VN - Ren'Py - Celebrity Hunter [Ep.19] [Geiko Games]

i think this game has a lot of potential. I enjoy playing a masculine bisexual character, which is something in short supply. And although so far there's only love interest who is very well developed, I do find her interesting. I hope as the game gets more developed the other love interests are added in from the beginning rather than to the end because I feel like i've already had to choose whether I want to be committed to this one.

TLDR: I'm giving this a one star for a few different reasons that culminated in just a not enjoyable experience playing. Do not recommend in its current state.

This is a review of the Episode 5 version of the game

Sound: 0/10 if that was possible

To start, the game opens with volume on 100% and everything cranked to the max. After finally loading the menus and fixing the music, while playing the game every single time dialog advances, there is a "tick" or "check" sound that plays which is not tied to any of the volume sliders, so there is no way to mute. You either have to mute the game in task menu options (which is what I did) or listen to this "tick" 30000 times.

Renders: fluctuates between 7/10 in spots, to 2/10 in others.

The main girl so far is actually pretty and a decent quality render. She gets the 7/10. The backgrounds, maps, everything else gets like a 4/10. They look like stock images that have had zero edits or objects added to make them unique, and as for the main map screen just looks unfinished and cut off. The animations quality is really, really blurry. which is the 2/10. It would have been better off rendered as still images.

Story / choices: 1/10

This ultimately is where the game was lost. The overarching story is mostly forgettable, but how the choices work just kills it. I played a "romance or seduction" route for the main girl rather than the "friend" path, which ultimately ended in a game over screen. When making romance choices, the players are met with positive feedback from the girl leading someone to believe they were making correct choices, however that results in the Main Character just being shot and killed, leading to a game over.

The "correct" way to play the game is to balance the friend choices (which literally are often times a choice of do you want to be her friend, or do you want to date her) with romance choices, ignore the positive feedback she gives so you dont die at the end. Players dont know the correct number of choices to make to not die...just have to keep trying until it was correct.

I played through it twice, once full romance and ones trying to vary up the choices and died both times.

Misc:

The game is advertised as having 70+ hours of gameplay. It took me an hour to get my character killed.

Honestly I like the game but I I'm extremely disappointed with the lacking of content, I've been paying the geiko web site for a long time just so can geiko now release this version for 40$ in reais, with no respect to Brazilian fans, for americans? 8 bucks.... Honestly not surprised, but disappointed at the same, still why this game has such a lack of content? It's been years and still not nearly 20 minutes of gameplay.

PROS
- I can appreciate the attempts to make choices matter. There are some differences if you want a casual fling or a serious romance which I like. However, some branching plots just go nowhere like Cassia, if you betray Nathan for Cassia, you reward is... literally nothing. Oh and the rest of the branching plotlines are either incomplete or just paywalled.

CONS
- A lot of false advertising and misinformation. The game is laughably nowhere close to "70 hours" long as described in the description (this was written in the overview. Guess mods removed the claim). I'm a slow reader and I've finished it in 20 mins.
- Majority of the images/animations you see in the animated banner are not available in the current release. Its paywall galore. Everything except 1 sex scene is paywalled. After years of supposed development, there is just 1 sex scene where you go down on a girl. Thats it. The game will keep reminding you can get more scenes if you just pay them though.
- The animations are pretty bad. I've mentioned there is just one and its extremely low quality. Like something from the 2000s era of flash games.
- This has got to be the worse version of renpy in F95zone history. The game bootsup with some loud & crappy royalty-free song, lots of transitions/intros that cant be skipped, some of the UI is still in Portuguese, pressing F1 (which quickly toggles the menu in a normal renpy game) will crash the game, you can't quit the game so you must alt-f4, you can't select a file to load from the main menu so you have to click continue which will randomly load a savefile (not the latest one btw) and only then you can right click and select which file to load, you can't go the main menu once you're ingame for some reason as clicking 'Start menu' will just restart the entire game, quick save/quick load is completely removed, pressing 'A' key (accessibility feature to change font size & line spacing) fucks your screen and you'll have to alt-f4, and just pressing the 'S' key will crash the game and you don't even have a chance to rollback or ignore like in a usual renpy game, they even removed the renpy features that protects you from crashes lol. Feels like everything in this game is just soo halfassedly thrown together to make a quick buck from the PC community.

Celebrity Hunter [v0.1]

The biggest and most ambitious adult VN you going to see for a while! 70+ hours of gameplay (no grind) developed since 2018 ( This is the main reason I decided to try it, but this build only got around 30 to 40 mins of gameplay depending on your reading speed. 70 hours of gameplay is in original Portuguese version. Dev should Highlight this to avoid confusion in description)

The game is originally developed since 2018 and globally released on 2024 there is lot of time difference. That is surely showing in the game.

Good points

+ Writing
+ Renders ( renders are good considering it is developed in 2018. It's quality is increased)

Neutral

*Story ( can't say Anything for now. This build have a small date with Priscilla. Depending on your actions you can seduce or befriend her. Maybe in future updates story gonna become boring or interesting. Since it's developed in 2018, players here played many games from 2018 to now so story many not gonna be a fresh breath here will wait and see)

* Too much choices ( dev said this as a good point. But too much choices can make players weary. Some paths are not implemented in this build yet. I love to see branching pathes but for I need good visuals too. So far there is not much branching paths either but too much choices)

Bad points

- Models are outdated
- UI this is worse ( there is only six slots for save. There is separate slots for loading too. There is no need for it. This made it so confusing. I advise dev to check out recent renpy games and make UI like that)
- Transitions ( slow transitions. It would be nice if there is an option to skip transitions like in renpy games nowadays)
- Planned tags ( Many of the planned fetishes are not liked by many. Big example is Netorare and rape. Many players don't like to watch a girl who they are emotionally connected is cheating on them by banging another male or she gonna get raped or molested by others. Dev should specifically mention if they are avoidable or not. By avoiding means, it never happens on that game not an option to skip that scene for those who don't wanna watch it. Dev mentioned in the forum sex scenes are avoidable cause there is a friendship path. No one is playing to befriend the girls it's just that some fetishes are not for many. These also applies for gang bangs too. If it's with some random girls it's ok but if it is with main girls many gonna avoid the game. Please mention (avoidable) for the fetishes which players can avoid by their choices in planned genre.
- No option to quit the game (used alt + F4)
- when you skip unseen texts also got skipped

Really advice dev to change UI. If the bad points are fixed this gonna be a good game even considering the time difference

Edit : as for epi4

Well dev changed UI now there is more slot. And there is no separate slots for load either so it's a good thing. But stil UI looks bad.

I previously rated it 3 star now I'm taking 1 star back. Like I said earlier there's big year gap and it's clearly showing.

NTR is avoidable cause we also make decisions for the female character too. So it's players decision. This one need multiple protagonist and female protagonist tag too.

I didn't completed this update got bored at a certain point. I don't like a game where I have to make decisions for other characters. I'm more into you reap what you saw. So if I'm in good way with female character I like to see female character automatically rejecting other males. If I'm not on her path or in bad terms with her i don't mind her involvement with other males. But sadly here it's not like that since this is already developed game it will be hard for dev to change.

This type of game is one star in my book but giving it 2 star due to Dev's efforts