Ren'Py - Detached [v0.13.1] [Scruffles]

First of all, just look at the Changelog, it tells you plenty about the effort, dedication and love that went into this project. Stay for a while, and you will realize that effort keeps going.

Fantastically dark story, simple fucked up enough to make someone like me think ''Deep shit, dude''. And although I really do love this game, I cannot recommend it to those faint of heart or easily disturbed.

This touches on real subjects in a way that feels respectful, though in an artistically dark way.
BUT IF YOU DO LOVE THIS KIND OF *FUCKED UP SHIT* Then my friendo, this is the game to sink your claws into. It is simply for a specific audience, and it is felt, but in a way that doesn't feel degrading to the problems real people have.

Put simply: It takes your feelings, beats them up, uses non-con-nojutsu to fuck the corpse of those feelings. It is a dark tale with sexual insertions, while masterfully making those insertions a somewhat critical part of the story.

Or at least that's what my schizophrenic ass thinks, take it or leave it, bub.

TL;DR: Somehow exactly what you'd expect from the name and synopsis, but worse.

One of these days I'll figure out the appeal of a game where the only premise is that the MC is sad, pathetic, depressed, has no friends, no family, no future, no one who loves him, and is very keen on letting you know all of those things.

Today is not that day.

Detached is a game that feels like it wants to be one of the 'sad, scary koikatsu games' that I will eternally never understand the appeal of, but missed the part where there's meant to be aspects of the game OUTSIDE of the sadness and misery, and that the protagonist isn't meant to remain like that for the entirety of the game. Add in the fact that he always has a LOT to say with absolutely none of it being valuable to the story, or to you the reader, and it's just a test of endurance beyond anything else.


STORY: 1/10
This is one of those occasions where I'd actually prefer it if the story was nonexistent. Instead it's just tiring, filled to the brim with nothing but self-wank about how sad the MC's life is and how bad you should feel for him despite him essentially not ever attempting to improve, not ever expressing even the slightest indication that he actually wants things to change, and being the biggest fucking loser ever written.

It's already one thing to make the entire premise of the game about the how bad things are for our MC, which is why most games that start that way don't stay that way for very long. But for Detached, that is the game. There's also the token existential nightmarish horror elements that every single game of this kind feels compelled by God to include, which is just as unwelcome in this game as it is in all the rest. At least in some other games that try it there's either a point to it, or there are elements to the game that can draw you in despite that. No such luck here.

It's all sadness and misery all the time. And if you're wondering something like, 'well why would I care about the story or the characters, then?', that's a great question. I'll let you know when I figure it out.


CHARACTERS: 2/10
Surprise surprise! Nothing here either. As other people have already mentioned, the characters are all completely two dimensional, and the single most unrealistic part of this entire game is the idea that anyone could find something to be attracted to in this wet fart of an MC. There are a few I did end up liking like Lupe, and I appreciated the fact that her relationship with the MC was more of a mutual agreement to constantly bug the other. It's a fun dynamic and actually felt like it could make sense for both characters.

The MC himself, when not monologuing about shit I could not begin to care less about, or wallowing in self-pity, is actually not a bad character. he can be witty, funny, and if he wasn't so shitty to everyone he talked to I could believe that people could find something in him.

He is though, so I can't believe it.


ART: 3/10
The art in this game is extremely acceptable. There's nothing here that's going to blow your socks off, nor is there anything that's going to make you want to claw your eyes out, either. The character design is extremely plain as well. I can commend the dev for wanting a different look than the usual 'short black hair babyface' character archetype, but I don't think the solution was 'long black hair with glasses and the world's ugliest goatee'. Facial hair in general doesn't gel with Koikatsu's models in 99% of circumstances, so while I appreciate the attempt, it did not work in my opinion. If you wanted the 'depressed, doesn't care about his own looks' vibe then I'd have gone with a full beard or stubble or something and hair that he doesn't bother tying up. Again, I'm not a dev so I wont pretend like I know better but I do know the result we ended up with isn't good.

Similarly, none of the girls have a design that will instantly enthrall you. None of them are bad, but you aren't ever going to get charmed by them. They're very solidly 'okay'.

All that comes flying out the window when the """horror""" segments hit, though. The hyper-realistic eyes is a cool idea that looks too stupid for me to take it seriously. And the seizure-inducing flashes are just the icing on the cake.


Final Thoughts:
Just. . . . eh. I don't think I've ever cared less about a story or it's protagonist in my life. It's just constant misery porn, and from what I can tell it's not to serve any greater story or purpose. It's just sadness for the sake of it. Any of the other 'sad scary koikatsu games' have exactly what this game is trying to do but at least with a bit more anything to them.

Just play Dissonance, basically.

This game revolves around wallowing in misery.

MC seems to be an endless rota of emo tropes and stereotypical nonsense. While the artwork is good, the story just is not and it makes this just fall apart in ways that the artwork can not redeem it.

If you like misery porn this might be for you, otherwise i would do just about anything else.

English:............10/10
User Interface:.....3/10
User Experience:....7/10
Art:................8/10
Dialogue:...........8/10
Story:..............3/10
Opinion:............5/10................
Avg:..............6.29/10 [3.15/5]

I want to start by saying this review may be a little disjointed from me. And as always, spoilers ahead. This being a sandbox, so your events may trigger in a different order. And I also have ZERO experience with the game yet and the description does it no justice. I, personally, don't know a better way to write a gripping synopsis for whatever this might be, but a better one is needed. And, since I'm me, the fact this is story focused means I should be the prime demographic. What I will say about opening the game for the first time is the Main Menu is trash. The buttons are too hard to read. They either need outlines, backgrounds, and/or changed entirely. Grey letters on midtone colors doesn't have enough contrast for people with poor vision. ALSO do me a solid and click on "Jam Session" whatever that means. Crash, right away. Rollback hard crashes, and ignore starts the game. That needs to be fixed. I will also note, like everyone else, KK does not do facial hair, it's kinda funny lookin' but I admit you did as well as you could. And the game starts to FOUR hard pauses. Put menus in the splashscreen saying your usual "Old enough?" and "Are you triggered by bad things existing?" and make it so I never have to see it again. Especially since I play from the beginning every time I fire up a game. Initial gripes out of the way, here's hoping the story is any good.

The first bit of dialogue is one of my major issues with so many KK devs. They sit there and wax poetic about life and destiny and depression. I get it, we're all depressed, shit sucks. But happy-go-lucky KK technicolor is not the medium for that. And we also play games to escape the contemporary hellscape we all exist in. Maybe help us escape, at least for a few minutes before our only empathetic thread with MC is depression. And then immediately do the "Poor me is sadder than you" thing we ALL hate. I literally just tried to empathize with the game, and instead of saying "Cool then I don't need to explain." They just say "Trust me bro im sadder" Which implies this game only has a bad ending. Balancing horny and sad is a tricky thing already. But to start the game saying this game will have a bad ending, to a group of people that generally play games solely for sex, is gonna be crippling. Now my dumbass is only hooked on the thought, with morbid curiosity, "Well, let's see if they turn this around." But immediately, when MC's life is boring, not even sad, some woman talks at him because he never listens, this asshat jumps off a bridge. I haven't laughed that hard in a minute. Genuinely. And I want to note, EVERYONE is tired of MCs that internalize every little thing. What is the point of other characters if the majority of the dialogue is all in MC's head. I HOPE this changes(hoo boy does it not..), but the beginning is very much just MC (If I don't use MC I'll call him Dane Cook) thinking about everything happening. I get it could be the shift in his life after this moment, but this is a lackluster way to open a story. Not to mention the fact that it looks like there's an insta filter on most of the intro, only for it to be dry KK renders for the 'horror' scene to play. Then "HAHA CAPITALISM" Remember? The one joke for the saints row remake? Great. It physically hurts me to get through this opening. And then it does the "Cut to black saying 'we got to know each other' not letting you, the player know anything" trope that is miserable. I honestly did want to try to like this. But if all the moments where you, oh, I dunno, LEARN ABOUT THE CHARACTERS is cut out to skip time, this is a character biopic not a story.

MC loops back to Bishop, the woman his dad dropped him with. And instead of letting the reader infer all the things he narrates about her, he continues to internalize and narrate everything. You know because you, the reader are stupid. Never forget that. Then it says "Here's an open sandbox" Then gives you linear choices? Just finish the prologue. You're still introducing characters. Lupe and Maddy in the coffee shop showing Lupe is still sarcastic and Maddy is nice. Cut to black and say they had a good time(even though MC never gives a shit about anything) Anne and Hanako talk about being a vigilante because of Superbad? But I thought it was Kickass? Cut to black and say they had a good time(even though MC never gives a shit about anything) Sam and Jessica at the bar... Existing? Cut to black and say they had a good time(even though MC never gives a shit about anything) Then Bishop offering up the only scene of importance as MC realizes the parallels of their lives. Cut to black and say they had a good time(even though MC never gives a shit about anything) DO YOU SEE ANY REPETITION HERE? Any time I chime in about an event, just imagine that line is repeated after it. And "+1 to [CHARACTER]". Also the events/walkthrough menu needs to NOT be in the pause menu. It takes at LEAST SIX clicks to get to see what you need to do next. The games this menu borrows from is terrible, and it's still terrible here. PLEASE have a screen that's just one or two clicks. I would even help make it if needed.

Most of the events so far feel like nothings. The ONLY ones that should matter are with Sam. You know, the woman that looks exactly like his mom he watched die and addressed him as her son when they met? I get he's so far gone he doesn't care about anything, but this is literally the reason he doesn't. But no, whacky crazy jump scares and an epilepsy trigger later, he's so over it. And I'm SO GLAD Maddy points out how "introspective" and "contemplative" he is. She uses nice words to describe school shooter vibes. I also wanna say Hanako has no business talking to MC, she just feel like she's trying to fill a trope out because there's no bubbly personalities in this. And I finally realized what this writing reminds me of! All those nick shows written by Dan "Get in my van" "Leader of the foot clan" Schnieder. Overly long technically not wrong descriptions of things. All while they're acting "oh-so-quirky." It's so common now, and it does not work if you're trying to make this in any way that should be considered serious. I want to say I'm ALMOST to the first group of story events, and N OTH I N G story-wise has happened. The character events are all just marvel quips and MC wanting less than nothing to do with anything happening. I, the player, am FORCING MC to exist. I have no compelling reason to do so. Other than to cross the next event off the list. And by the time you get to the first event, the ONLY time you're about to get any explanations or plot, Hanako jumps in because "haha funee" interrupted at the only bit of information about anything going on is hilarious? 100% of VNs in this style do this. Why am I surprised at this point?

The exact moment you're about to learn anything, there's a hard cut away or someone interrupts or the screen flashes poorly shopped realistic eyes onto everything and MC has a fever dream. It's not compelling. I don't get the sense that I need to solve this mystery. I honestly don't want all the answers laid out to me immediately, I just want some sort of hook. Flashing three frames of the human centipede redone in Koikatsu isn't doing anything for me. It feels more like stalling. Like "We still don't know what the story is, here's some jingling keys." Or "SpoOoOoky existential dread." I'm dealing with stuff, myself, but I don't have visions of my dick splitting open and locusts flying out. I have learned about two of the characters so far, the rest are just personalities. And look at that, Anne was about to tell MC something, he spouts absolute nonsense at her, then it cuts to a non sequitur sex scene featuring silverfish. And all we know is Anne has a shard of something and can change emotions. Cool. And it's at this point I'm realizing I'm able to get events without doing any of the requirements. Two "main events" in a row triggered before the requirements are met. You FINALLY get a modicum of exposition when chapter 2 comes around. But the fact of the matter is, it tells you NOTHING. MC's power is essentially putting him into the world of Event Horizon. It's just not clicking. People have powers, they work for a nameless Organization, and Prime is their enemy. Beyond that it's all filler and shock content. Not horror, just shock.

To be as fair as I can be, this is the first game like this I had the patience to get all the way through (except the Erin events, I gave up after chapter 2's intro ended) MC is an irredeemable piece of shit. He's unlikeable. His power makes no sense. He literally rapes Hanako to add to that shock value I mentioned. There's being detached (oh my god he said the name) and there's being an emotionless sociopath that floats through life and is a genuinely horrible person to everyone. He openly admits it, and the plot demands these dumbasses are smitten with him for it. I literally don't know who this is for. The English is almost perfect. I noticed maybe three spelling errors in the game. The UI/UX is stock, although the menu and names are difficult to read at times. They need an outline or actual background. As well as the hint/event menus, they need to have easier access. ESPECIALLY when all the events are interconnected and it's all very arbitrary. The Art is some of the better KK models I've seen, but it still has the same stiff KK model issues that they will always have. The dialogue is great. I like that the conversations feel natural. I like that it's not all sweet nothings or porn contrivances. Unfortunately it's weighed down by MC's CONSTANT internal monologue. He never shuts up, and just pushes the point home that he is in fact a dumb piece of shit. And that leads into the nonsense that is the story. I've almost never seen a story so afraid to say what the fucking story is about. Legit I don't know, at all, what is the focus. Is it MC's relationship with people? Is it his powers? Is it now about the gender bent versions from another world that was "foreshadowed" in a joke early on? Is it about the Organization and what they do? What does the Organization even fucking do? This is literally the embodiment of "I've got something to do now" energy. The ONLY answer you get is that Sam IS MC's mom. But her power that controls time(?) now made her a different person? Question mark?? This is so frustrating because not only have they not gotten to the point, but it feels like they haven't even started to focus on a topic. If the whole "Having a quirky conversation but flashes of Hell pop up on screen for a patented Hank Hill gasp" does it for you, boy howdy do I have the game for you. If I had SOMETHING to grasp onto story-wise, I'd check in every release. But as it stands it just feels like LOLRANDOM throw ideas around and see what sticks. Maybe in another 5-10 updates I'll check it out again.

Once again, I apologize for how disjointed this review was. MOST of the game is side/filler interactions to get you to care about the characters but not actually saying much about what the hell is going on. You learn pretty quickly which girls you like or not, not that you can choose to be with any of them. And most of the main events are just "event's that contain 2 or more LIs." I'm left with more questions than answers, but I can at least say it's something different. Best of luck to the dev going forward.

You delve into the mind of a spineless, depressed, pubes on chin, ponytail having edgelord, who has no will, no ambition, no game, no balls, and no redeeming qualities. He's a submissive loser husk of a human being and I, as a reader, am somehow supposed to empathize and sympathize with this weird self insert of the dev. It's quickly established that you've got daddy issues, and are in some sort of "we've got dystopia at home" scenario full of superpowers and secret organizations. Would be cool if the story was actually about that. It's really not. It's about how much the MC hates life. That's the story. Instead of being a real MC, you're basically just an NPC with the personality of an emo highschooler from the 00's. Huge "Craaawwling iiinnn my skiiiin~" vibes from this subpar "protagonist."

Story & Writing: 1/5
The writing in this story is downright exhausting. Prepare to get bombarded with extremely lengthy, cringey monologues about self harm, existentialism, and other poorly covered social concepts written from the perspective of a bratty liberal arts major with daddy issues zonked up on a cocktail of anti-depressants. It's just all so tiresome, man. It's one thing to set up the sob story of our "hero" in the introductory phase and then hopefully watch him grow out of it. But then you realize that him being a cringelord is the entire story. You just keep drudging along the walls of text and ridiculous complainathons in the broken mind of the weirdo schizoid MC. I thought maybe if I skipped most of the whining I'd get to the real meat of the game, but no, even that isn't salvageable.

Gameplay: 0/5
The gameplay (if it qualifies as being called that) is obscene. It's somehow worse than your typical low-effort sandbox. I didn't even think it possible you could design it to be this bad. Your world literally consists of a long list of textboxes that you have to click at different times, hoping that the 20th time you clicked on it met whatever arbitrary trigger point the dev cooked up in order to get a different outcome than the 14th time you clicked on it. It's essentially a menu simulator, and boy is it awful. Certain girl, certain time of day, certain location type of bullshit. The hint system is barebones and borderline useless. And then when you finally get your tiny mini event with more MC whining, you're back to standing on the street or in your bed to grind the textboxes all over again. It's one of the worst implementations I've ever seen. It's like gacha but with textboxes and no decent payoff. Notice how the game is over 8GB? Yeah it's only 800MB compressed. There's a ton of imagesize bloat, and not much actual content to be found here. A 5/5 if your objective is wasting bandwidth.

Characters: 1/5
The characters are annoying and forgettable, and lack the "adult" in adult game. The reasoning and motivations behind character behaviours do not click, are oftentimes contradictory, or juvenile. Nothing stands out to me as a reader about the girls, and almost every interaction with them involves more complaining from the MC, more whiney depression porn, and just nonsensical musings and inane conversations with them. They're very two-dimensional. I honestly can't even think of anything to say about them because they're all just there to function as vehicles for more senseless monologuing from the MC about how much he hates everyone and wants to end it all.

Art & Graphics: 2/5
The art/graphics is Koikatsu that verges on below average, to average, depending on location. Little effort has gone into the backgrounds, scenery, locations, and poses. There does seem to be an attempt of sorts made on designing the characters. There's loads of renders where it's merely the characters stuck in place like a still life drawing with nothing but their mouth moving, or their head turning. This wouldn't be as much of an issue if the dev made even the smallest bit of effort at introducing angles, zooms, closeups, framing, etc, or if the story and narrative was actually engaging. There's just no consistency here. A handful of renders will get proper treatment, while the majority are left as is. It seems everything is cobbled together as quickly as possible in order for the dev to assault you with more text.

"Story Focused"
The dev prefaces saying it's "story focused" as if this is some sort of impenetrable plot armor. It's like really they just wanted to write a self insert story they knew nobody would bat an eyelash at had they not added it to F95 as an "adult game", so they add 2 or 3 lewd scenes to give it the "harem porn" stamp of approval on nothing but a technicality and go to town. You do you, but I don't really buy it. There's nothing wrong with a story focused game, but if you try to go that route, especially on an adult gaming site, then your story has to be exceptional on its own, which is even harder to do. You are essentially saying that your game's main draw is the story. It rightfully opens your story up to more added scrutiny, and unfortunately, this game's story falls easily flat on its face when scrutinized.

Final Thoughts/TL;DR
You can tell the dev really, really, likes to write. I get it. As evidenced by this review, big same. But sadly that doesn't mean the reader will necessarily like what is written here and that sets you back considerably if you choose to omit everything else for the sake of word count. It just has nothing else going for it. I'd be able to forgive a lot more here with the plot if it had any other standalone merits or redeemable qualities, such as gameplay, art, lewds, or character development, but it doesn't deliver on all other fronts either.

If you're interested in reading a long as fuck edgelord tumblr post about how much the MC hates himself, with one of the worst sandboxes I've ever experienced, and nearly nonexistent lewd content, then man is this the game for you. If however you're looking for an engaging harem porn game with any respectable modicum of substance and content, this probably ain't it.

Game is about misery porn and nothing more. Too much internal monolog, Too much depression and self pity.. Hell you don't even have much of choices. Like other said its more of kinetic novel then choice based..

Characters being good looking is only redeemable thing about this game...

Well, this is way better than I expected. I'm surprised I haven't heard of this game before. The writing is very good, same goes for dialogue and I really enjoy the LIs as well. I usually hate sandbox games but this one is not really grindy and overall quite enjoyable and the story was interesting enough to keep me going regardless. So yeah, I definitely recommend it.

V0.8.0

An absolute gem of a game in terms of story telling.

The way some memes are integrated in a very dark and disturbing story about a character who had a rough childhood and grew up to be broken, but the dialogues are surprisingly light hearted.

The music really helps set the tone to the dialogues in the events.

I really don't mind the lack of lewd scenes as stated by @Scruffles DEV, as the story more than enough makes up for that.

The LI's are all really unique and interesting, each having their cute quirks and characteristics.

My favorite amongst them is Hanako, who is just a cute little ball of energy.

Really great game with a intriguing story and plethora of great characters.

Just couldent get into this story, its just to boring to capture any interrest.
You got MC in deep depression wanting to kill him self, then some random girl that looks like a hooker saves him and they apprently end up in bed together hinting they proberly fucked but you dont remember or see it so not a great start, shes also somehow part of a underground operation where MCs dad is the boss, when MC meets hes dad its just again so boring and flat, he hasent seen hes dad for i dunno 12+ years or something and yet the meeting is just meh, MC gets told about superpowers and such but he couldent really care less about anything or anyone including him self.

MC is offered a job from hes dad but atleast he turns it down since he dont really want anything to do with him but he still gets the job without having to do anything, but what makes it idiotic is that MC will then only meet and talk with people working for hes dad? the company he dident want anything to do with.....dosent make much sense, also annoying why MC never ask about anyting, simple question ask Anna what happened the night he cant remember but nah why do such weird things?....ffs...

95% of the time is used on reading MCs inner dialogs which is long and boring, while it shows MC being annoying or dislike some girls it wont matter in any way since MC follows people around like a dog and accepts anyhing trown at him.
MC feels very submissive and with no backbone, when girls treats him like shit he accepts it and he will end out with fucking anyone no matter how they treat him or how ugly they are, thats my guess anyway.

As to choices there arent any, you might as well think of this as a kinetic novel, just meeting girls will give to affection points if you want them or not, so your building relationships with 0 say in it, so even if you hate the girl or find her ugly as hell thats just to bad heres another 50 points with her.....
Even though there isent much in the form of sex scenes right now, you can still see how game will be going forward, you will be forced to do questlines which will lead to a fuckfest game with 0 emotions just pointless fucking everyone.

The interface is boring and pointless, just click a text box where to go and hope something happens, you can barely even call it a sandbox, hint system is useless it just tells you "go do the whatever quest" thats it nothing about what or how to do it.....so have fun clicking 50 options for each 7 days to find the one spot to progress with the girl you want.....
Making a "sandbox" dosent make the game less kinetic, you will just be forced to follow a kinetic set of quests where you deside nothing.

TL;DR = Dive into a depression and inner monologue of a depressed person. Also this game is ANNOYING sandbox, where you have to visit same locations again and again while hoping you somehow unlocked new conversation.

Story: 1/5
- I found the plot very boring.
- Story follows this completely boring and unremarkable guy with depression. Yet this dude lives in a world of superpowers and hidden super organisations! I suspect that this MC has superpower called "super boring".
- Only saving grace of the MC is the fact, that he has received a plot armor in the form of "harem protagonist correction". How does that work? It changes the laws of the universe and makes all the females interested in spending their time with this unremarkable guy.
- I wish this game would show us more information about superpowers and these organisations. Mind you that MC's dad is a boss in one of those hidden organisations!! BUT NO! You will not receive any interesting information. You will spend over 95% of your time reading about MC's depression and talking with the girls about nothing important.
- Sadly the MC is huge pushover. Even though his inner monologue finds the girls super annoying he will still do everything for them.

Art and Sex Stuff: 2/5
+ Girls are hot.
- Unfortunately there is barely any erotic content.
- Current version of game has 2 erotic event: in first you watch some pussy fingering! 2nd event only has some nudity, where you watch a naked girl wake up in a bed.
- At this point it is not worth playing this game.

Gameplay: 1/5
- This game starts as Kinetic Novel, where you only read, but then changes into SANDBOX.
- This game is NOT "sandbox done right". No! This game is "ANNOYING SANDBOX".
- Whole gameplay revolves around clicking on some locations and visiting them to talk to girls. You will visit same locations AGAIN and AGAIN, while you will read same conversations AGAIN and AGAIN. You will do that and hope that this time the game will show you some new conversation.
- Game has made the things more complicated by different times of a day. There will be different girls at different locations at different times!!! Very often you will get stuck until you visit certain location at the certain time and there you will talk to a certain girl.
- Whole game mechanism "you are stuck with all the girls unless you talk to girl ABC at location D" is total garbage and waste of time! Thats not how you make an enjoyable sandbox. The game obviously wont tell you with whom you should talk. You have to find out on your own through trial and error.
- Considering that this game is early in development and there isnt any lewd content with majority of girls, then you will quickly lose all the motivation to keep visiting locations and trying to unlock new conversations. This game is very frustrating.

To sum it up:
This game is in early in development and there isnt much content. Also whole sandbox is frustrating repetition. At this point this game is waste of time. Maybe check the game later after few updates.

This game taking inspiration from a certain other game needs not be said again, what i can say is that the game manages to take elements from it while also giving it its own flavor.

The MC is 'Detached' (get it? lol) without being insufferable and has a lot more self-control than a certain other MC.

The music is great (it benefits from playing tracks that haven't been used to exhaustion 100 times over) and the sandbox aspects are tolerable.

The characters manage to stand out not just in terms of their personality but also in terms of their character models (props to Scruffles for making mature-looking models in Koitatsu).

The one thing i'd recommend is for a hints system to be added when you don't know when to trigger a certain event, it's beyond frustrating to poke around in the dark like that, please consider it Scruffles.

Aside from that, 5/5 can't wait to see more of it.

(for v0.5.1)

Fantastic game. MC's dialogue and internal monologue manages to pull off the antisocial loner character trait without being too grating, too insufferable, or veering too far into sociopathy. Dialogue overall is well-written and feels very natural (an enormous sticking point for me personally). Gonna echo another review on here and agree with them that the current cast probably shouldn't expand too much more; quality over quantity y'know.

Actually, y'know what, just read Noxilian's review right below me. They've said everything I wanted to and much more eloquently.

Literally my only real complaint is the capitalization error after ellipses lol

To start, the game clearly had some level of inspiration from another "famous Koikatsu VN" (which I won't name due to reviewing rules regarding cross-promotion). Both share ideas of absurdist/denpa horror, musings on existentialism/nihilism, a deeply traumatized and unlikeable protagonist (not saying that's a bad thing for storytelling), Koikatsu models, and a sandbox-lite gameplay format.

Those things aside though, Detached does a good job setting itself apart in its narrative, humor, and character writing - all of which are superb in their own right. The protagonist's trauma is more clearly defined, the fuckery that leads to the denpa sections seems to have a very different root cause within the setting, and it avoids the whole "isekai sensei" thing that a lot of games inspired by the aforementioned "famous Koikatsu VN" tend to copy.

I like the current cast, and personally hope it doesn't expand too much further. While some VN authors can certainly make a very large cast and keep each character unique and interesting, I personally prefer getting more depth, faster, on fewer characters. Maybe even promoting some of the current "side" characters to "main" characters, instead of introducing new ones (I'd already put my interest in more Hanako and Lupe content on par with some of the "main" cast).

The models and renders are top-notch for Koikatsu, but if you don't like Koikatsu, obviously they won't do anything for you. There isn't much H-content yet, but where it exists it's well done (found the scene titled "Generic Porn Plot" to be both hot and hilarious).

Music selection is solid and sets an appropriate mood for the given character/situation. None of the overused tracks I hear in many other VNs were used (noticed Hanako's theme sounds pretty similar to this, which I've heard in a couple VNs - definitely suits her personality though).

I'm not the biggest fan of sandbox VNs, but the sandbox-lite style used by Detached isn't too grindy and has fun enough generic events (for their first read at least). It does tend to be a bit of a chore to figure out how to trigger certain events though - lots of holding Ctrl while triggering the same event on each day of the week or such. I sometimes resort to looking at the files with VSCode to figure out how to trigger events in this style of sandbox.

Overall, a great start, and I'm excited to learn more about all the characters, and see how the plot unfolds.

Version rated: 0.3.0

So far it's showing to be a very promising game.

The writing, and character writing in particular, is very well executed. The character are very charming and want you to keep coming back for more to see them and also how Daine himself handles them. Daine himself, while definitely a prick, is at the same time relatable to burnouts like me and has a charm of his own and it's always fun to see how everyone handles his bullshit. There's not much to say about the plot so far, but this is also pretty early on and what has been doled out is promising.

The graphics are solid, but if you have anything against Koikatsu renders this isn't for you. The character designs are solid with unique profiles and show a definite understanding of the system with some of the better Koikatsu renders I've seen. Couple that with solid framing and an eye for camera work and aesthetics and it comes out to be very good visually. The UI itself isn't particularly sexy though, but honestly it works to some degree with the writing itself.

In terms of sound though not enough good things can be said about the music choice. It's solid, catchy, and always accentuates the mood well. As someon who usually plays these sorts of games on mute, I had to unmute for this because the music is just that good.

Now given where we are I also feel it necessary to mention the current sexual content which, at the moment, is pretty sparse. That said this sort of VN is definitely a slow burn so that's not surprising. On top of that while there may not be much what is there is well written enough that, coupled with the renders, is pretty hot.

Pros:
-Great writing with excellent style
-Compelling and charming characters
-Good Koikatsu renders with an eye for composition
-Solid aesthetics
-Fantastic music choice
-Hot sex scenes

Cons:
-MC is a bit of a prick (if that bugs you)
-Koikatsu renders (if that bugs you)
-A teensy bit of questionable word choice
-The UI can take some finagling
-Some useful tools are buried in menus
-Somewhat sparse sex scenes (if that bugs you)

All in all it's really good so far and I'm excited to see where it goes. I highly recommend it.

Version rated: 0.1.0

This is one of those games that comes out of the gate swinging.

Scruffles has both the writing chops and the eye for aesthetics to take full advantage of the medium of Visual Novels. The dialog is punchy, taking just long enough to get details across, while complimenting it with dynamic visual storytelling.

The character models are some of the best that Koikatsu has to offer: they manage to deviate from the stock sliders enough to gain their own personality, while remaining cohesive and attractive. Anne is as cute as a punk button and Bishop actually looks like a grizzled merc without falling into the hideous zone.

Some might consider the image of Daine disassociating to be a little on the nose, but as starved as we are for half-way competent writing, I am absolutely thrilled with how this has started.