Ren'Py - Come Home [v8.18.4 Premium] [R.J. Rhodes]

(12th update review)
It's a game with around 5 hours of content currently.

I like some girls (especially Ms Welch, Dana, Suzy, Jamie and Gertrude, also the waitress whom i forget the name of) but they are not the most beautiful ones around. The models are a bit lacking of something, I'm not sure what. Those I like are not ugly either, I'd say they are average.

As a "sim" type of game, you decide which activity to do at which time, but most of the time, as often in this kind of game, you just go for the "available event in location" one and do them one after the other. So the "sim" aspect is not really useful since there is no stats to manage in this game, just time. And since there is no "missable event due to time" the whole "simulation" aspect is useless.

But since it's a "sim without stat" it has the whole big negative point for a simulation type of game : a wrong/weird pacing/timing game.
That's so bad.

I really think that this game would be more interesting as a story game but that's a choice the dev has done and we cannot ask otherwise.

So you will choose which girl you are interested in, and do their events, one after the other, up to the "see you next update" sign.

The story is underdevelopped and a deja vu. It's a pretext for a porn game, I get it but I'd prefer to have no pretext rather than this bullshit pretext. Well again, the story is of no real importance since it's a "sim" type of game and the story is not paced at all, and just happen randomly when some triggers are fulfilled.

Finally, the girls fall in the "my man sleeps with all other sluts in town but it's fine, however i only like him" category. Again, not a problem but more diversity (seen that there is more than 20 girls !) in their behaviour would feel better.

So all in all, a 2 star game which can go for a 3 star if there is polished and nastier scenes with the girls I liked (I feel the potential especially with secretary Dana, teacher Welsh and councilor Gertrude).

I deactivated some girls and the guy so I can't judge all the girls, but those I deactivated had a model which didn't please my eyes or whose introductions were totally uninteresting. (Lawyer, Adrian, Micha and "mom")

Okay, straight-up: this game is excellent.
It's a RARE pleasure when I go to play a porn game and find myself enjoying the actual story content and characters more than the hanky panky, but the writing and personalities in this game are just awesome.

First off, Adrian Kendra and Tammy ( I have a thing for short hair, it seems ) are some of the best girls I've seen in these kinds of games. Kendra in particular is just the sweetest, most likable person, and even though I sorta saw it coming her revelation still made me ACTUALLY SAD. You don't typically get that in a game about fucking as many people as possible. And Adrian, oh Adrian...if ever there was a time when I wished I could pull a waifu out of a video game and into the real world.

Also, shout-out to whoever worked on the chatroom comments for the Brandi content . That shit had me HOWLING with laughter. And the line in the double-date with Suzy and Tammy about 'who would want to date 20 girls?' to the cut-away pose...pure comedic genius.

This is definitely a game I can happily wait for updates on, because even though there are some girls that just do not interest me at all, the ones that do are good enough to make me keep coming back for their updates.

....one thing, a minor complaint: You can't hint at a hang-out with Kendra and Adrian and not give it to me. That's just mean.

3 / 15 / 23 Update: I have been given my Kendra / Adrian / MC scene. All is good, perfection has been achieved, the nut has been launched. I repeat, the nut has been launched.

Absolutely love this game - LI's to cater for most tastes and you can choose which ones to follow. Good quality renders / scenes and well-written characters.

Only (very small) gripe is that the main story seems to have died off in the last few updates, but given that the interactions with each of the LIs is well-thought-out it doesn't matter as much as it would otherwise...

Other than that, I just wish it was updated more often, but I guess that's the mark of a good game - always left wanting more!

Amazing game and keeps getting better, you choose who you want to pursue and who you're not interested in , a lot of freedom in your choices and a great story line! Would like longer animations but the update did add a long scene i really liked.

This game does not have great graphics, the animations could be better, but it does give you the opportunity to experience different stories, some of which may be shocking, bring in fetish, etc. It is much closer to real life than most games I've seen. I'm really interested to see e.g. the game line for Lisa, Dana, Kendra develop. And I'd love to see some more exhibition fetishes, maybe water sports?

I really loving this game so far. the story , the fcharacters..even if some bad new about 1 of the girl come up...hope Kendra will be ok!! i even cryed for her at the bad new..so for a film\game\book is mission accomplished. keep up the good work dev.

Such an overrated game. All you do is grind for some shallow content with empty characters. The whole sandbox system is there only to hide the lack of actual content.
The only thing that is good in this game are the character models: natural looking, diverse, each one beautiful in their own way. Thus 1 extra star.

If I had to sum up this game in one word it would be serviceable. While the story isn't anything that's going to wow you, and the MC is pretty milquetoast, the game is at least competent and it's writing. The renders are also decent. This game has a pretty wide variety of kinks. The game has a decent selection of love interests, including a gay, trans, and disabled option. Nothing is forced on you. If you're not interested, tell them. You can also enable/disable a character's romance story at any time. While this isn't technically a harem game, there is no penalty for having a relationship with all of the love interests simultaneously.



If you're looking for a simple erotic VN, I'd recommend this one.

Review on Update 10


I really, really like this game. I debated giving it only 4 stars just because of some objectively not top-level aspects of the game, but that would ignore the degree to which I enjoy this game in particular and all the things that make it stand out so much to me.


The thing I like most about the game and which is honestly surprisingly unique is the way its characters and interpersonal relationships are portrayed. At least for me, it's the perfect kind of wish fulfillment harem game.

And not to sweep one particular aspect under the rug, the way the MC has just tons of sexual and romantic relationships going on at the same time and even when they ask about it, all the love interests are just fine with the MC "playing the field" but still develop over time a loving romantic relationship that certainly looks monogamous from the outside, is really unrealistic. So just to make it clear that I'm aware of it. But honestly, I don't care. It's written well enough so that you can sort of believe it and the rest is just a mix of fantasy wish fulfillment and suspension of disbelief.

So now that that is out of the way, I really dig the variety of love interests and the way their relationships with the MC play out. They're all just very unique, I love that we don't just have the usual lineup of stereotypically attractive white women with the one black woman thrown in there to spice things up. You notice that the dev really cares about diversity, we have all sorts of women of colour, a trans woman, a disabled woman, variety in body types, it's just awesome representation and variety and I just love it.
Furthermore, they all have very unique personalities and backgrounds and interests, it just furthers the way this world and their characters feel real and lived in, it's just great.
This large variety also makes it possible to have characters like Izzy, who would feel like a stereotype if she was the only black woman in the game, but because she isn't, it just allows the dev to tell a realistic and immensely empathetic story about a young black woman from the hood. Or to have the shy Asian girl battling between her commitment to her family and her desire to break free. Or the "white trash" girl from the country. All of these characters could feel sort of cliché to the point of being problematic but because they are just a few among a large cast of characters, it works. Plus, all of their stories are handled extremely empathetically, and the characters are never pigeon-holed, or 2-dimensional, it just makes for excellent writing and story-telling.

I also really really like the MC because he's thankfully, for once, not your typical immature, creepy sleazeball. He's respectful and empathetic and intelligent and charming, and while yes, obviously, this is still an unrealistic game, it's at least in this instance somewhat believable that these people would all be interested in him.

The sex scenes are the first sort of weak link in my opinion. What I do like is that, simply based on the very unique characters, you do automatically have some interesting sex scenes that deviate from what you would typically expect from these harem games with a white male MC, like sex with a trans woman, sex scenes with a man, probably in the future sex with a disabled woman etc. So that's at least interesting.
Otherwise though, the sex so far has stayed, in my opinion at least, pretty underwhelming and all in all very vanilla. I'm sort of tempted to give this game a pass for that because it goes for that more realistic vibe, but based on the personalities of some of these women, you'd expect some kinkier sex scenes than we've gotten so far. I guess the fact that the build-up in this game is fairly slow doesn't help with that, so maybe we'll get kinkier stuff in the future (there is at least indication of that with some of the LI's) but so far, not a whole lot. Sort of disappointing.


Other than that, most of the other aspects of the game fall into the sort of okay but definitely acceptable category for me.
The main story is kind of compelling but then doesn't really get enough screen time in my opinion for me to really be able to follow along and care about it.
Other reviewers have complained about the grindiness of the gameplay and I think I can sort of agree but at the same time, going on repeat dates still offers some variety with the different questions the MC can ask and just because the whole game is just written so well, I really am interested in all of the love interests and their backgrounds and thoughts on life and so on, so I actually don't mind sort of grinding dates, because they do stay interesting enough in my opinion. Otherwise, I think the gameplay is really straight forward enough to not be overly complicated but more interesting than pure visual novel, so I'm fairly ok with all of that. It's done fairly well that you can just opt out of certain characters, if you're not into that (which I've only done with the femdom lawyer chick and the mom character because I'm really not into both of these at all) and with the variety of characters, there should still be something there for everyone.
I think the graphics are just fine, I don't really get people complaining about graininess, haven't noticed really anything about that but sure, the renders aren't as a high a quality as you might see in other games but I think the uniqueness of the models and environments more than makes up for that, so I have no complaints here.
I really like the music choices though, I do like when a dev cares about that aspect of the game and the music does increase the tension in a lot of scenes, so well done there.


So yes, all in all, while some technical aspects of the game are maybe not up to the very highest standards that you can find elsewhere, there was just something so unique about this game, and something so intriguing about all the different characters to me in particular, that this game is definitely in my top list of games, so for that fairly subjective reason, I feel good about my 5 stars.

Extremely grindy, especially if you want to advance with a character that for some unknown reason can only talk on the weekends, even though you can visit them and call them also during the week. Seems like roadblocks put into the way to just extend some arbitrary grind mechanic, which I loathe. Then you also cannot skip days, and can only sometimes skip 1 time segment, and cannot skip to go to bed, etc, to again force the grind.

Then the tips to advance with a character are utterly useless. E.g. it will state to get 5 hearts with a character to advance, which is super unhelpful when you are stuck on 4 hearts.... game does this constantly.

it has a scene gallery that bugs out and for example will say I found 0/4 sex scenes even though I have already seen all of them: buggy. Some scenes are not in the gallery system at all like the blind date.

There are 2 gay characters so if you enjoy that, it's a plus for you. Not for me, but hey options are good.

Writing is mediocre. Every girl is into MC having a harem and dating everyone except for the sister. Bit unbelievable. There are sometimes talk about money, like whether you tip or not, or whether you lick your boss pussy for money or not, when there isn't even anything in the game to buy or to track money..

Writing OK, mechanics too grindy, Character variety good, gallery buggy. Overall (weak) average.

A pretty entertaining play, I must say.

More of a harem-focused VN, if that's your kinda thing, with no consequences for cheating, since all of the girls are cool with the MC dating others.

Good;

Tons of content so far with a diverse cast of characters. Whatever your preference is for chicks, this game should check at least one of those boxes.

The phone mechanic is really cool, I liked calling a girl to talk about whatever the fuck. Most games, love interests only seem to exist when actively being discussed in the plot, so it's neat to be able to interact with these characters on a smaller, more real scale with chit-chat and dating plans.

The lewd scenes are pretty solid, fairly vanilla but good enough, I'd say.

The Meh;

Some renders looked a bit grainy to me at times. And while, as mentioned, the cast is large and diverse, I wasn't into most of them. Nobody really stood out to me like "holy shit, she's a baddie", more of, "Oh, she's okay."

The game can have a bit of a grind to get certain events which leads to the player watching the same text over and over just to up a girl's level. I'd fix this by adding more chat options for each girl, personally, so the player doesn't run out of new text to read before reaching the desired level.

The (non) money mechanic is weird. The game has events that require money but the MC just has it on hand. (i.e. So n' so needs x item, you buy it and he can instantly afford the item with no money earning mini game or anything like that.)

Suspect the dev didn't want a money grind in the game, perhaps? Which is fair, just caught me off guard a bit.

Nothing really bad about the game, just meh stuff. I had fun playing this VN, despite not caring for harem-type games.

4 (3.5)*

It will be interesting to see where this game goes in the future. It is a bit more grindy than I prefer so i knocked it a star for it.

There is a bit of story here. Interesting if you follow the leads to unlock it. Not all leads could be followed in my experience. Some characters I never got to experience because a ? would tell me to be somewhere at a time yet the map has no way for me to be at the location at that time. Confusing. Maybe future updates? Some characters will have more content in future updates according to what my game said. Looking forward to it.

Very interesting characters. Hope that some of the conversation topics actually get added as well. Looking at the skydiving and public sex at the moment. Loved the non cookie cutter character models as well. They all look a bit different from what you normally see and this was a very pleasant surprise. They all had a story. You just have to click your butt off to egt to learn it. Could be worse. At least none of the women looked like Dee Snider with boobs.

The main story line flows through as necessary, but all the women have completely individual story lines and it's great. You can easily turn them on or off at will for anyone you are not interested in, and even with all romance options on, you ca still easily choose which path to follow. This game is very well made and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Intriguing game with unique character models. The game lets you decide from the outset which girls/others you want to pursue. Nothing in the game really feels "grindy", each action usually triggers a new scene and progression with a character. The navigation system isn't revolutionary but it's easy to use. I'd easily put this game in the top 20 actively being developed on F95.

Pretty good game. It has good writing and, so far, a good plot and subplot.
What I really like about the game is that you can pick and choose who to have a relationship with, for the most part. Like, if I don't like the way a certain character looks or acts, then I don't have to have the MC have any connection to them.
That is a plus. Too many games makes it where you have to get with everyone regardless of your personal preferences. Hope that the main plot keeps getting better and better!

This is actually a pretty good game, you don't have to grind that much. The characters feel real, and their personalities are different, they don't feel similar to each other. The renders are nice and writings are okay could be better tho. Most male protagonist games feels kind of same but this feels different.

Before I start let me state that I believe that a Developer should make the game they want to make, their way, with regards to their vision. In a similar mindset, I will be offering my review of their game, my way and how it relates to my preferences.

I am going to try and be as fair as possible with this review, because Come Home has some content that I personally have zero time for. However, this content is (mostly) avoidable (more on this later) and the developer not only tells the player outright, but also has designed the game in such a way that the player can turn off (most) of this content at any time. As a side note, English is not my first language, so please be forgiving if I make an odd statement.

Design seems like a good place to start:

It is very unique and is the best type of sandbox game a player can ask for. Not much in the way of grind, no schedules to keep, no “missed this so reload”. In addition to this, the core story (which has no sexual content) is separate from all potential LI stories. The LI stories can be turned off, which effectively removes that LI from the game (except for a key characters), which you will still meet and interact with in a completely non-sexual way.

Graphics are well done, and I won’t comment much on them, as its easy to see a few screenshots and decide for yourself.

The main story is passible, and you don’t need to make any big jumps, or overlook wholes in the logic (too much). The love Interest stories, that’s a bit of a different issue. As stated above they are typically avoidable with the exception that the main story will introduce and have you interacted with some of them in non-sexual ways occasionally.

Now onto the LI content, and please note that I am very much a ‘Only MC’ kind of player and I do not share. That being said, I will try and go down each of the LI’s and give my thoughts good &bad, but first some general comments.

Some of the LI stories I found to be quite good, several of them contain unique characters that I had an overall good time learning about and gaining affection with. Two issues, always seem to bring the stories down a step or two.

1) Almost all of the characters will either make comments on their past or present sexual exploits. Now let me be clear here, I am not expecting all the characters to be blushing virgins, but as a player I do not want to hear about how much they enjoy getting gangbanged or how they fucked their best friend because they were horny.

These comments range from things like (and I will give my own examples to avoid potential spoilers) “You’re the 3rd man I’ve slept with, I think a girl should have slept with 10 men before she settles down” (this is of course before the) “I love you and I couldn’t be happier” type comment. AGAIN, to be clear, I am not expecting a blushing virgin, but these two statements are contradictory to each other, in the context of a ‘vanilla’ relationship.

2) Every character (several of whom discuss how they love the MC and how he has been there crush for years) make it clear that they don’t expect any kind of commitment (yet). Several even go so far as to state that the MC should ‘fool around’ for a while because ‘they are’. This includes some of the more “wholesome” style relationships.

3) Not part of my original 2 issues, but something that is worth mentioning is the forced link between the MC pursing a relationship with both Suzy (The ‘step-sister’ if you select those options) and her bff Tammy. These two relationships are linked and the player MUST level them both up, and pursue them both. Since Tammy is one of the key characters guilty of the above two issues… it kind of forces the players to accept the whole ‘open relationship’ & ‘free love’ attitude of Tammy if they want to pursue the more traditional Suzy.

Those issues aside, I will briefly give a quick sentence or two about each of the potential LI’s these will have some minor spoilers, so don’t read them if you don’t want any. That being said, I will try to keep such information to a minimum, giving my like/dislike for the LI and reason why.





















Final Thoughts;
On one hand I really commend the Dev’s for finding a Sandbox design that is decent. I also think that much of the writing, and a few of the characters are very well made. The overall story (about a missing father) is decent enough, but somewhat forgettable when a player starts diving into the different characters arcs.

My criticisms about the game are mostly to do with the dialogue and logical deductions that one can make from those dialogues. The developer has made a point of designing and implementing a system that empowers the player to ‘turn off’ specific fetishes (which is awesome). They even make a specific point of ensuring that their isn’t NTR type content displayed (at least none that I found, with Izzy and other NTR type characters turned off).

However, the dialogue still makes references to not only the past of a character (which is irritating, but ultimately a ‘whatever’ annoyance), but also to their current and desired future activities (many of which would be considered sharing/cheating/ntr). I don’t know if it’s a translation issue (for me) or an ESL issue (again with me), but when a character that claims to be in love with the MC states that she “wants to sleep with a bunch of different men” or that she suggest the MC “see a bunch of different people” because “She is doing the same”… Well, these bits of dialogue do present a worry about the future of the game and how many characters would need to be excluded for a “Only MC and/or Harem” style of player.

As a final note because I try to be transparent with my reviews. I did support this game in the past but have not done so for a while now. NOT because I think the game is bad, but because I personally will never give a single copper penny to a game that has NTR/Sharing/Futa/Trans or similar type of content. Some may think that my previous support makes be bias towards, or that my ending of that support makes me bias against. I am stating it here so that said people can decide for themselves.

Good game. It's well written, the renders are good and the women's bodies are realistic (no giant blimp tits or asses that can't fit through a door). It has different kinks and fetishes so everybody should find something they like and everything is avoidable. I'm also impressed by how active the dev is in the forum answering questions and helping people with any problems they have playing the game. Well done R.J. Rhodes.

This game is a such a breath of fresh air. I really enjoyed how you can choose which people you want to interract with and when. I hate the games where you have no choice in certain interactions and events. Also I really enjoyed the differences in characters personalities as well as the plot. I highly recommend this game I really enjoy it

I like to have a game a bit more complete when I review it usually, but I can always come back and edit it later, and this game deserves more attention.
This is a fun little Dating Sim, with many varied and realistic romance options. Sandbox is well done, and walkthrough fully integrated into the game, makes for very little grind and overall pleasant experience. Would like to give 5* but have a few issues with the game. Still it's lots of fun, and well worth a play.
The Good
Something for pretty much everyone in the romance department. Was worried it might make some characters a bit one dimensional, but most are really believable, with fully fleshed personalities, and backstories. I say Most, because at this point, some of the characters have a lot more content than others, but what's there is good.
Great variety visually as well. Reminds me of Personal Trainer, with many different shapes and sizes represented, and that is quite refreshing, as opposed to the, super-models everywhere, we usually get with most AVNs.
The Sandbox is very easy to navigate, and usually there is something new to discover. I don't really care for Sandbox usually, but in a Dating Sim, with many separate romance options, it is a necessity, and this one does it quite well. Very robust hint system is fully integrated into the UI, so it's easy to figure out what to do next.
The Not So Good
This is a bit tricky for me, and mostly personal preference, as overall the game is really fun.
Big fan of Incest in AVNs, and would like a true incest option, as opposed to just changing pet names and pretending it's incest. This would require a bit of tweaking to the main story, which will probably not happen, but it is a flaw in my opinion.
Main story is a bit weak, and doesn't integrate well into the dating Sim mechanic. I was a bit confused by the sci-fi elements, and the backstory just doesn't mesh very well. I have also seen similar stories done in other AVNs, so was hoping for something a bit more original. There is still a lot of the main story to be told, so I may come back at a later date and edit this. As it stands now, it's not my favorite, and a bit distracting, from what I consider the more fun parts of the game.
More sound effects, and background Audio, especially in the lewd scenes, would make the game more immersive, and enjoyable. The music that is there is very good, and usually fits the scenes pretty well. I understand lots of music requires money to use, so hopefully as the Dev gets more support, audio will get a bit more variety.
Overall I very much enjoyed my time with Come Home, and recommend any fans of Dating Sim AVNs give it a try. The game is free, but please support the Dev if you can, so we can get more of it.