VN - Ren'Py - Harem Hotel [v0.18] [Runey]

How have I missed playing this AVN? Oh yes I have not been a fan of the HS style till recently, but it is growing on me. Skipping the HS style I have found this AVN to be really entertaining. The story is very good. Lot's of allegories in the story which give the story a deeper meaning that the run of the mill harem style story. Found very few spelling and syntax errors which is always a big plus. Thank you for entertaining us Dev and for making this AVN for us.

this is one of the OG h games. it has some great animations and a very interesting story. of course there are some moments where i thought it was a little dialog heavy but those where few and far between. i can look over that my reason elves the elves make this game what it is. lin has the best character development and it is honestly the best part of the game. i hope runey keeps working on this one and i look forward to the final release .

I replayed this game recently after not playing it for a couple of years, and I feel like I entered a small fever dream.

First of all, the actual lewd stuff is good. The models are good, the costumes are hot, the actual sexual acts you can do are varied and well done.

The characters, by just personality. Are...decent to okay? Well to start off, The protag just straight doesn't have one. At the start of the game you can make some decisions or dialogue options. But as you get further into the game the more quiet and tag-along your character becomes. Which isn't great, because you begin to wonder what's the point of him aside from his dick. The main girls range from fun to kinda annoying. The blonde one makes my eyes glaze over when I read her scenes but whatever. The others are fun enough.

The music and other accessories are....passable. There's some of your standard sandbox gameplay features to pad out the time a bit, but nothing that annoyed me. The music is basically one looping track which can get a little stir crazy.

The story though. Jesus christ. Look, I'm all for going bold with your narrative, and a porn game doing stuff like that is cool. But uh, the one for this game is...not it chief.
The whiplash between doing climax denial with a girl and then her next event is her being found as 'tainted blood' and having her social security stripped away and essentially jailed is....
Well it's a choice. It's certainly a choice.

And a lot of the character story lines are like that. Just wild swings for the rafters in terms of themes and tone. A lot of them don't land. A lot of them are kinda cringe, and a lot of them perhaps are suited in a game where you don't do slave play with your elf.
(Like seriously, in the second half of the game your character kinda follows along with this whole 'rebel against slavery' but also you can have your character be like, fine with it? It reminds me of half of the anime isekais where for some reason the protag always gets a slave and it's seen as a romantic thing.)

I guess my review of this is...seriously written scenes about interment camps and threesomes with a robot and an elf dressed in slutty costumes should not be 20 minutes apart.

The robot and elf are hot slutty tho.

I wasn't at all thrilled at first sight, and the early stages of the game didn't necessarily make me a fan either. But the further you get into the story, the more you get to know the characters. And then it gets interesting!
Well, it's not Shakespear either, but you end up feeling sympathy and even affection for some of them.
In short, a very pleasant surprise which, in view of its development, still has more in store for us.

My favorite adult game. It's telling me I have to write 200 characters. I just wanted to give it five stars. The girl's stories are actually decent, and the world itself is interesting. Never really cared about the world in one of these games before, usually just try to click through as fast as possible.

(v.0.17 review)
It's a very good game with interesting mechanics. Here are some of my impressions:

-Story: There is no actual main plot, instead, we have a plot for every "main" girl and also some small plots for "side" girls. So... Are they good? Yes, They were... until you get past the first 40 hours (game is too long, 60+ hours so far), after that, it becomes somewhat boring and predictable. In my humble opinion The developer is extending stories way too much which is causing more harm than good to the game, He should just give it closure. By now, I think no one is expecting anything fantastic here, dude, a simple "and they lived happily ever after" after one last plot will do.

-Characters: Main girls are great, some of them are annoying at the beginning, however, when you get to know their backgrounds you kind of understand them and get to like them, except for Pixel who is the exact opposite. About side girls, some of them are good like Sylvia and Ellen, others I simply didn't care to complete their stories like Hana and Moon. MC is too fking quiet even during sex scenes when he is being rough, dam that was annoying, also, for some reason, the girls ,when fking, it feels like they become the same girl, I mean they all speak the same way (no identity), this is a serious writing problem.

- Music: There is only one track playing the whole time (u get to choose 1 out 3 tracks on the menu), during sad times there is another one and that's it, so... it's not good.

- Renders/Animations: It's clearly outdated, however I think it's good for the engine (HS1)

- Playability: I liked the fact that I had to "level up" my girls. Dungeon was great. During the first ten hours you can roam the city which was good (but eventually you get everything done there and never come back because there is no longer a reason).

Overall the game has very memorable moments and it's worth checking out, I hope the developer gives it some closure soon. So far I'd give it an 8/10. I have to confess that at some point for me this was a 9/10 but as I said before it's becoming an unnecessarily long game, so it is an 8/10 .

It took a long time to encourage myself to play this game, it seemed to me to be just a game focused on sex scenes without any context. I couldn't be more wrong. The dev is a genius when it comes to writing. The girls' backstory goes from funny to completely dark and sad. There is also a deep reflection on sexuality, family, religion, slavery, and artificial intelligence. The animations, which number hundreds, are very well done, perhaps the best I've ever seen in a VN. This game is simply a masterpiece.

Couple of years ago I would have easily given this a 4*, but that point has long since passed.
The update frequency dropped to about once a year, and they absolutely NOT of the size that would warrant such a long dev time.
The "adult" part of this "adult" VN receives barely any content at all.
And the story took a shift from being about the characters to being about the world. Unfortunately, the world of HH is stupid, illogical and not interesting. Runey is simply too bad of a writer to make his absolute nonsense of stories engaging and interesting. Every plot line has to be "grandiose" and world changing, without the basis to warrant that.
The visuals are HS1, outdated but not the worst. There is no real gameplay to speak of.
The second star is only there because of the past content this VN has.
A shame to see what has become of what used to be one of my favorite games here.

(17.2 reviewed)

I'll start my review with a statement, that this is not that bad of a game, and it does some things right. Orgasm denial/control scenes are hot, bdsm scenes at the dungeon are nicely done, and some characters are written very well. I really like Kali (nerd archetype girl) and Autumn (religious prude archetype). They have a more mature and self-reliant outlook on life, they try to deal with their problems and lives by themselves, and I found these qualities really attractive in women. Graphics are also decent enough. Unfortunate, that's pretty much about it on positive sides of the game, after this point I'll start to criticize various aspects of the game in descending order, starting with (in my opinion) the biggest issues and working my way downward to smaller ones.

-The story of the game is dark. Not that funny kind of dark, or a little bit dark (slavery is legal in this world); no the more you progress in the game, the more nightmare fuel the game will throw at you. It is gruesome contrast between colorful graphics of the game and the rot (societal/political variation) that has overtaken the world. If this indeed was intention of the author of the game, I applaud to him, because he clearly succeed, but I don't think it will make a good fapping game. At some point it is fairly explicitly hinted, that slavery is not the main problem and there is darker plot looming. I think anyone with some knowledge of 20th century history will understand what I'm talking about.
There are two specific cases, that I'd like to bring to your attention, that will serve a fine example of darkness in this game.
-Most of the girls are mentally unstable, emotional messes with untreated daddy issues. I sometimes feel that it is borderline unethical to make my personal harem with such material. One of the girls the other . Worse, that you (player) are in a position of emotionally regulate and 'fix' these girls, and there is not a whole lot that you can do about it (other than pressing 'skip' button). I do not think it is wise to burden player with all of these angst.
-Girl progression is intertwined, you can't really progress with your favorite girl without progressing with other girls. So, your favorite girls will go within a package deal with girls that you have no interest in. And their emotional baggage will be part of that deal (previous problem amplified).
-The protagonist is barely present in the story, he is a plot device to participate in every activity that current encounter with the girl required. Even if it does put him in mortal danger. At certain points in the story he . All of these ordeals were either due to some girl's (stupid) plan, or as a consequence of girl's previous actions. I'd really like to see a more levelheaded, pragmatic protagonist, who doesn't put his head to the chopping block for something that he has no stake in. Or even an asshole protragonist who doesn't care about all of the slavery stuff and wants to have his fun with girls. Or hell, even a virtuous non-stupid protagonist with agency. But this spineless plot-device? I'd rather not.
-Girl individual progression is grindy. Let's say that I want to make my nerd sweetheart an exhibitionist. I will need total of 10 activities, before she will acquire a corresponding perk. But there are only 4 unique activities, so I have to grind and re-do some of them to train my girl in the way I like.
-After some moment, game writing will degrade into lore-lecturing. I don't have a problem with studying the lore of a game, but it has done poorly with rather big and unappealing walls of text.
-Game economy is not working well. It is lacking meaningful choices and feels grindy. Luckily, the game will give you exact amount of money to progress somewhat painlessly.

Oh, boy, I think I'm finished. In my third section, I will try to think on how this game could become better.
First of all, Prozac does exist, and I heard it is even helpful.
Second if player does not want to participate in liberation of elves, politics and dangerous activities, there should be an option to opt out of such content.
Third, if player does not want to be an emotional regulator and listen to girl's traumatic past, there should be an option to avoid it. I read at the discord of the dev, that he plans to make all of the sexual scenes optional, well how about to make all daddy issues and angst optional?
Fourth, if player does not want to interact with a girl, there should be a path that avoids her content. Situations, where progression for one girl is blocked by events of the other girl are abysmal.
Fifth, I firmly believe that Protagonist Life Matters. Therefore there should be choices that will help the player to associate themselves with protagonist. Perhaps by meaningful roleplay choices, that will have some consequences and give him a sense of agency and make him actually a character.
Sixth, fetish perk acquirement should be redesigned to remove grind. Perhaps it will be a good idea to tie them to the quantity of the unique events that the game currently has. If there is only 5 exhib events, you could have a perk if you correctly find 3 or 4 of such unique events.
Seventh, game's economy should be overhauled to make it interesting to the player. Perhaps even cut it away completely, for it has no purpose as of now.

Conclusion:
I am fully aware, that all of these will make the game more of a sandbox style game, but I think, that such development will be good for the game.
Do I recommend the game? Only if you have special mod to remove grind and if you are ready to skip tons of bizarre content.

Story 2/5
Main story is ok even though it goes a bit to crazy with the AI stuff for my taste, theres alot of side stories with main girls and some smaller one with side girls as well where some are ok others are bland and pretty boring, one contains rape as well.

The biggest issue for me is still all the forced shit, you cant progress without being forced to have sex with all the main LIs, hate em or love em you got no controle and you cant skip them, some are even tied together so you cant progress the one you want without first doing one you might hate, its really the worst kind of sandbox setup and it feels extremly kineitc.

Dont forget harem does not mean forced LIs theres a word for that (fuckfest) harem should always be optional as to whos in it or not.

I wish devs would learn that a LIs story dosent have to be connected to the sex scenes, it would be very easy to make it so your just helping them as friends so you could avoid the sex scenes with those you dont like so its a bit idiotic doing it the way its done in this one.

You can skip some side girls story but not main girls, so you have to like crazy LIs, Loly, small to big tits, religion types, whore types and so on, most people arent into everything so it being forced is just a shitty build for a game.

Theres no MC, the real main characters are all the LIs and its their stories you follow, you never have any kind of choices and the "MC" is more or less just a dog on a leash getting draged along for the ride, its meaningless and makes for a very boring game where you as the player really arent part of anything that is going on, your just watching everything unfold.

This is also why im pretty supprise the game has such a high rating.

On top of all of that its an insane grind, every LI you need to grind up relationship points, lust, sluttiness, exhibitionism, submission, affection and some has obedience as well and it goes all the way up to 100 points in most of those and you gain one point at a time and with multiple LIs it just adds up to a crazy grindfest doing the same shit over and over a million times.

Also not a fan of rape, and Ashley pretty much rapes MC since hes sleeping and she rides him the second he wakes up not asking if its ok or anything and what do you do as MC absolutly nothing, you cant get pissed, its the same shit as always where MC is just submissive and just watch and allow everything to happen MC dosent say a single word doing the hole rape/sex act not one? he should trow her ass out of the hotel right there and then but game truely just is so bad since theres just no MC which this scene clearly shows when MC dosent even speake one word in that scene or even after.....
And how game dosent have rape tag i dont know, if it happens even once the tag should be there and its clearly rape since MC never gave any consent to Ashley for her to fuck him.

Next time you go to Ashley its like it never happened and she ask MC to go to the beach? MC just follows along yet again? not a word about the rape the night before, all Ashley say is she gave MC a BJ? even though she just raped him?, how the hell did this game get such a high rating?

On a side note the virgin scenes are awefull as well, Ashley just slams MCs huge dick in to her pussy in one go, 0 pain 0 blood so yet another fail in this game.

Girls 3/5
A bit outdated now a days but still decent, theres an ok diversity in builds but mostly aimed for people with big tit fetish when it comes to main girls.

Animations 2/5
Ive seen alot better HS animations, its not that they are really bad but they are below average.

Music 2/5
Standard background tune which gets annoying in the long run.

Choices 1/5
When it comes to main story and main girls its an all out kinetic novel, only reason it gets 1 point is due to being able to close to some side girls story.

MC -10/5
It has to be the worst MC ive ever played, how can you make a game where there is no MC? when hes getting raped or fucked he says 0 words...0...he has no backbone no present in the game hes simply just not there, its like your just watching stuff happen having absolutly no controle in anything.

Sandbox 2/5
Its just way to much of a grind and repeats, i give it two points since i like the fact that you can upgrade stuff in the hotel.

Again i just dont see how it ever got such a high rating it just makes no sense.

This is one of if not the best AVN I've ever played. I think this was the first real introduction I had to the modern Ren'Py games with the ability to use the scroll wheel to go back and experiment some with choices. While there were some mild annoyances to me, everything for the most part tied together pretty well. I actually grew to care a lot about almost every one of the main characters, surprisingly including some whom I didn't think I'd like.

The game is extremely laid back with letting you do whatever you want in whatever order and having no deadlines or objectively wrong choices since you can recover from anything. You need to increase some girls to progress others, so you can't actually fully ignore any of them which ironically is a pretty big benefit since it got me to advance girls I otherwise might not have cared much for.

There are somewhat "repetitive" stats to grind up for each character, but luckily if you don't care to rewatch certain scenes ten times to cap a stat you can just hold Ctrl to skip through and just get the stats up. Any grinds like that aren't a big deal since they go by extremely quickly.

I'm looking forward to what the future holds for this.

Very good game. Lots of repeatable scenes and a mixture of various stories and quests keep it interesting. The older scenes need to redone and brought up to modern quality however. And it would also help to improve the speed of some scenes to add to the erotica.

10/10
Just trying to keep a list of games I've played already.

Good characters, lots of storywriting
Somewhat immersive worldbuilding
Decent dialogue,
Forgettable MC, has no personality except that he's caring
Sex is great, specially once the dungeon was introduced
a little grindy
Play time was about ~20 hours.

Even if the updates take a while (a year in the current case) the game is still amazing. The writing is done well, character designs are really nice and the animations are very smooth.
One of my favorite titles on the site and one that I am willing to wait extended periods of time for updates on since the content is just that good.

Nice game, very interactive and you can feel like the main MC.

I'm excited and I'll wait till the next update.

Keep it Up with the game. I'll go and play the different routes right now.

Have a great day!

Edit: v0.18
I decided to give this one last chance since it was meh last time but not horrible and at this point it's a lot of hours played. I should have trusted my gut because I fell for the good 'ol sunken cost fallacy. First off, this has been going on for far too many years without resolution, but what does the Runey do? He keeps adding characters. Now I love harem games, it's one of the reasons I started playing and even supporting favorite VN's, but with eight main girls, it was already going to be hard to get all their stories done in a timely manner. Add to that the constant cliffhangers the time that it's been in development, and you get fatigue of the following:

1. Bruh it's a harem game you need an MC to be the protagonist or to at least be an active participant with a personality. If this personality can't be defined by the choices of the player at least the story needs to add it. Instead we've got faceless dick, literally.
2. The stories are focusing on breaking at your heartstrings. However, at certain point it stops being emotional, and you just get tired and want it to end and not in a good way. Instead we get more characters having their tragedies because now you need to have every girl have their tragedy. It's honestly tiring.
3. The side girls have too many stories slowing down the already slow progression of the main harem girls. Some of them are starting to seem like main girls too.
4. The final occupant of the empty room still hasn't been added after years of development.
5. The Sandbox nature without a true quest log makes it kind of hard to know when an event will be triggerable. Especially when many of them can only occur on certain times or days making you need to skip time.
6. The grind oh dears gods the grind is too much because you need to do repeats of the same sex scenes to increase stats of girls like gaining the exhibitionist trait.
7. The lack of pregnancy because "it only makes sense at the of the story". I might be inclined to think this reasonable except pregnancy has been mentioned multiple times at this point.

This used to be one of my favorites, but I'm finally done. There has been no resolutions because the author keeps piling on things. With that I'll go fap elsewhere.

Old review:
It left me feeling meh because the MC is not the protagonist of the story. Instead the harem members are the true protagonists. Aside from that we have a completely passive MC who goes with the flow because you don't actually make any decisions making this more of a kinetic novel than a visual novel. Then there's the grind at this point I feel spending more time grinding than doing anything even with cheats. Aside from that there's elves supposed slavery but with rights. I'm sure this is done mostly because of another site, but this kind of makes the story feel a little awkward at certain points. This is because at times consent for the elves is dubious at best, and yet it keeps emphasizing that all elves should consent first. Overall the story feels like it's missing something to make it good.

Somehow this game had a pretty interesting worldbuilding, a sort of grounded fantasy. And the girls who inhabits this word are a good balance between well render and quite interesting.

You can "play" with this girls, either "trainning" them or learn aboth their lifes in a actual sanbox mechanics that allows to choose what girl you want to progress with relative freedom (cause some paths are intertwine).

So yeah, its worth the chance, its a fine game in the right spot to apeal both, sandbox and linear story fans

I just finished the game and it was incredible. I had a good time with every character in this game. Even though the sex scene don't really have sound effect. It was great. Though not all games is perfect. But i would say this game is good enough to have a good time. Can't wait to see the 1.8 update release. Really wondering the continuation of every character.

Hands down my favorite. The models and scenes are great and there is plenty of variety, and it deserves 5 stars for that alone, but what I love most about it is the story. Often, I will skip dialogue in these games, but this is very well written, and you actually start to feel vested in the characters.

I thought I would end up hating this due to my personal preferences but luckily most weirdo kinks are avoidable and don't prevent you from progressing through each girl's main story.

Even though the plot is ridiculous you can't expect more from a game with this title. The girls and lewd scenes are excellent and are the highlight of this game. What can be taken seriously are some of the girls' stories and you may become emotionally attached to a few of them because of this.

Even though slavery is a bit of a turn-off, you can make your relationship with them as normal as possible by having them call you by your name and most abusive actions with them are optional. There is also a plotline where you work to help free elves from slavery. I always appreciate the option to be sort of a good guy in games like this.

Another downside is the lack of background NPCs and finished content within the city. I assume these will be added and completed with future updates but it makes it significantly less immersive when you're out and about with or without the girls.

Overall, highly recommend giving this a shot and look forward to future updates to fix some of the glaring issues.