VN - Ren'Py - Black Diamond [v0.7f] [Deus Actum]

This game is great in every way
That means you can't even find a weak point inside it

Graphics: completely satisfactory
MC appearance: very attractive and original
MC personality: Excellent
Personality and appearance of other characters: Excellent
Story: Original and attractive
Writing: Excellent
Tension: High (Slowburn)
Physiology of the characters: excellent
and etc

Short summary:


The main girl is beautiful and carries the whole game. Debatable, but I gave 4 stars for her alone. The author tries to go for realism, but often ends up creating mundane conversations that don’t go anywhere or have an impact, or literally making a wikipedia style infodumps.



Good Things

• Amazing MC lady
• Good expressions on her
• Characters act somewhat believable, but MC overreacts to weird things

Bad points

• Story is inconsistent and a bit disjointed
• Bodies closeups aren’t up to the level of faces
• Writing can get a bit pretentious and boring
• Not that many hot scenes yet

This has potential to be pretty good. It has some choice driven decision that you get to make that does seem to impact the story and the renders are pretty good. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a lot of story yet, but will wait to see if they have more content.

v0.7f
+ choices
+ renders
+ game has funny moments

- Rose is annoying and also behave like idiot, for example - she flip out when Lydia show interest in guys
- boring story
- no music (it's rare in avn these days)
- some conversations between characters are too long and boring. Sometimes is good to get straight to the point
- lesbian have much more content than straight - more scenes and they are much longer with better writing. There is no balance, no idea why dev even bother with straight stuff in this avn, for now is one big disappointment.

I don't recommend this avn if you are looking for nice straight content. I expected something great - especially after reading last reviews, but unfortunately is not. Maybe something will change in the future, but for now 2 stars from me

I have to say that I find the writing in Black Diamond pretty much on point. Obviously, there are some far-fetched things happening in the overall setting, that's true for most VNs. But the way the protagonists interact with each other feels very natural, believable and interesting.

Add to these really nice renders and a slow but steady progression without any time fillers like sandbox, and you have ingredients for a very good visual novel.
I will say that the initial encounter in the train raised all kinds of red flags regarding pure corruption type games, which in most cases are of low quality. And I would definitely say that BD has a significant focus on that genre. But the way it is presented, the slow revelation of all those little secrets other protagonists have, it all feels very thought-through.
Every character has their own problems and goals in life and although the female MC is tied to all of them to some extent, it still could be a world that existed without her.

For the great scene-, dialogue writing and renders alone I strongly recommend this game. It is female protag, it is a slice of life, it is corruption porn which not everyone is crazy about (it's not my favorite genre as well), but it is first and foremost an excellent execution.

Nice models, especially the fmc, as well as well developed renders and scenes. Diverse cast, each with relatively unique relationships with the fmc, giving rise to potentially very kinky scenarios (hope to see the cast grow). The choices also seem relevant and useful in allowing the player to carve out the character they want to see in the protagonist. No significant grammar or English issues, and the plot so far has been relatively sound. All in all, a vey promising fmc ero VN!

Pros:
Incredibly attractive models for the MC and her mom.
Diversity of choices and routes.
Pretty good writing.
High quality background/setting renders that are more than just the generic house/city that you see in every game.

Cons:
Nothing really so far.

Outstanding work so far. 5/5

Just finished playing version v0.7f. I'm absolutely in love with the game. Phenomenal writing and character building. I focused on the Katya route pace is perfect and I see the development between the characters, I can feel the love as well. This game (in my opinion) has the potential to be one of the best on this site. Granted it's pretty new and not to much content yet it still has enough to get you engrossed in the story. Only minor downside i see but it more of a personal eek dialogue at times get a bit long winded but again it's a personal thing I was just being impatient and wanted to see more wholesome lovin from Katya
This game has branching routes so you can tailor to your own play style. From what I gathered (I could be wrong) so far you got a few love routes and some corruption routes. So it's going to be interesting to see what becomes of that.
Anyway best of luck to the writer definitely one of my favorite. I'm looking forward to what comes next.❤❤

Well done! , Would love to see what you have in store for future .

hopefully we get more choice variations regarding pure or side paths.

Secondly , I like the render processing in post too.

Will keep my eye on this one , good shit dev.

100% top marks, this is a fantastic game, im enjoying playing as the mc that has a sense of humour is totally worth it, Lydia puts a smile on my face and that is because the story and script is very well written, I love how the mc looks, for me, personally, everything is positive for Lydia path, I got no complaints, if you love female protag games, your gonna like this one, totally worth playing

[0.6f]

Pros:
-The quality of the renders varies between good and great
-The characterization of the various in game characters is competent.
-The design (at least of the female) characters is unique. The author definitely spend some effort here.

Neutrals:
-Choices are a bit too spread out for my taste.

Cons:
-Nothing too bad but it irks me that characters that should be at least 20 years older than the MC look *at most* 5 years older. The women that is. All the men more or less look their age. Oh well.

As a bit of a connaisseure of female protagonis games, I gotta say, this is a good one.
The renders are good, the characters intriguing and the storyline promising. The greatest aspect of this game is the amount of choices the player is faced with and how the story can branch out in so many different directions based on those choices. It's still early days for this game, but for now, I'm impressed. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

I think the last reviews of this thread are a bit exaggerated, although the game is nothing more than a prologue without much more than a couple of decisions and that these are carried out by a male MC, it is also obvious that it is only the introduction to give rise to the real story and therefore placing 1 or 5 stars is too much.

For now visually it's not bad, it's obvious that the baby that appears at the end will surely be the MC.

For now 3 stars I think is ideal.

My review and rating about the game is 5 star
[v0.1 Demo]

Tagged as a female protagonist so I read the description of the game. The game follows the story of Lydia an 18 years old girl that goes to college.
It piqued my curiosity.
Once I started I found myself playing as a male character, I thought that was a unique way to start the game. I see this as a prelude to getting the back story of the protagonist, Lydia.
As a demo choices are slim, but that's understandable.

1) Story/plot hint at an interesting adventure 5/5
2) Female protag could be called misleading at the demo level, but if you really understand the direction of the story it's obvious 4/5
3) Female Protagonist is a daring choice, a good one I think 5/5
4) Art and dialogue are good, use of different POV shots shows forethought in development 5/5

Conclusion:
This game is worthy of those who are able to understand a more nuanced story and visual direction.
A very commendable first go.
I look forward to the next update.

Amendment to review:
After playing v0.1.0 sadly it did not live up to my expectations,
the images are good still but the dialogue is a bit off as far as an English speaker is concerned. hopefully in the future deus-actum can improve this issue.