VN - Ren'Py - Artemis [v0.5.1] [digi.B]

Top tier solid game experience. Cant wait to see it released on steam. The characters all seem to have unique identities and it looks as though multiple paths or playthroughs will be needed to experience all of the content.

Version: 0.2.1

Very good! The main cast are very likeable and the supporting cast does well to be well written but also not overbearing.

MC is probably one of the cooler one's I've played, and I enjoy that he does have his own personality rather than be a stand-in for the player, which reflects in your dialogue selections.

The only real complaint is that there is not a ton of lewd content, which doesn't bother me too much, but something to note for people that are looking for wank content. The other complaint is that because it is unfinished, not a lot of content with some of my favorite LI's (coughcoughKindracoughcough)

At this point, the game has a ton of potential, and I am excited to see how they move on from here.

This the type of game i will come back and re-review.
- The story starts of great but them falls off a cliff.
- the characters are all hot
- the renders are great most of the time but other times it looks grainy as hell almost as if someone else did the renders.
- Dialogue is believable

i did play this a couple weeks ago through a different site and will definitely replay it soon.

Gameplay : ✭✭✭✭✰
Story : ✭✭✭✭✭
Spelling : ✭✭✭✭✰
renders : ✭✭✭✭✰
Animations: ✭✭✭✭✰
Potential : ✭✭✭✭✭
Overall : ✭✭✭✭✰
Girls physique : ✭✭✭✭✰
Graphic : ✭✭✭✭✰
Sex Content : ✭✭✭✭✰
Creativity :✭✭✭✭✰
Note :
I love it ! all the best to the developer.

This game is phenomenal. The visuals are really good, the characters feel real (you hate some / love others) and story is very interesting in my opinion (it's about AI if you're into that and a guy trying to do his best at what life throws at him). Most important of all, sex scenes feel natural and not all over the place. Some visuals are just breathtaking (one I recall was when June was in the balcony under the shade of the moon).

All in all, you should definitely give this gem a try. It's filled with comedy, drama and cute moments. It played with my feelings and I have to admit I loved how it was done.

Artemis is on par, in my view, with all the greatest and top ranked games on this site. In the peer-reviewed version 0.2.1, the game still offers much more content than most of the competition in its final form!

Pros:
+ Excellent renders and animations
+ Facial expressions / Posing / Scene composition
+ Writing - Interestingly written characters with actual layers / Believable dialogues / An interesting and engaging story
+ Music and sounds

Meh:
* The story is relatively linear so far and does not offer as many variations in the form of alternative choices, but keep in mind that this is still an early version of the game.
There is one major decision at the begginig of the game and I'm very curious if this choice will turn into anything more than just alternative text.

Cons:
- I can't think of anything

Summary:
° It's pretty easy to give a 5 star to this game. To put it simple, every single aspect of it is top quality of the VN genre. The Dev is clearly passionate about this project and It shows!

Very, very good.

When I saw a game I hadn't heard of with 150+ reviews and a 4.7 rating seemingly out of nowhere, I had to check it out. I came in with high expectations and was still blown away.

The story is good. There are some obvious contrivances and plot holes, but it is presented in such an engaging fashion that these small flaws are only noticeable after the fact; as you play the game, you are pulled into this world and it feels alive and real around you.

The story is very character driven, and the characters are where this game really shines. All of the characters are very well-realized, both visually and narratively. They gesture, blink, breath, and generally feel alive and well-matched to their dialog. There is a good amount of humor in their interactions, and every joke lands well. The MC has a deadpan, not-buying-it expression that never fails to draw a laugh every time it comes up. The characters are all likeable people doing cool things, and this alone shoots this game well above a lot of the offerings on this site.

There have been many critiques of the art and character designs, but frankly, I don't see it. Each character looks and feels unique, with detailed poses and expressions. There are a handful of over-the-top smiles that look a bit fake, but these are the exception rather than the rule, though I will agree with others that the wet effect the dev uses needs improvement.

I could go on and on, but really, it comes down to this; download it, play it, throw the dev some money. This is very good work!

This game is a BANG dude!
The story get me hooked from the start and the characters are lovely,
And its kinda weird to say this when playing an adult game but I really like some of the songs in this game, chill

In Artemis I was treated to a mature, thoughtful and interesting plot, strongly echoing the current development of modern earthly technology and the immediate future of humanity. There are 11(12) female characters and an interesting ms - a talented programmer, with his own flaws and psychological problems. The story itself is very motivating, with beautifully written dialogue and carefully crafted characters.

The renders and animations are of high quality, and the small flaws of chapter 1 (like a strange water effect on the body and some renders) were fixed in chapter 2. You can see that the author is technically progressing from chapter 1 to chapter 2.

The game pays a lot of attention to facial expressions and the elaboration of small details. There's a lot of good humour in Artemis - the author never fails to amuse players throughout the game, and the jokes themselves are very clever. On a separate note, we should mention the sound - there are a lot of great songs which perfectly complement the atmosphere of the game.

It's nice that the MC in Artemis is not "just another schoolboy nerd looking 15 years old and trying to fuck his mother and sister," but an adult, working man in a difficult situation who during the game finds the strength to move on and return to his former self - the active man and regain confidence in his abilities.

In fact, Artemis is a very life-affirming and motivating game that encourages the player to "get off the couch and get moving" (even if everything in life is good, but we have frozen in our comfort zone and not evolving further). And this moving forward through overcoming oneself and one's fears is successfully demonstrated by MС. Of course, you have to allow for the fact that it's the author's idea and not everyone is lucky enough to be born/become a genius programmer in Silicon Valley, but I suppose this game is entitled to a number of gaming conventions.

On a separate note, I'd like to mention Artemis' superb dramaturgy. Not many people can work with this delicate matter, but the author of Artemis has definitely succeeded. After playing the game, there is a pleasant aftertaste, like watching a very good movie. The author skillfully plays on the strings of the player's soul, creating scenes that will not leave us indifferent. Here I sit, a grown man with a beard, laughing at Kindra's jokes, reading the dialogue, and a moment later I get goosebumps all over my body and tears appear in the corners of my eyes and such transitions from one mood to another are beautiful.

In summary, if you're looking for a story-driven game with great dialogue, well-written characters, then Artemis is your game.

The story is funny but bad and doesn't take itself seriously at all. The character models are different and there is a wide variety of content. It has a great renders, decent music, characters look very good, and everything else is also fine apart from the story and dialogue. In my opinion the two most important things are the dialogue and story. The reviews seem to be very polarising. I will update if it imporves.

v0.2.1

+ story
The story of this game is just amazing. It has grown realistic characters, sci-fi elements, and an intriguing plot. I've read all available content in one day and was sad when it ended.

+ characters
The characters are grown people in this story. They have their own life, ambitions and their existence isn't for mc only. Girls don't jump on mc suddenly, that is important.

+ amount of content
The amount of content is enough to immerse into the story and discover its own world. I'd say it's about 7 hours.

- girls visuals
Ok, it's my own opinion, but the characters are just ugly. The only cute one is Zelda, and I don't understand, why the author can't see it. Maybe he wanted to add realism to the girls, but he did it too much. It's especially ugly when they smile because you see their strange plastic-like TEETH. I am afraid I will see them in nightmares for several days. I did my best to avoid looking at the girls' models for all 7 hours . Mc himself looks good btw. Maybe bc he doesn't smile much...

- sex
You can probably guess this, but when the girls are ugly, you can't do much to enjoy animations of love. Situations themselves are good. They are well integrated into the story and you want to see them, but it's hard when girls are like that.

+ visuals
Okay, let's forget about girls for the moment and focus on other visuals. It's fantastic. There are actual animations and solid rendered cutscenes, that you usually find only in expensive games. Backgrounds are good and detailed.

+ gameplay
It's hard to add something interesting to VN, but there are some good fresh innovations that are merged with the world pretty well.

Overall I would recommend playing this game for the plot, not for "plot". You'd like it.

This game is very underrated. The story is beautiful, I got hooked in the first 2 minutes, the renders are extraordinarily good, the sex scenes are top-notch, the music is amazing, there is just nothing bad about this game. Do yourself a favor and play this. Also, good fucking job to the Dev cause it was practically impossible for me not to support him after I finished the game.

Visual quality was fantastic, and the sex scenes were really well done as well. However, the writing really made this game. Interesting and fleshed out characters with real personalities, combined with expressive and unique looking characters made this game stand out!

Love the story about MC and how he from being broken and lonely, finds his way back with help from his friends and that he finds purpose again.
The renders and animations are really great and the options in certain scenes,
The game/VN really good with the elements of humor, sadness and suspense. I couldnt stop from playing from start til end of second chapter once i started.
Team Kindra

review of v0.2.1:

The graphics were very good (compression may have hurt some of the early darker scenes).

Facial expressions were on point and easy to read.

The writing was phenomenal. I ran the script through a spell/punctuation checker and not one error.

Dialogue between characters was fluent and easily comprehendable.

The women's bodies and overall beauty were heavenly especially their breasts which were like pillows sent to earth from the Gods themselves.

I tried v0.2.1. I didn't like the graphics. The faces were weird, as were some of the expressions. The writing didn't pull me in, either. The dialogue was awkward. The characters' bodies seemed overly sculpted and the breasts looked hard.

This truly is an excellent VN. The renders are excellent, the humour is some of the best I've seen, the story has incredible emotional depth and a relatable protagonist that goes through a relatable arc.
The girls are all fleshed out and incredibly charming, each in their own way, and of course beautifully rendered, and the author knows how to pace the story perfectly.
Truly one of the best out there.

Based on the (as yet) unfinished v0.2

My usual disclaimers when writing reviews on here are that A. I am here for the "plot" not the plot and B. I am very picky with visual novels and think broadly they can be very subpar. So, take both of those into consideration for my review when thinking about this game.

Pros

• Exceptionally high graphical fidelity – This is normally not something I really look for in my H-games. Given that some of my favourites on F95 are made with Honey Select, that much should be obvious. However, it really needs to be said about Artemis: WOW some fucking work went into the renders and design here. All the characters look incredible and the girls are both stunning and memorable.
• Writing is amazing – Very clearly one of the big draws for Artemis is that Digi.B clearly knows how to WRITE. Dialogue is amazing, the overall premise is actually very cool and Digi.B seems to be considering some of the deeper implications of it. But on top of that it still remains fun, often is sexy and funny, and not really in danger of disappearing up its own arse.
• Exceptional characters – To reiterate about the writing, the most outstanding thing here might actually be the main character in fact. I’m usually a proponent of having an MC that people can self-insert onto, which can often mean making them quite bland. Here, the protag is very defined and not only that is obviously very damaged. He cries, he struggles with the smallest of social interactions, basically all things which would normally have me bored to death and rolling my eyes because of how “edgy” and melodramatic it is. Except, here, it’s not only believable but also surprisingly compelling and handled with no small amount of grace. Essentially, the protagonist subverts expectations and it’s done well. The rest of the cast is also pretty compelling and interesting in their own way.
• Sexy scenes and interactions – Despite the surprisingly heavy subject nature of the game, which hasn’t really reared its head TOO much at this point, there is also a lot of room for very sexy stuff going on. It’s early days yet so the MC hasn’t yet had a chance to bang every character, and most of the sexual stuff has been fairly tame so far. But, like I say, it’s early days, and it seems pretty clear that Digi.B has no intention of skimping on the good stuff.
• Sense of humour - I'm editing this in after-the-fact, because I can't believe I forgot about it at the time: honestly Artemis is fucking hilarious. There are several genuine laugh-out-loud moments which fucking nailed me, and I think that in itself is a very rare achievement.

Mehs

• Extreme genius characters – This isn’t exactly a negative because none of the characters are exactly Mary Sues/Gary Stus. Everyone has personal flaws and failings and behave like real, emotional human beings. However, they also all, almost to a one, are extremely outrageously good at their chosen subject. From the best friend who not only can build the mechanics of a robot but is also a super low-key very famous DJ (which she isn’t interested in because she’s too modest for fame). To then the love interest who literally has developed a new version of the pill which is safer, makes women hornier and also makes their pussies taste like cinnamon and sugar (and this is someone who somehow isn’t world-famous and an overnight billionaire). Both of whom are presented as being undergraduate students or even younger. Now, to be honest, I can suspend my disbelief here because it’s fun for the fantasy (I mean, as an example, I don’t really think there are any sororities filled with Grade-A waifu material who want you to be their live-in male sex toy), but even though I can, the game is somewhat treading the line here…
• No branching decisions – As far as I can make out, thus far with almost every decision except one, there has always been a “right” choice which will get you closer to the girl of the moment. This is not a problem for me, it still has enough interaction and I enjoy harem games where you get to bang every girl. The main thing is to not go in expecting it to be like Being A DIK where every major choice leads to two quite different situations. Of course, it’s possible that down the line I may eat my own words here and that choices made early will come back to haunt you, but we’ll have to see.
• Kinks – So far, and with each increasing update this hasn't changed much, the H-scenes of the game have been very vanilla (with the exception of one big exhibitionism scene). They're still pretty hot and enjoyable, but as always I'd prefer to see more genuinely kinky content.

Cons

• Decisions made after the fact – I said that thus far the game has only been treading the line with the “extreme genius character” stuff, but this isn’t entirely true. Some off-shoots of it have come in and are very much in danger of ruining the suspension of disbelief. It’s stuff where clearly Digi.B needs a particular event to happen, and so to make it happen he’ll add in an afterthought to what has already been going on. “Undergraduate has invented a new/better birth control pill”? That’s not exciting enough. Let’s add in that it makes them taste like rainbows! “Best friend character has a robot?” That’s boring now, let’s make her actually have a BACK UP and EVEN BETTER version of the robot just waiting for the MC to make the upgrade. The whole thing smacks of one-upmanship where Digi.B seems to constantly need to “improve” what is already there and it consistently throws off the immersion when it happens. Edit: This is particularly prevalent in Chapter 3 as well.

There are a couple of really major selling points to Artemis in my mind. First-off is that very obviously Digi.B has demonstrated that they are extremely competent at writing and character design. The character writing alone probably ought to make the more serious players searching for good stories pay attention.

There’s plenty of drama and angst on display, but it’s handled in such an interesting way that even I enjoyed it. This is coming from someone where one of my biggest pet-peeves in VNs is the constant melodrama for the sake of drama, making up problems where none should really exist. Meanwhile in Artemis there is some serious personal “stakes” at play.

As an aside here as well I'd like to mention that I'm also a fan of the way the game treats the protagonist's relationship with alcohol. I've played too many games on here which treat getting drunk as something done ONLY by scumbag guys trying to hook-up with girls or by tiny girls who are incapable of knowing their limits and making a mess. It's often sort of holier-than-thou and just fucking irritates me. In Artemis, the protagonist doesn't drink but just because he doesn't drink doesn't mean he gets in the way of other characters having a nice time, which I just whole-heartedly approve of.

On the other hand though, the game still makes plenty of time for sexy times and it’s pretty clear that it will continue to do so. Like I said in my “mehs”, you actually get basically taken in by a sorority of super-hot babes, all of whom want your dick to varying degrees. So there’s that sensation of having the best of both worlds: an interesting story and then also plenty of fucking to keep Neanderthals like me happy.

It's also worth noting that the issue I had with the "extreme-genius" characters may vary from person to person. I have to admit that coming from a biological field myself that the whole "magical pill" thing really just makes me roll my eyes, but I think that in general there will need to be a moderate amount of suspension of disbelief here.

It’s only in chapter 2 at the moment, but there is also already a fairly decent amount of content, even if it is still early days in the development, both in terms of plot and the relationships.

My one real concern about the game is that it obviously intends to deal with some fairly heavy subject matter. The protagonist spent many years prior to the game seriously depressed, so there is a constant lurking threat of “mental health issues”. Also the game very clearly will be delving into AI and that might encourage some deeper ruminations on the very philosophical nature of AI (when does it count as “alive”, what if it becomes smarter than us, etc etc). All of this is something that has already been touched on and handled well-enough so far. However, I worry that with serious subject like matter like that the game might be in danger of taking itself too seriously, at which point I practically guarantee it will start grating.

At the moment I won’t rate Artemis higher than a 4/5 simply because it’s still too early to tell the sorts of directions it might go. However, I want to make it clear that I whole-heartedly recommend playing it because it has the promise to be one of the absolute all-time greats.

The game is only at chapter 2 by the time I am writing this review.
This game is a gem. There is so much potential. Render and animation quality in the first chapter are just average, but they are significantly better in chapter 2. And they definitely will keep improving in the future chapters. The story is well-written, the dialogue is natural and full of humor. Characters are nicely designed and have natural facial expression and body language. Also, the interface is the coolest and most unique I have seen in any AVN, it doesn't look or feel like a RenPy's default interface, it's on a different level. Dev is definitely putting a lot of effort into this project and I'm happy to become his supporter.
So far I love this game, can't wait to see the next chapters.