Ren'Py - Apocalypse Lovers [v1.26f Remake] [Awake]

You have to pay for the 18+ scenes, so I will rank it accordingly.


It is $15.99 on Itch.io, which is way too much for the amount of content that's in it.


There are way too many systems and mini-games that not only seem to consume a lot of time to think of and code for the dev, but also make the game tedious to play. Every system feels cheap and more like a placeholder, and you wouldn’t miss them if they all just didn’t exist. Especially annoying is having to search and click on every path that your character takes. It’s a railroad anyway, and it could have just been a normal visual novel instead of an illusionary sandbox.


Writing:
It’s okay, but also not very relatable. Sometimes the conversations just feel off.


Characters:
The one inside your head since the start of the game is really annoying, and I just wanted to get rid of her every time she tried to influence things.


Jessica is good, unrealistically naive, but that's fine. The amount of routes and ways you can treat her is the game’s strongest point by far, and it’s the only thing that kept me playing.


Animations:
Imagine 3-5 PNGs in a loop. That's about it. They should be way better for $15.99. But the character models are of good quality.


Development Time / Updates:
Way too slow and way too few updates for something with a price tag. It seems more like a side project or hobby. The game was released in March 2022 and is about 15-20% finished.


I would not recommend buying this as of v1.26f Remake, it needs alot more content

Hard to rate this one, it starts out very interesting, but only two chapters with not much story content and hardly any H content.

A complex system of character attributes, traits and skill trees, but I doubt these make any major difference in the two available chapters - maybe when more content is released, but when will that be?

Minigames and quick time events are not very good and the game would be better without them.

I don't like MC's hallucinations and the (in)sanity system, at all. Jessica's story, on the other had, is interesting but very short, I didn't even have chance to find a new clothes for her, because MC spends most of his time eating some mushrooms, hallucinating and fucking around with his imaginary friend.

Game is a blast one of the few kinda sorta sandboxes that strikes the right balance of being linear enough to keep story moving while still giving you a sense of customization over the characters.

The post apocalypse genre is sorely lacking in good writing and AL is a standout in that regard. Both the MC and the (so far only) main LI have unique and believable back stories and well written dialogue whether you choose the corruption or romance route. Even though I'm a sucker with a savior complex so I choose romance in 90% of games that offer a choice the corruption route here is really good also doesn't feel like the author was biased towards one over the other.

Without any spoilers the world building is intriguing and look forward to seeing where it goes.

The renders are kind of quirky in a good way. Jessica's facial expressions are really emotive.

Give it a shot!

Soon the game will be 3 yo and let me tell you that despite some cheap things and sometimes weird plot and character behavior, I was very impressed by the first game release and wanted to see where the road will lead players after a few years. Well, it led nowhere...

The story and general direction in the second chapter already were big downgrades from what I expected from the game. Writing is decent but still has a lot of flaws. For all this time, after the prologue, there are too few things that happened in story and character development for an almost 3yo game.

Dev decided to work on remaking the game, which was still in the beginning phase and with so little content (story and lewd) to make things, um, better? I don't know, because when I played the remake, I didn't even remember what was changed to the better from the original game.

About lewd content. 95%+ of it consists of flashbacks and MC's hallucinations, and flashbacks don't even include MC, but other characters who, by the logic of things, will not even be in the main story. If we will use game tags towards MC's lewd escapades without hallucinations in this game, then only "groping" will represent what kind of fun MC had for all years of development; it's laughable and kinda sad, really.

Literally half of the second chapter consists of weird flashbacks and MC's hallucinations; actual story-moving events are sparse. If you would play the first release of this game, then it's actually 70% of the whole story released to this moment if you cut off unnecessary MC's junkie trips.

I sincerely disappointed by what happened with the game for all this time. I dont have any hopes for 3 chapter to change things to the better. With this speed, the game will have decent amount of content and story progression only after 6-7 more years, and only if Dev will not begin another remake on the halfway. Yeah, game has interesting setting, some nice gameplay features and other things, but for me, game failed completely.

An really interesting experience. This is not an ordinary Renpy game that gives you a slideshow with text like thousand else. Good story, interesting controls, funny mini games, great music. It's just great. 2 chapters were completed in one go and I want more...

!UPDATED REVIEW: 26/04/2025
VERSION: 1.26d (remake)
SUMMARY: Brilliant and not going anywhere with it. Probably the most disappointing game of all time simply because of its lack of actual content.
RATINGS: (out of 5):

1. Models: 4
2. Animations: 4
3. General Visuals: 4
4. Characters: 4
5. Story: 4
6. Writing: 4
7. Pacing: 1
8. Content (amount): 1
9. UI & Sounds: 4
10. Fetish & kinks: 4

Average: 34 of 50 possible points giving a 68% rating i.e. 3-4 stars.

PROS:

1. Models look good
2. View animations that are there are good
3. Renders overall are pretty decent.
4. Written well and structured well.
5. Interesting way that the player interacts with the world and the characters and aspects like skills and mental status as something to consider is nicely implemented.
6. Skills and overall game complexity and choices make it brilliant BUT! (see cons)
7. Story is not unique, at least not totally, but the way its done and told is and there is a good amount of finesse needed to play the game and navigating it.
8. Potentially some kinks, depending on your choices, though some have simply just a game over effect if you try them.

CONS:

1. Pacing is slow, and only "action" the MC gets is from broken psyche, creating some fictitious character that is just a pervert, but still not real!
2. Too little content to really give a good review on kinks and sexual content.
3. Sandbox, no matter who says what, 99.9% of the time sandbox games are shit, they slow the game/novel down to create busy work. That being said, this game falls in that very small category of tolerable sandbox due to not being the traditional sandbox type game, this VN actually has gameplay that requires some "detective" style work and interaction with the environment. On that level its a PRO.

FINAL THOUGHTS & SUGGESTIONS:

• The game complexity, skills, abundance of choices, detail and amount of interactions are really praiseworthy and I have LOADS of respect and admiration for the developer. That being said, the developer focusing on these elements have a major caveat in that the game has little content that contributes to the progress of the story, side stories, the primary LI relationship etc....its just FUCKING! SLOW!!! Its great in what its doing, its just doing TOO little of it!!!
• Biggest gripe for me is really the time its taking to bring content out, the content that is there is also just not much really. In my opinion the game just has too little content for the time its been developed. Systems and all that notwithstanding its still not much for the player.
• Game over when you pick other options during your play-through, this to me is annoying bullshit, its much better to create two totally separate paths that could overlap on "general" scenes. Now the player needs to revert back to a previous state or save to take the other route, the ONLY route...
• The other issue is that the developer drives interaction with the mental projection that the MC created as coping mechanism too much, this character is not real, we know its not real, thus any interaction with it feels like a waste of time. I would much rather focus on "real" character and develop real, meaningful and tangible relations and connections with those. FUCK A "REAL" character. Imaginary, dreams or memories no matter how "kinky" simply do not do it for me because I have the knowledge of knowing its not real or happening now. Memories are in a way the exception, when it concerns "real" characters but not imaginary things.

I really strongly dislike this game. Feels like it was purpose built to waste the players time and to be as obtuse as possible. Filled with boring menial tasks, beginners trap dead ends, pointless mechanics and scores that the game actually doesn't track.

All in service of 5/10 renders.

Just flat sucks to play.

Having seen the remake, I have to question whether the next version will be complete within any sort of reasonable time, or of any acceptable level content with the changes that took place over the full year for this.

Game has good potential, I love the approach to the game and the atmosphere but the fact that a 20yo has legitimately almost no clue on what masturbation and rape entail is a tad... absurd to be honest. 18yo ojou-sama in a japanese VN coming from an all-girls high school? eh... maybe 5-10 years ago. 'murrrican in the 2020s? nah.


its funny how a few people below completely missed this very little detail, clearly hinting to a good ol playthrough done with a finger glued to ctrl, yet they still decided to write a review lol.

Oh and... I still cant figure out if we can do (real, not just with content cut out) swapped pure/sub and corruption/initiative ("dom" with many quotation marks) routes with jessica, probably not however since when you try to do the latter deborah still says that mc is keeping jessica submissive to do what he wants with her, which does make the variables feel less impactful. I could be wrong though.

note: the "original" routes are pure/initiative ("dom") and corruption/sub.

Long winded boring story with very basic writing, 90% of the game is an idiot talking to himself or hallucinating about very simple situations, looking at a house takes 8 minutes checking each window, of course the complete imbecile MC can't even break a window, but can use a crowbar to pry it open, which is harder to do than throw a rock at a glass panel, the graphics are good, but you can make choices that result in not seeing a single lewd scene, do yourself a favor and skip this if you like quality games

Incredible game with incredible potential. Art is great, the story is great, the characters (though few) are great. I also enjoy the sandbox aspect, it's not annoying like some games, and fairly straightforward.

Game has great potential. There are lots of path and ways to proceed forward with the plot. The scenes that already exist are very hot and are well made.

Influencing Jessica is such a good mechanic, you can turn her into anything you like : Submission, high initiative, corrupted, or innocent and more. Those directions are not binary, so you can still have a happy, and safe Jessica while making her a submissive and obedient.

The only thing I do not like is the hallucination scenes with the Imaginary girl that keeps propping up and ruining gameplay. The game should focus most of its content on influencing Jessica, not playing with imaginary friends.

An interesting experience. This is not an ordinary Renpy game that gives you a slideshow with text. Good story, interesting controls, mini games, great music. It's just great. 2 chapters were completed in one go

Well now after playing it I'm in, idk what took me more by surprise, the almost Lovecraftian tone or the stealth-undertone of the mc kind of starting to become a druid.. This went very Disciple of Virginia-type-game and not unpleasantly.. I was expecting pure post-apocalypse but it's subtly one of the better horror VNs (I should clarify Western horror cause Japan is saturated with erotic horror games and it's just a different tone).. Damn now I have to actually check back in on this

I appreciate the attempt to experiment.

This AVN's approach is more about psychology than about the world itself.

Going down this path, however, requires considerable writing ability. The author must be able to capture the reader's attention and make things interesting. I confess that many times I was bored reading the MC's ruminations.

Another problem is that the gaming experience is very cumbersome: there are mini games, countdowns and small clicks to do everywhere. Not exactly the simplest of interactions.

To date, there are essentially two paths that the MC can take with those he interacts with: one more "good" path, the other more "bad" one. As someone has pointed out in previous reviews, the two routes are not at the same level and one is inevitably more fun than the other.

I hope that in the future both the gaming experience and the writing become more streamlined and rhythmic. If that were to happen, this AVN has the potential to become one of the best out there.

EDIT: I'm editing this review in February 2025 after more than a year. I think this project has become a little better so I change my rating from 3 to 4 stars.

Needs a LOT of proofreading. It's the kind of broken English where it looks like the guy can't figure out correct verb tenses or subject-verb agreement.

I just can't do it, man. Looks like a great game but I barely made it past the intro. You expect people to essentially pay for that through Patreon? Even going as far as to block content without an exclusive subscriber code? Nah. Come on, now.

The game could be really good and it's just the script that's rough. Or it could be another bug fest with shitty writing that attracts people like moths to a flame with its high quality renders.

All I know is that from my experience, that level of grammar is usually like a warning signal that it's going to be the latter rather than the former. I'm going to play it safe and save myself from the stress.

This is very good game
I really like it The choice the insanity thing and self control against your courrupt nature with dystopian settings
It's really sad story but not depressing for me

I hope the render could get better
Thank you for the great game!

Apocalypse Lovers [v1.21 Fixed]

I´m pretty torn on this game tbh. I think it has potential and good ideas to make this one a good ,or even a great game.
I like the setting and the premise is really interesting.
But there are some things that rub me the wrong way. My biggest issue for now is the gameplay.
It consist way too much of hunting pixels and that can get really annoying after a while.
The Story hasn´t really grabbed my attention yet, but it´s pretty early and there is more content to come.
I can only give the current version 3* but will follow the progress, change the review if needed, and wish the Dev all the best in his development of the game.

I really like this game and yes there are some issues with it but the soundtrack alone that he uses just makes me love this game more with westworld,dexter and others just makes me smile while playing the game.

version 1.21 (Edited)

Here are some of my thoughts on the game so far:
1. The story is not that good. And I'm a little disappointed, I thought the story would have things related to survival, such as looking for foods and drinks, fighting some scary creatures, finding other survivors, or looking for a safe place to survive, but instead it focuses more on things about the main character's lust, and focuses more on
main player treatment to Jessica.
2. I like pictures of cityscapes that really look like city ruins due to the apocalypse, even though I don't like the rendering of the characters.
3. Sometimes I see the expressions of the characters that are made look funny.
4. It's actually nice and interesting with some interactions and minigames, but if you have too many of them too often it can be annoying.
5. Why does the main character go out just to find clothes for Jessica? What about foods, drinks or other essentials? Or was it because main character was afraid that Jessica would get plague from items taken from outside? Then how can Jessica survive without eating and only drinking alcohol?

Sorry for my bad English, and thanks for the game.