Ren'Py - Horton Bay Stories - Jake [v0.5.3.2] [Lumphorn Games]

This is one of those games that will likely get better as it gets developed but to play it right now is a bit annoying. The author has developed a large sandbox game with not a lot in it at this point. Instead of giving access to an entire town right from the start it would have been wiser to unlock locations as the story progresses. There's a whole lot of wandering around that can be done for literally no reason.

Because the developer has been kind enough to release updates on a regular basis I have been skipping over several updates before I download it again in hopes of getting more content to play all in one go. In a year or two this game will likely be very good.

In regards to the graphics, the quality of the graphics is good but some of the models faces and expressions are off-putting and weird. I suspect that the developer has tried to create a unique look and style for their characters or is trying to make the characters resemble people they know IRL but it's not really working for me.

[v0.2.3.3 Hotfix1]

This game is bad and lying according to the developer's description.
We start dating a girl that in the developer's words is "wild".
The end of the relationship is already in the introduction, and you can already see that she was not a flower that smells, only by the dialogue that made them finish, and it also involved his best friend since childhood, and his teacher .

And the characters, for every 10, 1 is ok.
To sum up, you can't play for the art, the character designers,
and even less for the story

Man, I want to like this game because it has sharing and the kind of MC model I like, but there is just so much that feels unfinished. And I know the game is unfinished, but there's this huge world and all these characters but nearly everything is as shallow as a puddle. Very few characters have content, and the updates are incredibly slow. This seems like the kind of ambitious game that needs a whole team of developers to put out in a reasonable timeframe. As it is, I can only see content drip fed to the players over a period of years. I'd wait on playing for now and see what the game is in 2025, if it hasn't been abandoned by then, that is.

This is a mediocre to be perfectly honest. The girls are almost hard to look at which is not good for an porn game. This is supposed to be fantasy, we want hot chicks not girls who look like street walkers with terrible drug habits.

We also have another dev who wants to make pure NTR/Cuck game but tacks on a half-assed "Harem" path that's not really there. I would say if NTR/cuckoldry is your thing you will probably really like this game but if you come here looking for love/romance/harem you will only see about 25% of the content available and even if you stick strictly to the non-NTR choices you not be able to avoid a cascade of voyeurism scenes with both LI and non-LI.

So in the end if you want NTR give it a play. If you dislike NTR give this game a hard pass.

This game is really great, a ton of kinks and plenty of NSFW stuff to explore, the highlight at the moment is still the party at your first weekend, but the game is early development and if the Authors keep it up it will be one of the best games on this site.

There are also some negatives, the sandbox is a bit overwhelming and currently empty and the clicking feels at times tedious.

The art style is often times peak uncanny valley and the girls look strange to borderline horrifying, but those are the exception. Still, the main girls are sadly the ones who suffer the most.

The NTR is really not for me and sadly integral to the story, I don't mind the sharing aspect but most of it is plain cucking.

All in all, I give it 5 stars because the things it does right cancels out all the negatives.

A very nice game. I don't really like sandbox games, but the controls here are so simple that the game is very easy to control. The NTR is freely selectable. I think it's ok. Everyone can decide for themselves whether they want to see their girlfriend cheating or not. Of course, if I treat my girlfriend badly, she can do the same to me. So if Abel is treated badly, she should be allowed to cheat as well. The game plan is easy to implement and the scenes are also triggered. Well done Dev.

My Rating:

Gameplay 5/5 Stars
Models 3/5 Stars
Rendering 4/5 Stars
Storyline 4/5 Stars

4.0 stars for the game. The models take a little getting used to, but they are something different.

review based on 0.1.8.1 version
PRO:
- not so bad cg (but some characters looks bad)
- acceptable code, some good game mechanics like preg/pills, but no content for that
- halfworked hint system (better than nothing)
NEUTRAL:
- navigation system works w/o bugs, but usability and visual component (font on locations icons looks like s**t) can be much better
CONS:
- ig introduced horde of characters, but only 10-20% of them have content
- some models like adel looks bad
- some god game mechanics present in code, but have no use or have no content
- usualy i like reasonable grind in sandbox games(i mean- grind must be rewarded by content), but in that game some grind have no reward and some grind have almost no reward

conclusion- game have sood basis, but in current state only 2.3-2.4 stars.

This game needs a horror tag, seriously who would fap over these renders? the renders probably one of the worst that i've ever seen, a bad renders like this shown how the developers not putting some effort into his/her rendering.

Critique - v0.1.6

The game has potential but is a bit of a mess at the moment.

The renders are a bit off, they've tried to make them look varied and natural but have messed up some features on some of the girls (Abel's eyebrows and mouth for example). 5/10

Animations are a bit bizarre, the models are jumping all over the place, doesn't look even slightly realistic. 3/10

Story line is standard, nothing special to note. 6/10

Navigation is a pain in the ass, they've invested way too much time in this and have over complicated it. 3/10

The whole point of a text box is that it is a contrasting colour that makes the text stand out. The font and box behind are similar colours making reading difficult.

The game has glitches in a fair few places, some during the animations and within the autosaves, the game can take a while to start up as well. I have a feeling if they don't sort out their programming skills and improve the grindy navigation this game will be a dud.

Review for v0.1.6
Jeez this game is terrible and unplayable , tried this game for " Avoidable Sandbox " funnily while playing the game you are forced to play free roam ad asked to go to a particular location , visit someone at particular time , you can't avoid it or even skip it , it fully turned out to be a poorly implemented sandbox , main story is not even 10 mins of gameplay if you wanna avoid sandbox and with sandbox it is just poor with time , locations and annoying tasks . Moving on to the characters Male Main character is boring seems to lost a backbone while he left the town , female medals all look very old and writing is poor . Just wasted my time playing it and posted a review so others don't waste theirs .

Poor writing, annoying navigation in the sandbox environment, quest log not properly updating, but more than anything all female characters looks like actual monsters. They all kinda look like some 40 year old whiskey tango girl that started drinking and smoking cr*ck at 12 and it stunted her growth.

This is a masterpiece for my taste.
Many people say that the girls are not what they should be, it can be better, and so on. But then, after all, what is the matter - not to please everyone. People are different, different preferences. I don't like the provocative makeup of a couple of characters, but what kind of figures they have. I would give a lot to become this MC and be in his place - he is damn lucky!
The author - many thanks for this game, I will definitely not delete it even if I need space on the hard disk. What girls, I just want them all.


I also like the plot, I did not go through it to the end and I hope that it will be even more interesting further)
There is almost everything you need, but we already know that ideal games are just a fairy tale or a dream, but for me this game is very close. Masterpiece

Horton Bay Stories - Jake [v0.1.3] review -

First thing to note and very bad thing in this game is its female models who look like they are some kind of monster girls or girls with Halloween makeup if that was not enough to scare you from trying the game , their horrible facial expression will most likely will do the job . Second is good for nothing Sandbox with time , location , money and weird free roam if you wanna play without sandbox there is nothing to play for and have to use cheats to reduce the amount of grind . Third is the writing and the story of boy leaving his city after his gf cheated on him this game is pretty boring . Fourth is Main character who is pretty much an idiot midget and no character . Overall the game is pretty disappointing to play , deleted it and added to the ignore list .

Version: 0.1.2

Visual
Renders are good enough, improvements shown post prologue. Initially characters' skin were matted/lacked light/shadow)
Same with animations - initially robotic but improvements have been made

Text is a bit too small to read

Characters
Huge range of people to meet, it's insane how much characters the game has - of course we can't do much with all for now.
Various looks for different folks - so the ugly characters we see in the preview thumbnails are not all there is (they also have their own sexual charm imo).

Writing
It gets better post prologue - by better I mean less and more focused on day-to-day/events (as you don't need much to play sandbox games). Initially, some of the narration was unnecessary, i.e. actions we can see don't need a narration
Some initial unrealistic behaviour; Mr Abrahams sits back in defeat during and after photo taken
The beginning story was boring as it's very on the nose and draws out plotlines that could be summed up way shorter. However, now that the game is in the style of sandbox, it's much more engaging.

Content
No short of events and repeatable activities with unlockable scenes. However the Moral System sucks in its current form as all the extra content seems to be available only for the Bad Moral.


I didn't expect much at first but the game offers a lot of content to fool around with various characters in a sandbox setting. It will get better once more of the characters are accessible.

Has some INCREDIBLY hot concepts going on, and very excited to see where it's heading next.
The added sound clips to the animated scenes are a big plus.

Can feel a bit grindy at times if you don't use the built in cheat mode in order to get the required relationship and attraction points, but it's not overly bad.

Played till the latest version 0.1.2 certain models looks and their facial expressions are horrifying to watch , like Abel who looks more like a grandma than a shy virgin , only Christine looked good and she is idiot Lucas girlfriend , had to be him now we have have to wait till the end of the game to have sex with her . Coming off to gameplay " SANDBOX " , I find it weird where you had to click on the character icon rather than the characters and a Free roam with no quick travel options . I played with NTR path " ON " except for the first scene in the intro with the Main character girlfriend which was good , most of the game story seems us watching other peoples / couples having sex rather than us doing some things or someone taking our Love interests and we had to watch Rupert flashback weird . And Lucas is irritating , there is not even an option to beat him up when he speaks ill of your mom . And the sex animations are short and badly developed . At this moment the game is more of a boring voyeur kind watching other couples / random people having sex . The game is worth 2.5 stars but the models make it 2 in the end . Have to wait and see how next update turns out and I'll edit my review later .

As of v0.1.2
The renders are basically poor and some of the models are downright creepy and sex animations are weird . There is nothing new with story Main character moves out of country to a new school and meets new friends . Sandbox in this game is not avoidable there were hints luckily thanks to that but it is still poorly implemented where you have to point and click on multiple times with no shortcuts . I played with NTR toggle off and still I saw many sex scenes involving possible love interest . And I don't think NTR is avoidable it is more of skippable in this game . I don't recommend this game as this is more of everyone fucks everything and they share others with you and unless voyeurism or NTR is your kink .

I really like this game, for the first update, the game already had a lot of content compared to the other new games when they were first released, which is a good point.
Lots of in-game locations which means there will be lots of varied content in multiple locations which I like, sandbox is one of my play styles, it's all a matter of taste for some people who will scream when they see "sandbox" I want to tell them they should skip it and come try it out because it's addictive.
The characters heads are sometimes funny and others very hot, quest, make money to pay our landlord or else we are homeless, bribe the students in our roommate, NTR (oh yes!), endearing characters, animated scenes, good start to the story, hoping to see more in the next updates, but it's already a very good start!
I highly recommend it !

Un très bon jeu avec multiple possibilités, statistique, relation et surtout moral jouant sur les résultats.
les perso sont pas mal et surtout très prometeur vu le nombres annoncé dans le téléphone.
A prendre sans hésiter !!!!!

A very good game with multiple possibilities, statistics, relationship and especially moral playing on the results.

The characters are not bad and especially very promising considering the numbers announced in the phone.

To take without hesitation !!!!!

Judging by the current place holder of locations, characters and the gameplay's mechanics, the game is ambitious alright, the pace of some plots is at least .... interesting and not monotonous but they are not new and/or fresh as well, while they are not bad, its nothing to write home about.

But main thing that bugging me off is just how characters interact with each other....
They don't feel real and just kinda feels like they are ripped off from cartoon somewhere (which is like 50% of the games here but personally, it threw me off}

the good thing about the game for me is that the MC is not the only male character that "in" the game and the diversity of the personality of the male characters is also there (might be too early to tell but who knows) , so it actually has a stand out point from the rest of the millions of similar games , I can see the game could become successful if developers actually manage to make interesting stories at most of the areas (more interesting than the current plots that plays out between the characters).

Cheers and good luck.