make it hard for me to invite those characters for future playthroughs...

I didn't have many technical issues on the playthrough. Or when I did I fixed it quickly and moved so I don't have much technical feedback because I forgot about them- oops. LLM wise I used Gemini 3.8 Flash through OpenRouter exclusively.

# Experience feedback:

1. I'm pretty sure this is planned for later, but I'm looking forward to unique scenes or game structure when it's time for Spring Break or Summer Break. Like it felt a little jarring when a Lover at the time flew out of town without much warning to the reader. There really being no special event hanging out with your friends before Goodbye feels a bit empty.

2. If the reader sleep overnight with a character, which is a common occurence due to the scope of the game, I'd like to see daily recap scenes and BG reflect that instead of defaulting you straight back to your dorm. You can drive a scene starting like this by making a custom prompt stating that the reader stayed overnight and moves the scene from there, but if you want to do something that counts as Attending Class or Working on a Project, you're sort of forced with the default state.

3. Speaking of Working on Projects, I feel like your lab partner on projects should have a way higher chance of showing up and working with you when you choose that activity. I've worked around as you mentioned by prompting "Working on a Project with x", so maybe this is just professional Venus University gamer ball knowledge of choosing between double stat increase or stat increase + character scene and intimacy. I've also been sort of trapped with a character trying to start a scene that's class related, but since it's not using the Attend Class action, it counts as skipping class, and if you go to class, the character gets mad you "flaked" on them because you didn't choose the Hangout option.

4. Intimate scenes involving multiple characters do not trigger their intimacy CGs.

5. It's been mentioned before, but I also wish characters had preferred majors, because sometimes I am like actually picking classes to dip my toes into a subject I'm legitimately interested in. But also, I had a OC who I tried my best to prompt her to be pre-med or pre-pharm and wears a labcoat as her default outfit... and she became a computer science major.

# This next part I know it's LLM-RP limitations but it'd be cool if:

1. If you mention visiting a character during a scene, or plan to text them to show up, it'd be cool if they appeared with their sprite later in the scene, but I know once a scene is planned, characters and their sprites are decided ahead of time like a Group Chat feature in SillyTavern. I don't know how you'd resolve this. 

2. This might be a LLM or Gemini 3.8 Flash quirk, but when it was a character's time of the month, it was always in their first sentence, or in description of them complaining or grabbing their stomach. Most of the characters would also loudly mention their uterus was staging a coup, loud characters like Sara, Haylee, and Tulip I expect this, but when quiet Lia or Winter is joining in on this, it feels a bit jarring. In general most girls just aren't that vocal about it, most are embarrassed or tend to withdraw or deflect. But I guess it's great for general ovulation awareness training, lmao.

# Best Girls

Ingrid and Lia, I have a type-weakness to nerdy glasses girls in Ingrid's case and working through both their insecurities was a very satisfying character arc. Winter also emerged a secret story motivation that fed her compulsion to check her pulse and makes me curious what new arcs I can discover with other characters!

(1 edit) (+1)

Hey StridleyScott, glad to hear you were able to finish a playthrough! It's always hard to say goodbye, isn't it? Thanks for the feedback and suggestions, I've already added some to the dev plan. Some direct response to your points:

- The game selects the characters you're most close to to fly out for Spring Break, to encourage you to interact with other characters. I might tweak this though

- The flaking penalty when using the Attend Class action sounds very unintended. Can you detail exactly what happened? Sounds like you had a scheduled event overlap with a class? To avoid situations like this, the game doesn't offer a penalty if you are in a scene with a girl with a scheduled event, even if you didn't actually go the scheduled event

- NSFW CGs don't trigger when there's more than 1 character on screen, since it would hide the other character. I like the idea of switching between CGs in group scenes but prefer to have all girls on screen for visuals

- I had the exact same issue with the LLM making everyone a comp sci major. On what update was your playthrough created on? V0.3.0 included some prompt tweaks to better match characters to proper majors

- I am also a little miffed about Gemini's eagerness to have everyone scream from the rooftops about their cramps, but I also think it's kind of funny. I think I'll tweak the mood lines a bit for non-Mood Swings characters so it's more subtle for them.

- Ingrid and Lia are two characters I've ended up dating on several playthroughs, love them

(1 edit) (+1)

* If Lover flying on Spring Break was intended design , then I apologize and say keep it instead because it was the source of the most significant drama that happened in my playthrough. I think otherwise a lot of players will be tempted to spend all their time with the Lover and can inadvertently stifle potential arcs with other characters. The most entertaining thing Venus University facilitates is conflict and drama between the characters and your efforts to make those events happen have been phenomenal, whether it’s conflict in how they debate in class or in other scenes. 

 * I’ll keep a lookout on future playthroughs if this happens again and if I get penalized I’ll report it as a bug.

* I did my first playthrough starting on v0.2 so this might be moot for everyone being a comp sci major going forward.

* Multiple character CGs are probably better made directed on demand anyway… I’ll go that route 

* I agree the cramps thing is funny, but I’ll test using other models to see if it’s just a Gemini thing. Gemini tends to follow directions to the tee so I suspect something like Opus 4.6 understands subtext better.

* You have good taste :) 

Already added a feature today that makes the girls text you about their spring break plans ahead of time so it's not that jarring. Thanks for the feedback!