AI*Shoujo/AI*少女 is a lewd dating simulator and lite-survival game.
At-a-glance
(Adult) Content?
Yes, FxF, FxM and solo.
Censorship?
Yes. Laser mosaics.
Hours of Game-play?
Ten or more hours.
Modding Support?
No.
Patch Available?
Yes. (Download from official site.)
Gameplay
. . . in a nutshell
At its core, this game is a dating simulator with light survival elements. You must manage one or more (female) companions, tending to their emotional and physical needs. The game starts on the edge of an island, and ends with a boat ride to another. Between sections of the islands, you can build settlements to provide shelter and valuable resources. To progress in the story, you will need to befriend your companions and repair machinery. Though this game features sexual content, it plays little part in progression (and can be completely avoided, if desired).
out the shell. . .
Generously scattered about are harvest points (which can be harvested for crafting materials). Harvest points replenish in minutes’ time, allowing you to continuously cycle between them. There are three grades and three types of harvest points, each requiring an equal or greater grade of equipment to harvest. You start with a common fishing rod and glove, which can be used harvest (or barter) materials for a common shovel and pickaxe. Eventually, you’ll be able to craft uncommon equipment (and then rare equipment) allowing you gather rare materials with ease. Any grade of material can be gathered from any harvest point, but anything rarer other the point’s respective grade is extremely unlikely.
New items can be crafted at any point from within your inventory (or pouch). Some items can only be crafted using certain objects, such as campfires or ovens for cooking food. Your inventory is limited, but upgradable (via auxiliary packs). If you run out of room, chests can hold up to five-hundred unique items (which are accessible from any chest on the map). Many items can be created through many combinations of materials, granting flexibility when pursueing higher grade items. Generally speaking, the rarer the item, the more materials it will require to make. Oftentimes, those materials will require materials to make, which may entail harvesting multiple types of harvest points at different areas of the map.
In other words, crafting is a great big fetch quest. But it’s strangely satisfying.
Should you stumble upon an unlabeled signpost, you probably found a camp site.
Camps are open areas (indicated by a signpost) where you can install various structures, with an array of functionality. There are a total of four camps in the game, three on the Island of Ruin and one on the Residential Island. Camps start small, but each unlocked camp is larger than the one before. After completing all story objectives, you will gain access to all of Residential Island to build a settlement on. The building space is absolutely massive, big enough for a town. Unfortunately, that town would only have a population of (up to) five.
Each placeable object is “crafted” using one or more resources. Once crafted, they are permanently unlocked, and infinitely placeable. Camps have a limited building space, which is divided into a grid. Objects snap to the grid, and can be moved in all directions (or rotated at ninety-degree angles). The grid makes building settlements a real snap.
Most structures yield a combination of Access, Action points and Hpoints, indications of player/NPC interactivity. Objects with access points provide resources (which can often be used to craft more objects). Objects with Action points have variety of functions, though most can only be used by NPCs. Hpoints refer to areas where sexual intercourse can occur. There are objects dedicated to Hpoints, unlocking unique sexual positions (which are otherwise unavailable anywhere else).
Beds, chests, dressers, furniture and heat sources all provide useful functionality for the player You can even place (common) harvesting points to help you (and NPCs) gather the resources you need to expand your camps. NPCs will use any interactive object, including baths, toilets and showers. They’ll even take shelter inside your camps, treating them as they would any other part of the map. In my experience, NPCs seem to gravitate towards player-made structures (versus pre-existing ones). To harvest fruits, you can install garden plots to cultivate seeds.
Starting with one NPC, you can gain up to three additional women for your adventure. One of those NPCs is Shan, a shopkeeper who doubles as a quest giver. She cannot be altered or commanded, but you can get in her pants (if you know what I mean). You can create and deploy up to three ladies created using the in-game Character Creator, which is accessible in the titlescreen and via Data Terminals in-game. Once an NPC has been deployed, the only way to change their appearance is to use Data Terminals. NPCs’ birthday, name and personality are locked, and cannot be changed when they are deployed in-game.
Though you can’t change who your companions are, you can change how they behave.
NPCs gain experience through player interaction. Experience is distributed to among a set of traits, which drastically influences NPCs’ behavior. For example, NPCs with high social and sexuality traits will be keen to having sex, with or without you. Equipable skills can be found and bartered for, also used to alter NPCs’ behavior and grant special abilities. Many explorable areas and prompts are locked behind experience thresholds. When pursuing (locked) areas, it helps to interact with multiple NPCs (spawned via Data Terminals). Experience among all NPCs is counted when progressing through the story.
NPCs also have physical needs, such as the need to eat and sleep. They are pretty good about taking care of the latter need, but they’ll need your help when their stomachs deplete. Hungry NPCs are subject to disease, exhaustion, and poor moods. Food is an important resource, which can be crafted at designated cooking areas. You can place fireplaces at camps, which allow you to create food that is otherwise unavailable from the crafting menu. The most readily available source of food are fish, which can infinitely harvested anywhere there’s a beach. When stored in food storage (accessed from select areas on the map), food become available for all NPCs to consume. However, they often need told when it’s time to eat.
You don’t have to tell me when it’s time to eat.
Provided they have the proper tools, NPCs can help gather resources. Like the player character, NPCs can be equipped with a full suite of equipment. They will harvest anything their equipment allows, though they may need to be encouraged to do so (by the player). They will deposit their findings in chests, allowing you to reap the rewards anywhere a chest can be found. A handful of skills exist which will increase the likelihood or enhance NPCs’ foraging. By equipping NPCs with at least common gear, it will allow you to devote more time hunting uncommon and rare resources (rather than wasting it on petty scrap).
Story
You wake up stranded on a tropical island. You don’t know the first thing about living, but lucky for you, someone else is stranded with you; it’s a lady, and she knows just what to do. How she tells you what to do depends on what sort of personality you assigned her.
My companion gave me helpful suggestions on how not to die.
After finding your bearings, your lady friends bails. You follow her to Shan’s house, a treasure hunter who also appears to be stranded. She thinks you and the lady are competition, and Shan does not like competition. But she offers to barter (goods) and share her shelter. In exchange, you’re expected to do her bidding (which involves feeding her and fixing things). She’s a cunning con girl, and Shan keeps you and your friend(s) wrapped around her fingers.
All the while, you’re just trying to figure out how to live and how to get her pants.
A wombat tale
I built no shelters, gathered no food, and neglected my ladies’ every need. As they grew ill and worked tirelessly on my behalf, I trained them to be lusty servants whom would stop, drop n’ lick whether I wanted it or not. Now before you attack me for abusing my (not) slaves, I had no clue how to get them to take care of themselves. As it turns out, they needed to be told to do everything, from taking baths to eating. Who forgets to eat for three weeks? One day, I cooked fistfuls o’ fish kebabs. I put them somewhere where they could find ’em (and chow down). I waited day ‘n night, and they still couldn’t be bothered to eat. I had to confront my harem one by one, and tell ’em to stop fuckin’ and start suckin’ (fish kebabs).
I have a theory. I think this game takes place inside a virtual simulation of sorts.
Now, hear me out. Not only do you do you get to personalize your own avatar (at will), but you also have the ability to personalize your companions (also at will). New people (or NPCs) are created via “data terminals”, which (assuming are canon) would be strong indicator that they are in-fact, artificial to some degree. You’re immune to the elements, but NPCs are not. Resources are collected at predesignated spots, which are quick to replenish. In reality, you can only loot a garbage can so many times before it runs out of driftwood and scrap. The player character is able to (seemingly) transmute ordinary junk to refined materials and equipment (as if by magic). Furthermore, when building settlements, the player is able to spawn immense and technologically complex structures without heeding resources or manpower.
Sure, much of what I listed is part of maintaining the flow of gameplay. But given the player character’s control over the universe (and its inhabitants), I don’t think a digital simulation would be a far fetched explanation.
Visuals
Before the game boots, an “Initial Settings” dialogue will pop up. There, you are able to adjust display, video, and resolution settings. Clicking “Open Manual” will open a .HTML document detailing how to play the game and basic troubleshooting. This menu also provides quick access to the game’s user data and installation directories. “Start Game” will take you to the title menu, which is attractive and easy to navigate. From “Options”, there is a generous number settings to tweak. These range from additional graphical settings, audio levels, and gameplay preferences. The “Uploader” allows you to download other users’ characters, or to upload your own. “Character Creation” lets you craft or modify your characters.
This title has great graphics! I wouldn’t go so far to say “triple-A”, but certainly top notch for the genre of adult games. The NPCs look attractive, but despite the fleshed-out character creator can look a bit samey. They interact with the land in many ways, which helps make them feel alive. The environments were one of the biggest highlights of the game, bustling with animated fauna and picture-perfect scenes. The starting island (or Island of Ruin) sports decayed human settlements, long abandoned and reclaimed by nature. From beaches, jungles to sunken cities, there’s a wide variety of interesting scenery to keep your eyes watering with joy.
Now, there were times when my eyes water with anguish. Let’s talk wombat-woes.
I spotted several textures that left a lot to be desired (even at maximum settings). When walking in water, there are no animations which indicate someone is entering a liquid, no ripples, splashes or swimming. It’s as if the water is an illusion (which would fit into my theory). There are many invisible walls, which prevent exploration of so many places I wanted to see. Without a way to “crouch”, it’s difficult to view characters or scenery that are low to the ground. When engaging in sexual scenes, characters’ hands would regularly clip through clothing. Most, but not all of the user interface can be hidden during intercourse. The squirting and urination animations were boring. There were limited camera and posing options available for taking images of your creations.
The Character Creation screen is pretty robust. You can customize a ton of body and facial settings, though your ladies will probably look distinctly Asian. Each character is saved as a character card, a template which can be loaded in-game or used (in part or in full) as base for new characters. You can select a set default clothes for them, or save their outfits as outfit cards. Outfit cards can be used to rapidly switch between attire, and they are used in-game whenever an NPC decides to change their clothes (or play “dress up”). The birthdate, name, personality and voice of your characters can also be altered, provided you are not editing an NPC which is currently being used in a save file. As these cannot be altered, utmost care should be taken when making your selections.
The appearance of your player character and NPCs can be changed at anytime (in-game) from data terminals. This includes changing the sex of the player character, which will alter NPCs’ sexuality and sex scenes. With that in mind, it’s okay to leave the way your companions look for later. I installed a de-censorship mod, which granted me a variety of genitalia and expanded the character editor. Once you’ve finalized your character, you must create a character portrait to represent them. With a wide variety of backgrounds and poses, creating a serviceable photo for your digital waifus will only take mere minutes.
Wombat Talks
With some crafty use of the in-built character creator (and a little help from the aforementioned mod), I created a gang of smol girls (and a player character). They are about two-thirds the height of the smallest possible vanilla characters. To my surprise , the game handled these overtly small characters with ease. There were issues with them clipping at benches and during sex scenes (with taller characters), but all issues I had with them were strictly visual. When entering first person mode, the game does not render the camera at head level. Rather, it remains at the height of what would normally be the shortest character. This causes you to appear tall, and NPCs to look up (even though you’re the same height). But again, these are visual errors, nothin’ game breaking.
I gathered the nearest random generators and ticked boxes with little thought. Natalie Gonzalez (my player character) was born on March 13th, and she’s selfish bitch. All she’s interested in pleasure and stimulation, and she maintains her selfishness behind stoic composure. When she washed ashore, she was joined by Penelope Ross, an emotionless robot with the same interests. But unlike Natalie, Ross was more interested in deviancy than composure. Penelope would later become a dominatrix. Ruby Torres is a deacon of innocence, a gentle soul interested in being someone’s everything. Last to join the island was Madison Green, an optimistic gremlin with an interest in stimulation (just the same as Natalie and Penelope).
Beyond that, I haven’t written anything about these characters. . . I just sort of mashed keys until I made characters I liked looking at.
The Goods
The base game features no sexual content. That blows, so be sure to install the (free) Ecstasy Patch provided by the developers.
Sexual scenes are unlocked via special dialogues or fooling around (which can selected when the recipient is sleeping and the player is a male character). Before the dialogue option “Want to have sex” is unlocked, the desired NPC must have enough experience to increase her relationship with you. Whether or not a sex scene will be initiated is based on the NPCs’ lust, which increases over time. The accumulation of lust can be increased via dirty talk, items and skills. Depending on an NPC’s personality, she may request (or force) sex to take care of her lust.
Shan will have sex anytime, anywhere provided you’ve bartered enough goods with her.
During sex scenes you can adjust each partners’ clothing, lighting, locations and positions. The pleasure gauge represents each party’s enjoyment, which is based on the how fast you bang. To reach a climax, you must find the sweet spot (in speed) to cap the pleasure gauge. If either partner runs out of stamina, they will collapse and become unable to continue intercourse. However, sexual encounters can be spiced up through placeable objects and special items. For example, lotion will increase girls’ luster, and stimulant will allow partners to continue climaxing after reaching exhaustion.
Though there are a couple lesbian sex animations, they pale in comparison to the number of male-on-female scenes.
Unfortunately, the developers’ patch is censored (and censored poorly might I add). Thankfully, a kind soul (ScrewThisNoise) has come to save the day. They have created a patch that will de-censor the game. Click here to download this patch!
Verdict
Wait for a sale and/or significant updates.
This game is really expensive, selling for seventy USD. There is definitely not seventy dollars’s worth of content in this title, and I wouldn’t recommend paying more than thirty or forty dollars for it. Without 3rd party mods, this game awfully censored, with the ugliest mosaics I’ve ever seen. Furthermore, this game appears to a far inferior version than what is available on other platforms. To my knowledge, there exists additional DLCs and updates for this title which were not released on Steam, and are incompatible with the Steam release.
Though I do recommend this game, I recommend buying it on another platform, or waiting for the developers to upgrade this version of the game.