VN - Ren'Py - A Shot in the Dark [Ch.4] [ViM Studios]

Came for the Femdom but ended up enjoying most of the relationships. Character interactions / conversations feel a lot more real than your general porn game. Most of the progression is slow which might turn off some but the interactions with the LI can actually be quite sweet. Other LI move at a faster pace so you are not left wanting.

+ Diverse set of girls
+ Decent renders
+ Something sexy for everyone
+ Decent writing, actually has a story and some suspense
+ MC isn't an idiot with nothing but sex on the brain

- Choices are mostly just +/- relationship with girl

S'pretty good. for the most part!
Renders are top notch and I dig the UI.
Writing starts off fairly dry, but it eventually gets its hooks in.
I dig the bulk of the characters and the narrative is intriguing enough.

My complaints are few...

The animations are mostly fine, but I feel like a lot of them are perhaps slower than they should be. That and some of them loop in ways that don't look quite right

Sound and music is largely forgettable, which is fine - I'm used to muting these games anyway. But one sex scene in the last chapter threw me through a loop by having full voice acting. Now don't get me wrong - it was good!

But I am a stickler for consistency. That was the first and last instance of any voice acting in the game. Personally, with that being the case, I would rather it weren't there period. If the rest of the game is to eventually have voice acting, well that'll eventually be neat. For now I just find it off-putting.

In any event I dug the game a lot and while there's a little room for improvement it's still an easy recommendation for me to make.

+ girls
+ music
+ renders

- mc is very insecure, clueless in sex scenes - girls have to teach and explain to him so many things.. it's miracle/a new level of fantasy a guy like him got so many chicks
- too many cowgirl positions, mc is so fucking lazy.. all he do is lying on the bed and girls do all the work
- lewd scenes are boring, animations are too slow, they looks like "fucking in slow motion" im suprised girls don't fall asleep during them
- disappointing threesome with Sara & Sophie
- mc's conversations with girls, he is so fucking pathetic in them, this dude literally don't have balls and any life experience, which is strange if you consider he is in college
- story

one of the worst mc in this genre. Interesting girls saved this avn from 1 star rating

Seems like it might be a neat game but it quickly turns into a turd. I don't really like to put down peoples hard work, and there is definitely some hard work here, in particular the girls look good and the flashy menus and everything is cool. However, the writing is really poor. Especially for the MC who has one mode: Beta. There is no role playing here because you are a beta who loves taking pictures. That's it. While there are some branching paths with the girls, the paths are basically side with the sluts or side with the reserved girls. There are no real choices in how you deal with said girls, just whether or not you're on the path or not. Also, wtf is up with one of your LI being kidnapped and beat up right at the start of the game? There is zero reason for this to exist aside to create unnecessary drama. Overall, a dissapointing game.

A Shot in the Dark [ Ch.4 Beta ]

Pros:
+ Interesting and engaging story plot
+ Great story narration and pacing
+ Delivers suspense in a good way
+ Profession and clean user interface
+ Very diverse cast of characters
+ Dialogue is mostly well written

Cons:
- Suspense might not be for everyone
- Every chapter and update seems to end in a cliffhanger of sorts
- Story is mostly linear, but that may be a good thing to some people


Every update keeps me on my toes, wanting to know more. This is one of few visual novels where I want to know more about the main character as well, why he is the way he is, and what happened in his past.

Though admittedly, only one character (Ashley) catches my interest at all, the interactions between characters and their conversations are not bad at all. For the most part, they all feel mostly believable or well written. I do like that you can still hang out with the other characters as friends and keep interacting with them, even if you don't want to go on their love interest routes.

Overall, the story is full of suspense and I feel the way it unfolds, like through the therapy sessions or flashbacks or dreams, is well delivered. Definitely worth checking out and keeping on your radar. I think there are a planned 8 chapters, plus an epilogue. At the current pace of two chapters a year we can hope to see the end within 2-3 years, hopefully.

Overall Rating: 9.0/10

A very well done VN.

Visually it looks good with some nice models. A plus is not all have over sized boobs, there are some but not all. I'm not into the 3x boobs but still I found the aunt pretty attractive regardless. Some scenes the shirts look vacuum sealed onto the woman but I've noticed that is fairly common among models with the over sized boobs so this one isn't alone. Contrary to some reviews I thought the animations were well done.

The writing is solid and the story interesting thus far. Some reviews complain about the MC being a "beta" which isn't even a real thing, it's a made up concept as is the alpha thing and not actual personality traits, but they are off the mark any way so if you see anyone using those terms then you can pretty much take everything else they say with a grain of salt as well. The MC has some social anxiety which makes him a little awkward at times but it's not even that bad. Some people aren't happy unless every MC acts like an ass,

The game mechanics are good, almost too good. The dev made it easy to know which choices you might want, no guess work at all.

An entertaining VN that I would recommend giving a play.

Other devs have caught up on the render quality, so it's not as amazing as the first release, but they're still good. Story is typical college adult style that is all over this site. Most of the girls are unattractive to me but that is personal preference, and you have to give credit where it's due in their diversity. Many games suffer from samey looks, this game does not have that issue.

Information is presented for every choice, you don't have to guess or use a walkthrough or keep reloading saves, you'll know exactly what is happening with choices and what routes are available and where the big choices are. I want to give this 5 stars just on that, but I don't think that's fair either. I would definitely have given it one less star or more if not for how high the QOL is on this.

Of course it's a game and the girls throw themselves at the MC. At least this time he has some normal young men thoughts. That seemingly offends the keyboard warriors who sit on pirate porn sites playing adult games while calling themselves "alpha", so if you're one of those people, be warned. For everyone else who isn't a self-unaware loser, it's probably going to be a positive for this game, or at least you won't really care.

There is already some lewd content with a few LIs. I don't think the scenes are particularly great nor is there much to do in them, but that's not a fault of this game because all adult games are pretty much like that, you have to be a real loser to get excited over video game renders and live vicariously through said fictional MC, self inserting yourself into the game but hey that's the type of person that gets vocal on here. Are you that guy? Uh oh, I guess this might get you hot and bothered, dunno if you should avoid this because of that or get more lotion for yourself, I can't relate.

this reminds me about Being a DIK, College life and go YOLO lmao
the renders on the girls are so well done HOLY sarah face in particular so well done.
its a simple avn game with a bit of photography sandbox and its great.
you should give it a try



Story: 4/5
Render: 5/5
Gameplay:4/5 (Simple AVN)
Girls: 10/5
Potential: 10/5

cant wait for the updates!

came for the animated tag and I'm now in pain
why is there an audible gear squeaking noise whenever there's movement?
and the other parts of the game are okay but the animations are so bad wtf?
Also choices every 2 seconds choice choice choice choice all seemingly going in the same direction so is this some sorta trick vn that makes you think you're making choices? seems like it.

Stuck in the mind of, and subjected to the endless mental diarrhea of, a submissive mentally-challenged beta. Meanwhile a college hottie is tied up in a basement and beaten/abused on a long-term basis. It is obvious who is responsible after the altercation immediately prior to her kidnapping (that was witnessed by multiple people) but almost everyone acts like they are braindead and clueless.

The game is cringey and tedious and goes out of its way to waste your time. This includes a large number of memories/lewd scenes. Many of the characters are caricatures of women with ridiculous dimensions.

I only give it 2 stars because a few of the characters look good.

Writing this review whilst still on chapter 1 and already taken aback. Meeting characters with different personalities is always welcome and this game does that really well. Moreover, the game gives you more freedom over the kind of college life you want to live, rather than enforcing a specific college lifestyle over you. As a result of this, different LIs get attracted to you based on the kind of personality you want for yourself. For once, the size of yo meat aint becoming the reason for every character to be interested or falling for you

Animation: Above and beyond
Story: Well crafted, intentional, created with care
Scripting: Fits the people speaking and creates personality.
This is a well made game from a strong set of developers. I hope they are able to drive this one to completion because it deserves it. Which makes it all the more sad that I will probably never be able to fully play the game again! I am not equipped to deal with all the multiple choices, branching, missed relationships/content. Too anxious of a personality too deal with maybe making a not-real person unhappy! But my personal failings do not detract from the fact that this game has great potential. Maybe I'll be able to play this game when someone creates some kind of one-playthrough mod or something...

I have mixed feelings about the game so I will start off by explaining the pros and then the cons and my conclusion.

Pros
1.Music is solid nothing too crazy but its nice to have some nice music while playing

2 The women are well designed and very attractive also the renders are nice to see again nothing too crazy but definitely above average

3 Very few spelling mistakes and overall composition of the structure of the sentences is fairly good

4 Branching system gives you plenty opportunities to meet love interest that you might had missed earlier on in the game if you decided to skip them or go another route.

5 Story has some interesting moments of crime and mystery which I found interesting aside from the good old college plot

Cons

1 Characters lack depth to them most of them are forgettable and you will forget all about them after you're done playing

2 MC is one of the worst ever written he is not only cowardly but also super dense and has little to no awareness, so girls and other characters usually end up taking advantage of him easily the worst part of the game he has the personality of a brick and almost made me not want to finish playing the game at one point.

3 Writing is easily the weakest part of the game some relationships feel like they progress too fast while others too slow and while I do like the mystery aspect of the story plot I find the college/ classes side of things to be extremely boring

4 Animations look stiff they definitely could use some work on them so they don't feel like puppets having sex

5 Word bloat I felt like this is one of those games that makes scenes and dialogue between characters unnecessary long just for the sake of having more words there where time where I felt like characters kept rambling about unimportant stuff through the conversations.

Conclusion I think a Shot in the Dark is a game that is fairly average at what it does and doesnt try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to college themed games, while I do see potential in the game it would need a massive overhaul in a lot of areas which I doubt it will happen all in all, I would only recommend this game if you are really bored and have nothing to do since I think there are other games in the same college theme genre that do a much better job at it.

People are too harsh on this game imo.
There is plenty of content, there are characters for everybody. I'm very eager to see my favourite people again (Mai, Sara)
The story has some twists which are surprising, it's entertaining.
However, I'm unhappy with being forced to interact with everyone, including those that I do not want to see.
Regardless, it's a great game, I'm thankful for you devs.
I also like the Photogram app, how each character leads a life outside the story + bonus pictures! Thanks for taking the time for that.

Looking forward to the next chapter, good luck dev!

I have mixed feeling about this game, on one hand I think it's technically great: visuals are very good, animations so-so but still good enough, Ui is polished, every detail is taken care of (girls' profiles, apps, choices, points, gallery), the scenes have even too much images (it's great to see that many variations during a conversation, but I'm afraid it takes too much time without really paying off).
On the other hand it really lacks consistency:
- the MC might be interesting, he's supposed to be shy and his internal dialogue shows he is (some people seems to hate playing not an alpha male, but I think he's donequite right), but nevertheless nobody reacts to his shyness, every single girl falls in love with him immediately and for no reason.
- characters are not believable at all, they all have cliché personality, very dull and totally not realistic, yet each one of them immediately loves the MC and is very polite. Despite the game initial claim nothing seems to have consequences: or even better , there are also a couple of shy bombshell who, out of their shyness, practically immediately throw themselves onto you, there is an oddly insecure super hot milf, who in a matter of minutes hits on the childhood friend of her daughter which she hadn't seen for I don't know, ten years? Yeah, might as well happen.. I think that the games should take itself less seriouslyand try to turn into a lighthearted porn plot, or seriously review the character design and script in order to offer a more mature and interesting game.

Anyway there is clearly a lot of effort behind it, so kudos!

Great game so far, amazing score, renders and models. Story pacing is great too. Very Promissing.
Hope to see where this game and this dev could go.

The system of memories and photos is also amazing.

This game has the potential to become a massive hit

Have you ever played one of those "I was transported to a world with reversed gender roles" games where women are the dominant ones and men act like women? Playing this game feels pretty much like that, just that no actual gender roles have been reversed, it's just the MC being the biggest stammering pussy with absolutely zero control over what happens to him and the funny thing is that there are way too many choices, yet you still feel you have no control.

And for some reason, every single woman in the game wants to be with this awkward NPC that can't even say one word without stuttering if there's a woman around. Let's not even talk about the love interests and the clichés surrounding them. As you play this, you will immediately recognise every single situation, every other recycled cliché. Not all of them are bad, but again, it's just so jarring and utterly unbelievable that all these women want to be with the biggest loser in the world.

The game tries to justify the MC's personality via hints of past trauma and there's an overall dark plot going on, which clashes with the ridiculousness that you have to experience as you play through this game. I honestly don't understand how this gets so many 5-star reviews. The renders are nice, I guess? Instead of playing this game, just watch some porn and imagine whatever scenario you want to see, you will not feel like you are really seducing or attracting the LIs in any way.

The story is....not bad. The characters are interesting and the art is good, even if the animation is pretty terrible. I would honestly rather the sex scenes just be still images over what is there, tbh.

HOWEVER...the thing that really bothered me about the story is how predictable it is. And how much of a pushover the MC is. The story hints at past traumas that might have sculpted him this way, but it's still frustrating how many options and choices are out of your control, and a few of the ones you DO make that apparently have consequences end up being wrong down the line.

Anyway, it's a decent play through. Only a few chapters now, so about an hour and a half of content, but it is what it is.

I'd rate it 2,5 stars out of 5 at this point after Chapter 3). I suck at writing reviews, but somehow this game got me that frustrated that I need sort my thoughts a bit. A couple notes:

• The MC is very shy and lacks confidence. He keeps questioning himself about the smallest things. That in itself would not be a problem per se. However, imo, it's in stark contrast to how every girl/woman is immediately drawn to him, including some common porn tropes like the domme policewoman, horny prof, the aunt. Reading how he keeps questioning himself about what to say with girls while it's awfully clear he will say the right things anyway is quite frustrating, imo.
  
  It makes a possible character development pretty much redundant, when he has been scoring right from the start. Later on, we learn he isn't a virgin, which means he should have some experience to build confidence from, which in turn makes his excessive self-doubt hard to believe.

• The porny aspects and the dark story clash. You would think something potentially horrible like this happening would weigh heavily on the overall game. Instead, the officer investigating the case thinks it's appropriate to ask a potential suspect if he's into femdom.
  No matter who turns out to be the culprit, the currently obvious choice or someone else, I just wish it'd be over soon. At the same time, you wonder if that would be some kind of 'game over' moment and would be left of the game once the mystery is solved.
  So yeah, I can't really get into a potentially interesting story involving past trauma. Finally, a hint at the darker aspects of the game in the tags would have been nice.

• The renders are nice and the lewd scenes are good, also regarding dialogue. During the lewd scenes, the renders are very 'hard cut', though (idk how to properly describe it), which can be annoying.

It's good.
A user-friendly UI that explains shit to you.
Writing that's free of grammar and spelling mistakes for the most part.
Choice of music can be hit or miss but still good most of the time.

It's just that most of the character models look pretty mediocre. I can't really get into the story when they look like that. This is one of those rare games where EVERYTHING ELSE is on point except for the character models. It's usually the exact opposite these days. The only one that looks good is Ashley and it's so night and day compared to the rest of them that it's almost unfair. "Unfair" as if in this game's world, all the attractiveness went to one person and everyone else is just forced to look like an average person. It's an "adult" VN, people. Not supposed to be looking like real life.