Ren'Py - Academy34 [v0.30.1.4 Public] [Young & Naughty]

Academy34 [v0.16.1.2]

I think this game is incredibly boring and lacks any depths.
First off, the visuals. The drawings look decent, but the image quality is really poor.
For a moment I thought I downloaded the compressed version, because the preview pics look way better, but nope, thats the official version.
Not sure if the Dev downgraded the pics, but they look so washed out.
I´m still searching for a story and a purpose to this game.
You have a questlog, but the quests just have no meaning, like do homework with person X, and the next day she just offers you sex. Meh.
These quests just feel so boring, just like the sex scenes that are way too repetitive.
I don´t care for any of these characters, because the game doesn´t offer you any reason to care about them.
The sandbox gameplay is not good and grindy and doesn´t offer enough content to justify the grind.

More air than in a bag of chips
Version reviewed: 0.13.5.3

Academy34 could be named a wolf in sheep's skin, but it is actually a ship in wolf's skin. You expect a mighty predator, but you get... a sheep. I was very close to saying "my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined" throughout playing this game, but it somehow redeemed itself just enough to keep me going every time I was about to drop it. Now, from the point of me having suffered through the entire content the game currently has to offer, let me share my thoughts.

The setting.
The Overwatch, duh! Or is it?

John Cena rips paper wall and says: "Are you sure about that?" And, after careful thinking, I am not so sure. Well, the game "features" Overwatch characters, but is it REALLY the Overwatch setting? Is it really how the heroes of the world are trained in the prestige elite academy? Always empty shooting range? Goddamn literature as a mandatory subject? Characters doing whatever EXCEPT actually training to become the heroes they should be? And then it hit me.

The setting is NOT Overwatch setting. It is a cliche university setting for hundreds of adult games starring a random freshman. The only difference is that the Overwatch characters are pasted on top of generic students and teachers and their personalities somehow loosely ducttaped to make at least any sense. This game is not Overwatch setting. It is a bland university setting mixed in a soup with a generous drop of Overwatch characters on top and some attempt for this to make any sense.

The plot.
"Are you sure about that?" Again? Plot? What plot? The character studies in bland university setting. What did you expect, an epic journey alongside the heroes of the world? Saving the planet from all things imaginable? Rescuing cute girls from evil villians? Nooooooope. Nope. Just studying. Just generic ducttaped filler for a plot with this "sandbox" game. It is a sandbox game after all! Do what you want. But wait, what CAN you do?

The characters.
The game features these character arcs:
* Tracer - this one is so generic and scuffed it looks like a "beta", "proof of concept", and probably was one. 1/5.
* Mercy - featuring 3-4 scenes, this one is tied to abyssmal time constraints, forcing the player to skip an entire week to advance to the next step. The heroine's actions seem forward and unnatural, barely explained and barely understandable. 2/5.
* Andre - this is not even an Overwatch character! +1 to my point of the game being a bland university setting with some Overwatch characters ducttaped over it. Why is it even included? What is the point of this character? How is it even relevant? Alright, rant is over (at least, about this one), what is this arc? Basically, some random shy girl, for which the player has to do some things to uncover her hidden, eh, sexuality? Some events are well made, some are not, maybe a 3/5. But do you care? You are here for Overwatch stuff, are you not?
* Mei - the entire arc is plagued with some random crap about meteorology. Yeah, maybe the character background should be relevant, FOR ONCE? But here it is just another extreme. As is with the main character, I constantly found myself asking the same question: why do I care? And, answering it, I started fastforwarding. 2/5.
* Brigitte - it revolves around one particular fetish - bondage. Do you like bondage? 4/5! Why not 5? Because the author likely does not, at least he didn't care to add much detail into the actual scenes. Don't like bondage? Buckle up. The fastforwarding goes brrrrrr. 1/5.
* Widowmaker - there is absolutely nothing there except for some boring introduction featuring one unavoidable NTR scene and a tsunami of text. 1/5.
* Sombra/DVA - here is where all the effort went. This is the only character arc worthy of playing. The only developed enough to feature several scenes and have at least some meaning to it. The only with some plot and character development. The only with quality sex scenes. 5/5.

The gameplay.
One word. Grind. The game offers no content except the character arcs described above. But to get those, the player needs to be at certain places at certain weekdays/weekend to advance them. All the while also earn money to buy stuff for some of those arcs. The gameplay is incredibly grindy. It is atrocious.

The game has a large map with like 10 locations, ALL of which are useless in freeroam, as they only serve as a trigger for a specific arc to continue. These locations are half entirely empty and half filled with random people, with which the player cannot interact in any meaningful way.

All the arcs can be advanced on certain days, so if the player is targeting specific arc, one has to skip weeks to get it going. And be careful when skipping, it can accidently ruin some other arcs! So, the player is required to micromanage everything the same time. Eventually most of the arcs end and only weekend and one other day in the week will be used, the rest of the days will be skipped entirely as they contain nothing of value. But why does the game insist on being a sandbox then? Just link the events in a list one after another in a VN fashion so the giant gaps are removed, it will be so much better.

Why the stupid map if it is not used for anything meaningful? Just force move the player into the next location which triggers something. Why all those useless characters the player cannot interact with? Why even bother drawing their sprites? Keep the player always engaged with the main characters and free the screen from rubbish!

But no, let's grind another week for one subpar sex scene.

The art.
Well, outside of Sombra/DVA arc, it is simply bad. Lazy. Low quality and also low quantity. And Sombra/DVA arc is, what? An exception? It features pretty nice scenes, but they all make like 10% of what the game has, so, well, not doing good here. The backgrounds are fine, but they are also generic. Why bother making a Loss joke and ligma joke on random boxes of pills in the background of Mercy's office, when Mercy herself has a face less detailed than a chunk of soap?

The summary.
The game is definitely not as bad to be terrible, but it is simply poor - 2/5. Poor in quality of scenes. Poor in setting. Poor in character development, girl arcs. Poor in text quality, poor in gameplay mechanics.

The meaningful stuff in the game is about 1h tops. But to unlock it all, be prepared to play at least 5 hours. Be prepared to skip almost an entire week to get a wall of text and mediocre scene. Be prepared to be forced into a weird fetish which the character is obsessed with, and which is the only way to get close to this character. Be prepared to grind. Grind money. Grind character arcs. Grind everything in this game.

I am not recommending it in its current state. Maybe in 2-3 years when the content arrives and can push the score to like 3/5. Or maybe the developer opens own eyes and remakes the game putting content before grind.

This game is like a bag of chips. You open it and there is a whole bunch of nothing inside. And even the chips themselves are mostly not worth eating.


P.S. My ideas for improverment of the game, as requested by the developer.
1. Old character arcs need to be remade. Yes, Tracer and Mercy may really be the first ones, but now, with the quality of latest content rising, those are tanking the overall impression the game has on the players. They are the weakest link and need to be dealt with.
2. In this game "money" does not contribute anything to the story. The parts revolving around money in this game should be free or should take money from imaginary "bank account" the player character has. The "extra" stuff currently buyable from Sombra should be automatically unlocked when the player unlocks the "base" version of the same event. The actions which result in player earning money should be removed completely. This alone removes a huge part of the grind.
3. The calendar (meeting organizer). A submenu of sorts which displays current week and shows head icons of characters the player can meet in certain places/timeframes. Something like meeting organiser? A week with 6 intervals with faces opposite days. Click on one day, it unfolds into timeframes for said day with faces opposite each timeframe. Hover over one face and it gives the location. This is just an example of what can be done, anything would do. And yeah, the button "skip until the next meaningful event".
4. "Chekhov's gun". If something exists, it should have meaning to it. For everything currently in the game, ask the question. Is there currently any meaning to this location/event/character? If there is none, remove it from the game. Remove or restrict all the game content which currently makes no sense, until it does. F.E. Block bus stop when the player has nothing to do there, so the player cannot even enter it.
5. "Linked List progression". Linked List is an array of objects, in which each object contains a body and a link to the next object in the list. Most university setting games operate on a linked list progression. Once the player finishes an event, the player is immediately teleported in time and space to the start of the next event. This will effectively cut all the needless time the player currently spends skipping days. But it will turn the game into a VN. If the game is intended to stay sandbox, it should be focused on the player always having something to do, in any location, in any timeframe. Sandbox is a sandbox because there is sand! Everywhere within the borders of said sandbox. If there is no sand, it cannot be called a sandbox.
6. Progress tracker overhaul. An arc is an arc. If it is Sombra/DVA, it should be named Sombra/DVA and not 4 separate quests. Within the arc there are events/quests. They should be labeled as "future", "in progress" and "completed". And each event/quest should have the description currently provided in the progress tracker.

bad story
art is alright but sex scenes are meh
devs scaled down the public release out of spite, I'm sure
the image quality in public releases are like 160p, very noticeable but the artist claims that it's """""""not noticeable""""""""

would be 1 star if not because of OW

2 stars were too generous

v0.14.1.5 update

TL/DR Exceptionally average. Will probably improve over time as the sandbox gets filled in more. Your enjoyment will vary pretty significantly based on the type of protagonist you like to play. He is relatively easy to trample on, childish, weak-willed, and occasionally borderline moronic. Still, he is somewhat tolerable since he doesn't internal monologue that much and he is a decent human being. At some point he needs to stop acting like a horny 12 year old virgin as character growth. There aren't that many routes but a good chunk of them are eaten up by kinks that are really hit or miss for most. 3 routes dabble in exhibitionism, one route is very mmmf sharing focused, 2 routes are very femdom focused. Art is exceptional but there isn't much of it. The animations are simple two frame loops. I prefer the stills where you get more unique frames. Sandbox feels a bit empty.

Pros:
+ Writing is well crafted, with good prose, some decent narrative progression, and characterization.
+ Game is very consent positive
+2 d art is very pretty.
+BG art is all gorgeous.
+ Mothra and Blaze's routes look like they have a lot of potential for people who want do to routes without femdom , sharing. or voyeurism. Should improve the content diversity.
+ Hana's content with the protagonist is hot. Her being a cam-girl is a buzzkill though.

Cons:
- Stat and money systems are so rudimentary they take away from the game more than they add- just by being a clunky grind you have to get through than feeling like something impactful.
-Too high of a % of the content is femdom / exhibitionism / sharing. If you don't like those tags you aren't left with very much to do in an already content impoverished sandbox.
-MC is too much of a bitch to actually have good dom content- he practically runs away from it even if it is given to him on a silver platter.
-Quickly run out of things to do on days that are not weekends. So you end up skipping multiple days at a time just to finish all the content.
-No options to be a more dominant partner in the rope club. Its sub time all day every time.
-This protagonist has a very childish mindset about women. Reminds me of myself when I was about 12 in terms of mental fortitude.
- The game doesn't really do a ton with the Over-watch training theme.
- Pretty porny. The relationships rarely feel that meaningful.
- MC is very average. Suffers a bit from being a very generic porn protagonist. It isn't very interesting.
-The main character needs to grow up a little. By the time he hits Mothra's content he has had quite a bit of sex. He needs to stop acting like a horny virgin idiot all the time. It is not good characterization at that point in the game,
- Andre would be one of my favorite routes- but I find the fact that she is infatuated with lots of larger stronger men and unsure if she actually likes the protagonist or if he just reminds her of the better dude pretty annoying. I get that the author wants to create some drama and tension but this sort of thing is meh on the routes for the 'purest' character. Hopefully, blaze's arc will be better. I'd love a route with a cute character, without feeling like she'd prefer to have a better man. Or maybe the protagonist can grow up a lil and become one- dunno.

It's a decent game, wasn't as good as I'd expected but was still better than most, landing right about 3 stars.
The art is ok although didn't find it as hot as I'd hoped. The women almost all fall within a narrow body type range (the bustiest isn't that much bustier than most, the most petite isn't that much more petite than the others) so if you like one you'll like them all but if none stand out for you odds are none of the ones you haven't seen will.
Soooo many events being gated behind only being able to trigger them once a week ended up adding a lot of wasted time and grind, especially as more content was completed and some of the days became useless. Sleeping for 4 days and a weekend to get back to the one time you can trigger something wasn't really gameplay.
The quality of life features are nice, in game WT, map's not too hard to get around, probably the best thing about the game was it's ease of play.
If you like the source material add a star, since it does have a lot of fan service.

Overall I'll give it a 3, maybe leaning 3.5, and say try it if you like the previews. It's a solid game just not one that cracked any top lists for me.

"Came for the porn, stayed for the plot."
Sounds dumb but that's true, I do really enjoy the story and it's goofy-yet-Chad MC. His relationships with other characters feels genuine, and I really can't wait to see how he'll befriend and/or fuck the whole cast.
There's some OC's too, and not just as extras to fill in content but as real characters with their own arcs (limited at Andre for now, but there is some interesting perspective for others).
Overall very good game, although the porn aspect is not what interests me the most.

Nice art and nice story, i love the attention and the BDSM in Mei and Brigitte stories . I'm curious to see more of it.

I hope to see new characters soon and more contents with the old ones.

I'll root for your work and keep following it.

Oh I like this. A game about a hero wanting to be overwatch (but obviously fail because he's not in the games lol get rekt) meeting characters from the game and help them or sex them or both. I really like how the devs portray the characters, both canonical and original (although Tracer is a thing that you can sex in this which means she's bisexual maybe? Might be something to explore in future updates considering her canonical sexuality). Really nice art and story.

TLDR; game is good and fun to play, there isn't too much grind, doesn't have animations but moving pictures, story is good and has decent content and Mei is the best girl.

So why do I love this game?
Well, I am not a fan of over-watch, didn't play the game, Just knew some of the characters because I had friends who played the game, so to me this is a game with unique characters.

The MC is the ultimate switch, you can be a pleasant dominant guy (soft-dom for bondage lovers) and a bratty sub in the same game.

the game is linear but also has sandbox elements. Use the godamn "task app".

For the story, the main plot of the game is your education, you are a student in a university and end goal is you finish your education, the real plot is the character interactions, there are 3 distinct characters that made an impression on me, because it is kinda spoiler I will give their names later.

for the"CONTENT" there is decent amount, some are quite easy to reach some take time, which create a variety which I actually liked, if you manage your time correctly (which by the way after the 2nd game week you will) you can finish everything game offers in quite a short time (like 10 hours at most) and will want to visit some events again.

after these words this part of the review contains spoilers:
the 3 distinct characters I had to stay with me is, Sombra, Hana and ofcourse Mei, for reasons obvious Sombra is a very interesting character because she has the mystery on her side, she has a dark past and intriguing character traits (like godamn blackmailing everyone she can) but she is not dark or gritty and would love to follow where her story leads "would like to follow that amigo" so to speak.

Just because she is a conniving bitch Hana gets all my hate, as a character I love to hate that manipulative, scheming, two faced harpy for the sole reason that I actually know people like her and it makes the experience someone genuine.

Mei is every soft dom's wet dream (or maybe everyone's I don't know) she is passionate about her job, kinda clumsy on some social interactions but also knows how to stand up for herself, she is a godamn treat to look at, and fahking godsent to play with, she is not a sub for subs sake, she has initiative to take the matters to her own hands and a makes a decent scientist, as everyone can understand I have bias against Mei and would love some (very very good end with kids and play) good ending with her. Hoping that the dev can finish the game.

To sum up, the game is story wise progressing fantastically if you want to focus on the characters, bear in mind that I played this game in one go and recently, and I will follow this game now quite closely because now this is the nr.1 game that I will support when I have money to spare.

And here we are, I have written a brick and I shall put a TLDR in the beginning.
Still a very good game, congrats to Dev.

I like the art style of this game. I think it's a bit too much to wait an entire week for some interactions, though. One could maybe remove the lessons on Thursday and Friday and put some more Events in there. Or just add Events for Friday and Thursday at all.

It's amazing how this game was able to go from a mediocre one-route game to a normal VN with multiple routes. It's nice to see how the drawing of the characters and the environment has become better, and the romantic quests with the main LI's of the player have ceased to be straightforward, simple and stupid as a cork. Also, game has some really funny easter eggs, alongside with not so funny bugs and errors. Considering that the developers directly stated about the upcoming reworking of too simple, old quest lines (tracer and mercy), this only adds points to the game. In the meantime, in this game, old quests and new ones do not quite harmoniously coexist, so as the new art and old ones, and total amount of quests is really small, which may scare off some new players. Overall, in my opinion, the game right now, deserves a four. Over time, if the developers do not catch the ICSTOR syndrome, and if they manage to do the redrawing/reworking of old quests, adding new ones, expand the gameplay, they will be able to earn solid five.

I really liked playing this game !

There is room for improvement by making the game less grindy or by adding more scenes to make it more rewarding. In my opinion, the game has potential to be a 5 stars, but I find it alreadyquite enjoyable in the current build (v0.10.1.2).

I liked the good humor, the writing and the characters, and the fact that the MC is not a douchebag. I even found the game wholesome in overall, and that's rare !

I find the sex scenes quite good, but I think it might be a matter of taste, because I often find 3dcg game soulless. Yeah, I like when characters seem human and not f*ing robots.

I recommend you try it, reader ! What do you have to lose ? It's free and the game is better than a lot that you can find here !

I just hope that more scenes will be added (and new characters too).

The art is nice, with a good variety of different types of body styles. The gameplay is a little tedious, with certain story progression requiring to happen only on a certain day, and you have to cycle through a whole week to take the next step.

I've never played Overwatch, and only know about the game and some of its characters from what I've seen online. So I didn't really get all of the references through the story, which feels like over 50% of the content. So if you're an Overwatch fan, I'm sure you'll enjoy the parts of the story that were big and small references to the game - I didn't understand them, so I just kind of glossed over them.

It also seems like the MC already has established affinities, like with the nurse. He first meets her and acts as though he's already known all about her and considers her to be the pinnacle of sexual attraction. For me, the nurse was meh and it just felt like a weird disconnect between my agency as the player, and an established universe I knew nothing about. Not a huge gripe, but just my experience.

Overall, not bad, even in its incomplete status right now, but seems like it can only be fully enjoyed by Overwatch diehards.

Disclaimer: Review done for the current version as of writing (0.8.3.6)

TL;DR right at the front: The game in its current form just feels overly ambitious for what it currently entails alltogether and thus gives a much stronger feeling of losing focus in favour of mass appeal. While there isn't anything inherently wrong with the choices made, the current systems in place don't work in tandem and instead string the player along a linear grindfest that utterly marred down the experience as you'll be staring at blank, yet quite nicely drawn spaces most of the time.

So, a game featuring the Overwatch setting while throwing in the player character to enjoy some of the available hotties, pretty unique, if only for the setting. But how does it all hold up?

Time to point out all the good things first and foremost:

• The Artstyle is probably the most striking feature. Handdrawn 2D art that actually deserves such a title in the first place. The characters' look is for the most part really damn good and only rarely I ever felt like something looked a bit off at first glance, so it holds up exceptionally well and in my opinion carries the entirety of the game.
• The characters, while having pre-existing materials to draw inspirations from, do feel quite nicely rounded regardless. Another great point this game has for itself...
• ...Combined with the sometimes quite funny, sometimes witty and sometimes outright bizarre dialogue it got a chuckle out of me more than once.

To cover the scenes, as that's probably why you are also here: There's as of right now some variety in characters and scenes with some great artstyle to go with it. However, if you don't enjoy the artstyle, you most likely won't enjoy whats for show here, so you'll have to take it or leave it. The reason it's in neither the good nor bad category is simply that while I personally enjoy the artstyle, the scenes are however quite sparce in animation and overall amount I reckon. Quality in art takes time, and that shows here quite well.

But sadly this is where I have to stop giving praise and have to point out the bad stuff the game (as of time of writing) has to deal with and it will most likely coincide with what prior reviewers stated. I'll give out explainations from my perspective as to why it doesn't work the way it currently is laid out as well - which is why these points look so long - so here we go:

• The sandbox aspects the game has as of right now are entirely unnecessary. Meaning a big map to navigate around, technically all the time in the world and gradual exploration - this might be fixed in later versions, but as it stands, many things in place feel like unnecessary filler. You have (as of right now) very few actual characters to interact with and thus half the map has no use whatsoever, except to open up a location for a specific character. This means you'll be strung along a linear path with barely any room for exploration, as there is nothing existing to explore yet. While it is nice that certain characters are specific to a location for sake of memorizing and familiarizing them, it means that a lot of the transitioning screens (to this date) offer no value whatsoever, no exploration and barely any interaction, except a nice background to look at. This is intertwined with the next point...
• ...in that the grind is abhorrently bad. Not only is the potential weekly monetary payout you can reach limited (for what little use money has as of right now with there being overpriced shop items), but certain character progression events are tied to specific dates of the week and even then they span multiple weeks worth of progress. In itself not a problem, but with how little there is to do for some characters, you'll quickly find yourself skipping through the irrelevant weekly fluff just to progress a tad for a specific character. In short, there's nothing worth doing in this and what you have to actually do either needs to be cut down by at least half, or other things need to be expanded by an equivalent amount to make it worth your time in the first place.
• It can basically be summed up by something like this: The progression and design is all over the place. While this has been adressed by the dev's in that the characters felt too quick to get to and with Tracer more or less throwing herself at you it now showcases a strange incongruity in designs, especially for other concepts entirely: You have something resembling a sandbox with barely any sand in it. You have a rigid schedule, but are supposed to explore character arcs. You have barely any characters, but are supposed to spend multiple weeks to finish their respective routes with nothing in between to break up monotony. Some characters feel rushed and short, some feel drawn out to breaking point.

So, as it stands, it's all potentially there. The game has lots of empty space that just needs to be filled properly now, with characters, options and something else besides your weekly routine so you can have a sense of actual progress. While I have to say that it's nice to see systems being in place before they are used so they don't have to be patchworked in later, it's on the other hand no use to see a ton of empty space (that you can actually enter) not being used for anything remotely interesting except as a transitioning screen to get from A to B, if that.

So, to conclude: All we can do really is sit down and wait for the development to continue. What exists is great but it just leaves you wanting more, as there's barely anything to explore in the first place, meaning you have a mediocre experience, impaired by a whole lot of unnecessary grind that is carried by some (in my opinion) stellar artwork.

I hate it when the Devs use a map, so they can call it a "Sandbox Game" because that's what will get them the most donations, but then the story is linear as hell.

I tried to play this, but spent my time clicking on every place on the map to try and find the one spot that might move the story forward, only to do the same thing over and over again, all while watching the task list stay blank. If someone thinks it's "fun" or "challenging" to actually find the story in their game, they missed me as an audience.

I suppose the graphics are nice, but I hesitate to comment because I was a little click-happy going through this tedious design. All the while, I am trying to figure out why they didn't make this a VN, and suspecting that it is because that would showcase the lack of content,

I wish them luck, but I can't waste my time clicking in the hopes I accidentally run across something entertaining...

Boring game with repetitive scene and over and over again.Also,there is no guide in this game..I dont even know what im doing.The art also meh and the sex scene are repetitive..Most girls are ThoT.Im dissapointed with Tracer,she cheaping herself in this game..

Pro:

Con:
-Mc is bland and boring..
-Terrible gameplay
-No main plot,i dont know whats the point of this game
-No guide
-The art is meh
-Boring game,you keep doing the same shit everyday and waiting some shit to happen.And if its happen,its really unsatisying
-This game really downgrading the Overwatch character,they really acting like a slut in this game..especially my favourite girl Tracer..the others also thot..Boring as fuck
-No story or character development.Do Tracer homework,nect day she ask to go to the pool for sex..without any effort.

No,i dont recommend this game,unless you play for a quick fap which i doubt it with that meh art.

It is an authentic overwatch game. Characters and environment are absolutely in the original game universe. Only with two addition which are school setting and humor. Gameplay is kind of sandbox. I only have two problems with the game. First is sometimes you roam through the map without help. You don't know what to do and your guide a to do list is usually empty. Second is the lack of content. Day to day concept sometimes boring couse hard to reach story events and school sometimes feels static. Artwork is pretty nice but lewd scene animations could be smoother. My rate is advanced because I have faith this will be a fantastic game with some development and correction.

Haven't played this game in a while but here's what I remember

* Good artwork

* Decent amount of places to explore, developers seem to have a plan for how to utilize the map and integrate it with the story. Looking at the changelog it seems like they take a while though

* Not many ~good~ scenes yet (maybe like 2-3 per character) but at least they're somewhat repeatable.

* Days of the week are a bit boring, sit through the same lessons, see the same dialogue, etc. Becomes stale quickly.

* McCree being your roommate gave me a chuckle

Clicked around in this game for about 30 minutes. I'm sure there are good H Scenes somewhere and the art imo is pretty good, but I just don't have the patience to click around in this relatively small game for an hour. Art is still good though.

Like some other reviewers, I wanted to like this game so much more. It's a bit of a grind, with a flow that just doesn't keep me in a zone. My favorite games usually end up with me wondering where the time went... that wasn't a problem with this game. I do like the art style, but the writing and everything else just never clicked for me.