Ren'Py - The Null Hypothesis [v0.5a] [Ron Chon]

(0.4.B)

Good:
Relationship-driven game with fleshed out character fitting goals of chapter based structure & erotic payoffs.

Bad:
Art ambushes. Coherent art, then BAM you've unlocked a disjointed police-Photofit-feel sex pose.

It's great! Pretty much Rogue-like: Evolution but brought to modern day with vastly improved graphics and an actual story. Progression can be a bit grindy, but so was RL:e so if that bothers you, it might bring down rating to 4-stars.

Good luck to the developers and hopefully we'll see finished project some day.

A lot of work went to technical aspects like interfaces, character interactions and animation at the cost of performance.u
Story events and characters usually sticks to the og material as far as the community discuss, and they participate a lot so devs get constant feedback.
For the future I recommend keeping the same girl count, flesh out those interactions, grind and optimization for a more dense dating sim experience, like actually seeing eyecandy jogging or training sessions, that would keep the pacing on track while also rewarding players for taking part on the events.

This game hooks. It's a spiritual successor of Rogue Like with similar mechanics, but also a decent story progression system, visuals, etc. Really promising. I hope the author adds ATM dynamics, and improves the relationship complexity among MC's spouses.

So I played v.0.5a having played an earlier version previously.
Really enjoying this. Very well written and the art is stunning.
I'm going to play again a v.0.10 or so and if it continues progressing at the same rate it'll be a great game by that point.

Good visual novel with well written characters. In Rogue-like you get 0 progression, mostly stuff like perversion/submission, here you get character progression and interesting plot.
Also this game a bit "grindy", you need to repeat some actions many times in order to progress, but it's worth it, I guess.

It keeps getting better and better, you just have to be patient. I deeply enjoy playing this game, it makes me feel oddly jealous that people are so creative when they have a passion for things they like. I can't wait to see this game go further beyond what we have experienced thus far. If you are new and are still considering playing it, there's no better time than now.

Overall it's an amazing game, with such rich girls and graphs, the grind is a bit tiring, but its all worth it, i suggest more tasks and maybe more interaction with nightcrawler and the others.

Either way, i have some really high hopes for the next updates and incoming content, i really liked the way the chapters and story progress, i hope for more options and a bit of weight on the choices during the the story and combat. Of course there are things that need a polishment and all, but it's amazing and early, high hopes for the future updates!

Very Similar to the game its inspired by with better art assets and stable code.
Honestly its impressive as hell but I'll admit I am aprehensive to how it continues.
Currently the gameplay rewards are sexy outfits to dress up girls in and some sex scenes in multiple positions. At this moment the game could go two ways, expand the roster of girls ad infinity, or increase the depth of the girls and the "Quirk" system.
My hope is this game will go for quality over quantity but time will tell.

Love the graphics, nice story and great premise which look like will grow over time. Each girl has a unique story and personality.

I am looking forward to what they do next and how the bring more girls into the story.

Extremely polished visual novel, based on X-Men comics. Character visual design is very good and praise worthy. Some sex animation, does appear to be work in progress. Storytelling is engaging, nuanced, and true to the source material. Excellent entry in school harem genre.

Economy is grindy like all visual novels, but the income source does scale. Money gets you toys, outfits, and items to quickly gain points toward leveling the cast.

Giving 5 stars, but would like to see quality of life tweaks to UI navigation (main menu but costume menu in particular), tweaks to item economy pricing, added sfx audio during scenes, and many more chapters that take from other X-men storylines and characters to play with.

Tbh I'm having fun playing and loving it just because of the story and relationship we get to have with the people in the X-Men, I couldn't care less about the sex, that's just a bonus.

Add even more fan favorites members from the X-Men (Kitty, Emma Frost, Madelyn Pryor, Psylocke, Jubilee, Polaris, Mystique?!) and more autonomy sandbox, and I can see this hitting it off even better if it isn't already!

For Version: 0.4b

The visuals are great, progression feels satisfying, the quests are described very well and I doubt many people will get lost. For an earlier version it has way more content than I expected and it is very polished. The story that is set up is very little (at least for now). Most of what I would call a story is your developing relationship with the girls and Kurt/Nightcrawler. If you are looking for a big narrative this is not the game, yet.

This is the beginning of an amazing game with an immense potential and I hope it doesn't go squandered.

Great writing with excellent art and plenty of tasks without feeling too tedious to do them as the character interactions are still interesting and rewarding, especially with your favorite. Overall a very well-done game

Only play this if you really love the X-Men Evolution cartoon style, maybe some of the more recent movies. It's not like 97 or OG series, and doesn't feel or look like most of the comics I'd read, but maybe the newer comics are this style too.

Obviously this is a derivative work of the X-Men. It is the dev's interpretation but there is little change or attempt to hide it and they in fact openly disclose it as such.

Game is quite grindy, and has that annoying quest style sandbox. A lot of work has been put in on the menus and various systems, from a technical standpoint it's extremely high level and proficient. Art is inconsistent, and at times the shifts are jarring. There isn't a real overarching story, the narrative is rather weak. The characters are the main focus, so far the three you see in the banner, each with their own personality. I do not know if more characters will be added.

There is a sort of issue with progression, where the game is clearly designed progressing each character (and you have to in order to advance) but they will throw fits if you so much as talk to or study with another girl. I've had them insist they're busy, then call in another girl to study, and then one of the girls barges in angrily and is angry about it, which means a drop in points for them and they won't talk to you for several days. There is a sex mini-game too with very slow progressing bars, if you click auto advance and then try to click options, the girl might refuse consent and get mad that you asked ending the sex scene immediately, albeit only a minor stat drop. But considering how low stat gains are it's kind of annoying too. You have ability points to add to your character but you get very few of them and they don't seem to do much of anything anyway, it is another designed locked progression.

All in all I'd probably give it 3.5 stars especially if you're a fan of these chars and the grind and design decisions do not bother you. I suppose that means 4 or higher, but I'm rounding down this time. I'm surprised this has such high reviews, but I guess I can kind of see why. I hope it rounds out better with more content, it seems to have been developed for about 1.5 years now, it's a solid amount of content for that much time, but still could develop into something greater.

More than anything else, I appreciate that the devs for this game clearly took the time to make these characters feel like their source material, which is an amazing feat. I can tell that this is a game made with love for the x-men.

Game is fun, i'm not going to pretend I haven't gotten myself absorbed playing for multiple hours multiple times now. My issue is with the art, I won't through the label at it but I am skeptical despite what people say. When you compare the art of the models in normal play to the art in the 'intimate' scenes once you change poses, the quality degrades massively. It's likely entirely different artists to the point where you could argue that the girl's dont even look like the same person. It looks bad, and reminds me of the massive art degradation in 'Another Chance' once they lost the og artist. It just really kills my boner/excitement once I get to the actual intimate scenes and dont want to just stare at the standing model.
Speaking of the intimate scenes, there's something else weird about that. When you're getting intimate with someone, you're not locked behind crossing certain boundaries that make zero sense when you are locked behind others. Example: You get into your first intimate scene with Laura, you can't kiss her because you're not close enough yet/she doesn't want to give you her first kiss yet. But, you can ask her to lay down, and when characters do that they strip layers. Laura strips off her top and pants, letting you grope her, and you can have her on her hands and knees touching you. Which again.. doesn't really make much sense when she's barely even learned what having a crush on someone means.
The writing is fine, definitely better and more interesting than Rogue-like, all respect to Oni but the art is the real let down here. Also the flat white text boxes popping up as if you're playing a web browser game feels.. awkward when comparing it to the rest of the game's ui. Not a big deal, just something to bring up.

Rated at VER 0.4a

Criminally good. You can sense the passion the developer has for this game because of how everything is polished and fitted together. The User Interface fits the X-men theme well with it's industrial, minimalist font and coloring.

While many consider art style to be subjective, I doubt I could find even 5 people in a room of 100 who would rate the art below 3 stars. It's rendered superbly as well as being animated smoothly with minimal stutters, even on potato PC builds. (played this on a 7-year old laptop intel i7 CPU).

The plot line is genuinely captivating and intriguing, and I can tell the developer has actually thought about the story! So many devs for other RenPy games are incredibly talented with renders/art styles but fall short on story, relying on their art to carry their work - but this excels in both departments. I am looking forward to seeing the stories of the other girls develop, as well as our mysterious protagonist - something I cannot say for other "traditionally" good porn games.

TLDR: 5 stars. Great fit and finish, great art, great story.

To me this is a quintessential example of a 5 star game, because while it's not near as ambitious as many other games it achieves what it's trying to do with near perfection.

The writing and characters literally feel on the level of the source material, and feel very genuine. (The Rogue of this game is literally in contention for best girl in any game for me) And the gameplay and progression is really fun.

The level of grind feels like too much at first, but once you understand the system it isn't that bad at all. Just buy gifts and give them liberally and the progression actually happens at a very good pace. I wouldn't recommend cheating as the buildup is important and is handled very well.

Only 3 love interests so far, but more to come. Though what it lacks in numbers it makes up for in quality, and high production levels all around.

This is now very close to the top of my "waiting for updates" list.

this frikkin game is amazing
decent writing, great art, actual gameplay for the erotic scenes
only through the first chapter for now but enjoying it a lot. so far nothing seems to prevent you from following multiple paths at once but I have a hard time choosing between the girls. they are all great!