Review: Dekamara

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This game has been reviewed by our Steam Curator Lewd Reviewer

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Adult gaming is an emerging type of gaming, where developers need to incorporate sexual activity into their gameplay loop, and somehow avoid it feeling forced or stale. The quick and easy route through this problem is to just slap a match 3 game, or a kinetic novel, into their game and call it a day. Every so often, someone tries to do something more with it though, and the latter category is where Dekamara belongs. Technically a bit on the rough side, but it’s undeniable that this developers heart went into the making of this game, and that counts more than all the technical polish in the world.

Trailer

Story

The elves woods are in trouble, a curse is spreading throughout it. The curse makes all the women of the forest so in heat that they turn violent, attacking their own tribe and everyone that ventures into the forest. Enter our hero, a womanizing man, tasked with pleasing the women of the forest and cleansing their shrines to restore peace to the forest.

At what point in the game were this review written?

This review was written right after completing level 8, which is the middle point of the game. I want to complete this game on my own time, though the lack of steam cloud saves complicates this, as I’d need to transfer the save to my steamdeck manually if I wish to continue.

Technical

This is the roughest point about this game. The game is made using GameMaker, an engine I have personally very little experience with, other than that it seems very well fit to make platformers, which this happens to be. The game is plagued by a fair number of bugs though. During my playthrough I encountered sprites not despawning when they’re supposed to, suddenly the lust essence bar fails to increase, and issues with the window size (Ultrawide screen causes windowed mode to be stretched, and options breaks from time to time when trying to adjust). None of these are gamebreaking, mostly just smaller annoyances, so it shouldn’t count too much against the game. Presentation and enemy variety far makes up on the whole.

Translation

There’s not much text in this game, but what is here is perfectly good English.

Voicework

This game does not have voicework. Sexual moans are covered with soundbytes, and covers what is needed to feel slightly alive. I don’t think this game needs voicework, but maybe some mumbling sounds when a character is talking would be neat?

Sexual Content

When a girl passes out, you can have sex with her there and then, which is necessary to keep her passed out while you deal with stuff around her, like cleansing the shrine.

Controversial Content

Now, this game goes to pains to make sure that we know that this is not noncon. The MC is summoned to help deal with a curse causing all women in the forest to be so much in heat that they’ve turned aggressive. I can’t say that this is necessary framing, but if that’s important to you, there’s justification at play here. Some may see this as semantics though, and see it as NonCon content, so if that’s a extreme trigger for you, you may want to peek elsewhere.

Overall Review

Dekamara is a, though simple, very competent platformer. It oozes love from the creator, but is plagued by some technical hiccups. It is a lighthearted and mostly enjoyable time, though it does sometimes get a bit repetative.

None of the negatives are large enough to cause any hard marks against the game, but over time all the small issues add up. If not for the ‘labour of love’ factor at play, I’d have a hard time recommending it, but that factor skews it heavily back into good graces.

With the price of EUR 5, I’d say that this price is well worth it at full price.

(Circle2Media does not get financial kickbacks or other compensation for purchases made through this link)

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