VN - Ren'Py - Hillside [v0.15.1] [DarkBlue]

I really enjoyed the general plot of this VN.

Initially I was intending to give a full review about it, But fact that this is still an unfinished product, I will forgo pointing out what I believe you're already aware of IE: Bad expressions, the obvious bulk word correction used in some places and other basic unworthy criticisms. Because none of it will impact my rating of 3/5 stars. But I will point out why I gave it a 3/5 stars and that mostly rests upon the massive excess of "inner monologues" used. WAAAAYYYYYY too much "voices in the head" subtexts..

Beyond pointing that out, all I'd have to say about this VN is it's very intriguing. The character arcs all seem decent so far (can't wait to see how they develop further with the exception of Emma, a supposed 18yr old that behaves literally like a 12 yr old.. I'm still scratching my head about her character, but bleh, onward we go).

I like the originality of the story, and how 'lewdness' is kept to a very strict minimum (Not that I have a huge problem with it, it's just that many creators just overdo it in a shamefull way). This really gives a sense that there's an actual adult trying to publish a serious work, and not a flesh-fest trying to replace google-porn. So thank you for that!

Keep up the good work, I enjoy reading so if you need some help with proof reading stuff, I might actually enjoy that (Ok that's me trying to find a way to find out how it'll all end before everyone else LOL).

This is a real gem...I don't usually like the Male Protag power/pimp fantasy nonsense but you get to help the girls in this one so its cool...Like the story, like the characters. Amongst some of the more dreadful writing in these Novel RenPy Games this is REALLY GOOD quality. Thanks, not sure why this story hit the spot for me so hard but it did...ty. Art and Graphics are very good also. This needs to be a movie or a book or both .

[ 0.12.1 ]
Just finished and tbh I was painfuly to make it to the end... Plot is such trivial that I am amused it took so much episodes to present it.

MC. I get there is history behind him etc but the way he acts, he is cold, without any emotions, expected much more from character like that. I guess he left both his balls in military when he quit. He allows to treat himself like a trash all the time and is soooo naive. Dialogues are bad...

Charlotte is one of the worst mother types, wealthy parenthood-disabled focused only on the work one. Everyone else are worst but her, she is the most aggrieved by fate, not seeing own mistakes, making one of her daughter unable to live in society by her over-protectiveness and couldn't handle second daughter allowing her to yell and raging showing no respect without consequences. She is pathetic and at the beginning, when I got known her story I was pity her but she is so stubborn... She cannot use logic either, constantly doubting everything around, living in own bubble. I made her path because of the whole plot but I think overall Lucy is way better choice.

Emma retarded girl who has no idea how world and life looks like, she is such naive and defenseless that it could be described more as stupidity, Forest Gump was more aware than she is. FOR GOD SAKE SHE IS 18yo ACTING LIKE A 7yo AND TREATED LIKE SO. I'm surprised they even have fun bullying her, it feels like a cheating. The whole gameplay was so painful because of her...

Suzy is pretty much described in quote bellow. She seems to be good person in general, just another kid who had no problem with money and no parent to be raised and tempered by. She could definitely profit from some psychotherapists and anger control sessions because she acts like female version of Trevor Philips.

robrize2169 said:

Suzy needs to get laid in a big way. she has way too much pent up frustration and takes it out on mc since she has the hots for him.

Click to expand...

Lucy with the whole family is the most normal one. Enjoying her life as much as she can, always cares about sister and nieces, setting sister's career above her own family life. She is nice and fun, I guess she could be perfect match for MC. She is really attracted to MC and tries multiple times to get to him and he didn't even do anything. He does so much to Charlotte and she still treat him like a persona non grata...

Plot is meh to me. It does not deserve so much episodes, it is not interesting enough but I still wanted to get to end of it. All characters actions were sooo slow and unnatural it could have ended in one week game time, not months.

Overall I think Charlotte emotions were very well shown, I really felt her. It is nice story, good renders etc but I feel like it has more potential in it. Maybe there will be some changes in future? It is first VN I am not interested to play again tho.

At the end... "I shouldn't take this job".

PROS
>Renders are very clean and high definition. No grainy or pixelated renders here.
>A reasonable number of love interests. So often you would see a game with a absurd number of romantic interests but this gets hard to manage later on. As a consequence, each LI would have less dedication/content the more LIs you introduce.
>Writing is okay but I think character writing are bit.. overemphasized. But more about the writing later on.
>No harem bs (sorry to say. but if someone really liked you, they wouldn't share you).

NEUTRAL
>Dev is definitely a fan of exclamation marks heh.
>Some characters are written in a very exaggerated manner. Charlotte has an extreme case of androphobia. She is pessimistic and antagonist of most of the MC's actions. Emma is very innocent, idealistic and is extremely oblivious to sex though I guess her innocence/childishness is her appeal? Suzie is just a classic tsundere. Kaylah is the overly flirty friend, a promiscuous character trying to steal MC from Charlotte. I liked & disliked some of these traits. I thought Charlotte's androphobia was a bit overbearish and unreasonable at times, but liked the character progression from hating MC to trusting him. But admittedly, all this really depends on personal taste.

CONS
>No music or sound effects (not worth implementing if its gonna prolong update time even further, same reason I didnt mention animations)
>Updates are much more rare now than at the beginning. Sadly this is a universal issue with all devs, not just darkblue. You are much more motivated at the start but your interest and motive gradually begins to wane.

Best game on the site. I think the creator deserve more patreon followers. Excellent story and characters. Bringing in the dark sides of being a celebrity into such perfection unlike many fantasy story games with auch beautiful renders and quality. Just awesome..... ❤

There are some cliche moments (particularly with Zak and Emma), but overall this game is stellar. One thing I like is that this game handles trauma exceptionally well. Even though there are several women in this game that distrusts men, their reasons are valid and the author SHOWS you why instead of just telling you. And it's also not some dumb-ass silly reason like what's written in modern shows like She-Hulk, it's genuine trauma that makes the characters sympathetic.

On the other side, the bodyguard isn't all op and unstoppable like some male power fantasy nonsense. He needs help and is vulnerable at times just like everyone else.

Another thing I liked, was the mish-mash of mental dialogue that happens between characters simultaneously during a scene. Most authors reserve thought dialogue for one character that is pov, but the author for Hillside has thoughts occur between two characters concurrently which is like some anti-solipsism type writing... idk.

The author had to tightrope this subject matter so that it didn't come off as preachy or power fantasy-Esque, and imo did a great job of doing so.

Hillside v0-12-1

Pros:
-The renders look good
-Characters look good
-decent premise

Cons:
- Story/Writing:
It pretends to have a "deep" Storyline, but it drags and drags, is very predictable and doesn´t make sense at times.
A lot of the story got wasted for the Stalker/Bully who just wanted to kill the girls self-esteem because he wanted to fuck her.

The writing/dialogues feel too artificial and are uninteresting.

Characters:
The Characters have no depth and have no interesting personalty.
One has a drinking problem and doesn´t fully trust you at first.
One is a bitch who hates you for no apparent reason.
The other is like the "cool" aunt who has a crush on you.
The Girl behaves like a 5 year old.
The MC gets constantly shit on for the dumbest reasons.
He saved the girls life, killed the Guy and he gets shit on. WTF
It´s like he lives in a world full of bitchy feminists.

Sex Scenes:
There are two in one walkthrough that you can´t really call Sex Scenes unless you think a still image of the penetration is a sex scene.

Conclusion:
I´ve read a lot of comments and reviews and am surprised that people love this game and it´s story. I´m also surprised that people get so defensive about the criticism that the game has little to no sex scenes on a site that is full of porn games.
It´s like saying I only watch porn because of the story or I only read Playboy because of the articles.
I don´t like games that are mindless fuck fests with no story, but whats even worse is when you play a long game that is 99.9% story and the story feels dull and unnecesarily long with boring sex scenes and is a very unsatisfying experience.

The game has nice renders with mostly attractive character models but that is really the only thing it has going for it. Normally that alone would be worth at least 2 stars but the rest is so bad it's worth a negative star.

To start with there is practically no lewd content and no animations at all to speak of so far.

The dialogue all feels forced and unnatural, real humans just don't talk anything like any of the characters in this game.

There seems to be some liked that/didn't like system in place but all of the dialogue choices seem to be false choices, meaning there is no branching at all, every dialogue runs the same no matter what choices you pick.

The characters are all shallow and one dimensional, each character basically has a single trope that you figure out as soon as they're introduced, innocent/man hating/promiscuous etc. and there is basically no character development beyond that trope.

The story is slow, full of cliches and somehow both predictable and hard to believe at the same time.

It's a shame because it feels like the renders are going to waste but without a competent story teller who can write some half believable dialogue this one is really just a waste of time.

An amazing story, I didn't expect this kind of game at all but in the end I love it and Hillside is by far my favourite game, I can't wait to see what happens next, you get attached to the characters quickly and you feel really invested in the story.

Well done.

Hillside is a rare gem inside its genre, story is something very close to reality, matter of fact it's happening and definitely an issue for women.
I very much absorbed to game intriguing stroty , also characters's depiction and design is flawless , We see strong men and women with strong will , not succumbing to disasters that happening to them.
This game easily can recommended in order to increasing awareness , I wish there was more determining choices in game.
Keep up the great job.

Love the time you are taking to actually write a story with the slow build up. I feel like I get more immersed in the game when there is a good story and I am not just skipping ahead to get to the ero scenes. I wish you had a bit more choices in the plot than some of the more recent updates are getting but overall I am really enjoying it. Best of luck with your future versions. Cheers mate.

First and last review as of version 0.12.

Frustrating. That's about the only word that explains this VN in a summative manner.

I'll start off with the good. The renders. The characters are beautiful, with ample assets and have tasteful wardrobe choices. If we were giving ratings based on looks alone, this VN would get a gold star.

Unfortunately, all good stops with the renders. The elements of a successful project that keep people interested in it are good, fleshed out characters and a coherent, progressive story. This VN is let down by both.

The story is a run of the mill corrupt elites in the fashion industry exploiting aspiring artists. It progresses at a steady pace but remains utterly predictable and barely does enough to keep your attention. As for the porn side of things, its taken this amount of time to get a single scene with a character. The build up to the scene was abysmal and the scene itself was robotic, choreographed so dismissively that it appeared to be an afterthought.. It was beyond poor. Slow burn is not a problem for me personally. But poor writing and character optimization is. And this VN suffers massively from it.

The characters themselves are poorly written. Linear, predictable, bland and showing no capability of learning. Probably the MC himself is among the worst written characters, being an absolute doormat despite being a so called body guard. The young daughter displays a mental age of 10, and her dialogue fails to progress beyond her affection for a teen star and her reliance on her immediate family(which she is readily willing to cast aside for said teen actor in what was a major break in consistency). The oldest daughter can be summarized by the following two words- haughty bitch and she has failed to progress beyond that for 11 updates.
The main actress shows tiny signs of changing her thinking, only to take two steps back at the slightest inconvenience. Despite her mannerisms, she might be the only character that has managed to evolve , which is a huge achievement in this otherwise dredge of a story.

All in all, I tried, really tried to keep an open mind and give this VN an opportunity. It had the potential when it started out. But direction it has consistently headed makes it clear that , for me at least, there is no further incentive to continue.

I hope the developer reflects on some points in this critique and hopefully other users can use this to form their opinion on whether they wish to see this project through.

Edits: Grammatical errors.

Hillside

Got a love/hate relationship with this one.

Love:
-The renders are awesome

-Some of the characters are gorgeous (Charlotte and Lucy, not too keen on the others as far as looks go)

-Writing isn't bad but can be INFURIATING at times

-Lots of character and world building.

-The MC is a breath of fresh air in both appearance and personality.

Hate:

-I have always hated how Emma is supposed to be 18, but looks and acts like a toddler most of the time. I get it's supposed to be because she was "sheltered" by Charlotte, but this is just ridiculous. No 18 year old would ever be as childish and naïve as this. Perhaps the developer wanted her to be younger and just slapped the age 18 on her... because, you know why.

-Can't believe I am saying this, because I am usually a fan of slow burns...but in Hillside the slow burn sucks. It's taken 2 years to finally get just one scene with Lucy, and with all the teasing and build up prior to her first scene I was expecting an awful lot more. There was no foreplay, nothing sexy or erotic about her scene at all. Just straight up penetration, and it was over. Slow burn is fine as long as the pay off is worth it, and after seeing Lucy's scene, who is supposed to be a real wild kind of girl, I really don't think there is going to be a good pay off with any of the other girls scenes. Lucy's scene was bad. In fact, her whole path is bad.

- The characters can all be real stupid just for the sake of the plot to allow drama to happen...over and over again. I like drama, and think all good stories require it but not at the expense of characters intelligence. So many bad things happen in this story because of stupid things the characters do (or don't do). For just one example. the MC completely ignores the fact he saw his friend "Steve" at the exact moment the "stalker" took a pic of them at the mall. Not to mention, Steve looked super dodgy and was in a hurry somewhere. The MC never brings this up again, just completely forgets about it. This happens MANY times in the story, and it's infuriating.

- The MC takes so much shit from people. He literally killed someone who was about to kill Emma, himself and Charlotte. He did his job as a security guard and eliminated someone who was endangering Emma...but all Charlotte can focus on out of that whole situation is not the fact the MC saved her daughters life, just the fact he killed someone. Not to mention the way Suzy treats him, and he just lets it happen. This is beyond frustrating to watch. I get Charlotte has a problem with men, but her opinion changes on the MC in almost every render. It's ridiculous. The only character who is consistent, is Emma, but that is actually a bad thing.

- I don't understand why both of Charlotte's daughters don't look like her in the slightest, at least one of them should have resembled her. Their father must have had some very strong genes, but I don't like that neither of them resemble Charlotte, especially considering how pretty Charlotte is. Both of the daughters aren't really my cup of tea as far as looks go. Not to mention, one of them is a raging bitch for no reason and the other acts like a baby.

- The story is told mostly through character's internal monologues (thoughts), there are far too many internal monologues. Internal monologuing should happen and be shown periodically, to help the player/reader fill in gaps when necessary. They shouldn't be used to tell the entire story, in my opinion.

There is a lot more I could say about Hillside, good and bad. But as a whole, I think it deserves no more than 3 stars as of now. If there were half stars when rating, it would most likely be a 3.5/5. It does a good job of building things up, but the execution is a mess and the pay off is mostly unsatisfying.

This review is based on the [ v0.12 ] :

A wonderful game with great renders. There are very few or no animation scenes at this point of game. The main story is really wonderful and quite thrilling. The music in this game is very apt. Models are great (my personal fav Kaylah).

The game is fabulous and just go for it without further ado. The H-scenes are very few but awesome.

I should especially mention a special character and I think I've literally very much connected to this character. She is literally so cute as a button. And this character name is Emma. Play the game and tell me whether you also feel that connection or not.

The story is very huge but interesting. It would be better if there are more animations included.

My suggestion is to use the walkthrough mod for this game. The choices have affect on the characters part of the story but it does not affect the main story much. So use the walkthrough to know at what point the game is changing.

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Animations - 2/5
Renders - 5/5
Story - 5/5
Models - 5/5
Music - 5/5
Overall Gameplay - 5/5

The game is certainly an thrilling one with a gripping story.

I'm going to update this review after the next major release.

With all due respect I will probably never check this again, this VN seems to have a decent story but I'm not on this site to read a book, sorry.

Writing: 8/10
Seems to be telling an above average story compared to other games.

Renders: 10/10
Reason I fell into the trap, look at the preview pictures..

Animations: 0/10
No animations.

Scenes 0/10
If memory serves right there was only one scene, with Lucy, after 2 years of development.

What I don't understand is Lucy was already head over heels over the MC since the day she introduced him to the family, yet it took 2 years for 1 scene... I don't even want to imagine how many years it'll take for other girls. Hard pass from me, good luck to the dev and the supporters.

This is an excellent VN. The renders are top-notch, the LIs are very attractive, and the writing is among the best I've seen in a game like this. There is next to no sexual content yet, but the story and writing are good enough to keep you playing even without the payoff of seeing sex scenes.

The story is relatively original and the plot is believable. Because the dev is clearly aiming for realism, this is definitely not one of those games where everybody immediately jumps into a sexual relationship with the MC. The amount of relationship building/developing is immense. As other reviews have noted, this is the slowest of slow burn VNs. There are hours and hours of dialogue, and to this point, there is only one possible sex scene- and even then, you only see it if you choose to pursue a relationship with a particular LI.

If you are looking for a quick fap, this is definitely not the VN for you. The amount of buildup to entering a sexual/intimate relationship with any LI can be almost excruciating, but honestly I think this may be preferable to games in which you immediately start having sex with everyone, thus eliminating any sexual tension or anticipation (and often leading to boredom). While I do wish there was more sexual content, I'm not mad that it hasn't happened yet, as it seems likely the game will be heading that direction relatively soon.

All of that said, there are a few issues I have to nit-pick with this VN (and the reason I keep waffling between giving this 4 stars or 5):

First, while the characters have unique and mostly believable personalities and the character development is generally quite good, this game falls into a few common (and honestly irritating) tropes you see so often in games like this. The main LI's daughters have the same one-dimensional, and almost cartoony, personalities as you'll find in half the games on this site: the older daughter is inexplicably aggressive and basically a raging bitch for no discernable reason, while the younger daughter is unbelievably naïve and innocent. Seriously, the younger daughter is 18, but talks and acts like she is 12 years old. When the game first started, I was dreading the fact that it first seemed like you were going to be steered into a sexual relationship with the younger daughter, who is written to basically behave like a child. Thankfully, it appears your relationship with her appears to be growing to be much more like a (hopefully non-incestuous) father-daughter relationship.

The other issue I have is the same thing that bothers me about a number of movies and tv shows: so many problems and conflicts could be easily avoided if the characters simply talked to one another, rather than flying into a rage or emotional fit without letting the other person get a word in. This is most prevalent with regards to the interactions with Suzi, the older daughter. It's not a deal-breaker as far as the VN is concerned, but I find it extremely irritating and/or exhausting at times.

Ultimately, this is a really fantastic VN for anyone who appreciates good writing/storytelling, and one I will be following closely.

Version 0.12

This will easily go down as one of the best visual novels of all time. Renders are top tier. Dev has consistently shown his dedication to telling his story without regard to demands for more lewd content. And the story is great. I really care about these characters and as the MC my protective instinct for all of them is maxed out. Only struggle now is will I choose Lucy or Charlotte?

v0.12

As a story, this is a pretty good read.
As an adult VN... Not worth remembering imo.

Models: 5/5
Very pretty models that are very unique feeling.

Expression: 5/5
I could hold skip and actually tell what was going on with the visuals alone. Pretty well done.

Plot: 4/5
Bodyguard stepdad, and the issues of his girls.
Meh.

Dialogue: 4/5
Decent conversation flow and somewhat believable.

Sex quality: 1/5
It was like sex was added just for the sake of having a touch of it.

Adult content frequency: 1/5
Saw some nip here and there.
...ya. Not a fap story in the least.

Enjoyment: 2/5
While I liked the daughter at first, her whining and inability to change mixed with the lack of sexual content just had me wondering why I was even bothering.

If you want a mopey somewhat realistic story without any focus on sexual content or really romance either, this might be interesting to read.
I'm sure that's what you're here for. lol

I don't know why I haven't rated this yet. Truly a gem between AVN games. Engaging story with a lot of drama in it, likeable, beautifuly made characters (apart of Suzi, lol) and very well made renders overall. Only dowside could be development time, but it is not that long as many games there have and updates are long enough. Generaly, Hillside is really worth playing.

Warning: no sex! And for some reason i´m doing my first run on a Charlotte path! And it was like 3am when i got to the end (v0.11). And...

If you´re like me you´ve played dozens (100s?) of AVNs. Sometimes one of those is a true gem. It´s fun, exciting and doesnt feel like porn.

The story and characters, including the MC, are very well written.

Forget porn for a few hours and indulge yourself with a fantastic love story.