Ren'Py - Bright Past [v0.99.5] [Kosmos Games]

One of the greatest games here. graphics are awesome, story makes sense, the girl is both adorable and hot as hell. The corruption is credible and takes time. Its also quite good at play level, not just a fap fest without meaning.

My Rating of this Game (v0.18.3 )is:

Pros:
+ Fantastic Renders

Cons:
-Grinding Game Play

Conclusion:
This game has very good graphics,but just doesn't hit the Spot with me,
don't get me wrong,but I like some rewards after some minutes of game play,and I hate to be walking back and forth in game, just kills the fun for me.
But I do believe that this game is some fun with a couple of people so have fun with it.

The idea of this game is really good, but right now, at this point of the development (v0.15.2) I would not recommend to play it. Too frustrating.

- Playability - 0/10 - Terrible - F***** GRIND. You have to repeat the same extremely boring tasks for HOURS in order of getting money enough or one more point of some stat. BORING. Also, the game is a fake sandbox. Actually the story is totally lineal and there are no choices or different paths.
- Initial plot - 8/10 - Good - Slice of the life of a new girl in a new town. Can be interesting. Characters and situations are good too. Reasonably realistics. Aceptable writing, but there are not long texts during the sexual scenes or kinky dialogues.
- Images - 8/10 - Good - Problem is, there aren't a lot of scenes, and most of the scenes are only one or two images and some text. And you have to grind for hours in order of getting them.
- Updates 3/10 - Poor - Updates are really short in this game.
- Sex - 3/10 - Poor - Not a lot of sexual scenes, and pretty vanilla right now. No fetishes.
Maybe in a couple of years, when this game will be finished (if it's finished) is going to be a good game. Right now, the lack of contents, the extreme grind and the fact that all the plots and stories are "under development", the game is terribly frustrating. Spending 8 or 10 hours of gameplay in this game to see only a few scenes of a couple of images or a extremely short animation is terribly frustrating and a waste of time.

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."

I really enjoyed the overarching plot and twists in this game, as it encompasses all the classic elements of a good story. Although the standalone routes weren’t by any means remarkable, they were great at building suspense and a sense of urgency to figure out the pieces of the puzzle in order to solve the mystery. The universe of this games grows increasingly more complex and interesting the further you delve into the storyline. This demonstrates solid world-building and good storyline pacing by the writers.

Review as of 0.09.

A sandbox game that looks good, but is very tedious to play. It needs to get a lot more content to make it rewarding.

THE GOOD:
- Good visuals.
- Good UI. Quest log. Hint system.
- Likeable MC.

THE BAD:
- Grindy. A lot of clicking involved to get where you need to go at the right time. There is also hunger and fatigue to manage.
- There is very little storytelling involved.
- No real choices. Either you do the quests or don't.
- There is rape. Not sure how it is avoidable.

THE UGLY:
- The log.

The game is still in its early stages, but already I enjoy it. The 3D models look great (Barbara <3) and the sandbox gameplay is simple, but well designed and easy to understand.
My only gripe at the moment is the English. Even as a non-native English speaker, I recognize how awkward some of the language is.

The underlying writing, however is solid and it's nice to have a main character, who seems to be inexperienced but not a complete airhead.

I'll definitely be following the development of this one. Good luck to the developer!

As it stands this game is a 2/5 and is not worth the drive space. You've seen it done before and there's not a lot new that's brought to the table. The renders are better than a lot of games, and the skeleton of the game feels structured well, but there's just not enough content, too little in fact, and it feels annoying. Will check back in 4-6 months and see what's changed.

The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs...

(Review Update - 05 June 2019 - v0.201)

It's been over a year since I first tried the initial demo release of this VN/Game... And this VN/Game has added some new content, but not sure it's really what you would normally expect from over a years worth of development...

The visual style and quality has not changed and still looks primarily unique and high resolution... The navigation is still the same, but now you will open up new places to go as you progress through various quest chains... There is a quest system that gives points, but not sure what those points actually do for the overall game play... Perhaps they gate content, but it is never made fully clear... You can tell the developers have put a lot of thought into the UI and game play mechanics... There are a few animations, but they are very plastic looking and short... Many of the sexual themed visuals consist of just a tiny handful of still images, in most cases...

The script is still full of occasional broken English, MANY misused words, and still has the same spelling/grammar errors in both original release content, and all the new content from the past year or so... With the high attempt at including so much story text, along with dialogue and monologue, I expected the developers to have gotten past the translation and interpretation issues, they had initially and going forward... And even when I looked past the text issues, I had some occasional moments where the story telling was a bit odd... Not sure if it is due to bad interpretation of the translation from Russian to English, or if it is some cultural divide with how the story is being told... But all in all some, if not much, of the text needs some various revisiting...

The game play mechanics are very grindy, as I had first suspected with the demo... The quests slightly hint at steps required to move those story arcs along, but it's not always obvious what that next step requires, or what you need to actually do... I found that in several cases, I just had to do the daily grind routine and at some random moment the next step would happen... It's not like that for all quests or all quest steps, but it does increase the tediousness of the grind elements, now and then... The biggest qualm I had with the grind style game play mechanics was with food... It seems like an unnecessary mechanic, that either pushes you to waste the money that is so required for some story arcs... Or, you end up having to stick to a strict morning pattern, where there is a tight window of opportunity to eat free food, at the table with the friend and her mother...

Another mechanic I was not a fan of, was how Real Porn photos are used here and there to add to the female protagonists horniness stat... First off, was permission given to use those photos? Because if that is not the case, then this whole project is violating the law since it makes money for the developers... I really hate it when VN/Games in this industry use real porn in their projects, especially without explicit written permission or license from either the publishing company or the people in the pictures... It shows a lack of originality, creativity, and feels a bit lazy...

Now, as to the content itself, even though the grind takes a while for some quest story arcs, initially I didn't mind the content (outside of the text issues) but very quickly I noticed a pattern... Especially when it concerned anything sexual in nature, where this VN/Game was pushing for the porn fest side... In the long run, this VN/Game is really pushing towards varying forms of porn fest type situations, with some being casual (which is more realistic) and some being way over the top... An example of one way over the top moment, involved the black basketball player, where he initially seemed to be a genuine nice guy, trying to help the protagonist get past some gang members... But instead, he then demands sexual favors, and out of nowhere his whole personality changes, as he very quickly just pulls out his penis... And it was so large and long (while being flaccid), that it took two hands for the protagonist to hold it up (not even sure why she just immediately grabbed ahold of it)... It was the most ridiculous looking over sized penis I've seen, thus far, in any of these VN/Games yet... In essence it appeared to be about 2 or more feet in length, and about 5 to maybe 6 inches in thickness... She couldn't even get her hands completely around the the half way point, while holding it... It was so outrageously large, that I pretty much called it quits at that point... Especially when the character tried to explain away how any woman could handle it if they started off slow... The thing was impossibly huge... There are other moments in this VN/Game where I had questioned why I was playing/reading it, but during those moments I decided to let a majority of it go... But that whole scene/event was way too overboard... Totally ridiculous...

There are also several bugs where Russian text appears, rather then English... Such as in the Options Menu, where the option below the music volume was labelled in Russian... And several of the pop up screens for things like the quest screen and other screens, had the upper title in Russian...

Overall, the primarily decent visuals can not make up for all the other text and story related issues... The game play mechanics are also time consuming, especially when having to worry about cleanliness and food... The questing system is a nice touch, but isn't always informative or easy to figure out what the next step/s actually entails... There are some small amounts of somewhat adventure game style mechanics, but it's not this VN/Games strong suit... I really did expect a bit more content from over a years worth of development, compared to the average VN/Game being developed in this market, but each developer is different in how quickly they release new content... I feel as though the path this VN/Game is taking is the path of being an over the top porn fest, even though it doesn't go too over the top initially... The original promise I felt it had, for maybe being a more story focused and grounded VN/Game, is no longer the case, from what I've experienced in the current content... I do wish the developers the best of luck, but I will not be revisiting this VN/Game... With the inaction towards fixing the text issues, and the very over the top themes and visuals for several of the story arcs, I just don't like what I experienced now as compared to the initial release... Having good overall visuals (other then a few cases) are not going to save this VN/Game, when the play experience, as a whole, is not as good...


(Original Review - 21 March 2018 - v0.001 Demo)

For the moment this claims to be a Demo, but it feels more like the introduction to a grind style game with story elements...

The visuals of the characters are pretty good, and with mostly normal body proportions, thank goodness... The backdrops are a mix of unique/creative ones and a few I've seen before in other visual novel/games... The user interface is pretty good, although it would be a nice quality of life upgrade to have the locations show text of the place they represent, when hovering over them... But even so, the interaction buttons are also a very nice touch... Makes interactive items stick out...

The script is ok, but has a lot of spelling/grammar errors... Maybe even an itty bitty amount of broken English... So it needs some more proofreading... The plot revolves around a female protagonist farm girl (she is into Rock n' Roll) who moves to the big city, to seek out her dreams and future... She moves in with a friend she met when searching for colleges, which she never got accepted to... The friends mother, brother, and little sister also live there... But the little sister is currently staying at the dorms of her college, so the protagonist sleeps in her room...

Once the introduction is done, the game portion begins... It's you're typical grind style game play with a 24 hour day, 7 day week... Each activity uses up so much time, including moving from room to room... So time management will be something you really need to pay attention to at some point... There are not a whole lot of places to navigate to, outside the home so far... There are also some other things you have to micro-manage for the protagonist... Such as hygiene, eating food, sleep, money, and apparently smoking cigarettes (something I've not seen as a necessity before in any game I've ever played)... Smoking increases her happiness (I guess that is what you can call it), and you see this on her portrait in the lower right corner... I'm also assuming relationship building will be necessary as well, but you don't get to experience much of that...

There are some bugs in the game play... Such as clicking on your friends mother in her bedroom brings up a blank text screen... Or when working at the ice cream parlor, you are told you can only work specific times each day, yet I was able to work there when ever I wanted for how ever I wanted... Also, clicking on Sleep for 8 hours, only sleeps for 1 hour... Once you get the job, meet the mother, and talk to your friend when she is naked in her room trying on lingerie, then the game is done... So for the moment, there is a limited amount of things you can do...

Overall, the game looks nice, seems easy to figure out, and shows promise... Even though it is not a visual novel, there are story elements, so in some ways it has some meaningful story with some depth... I look forward to seeing how this game develops... I will definitely revisit it, if it actually goes into full development...