VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - Bitch Squad [v0.4.7] [IcarusLabs]

Ok where to begin.... Memories... lots of PAINFUL high school memories.. thats what i initially found within the 'pages' of this title..
As someone who throughout high school was a loner, had a terrible stutter, my mother was a single mum working every job she could and we still never has enough money.. resulting in never having the 'latest trends' and All in all resulting in the kind of treatment that the mc goes through in this title..
I wont even get into the early crushes that occured and only added to that humiliation once it was public knowledge..
So much of the tone and theme of this Vn struch a personal nerve with me even tho now in my 40's and happily married with two kids, there are those memories of high school that never go away..
So why rate this 5 stars you ask.. Well because the writing is amazing, The characters are well established, (as a writer myself) I appreciate how well developed the story is and could be going forward and a small tiny part of me hopes that this tale will on some level achieve a sense of redemption for myself through the lense and eyes of the mc... 'MOST' of the characters are well designed although a couple of the bitch squad Maaaaaybe seem a bit harsh looking or meek considering there the upper tier of the female species in this game.. there is a good deal of comedy, hot girls, good writing, did i mention hot girls...
It may only be early days but it shows promise and is something different from the current market where mc just smiles and panties are dropped.. It has a lot of originality and that is a good thing in the current college game market..
Cant wait to see where it goes from here.. Good Luck

Synopsis : You play as a man who was heavily bullied at high school and still talk to the gang of bullies at college because he is a wimp

Well this is a good resume of the story, you can pass all the bullshit the dev will try to make it happen in the story, as if suddendly the mc will discover how to be a man or whatever deux ex machina will appear, in short the mc is a zeta man and you can't do anything against.

Because, seriously no man with a backbone and self respect will try to make any conversation with ppl who sent goons to hit you and humiliate you for the lulz.

let's add the fact that you have no choice in the story and you ll suffer to read this.

So story : 0/5

let's talk about renders then. Well in short they are good, the pictures are nice and it's clearly far better than most of the renpy game out there.

Graphics 4/5

Now for the sex scene who surely will make the game better than the story. in one word you can resume the sex scene : meh. There's nothing special or kinky in the game .

sex scene 1/5

The game could have been better because there's some good ideas here and here but the story kill the fun and you give up early.

overall 2/5

Story seems awesome and renders are good. I know episode 1 was an introduction to the game so there werent almost no choices but hope in the future updates appear more choices that matter on realtions with girls and on the story and on those choices has more than 2 to choose, the mini game of the cards when we play normally and if we win the game gives a renpy error and we need to press "ignore" but that skips all the mini game (the only way to see the strip is do random winner) and hope the girls arent all slutty. It has potential to be a awesome game.

It has been a while since I have left a review but this game is worthy of it. I'm going to break my comments into two parts: storyline and sex.

The storyline is terrific. Anyone who has gone through bullying knows what it is like to want to take revenge on those bullies who always seem to be one or two steps ahead of you. The only negative is that in the real world, the MC would have mentioned to two of the "bitches" who seem to have some compassion that he not only went through verbal abuse but also physical abuse during his high school years because of these bitches. That might have received a bit more compassion from them but perhaps this also makes the storyline more interesting because these potential-compassionate bitches are clueless and smitten with the leaders.

The sex part needs a bit more sex to keep things interesting. I think the strip card game could have shown more or been more revealing. I would advise that "revenge sex" also be permissible in the future because the bitch characters deserve it.

I look forward to the next version of the game!

Review Updated February 2023

As I had feared, it has only gotten worse. Not only is this not a revenge story, it's barely a story at all. The MC doesn't grow, he does not forgive his bullies from a place of power. He does not overcome his bullying, he simply gets pushed into forgiving his bullies for it.

The audio and visuals remain the same, no further observations are needed.

Whatever allure this game might've had has been squandered as the plot gets more unbelievable (with conspiracy theories and secret organizations surrounding a group of high school bullies) and the MC's actions get whimpier.
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I debated giving the game three stars but it's decidedly above average, so four it is.

Right, let's get the good out of the way first:

• The overall revenge premise is great, somewhat overdone to be sure but I've never actually seen it done well.
• The renders are great; the girls are cute, the environments are varied and every character is distinct. (though I did notice Tommy's armpits clipping through his shirt when he was at the computer)
• The grammar's great, I only noticed some minor (though recurring) spelling mistakes.

Now for what I didn't like:

• Everything up until college was great, no complaints there. But to see the MC still get flustered and toyed with even after a hellish year and some time away... That I wasn't a fan of. Which brings me to my next point.
• Lack of player input. I'd like to be able to decide how to interact with the girls, especially the Bitch Squad. Because while I can see some redemption arcs being set up already, I would very much like the ability to not forgive them. This is especially true with Annie. I don't want to forgive her, nor do I care if our parents fucked for a while. Family isn't about blood or social relations, it's about bonds, something she disregarded at the mere whiff of popularity. And then she had the gall to play off a deeply traumatizing experience as a little prank. Fuck her. She can go take a short walk off a long pier. They all can.

In conclusion, there is incredible potential here, some of it already realized. My only qualm is with the direction of the story, and I hope it changes. Still, it's undeniable that a lot of good work went into this, and I can only hope it succeeds.

The rendering is good,models are nice.
Mini game was long,hopefully it can be skipped.
Story by far is somewhat interesting,but the story is loosely structured,hope there will be more surprises in the future.
Anyway,good luck with your game.

This game has an interesting plot, the rendering also looks great, and there are many girls, but I like the role of the plot is less, rather unfortunate. If you can keep making them, I believe they may one day be comparable to DIK.
My English is not very good, I hope you can understand
Good luck to you and your game!

This is for version v0.1.1. Renders are good. Animations are good. It's dialogue is natural and dont sound like engrish. Mc is not an alpha at the moment but he isnt a complete little bitch either and you can see he will toughen up ( I mean its a revenge game how will he get revenge while being a beta bitch). The girls in the bitch squad range from guilty by association up to the Fidel Castro of a leader who says good things but is fucking people up while claiming to be good to everyone else. 1 of the non bitch squad is a little suspect right now and I cant wait to see whats coming up next....Good job dev....last thing... If people are complaining about the card game dev has patched it so you can skip to see the losers of each round which made it easy and not time consuming.

Typical high school drama. You might or might not enjoy that. Regardless, it was fairly well presented.

The revenge story did get me. This first chapter gives me a lot of hope for good character development, especially for the MC. Looking forward to see how that turns out.

I found the teasing really good, which doesn't often happen. It's not necessarily a slow burn. There's good progression and pacing towards lewd scenes. Good build up that got me excited to see what's next.

Dialogue is not total garbage compared to many similar games. So that's nice. I hardly skipped any text.

The models are pretty nice, too. I personally loved the "thicker" girls - really nice natural(ish) bodies. Pretty hot.

Mini game was annoyingly long, but the scene was pretty hot.

No choices. Not even fake ones. It's fine, I guess, but not my preference. However, that does translate into more content in a single playthrough.

Overall, great start! 4.5 / 5

EDIT: Some are criticizing the beta MC. Play the game until the end. I suspect this will change rapidly.

Alright so this is my review for version 1.1 and score 3/5 for this game.

Good things :

Character models looks nice and i don't think there's need of explanations.

Story by far is somewhat interesting and this part i will present in Bad things as well. It's not your typical colege life kind of game like BADIK or something but instead you have revenge element in this game scenario.

Bad things :

I get it that MC was kinda looser in high school but what felt frustrating is that MC kept looser menthality in colege as well like acting all nice nistead of growing some bones. So that's strike one. Strike two lack of choices. The game puts you stright forward with no choices you could make and no consequences. Like when MC steels phones or handshake with Sarah, there's simply no choice or decision to make so you can choose what your MC should do. Strike three unskipable mini game. I get it that dev wanted to make this game interesting but like one other reviewer pointed it makes you simply wanting to punch your monitor. Overall i strongly dislike MC remaining the same looser he was. So that covers some of the story element as well.

Suggestions :

Instead of going from 1.1 to 2.0 i would go 1.2 with this game. Like ok MC was loser in high school but instead of improving himself and working on himself he remaind the same naive idiot he was. He learned nothing from his past expiriance and remained the same. Best example was when he reencountered his stepsister, like is there need to say hi to her since she was the one who pulled that prank?! This leads us to choices. Implement them. Like choices should have consequences. And for God sake make MC cool not dweeb he was, give him some bones at least.

Started strong, but I just can't get into it anymore. It's devolved into the typical tropes. Looks like the MC is going to go soft on some of the characters that absolutely don't deserve it, there's a whole sorority where the girls have to do sex shit to get in because of course there is and the MCs step sister is in it. There's also sex shown with one of the characters that the MC will probably fuck somewhere down the line. Just meh.

Great renders, interesting and engaging storyline with (so far) believable characters. I enjoy stories about hurt, loss, pain, conflict and rejection, especially when you as the player get to claw back some happiness or vengeance over time. Really looking forward to this one updating.

Edit: Card game is now optional, game has a superb start.

really good start. animations were really good and even cumshot was animated. story was intresting and orginal. only bad thing was a lack of sounds. minigame didnt bother me at all. it was actually fun to play

The so called "minigame" isn't skippable and will make you want to punch a hole through your monitor..........

I know the creator stated that this is but a prologue to the "revenge" story but that unskippable and unnecessarily long minigame was something we could have done without.

This one got off to a strong start. I love the premise and the execution seems promising. I was on the fence until the reveal at the last, but it cemented my opinion. It's up to the dev on how they take it further. It can become better or fall into a rut and get boring. Gonna have to see.

This is an initial release/demo, soo all the usual caveats apply.
Also, there's a card game that you need to play multiple rounds of to progress. It is very well made and implemented, but it got tedious. Would be great if we were given an option to skip. [It's skippable now]

Edit: I liked the concept but wasn't fully sold on the VN in the initial release, but I'm completely onboard from the latest update. The Dev executed on a promising the concept exceedingly well, beyond what I'd hoped. Making the antagonists actually powerful and scary is great. Can't wait for future updates.