Ren'Py - Abandoned - Changing Life [v0.4.1] [WombatGames]

The game is interesting, it's still starting, but it already shows good vibes. It has a lot of good points, and certainly some things to improve, but I think it's going in the right direction.

The good points:

* Interesting story: The beginning is quite simple. Unfortunat MC who gets a new chance. In this case a mysterious benefactor (Mr. M) who proposes to him to be a professor at a University on an island of his property (even when he knows that the MC hasn't training to be a professor). As the beginning unfolds, you already suspect that there is something else behind it, and that feeling increases little by little. Is Mr. M what he appears to be? Does his interest in the island contain some kind of hidden motivation? For now it may be that Mr. M is the thinking head of a great conspiracy, the visible face of a secret organization or simply the eccentric millionaire that he appears.

* Well developed characters: LIs and Mr. M (we don't have many more characters) aren't flat characters. Although some characters may seem stereotypes, they all have an individuality that separates them from it.

* Choices matter: Even though the game is a sandbox, you find important choices throughout the game; one choice or several choices can give you love or lust points with the appropriate LI, while the others give you nothing. So I guess even if you go through the entire story of an LI, you may not end up in a romantic relationship with her if you haven't collected enough love points. In addition, there are important choices that determine how the main story can unfold (either opening or closing important paths, or maybe in another way, I'm still not clear on that). So far we have had, I believe, at least two of those choices. In any case, since the game has a high number of LIs, and that it intends to have even more, I suppose that the LIs' stories will be more or less stable and that the influence of these choices will be limited in their cases (it's possible that comments by the MC or the LIs, some change in a scene, I do not know), although it will surely be important in the main story.

There is also, in my opinion, a negative point:

* Disproportion in weekly and weekend activities: With 3 LIs you can advance the story quite fluently since you can carry out their activities every day. With another 3 or 4 the activities are carried out during the week (Monday to Friday), so they are also easy to make progress. However, the largest number of LIs are concentrated in activities that can only be done on weekends, which makes their progression slow (not because there is a lot of griding, but because you can only use 2 days out of seven for it). In any case, I think this problem will be fixed in future updates, according to Dev said.

I'm not going to comment on whether English is better or worse because I'm not a native speaker. I understand it quite well, so for me that part is acceptable

In general I can say that it's very interesting and that it has the potential to be a great game.

Review for the Initial Release (0.1.0)

First of all, I thought that this game will be another failed attempt at combining RenPy and Koikatsu. The screens looked nice, but... I've played many failed games, so I had a grain of salt ready before starting.

The first thing that was surprising for me was the first choice. A lot of similar games put a choice at the start that does not matter, because both answers lead to the same next slide, or only change flavour text. So I clicked at random and... I died. This showed me that the game is different. There is plenty of other choices there with no consequences for now, but seeing the structure of the game, I am sure that they will lead to different paths.

Next thing I want to write about is the graphics and audio. The music is really good in this one, although there is no main menu song, the chaacters have their own themes. It fits the style. The same I have to say about graphics. The renders look good and natural, but... it is Koikatsu, right? The game also lacks animations, but I saw the dev say that they are planned for the future.

But Koikatsu can't write characters for you. And in my opinion these are the strong point of this game. In initial release we have a bunch of stereotypical girls, but they have a lot of room to grow, and apparently they are made to fit a lot of different tastes. It is good thing, because this way there could be plent of new content.

Another thing that is a positive when it comes to this game is how the events are structured. I've noticed that the most of main events do not require you to play side-events first. This is good, because I already have characters that I don't like and I'm not interested in following their story. I hate when the game makes you follow the path you don't want to, and this games is not doing it.

Something that I have to mention regarding the models is the MC. This is one of the games where his look does not bother you. And that says much. With Koikatsu as a base it is fairly easy to create ugly MC that breaks the immersion.

I also want to write about the story. I decided to exclude this from my review, because it is too early to tell is it good or bad. I mean, the story seems pretty plain and without anything mysterious and interesting. But this is the initial release, so it might be something interesting down the line. The writing itself is good, but I will talk about it below.

Now... Although I give it 5 stars, there are some things that need to be looked at. First, there are some spelling and grammar errors. This is not a big deal for me, but the dev should take care of it before next update. Second, some music tracks are louder than the others. This is not something big, but wanted to mention it.

And finally - the writing. I have mixed feeling about this. In my opinion it is definitely very good, but sometimes it becomes clear that the Dev is not native english speaker. Some lines of dialogue feel off and that ruins the good impression. I hope you take it as a constructive criticism, because the general feeling of the plot/writing is very positive.

So - I can safely recommend this title to anyone to give it a try. I'll definitely watch how it goes from here. To make this long review short - I came here expecting 1 star game and a bad piece of VN, and I left positively surprised and eager for more. Once it gets animations it could even become my favourite.

Okay, after trying this one I can write a review. This will be for initial release (0.1.0).

So after playing through the events I can safely give it 5 stars and recommend to others.

Starting from the cons: the writing has some errors and sometimes the dialogue feels off. And there is not much thing to do after you complete most of the evening events, just repeat. But this probably wont be an issue in future.

Now the pros: this is very good first release, it has a lot of choices (for now they mostly do nothing, but you can see that the developer has plans for it.) The models look great, I hate koikatsu games with oversized tits and asses. The girls look natural. The h-scenes are very decent in my opinion.

What kept me interesting was the story, there is a little mystery, it seems like the game is really simple at first but I feel there is some twist to it.

In other words I liked it very much, but I hope that the future updates will bring new content.

# Review for ChangingLife[v0.4.1]
An average game.
I decided to give this another chance and was pleasantly surprised by the progress. But even with that I found it too boring to reach the end of this version.

# Gameplay
A visual novel with sandbox elements where choices have some effect.
## UI
The UI is average. The sandbox part consists of only text choices and no visuals (No maps, map nodes, or rooms).

# Writing
The writing doesn't contain any noticeable mistakes. However, for me, it feels a bit dry. I was often bored and simply kept pushing through hoping something more interesting will happen.
I admit that when I wrote the first review, I didn't give this game enough time. It turns out that the characters do have some depth to them.

# Visuals
## Sex Scene Animation
They exist, but not all of them are looped correctly. You can see the frame jump where some animations start and end.