Ren'Py - Back Again [Rework v0.7] [BigBoy Projects]

This is another game that is just a grind for little payoff. The version I tried gave me a bunch of bonuses to start the game I would hate to play this without the benefits given.

Not a single one of these developers understand open world. The key success of open world is the core game loop. This game's core game loop is BORING. Thus the entire game is an open world snooze fest. This games core game loops is go to a location at the correct time trigger a scene then you are given a cooldown to wait. The entire game is cutscene then wait. That isn't enjoyable and there is no need for it.

Just tell the bloody story don't make me do a dozen pointless mouse clicks to feign open world experience with no content and no core game loop to speak off.

Open worlds are enjoyable only when there is a game loops that is actually enjoyable to play. Watch, forced to wait, then watch again, isn't fun. There aren't any choices in the game so far that I have scene. So there isn't a narrative direction the player can take just a kinetic narrative that is in the guise of open world but with no game to speak off.

The NTR is semi-skippable it happen in the narrative you just don't have to watch so that is a major consideration for people as well but is more informational for people vs having an outcome for the review.

No game and narrative on rails in an open world makes this the worse combo experience. You don't get the ease of a kinetic novel telling you the story and your don't get any real game to justify the open world approach so you are left with a very boring experience as you have to go through a lot of work for so little payoff.

The rework basically has no content (I'm obviously not going to try the abandoned version). Most features and characters are labeled WIP, and the few character routes that do exist end after ~5 minutes. It's not even an alpha, it's just not worth anybody's time right now.

Another one of those games with an almost pointless sandbox considering how linear it is, it's basically just a clicking simulator because you have to go through days doing nothing for no reason but padding and the quests are linear.

way too many time gated events for a linear story
needs plenty of touchups for bugs
needs a better ui for locating people
needs dialogue change after becoming sex friends, so many of them just keep the same dialogue which is generally combative

I think the game has great potential, but it has significant flaws.

The game is extremely grindy due to RNG. I am not sure it's even designed without rollback in mind. For instance, to grow confidence, there's like 66% chance of failure (-1 confidence) and 33% of success (+1 confidence), you're average negative confidence with this.

The game has basically zero cues as to what you're supposed to do. There is a main quest, which is intentionally made to be padded (oh you did something on the weekend? Continue next weekend! Repeat 4 times!"

So mix these two together and you're basically making zero progress forward. Just to put it in perspective, I had to open up the quest and script files to figure out what to do with most NPCs.

Finally, file size is misleading, the game contains a lot of videos that just aren't implemented yet.

While I can easily understand the frustration of other reviewers, but I really think this game has some potential. Yes, the start was tough and yes, there is a noticeable lack of real content up until now, but I noticed that at the end there was an improvement especially at the in-game walkthrough. Also, the dev has a good taste picking the models. he just needs to pump in some content to move things forward with the current characters. After that, he can introduce new ones to keep a steady interest. All that under the condition that he finds a decisive solution in transferring the saves to the new updates, and quickly, because I for one will not start a new game once again.

Even with cheats on, this game is a thankless grind. Seriously, WITH the cheat you have to click about 100 times to make any meaningful advancement. this is frankly insulting to your players. That said, the graphics and UI are good, and i like the girls and the way everything looks, so 2 stars not 1

Felt like starting off the first review here.

Realistically for the average player, this may be more of a 3 star game. Sandbox is clunky, UI isn't the prettiest. Some small NTR esque scenes thrown in. But it just works for me.

Great choices of pornstars, the sex scenes are paced well, and I love the use of videos. I'd recommend finding a way to not accidently skip a video if you're clicking through the text.

Aside from that it had a good amount of content for a second release. Keep looking for ways to improve player QoL, and keep those girls at that right amount of dirty.

Looking forward to the next update.