VN - Ren'Py - Distant Horizon [v0.6] [IziRider]

I was hesitant to try out this game as I usually avoid playing games that have been 1 or less years old, since they normally don't have that much content or development; but decided to give it a try while waiting for some of my favorite games to publish updates.

Now I'm very glad I did. While there are a few things that could be done better, I disagree with most of the shortages mentioned in other reviews.

At the start, the story does seem to be the typical "stranded in space" story: MC somehow got lost in his travel through a space route, lost his ship, crew and his wife.

So far, same old. But then the story started developing on the background and story of the characters there are (which I see other users complained as "too much lore") and sets basis for the ones that are about to enter the next scenes.

Each character has been well developed, with their own traits, motives, wants and objectives, and each of them is pursuing their own one way or another, enriching the overall story and allowing an immersion in the story that makes this game very enjoyable.

The lore is not so much as crazy mumble jumble as I've seen in other games where the whole argument goes either completely crazy or stays in "because of reasons". It is long enough to make the story to make sense, but not enough to get you bored.

It could appear indeed that the erotic/lewd content is minimal, but I think it is by design. It's not a quick fap. It's a story first oriented game, and the scenes have a purpose and meaning in the whole story.

While the models do not have the same detail and development I've seen in other games, they are good enough, and have been at some extent been customized to make them if not unique, at least somewhat not that common.

Overall, I liked this game very much, and would certainly reccomend it for a good reading.

This is an awesome adult game for the following reasons:
+ Multiple origin stories/options for the MC - things that will impact the game
+ Story-rich
+ There's a main plot and there are potential sub/side plots
+ Animations are good (I have seen better, but these are still decent given how well they work with the story/writing)
+ Well built secondary characters
+ Women are gorgeous but don't jump the bones of the MC just because he is the MC. You gotta work for it.
+ Well built world that can hold this game and even more in the future.

I personally enjoyed this game even though I did miss a scene (the elevator one) since I didn't know how to unlock it. The game could use a walkthrough mod as there will be multiple branches I guess). Can't wait to see how this develops. All the best and many thanks to the creator of this game. May you get a lot of support from the international community.

I'd give this a 3/10 in it's current state (0.5), although I've rated it 3/5 for a reason. Now this may sound disheartening for the developer, but I do genuinely think there's potential in the game. Real potential. However, for a number of reasons, there's not really a scenario where I'd recommend someone play it.

Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that what this game is, or *meant* to be, is an erotic visual novel. The majority of the time spent in the game, my guess being 75%, is lore dumping. Quite frankly, I don't care about it. You have not given the player a REASON to care. When you read something like, say, The Hobbit, the lore helps ELEVATE the established story. I am enjoying the story of Bilbo Baggins and his journey. The lore and world-building helps make that story feel more alive, more interesting. This game DOES NOT HAVE THAT.

20% of the game is story (which I find genuinely ridiculous), but the story so far, from March to October, is a bloke from 700 years in the past wakes up on a space pleasure cruise with a test tube lady, and wants to find his wife, and has just recently discovered people were hired to find the ship . If you can tell, this is also essentially the overview of the game. Because essentially nothing has happened. It moves at a snails-pace. Honestly, it's intensely boring. I feel like if you had it as they wake up stationary in dead space, get the black box EASILY, then suddenly get ambushed, it'd be so much better. You shave like half the time down. Instead, there is an INTENSE level of lollygagging, repetition, useless information, and dead air. A dictionary isn't useful when you don't have any words you want to know.

Now, 5% is sex/nude scenes (being generous), and it is absolutely not a justified reward for the slog. I want the sexual scenes to be natural, but they're not gonna be natural when there is so little story progression (and story in general). Either there needs to be artifically placed in sex scenes (e.g. he finds lewd shit on the pleasure cruise), the fluff needs to be cut in HALF, or both.

I'd give it 2/5 if I was honest, but I'm giving it 3/5 for the potential the game has.

V0.5

A lot of time has been spent thinking up the whole lore surrounding this futuristic plot, but sadly not so much time been spent also thinking about how to deliver it.
apparently this has had someone check the writing but it has errors and, quite honestly, needs work. it is a bit convoluted in it's delivery and choice of sentence structure is unnatural at times. it IS readable, just not fluid.
it has a long way to go yet and if it continues as it has started, i suspect it will become about as entertaining as a second generation lab rat game.
Also tagged as a VN yet has point and click elements. no idea why

the art is good. not great but not poor enough to be middling. it does more than the job requires but not polished.

no errors in coding. there have been exceptions on this site but this dev is renpy clean. great stuff

this may be a decent story based point and click game if it ever gets to it's end. not gonna hold my breath though.

The render quality is decent and the writing is good. So far there is very little to this game, less than most demos and intros actually, so the fact that this is the 0.2 build is somewhat misleading. As it is the game could go either way, but I'd wait until at least 5 or 6 of these updates for it to have anything actually worth playing.

[Reviewed: v0.2]
At this point the game is essentially an introduction. There's not much story here beyond that outlined in the OP summary, with it ending just after a puzzle to boot the AI. There are only a few minor issues with the story text grammar, such as using "is" instead of "are" when the sentence subject is "clothes". The images are of good quality. There is some animation provided in the single lewd scene.

The game starts with you choosing your given (first) name and surname, and then a choice of one of five back stories. The origin choice gives the protagonist different advantages, one for example that skips the puzzle mentioned above, but nothing in this introduction is blocked by your choices. Beyond the start-up settings, there are only a couple of other choices before you've reached the end of this version.

There are a few "data pads" to click on that add pictures to a gallery, but don't seem to matter otherwise. There are still unexplained parts to the protagonist's story that are raised in this introduction, which I expect to be uncovered piecewise in future updates.

I've rated this as good (4 stars) as it looks to be a nice quality start to a game.