Ren'Py - Dying Dream [v0.7.0.1] [Skoegul]

(Version v0.4)
A small review as encouragement. And a good one because this game is very promising.

Story is pretty interesting and shows some potential for the future.

There are numerous and interesting Characters to meet and their design are varied and realistic, which is a good point.

Gameplay is fun, if you like sandbox as I do. As only the prologue is available currently, there's not so much to do but I'm confident this will improve later.

Graphics are average and lightening is irregular, but the dev already knows it and, as I am writing this review, is remaking the game with improved rendering so that's why I do not take it into account in my current review.

Keep it up dev! That's a very good start!

Yeah this is an excellent one. Not just a simple 5-star one, but a real STAR among lots of 5-star ones.
Story is fascinating, draws me totally in. Graphics are gorgeous, girls are too ofc. Text is fine, almost flawless.
What else to say? A clear recommendation.
Although the game is only in the beginning, it has decent content already.
Edit: Hehe, I even dreamed about this story (and gameplay things). This happens to me sometimes, but extremely rarely - only with exceptional games (and this was not in the last 2 years)
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Edit:
Contiued to play with 0.5.4 (Feb 2024).
Already in my TOP5 ever (10 years), this is going to be my absolute TOP1.

I just love this dev. The way he creates this game, smart and humorous texts, logic storyline … everything so well done.

And the graphics, oh my. All girls like from heaven. How can someone create such a beauty – beyond words (Penny)? Never saw such eyes – gleaming – heart touching – like that of Penelope.

Looking into the stats (handy), we can guess what the dev is planning to. Game has a lot of depth. I am so much forward for the next updates.

This one got good story. A promising one. Developer did a good job here. Renders are good for a HONEYSELECT game. Only gripe for me is the sandbox part. It's not annoying nor grindy. It's a simple part. But that's what makes me little annoying. Because there is no need for it dev can instead make it a proper VN. Other than that everything is ok. I like animes so like these kinda stories. Waiting for the day where MC will lose his weight looking forward to next updates keep up the good work dev

So far, so good! I'll propably change my review when I have seen more of the game. And by change I mean the review, not necessarily my 5* rating.

I like the plot, the girls and the graphics. Even if it's a Ren'Py. Some trouble when a character is a bad guy in one game then a good in another! I take the good part, hopefully that's why I made the test. So, just waiting, for next upgrade. Time for next game then...

My review of Dying Dream [v0.4]

Story/Writing
The writing is excellent.
It's very similar to Once In A Lifetime, except with incel instead of incest humor.
Characters talk and think like real people (in a porn game) and each character has their own interesting personality.

Graphics
The graphics are mostly standard Honey Select stuff - slightly above average, but nothing special.
The highlights here are the characters, which all look very different and attractive, instead of having sameface/samebody-syndrome.
Everything looks consistent and there are no clashing artstyle or weird shadow mapping artifacts.
Unfortunately is has an ugly textbox background though, instead of just font outlines with a transparent textbox.

Sound
The sound is very good.
Everything has background music and even sound effects.
Stuff like Honey Select pig-squealing and fake moans are luckily absent - the only unpleasant sound is 1 unnecessary chair creaking at the beginning.

Gameplay
The gameplay mostly is like a regular VN so far.
In the morning you go to school, which almost always advances the story and has no repeating scenes.
In the evening you can do stuff like school work or jogging, which also leads to story events and no longer has to be repeated once you are fit/smart enough.
The sandbox-grind is almost non-existent if you focus on getting fit first.
After finishing all the "grind" you and your classmates have to take a final test, to not get thrown out of school and a few days after that the current version (which is just the prologue) ends.

Game Length
The game is about 3 hours long at the moment (depending how good or bad you are at simple mathematics).

Final thoughts
I usually don't review games this early in development, but I think it is good enough to be on page 1 or 2 (weighted rating) if the quality stays the same.
I just hope future versions will be as enjoyable as the current one and the game doesn't get abandoned.

A very well-deserved 5 stars. This is what happens when someone learns how to write properly, takes an absolute cliché-filled genre and says: "I'll show you how it's done, fuckers!"

Consistent tone, absolutely excellent pacing, manageable scope without a bloated cast. Great set-ups for hopefully properly escalating payoffs. Even some life lessons mixed in presented so well you'd think it's your own concusion.

Every game-play mechanic so far only exists to demonstrate narrative character progression, or add impact to choices you made or will make. Design is stellar.

Characterization is also very good as it adds just enough of real emotions to cliché characters to make them interesting.

As for criticism, I felt one scene where Kira confronts you wasn't up to par. Player reactions were mishandled and it broke my immersion, but it wasn't all terrible either, just not being able to react how 99% of people would have.

If you like good writing, this game has it in abundance. As of 0.4 there isn't enough lewd stuff for a proper fap, but the setups are very promising.

Wholeheartedly recommended.

Bad cliche and boring story animations....
Mc idiot with horrible appearance and as he could not miss a horrible comedy, the female characters are all idiots, they seem to be late except for the neko.

I see a lot of potential here!

The writing is engaging and everyone seems like their own person. It's a fun comeback story, but with an extra dose of potential danger.

Of course, what's coming is going to change how I feel about the game. Next up, a sandbox. I generally find them fine, but based on the description, it seems this game wants to be really ambitious.

So, until then, this game has hot characters and a whole lot of intrigue.

Played version 0.4

Fuck me.

Every once in a blue moon I find a title on this site that blows me away for all the right reasons and this game is one of those titles. As of the time of the review we only have what passes for a prologue and a short update right after, but it's still 3-4 hours of gameplay or so. Very solid gameplay.

The writing is great. Good English, distinctive voices for all the characters. Dialogue flows naturally, the premise is pretty original and the setting seems to be pretty damn deep. Just from what I've seen so far, I'd play the game even if there was no porn.

Gameplay has so far consisted of making various choices (influencing some hidden statistics?) and pretty neat minigames that you have a chance to skip if you want to, but there's some incentives to power through them yourself. With rollback and quicksaves it's really easy to do so. Game promises a sandbox that has yet to be implemented so can't comment on that as of the time of writing.

Art is very nice, especially for the women, and promises a nice variety for all tastes. Animations exist and are pretty hot. Some clipping issues in one of them but they didn't take away from the enjoyment. Visually speaking the game does great.

There is only one avenue of concern: the scope. The developer has a huge ambition, which, if successful, will result in probably the grandest game on here. I have yet to see a game of such scope being finished by an amateur developer without a studio backing it, but I certainly hope he succeeds. This game is already great and has the potential to be truly amazing in the future. Please support it if you can.

The review may be updated in the future, when the sandbox update comes out.

As of version 0.4
The story started out good with nice renders and very good and interesting female characters after a while Grinding SANDBOX ruins the game where you have to run and have to manage diet repeat it for 10 to 20 times . Not everyone loves mini games and puzzles , if they do good for them and there is no option to skip these mini games . After a while Sandbox is given more importance than the story and I can see that it is going to be worse when MC starts to earn money and few more inventory added to the list . And the game says there are no bad choices but there are certain planned tags ( NTR ) that most would avoid in the game . I don't like those tags , the game gives us so many choices what would happen if you end up there as a mistake . It would have been helpful it controversial tags are mentioned under planned genre instead have to go through thread messages to see what is planned .
Overall apart from the story and characters other things like Sandbox , minigames and puzzles are worst as they can't be skipped and I'll check this game later if any of those things changes and controversial tags are avoidable and I'll update my review later .

I love this game !
Renders -5/5
Girls-5/5
Isekai-5/5
Dialogue-5/5
I played the 0,4 version. I can't wait for another update this game will be one of my favorite
Loved the prison school reference with the...Principale

Just finished this for the first time. The math questions had me worried a little but then I realized I missed a single detail. I got wrong only one answer. The game itself is really good. Characters are well created, there are some easter eggs but they are not too much. Good game indeed. Can't wait to see where the story goes from now on.

Gotta say, this might be one of the best games I've played here!

Writing is good, lots of dialogue options too, and the prologue (when MC was still alive) got me hooked instantly. The characters seem nice, but in the current build there's not a lot of time to bond and really get to know them, but from what's there, there is a lot of room for growth and depth.

Also love the puzzly bits, and I hope there's more of it in future builds.

This was a good update of what I think could end up being a really good game. The concept is interesting and the world the dev has made is intriguing. It looks like this game is going to be very ambitious but it sounds like the dev figured out the story before he jumped into making it a game which makes me a little less concerned about its future.


Some things I want the dev to know about:

• The game is too bright. Hopefully the dev works on fixing the lighting
• I think most the girls look great!
  • The teacher and the lunch lady were the best one's in the game for me. I don't think the lunch lady says anything though so hopefully she'll have more of a roll in the future instead of just sitting in the background.
  • This comes down to personally preference but I wasn't a big fan of Chisa's face. It didn't look great to me but it was also just physically hard to look at because of how bright her skin is with the current lighting. Her facial features just kind of melt into each other.
  • I think Penelope's mouth is a little too big for her face but I still like her model.
• The math/history test was kind of annoying. I was able to get through it fine but the fact that we have to do algebra and fake history way before we see the first sex scene was a little frustrating. I normally think mini games are fine but if I have to pull out a pen and paper or memorize dates in an alternate universe's history it feels more like a chore than a game.
• I know this game is made using Honey Select but it still seems pretty low res which doesn't pair well with the lighting. I think fixing the lighting for future updates will help a lot with that (I promise this is the last time I complain about the lighting).

Like I said the concept is interesting but it's a little disappointing that we're just living somebody else's life until we're done with our mission and they take it back. It makes none of the relationships ours since they'll ultimately belong to the guy when we give him his body back. It's like we're putting in all the work just for this other guy to take all the credit. Maybe other people don't mind that but it was just something that made it difficult for me to really care about any of the people there (other than Alice since she stays with us).

Oh, this shit was amazing! I'm looking forward to the next release. This is one of the best games I've ever played, the Dev is a genius. These are my words, no one told me write something like this, trust me.

Seriously though, the game looks extremely promising! There is not much to complain about, except for the visuals that look a bit outdated. But who cares if the game is good!

I really liked the concept itself and the build-up. The MC is not OP from the beginning and you gotta grind to become more powerful, but in this game it's actually fun. The characters, the dialogues, the humor, the situations - all this makes the game even better.

Keep up the good work!

Really enjoyed that first build, the project looks very promising. Much diversity which the female characters, all finely made so really cool !
I really like how the character slowly power up through the story, and how the choices we have really impact the gameplay. Special mention to the school tests which are pretty difficult hahaha.
Can't wait to see what you'll come up next.

Godspeed.

I'll be rating the game based on what content there is, the graphics, the story, etc.
+The concept of the story itself is already unique. It took the best parts of inspiration from what was waifu academy, and made it it's own unique thing. Completely unexpected, and honestly had a really fine balance of comedy, lewd, story and gameplay.

+The graphics were extremely well-done, well rendered and well animated. There's not much more you can honestly say about that. All the character models were charming cute and really stood up with the story.

+Gameplay was well done and had a nice blend of micromanaging, the choice system was fun too. A lot of the time you got to make choices that really built the world and that's always something I look for in games. World building is just lost in most games.

The only negative I had was the tests. The first two questions were easy but the missing fry, and the smorgasbord of ingredients after made it really annoying lol. That was probably the only negative I had of the game.

I really hope to see this get developed further, the cliffhanger really left me on edge because there's no telling who it could have been. Lol.

So, I'll point out that I don't usually play unfinished games - I make an exception only for very early versions when they catch my eye and I'd like to consider supporting the author (and that was the case here).

The rating is for the game version [v0.3]
(+) The main character in the slim version, looks almost the same as me about 10 years ago xD (eye color, hairstyle, even most facial features - not to mention situational similarities) so getting into his plight was child's play for me;
(+) the girls have their own charm and each has slightly different characteristics;
(+) on the one hand, the story is based on a simple premise, but on the other hand, it has a lot of mystery, which is certainly a nice flavour, because while in most titles you know more or less what will happen next, in this case it is really difficult for me to guess what adventures await the main character and his surroundings;
(+) the fantasy (magic) aspect adds even more variety to the game world - I only hope the author does not overdo it ;-)
(+) i like the elements of metamorphosis in this type of games, so I hope for even more of them in the future (which suggests the description of the author's game) such flavors as a change of location, appearance, items and so on are really cool (I also hope that the issue of metamorphosis will also affect the characters around us, just depending on the given choices -.^
(+) surprisingly, mechanically the game is good - we have here a few flavours which add variety to the gameplay. These elements really score a lot of points in the overall perception of the game, because there are not too many of them and they do not make you tired;
(+) has erotic animations!
(+/-) graphically, as far as the characters are concerned, it's really good, the backgrounds and elements of the environment are a bit worse, but I think it's a kind of a norm, so...
(-) well, in this demo - I didn't feel that any decision made a bigger difference.

In general, there is not much to complain about. I very much like the author's description of how the game will look like, I'm a little afraid that all this sooner or later will outgrow him and in some of its elements will begin to appear some deficiencies and voids, because it is easy to make a demo version, but when it appears more and more complete product happens to go to authors to more and more easy.

I am very curious about these hidden stats and what impact they will have on gameplay. Will they change the very form of expression of other characters? Or even situations and scenes will be changed? At the very beginning of the game, the author strongly suggests playing without any help, so I assume that his intention is to create something that can be passed in several ways, and each of them will be satisfying depending on what we expect. It's a really cool approach and it sparked my imagination all the more.

As far as my personal taste is concerned I am hoping for:
- I'm a fan of "loli" so I'd love to see that kind of character well unless you count the red-headed maid, although she's still probably not a typical "loli";
- I also like NTR threads, but given that it's a topic that is quite different for a lot of players, I'd simply be in favour of introducing so called "avoidable NTR scenes" so that "the wolf is full and the sheep are whole".

In one word, I will be watching this game closely - but before financially supporting the author, I would like to see one more step forward (next patch or some other form of information that catches my eye and allows me to finally decide).

Good luck with your game!

Sko, you've got a pretty solid game here and its start was very interesting. Executed pretty well and the story is straightforward. The girls all have interesting personalities and the fact you're being a mad lad planning on having up to 100 characters, mind you folks this is both male and female in the mix is a wild feat I look forward to you achieving. The potential of this game by story alone is far and wide. That cliffhanger at the end was also what truly sold me. May success and growth be in your journey.

Review 0.3

This game have make me enjoy so much it doesnt have grinding and the exam is interesting which it have many way to pass it.

The story is pretty enjoyable even it just a prologue, it also got some funny moment.