#157 (Patreon)

Dasaku Laboratory (Circle)

Now this is one studio I never thought I'd ever come back to.

Dasaku's last release was somewhere back at the end of 2020:
"The Den of Chaos 2" which I covered a long while back.

I was already under the impression that given the final tone of that game, the studio probably just ran out of budget and moved on from the industry.

But look and behold, we finally got a new title release 2.5 years later, and guess what? it's HOT!! 🔥

That's right, out of literally nowhere DL dropped their Magnum Opus:
"Sealed Cave Erotic Nest" (封淫洞窟エロネスト , no official Eng name yet) that
sold no less than 15k copies within two weeks, starring #1 in top sold titles for an entire week!

But before I elaborate any further, lets quickly go over how DL managed to flesh out  that level of quality.

Back in 2012, DL had a little experiment VN / Simulation game called *deep breath*:
"JK Tantei Alice Ranko: Underground Prison Interrogation"

Yeah, quite the mouthful bombastic title for a game that offers so little:
you're a student that seem to have come across a rift in the dimension into a mysterious dungeon.

As if the story wasn't already spiraling enough, she gets caught by a torturer that strips her down, slowly taking her belongings and.... squeezes her breasts into the credits sunset, the end.

Yeah, not much to write home about...

Following up a year later with a Manga of all things, based on Dragon Quest 3. Assuming DL were still trying to find their identity in the scene.
The artstyle is beautiful, and definitely worth checking out, but it is certainly more of a side gig than a main project.

Continuing what now seems to be a hiatus pattern, in 2018 and 2020 DL came up with "The Den of Chaos" sequels, where you can get more info in the hyperlink at the beginning of the post.

What makes those games relevant however, is that both of them never really had a closure, nor a clear direction of how much content they were going to offer.

In both games you control a female priestess / exorcist that wanders into a cave full of monsters and treasures.
Your job is to beat them all up while uncovering the original and put an end to it.

Only that unfortunately... there was never an end to the second installment.
There seemed to have a roadmap that got nowhere, and by the looks of it they gave up on the project, which admittedly could serve as a DLC more than its own title, given how a lot of assets were reused.

As far as I was concerned, Dasaku Laboratory was no more, or went under a new alias. Until two weeks ago when "Sealed Erotic Nest" was released.

The game borrows the same concept from The Den of Chaos:
Control a sexy girl, delve into a dungeon full of monsters, find gear and items, etc...

Only that this time everything is a lot more polished.

Movement is smoother, platforming isn't jank, combat is still basic, but you have a lot more control with zoning and overall flow.

🕹️ The gameplay mechanics feature double jump, dash (no i-frames), high jump, 3 hit sword combo, and 3 different magic spells.

While exploring you'll find different weapons that are all going to be straight damage upgrades, along with plenty of potions that either heal or increase / reduce your horny levels.

💕 Speaking of horny, and probably the main reason the game sold so well - is the very smooth pixel art animations when the heroine gets defeated.

When you're HP reaches 0 you won't receive a straight up game over screen, but instead enter a defeat mode, where you're susceptible to enemies grabs and their lecherous schemes.

You can in fact escape any KO grab whenever you wish by simply holding C button to struggle your way out, fully recovering your entire health with a small drawback of remaining in lewd mode (movement slowdown) until you use a blue potion.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it - the game is far from perfect.
But, and that's a big butt (🥁), from an H game perspective - it ticks a all the flags that the average cultured gamer is looking for:
- Simple but engaging gameplay.
- Easy to access high effort lewd content.
- New lewd rewards with further exploration.

SEN is exactly that, although being as short as it is, it provides high grade 18+ content, albeit not a lot of it, but the quality does make up for quantity.
And hey, the sales figures speak for themselves - it's a well packaged H content.

Projects releases (In order):

1. JK Tantei Alice Ranko: Underground Prison
2. DQ3 Magif*ck CG Collection - Toys of the Monsters
3. The Den of Chaos ~Order of Ahiahan the 19th~
4. The Den of Chaos 2 ~Ruins of Assamalam~
5. Sealed Cave Erotic Nest (封淫洞窟エロネスト)

All of Dasaku Laboratory's titles are available on DLsite.

❤️ For relevant H content of these titles you may contact me in DM for referrals.