Ren'Py - Holiday Island [v0.4.5.1] [darkhound1]

0.3.5.0

- Totally boring and grindy af. You have to repeat everything a ton of time to get your three stats from the girl rising. PLUS MC himself has 4 or 5 stats which you also have to improve...

- Models are grainy and absolutely outdated

- Animations are a 1 or 2 second loop

- Some of the girls are escorts (overpriced hookers) which leaves a bad taste for getting to fuck them

Played 3 or 4 hours and got only a handfull of lewds including one fuck until i got bored with everything aound it.

I've started this game from when it was 0.0.x version, so it was quite some time for me to really get what's good and what's bad about this game.

At the beginning, it was a pretty fun and promising project with cliche, but solid background, a lot of preludes to juicy content and steady expansion of game functionalities. I've dropped at 2.1, when I felt like I cannot bear with the recent lame changes anymore.

So, why good?
+ Has good setting, ways to improve and expand are still present
+ Variety of really different gurls, with fake natural melons, sturdy muscles, petite frames etc.
+ Pretty stable, not crashing much.
+ Some imitation of intimate progress is present, though in a pretty lame way
+ Dev really tries his best to polish and bugfix, but...

- Unsightful dialogues with zero personalization, which results in so boring game routines that you are getting irritated from them pretty fast.
- Very badly designed tutorials and to-do leads, you just do random things which pretty much results in the flaw mentioned above.
- Absolutely one-sided development progress, at some point, there were practically no content to most of the gurls except Yvette, Heather and Amy/Alice. The origin is obvious - they were leaders in Patreon votes, which resulted in completely biased dev progress based mostly on those 3 (with some rare bright moments of change to others like Faye, Natasha, Eva etc). Some gurls like Aly were not getting any content at all (still not sure if there is any significant about her even now, though she was one of those rare ones which had fairly believable natural bosom). So, at some point, new content became pretty much monotonous, which results in those flaws mentioned above.
- Events are nice and various, but again, the amount of text blocks you have to pass through each time you want to play it, makes it annoying at first, then simply boring.
- There is almost zero story progress, sure, there are some scenes which may be considered as a progress, but they are looking so random and out of place that may barely be considered as a story at all. Like, compared to other walls of pointless text you have to wade through, the amount of story is barely 2-3%. Not that it would be that bad, if not the flaws mentioned above...

So, based on all the +/-, I can easily rate it as 3*, there is definitely some juicy content somewhere in the text/click walls you have to wade through, but long boring game routines with practically no hints to catch will fade away all the fun you might be having at the start.

I'm not really dissuading anyone to play this game, it is definitely worth at least to be evaluated, just be ready for this game to challenge your patience in a very annoying way with all of its mechanics, routines, tons of recurring text blocks etc.

This game is fantastic and I have just barely started playing through it. Even at 0.3.1.1, there is a ton of good content to enjoy. The premise is simple - you're on an island and there is a varied selection of women to seduce. Gameplay is in the form of conversation options and some light minigames like poker. While there is sometimes a level of difficulty in advancing the relationships with each character, the rewards are plentiful and I greatly enjoyed the escalation with each character.
Where the game really shines is in the quality of the renders. There isn't a great deal of moving imagery, but the still renders are excellent and there is an assorted range of women to work through.
This is one of those games where I can't get enough of it and then I'm going to be greatly disappointed when it's all over. Well done, dev!

PROS
- It has gameplay. It is not strictly a VN with tons of text and some pseudo-choices dialogues.
- Girls look amazing, and there are lots of them
- Some animated scenes (could have more, but at least it has some)
- Great amount of content in general (could have more sexual content, though)

CONS
- Hard difficulty. I just want to enjoy a holiday island, not to be a detective trying to figure out how to trigger events.
- Some girls don't have enough content
- Could have more animations

Despite the cons, I still give this game 5 stars.

This game takes hours to get through with loads and loads of material, it is now the benchmark that I base all other games off. This game is fantastic! I just wish there were more frequent updates. The animations appear to be getting better with each update as well.

This is just so grindy game. You spend quite long of time just looking at your character stroking his dick. This is because you need the money from it and you don't want to him cum in his pants while talking to the girls - also single jerk off lowers your lust status just a bit. This makes the start very non-arousing and tiresome.

Game gives feel of seriously restricted interactions. You might have max stats with the girl but still have trouble finding to do anything sexual with them. That is because game requires your stats, girl's stats, time, location, outfit, your sexual status, people inhabiting the island etc. all to be correct before things can happen. There are also no clear indication of progress when it comes to some aspects making things somewhat frustrating.

All this makes game feel like clockwork mechanism with very specific possibilities, when it should feel like organic system of interaction possibilities.

It doesn't help that in a 2 years or so, the game doesn't seem to have received anything substantial update-wise. It seems almost like only updates in 2 years have been some frame-y animations.

Renders are nice but having to repeat the interactions endlessly with generic text plastered in everywhere does not help things. Girls don't seem to have any distinguishing personalities and events that you have to grind with them don't differ at all. Most use the same text lines, same camera angles, same stat changes etc.

Game is technically OK and visually very well made but it just misses marks when it comes to being a good lewd game. It just so grindy and feels empty of the content that matters. Things like girl's lust levels not plummeting after sex would be good way to make this more non-grindy.

The only thing that this game did well was the intro.
The intro seems good as it seems to give a feeling of an unique game. you get to choose which are your preferences and the character in the island will change depending on them. this mechanic is good as there are tons of character and putting them all in would confuse the players.

But this is the only thing that seems good about the game.

- The graphics and animations are decent.

- Extremely grindy and confusing systems.(Hours of gameplay with no sex scenes unlocked)

- buggy game

- lack of any scenes as most of them are just filler(idk about this but already grinded for hours not gonna waste more time)

The core gameplay doesn't do justice to the intro and never really had fun.

Another "young man finds himself surrounded by hot girls" cliche story with terrible cringy dialogue and gameplay that's: "click the same buttons over and over again until an arbitrary stat gets big enough to allow you to have fun" and by fun I mean get a hug or kiss. This project is basically a mix of semi-sandbox, multi-location, time-managemant, time-waster with hug/kiss/play poker-game that's called dating-simulator that result in the worst kind of anticlimatic scenes ever. Graphics is outdated and plastic with the most attractive girls get the fewest scenes. Character-wise all characters are the same. Everything gets repetitive and very boring very fast and it's honestly impressive how little there is to do in this "game".

Prime example of how to make one oft the most awful, terrible, repetitive and uninspired games ever.
This is basically a hug, kiss, play poker simulator over and over and over again. The Dialogue is laughably cliche and terrible, to get a girl to even hug you, you need to raise affection and love over and over again until you can go in for a hug??
Poker is basically winding back until you win, there is absolutely nothing good in that regard.
Animations run on 30 or 20 fps, I don't get all the good Reviews, I'd rather watch a hand-drawn slideshow of stickpeople fucking then these terrible and awful "animations".

2/10, characters may look very good, the rest of the game fails to do anything which would come close to "impress".

Is't a very good game. I can't stop to playing it . The girls are amazing and the story it's well written.
I have just a request. In the future will be possible ask to one girl to have sex with her?

actually that would be a good game.....if it weren't for this lousy playing mechanism, you quickly lose interest in the game because you have to keep repeating something ....!!
you click one of the answers if it is correct everything is good if not yes have fun repeating.....BORING.....This game is not playable that way, at least that's how I feel, you should build more references to the answers in the game with so many characters that would be really appropriate!

- Great Graphics
- Beautiful Female Character Models
- Good interface
- Story yes as described MUCH too complicated (miserable constant repetitions).....Sandbox Game......

One of the best erotic games I ever found. The women to get to know in this game are incredible. The game also does great without rape and torture stuff. A win for humanity and great game writing! If I found a genie, I'd ask him to bring me to that island with the look of the protagonist.

The game is pretty decent, you've got some good renders, quite a bit to do and you have to find some interesting ways to unlock certain scenes but not to the extent where it's a puzzle and you'll never unlock them.

My complaints are that the game has been out for 4 years now and doesn't have too much in the way of actual sex scenes, and the characters you get sex scenes with are limited to essentially any character with massive tits which is frustrating especially since at the beginning of the game they ask for your body type preference.

Girls with nice bodies and nice sized breasts vs. comically large breasts are overlooked and have had almost no development, and with the pace that this game has gone don't get your hopes up for any more development.

Overall, decent game but don't depend on any decent progress in development.

I usually prefer discretion and lurking in the shadows, but I feel like I have to finally review the game. I've been following the game's development since I discovered it with the 0.2.0 version. it's beenquite some time now, and I must say that this game combines some of the best features a game of this kind should have: nice graphics, intuitive gameplay, and sandbox-style advancement.
To understand how I appreciate the game, I'll just add that in my "main" game, I've reached the day 283 as of version 0.3.0.1. If not for the programming courses I'm doing (php, java, js and several frameworks mainly) and the lack of income I have right now, most probably I'll be helping the dev with some money, because the game deserves it.


Continue with the good work, and greetings from Spain

This is one of the best games here.
The most gorgeous rendered women, a good story, good game mechanics, mix of scheduled and random events... All in a game with a creator that is transparent in his work and keeps (excellent) content coming at a regular pace.
I cannot wait to see the future developments!

I really don't understand this very high community rating of Holiday Island. The only positive aspect of this game is the quite big and diverse cast of the women. But you can't handpick the models you'll want to meet on the island, just influence it broadly by choosing your favorite body shapes at the beginning of this game.

Apart from that most women in this game have artificial doll faces and proportions are most often unrealistic. Also the areolas of most boobs aren't at the anatomically correct position (way too high) and not to mention the unnaturally large boobs, which most often look completely out of place compared to the rest of the body. (Don't get me wrong, I like big natural breasts, but these should look at least realistically.)

The game is a grind-fest and you as a player may waste countless hours grinding for affection, love and lust points in order to catch a new mediocre scene. Additionally the gameplay is completely redundant. You will watch the same over and over again. Having mentioned scenes above, animations most often are terrible in Holiday Island. H-scenes are scarce, most scenes are just teasing.

The story is pretty much ridiculous and dialogues are trash to begin with and may not even fit to the situation. You might have had sex with a girl the day before, but the next day dialogues will be the same for the small redundant interactions as if nothing ever happened between the mc and the particular woman.

I really can’t recommend Holiday Island for the time being. For me this is a huge time waste for very little sex content. But not only therefore it's very much overrated.

When I first started playing this game, I was instantly delighted by the quality of the models, the look of the women and how they were portrayed, but soon my delight would turn to frustration as I played more. The game teases you a lot (see below).. the problem, however, is that if you take this teasing to mean that hot sex scenes must be right around the corner, and if they aren't then you can just rush through the text to get there, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed. While this game is absolutely packed full of slutty girls that are constantly showing off their bodies to you and encouraging you to ogle, you do have to progress the game by exploring and doing quests in order to get to the sex scenes with the girl(s) that you want.

However, as you can see, I'm rating this game five stars. Even though after I had played for only a few hours I was ready to warn others to stay away from this time-wasting tease-fest, I now look back at myself a few days ago and just shake my head.. because I love this game now. Read more to see why.

The Good:

• Models - The models are high quality with lots of detail and are dressed in a variety of different sexy outfits, and the variety of outfits that you see the girls in steadily grows as you play more. The dev does a great job of consistently presenting the girls in an appealing manner in a variety of different outfits and settings.
• Story - The story is interesting, pretty well-thought out with lots of detail and is pretty sexually enticing. I'm looking forward to see how it progresses.
• Sandbox - If you've been playing games posted on this site for a while, you almost certainly will have come across sandbox games that made you wonder "Why on earth did the dev decide to make this a sandbox?". Poorly executed and pointless sandbox games are everywhere, but this isn't one of them. The dev has done an amazing job at filling this sandbox with content to explore and has actual functioning mechanics that feel good to play with. This is a true sandbox that is fun to play in.
• Content, Variety and Progression - There is a huge amount of content here. Huge. There is a huge variety of content with the girls which leads to seeing them in all kinds of different situations, outfits etc. There is currently a significant amount of progression in the game, which sees both the main storyline and the individual storylines of each girl progressing gradually, frequently both unfolding at the same time.
• Fit Megaslut Bimbos - This game is pretty hard committed to the bimbo style of woman that takes pleasure in modeling and modifying her appearance to be as sexually appealing to men as possible. So this means a certain makeup look, huge tits, full lips, a fit body with abs, thin waist and big hips. If you don't like that.. then this isn't the game for you (although, to be fair, there are a few girls that do not fit that description, although they don't have much content yet). The story-line of the game is even about women modifying their bodies to achieve this particular, stereotypical ideal. So if you do like this, then you're in for a treat. In my opinion, you can definitely go way too far with the bimbo style such that it's not appealing anymore, but I think the dev has struck a pretty good balance and has not gone too far at all.
• Teasing - The dev uses the girls words, bodies and clothing to tease often and does it very well. It's the best visual teasing in any porn VN.
• Areola Teasing - The dev specifically teases areolas constantly with nearly all of the girls with a variety of different outfits, which is something that I love and it seems that the dev feels the same way. Every minute you play the game you will see various girls on the island casually walking around with their areolas partially showing.
• Sexual Tension - The dev does a great job of creating and sustaining sexual tension during events and scenes with the girls, which is something that most porn VN's don't do well or don't do at all. It's unfortunately very common for sex scenes in porn VN's to happen abruptly without any warm-up and you won't see that at all here. In every scene where it is possible to create tension and anticipation the dev will have you drooling before anyone has their clothes off.
• Miriam and Mercedes - Sweet jesus there are some hot women in this game. The dev should get a medal or something for crafting so many insanely hot women and putting them in the same game. The pictures here don't do them justice, you have to play the game.

The Bad:

• Sandbox, Quests and Sex Scenes - The game presents you with this pretty big sandbox with the girls right away that you start exploring and it seems reasonable to expect that you will find sex scenes if you explore it.. but you won't, and it will be frustrating.. until you realize that most sex scenes are acquired by progressing the game with quests. The game needs to do a better job of communicating this to the reader, with something that is part of the UI that is on the screen at all times.
• Dialog - The dialog is repetitive and pretty lame. Although the girls do have unique back-stories which they talk to you about, the way they all speak is pretty much the same, using the same phrases and talking about the same things. Also there is basically zero humor. The MC is the stereotypical not-good-with-girls, always nervous, stuttering and apologizing all the time nonsense. So yeah the dialog is really low effort, no creativity, no wit, no surprises, no quirkiness, no humor. The girls referencing their seductive clothing and various partially exposed body parts is fine, great even, but they all do it in the exact same way. There are no mean girls and nice girls, bubbly girls and quiet girls.. they are just all the same girl which isn't really any of those.
• Sex Scenes - The sex scenes are, for the most part, brief and uninspired. The dev does a good job of heating things up in all other aspects, but doesn't do nearly as good of a job with the sex itself. The actual sex of sex scenes usually feels rushed, mechanical.. as if the dev just wants to get through them with the minimum number of images and animations possible, and it translates to the characters themselves who seem to just want to get the sex over with so they can continue their day. Nothing creative, unexpected or especially hot or sexy ever happens.

The Ugly:

• The animations are mostly terrible.

This game is pure fun: comming from sexy strip-poker in the earlys this project continually comes out with new ideas and high quality renders.
Hanging around day by day as the only guy between more than a handfull sexy girls, means a lot of hard ;-) work to do.
Keep on with this spirit, busty girls, funny places, lovely interactions. It is a juwel!

I'm not going to lie.. Lacks a bit of story, smells a weeee bit lazy writing but dude... The 3D art is... Well let me just say; art in this game is by far the best 3D art i have seen in such games. Its actually reminding me puppetmaster a little which is a killer artist like yourself. I salute you and wish you success sir. o7

Honestly this game is a bit addicting, idk. I really enjoyed playing this game.

Animations are okay, but the renders are great..

Each female are great with strong character developments..

I actually wish he will add more sounds in-game to make the game a bit immersive..

I still give this a 5/5 though, I really just enjoy the game that much lol..