VN - Ren'Py - Ashes of the Sun [v0.30] [Pandarinka]

Was mediocre throughout the first, releases, got worse over time.

From raped characters, cucking side characters to forced voyeur scenes - for every NTR lover something to enjoy.
Of course not written in a way that actual fans of that genre would enjoy it.

Quick warning for those looking for a harem game: move on, this is not it.

The story is very ambitious but written poorly. Everything is just a bit too outlandish to be believable. It also splits into to paths, so you'll miss content if you're not into replaying the game twice every update.

The MC starts kinda good, seems to have a solid character, but of course ruined later on by revealing his love of getting cucked.
Looks of male characters in this engine is always awful, but he is on the better looking side of awful.

There is a nice variety of women in the game. I don't call them LIs, because some of them are for your classmates to cuck you, others are for the super-genius doctor to cuck you, you get the picture.
All in all I had some favorites, but I won't stick around to discover who gets to fuck them first (probably not the MC).

The horror aspect is the typical jumpscare-trope that is as scary as a fluffy kitten on a sunny day. There are people who enjoy that, I don't.

There are some positive points: it is not a sandbox game, the english is fine, it didn't crash.
But thats about it.

On one hand it is still early in the game, so changes could be made.
But seeing that the development already took a long time to this point, I doubt there will be big changes. Doesn't help that dev communication is non-existent. A hard pass for me, at least in this state

Review for v0.25

It's not a horrible game or anything, but outside of the premise itself, this isn't really doing anything new or noteworthy enough to have really gotten me invested so far.

A strange asteroid crashed into the sun, causes it to go dark, and then fragments of said asteroid crash into the earth. These fragments have microorganisms on them that are causing some sort of zombie virus. So, an apocalyptic tale. An interesting start to one anyway. But I'd advise you to not really think about the details of it all, because I don't think the game is really doing that either.

Right away the game splits into two paths, where you can either run home with your best friend or run into the school. I chose the home path, but a skim through the school path seems that while it is different, they still converge after a point. If I had to guess the only real consequence is what sex scenes you see. There exists a sort of paragon and renegade system as well, but I also don't know how much those choices really matter right now. It seems like it boils down to whether you avoid killing or not, but you get railroaded into killing anyway when some tropey bandits are about to assault your best friend. I also got presented with an option to peek on your friend in the shower, which I chose not to since that's creepy, and then the game took that as me not being interested in the character at all since it didn't give me any romance scenes after that despite selecting romance options.

Most of the characters just don't do much to get me interested in them, and the few tense moments kind of felt fabricated for the sake of having some violence and such when unhinged bandits show up day one of the apocalypse. Like everyone has seemingly vanished, but some rapey bandits are already running around apparently uninhibited by alien zombies? I think I'm just not interested in basic bandits given everything else but the girl inside the safe caught me off guard. I almost felt the game time skipped at some point with how quick everything collapsed as well. Even the sex scenes themselves feel out of place when you think about the world falling apart around them. Suppose I'm thinking too much though.

Animations and renders fall a bit more on the average side as well, but one thing the game is good at is creating that dark atmosphere. Which makes sense considering the sun itself went dark. It's still early so maybe the game will surprise me a bit more down the line. If you're into apocalypse stories maybe this would catch your interest but otherwise not a ton currently keeping me here. I think alien influenced apocalypse is kind of neat though, so I hope the game does more with that.

Off the bat, a very good start to a hopefully very compelling visual novel. It becomes quite clear at first glance that this game is going to have a lot of branching paths, thus allowing for great replayability.

The premise is also very well done. Post-Apocalypse as a genre has always been a popular one, yet one that can easily be messed up if not done right. So far the developer has done an excellent job, especially in regards to the mood and setting. You can feel the despair and uncertainty in the lightning and the way the developer crafts the world.

Horror, when done expertly, is already scary even when you can see everything, but the lightning makes both player and MC feel anxious. You can't even see what you should be looking out for. It could be even be standing right in front of you and you would have no idea. It makes for excellent ambiance.

That said, the ambiance works a little too well. It's hard sometimes to see the characters. Perhaps a lighter shade of dark would be appropriate. Such as when one of the women attacked the MC, it was a little hard to tell what was happening (unless that was intentional.)

The trait system is nice, and I hope to see how that evolves throughout the story. Some of the writing could use a little work, but nothing I would call a detriment to the game. The scenes were nice and hot. You can tell the dev cares about the characters of the girls other than just making them accessories to the MC.

As for the MC, obviously you get to shape his personality which I quite like. Every trait as a positive and a negative as it should. Here's hoping that all these branching narratives won't frustrate the dev.

All in all, good game! Great first impression and premise! 10/10!

I like the story; it's quite interesting for a beginning. I like that the main character can make strong or calmer decisions, shaping his personality. For now, I see a lot of potential. Keep it up. It was missing more steamy scenes, but I always appreciate a good story over meaningless sex scenes, so I'm not complaining. For now, I only played the school route. Now I'll go the other way, which is the home route.