VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - Dawn of Malice [v0.12a] [Whiteleaf Studio]

TL;DR:
- Very nice drawings
- Really well animated
- Pacing is OK

I'm just gonna say that you can ignore what little bad ratings this game got. I can understand the people who complain about the lack of choices, and the futility of what choices are implemented. I played the good-kharma-path first, then restarted with bad-kharma and pressed the skip button. Then I sat here for like a minute, before the skipping stopped because the first different textline appeared.

But at the end of the day, people need to realize, that this is not a Visual Novel telling you a lenghty story with multiple paths. It doesn't have the VN-Tag for reasons. This game delivers something to fap to... with a set backstory leading you from scene to scene. That's it. And it does that quite well. So if you're not looking for a branching story, but something kinky you don't have to think about or get invested in, this game is worth checking out. And if you like the Art, you can absolutely enjoy it.

Pros:

Graphics/Art
Characters
Story
Gameplay

Cons:

None so far.

I love this game as much as Tama Awakening, there's incest so I didn't hesitate to play it. Pretty awesome story thus far, and plenty of gorgeous hotties to have fun with. Excited for more great content.

PS

Please don't ruin Hunter, only MC can do that.

The art is good, but...
The choice in this game is nil, it is on autopilot, it bores me, I have nothing to do just read and read a somewhat boring story that does not vary at all ...

The English is not my native language, sorry.

Honestly, I was a bit on the fence about rating this that high.

On one hand, this is right up my alley. Cute 2d porn, mixed with corruption, mystery, conspiracies and Cthulhu weirdness. That's bound to be an interesting mix.

On the other hand, this doesn't play like an actual game. The only major decision that affects storytelling, happens before the game even starts. From there on you are practically reading through a kinetic novel. And that's definitely not a game.

But its presentation, story and art are good enough to keep me interested and that's really rare when it comes to KNs for me. So in the end I went with 4 stars. Hopefully this dev will keep the positives of this and finally use them to make an actual choice-based game in the future

I loved it! In my view, not truly a Ren'Py game, but basically a visual novel. There are a handful of points where you can choose to do or not do something, but for the most part you're just clicking through a story. The story itself is lacking a bit (but whatever ), and there are quite a few typos / rough English spots, but it doesn't detract from the overall game.

Honestly, the art is amazing, and why I'm rating it 5/5. A fun little romp, and I'm definitely interested in where it's going next!

Dawn of Malice [v0.05b] [Whiteleaf Studio]

The game is more like a blueprint of rough-cut ideas that stood there as bullet points, waiting for a writer to come and flesh them out with life and soul. The foundation is there for something different, but it is all dragged down by the pacing of events, which makes everything come off as a hastily put-together hack job. The writing is average, and it predominantly falls into trope-based dialogue. The art style is distinct, but sadly it mimics itself closely, so the characters look practically the same, only with different coloured haircuts and clothes. I'm sure it can be explained in the future why the story moves at such a breakneck speed because some clues are already there, something in the water, air, some government conspiracy, or maybe it is so simple by the developer's design. But the household members are down for it just a few days after the father leaves, which is so lame and anticlimactic. Maybe he was some super Chad keeping all the women in the vicinity satisfied (kek). That said, what I got playing now is what I'll likely get more of in the future from the developer, and just seeing myself play thirty more hours of this, I find the idea so monotonous and dreary.
+G100+

Update: I'll up it to a 4, it's add more sexual content and it's a fair level now which, combined with the unique and good art, warrants a 4.
A 3 with A Lot of potential in that art to become a 4. My biggest issue is following multiple versions the sexual content has always seemed low relative to even other games early in their development. That may be a matter of personal preference but, it's why I can't give it more than average rating at this time. I hope to review it again in 2 or 3 more versions and we'll see where that goes. Grooving on the art though.

Story Synopsis:

Dawn of Malice is a visual novel that's about a young man who goes back to his hometown with his mother* and sister* after his father leaves them on a work trip that will last two years. However, in this town something suspicious is ocurring as government agents are seen around inspecting and giving new instructions and regulations to businesses and the local school. And, well, that's as much as we know about the story really.

*these can be changed to other titles like stepsister or roommate

Now, about the game itself.

It's a Ren'Py kinetic novel with some sort of morality system built in it. You can start as a good guy, a disgusting neutral, or an evil dude. Of course, we won't kid ourselves and say that this is something that will greatly change the game. It changes what the MC says from being concerned to being an outright douche. There are some decisions that will give or make you lose Karma, but they're quite rare as of now.

The game offers an group of girls that (if the tags remain truthful) will become part of your harem. There doesn't seem to be a system of relationship points and it seems to be a given that you will bed them all, which is fine in itself. They all present archetypes we have seen before. The caring mother, the bitchy sister, the tomboy childhood friend, the bimbo, the clingy goth, etc. And boy does the art do well to represent those archetypes. It hasn't failed in that regard and it's actually quite good.

Now, about the pacing. It's quite abrupt. At one moment you're in a scene, where the MC is talking to someone or even having sex, and the next when it finishes it's an immediate cut to black with a text that explains what happens in the interlude. Sure, it's a workable transission, but the problem is that it happens very often and can be quite jarring. One moment you're in school and the next it's the next day.

All said and done, I'm willing to give this game a 4/5 as it stands right now considering the promise that it shows. You're presented with a mystery, for some reason all the girls have the hots for you, the writing is decent with minimal typos (mainly some its and it's) and the art is really good. Hopefully the future doesn't disappoint with this game.

The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs... The version this review is based on is v0.03...

This visual novel seems alright in some ways, but it also feels very rushed... You can tell it was meant to have the Incest theme, but they are hiding it under a guise of being able to change the relationship titles...

The visuals of the characters are 2D hand drawn and look both decent and unique... The backdrops appear to be mostly unique... There is a choice selection right out of the gate where you can select a beginning mindset for the protagonist, that uses visuals for the selections using a character from a popular commercial game series, but I doubt they have permission to use it... I think they could have used their own unique image based on the quality of the characters they used in this VN, if they had wanted to...

The script was decent as I rarely ran into any spelling/grammar errors... The plot (what little there really is) revolves around a male protagonist who lives with two women (one is obviously meant to be the sister and the other the mother), which you can select the name and relationship titles for... They have all moved back to a small town where they used to live, prior to the protagonists father going away on a very long business trip... He meets other characters as well at a local school he attends...

You can tell right off the bat, that this mostly linear VN is using the highly overused mother-sister setup where he pervs after every woman he runs into... With the sister/roommate having the overly used mean girl archetype... You get to select a starting setup of the protagonist being either Good, Neutral, or Evil and the developer explains it will effect the sorts of outcome and perhaps choices you will see as you play, with the option later of modifying that setting based on choices made...

The story telling moves very quickly, even after character introductions, going pretty much from one erotic set of events to another... You do get choices now and then as to what degree of perversion you want to go with prior to some of the erotic content... Most other events just come about on their own as the story very quickly goes from one game day to the next... It really feels like the developer could have done SO much more with the story telling, if not just to fill in the gaps between all the erotic content... There is so much missed potential, that it just makes the current content nothing but a meaningless porn fest... It's not even a moderate burn, because every female character the protagonist has a sexual interest in just seems so willing to go along with most of the perversion... They are so easily entranced by the protagonist, or interested in him without a whole lot of effort put into it by the protagonist... A choice or two later, and she's either a willing participant, a reluctant participant, or easily influenced/aroused by the protagonist...

At first, especially after the initial character introductions, I thought that perhaps this was going to be a navigation based stat grinder, because one time I saw some KARMA stat modifier text pop up all bold and red... But I never saw it again and could not tell what it was really effecting... I'm guessing the developers are using Karma as the stat for how good or bad the protagonist is? I don't know... You don't get any stats window, so there was no telling... I never saw another pop up either, no matter the choice I went with each time...

It almost feels like the current content isn't even done yet, prior to further development of newer content... Almost as though a bunch of stuff was planned, just never implemented, but instead was just packaged up and thrown to the public for viewing... No polish... Perhaps just to satisfy some donating fans impatience, or to entice more money before even finishing the current content, let along new content later... Who knows... Just felt rushed...

I even ran into Text bugs, such as showing the String Name instead of the value it was supposed to represent... This occurred several times, once for the Mom (that's total proof it was meant to be the mother) and again later on for a few other characters... That should have easily been caught through play testing prior to posting it for consumption... It's kind of one of the reasons why I really feel the current content was rushed, outside of what feels like missing content... The game days go by too quickly, and even though the text reads fine, it also felt like the story telling is in a rush...

Overall, although the visuals are unique, the characters are stereotyped and lacking of any real substance for most, the story feels rushed, there is a feeling as though there is a ton of missing story between all the current erotic content, and it's hard to know if the hidden stats are fully implemented or not... Obviously some choices will determine some later content, as they are very black and white... The protagonist's attitude also seems to change rather quickly, based on the black and white choices, which felt a little too fast...

All these things just points me down the road of thinking the current content is just a porn fest, and that the developers missed an opportunity to be more then that... Was that their intention all along, or is that just the road they are going down now in order to trick folks into giving them money early on? Who's to know... For now, I'm not as impressed as I thought I might be... Of course, this VN is very early into development, so anything is possible... Will I revisit this one? Maybe, sometime down the line... To see if it aspires to be more then just a bunch of back to back erotic content, or becomes something more meaningful with a deeper story that doesn't feel rushed...

So, this game seems like it's a sandbox, run around and build relationships to access scenes kinda game. It isn't.
It's more of a kinetic novel that sometimes lets you decide wether to peep or to not peep on your "roommate".
I actually like the artstyle but the game itself is just boring.
Might be something for others on here but if I play a game, I'd like to actually play. I could just read adult comics or watch porn otherwise.

So I get the vibe that this is another one of those, run around doing boring tasks for various girls to grind up your relationship with them then eventually get to do stuff kinda games ... there's a lot of them that seem to be very popular so if it's your kinda thing (rather than say, no grind but decision based events shaping how the story unfolds) then you might like it, but it's not mine ... however, I should add as there's basically no content atm I could well be wrong.

I thought it was very clever how they get you to name the characters and what relation they are to you at the start - obviously as a workaround to any ban on incest, but a smart one.

The art is pretty nice, and the music is inoffensive and very standard to the genre.

I was largely drawn into it because of the alignment stuff. Obviously as there's little content then it hasn't played out a great deal, other than leading to a game over, which I kinda felt I had little control over, and maybe that's how it goes if you're evil... but so far that element hasn't really added to things ... hopefully being evil would lead to corruption routes for the girls but I guess it's too early to say.

So yeah, it seems fairly polished, the art is nice, but already is coming across as a grindy task based game, and at present there's basically no content (5mins perhaps).

This game starts really well with good basis of course there's not many content because it's a fresh new game but i think with more gameplay et new scenes this game can be at least equal or more fun and exellent than summertime saga

(i Will Update This Review in Future updates)

'm simple I thought I taw a Fall Out image Instand Download, Unpack, Start, Not Fall Out



Oke The Harem Tag got me........


Overall Not a bad game, Keep it up

Pro
Art/Render
Story
Harem/Incest/Change Name
Teleport-Icon/Fast Travel to Bedroom
No NTR a big PRO
Playing as, Evil, Neutral, Good

Con
No rollback (Why)
Fall Out Image to catch flies like me, to play your game ;-)
No Hint System (not a Con or Pro)
Name Place Holders For The Doors
No Content Yet (First Release)
No time indicator (Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night)


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