Ren'Py - Cabin by the Lake [v0.37e] [Nunu]

Review of version [v0.17d]

Cabin by the lake puts a simple but captivating premise, a family reunion of big breasted ladies in a time loop.
Straightforward right?
Well the game is a far cry from that, it’s a tangled maze of choices and tiring repetitive gameplay that underuses the elements of creativity in a sandbox with a time loop, which forces you to dislike what good is left in the game.

But let’s start with the beginning: You start as a random dude going with your family to a reunion of all your other relatives in a wooden cabin near a lake (hence the title).
After the game has welcomed you, in the introduction with all the characters such as: the angry sister, the promiscuous aunt, the tomboy cousin… and presented you the “events” (which will keep looping during the entirety of the playtime), the real game finally begins.
At the end of the vacation, You are thrown into the cabin again (and you’ll be thrown in again, every ending) with free roam and with some hints on how to proceed but with one single clear objective: try to corrupt everyone and get laid.

Gameplay wise, it is a sandbox with a set of choices per loop, therefore is not grindy or aimless at all, since you can spend actions only where the events or characters are, and the map will show them for you.
Moreover everything seems not contorted at first, the game expects you to experiment, talk to this girl and receive X answer, what happens if I meet my aunt and talk about my sister?
What happens if I spend the entirety of the vacation with my cousins?
Et cetera.
Seems pretty straightforward right?
Well no, the game gives you the impression of doing whatever you want to progress forward, but no.
In reality you will blindly brute force every option, every choice that seems inclined to bring you closer to sex while pressing the CTRL button non stop to skip the lines you may already have read 5 times.
So it’s a game about trial and error, which is totally fine, but even in hard roguelikes I am expecting some kind of rewards or upgrades, here you may get a corruption world point and an indication that you are going on the right direction… Till you get thrown back again searching for a new solution.
To be honest there are some gameplay upgrades that change personalities, past actions, events or implementations and things like these are truly accepted, although they aren’t much and don’t galvanize the gameplay loop enough to be truly welcomed; when I obtained them I don’t smile or cheer up, I just sigh, sigh that I can finally progress somewhat through the CTRL adventure.

Setting aside one moment the gameplay, let's talk about the writing and the story. The story could be defined as simple or bland, nothing happens, you go to a cabin with your relatives, you spend the days there and then you go away, the end. No real big event that you have to stop through repeating the same loop nor incidents nor enemies, you get the point. It's eventless, almost boring but it is meant to be this way, to catch you off guard with some particularly good moments, (or some disturbing ones that just makes turn off the game, if you have played it, you know which one I am referring to!), it half nails this concept albeit, because on one hand you'll be welcomely surprised for the turn of events but on the other you'll still button smash every line waiting for these climaxes to happen and not every twist is as the same quality of others.
The first half of the game slouches a bit, the second part when most progress is done, feels almost like a different game.
And this brings me to the characters, they all have a personality and some quirk that either gets twisted or put at the extreme, characters like Sami even if kinda tropey (Aaah a sister that hates you) ends up being wholesome, others like Lin completely miss the mark feeling weak. They all range from interesting, to kinda boring and completely skippable, but this doesn't matter you have to do them all to feel and gain some kind of progress!

And here I arrive at the biggest let down after the gameplay: the presentation, the models, sprites, the images overall. Throughout the main game you'll meet all the characters in a vn sprite, And almost all will have the same expression and pose during the course of the loop, and sure a few of of them actually have expressions and are actually lively, (Like Alex who has the most poses) or when you do their path they start to wake up from their marble sleep (Like Sami), but most of them will feel and remain still, like statues, that change expressions or show boobs once in a while. And so are the events around these characters, motionless. MC will touch a boob you'll get the description, MC puts his head into the melons of a girl, a black screen and a description, most scenes appear through text and the ones that are actually rendered will be very very static.
The renders and lighting in general is kinda decent, sometimes average but rarely downright ugly.
The few best scenes will just be conversations or unpredictable events but on the rest of the dialogues and descriptions, it falls short.

In addition the writing, is smooth, no errors or hiccups, although not exceptional to justify the many text based scenes, I have no complains.

Other curious additions that I will give credit, is the progress tab a the end of each loop.
It will show you the achievements, the unlocked elements and even emails that you obtained after doing X thing.
(Also it’s not a critique, but I don’t know where to put this, but the intro screen with all the love interests behind a light blue background looks terribly similar to the Weezer album, was it put on purpose? Who knows but now I can’t unsee it.)

To conclude Cabin by the lake is a vn with some actual interesting and cool moments held back by his slouching gameplay and presentation that although lackluster gets costantly updated, in fact some of these flaws could or will be smoothed and fixed, making the game more enjoyable even to the eye, and this review will probably change, but as for now the game is in a poor state, which even if it encourages me to continue playing more, it also makes me wish it was a better experience.

This game is what I want more of on this site, incredibly realistic and likable characters with well written dialogue and totally boobtastic proportions. Most games go all in on realism, with realistic looking ladies, or all in on surrealism, with ridiculous proportions and ridiculous writing. This game takes the best bits from both camps imo!

The only issue is this game leans on it's writing a little too much, with too many scenes describing what is happening rather than showing it. I appreciate the spicy descriptions of undulating tit flesh but some animations to go along with it would be nice. The game also lacks any sound during sexual scenes. Adding in either of these would improve how immersive the scenes are.

The loop guide is also difficult to navigate, with massive trees of dialogue options that link to other trees with even more dialogue options, all with conditional variables with no guidance on how to get them. This problem will only get worse as the game expands so I think a second look at the UI might be in order.

I'd like to be able to filter the loop guide, for example a toggle to remove all events that I don't have the proper corruption values to activate would reduce clutter a lot.

Edit: Another issue is that some scenes require a lot of specific choices to make and are difficult to repeat in a timely fashion. There are also dialouges that you have to play through every time such as the meal events that take up the players time unnecessarily. If you are trying to complete the dialouge tree this can be extremely time consuming.

One idea is to allow the player to repeat one scene at the end of each loop using the stats/variables as they are during the end of that loop, and perhaps this could upgrade to more uses as world corruption increases. This way you can make those hard to reach scenes require less grind to complete.

[Version 0.17d]

Played with and without incest patch and I recommend the incest patch as it tends to make more sense and better explains the relationships between characters and a lot of interactions in game.

Fair warning, if you're thinking the game will have a lot of sexual content then prepare to be pretty disappointed. The game only has pretty explicit images and animations with one character in this version and it takes quite a while to get there unless you rush through the game and if that's all you care about then there are much better options elsewhere.
If you don't care about that and are fine with more thigh and upward shots of girls with their massive breast hanging out and quite a bit of scenes described through just dialogue then I highly recommend it. The biggest highlight for me personally was the messages you receive both in and after the end of the loop when you fulfill certain conditions within each run as it felt like a good reward.

The gameplay is easily the best thing about it though. The loops and trying to find things naturally can be a grind but is very entertaining if you like solving puzzles with help from ctrl to speed through things already seen. Balancing the stats and events to get the scenes you need is very fun but some of them are admittedly too confusing or precise if you're really trying to get everything, but it isn't necessary for the meat of the game. The corruption comes in terms of unlocking levels you select before the run which you can toggle to modify available scenarios with more corruption always giving access to more sexual content.

The characters themselves are all very distinct both in their dynamics and quirkiness with some development for the characters in the run which usually unlocks the corruption options that modify the past before the reunion. That change makes the characters fairly different and more open in an interesting way though nothing is particularly deep and stays fairly lighthearted, for now at least.

If an easily digestible sort of roguelite time loop visual novel interests you, then I highly recommend Cabin by the Lake.

Love the exaggerated body types, love the subtle humor woven into the narrative, love the surprisingly endearing relationships with some of the girls, and really fascinated by the slowly unfolding mystery underlying everything.
Only real complaint is that the time loop mechanic does get grindy after a time, and some of the scenes are frustratingly elusive even with the guide.

Version 0.17
I haven't gone through the whole game yet, but I was honestly surprised from it. I ignored it so long that I didn't realized it was a game where you were in a loop. With each loop you'll go through multiple choices in the game that'll unlock statuses for each person and help make other choices throughout the game. These statuses can change how the person will act in certain situations and unlock more choices.

The only downsides I really have to this is I don't see a gallery for any animation I unlocked, there isn't much content for some characters, and I'm unsure how the jealously thing works for a certain character. It would also be awesome to have more statuses as well, but I'll wait to see how this game fairs in the future updates.

only thing its missing to get 5 stars is a replay gallery to see what animated scenes you missed. beyond that the game is great. Breast expansion done right, good story and good flow. Could use more animations but I am sure with time that will happen. Game is worth a play for sure.

A game focused around the titular "Cabin by the Lake" where you meet your relatives for a reunion for a weekend...only to end up caught in some kind of timeloop.

It starts a bit slow at first, and might take some trial and error, but slowly but surely you learn how to corrupt others at the reunion causing each "loop" to become a little lewder with more sex acts/fetishes being introduced.

The focus is also, in case you haven't noticed from the front page, on big boobs, huge gazongas...just gigantic bahonkaradoos. So if that isn't your thing, probably best to stay away.

Overall, I'd advice people to get into this game late. As it will give you plenty of times to experiment with each new loop. Because trying to focus on finding new content from update to update when you've already found everything else can sometimes feel a bit...lacking. Even though I know the developer is doing their best and it is unfair to expect a ton of new content with each new update.

Though with that said, it's always a joy to seeing this updated and I look forward to finding out the mystery of the loop...after fully corrupting everyone at the cabin, of course.

Innovative mechanics, good writing... Overall this one was a surprise. It's not the usual visual novel, this is actually something that resembles a proper game. Excited for what comes next! I may be biased though. Because I like big boobs.

Huge tits attached to sweet girls, what's not to love? The guide is challenging, but straightforward to follow. The time loop mechanic makes every playthrough enjoyable as you look for how things have changed THIS time. The developer is present and updates regularly.

I had been avoiding this game because I'm not that huge on breast fetishism, but after casually deciding to try it out, I learned how bad I had been missing out.
The games core concept is playing through the same weekend with unlocked changes again and again. Now, that might sound horrid, and I think it would be if you were fumbling in darkness, but there's a handy, albeit slightly buggy in-game guide to help you (I only ever got stuck on 1 or 2 details).
In addition, you have hints as to what you are missing and you can see the times at where you could possibly achieve it, which manages to narrow down the search to bearable levels while still feeling like you are achieving something.
My only minor gripes is that I wish we had some sort of hint for the rewards rather than forcing me to brute-force every conversation tree containing the character and that the in-game guide would default back to where you left it, rather than your current time in the story.
The story is very enjoyable, it gives you a nice feeling of manipulating the characters, and while I'm not huge on boob fetishes, it's not like I dislike them and they take up (only) about 50-60% xD
There are a few parts that seemed outside my preference but they were easily avoided.
All in all a great time-sink, with many different personalities to enjoy (unforunately not body types), but I look forward to future installments with great expectations

I really like the branching game system, the aesthetics of the game and how it looks all the models of the girls, plus it shows a lot of commitment to the game, especially Alex!
PS: I would put some more animation in relation to touching the chest of the characters or things like that.

great idea terrible execution. I would like to give constractive critisisim but this is beyond repair. Looping again and again is really distracting from the story even with the most patient people, even with cheats. I played it for pregnancy content but im no way near it and i honestly cant keep going anymore, my head hurts.
Still love what you are trying to achieve mr dev, more power to you.
I hope you find a solution to please everyone and get high rating on your game you really deserve it ,cuz i can see this game is made with love.
Even if i used cheats after 6hours of play time and still havent gotten what i wished for, i enjoyed my time.
Im not even into gigantic tits but still liked all the availible characters. They are unique and lovely.
I will rewisit this once its completed. And Try to run fresh start with no guides and cheats, if i can get a satisfying end withouth losing my last few braincells this review will be 5 stars. Good luck.

I wanted to give this game a better rating because of the gigantic breasts, but the looping system made me feel like I was having a stroke. I don't know why a game about giant tits has to be this complicated . It's a shame because the girls look incredible and there's loads of marvelous big breast content hidden in this game behind this convoluted looping dialogue puzzle system. Even with you turn on the dialogue map & hints, you're still not exactly sure what you're doing. For example, no matter how many times Alex fucked or sucked me, she won't swallow the cum.

The characters and plot would fit better in a Visual Novel. Apart from their boobs, each girl seems to have an interesting background that could be fleshed out in a story. I understand writing and coding a visual novel will take more time and energy, but please find a way to make this game feel like you're not just aimlessly fielding through a maze of the same dialogue options over and over again.

You have to give credit where credit is due. The developer has produced a lot of content for this game and it is frequently updated. Other devs just sit back and rake in the patreon dough with one or two updates per year. This game released in October 2021 and there's already lots of sexy scenes.

Maybe I am a moron, and this looping system is clearer to everyone else. And no, you shouldn't make it so easy that it's basically a tit slideshow. But there needs to be a more simple way to navigate through this game.

TLDR: Unless oversized boobs are a turn off for you, I'd suggest playing the game at least for 2 playthroughs to see what you're getting into. Surprisingly deep.

So; believe it or not, from the first image I was under the impression this was a game revolving around boobs. 5 hours later and I'm knee deep in a time loop trying to get my cousin to have more confidence in herself. That said, boobs still are very important in this game, so fret not.

The time loop aspect is very interesting and very well done, surprisingly. For a game that is still being updated, it also works surprisingly well since even in its current state you can complete multiple playthroughs and progress. It also feeds into my own personal excitement of hitting skip and then noticing the text stops in an event you've seen a couple times because now there's something new to it.

In the current build, you probably won't see too many in-depth event trees revolving around the parents of the cabin but for the characters already with content you'll be surprised just how far the rabbit hole goes.

For additions, I hope after all characters are fleshed out they look to potentially add a day that acts as sort of an 'ending' to a character, as well as add additional cgs to existing events. Based off the currently most developed character (Alex), if all characters of this game can just reach that as a standard I think this game could be an amazing cache of content.

Sorry if the review seems all over the place, just got done with a six hour stint of playing this game non-stop when I just wanted to see tits.

This game has great bones with a good gameplay loop, but it is missing content. This game has the possibility to become one of the best lewd games I have ever played, even though balloon tits aren't my taste. Also it would be nice if the characters would have more expression, currently they look quite stiff.
Try the game out currently there is already a few hours of gameplay to discover.

2023-12-15: I've updated my review from poor to good. I do this because in part the game has become slightly less convoluted. It still IS convoluted and this would garner the game a 3 star if not for the following two points:

1. The author is good at interacting with his patreon community and has kept a consistently good schedule. I've been an on and off patreon in support of this.

2. Even though the game has a focus on massive mammaries there's a lot of variation between girls.

The art style is not for everyone, but it works for me and it taps into two specific fetishes of incest and boobs.

The gameplay loop could be a lot better, but it's manageable.

Excellent story with a tight gameplay loop and a fantastic in-game guide to help you get to new scenes. If you're not the type to immediately click away on seeing the banner, give it a try! Only errors I've had are with content that's very new at the time of this post(.10d).

(A review based on version 0.09.) I look forward to updates of this game. I came for the giant boobs and the promise of eventual pregnant content, but I also like the writing and characterization. I'm also a fan of the unusual loop mechanic: normally I'd feel compelled to save at every decision in case I make a mistake/want to see other possible results, but here I can experiment with choices without worrying that I'm foreclosing one path or another.

(Patch 0.08d)
Big tits and narrative (and gameplay) with slow corruption.

It's got potential for greatness. Just need to make the world truly feel more porny the more corruption there is , like changing the world itself , not just the character behaviors.

Played through all the current content of v0.09d and overall really liked the way this game is both established and the mechanics involved. Maybe not perfect, but I don't see any reason why this game won't continue to be a very enjoyable experience for people who don't mind reading and a slower burn. There is going to be a lot of pressure on the dev to balance new content with keeping things manageable without endless replays, I hope they have a good plan in place for it.

Pros
- The looping of a single weekend idea works really well here specifically because the Corruption system essentially re-writes the characters' histories so every new rank brings them into the weekend at a new baseline. It makes sense why there can be large changes in how events play out based on what the "status quo" moving into the weekend is.
- Alex C0-C3 is pretty damned well written. I like how her struggle of both liking and hating her body is presented, she's so brash because she needs to be constantly validated that you aren't like everyone else in how you view her body and treat her. Also makes sense why it becomes important for her to both be able to safely experiment but also keep strict rules of engagement to protect her closest relationship.
- The other characters have some very interesting C0-C1s currently, most of them show a lot of promise to have some large variety moving forwards with how each character develops and what their scenes and fetishes will be like.
- I like the precedent set by a lot of smaller interactions or decisions having small but noticeable effects later in the weekend. (ex. Alex seeing cum on Lina or lipstick on your dick from Lin and having something to say about it) Makes individual runs a lot more interesting when little differences and asides can be peppered in here and there to shake things up on top of the larger changes of full Corruption levels.
- Far more personal taste point here, but as someone who gets off on girls getting drenched in cum, the number of times the MC's prodigious loads are commented or focused on was great.

Cons
- This game is definitely grindy already and there's really only one main character throughline present. A lot of work has clearly gone into making it a bit easier, but when Character Corruption levels trigger on specific interactions that can be easily missed or require the whole weekend of particular setup with little variance, I can see this game getting crowded with too much content in too short an in-game timeframe that requires way too many replays to chug through.
- Alex's C4 felt very out of sync with her previous corruption levels. While the given explanation of "early sexual experience she's eager to explore" does explain C4 Alex's actions, it feels extremely out of character for the Alex of C0-C3, who at the end of C3 nearly has a breakdown about the sexual acts she's already performing. I'd personally prefer C4 Alex to slow her damn roll a bit, but with the aforementioned timeframe of the game pushing things forward I get it's a hard balance to hit.
- Another personal taste point, but yeah the tits are a little overzealous. Not enough to ruin the experience for me but it's definitely flirting with disaster, especially with shades of Expansion fetish being present on top of it. For a game with characters a lot deeper than the usual EpicLust cast, seeing them with similar bodies is a little jarring.

Overall the pros outweigh the cons for me, and unlike a fair few other reviews I see here the game being more dialogue and text focused over renders and animations isn't off putting to me. My main recommendation would be to find a way to resolve the extremely condensed timeframe of the game, even just to allow more than one character's main Corruption to be developed without having to worry about missing a single love point somewhere. Off the top of my head using existing mechanics, have the Sunday night dinner be a check of the overall mood against Clara's concern. If mood is higher, everyone decides to stay for an extra day or two maybe? Could give some more room to spread events out a bit and let players spend a bit more time progressing multiple characters at once? Just a thought. Overall this game is quite good and I hope it will remain so as more content is added!