VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Free Pass [S1 v1.56] [After Choices]

IMO After Choices is a top-tier developer. I love the writing and production of the story and how it unfolds. Lots of fun, a little drama here and there, multiple kinks and paths to follow, including a lesbian only path which I really appreciate.

To top it all off, the relationship building between Yoon and Michelle is by my favorite part. The models are beautiful and the writing has been excellent.

I'm hoping the dev will take their story to the finish line before moving on from this project. I say this because even though I'm a fan of the game, I haven't been following the thread. At the time of posting this review, the future of Free Pass may be in question and this amazing dev already has other projects on the cooker, so....I hope it doesn't get abandoned, or at the VERY MINIMUM, the Yoon/Michelle relationships gets the big payoff before leaving.

Anyway, I should have reviewed this long ago but I'm happy to do it now. Great game, great dev, lesbian only path, M/D (step-relationship unfortunately, but I'll take it!), BRAVO!

Positive things
Very handsome Asian female main character
Good character graphics
The story is solid enough
The gameplay is quite good with various choices


Negative things
Lack of sex scenes (more like an erotic visual novel)
Some female characters (mostly Caucasian) in my opinion are not so beautiful
There is also the point of view of the other characters frankly dev should focus only on the main one.

There was a bit too much push towards some characters and leaving others underdeveloped. Went a bit too wide with some side-stories too.

But leaving a game unfinished to start a new project leaves a sour taste. Best of luck on new project dev.

This game is interesting but also have big flaw.

Promising are:
- lesbian route seems numerous
- good visuals
- most girls are beautiful (i don't care at all for the men, I only like going men routes if they involve corruption and/or dominance from the woman in female protagonist games)
- sound
- you can turn off lesbian (why) or trans (i understand why when I see the level of detail the dev goes into. I would like to have trans, but not this level of detail of the trans process which do not really belong in a game)

Lacking points:
- the dev clearly has a thing for comic introduction of characters (a "baam" sound and 2D text on the screen). That feels like a 4th wall break unecessary.
- music is underwhelming
- sound seems a bit random/generic, there is no real identity
- plot. There was none then something came in and i was totally/mostly uninterested.
- secondary "intrigues/plots" are random things with both the feeling that they matter a lot, but also are "avoidable" so meaning it won't matter at all... and for one especially (mafia boss one) it feels like a comical thing as in "meet mafia boss, 1h later, become his bitch and has a tatoo. I reloaded another save from before because i'd like to become the bitch and get tatoo, but some setup/payoff would be better than this random event)
- too much characters with empty interest in them. I can avoid them, but i don't even read their generic names.
- some characters are not beautiful. i guess reality is this (not everyone can be beautiful) but damn, I play to have sexy girls, not real girls on screens...
- the plot is random and due to the dispersion given by the too many characters, is losing focus, and thus becoming uninteresting.
- I don't want to have multiple protagonists. Games with it tend to lack focus.
- I don't want to see scenes about secondary characters if MC is not involved somehow (peeping or participating). Having characters "tell" MC their love affair do not matter to me and make me lose a lot of interest in the game story.

I hope that the "lesbian route" become somewhat more convincing/profound because due to the setting it makes sense that MC had a real interest in girls from the start but never knew it, and just fall in love with her husband because of culture reasons.

Mostly good renders ruined by the writing, lack of contrasting text box, pacing, constant changes of perspective, lack of establishing shots, etc...
The writing in particular is so bad that at times it feels like Japanese machine-translated to English.
I got a headache reading this game / 10

Version: 0.562
Do you know the project "False Hero"? It boasted that it would be the best corruption game. It's terrible, but Free Pass delivers.

[Story]- The storyline is somewhat disjointed and all over the place. It follows several characters, and there are MANY potential partners(not LI's, but there's a lot of LI's also). Different events happen on different days, and it's a bit chaotic at first, but as it starts to develop into a full blown story that spans months(as of this version), it started getting fun. There's a cast of characters that have their own stories that you can explore, and you have OPTIONS. There is a lot of story so far, but the progression is only about 8%(even after 84 days), so there actually isn't that much action in the game yet.

[Gameplay]- To be clear, I'm playing on "easy" mode, and I prefer this mode. There are LOTS of options, and you are in control. You can directly dictate who the characters chooses with the dialogue choices(You can't "choose", but you can accept or reject). I was most interested in getting some threesome scenes, but the story has not developed to that point yet, but it seems to be heading that way. You can choose lesbian, straight, trans, faithful, not faithful, or play around. Some chars start pretty pure, so you can have fun corrupting them.

[Scenes]- Very hot models, but the scenes are hit or miss. They're not animated, but some will have transitions to simulate the action. The scenes range from fantastic to bad. Some of the early scenes have some hot voice acting(only the MC has a VA), but that seems to drop off with the updates.

The art and rendering is great, the developer clearly put a lot of work into the models, every update has significant content and the game itself is good.

The choices, however, and customisation of the story are absolutely woeful. You make so many choices about your personality/sexuality that are completely ignored, maybe the developer has plans for more branching versions of each route down the line but I highly doubt it. So far, any progress just seems to be a linear version of each route, so as you progress your choices mean less and less, you could replace all of them with a Fuck/Don't Fuck option.

For example, when the protagonist is choosing truth or dare in a spin the bottle game but this choice is actually a huge branch between the lesbian or straight route with no indication of this? But then why do I later choose 3 times between "Pure Lesbian/Transgender OR straight" and when I choose lesbian route I get propositioned by men a few screens later? But if I chose truth instead of dare at this party close to the start of the game I'd already be locked out of the main lesbian route lmao. It's a complete mess.

To clarify: I think the dev is a very talented artist and the game's appearance is very high quality because of this. I think how it plays as a game or reads as a story is unpredictable, rushed and generally a bit all over the place.

This is a game that captures all the elements it tries to. It allows you to play it how you want while giving a good amount of content either way. High quality graphics and an engaging and emotional story. One of my favorites now.

I like the general idea of the game, I really do. The basic premise is sound, the early game corruption is nicely paced and feels rewarding.

The visuals are ... unusual, but in a good way, giving the game it's own unique style. I like most of the characters and their relationships, which offer many possibilities for juicy contern. And there IS some of that, too.



Unfortunately, the game has quite a few downsides.

Personally, I didn't mind the english, but maybe I didn't realize some of the mistakes because I'm not a native speaker myself.

My main criticism is the pacing - it's totally bonkers. It starts of really nice, but at some point the game switches into sort of an overdrive mode, where days go by with usually just a single token scene. Then, even this is not enough, and the game just skips time periods wholesale.

Any sense of time is lost (or at least it was to me), weird things happen - for example I was trying to get to Zoe in the early game, then I basically didn't see her for like 150 days, then a sex scene out of the blue.

In other news, I was trying to avoid Joseph, but at some point a sex scene with him was just forced onto me without a way to chicken out.

The story became just disjointed and I lost interest. Sadly, as I still see promise in the game, but the entire warp mode would have to be redone.



That said, some more minor nitpicks:

I like the asian PC, and I realize it might be a cultural thing, but I find it almost hilariously unwieldy how everyone spells out her entire name.
It's like if someone was addressing the 24 lead actor with Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland.
"Hey there. Remember me? We met last week." "Is it you Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus? I've been wondering if you'd show up." (thinking) "Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus sure has some acting talent." Silly, ain't it?

Then there's the Borderlands style character introductions. Oh boy. Some other game did the same thing, and ... man, I don't really know what to say. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks this isn't cool but in fact quite the opposite.

Same with the sound design. I appreciate the gesture, but find many of the used samples so downright ridiculous that I'd rather not have them at all.
Voice acting is a nice idea, but so amateurish I tried to turn voice off ... unfortunately, it isn't actually implemented as voice but rather as generic sound, at least turning the voice volume way down didn't do anything.

I do think the game is worth checking out, you'll quickly realize how you feel about some of the things I mentioned, and especially if you can roll with the timewarp thing, there seems to be quite some entertainment to be had. But me, I think I'm out.

The pros:

• Very good renders
• A lot of type of characters and kinks to choose from

The cons:

• Bad English/Dialogue (like seriously there are some scenes that are really fucking hot in their general feel and to look at but the accompanying dialogue is so bad reading it will make u soft/dry instantly)
• Story progression is wierd and at times kinda dumb
• NPC characters' motivations, choices and progressions seem dumb and they seem to change their demeanor and thoughts at the drop of a hat without any decent explanations
• The game's getting kinda too preachy for a porn game as of the lastest update (v0.562)

Updated now to version 1.21:

The revamped game starts with the MC, Yoon, getting a "free pass" from her husband because of long-standing infidelity on his part, or so it seems. In the original, it took a while for Yoon to start having wild sex with everyone she met, but in this version, you can pretty much go buck wild from the onset. Yoon is an incredibly beautiful, sexy woman and the artwork is good enough that as fap material, the scenes are quite gratifying, but if you enjoyed the slow build up of the original, you may be disappointed in the reboot.

I wrote of the original that the story was hard to discern. That remains true. There isn't much plot that weaves all the lewd and non-lewd scenes together, though we do get some background on Yoon, Sukkhon, and a few other characters.

The English is as frustrating as ever. Especially during the lewd scenes, some of the dirty talk falls flat because it is poorly constructed.

I still say the game is 4 stars ("good") because as porn it is highly erotic. A script editor who could shore up the English would help enormously, and with just a little bit of plot work the game could be excellent.

Original review from Feb. 2022 below:

"Free Pass" is good, and has potential to be excellent, thanks to the developer's unique art style and penchant for putting characters into a variety of highly erotic scenarios. Add to this Yoon's (the main character's) conservative approach to sexual relationships and you have a really hot corruption game with a sexy female protagonist.

Unfortunately, the game suffers greatly from really lousy English. At best the writing is full of awkward usages (a favorite example: "I've seen you naked almost thrice."), poor grammar, and unrecognizable words ("Icez"?!); occasionally it is so unintelligible that I'm not sure what characters are trying to say at all. Given that plot and what happens to the main character are central to the corruption story, the poor writing is a major flaw.

Speaking of plot, what passes for one in "Free Pass" is tenuous and hard to follow. Some elements are downright nonsensical. For example, While this and other oddities caused me to scratch my head from time to time, it didn't mar my enjoyment of the game too much. "Free Pass" is a porn game, after all.

While the artwork is quite good and the female characters are almost all gorgeous, some aspects of the visuals are subpar. Lighting is inconsistent and animations are poorly done.

Thankfully, the erotic situations the dev concocts for Yoon and the other characters are superbly titillating. And unlike female protagonists in titles such as "A Wife and Mother," Yoon can be corrupted to eventually succumb to temptation in wonderfully gratifying ways.

Ultimately, I can ignore the plot holes and wonky narrative structure. What really holds this title back is the poor English. If that were fixed, this could easily be a five-star experience.

After Choices' Free Pass is quite an interesting game so far.

Below, I have segregated my review into categorized sections for ease of readability. I hope this was an informative read for not only the AC dev and their team, but also any prospective players of Free Pass.

~Pros~

I) First off, I really appreciated the inclusion of a southeast Asian female as the leading protagonist of the game. It is quite the unique spin on the narrative, as you don't necessarily see a lot of Asian FMC's as the main character in other Ren'PY styled games.

II) Going off that note, great attention to detail concerning the cultural elements of the game. For instance, when Yoon was showing her friends the types of cultural dishes she makes that are native to her homeland. I found that to be a nice charming little touch, in terms of "character development" as it helps establish Yoon's relationship-building with other characters in-game.

III) Varied choice of music and songs. It is always a treat to have Ren'PY VN's include a mix of songs during cutscenes and other important/significant events in-game. It makes events more lively and dynamic in the sense, as opposed to just hearing random sound effects in the background all the time (e.g., birds chirping, cars honking, etc).

IV) Renders are great. CG's are awesome. Animations are pretty fluid. It's clear that the AC dev & team had put a lot of thought and effort into designing each individual character and design. Nicely done overall. In particular, I found Yoon's, Jas's, Amala's and Sukhoon's character renders to be very beautifully customized

~Cons~
Unfortunately, not every game is perfect. And as such, there are always opportunities for improvement.

I) The grammar: Personally, I did not find the grammar too unbearable. In that, I knew enough to understand the general direction of the narrative. However, as another reviewer had pointed out, the grammar fluctuates between being understandable, somewhat understandable, and in some cases, not very clear. Therefore, it would benefit the dev to hire a proofreader/editor of sorts to clearly polish some of the grammar in-game to ensure smooth conversations and narration of the plot. However, as of v0.50, I can confirm that the grammar has improved greatly from previous versions. So, just try to keep it up, and make the narration more seamless and easy to follow in the sense. Avoid overwhelming the player with too much info, and things should play out fine from a narrative standpoint.

II) I enjoy a colourful cast of characters just as much as anybody. However, introducing too many sub-plotlines and characters can be a bit overwhelming at times to follow. Therefore, the dev might consider removing some plotlines that are not of a high priority to consider.

Or, if absolutely necessary to include, instead of creating a separate sub-plotline for each and every character, make some minor characters have a brief cameo of sorts. To be more specific, that sub-character will not have a strict storyline with Yoon per-se, rather just a bundle of small events that they will have with Yoon. Therefore, it makes the plotline more consistent and easy to follow.

Another suggestion: If planning on introducing new characters, programming a sort of "Diary" option, wherein Yoon can record her interactions among each of the key characters in-game, which can help more closely keep a running tab of relationships and define who-is-who more accurately in-game.

III) Flashbacks are good. Albeit, they must be used sparingly. Implementing too many flashbacks and perspectives between too many characters has a tendency to overcomplicate the plot more than it is needed. Therefore, the AC dev & team would find it better to prioritize what flashback elements are absolutely needed to advance the plot and disregard those flashbacks/perspectives that are not entirely needed.

Anyways, this would conclude my review of "Free Pass". Of course, there are still more updates forthcoming, so, I am excited to see how the development of the game will mature in the near future.

But in any event, keep up the great work AC Dev & team! ^^

This is such a hard game to review.

On the plus side, it's easy to see how much effort went into creating the narrative and art. The MC is really hot and different backgrounds and venues really make it all plausible. The story and dialogues make sense.

On the minus side, translation quality varies. Some sentences are perfectly fine, but sometimes it appears some words are literally machine translated.
Furthermore, author (or authors) seems to have a problem to actually tie it all in an enjoyable experience. We are introduced to way too many characters that either have minimal or no impact on the plot.
Authors also likes to jump from between past and present at inopportune moments.

I really like CGs so that's 5/5 for me and story is 3/5, so I guess the final grade is 4/5. It could be really great, but the writer really needs an editor. If someone took and polished this story it could be absolutely fantastic.

Oh, and if you're looking for a quick fap game, this is probably not it.

Thank you for your great effort and dedication on making this masterpiece game

and most of all thank you for uploading a public release really helpful for new supporters!
I just want to say the game is really unique in terms of story and game interactions I love how
the character developments on each choices!
Highly recommended to play this game and support the developers!
can't wait for your success in the future and more masterclass story writing release!

also a quick question
can i know what is the song name at the scene where Andrew confess his love to Michelle? that song really made me cry it's really perfect for the scene. it's the part where Michelle went to a nighty date with Andrew. I looked at the credits but the song is not there.

Lastly I hope the developers will create a twitter page so that I can submit an fanart, I am planning to make one soon! ❤

The renders are not bad, so if you just want a quick fap, maybe you will enjoy it. Unfortunately, the writing is so bad and incoherent, that the whole experience would surely be better and not making much less sense, if we were presented with just renders and choices.

Just one example: the loving and loved husband, that is so overworked, that for the past 3 years he does not have sex with his wife even once, just before taking her out to an unexpected party at his boss, for the first time in their relationship gets the bright idea to put into her and turn on a vibrator, while she is asleep, to spice up their sex life. That's the brilliance, with which this story is being written.

Story and writing: 1 (lowest rating possible); renders 3 (not bad, but nothing special); sex animations: 2-3.

Hats off to the Creators. Story,Graphics,BG Music & Character spread has been really good.So far in end of the each update you guys kept us on a ledge .Hope we will get something more spicy in upcoming update.

This game is nothing short of fantastic - great renders, great story, great character development.

Fair warning though, it's slow-burn, and it hasn't yet gotten to anything too lewd yet (v0.42). Also, it's NTR heavy, so some of you might want to run and hide.

A promising game with lots of interesting characters who have their own story. It´s no pure vanilla or harem story either. There are a lot of LI, men and women alike, who are not only exclusive to the MC, but who also have relationships and sex with each other. The content and stories are rounded off by good storytelling and a developer who is also looking for closeness to his fans, but does not allow himself to be bent by haters. We still need such developers a lot more

"I came here to fap, not to feel" could be the title of my very short review.
Since when are porn games supposed to make you feel? Not horny, but angry, happy, sad. And not because of bugs either.
At this point I could ramble about graphics, story, characters or music. Instead ask yourself when was the last time you wanted to clap after playing a porn game? Like after witnessing a good performance at a theater or at a concert.
Hats off, guys!

The game gets worse with every update. The latest one is jumping the shark big time.

I have no idea what the fuck is going on. The plot(s) is all over the place and WAY to many characters to handle. Its is obvious that the dev is struggling hard with the amount of story lines and characters. Especially with the mediocre translation - that doesnt help.

The game needs an overhaul with some restructuring, streamlining and polishing. The foundation is good, but the plot is just a mess.

Probably more a 2.5 than 3.