VN - Ren'Py - Completed - AlwaysFan [v1.0.1] [AtemX Games]

AlwaysFan [v1.0] [AtemX Games]

If you like good harem games with cute girls then this is for you.

I played the love/harem path exclusively and it didn't disappoint.
The game has cute girls, the animations are good too and the story is engaging. The music is decent too.

A must play for every harem fan.

The Good:

- The LI's are all good. Emilie , the main LI, is excellent.
- This is one of the few games that successfully balance NTR content with non-NTR content. The branching in general is well done but not so complicated that you cannot get on routes you want.
- The endings are some of the most in depth endings I've played through.
- The story itself is interesting as well.

The Decent
- There are a few mini-games, but they are easy to get through.

The Bad
- Not much of anything outside of a few spelling errors, but every game has those.

Overall 4.75, rounded up to 5.

For those who want a short review, I can say that it was one of the best games I have played.

Now let's get into the long review.
*I can say that the best part of the game, apart from the existence of a main story, is that most of the characters have their own different stories and we can determine the fate of the main character and influence the others as well.
*You can be a bad person if you want. You can be a good person if you want. And either way, you can follow a different path for each character.
*It was quite fun that there was no Sandbox in the game and the feeling of changing the course of the game by giving us a lot of choice in the ongoing story.
*It is a great success that the game has more than one ending and that the content of the ending is adapted without being forced.
*I congratulate the developer for this success. It also deserves appreciation for the fact that each update had a lot of content and he doesn't milk the patrons.
*If I could give it a score out of 10, I would give it a score of 8.5 or 9 but it definitely deserves a 5 rating out of 5.
*He definitely deserves support. I'm looking forward to your future projects.

It's a few completed game that I few deserve 5/5 rating. The story is finished, all of the characters are fleshed out with tons of content for both side to enjoy. Given that it's completed in 2-3 years I say the dev had done a very good job. Look forward to his next

I oVery liked the game, I hope there will be a sequel or maybe something similar by genres, tags and so on.
It's a cool story, great animations, and all the characters are well written. It was interesting to follow the story.
Thanks for the game! Good luck in the future!

quite a good game,
I only skipped trough most of the dialogue and it took a few hours on a single play,
considering what god unlocked theres a whole lot more to come.

still not full points,
graphics and text isn't designed to work well with each other in this one,
White text, in bright Renders is a pain to read. same for the menu choices.
options for a textbox and/or outlines will help with it and is easily implemented without breaking anything.

lots of content, interesting kinks/tags, cute girls and the graphics are decent.

just need to read trough the story, but that has to wait till i adjusted the text readability.

4* quality game, bumping to 5 due to ton of content relative to time in development.

Unique plot, the characters are decently written with unique voices, and there is a good amount of player choice that does impact the story/plot substantially (although you are stuck with the cover character no matter what)

For downsides, it is way to easy for the MC to get laid with any of the characters. There are also some spelling mistakes, but its by no means an engrish game.

Version 1.0

A surprisingly good experience despite not having an intriguing plot, fantastic graphics, BGMs or fanciful sex scenes. Alwaysfan is a good example of what a developer can do as long as he stays focused, engaged and deliver updates with passion even if the “hardware” is average.

Story
The story starts off with nothing fancy - a down and out MC with his classmate facing money issues and unable to pay rent. They then setup an Onlyfans account to make money. What follows is an everyday story about their relationship and their interactions with the people they meet along the way.

There are two main story branches - one which is light hearted and romance driven and a darker one which appeals more to players with corruption kinks. Towards the end there’s a little conspiratorial plot, but it does not form the bulk of the game.

Game Mechanics
Standard AVN with choices which roughly leads to two branching story directions. This might not sound much, but the two stories are very distinct and you will get to enjoy two completely different experiences depending on the path you choose.

Background / Character Renders
The art renders are as typical as you can get for Illusion created games. The main LI, Emily, though is an albino which I believe no AVN has done before.

The rest of the LIs and background CGs are basically all stock assets with minor modifications. Credit must be given that there are a lot of different outfits presented for each LI during their photoshoots for Alwaysfan, so lots of eye candy if you are into that.

Character Development
Very nicely done. No matter which of the two paths you choose, Emily’s relationship development and/or corruption is convincingly portrayed without coming across as cringey.

The rest of the LIs like all AVNs will eventually offer themselves to the MC, but it's a natural result of interactions rather than them being yandere / tsundere with the MC. There are also a lot of other side characters as fellow Alwaysfan creators whom the MC and Emily will interact with even though not all will lead to sex.

Sex Scenes
Typical IIlusion templates with many animations from stock assets. I would say the quantity is plentiful while quality is average as expected.

BGM and Sound Effects
Generic music with many commonly found in other AVNs as well, but they match the story and mood nicely so I guess they compliment well.

Conclusion
Alwaysfan is a game that scores B- to B+ across different areas and on their own this would have been a mediocre game, but through a tight control on story pacing, lots of updates and engagement with fans, a sprinkling of creativity with utilization of tight resources and having all the different pieces synergize well with each other allows it to punch above its weight.

The end product is a mini marvel of an experience assembled from mostly generic resources available to all developers, yet very few can reach its height.

I think it's the one of most underappreciated game I played here. Also the dev doing regular updates that gives a lot of content (compared to some other "popular" games ).

Main girl is sweetheart, and the main romance route is overall really cute and when you are on it, it's really just pure romance (optionally with nice harem) without ntr and other things.
There are others route as well since choices matter, the swinging route doesn't start the best way but it can get good depending of your choices (that's really my only problem).

The background story is pretty dark thought and it's worth to keep it in mind, bad things may happen to some characters depending of your choices since it's still a game and not kinetic novel.

But yea overall I would call it a hidden gem.

I have played the last two iterations of this AVN (this review is based on version 0.6.1) and I am hooked.

The setup is well made and the story progresses at a decent pace. The models are good and even if the artwork quality isn't amongst the best games it delivers a decent graphical quality with sexy girls.

But what the real USP of this game is the story and the interactions between our MC and the girls. The choices you make and how they impact the story.

A great game, and if you like the kinks featured I truly recommend that you try it out.

I want to like this game, I want to give it at least a 4*-rating. I had quite a few hours of fun with it; that said, these hours were also quite a source of frustration.
I tried a few of the different routes (love, dom, NTR) , so first of all I must give credit for having actually different routes and not making our choices moot immediately. The lewd scenes were decent albeit a bit generic.
However, I was very frustrated by some elements of the writing. The main LI, Emilie, takes over quite a lot of the decision power in our relationship, even if I insist that we are just sexmates. Alas, many secondary LIs will defer to her while not asking for the MC's consent in the slightest. For instance, you will share Emilie with the secondary LI Cassandra (the redhead) and you will be happy, no questions asked. You are made into a sort of powerless figurehead of your own harem.
Also, there are the antagonists. From a story point of view, I like them, they are decently well-written and I loved to hate them. From a lewd point of view however, there absolutely is unavoidable NTR, as well as avoidable but the choices are not explicit.
To conclude, I really enjoyed part of this game and think it had the material to be enjoyed wholly, which makes me even sadder when some of these opportunities are missed.

This game is extremely dissapointing for a few major reasons. The first one being that the core concept of the game is quite good. You get an albino girlfriend who you can influence, even though she looks like an escaped lab specimen. However, once you play you realize the major faults this game has, and the first one is that the optional sharing or NTR is a lie. To begin with, your girlfriend is gonna sell lewds on the internet to random strangers whether you like it or not. Whether or not they are nudes is up to you but the fact that you are forced to have your albino gf and even other harem girls upload lewds is unavoidable. Some of them will also upload nudes and that is also unavoidable. The NTR gets even worse later on because with one of the girls who goes to rescue her sister, because I picked ONE wrong choice, which was not even obvious as it was between yes i support you going to this creepy rape hotel to find your sister no matter what or maybe you should rethink going to the creepy rape hotel to find your sister. Well, I chose for her to rethink it and guess what happens, she gets kidnapped, drugged, and gangraped as well as her sister. My save was too late to undo this as I didn't even realize that the choice I made directly led to this as usually there is some type of red text signifying that there is a sharing or NTR scene so you can avoid it. Real nice. This is exactly why I filter out NTR tags and do not give games that tout it as "optional" a chance, because they 99% of the time lie of deceive.

Aside from the NTR bullshit and lies, there are more problems that tank the game over time as well. These are: having to do a whole bunch of fucking trivia questions for all sorts of different topics, getting sent into a VR video game that has the classic rock paper scissors "mechanics" that are unavoidable/unskippable and a bunch of repeatable sex scenes that use stock honey select animations and positions. To solidify this dog turd, the dev also confirms that he will not make a walkthrough for this game, so all of these god awful features are going to be unskippable. It's a damn shame because like I said, the core features here would be amazing if it wasn't absolutely nuked by this dumb shit. Overall, a huge dissapointment and waste of potential.

What a great game. Maybe the first game in a long while that made me enjoy the "vanilla" experience (the normal route). The submissive path is also very good even tho I'm not into it that much. The "sharing route" however, could be a bit better as in NTR choices and how you get there. Looking very much forward to it's development.

One of the best games I've played, hands down. Big fan of the harder themes in AlwaysFan, story is great, I found some of the photo shoot scenes a bit repetitive after a bit though. Also really glad there isn't a free roam part in the game, whenever that happens in a renpy game it turns me off almost straight away unless it's really clear where you're supposed to go next to progress the story.

The game is really very good with an engaging story and incredible characters, it has several routes from which the player can choose without being forced to follow a single route. This will certainly be a game that I will follow the development of

I hate any type of ntr or sharing in my VNs so I wasnt really sure if I should give this game a chance, but I am glad I did, because the pure romance paths are easy to get into and you really dont get forced into any of the other shit. The girls in it are also all unique and interesting and make this a great romance in which you can go for all of them or just Emilie.

Review based on v0.6.1:

The game is really, really good. I am playing on the Girlfriend/Submissive/Prostitution-Path (because I like sluts) and the path is the right mix of wholesome and naughty.

The Main-LI Emilie is a great character. She has a good development, coming from a very shy and insecure girl to a strong woman. She learns to like her looks and body and also learns to give her own opinion on things, which was not really the thing when the story started.
Her being Albino makes her stand out among all those LIs in other games and it is a good plot point to get her development starting. I really like that near the end of the game her Albinism does not really matter anymore to people she meets.

The story has depths and wholesome moments, it is well-written and not boring at all.

Everything seems to be avoidable, so if someone is not into sharing, wants a Harem or the opposite and only a bunch of Sex-Mates, everything can be done.
From what I have seen, some Releationships seem to be on only one route (e.g. the one with Lea, which is only on the Love-Route), but given the characters backstories, it makes sense.
But, as I said, everything is avoidable. So even if rejecting the Escort-Jobs means less money, it does not really seem to impact the story at all.

Updates are huge, containing a full week of content, each day taking some time to get through. It takes a few months for a new Update, but the Update itself is long and you will be occupied for a few hours (if you are interested in the story).

The one criticism I have is that some relationships just dont make sense. You have a few more prominent LIs (with Emilie being the Main-LI) and two Side-Lis, but there are others which are not mentioned as such. And when MC gets the chance to shoot with them, they want to fuck basically immediatly. Sure, you can skip that, but this is a game with Sex involved, so you go for those scenes as well, but I think sometimes a bit less would be more. Especially because there are characters which are not as flashed out as Cassandra, Emilie or even Jenna (e.g. the content with Amanda and Iris in the most recent Update was almost non-existent, meanwhile with Alexandra and the Sisters more Side Characters where introduced to have Sex with).

But this is only a minor thing and nitpicking at this point. Overall, well-deserveded 5/5 stars.

As of build v0.6.1:

WOW this is by far the most unique netorare tagged game I have played, that also has a harem tag! Don't know of another others that your harem girls also get to sleep around with other men, regardless if its due to prostitution. If anything the prostitution makes it way more interesting and believable!!
I love my redheads, Cassandra and Iris are just so dam hot! Thing is I now have a thing for albinos thanks to Emilie's darker path! So look forward to her having Roberts or who ever she fell pregnant to that night towards the end of the game and how that part will end....
I must say trying to take Emilie down a dark road can lead to some interesting bad endings... Which I love that fact that this game does have them possibilities! So very well written!

Review for v0.5.1

AlwaysFan is a good romance story that's harmed by a rough execution. I can definitely see why people would enjoy this, but there's issues sort of holding me back from being able to really get into the game. Going to mention here that I'm solely talking about the love paths and nothing else. Also going to mention I only played up to the quiz show, which is towards the end of the first week (out of five).

The protagonist finds themselves down on their luck, unable to really make ends meet. Coincidentally we have Emilie, and old friend from school, in the same situation having just been evicted. MC invites her to stay with him, she essentially confesses her long time love for him, they become a couple, and decide to run an "AlwaysFans" page to earn money. The common theme here seems to be that every love interest is in some kind of shitty situation and the MC becomes their new light in the darkness. As you might expect, also a large focus on photoshoots where you become the photographer for multiple girls' pages.

I think the premise is fine. It explores some uncommon themes in a sort of bittersweet light. There's genuinely some nice moments, the girls can be cute, and it's nice to see the girls find happiness in the MC. The inclusion of an albino love interest is something I don't think I've seen before as well.

Like I mentioned however, I don't think this game is without issues. The biggest by far is definitely the pacing. With romance games especially, I like slower burns. Where time is taken to build up and really express the characters and romance. Though this is a romance game, it's definitely not a slow burn. This game is a fuckfest more than anything.

The first date with Emilie for example. Being an albino girl who's been made fun of her whole life and has never even been in a relationship, I would have loved to see her first ever date as our new girlfriend fully played out. Instead, the game skips it so we can go fuck in a park. That feels like what her entire relationship with us has been really. Instead of exploring all these new things with her, it's like the game said "ok she just loves you now so here's a bunch of sex scenes."

Then we have Amanda, an older woman who seen our photography work and asked us to take pictures for her. During her photoshoot she tells us she's nervous about getting naked in the same room as a man because she had a "bad experience" in the past. Then right after the photoshoot she sees our bulge and immediately gets on her knees for us. It just completely contradicts the character for what?

I'm not sure if the game throws in sex scenes left and right because it felt forced to being a porn game and all, but it's killing it for me. The sex scenes simply are not hitting, again because they are so sudden with these characters I would have wanted to explore much more. They lack an intimacy that would otherwise come from that.

The MC himself you think would be charming to sort of become this positive force in everyone's life, but he doesn't really do anything? He's nice to them and is magically an amazing photographer. That's about it. The game doesn't really explore his character honestly, so I can't say I really feel connected to him as a protagonist.

The only other thing to mention is the dialogue being kind of rough due to the English not being the best, but really I think pacing again hurts it more.

Beneath all my problems with this I do see a story I could have enjoyed. If it had focused on exploring the romance and characters more instead of having to make everything sexual as quick as possible, I think I would have been with it. I just didn't connect much with this at the end of the day.

My very first recession!

Although I've been playing quite a bit this year, I've only just become aware of AlwaysFan. I don't understand at all why there is so little talk about this game here.

The first star for the creativity with which the developers spice up this rather long game again and again - without diluting the thread of the plot.

A second star for the choices. In this game, you as a player have pretty much unlimited possibilities of design.

A third and fourth star for the plot. It's well thought out, and even though it's porn, it could be a story. This, in turn, creates a high emotional connection to the story for me.

A fifth star. And that goes for the loving treatment of the characters. I feel like the developers like all their characters. Even the bad ones, which give the opportunity to make the game exciting.

A sixth star would go to the positive handling of NTR, a seventh to the graphics, an eighth for the texts, a ninth.... Oh, I see! Only 5 stars go. My first recession.

AlwaysFan made it to my TOP 10 right off the bat.