VN - Ren'Py - Harmony Haven [Ch.3 v0.4.5] [respirit]

Overall rating: 4.5/5 but given it does the things I like really well, I am going to bump it up since you can only rate full stars on F95.

My biases: big fan of beautiful FMC (I think Rachel the FMC is super hot), FMC cheating (especially with old friends that the couple both know), slow burn

Premise: You play as both MMC Kevin and FMC Rachel (names customizable) who move back to their hometown Harmony Haven from the city. Rachel is a writer and Kevin takes over the local coffee shop. You get to meet old friends, Kevin's stepmom and stepsister, local citizens, etc. - pretty slice of life-ey.

The game centers around various NTR and NTS paths.

My review: overall I think the game does most things well and in particular the branching is wide and handled well. You have paths to cheat as the MMC, cheat as the FMC, sharing the FMC with other men, harem-esque stuff, and other minor branches. In addition, the pacing is well done, especially on the FMC cheating path (with Frank especially, my favorite path in the whole game).

Pros:
1) Great renders and hot characters. I just love the way the characters all look, especially the FMC. And the renders are decent. They aren't the best on this site but they are solidly good IMO. The scenes are relatively flushed out, clothing varies, characters look nice. At points though the lighting seems off. Also some scenes definitely pop more than others and make me think the developer spent more time on those specifically.

2) Animations are decent. Sex animations are mild length, get a few positions in, and are fluid. Won't blow your mind though.

3) Music is nice and matches the tone. Day-to-day sound effects are there occasionally.

4) The cheating pacing. I absolutely love the Frank & Rachel (FMC) path. Without spoiling it, the details are that Frank is an old friend of both Rachel and her husband Kevin (MMC). The game isn't over but it's clear this is the main (at least as of now) FMC cheating path and man I just love it. Based on the events so far, the pacing is good - often with cheating paths or games, the AVN either speeds through it too fast or just takes forever for anything to even develop. I really think their storyline has been developing well and hopefully continues the pacing it has so far without slowing down or speeding up too much (though I find the culprit often is it slows down too much as time goes on). In addition, nothing feels like a trope with this storyline. Some cheating paths are comical and I get it, you gotta write a story and sometimes you need porn logic or outlandish porn scenarios; I think this game does a good job at keeping it well.

As you can tell, I really love FMC cheating paths and to me this is one of the better games out there with its path.

I have played through the other paths, though not as many times as I have the FMC cheating path, and those are also done well IMO so if you fancy stuff like MMC cheating, sharing ,etc., that is also available.

Cons:
1) No sex scene sound effects

2) Typos on occasion. Also, it is not a big deal but I have noticed it enough: the author often does not capitalize "i", for example as in "Oh hey, i just got back from the store." It's maybe like 10%-15% of the time, but it kind of bugs me.

3) The biggest issue is show-don't-tell. I often gripe on this in many of my reviews. I will preface my point below by first saying it is not egregious in this game. I notice it super keenly so basically any game that does it I will pick up on but this game doesn't do it THAT bad to where I can see it really just being a matter of preference (though I think there is still unnecessary fluff).

Show-don't-tell writing: my opinion is that AVNs should not be written like books. Because you have the visual element in the story, a lot of narration and simple description can be cut out. It's hard for me to come up with examples of lines of descriptive narration that could not be substituted by some combination of dialogue, inner thoughts, or visuals.

While I do think this game is primarily dialogue and inner thoughts focused, there are instances of descriptive narration that I think do not need to be there. For example, the text might read the character was "in a whirl of thoughts" when I could tell from the context of the conversation and the character's facial expression on-screen (the renders are not bad) the state of mind they are in. I don't need it spelled out directly for me.

Stuff like that happens through out the game, where a character's thoughts, or the environment, or some other aspect of the world, is spelled out with narration/description when I either just got the same information from the dialogue, or if I didn't have that information already, I felt that the AVN would be better that information was conveyed through renders, speech, or inner thoughts.

It is on the mild side though; the description doesn't ramble on and there are cases where it is actually useful and necessary, but it is something I am not fond of in AVNs in general so I had to bring it up here.

An amazing ntr or nts game. Every one of the women are drop dead gorgeous. The tension and slow build up finally pays off! Choices do matter! Many branching routes! Renders are great! Animations are great! No sfx during sex but thats ok. Definitely a must play if you enjoy wife corruption games!

Wow! I've played the last update and I think like it was necessary to tell how I felt! This game is simply one of my favorite I'm literally planning on loading multiple save just to enjoy all the routes of this stunning project! the story is very well written and the MC look badass if you chose to. The women in this game are some hell of a bombshell lol great body shape and beautiful smilling you can clearly see the amount effort dev had put into this game precisely the The ladies look stunning and also have great personality!

And i can say thank you @respirit for this beautiful project and wish you good luck!

Very good game! highly recommend it!

My experience with this developer's other game, Hotwife Ashley, made me a little reluctant to try this one but I read some good comments from the developer so I decided to try it. There were a number of things about the other game I did not like: primarily forced content that overran player choices and outcomes that deviated from the tags and developers' notes.

I'm happy to say I did not find any of those situations in Harmony Haven. The qualities that impressed me the most were:

1. An interesting story (not just a cartoon fapfest)
2. Player choices early and often and they tie in with future events
3. Choices matter and they influence later events and choices
4. So far, no forced choices that override earlier player decisions
5. The tags, dev notes, etc., match what I'm finding in the game

I'm playing the loyal and cheating husband paths so far and am enjoying them both. I may try the cheating wife path later just to view whatever content I missed.

Overall, a solid 4-star rating for me. I look forward to playing the updates when they release and then reassessing the stars at that time.

I've been playing for a few hours, and here are a few of my thoughts.

The developer has an immense writing talent. There are a few minor mistakes scattered in, I assume the dev doesn't have an editor to follow behind so little things are lost in a sea of words. Beyond small grammatical details, the developer has an amazing way with words and subtle phrase. I'm impressed.

I like the faces of the characters. While they're based on stock characters, it feels like they've been tweaked slightly to make it a little less obvious. It feels like I've seen Kevin, the male MC, previously... but enough has changed that I can't remember from where. For that matter, that goes for most of the characters so far.

A little confused by Kevin's one and only tattoo. It looks like two orcas humping. Very... odd. I'll leave it at that.

Wasn't a fan of the first sexual encounter while the happy couple was still in the big city. If you're going to attempt a parallax effect, you have to commit to the bit. A parallax effect is best, but failing that the cityscape should have simply moved with the room. The cityscape not moving while the camera panned back and forth made it seem like the room they were in was floating in the air and spinning; very uncomfortable, dizzying to watch.

I like the music, I like the sounds. Not really much else to say there.

All told, I'm just really impressed by the writing. More and more often, developers in this space are non-native English speakers. I try to avoid giving heavy critique on writing skills for that reason, because you can't really blame someone for not knowing something they haven't been taught... additionally, it's frequently it's lost on the developer. I think I've only ever given a bad review due to writing once, and that was only because the developer started out with a crisp writing style that fell off in the last couple of chapters, suggesting the developer was capable but got lazy towards the end. As long as you maintain this level or better, I think this is definitely a 5-star work.

The narrative progression in this visual novel feels directionless at times. While I appreciate a well-executed slow burn, the current pacing lacks emotional weight and narrative depth. Scenes often conclude abruptly, leaving little room for genuine tension or character development.


For instance, the cinema scene had great potential to deliver a memorable moment but ultimately fell flat. Extending its duration, adding more visual variety — such as diverse poses, subtle gestures, and teasing interactions — could have significantly enhanced the experience.


There is no need to rush toward the intimate moments; the dev understand this — true satisfaction in storytelling often lies in the anticipation and buildup. A more deliberate focus on emotional nuance and pacing would make these scenes far more impactful. Even then, the game still falls short in delivering effective teasing — the tension feels underdeveloped and the payoff lacks emotional or narrative resonance, and the player’s limited freedom (getting locked on to one path) only amplifies this disconnect, leaving interactions feeling more scripted than engaging.


My actual rating is 2.5 for now.

For now not much happened and mostly vanilla content. Waiting for real action like gangbangs/bukkake/MMF/DP/swinging with other couples.

Hope game can be different and MC will join the fucking party for MMF scenes in NTS path instead of watching ALL THE TIME....
Avn generally doesn't offer anything new you haven't seen before. 3 stars

This one could be good, but the way it locks content is unfortunately very poorly thought through. It doesnt recognize any nuance in decisions and is very black and white which results in getting locked out of content for no reason.

Absolutely an amazing game, I have played it long time ago while it was in development and left, by chance now I got back to it and the amount of content is superb, I really enjoyed each second I played 5/5.

This one is, to me, a good definition of where the middle point lands. Story isn't great but isn't terrible either (I did end up skipping a large part of it though), much like the characters in it, and it is pretty decently written. Choices seem to matter but I have seen critics to the contrary so it might be a bit of a mistake on either my or their part. I do think the pacing is a bit strange, but rythm can be a very subjective thing.

Render quality is pretty high, though animations are a bit basic. There are sounds but I did turn off the music as I usually do. And I found no bugs in my playthrough, which is nice.

So, overall, a pretty decent game, nothing incredible but worth some time.

The initial choice presented is relatively flexible. However, as the narrative progresses, the scenario becomes increasingly imposed, regardless of the player's decision to decline the scene. This game has diminished the aspect of consent.

An excellent erotic game, with a slow burn story, but neither falls in the blue balling genre. Rachel is stunning, one of the most beautiful MILF's in the history of AVN´s

I hope this game doesn't get abandoned.

Good game and I hope it has creative sharing or swinging scenes, Netorase, and doesn't follow the same old same old.

It's already started well by not focusing on the interracial saturated and that already puts it well ahead.

A bit overrated if I'm being honest.

As someone who doesn't really like NTR, you can play the game completely without it, which is nice, but that route is quite bland. It seems like every other scene in the game is just an opportunity for NTR making the non-cheating route quite dry.

As for the rest, the writing is ok, but the graphics are not very good specially at the start. The renders shift without any transitions and to different angles, making it very jarring, and the animations don't quite fit very well as you can tell by the first sex scene.

PS: It is also really hard to believe the MC is young enough to be Jennifer's stepson

Overall I wouldn't say it is a bad game, maybe it is a bit better if you like the NTR route, but given the quality of the animations and writing I still can't rate this above average.

So far a great game

Pros:
Generic story and it's not a bad thing
Impactful choices
Points are easy to see
Nice character art
Nice characters (especially love the milf)

Cons:
Can't choose relationships in the beginning (ugh probably need to mod/patch)
The story clearly doesn't say weather it's going for NTR or NTS, for someone who prefers NTS, it's hard to decide on playing or not.

I'd much prefer it has NTS-Harem, and not the NTR path

Great game so far. Very well written, not too fast not too slow. I focused mainly on the cheating path on my play through and found it thoroughly enticing or interesting or whatever. I enjoyed how it wasn't just full on porn stuff and the reactions and thoughts of the characters were more in keeping with how folk behave IRL. Really hope the dev does well with this and keeps going, i for one will buy it when its complete. Really fresh approach to a game with a strong cheating focus. Good luck dev and keep up the good work.

Good graphics.
The story is still unclear, just the life of a young couple.
But the main feature of this game. A salesman started groping my wife in the store.And do you know what happened?You won't believe it!! No, she didn't suck him off and he didn't fuck her. You can choose the option there to punch him in the face. I haven't seen this in any game on this site, not really in one. Usually, any action towards the wife ended up with her being fucked, but here you can hit the pervert in the face. I'm shocked. Pinch me, I must have fallen asleep.

I'll just give this game 10 stars.

Developer, you're really a man

The story is excellent, The story is very well built, it's a shame it's slower, but it's quality content. I'm sure there will be many more updates, and it will be even better.
I always look forward to the next update. The menu is perfect. I like the development of the characters

There is a lack of character development. And scene kinda skips forward. Can't really get into the story. The plot is a bit shallow. hard to follow along. sex scenes are short and does't allow player to choose what to do.

Huge improvement over the first game. Every single aspect has been kicked up a notch. Didn't really like the first game but this one could be good. Especially the inner thoughts that pop up are a nice touch.

Everyone is always talking about "originality" but there is nothing wrong with going with what works and improving on that,the dev is clearly doing this so keep up the good work.