VN - Ren'Py - Heaven's Door [Ch. 3 v0.3] [AlterWorlds]

This one was a surprise. For some reason this game grabbed my attention from the start.
I tend to skip through these games (nsfw VNs) way too much to get to the "good stuff".
It's rare that I start reading the dialogue from the start of the game, and continue reading without skipping throughout the whole game. It almost never happens.

I'm not sure I can explain why this caught my attention so.. It's got beautiful renders, for sure, but a lot of games does.
And you'd think a story about a dude visiting a strip club would be on the less interesting side of stories.
But there's something that just works here. The characters feels a bit more human than they usually do in these games. I'm invested, I'm curious about them, and I feel for them.

The MC himself has got some mysterious shit going on from the start, and this is gradually unveiled from the start. We learn more about him as the characters around him also do.
The only thing "weird" about the MC is probably how INCREDIBLY HOT he allegedly is according to all the characters of his growing harem. But he looks just normal. Nothing special.
Buuut.... I guess I'll just go along with it and pretend that he's hot for the sake of the experience.

Regardless, I just finished Chapter 3, and I'm looking forward to the next parts. (especially considering the cliff-hanger at the end of this chapter.) I'm considering paying for this one. They deserve it.

And also, looks like there might be a couple of hot trans women for the MC to play with going forward. At least I hope so. This is always a plus. Cis guys with trans women is always really exciting, so I hope there will be some of that.

Heaven's Door [Ch. 3 v0.3] So far 5/5

It is one of those game that hits all the right notes.

It has a decent story, the LI's are quite unique in their own ways, the setting makes a lot of sense, we had the reason and now in ch. 3 we goat to also know the end goal of all of this. It has decent drama and the sex scenes are just above anything I played so far.

It is clear that the devs put in a lot of work and passion for it and it shows.

Downloaded this on impulse, stayed with the story. Kind of a harem with in depth feelings and back story. I enjoyed reading it, skipped a few of the sex scenes (yeah I'm weird that way) but the end of v0.3 hit hard in the feels

Damn good story telling. Looking forward to how this develops. Very little lewdness yet but hardly missed it, just immersing myself in the characters and backstory so far. Obviously it's early days yet but really interested to see where this goes.

This was a hard one to rate. I like the game, but I think it's because I like the premise more than the execution.

The writing is alright, the characters are fairly interesting, the setting is great. Women are good looking, scenes are good.

However, two things bother me. First of all, storylines are rammed in with zero finesse and things that happen just don't feel organic at all. The first chick you sleep with, the trans stuff, even the way you interact in the club just doesn't seem right. The trans stuff especially felt so artifically forced in, somehow.

Second of all, choices in the game are fairly few (despite it not being labelled kinetic) and it's unclear what consequences they will have. Like it felt like if you chose the first woman you sleep with you'll screw it over with the rest, but you don't. And it also feels like it'll matter for future chapters, so you might end up making choices you THINK are best, not the ones you feel.

I feel like this game could go either way at this point, it could either be a 5/5 or a 1/5 at the end, but right at this point I feel like it's somewhere in the middle. Great setting, great potential, still feels off.

[CH3] 5/10

Heaven's door to borderline mediocrity.

THE GOOD

Visuals are great. The characters are detailed and shots are somewhat creative. It's genuinely pleasant to look at everyone.

Decent music choices. The transitions can be a little abrupt, though.

There's little in terms of forced exposition or reoccurring reminders of what happened the last time you saw someone. The grammar and punctuation are also strong.

THE NEUTRAL

The animations are short and almost default-looking loops. Not great, not terrible.

Pacing is a little odd with how "few days later" is commonly intermixed with "an hour later" - MC's life outside of HD must really be bland.

The UI is kind of a mess, but at least it's not default.

THE BAD

Heaven's Door isn't a bad game - there's clearly a lot of effort put into the character designs, the location setup, the writing confidence - it is simply incredibly mediocre (as of CH3).

My main gripe is with how little agency and little sense your actions have in the overarching plot. The first two chapters were a slow but interesting start into "I only have X months/years to live" trope. Sadly, this is heavily undermined by the revelation at the end of CH3 that you are the last member of an extremely affluent family. MC doesn't want to treat his illness due to fear of losing his fertility, but instead of using his seemingly limitless wealth to perhaps secure his seed, he's looking for... love? For a partner who will see you dead before you can raise your child? That is, of course, assuming there won't be some magical plot device whereby MC suddenly gets his remaining life extended or is downright healed. If he cared for those around him, he'd focus on saving his lineage first before doing literally anything else. Whatever the writer decides to do next will only make this more and more silly.

As some other reviewers pointed out, the game forces you to be a good guy if you don't want to miss out the most engaging content. You can't also drop any of the relations outright - even if you decided to ignore everyone in your path, you still get to hang out with the same people as if nothing happened. This only shows that it doesn't matter what your motives might be, the LIs are predetermined to like and follow you.

Lastly, the idea of a PG strip/gentleman's club is the more absurd, the longer you think about it. The girls preach about the "no touching" rule every other sentence, which admittedly might be true since there seems to be no actual action done with anyone but you. It is only implied that something is being done behind the closed doors, but no stripper/LI ever mentions doing any "extra services" to other clients. The most egregious example is Mika who claims she's never even seen a cock. This is either a bad lie/roleplay or just utter nonsense given her line of work.

Overall, Heaven's Door is a pretty and polished product that unfortunately does not deliver the same quality as their previous work, Bare Witness.

P.S. I failed to mention the h-content in the current version, so a quick summary: Heaven's Door, despite its core focus being on a strip club, has little actual sexual content between the characters, most of which is just some form of grinding and lap dancing. The true sex scenes sadly do not feel... hot. For the most part, I felt as disinterested in the act as the MC himself.

V0.3

Holy Sheep! A tagged VN that has a story...who knew?
a slightly clever plot/setting as it comes across as a slow burn of teasing, set in a soft core 'strip' club, where teasing is the be all and end all.
it reads natural and i had no issue losing track of time becoming immersed in the journey
not my ideal fantasy escapism time sink, but neither is some of the top VN's i have read either. i didn't enjoy them any less and i have most assuredly enjoyed this one. as long as it continues and doesn't fall into a game of thrones season 8 closing, this might just be pushing to find a slot in many peeps top 10.........that's right...i did....i tempted fate....i live at no.13 and was born 1st april. tempting fate was already the norm

This game keeps the BS to a minimum and feels refreshingly honest about power dynamics most harem stories dance around (which apparently triggers a lot of people by calling it unrealistic): If you’re a genuine catch AKA a disciplined, successful gigachad who pulls seven figures and isn’t a walking red flag, the game understands that you’re not the one chasing. Most women come to you, and the writing reflects that without apology or cringe wish-fulfillment. Instead, it presents attraction as a natural consequence of status, competence, and emotional stability, grounding its premise in a way that feels earned rather than your juvenile harem story of virginal waifus attracted to your average joe that has few if any redeeming features other than being the pov the story is being viewed through.


That said, the game doesn’t pretend this is a pure power fantasy. The sunshine comes with a shadow: the protagonist is terminally ill. That single fact reframes everything, every flirtation, every connection, every choice. The central tension isn’t whether he can get attention, but what he should do with it when time is the one resource he can’t buy. Is it better to to love deeply, to leave something meaningful behind, or to indulge without having much attachment to the connections he's building? This contrast between external abundance and internal finality gives the game its bite, as the conflict doesn’t stem from starting relationships, but rather from deciding how far to take them, how honest to be about the inevitable, and whether connection is an act of generosity or selfishness when time is running out.

Also the girls are all hot... if you care about that, I guess.

[Ch3 v0.3]

The game has an interesting premise, and the first two updates were quite well done. Sadly, it has already lost focus as the developers have been adding more and more side characters.

The game is now a jumbled mess of random characters that pop up out of nowhere and do little more than eat up development time that would've been better spent elsewhere. There has been a noticeable drop in the quality of writing this past update, and I suspect it will only get worse as the cast continues to bloat.

Ooof... why go down the Sex Worker route if you clearly don't have the heart for it? The Disney version of a "strip club" is completely unbelievable and drags the whole story down. The relationships you develop feel completely artificial and arbitrary. There's a ton of games where women fall for the MC for no reason at all, because the writers don't have the skill to write believable relationships, but I expected better from the Dev of Bare Witness.

It isn't like this hasn't been done to death anyway. The writing is still above average, but the contextual white knighting is just stupid and childish. Don't try to be edgy if you'll pad everyone in plot armor anyway. It kills all tension.

Crazy that this is coming from the Dev that made Bare Witness.

But then, there's pretty girls, so it should be enough for most of you.

No surprise to find out the same devs also did Bare Witness. This is one of the few games with compelling enough writing to actually make me read all of it. Visually also really well made. Hope to see more

Unless you like going to strip clubs and thinking maybe the stripper really does like you, then the start is not going to be great for you either but stick with it because the MC's back story is really well done and quite interesting which when revealed makes you want to play the rest of the game.

Great to see an actually good MC for a change.

Even through the cast of women is quite large, i count find a single one that i liked, over half of them have negative traits(not that they are bad people but they do bad things without realizing it) and the other half are in a word "bland", but its still early in the game so that could change.

I didn't really try for any of the women so i didn't get any sex scenes and i don't know if there are any in the current release.

For the moment the choices do seem to work and i really hope that continues in future updates, my biggest fear for this game is that it will turn into a forced nice guy type where the MC will be nice with women just because they are women, hopefully it will let us reject the ones we don't like and not force us to sit though them acting as if nothing happened.

Story 3/5 (slow start but gets much better)
Sex N/A (didn't get any)
Characters 2/5 (woman are ok at best)
Art 4/5 (very nice)
Choices 3/5 (hold up well)
Kinks N/A (too early to tell)

Review of Heaven's Door Ch. 2 by AlterWorlds

As a fan of this developers previous work Bare Witness this one left a sour taste in my mouth.

First and foremost the setting doesn't make sense at all. It's the tired and true "stripper with a heart of gold plotline" (or strippers in this case) that has been done countless times before and better and let's not mention the fact that these girls don't even act like real strippers. We're suppose to assume these girls don't give blow jobs or have sex with clients after hours but that's just not how this profession goes and you can ask any stripper that, Now can argue that they are exotic dancers and not strippers but its just unrealistic unless you consider this some sort of alternative world where things don't play out like they do in the real world.

Outside of the setting the general storytelling is interesting enough especially considering how things are progressing but i can already see this going down some "good" kinda ending instead of the more mature darker one that's currently being built up and the character models for the most part are all great so if your just looking for a quick fap or if you like wish fulfillment this is for you.

TLDR: The games setting feels really weird after playing Bare Witness and it really does break your immersion if you know anything at all about the stripper profession and with that said i won't be playing it again as its just not as good as the devs original game.

A great VN with a refreshing and unusual plot.

Pros:
1) Great writing. The plot seems to be heading somewhere.
2) Great and unusual theme. Your in a bumfuck American town and come across a nightclub.
3) The girls have varying personalities.
4) The girls got dump trucks.
5) Girl models and supporting background renders are top notch.
6) MC isn't a fresh 18yo creep.

Cons:
1) Relationships develop too fast. The girls go head over heels for MC for bizarre reasons.
Overall, it's very good.

+ awesome MC! He is stylish, good looking guy who behave like an adult. It's normal that girls are interested in a man like him. Much more realistic than another 24/7 horny teenager MC, worshiped by every woman without a single reasonable reason
+ mature written protagonist. To me, it's looks like writer portrayed himself
+ renders/animations, top notch
+ music
+ nicely done relationship development
+ story & sad moments. Game will be very emotional in the future, that's for sure
+ interesting & likable characters
+ funny moments, best one is "daddy"
+ gallery

- right now I don't find any cons

Avn written definitely by adult, who has his own style. 5 stars

Ok so the girls are interested in a guy who stands out at a strip club relatively quickly. To be fair this is not that uncommon when I was a young doctor I went to a strip club for the first time too (strange coincidence in this game for me lol). If your the type of guy rushing the stage and tossing money chances are the steppers did not take notice of you is anything else but money. I quickly found out as the shy guy sitting in the back drinking strippers came over and sure some offered that private dance although I was not interested and some would leave others asked to sit and I ended up talking and befriending quite a few as they viewed me like the MC is different and a friend rather than a customer. I ended up dating several including my now wife. So I disagree with those finding it so far fetched. It did not happen as quickly as say the MC but if your a guy looking to stand out with strippers don’t be the ones throwing money around and they will likely come and talk to you and who knows maybe just like me you can find the love of your life in a very unlikely place.

great game and an engaging story that I relate to.

You enter a strip club and every dancer immediately shows romantic interest in you. There is no buildup - just sudden affection - which destroys any sense of tension or suspense. The art and renders are detailed and high-quality, so it does look good on screen, but after seeing one perfectly posed, half-naked character after another instantly interested in the MC, it begins to feel forced instead of genuine. The storyline follows familiar points: a serious illness reveal (can we stop with this idiotic cancer/suicide themes in VN's by bad writers?) , emotional moments that aim for sympathy, and clear moral lessons. Almost every decision is meaningless, so you spend most of your time skipping through long blocks of exposition that could have been shorter or better integrated. Dialogue occasionally includes a clever line, but more often it explains everything outright instead of showing it through action.
If you only care about visuals, you will find high-quality models and polished scenes here.

I started playing this game with high hopes since the dev of this game already has one strong title in his portfolio (even though I thouhgt endings of BW were really badly written). Unfortunately this game is missing one important point to me - nothing in this game was reliatable. The storyline is weird and immediately we were introduced to LIs out of which all of them are the strippers. Going further, the LIs instantly get a crush on the MC just because he isn't acting like a horny teenager. No, he acts like a dull, uninterestingold man and yet all these girls who are there to earn money treat him as if he did something to impress them on the go. The man ends up actually having balls, but they didn't know that at the point when they were tripping over each other trying to get closer to him. Then we get a sentimental back-story of the MC, which is solid, but doesn't really change the dynamics of the game. After that the MC starts dating the girls. Okay, even now when I am writing this review, I am seeing how silly the whole story is.
PROS:

• great renders
• good looking LIs
• environments full of details and with some people
• dailogues are smooth (though they are boring)

CONS:

• story is far-fetched and hard to relate to
• romance is too easy and unnatural
• LIs act like schoolgirls even though they are mostly middle-aged women working as strippers
• predictable dynamics of the game: plant the main idea, add romancing one by ne with the LIs, add some sad back story and maybe some random action

Another excellent release from the creators of Bare Witness.

Visually stunning renders, a well crafted story, good writing, and a plot that keeps you hooked from start to finish. Oh, and the fluid animations for the people who care about that.

Now, let's talk about the love interests. They're diverse, with a variety of body types, all beautiful, and most importantly well-written and genuinely likable. Even though we're only in Chapter 2 and still getting to know them, I already like them all.

Whether you're here for the story or the visuals, there's a lot to enjoy. Highly recommended.

First thing that came to mind when I saw the theme was that while a strip club can be sexy it is absolutely not romantic.

And after playing it hasn't really changed my mind.

The way the characters interact just doesn't feel real, the girls are all over the MC right from the start but not as strippers, they're not looking for a tip they're straight up casually engaging with the mc (who's a complete stranger and a client) like he is the messiah of cock.

The models are good though. They're not all my type unfortunatly but the dev is clearly trying to go for diversity in bodyshape and color so at least most people should have a few characters they like...