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

All I have to say is that this game is one of the best here if you are searching for Harem, slight kink(more than a few other games actually), nice and relaxed story, also coupled with some great animations and pictures

I had to add my stone to the insane monument that became HH.

I remember downloading v0.1.
I remember Ashley reminding me of Toga charming me instantly, and here I am a few years / month later finally rating it.
This game and it's dev inspired me to do my own projects.

Amazing Story, Amazing scenes, Fantastic characters and animated scenes !
This game will be remembered as one of the best available now, a ton of content, and apparently we're still in for a Ride !

If there is one single game out of all the amazing ones I can find onthis website, that I should keep, It's definitly HH.

At first couldn't get into it, seemed kinda like a generic type of porn game with grinding but after playing for a while longer started to really enjoy it, especially that the wacky characters (which there are numerous and each get their own attention in story aswell personal interactions) started to get actual depth and backstory which pretty much is the whole drive of the main storyline. The animations and renders are well done, and each character looks and feels unique. So for me, it was a slow start but after getting the pace going it's a very fun game and i greatly enjoyed it.

last play with ver 0.7.2
my reaction for art : pretty cool with a lot of character but i didnt like android character with his eye, not really like but i love girl with white hair
my reaction for story line : pretty cool to with MC can slaving the heroine, like we cn training the maid n another char.
maybe just for that my reaction im waiting this game with more update like added pregnancy stuff n another stuff to

quality image work and great character writing i never expected in this kind of game. The lewds are great of course with an ever growing cast of waifus. But the writing is what makes it. Tackling issues of mental health and even what it means to be human. One of the best games around and the characters stick with you.

one of my favorite sandbox style games. variety of characters and scenes. Game has really set the bar high for this style of game and can't wait to see what comes next. Developer does great work and updates frequently

I was very hesitant about this game because I don't like the Illusion look. I was wrong. This game is a lot of fun, very hot, looks great and has great characters. I was really surprised about how much I cared for some of them (Ashley is just crazy though). Great humor overall and the grind is not too bad.

Great game with a wide variety of characters and fetishes. I had a very pleasant experience with this game, no bugs at all and very convenient controls. Most of the scenes are animated even if its just a little animation. You also get to choose if you want to go the slave path or rather the love and freedom path, which is a pretty good feature.

Overall I think this game is great and everybody should play it. Quick tldr for what I think are some first questions people have about a new game they haven't played yet is:

• yes there are girls and you have sex with them
• scenes are animated
• low - mid amount of grind, and the grind involves sexual content so it's not annoying. ie: you're not out doing a real job to unlock girl stuff, you're doing stuff with girls to unlock more stuff
• you're given fair warning if you want to skip a scene with a kink/fetish you're not into

In depth stuff you don't have to read:

Story
The story is structured in a way which I think is perfect for an adult game, which is it is character driven. The "main plot" is as basic as it gets, but there's a ton of writing for each main girl, where you learn their backstory and relationships and personality and goals and the reasons thereof. An girl's individual story can have some twists and turns, some "ohh so that's why she's like that" moments, and are generally fun to go through.
You learn all of this while choosing a particular girl to unlock sexy stuff with (we all have our favourites), there's no being forced to spend time with one girl you don't care about because that's what the main plot says happens, so it's fed to the player at a pace they control that keeps it interesting and rewarding. Which I'll explain more with...

Gameplay
In order to unlock sexy actions, you pretty much just have to talk to the girls. You can't do it constantly, but very regularly a *Talk* option will become available, which advances that girls story and plays a sexy scene which usually unlocks as a repeatable action you can do when that talk option is not available. That simple loop is what I would consider the main gameplay and content.
Sometimes the *Talk* option has an item requirement that you have to buy. These requirements are always pretty cheap, and money accumulates on its own, so you don't have to do anything out of your way to get the main content. Which is great, I never felt like I was locked out of advancing the important stuff for any girl unless I do x task 10 times. I also never felt confused on how to advance.
There's what I would consider secondary objectives, which do require some grinding. Extra outfits require alot more money, but it's not too annoying because actively making money means taking sexy photos of the girls, not reading a popup that says you did your job . Some extra options during the main stories require training the girls in a particular sex act, but it's all pretty bearable. These sorts of games always turns everybody into a completionist so any grind can get annoying, but I think there's a real attempt here to make the grinding still be content and not busy work.
Speaking of outfits by the way...

Animation
I'd say the animation is pretty good. Any particular scene's animation quality is easily at upper end of erotic games you can find on this site, but it also pretty much looks like all of them too in terms of models and art style. Harem hotel's unique strength here lies in its quantity I'd say. A scene won't often deviate away from one to three positions that don't really transition from one to another, but there is ALOT of scenes with many various scenarios and girls, every one is animated, and there's variation with extra outfits too. I didn't bother to buy outfits at first because I just assumed it'd only be used during their static poses, that it'd be too much work to include them as variant animations, but turns out they are options occasionally. Not every outfit can be used with every option but that it is an option at all I feel is pretty rare in a game.

Music/Sound
I think there's two tracks. One for the main menu before you play, and one for while you're playing. It's fine. It's not great obviously, but it's not that important and not as bad as other games out there either. I wish there was a different track for the dungeon. I wouldn't mind a different track for the more serious parts of the stories too, though then I'd worry the emotions would feel forced.

This game is awesome. There's no character who's not interesting. The story is not just a "Okay, we need something between 2 H screen." bs. We see touching story, "heavy" story, character development and sad moments. Every character is interesting. Here's my opinion about them, in order how I like them (POTENTIAL SPOILERS!):

Ashley: One of the best girls. her story is just... wow. Heavy. She isn't an ordinary girl. I feel bad for her.

Felicity and Emma: My first impression about them was: "Wow. Fckin bitches." during Ash's story. But when they moved in to the hotel and I started to know them, they grow on me. Felicity more than any. They (Felicity more) are a scarred people. Mother dies, father is an a*hole. Felicity grows on you, more and more. If I could, I would just pat her head and tell here constantly "You're a good girl". I

Lin: She is my second favorite. There's nothing, I don't love about her. And I'm not even really into elves.

Kali: She's geek. Enough said. I love her.

Android: I don't excepted her story, to turn out like this. Wow. Same as Ash: heavy.

Maria: Simply adorable.

Autumn: She's... religious. That's enough for me, to not really like her. I'm curious about her story where this will go, but right now, she is at the bottom of my list.

So basically, I love this game. I can't say anything bad about it.

Do you like anime? Do you like submissive anime girls and young women begging for your cum?
Well, if you can get past the somewhat grindy, annoyingly navigated, open 'world' setting, then this game is perfectly for you. And even if you do mind the grind, I still recommend it
This game is a bit of a standard HS visual style and it starts of slow but once it gets going: it really gets going.
My main gripe with 'open world sandbox' (well, just a hotel in this case) is that it gets repetitive very fast: constantly the same scenes and dialog. Harem Hotel has some of that, but it does not get as annoying since even when you do get repetitive scenes: the girls get extra points. And with points I mean extra scores that determine how affectionate, how slutty and how obedient, they can get. Which in turn opens up further routes into depravity with them. So it neatly avoids the trap of repetitive grind by still giving out some reward that advances the game. And the game has plenty of content and even some side characters.
So, are you into submissive, horny, anime girls...? If the answer is yes, you should try this! You can even train them into BDSM to make them even more submissive, but you don't have to do that and still get plenty of sexiness out of every waifu.

This game is awesome with loveable characters and a fantastic story. Even after completing the story you can spend time with the characters which you should even do before continuing. Because after doing it enough times they will get traits which will change the way they behave and even the story a bit opening new bits of content. The only negative points about this game which let me give only 4 instead of 5 stars are those:
First that there is a short missable interaction with Lin which can you only see if her submission is 2 and you order her to undress and
Second the story is so awesome, that while first you have enough content the problem will start once you are finished with everything for the actual content, you will be so hyped, that you can only get disappointed.
When there will be finally another update which takes time because of the high quality, you will desire so much new story, that you will eagerly play through all of it and when you are done you got through such an emotional roalercoaster, that when you reached the end of it, you will start to scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO because it will let you desire much more, than Runey could create with that quality and that time to satisfy the hunger for what it awake inside.

Started off slow for me, but quickly grew on me with the many girls moving into the hotel. Maria is my personal favorite! I hope there will be a future update that involves Emma more. She makes for the perfect MILF. I can't wait for the next update!

it is hard to pick what to say when there is so much good things to say about the game but i do want to say i wish more game developers was like
Runey that person takes pride in there work and it really show runey even takes the time to talk to us on here and listen to our feedback about the game and keeps us up to date on what is going on even though Runey has a discord and a patreon that Runey puts all updates and news on and even takes the time to answer questions that has nothing to do with the game itself but about the way the saves are handled in the code of the game to help out a fellow game developer

I love the unique category of girls here however some side characters are more interesting than main characters.


~> each passing by the game is getting more interesting.

~>The Story is eye candy because we will now each one unique story it is both good and bad why they have become or became like that. You can say never judge by the book its cover cause u don't what it likes to be in there shoes everyday.


~>design and art eye candy also

~>Some music are not my cup of tea but it can relax my mind while playing.

I'm not a big fan of this style of graphic art but this game contains a lot of good scenes. I didn't particularly like the story but the game makes up for it with the sex scenes. Overall it's a game that will depend on your tastes.

Review written for 0.7 public release. Viewer discretion is advised.

DISCLAIMER: I am a supporter of this project and thus this review will be subjective.

As with any review - take it for what it's worth with a grain or truckload of salt, according to taste of course.

The TL;DR right up front because this is an extremely long one:
This game is well worth your time - and then some, while also more than worth to support.

So, after doing a couple reviews on smaller titles or titles where writing a review was easy as all hell, I thought I might as well write one for one of the bigger and more beloved titles out there. There are however two problems: One, I'm somewhat personally invested, as I am supporting the project monthly as I believe it to be a great title. Second and last, many things have been said already and I might as well be re-treading paths at this point.
Nevertheless, if it's worth repeating over, it can only be good, right? So, let's get to it.

This project has seen quite the development from its earlier days, where - at least to me - it felt more light-hearted than what it is today: An extremely rich and still developing story-bucket to grab and enjoy the development of characters in their respective arcs that you enjoy interacting with while also lewding it up a notch or two. Either that or I'm just talking out of my arse here.

Since this game is not just quite well-made but also big, I'm actually going to talk more in-depth about all the different aspects in quite the length - some sorted or unsorted list wouldn't do it justice, so I'm gonna dedicate entire paragraphs to them, starting now.

The characters

There's - as of time of writing - 8 varied main residents in your hotel split up on 7 rooms. Also there are several small side characters ranging from your receptionist, the waitress of your built-in bar and a small collection of elven slaves (or equals ) available for you to interact with and even some more - however, those are not just instantly available, as they are tied to the different characters story-arcs. The biggest strength in the character department is the extreme variety on offer: Not just in looks, but also truly in character - no two characters feel or look alike.
At the start, the characters do feel stereotypical: You have a somewhat reclusive nerdy girl, one that seems overly obsessed with you and the idea of having a boyfriend, one that seems cold, calculating and cunning - you get the idea. These stereotypes however break down the more you get to know these individuals as they develop and grow due to their past as well as the events surrounding them happen, with you being an important part of it. Yet they never manage to fully lose these stereotypes. It is what makes them feel human. Moreso than what many AAA developers set out but ultimately fail to achieve nowadays with characters so wooden you have to worry that their circuitry might set them ablaze the second they'd be required to think.
Not just that, but the characters stories are also partially intertwined which will cause events relating to one character also feature some of the other characters you may or may not suspect. This allows the place to feel alive - which is helped since most of the respective character stories early on play inside the hotel, meaing a densely packed environment. With their growth also growing the scope at which their events respectively play out. The characters are quite clearly the star of the game to me.

Well, that was quite a mouthful, only... several more topics to go over - fuck. Anyways, with the characters, most likely your main focal point out of the way, let us talk about other things, like...

The stories on display:

The overarching driving plot is, at least early on, what you'd expect from the title: You are the grandson of a hotel owner in his late years - with his death, you are asked to take over the business, which seemed to be going slow and manage a hotel full of females. As it turnes out quite a bit in, the hotel has been marketed as a "female only" hotel - oh how convenient... especially for us. The story is actually character driven and not plot driven. This means the focus lies on the characters reaction to events and their growth, rather than the overarching plot - which is only slighty touched upon. However, in the characters respective events, observant readers will quickly catch on that the Elves have become a slaverace, despite existing and living for so much longer due to the humans just outpacing them fiercely. The overarching plot of the game is however - at time of writing - not nearly as important as the individuals stories. The main focus lies truly with the characters arcs and their bond slowly forming with you and the other residents. Their stereotypical characters make for relatively simple introductions, which are chipped away bit by bit with each event unfolding. Their stories are also just as varied as their personalities. Yet the game is not afraid to throw gut-punching moments at you - that can hit quite close to home - to show just how relatable some of their story beats are and on that note - the game is more than willing to touch on philosophical and more mature topics. I'll however refrain from actually going in-depth for each character as to not spoil their story arcs as well as causing this review to most likely needing a Director's Cut - Let me just tell you, it's worth it just to enjoy the top notch writing as well as the actual events slowly broadening not just your view of the world, but of the characters as well.

Jesus christ, are these paragraphs getting longer the more I'm typing? Feels like it - I know why saying that some form of list wouldn't do this justice. So, what next? Gameplay?

Gameplay:

Despite what the title would suggest, it is not really a management game at all, but rather a sandbox-style visual novel with the purpose of telling the characters stories while also lewding them. You receive a set amount of income based on the amount of residents as well as the potential bar you built and from side activities. This money you can spend on buying various things, like outfits for your female residents to enjoy alternate clothing in scenes or to access other areas. Your actions done with them affect a relatively simple stat system which covers their affection, sluttiness, submission and exhibitionism as well as their experience in sexual acts or their friendship - which gauges the event progress done with each character. These stats are increased (or sometimes decreased) in various different activities. Their influence reaches from "barely noticable" with the experience in sexual acts only influencing some lines of text to "pretty neat" with things like submission or exhibition opening up extra options in events to chose from. The gameplay structure allows for very little in terms of branching paths, which I honestly like. Stories in which you fail entirely or block off entire character paths due to a decision that seemed reasonable to you at that time more often than not frustrate the player and since the focus is less on a plot and more on the growth of the respective characters, such design would make little sense in this regard. (This even gets mentioned shortly in a fun little easter egg). Besides that, once unlocked due to progressing each characters events, you are able to enjoy a wide variety of sexual acts you can perform with them - however, these scenes are more often than not non-interactive, so don't expect weird quick time events or a bunch of button pressing, except to further the texts . Pretty well cut and dried gameplay that feels not grind heavy at all - unless you wish to get all characters stats and sexual experiences up to the maximum, which may just happen by itself because the scenes are pretty well made and worth coming back to and thanks to the variety of characters involved, checking around them all every now and then to enjoy them is not wasted effort.

Well, that's another part done, feels like only a couple pieces left... I guess next up is the other part people are most likely going to come after for this game.

The scenes and interactions:

Besides the characters events, probably the other big chunk of the game - the different scenes and interactions at hand. The game offers you not just a variety of girls to enjoy, but also a variety of scenes for each and every one of them. From simple activities like going outside to spend the time with them (or to do naughtier things there while you are at it) in order to increase their stats, to straight up lewding them up in different ways. Each girl has their own respective scenes in sexual acts with a variety of clothing to enjoy them with (if bought). The different acts cover all the basics available, with the dungeon and even some of the locales inside and outside the hotel like the main lobby, the showers or the beach offering some extra content for those who wish to engage in it. It's well worth your time to pursue after all of them and enjoying what the game has to offer to you.

Phew, and here I was saying earlier that I should learn to cut to the chase, yet I'm wording on and on... christ. Anyways, there isn't much else to cover, but it still warrants some mentioning. And with that, let us talk about the last thing on this huge pile of text I dare to call a review.

Ambience and Quality:

Let us talk about quality first. Achieving modeling of characters that is considered to be a consistent, yet high quality is no easy feat, yet Runey managed to pull it off, with characters not only looking quite natural and realistic (synthetic beings not withstanding), but also with pushing the quality up release after release. The game shows its development in the scene department with scenes from the early days that only consisted of a couple of still images. This has been drastically improved over time with animations using up to 40 frames to give a smooth but also naturally feeling movement in the respective scenes. This is a very big plus - many games have problems with their images used: Either because characters have this horrible Uncanny Valley effect that makes you feel like you talk to robots, or animations which are neither smooth nor feel remotely realistic. Runey also stated that he'll be reworking older scenes over time in order to accomodate for a consistent quality and has already done so with a couple of scenes.
With that out of the way, another part would be ambience, which, while nothing to write home about, still suits the game well and does what its supposed to do. The music underlying the game is not intrusive and gives a generally relaxing feel to the player while making the game not a mute experience - however, some events, especially those that cover more adult themes, might work better when underlined with atmosphere building music instead of the general theme you get to hear, even in a characters' recap of the past. This has been slighty expanded upon with the addition of the bar and several musical pieces that can not only be purchased, but also played while in there to give that bar the nice authentic atmosphere. There are definitely games out there that did it way worse.

To sum this abomination of text up: This is an outstanding project which now screams "high production value" considering it's small start, which I still think delivered way more in it's versions v0.1 to v0.3 than most games managed to show in what they called version v0.5 and onwards. There is a very good reason this game got so much support over those past two years and very little that needs improving at this point. The few complaints I have a mere nitpicks and barely influence the overall experience, which is also why I actually can't give any suggestions that haven't been given or aren't already part of the game. This is mainly because Runey not only listenes to the community here and on his patreon, but also shows a serious passion and an actual interest in telling a story, rather than to make a game for the sake of making a game.

Final verdict:
Honestly, a 5/5 rating seems more than fitting for this title - these five stars are well deserved. Though I'd rather have a more nuanced score available other than a scale of 1 to 5.

And once more, just to clarify: There is no perfect game experience, period.
There are gonna be nitpicks here and there as well as my rating being subjective because, hell, I enjoy it - that mustn't necessarily mean you do as well.

If you managed to get this far down here - First off I'd like to apologize for writing such a long text which some might not even consider a review in the usual sense. Still - congratulations: Here's 5 Internet points and a well deserved cookie.

EDIT: small corrections here and there.

Reviewed v0.7

Awesome game! I went into Harem Hotel believing it was a management game, lots of resource handling which I’ve traditionally struggled at. Although I wasn’t entirely wrong, Harem Hotel is more akin to a dating sim game with intriguing characters and great H-scenes. Amazing work Runey!

Models are generally super well done. I love the look of each individual character, each have their distinct look and appeal whether it’s the petite Ashley or the well-endowed Kali, there’s something for everyone. The H-scenes are simply nut-busting and beautiful but those that don’t like ahegao may be turned off. Most characters have costumes that can be unlocked and worn during repeatable H-scenes. Events can be re-watched in the gallery which is a massive plus for me.

Gameplay is pretty simple; you interact with girls who are either in their rooms, roaming the hotel, at school or at work. There are dialogue choices but they feel inconsequential overall (don’t quote me on this). You earn money each day just by completing it and you earn more with more patrons, money can be used to buy clothes, upgrade facility or buy gifts (haven’t figured out what this is for) as well as “slaves”. Gameplay is simple, UI is intuitive and navigation is pretty simple. Only problem that may arise with new players is they forget which room belongs to each girl without clicking onto the door. There are traits can be unlocked however I found it didn’t change anything. (I could be wrong here)

The over-arching story is simple, rebuild to the hotel to its former glory, simple and easy but it provides and excellent reason for characters to stay at the hotel. The selling point are the girls who have their own individual charm and back story. When I find out about the problems each girl is facing, I was kind of surprised, I wasn’t expecting such depth in each character let alone 8 characters. It’s through learning their stories and helping them deal with their challenges that I really grew attached to them. The story-telling is left at your pace, you can grind out traits of each character before advancing to the next episode of their stories. One thing I noticed was lack of interaction between the girls outside of events, I want to see more interactions during sandbox mode.

Pros

• Beautiful renders and excellent H-scenes
• Simple and easy to pick up gameplay, intuitive UI, navigation is easy
• Interesting characters with deep backstory
• Ahegao
• Pacing of the story-telling is left to your pace

Cons

• Not sure what stats (aside from opening more actions and options) and traits do, bit of explanation would help (unless it was added in in the newer updates)
• You haven’t played this game yet

Suggestions

• Music in the bar is way too loud, possible to balance it so its more in line with the volume in other parts of the hotel
• Explanation of the stats and traits attached to each character page
• Conversation menu is getting pretty packed, any other way to help with this.
• Interaction between girls outside of events in the hotel area

Definitly 5 stars !!! Runey, really hit it out of the park, with this one... Got a little bit of everything, with a great story... Charaters, animated scenes, and dialoge are superb...
100% recommended to play !!!

This is one of the best games with a BDSM theme out there. The world is reasonably fleshed out and the characters come off as having complex emotions and there is areas where things can be immensely expanded on depending on how the patreons want things to go (For example, being able to get the Drow as part of your harem is a personal favorite though not being able to talk with her directly would be a problem).