VN - Ren'Py - Broken & Loved [v0.9.9.7.2] [Studio 781]

Pros

- Respectable and relatable storytelling
- Diversity of choices
- Well written dialogue (though its very particular, you'll either relate to it or it'll seem contrived)
- Passion project

Cons

- Average artwork
- The smallest caveat I have with the writing
- Its a game that's not for everyone


Small summary of the story, dont worry too much about spoilers because the story is neither long, contrived, and quite frankly the description offered by the front page pretty much is the story itself. You play as a man/woman who meets a socially awkward, troubled girl named Evangeline. You befriend her, fall and love and...thats about it really. The course of the game is pretty much slice of life with this troubled 23 yr old; there's no cohabitation nonsense, no real drama, no villains, nor is there any real context - the real game itself is just your day to day interactions with her.

Gameplay is VN, in other words its just spacebar until it stops. There's not really much else you can do outside of interacting with Evangeline. There are choices, and respectfully it does impact the dialogue, but there's zero complexity involved anywhere. If you dont feel like interacting with Evangeline, then you can go sit in a corner somewhere because theres nothing else here.

H gameplay is slightly more complex in that you get to choose what you want to do as opposed to just spacebarring until it ceases to amuse. In fact, its done better than most cohabitation/VN games Ive played because at very least you have agency, and Evangeline actually reacts to your choices, so you dont feel like fucking a brick. There's no VA but there is slight animations, respectable levels at least.

Artwork is ironically not what you're here for. To put simply, its decent, though you can clearly see that its amateurish, the sort of thing youd expect from a 17 yr old's scribbling during school hours. At very least it ties with the story (intentional or otherwise), because storywise Evangeline is not supposed to be this hyper attractive model of a figure, shes just an average girl with average assets, a wallflower that reflects average girls in real life.


To Conclude...

You can pretty much tell its a passion project because the story and characters are uniquely relatable, to the point of feeling semi-autobiographical, but as with most things of that nature, you either get it or dont and never will. Going through this game almost feels like a counselling session, partially because Evangeline's constant self doubt is practically plastered everywhere in the game. And seriously, if ever you need references to what can only be described as lovebird's annoying sweet talks of nothing, this game has that in spades. But hey, the fact that I didnt skip past 90% of the dialogue is at least testament that the writing is engaging, though as mentioned, its not for everyone. Certain other games Ive played will tout its 50k number of words, but if I cant give a shit to it then it might as well be 10 sentences worth of sexual moanings for all I care.

I can only give this game my sincerest recommendations, because though its short, the game is full of heart. And at very least its different, and clearly made to the satisfaction of its creator, so respect that if nothing else.

I know it's vanilla but it's like.. sickly sweet vanilla. The dialogue almost feels.. contrived? Don't know the right words to say.

It's pretty much a linear visual novel, and the branching was pretty unclear about what would change and how. It made me kind of anxious, that I didn't know what I might miss, but eventually I gave up and I didn't really notice much different. The sex minigame was really unclear about how "roughness" worked. The comments say something about edging vs masochism? Couldn't progress the sexual experience screen at all.

meh.

Its a good game AND is one of the few where you has the option of only doing anal, which is great.

+- The story has the high and lows(some story dialogues I find weird);
+- The art is serviceable to good (though lets see when the full is released);
+ Anal only choice is hot;
- Bugged dialogue which the game thinks the mc is a girl instead of my choice (boy);
+ The horny dialogue is good;
- Few sex scenes with few interaction, they could expand this more;

Overall, its a good game and I recommend.

For the most recent version release as of writing this:

Honestly I related SO MUCH to Evangeline. It was like looking into a mirror but with the anatomy of the MC with AMAB OME.


I liked how the relationship developed but I may have gone through too quickly or there wasnt anything else to do at a certain point.

I hope to see how this one finishes off.

This game was an unexpected Gem, giving me a beautiful and at times touching story with real dark and personal moments, that tended to hit right in the core and the feelings. the character you date, Evan, has a personal mental health struggle with many different things, to which i wont spoil, and the story is so elegantly written to tell its narrative, and does so successfully. i originally went from skipping all text, to actually reading it as new scenes came by (skipping repeated text)..


Pros
1-The Narrative is absolutely beautiful and engaging from start to finish. Anyone saying they're stuck in the loop should really start reading the text, as it tells you when and where to explore and talk to eve.

2- Anal Only Options and Dialogue to reflect her anal experience changing over time. As a a top Bi dude, i am an ass dude, and i love anything to do with booties and anal. The only critique i would give would be to allow us to still do vaginal, but with the anal only option, it be her main curiosity or something. or just give us the option to still explore vaginal through gameplay too (By choice, not by having the characters make us do it)

3- Beautiful Art style of black and white, but specific things being shown through colour. it expresses exactly what it is you want expressed and focused on, and i found it beautiful.

4- The animations. I did not expect them due to the lack of a tag in the page itself. and sure, they're not the most refined and animated of animations, but they're animated enough as i was expecting still images, and no one wants to play a game with still image porn content lol. so GG. caught me off guard

5- The freedom to effect your relationship and outcome of it. you've truly got to read the dialogue and conversations to pick up on what she likes and doesn't like, giving her time and attention in order to maintain the relationship. i love that. i love the attention to detail, that if you fuck her to hard, she will tell you for it. however, some more varied dialogue being in circulation rather than getting the same handful of text every single time you speak during sex, or after. kind of kills the buzz after a few hours.


CONS

1- The lack of sexual interaction Variety, now its great you can do vaginal and anal, with a choice to do anal only if you want. but there's not even a Licking pussy or ass option, or a blowjob or tit wank, or pussy rub, ass prod etc scenes. no foreplay at all, other than fingering and rubbing. i feel there needs to be a ton of additions and imagination when it comes to its sequel as i felt this game really lacked variety of options to choose from when it came to the intimate scenes. same with sexual dialogue, keep it consistent with the choices you make, but add more variations of the same point, so you're not seeing the same sentences over and over and over again.

2- Dialogue itself. So i noticed one thing, the Dialogue itself is extremely Formal, too much so. that i'd get and understand speaking so strict and formal like Whilst getting to know each other, but as the relationship develops and the characters become closer and closer, the dialogue gets sweeter sure, but the way the MC describes stuff is extremely robotic and formal to where it just seems bazaar and unnatural at stages of the relationship that shouldn't be so formal at those points.

3- The lack of choices. Now bare with me here. I feel the game should throw you curve balls and choices in game that can either have immediate effects on the game and relationship, or later down the line. e.g. cheating on your partner, i feel the game should allow you to fuck other people, but by doing so can damage or ruin a relationship, dependant on how close you are. so if you've not been together long, they'll break up with you when and IFFFF they find out. but if you've been together a while and are closer, then IFFF they find out, they may give you a second chance, but it having some lasting effects on trust that changes dialogue up and stuff. and allow us to pursue other characters too. give us the choice. but don't give us the choice and have her all of a sudden appear outside the window, or automatically game over. allow it to be realistic, in the sense that she MIGHT find or or MIGHT not. gives us a chance to have some varied sex partners in gender and style, and lord even just replace the look of the existing character. e.g. (Hey I'm going to break up with them, do you want to date instead) and then have the looks of that character warp to the partner, and have a few dialogue differences to indicate the change of relationship, but its essentially the same. idk, tweak it, but you get my point. give the player a chance to choose their relationship or lust.

4- The lack of purpose outside of getting to know the partner. school is irrelevant and there is so far no lasting effects from doing the homework, so I don't understand why there's a homework option to begin with, other than to pass time. it feels like most locations, other than to interact with your girl, is pointless. occasionally grab food to stock up, but that's only through dialogue changes telling you that you're hating your meal, rather than it having any actual gameplay differences. i just feel there could be more in the world and more to do outside of your partner and with them. as it feels very much that you're living in the world, but the world isn't living.

WISHLIST FOR THIS OR THE SEQUEL
1- Pube options, some of us have a hairy fetish, allow us to customise whether our partner has a hairy pussy/dick and balls. or hairy pits, legs. or hairy ass and ass hole, and then allow us to refine HOW hairy it is, and then rework the scenes to incorporate that difference to keep it consistent.

2- More partners to explore, whether through a new save, or through gameplay of either choosing to cheat and having to keep it a secret as best you can (with options of your partner never finding out dependant on your choices) and allow those random people we can fuck to have variety from genitals to gender, body type, personality etc.

3- more interesting things to do in the world. that's that.

5- more refined animations. would love full animations being fully developed, so dick swaying etc. and sound to go with the animations with variety of sound so it doesn't get muted xD

6- a lot more kinks, fetishes, and interactions.

7- partner customisation, allow us to choose from pre-sets to choose what they look like, from hair style, eye style, colours, skin colour, teeth, lips, body style, weight, personality types, etc etc. allows it to be fine tuned to our exact preferences, so if a femboy partner, allowing us to also customise their dick size to be huge or small, etc etc etc


Summary
This game was a pleasant surprise that i didn't expect for me to be so invested into. from a beautifully crafted narrative that feels realistic and engaging, that often tugs at them heart strings, to anal only options and playthroughs if you desire, and actual dialogue to reflect that change over time. the relationship changes as the time goes on, and so does the outcome dependant on your choices, and i find it to almost be the Tell-tale NSFW type game. its beautifully made with passion and love, and worth the time, if you also invest the time into reading the texts. the way the relationship starts and evolves is great, and beautiful. and the game itself is fun, but at times can get abit tedious with the lack of dialogue variety in scenes in and out of Sex. but other than that, this game is amazing, and the developer is clearly passionate about their game. now sure there are their quirks and flaws, that i hope you take into account when making the next title. but this game itself is well worth the time invested and well worth playing. so go support the developer, and play the game. but don't rush through it, skipping text and then leaving a poor review, as there is a few reviews in which clearly shows who has and hasn't been skipping the dialogue to get to the sex scenes.

Now i will say this, if you're looking for quick sex and a quick fap, don't come here, as you will then taint this games beautiful building review score. however, that's not me saying there isnt plenty of sex, as there's tons of it. but you've got to put in some work first. there's a story and development to this game and the relationships involved. so take your time to understand it before you rush to fucking.

theres of course its flaws and stuff, hence not the full 5. as i rarely give 5's. but dependant on later builds, may differ the score for worse or better. and i hope with this review in mind the sequel will be more refined.

I wish I could rate this 3.5 stars, 7/10, rather than 3 since it is above average but it's also just not quite enough to really be Good, IMO. But! It is pretty cute, and sexy in the right places overall for an ero-game so I didn't regret the time I spent on it at all. Its a special little project that is for sure worth trying out. If its a first project the Dev can certainly be proud.

The dialogue is usually nice, the interactions between the protagonist and the love interest, Evangeline, make up 99.5% of the game and they are sweet, funny and romantic, but do get a bit wooden and lecturing in places, but that could just be a factor of the translation. Which also leads to oddities like gendering objects a lot of the time, and there are many typos where words just have 'a' on the end of them and sometimes whole lines are just in spanish. The interations will repeat too since the game has a mild kind of sandbox-grind to it where you pick some interactions at the end of each school day and each category only has a limited number of variation. But overall, its decent stuff. I did end up liking the LI a lot and nearly cried happy tears when I got a beautiful happy ending epilogue.

The visiuals are a bit odd. Its all black and white except for the characters eyes which is a bit of a shame since a lot of information that would be immediately apparant is lost, for example the MC (female atleast, I didn't play the others) is an albino but I didn't clock it til it was mentioned in the text and the Evangeline dyes her hair green, which at least to my memory wasnt even described when you first meet them but waay towards the end. The backgrounds are quite plain and there's very little variety to them, you see the same ones over and over and over again. Also there are only two characters that are drawn, MC and LI and they do have a pleasant, nice style, but few variations and the very few other chracters are just silhouettes. Overall it feels cheap rather than artistic.

Lastly the sex. Its a repeating interactive mini-game where the protagonist tops the LI. You can choose a small number of interactions that make the orgams countdown bars move at different rates to determine who cums first or if its together. There's touching, fingering, vaginal and anal penetration of the LI. No oral of any kind. For us girls theres scissoring too and you can use a double ended dildo to get a bit in on things yourself. The art, while still black and white is a lot better in the sex scenes and my god, the LI's ass, go look at the screenshots of her in doggystyle pose. Gorgeous! No wonder there's an option to focus in on anal-only. And while im not much of a top like MC this analqueen appreciates that you can reciprocate with the double ender, if only the MC was as into it as Evangeline! I also just love that its actually a thing the characters engage with and talk about in the dialogue. For the other less vanilla stuff, im not sure what the game means by the masochism tagged in the banner because if you go too fast and rough the LI is definitely NOT INTO IT and she will complain about it. Sometimes refusing to continue alltogether, so that seems more like just abuse to me? I also didn't find any edging content at all, but I wasn't looking for that either. Overall, within the limitations, what is there is pretty hot and I enjoyed it a lot.

I didn't know what to expect when I came into this but I sure am glad I played this. I've seen this a couple of times but never tried it out before. I wish I had done it sooner but hey better late than never right? I enjoyed the story nothing too crazy but it was nice enough to keep me going. Progressing forward can be a bit repetitive. I loved the MC and Evangeline. Especially Evangeline completely head over heels for her. ( )
(I normally don't do reviews so I'm not good at this. Can't wait for broken & loved too)

The low score is a result of the game being very easy to get stuck in a loop (which has been happening across many updates spanning well over a year and has multiple reports)

Unfortunately I got stuck in a loop so early that I am not even able to really comment on 90%+ of the art but what little I did see was more than decent, it also has a competent enough translation into English, having music tracks displayed is also a nice QOL touch. These points are the only thing keeping this from getting 1 star.

[This is review about version v0.9.7.4]

Probably my second favourite visual novel that I have read, good art,
simple interactive only gameplay and most importantly good story.


Story: You are a student that goes to college to graduate and then meet a girl and then you fall in love with her, bizzare hijinks follow

Pros:
- Great linear plot
- Great character design (Although there are only 2 characters designed, the girl (I believe in every playthrough her name is Evangeline) and yourself.
- Great 'replayability'
- Decent playtime even in it's very early stages of development
- Great sex scenes (Currently two)
- Bonus points for very wholesome and cute dialogues happening between the mc and the girl


Cons:
- Interactions and writing can feel pretty repetitive at times, but it has a ton so unless you play for 3+ hours you won't feel any difference.
- Theres minimal amount of interactions with other parts of the world which I do feel like this game is missing, the girls family, other characters in the current setting (teachers, random school students.. etc.)
- (This one is only my opinion) The MC could blush a bit more noticeably,
that would be cool.

Notes:
The homework feature at the end of the class could have some sort of minigame depending on how much time you spent doing your homework, otherwise I can't tell if it has any effect not doing it.

Overall a really good game which I will return to with future updates.

5/5 BOMB and im looking forward to future updates!

This game genuinely feels like it was written by someone who has never had a conversation in their life. I rolled my eyes when the MC lectures a bully about taking the LI's bag and says something like "you should think twice about taking people's bags, it could have medicine in it." and the bully responds "you are right now I feel stupid about taking it" and the situation is resolved.

The sandbox elements are completely unnecessary and you have almost no direction on how to progress which usually boils down to repeating the same dialogue until something happens.

The art is pretty nice at points though.

I recently had the pleasure of playing this game, and I must say that it exceeded all of my expectations. The story is incredibly engaging to me. The characters feel human to me and it feels down to Earth. Overall, I can confidently say that this game deserves a 5-star rating.

I've played this for the past week now and so far I'm loving the story! I like the characters and dialogue. It has a story with flawed characters and the steps they take to improve their health, which is a breath of fresh air from all the plain horny games.

Love the game.. Wholesome scenes the character designs I mean everything about it perfect... I love how the dev is so active with they're supporters. It's exactly what I'm looking for in a game like this. 10000/10

A miracle vanilla little game among the sea of depravity of F95 (kidding, I love the kinks as well).
A dating sim with a singular waifu where you decide the pace of the seduction game, with a decent level MTL (perfectly intelligible) and, from what I can tell, good replayability potential (still in my first playthrough).

This game gave me fucking diabetes. It is very sweet and vanilla compared to a lot of stuff on this site. It has yuri, futa, and straight options and you seduce the most adorable jelly bean. MTL is not bad since it is translating from two Roman based languages Spanish to English.

This game despite still having some placeholder art, already deserves a 5 star because of one simple thing that very few other games in this website have: Interactive Sex.

You can launch the game, load a save, touch, finger or fuck Evangeline as much as you want... Did either of you cum four times and the scene ended? No problem, you can do it next day, or better... reload the save and do it again!

5/5 to this game, and a guaranteed 5/5 in the next game if we can do the girls there the same we can do Evangeline (plus oral, if possible.)

What a sweet story. I battle my feelings and the expectations of the world every day. I wish somone would shut me up and pat my hair. Great art style and prose. Please give us more. I need the feels this game gives me.

This is one I've seen around, and always stayed away from. And I was right to do so. Based on the title and art I thought "It looks like a poor me, life is depressing type story." And I was right. Sort of. The sad person isn't you, it's the love interest. It isn't much deeper than: She's a troubled individual, and you white knight for the sad emo girl.

It's a sandbox, first off, which in my opinion takes away from any decent story telling. Not to mention the broken english that makes it hard to read as well. You just do the usual "repeat dialog events until a story even happens." And learn about Evangeline's woe-is-me life.

The art is inconsistent. Which sucks, because I am a sucker for original art, or at least hand drawn. Instead of the usual 4 Daz models. Obviously this game wasn't meant for me, it's more for the old tumblr crowd. If that makes sense. And usually my reviews are forever long but I don't have enough of an opinion on this to flesh out this one.

Overall, a little boring but has potential. If you're into white-knighting and being sad as a character trait you'll gravitate here. Otherwise, give it a pass.

I'm reviewing this as a work in progress, and for a WIP that obviously does need improvements with some scripting issues and cleaning up translation, the base being worked from is absurdly great. Most H-games wouldn't even consider adding a "hand-holding" or "hug" feature, and that's indicative of a focus on making the main characters have really good chemistry and making their romance seem earned. The whole thing is extremely cute and I'm excited for progress.

This is novel is fantastic, it contains a very light hearted story, the dialogue in the sex scene follows the couple's rhythm, it is very satisfying. About not being colorisded or animated, since i prefer story over graphics, therefore is no problem to me, besides the fact that Evangeline it's extremely cute.