VN - Ren'Py - Elder's Runes [Ch. 4] [Elders Runes Dev]

It's an interesting game. The story starts off normally, about a kid who managed to get ahead and open a garage, but at a certain point it becomes mysterious and more interesting (in my opinion, maybe the intro should be shortened to reveal this plot twist sooner).

At that point, you gradually discover more about the protagonist and his past, while jumping between totally different worlds. There are lots of characters, from orcs to aliens to cat people, and you're always free to choose who you want to fuck (male or female). This is a very important point to note, as it allows each player to adapt the story to their liking.

Obviously, the game is still in development, but you can tell that it's trying to do something different, original, and adapted to different tastes, and although the result is sometimes a bit chaotic, it has its charm.

This review is published during Chapter 4.

Elder's Runes is something of a mixed bag, but I think it has a lot of potential.

In terms of story, there is a kernal of a good (if well-trodden) narrative path. There's a reasonable call to action, the MC has a reason for being somewhat immature in some ways and a bit worldly in others and in general, both the MC and the story are likable and engaging.

But the author does leave a lot of story gold on the table and breezes past it without showing down to show us the interesting bits. MC's relationship with his gang/friends, for example. Or the visit to the cat-people world. You can't put a collar and leash on a previously Dom top leaning character and not examine how he feels about that.

The renders are good, though by the nature of the story being told, there is a lot of tonal shift going on. Sci-fi to modern urban to fantasy and they lack a common visual identity.

The spicy scenes range from great to ... well. Not.

What this game desperately needs, in my opinion, is more polish. Another editorial pass on the dialog and story structure, more render time and attention to detail. A couple of beta-readers to play it and point out where the pacing fails.

But for all of that, it does have potential. It didn't waste my time. And as the chapters continued, I started to buy into the emotional stakes of the characters. I have faith that the upward trend will continue as the author finds their way.

Looks terrible, dialogue is terrible, no matter what I choose it keeps saying how I missed a scene and that I need to pay to see it, and then it fucking crashed.

Honestly, if I could give a negative score, I would.

models are terrible, no animations, and the positions are just janky, whoever wrote the dialogue must be an alien, as its almost like theyre trying to poorly imitate what a human sounds like during sex..

by fucking god its aweful. like a 20 minute game basically.

the idea of bisexual gameplay with alsorts of creatures is cool, but this is just such a poorly designed game

Not even the allure of a bisexual male MC is enough to overcome the absolutely terrible writing.

MC looking so incredibly feminine, wouldn't bother me so much if everything else were much better, but as it stands it feels like game was originally going to star a girl MC and was changed at the last second.

Next to nothing feels realistic or grounded in anything whatsoever. How did an orphan from nothing get enough money to start a mechanic garage? The rent alone would be crazy, let alone everything else needed to run such a business. The "gang" despite being described as being an actual gang who run drugs etc, looks and feels like a bunch of friends in their late teens and early twenties playing at being in a gang.

Didn't like how there was no choice in whether to smoke or not, and continuing from that calling MC "incredibly drugged" rather than incredibly high is moronic. It could be excused as a language barrier thing, but the entire game is badly written in such a way that it can't be a language thing.

The first sex scene with the guy in the ally feels very rushed, and while I could excuse the two guys getting completely naked from the waist down, for ease of rendering etc, there's no world where they'd get take their tops off too. The weird positions make the scene feel like parody. The going Ass To Mouth, a terrible thing to do in general, is not something anyone would do with a random stranger in an ally.

Calling everyone "babe" repeatedly is super annoying. If feels like it's trying to do a lot of the heavy lifting in giving MC a personality.

MC being able to recognize a bar in any world is laughable, looks aside their behavior reads as that of a child.

Getting explicitly talked to by a alien stranger getting called "inappropriate" is so stupid, when it's coming from a supposed gang member who runs drugs among other illegal acts.

Which reminds me, being a supportive friend and them talking about trust and feelings and evidence with their gang friend who thinks they're being cheated on is incredibly unbelievable and equally jarring.

It's a shame I can't rate this as lower that 1 star, but if I could the only reason it'd still get 1 start is for having bisexual male MC.