Super Lesbian Animal RPG Demo Preview: Some Real Girl Power and a Blogger's Confessions (PC Demo)

    Preface: Well, E3 has come and gone, and while I had surprisingly little interest in it, I have to say something about it. Here's what I can remember:

• Ooh, Ooblets has dance battles instead of normal combat! How cute!
• The new Super Smash Bros. game has every previous character? Neat.
• Ridley is showing up too? I really hope they give him the goofy voice Diabeetus does for him.

Oh, and I know it's a bit late, but I want to do a joke about Detroit: Become Human and it's incredibly ham-handed handling of African American Civil Rights Movement symbols. Sing along to the tune of Centerfold, originally by the J. Geils Band, as sung by Captain Jack:

"Ayy-yo! Cap'n Jack!"

My blood runs cold! My history has just been sold!

Hammer in the metaphor! Hammer in the metaphor!

My blood runs cold! My history has just been sold

*dooo doo do-do do do*

Hammer in the metaphor!

That was very dumb, and I'm sorry. But when I first thought of that joke watching a review for The Smurfs movie, I had to throw it out there eventually. On to the actual preview.

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    Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else, I've never really told anyone this, and I have no idea what kind of people you are, but I have a confession. You see, I'm not a merperson, I'm not an artist.

I'm... 

I'm...

I'm...

*Try Everything by Shakira starts playing*

    A bit of a furry.

Hey, c'mon. It's not that terrible. I'm not into harassing woman or slinging around homophobic/transphobic jokes on Twitter.

    Why'd I wait till now to admit that I'd probably be a red rabbit? Partially it's because I have the art skills of your average elementary school kid, and most furries seem to have some really good art skills. Partially because I learned my cousin is also one and even makes fursuits, so I felt like I had someone in the community I could relate to. Either way, it's a opportune time to mention my furriness since I'm previewing what will likely be seen as a furry game today. It's the demo for Bobby Schroeder's Super Lesbian Animal RPG!

Somewhere in the world, this game and it's title is making a jerkass spew bile all over his computer.

    While we're on the topic of admitting things, I should also admit that I feel like I know very little about the LGBT community. Growing up, I didn't really have many friends and very little variety to the ones I had. We were all more or less white, straight, middle-class, cis guys who liked video games. Nowadays, now that I'm officially on Twitter, I encounter a lot of different people daily. As someone who sometimes feels isolated, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to meet new kinds of good people. However, I always worry that with certain groups I'll accidentally say something that turns out to be offensive and be deemed a homophobe or transphobe. I'm willing to admit ignorance, but I'm 100% willing to learn.
    Are people tired of me confessing about my life and the concerns of a "easy mode" American with some relatively minor fears? They probably are, so let's get to the game for real.
 

This is you, like it or not. If you really don't like it, I'm surprised you've read so far into this article.

    As the screenshot from the intro above states, you are Melody Amaranth, a meek but kindhearted fox who recently became romantically involved with her adventurous rabbit friend Alison Goleta. Melody decides that if Alison wants to be an adventurer, maybe she can join her. So the two of them take up an offer from Claire Higsby ( a cow mage who is also transgender) and Jodie Caldwell (a tigress that serves as the party tank) to join their adventurer's guild. The demo covers a bit of the intro and a tutorial dungeon, but it shows off a good bit of the game's mechanics and writing.
    As an RPG Maker VX Ace game, I was able to get a quick grasp of SLARPG's controls. You move around, talk to people, and occasionally fight monsters in pre-determined encounters. Whether the final game will have random encounters or not I couldn't tell you from the demo. I'd say if you've played the LISA RPGs, then you should have a good idea how the game plays. The battle system was also pretty familiar, although it did have a feature unique to this game. When characters do something related to their class (Melody heals, Alison attacks, Claire casts offensive magic, or Jodie takes hits (presumably, since she doesn't become part of your party in this demo,)) they gain star power, which can be used on special skills.

Melody and Alison have special buff skills where they kiss their S.O. I found that cute.

    The demo is pretty short, clocking in at slightly over an hour, but it gives a pretty good look at the game's world. It appears to take place in a classic fantasy world, yet it has modern technology like TVs and smart phones. It's got a lot of bright colors and looks charmingly vibrant. The writing in the game is also quite charming. When Claire joins your party for the tutorial dungeon (as a third wheel to Melody and Alison's date), Alison warns Claire that she could start making out with Melody at any time. The two girlfriends then start listing a whole bunch of synonyms for kissing, which Claire suspects is revenge for turning Alison's basement into a dungeon. In the town of Greenridge, there's a grumpy old mage who apparently tried taking over the world, but now he spends his time outside his daughter's magic shop complaining about kids these days. There's also an NPC in the Paladin's HQ who has their sword stuck in the floor and really hopes no one notices.

What a nice looking town. To the right is that grumpy world-conquering mage, and on the bench to the left is Jodie.

    The demo covered a good bit of the game, and it already looks about 99% complete. The only incomplete part was a short cutscene where Melody and Alison kiss, done in what looks like MS Paint, presumably for laughs. There's also a few features that were brought up but not fully featured. At the beginning of the demo, Melody must choose what her focus will be as a paladin (love, self-confidence, or nature.) This influences some dialouge and I presume this will influence what spells she'll gain when leveling up, but since you only gain one (two, technically, from beating the demo's boss) level, you don't see much in terms of that. There's also a spellbook system, where you can equip a spellbook to a character to give them all the book's spells while it's equipped. We see some equipment in the game, but no spellbooks to equip.
    Super Lesbian Animal RPG looks to be a pretty good game so far. The game's art, music, and writing combine to form a very charming aesthetic. I'm certain there will be some people who unfairly judge it due to having anthropomorphic animal characters or being pretty blatantly LGBT, but those kinds of people can be safely ignored. I'm looking forward to seeing the full version of the game. If you want to support Bobby Schroeder, you can check out the Patreon here.