VN - Ren'Py - Between Humanity [v0.3.2] [DebatingPanda]

The renders are really good, but I honestly find the story kind of boring.

There's an attempt at intrigue, but it just doesn't hit for me. I can't explain why, I just don't care about Lilith or the mystery stuff pumped into the MC because, as of yet, it has only resulted in blackouts - nothing really meaty.

A clearer weakness is the girls. They look lovely, but none of them seem to be anything other than a collection of personality traits. Their wants are nebulous, and they have nothing they are pursuing that the MC might later come to help them with (except Lucy who seems to desire... The MC. Which is kind of an easy solve).

So my feedback to improve the game would be:

1: Absolutely start building out subplots for the girls. That's how you make people love them - right now, they are boring. They need to have goals of their own within the story.

2: Get to the "hook" point of the story asap. At the moment we just don't have enough to get invested - there have been no real consequences to fear or anticipate, and without this, you kinda think "whatever" when you ask yourself if you want to click to the next image and text.

Fixing these things could give another heavyweight AVN, IMO, but it's not there yet when it comes to the writing. The HS2 artwork is perfect though.

Just finished Ch 1, and grabbing the latest version. Excellent game so far. Cannot wait for more updates and development.

Models are very pretty, and the characters' personalities come across genuine and authentic. It's refreshing not to have an imbalance between inner monologue, outer dialog, and narration.

I do wish there were more lewd content, but with only one chapter so far that's OK.

Between Humanity is an exceptional visual novel that masterfully blends engaging storytelling with stunning visuals. The artwork is simply breathtaking, with every scene meticulously crafted to capture the essence of the narrative. The smooth animations add a dynamic layer to the experience, making each moment feel alive and immersive.

The characters are well-developed and relatable, drawing you deeper into the story with every interaction. The plot is intriguing and keeps you hooked from start to finish, with a perfect balance of romance and drama.

I am eagerly awaiting more content from this talented team. Between Humanity has set a high standard in the genre, and I can't wait to see where the story goes next. Highly recommended for fans of visual novels!

Beautiful renders, mega cute LIs and a cool story.
Story is building up but the few released scenes are very hot with very well done animations.
I will for sure consider supporting the project as soon as I can, as this is a dev that truly needs it. Keep it up DebatingPanda!

Figured it would be a nice habit to leave a review after playing through a VN I like. I played through it rather quickly though, I'll update my review at a later point in time, when I'll take more time for it (and w/o ipatch).

[version, env] 0.2.1 / PC/Win/mouse/ipatch
[play time] ~ 4.5h (estimate, fast playthrough w/ some skipping)

TL;DR: this game/VN provides a highly polished package, good stuff & recommended! Don't expect a lot of H-scenes, it's more of a slow burn with most characters (but not all ;-)), but there's some good stuff in there already (really nothing to complain about).

Story
Entertaining enough, but not going to rate this, as I played fast / skipped bits here & there. I did slow down on occasion, and enjoyed it / the interactions between characters.

Some dialogue I found hard to follow, seemed to make some jumps, but that could've been related to me playing with the (unofficial) ic patch (which is doing an okay job, but I wouldn't recommend it per se - still some things feel off, esp. with 'mom')

Characters 4/5
They're pretty much all sexy & likable. Reviewer below me commented how they're visually similar. I can see that, but I really didn't notice that much while playing / it didn't bother me, still felt different/unique enough.

I do find that, at the end of v0.2, there are a bit much girls already; when Mia entered the scene I felt a bit like 'really don't need another one'.
I dread a bit there will too much LIs to (properly) cater for? Like there are the main girls, and there's e.g. Larissa which I'd totally dig to pursue ;-)

Graphics, animations 5/5
Good stuff, nice renders, smooth animations, bouncy boobs.
Played on potato; still somewhat decent in performance, but it did totally choke on the checking-out-Anya panning scene (meeting her).

The Lilith hallway walk anim was totally cool and surprised me (felt like total quality; things like this sets this apart and above the gross of VNs).
The drive in the car with Jane was also nicely done, giving that extra polish.

Music, sound, voice acting 4/5
The whole package: bgm throughout, sfx during (H) scenes. No voice acting. A certain later scene has moaning sounds as well (awesome), whereas these are missing in earlier scenes.

Other, extras
The polish here is A-grade. Kudos to the dev! Things like the characters 3D view, setting your phone's background, how the gallery's done, the extra settings like text size etc.


Ideas/suggestions for improvement
[QoL] Make the (mouse wheel) scrolling through the list of characters faster. And/or remember your last scrolling position. Or, perhaps as an (optional) alternative, have a single screen (w/o scrolling) where you can quickly find & check on a character.

[fix] Make 'Clickable Hints' the default (shouldn't it be?) It's explained in the tutorial, but then, running with default settings, you'll only hear the sound, but there's no visual queue. (And in the game itself I believe the sound is only there when Clickable Hints are enabled?)

[wish/nice2have] Moaning sounds added to earlier scenes (Naomi).

[wishful thinking] Able to decide to have Raven or Venus on your side (I was more into Raven, and was like fuuuccck ;-)) (The bar lady is nice as well of course ;-))

Updated for v0.3.2:

I'm really torn on how to rate Between Humanity. It had a good presentation, clean and smooth animations, some likable characters, and even a story that intrigued. But good god was it glacially slow.

Going to give it a 3.3 rating for now based on the following:

+ Clean and interesting renders with nice textures and lighting
++ Great animations for scenes, but they were often shorter than I'd like
+ Story had some nice twists for as far as it went
+ Music and sex scene sounds were decent, and appreciated
+ LIs and other characters were well designed, if a bit too similar to each other visually

- Story is still short (v0.3.2, and the plot hasn't advanced much. Neither have the LIs nor their progression towards any kind of sex.
-- Not enough sex scenes to really keep attention, and too long in-between. A few BJs, a few hand jobs, and a few penetration sex scenes were all I counted (and two of the scenes were "dream-like" with poor visuals). For that much reading, I'd normally expect 3x as many scenes. 0.3.2 hasn't improved on this at all.
----- The one major complaint I have is the glacially SLOW progression with any of the love interests. Some of them still blush if I reach over and touch their hand (yeah, it's that bad). Feels like trumped up Japanese anime shyness for most of them, and it really left me disappointed. And it's probably why the game is so sparse with the sex overall.

If the game currently had ~20+ hours of content, and was shooting for 60+ when complete, I'd say it might turn out epic (with of course 3x+ the number of sex scenes it currently has). But at the rate of progression with the LIs right now and the short play time, it's just agonizingly slow and unrewarding as anything other than a "feel good teen sim" with a tiny bit of sex.

I'd recommend to the author to step up the progression with LIs massively if you don't want to lose readers in the slog. Add in a lot more sex scenes per hour of reading. As of 0.3.2 this hasn't improved at all, and it barely qualifies as an AVN - more of a Visual Novel with adult elements.

Other than the few critiques I had and the 3.3 rating, the game is probably worth playing. But don't expect much sex or progression with the LIs right now. It's mostly day-to-day story with a small twist behind it.

Excellent game so far. Going into this, I was a bit disappointed that I caught this game so early on. It seems like if a game has good renders, an interesting story, attractive LI's, and no sandbox element, then it's bound to be woefully short or have no H-scenes. Was pleasantly surprised that this game didn't suffer from either of those qualities.

While we seem to be just scratching the surface of the story, it is by no means too short to enjoy at this stage, and there is enough H-scene content to satisfy a lot of the tension being built up.

The LI's are all pretty nice, though a bit samey in their appearance (they dress differently, but they do look quite similar) and I wish the twins were a little more attractive. They're definitely not bad though.

The story is pretty captivating, and it's nice to see a lot of my theories regarding what's happening being subverted in interesting ways. Definitely looking forward to chapter 3.

Very good graphics... excellent visual representations of the LIs. Very good character development/personality in the LIs. Good story development. Scenes transition smoothly and work together well. Very good quality work in this VN.

BH is currently only at version 0.2 and thus a short experience, my review will be short as well.

Summary:
As for a summary. We have a “mild” in-medias-res start to the story with our MC having been involved in some type of traffic accident (intentional?), waking up in the hospital where he starts to experience or observe certain oddities right from the start. These include changed personal physiology, vivid dreams/flashbacks, blocked/painful memories, blackouts and strings of suspiciously favorable outcomes, depending on your choices. With barely any worthy family member of his own to rely on, he instead gets unofficially adopted into the household of 2 female classmates and their mom. MC rushes back to school despite the health concerns and ends up suffering for it, not gravely, but learns his lesson. We thus get introduced to most of the characters in this update, with most of them being classmates. Minor events happen at home, there’s a mall shopping trip and birthday celebration with your male friend at a strip club.
0.2 ends ominously with the reappearance of a character that were with you during the “accident” seen in the flashbacks.

Pros:
- Interesting glitch interaction mechanic.
- I did not notice any grammar mistakes or awkward phrasing of any kind.
- Very hot gallery reward mechanic that pans up/down and around the girls so you really get to enjoy the character models.
- Mostly linear progression, the decisions you are given allows you to follow 2 or 3 general pathways, horny, noble and I guess a more mixed one, lets call it cautious.
- It may feel a little rushed with how fast you are able to get lewd scenes, but they are certainly well crafted. At least it isn’t the relationships that are rushed, you simply get lucky by having the god of porn logic on your side. If you make certain choices things early on, then you aren’t able to make specific ones later on. During my second run there were also a lot of extra details that were revealed due to making different decisions. The game has only been out for 2 versions yet, so I am not certain how it will pan out in terms of a branching narrative.
- High quality animations for the H scenes. Occasionally also for general events. There’s even dripping lady bits.
- Well balanced H scenes in terms of the length, amount of dialogue and sound effects. Enticing chemistry between characters as well.
- You know it is probably a good story and good worldbuilding when you start formulating elaborate story theories based on observations of inconspicuous small details. I have several theories about what happened to MC and why he sees and experiences certain things.

Mehs and hit/miss:
- The classic trope of “MC’s big PP” is present once more. Magic PP also applies. Somehow it didn’t annoy me as much as usual. But still enough to be MEH. It’s possible that this will tie in with the plot and thus make sense, beyond this being another AVN with high wish fulfilment levels like most of them.

Cons:
- Maybe how extremely advanced technology seems to be for a game that is only 5 years into the future? Unless this is merely a matrix style world illusion, then it kinda breaks suspension of disbelief.
- During the mall café scene there were 2 soundtracks playing on top of each other. A bit distracting.

My rating ends at just barely 5, because i am wary of giving a title 5 stars this early in its developement. But the flaws seen are at worst "big nitpicks". Panda seems to have all the key areas of making an AVN under control and at a "good" quality level as the minimum. If there was a 10 point system, BH would be a uncertain 9 rating.

Excellent

This AVN appears like cute slice of life, but it also contains a bit of mystery and I am all for that .

The atmosphere in mysterious and creepy situations is immaculate, it really kept me engaged and longing for more .
I also liked the fact that it is set in 2029, (but you have few things wrong, the hyperfast train was made in July 2028 and the casualties were horrible... Anyway...)

... Wait what ?...

He he he.




Seriously though, it wasn´t made until November 2028.




D_D

I really like Lucy and Anya (Lucy more, but don´t tell Anya hi hi hi)
This AVN is like a diabetic comatose attack waiting. Because my blood sugar skyrocketed through the ceiling throughout the sweetnes and adorablesness I have witnessed xD.

It is so heartwarming and beautiful to just immerse yourself in this (plus the cameos - CoD = Amy and Clara and Eternum - Annie).

Music fits the scenes, even more in those mysterious/creepy passages.

(Just my rant here... But I really hope that you have in store, for this one, some mysterious and perhaps conspiracy like setting/plot or something dangerous in mind, as I believe it adds the depth and extent of the story and would be quite interesting to see unfold).

((I already have few headcannons of how this will unveil xD))

But even if you don´t aim in this direction with this AVN, it is still so much enjoyable and endearing to play.

Thank you DebatingPanda for your work and good luck in future.

Oh, almost forgot... This also has some of the most realistic and cute animations - Anya eating donuts, spinning Lucy in clothing shop and us MC falling in train on Lucy and such... It´s just so damn cute

I played through v0.2.0 in an evening. It is a fun, well-crafted harem game, and the dev looks to be laying the foundation for an intriguing story.

Pros include slick animations, sexy color-coded HS girls, some appropriate sound-effects, and a straight-forward progression path.

It has a CC elevator-music track, which does not add a lot of value, but is pretty innocuous.

I didn’t note any cons.

It is a little early to award it five stars yet, but I am comfortable giving it a four-star (good) rating now. I will revisit this after further updates, and am hopeful this ends up being a great game.

review for v0.2.0.

wasn't expecting peak, but that's what i got.
loved all the girls, loved the glitchy shit, mc a fun boi, even the bro is a nice bro.
scenes pretty good, good writing and kinda funny.
stat page at the end of chapie is pretty cool.
gonna need more soon, plz.

ngl, this might be the best VN i've ever played, I think routes would be nice as being just with lucy would be cool, or just anya but how cute the characters are and how each person has their own little thing about them that makes them unique but just amazing so far

Very interesting story, and really well developped characters
Graphics are nice, sexual scenes are good
I really love that each character have their own strong persona and also all the funny references here and there
I really enjoy my time so far 0.2
Hope for more like this !

This review is for version 2.0.

The game is excellent so far and has already become one of my favourite avns.

The story has a creepy mystery/suspense feel to it with solid pacing. The sex scenes are pure gold and the Lis are sexy and interesting with touching character moments.

I look forward to seeing more.

characters : 10/10 goth girls? nurse with "normal outfit" im sold
story : 9/10 build up story looks great, school setting also make it like "i am the real mc" vibes but with additional harem stuff

no mini games is also a plus for me, keep up the good work!

I'm going to evaluate it because this one deserves it, I looked for flaws to point out here, but honestly I didn't find any, the other reviews here have already commented well on the game.

It's still too early to comment on the story or the mystery, so I'm just going to comment on what everyone wants to know:

• Good renders. (The renders from the beginning are already good, but I feel they are even better in v.0.2.0)
• Beautiful models, all of them, and those introduced in v.0.2.0 are even better.
• Great animations, there is little sex so far, but there are several animations in addition to the sex scenes, and the animations are not exaggerated or forced, they stay in the background and make the game more interesting. The animations are definitely the strongest point of this game.

I recommend the game, I feel like everything is just right.

[v0.1.5]

Story: 10/10
The story is very interesting with excellent writing and plenty of mystery. Waking up in the hospital after an accident only to discover there's more to it, and realizing you weren't alone at the time of the accident. also, the MC experiences some changes too after the accident. I'm excited to see where it leads.

Character personalities: 10/10
Each character has a unique personality, which I find refreshing. Unlike many games where characters may look different but act similarly, here, each one feels unique and well-developed. My favorite character so far is Lucy. as for the MC he seems a bit ordinary for now, but something definitely happened to him after the accident. We'll see how the MC develops.

Character Designs: 8.5/10
The character designs are top-notch. The high-quality rendering in Honey Select 2 showcases the effort put into making each character stand out. It's clear that the developer, DebatingPanda, went beyond basic models to create something truly special. However, the reason why it's 8.5/10 is that some characters, like Chloe, could use some improvements, this is only my opinion, but overall, it has great characters designs

Animations and Scenes: 10/10
Probably, most of you skipped to that part wondering about the amount of content and scenes in the game. The animations are pretty solid. It's clear that DebatingPanda started creating the game after gaining some experience with Honey Select 2, making a good impression with the initial release. There are 4 or 5 sex scenes, depending on how you see it. Players who don't enjoy lesbian scenes, for example, can turn them off and replace them with alternative scenes. Each scene offers a variety of positions and animations.

TL;DR: The game has a decent amount of content, and it shows great potential, I highly recommend "Between Humanity".

For what's there does feel above average however the story does need more time in the oven to cook. However what is there so far in terms of the story is interesting and makes me look forward to what's to come. I see this one having potential in the story department which is saying something since it has the harem tag and usually the story is the worst part of those.

So far don't really dislike any characters but the ones I do like I love them so far they are just great and cute whenever they appear. Animations seem great as well.

The only negative I have so far is there is a dream sex scene and im not a fan of those personally.

Normally it would feel premature to rate a game this early on in development. But it's pretty easy to tell this game is gonna be a hit.
Already got fantastic production quality, sound design, animations, environments, characters, renders and animation all look great.
So far the plot is truly fascinating, I'm already drawn in and waiting to see where it goes next.
The characters also seem varied and unique and i hope this quality holds in future updates.
Great work so far Dev, can't wait to see what happens next.

P.S. (Spoilers) I will say that all the Naomi scenes so far give me very uncomfortable PTSD flashbacks to a certain other game where a nurse comes on to you (IYKYK), REALLY hope this plot doesn't go like that one haha