Ren'Py - A House in the Rift [v0.7.14b1] [Zanith]

A House in the Rift is a solid 8/10
A game that is a game first and porn second.


Story/Lore/Plot:
The story is pretty simple to understand, an incident that sets the stage for the situations that will develop during the game, why the characters are there and the justifications leave no room to say "What if they try this" or "Why don't they do this", as such, the whole premise is very solid.

The development of the story is very good, it is very interesting and the world (or worlds in this case) are well thought out, they make sense and awaken a feeling of curiosity in you when playing, you want to see them in more depth.

There are many mysteries and without realizing it you will end up formulating your own theories and assembling the pieces as you go along, it is captivating and perfectly fulfills what a Visual Novel should always be, being interesting enough to trap you in its world. Additionally, the game handles very good humor.


Characters:
They are varied and picturesque, but their very different designs are well justified by the story, which gives freedom to the appearance of all kinds of colorful characters. Each one is normal in their own world, they do not exist out of nowhere to satisfy the player, they have their story, their problems and most importantly, they are characters that evolve as you advance in their stories.

One in particular has a very human and interesting development and conflict. Gameplay: It is a Visual Novel, they do not usually contain anything very exaggerated beyond dialogue options, there are some particular systems that are not very recurrent but they do work well to break the routine.


Graphics:
The standard that you will find in every Ren'py game, the renders are well cared for and the animations are good. Nothing really remarkable, but above average for other games.


Negative aspects:
I really could not think of anything particularly negative that is not within the limitations of time, dev knowledge or Ren'py limitations.

Awesome game, a character type for everyone´s taste, beautiful animations.
Cool mechanics in some scenes that actually need you to watch out and try, not just mindlessly rushing through to get to the good part

I hated this. But my hate is subjective, and does not apply to all and a considerable amount of hard work was put behind this game, so a 5 star.

Cons: First off, this game has countless hours of boob-less scenes. The writer wanted to tell a story which is mind numbingly boring but I would roll with it if he put some kinkiness in between. The premises is so awesome that it would take extra effort not to put sexy scenes frequently. This game could have been so kinky, I'm pretty sure the writer hates sex or something. And some characters are so annoying, it would top the chart of most annoying fictional characters of all time. Especially Cait and that elf girl. The two hottest girls are also annoying af. The are so timid so self loathing so whiny its ridiculous. And the other girls are not bad but they are just ugly (specially the dwarf. That was the point of introducing that character? Oddly I kind of like that orc girl even though she's muscular and with a... well, orc-like face)

Pros: 5 star because Im a sucker for games with repeatable scenes and harem where girls know about each other. And all the marks for creating the premise. This game I suspect is made for the female audience, not for straight dudes, so can't hate too much because I don't like it.

I haven't finished it yet, I'm on 130somethingth day. Still no public sex or even threesome. Just vanilla sex.

It's okay. Has a rather unique setup that allows for a harem to be even somewhat plausible unlike literally any other harem game in existence.

It's just that the characters never, ever develop and the cohabitation nature of the game feels like ass because the developer just isn't willing to change basic dialogue after hours and hours of grinding away at a character's relationship, they still act like assholes to you. Doesn't help that you have 0 choice in the game. Almost every choice is just an ilusion of it, you can roll back and choose the others and it'll lead to the same shit.

I'm telling you. Whenever, in the main game you etherwalk with someone, ask them to stay in the bed. You will ALWAYS be told no but the game always gives you that choice. There's even one part where you have 4 different lines and it all leads to them leaving. What the fuck is the point?

The main story was somewhat interesting but the infinite padding killed whatever stakes there were and it's impossible to give a shit now.

Oh and it's just another Honey Select romp, so you've seen every animation ever, none of it is all that great.

The game is super grindy for little reward and each update would rather add some stupid fucking haha-so-silly interaction rather than porn or pushing the story forward.

And as some other reviewers mentioned, the game design is intrinsically flawed. While at first it's novel and it does feel a bit like you're sharing a house as the game drags on constantly hunting for triggers around the house is a complete fucking chore.

An excellent game, thanks Zanith, the beautiful construction of the characters, their moods, their conversation, and the poetry all over the game is just superbly wonderful, The Elf development and trajectory within the game is astonishing and delicately beautiful, it is a masterpiece, there is not obscenity, while is a sandbox feels like reading a lovely and interesting novel, the music is just like a breeze. Please keep your creation at these highs

5 Stars because (as of a few months ago when I DLed it) I was actually a little emotionally crushed when I realized how heartless the succubus is. She is 100% geared towards bringing down the prison, with 0% care whether the MC is left stranded back on Earth afterwards. She constantly nudges him to take her to Earth. Despite the MC wanting to see other things cautiously, the only time she ever actually takes him anywhere is when he needs him to be her dimensional uber for things she wanted to do anyway. Realizing she's just the absolute worst person - it actually hurt my feelings. I barely even HAVE feelings, so... FIVE STARS all day.

(Well, 4.9 stars - the dwarf's slow-wittedness goes well beyond skepticism into the realm of sub-80 IQ stupidity but it isn't written that way.)

This is one of the best sandboxes on this website, it has a few flaws but it's strengths far outweigh the flaws. The game has an original main story with several smaller stories of each LI to support the main story. The main story follows the events of MC and a succubus stuck in a house and more LI joining them as the story progresses, while this does sound interesting the best part of the story are in the branching mini stories of each LI.

Story: 8/10
The story of the game is good enough and the mini stories are really good for most characters and absolutely trash for one character. Outside of the character which has a stupid story which makes the LI (Naomi) look like they have the maturity of a 10 year old who lost their role in a school play rest of the characters have compelling arcs and development over their stories. The stories serve as a way to make the transition of MC's relation with the LI's from platonic to sexual, which makes the stories slow burns and I personally enjoy it. Even if someone is not a huge fan of slow burn games they can still enjoy this game by skipping through story decisions as they are mostly for immersion and have little consequences.

Gameplay 8/10: The gameplay is standard sandbox style with no new things to note. It serves the story well enough and there is not much to complain about it. There is some grind to it but it is so little and spread out that you won't notice it. There is a "days" system in the game but I have not seen any consequences to skipping/wasting days yet so I don't know if it matters.

Renders 10/10: This game has top 5 renders on this website, they look like they were made in Koikatsu (correct me if I'm wrong) but they are top quality and most of them are well animated and looped so you can enjoy them while you let them run. The older LI's have more content than the newer ones but that is to be expected and I'm excited to see what the developer does for the new LI's. There is also a free gallery unlock for those who just want to see the renders.

Flaws :Now for the main complaint in this review and which I think is the only flaw in this game: You are forced to complete/experience every LI's route at some point or the other. You have agency in when you want to do their stories's but the main story and other LI's stories will eventually halt and you NEED to complete the other stories to progress the story of your favourite LI. While I understand why the developer has done this to make the story feel more interconnected, I wish there was a way to not engage with the LI's you don't like by giving certain responses in dialgoue, or if completely avoiding is not possible atleast let us skip major portions of it through dialogues.

Overall: 9.5/10
If I liked Naomi I would've given 10/10 but for godsake just add an option to remove her or make her use her brain for once.

Story is not original but it does the job very well to explain why people are here and also give space to develop the characters with their personnal stories. Animation is good, it is globally well done. Characters are interesting, I think some stories could be more profound but I am okay because one character is really well made. Just play it, it's worth your time.

This game was amazing, It takes a sec to figure out, long gameplay great animation/CGimages (Can't figure out if it's stolen from Honey Select but still well done) But the story... Is what kept me playing and not just ripping the images/videos. As always, wish there was more group play but I get it.

Easily one of my favorite Ren'Py games of all time.

Story/Plot - 5/5

Probably one of the more fun storylines I've come across in any game. Let me put it this way: There are some games where I keep my finger on the Skip button for the fap scenes, and then there are games like this, where the story is ACTUALLY engaging, and the characters are so well-rounded. Don't get me wrong, the animations and characters are fap-worthy; there's just an actual desire to play the game and pay attention to the story. And speaking of animations...

Animations/Images - 5/5

The models are gorgeous, and there's a girl for each type. The dev leaves no stone unturned. The animations are amazing, and the dev actually offers multiple animation options per scene, AND different viewpoints. Zanith made sure to take care of us when it came to his models; definitely a work of love here.

UI/Gameplay - 5/5

For the most part, the game's a VN, so not too much to say here. What I will say is the time management is simple (no 8 sections to one day -_-), but you do still need to catch the girls at certain times of day, so it's still got some exploring to do. All-in-all, the gameplay for this style of game is on-point. I will also say that the choices can matter, so pay attention!

Zanith has a true masterpiece here. If you're looking for that mix of engaging story, but still want the sexiness that some games do fail to provide, look to further than AHitR.

Cheers.

It is a great project that I have followed for years, I love how I interact with the girls and I feel more and more attached to them, I would love it to have more gameplay when it comes to farming statistics because otherwise it becomes very repetitive but the story is very good so far, keep up the great work friend!

---Femdom search review---

I love high-quality animations. The storyline rarely captivates me, and I don't expect much from it in adult comtent. I prefer a variety of characters and Femdom (without hard, more like body worship).

Animation: The 3D animations are top-notch, significantly better than most.
Storyline: The plot is good; it’s not just mindlessly holding down Ctrl.
Characters: They are diverse, not copypast.
Activities: The quests are straightforward. There are many of them, but they are linear. You can choose which ones to do first, depending on the character. There are no mini-games or other grind mechanics. I see it as a plus.
Femdom: There is a limited amount of Femdom content. It’s not the main focus, appearing only in select scenes.

Conclusion: As for Femdom content search, it is not the primary focus, and there’s only a little of it. However, all animations are of high quality, and the game overall is worth checking out.

This game was good in the early stages, but now it feels bad in the middle and late stages. The sandbox gameplay is truly a nightmare.

In the middle and late stages of the game, players are just waiting to trigger every "travel".
Then after experiencing a new "brief scene and dialogue", you return to the sandbox environment of the house.

The girls stay in those places repeatedly every day, such as in the kitchen, in front of the TV, in front of the swimming pool, in the library...etc.
You often just repeatedly click on situations and dialogues that you have seen hundreds of times, wasting time in an infinite loop waiting for the next trigger of "travel".

I decided not to play this game anymore, I felt too tired and bored.

Above average everything and significant content. On this site that's an easy 5 star rating imo.

Renders are solid, story and characters are fine, setting is fine. It's all mostly an excuse to get the lewd scenes, which are also well above average. The drawbacks are the sandbox style and forced progression on all characters to advance, and a (small) bit of grind. You've probably played dozens of sandbox style games in this setting that are significantly worse in every way that are also probably ranked 4+ stars. There are animations and they're pretty good, again well beyond virtually everything else on this site.

This game already has more content than probably a dozen average games on this site put together. While I don't necessarily think any of it is great content, it's still again well above average.

Story 9/10 story not gonna win any awards
but it is somehow interesting due to great girls

Art 9/10 great art and animations

Content 10/10 alot of content and hope there
is more coming

Kinks 9/10 Male domination and romance is
a great combo

Hope for more from zanith,thanks

Now we wait

I'm sorry guys i just don't see it with this one. I genuinely don't know how this game has the ratings it does.
I reckon over the past year and a half I've put about 10-14 hours in to this game, each session barely lasting more than an hour because I just don't want to keep playing. Kept on giving it another go because 'well its one of the most popular games it must be good im sure it gets better' but I'm done now.
Animations and render quality are meh at best, the premise is interesting at first but the story isn't the least bit compelling in practice.
The sandbox playstyle is constricting, especially since you HAVE to progress each characters story so you end up only being able to one specific event at a time which means a LOT of just skipping time.
Additionally being forced in to the paths of every single character is pretty annoying, it certainly doesn't help that the story is incredibly grindy and slow moving.
In other games a slow burn romance can often times be rewarding and compelling, i haven't found this to be the case here because well... i just dont like any of the characters. I don't find myself caring the slightest bit about anything happening in the story and thats a bad sign, its supposed to draw you in and keep you in suspense and this just doesnt do that.

Bland and 2 dimensional characters, weak and uninteresting story and progression, production quality that does not come close to reflecting the popularity of this game, and grindy and boredome inducing gameplay and UI.

I don't like writing negative reviews but this isn't a game worth your time.

This one took me by surprise, enough so that it's the first game that's inspired me to review it here.

First off, the story is compelling. I keep playing because I really want to see what happens next, and the ether-walking gimmick leads to so much potential for interesting setups, anything can happen and it would be supported by the world building.

The characters themselves are good. I mean, I'm absolutely in agreement with everyone calling Rae best girl. Possibly the first VN girl I'm actually crushing on... But ALL of them have me wanting to spend time with them, and I'm really looking forward to more updates with some of the less popular girls (I think the orc girl Yona is awesome.) The game loop is a great mix of linear and open, without being too grindy, and there's a LOT to do for a game in progress, including some excellent repeatable content. Definitely one of the better harem games I've seen.

I'm not super familiar with the different selections of models used in VNs or how it all becomes a scene in a game, but from what I understand this uses Honey Select, and creates some fine looking women. The animations are also possibly some of the best out there... Maybe not in terms of visual quality (which I still think is better than most HS games) but the attention to detail. The camera angles and motions, the character movements, the expressions, all come together brilliantly.

Hats off to this dev for creating something smart, endearing, entertaining, and sexy as hell.

Story-5/5
Grammar/English-5/5
UI-3/5
Characters-4/5
Progression-4/5
Sandbox-3.5/5
Graphics-4/5
(no spoilers below)

Story:
Story is quite good, and the events are plentiful and rather rewarding, the exploration of the small space you have to explore seems more redundant and a bit odd at first, but you get used to it quite fast, parts that are locked in dialogue are also not boring and incredibly linear like some sandbox games, where you would have the sandbox mode for 5 minutes then be locked in a dialogue hell for 15 minutes before you can make any choices outside of a dialogue box, progression is somewhat linear, where events are locked behind some events, but that is to be expected in a visual novel, progressing in the game doesn't feel boring either, but also doesn't feel too fast paced, events are the right length to keep interest in them but not too fast where you feel like the entire event wasn't explained properly.
(bits of story continues in the section below in Writing)

Writing:
The progression of the story and the writing of it is also solid, there are very, and I mean VERY few grammatical errors, or poor usage of English which can often break immersion into a game, nothing is so overly explained that you lose your need to explore the areas yourself but they are also not left so up to interpretation where you will be lost for hours without a guide, some scenes are a bit dragged out but are so few and far in-between that they can be forgiven, typically the story progresses very naturally, characters feel like the information that they are given through your interactions and the answers and feelings of the other characters is actually impactful, and affects their specific ways of conversating with said characters too, instead of just being bags with personality traits that reset back to their default state in every conversation, which is a massive bonus, since it makes the game feel like your actions genuinely have impact.

UI:
I already talked about sandbox, but ill fill in a bit more here.
The sandbox itself wouldn't be as big of an issue if the UI wasn't as clunky as it is, its nowhere near the worst possible out there, but its impactful enough where it makes the pace of the game in sandbox moments feel more sluggish, going between the UI, the guide, the "heart" system, the characters, the missions, then moving around the non marked areas of the sandbox makes it that at the very start where you don't know every clickable area yet you can get "lost" for some time. Which isn't the worst fate, you will figure it out eventually and not too slowly either, but its a bit of an annoyance.

Graphics:
The models, like in many games seem to be honey select models, which is not bad, the models are personalized to a point where they don't feel like they're cookie cutter copies of other games that use similar models, the characters are also very easily distinguishable from each other with little to no trouble so the game doesn't feel like you're playing 5 different routes of the same character with a different hair style.
The map you play on is also very original, while there are quite a few sandbox games where you play in the characters home, the idea of you being completely confined to that home because you're stuck in an interdimensional rift is rather unique, the way the girls get introduced in the game is also something I've not seen before, so a lot of props for that.
The animation is also good, its not "made in blender for 15 hours" level insane, but its also not 2 static pictures going back and forth to imply an animation bad either, its solid, gives good choices between animations in every interaction where there are some, and good points of view, instead of ones where you're stuck to the point of view of an ant on the inner thigh of the MC .

Last thoughts:
Very solid game, has some things it falls in quality a little bit in, but most games do, generally a very well made, well thought out experience that I'm very excited to see more of. Good luck on updating and making more

The main story progresses a bit slowly, but the characters are quite charismatic, and you quickly grow fond of them. It's really a great game.

Azraesha is definitely my favorite, and I think most people feel the same way. But honestly, I'm not a big fan of Yona. I feel like they've kind of neglected her in the game. Her story is alright, but her design doesn't really convince me or inspire me much, you know what I mean. I'm interested to know what plans they have for the game's future and if they're going to add more characters down the line.

This is my favorite VN on the whole site.

At first glance, it looks like a generic Renpy harem game with vanilla fetishes. But, it's the best written game on the entire site, and the only one that makes me feel a genuine connection to the characters.