Ren'Py - A House in the Rift [v0.7.18r2] [Zanith]

Version rated v0.6.12r1

Visually it is not the best game out there but perfectly serviceable with above average animations.
There are plenty of scenes and a good variety in the girls. There is also plenty of content in there.



In terms of “gameplay” there is not a lot of grind, things are pretty direct, however the day transitions do start to feel a bit slugish at times, and having to look up if there are events in the notebook also gets old, really nothing major but small annoyances.

In terms of story and setting I quite enjoy it’s premise, however there is quite a bit of filler, conversations that take a bit longer than they need to, without much useful info, especially if the girl in question really does not interest you. It also starts to feel a bit stretched out at this point. Lots of content can be nice, but also leads to bloat, without the story progressing much. I feel like this is going to be a real forever project or get some rushed ending at some point. It certainly is no harem hotel in that regard but things are slowly moving that way. Adding more girls will probably only spread things even thinner.

To the developer I want to say this: To me the best way forward seems to focus on tying the story together, keep the side events shorter, at this rate it will just be too much to ever finish.




This was my incoherent rant for to today, I feel sorry for anyone actually bothering to read through it all. I just didn’t feel like spending real time in writing something shorter and more coherent, thus this will do.

One of the best games I've played in a while. Fantastic animations and doesn't feel too grindy. Gathering money seems to be the most annoying thing. Besides that, with a lot of quests, there's a lot to keep you busy.

Wonderful premise and decent story.

Very high quality and fun game worth trying for sure.

Pros

• Good animations
• Excellent sandbox, never feels grindy. Similar layouts can sometimes be tedious but this feels very natural.
• Rae deserves a mention a top tier character
• Choices are frequent and have varying degrees of importance
• The LI's do push back if you're being a bit of a dick
• While events are triggered by meeting characters at the right time/place, the game doesn't make you wait too long for opportunities to trigger them, so you rarely have to skip time.
• Fun story

Cons

• The Strength/Knowledge/Focus stat system isn't relevant for long but some people might prefer that

It is an excellent fantasy harem game. It takes liberties to spice things up, but it is OK since this is a fantasy game.
Freeroam quest system is just done right to not become boring which also sets the pace of the game. Main quest is interesting but the main appeal is the girls' side quests. Increase lewdness quests can become difficult to advance since you don't know for a fact that which activities increase it and you have to spam some to get more lewdness level of a character. But the player is rewarded handsomely with good quality lewd animations in the end.
Naomi and Rae are humorous characters that the game needs to make us chuckle. Lyriel and Caitlyn is just so good and cute that I want more and more content with them. Yona and Blair add variety as late additions but they are not as impactful which is a bit sad. I like the roster overall each girl is different. They are not always cock-hungry/depraved like in many harem games.
The only downside i can think of is the fact that game gets a bit stale in the sound department. No SFX and 3-4 soundtracks on loop can get repetitive.
This game offers a guaranteed good time. A must play. Just don't get too cynical and you'll be fine.
Request: pls an endgame harem orgy?

Love the game.

Graphics are fantastic, sandbox elements prolong the game, but not too much to become bothersome (nicely done fast travel options) and there's just enough creativity in the various areas.

I also love the characters. Rae is one of the nicest ones in any AVN. There's good amount to allow deep content with each, but not too many to make it unnecessarily branchy. Also they're all different and it adds variety and everyone can find a favourite.

And I love the theme and idea of it.

Overall 9.5/10. Really nicely done.

I am a longtime lurker and never write reviews - this is my first one. That should already tell you something. I love this game!

The plot is genuinely interesting and rarely can a game make me care about the characters, which are really well written and authentic.

Seriously, the writing is amazing, it's better than most Netflix shows.
And the animations are simply superb. I usually don't like this anime style(?) but this is obviously an exception.

Among all this rubbish on this website this game is a gem. 5 stars!

This game has a lot of merits, good animation, it is unique, it is fun at the beginning, and the story is good. I really like Rae, looks, body.

Where it falls flat is too much repetition, I am not a fan of the looks of most of the girls (Rae the purple-hair succubus and the elf girl are the only exceptions), the other characters are written well but not a fan of their character models.

At the beginning, I was really impressed. The story was cool, I never played another game like this and I like the mystery of the story.
Story: 5 out of 5

Character models: Rae the succubus is an attractive character, as is the elf girl. The rest of the girls have weird proportions and are not that attractive. There are also games using Genesis 9 models now, so HS models are falling further and further behind.
Models: 2 out of 5 there. If more looked like Rae, especially, 3.9 out of 5.

After playing a while, you kind of get lost what to do. It gets repetitious and the girls kind of come in and out of the story while you wander around. More variation on the repeatable scenes would have been nice, as after a while it gets boring trying to find the one thing that progresses the story and the girls do all of the same things or have the same scenes.

There are little side events (finding girls in their room, in the shower, etc.), but not enough to prevent the repetition. This is the single biggest issue of this game altogether, along with the character models just being meh.

Progression: 1.8 out of 5 stars

Replayability: Would likely be low, it would likely get even more repetitious. For me, I will likely be "one and done", I play through every update and want to play through the finished game when it gets there.

ZanithOne, the developer: Keeps updates coming, delivers on promises. A very good developer that I wish lots of success to!

I really like this one, simple power fantasy with happy home harem. I'm looking forward for more. I think the game play loop is really nice, the side quest are rewarding, and continuing the main quest when you feel like give a lot to the player's autonomy.

Not going to go into specifics, but I love the concept of dream walking as a way of expanding scenarios, first time I've seen it as a main feature in a story. It is also really exciting to unwrap the house bit by bit like an advent calendar. Also kinda like a box of chocolates. Cherry: tart and sweet dark elf, truffle: sweet and smooth pirate, milk chocolate: simple familiar smart girl, hazelnut : elf surprise tough but not really.

I didn't expect a porn game to be so enjoyable. the characters are all awesome and well written and i care more about what's going on with their story then the fun stuff most of the time. Beautiful work of art.

Awesome game with good characters and character development, keep it up. I like the concepts and how each character has to overcome both internal and external struggles. The relationship dinamics are both funny and heartwarming.

I don't understand how this game is SO SO SO overrated. It has for the most part unattractive honey select models, its open world (which is the bane of all VN) and its super gridny. Just repeat the same things, over and over and over and over until you can unlock a scene or two and then you are back at it again. The animations were the only thing that was okay, but they don't have much angles or interaction. The story is also pretty meh. I honestly can't understand why so many people gave such high reviews for this game.

TLDR; Don't believe the hype, this game is average at best.

Impressive game with beautifully rendered characters (another example of a game where Honey Select can easily compete with even best DAZ games), great sex scenes, interesting plot and well written characters. Usually I'm not into sandbox games because it wastes time but this is one of the rare ones where gameplay isn't tedious and each day we've got plenty of interesting (read: lewd) things to do and there's not much of a repetition unless we want it.

Pros:
+ Hot women
+ Great sex scenes
+ Interesting plot
+ Well-written characters that enhance the experience and let you immerse into story
+ Lots of content

Cons:
- I don't like minigames too much but they are extremely rare and aren't that bad (and we haven't got any new for quite some time) so it's a very, very small flaw
- It's a sandbox so there are some things we will have to repeat but if someone like me wasn't bothered by it (and I usually hate sandbox games) then it really isn't bad

All in all I rate it 9/10 and can't wait for future updates. Definitely recommended.

Well written, impressively animated, and great release schedule. The game has plenty slice of life moments, incredibly written story and characters, and plenty "psychical activities." The updates are always fresh and never disappoint to add to the above three categories. This game a masterpiece in the adult games genre in my humble opinion.

Game is awesome. I hate typical Visual Novels, but here plot and characters are awesome (well. Maybe except this orc), graphics are stunning and there is good balance between character developement and sex scenes ratio

Excellent game, far better than I was expecting, to be honest.
Very well written, internally consistent, nice world-building.
Unique animation style that puts you right in the middle of the action.

Overall one of the best of this type that I've played, and I've played a lot of them. Usually they get tedious after a few hours, but A House in the Rift has held my attention long beyond that.
When I finish my playthrough of the current public version (0.6.8r2) I'll definitely sign up and grab the latest.
Worth supporting or at least keeping an eye on.

PS: Also, I've encountered not a single bug in a couple of dozen hours playing, which is rare indeed for a game still in development.

Review for Android version 0.6.8r2
A very enjoyable experience so far. I've managed to finish all main and side quests for the current version under about 7+ hours of play in total.

The premise works well and the developer is doing something interesting with it to produce a cohesive story. The world building is also pretty good with its established different worlds and terminology.

I liked the girls and their personalities, loved the animations - one of the strongest aspects of this game along with writing. Though I want to note that sometimes lighting on models may be off but this is a minor issue.

I've also had some issues while playing the mobile version:

1) If the phone is turned off and then on the game becomes just a black screen with no sound and you have to restart the game.

2) There are only 2 music tracks playing for the whole duration of the game. I guess this is not supposed to happen because in the credits a lot of music tracks are listed with appropriate links to them

3) Some side quests weren't marked as completed after completing them for the first time. Just doing them again fixes it (Most notably two quests in the Naomi's route about her wanting to go to other places)

Overall, I would definitely recommend playing this game!

v0.6.8r2

This was very enjoyable. The premise is unique and executed masterfully.
The animations and angles were much better than I expected from a honey select game.

Not all the models are great though, I really like 3 of them (Rae, Lin, Lyriel) but the others I don't really care for.
Looking forward to future releases

This game is a masterpiece, and the dev is a hardworking, dedicated, and organized, delivering regular content updates and maintaining a high standard of quality.

Also the lewd animations are just gorgeous work. Its rare to find stuff with this level of detail and movement. However it *is* becoming more prevalent in recent games but thats because those devs have played this one and probably been influenced by it.

Yes, definitely a good one. Honest work. Great atmosphere in game, a lot of good scenes with sort of a choice, quality animations.

Gotta be honest, was searching for something like 'Harem Hotel', this feels like closest call.

Not really a fan of most girls however, but overall style is still pretty neat.

Absolutely 5/5

This game is a sandbox that has a lot of things going for it, the dialogue is excellent and because the sandbox is limited to one house it feels densely packed and easy to navigate.

Characterization seems pretty strong with each girl having a unique identity. The interactions and relationships between characters are also fun and plentiful. Some characters are more chaste and have a slower progression while others hit the ground running. I generally prefer the former so Yona is kinda a weak point for me, her model is also a niche taste (and we kinda already have Naomi for the tall musclegirl) and her face just isn't that attractive to me.

The world building and magic system are pretty good for a porn game, with etherwalking being an excellent means of shaking up the monotony of being in the house. I found myself looking forward to etherwalking events because they give a feeling of discovery and excitement.

The sex scenes are a cut above average for Honey Select but not the best of the best. SFX during scenes would improve them greatly. There is a total lack of group sex outside of dream sequences, though I assume that will come eventually.