Abdiel

In a scientific establishment, a new form of android called the "Sexaroid" was created. The Sexaroid was created to be like the ultimate "living" sex toy, and the new male half-human, half-animal model is sure to be a success, though still in the testing phase.

The first two prototypes were Shiro, a cat-boy Sexaroid, and Kuro, a dog-boy Sexaroid, created by the Doctor with help from his assistant, Kashiwagi. Before they can be put on the market, the Doctor decides to test them himself, to see if they can be made into subserviant sex slaves.

To get the data needed, he needed a human to compare the results with, and he turned to Kashiwagi, who firmly refused the offer, even when the Doctor offered to double his pay to be the guinea pig for the testing. Not taking no for an answer, the Doctor knocked Kashiwagi out with an anesthetic and restrained him, and is now using him in his studies.

His first client wants a Sexaroid in two months, which the Doctor finds sufficient to do his testing. For the next sixty days, he will find out exactly what the Sexaroids are capable of.

HAR-A (Shiro) - Shiro is a cat-type Sexaroid. Although he is designed to be intelligent and feeling, he hardly shows any visible signs of emotion on the surface. He also has the ability to speak, but rarely does so. He is very gentle and friendly.

HAW-B (Kuro) - Kuro is a dog-type Sexaroid. He is a bit rude and rebellious, and his intelligence is rather low. When he speaks, he is very blunt and unsociable. Although defiant, once he accepts someone as his master, like a true dog he becomes very obedient and loyal.

Kashiwagi Takaya - Kashiwagi was the Doctor's assistant who managed research and development of the Sexaroids, as well as other miscellaneous business. He is very serious and meticulous, and the Doctor respects him as a good researcher. When Kashiwagi refused to be used in the Doctor's testing of the Sexaroids, he was restrained and is now being used for the testing by force.

Abdiel plays a little differently than your typical boys' love game. Mainly, it does not play in a visual novel style -- instead you pick from a set of commands what action a character will take, and as they build experiance you will see new images and possibly an ending involving that character.

You start out the game with a listing of the three characters, Shiro, Kuro, and Kashiwaki. Each one will have four stats: The top is their energy (think of a life meter of sorts), the second in their pride rating, the third is their sensitivity, and the fourth is their degree of obediance. When you hover the mouse over a character, it will show a list of seven items with a status bar next to each one: these are the different levels in "sexual service," and when the bar is completely filled next to one of these seven items, it means that sexual service has been mastered.

You click on one of the characters and are brought to a new screen where you are given seven blue buttons, which are the sexual service commands. The first is the chest, the second is genital exposure, the third is oral sex, the fourth is masturbation, the fifth is S&M, the sixth is anal stimulation, and the seventh is anal sex. The last button in green lets you return to the previous screen. Play is quite simple: you click a button to train the character in that sexual act, and an image of this will be displayed in the upper left-hand window. As they gain experiance in a particular act over time, more images will be shown. You can pick any acts until a character runs out of energy. When all the characters you plan to train for the day are out of energy, you hit the "Skip" button on the main screen to advance to the next day. You have sixty days total to train your characters. If you can get a character to master all their acts and eliminate their pride stat, you will get an ending image of that character and the Doctor at the end of the game.

A neat feature of this game is that additional characters can be purchased and downloaded from Joinac's website, and then you can customize which three characters you want in the game: Rady, Naria, Razor-Back, Yumeno Akira, Daichi Haruka, and Takase Tsubasa. Joinac's site features six additional characters you can add on to the game. The game does not feature a built-in CG gallery, but you receive passwords within the game when you master a character in a sexual act or win their ending that you can put into the Password field on the Joinac Abdiel website to view the final CG at a larger size (though the mosiacs on the website are worse than those in the game).

The way the gameplay is set up it's extremely easy for those that can't read Japanese to play, as all that is missed is the written dialogue during the sex acts. There are no long story dialogues or lists of options to chose from, so it's easy to catch on how to play.

As far as technical issues with the game, I had no problem running the game on a Windows XP system with the language set to Japanese. Be aware, however, that while the game can play directly off the CD-ROM, you will need to copy all files from the CD-ROM off onto your hard drive if you want the "Save" and "Load" features to work.

AGTH Compatibility - Abdiel is compatible with Anime Games Text Hooker. You must add the /v and /kf parameters, and select the ":000003A4 MultiByteToWideChar" thread in AGTH.

Abdiel Capture Guide - A capture guide in English made by myself for getting the endings in the game. Includes the password list to use on Joinac's website to view the gallery images.

Abdiel is a different kind of boys' love game. The plot/story element that most games are very heavy on, being as they typically play in a visual novel format, is gone, and instead this game almost has the feel of a "typical" hentai game, the only difference being that it features males with males. Due to the lack of storyline, the game is a bit shallow, nothing but repeated sexual images going on for sixty days of play within the game. So while the gameplay is exceedingly easy, especially for those that don't read Japanese, it also is also exceedingly dull.

Abdiel isn't all a bad game: if you are just interested in games for sexual images, then you should definitely check this game out, as that is all it is! Every screen of "training" the characters features a mini-CG of that character in the sexual act, so you'll get plenty of yaoi eye-candy. It has some nice character designs, especially for fans of half-animal bishounen, and fans of more "hard-core" yaoi can be happy, as this game features some rather racy images, such as bondage, nipple clamps, and enemas, among others. It is also one of the few games that can be customized to feature the three characters of your choice, but the downside is you have to purchase the six additional characters from Joinac's website, otherwise you only have the default three characters to play with anyway. But the very concept behind having additional characters and picking which ones to play is a novel idea.

But, for a lot of boys' love gamers, Abdiel would likely be a let-down. It is very much a "PWP" (plot, what plot?) game. There is no real story, no real dialogue, no character interactions... it's just sex, and nothing but sex for the length of the game. And those sixty days of play within the game take a /long/ time, and with only one save available, replaying to get a different character ending is a very lengthy and extremely boring process. You have to do the same acts and view the same CGs over and over, building levels, until your sixty days are up, and it becomes tedious. Another downpoint is that instead of having a built-in CG gallery of some sort, you are given passwords to look at the images from Joinac's Abdiel Site in the Gallery section. First, its almost near impossible to find the password entry box if you have your resolution in 800x600 like I do, and secondly, when you do put in a password to see the image, they do have it in a larger size, but the mosiacs are much worse than those used on the games, and they put their website URL in big print right over the image, so it is really pointless to go to all that trouble. You get a better picture from within the game, even though they are smaller.

So, if you don't really care about a game with plot, and are looking more along the lines of a "male-on-male hentai" game rather than a "boys' love" game, and really just have an interest in some nice yaoi imagery, Abdiel is right up your alley. It is also worth checking out if you happen to be a fan of half-animal bishounen or S&M. But if you are looking for a game that has a little more purpose and more storyline than sex, or aren't partically a fan of S&M-themed yaoi, then I suggest you pass Abdiel up. The non-picky boys' love gamer may want to check this game out for the character designs and yaoi artwork, but don't expect to get anything else from it.

Joinac GAS's Official Abdiel Site (Japanese) - The company's site with information on the game.

Disclaimer: All written text and capture guides © Boys' Love Games Headquarters. All pictures and downloads are copyright of their respective companies and artists and are for promotional use only. I am in no way claiming the art as my own, nor am I trying to infringe upon the company's rights. I am trying to promote these games by allowing a foreign audience to see some artwork from the game.