VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Bare Witness [Steam Build] [AlterWorlds]

[SPOILER ALERT]

Alright, where do we start….

When I laid my eyes on Bare Witness for the very first time, I thought it was probably just gonna be a mediocre game or something. Its description doesn’t help either. It sat on my bookmark for a few days but eventually I had to download it. I gave it a try anyway because I was bored at that time and people on Reddit also keep mentioning this game. Man, I was wrong. I am actually completely hooked with this game.

Let’s talk about the graphics first. It’s not the best, but it won’t hurt your eyes either. Typical DAZ made games above 2020. Good thing F95 provides preview picts so you can check it by yourself.

Now about the story. I usually start with a summary on my previous reviews but I’m just gonna get to the point this time. It’s decent, not that bad and not that great either. The entire WITSEC thing is just weird and silly, I don’t quite remember if U.S Marshals Service works that way in real life. The fact that Joey Smiles was released from jail and start killing some deputy and a WITSEC participant without his face being put in FBI Top 10 Most Wanted list right away is just stupid. But then I remember Far Cry 5, sending only six marshal deputies to apprehend a nutjob with armed militia behind him without a proper backup is way more stupid than this, so I just kinda let it slide (not really).

Silliness aside, the women are mostly gorgeous. Their solo paths are worth to try, not sure about harem paths because I don’t really like harem. Each women have their own story and struggles so choices matter there. Talking about choices, you’ll be given many of them it’s guaranteed not a kinetic AVN.

Their endings thought, holy shit this is one of the very few AVNs that have perfect endings. Most importantly, no cliffhangers. Heidi’s solo ending is probably the perfect one among others, a little bit longer than other endings too. I’m not sure if there’s a bad ending in this game but since I just finished 3 out of 11 endings, maybe there’s one. I think you can even go for a monk run but I’ll try it later (yes, you can reject or just avoid their paths entirely for that).

Overall, Bare Witness is a good game. I think it could’ve been perfect if AlterWorlds scrapped the entire WITSEC thing or made it less silly (try take a shot everytime I write the word silly). Is it recommended? Absolutely yes.

One last thing, I actually wanted to give this game four stars but because I feel really satisfied with the endings, I decided to give it perfect five stars.

Edit: Okay there's actually a bad ending, quite funny too. Just tried Valeria solo path and damn I think the ending is longer than Heidi's.

It's hard to say anything bad about this AVN, but there are a few things for me keeping this from a 5 star game so let's get those out of the way first.

For once, there is the right amount of LI's unfortunately, only half of them are worth the time. I am not going to go into detail on the ones I didn't like, because it is all a matter of opinion, but between arrogant, ugly and related, three just didn't make the cut for me, So really, it reduced the re-playability for me. I also was not a fan of Heidi going so hard at the MC.

Then there is the story. It was just okay. The writing was really good and the dialogue seemed to be spot on with good banter and playfulness throughout. The underlying story, however, didn't do it for me. The biggest problem for me was There were other issues with the story and there were a couple gaps or time skips. I don't mind a time skip, but more than one it just seems like there was not enough story to connect the sections.

On a positive note, the pacing, despite the time skips, was pretty good and as I mentioned, the dialogue was pretty good. Each LI had their own voice and it was pretty well done. Also, it was just about the right length. Sometimes I think devs drag out these way too long, and while this one could have been a little longer if felt right for the story. The dev time was also pretty good, I mean it has been 3 years since the launch and we have a completed AVN and the endings were all pretty good too. They were not rushed together in an attempt to just wrap up the AVN.

Plus the graphics where all pretty good, animation was solid, LI's, for the most part, were hot. Overall, a really good production.

If you are looking for a well written, good fapping and a complete AVN, look no further. It was a lot of fun to follow this from the beginning to the end and to see a well done project. I am hopeful the dev moves on to a new project.

Nicely done!

It's okay. Decent renders, mediocre animations, better than average writing, but that's not much to say since most porn games' writing is shit. This is merely a tiny bit less shit.

Suffers from writer-inserting though. As in every character is basically a mouthpiece for the author. The awkward references, the rants the characters go on about society and concepts, all of the make-believe dialogue between the characters, it's all the author using the characters as a thin veneer. Kinda like a guy forcing two dolls to kiss, there is a single hand behind all of the different talking heads and they feel less like separate characters. Becomes pretty obvious and kinda takes you out of the story, however minimal the story is.

Also, good god there is too much "i love you"-ing. And I say that as a guy who says that shit 24/7 when in a relationship. Author can't seem to find a way to show affection between characters lol.

Furthermore the main story is plain not good, not that I was expecting much from it but yeah.

The cons first:

• Main story is pretty contrived. Not especially bad for a porn game, but falls into a weird space between slice-of-life and fantasy / sci-fi / drama. Game kind of feels like it wants to do both and can't balance the two.
• Some strange time-skips, rather early in the game. Feels like the developers may have realised their original plan was too ambitious: can't do every day slice-of-life detail when the larger drama plot may take months to unfold, so we jump ahead to try and keep up with the main plot, which hurts the individual romance plots and overall character development.
• No real drama with the main plot. Despite all the time and effort put into it, it just doesn't pay off. Like a standalone In Plain Sight episode, but the timings are off. It consumes too much time whenever it just kind of gets brought up every once in a while, but no real stakes are ever established. It could probably just have been dropped entirely, as there's no payoff for the plot itself nor is it critical to any of the romance plots.

So why 5 stars? The girls. The girls in the game are unique, and not in a quirky, each-girl-is-a-trope way many games do. Each girl has a complex personality and different relationships with the MC / each other, especially between the harem four. The developer clearly has these characters fleshed out and cares about writing them well.

This especially comes through in the sex scenes. (Good writing? In a sex scene?!) Each girl's personality comes through in the sex scenes as well! You can tell they have different sexual preferences and proclivities, and again, these aren't just trope-y (i.e. one girl is into BDSM, one girl likes it rough, one likes it gentle, etc.). For example, one girl has difficulty orgasming and can only orgasm at most twice before being overwhelmed. These details come through in scenes that in many games would just be a generic rotation of positions for each characters. Another reviewer mentions disappointment that only one LI in the harem does anal. I actually found this a positive, that the LIs are sexually different and they're not all just the same slutty cliche or two. (Also a non-harem path has one of the harem LIs do anal.)

The sex scenes also have breaks and conversations, in a realistic way. There's even a scene in the HS path where one girl stops it because she's uncomfortable with the dirty talk, which prompts the characters to resolve the issue in their relationship. This then changes their dynamics in future scenes. The sex scenes are themselves part of the story, and not just inserted into the game by the developer to "sell" it as a porn game. The scenes are still quite hot too, despite these concessions for a little bit of realism in our porn game.

The endings are also mostly excellent. I can't say they're all perfect (Zinda's is a little bizarre) and the main-story resolution is rather poor - though props for it being resolved in different ways in each of the endings. What's really good though is the sheer number of renders: much of each ending plays out as a slideshow, covering years of life with the chosen LI(s). It is an extremely effective way to bring closure to these relationships, in a way that isn't overly tedious with hours of dialogue. We also see parent characters show up for the first time, and it is clear the developer has thought these characters through, as they seem like complex characters though they only show up very briefly.

The developer's care for their characters and for consistent, quality character writing makes this game stand out amongst others on this site. Putting aside the structural issues with the main story, this game is well worth trying just for the romances and I hope more developers take note of this excellent writing for inspiration in their own games.

BW has quickly become one of my favorite AVNs.

It has plenty of funny moments, plenty of sexy moments, and even a few tear jerker moments.

Each of the six LI's is compelling in her own right, and the poly paths, besides having plenty of sexy times, shows a great dynamic between the different girls involved.

The writing and artwork are great, obviously the more recent artwork is an improvement over the first chapters, but improvement over time is to be expected.

The different endings have been amazing so far. I've done HAM,MASH, and HA, paths so far. Each ending is unique. Sure they have elements in common, but its not the same epilogue with different LI's subbed in each time. Am looking forward to seeing all the solo endings now.

I had a very enjoyable time with this game with no major complaints.

Renders and animations are great, the characters are interesting and feel different to each other and it's well paced.

The fact that this has now finished is another HUGE bonus with how few high quality finished games are put out every year. The endings are well done also with a plethora of options for who you end up with catering to most people.

As for complaints I have very few and they take little from the overall game. The story at 2 or 3 points suddenly jumped to a new scene when one ended without explanation for why it was happening which was jarring. The big plot regarding the MCs history could have also been talked about in more depth as I didn't really know why things happened in the past or who was involved.

This game is a must play overall and I'm happy to give any completed game with this quality 5 stars.

Loved this game. The models are great, and the writing really good too. I always appreciate it when the LI I should like the least based on my preferences is one of the ones who stands ahead of the rest, as it shows great character work to achieve that.

One of the things I really liked about this game is that there seems to be a real focus on love-making rather than just sex. There's always so much love in any pairing or grouping, and it just makes the whole thing feel really wholesome.

Every path gets a satisfying ending, my only slight negative on that is that there are a couple of combinations that I would have loved to see but didn't (e.g., Athena/Sadie). But that's not an issue, only an unfulfilled dream.

Pretty good overall. It's mostly a dating simulator where you meet many interesting women, help them, have sexy fun and enjoy wholesome romances. The main story arc about the MC being in the WITSEC mostly sits in the background while he messes around with women.
Some constructive criticism as well.
1. The writing often focused too much on describing mundane everyday tasks in excessive detail that could have easily been skipped.
2. I think those time skips of 7 or so weeks were a bad choice. The getting to know and falling in love periods are the best thing to focus in romance stories and I think the skips were way too long and either left out significant parts of relationship developments or just made it seem like the relationships were on hold during that time.
3. The "final battle" was a very anticlimactic under 5-minute scene. The villain was practically some random dude with uncompelling and one-dimensional personality. There really wasn't any tension and everything went so conveniently well for the good guys.

Great game.
Beautiful models each with unique personalities, good writing and many satisfying endings worth multiple playthroughs.
You can choose your favorite girl or go for a harem ending(more than 1), so there's something for everyone

I actually enjoyed most of this VN. While most Harem games revolve around the MC being the center of it this one at least tries to make it more of a situation where everyone loves each other. Aside from that one of the best parts of the models was that the skin on the models as too often the same blemishes and/or skin is used for multiple characters. The models also have more variation in the shape and sizes as when placed next to each other. This and the personalities does make them stand out more. The biggest problem is the story and not because of the premise or setting. Rather the biggest problem is that it has gaps as an example when one of the characters is about to move in we don't see acknowledgement of the move happening until she has already been in the house for a while. This happens several times and feels like it could have connected some of the time skips better.

What a great game!!!
I started this game, because of the perfect looking girls, but later I played this game with growing enthusiasm. Sure, it is not really realistic that every girl is falling for the MC, but the story is a wonderful daydream and that's what I think games like this should give the player. A wonderful break from the gray real life. No bitching girls, no money problems, all characters are healthy and lovely.

My warmest thanks to the developer Slockie. You did an excellent job. Thank you. I look forward to your next project. Don't make me wait too long

Back when this game all start, there was certainly some measure of promise. Story was alright enough, the visuals were good, sex scenes were hot though blandish, and the characters were good as well.

However though, for the Chapter 5 to have taken pretty much two years to "build', the expectation would have been a true grandious ending of sorts, with all of the paths included and such, the ending of Chapter 4 to be a key build up in surprise. For what ever reason though, the story, and by proxy endings, fell flatter than a pancake.

You had the surprise of a possible gunman with the ending of Chapter 4, and yet, turns out to be one of the marshalls. Okay, no big deal, makes sense given the situation. But as we go into hiding with our pairings, we are forced into saving the Dean, yes the Dean. Who added no shock factor in terms of storytelling whatsoever. NOW, had it been Sadie, then you have more weight to the story and making it memorable, not to mention the more build up with suspense. But overall, the story and such is a huge let down, even after the 2 years of 'work'.

Endings wise, kinda hit and miss. Heidi, Athena, Mora, Sadie solos were good. Zenda's, while slightly better end result, was more pointless and text wall. 'Let's go to Iran, it'll be fine... Famous last words'. HaM ending was fun, however the gold certainly goes to MASH for taking it all. Val getting a one off event after you wrap things up seemed pointless.

So in short, I can't give this a 5 star, or even 4. While there are some good, memorable moments in the game, and the art work is there, specially later on, the story, and it's conclusion failed to meet expectations. Hopefully Storm and Slockie can learn from things with this and build up on things in their next work, with the storytelling and other areas. But overall, gotta give it a 3/5.

Fun game and well done to the devs! I liked the Val solo path best; gorgeous woman, mature, and smart.

I do wish F95 had a poly tag to help indicate that 'harem' LIs are going to sex each other up when the MC is not about (or even when he is and they they decide not to include him); it can be hard to do poly without the MC sometimes feeling like an afterthought. Is that realistic? Yeah. Sure. But realism would also have it incredibly unlikely that every hot woman you meet wants to jump on your dick almost immediately, so we've already introduced porn logic in some places.

It didn't particularly bother me, but I also didn't go too far down the poly routes. It didn't help that I didn't care for Heidi's model at all, and as far as I could tell, she's sadly at the center of the two larger group routes (HAM/MASH).

Still, very well written, well rendered, and (for the most part) well resolved.

AlterWorlds didn’t disppoint, the 11 endings in chapter 5 were as good as the 4 chapters before them. It’s very rare to see a developer so dedicated to rendering ELEVEN totally different endings. One of the endings, Valeria’s, even made my eyes wet, which is a rare thing coming from an AVN.

The drama part of the story is quite basic and ends in a very simple way (with some variants depending on the ending though), so don’t expect any plot twist or cliffhanger. What’s important here is the background story behind each of the girls and how their relationship with the MC is evolving. With some of the girls it’s rather straightforward, but for some others it requires a bit more work and understanding of their feelings. This is not a harem game per se, but the MC can still end living with up to 4 girls. One path ends with 3 girls, and another one with 2, while all the other paths are dedicated to one girl only, so be prepared to have 11 different saves so that you can explore the 11 different paths this game has to offer.

Renders and animations are of great quality and all of the girls are unique and beautiful, from a shy redhead to a very hot MILF, or from a brunette goth chick to a former chubby blonde. You’ll find your favorite for sure!

5/5 because there is honestly nothing I disliked, except for the fact that it's already completed

Overall, great game. Love the girls, not the same models as in 90% of Daz games. They are so cute and sexy. The writing is up there in the top 10%. Very few spelling or contextual errors. Decent humor. Like the harem ending and how it kind of seemed like there was no harem "master", more like it was a true poly relationship. Not sure about the other endings, as I have not tried them. I did the MASH ending with agreeing to give Val a kid like she wanted. If I could, I would give this 4.5/5. It is not perfect, there are very few I consider worthy of 5/5. Still, I highly recommend anyone to give this a shot and if you can, support the creators in future endeavors.

I loved this game when I started playing it, but the end was a bit underwhelming for me.

So let's start with the good.
Girls are pretty and interesting.
The girls are somewhat varied.
Sex scenes are hot and often
The story is somewhat interesting.

So what was wrong?
Maybe I'm starting to realize that I do not like harem games.
It's not the idea of ending up with multiple girls that is the issue. It's the total implausibility of how it appears.

I get that people say that it's a fantasy, but I still likes my fantasies to be grounded in reality.


A few years ago, I would have given this 5 stars, but the quality of stories in some VN have just raised my expectations. This one starts out interesting, but ends a bit flat.

Story:
Don't expect something that moves you or makes you think about later on, it's just a frame to connect and generate a flow. It's not bad or just plain stupid, so i end up with a 3/5, solid, does the job.
Characters and paths:
The Characters show some quirks and habits but differ at how "deep" you dive depending on the path you choose. The more you "gather" the more shallow you get. As of the replayablitiy, you are limited, you won't gather all so there is the option to follow other decisions, i'd go that far to say the variation is enough to peek into them. That leaves me with a low 4 of 5.
Visuals and audio:
It doesn't hit the "top" for visuals nor audio, but at least for the visuals it gets close. The character models don't feel similar (as far as they are all quite the eye candy). The "audio" (music in this case) is good, rare moments where i'd expected something else but, and that's way more important, not annoying or distracting, like the story the music keeps the flow, a good 4/5.

It is finished! Not unnecessarily stretched to more chapters, not endings that feel rushed (like noted before, the "collection path" could've get a bit more "depth"). Rating +1

Thanks for your work

It's extremely rare that I play a game on this site that makes me go out and pay full price for the legit version but here we are.

The art is extremely well done, every time I had to turn down a girl it hurt because they all have a lot of appeal and every girl I say yes to I knew I was in for a treat.

The writing is the surprising part of this game as every girl feels unqiue like they are an actual fully fleshed out character.

I look forward to seeing more content from this dev and perhaps if they remain consistent in delivering complete products I may be driven to support them more directly.

This was spectacular. Too many best girls in there. I like Mora but more as a solo route. This game has the best throuple even though both the Athena and Heidi solo ends were good. Mora pretending she didnt want to try anal while everyone was there was adorable. Valerie is hot. Sadie is of course just hot. All the cousin talk usually wouldn't do it for me but here I am. Also that Anal seen. Yes. just yes. Heidi gets best overall character though. She is the cuck queen lol. I'm just surprised shes the one who is 100% no buttstuff.

All that aside the story is great. The side characters good. Also though I'll always want more of these girls. The game actually wrapped itself up neatly in 5 chapters and its good. Most games would drag on but this isnt overstaying its welcome and thats good. I've seen a couple reviews that are....exaggerating certain moments that can be a drag if you aren't invested. I mean people complaining an older woman is aggressively hitting on MC in a Adult VN is a little.....eh its a strange complaint. Oh well, I loved it and cant wait for more from this dev.

The game is definitely elevated by good renders, good sex scenes, and the fact that it has been completed, but it's brought down again by pacing and characters.

To quickly praise the sex scenes, the girls cum A LOT, even squirting on a bunch of occasions, which imo is fucking magnificent since there's no worse game than one where the sex scenes just involve the dude pumping until he cums for the money shot with no word on how the girl enjoyed the experience.

That being said, I think only one girl got anal in her route? The anal scene was great, it's a shame there weren't a lot more.

As for the pacing bringing everything down: the MC shows up, and despite the creators' attempts to make the game feel more grounded he gets told by his second day in the flat that one of the girls wants his dick real bad. By the end of the first week, several characters are madly in love with him, and soon thereafter the game jumps forward in time by 7 weeks to try to retroactively pad out these lightspeed events.

Speaking of the characters, four of the six routes just didn't do it at all for me:
-One was a 42-year old woman who creeps on you really aggressively in a way that would have gotten her instantly kicked out of the bar if she had been of the opposite gender
-Two girls in a relationship who 100% assume that living with them and being subjected to their complete lack of decorum and basic decency would be anything but a fucking nightmare
-A girl with a superiority complex? Sorry, I never finished this route because her design didn't do it for me

As for the MC, I just didn't like him. Yes, he's a well-written young man of 21 who's freaking out all the time about the bad things that could happen, but just because it's well-written doesn't mean that it's fun to read. When he's not afraid of the mob coming after him, he's a complete chick magnet who always knows the right thing to say to get in bed with the girls he hangs out with (There are no male friends in this game to change up the interactions a little). When it comes to plot decisions, he's a complete idiot.

Speaking of the plot, it inevitably deals a lot with the Mafia, which is often the silliest and most ridiculous subplot in Western VNs - except here, it's the main plot. Its resolution is sudden and laughable.

So yeah, very subjective points all around, but it is what it is. Definitely a 3-star game for me, but the sex scenes are just too good not to reward them with that extra star.