Ren'Py - A House in the Rift [v0.7.14r2] [Zanith]

(This game has an excellent focus on character and character interaction that I find extremely appealing. I found myself actually caring about the characters, and not wanting to be a jerk to them, despite how that's usually the route to sexual dominance and that's my fetish. Now, I rather hope there's ways to sexually dominate all of them without being a jerk, because I want to rule as Master, and make them happy. The point is, this game does truly well with the characters, and I enjoy them greatly. It's intriguing enough to earn the five star rating.

I am editing my review, though leaving the original section above. All I want to say, is that that review and the 5 Star rating was given on October 15th, 2019. A year, and nearly two months into development, and this game STILL earns that five star rating. It has met and surpassed my hopes and expectations, and has occupied the spot for my favorite game on this site.

Not because it necessarily appeals to my fetishes. There are some quality bondage scenes, however nowhere near as many as I would typically like, and I definitely cannot go all out on the girls like I would in other games where I play my bad guy. No, I enjoy it because I find the characters so compelling, and enjoyable, and full of personality. Because there's plenty of ways to just spend time with them. Because it's enjoyable to just INTERACT with these different ladies. Emotions and people and bond-building... it's all wonderful, and I love it.

And that's that, for now. Thank you kindly for reading, and simply let me reiterate. This game, is utterly fantastic.)

Top notch game. Usually these type of sandbox navigation/VN style games leave me frustrated or unsatisfied in some way, but not this one.

Here is why....

- I actually read all the dialogue. This is very rare for me in these types of games, but in this one I never got bored or disgusted with the writing. It's concise and to the point, yet filled with character.

- The girls. Each of the girls has their own very distinct and likeable personality (I especially like Rae). They never become a bore.

- Progression. This is a big deal for me. I hate grind and I hate not knowing how to proceed. There is almost none of that in this game. Almost every move you make progresses things forward smoothly and if you don't know what to do there is a simple checklist telling you what to do next. No fuss, no muss, no bullshit.

- NO DUDES. No male characters outside of the MC and no renders of the MC outside of POV renders. Who the hell wants to look at dudes while they're playing a porn game anyway?

- The animations. Some of them are good, most of them are great. There are a handful however which are just spectacular. Like seriously good quality you would not expect to find in a porn game.

There are other things worth mentioning, like the story (which is genuinely interesting), but you get the point. A 5 star game through and through.

This is my review about the game A house in the rift, developed by Zanith at its 0.3.3 version

The graphic is amazing, the art design is beautiful and the models used in this game is unique. The animation really flows here and I didn't see any glitch.

This game is a sandbox, you can progress with any girl in any order and the requirements are easy to accomplish. The navigation is good and it's not confusing, there's a point system (Intimacy and lewdness) to the girls and status system to the MC, but you don't worry about the grind because it's very fast and you can’t use the in-game hints to help you. There's an rng on the items you can take from the fridge, but you can use the "load" feature to help you, so I didn't have any problem with this.

The script is well-written and coherent, the pace is good, the characters are very charismatic (that applies to MC too) with a well-defined personality. In resume, the story very enjoyable to read and each element you can get from it (romance, drama, comedy, and action) has a perfect dosage.

There's a good amount of sex scenes and everything is well-animated. The scenes are very inspired and they fit with the story.

Great game and until this version, I don’t have any complaint about it.

A good game. The mechanics are quite easy. The hints very clear.
The girls are nice, each with her own traits. A good dose of humor in the dialog.
Rollback enabled, so you're sure to win whatever contest there is after a few tries, and that's a plus.
Not the game of the year but definitively one that is worth to follow

The description and sample pics can fool you, this project has a ton of potential. I wasn't really sure what sort of game this was going to turn out to be - to be completely honest I figured this was going to be yet another one that I'd get 10 mins in, become completely bored, exit, delete and never come back to. Holy s#!t was I wrong.

The Good:
-Very good plot and story writing. Feels like a lot of thought has gone into creating the setting/world as well as each character - and this is very important for a game of this nature. If the concept and the world hadn't been done right then this would have been a flop. There's clearly a good story brewing here, either with different endings or hopefully with each thread being closed properly and then a great finale.

-Each character has, so far, unique personalities and interesting back-stories. And the progression of the current characters (as of 3.2) is well thought out and smooth overall.

-Humor! I'm a sucker for a jokes and funny lines/situations/scenes as all of that adds depth to the character personalities, and this game definitely delivers! There were several sequences that elicited genuine laughter - and that's another factor that's sometimes overlooked.

-Solid renders. These aren't insane lighting and 4k images that some devs are producing nowadays, but that doesn't really seem to matter considering the uniqueness of each character so far. The best part is they're all realistically proportioned, nothing that's really over the top. I really like the renders here being what they are and can't really see this game being done with resources that would take forever to render (or require a server farm to do so in a timely manner).

-Intuitive play for navigation, the UI and for the mini-games. Sure, it's interesting when a dev adds complex features and spends a lot of time crafting a beautiful UI, but sometimes less is more! ZanithOne has struck an excellent balance with the mechanics, UI and the setting.

-Fun mini-games! The mini-games aren't overly complex (though in the Changelog there's indication one or two of them have been adjusted from older builds) and are fun to play. I lost several times but on the second play-through (not sure about the rest of you but I usually start over when new builds are released) I was able to figure out what I did wrong initially without having to spend time trying to figure out the systems.

-It's a good balance between sandbox and linear story. Open "world" type setting without having to bother with a map. The plot moves at the pace you want (you can ignore the quests/objectives) if you so choose. Or you can rush through the main plot and then go back. Or don't. Your choice.

The Bad:
-I'm not a fan of small updates, but this is a VERY minor point and honestly I was left searching for something to criticize. It's the devs choice how they make their game and, again, this is an extremely minor gripe. I know a lot of F95 users disagree with my opinion and I won't ever say they're wrong.

The Excellent:
-ZanithOne released this here, for us, on their own. And on top of that they're active here on the boards responding to us pirates! This, to me, is the most important point. It shows that ZanithOne believes in the project and based on their comments is actively listening to feedback.

Overall (aka TL;DR):
I rarely rate games unless I'm going to give a 5 star rating, and this is a project that is worth watching and playing. Excellent story, plot and setting. Fantastic balance on user interface, features, and ease of play. Humor! Solid renders that fit well. Give this one a try!

(edited for formatting corrections)

Good Points
+ We have good looking renders.
+ Our story is not so original but its kind of interesting.
+We have good looking animations with well maked physics.
+ We have hot/cute looking girls.
+ We have decent amount of story and lewd content.

Bad Points
- Even after that much update game still feels like need some improve about quality in general.
- DEV starts makes updates pretty short and its pretty disappointed...
- Orc girl could use some change, but i gues its not gonna happen... I told this and lots of people are not happy with this aswell but DEV dont care i gues? Anyways problem about her is about her face, while her body looks kind of good/hot her face is pretty unattractive, its realy need change...
- I dont know exact reason but new story parts are always feels like lacking someting and they are kind of boring...
- Blair's act about magic, how ignorantly not accepting facts, acting all stubborn and mighty like she knows the truth and everybody trying to trick her, and how he treats MC and other girls is darn annoying. After she had done the ritual herself things became better but until that point, her whole content is nothing more than an annoying chore you have to do.

For The End
Its good game i gues? But there is some bad points makes game little bit bad. They can be fixed but not sure DEV want fix them or see them as a bad point at all.

I did not know what to expect with this one, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The story has me interested and wondering what will happen next, the game play is fun and light, and the girls are sexy and fun. Some quick fun to wet the appetite, and some good slow burn teasing as well. Very eager to see what is next with this one!

Although there isn't many thing to do in current state of the game (0.3.0), I do enjoy this game and I think this game has a lot of potential to be really good game.

Pro
- Storyline is quite interesting and I kinda wonder what gonna happen in next update.
- H-Animation is really smooth.
- The girl has clear personality and characteristic. (i.e succubus, pirate, magician)
- There's some humor that make me chuckle

Con
- Navigate through the house is kinda confusing since there's no clear indicator for each room. You have to memorized.
- From my opinion I think the book (hint) need somework since sometime the book overwite the another quest.

Overall good game though I would leave this game a 5 stars unless, there is any change

PS. English is not my mother language soooo I sorry for mispelling or grammar error

Models might not be the most realistic, but the great writing and fundamental idea more than make up for it. I am very curious to see the other characters from the header image once they get implemented. I also enjoy the setup of concepts that will be explained later. The characters are not exposition factories but rather behave (somewhat) like they should in that situation.

Update (2021-04) - The models have improves a TON since this original review. The writing has only gotten better and the game has lost none of its luster.

Updated review 6/8/22

I don't expect anyone to actually see this review anymore, because it's on the last page of the review section.

A House in the Rift was one of my favorite games on this site when I first joined. I liked it before it was cool. I forgot about it for a while after he added like 3 Yona updates.

I saw the banner of the game on a signature and thought, "why not?"

Lyriel's (my favorite girl) maledom rough sex scene, (my favorite scene in the game,) got censored out of the game. Cait is telling the mc she "only likes him, not love though" and basically says she's deeply in love with her other friend. Don't worry "it's a female so it's sexy right?" We're friends with benefits while she's desperately pursuing her loved one. I thought Yona would be the least attractive girl in the game but after he brought that Dwarf in I don't know what to think.

With Lyriel and Blair as the exception, characters themselves haven't shown any real growth. They remained almost the same one dimensional beings they came as.

Anyway, I'm convinced this is no longer the game for me.

But in trying to remain unbiased I'll give him credit where it's due:

The sandbox elements aren't that bad, and the animations and renders are still good.

Final edit: Dev is making unavoidable lesbian at the borderline cuck level. gg thanks for wasting my time.

[v0.5.2]

I'm changing my vote from 3 stars to 5 stars. If I could give it more stars, I certainly would.
I was once again pushed by the overwhelmingly positive feedback to give this game another try and it was a very nice surprise, the first time I played this game (v0.2.3) it didn't leave me with a great impression, but I now realize I didn't properly judge it, for some reason. Maybe the game profoundly changed over time or just got refined and improved, I can't really have an answer for that but what is sure is this game is getting very close to the top of my personal preferred games list. So, huge props to the dev for this.
The story is nice and original, dialogues are well written and not tiring to read. The graphics, animations, and interface are absolutely top-notch.
I really appreciate the fact of being able to get all the scenes without having to replay the whole thing countless times and the integrated walkthrough and navigation system are super handy.
Sex scenes look and feel awesome, albeit this game is pretty vanilla in that regard, I hope things will get spicier with time, that would really be the icing on the cake.

- CGs and animations 10/10
- Story 9/10
- Characters design 8.5/10
- Interface 10/10
- Gameplay 10/10

Absolutely recommended to play.

Really good game, the story is interesting and those girls are insane.
Also the animation are really good in my opinion, i'm looking forward next update and maybe more sex scene with the succubus enjoy !

This rating is based on the demo. I am shocked at the quality and originality. If this gets abandoned, I will give so much 1 star hate, but honestly, if the writing stays interesting and the girls that get added only become as fantastic as Azraesha, this game could potentially be the best thing out there a year from now. Will not be disappointed by the demo, very very good!