VN - Ren'Py - All Men Are Pigs [v1.1.1] [Kaimaki Games]

The Gay Tag Review

Gay needle: almost fully gay, as all the potential romances are with men or trans men and the main character is obviously gay. The "almost" is because of some bi action you can have in the game.

The game you didn't expect! After almost two years of radio-silence post-demo, All men are pigs was already in the category of failed projects when suddenly the dev published the full game. Apparently, because of his crippling anxiety, which is a pity because I'm sure that the game would have enjoyed more popularity and clout if there had been more regular updates, as it's a really nice and well-put together product.

Other people have mentioned Coming out on top because not only it's one of the most famous gay VN out there, but also because the vibe is the same. The premise is similar (young cute guy having experiences and possibly finding romance, in this case working as a bartender in a fictional beach city) but also the two share a rather light and careless atmosphere, with frequent jokes and banter (which might or not be to the taste of everyone, but kinda work here) and gay pop culture references. Of course, as customary for this kind of games you have funny moment as well as more emotional ones.

The game works very well: the story flows nicely, it's quite long with many romance routes that go into the various characters in quite some depth, so it gives several hours of game if you want to catch all the CGs. The graphics, in old-style 2D rendering, is very pleasant -going back to the comparison, personally I prefer the Coming out on top one but this is more than acceptable, even considering some uneven quality depending on the artist. The music is catchy and very appropriate to the setting.

Finally, the main cause for success or failure of any dating VN, the characters. A rather solid pass here, as they are generally cute and interesting. You can see that the devs made a lot of effort in presenting a diverse cast in terms of ethnicity, sexual history, body types and background. I can see why some people could get irked by Maria's character. Even though the stereotype of the yaoi-loving girl in gay VN is not new (Camp Buddy everybody...), here Maria is quite active in the story and vaguely predatory. I don't mind it too much and it fits the plot, but some might find it a bit too much.

Globally, it's a solid 4/5, but I'm giving the full 5* to balance a bit the asinine review about the title.

It's a bit hard to talk about this game without bringing Coming Out on Top since it feels similar in many aspects. But I think this game is better in terms of story. While it is mostly and foremost comedy, the story is surprisingly rich and complex, with several interesting plot twists

I'm not sure how much the story changes depending on which guys we're after, but it seems the story is quite linear, with saving the bar is the main plot. I guess this means while we still explore other guys' stories, the other love interests and NPCs are still relatively involved in some way, instead of them being gone after we're locked on someone else's routes like in most visual novels. I think this also means we can have two outcomes in a single playthrough, I guess. Or three, depending if we help Stefanos or not at the end

I like how inclusive this game is, especially how it depicts drag culture. I don't know much about drag culture in general, but this game makes it sound very interesting. The ballroom battle at Club DTF is my favorite scene of the game, where they all strut their stuff. It just looks so fun

The characters are all beautifully designed and I like how everyone is not perfect. They all have their own insecurities. And in the case of Evandro, he has some interests that can be a dealbreaker to some, and I think every other guy has that too. I find these flaws interesting and in my opinion, encourage us to accept their good with the bad, which is pretty realistic in a dating game

I still have nitpicks with this game though, mostly about the CGs. The game has multiple artists to work with the CGs and so they're all inconsistent, having different artsyles. It's mildly jarring. Also, apparently even if we score a good ending with our preferred man, we won't always see all CGs of that guy in a single playthrough. I have completed Evandro's both good and bad endings and I still don't have his complete CG set. While it makes a good replay value, it's also a bit frustrating to complete them without a guide in my opinion

Also, many supporting characters don't really have other expressions, like Dolores. Maria's sprite also shows her to be happy, snarky, and sassy all the time. So when the scene is supposedly played out to be serious or sad, like in Evandro's bad ending, her expressions doesn't match with her supposedly sad and defeated dialogue

In terms of story, it is much better than Coming Out on Top. Has longer playthrough too, depending on your reading speed. The men all have interesting personalities. In terms of their designs though, Coming Out on Top still has more men that I like. I also like how sex in this game is more like optional encounter rather than mandatory

I find it an okay game overall.
The main artwork (for the character sprites and some CGs) is nice to look at but the inconsistencies because of different artists did take me out of it when it was very noticeable.
I really dislike Maria though since she seems like some weird self-insert of a straight woman that fetishizes gay men (which she does...) and the only way to romance Diego is to be FORCED to be in a "bisexual" threesome where you only interact with her... You can thankfully use the strap-on but this is the part out of every single storyline that bothered me the most. It's uncomfortable, gross, fetishizing and a straight woman using one bisexual and one homosexual man for her own pleasure with total disregard for the gay man she's basically assaulting... So yeah, that scene should NOT exist in a gay game that is made for gay men, not het women with a fetish for men who wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot-pole. Her whole character is just totally inappropriate and unwanted in a game like this... (or any game... and real life).
OTHER than that it wasn't any different from 99% of other VNs I've played, but this one didn't really have many opportunities for engaging mini-games or anything so they would probably feel forced here.
Another big problem I ran into were all the errors I got. I don't know why but once I tried dating the brothers I got loads of errors and one that broke the game on their route. Every other route I tried after that (new game and all) would also have plenty of errors, even if the same choices wouldn't lead to them before. I hope this will get fixed soon since I want to know how their route ends.

If I had the choice to be more specific, I'd give it a 2.5 instead of 3 out of five for Maria and the errors but it does end up being rather average, even when ignoring the issues.

Nice game overall. Was a bit frustrated with those CGs, you can tell they have been done by other artist(s).

I don't get those snowflakes who are whining regarding the title and only based on that giving the game a 1*

The artwork is nice, the background music is decent. The game has plenty of options which change how the story goes (interests), but it is a linear world (no world map).

The controversial part of this game is the title. Because "All men are pigs" is an offensive and misandrist statement. Imagine if this game had an all-female lineup of characters and that title. There would be some backlash and maybe the game or developer could get cancelled. Saying it's some kind of "joke" doesn't fly, because if you flip the genders it would not be acceptable. So the verdict is a 1 out of 5.

Not really much of a game right now maybe in the future.
This game is made as a joke and it feels that way.

You don't get involved in the story(if that's what you call it) that characters are very blank and you don't get attach of them

I had a few crashes (might be because of me but I never got a crash in a renpy game before) and I encounter some lag too.

Gameplay-wise just clicking away.

Doesn't worth a try as it is right now maybe in the future.