VN - Ren'Py - Completed - A Moment of Bliss [v5.0.1 Final] [Lockheart]

v2.0.1

You know, it's really too bad this game suffers from lackluster UI and renders, because it's comedy gold. Within minutes of starting I chuckled aloud to myself a number of times. You know what? Scratch that. I laughed out loud. Heartily. Several times, as the game progressed. Fuck, this one hits all the dad joke notes. I'm just going to say it: there isn't funnier writing than in this VN. It has god-tier wit, satire, and sarcasm oozing from every crevice. If you play for no other reason, play for the humor. And if you don't come away laughing your ass off, you're a soulless peon.

The default character names are unimaginative. This could be pure sarcasm and - if it is - I tip my hat. I like a bit of tongue-in-cheek as much as the next fella.

The character models are meh. I mean, I've played enough VNs at this point that I can tell when a relatively vanilla model/asset is being used with very little being done to make their appearance unique or at least 3-dimensional. What I mean by this is an entire lack of realism. Every character model looks like a Barbie doll. Additionally - and I recognize this is objective - I don't care for such slim women. If they were at least average, with ample curves, this would skyrocket the value and impression.

In terms of the story and the central theme as communicated by Suzi - I am in agreement. There's a humorous irony in playing this game to satiate oneself when it's the very kind of thing Suzi goes on to say is problematic. Of course, we can't necessarily take to any major social media platforms to congregate and discuss the good and bad we think of adult VNs, but the sheer number of hours I spend playing them isn't something I would air out among those dear to me.

Serious question: other than guilt-ridden Christians, do real people avoid adult language even in their thoughts? Am I to believe the MC thinks "what the heck" vs "what the fuck"? This appears to maybe be a one-time thing, but still...

The "free-roam" is kind of weird, half-baked. Like, why do I need to single-click my way "out of a room" and into the next scene? This is a shit-or-get-off-the-pot calling, dev. Either put in the work to expand the game mechanics to include some semblance of free-roam, or eliminate the ugly green arrows that prompt the player, and figure out a better way to proceed in game. BT dubs: I do like the "smartphone" implementation. Suzi being multi-dimensional and multi-faceted is pretty neato, and unlocking new outfits for her is brilliant.

One critique I have concerning Petal: While it is believable that Bliss would be somewhat more mature and wise, it is not that Petal would be. When she's discussing , Petal being the youngest would not be so adult about it. She may be cool with it for the reasons stated, but she's still the "baby", and she literally goes from It just isn't believable.
Speaking of Petal, we should get a bit more backstory or the chance to participate in MC's budding relationship with her. (I'm an idiot, and didn't realize Petal has her own story/game. Also didn't realize it's the same dev that did Avalon, which I enjoyed)

Jinx is weird. Like, she's short and supposedly young, but has a very mature face. She looks and talks older than her height and sitting atop her dad's shoulders would indicate. Yes, I know

Spoiler

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, but it isn't called out directly.

Overall, I would absolutely recommend this one. Cheers to the brilliant writing, cheers to an uncommon path within the parent/child taboo, and if the dev is serious about spawning a dedicated VN about Moon after this one finishes, I think they have an opportunity to improve upon things visually since there's no improvement needed in the dialog.

Review of v2.0.1

Following on the success and masterfully completed A Petal Among Thorns & Avalon VNs, Lockheart hits it out of the park again!

A heartwarming, serious, adult novel tackling mature and taboo subjects with humor.

I'd recommend playing APAT first (if you haven't) to get more enmeshed with the story arch, might help feelings of "too fast" in this novel.

Renders are good
Animations are good
Story is great
Teasing is skillfully implemented
Updates are regular

I honestly can't bring myself to say anything negative about this game without feeling petty. The artist knows he can grow, I can see the progress and look forward to more epic stories in the future

It's the only one that I've supported financially and primarily because of the regular updates on a story I really like. I feel like there's a lever of trust that LockHeart has earned. Every 2-3 months you can excpect
an update and he's got a few completed games under his belt.

Game is terrible (writing, characters), and labeled romance with no romance.

Graphics: Great graphics, but only good thing about this game

Story: BORING. I can read through pretty boring stuff, but there is just so much repetitive dialogue, useless sentence, etc. that it is one of the few games that I had to skip most of the dialogue for.

Characters: MC is terrible. He says one thing, does another. Now that he has banged his daughter, he wants to bang every woman he meets even though he is doing all this behind his wife's back.
The 2 daughters so far only care about banging their dad. They will lie and manipulate him to do this with no consequences.
The AI that was added was unnecessary and very annoying.

It would be nice to know future tags as from the sounds of the first update, this will become an open relationship game where everyone bangs everyone.

Okay, this is an interesting game. Nice to see more of the family. I'm less interested in the A.I., seems a bit of an unnecessary distraction, but maybe it'll turn into something interesting. Things are early in the story, so I'm giving the character a slight benefit of the doubt.

One thing I noticed is that the writing probably needs a "less is more" touch. It isn't terrible, but it's too wordy. It bogs down the dialogue. Maybe utilize more of the "visual" in this format to tell the story.

If you like harem family style VN's I'd recommend trying this out. Girls are hot. Premise isn't boring, stretches reality a bit, but not to a ludicrous degree, so buy-in is easy.

I really loved it's predecessor, A Petal Among Thorns and this VN has started just as well. Really looking forward to what's coming! The renders are just as good as the previous one, if not better. The writing's just as good (and I thought it was really good in the previous one). Really liking the addition of new characters and a broader world. Looking forward to the next updates!

would be good to have more options in regards to relationships and how you as the player would like a possibility of maybe just one LI or more if that's your preference even in the prologue.

There was like only one option in the entire prologue and that was if you wanted the CYBER girl to sleep in bed with you nothing actually worth giving a choice over in this scene.

We are already starting sexual relations without a choice in the matter with one of the 'tenants' already (Not Petals).

Petals sexual relationship makes sense considering this is a continuation from a previous game.

Once the mc told petal about him wanting to bang everyone else (grown ass father figure here by the way) petal says well it's only fair I get to fool around with other girls too, it told me everything I needed to know how this game will turn out with the usual sharing/poly/harem/Bi-lesbian/ffm/fffm etc etc kinda content. ( planned tags would be helpful for future content to give players a better idea of what content you will be adding)

I actually found the mc to be very annoying and don't know when the comedy kicks in but he ain't funny, he just wasn't very likable as a character to me and comes across a creep and I couldn't relate to him at all or immerse myself into the game as the mc without feeling urgh and like a dirty old perv.

Great renders and that's about it for me, nothing new or exciting about the story with the usual forced relationships and every girl wants the mc's dick and are suddenly all bi-curious to carry a story plot along.

This is just my own personal preferences and everyone should play the game and see what they think themselves.

Two stars for the artwork and beautiful characters. Will revisit the game in the future and see if anything changes.

I really liked the first part, it's funny, cute, and the interaction with petal is good, but this second part is very disgusting with the design of the protagonist, who seems to be 25 years old, I prefer that for that face, it's better to hide it like the first part, but what really killed me cheer up it was suzi and that VR fantasy that's kind of disgusting but what can he do about it? This author is the creator of penny so nothing can surprise me. I hope it improves in the future so I change my mind but at the moment I didn't like this thing at all a thousand times better than the first part.

This game is a direct follow on from A Petal Among Thorns, and that game should be played before starting this as it is a continuation and things will make a lot more sense. That said, I found this story so far to be a bit of a downgrade.

The art is very good, girls are hot and everything is of high quality. The big change is the MC is now in 3rd person where APAT was shown in first person. I much prefer first person.

The writing for me is not as snappy or witty as APAT. It's good, but doesn't grab me like the first one.

But for me, the biggest issue is the story. What made APAT so good is it was grounded, it's obviously high fiction but it remained plausible. In a Moment of Bliss, all plausibility goes out the window. It now suffers the same issue of other harem games, where all the pretty women throw themselves at you and they are happy to share while staying faithful only to you. Harem fans will love it, lovers of good story telling will hate it.

Overall it is still a good VN, but the whole harem thing detracts from what made APAT so hot. Realism makes a porn game more potent, AMoB has jumped too far into silly fantasy and there is no going back.

TLDR: If you don't like to over think your porn games and realism doesn't matter then you will probably enjoy this. I found myself getting bored and annoyed.

Unique and hot models, anims technically ok but nothing special, gfx a bit on the drab side but serviceable. People into the landlord/langirl taboo will obv get a kick out of that concept, but the h-scenes in themselves are mediocre and vanilla as heck. H-scene to story ratio is good, the plot is not too complex or bloated as of current update. The stand out issue tho is writing style-- more prosaic than a phone registry.

Few suggestions for the writer:
>don't make the characters say copy-pasted segments about couples therapy from nimh.gov as a way to flirt with each other.

>following from above, don't write dialogue/exposition that sounds like the characters are writing a nimh.gov article about themselves.

>still following from above... stop describing or making asides about every trivial irrelevant topic that gets mentioned in conversation. Ideally, don't insert random topics into conversations at all.

Good writing is brief and meaningful. Try to convey as much emotion, commentary, exposition etc. with as few words and actions as possible. There was a moment in the novel when the writing kinda approached that, i.e landgirl asks landlord to feel her heartbeat. It coulda been a genuinely romantic moment, but instead regressed back into logorrhea by making her explain why she loves the PC despite his character flaws like she's writing a blog post. C'mon man!

And the jokes... ugh. OK so here's the thing, bad jokes don't become funny just because you're self-aware. And especially not if you're only telling bad jokes, and a lot of them, for no other reason than "lol I make bad jokes".

Being introduced to someone called Charm and joking "I'm charmed". Get it? It's a bad joke and I know it's a bad joke, which is somehow funny!

Here's a (somewhat) funny self-aware bad joke on the same theme off the top of my head:

A: "You're Ms Charm? I'd say I'm Charmed, but then you'd have to kill me."
B: "Nice to meet you Mr Charmed. I'll defer the homicide to... later this week maybe? For now, lemme show you around the place."

Then there's the fact that this land game about landlord-landgirl lovin thinks adding a subplot about childhood sexual abuse by a parent adds weight to the story.... Well it certainly does, and then sinks to the bottom of Cringe Lake. Just... why?

Tldr: stop trying so hard to be quirky/insightful/etc. with the writing. Let the characters speak and act naturally, even if that means they aren't as funny/cool/interesting as you imagine them to be in your head.

Anyway. 4 stars for the great models, -2 for the cringey writing.

A excellent start to another awesome story!! I happy to see the growth and continuation of your previous story and can't wait too see where this one will lead us, keep up the great work, since my first playthrough of Avalon I've been a big fan even with the googley eyes.

Review as of Ch. 1

Overall what I expect from Lockheart, which is good story and methodical approach to everything. While I do like the addition of Suzi and the phone, it felt like it was too much about the her/phone than the main characters. I do like it, though and it actually opens up a potential spin-off in its own way.

Looking forward, as always, to seeing where this goes. Loved the Petal story and this one looks like a good and natural continuation of that.

A new story from Lockheart? Yes please! I thoroughly enjoyed all the other works so far, and tbis one was definitely not a disappointment. I did read that the eyes were due to a bug. I personally like it the way it is. If it gets "fixed" then so be it. It won't make me like the work any less. Can't wait for the next chapter!

Chapter 1 is a good first step and exactly what I came to expect after playing APAT. The pacing seems to be a bit faster than with Petal which I thought was a nice build up but maybe that's intentional as Bliss has a different personality.

Well, the prequel to this is one of my favorite games, and I gotta say that the sequel so far does not disappoint. Lockheart really knows how to suck you in and make you like the characters, and this release is even better than I was hoping for. More Petal is never a bad thing, Bliss is so loveable and cute, and Suzi should probably win an award for best supporting character. I loved everything about this and will highly recommend. Also, with Lockhearts track record, this isn't something you have to worry about getting the abandoned tag and leaving you hanging.

Overall Rating: 5/5 Fappability Rating: 3/5 (as of current chapter, due to only having 1 full sex scene)

Preface: For those of you who may be familiar with Lockheart's other works namely: Avalon & A Petal Among Thorns, this is the sequel to Petal.

At time of writing only Chapter 1 is available, and the opening scene of the game takes place following the events of Petal. If you are familiar with the work of Lockheart, this game is on par if not better than his other games.

Those of you who have not played Petal would be well served by doing so and then returning to this game afterwards. Renders are gorgeous and well done, the girls are equally beautiful. New to Bliss is is a phone mechanic that also serves as a plot device, as well as an AI companion. I await Chapter 2 and beyond with eager anticipation.

Ever wondered what it would be like if you wrote a sexy VN with the cold, hard logical sense of a sex-psychologist that offers therapy sessions?
Well, this is that game and the game has your 18 year old 'wards' acting as the sex-therapists: they train their dad guardian to become more sexually aggressive so he can....bang their mom Rose more satisfyingly??? (and also themselves)

If harem games are one side of the coin, then this game is the other side of that coin: characters too serious for the story, it all feels like a therapy session and it is just that: therapy to get daddy guardian and Rose and wards into bed together. No 18 year old has his/her shit that together to act like a sex therapist for their dad guardian! just like all those harem-cuties are all lusting for MC dick: In wot universe mate?

I was hoping for a more playful journey of sexual discovery (it still has some of that) but the story and characters are too busy explaining-away and exposition-dumping to enjoy a lot of that.
Also the whole 'phone' and 'click things on the screen' feel like the same boring shite that Mr Dots puts in his games to pad it out, this game doesn't need it!
If you have some good suspension of disbelieve, this game is fine. The renders are great quality and the visual designs of the girls are very pretty. Just the writing of the characters is pretty unbelievable. If the game had more fun with itself and I don't mean more jokes between characters but less therapy-session! Then this would be great.

I couldn't wait to play this after Avalon and especially APAT, because the "future" envisaged by Lockhart and Petal about what's to happen going forward is brilliant to say the least. And that allows me to look forward to soemthing!

The game itself is amazing and a step up from both previous games, which I encourage you to play, especially APAT which was the prequel to this game. The pacing, the teasing, the dialogue, I don't think I can find any flaw for those.

And wow, the characters, to say they feel alive would be putting it too simply. The developer has a clear idea of the story in his head, as well as the personalities of each character, which you have to admit you can't say for every developer here.

If I had to squeeze out any cons, it would have to be the sudden inclusion of some of the new characters this game. Now, I'm all for more pretty girls, but I personally don't want it to turn into that kind of game where there's too many LI that it dilutes the main narrative, but I'll bet Lockhart has a solid plan for them.
Definitely one of the games and developer here you have to try out, and support(if you can). Masterpiece of a series incoming.

Yes this is probably 5* game but I have to take two stars away for the annoying phone ap banter. I literally just hit the skip button through the dialog it was so inane, added nothing to the story and annoyed the hell out of me. You do not get 5*'s when you annoy a reader to that degree. I hope the phone ap dies a quick but painful death.

This review is being written after the first chapter of this VN.

I was very pleased with the first chapter of A Moment of Bliss. It is full of beautiful renders and lovely ladies, the MC is sexual but has more depth than a walking hard-on looking for a series of holes, the writing is well done, and while the humor is frequently less than knee-slapping hilarity that always hits, the main character is a failed comedian, so it seems appropriate that he has less zings and one-liners than he did in the previous title, A Petal Among Thorns.

Lockheart's writing is well done, (as always) and while I appreciate that some of the VN tropes present may turn off some people who want more realism in the game, (things like: fantastic super-advanced tech that the main character inexplicably has access to, a seemingly magical charisma that makes everyone that the MC meets want to sleep with them, a household full of women who want to please the MC at all times and don't mind sharing) the writing is strong enough that suspension of disbelief is possible, and situations that would be completely implausible become able to be over-looked due to a well-told tale.

I'm tempted to dock some points from my review for the re-use of one of my favorite characters from Lockheart's game-universe, but at a time when she was 16 years old, as that informs me that she will not be an LI in this game. (Honestly, I feel the game deserves the perfect score I give it, but I really like the character I mention, and I would prefer to see more of her than a cameo.) Ah, well, I'll allow some character interaction without potential for lewd moments when the game is written this well.

As mentioned, this game is a sequel (part of a planned trilogy, I believe) and I am sure the story will make slightly less sense if you have not played A Petal Among Thorns, but that game's events are recapped well enough that you should not be lost. Petal Among Thorns is also excellent, and I would recommend a play, but I think I like A Moment of Bliss better, probably due to Bliss having a larger cast and faster pacing to get to the action.

TL/DR: Play this if you like a well told story and a setup for hot-harem action.

Great first impression for a first release and a fanastic continuation of the first part "A Petal among thorns".

I'm always hesitant to give 5* on any games as normally none of them are perfect, but so far I haven't seen anything that really invites too much reason for criticism and the game is certainly more a 5* than a 4*, so I'll go with 5* overall.
Might change in the future, but probably not by much since Lockheart is WAY above average when it comes to art and storytelling.

Also great character design and, more importantly, character progression as you can clearly see how the MC still has reservations, but slowly comes to terms with everything that is going on and adapts to the situation, contrary to some MCs in other games that have like 10 releases, but the main guy still questions basically everything at every turn.
Best of luck to Lockheart for the future, but I doubt it would be necessary, because talent beats luck here in my opinion.