Spooky Starlets
CW: Sex, Drugs, and… Games Workshop?
Dear reader, I genuinely got my hopes up for this one and it saddens me how much they were dashed.
Spooky Starlets is a deck-building porn studio running game with art reminiscent of Monster Prom which, importantly, doesn’t seem to gender you! (though there are some moments that hint heavily at the presence of a penis they never out and out say it so such accusations can be handwaved away).
But alas, as befitting a game about the film industry, Spooky Starlets razzle dazzles its way into your Steam library only to reveal that its all style and no substance. In fact, there’s not much style here either.
The game starts with you, a super awesome cool insurance scammer waking up to a vampire girl masturbating on her office floor because SEX! She explains that the studio she runs isn’t doing too well because the previous producer/director was more interested in sleeping with the talent than making movies so she needs you to step up and help get the studio back into the red.
It then shows the film making portion which involves playing scene cards in the right order. Foreplay cards like handjob, blowjob; Action cards like missionary, doggystyle, spitroast; and Finish cards which are invariably some sort of cumshot.
And while the card selection feels like you’re playing poker with oven mitts on, it’s at least novel enough a mechanic to warrant some praise.
HOWEVER
The deck-building and card playing is some of the worst I’ve ever encountered. Before each film you get a chance to spend some of your Bones on new cards which are always Starlets, two power cards which can grant special abilities, and a position card. Overstack your deck in any direction and you find yourself at the mercy of RNGesus as you can only play the appropriate action cards for the part of the scene you’re in. Foreplay at the start, action in the middle, and a finish at the end. And if you don’t have a foreplay card, you can whittle away your money til bankruptcy trying to find one, at which point you have to restart the whole section.
Then there’s the whole porn mentality where all that matters is the male actor ejacluating to finish the scene. No female orgasm cards at all just moneyshot, backshot, creampire, group shot. And that is a cumprehensive list.
Outside of the film making sections you choose a part of the studio lot to explore and it gives you a little visual novel scene involving the various monstergirls and this is where Spooky Starlets really falls apart.
I said in the content warning that this game contains sex, drugs, and games workshop and that’s not a joke. One of the first events I got was with a character who hadn’t been introduced yet (and who my character somehow already knew) who convinced me to shark some nerds at her local hobby store so she could win some money. And this part really saddened me because in various other parts of the game they make Warhammer references, clearly know the Warhammer 40K lore, and yet paint Warhammer fans as pathetic nerds who have never seen a girl. It’s sadly hypocritical, like they’re embarrased about their hobbies.
Although maybe its unfair to pull them up on that as, going by the writing, they are clearly twelve years old. A theory I started coining after a scene in which your character snorts powdered alcohol off the thighs of two of the pornstars. So kewl. Your character later goes on to drink ‘cocaine laced liquor out of a skull’ and a whole beer that the werewolf girl got from a raid on the ‘umie world.
But frustratingly the writing does occasionally head off into somewhat interesting territory like the Frankenstein’s Monstergirl Susie Stitches trying to understand that there is life outside of sex after having been literally built for the porn studio. And as horrifying as that is, there are some nice little moments like where she’s watching the birds or learning to howl with the werewolf.
Then your character stares at her “tits jiggling invitingly” right in the middle of her sad story. Which, after having played a few of these games, is starting to become a worrying trend. Character opens up and shows some vulnerability = lookie-dem-teary-tiddies.
Quick Fire Criticisms
- ‘Umie is such an awful word. It fits the Warhammer Orks a little cause they have tusks but it sticks out like a sore thumb when real people say it.
- Drinking yourself stupid and doing ridiculous drugs isn’t cool. Perhaps making a porn game just invites full on hedonism?
- One of the characters goes on about loving dwarves because they “drink alot and are very manly, despite their size” which, as someone who also likes dwarves, really puts me off. Stop ruining dwarves with this shallow stereotyping! And stop perpetuating the idea that men need to be tall to be manly, its harmful and utter shite.
- The werewolf says she never bottoms but put her in one of the films and she bottoms like everyone else which is ludonarrative dissonance. Look it up if you want to learn some basic game design theory.
- Y’know what, another criticism for getting my hopes up.
Gameplay wise, Spooky Starlets is like a bargain bin Monster Prom. A visual novel written by a hyper pre-teen. 3/10
Arousal wise, the way too fast looping sex scenes in the film making portion are a 1/10 while some of the drawn images manage to get a 4/10 because they make noises and my ape brain is easily amused.
Oh, and 1 point for Lucy because her voice actor didn’t do that overly high pitched squeaking and got to do something different in her introduction.
And -1 point for the repeated use of the word ‘tumescence’.
Top Quotes:
- “Ooh if this is what being haunted feels like, I don’t ever wanna stop.”
- “No way I can make sportsball sexy!”
- “Susie murmurs right as she works out the last few drops from the huge, quivering pile of man meat.”
- “If you’re going to be the Belle of the Brawl.”
- “What? Naw! I’m a werewoof.”
- “..thrusts herself backwards to meet the hips of the hulking himbo.”
tl;dr: Monster Prom was a good game wasn’t it? What if we took the worst parts of that and had a twelve year old boy with a Pornhub Premium pass write the dialogue?
