VN - Ren'Py - Friends in Need [Ch.10 v0.71] [NeonGhosts]

It's a good game that enable an extremely dark path but one thing the dev needs to take a bit more slow is the amount of possible women.

Like there's so many of them and we got one more this new update.
The top women in this AVN are Viola on the top with Brittani at the two followed by Ash.
Story is a bit mild if I might say. I like how the art however experiments with angles/perspectives and isn't so plain/generic.
4/5

[v 0.39 ]

+ Reasonably believable story;

+ Excellent storywriting and good mastery of English;

+ Choices matter -- but basically for most characters you can have 2-3 paths: romance, blackmail, violence.

+ No magical powers, quite reasonable limitation to more or less real world.

A must for somebody interested in the subject tags.

Might have too many LI options, which means that for each update there will be either very gradual corruption/blakcmail path or only some characters will be advanced.

There are things that somebody might dislike and there perhaps are some bugs or limited logic, but by and large, one of the best.

[v0.39]

Brilliant game, I loved playing it. The story and dialogue are very well written and engaging and don't bore you out like with the majority of the games you find here.

I like the fact that all the choices actually change the behavior of the protagonist and other characters but don't lock you out of the content (apart from the ones that can't fit into the narrative for obvious reasons). It has something for everyone, I for example am playing the romance paths and I find all the characters very lovable and well characterized.

Regarding the sex stuff, the romance path is pretty vanilla for the most part so far, it's not the bad kind of vanilla sex as the scenes are great in my opinion but I would love to see some more spiciness in the future.

If I have to make some negative remarks, I'd begin with the need of remaking the whole first chapter (renders are sub-par compared to the subsequent chapters, it's a normal thing as the dev keeps on learning and improving but this may put some players off during their first playthrough, I personally would put some kind of disclaimer right at the start of the game to let players know that the quality is higher starting chapter 2).
Then there is the multi-path aspect, as I said it's good they give lots of customization to the player, but I'm afraid things will get out of hand rather quickly with time, with some side stories and characters ending up neglected.
Lastly, some choices are not that clear on what the outcome will be. This forced me to save scum a couple of times. If possible I would like to have an integrated walkthrough in the game so I can play more freely and enjoy it even more.

So far, this game has proven to be great and fun to play, I absolutely recommend it.

This is a choices matter game. In a good way. Lota of different paths, multiple levels of "relationships" with all the characters which makes multiple playthroughs very entertaining. Really appreciate the darker themes, not something we see often done this well

PROS
- Diverse & unique set of characters. I can tell there is some level of customization goin on. He's not using the base Daz model like many other games do.
- Man, the characters are set up so well. I really like most of them. Dev did a pretty good job with getting us to care about them.
- Renders are okay. I'm personally here for story so idc as much about artstyle. As long as there is no pixilation or grainy renders then that's a plus
- Gabby
- This isn't your typical clone harem game where all the characters are jumping the MC's bone as soon as they see him. Girls have issues, girls could get jealous of other LIs, and MC is not perfect. Good balance of realism/fantasy.
- Our choices matter! nice to see some variations to the outcomes depending on dialogue choices. You can be an asshole that uses his wealth to take advantage of women or be a white knight. I like being a white knight cause I'm already an asshole in real life.

CONS
- No sound effects or music.
- Think he is on course to do the classic mistake of introducing an excessive number of LIs to point its untenable to manage them all, not to mention the variables. I personally just prefer quality over quantity. The more characters you introduce, the less dedication each one will get.
- Think there is an overuse of the 'damsel in distress' trope. LI needs help -> MC proceeds to help LI -> LI falls in love with MC for helping her. Then again, perhaps this is the whole point of the plot I guess? Rich MC uses connections/wealth to help people.

Turns into a decent VN, if you can get through chapter 1. I can understand the hate for Nikki. Aieee!

Writing and dialogue is great, even if the story is pretty cliché.
Renders are good and get better as the chapters progress.

Recommended, if you can stick with it past the awful start.

(Version Reviewed: v0.39)

Friends in Need is a wonderful AVN. I enjoy the premise of the game as it's fairly grounded in reality. Our MC is a wealthy man with means to prey on the less fortunate. We can decided how he approaches the task. He can be charming and seduce the women, lewd and bribe the women or rough and force himself upon the women. It's nice that several options are provided and the dialogues and renders even change based on our approach. I feel the renders look good. The LIs are reasonably well fleshed out and several of them are very likable. The game can certainly improve with respect to animations and music, but apart from that I do not have any complaints.

Overall - 9/10. The game keeps improving each update.

This is the best power fantasy VN I have played on this website.
Story is well written, and immersive. Pacing is great. The characters feel like they are their own people. Lots of choice that feels impactful, and numerous paths that are worth exploring. Dark choices actually make you feel bad, in a good way. Renders look decent. Characters look unique and varied. Game-play is simple and straightforward, no annoying mechanics or game overs. Reasonable amount of content for how long the game has been worked on.

One of the GOAT games on this site for me. Nothing else out there really nails the feeling of blackmail/rape/coercion quite like this one. So often games will either lean too hard into the "hardcore" stuff and lose all sense of realism, or be too timid to go there in the first place. This one straddles that line perfectly, and the result is absolutely amazing.

Wow really wow, I really enjoyed this, rarely MC's character is so likable, most of time MCs depicted selfish , immature and childish ,this is remarkable point for story , interactions with characters are designed very well , there is plenty of determining options given to player to shape MC,
this is absolutely brilliant .
Story that doesn't follow familiar routines always refreshing, new characters that are tangible , being sincere helps we engage with story rapidly and care about what happening to characters , this rarely happens but when it does happen is glorious to see.
I love Friends in Need , splendid job really.

This is legit the first well written game that made me feel like a evil bastard and I loved it. Some of the best writing and characterization I have ever seen. THE king of power fantasies on this site.

Really loving where the story is going and the different branching paths. I love playing as the bad guy and the good guy, and when a dev actually has the courage to write a decent bad guy storyline. Keep up the good work.

Review of Version 0.375

Really good game. The story is unique and well written. Not a lot of extraneous exposition, just what is needed to advance the story. Not a lot of typos or grammatical errors.

Art is good, some is excellent and the author is supposedly upgrading the first chapters.

Updates have been slow but anything worthwhile is worth waiting for. The author is active and gives regular comments on Patreon so it is being worked on.

The real strength of the game are the two different routes the player can take. You can be a complete jerk, brutalizing, blackmailing and assaulting your way through the game -or- you can be altruistic and helpful. You can also choose a combination of the two. I have played the altruistic route completely and the content is well done. I have dabbled with the 'evil' route and what I have played is just as good.

There are games with better stories or better writing but altogether, this game is well worth playing.

Holy crap this game is amazing......I rarely find a game that can do rape and humiliation content well, but this game does that amazingly AND still manages to do the love dovey content insanely well. All the girls are cute, many good fetishes and situations. A++ give this a try bros! (For you Rape and humiliation haters out there just don't DL the patch and the game is still amazing!)

The patch is must have if you want rape stuff. And it's done well.
The story is good, girls are great, tons of fetishes. Didn't try good guy route , but humiliation, male domination and rape part is done exceptionally well.
Amazing game overall.

TL;DR : A really well written story with quite a few paths and some really great girls.

A seemingly simple story about a guy who is sort of a blank slate. You can choose his personality type through your actions, ranging from a white knight do-gooder to an absolute scumbag who manipulates and abuses those around him, and it carries believably throughout the current content.

It's really rare that a game with such dark subject matter doesn't fall into edgelord nonsense and though this one toes the line at times, it never crosses it.

The girls each have a unique personality, and have their own wants and desires. They feel different from one another, and the different routes provide a great experience each time. They are all good in their own way and I have a hard time choosing a favorite.

I think this will be one of the few games that I eagerly look forward to updates for.

Terrific start so far with the wide array of options presented to us. especially the choices presented to the player on how to handle different situationn in terms of charm, coercion, corruption and straight up violence.

Art is A+ too and its good that it isnt bogged down with music, animations and such. The author seem to have a good direction to his story and engagement with the community.

As Of Version 0.375

The story is decent. The grammar is pretty good only 10-20 typos/misspellings so far more being present the further into the story you get. There is also A few scenes with dialogue without a character title and sometimes a lack of capitalization of a letter in the middle of a dialog box after a period. The scenes are average and rely on the themes and story. Game also has no sound.

There is a walkthrough available for those that need or want it.

Overall I rate the game a 4/5. The themes are definitely the main reason to play the game and with the taboo patch there are 3 paths for each girl you can embark on, making the game have decent amount of replay value to see how everything plays out. I also hope that in the future there is a gallery for the game so I know I have gotten all the scenes.

This is a review after playing 0.375

Friends in Need is one of the best VN for those interested in male domination and blackmail in my humble opinion. No offense to other creators but male domination games usually suffer from one or more of the following: awful writing (to the point of comical or hard to make sense), too much writing without any purpose and ridiculous story. None of that is true for FiN. The story is simple and doesn’t have the usually silly fantasy or SciFi nonsense, the writing helps the reader connect to the characters, the situations women are placed in is well thought out and the writing is solid.

I usually pick the most “evil” route available in games. Here it is the first game that I didn’t feel the need to do that because the world is believable, the characters are too and most importantly not all characters are the same. For example there is a young girl named Gaby that I couldn’t care less for so there is no need for me to develop any (sexual) relation with her (though her mother is interesting but currently unavailable ) while I greatly enjoy the friend turned full submissive called Nikki (great character btw).

In the first chapters I was worried that the game would be swimming in too many characters but the author seemed to reduce the rate new ones appear and doesn’t feel the need to have all characters develop at the same pace or have the same interactions. That might displease some but I think that is the right call: some characters are main, others secondary and other just appear once or twice. That might change in the future as the game develops but I personally hope it doesn’t.

The game has a “good” or romantic route from what I can take. I didn’t try it so I cannot comment it but from the Gaby interactions (which I wanted nothing to do with because the character doesn’t appeal to me in any way both aesthetically or story wise) I can say that I was not forced in any interaction that the character was forcing himself on her or anything like that. I don’t know if that’s the same with all characters but I don’t remember any “evil” interactions that could not be skipped with her.

TLDR:
pros: solid writing, great domination/blackmail content, well written characters, dark themes written well, believable world and scenes, good amount of content already, (female) characters are not all perfectly looking and don’t all look the same (thought there are no older women for example) which for me is a plus, not all characters develop at same pace, two or even three routes to have sex with characters or even avoid all together, no sound (I always found it useless), very friendly developer.

Cons: Too many characters in the game already (but less than a dozen which for most games of the genre is low), some characters are teen looking aka a bit too young for my taste (but for many will be a major plus I assume).

I have very good feelings about this one, but at the same time a couple huge reservations. The good of it is that there's already around three hours of content despite launching less than a year ago. There aren't any obvious grammatical or spelling errors, and all the writing is quality stuff. All of the women so far are very attractive as well.

Bad part #1: Nicki cannot be avoided, and I loathe that. I personally hate this character archetype (and this sort of person IRL actually) and I want to tell her to fuck off every time. No, I don't want to rape her, I want her to leave forever. But you can't. She's forced into the game at every opportunity. There's a scene where you can choose to get a blowie from her or sex, I chose the first because I don't like her. The rest of the game assumes you fucked her and the dialogue indicates that. Why include a choice at all then?

Bad part #2: Speaking of rape, the choices lack any nuance. It's pretty much just "let her go" or "rape her." I don't want to rape anyone, that's not my kink even in a video game; I also don't want to do nothing and just be a bitch either. This was particularly egregious in the first two chapters and it does seem to be getting better with the latter two, but I really would enjoy a middle option.....you know, instead of raping people. I want to be an asshole, or at least very assertive, but yeah, raping is a bit extreme for me.

Also there's not much sex so far if you don't like Nicki or you aren't into rape. (There might be a ton of rape content for all I know, I didn't pick those options.) Actually only like, one scene. I have super high hopes for more non-rape content at least, since I did enjoy the majority of my three hours.