Ren'Py - A Home in the Desert [v0.4.5] [Misarmor]

Just started playing this for a bit. See quite some 1-star reviews, which I find a bit harsh. That you can give to utter crap, which this is not.

Soundtrack is nice/good. Nice selection of ambient, piano & soft rock. Together with the renders/visual gives a nice vibe IMO. It's nice how there's taken care of the morning, day/afternoon & evening setting/vibe.

Only got 1 lewd scene until now which had pretty decent sfx, so that's nice as well.

The free roam mechanics are quite elaborate. Some nice aspects to it, and some (what is 'sandbox' game common I suppose) somewhat tedious (e.g. checking schedules/times). I'll have some suggestions for the dev. Some issues like the map that doesn't seem to work properly (red areas but nothing going on).

Will extend & refine review when I played a bit more & give appropriate rating. For now I'll simply give 5 stars as counterweight to the 1 star bs.

The game looks good, no lie. But it's empty inside—no content, nothing to keep you hooked. There are features listed in the "quest" menu as "coming soon," but if you haven't added them, why put them there? Right now, the only thing this game really needs is tons of content. Since Feb 1, 2023, there’s been no real progress.

>really poor story and poor story execution
>gameplay wise it is SHIT
>at some point at the story, it jumps the out of nowhere and you can get lost (as long as I remember)
>mc is kinda derp
>3dcg is looks really looks cool and good at someparts but you can clearly see when the dev wanted to speed up things

I really want this one to succeed, I really do. But after 1 ½ years of development with almost no NSFW content and a very boring grind, I’m not very hopeful.

The story is alright, but nothing special. A family has financial troubles and has to move, and the main character has to pick up the slack. However, there are apparently some shady characters in the shadows, or something like that. You've heard it a hundred times already.

But let's be real, there's one and only one reason people play these kinds of games, and if the Dev doesn't deliver in that regard, the story could be a Shakespearean masterpiece and no one would care.

The character models look very pretty, in my opinion. Everyone except the aunt. I really don’t like her buzz cut. I like short hairstyles, but the prickly hair is really ugly. Other than that, everyone looks very attractive, which makes the lack of content even more frustrating.

I understand the appeal of a slow burn, but usually with a slow burn, the Dev makes up for it with some voyeurism or a throwaway horny side character to spice up the story.

So my suggestion to the dev would be to dedicate some time to creating more of these scenes. Right now, this really isn’t a game I could recommend to people because it just feels like a waste of time.

Almost everything in this game feels unnecessarily dragged out. The money grind, the need to go shopping and all the build up that leads to nowhere. The story is ridiculous and the characters make no sense.

Seems like one of those games where the dev is delaying the action as much as possible to milk out the patreons as the updates are slow and there is literally no content.

All that story and repeatable garbage storylines for next to no sexual content whatsoever... pointless and waste of time... The one scene was actually a dream scene... and there is no build up to actual sexual interactions between characters.

Too many unnecessary systems like shopping, cooking, etc. These systems take up development time that is wasted on non-essential features. If I play this kind of game, it’s not to go shopping.

It’s annoying how these games add useless, drawn-out features, with updates every 10 months where nothing interesting happens, only to be abandoned and never finished in the end.

This game is about 1 part titties to fifty parts grinding the money system. I'm required to earn about 5.75k in a system where you click 'Work 2 hours' until it's night time, click sleep, pick how long to sleep (it literally doesn't matter except your character says they feel tired if you sleep less), then there's the overnight sequence where you make a dice roll per family member to see if you can detect that they feel cold or not overnight (it literally doesn't matter) and the characters get an overall mood thing for the day. Except for the day I forgot to buy food at the grocery store (oh yeah you have to do that too), the family seems perfectly stable while I do nothing but slowly grind money. Since I ran out of food once, I know I did at least 3 weeks of cash grind (which was probably maybe 40ish minutes of real life), saw that I only got about 40% of the way to the goal and deleted the game.

I know not every game is going to be for everybody, but this one was so confusing in its time management that I felt like I really should review it.

The potential is there, the content is lacking however. I didn't realise that Eve was also a futanari, I was really hoping that Alice would be unique in that regard.
The characters are well realised, the writing is good, the grind is real...haha, reminds me of real life!
This game has all the ingredients to be great, but menus and sub-menus need work and it requires a lot more content.
It's a good start with a promising future...I hope the developer sticks with it.

Very promising game. Good renders, sexy models, futa.
This is all with the good things.
This managment cooking and isolation payment is ruining everything. The game over for such game is a downgrade.
The dev should take an example of House Chores. Make it more simple.

The potential. The fucking potential of this game.

I'm a simple girl. I like futas, I like lesbians, I like hot babes. Incest isn't normally my thing, but damn if I don't want to see Alice/MC bone her entire family. Much like the MC with her family, the dev is dragging me further into degeneracy.

However, the game needs some work. Granted, it's only v0.4.

Cons:
-As others have said, grindy. Very grindy. You spend most of your time burning hours by clicking the same buttons to work from your laptop. The new extra expense especially hurts. This could be alleviated by adding in more scenes to break up the monotony, which I assume the dev is working toward. But for now, there's not much to do but work, shop, and cook with little payoff.
-As mentioned above, few scenes. Granted, early build. But it should be mentioned. I'm not expecting full sex this early, but more spying/peeking scenes for the early days would be awesome. Maybe more of MC secretly masturbating while watching her family. MC keeps talking up how much she's always horny and how they tease her, so it would be nice to see that happening.
-Story. There's a story now about a puritanical politician who hates our lovely MC for only wanting to bone her family. Right now this is a 'con' because it's a bit cringe and I can't tell where we're going. But if done right it can easily become a 'pro' and benefit the game.
-More complexity in the management. I am 100% the only person asking for this. But more recipe variety, more utilities to manage, and more unhappiness would make the game more of a challenge. So if it's not added, I get it. But I found it way too easy to keep everyone at 95-100 happiness.
EDIT: Minor issue, but the temperature conversion is a bit off. The Fahrenheit temps are a bit too low for the equivalent Celsius. It was confusing when it said it was 57 degrees F in the house but the sisters were complaining it was too hot.

Pros:
-Hot characters. All of them. 10/10, perfection. Eve, Riley, Angelina, and Emily (my favorite), and Alice are all fantastic.
-Futas. That's it. Massive dicks on hot chicks. Personally never been a fan of 'full futas' so the lack of pussy doesn't bother me. Plenty of other pussy in the house. (And really, really, really hope we get some scenes between Eve & Alice eventually).
-Good systems. Yes, I complained about the grind. But because right now there's little else to do. But once the dev adds more scenes/images, that will solve itself. Grocery shopping is simple but fun. Managing the utilities is straightforward with room to expand. But Misarmor said they wanted to get the groundwork and mechanics set first, and it looks like they succeeded.
-Kinks/content. So far, promising. Once more, not much content, but what is here is great. I love the 'special sauce' scene. Really hoping the dev has plans to make more use of that in some way. Like the family getting used to the taste and craving more. The perving scenes are good. The dream sequences are fun. The dev appears determined to go full degeneracy here and I am 100% on board.

This could easily be a 5/5 game in time. Right now, I think it's worth trying if you're really, really into the premise. But be warned that you will hit a content wall pretty quickly. But I am eager to see what the dev does next.

Fine game, but still it's very short.
There are 3 woman and 2 futanari (with testicles) with limited content for 4 of them.
With more content and real futanari (with both penis and vagina) this can be really great game.

What I liked about this game is that, unlike most games, it has meaning. When playing, you remember the Buddhist wisdom that a person is a soul burdened with a mortal body. It doesn't matter that you are small and thin, the youngest and all that. You were reborn in the body of a weak girl, but remained a fighter responsible for your family. Futa content in this case is just very appropriate and the character's reactions do not look far-fetched. The game is about life, it's just that the characters in it are not ordinary, but this makes it more credible, oddly enough. Thanks to the author, I wish you health and inspiration and I hope that the plot will develop and not turn into a banality .

As it stands, this game offers almost zero content, packed into hours of boring grind that seems to intend to have you micromanaging every aspect of everyone's lives. It's just not fun.

That said, take out the management, take out the grind, and you MIGHT have something interesting. The writing, while certainly stretching credulity pretty far at some points, isn't terrible. It could use some work, but it's not a lost cause by any means. The renders are good. There's a solid base there, but it's completely overshadowed by the pointless grindfest and massive lack of actual content.

If they spent half the time they did on renders and writing that they seem to have spent working on boring, pointless mechanics, this game would be significantly better. The fact is, porn games and normal games are two intrinsically different beasts. If you want to make a normal game, where you can focus your efforts on mechanics and game design, go do that. But that's never going to work for a porn game. People play these games for the renders and the story. That's it. If you have to grind to get the content, then you've made a bad game. That might sound harsh, but it's just the truth. Especially in a game like this, where the "gameplay" isn't engaging or fun. It's just tedious.

I doubt the devs will actually listen to this feedback, so this will probably be the last time I check this game out, but I hope they do listen to it, and stop shooting themselves in the foot. Don't fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy, it's not to late to change directions.

At the moment, there is not as much sexual content in the game as we would like, since the developer is still busy implementing various systems. Currently, it remains for him to implement the MS statistics system well. I think that after the introduction of the systems, the development of sexual content will go faster.

+:
No complicated grind: It's easy to make money in the game, and you can do it at any time.
Simple to understand systems: I bought food and forgot about it. I think girls will get their food preferences later in the future.Installation of air conditioning and heating: It can be installed on an automatic machine, and you only need to monitor the tax.
High—quality characters and surroundings: The characters and surroundings look good, and personally my favorite character is Emily.
Not a bad story: The plot immediately makes it clear what the character needs to do to achieve his goals.

-:
There is little sexual content: dreams, masturbation and attractive characters so far all that the game provides
Linearity: So far, the game is quite linear, despite being positioned as a sandbox.

Conclusion:
It should be understood that this is a beta version, and the systems will be developed later, at the moment this is only a general idea of them, which does not greatly interfere with the perception of the main content. In the future, the game should turn into a good sandbox, demonstrating the quality of 3D and game systems.

The game is boring and grindy. It's full of mechanics (like shopping and working) that add nothing and, if removed, would improve the game. Often, it's confusing and you don't know what to do, and to unlock progress you have to apply a frustrating trial and error method. There are no satisfying rewards because there's hardly any content. The developer doesn't have a roadmap and gives the impression that he doesn't know what he's doing. In this update, he decided to redo the game to add, supposedly, 40 new events. Honestly, I have seen less content than in the previous version (except the onlyfans event) but with more grinding. It's ridiculous that almost 2 years of development, the product is in the state it's in.

The mechanics of this game are pretty boring but the characters are so hot that it made me want to play until the end of the content.
I just hope that from now on development focuses more on the strength of the game: the characters and giving us more scenes with them rather than on new mechanics that might make the game even more tedious.

v0.3 Review, edited for v0.4 at the behest of the dev
As other reviewers have mentioned, visually it's great and the models look good, but god I didn't think it'd be a desert of content too.

The big issue is that you have to put A LOT of work (compared to most AVNs) for little benefit. The story is incredibly vapid and has as many holes as a sponge, and the gameplay is extremely tedious, requiring a lot of steps for even just one day. This means that the payoff here is ONLY the sex scenes, so the fact it's so minimal is just disasterous to the experience. This project has been going for a year and a half, and there's just too little to justify it. Think about how little content is in it now, and how much would be left for it to actually be completed?

Ultimately I give it a 3/10, and it's heavily carried by the visuals.

EDIT V0.4:
I got a passive-aggressive message from the developer that didn't find my review satisfactory, so I will provide his comments and answer them individually, just for him.

Just to be sure. You have reviewed 0.4, right? Not 0.3?

I had not, I was reminded of the dissatisfaction I felt for the game by it appearing in the recent category. That is why I mentioned the version. Specifically to make sure people knew that while my experiences were accurate FOR THAT VERSION, things may have changed. I was not obligated to add the version, I did so as a courtesy.

And in any good review, examples are usually present. What plot holes?

A famous producer (the father of the MC) is accused of sexual harassment by an actress, and supposedly his two choices are either a) give away ALL of his money, or b) go to prison. That's not how civil suits work. Why would he agree to a settlement he can't afford? Anyone with an actual lawyer, hell anyone with any knowledge of their own finances, wouldn't agree to that. Why would him refusing lead him to prison time? How are you starting your story by showing a fundamental lack of understanding for the crux of your premise?

This false accusation then apparently leads to the father and mother, a woman who is apparently a famous actress, to divorcing. Why? It's never specified, because the dev insinuates they're false with him saying "it was her word against his". If the accusations were real, why not state as much? Otherwise the mother just looks worse off because they COULD be fake and she's just divorcing him, especially with the description of her feeling cheated on rather than BEING cheated on.

Then the ENTIRE premise, involves this family of FIVE deciding to go into the middle of butt fuck nowhere, with NO CAR, to...do what, exactly? They BOUGHT the house, it wasn't as if she got it in the divorce or it was part of some family assets, they spent MONEY on a home that was dilapidated and RUN DOWN, it is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. So we aren't gonna stay in the city and the mother isn't gonna try and revitalise her career, while the 3 daughters and aunt also work? You've taken dynamics that have already been explored before in AVNs, and instead of going the logical routes with them, you try to fit this 'square peg in a round hole' and put them in a desert??? Why wouldn't you have them renting some small house with 2 bedrooms and an attic or basement? They could spend 30k on a home, that means they can afford rent for AT LEAST a year.

Keep in mind, this is all JUST THE SET UP. But to be nice, I won't mention the plot contrivance of the MC finding pictures of his mother conveniently placed in a box in the attic of a house in the middle of buttfuck nowhere with a pamphlet to the exact place the original owner is.

What "many steps" do you feel you have to make in one day?

In a game where the main problem demonstrated to the player is the delapodated home, you'd think they'd take advantage of the location, and have you perhaps find the classic bicycle and ride into town to find fun and creative ways to get materials to fix the house yourself, to show a sense of progress. Instead, the developer has decided what you should spend most of your time doing is managing your fucking groceries to micromanage the families "saiety and satisfaction". What's worse than a poorly designed business management game? Doing it IN A HOME.

Your day consists of making breakfast, going on a run to the grocery store, trying to balance out the number of groceries you can get and match it with the money you have, going back to work for a bit, then going to cook dinner, then working again so you can buy more groceries. It is quite possibly one of the most boring loops in any AVN I have ever played. There's the newer introduction of a store, but this is a part of other AVNs slapped onto this one. Again: the actual setting has not been taken advantage of, instead the store is ON THE COMPUTER. Instead of pre-emptively setting up quests and making the grocery system, make a rudimentary town that we can actually explore, expand the world in a meaningful and engaging way instead of us waiting around for something to happen.

The worst part is, this system was entirely voluntary. There is no one else that has a system like this, because everyone else understands that literally no one wants to use a system like that. It is literally a waste of time. It is a pointless exercise in disguising the fact this game barely has any real content.

I will repeat my prior point too, that this content is not worth the effort. The characters are shallow and vapid, and the backstory introduction is essentially exactly how they are for the rest of the content shown. This means you're not excited to see what hot scenario they'll make, you're just hoping you actually see some sexual content. Once again, the models are GOOD, the sex scenes can be HOT, but that is the only positive in the game. Hell, even navigation is a chore due to the way the pictures are framed, you have to move your cursor around to specific corners and walls to get anywhere. Sometimes it's an entire side of your screen, sometimes it's the corner of a couch, sometimes it's just one specific part of the bottom of your screen.

The UI is also a fucking mess, the user being given about a dozen different tabs, half of them being fucking useless. You know how most games usually only add new tabs when they become relevant? Yeah, that's for a reason.

Next up is the choices! It's essentially a kinetic novel, so why so many devs including this one decide to obscure it with largely meaningless choices is beyond me. There are literally examples of multiple choice, and the ones you choose being eliminated until you pick the one that progresses the story.

Thanks.

You are welcome. Glad to waste my time again. 2/10

Not a bad game. Good mechanic, little too much mechanics, too few little sex. The story kind of put on halt due to most active quests having little to not implimented. Kind of feels like a tease. I think I discovered everything. I'm not sure. I will follow up in maybe 1-2 years and see how much more content there is. I feel at this point it's a little too soon to have a proper assessment

I liked the game. I only would improve the animations, if I remember correctly they were just two frames back and forth. Everything around those animations is great. The dialogs and situations show the dev's great understanding of eroticism. The UI is nicely designed, but the UX I didn't find that intuitive or attention graving. The story has some unique aspects that make it worthwhile. The management aspect of the game was easy. You just send your sister to buy food every day, keep the air conditioner on and cook one of the first plates you learn over and over again. So, it can get repetitive without much challenge. Maybe that's because of the lack of content. If the story is completed in an in game week, then there's not that much management to be made. I'm really looking forward to more updates 'cause I'm loving the characters and their models.