VN Ren'Py Harem Hotel [v0.18.1] [Runey]

[trollop22]

I am guessing you need to update your extractor. I would suggest 7zip or the newest winrar.

I downloaded 7zip just now and redownloaded the game as well. Tried extracting and got pretty much the same thing.

 

[Zappyboi]

It's strange that I can't see any shine moon tonight although the sky is very clear, but it fine because I've got the brightest Moon next to me

 

[c3p0]

Keep getting "archive is corrupt" when extracting the game. Have downloaded it multiple times and every single time it says the same thing. Game is playable, but a lot of the scenes just aren't there. Any way to help fix this?

Used the same mirror or different ones? If it is the first, then try another one and report the onje you've tried.

 

[TheDevian]

I downloaded 7zip just now and redownloaded the game as well. Tried extracting and got pretty much the same thing. View attachment 1387108

You could also try using a download manager, like Jdownloader2. It could help if you are having an issue with it getting corrupted while downloading.

 

[Rex Blue]

Rex Blue
Thanks for the review. For clarification on how I see the story and game, there was a shift around v0.4 IIRC, maybe sooner, where I realized I really liked storywriting, so I decided to begin expanding the world and characters. The characters and how they were written was and still is for the most part one of the most common compliments I receive, so I leaned into that more. I also think sex has very small limits and isn't very fun to develop all the time. Of course this is a NSFW game and I will always continue to support that.
I also want to add that this is my first project and I was definitely aimless at the beginning. But your review mentions your issues lies in the last patch or two, when things have been escalating. There is also a shift in the overall plot that is currently going on that has been planned for quite some time.

Here are my vague plans for the current scope of the story:
(The current scope excludes the beginning and later/end parts of the story)
As these characters have mostly resolved their personal issues and begin forming a communal bond, they look outward at the system that bred their pain. They look to understand it and change the world for the better.

My plans before this scope have been to connect the player to these characters, to form an emotional connection so their struggles feel real and you want to see them overcome these issues and live a happy ever after. I feel like forming the emotional connection makes the justice a lot sweeter.

As for the very beginning, it's unfortunate to hear that you think they were wacky caricatures, that was never my intention but I did base them off common personality types I thought would fit well with their story. It was my goal to make these characters feel... like they're not fully explained. I'm struggling to come up with the right terms, but Ashley for example, she "wore a mask" to feel accepted. But now in the story, most of them completely trust you and are willing to tell you anything about themselves.

I have no plans to stop the ongoing story to return to the very beginning of the story. Small problems with quick available solutions have been solved by this point in the story and it hasn't been my vision for this game in quite some time. Slice of life will still remain a big theme in the story, but they were never simple lives.

For extra information, I also have an internal guide I try to stick to when developing main character stories. I generally try to shoot for 3 story events for every 1 lewd scene
Friendship 1 - 10: Beginning, getting to know them and an inkling of something more.
Friendship 3 - 15: Introducing lewd stuff, unlocking basic lewd content
Friendship 10 - 15: Introducing their problems, how the world sees them, the beginning of an emotional connection
Friendship 10 - 20: Their personal issues are shown more, how they deal with them, possible hints to greater things
Friendship 13 - 20: As MC/the player understands the character more, sexual content rises, penetration occurs if it hasn't already (Unless there's a story reason for otherwise)
Friendship 15 - 25: MC tries helping and the healing process begins. The character feels like they have a connection to MC in some way, and this is reinforced by issues being fixed. Also, other characters begin showing up a bit more to offer their unique way of helping.
Friendship 15 - 30: Sexual content is expanded, training begins. This is usually paired with...
Friendship 20 - 30: Their world expands, outside influences begin showing their faces. You see how the world effects them, and in a sense, created them. The problems they have left are no longer able to be fixed by 1 person. Help now usually comes in the form of multiple characters, and connections between characters are expanded.
Friendship 25 - 35: Stakes are risen, characters have to react to the world and are placed in situations where they need to grow, usually with the help of their new friends. Connections also grow quite a bit here.
Friendship 30 - 40: (This is where most characters are now) Stakes begin to fall, or do fall, but not to the bottom. After growing themselves and their connection to the people in the hotel, they're usually given a new outfit. ( I call them Tier 2 outfits). They've grown so much that a new look to represent them is created. This is usually the time skip arc in anime, but the effect is the same, the characters are stronger, more developed and refined. Their main issues are no longer mostly internal, they've become mostly external. They decide to look outward at the system that bred their pain for reasons, answers, resolution, justice. (F&E just received their new outfits, but aren't done developing their inner character, Juliet was a step up though.)
Friendship 30 - 50: Romantic sexual content, or kink exploration.
Friendship 35 - 45: Stakes rise a bit. The characters are able to change or influence the world in small ways. You see the problems first hand, you see how things are connected in the chaos, the world begins to make a bit more sense and as a result, the characters make more sense. And they will find or begin to find their "purpose" in the world.
Friendship 40 - 50: Since this goes into spoiler territory, and hasn't even been written down, I will be very vague. The main characters will work within their purpose to change and influence the world (One provence in Syl'anar, really), finding their groove against the grain. Building or using their unique skills to fix/help their unique problems within the world (Lin has slavery, Ashley has poverty for example). By this point, these characters have become quite independent, especially where they started off. But MC remains as a supportive role, aiding these characters in their path forward.
Friendship 45 - 55: Stakes should be risen a lot by this point, things will start happening. Since the characters began focusing on their slice of the world independently before now, this is probably when their friends will come to aid them, and they will begin working as a team again, but with a more united goal.

This list misses a lot of nuance and details, so please don't think too much about what I haven't included here. The list above are basically arcs within the main story. Within those arcs will be series of events with more variety, ups and downs, vacations, romance, that sort of thing. But what is written above is probably 50% - 60% of the entire roadmap, just a guess. This roadmap is also fluid depending on the character, some are slower, some start arcs before others.

My growing pains were mostly in the beginning, now I'm very happy with how things are going. I get to flex my artistic muscles in so many different ways, and I'm excited to learn more about story writing structure, cinematography, emotion, and everything else. I'm currently very limited with the visual aspects of the story, but I hope to change that for my next games. But nowadays when I watch a movie, my mind is focused on the cinematography and what the writer is trying to say rather than the story presented haha.

Anyway, I hope I didn't scare anyone off with this wall of text, I'm curious to know what you think Rex, and what everyone else thinks of my plan.

Well damn, didn't expect a wall of text reply. Heck, didn't expect a reply to my rambling at all.

In hindsight, I think only Ashley could really be viewed as a caricature seeing as she started as the creepy yandere with a knife. She's come a very long way from there and the fact that she was bullied, whether by parents or peers, her whole life makes her early misanthropic behavior if not reasonable, then at least somewhat justifiable.

I think I stand by wacky though. Lin was a maid for I believe literally centuries who didn't know how to cook a pizza. Kali was a rich girl with an absurd lack of understanding as to how the world works. The Android (Does she have a canon name? I named her Anna.) went through all kinds of hi-jinks through her early scenes where she was making foolish mistakes in regards to how everything worked. The overall tone of the game was silly and lighthearted, more comedy than drama.

That said, I can definitely see an increased dedication to story as the game went on. While your earlier characters started rather shallow and empty, needing several scenes for the player to get to know much of anything about them, Maria, Emma and Felicity, and Autumn all started with much more distinct personalities, backstories, and character growth. Make no mistake, I don't have any complaints about your characters or their development over the course of the game. Porn or no porn, I've come to like these girls. They're more than just pictures.

Honestly, I've got to sing Autumn's praises a good bit. More so than any other girl, I've felt that her story has made the most sense through the lens of her character. Her actions and reactions to the events around her have just seemed natural. It's been a lot of fun to watch how getting out from under the thumb of her controlling family has made her go more than a little wild. Her exhibition scenes have been a blast (though admittedly, I have a kink there...).

The areas I'm concerned about are the world and the overall tone of the game.

Your world isn't shallow. You've done a lot to develop a history, power structure, and a couple competing factions. However, all that depth and the overall seriousness of it leaves some aggressively glaring plot holes. That was fine when the game was mostly a comedy/porn game, but if you're going for a more serious tone, that's no longer the case. The main questions that stumped me when I was playing were:

1. Why are elf slaves necessary in a world with an android work force? Since Kali's college class is programming construction droids, they don't seem ludicrously rare or new. As such, how have slaves not been replaced by bots already? The best explanation I could come up with is momentum, but shouldn't the easy availability of manual labor have caused either slaves or androids to become dominant or isolated to certain sectors of the economy? Maybe that's happened off screen but...

2. Are there people who desire abolition? Outside of Nia of course. We've seen some pretty horrific racism in a lot of different scenes throughout the game, but I think Vanessa, the hipster/rebel, is the only non-elf abolitionist we've ever met. There's an implication there that abolition is not something desired by the majority of society simply because of who Vanessa is. I guess this isn't a plot hole, but damn if it doesn't make for a dark setting. Racial slavery and no groups who find that morally reprehensible?

3. Is the high elf queen an idiot? The high elf queen's "plan" probably irritated me more than anything else in the game. She apparently has invisible spies capable of infiltrating nearly anything and she can't get blueprints for a gun on her own? Is no fairy capable of watching a person use the internet and learning? Worse yet, wouldn't she know how pointless a gun would be at this point in history? Even if the fairies couldn't use the internet, shouldn't they have some idea what a jet is? What exactly are the fairies telling the elf queen? That entire sequence felt like the idiot ball was being passed around.

I guess what I'm saying overall is that just because you've got a world with a history, doesn't mean that history makes sense.

As for tone, that should be pretty straight forward. Regardless of the characters or story, the early parts of the game were bright and happy. The problems were small, the solutions were simple and everything stayed happy throughout the scenes. Over time, the problems grew more complex and less concrete. I was completely okay with that as well. I liked Maria's soul searching over whether camming was really healthy for her and what she wanted from her life. Kali had similar issues with a similar change in direction. I felt like the player character acted as something of a rock for the girls through those turbulent times; a constant as they changed their world around it.

But some of the current scenes? They're dark. Not funny haha 40k grim dark, but dark dark. Android and Maria are experiencing the kind of things people prefer to pretend don't exist: existential horror of a type humans don't get to experience and dead serious, no joke, slavery. How different is that from where the game started? I guess I'd liken it to walking into a kids movie only to have it interrupted by a chainsaw massacre halfway through. It doesn't matter whether the kid's movie or the horror movie were actually good, it's the sudden tone switch that would throw people off.

It's very possible that I'm the exception to the rule on this one. Doki Doki Literature Club was wildly popular and I'm pretty sure this very thing I'm complaining about is a large part of that reason. In fact, I feel like there's a lot of recent anime that do the same thing, dropping a horrific murder into the stereotypical shonen opening. Maybe people out there like a sudden tone switch in their stories to keep things surprising and dramatic. Then again, don't all those examples follow the tone shift? While the shift in Doki Doki is surprising, it never goes back to VN after the horror is revealed. The shonens stop shonening after the sudden horrific murder, don't they? Feel free to ignore me on this one if you feel I'm off-base.

Honestly, I think Android is over-reacting a decent bit, though I can sympathize with where she's coming from. Imagine a child abducted by aliens. She grows up with them, but knows they're different. As she gets older, she realizes just how much so, and worse yet how inferior they are to her. I can sympathize with the desire to know an equal in that setting, to meet someone just like you. However, shouldn't it be a important how hard the people around her are trying to understand and care for her? I feel like even in that scenario, that should make a dramatic difference. To me, Android's breakdown feels a decent amount like teenage angst to me, though that doesn't quite cover all of it. Given her age, teenage angst isn't even entirely unreasonable.

I think the direction I'd want to see her story go is her attempting to create immortality for those close to her. Rather than killing herself to make others like her, why not try to make those close to her like her instead? I also think that having split herself to make others isn't likely to be as rewarding as she imagines it. Imagine meeting yourself after all. There'd be no surprise; you could call all of the other you's shots. Maybe Android is capable of creating a little more differentiation though, so I'm off base.

As for Maria... god her story is dark. I'm trying to imagine what the time she spent after she was abducted and forced through training was like and it seems quite possibly the most horrific thing imaginable. What if Ellen hadn't come through and managed to purchase her? She'd have been bought by who the hell knows who based off of what, solely a picture of her, maybe a list of skills? She'd have spent every moment of her captivity wondering if she was going to be sold as an honest to god sex slave.

This shit happens in real life and it's the darkest thing I can imagine. I don't want to imagine it. I don't want to imagine that humans are so depraved that they would want something like that. Worse yet, you've created a world in which not only is this something that happens, it's been NORMALIZED. There's an honest to god website in your world, not on the dark web or something, but a GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED WEBSITE in which girls are sold as sex slaves. You have created Rapebook. What the fuck man.

I think typing this out really helped me get to the crux of my issue with the story currently. It's not that the story got dark; it's the fridge horror that it was this dark all along. You've pointed out that the world this story is taking place in is not only not our world, but just possibly one of the most fucked up worlds imaginable. The world in which I was amassing a harem of cute girls and getting to know and love them, had something like Rapebook sitting in the background. That was going on; all the characters knew about it; all of the characters didn't think twice about it.

Hell, it was even quietly there from moment one, but I never thought about it because it was "just elves" or out of sight, out of mind. It was only when it was rubbed in my face that I even considered the ramifications of everything. Even as I'm absolutely horrified by all this, I can't help but be impressed by how you presented it. I can only imagine that the MC and all the rest of the girls got the exact same rude awakening that we did... though they have less of an excuse for not realizing it. After all, they can visit Rapebook anytime they want.

Anyway, keep in mind that it doesn't really matter in the slightest what I think of things. My critiques are meant to be constructive and if I've come off as too harsh, I apologize. The important thing in all of this is that you're finding your work to be fun and/or fulfilling. I can definitely sympathize with watching a movie and considering how they decided to present the story. After all, the same story can be told a million different ways without changing the actual subject matter. I'm glad you have a plan and I truly do like the way you've developed your characters. It's just your world man... it's so fucking dark. Maria's story has skewed how I'll ever be able to look at the rest of the game. It all seems dirty and corrupted. I'm not sure if that was your plan, but damn if it didn't succeed.

 

[stoicism]

Well damn, didn't expect a wall of text reply. Heck, didn't expect a reply to my rambling at all.

In hindsight, I think only Ashley could really be viewed as a caricature seeing as she started as the creepy yandere with a knife. She's come a very long way from there and the fact that she was bullied, whether by parents or peers, her whole life makes her early misanthropic behavior if not reasonable, then at least somewhat justifiable.

I think I stand by wacky though. Lin was a maid for I believe literally centuries who didn't know how to cook a pizza. Kali was a rich girl with an absurd lack of understanding as to how the world works. The Android (Does she have a canon name? I named her Anna.) went through all kinds of hi-jinks through her early scenes where she was making foolish mistakes in regards to how everything worked. The overall tone of the game was silly and lighthearted, more comedy than drama.

That said, I can definitely see an increased dedication to story as the game went on. While your earlier characters started rather shallow and empty, needing several scenes for the player to get to know much of anything about them, Maria, Emma and Felicity, and Autumn all started with much more distinct personalities, backstories, and character growth. Make no mistake, I don't have any complaints about your characters or their development over the course of the game. Porn or no porn, I've come to like these girls. They're more than just pictures.

Honestly, I've got to sing Autumn's praises a good bit. More so than any other girl, I've felt that her story has made the most sense through the lens of her character. Her actions and reactions to the events around her have just seemed natural. It's been a lot of fun to watch how getting out from under the thumb of her controlling family has made her go more than a little wild. Her exhibition scenes have been a blast (though admittedly, I have a kink there...).

The areas I'm concerned about are the world and the overall tone of the game.

Your world isn't shallow. You've done a lot to develop a history, power structure, and a couple competing factions. However, all that depth and the overall seriousness of it leaves some aggressively glaring plot holes. That was fine when the game was mostly a comedy/porn game, but if you're going for a more serious tone, that's no longer the case. The main questions that stumped me when I was playing were:

1. Why are elf slaves necessary in a world with an android work force? Since Kali's college class is programming construction droids, they don't seem ludicrously rare or new. As such, how have slaves not been replaced by bots already? The best explanation I could come up with is momentum, but shouldn't the easy availability of manual labor have caused either slaves or androids to become dominant or isolated to certain sectors of the economy? Maybe that's happened off screen but...

2. Are there people who desire abolition? Outside of Nia of course. We've seen some pretty horrific racism in a lot of different scenes throughout the game, but I think Vanessa, the hipster/rebel, is the only non-elf abolitionist we've ever met. There's an implication there that abolition is not something desired by the majority of society simply because of who Vanessa is. I guess this isn't a plot hole, but damn if it doesn't make for a dark setting. Racial slavery and no groups who find that morally reprehensible?

3. Is the high elf queen an idiot? The high elf queen's "plan" probably irritated me more than anything else in the game. She apparently has invisible spies capable of infiltrating nearly anything and she can't get blueprints for a gun on her own? Is no fairy capable of watching a person use the internet and learning? Worse yet, wouldn't she know how pointless a gun would be at this point in history? Even if the fairies couldn't use the internet, shouldn't they have some idea what a jet is? What exactly are the fairies telling the elf queen? That entire sequence felt like the idiot ball was being passed around.

I guess what I'm saying overall is that just because you've got a world with a history, doesn't mean that history makes sense.

As for tone, that should be pretty straight forward. Regardless of the characters or story, the early parts of the game were bright and happy. The problems were small, the solutions were simple and everything stayed happy throughout the scenes. Over time, the problems grew more complex and less concrete. I was completely okay with that as well. I liked Maria's soul searching over whether camming was really healthy for her and what she wanted from her life. Kali had similar issues with a similar change in direction. I felt like the player character acted as something of a rock for the girls through those turbulent times; a constant as they changed their world around it.

But some of the current scenes? They're dark. Not funny haha 40k grim dark, but dark dark. Android and Maria are experiencing the kind of things people prefer to pretend don't exist: existential horror of a type humans don't get to experience and dead serious, no joke, slavery. How different is that from where the game started? I guess I'd liken it to walking into a kids movie only to have it interrupted by a chainsaw massacre halfway through. It doesn't matter whether the kid's movie or the horror movie were actually good, it's the sudden tone switch that would throw people off.

It's very possible that I'm the exception to the rule on this one. Doki Doki Literature Club was wildly popular and I'm pretty sure this very thing I'm complaining about is a large part of that reason. In fact, I feel like there's a lot of recent anime that do the same thing, dropping a horrific murder into the stereotypical shonen opening. Maybe people out there like a sudden tone switch in their stories to keep things surprising and dramatic. Then again, don't all those examples follow the tone shift? While the shift in Doki Doki is surprising, it never goes back to VN after the horror is revealed. The shonens stop shonening after the sudden horrific murder, don't they? Feel free to ignore me on this one if you feel I'm off-base.

Honestly, I think Android is over-reacting a decent bit, though I can sympathize with where she's coming from. Imagine a child abducted by aliens. She grows up with them, but knows they're different. As she gets older, she realizes just how much so, and worse yet how inferior they are to her. I can sympathize with the desire to know an equal in that setting, to meet someone just like you. However, shouldn't it be a important how hard the people around her are trying to understand and care for her? I feel like even in that scenario, that should make a dramatic difference. To me, Android's breakdown feels a decent amount like teenage angst to me, though that doesn't quite cover all of it. Given her age, teenage angst isn't even entirely unreasonable.

I think the direction I'd want to see her story go is her attempting to create immortality for those close to her. Rather than killing herself to make others like her, why not try to make those close to her like her instead? I also think that having split herself to make others isn't likely to be as rewarding as she imagines it. Imagine meeting yourself after all. There'd be no surprise; you could call all of the other you's shots. Maybe Android is capable of creating a little more differentiation though, so I'm off base.

As for Maria... god her story is dark. I'm trying to imagine what the time she spent after she was abducted and forced through training was like and it seems quite possibly the most horrific thing imaginable. What if Ellen hadn't come through and managed to purchase her? She'd have been bought by who the hell knows who based off of what, solely a picture of her, maybe a list of skills? She'd have spent every moment of her captivity wondering if she was going to be sold as an honest to god sex slave.

This shit happens in real life and it's the darkest thing I can imagine. I don't want to imagine it. I don't want to imagine that humans are so depraved that they would want something like that. Worse yet, you've created a world in which not only is this something that happens, it's been NORMALIZED. There's an honest to god website in your world, not on the dark web or something, but a GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED WEBSITE in which girls are sold as sex slaves. You have created Rapebook. What the fuck man.

I think typing this out really helped me get to the crux of my issue with the story currently. It's not that the story got dark; it's the fridge horror that it was this dark all along. You've pointed out that the world this story is taking place in is not only not our world, but just possibly one of the most fucked up worlds imaginable. The world in which I was amassing a harem of cute girls and getting to know and love them, had something like Rapebook sitting in the background. That was going on; all the characters knew about it; all of the characters didn't think twice about it.

Hell, it was even quietly there from moment one, but I never thought about it because it was "just elves" or out of sight, out of mind. It was only when it was rubbed in my face that I even considered the ramifications of everything. Even as I'm absolutely horrified by all this, I can't help but be impressed by how you presented it. I can only imagine that the MC and all the rest of the girls got the exact same rude awakening that we did... though they have less of an excuse for not realizing it. After all, they can visit Rapebook anytime they want.

Anyway, keep in mind that it doesn't really matter in the slightest what I think of things. My critiques are meant to be constructive and if I've come off as too harsh, I apologize. The important thing in all of this is that you're finding your work to be fun and/or fulfilling. I can definitely sympathize with watching a movie and considering how they decided to present the story. After all, the same story can be told a million different ways without changing the actual subject matter. I'm glad you have a plan and I truly do like the way you've developed your characters. It's just your world man... it's so fucking dark. Maria's story has skewed how I'll ever be able to look at the rest of the game. It all seems dirty and corrupted. I'm not sure if that was your plan, but damn if it didn't succeed.

You made a pretty good review there I feel like, and to me I must say that it makes it better, albeit many times darker. It's something that raises Harem Hotel above other games that are visually similar.
To me, the story getting more complex isn't an issue in and of itself, it's the same reason why Attack on Titan is my favorite anime series, though I won't get further into that so as not to accidently spoil anything for anyone other than saying, it starts out pretty black and white and gradually becomes grayer and darker. Though of course in an entirely different way.

The specific thing I wanted to comment on though was your point 1.

1. Why are elf slaves necessary in a world with an android work force? Since Kali's college class is programming construction droids, they don't seem ludicrously rare or new. As such, how have slaves not been replaced by bots already? The best explanation I could come up with is momentum, but shouldn't the easy availability of manual labor have caused either slaves or androids to become dominant or isolated to certain sectors of the economy? Maybe that's happened off screen but...

It's, I feel, not that elves are at this point in time absolutely essential to the economy anymore other than the likely revenue of the slave market itself, their only real essential role being in servant roles. More so, it's a hierarchy thing why elves would not be released anyway.
Freeing the elves because their free labor is no longer required for the economy to function could be seen as a tepid admission that perhaps elves are kind of equal to humans after all as that would raise them to at least the level of the poorest of humans.
Admitting that elves can be equal to humans now would implicate that because it's wrong to enslave humans, no matter how poor they may be, it could be wrong to have enslaved elves all along. And such a reality is not something most people are ready to deal with. Not in the Harem Hotel universe as well as our own.
Admitting we were wrong as a society is something we find difficult even today in the real world.
Examples of this are how Japan still doesn't really acknowledge its past war crimes, and how the South in the US constantly tries to revise history around slavery and the civil war. Or perhaps where I'm from, Europe's past of colonialism which is still kind of romanticized at times.

Speaking of the South in the USA in times of slavery. Even though they could never hope to ever be able to afford a slave themselves, to a poor white person there was comfort in knowing that no matter how bad they have it, there's always black people, black slaves, below them on the hierarchy. Nothing scares such people more than those people below them rising up in the hierarchy even a little bit, cause that would mean that now the white poor man is also at the bottom of the ladder.
Now just switch "black" with "elf" and switch "white" with "human".

I would end this with a quote from my favorite series, but because I don't know how to properly do the spoiler warning I won't for now

 

[sortakinda]

NORMALIZED. GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED human trafficing

"If you only knew how bad things really are".

 

[Unseenatlas]

Are the cheat codes updated?

 

[milfkiller]

how many milf at this game？

 

[Forgotted]

how many milf at this game？

There are no MILF's in this game.

As far as gorgeous 'older' women,
Ellen
as well as the Elves if you want to count them as they are a couple hundred years old....????.....

As far as gorgeous women in general? All of them.


Cheers

 

[jamdan]

Speaking of MILF's that is the one flaw this game has. All the main girls, I guess Android and Lin technically aren't, but the rest are all younger. It would be interesting if the final room went to an older character.

How old do elves get? Maybe move in a 1000 yr old elf in. She can help Lin and MC save the world since, in theory, she'd know how things were pre-slavery or even before humans got to the island.

 

[TheDevian]

There are no MILF's in this game.

As far as gorgeous 'older' women,
Ellen
as well as the Elf's if you want to count them as they are a couple hundred years old....????.....

As far as gorgeous women in general? All of them.


Cheers

There is Sara in the bar.

 

[alex2011]

Well damn, didn't expect a wall of text reply. Heck, didn't expect a reply to my rambling at all.

In hindsight, I think only Ashley could really be viewed as a caricature seeing as she started as the creepy yandere with a knife. She's come a very long way from there and the fact that she was bullied, whether by parents or peers, her whole life makes her early misanthropic behavior if not reasonable, then at least somewhat justifiable.

I think I stand by wacky though. Lin was a maid for I believe literally centuries who didn't know how to cook a pizza. Kali was a rich girl with an absurd lack of understanding as to how the world works. The Android (Does she have a canon name? I named her Anna.) went through all kinds of hi-jinks through her early scenes where she was making foolish mistakes in regards to how everything worked. The overall tone of the game was silly and lighthearted, more comedy than drama.

That said, I can definitely see an increased dedication to story as the game went on. While your earlier characters started rather shallow and empty, needing several scenes for the player to get to know much of anything about them, Maria, Emma and Felicity, and Autumn all started with much more distinct personalities, backstories, and character growth. Make no mistake, I don't have any complaints about your characters or their development over the course of the game. Porn or no porn, I've come to like these girls. They're more than just pictures.

Honestly, I've got to sing Autumn's praises a good bit. More so than any other girl, I've felt that her story has made the most sense through the lens of her character. Her actions and reactions to the events around her have just seemed natural. It's been a lot of fun to watch how getting out from under the thumb of her controlling family has made her go more than a little wild. Her exhibition scenes have been a blast (though admittedly, I have a kink there...).

The areas I'm concerned about are the world and the overall tone of the game.

Your world isn't shallow. You've done a lot to develop a history, power structure, and a couple competing factions. However, all that depth and the overall seriousness of it leaves some aggressively glaring plot holes. That was fine when the game was mostly a comedy/porn game, but if you're going for a more serious tone, that's no longer the case. The main questions that stumped me when I was playing were:

1. Why are elf slaves necessary in a world with an android work force? Since Kali's college class is programming construction droids, they don't seem ludicrously rare or new. As such, how have slaves not been replaced by bots already? The best explanation I could come up with is momentum, but shouldn't the easy availability of manual labor have caused either slaves or androids to become dominant or isolated to certain sectors of the economy? Maybe that's happened off screen but...

2. Are there people who desire abolition? Outside of Nia of course. We've seen some pretty horrific racism in a lot of different scenes throughout the game, but I think Vanessa, the hipster/rebel, is the only non-elf abolitionist we've ever met. There's an implication there that abolition is not something desired by the majority of society simply because of who Vanessa is. I guess this isn't a plot hole, but damn if it doesn't make for a dark setting. Racial slavery and no groups who find that morally reprehensible?

3. Is the high elf queen an idiot? The high elf queen's "plan" probably irritated me more than anything else in the game. She apparently has invisible spies capable of infiltrating nearly anything and she can't get blueprints for a gun on her own? Is no fairy capable of watching a person use the internet and learning? Worse yet, wouldn't she know how pointless a gun would be at this point in history? Even if the fairies couldn't use the internet, shouldn't they have some idea what a jet is? What exactly are the fairies telling the elf queen? That entire sequence felt like the idiot ball was being passed around.

I guess what I'm saying overall is that just because you've got a world with a history, doesn't mean that history makes sense.

As for tone, that should be pretty straight forward. Regardless of the characters or story, the early parts of the game were bright and happy. The problems were small, the solutions were simple and everything stayed happy throughout the scenes. Over time, the problems grew more complex and less concrete. I was completely okay with that as well. I liked Maria's soul searching over whether camming was really healthy for her and what she wanted from her life. Kali had similar issues with a similar change in direction. I felt like the player character acted as something of a rock for the girls through those turbulent times; a constant as they changed their world around it.

But some of the current scenes? They're dark. Not funny haha 40k grim dark, but dark dark. Android and Maria are experiencing the kind of things people prefer to pretend don't exist: existential horror of a type humans don't get to experience and dead serious, no joke, slavery. How different is that from where the game started? I guess I'd liken it to walking into a kids movie only to have it interrupted by a chainsaw massacre halfway through. It doesn't matter whether the kid's movie or the horror movie were actually good, it's the sudden tone switch that would throw people off.

It's very possible that I'm the exception to the rule on this one. Doki Doki Literature Club was wildly popular and I'm pretty sure this very thing I'm complaining about is a large part of that reason. In fact, I feel like there's a lot of recent anime that do the same thing, dropping a horrific murder into the stereotypical shonen opening. Maybe people out there like a sudden tone switch in their stories to keep things surprising and dramatic. Then again, don't all those examples follow the tone shift? While the shift in Doki Doki is surprising, it never goes back to VN after the horror is revealed. The shonens stop shonening after the sudden horrific murder, don't they? Feel free to ignore me on this one if you feel I'm off-base.

Honestly, I think Android is over-reacting a decent bit, though I can sympathize with where she's coming from. Imagine a child abducted by aliens. She grows up with them, but knows they're different. As she gets older, she realizes just how much so, and worse yet how inferior they are to her. I can sympathize with the desire to know an equal in that setting, to meet someone just like you. However, shouldn't it be a important how hard the people around her are trying to understand and care for her? I feel like even in that scenario, that should make a dramatic difference. To me, Android's breakdown feels a decent amount like teenage angst to me, though that doesn't quite cover all of it. Given her age, teenage angst isn't even entirely unreasonable.

I think the direction I'd want to see her story go is her attempting to create immortality for those close to her. Rather than killing herself to make others like her, why not try to make those close to her like her instead? I also think that having split herself to make others isn't likely to be as rewarding as she imagines it. Imagine meeting yourself after all. There'd be no surprise; you could call all of the other you's shots. Maybe Android is capable of creating a little more differentiation though, so I'm off base.

As for Maria... god her story is dark. I'm trying to imagine what the time she spent after she was abducted and forced through training was like and it seems quite possibly the most horrific thing imaginable. What if Ellen hadn't come through and managed to purchase her? She'd have been bought by who the hell knows who based off of what, solely a picture of her, maybe a list of skills? She'd have spent every moment of her captivity wondering if she was going to be sold as an honest to god sex slave.

This shit happens in real life and it's the darkest thing I can imagine. I don't want to imagine it. I don't want to imagine that humans are so depraved that they would want something like that. Worse yet, you've created a world in which not only is this something that happens, it's been NORMALIZED. There's an honest to god website in your world, not on the dark web or something, but a GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED WEBSITE in which girls are sold as sex slaves. You have created Rapebook. What the fuck man.

I think typing this out really helped me get to the crux of my issue with the story currently. It's not that the story got dark; it's the fridge horror that it was this dark all along. You've pointed out that the world this story is taking place in is not only not our world, but just possibly one of the most fucked up worlds imaginable. The world in which I was amassing a harem of cute girls and getting to know and love them, had something like Rapebook sitting in the background. That was going on; all the characters knew about it; all of the characters didn't think twice about it.

Hell, it was even quietly there from moment one, but I never thought about it because it was "just elves" or out of sight, out of mind. It was only when it was rubbed in my face that I even considered the ramifications of everything. Even as I'm absolutely horrified by all this, I can't help but be impressed by how you presented it. I can only imagine that the MC and all the rest of the girls got the exact same rude awakening that we did... though they have less of an excuse for not realizing it. After all, they can visit Rapebook anytime they want.

Anyway, keep in mind that it doesn't really matter in the slightest what I think of things. My critiques are meant to be constructive and if I've come off as too harsh, I apologize. The important thing in all of this is that you're finding your work to be fun and/or fulfilling. I can definitely sympathize with watching a movie and considering how they decided to present the story. After all, the same story can be told a million different ways without changing the actual subject matter. I'm glad you have a plan and I truly do like the way you've developed your characters. It's just your world man... it's so fucking dark. Maria's story has skewed how I'll ever be able to look at the rest of the game. It all seems dirty and corrupted. I'm not sure if that was your plan, but damn if it didn't succeed.

You made a pretty good review there I feel like, and to me I must say that it makes it better, albeit many times darker. It's something that raises Harem Hotel above other games that are visually similar.
To me, the story getting more complex isn't an issue in and of itself, it's the same reason why Attack on Titan is my favorite anime series, though I won't get further into that so as not to accidently spoil anything for anyone other than saying, it starts out pretty black and white and gradually becomes grayer and darker. Though of course in an entirely different way.

The specific thing I wanted to comment on though was your point 1.

It's, I feel, not that elves are at this point in time absolutely essential to the economy anymore other than the likely revenue of the slave market itself, their only real essential role being in servant roles. More so, it's a hierarchy thing why elves would not be released anyway.
Freeing the elves because their free labor is no longer required for the economy to function could be seen as a tepid admission that perhaps elves are kind of equal to humans after all as that would raise them to at least the level of the poorest of humans.
Admitting that elves can be equal to humans now would implicate that because it's wrong to enslave humans, no matter how poor they may be, it could be wrong to have enslaved elves all along. And such a reality is not something most people are ready to deal with. Not in the Harem Hotel universe as well as our own.
Admitting we were wrong as a society is something we find difficult even today in the real world.
Examples of this are how Japan still doesn't really acknowledge its past war crimes, and how the South in the US constantly tries to revise history around slavery and the civil war. Or perhaps where I'm from, Europe's past of colonialism which is still kind of romanticized at times.

Speaking of the South in the USA in times of slavery. Even though they could never hope to ever be able to afford a slave themselves, to a poor white person there was comfort in knowing that no matter how bad they have it, there's always black people, black slaves, below them on the hierarchy. Nothing scares such people more than those people below them rising up in the hierarchy even a little bit, cause that would mean that now the white poor man is also at the bottom of the ladder.
Now just switch "black" with "elf" and switch "white" with "human".

I would end this with a quote from my favorite series, but because I don't know how to properly do the spoiler warning I won't for now

As far as I can tell, basically the elves are there just because the humans want them to be. It's oppression of the elven race for the sake of oppression. That's what I get from it, anyway. If the elves were truly necessary to the economy, they wouldn't be treated like dirt, they would at least be treated with a level of care that allows them to continue to provide for said economy. The way it is now, I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually elves who have died behind the scenes from poor treatment. Yes, there are reforms in place, but they are minor and I haven't seen evidence of any real attempt to enforce said reforms. All I have seen so far is a public facade of caring so that the people who wanted the reforms are satisfied, meanwhile it's business as usual in private.

 

[TheDevian]

As far as I can tell, basically the elves are there just because the humans want them to be. It's oppression of the elven race for the sake of oppression. That's what I get from it, anyway. If the elves were truly necessary to the economy, they wouldn't be treated like dirt, they would at least be treated with a level of care that allows them to continue to provide for said economy. The way it is now, I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually elves who have died behind the scenes from poor treatment. Yes, there are reforms in place, but they are minor and I haven't seen evidence of any real attempt to enforce said reforms. All I have seen so far is a public facade of caring so that the people who wanted the reforms are satisfied, meanwhile it's business as usual in private.

Yeah, it boils down to 'elves are cheap, androids are not'.

 

[stoicism]

As far as I can tell, basically the elves are there just because the humans want them to be. It's oppression of the elven race for the sake of oppression. That's what I get from it, anyway. If the elves were truly necessary to the economy, they wouldn't be treated like dirt, they would at least be treated with a level of care that allows them to continue to provide for said economy. The way it is now, I wouldn't be surprised if there are actually elves who have died behind the scenes from poor treatment. Yes, there are reforms in place, but they are minor and I haven't seen evidence of any real attempt to enforce said reforms. All I have seen so far is a public facade of caring so that the people who wanted the reforms are satisfied, meanwhile it's business as usual in private.

Mostly yes, although I would like to add that even IF elves were actually necessary for the economy, they wouldn't necessarily be treated more humanely. Although killing them would certainly be illegal (which it probably is in Syl'anar as well, but still) it would be similar to destruction of private property and lost revenue, which would be considered a pretty serious crime if you did it to someone else's slave. But part of extreme hierarchical thinking that facilitates slavery is the idea that the feelings and well being of those "below you" don't matter, and that it's your innate right to hurt and humiliate them as their superior. Often justified as "putting them in their place".
Like in my comment before, compare it to the South in times of slavery where mistreatment of slaves was simply part of daily lives despite the South's economy being pretty heavily dependent on those slaves.

I do indeed agree though that what's happening to slaves behind the scenes is probably a lot worse than it would appear to be outwardly, even with the Happy Home Initiative. Though I do believe that Cornwall genuinely is better than the alternatives could be in that he does seem to care about at least the basic care of elves as seen when

Spoiler

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, although he still clearly endorses and takes part in sex slavery, even if he has his limits, so he's still ok with the institution still. Still given the circumstances, he's probably the best the elves could hope for given the current public sentiment, and somehow getting rid of him, voluntarily or not, would probably hurt the cause of freeing the elves and granting them full human rights (or elven rights) more than it would help it.

 

[Forgotted]

There is Sara in the bar.

Who's Sara? Is she the drunk? Yeah, I had forgotten she said she had kids or didn't want another, or something.... besides (ewwwwwww yuckie...) lol

 

[RRRRoy]

Fun game, can't wait to play it again fully when it releases . Art is really nice.

 

[anhiungoc]

I also put up two saves about a week ago; a full one and about a 20% one if you want to go hunting for them as well

thanks dude, can I have a full save? It took me many hours on this game alr

 

[anhiungoc]

If a restart wiped out your saves, you have bigger issues.

Jokes aside, here's a save.

thanks but may I ask u 1 more thing, i pasted your copy save in both game/saves and C/appdata/renpy/haremhotel , but nothing happened, please help

 

[TheDevian]

Mostly yes, although I would like to add that even IF elves were actually necessary for the economy, they wouldn't necessarily be treated more humanely. Although killing them would certainly be illegal (which it probably is in Syl'anar as well, but still) it would be similar to destruction of private property and lost revenue, which would be considered a pretty serious crime if you did it to someone else's slave. But part of extreme hierarchical thinking that facilitates slavery is the idea that the feelings and well being of those "below you" don't matter, and that it's your innate right to hurt and humiliate them as their superior. Often justified as "putting them in their place".
Like in my comment before, compare it to the South in times of slavery where mistreatment of slaves was simply part of daily lives despite the South's economy being pretty heavily dependent on those slaves.

I do indeed agree though that what's happening to slaves behind the scenes is probably a lot worse than it would appear to be outwardly, even with the Happy Home Initiative. Though I do believe that Cornwall genuinely is better than the alternatives could be in that he does seem to care about at least the basic care of elves as seen when

Spoiler

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, although he still clearly endorses and takes part in sex slavery, even if he has his limits, so he's still ok with the institution still. Still given the circumstances, he's probably the best the elves could hope for given the current public sentiment, and somehow getting rid of him, voluntarily or not, would probably hurt the cause of freeing the elves and granting them full human rights (or elven rights) more than it would help it.

A combination of tribalism and religious zealotry. Even in certain real world religions that I won't mention, there are rules about how you can beat your slaves, as long as they recovered in a few days.

The main problem in this game, is that what few protections we have for the elves, do not apply to half-elves, who are treated worse than animals, like the elves used to be.

For now, Cornwall is better than nothing, but we need to replace him with someone who actually cares about other people, and not just how it can benefit him and his career. Whether that replacement is the MC, or one of his girls, that is debatable, maybe Vanessa could run against him, she would just need to work on a few things, including public perception. Going to take more than some protests, they need a full on media campaign, including books, shows, and movies that show elves as ...you know, people. People with feelings, dreams, desires, and so on.

Who's Sara? Is she the drunk? Yeah, I had forgotten she said she had kids or didn't want another, or something.... besides (ewwwwwww yuckie...) lol

Yeah, she has a kid, making her the only 'mom' we can fuck at the moment, though I still hold out a tiny bit of hope for Ashley's mom.

Personally, I think Sarah and her scene are pretty sexy, hope we can knock her drunk ass up one of these days. XD

thanks but may I ask u 1 more thing, i pasted your copy save in both game/saves and C/appdata/renpy/haremhotel , but nothing happened, please help

Could also use HaremHotelXX.X.X\Game\Saves.
Make sure you remove the numbers at the beginning, and that you are looking at the right page. If the save name is 2-3-LT1.save then you need to look on page 2, slot 3.