VN - Ren'Py - Echoes of Deception [v0.62] [MadKoala]

Forced scenes even if you avoid that path completely which is the major with the game for me. The game is coded to have it read as you sleep with everyone even if you choose not to so choices really dont matter in the long run. Sometimes feels like scenes are "over described" with a bunch of useless filler text that feels like it was added just to get the word count up and its just feels to much.

There is a attempt to write something serious and well versed, but you can easily see the gaps in both aspects pretty quickly. Maybe it's a stepping stone to something more polished in the future with either a next attempt or late game, but i couldn't keep playing because its a porn game.

The scenes are meh, so thats a big problem. I wouldn't mind if the story/writng wasn't lacking, i played a whole 0.7 of other game avoiding casual encounters to get with the main girl and didn't felt bored. It tries too hard to be taken serious and fails, which is worse than just being casual about things. I dunno, "It insists upon itself"

One on the best games in this category. Great language and dialogues, can be shortened a bit though. Great renders with good animations and really good models especially Diana with all the different outfits which a lot of games don't focus on. Corruption with ryland felt off and way too fast compared to other characters and seryl is quite annoying rest is great.

This game surprised me overall very positively. I like the setting. the fmc is nice and doesn't feel neither too dominant nor too weak. There are choices even it sometimes feel even you declin/deny/refusee it pushes you a bit in a certain direction. (relationship to some boys )
gameplay with some "search for avidence" feels rerfeshing and not too much/exhausting.
i like diana
paul is interesting
ryland is alright
marcus seems to be very necessary for the story still would like to avoid a bit
derrik, clark and jamal feel superfluous (they feel unnecessary)
sheril was annoying for me
frank - i really like him (please more frank)

PROS:
+ sexy fmc (even she could be curvier for me i do like her and her face/style)
+ very nice render quality
+ choices (even some feel relative weightless)
+ cool and not too complex gameplay investigation
+ nice dialogue
+ at least one potential old man route (frank) (really sexy pool scene!)

CONS:
- a bit too many young male characters
- some paths feel to be necessary (if others especialy like marcus i still "have to" get some sort of relationship with him. for one char like marcus its fine especially for the plot but please not much more)
- some characters feel unnecessary and i wish i could get rid of them for my playthrough like sheril, jamal, clark etc.
- sexual progress especially with older men like frank (and maybe later paul?) feels quite slow maybe a bit too slow?

-> most cons are very personal thats why its still a really nice game with much potential and surprising nice quality! very curious about the plot around paul/marcus and i especially look forward to more scenes with frank. (please more frank, MadKoala)

This is my favourite game with a female protagonist, the charakter is beautiful and the renders are nice.
The story is believable and you have a lot of freedom with your choices. This is definitely a game where I'm stoked whenever its updated.

The MC is hot, sexy and drop dead gorgeous, is portrayed as a strong women who is not afraid of expressing her sexual desires. Story is good, the teasing is great, however when the sex scenes do show up, it seems limited. The later parts of the game has some decent enticing animations which are very well done, but the animations need to be much longer and a lot more variations in the sex scenes would go a long way. The scenes skip to the next dialogue after just an animation of 3-4 loops. To me this is breaking immersion, as the build up to the sex is there but the animation ends too quickly. The Developer should consider making the animation loop endless like in other games and leave it to the user to proceed ahead or make the animation a 20 loop playout.

During a few scenes, there seems to be a mismatch with some other random scenes or dialogues showing up,, needs to be rectified.

Overall a promising game with great potential. Hope the Dev irons out issues pointed out in the upcoming updates. Will be keeping an eye on this one. Wishing the very best to the Developer and the team involved.

great game. Fantastic concept and fantastic execution! Great characters, fun story, enjoyable to read and the 3D models look good. A lot of care and effort went into this game and it shows! looking forward to the next update

To tell you the truth, I wasn't sold about this one after several hours. Something was off, but theeeen, after maybe 2-3 hours - oh boy - the pacing, the writing, the characters, the scenes (not all of them, but the fair amount is juicy AF) even music - almost everything is on a quite decent level.

This is my favorite game on this site. The story is amazing, the game is really funny, and the interactive scenes are very well done. I like it, the main character is very beautifully done and the development branches I liked the plot top

Great game. But need fast updates. Keep up the good work. The story is going well. Some good horny storyline will make the game even better. Diana needs to look more sexy and teasing more. More seductive Diana will make the game more interesting

Pros
-Great female model and character
- Rly like the story so far and pretty much every character
- Dialogue is pretty neat and believable for this kind of game
Cons
- A bit slow on development time. Last update took me 10 min. to complete (have to mention though , it was weird timing because of all the Patreon stuff)

My Ratings for this Game:

PROS
+ Great Characters
+ Good Story
+ Different Ages
+ Long Game Play

CONS
- Update take to long
- Just teasing scenes

STORY: 4/5
The Story starts off Good with Suspense and crime

Gameplay: 4/5
Gameplay is easy going and easy to understand, the female MC is sexy and the males of different ages and looks.

CONCLUSION: 2/5
The Game is Great, but the Updates take too long, and then the updates only contain some licking or blowing, and that is what kills the Game.

RECOMMENDATION.
Worth the Download & but not worth paying money for a Game with so little action and release dates.

+ music
+ interesting story
+ Diana is cool, beautiful girl with strong personality
+ renders

- forced lesbian content. I picked all choices to avoid Sheril but still got lewd scenes with her
- sex scenes are boring, it's only few renders with description, that's all. Most disappointing part of the game

Decent avn with good story. 3 stars from me

[0.30] - overall rating: 2/10 (lowered from 3/10).

Gift-wrapped verbal diarrhea.

THE GOOD

The story has an interesting premise of infiltrating the crime syndicate that isn't explored as often as it should.

The music and SFX are decent.

The GUI in an upgrade over a typical one, so there's that.

THE NEUTRAL

The choices do not seem to matter a lot right now. The typical "good option" vs "bad option".

The GUI is, in fact, an upgrade over the stock, but the "puzzle" sections are completely redundant and needlessly annoying.

THE BAD

Let's start with something lighter - the renders.

They are, for the most part, pretty terrible. What hurts even more is the fact that select shots are actually well done and show that the artist knows what they're doing. Sadly, there are maybe a dozen genuinely good renders in the entire game.

Firstly, it's ironic that the developer decided to not render characters with their lips open for the dialogues, yet they are cranking out an enormous amount of shots for literally anything else, fidelity be damned.

Secondly, there are a lot of inconsistencies with how the lighting works across the game's scenes and the timeline. One moment the room is bright with sunlight, the next it's apparently close to dawn with lots of shadows.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the renders were made hastily and it shows. Whatever denoiser and post-FX the dev is applying are ruining the presentation. Character faces turn into shapeless, smeary blobs and the backgrounds are usually so pixelated and blocky that even the generous amount of blur cannot fix it. This, combined with the above two points, makes for an absurdly ugly viewing that sees little to no motion or action. What good are the 1500 renders the game has if 1400 of them are assaulting your eyes...

Alright, let's talk about the writing.

I have to give my praise to either the writer or proofreader for getting the grammar correct. You can tell they are proficient in English - punctuation is pretty much on point and so is the spelling.

I cannot say the same about the writing itself.
It feels like the game's author/writer has an identity crisis in regards to the characters they have created. There are multiple instances where the "sophisticated and wordy" presence that the narrator exudes spills over to the actual dialogue. The author opted for the "all-seeing narrator" setup, but forgot that the characters are not supposed to share the same knowledge.

Example: Diana, the MC, speaks to a young man about a girl involved in a rape case, but he says that the girl left and he has no idea where she went. The Detective then breaks into the man's apartment at night only to find the boy in an act with a girl. The narrator then tells us that this girl is the one that the MC was trying to find. Diana, in her thoughts, comes to the EXACT same conclusion. How does she know that? Was she shown a picture of the girl? And if so, why didn't WE, the players, get to see that?

The above is ironic since the game LOVES to hear itself talk. The narrator literally drowns us with the most pointless information in every single sentence. Did Diana just sit by her desk? Let's describe the texture of the paper and the smell of the pen that she's holding. Did Diana got involved in a fight? Let's add how it's her expertise in Krav Maga that helped her stun the opponent. JUST. FUCKING. STOP. Give us a room to breathe, please. How are we supposed to focus on the plot if you're piling unnecessary overexposed garbage right in front of our eyes?!

Lastly, the game's plot is going nowhere. The pacing of the MC being involved in a "deep undercover covert operation" is pitiful. I get that we are supposed to slowly but surely get closer to inner circles and workings of the mafia, but making the player go through yet another "MC stands butt-naked in front of the window and reminisces about the events and life in general" is extremely disrespectful. For a "trained veteran detective and police office" MC is surprisingly touched seeing one dead body. So much so that she needs to take a day off that she spends with her not-Son, but not really because he's one-dimensional and utterly boring.

Oh, I almost forgot about the sex scenes, but apparently so did the developer. No build-up, no sensuality, just a couple of static renders and job done. And lots of overdescriptive sentences. Lots.

Overall, this game, as fresh as it is, needs a major remake on all fronts. Stay away if you value your sanity.

Update: I finished the 0.30, after much suffering. Firstly, the game just abruptly ends with no obvious way to go back to the main menu. Secondly, the proofreading effort have definitely waned during the latest content (many sentences end with a comma for some reason). Thirdly, the plot flow makes even less sense with different events separated with a quick fade. Fourthly, the renders are still terrible. And to top it all of, the obvious plot holes and overdescriptive language spoiling every ounce of mystery or fun are more pronounced than before. Score lowered to 2/10.

I do really like this game, the quality of the render and even enough the plot.

What I do not like are the sex scenes, so poorly represented, just few images, almost a checkbox exercise.

Sex scenes should be built, contain eroticism, be long and well described.
If the dev is more interested in developing its plot rather than exploring the adult aspect of the game, just do not make adult games and stick with normal games without any sex.

That is the biggest disappointment for me!

For the rest it is a well written game.

Version 0.40.
Again great plot and render, but the sex scenes are really dull, poorly represented and really don't give credit to this good game that allegedly should be an adult game too

The first 15-20mins of this game, I was like "holy shit this could be awesome ", but unfortunately... at least for me, after getting the actual assignment to infiltrate the mob bosses network try to bring him down. The game just devolves into nothing but her going to work for a few minutes, choosing to be nice or strict with her coworkers, and then going back home spending all her time with the kid Jason. After that point almost half the game is just spent piddle farting around teasing a playing with a little kid. That's just not my thing, if the dev wants to get back to the original premise and plot that he setup in the beginning and involving some of the actual adult characters, the good and the bad and choosing how to deal with them, then I'll gladly a update this review, but if all I got to look forward to is her messing with little boys... Well like I said that's just not my thing. I'm not into that kinda stuff, and this is just quickly going in the wrong direction for me.

The game is actually good.

+Sexy, Believable, MILF, wife FMC. I'm usually not into FMC, but this one is an exception. MC is not some brain dead whore with nothing to lose. Even when you go for degeneracy, the overall situation is believable and Hot.

+Amazing Story. Most adult games have a corny story with corny plots, not this game

+Green Eyes

+Italian characters

I really like this game from the start.
Pluses:
+ Hot and beautiful female protagonist.
+ Quality of renders is awesome.
+ Interesting Story.
+ Content per update is enough.
Minus:
- No animations so far, but Dev said when he will upgrade GPU they will be present in game. I believe in this.
Overall very solid start and I hope this project in future will become very popular

I have seen games with excellent graphics and very bad story ,but this one has very good graphics and story that makes you believe it is true. Reminds me a bit on Jessica O Neal Hard News ,but still its amazing to play it for sure. Its not slow and its not to fast ,very logical and has a lot of potential to go on top 10 games. Just keep it smooth,and try to invest more in graphics and animations. This game deservers it. Also keep updating it on weekly base and dont hasitate with story upgrading,adding new characters etc. I will keep this game as my favorite. You have a lot to do more beacause this game si very good. Sorry for my english in advance.

Rendering: Excellent
Appearance MC: wonderful
MC's personality: Excellent, he is not a sloth, he has a heavy personality
Appearance and personality of other characters: between good and very good
Story: attractive and logical
Logic: Slowborn and logical
Writing: Most of the time excellent
Atmosphere: Excellent
etc.: Excellent!