VN - Ren'Py - Elmwood University [Ep.3 Fix] [WickedWare]

* Review as of Episode 2 *
3.5 but giving it a 4

If im being honest not a fan of how easy some of the girls are to sleep with. However it is also a harem with optional solo paths from what I hear so to be expected and not that big of a deal since I do enjoy the game overall.

It has a skill tree system which to be feels a bit overwhelming right now. Because without meta gaming I have no idea what skills work best for LI. I honestly don't like it. But I can see how it does offer replayability

There is a bio to read for most characters not all of them are written yet. But the bio helps with the character deveolopment. A character I hated at first I have mixed feeling for after reading it . Speaking of the characters most of them are likeable.

It seems to have okay ish branching nothing amazing yet but looks like it might in the future. Not really to say about the story as it feels more slice of life right now , don't even know if there is a plotline or it's all slice of life.

Overall not a amazing game but a really enjoyable one that is worth your time especially if you just want to relax and have fun

Very promising game, but I have this gut feeling it will get abandoned at some point. Don't get me wrong, but there are a lot of LI's, a skill tree development, and every girl have her unique traits.
The dev is either extremely skilled or the code will be a big mess, so be careful before you invest money into the game by supporting it.

PRO:
Graphics
A LOT of girls
Very unique personality of every character

CONS:
The story, I think it lacks depth but come on, we are only into the second update.

Ep. 2

I rather enjoy this game so far.

The characters are attractive and there's enough going on to keep me entertained. I haven't skipped any dialogue, which is rare.

I'm looking forward to when I can get them all pregnant. It's gonna be like a Pokemon journey for me. Gotta catch 'em all!

UPD2: Ep. 3 finally convinced me that I shouldn't take the plot seriously. Between the humour and the RPG elements, Elmwood knows exactly what it is and delivers, so now I don't think too hard about it and just roll with it!
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UPD: I gave it some thought and am now adding the 3rd star. The game shouldn't lose that many stars for belonging to a specific subgenre.
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A very disbalanced game. The dev put so much effort into the girls and 'collecting' them, yet at no point of development was the plot taken seriously. It could potentially lead to a good comedy game, but instead the events took a really bizarre turn.

Pros:
1) A ton on LIs, with each having a dossier that helps the player to get to know them. Just two chapters in, and I already have a clear impression and intent for 17/18 LIs (except Paris). These are some crazy numbers.
2) A leveling system for the MC may seem unnecessary at first, but it actually deals with the problem of either too overpowered or too weak MC: the player himself can decide what things the MC is gonna be OP in, and what things he's gonna do poorly.
3) A lot of sex.
4) Humour.
5) Writing is good (in dialogues).
6) The card game can be amusing at times.

Cons:
1) The plot barely exists. We don't know much about the MC (that's kinda the price of the skill system: he may be athletic, smart, or dominating, indicating very different backgrounds) except that he got into the uni on invitation, has parents, and helped Violet… Still, that info, however short, is the whole plot of the game!
2) While the dialogues are good, storytelling is very bad. The first chapter is atrocious. An almost-naked guy turns up at a feminist event… Where only 3 people (Taylor, Jordan, and Chloe) actually behave like feminists… The rest just immediately accept a half-naked guy crashing their party and are very welcoming to him. 3 cheerleaders (read: some of the most popular girls in the uni) just give him blowjobs out of the blue, one of them rigorously fucks him in a hot tub, jumping on his dick as if willing to break an Olympic record, but attracts 0 attention from the other girls present in the same hot tub! I've seen worse 1st chapters, but this one makes the least sense by far…
That same plot could be told far more realistically if only one cheerleader was interested in him, and the girls were in general much more wary of him, with Violet's (who actually has good grounds for vouching for him) arrival being what warms them up to him, not Taylor being 'officially polite'.
Thankfully, Chapter 2 tells us of somewhat more sane things, so here's hoping that this aspect improves further down the line.
3) The whole game has too much of a "just collect and fuck them all" vibe, something I'm not a fan of, especially with all the dossiers giving info on how to get into the panties of this or that girl the best. Generally, I prefer it when both the girls and the MC have more agency than just being sex machines, even in porn games.

After just Ch. 1, I wanted to give this game 1 star, but Ch. 2 led to me slightly reevaluating; I decided on 2 stars for now.

The game is very good and worth playing right now if you can just disable your brain going in, letting your cock and your spinal cord do all the thinking. But if you, like me, need something for that pesky post-nut clarity, it's better to wait for more updates.

It's very rare that I don't skip dialogue every now and then. But this game had me hooked from the start. I was more dissapointed that I completed the story (for now) than I'd like to admit. Can't wait for the next episodes, keep up the good work!

Another college AVN (my favorite kind) where the girls are hot and scenes are great, but the writing and plot direction doesn't seem to be anything special at the moment.

I think the stat system and traits of the girls are a great concept and I'm excited to see where this all leads to and if half of these silly traits will actually come into play later on lmao.

Elmwood U. is giving off a good vibe for me - had a grin on my face the entire time I played Episode 1. Episode 2 was shorter, and didn't quite have the same level of satisfaction, but it upheld the game's goals in the end.

For now, against better judgement due to it's short length, I'm giving it a 4.5 rating rounded up. It has huge promise.

+ Pretty good renders throughout, with good scene locations and additional characters
++ Love interests are all good looking, don't have oversized attributes, and are different enough from each other to be realistic (same goes for their personalities)
++ Good animations for scenes (not top-notch, but good nevertheless)
++ Sex scenes offered both different camera angles, and different speeds
+ A fun and lighthearted story simply sets the location and mood - nothing deep
+ Good music almost everywhere, and all is instrumental so no voices messing with reading. Sounds during sex scenes were few, but appreciated.
++ Skills system seems like it has a lot of promise for future releases

-- Game through Episode 2 is very short. Finished all of it in 4.5 hours (Ep2 was <2 of those hours).
-- Skills weren't utilized enough for the amount of content currently playable
- Skill points were few and far between, only granted occasionally.
-- Not a lot of progress with either the plot, or the love interests across just two episodes. Some go all the way with the MC (which is very appreciated so there's no slow burn everywhere), but it didn't take much to get them there.

The game has a TON of promise with great LIs, great renders, good animations/options there, and a fun looking skillset.

Where it currently falls down is the overall playtime and content - 4.5 hours is basically a short story or teaser. I know from reading that 21 episodes are planned, but it could take many years before they're all said and done.

Best of luck to the developer - I hope they can keep the ball rolling on this one and stick to an aggressive schedule. The game is good enough and deserves to be finished.

Great game, 5/5 already, keep up the quality and the vibe and the game has more than earned it.

Beautiful, sexy girls! An interesting cast of characters with meaningfully different personalities!

An interesting skill system that lets you gear your experience towards your preferences!

What's not to like?

Great Models, lots of love that went into the charachter design of so many characters. Truly a joy toplay with lots of different elements. Definetely not your average VN. I love having a skilltree and that one can collect achievements.

I love this game so much, feels like a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the bs on this site, its still the second ep but world building and character introduction has been done so well, writing and renders are also pretty good, really excited to see where this one goes.

Great game especially considering the skill progression system and the diverse cast of characters and their starting points of association with the MC. Although there are a few points of unrealism like how people in the same hot tub cannot feel people fucking, and the mystery of how the start point comes about, the situation progression kept me hooked and hopefully the story threads are also taken care of properly.

This is an interesting AVN. The dev is clearly talented as the production is well done, and the LIs are all hot, but that's about where it ends.

Your MC finds himself in yet another college setting and is surrounded by women who seem to have no problem hanging out with a dude in his underwear. Of course he has a horse cock and of course most of the women are throwing themselves at him.

In two chapters, there is not another dude in sight, just Mr. Horsecock, and so far, I count at least 10 LIs. The most I have ever seen in a game is 31 and this one is a third of the way there after two short chapters. Admittedly, I am not a fan of harem games, but if you are going to do it, you should limit the number of LIs to a handful, otherwise it's just too much.

This just seems to me to be another AVN, filled with cliched LIs, with a Mr. Horsecock who doesn't really have to work too hard to have women throwing themselves at him.

I will admitt to liking the traits tree. There is another AVN out there that does the same thing and it does add some flavor to the MC. Still, IMO, there are a lot of problems to overcome before we get can say this is an above average AVN.

I adore this game; there are far too many games set up like this one in schools, but this one unexpectedly offers some fresh ideas. I enjoy the MC trait system because it makes it simple to identify the kind of content we want to see when we "build" MC around that trait.
This game has incredible potential, and I hope the developers all the best—you guys are headed in the right direction.

Great game. The game knows exactly what it wants to be and there is no pretentiousness about it. No fake complex plots in histrionic attempts to be deep. Its a slice of life dating sim with many gorgeous girls and hot scenes.

The MC is good, there is a trait system that changes the way the MC can approach thing and there is a reputation system as well that could have choice repercussions down the line. Girls have different traits that you can read about and adjust your strategy accordingly. No love interest is forced. Overall 5/5.

Review for Episode 1
Well, this game was just simply very strange to me. U wake up in some sort of frat house full of woman in you underwear for no reason. Only in the first scene there is some thought given to the fact of how weird the situation is.

But after that all charachters just simply accept this odd reality and just go with it lol. On the first day this vague MC who just spawned in their frat house has the possibility to romance all the girls and get laid with them. All this while still being in his underwear, because why would you or anyone be bothered by you being in underwear. The reason why they are interested.. , come on who wouldnt want to jump on a stranger who randomly spawned in your house lol.

Troughout the game the MC also doesnt bother to find out why he stranded in his underwear with strangers. The plot of the game also is kinda non-existent, there is no development of story or charachters. The only positives are the appearance of the love interests and the animated sex scenes. Basically the typical eye-candy game with no depth or a well-developed story. 2 stars is the max I can give.

Review for Ep. 1 Slim

This is like one of the most stereotypical porn games I've ever played I think. It's a college based fuckfest and truthfully just not really for me at the end of the day. Kind of a more opinionated review honestly, but I think people who value writing a lot will find some resonance with this.

What gets me really into AVNs is both the writing and characters. You can throw a bunch of hot sex scenes at me, but at the end of the day if I'm not invested it just doesn't hit. That is my problem with Elmwood University. In essence, I find it very bland.

The university student setting is nothing new to anyone in the world of lewd games, but at least this game tries to start it off with a little twist. The game begins with us being awoken by an attractive woman. Apparently we somehow made it into her house and passed out in her bed, but of course we have amnesia with no idea how we got here. It's a good thing this lady randomly has a good feeling about the near naked stranger passed out in her home though, as her and her friend decide they are going to allow us to attend the 'feminist party" downstairs because we must be a good guy. This is where the game then kind of throws you into it.

Biggest issue is again the writing. You almost always have to have some suspension of belief with these games, but here I'm mostly thinking "man people do not talk to each other like this." It's not egregiously awful for sure, but it's flat maybe is the word. The MC, in the bit I played, is a complete prop. Seriously he does not have a personality whatsoever. You're often given dialogue choices that are A) Respond nicely/normally, B) Respond in the most neutral way possible, or C) Be a complete degen weirdo. When you're not choosing what to say the MC typically talks like he's simple-minded.

The girls actually aren't nearly as bad, but because the MC is so incredibly bland he just has no good dialogue/banter that plays into them. Now keep in mind this is a porn game right, so every single girl must unnaturally be all over you for doing absolutely nothing. Within the span of about five minutes, I watched the MC be repeatedly dragged into the bathroom by three different women to give him a blowjob after the simplest conversations played out before hand with them.

To segway from that, lewd scenes suffer from the same problem. Are the girls attractive? Sure. Are the animations good? Yeah not bad actually. Is there a lot of sex happening? Definitely seems like it. But none of them felt intimate. You get put into a sex scene and the game says "here is a bunch of animations to cycle through just click the cum option when you want to stop." Almost no dialogue, no real build up, nothing. It feels too systematic.

It's not like the game is horrible in quality or anything either. And I actually think that talent tree thing might be interesting, but I didn't play enough to really explore it. Everything looks and plays fine, but there's no real substance to it for me. If you like more mindless games focused on sex I'd see why you'd be into his, but Elmwood University didn't capture me in the time I spent playing it.

Extremely strong start, as good of a chapter 1 you can hope for in a visual novel. The setting obviously is intended to make you fuck as much as you can and you get lots of opportunities for sexual escapades already.

I do want to say I audibly laughed at how detailed the talent tree was in a porn game, I don't want to name-drop another game in a review, but it reminded me of another top-tier game, and my dexterity talent and creampie talent I chose came into play! It was awesome, I hope it keeps up and there are plenty of story routes for everyone's different "builds"

Play the game! It's fun.

Probably the best harem game I have ever played.
The premise is the usual one, young freshman is the eyecandy of all the girls at school. But this feels natural for once? It doesn't even seem porn (even though there is plenty, with characters and the renders being top notch too).

There's no mind control, there's no superpowers (well, kinda), and you don't even get that silly feeling to be in an utopian alternate reality where sex and sexuality have always been the most casual things for society all along history.
Instead, everything just starts at a laid back party of a feminist association, where thankfully in «current year» women can proudly enjoy being slutty (even with a guy in his underpants nearby) without fearing for their safety or honor. Also be bisexual.
You aren't even entitled to them yourself, because if you are a dick you get booted out.

The real fetish here is the dream we could be living in this world.
Also featuring a lesbian couple that 200% returns the wholesome vibes of the ones you can meet irl, and also a very stereotypical but very real body-insecure nerd.

What else? The only way this could get even more awesome is if the roaster included at least a token bi/gay dude, or a trans girl (alas I don't think futas would fit well the down-to-earth setting).
Hopefully this is part of a new generation of "comprehensive complex feelings" games, like You Throw Like a Girl.

Great amount of choices, decent renders and also decent dialogue, however some of the interactions feel not very human-like. Also not a fan of the virgin MC trope, much more so when the girls come here doing pirouettes and other wild sexual positions. It's such a wild contrast with the MC that they feel like huge sluts, considering they're not that old either. They're also always talking about who they want to fuck and immediately putting the moves on the MC, so it's hard not to judge in this particular case.

You could argue this is the spirit of college games, but even in that one famous college game, it was done in a very natural way, even with the girls that actually get around.

That aside, some of the girls are really cute and there are a lot of choices, plus the dialogue is not boring for a slice of life so there's potential. I think if, in the coming episodes (after episode 1), you get to have relationships where it doesn't feel like the MC is being groomed or trained, then it could be a really fun game.

Pretty good so far. The amount of content for a first release was pretty good and if updates like this keep coming, I think I will subscribe to support the creator.

I like pretty much all girls/characters so far, the renders are pretty good with some occasional highlights due to subtle, but good animations. Plenty of lewd content in the first episode, without building it up. I'm fine with that, as long as there will be a decent or good story down the line and character progression. I just don't want to be or become something that only skips from lewd scene to lewd scene.

The dev might want to reconsider the amount of girls though (18 are promised), because I fear it will be very hard to create enough content for them all in a timely fashion. Quality over quantity, especially considering all the girls in episode 1 are pretty darn good looking and have their own personalities. The very detailed bio on all the characters really fleshes them out aswell, it's actually something more avn's should do to fleshen characters out. So good job on that ,dev.

Lastly, the stat and skill tree can fun. I'm curious to see how this develops.

So yeah, I added this to my watch list and though the dev is too new to me to sub yet, I think it's a pretty solid start.

5 stars so far, considering the groundwork and length of episode 1. Hope the dev can keep this up.