Ren'Py - Abandoned - Deviant Anomalies [v0.9.5] [MoolahMilk]

Big game, decent story, decent characters, variety of kinks, all-around good time, even though the game is abandoned.
But i can't recommend it. Because it's broken. Quests stop working randomly and events fire out of order. It really screws up whatever interest you gather.
But hey, maybe i'm unlucky and my specific sequence of choices bricked my playthrough. Feel free to try for yourself.

Positives:

1. Some of the girls look pretty good (although the models are not up to the quality of modern titles). Nothing special, for sure.
2. Some of the scenes are quite hot. They involve different forms of corrupting girls, increasing depravity and submission, etc.
3. Some of the sex scenes are interactive and actually offer more interaction than most games.

Negatives:

1. The game is not even a third complete. It's abandoned.
2. There's very little content.
3. The content that is included is half-finished. This for example leaves all the story and character development stopped early on in the story arch.
4. Quests are unfinished, leaving them unresolved.
5. Some scenes seem unfinished.
6. The corruption of the girls is very much unfinished. This is really frustrating.
7. Some of the mechanics are unfinished, e.g. lust.
8. Some of the girls look bad (while others look fine). This is a matter of preference of course. But e.g. saggy breasts is something I dislike. Or when the legs are like double the width of the chest.
9. Lots of strange game "mechanics" that are basically gimmicks. I feel this doesn't anything of value in an adult game. Like a pretty involved and complex exam tutoring. Clearly the dev didn't prioritize the use of his time well.
10. The "sandbox" type of game doesn't work so well here given that most of the time there's nothing to do in each period of the day.
11. The animations are quite bad.
12. The story, quests, etc. are counter-intuitive and require a walkthrough. It's really a mess, even with a walkthrough.

My recommendation is simply to avoid this game. It will leave you frustrated and with a sense of wasting your time.

Version 0.9.5

Great character models and sex scenes that are completely let down by poor implementation.

Story
It is very promising with a lot of potential, but 3+ years into the game development at V0.95, the main storyline i.e. blizzard storm causing Deviants Anomalies affecting universal time flow has hardly developed at all. The developer did a quick introduction at the start and abandoned it altogether to work on the side stories.

Side quests like nun murder, partnering Chanel to setup a brothel, Moon’s issues, Carina & Gem blackmail, Sage’s boyfriend, Mia’s pregnancy have all not been properly developed to date and left hanging.

The fact that these stories are somewhat linked together with each other isn’t a problem for a linear visual novel, but it’s a disaster for sandbox. You get flashbacks on events that haven’t even happened yet, characters refer to things that you have no idea what it’s about, one character has supposedly disappeared in this side story, but yet appears in another side story which takes place concurrently.

Too much logical complexity in conditions has resulted in events either being triggered too early, in the wrong sequence or worse still being skipped. For e.g. the trip to Blue Oyster for Carina’s story was repeatedly triggered for 3 times and I have no idea why. The bugging of the nuns was completely skipped and MC was eavesdropping without any explanation.

Game Mechanics
The detective clue seeking + note taking is innovative and fun. The slave / lover training system is there as an option, but nothing is developed in reality.

Most of the girls you interact with have this system as an option, but there’s nothing when you click. Inventory system serves no purpose as far as I can see. Income system is nothing but repetitive clicking to make online moolah.

Background / Character Renders
Some of the most beautiful character models I have seen in visual novels, quite on par with the top guns like Eternum and Pale Carnations.

Sex Scenes
Very good animation and erotic presentation, it’s good to see interactive elements which the player can choose for the whole scene. However many of the scenes do not have any background music or sound, kind of a mood killing to only have silence and text.

Conclusion
The detective concept is interesting, each individual story is interesting, but when packaged together it become obvious the creators do not have enough financial, time and technical resources to pull it off.

Review of v0.9.5.

This game has had me teetering on the brink for quite a while now. Should I just abandon it in disgust, or keep mining it for the gold that is buried under all the shit?

The gold: the occasional amazing animation, some gorgeous character models, and some extremely erotic scenes.

The shit: An irritating sandbox format, maddening mini-games, and a completely incoherent storyline.

If this dev partnered with someone who could write a story and present it in a coherent manner, he might create a stellar game; but this is not it.

There's so much to enjoy about this game. A dark premise, cute characters, several interesting mechanics and a very layered investigation system, at least during the one mission I played. Additionally, this game early on will give you a choice with a certain character: Whether you want to submit to her, or whether you want to grab the metaphorical reins and dominate her.

At one point, during a cutesy moment in a lingerie store, you're invited to make a decision. And if you make that decision, you are locked into a femdom moment. I think the author wanted you to get really angry and want to take revenge afterward, but there's nothing to do during long stretches of it, there's no choice to make, no way to turn it around in the moment. And the missions are interactive so you can't just skip past them. There also isn't a 'Back' button, so if you overwrote your save at some point, there's no way past this. Instead, your only way forward is to engage with something unacceptable.

If you make it past, the main character will plot his revenge, and find blackmail material for one of the girls involved. The game builds up the anticipation of showing her the blackmail, and builds up the anticipation of seeing the look on her face.

Eventually, you get a random text message from her, even though you've never interacted with her before, and it's revealed that you showed her the pictures off camera, and she's just already under your control now. Eugh.

There are several continuity errors, at some point the game will assume you completed a certain mission and will show you a 'flashback' of you being jumped by a gang even though that hasn't happened yet, but I could have easily forgiven that.

Instead, I will simply say that I have played enough of this game. I don't need to see anymore. Like Doctor Manhattan, I let the photograph fall from my hand.

Friends, I have played many a game here. I am sorry to say there are only about 10 games that are worth your time. This could be one of those games if it did not lose coherency.. The characters are well written, the story is interesting, and the lewd scenes are fire. Unfortunately, the story becomes pieced together as updates stack upon updates. Plot lines would lead no where or were advanced without the scenes taking place. It is a crying shame, because this could have been one to remember. Since some of the lewds were outstanding, I must give three stars despite the wheels falling off mid-story.

Small spoilers or something

So let's start from the good,
some scenes are kinda nice.

Yea, that's about it. I genuinely am confused as to why this game is so highly rated, all characters are either retarded or way over the top nonsensical and their development is akin to that of rotting milk, "gameplay" and grind is slow and boring to the point where i did cheat in the cash and the few interactive parts are so bad it would be better without them, whereas something as simple as blackjack is not even implemented yet.
But the absolutely worst of all is when some quest flags are not triggered properly and you literally cannot begin one """side""" quest that has necessary story points for later quests which you can still happily progress through, or in other words, sequence breaking. Now this would be all cool and dandy, if the game acknowledged the fact you haven't seen this """side""" content before but well, fuck you and your immersion because you for sure ain't getting that shit in this kinetic novel.
As for other issues i remember:
No sounds for prolonged periods of time where there should be some music
Forcing me into sex with junkie so i could progress the damn story since not raping her resulted in ren'py error
Massive lag spikes in some random scenes
Interactive point having hitboxes slightly off, like positions changes and stuff like that

All in all dev very well could fix all my issues with this and the story could pick up some brains for a detective game, but let's be real, that haven't happened for so many games with so much more promise that it just ain't gonna happen

i did originally write this as a 1* review but some scenes were actually kinda nice, but don't tell anyone

Idk why this game isn't tagged as a VN, because it is. And it's one of the most nonsensical ones.
Anyways, what bothered me:
- The choices you have are the basic "sex" and "no sex". There's no real inbetween. A few choices have very temporary consequences, but don't matter much
- Most choices you are pushed into and cannot advance without "choosing" the right thing
- Most choices are non-obvious. For example you can pull someones shirt off and that's okay, but when you want to pull their bra off you'll have to try again the next day. But if you don't, and then spread their legs and touch their pussy, it's a-ok again. That's nonsense.
- The whole game is linear without any choices, but you still get "side" quests and "main" quests. However, if you venture "too far" into the side quests, you actually get flashbacks into the main questline for stuff you've never even heard of. Most of the side quests also just end at some point and aren't even finished. My expectation was that the main quest is unfinished but each added side quest is finished.
- The game is grindy as fuck. Unless you advance the main quest the only way to make money nets you 30$ and you need a lot of money sometimes. Towards the end all your activity happens at night so you just kinda work your side job during the day because you have to because there's nothing else to do

What was okay:
- The graphics. Definitely can't reach similar games like Eternium, but decent enough I'd say
- The animations. BJs are kinda just "suckling" on the tip and you don't see any other penetration (as far as I have played). The sex scenes (two of which I've found in ~20 hours) just see you pistoning. But no clipping and no weird movements and nice facial expressions, so overall between okay and good.

What was good:
- This was the first Renpy game I've played that didn't have issues with clickable elements
- While not as fully explored as I'd like, it was also one of the only detective games that actually made you collect evidence rather than just display a button to press
- It's got a lot of story content

TLDR: All this dev does is lie so people keep giving them money. Do not support them.

Decent game, horrible dev. Disappears for 6 months, comes back to say they finished the game but won't release it and they're remaking it but worse. Support drops like a rock so they do a 180 and say they're going to release it after all but in 3 parts. First part was a week late, second part is a month late at the time of writing and no-one has heard from the dev in weeks. A month late on releasing something that they claim has been finished.

Game itself has good graphics and an alright story but is kind of all over the place currently, lots of things were started but nothing gets finished, should be fine once its finished but really annoying when waiting for updates.

WAAAAAY to long and grindy. The story is somewhat interesting and gets you going for a while but damn its slow. The lewd scenes are few and far between. I played this in 2021 last and omg nothing has happened since! A few minor stories have been added but this game is way to slow going to be worth it. Give this one a pass, its just a waste of your time.

This really feels like an amateur effort that wasn't well thought out. Game mechanics are all over the place. If you start some things too early you can get stuck in a loop and unable to complete the case you're trying to work on. The MC alternates between reasonably intelligent and a complete idiot at random - and also randomly wears a mask at times (for no reason). If you're willing to follow a guide and pretend its a kinetic novel with no real choices it kinda works. Kinda. Models are OK but not great - there's the usual ridicultits factor.

Tl;dr: This game became a big clusterfuck.

PRO:
Graphics
Sex-Scenes
Humor
Music

Neutral:
Story
"Free" Choice (little differences only so far)
Choices mostly black or white
MC

CON:
No Gallery
(Almost) No guiding thread
Chaos
Too much side, too little main

Back when I played this game for the first time it felt like a somewhat ~4.3, but -holy crap- is it a mess now. The story of some quests build up on other parts, but there are missing checks so you sometimes end up doing them in "wrong" orders.
When choosing to behave bad (like "rape an unconscious girl" bad) in the start it feels like MC is driven by an inner devil. Later on he is just a sociopath that lost all emotions and empathy. That makes it hard to get into the spirit of MC, which is probably a deal breaker for lots of people.
Further on, it does not feel like the dev knows where he wants to go with the story, so he started pouring out side quests on mass.

Interesting story and characters with different personalities and some different fetishes.

Very exciting sex scenes.

Beautiful graphics and characters.

Interesting dialogues with good humor.

One of the best games without a doubt.

Great passion in body, face and eyes,
Very good graphic especially if you watch on details
but there is still a lot to work to do with connecting parts of history.

Some of elements very hardcore

This game isn`t for everyone, but when it will be polished, then it will be a black diamond.
This very dark history.

Same old same old, Yet another game where you have no controle no choice no nothing when it comes to relationships and who to fuck, its one of those childish games forcing you to look at big ugly tits and zoom in on them, i mean give the player a choice insted some hate big tits so its idiotic to force that fetish on the player, and like so many other games the MCs only way to save the world is to fuck people its been used to many times and its just a shitty excuse to not making a real story and instend just make a fuckfest game.

As for the story its idiotic, MC is on a criminal case thing where someone forces him to install a spy cam in hes sisters room, MC that arent supposed to think about hes sister in a sexual way does install the cam, but whats idiotic is that since the sister isent doing anythin he thinks let find a way to make her horny? i mean seriously? so MC went from a loving brother to just the run of the mill pervert type, just like a boring porn movie its all just meh.

Game is a sandbox game buts its as kinetic as it gets, so dont think you have any kind of freedom, its a bit stupid since it removes the hole point of having a sandbox.

Choices in game is a pure joke and they have no point of even being there, heres one small exsamble, MC and Sister talks about MCs dick your given two options, brush it off or show her so i pick brush it off and he shows her....
just fake choices that has the same result, its idotic and its only to give the illusion of choice in the game that in truth is kinetic in so many ways, game is filled with those kind of pointless choices.

Same goes for sexual scenes your forced to look and play with some extreemly big ugly saggy tits again forcing a fetish on you whis is awefull, no matter what choices you pick nothing can be avioded.
Its pretty sad since game could have been great and it would be so simple for devs to let people say no since you would only miss out on the scenes and fetishes you dont like and wouldent miss any story content, so it really is idoitic not allowing players to just say no.

MC has the almost standard boring 12 year old mindset thinking how everyone is so hot, getting a boner from anything and i do mean anything even from getting tased....hes also very submissive following order none stop letting people live in hes house and he only thinks of excuses for it to be a good thing, hes just so damn boring.

Once you fuck and lose MCs virginity to the most ugly bitch with huge saggy tits i quit the game, i hate forced LIs and i hate huge tits its the biggest turn-off to me so game sadly became unplayable.
I wish they would add kinetic tags to warn people that you have no choices in the game.

As for content its very poor, after doing your firse case main quest has no more content, game is over 3 years old and theres just nothing happening with this game 0 progress.

Girls/LIs looks good but gets ruined by the no choices.

Animations are a bit above averge which makes it more annoying that its unplayable.

Music is decent as well.

Alright, this is a weird one to rate. I won’t be addressing the gameplay/mechanics because I honestly don’t care as long as it has a coherent story and nice scenes and there are plenty reviews of that already. (Sadly, this game has neither)


-So, let’s start with the setting/premise, a cool modern world mixed with magic is extremely cool and I dig it. I honestly wanted to like this game and had high expectations due to its rating. However, the worldbuilding until now has been a complete disappointment, to my knowledge the game has been released for years and it really hasn’t progressed its setting at all.


-Now the story on the other hand…Its bad, like actually awful. It jumps around constantly without any coherence. The dialogue is bad but passable, most conversations are inorganic and random. The pacing has been extremely slow, and each update just adds more characters that will have one scene and the cycle will repeat again leaving a lot of characters almost without any content/story.


-Now let’s go into the characters, the character models are pretty decent, and the personalities are subpar but passable. That being said the characters in this game have surprised me in a really bad way, Let’s start with the MC, and man its bad. Easily one of the worst MC I’ve seen, almost every character in this game constantly make fun of him all the time and we can’t do anything about it. For a game that focusses and gives you the option to “be a deviant” and corrupt other characters it has been a complete and utter disappointment.


-At the beginning of the story, we are presented with 2 main girls, you’d think they would have the most content right? Wrong, the 2 main girls (Mia and Sofia) have little and all the ones they have are bad. For example, that whole (A Bug has somehow fakely “Impregnated” Mia) was one of the most random and unnecessary chain of quests I’ve played in any game until now. Why even add it in the first place? Like I don’t even understand the point, if you want to give people pregnancy content do it the right way with the MC later on the story, not this artificial fake ntr-ish garbage. Anyways after the whole time-consuming excrement you get to meet a whole bunch of characters that somehow have more content than the main cast. Personally, I find it extremely concerning that characters that are not even tied to the main plot somehow have more content and scenes than the main ones. That being said, these side characters were mostly ok-ish.


-Final thoughts

This game has been a huge disappointment, lackluster content/scenes, horrible story and extremely slow updates don’t make it worth my time.

Potentialy greatest H games that will suck up your vitality and more importantly he/she came back with a gallons of milk.

The dude came back to face all the child support man that even Toji ran away twice

This MC is catastrophe. I think he is the most pathetic loser I ever saw on F95 games. Practically every characher in this game constantly insult, belittle, lecture or make fun of him all the time from the first interaction and he cant or dont do anything about it. Even his sweet little sister can slap him on the face, say that he stinks, that he is not good enough for dating her friend or can make him apologise for her own faults. Guy who writed this pathetic excuse of a man as MC have some serius self esteem problems and needs good slap in the face. For me absolutely whole experience with this game was ruined because of this incredibly pathetic MC.

Haven't ever thought about playing a detective VN where I will actually have to collect clues, think and interrogate suspect. Turned out it's a freaking fun thing to do. The case is brilliant and - all beautiful filth aside - deserve turning the story into some tv show.

Very strong mystery writing, a lot of intrigue, interesting characters - just wow. Models are very sexy, boobs look adequate in size across the board, you can actually communicate with girls during sex scene. Not about everything, of course, but that is the first time I've seen that opportunity. Sex talk is top notch.

A girl can behave differently towards you depending on your preferences. That's amazing! Quite a lot of freedom, fun side quests.

Three weak points for now are:
- the pussyface of the MC, you have to look at when you read dialogues. It's too sour.
- Blackmail of Delilah is disqusting. It must have an option to stop much-much earlier (it's 0.9.2 Beta). Since the first iteration preferably.The girl didn't deserve that crap.
- Beatrice arc.

What should i say, the Idea of the game is good "some" of the dialogs are good and sometimes they are even a littlebit smart but overall its just ok or meh.

What do i mean by that....The Game has a lot of unfinished game mechanics, just an example, there are two detective modes after the first case. They are both diffent in Style and Front but not in function. So why make them at all, seems like a waste of time.

Same goes for inventory, why do i have it? Just to look at it? And when i have it why do not all Items go in there? Example without spoiler: Pill bottle, keys, security camera (not spycam btw).

If you have a useless function get rid of it, or let it have a use. But dont let me see it if i cant use it properly.

Same goes for interation options, im pretty sure you can make missing ones invisible even in the development [clip] it out of the code, or make it a comment as long as it has no value.

I kow the developer trys to show what will come, but its not neccery if some people have the dialoge options, they allready show whats coming.

Last but not least the weakest part of this game, Story progession. It is neither linear, non-linear or even segment based. Its just utter chaos, it looks like the developer has made a Storybranch to some extent and thought of another idea and another one and another one and another one.....and so on,.The problem is that it is disconected, there is no common thread in the story, its just jumping around and not in a good way.

I like that he/she/it trys to make a good story dont get me wrong it could be a good one. The renders are good, even some of the videos are relatively well done (camera, angle etc).

Thats why i hope someone will put this puzzle of a game into a good coherent story if all the elements of the game are finished.

For now its not a quick fap, its a semi good story (because not linear) and for my voting its just 3 Stars.

Btw im not a nativ, i hope my english was acceptable.