Ren'Py - Big Brother: Another Story Rebuild [v0.06.01] [Aleksey90]

Review of [v0.07.p2.03 fix]

If Big brother: Another Story is the “better version”, the remake of another game, I am terrified to know in what state was left the original.

Saying this is a game would be an euphemism, it’s a chore, a mindless wandering of clicks and repetitive dialogues.
Everything in this VN, is made against the player, from obtaining objects to collect money to even talk to someone; it’s an hell of grinding where you can’t see any of the progress you have made after 1 hour, even the text seems against you! (Sometimes it is in white or yellow and the background is of the same color making hard to read)
But if you don’t believe me, here it is an example:

One of the first possibilities (As the quest are called) is obtained when you unpack a box and find some cameras, this leads to a journey to create a website which will be your main source of income.
But firstly you need to buy a book of electronics, so you’ll grind for money, but the book doesn’t arrive immediately, so you will walk around the house checkin for something to do (Which also needs money).
The book arrives and… Oh you thought you could start your own site?
Slow down buckaroo you need to read it five times and not in one go, fine I have seen worse, you end the book after 5 days of wondering about your choices, and you can start your site but SIKE, you need money to start it; then you will still grind, asking like a beggar money from your mother every day; Got the money? Good, now you only need other money to make advertisements and...
You see where I am getting at?
It took a big amount of grinding which felt so useless and the reward can’t save you from the irritation of all.
In fact the reward is laughable, to get money you need to wait (for a long time) or invest in other cameras, which at this point you’ll have downloaded the cheats or checked a walkthrough and even with them, your progress is still small.

I could write about the sex scenes or the story but who am I kidding?
Nothing is worth at this point, which it’s really a shame, because models and graphic look good and the story seems at least interesting, but the game won’t let me see them if I don‘t spend hours of my life trying to complete one
”Possibility”.

I am not recommending it, in fact I am recommending to avoid it, if you have played before the vn and enjoyed it, I am truly happy that you could have found enjoyment in something that is empty of fun

What another story? It's exactly the same story as its original. And the same grinding too with additional bugs. Renders looked good with same stock models and some customizations, but all poses were close to pinups and backgrounds were separately made and reused. Dev seemed to concentrate more on outfits of characters and coding. After looking at this game for a year, I am not gonna play this game again.

For many players, the appeal of BB by DS was the high graphical fidelity and NTR elements. Aleksey’s remake delivers on both qualities with a much higher level of artistic flair. While the game is still early in development, it is shaping up to easily surpass the DS original.

5 Stars for the render quality and the decent UI, everything is consistent and pleasant to look at. But i didn't expect less from Aleksey in that regard.

Review for v0.02.00 (rebuilt):
This is going in a good direction now. Sure it's the beginning and so it mostly tease or dream sequences but nonetheless the content feels much more condensed and much less repetitive, especially since scenes do vary slightly (at least image wise).

If Aleksey continues in that direction we'll finally see a enjoyable version of BB that's worthy of being among the top rated games.

The following applies to the pre-rebuilt version:
Unfortunately -2 Stars since "Another Story" repeats the same dreadful mistakes that the original did, repetitive gameplay and an unbearable amount of grind.
Although to be fair here it doesn't seem to have the punishing rng factor of the original and a somewhat useful ingame walkthrough.
But it's still enough that cheating becomes essential to get through it without wasting hours upon hours skipping through the same dialog you've seen for the millionth time.

@Aleksey:
If i could change one thing about "Another Story" then i would cut out all of that stat grinding and focus solely on moving the story forward. Break free from the shackles of the original BB and make it YOUR game instead of following the original and all its mistakes. Apart from the character models it was never a good game anyway.

Good retelling and renders. Keeps original look and characters, with some known things from Big Brother the original game. It also has just enough changes to give it a true updated feel. The renders are of a better quality and keep the with the original and up dated look. The story is Big Brother in that what you are trying to accomplish is the same and how you are going about it as well but there are several differences an improvements.

The approach of this game was fine 5 years ago, but not now. Too much grind for my taste. The renders are the best thing about the game but it can't compete with the games that have come out in recent times.

One the best game I've ever played. The gameplay is complex, you have to think a little if you want to continue in the game.
Chara design is awsome,
I need to know if MC can play with all the girls or just peeping. And Need to punch Eric

like the story and the concept, specially the incest part and trying to make all character your own makes it very interesting and satisfying. the modles are beautiful, just hoping to get more and a bigger spectrum of story line including different scenario.

I want to rate higher I really do... All the positives and phenomenal looking ladies are sadly alas not worth the stupid amount of time this demands from you. I like the looks enough that I would consider buying the game. However with the stupid rng shit only adding to the time waste this demands... I would not at this time. Also it for all intents is unplayable without the mod

Not to my liking whatsoever, the pacing is slower than the slowest soap opera, the information and hints are mostly useless and inaccurate. It's mostly an insane grind for close to no reward. It's baffling to me how popular this is. Not to mention all the bugs that just prevents you from completing certain quest and quests that don't activate at all when doing what has been instructed. I tried 3 restarts and every time there was something that bugged out.

I don’t understand why someone would remake big brother without changing the gameplay and mechanics from the original. Honestly this is a bad game, and the time it takes to get anywhere is not at all worth it. It’s sad because this game could actually be pretty good if it used mechanics similar to a milfy city type unity game or was just simply a static renpy VN. But sadly this game has the same horrible, repetitive, and RNG based grind.

If you already played the original stay away from this, it’s not worth suffering through the grind again. And if you’re new to big brother I can’t say I’d recommend this either unless you’ve already played every other decent incest game and are looking for more. If there are other games that look interesting play those, even if those games are grindy or RPG maker or something like that there’s still no way it will be as bad as the big brother grind. If you have no other games to play and are desperate enough to play this, then expect a boring, tedious, frustrating, and repetitive grind. Even if you use mods and the walkthrough expect 15-20 hours until a girl finally makes you cum and even longer until your mom/sister do. And when they finally do it won’t feel worth it, you’ll just be left feeling lament for all the time you had to waste to get there.

READ ME

I ask you to take just 5 minutes of your time to read my review. THIS GAME IS PURE MILKING THAT SMELLS STRONG!

Yesterday, 07/29/2023 I saw that there are some members using fake accounts to speak well of the game, what happens is that the dev created multiple accounts to make users increase the number of their registration on patreon and they keep telling everyone that this is the best BB game, which is not true. This game has been milking for years, then they come up with the excuse that a member of the dev's family has died and he doesn't have time to work on the game, which is not true either. There are 5 people helping/working together with the dev, whether they are renderers, testers, mods, and they all help the dev a little as best they can. The problem with this is precisely the excuses that the dev launches with each update, promising a lot and doing little and when he can't reach his goal he does another rework and keeps milking again.

On that day, I was censured by moderators for telling the truth and criticizing the work, saying about the fake accounts that the dev has been making to speak well of his game and attract new suckers. Dark Silver, original author of BB abandoned his game but gave more content than Aleksey90 in 3 years and see that Dark Silver still worked on Glamour in the same period as Aleksey90 and Glamor had more content than his horrible game. This game is pure milking, it's been three years and it's still milking and getting more suckers with its renderings.

DON'T PLAY THIS, AVOID

This game has a solid potential that is squandered by its game mechanics. The way that Eric's (the antagonist of the story) influence works is broken, and that idea of influence, in general, isn't a very good one because of how it's gated. You can spend hours of your life doing good deeds and being at the highest demeanor and mood with the girls. You bank almost no influence. The minute Eric appears in front of any of them. You lose all that influence and he gains a ridiculous amount. It is impossible to work off. If this is intended to change as a work in progress, fine. I'll come back and modify the review. But, if this is how the story stays, and especially if there's forced NTR based on that system, it's a hard pass from me. Furthermore, the tips system is nice, but the actual written words need work. They are not clear a lot of the time, and I don't mind hitting a walkthrough, but your game should work without that. Without a guide, it should be possible to understand what to do and the ability to win the girls over should be manageable. As is, if you're not sticking every second to the guide, you'll miss out on important scenes and, even though you are paying attention to it heavily, Eric's influence is so out of whack that it does not feel worth it.

If the influence is a mechanic that's meant to be changed through the big opportunities you finish, just get rid of it. It's just hanging there being a distraction and making players feel like they're not doing the right stuff, even though they most likely are.

Change influence. Change the tips to be more clear. Best of luck!

The image quality and the characters look so good, that's why I wanted to try the game. I tried it couple times and it's a mess. You need mods to understand what to do, you have to repeat tasks a lot, I'm always lost, don't know what to do, where to go, not worth it in my opinion despit the good graphics.

I was really excited when I saw that Aleksey was going to revive BB. I was a fan of the original and was dismayed when DS decided to abandon it. I know a number of BB clones have since been attempted, but this one far outshines the rest, including the original, both in terms of quality and gameplay.

While the game remains quite faithful to the story and gameplay of the original, Aleksey has added many wonderful new touches and little details that IMO vastly increase player enjoyment:

• Max can change the girls' clothes once they've been unlocked/purchased
• Multiple variations of almost every repeated scene (3 to 6 each)
• Lewd scenes are more erotic while maintaining if not exceeding the render quality of the original
• ANIMATIONS!!

The grind has also been substantially reduced compared to the original, both in terms of stats and cash. There's even a genius little loan mechanic that's available in the game, meaning that you don't get punished if you haven't been min/maxing your income from the start. In fact, if you're so inclined and have half a brain, it's quite easy to exploit the loan system in game to essentially remove money as a barrier early on, without the use of a cheat or external mod.

Let's be clear, this is a full-on strategy game, not just a VN that you can speed through to get to the pron. If you're looking for the latter, you should move on. But if you enjoy the actual process of EARNING rewards instead of feeling that you're entitled to them, then give this gem a go.

The only complaint I have is the length of time between updates, but it's understandable given the quality of the content and bug-free gameplay, and the fact that Aleksey doesn't work on this full time. Despite that, this one's well worth keeping an eye on as development progresses.

This game is still in the works but its obvious that is going great. Character development is very good with not too much grind. Sometimes a little confusing but forum very responsive. I hope he gets more support so updates are more common since progress is kinda slow.

Why this game deserves a 4-star rating? It's not worth it except for the image quality. You will not get real sex after completing the task. You can't even figure out the game without mods. You need to perform repeated tasks before you can get a little bit advancement in game progress. In the setting of the characters, it can be seen that Max is destined to be defeated by Eric. This disappoints the players. Even if the new version is about to end, Max will not get the true love of these girls. This is very sad. . And whether the NTR label is consistent with this game, personally does not, because from the rigid dialogue of the characters, and can feel that the girl's love for Max is not true. Therefore, the plot=1 star, the image quality=4 stars, the character setting=2 stars, the comprehensive evaluation=2 stars

The first things that pop into my head when I think about this game are it being painfully boring, unnecessarily grindy, and how much of a pathetic mess the main character is. Combine that with the incredibly limited dialogue that happens between each character, and the severe lack of actual adult content, and I can't even begin to understand why this has 4/5 stars.

I really like the game but sadly cant honestly rate it higher than 3*
The game just takes too long and "porn-wise" the content is a bit lackluster.

Quests has a very specific time and day to progress on. Skipping 6 days and 22 hours several times to progress just isn't how a game should play.
Some quest has been bugged and a mod is "must have" to prevent even slower gameplay.

The story hasn't really progressed either since the original game was abandoned.

Seems pretty decent so far. Big fan of the original, this seems to take it in the same kinky directions. Mega points for finally introducing Ann BDSM scenes into the gameplay!
I hope to see more development of family members and less focus on side characters that aren't relevant to the family domination dynamic that most of us are coming here hoping for.
Please keep up the great work!