VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Blackheart Hotel [Final] [Blackheart Games]

As shown in the preview, you step into the shoes of the owner of The Blackheart Hotel. A character having a rather peaceful life at first glance, with a boring daily routine, and apart from the few atypical tenants, little suggests what will follow. But get comfortable, put on your seatbelt, and hold on to the armrests. Quickly, we discover that he has some memory problems which installs us little by little in the light, towards the shadow of something which seems to hover above this mysterious hotel. We understand almost nothing at the beginning so much the Mc becomes more and more confused, between his absences of memory, his blackouts, while the characters who surround him, both the employees and the tenants seem to ignore his increasingly strange behavior . From there begins a spiral descent into the abyss of hell. The most twisted story I've had the opportunity to see here. From this Mc that we come to hate for the horrors he inflicts on the occupants of the hotel and not only them, we discover a past made of violence, manipulations and lies, we discover the conspiracies and the implications of his entourages, past and present, passing through wars of rivalry as much within his own "family" as with the other clans who fight for the conquest of territories, and we almost come to love him, this horrible Mc who no doubt one would like to see die in atrocious suffering for the monstrous things he has done, and which seem to increase as time goes by, his wickedness, his hatred seems limitless, as much as his devotion and his love for those he loves. Undoubtedly, the originality and the depth in which this story leads us, does not leave indifferent. Cons, well they are mentioned several times. The language of the protagonists (all speak like retarded thugs), grammatical and writing errors, flag errors, choices that are not respected, some endings that are still buggy. In terms of renders and animations, it's a bit average, with npc's who turn their backs during conversations, very short sex scenes and mechanical animations, and the sound which is only present at the end of the game. But nothing objectionable as far as I'm concerned. it's not too late to pick up and polish the game, whose story is as disturbing as it is delightful. - 2 stars because of the cons, (even I would like to give the maximum rating I honestly can't ignore them)

i liked it, its not for everyone and the start was cluncky since i did not understood that there was another me trapped inside!

plenty of violence but almost no corruption per se since the MC just takes what he wants instead of priming the females by out smarting them!

but as stated its not for everyone and that includes the most extremists as well since there was so much that could have been done missed oportunity!

A unique game here on F95Zone for sure.

The story is compelling until it becomes entirely meaningless half way through the game. The author changes reality on a whim frequently with the most plot twists I've ever seen in any movie, story, game, or book.

Choices aren't respected and become meaningless half way through the game. You are told that you did things by other characters that you didn't do (a frequent problem).

There aren't different paths in the game. If you choose not to be evil you just skip scenes in most cases.

The renders and character models are below average. The sex scenes are brief and disappointing. The animations are rough and robotic. If you are here for the H / sex content you will likely be disappointed.

The game as a whole lacks polish. The developer is slow to fix his own bugs and the community is the testing team. It seems like the dev doesn't even test his own code and just assumes it works.

Overall a sloppy game that is fubar in the last half. The game started off great and the story was compelling but it quickly turned bad for all of the reasons mentioned in this review. I'm being very generous in giving this game 3 stars.

If you like dark themed games and are just here for the violence and abuse then you'll have a good time. I recommend that everyone else look elsewhere.

.......Holy ^%$#

Ok, when I see the graphic violence tag, I'm usually all "whatev", but this....THIS......this is a whole new level. If the MC was married or the boyfriend of the sidegirls, this would really just be "Domestic Violence: The Game". The dev's commitment to violence is so locked-in, it's almost admirable that anyone did compromise their vision at all. I say almost because there were points I almost uninstalled the game and burned the hard drive so baby Jesus would never know I ever played this.

But I did finish it....why?

Well, the violence is, to some extent, optional. You can choose mercy pretty often, and usually its mercy in a way that isn't storybreaking. That's a real tough path to do when the other path literially has rape, murder, then rape the murdered while her sister is forced to help (that scene had me mashing the skip button.).
Spoilers

So, the good:

- a concept that just increasingly raises the stake. Thought that last scene was bad, well look what's on deck next.

- The character models aren't fancy, but the dev does a great job of modeling them so that emotion registers better than normal. You really get a sense of the fear others have of the MC better than most games, and that's notable.

The bad (hoo boy)

- Sets are spartan or even low res at times.

- Dev plays the "everyone has secrets and it's likely if they talked for 5 minutes, stuff would go smoother" card. It just seems like a stall tactic to make the game move slower.

- There's a sequence where you start playing as another character that has yet to be introduced, and it's just needlessly confusing. It doesn't help that the scenes are in first person for no reason, so when the character model shows up, you aren't sure who it's supposed to be. This isn't a story mistake, it's just sloppiness.

-The writing...oh the writing. For the last half to a 3rd of the game, it just goes off the rails. Multiple people get shot , are thought dead, then come back, with a few of these just totally sucking the meaning out of the character's death. More importantly, the Dev fudged the ending. They skip the final boss showdown and just throw every cliche in the book at you. Really went GoT season 8.

In summation: Insanely violent scenes patched together with a story. Play on a empty stomach.

I Like the story, also I like the cute body's with different tits from small to big is everything's their. Only the faces from the Female I didn't like really, they watch to musculien, and the eye Bron looks all time ugly.

I hope Blackhearr resort coming soon, the story is really good and the style from game is also good. 4 stars from me for this game.

It is rare to get the opportunity to rate a game marked as "completed", and this story in particular demands a review even though it is not actually done...

The biggest positive by far is that the story contained here is still just a single part of a much larger story. Either the author is really good at tying things together, or they have started a huge fricken project with very clear chapters.. Either way, this particular story is pretty darned impressive. Search for "Blackheart" in the titles and it appears that every release is at the very least a part of the same universe.

I tested in the usual manner. I started off on a vanilla path. I'm not a bad guy and I'm not out to bang every random ho with bolted on tits who smiles at me. Much to my surprise, there is not a ton of smiling and no matter how good I choose to be a lot of characters seem to know better. It seems the character has a history and that history is not made up of a players choices. You are not even allowed the memories beforehand so you can in fact get away with being a genuinely nice guy. The big surprise is that this does not hurt the actual story itself. You can be a pristine monk and you will still get the entire story... and it will still make perfect sense.

The next playthrough I went all out baddie. This is the intended path but as I mentioned before you still get all the story either way. You can even mix and match without any problems.

In an earlier release I was upset by being "forced" into one relationship. I am happy to say that the MC does not choose this relationship, he is more or less cornered by the other character and over the two playthroughs this becomes a matter of either controlling another persons "crazy", or fully embracing that persons crazy. Yup, you are given real reasons and motivations for following through, and that's just good storytelling.

Looking at the production value, that is definitely above par, though I admit I didn't really care. I was trapped by something a lot of people might NOT like about this, the huge story. I wasn't nearly as engrossed by the models or environments because I really wanted to know what the hell was going on with these characters. I will point out the biggest standout by far, the fact that this (and other Blackheart games) really embraces the taboo. What kind of taboo is different for each story so there is a lot of coverage for everyone's perverted desires, but be prepared for just how far these guys go.

This story is violent beyond compare and embracing that dark path means crossing a lot of lines. While I prefer "nicer" stories most of the time, I genuinely enjoyed this one because even with the "crazy" element of the MC, all the violence is in fact well motivated. The story engulfs you into a world of really bad people who do really bad things and you understand the MC taking the position that he has suffered from this environment and everyone he hurts in some way deserves what they get. Oh, he is still insane, he is still a bad guy, but there are no innocents in this world.

So, after a couple of playthroughs, being invested is a real thing and you spend enough time with... "allies"(?) that you really want to know their stories...

...did I mention that you can look up "Blackheart" in the search bar...

So, you want a full world and a great story? Well, I don't give out even four stars very often. If you are very sensitive to violence then maybe you should stay away from this one, but if "it's just a story", then you should give this one a try and prepare for a deep dive.

It's a pretty bad game and I have no idea why it has relatively high ratings. There are a lot of issues and the most apparent one is probably that it seems like the game was written by an angry 12-year-old. And I mean that on several levels. Every character talks and thinks in the same kind of language, doesn't matter which age they are. Profanity everywhere. Same word choices everywhere ("Haha", "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry", "I love you", "babyirl/babyboy"). It gets repeated ad nauseam. The level of writing is very low in general. There are tons of spelling and grammar mistakes.
Looking at that, the game obviously lacks any kind of polish. Apart from what I mentioned, there are numerous issues with text being assigned to the wrong/no character. So, suddenly, character X with a portrait will "say" something, despite not being there....or the character one talks to says what you should have been saying. Then the issue where choices don't matter. I went the "good" route, never choosing to drug, rape or kill anyone. Despite that, I was told I did that or a character mentioned she said something to me, despite that not being the case, as I went elsewhere...or I didn't go to some house to rape/kill someone but supposedly, later, I have an item from there, despite never being there. Adding further to that: There are lots of plot holes that go beyond "not caring about the choices".
The game is also bugged. The first ending I wanted to take (not wanting to shoot Grace) ended in a bug. The second ending I wanted to take (walking away with "Grace") immediately resulted with a bug. It's been...what, four months since the release and it still hasn't been fixed, despite it being pretty important. There are also simple clipping issues with characters where shoes clip into the ground etc. Also noticed that shoes apparently change shapes for no reason, despite it actually mattering in one scene.
There is also a weird contrast between the game being silent all the time but near the end using music/sound effects. Something which is funny or sad (depending on your perspective): Apparently, the author doesn't know how pregnancy works or how wounds heal.

However, there is one good thing the game has: The idea. Just too bad that that's all.

I can only really recommend the game to people who can see past everything and only value the idea and/or to those with a fetish for rape, murder and torture. Apart from that, it's really not worth your time.

It's not easy to rate this game but I would rate it 3.5 if I could. Definitely not a story I see often, very violent and most sex scene include rape and beating.
Not sure what the point of view of Sal add to the game even if it helps to introduce new character into the story.

On the plus side the story is mostly consistent and the game is complete.
On the minus side it feels like sometimes you start something by capturing girls just to lose everything in the next scene withtout doing much with the girls. It would have been cool if you could had the choice to play between a manipulative Jacky and a violent one instead of just being a violent rapist.

good game even if i played good path (not that seems makes much sense or difference) but there are things i didn't get... when Sal is on the boat and make lovew with zuh...how can he he kill the father of zuh (was the chief of the triad on tyhe same drug boat? and zuh what happened to her? how can damn Anthony..known that Sal was on the way? to many strange points..and about the choice..i played the good guy for all the game..but speaching about MC and Page are as they muyrdered and raped all...so what's the point in choose bad or good?? to see the rape\violeb t sex sscenes only? anyway i cried at the end..damn i know Jacky won't made..but how he's gone is a bit Michel bay...why sal and paige can't go on plane if he can set free marcus put him on the ladder? weird..

It is an interesting game, while the story is quite linier that lets the developer focus on the one story.
But it can make you feel like your choices don't matter much.
Overall the story is mediocre, and I generally think changing the character you play as makes the game worse, taking you out of the mindset of the character.

The aesthetics are pretty decent.

The lack of sound is understandable, but the game would be better with some good sound effects and music.

My main gripe with the game is how you lose your personality whenever you wish to do something 'evil' and that most of the evil stuff is a little on the tame side.

It would have been nice with a follow trough on some of the more extreme threats, and some proper torture for the fun of it.

An incredibly dark and twisted linear novel.


Audio
What bothered me most was oddly the lack of sound. It's just completely silent except for at the very end. I guess you could simply play some personal music but then it might not fit the scene.

Choices
The game is quite linear despite its many choices. The choice is usually "do you want to defile?", and what you choose doesn't really affect the ending.

The dark stuff
I tried avoiding the dark stuff for the most part. That doesn't change the fact that the MC is mentally ill with bouts of aggression and has a past involving r*pe and m*rder. Regardless of what you choose... dark things have happened before the story began, and set wheels in motion... and boy, this proverbial car is driving straight down into clusterfuck canyon. Its occupants are nutty murdery people, and you are one of them.

Story
The creator explicitly mentioned this game is not for people who don't like dark stuff. However, despite not being into dark stuff I did enjoy some of the story. The MC started off with annoying me, being all woozy, vague and dramatic... but I stuck it out because this story does mystery well. Slowly I learned what plagued the MC, and I got it. I couldn't hold it against the MC for acting like he did. He's a product of his rotten environment. The meandering plot and overuse of twists could be better, but for a porn-game it was quite good.

Graphics
Honestly didn't like them very much. It's standard Ren'Py but worse than what I'm used to. It's a bit grainy, etc. The animations are... well, let's not speak of them because they're travesties themselves.


Although my enjoyment was middling this is not an average game. The downside is little player agency and audio/graphics. But the story is pretty good, and those into shock-entertainment will love this.

Game starts good, with a nice and misterious set up. We all know it's going to be dark and messy but... shit goes off the rails, too many characters. Specially when you do not feel that it's the MC story anymore, controlling other dudes and shit. Also except Paige, almost all girls look bland af

THis was good til a point but then some choices dont mean shit, a lot of cheap and useless turn around decisions come into play, and a bunch of noninteresting turnovers in the story that you simply stop caring about the characters. All the violence and rape scenes were a nice escape from the vanilla scene of games from this site.

Loved at the start, the story was interesting and all about discover about the MC past and everything, then in a moment some decision and conversations don't make sense or don't matter.
If you are a good guy, everyone will still judge and treat the MC like he was a rapist or a killer, even when you didn't killed or take advantage of someone.
You can change the way the MC acts, he can be more dark or a normal guy, but all the characters will still see him and talk about him like he raped the maids, drug them or done anything, even when he didn't. Many characters will die just for the sake of the story, you can't take decisions about do it or not or even save them. You can break up with any relationship, but the girls will still show up and do stupid thinks even when you told them to not do anything. So basically this VN is pretty linear, you can take decision and many conversations and scenes change but in the end the game will lead you to the same path but and take you to the same outcome but with minor changes. No matter if you are full evil or full "good".
There can be more thinks but this are the ones that bother me more.
And I can't forget that there is an error that don't let me get the Grace Ending. So I feel like I lost hours of my life playing this just to find an error that don't let me see the ending.

You've seen the warnings, but I'll repeat them. If you're squeamish leave this game alone. You will need counseling if you don't. So much for the public service announcements.
This game is actually a solid 3.5 that I rounded up instead of down because the complaints about the plot & writing are so wrong it's laughable. For me they prove the point that just because you CAN read doesn't mean you know how. Not every mob story needs to be The Soprano Father. It provides the external conflict necessary to develop the characters.In fact, the writing in this game is stellar on many levels. The MC certainly isn't likeable, but his internal & external conflicts are believable & go a long way toward keeping him from becoming some shambling cartoon character. The other characters have depth & diversity as well, with quirks & motivations that set them apart from each other as they advance the storyline.
Speaking of characters, there is a metaverse that envelops the 3 games that Blackheart Games is developing & the characters in those games cross over often enough that some familiarity with the other 2 games can be helpful. Especially with the more subtle points in the dialogue & exposition.
It's the dialogue that really shines here, which is crucial in any VN. Since the setting & scenes are handled by the pictures, the dialogue has to drive the narrative, highlight character differences & maintain the atmosphere of the overall story. Between the internal conflicts of the 3 (yes 3) personalities in the MC's head to the external sense of dread, tension & mystery, it's the dialogue that turns this story into a true page turner.This is important.
Because the renders simply aren't that good. Especially in the 1st 2/3rds of the game, they're full of mistakes in composition, posing, lighting & shadows. Add the fact that some of the DAZ models just aren't that appealing & the visuals start detracting from the story instead of enhancing it. It also seems that DAZ characters can be extremely tricky when it comes to facial expressions that rely on the mouth. Sadness, anger, fear & disgust all look the same. Mostly because of a lower lip that looks like it could withstand a nuclear strike without moving. The animations are basic, but servicable. They don't hurt the visuals, but they don't enhance them either. Tbh, I was 10 hrs into the game (about 1/2 way) when I realized I hadn't fapped even once. The visuals weren't the only reason for this, but they were part of it for sure. This all changes in the final 3rd of the game. The renders & animations make a leap of light years ahead of where they were & it's a very welcome change.
Then there's the sex. To start with, the 1st 2/3rds of the game features girls that are either 1.) unconcious, or 2.) sobbing uncontrolably. See, the Protag's dick isn't a source of pleasure for him as much as it's a weapon that he stabs girls with. All sex scenes are skippable via 2 choices that range from neutral to very bad. The very bad choice is highlighted with the words "evil up." This implies that your'e building up evil points towards a special skill or something. You aren't. Otherwise, halfway thru the game you'd be summoning Beelzebub from the bowels of Hell every time you farted. Entertaining, but not very practical. There are exceptions of course, & the final 3rd of the game spices things up very nicely thanks to Paige's playful antics, but until then the sleep sex is more like coma sex & every waking victim of the Protag reacts in exactly the same way. If this is your jam you'll be very satisfied all the way thru. Otherwise a little patience is called for.
So, do I reccomend this game? I do. The quality of the writing easily makes it worth your time. But if you're looking for a fap fest, it's the 2nd half of the game that delivers. For me, anyway.

This might be a bit of a shallow review as I haven't gotten myself deep into the game, but I just can't. First, too much exposure at first, unneeded, with a pretty bad writing. But mostly, my problem is with the female character models. They are really strange, unappealing and... inhuman? I don't know, but to me something seems really off with those models. So a story that is overexposed, bad models and no sound seem to me like a pretty bad combination. 2/10

Narration is all over the place, their is plot twist every like 10 mins feels like. Just feels like either 5 people wrote this seperatly or the dev was diffrent levels of sober entire time working on this.

Also its violent just for the sake of getting to say "we went further then others have!" Its like no RPGM games are more violent, and the scenes in this are less graphic then RPGM games as well. It tries to be too many things at once. I just can't recommend it, unless you like all over the place writing and so many twists you think thye were stoned watching Midnight Shamalon movies all day before working on this, going "people love twists right?"

Great visual novel if you are a fun of darker themes. (rape, murder, necrophilia, hints of child abuse doesnt happen in the game though calm down) Now Im not especially into those as much as Im into incest, but some change every once in a while never hurt anyone. Except Glenda hahaha.

But if you want to do an evil playthrough for once, this is a good game for that. You get to commit some very heinous acts. And theres a bonnie clyde thing going with the main girl Paige. Wholesome in a messed up way.

But if you like darker themes this is probably the best weg VN that has been finished. And you can be a good guy too, but bad things will still happen no matter what so prepare for that inevitability.

In terms of narrative, you are running a hotel when your estranged mom goes missing. A snooping detective comes investigating and its a downward spiral for your sanity and everyone you come in contact with. Reminiscent of movies like American psycho, the number 23, Leon (if natalie portman was a drug addict and leon was a sex pest). Very loose reminiscence mind you but you get the idea.

Its interesting, though very early on its evident that MC has a few screws loose. Even though the monologues make this seem like a surprise even though its not. But thats revealed early on anyways so its not a big deal.

In terms of H scenes, they are quite short, and often just a few images worth though there is a lot of them so you imagining the entire situation and how messed up it is has to do most of the work. But what is there is good, and you get to be a right prick which is very rare. They do get longer towards the end as the level of messed up increases. Im talking about the EVIL scenes here which are very good.

Very good, not for the faint of heart though

The dev puts a lot of work in. An actual finished game with no milking is unheard of. It would be a 5 star game but this is just way too much gangster story. You will go hours of reading about hundreds of characters and then a lewd scene slapped in here and there. If it were just a pervert hotel owner that kept girls in his rape dungeon it would have been much better.

5/5 all
well this game aint for u if ur such a gentlemen guys
5/5 for the render n animations decent, but im still questioning why sandy really looks different when she use/n her glass
4/5 for the char role, i love sandy i know shes bitch tht why i tread her like a bitch too, actually i dont really want to mention this section
5/5 for the story well ive know this game from his other game, love his both of the gamestory like i say in the beginning if ur gentlemen i bet u will just complain this n thats n pretty much i dont do research on every ending .
3/5 the ui really not important for u, but for me prefer make my eyes comfortable,
4/5 fap able? huh what is that? ive seen some1 mention this too sound ridiculous though but porn game its porn game its up to u cuz ur dick ur problem