VN - Ren'Py - Cosy Cafe [v0.12.1] [Cosy Creator]

It's great! Good porn, pretty wholesome maledom harem shit, honestly, and no, wholesome and maledom are not mutually exclusive. Honestly, I don't understand either the complaints that there's not enough porn or that the MC is an ass. He's a pervert, but he's also frankly shown as a sensitive caring guy who deeply cares about consent and doesn't want to make his partners unhappy.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, binging over a couple days. Can't wait for more, frankly.

I tried liking this game, I deleted it and redownload it 3 times already and every time I stop playing is because of how the MC is written. I really don't care that most of the h-scenes are maledom, what bothers me he is still like that outside of the scenes, there is almost no empathy towards the girls, he's just an asshole - and don't start on the ass slapping, it was fun the first time and the second time, but by the third time I just skipped those scene as fast as possible. LIs are nice, but MC is not likeable.

Despite the game not being perfect, this is by far one of my favorite VN harem games.

The good:
-if you like shoes, the girls often change them, and they're often in the frame. This is niche but not easy to find in games
-the story is nice. One of the best games at making harem ""realistic"" as every girl sort of has a valid reason for joining. And the overall plot is actually sort of interesting
-the girls are varied, cute and, as long as you stick to the game, eventually have actual personalities outside of their "sexual" personalities. At first some of the girls might seem a bit plain though

The bad:
-this is a matter of personal taste, but is a tad weird and immersion-breaking. Certainly it is fun and brings out tons of sexy scenes still.
-renders aren't always great, sometimes characters have weird colored halos in the faces. At times these halos enhance the beauty of the girls, but sometimes they're distracting

I've played plenty of games on this site and I've never felt comfortable writing reviews as I don't feel "qualified" to give a proper opinion but this game is different so here it is. So to begin what I have to say is this game truly lives up to its namesake being such a wholesome/cozy game to play. As well as it being such an easy play that even with its lack of choices it still feels so replayable. The best thing in this game is the fluid relationship progression with different girls as some are almost immediately sexual and others are more of a slow burn. I truly have no negatives to say about this game. I love each and every Love Interest they all work well together as a Harem game. The Love Interest are all unique with their own imperfections and personalities that make them feel more special. Was gonna put the best girl down here but might be a spoiler but for those who know should know the Personal Princess is on top

This is a great game, but I’d argue it barely passes the NSFW bar to even be on this site. It has its pros and cons.
Pros:

• The story is genuinely great. I rarely play pure VNs - if ever - so maybe I’m just uncultured or not used to it, but the writing here is pretty damn good.
• The LIs are well-written and well-designed. Sure, not all of them are instantly likable, but they eventually grow on you.
• The MC isn’t a total pushover. This is honestly a breath of fresh air. There were so many times characters were outright jerks to the MC, and I kept expecting the author to make us play as some submissive, spineless worm. Instead, the MC goes, “didn’t ask + who cares + L + ratio + fuck you (Foreshadowing: a literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story) .” It’s great.
• Models, environments, poses - everything looks fantastic. Seriously, the visuals are top-notch. Always consistent, always varied, never stale - even though it’s mostly still images.
  

Now for the cons. And yeah, this might upset some people, but…

• It’s a porn game first and foremost - and it fails at being one. That’s underselling it, actually.
• It’s extremely slow. The amount of time between NSFW scenes is absurd. The content is spread thinner than butter during the Great Depression. I don’t mind a slow burn, but this is less “burn” and more “eternal flame.” If you think a scene without penetration doesn’t count, you’ll be waiting even longer for the first real sex scene. It’s ridiculous.
• The scenes themselves are pretty bad. Basic Honey Select animations. The most barebones stuff imaginable. If you’re lucky enough to even get animation. They’re plain, boring, and about as arousing as watching paint dry. The writing is doing some serious heavy lifting here. Like, Olympic-level.
• All scenes are painfully vanilla. No real fetishes until way later in the game, and even then, it’s a single buttplug. A little exhibitionism/voyeurism sprinkled in, but nothing noteworthy. Every girl is a virgin and acts the part. You can call that “consistent writing” if you want, or just “boring.”
  

I want to stress this again: as an adult game, it fails miserably. However! The writing is genuinely enjoyable. The LIs are lovable. The author nails the slice-of-life vibe perfectly. I found myself smiling and laughing at the girls’ banter. Each one has a distinct personality and feels likeable to be around.
If you’re here for a fun read with cute, well-written characters, this is worth checking out. If you’re, like the other 90% of people on here, for the other reason people visit this site - well, maybe skip it. There’s a gallery, but it’s mostly awkward BJ scenes (not animated), a few tame deflowering moments, and some light petting.
TL;DR: Great story, great characters. Fails completely as an adult game - scenes are tame, boring, and too few and far between.

I was not expecting this game to make me like it as much as i did. Usually i go into games blind but i was recommended this game more than once so i was already expecting something above average, despite that i still came out of this pleasantly surprised.

The story in this game is interesting, its paced incredibly well, each day brings new drama that becomes exciting to live out. Characters have a certain depth to them that i feel like goes under explored in many games of this nature. Catherine being my favourite thus far despite her introduction. Like the MC i'm a sucker for girls that need to be fixed.

For games i rate this high i have a lot of nitpicks, will list a few i can think of at the moment - Im not the biggest fan of the power play fetish the MC has and find some of the dialog to be particularly questionable but hes not a complete scumbag so its not irredeemable.Would have liked more variety in how he flirts with each individual LI, they all seem to have nerves of steel or love being dominated/submissive despite when their personality type would place them in a different category.

The character models are hot but more often than not we get closeup shots of the LIs faces and man, the deadness in their eyes can be very deadpan or just plain distracting.

Being a visual novel i was expecting a certain degree of choice and there is... some choice, but after the first few days the author takes the wheel and you just kinda have to accept the outcome.

Ah!

This game is fantastic
Note: i leave 5 star because i hope it will get finished
it is rare for me to try game in V 0.12.1 and get positive surprise

CONS:
no gameplay
choices, but no toggle to spoil what will be result of choice
Author have absolutely no idea how leading restaurant looks like, i know its a bit weird, but hear me out, you can't just get 8 cooking maids to your small restaurant and get them all to just be there
Restaurant need Greeter/receptionist who will handle all the quests and reservations
you need to have dedicated maid-waitress and maid-cook, you can't just libero 10 employees in small restaurant!
you also need someone who will collect all realized bills and calculate income for tax registry

Summary: game is worth checking out and have a lot of content, but very limited choices
have fun

Very interesting game. Its strength are the characters.
The LIs are all different and unique. There's not one I dislike.
The MC is a mix of being kind and NOT being a pushover.
I can't wait for future content.

I really want to like this game because it is the true harem, and it is my favorite genre. But the characters are so poorly written it is cringe worse than acting in porno.
The harem part is very well done since the visual is good, and all girls know about each other. This is what I mean by saying "true harem". The game focuses a lot on the building of harem.
But the girls.... Man it is so bad. There is literally nothing to say about them. They dont have hobbies, favorite food, plans on their life, and etc. They also all automatically like the MC and appear almost out of nowhere. They dont feel alive at all.
The MC acts like a tough guy, but for some reason he is very soft to all girls and instantly trusts them. He is shown very righteous and not interested in sex, but at the time he is obsessed with spanking. It just doesn't work in my mind.
It wouldn't be a problem for me, but there is so much text my tiktok brain can't sit through all of that. And I have enjoyed some games with watery writing.
I still give this game 4/5 because the visual is good, and the author obviously put a lot of effort into this game. But the writing sucks so much it is almost cringe.

Honestly not a big fan of spanking and girls being all submissive and such, yet the game held me still playing it with interesting development of story. And I absolutely took to heart Catherine story in 27th day.
Already added to my list.)
Thanks, the dev, for the game.

A Modern Fairytale

"Cosy Cafe" is a very sweet (cosy, exactly this), positive, wholesome game with a beautiful story. I won’t highlight any pros and cons, because imho all the cons in this case are completely insignificant. I’ll just list the main points:

- I would not call the graphics bad or something like that, but it’s unmistakable, so to speak. A lack of details is noticeable sometimes. However, MC’s girlfriends’ models are very beautiful: they reflect different characters with their unique style;

- There are animations, and they are pretty good, especially with the high-framerate mod;

- Imho the plot is simply amazing. Yes, it’s obviously “fantastic” if I may say so (maybe “a modern fairytale” is a better word, although I don’t know the ending, so it’s hard to tell for now). But the dynamics of the storyline, the text in general, details of the text, dialogues - they create a wonderful, sweet, beautiful story, which is difficult to remain indifferent to. Seriously, it’s very beautiful;

- Characters are amazing too. Each of them has its own personality, none of them are boring. And it seems there are exactly as many characters as the plot needs;

- The leitmotiv of the plot is dom/sub relationship and fetishes in forms of spanking and light BDSM (without “S” I guess). But by and large, this only adds necessary contrast to the game: you can ignore these fetishes, and the story and characters will still be amazing;

- The music is pleasant, mostly unobtrusive - well selected for specific scenes and events. I even want to save a couple of tracks.

Definitely 10/10, “Cosy Cafe” is in top-5 of my favorite AVNs. I really like good stories where main characters help each other become better. And this is one of the most beautiful such stories.

Version 0.11.1

A kinetic novel with lovingly designed HS2 characters, a cool UI, lots of slow burn teasing as well as a monotonous story to go along. It focuses heavily on spanking resulting in a rather limited number of actual sex scenes despite the length to date (11 - 12 hours playtime).

Story
MC inherits a cafe from his grandfather and proceeds to attend school while at the same time recruiting girls from his school as waitresses for the cafe. The game starts off with standard slice of life moments at the school and cafe which is rather uneventful. A few hours in, we are introduced to the main plot - political intrigue amongst the founding families of the town in which MC is an active participant by virtue of his last name.

As for the quality of the so-called politics - all I can say is it's fine if you are a young college student or someone who has never worked in a larger organization requiring some level of sophistication. If you have ever dabbled in actual corporate / bureaucracy politics or managed difficult stakeholders , all this will come across as juvenile and unconvincing.

Game Mechanics
A kinetic novel all the way. Special mention also to the nice UI, it's still standard Renpy mechanics / features but the UI does add a new level of ASMR and smoothness to the user experience.

Background / Character Renders
Cosy Cafe has one of the best character designs and renders I have seen in a Honey Select game. The developer has spent significant effort in designing each LI to be highly distinguishable and also used some good filters to ensure really good granular skin texture and facial details that are not seen in most HS games.

For e.g., eye lashes, make up, skin pores, elbow folds etc. are intricately laid out and presents a touch of realism while at the same time retaining an overall anime feel. Many of the minor facial expressions and posing are also well done and achieves an effect that is a far cry from out of the box HS2.

Character Development
Character development is somewhat limited despite its considerable length, MC is a maledom guy who is possessive and takes care of his girlfriends throughout while each LI basically fits certain stereotype like quiet and shy, nymphomaniac, tsundere, loyal submissive, yandere etc.

The game is fundamentally a slow burn type so at least we don't get a large number of LIs tripping over one another to worship MC's cock.

Sex Scenes
Not very impressed with them to be honest. For a start, there are hardly any actual sex scenes despite its length and so far MC only has actual sex with like three of them and not very often.

The game has a lot of teases and leans heavily on the spanking fetish, so if you are not into that Cosy Cafe ain't for you. Even as someone neutral to spanking, I did find it too repetitive after a while. I love games with slow burn with sex that serves the story, but this is just too slow and monotonous.

The lewd scenes themselves are average in terms of animations, dialogue and camera angles. The excellent character renders do help greatly in enhancing the experience though.

BGM and Sound Effects
Standard BGMs that fit the game and some rudimentary sound effects. Expect to hear lots of spanking sounds.

Conclusion
Cosy Cafe is an overall 3.5 star game with one very dominant area of strength and several weaknesses across. The character renders are top notch, the story standard harem passable, while the sex scenes can do with better frequency and more variety.

Unless the business strategy is to do the standard drag out for subscription income, pacing also needs significant pick up as there is limited progress in the main plot and dating the LIs despite 2.5 years into development.

By far the best VN i've played. It has a very well written story and character development feels "natural" (still somewhat hasty but nothing rushed) even if the overall premise isn't realistic (who's here for that anyway?). No other VN has got me as invested in the story or characters as this game has and that's impressive to me.

One of the few VN / KN were i check for updates in regular intervalls.
The plot is (up untill now), without a doubt, one of the best out there. Yea, the MC might be a little to perfect at times and getting the girls might be a little to easy (even the implied upcomming Rachel arc), but thats not ment as criticism per se. Not every plot needs to be heavy to be fun. The grafic style has its flaws, but the character models are very
appealing (very subjective).

Bonus points for CozyCreator to answer to ppl and listening to suggestions.
5/5 cant wait for the next update

This game had all the right elements to be one of my favorites: cute honeyselect girls, harem, school related but also running a business. It started out nicely and I wasn't put off by the Founding Families plot, thought it was interesting, until it became full on Game of Thrones cold war factions bullshit.

The alliance scheming story is so boring that it could kill any boner this erotic game is supposed to make. Without it, I would've given 5 stars even thought it has other small problems like characters not having many facial expressions which make them seem plain and samey, or the protagonist's weirdly shaped dick.

I expected a cosy cafe, with some slice of life and comedy. Yet for some godforsaken reason, the creator needs to force in a convoluted mafia plotline.

Even disregarding the clickbait, the story is unecessarily long and due to that fairly boring in the later chapters. The women are about as shallow as me and I'm playing porn games in my free time. Some dialogue between them, especially with a certain asian character were just unbelievably cringe, that it soured her later scenes. The BDSM also feels like it's inspired from a bad incel story. I laughed at most of the early scenes, thanks to the creator trying to portray the MC as some sort of Alpha man, which ends up as him acting like he has an extra chromosome.

However, the renders are ok and some of the actual cafe scenes are decent enough.

All in all, it's alright, if you turn off your brain and remember it's just a porn game.

Great game, probably one of the better storyteller developers. I wish I found this when it was further along because the wait in between updates is terrible, but Im looking forward to it.
Annimations could be better, but the story and the way its written make up for it.

The amount of effects put into this are crazy.I haven't played any good VN that keep me playing it again and again like this for a while. The build up, characters' personality, the interactions between characters, everything set up in this game is just *chef kiss*. Thanks a lot for sharing this wonderful masterpiece.

Probably the most wholesome AVN I've played. Especially recommended to people that just mainline an AVN once with guide just to see the optimal results - as it's a kinetic novel so you don't need any guide, it's mostly like watching a movie or reading a book.

What makes this one stand out for me is believable, relatable characters - sure, they might often fall into classic harem story stereotypes, but their backstory and interactions with MC are very well written. It really makes you care for the characters, and can even flip your perception of an unlikable girl in single scene and make you look at her in different light.

At first, I was a little put off by the strange face-angles and stuff like Akatsuki's name (My impression is that it's directly lifted off from Naruto... plus the strange joke about her dad being Korean with a Chinese restaurant and a Jap surname?)

But my doubts were soon put to rest. The relationships are really sweet, with great amounts of character development. It's a little too early to see if the author will follow up on already concluded storylines , but I have faith that he will.

Not sure how to feel about Rachel, but Author has to do a lot of heavy lifting to have her be a main girl. I'd rather Annabelle or maybe Sam tbh.

There's a strong amount of outer plot devices/politics that force the plot forward and provide some trials for the protag to overcome. For that I'm glad Akari exists too.

Tl;DR: Cosy Cafe is one of those rare few games that has enough kink and story that makes me feel a void once I'm done with the current update. Hungry for more, keep it up!