VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - By Midsummer Moonlight [Ep. 2] [Mimir's Lab]

As of episode 2, this was a largely fun game that I very much recommend. I struggled a bit with rating this because most of my gripes stem from the behavior of some of the characters. The issue is that said behavior largely fits in character, and none of it seems super unbelievable. So it seems to be well written, even if it's not to my liking, hence the reservation on rating lower for it.

I have two complaints. One is that the MC is the embodiment of teenage angst, and it really wears out it's welcome. It's understandable somewhat, the issue is that the creator drops us into what feels like the midpoint of the story, as far as the characters are concerned, and we need to piece together what's going on so we can understand the rather extreme behaviors that are going on. On the one hand, it makes the world seem more alive, as there's already old wounds that are picked at. On the other hand, it can be really confusing / off-putting to see a character act one way to one character, and then do a 180 with their behavior to another. Especially when said behavior is not explained.

My second complaint is towards the sex scene, and this one is a bit more of a personal preference. For the most part, the animation would loop, and then stop for a few lines of dialogue, and then loop again. I generally prefer to see my dirty talk while the action is taking place, as it were. The only real issue aside from personal taste is that in one of the angles you're clearly seeing the camera clip through his penis, which is very off-putting.

All in all, I do recommend playing this game, a lot of time and care has clearly been poured into the world, and it SEEMS like the character issues I have will be resolved as the story unfolds.

I really like the character design and the plot has a lot of potential and it's engaging enough because of how the characters interact with each other. All of those thing kinda keep you wanting to play. Also another thing is that each update has a good amount of content, it's not an update that takes 15 min to go through, so I gives you a reasonable play time. Also one thing that I like is that the taboo thing of the game is taken more seriously and more dramatically than those visual novels do, so it feels more realistic somehow. Also most of those games rely exclusively on the "roommate" girls, but on this one, the other girls are also really interesting. None of the girls feels generic, each one has their own strong personality traits and that is really amazing.

This game is so fckin good with the story and animation, its so realistic, i like the mc that have cold hearted like in this game than the mc that pervert from the start of the game. First impression is important, and Midsummer Moonlight certain left a very decent one. What stands out the most to me is the way conversations are presented. The dialogues are well paced through great use of frames, allowing for exchanges that feel natural and expressive. The story telling is(thus far) spot on, and the girls while super hot are also brimming with interesting personalities thanks to the excellent writing.

TL;DR = interesting story premise, nice renders, but it has bland conversation between characters and annoying MC.

Story: 2/5
+ Lets start with short description of story: main male MC grew up surrounder with 3 hot sisters. He is very close to them (no incest at this point, just good friends) and he has trouble connecting to "normal" girls. Unfortunately his parents and uncle are huge uncaring assholes who dont approve of his proximity to sisters and they want to separate them at all cost. They even prefer him going to war, where he might potentionally die.
- This game has good story premise, but unfortunately story is not done well. Main concept is good, but it is ruined by boring "sauce" around.
- There are a lot of annoying side characters that have too much screen time.
- There is also a lot of pointless bland conversation about boring topics. (example: some side character is going with MC and his sisters on trip. You will see long and pointless conversation between that side character and her family member about going on trip. SERIOUSLY? WHO CARES?!)
- Another negative part about story is irritating MC. He is a mix between 2 personalities: 1st is submissive doormat without any personality or willpower. Majority of people around him treat him poorly and he doesnt fight back. But then sometimes he completely switches to 2nd personality that is manipulative abusive asshole, that get kicks from manipulating innocent girls and watching them suffer. I disliked MC a lot.

Art and sex stuff: 4/5
+ Renders are good.
+ Girls are hot.
- Unfortunately the game is still early in development and there isnt much content. So far only 1 BJ and sex scene and it is very short.

Gameplay: 4/5
+ Typical VN with choices.
+ Looks like choices matter. That's good.
+ English is decent.
- There is barely any soundtrack ingame.

To sum it up:
Despite my reserversations about story and characters I actually enjoyed this game. I will recommend it.
But you should check the game later, when there is more content.

Rating Ep.2

First things first...

Visuals: 5/5
All the characters look fantastic, and even the men look good! Which is an anomaly, as most of the time they tend to look like aliens compared to their female counterparts
Story: 5/5
I was immediately sucked in, the dialogue feels natural, and situations feel mostly believable and have consequences for the actions that happen. While you are thrust into the story, the question on HOW things got where they are kept me reading every line, sometimes twice over

Criticism
There are really only two things I can really criticize that aren't just nitpicks about dialogue or story, first being the overall lack of music. While there is music in the game, it feels a little too sparse. I understand not wanting to just contstantly blast music, but I think a little more wouldn't hurt to add here and there. Secondly, some of the scene transitions are jarring, to say the least. They just sort of happen, and it threw me into whiplash as to where, when, and what was happening.

Now for me to ramble a bit...

So often with these kinds of visual novels, the mundane nature and dull tone of the dialogue and story just makes any sort of interest or care die in a ditch. You just end up watching the scene, skipping through swathes of vapid content until you reach the scenes for the characters you care about. Then the game ends, and you feel like you just spent two to three hours mostly skipping through a game.

So let me be the first to say that it feels like a breath of fresh air to see the taboo nature of incest and the impact it can have on people's lives taken seriously. I wasn't too sure about the creators words of wanting to be more realistic with their dialogue and story-telling. But I am glad to have been wrong, as I was sucked into this story and intrigued by its characters. I also know there's a non-incest version, but as I haven't played it I can't make any serious comments on it. I heard that it does have unique dialogue, making each version of the game slightly unique. How long the developer keeps this up and how complex it will get remains to be seen, but it is a bold move, and one I wholly support.

If you haven't guessed, I really recommend By Midsummer Moonlight, and if the dev keeps up this level of writing, pacing, and (semi) realism, I think this could be one of the new greats on this site. It's still early, so nothing is certain, but this is something I certainly am excited about. Also, Mimir, make a subscibestar my dude. I would sub in a heartbeat. That is all.

Really enjoying the story. This is one of those rare games that I actually ended up reading all the way through instead of skipping. I'm looking forward to seeing some more of the background details flushed out.
Art is good but not many "scenes" so far.

i like it, the only few issue i have it is the missed oppertunity for teasing and sexual content. theres only 2 real sex scene. the MC is too passive imo, i wish he was a little more handsy around the girls. the game is off to a great start.

Everything that the dev has done so far is really interesting, and the writing is really top notch, I understand that there are some who dislike some characters but the truth is that it seems interesting to me, not all people are perfect and not all characters have to be liked, and as for the mc, I find his personality very interesting at the moment and I want to see how he develops, it hurts that there are some people
in this forum that prefers a mc without personality who fucks everything that comes across instantly or so it seems, anyways, great game and looking forward to how it develops

This game is a story about a guy who just recently graduated and is staying at home unemployed. His goal is join an army which the game is making a direct reference to the Iraq War where the United States invaded which lasted from 2003-2011. Some players hate politics in their games, so this is a heads up that this game does involve references to real life politics on occasion. Despite his goal, the MC proves to be both physically and emotionally inept for being a soldier as shown by his interactions with his family. For one, he is easily outpaced physically by one of his sisters and even is chided that he needs to train more. His emotional ineptness is proved through his interaction with Natalie. When any of his family members confronts him on his hatred of Natalie or why he wants to join the army, he slinks away via his own cowardice. In essence, the MC is a wimp with an emotional intelligence of elementary school kid. In one scene, he demands an honest conversation with Natalie and when Natalie asks him for an honest answers, he absolutely refuses and runs away. He shows this type of extremely immature behavior several times throughout the game which makes listening to him insufferable since most of the other characters in the game are level headed for the most part. This is one of those stories where there is supposed to be some sort of pay off because the MC keeps refusing to answer questions that the audience and all the characters wants answers to but it's hard to want to stay around for the pay off because of the MC's whiny nature and emotional ineptitude.

If there's anything that's good about this is that the renders are above average. I understand there should be variety in character looks but the sisters look so different that I wouldn't have guessed that they are sisters at all. Having an MC with a lot of negative traits make this story difficult to enjoy.

I don't know if I've ever hated characters in a VN as much as some of the characters here, I'm assuming they'll be more understandable with more back story but MC and Hannah especially come off as just unbearable right now to the point that I'm not even interested in continuing. I feel like an awful person playing this guy. Victoria is a close runner-up while everyone apart from Junie and Audrey feel at minimum grating or like Natalie, tragic. Audrey's bounce back from essentially getting raped because of Victoria's actions to bringing her along to the lake house makes no sense, even if we ignore the weird situation of what happened in the first place.

Story would otherwise be interesting if I actually wanted to be the MC and continue. I think too much of what drives the MC to be the way he is (such as hating Natalie) is obscured and makes his positions unempathisable. Models are way too samey when 3 of the characters are supposed to be sisters but they all end up looking like sisters.

I'll start by saying that I was against the Aubrey scene change in the last update and I have to admit that I was completely wrong.
After we got to know all the characters, it became clear that what happened was absolutely not in her nature.

Obviously, the strengths of the game are the characters and dialogue.
It seemed quite fresh and unusual that most of the characters are absolutely against incest, despite the fact that this is an incest story.

The female characters are beautiful, but I didn't like that they all look pretty much the same. But this is a known issue with the Honey Select engine.

All in all, it's a great story and I'm looking forward to the next update.

Well first of all, this is a heavy story focused game. Excellent story and is a very slow paced one at that. Hopefully it is only for the beginning and that more actions will gradually start to appear with the same quality of writing, particularly from MC as he's extremely passive. I like the MC but sometime I would love someone to tell him that he's in a porn game.

My mains issue (even though I gave 5 stars) is the lack of diversities in FMC. 3 of them are sisters, but it looks like all 6 or 7 are identical sisters. What saving it is the clear distinction in their personnalities due to the superb writing.

As of V0.2
Fantastic game with one of the great stories that I look forward to next release and good looking female charecters and a likeable Main charecter who isn't perving on others or acts like an idiot . And the dialogues are well written and they feel natural and no annoying Sandbox or point and click gameplay , it's a nice visual novel with branching paths . Overall excellent game , looking forward to future updates . Highly recommended.

So I judge games like this on four factors: story, models, animation, gameplay.

Story-wise, this game is fantastic. The story is real down-to-earth, something a lot of male players will probably empathize with. After all, we all went through the process of 'I graduated, now what?' It's not a 'coming of age' so much as a 'finding a purpose', and this story showcases that well. It also has plenty of vague background relations between the MC and his family, in particular, that give you juuuust enough to lead you on. Good storytelling.

The models are...a mixed bag. Some girls look fine, others look like Sci-Fi horror villains. The faces are great, very cute and visually appealing. The skin texture, however, is extremely glossy and makes everyone look wet all the time. The models are also extremely gangly and unnatural, with small waists and HUGE hips. Hannah in particular looks straight-up cartoonish with her absurdly broad hips, thin waist and super tiny head. It does not match her body at ALL. The MC also suffers somewhat, he's meant to be well-built and muscled, but his shoulders and arms are drawn too close into his body. It's like he built every muscle except his latissimus dorsi and it makes him look squished together.

Animations is...not there, sadly. It's mostly frame-to-frame, with only a few animations such as sucking or humping thrown in, and there's so much blatant collision and wonky physics that there's no pleasure to be derived from them. I hope it gets better later on, but at the start it's just bad.

Finally, gameplay. It's a clicking simulator. There's no roaming, exploring, few options in dialogue or choices, it's a visual novel.

So yeah, the story is definitely the strongest point, and the rest just barely supports it. We'll have to see how it grows going forward, but it IS still interesting enough to give it a go.

The development of this game started again and damn it's a good one. There isn't any brain dead characters, sandbox crap, bad writing or extreme cliches so it's off to a very good start. As a visual novel, the choices for now feel impactful and I can't wait to see how they develop in the future.

There's a lot, and I mean quite A LOT of drama that really keeps you invested in the story. I personally love all the different character expressions and many renders during conversations, it makes the characters feel so much more alive. The good writing adds to it too.

For a game made with the HS engine (or a version of it?) it's probably the best looking one in this site, if we are talking about the games that use this type of graphics.

There's just not much to complain about, maybe how some character behaviours can be a bit frustrating but I'm pretty sure that's because we still don't have the full picture of the story.

Honestly, just a good story.
MC isn't a hornball going after anything with a vagina.
There's some deep family drama that we don't yet know the reason for, but have gotten small glimmers to answers/reasons.
Not many choices at all, but the ones that are there seem impactful. You're not deciding the attitude or affection level of the characters, but making seemingly meaningful choices.
Just 1 lewd scene, and the animations are nice. It's more of a plot device than sexy content, but it works.
Characters have depth and personality.

If you're just here for sex, move on. This story is starting out good and can't wait to see where it goes from here.

When I saw this was an incest game, I thought it's either gonna be those ones where the family members just jump on the mc from the get go, or those where the MC just peeks on his family all the time and the most he gets is a handjob. But I was completely wrong.

I was definitely surprised to see a story where the protagonist is against the idea of having intimacy with his sisters tho we don't know about the future. There is not much in the story as of episode 1 but there are a lot of layers and unrevealed questions. For starters, we don't know anything about the protagonist who isn't just a Gary Stu or a idiotic pervert. He actually acts like a real person who isn't one dimensional and we also don't know the motive behind his decision to join the army nor his beef with his bitchy mom. The conversation between him and the sisters feels actually natural and believable. Overall so far, all of the LIs are written well and each has their own personality. I ain't fond of honey select models but the female models on this one are really beautiful and done well.

The only thing I don't like about this game is that we don't get that many choices. The player has to have some sort of overachieving control over the choices so I hope the Dev adds more in the future updates cause rn this is more of a kinetic novel than a visual game. And the last scene was also totally unbelievable. Despite that I really liked the story and characters in this game.

It's been nearly 7 months since the developer's last update so I hope that won't be the case anymore as this has the potential to be one of my favourites.

[For Episode 1 Revision 1]

By Midsummer Moonlight is a, for now, mostly Kinetic Visual Novel which proposes a more grounded take on the entire ~siblings' love~ erotica storytelling, shying away from most of the cheap incest gimmicks found elsewhere.

It's like, say: Flowers in the Attic (V. C. Andrews' book), but no kid is locked away (yet) or is too young to understand what is going on. Also 3D renders.

Backdrop: A paternal figure so absent that it could as well not exist, a matriarch too cold and cruel to show any affection to her children... resulting on said children, thanks to growing up without proper love from their parents, forming fraternal bonds so strong that they border on dependency and all things taboo that come with it. It is intimate, personal, vulnerable.

There's one extra layer of self-awareness to the narrative, as the game takes place on a world where plot bits like "Help me step bro, I'm stuck!" not only exist but are almost too popular. The game knows that, rolls it's eyes at it, and tries to go with something way more taboo and forbidden than horny stereotypes played for memes and giggles: strong feelings that can transform into something forbidden in an instant, for they are fragile confusing and induce a strange sense of guilty as they would be considered so pure under other circumstances. Frustrated by what others would think, shame or even "kink", this is the secret and intimate world of the type of erotica you would live in secret or read in hiding.

There's not much content for now, but it has a ton of potential.

Gave it a quick playthrough. Looks good so far!

My complaints have already been brought up by some other people or discussed by the creator, so no point in reiterating them in depth. Mostly more choice would be nice, but since things are early on, I hardly take fault with things being a bit more linear at the moment.

Enjoyed the dialogue and plot a lot, and definitely looking forward to learning more about the characters and the story. I'm a bit picky about art / graphics for these types of games, and thought things looked good. Only noticed a small issue with the the last scene 1st person view, but nothing that really bothered me.

Reviewed as of Ch1, so fairly early on in development.

Honestly the main reason for such a poor rating is the forced interactions with shitty characters. The art is ok, the story was still early but it's also ok but then the dev torpedoes the game by forcing you to click through one of the dumbest scenes I have seen in a game. I want to play a game not sit through some shitty fantasy because that's what it feels like. The improbable scene is just too silly and kills three characters in one shot. GG.