Ren'Py - Horton Bay Stories - Jake [v0.5.10.2] [Lumphorn Games]

Great game with a very fleshed out town, characters and easy to understand mechanics. Been following it for a while and it's been an ambitious project with tons of side content and luckily the devs have been very consistent with updates, so I think this one will make to the end. It's worth supporting.

On a side note, the early models and animations in the storyline are a little rough and janky, but they have gotten much better over time. The overall quality has gone up significantly.

Great character designs nice ntr route overall fun game there were parts i didnt enjoy but honestly i dont mind there already a game shortage here on site and if you are looking for a game to try i say worth it, This is more of a quick review from me maybe i will make a more complete version later.

Review of 0.5.10.2 (played previous version)

tl;dr - A solid game with (in my opinion) a couple of flaws. Lots of routes, lots of different women.

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Pros :
Fairly extensive NTR and non-NTR routes.
A pretty wide mix of women although most (if not all, I don't know if I've seen them all) are physically conventionally attractive (in body shape, see cons for faces).

Cons :
Some of the routes are pretty convoluted and not the easiest to navigate
Some people will be put off by the faces. Some of the women just look a little... not great? I don't know how to phrase it without sounding like a sexist asshole
Can be a little grindy in places

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Overall I've enjoyed this one a lot after not having tried it for a long time (the faces really put me off). I'm glad I did eventually try it because honestly it's a solid offering and the gameplay and scenes are fun and extensive.

Some of the 'hardest' NTR on the site that I've seen ( ), with enough non-NTR content that I don't think anyone who plays it for those routes will feel left out. Genuinely a good mix.

Thoroughly recommend. Would give it a 4.5 but I feel as though the complexity and slight grindiness of some routes detract enough that it doesn't deserve the full 5.

I dont really have a problem with how the characters look or with the fact that the game has NTR, in fact i like NTR, but i hate that if i want to play with the NTR mode turned on, just to feel the challenge to beat other guys, it is nearly impossible to avoid it, because you need to have a certain friendship level with some character or maybe complete some hidden task before and i hate the fact that the NTR can happen without you knowing, because if you left the girl alone for 2 seconds, in those 2 seconds she was already being fucked by 5 guys, THIS IS AN EXAGERATION but you get it, if you left the girl or dont have certain info you are doomed to let her being fucked by others.
The grinding in this game is a lot, you have to grind money to pay the rent, you have to go to school almost everyday to keep your grades, you have to have conversations, events and actions everyday to raise your relationship with the girls and to get them to the next level you need a lot of points and like a week ingame to do it. It doesnt help that you have to click hundred of time to make just 1 action.
I hate that the walkthrough and the character sheets are in the cellphone, when you look more that one character it becomes a chore to do it.
You have to keep your eyes in the ingame walkthrough all the time so you dont lose time trying to fuck a girl without content or to see what else you have to do or when you have to find her because the girls can have like 5 events but at certain point looks like just some keep giving you points.
You have to advance in the story to unlock some places, even when there should be no need for that. The map is pretty messy, i have like 15 hours in the game and still i can get lost in the city. The game has no option to skip time unless you make some action, so if i have to wait until 15:00 to start some event, i have to sleep or watch tv or do something else, to skip time at least one hour at the time.
I like the game but im seriously turned off by the level of grind, by how hard is to avoid the NTR in some cases.
Edit: I used the ingame cheats to see the gallery and i noticed that it is incompleted, the gallery is missing a lot of scenes from many characters, i find it weird because it shouldnt be so hard to add those scenes to the gallery and a lot of early scenes are missing.
So, you are still forced to play the game to see all the scenes or most of them, because the gallery dont have them.

The game is huge. It features a ton of characters (both beautiful and ugly). You can choose your favorite or several. I hope the main character models will be remade in the future, as that's unfortunately the only downside so far, but it's quite noticeable.

Horrific Renders, grindy looped "gameplay," very clunky and not intuitive UI. Characters have pretty unappealing personalities. Worst part is how hard it is to reach the content. For a game that has SO many practically unused renders and assets, there could've been something here, but the strict adherence to the dogass "sandbox porn game" model is what limits this game from reaching its potential.

I WANT to really love this game but god, I sit down to want to relax but instead I'm frustratingly clicking through 407 actions to try to get another character to develop. I could use cheats to bypass certain grinds, but this game feels like you need a guide for every interaction to work, because the in game guide is so useless and vague in many instances.

Unique models, if slightly less appealing for the 2020s(verging on uncanny valley in some cases), perhaps a design choice going for relatability? Overall decent animations tho.

Still, it is definitely a legit sandbox RPG experience with a realistic yet interesting porn premise, that offers a wide variety of girls, which will probably appeal to harem fans.
The female characters feel genuine, abeit more kinky for the porn aspect. The devs definitely have adult experiences and are writing it into their story.

As long as the devs continue, I can see it becoming a timeless classic, RPG harem fans will love this.

Horton Bay Stories is a great game. The story quite interesting.

Graphics:
The models are gorgeous, and the environments are nice as well. For me 8/10

Animations:
The animation is smooth For me 8/10

Story:
The story is good For me 8/10

Characters:
Characters are beautiful For me 8/10

Overall 8 /10 For me

[v.0.5.2.2.]


⠀⠀At first glance the game seemingly has a ton of content: so many locations to visit and so many girls to pursue. Unfortunately you soon discover that half of places are empty placeholders and all the characters are "in development" after their introduction and maybe a couple of events. In fact "in development" warning is the most frequent constant you will be met with.
⠀⠀Progression is quite grindy. Most girls will have several stages of intimacy, each one requiring you to go through same event 5+ times, while dialogue stays the same as if the event is happening for the first time. For that reason, I'd recommend turning the cheat mode on.
⠀⠀Gallery is whack. You can access it by sleeping in your bed and it doesn't contain even half the scenes that happened.
⠀⠀My god Adel is ugly. Like it's not even opinion, there is something seriously wrong with her facial features objectively. Also since when is she so in love with MC? They've just met, then I look away for a second and she is already head over heels with him. How? When? Why? And yet you still have to grind her stats just like any other character.
⠀⠀It's not just her. Some of the other females are conventionally unattractive (faces only). But most of the time it's not facial features that are at fault, but expressions. Whenever they show some kind of emotion their face gets all wrinkly and foldy which makes them look deformed and 10-20 years older than they actually are. That's all not concerning the bodies btw, they're hot.
⠀⠀Phone UI and Map navigation are abhorrent. Your phone contains a list of characters with hints to their progression. Here's problemo - there is over ONE HUNDRED characters! There isn't even a search function! You have to manually scroll and look for each of them to get the hints. And as for navigation, sometimes (quite a lot actually) you will have to use arrow pointers to move places, and it's super confusing and takes a while to get used to.
⠀⠀Game is extremely laggy at transitions and animations. You gotta do something seriously wrong for your renpy game to do that.
⠀⠀Not enough options to assert dominance. Look I get it, it's a NTR focused game. But even if you turn it off, MC still gets trampled over A LOT, and you, the player, have no say in the matter. It would be nice to allow for more decision making that leads to MC bulling the others and not the other way around.
⠀⠀So yeah, to force cuckoldry upon players, author didn't come up with anything better than making all other male characters major assholes and Bill Cosby wannabe sex offenders. Off the top of my mind I can think of only one character who's not either an aspiring rapist or a spineless cuckold, and that is Ronnie Coleman looking ahh mfker named Bear. He's pretty cool.
⠀⠀Central plot is all over the place. First it was about secret druglab distributing roofies. Then we've revenge plot, then we have to help out the cam girl for some reason, now all of the sudden your parents divorce, etc. And by this point we already forgot about drugs and this criminal organization associated with them.

I mean the situation is not unsolvable. The base game is not bad, author clearly knows what he's doing. But he really needs to fix some issues and progress already existing characters and main plot-line instead of adding more and more placeholder girls and places.

As of 5.0.2 (Haven't played new update yet):

I am truly shocked at some of the negative reviews of this game. Perhaps some of them are older reviews, but still... Anyways, let's get started!

Animations/Artwork - 4/5

Let me start by saying the bodies and models used are amazing. And there are plenty of girls and some different size girls (though some aren't implemented yet). The animations are quite good. Some are a little janky where the physics look kinda off, but still very good. I think my only concern is some of the faces of the girls. Like when they get sad or upset, their faces look can look odd. Not sure if it's intentional, but again, it's only a couple of them. Overall, still very good, and very fappable. :3

Storyline/Dialogue - 5/5

Holy hell, a sandbox VN with a story I actually want to read! While it's not the most in depth out there, it's definitely good enough to pay attention to. It's a fun adventure for me anyways, and there are girls galore! It's taken me a bit to get used to the UK English, but it's not like... insanely hard to understand. No like "Oi, give, chipper weather, innit?" Just some commonly used terms from across the pond. Still, the spelling and grammar is great, and it's very readable and enjoyable.

Gameplay/Dialogue - 5/5

So one of my biggest pet peeves on sandbox games is when devs go out of their way to build stat systems and things like that. Some can get absurdly grindy and unplayable. I am pleased to say HBS:J is not one of them. This is a very well designed sandbox game. Yes, you do still have to build stats and do some grinding, and yes, some of those stats can degrade if ignored. But it's not tedious to rebuild them. I'm not the biggest fan of the navigation system, but it's not terrible to get used to.

Overall, very solid game. As of now, it's a very good sized game that won't end abruptly on you, and the dev puts out very consistent updates. Highly recommend.

Cheers.

Radical Dreamer

Horton Bay Stories - Jake [v0.5.1.2]

Bad, if not for the girls/models and some kinky scenes. You're more than welcome to try this VN, even tho most of it is rough and janky. That's it.

Story - ~0,5/5. It is present here.
Choices - 3.5/5. You can choose some things.
Characters - 0-2,6/5. Pretty one-dimensional. You mostly won't care about them.
Models/animations - 3/5. They're good. I'm really surprised how good they look, but sometimes there are a lot of junk and just passable moments.
Grammar - 3/5. Eh, whatever.

I only started this game. So far its been a fun game. You can turn off NTR. Some parts of game still include males trying to poach your harem, but as I said its still fun. Looking forward to more content.

Graphics are decent.
Story is good.
Have decent teeth for British.
Funny Posters, esp in Doctors office.
Prego content is always a plus.

Built in cheat system for those that cant stand the grind. (its in phone>settings>cheat enable). Comes with warning not to save a cheats used game but whatever.


Should finish by adding; You don't have to be "Jake", can pick a name of your choosing.

This review/opinion is most likely opposite of popular preferences and opinions, but models in this game are such a fresh and great thing to look at.

Personally, I feel honestly tired of every popular game having the same character models with samish proportions and basically no body imperfections - it gets boring real fast.

Most of the models in the game could be considered not conventionally pretty, but it makes this game so much hotter - it does feel much more immersive and real. Characters in this game still are attractive (at least in my opinion) with great bodies, but the key factor is variety and realistic body proportions - which is such a small portion of games on this forum.

The only things - that currently annoy me, are definitely the sandbox . It can get a little confusing and you definitely will be needing a walkthrough to progress further for some characters. Animations and facial expressions in sex scenes are my second annoynace, some of them are super janky and way too slowed down - faster animations and better facial expressions would make the experience so much better.

I am definitely a huge fan and can't wait to see more from this game developer - most fans of variety and more realistic look will definitely find this game highly enjoyable.

Easily one of the best, largest and most consistently updated games in F95, with lots of girls to pursue, lots of guys to compete against, lots of scenes, and plenty of kinks for almost everyone, with a cohesive (although not always necessarily coherent) story, easyto understand gameplay loop, and a built in guide to progress without trouble.
Having said that, like most games in here, it isn't without it's flaws.
First off, I get the feeling that the idea was to present a different art style from the assets everyone else often uses, with more realistic bodily proportions and characters with their own characteristics, however, there are more than a few characters in desperate need of a glow up, like Lillie (she's like watching gizmo getting railed), the three main female characters (I read somebody saying that they looked like they had been hit with joker gas, and I agree), the three main romantic interests should be easily the most attractive ones, and at this point, I would take Shelley, Marley or Regan over any of them (Adel looks like a young old lady, Christine is easily the joker's sister and Gemma looks like a trappy femboy).
Content wise, updates have been steadily coming in, but as of late, I feel like content has become more and more scarce with every new update (currently two or three scenes per update, if we're lucky), bug correction is much appreciated and so are new characters, but I believe more content with existing characters without updates for several months or even longer than that should be priority (Louise, for example).
Story is good, but little to no advancement as of late.
Gameplay is simple to follow and the guide makes it easy to move along, however, most characters feel inconsequential to the main plot, and most vastly under fleshed out, as do plot points (Mc knows about the serum, it would make sense for him to able to dose girls at, say, scoundrel to make the morality system matter), or perhaps having the principal take care of your scores once you establish a sub/dom relationship with her.
I also suggest Mc character development, like setting up a counter for number of NTR scenes seen, until after reaching a certain number, Mc begins to wonder if he truly dislikes such sightings and his dialogs change in consequence (the opposite isn't necessary, as those who don't like that suff will likely turn NTR off anyways)
Overall, definitely a game that desoite it's shortcomings, shines for it's scope, quantity of content and QoL features.
In any case, these are my two cents, hoping this can be of any help to it's developers.

One word: Awesome. Story wonderful, excitation wonderful, sensuality wonderful. Only the visual reality could be a little better, but it would turn work into VR porn rather than a game. Each move puts you into a different labyrinth. It's a game that doesn't make it easy to predict what will happen to you. If the characters become more realistic during the game development process, this game will definitely become many people's favorite game. Finally, it would be better if a gallery section containing all the sexual scenes was opened.

It is between 2 and 3 stars.

Redeeming qualities - there is a lot of game content and scenes, the dialogues and situation settings are all good. The cheat button inbuilt in the phone works well.

Now about why, it is 2 stars. The faces, those are the most ugly faces you can imagine. Few of the characters are looking decent here, with most young females having a face of grandma with some extra genetic diseases on top of wrinkles. I am not certain why the Developer insists on using such faces, it cannot be hard to change or improve it. Faces alone can bring you nighmares and horrors. In particular take a look at Adel, white haired girl you live with.

Second, the interface. The UI/UX of this game is straight out of 90s, a lot of time is spent scrolling through 50 various buildings or the map trying to find the location to go to.

Amazing game ! good work so far. I love the characters and the scenes. I would love for more content involving Lucas and the girls, some sharing or going 2nd and finishing the girls after Lucas has had his way.

Graphics: 3/5
Models: 3/5
Scenes: 3/5
Story: 5/5
Gameplay: 4/5

An interesting project that surprises for the freedom of choices you can make which involve an evolution of relationships with the characters and the story itself.
In this regard, a more detailed guide could be useful when you are faced with choices to make, so that you can predict what direction the story will take.

Still, it's a good game.

seems like everything of worth while in terms of the sleep sex itself, and the interesting characters are still in development. so when theres more of a game to review, ill review it. however as it stands, animations are good, but the loop could be smoother to be less noticable and more immersive.

Version 0.4.1.6 Another difficult one to review, so much to comment on and it swings wildly from poor to great to meh. So I'll give it a shot.

Graphics - well..different can only describe it. Quality is good, some animations and rather well done. The models, are extremely different and kinda weird, but it is throughout the game. Personally I initially didn't like the models at first, but found after some time it worked and I got into it, and some of the models got better. Many weird faces, large hobbit feet and such...bizarre.

Gameplay - so there is a ton of content in here. It has a sandbox, which is not the easiest to navigate, once you start getting locations they show up on the map (most of them) others are difficult to find and the navigation when walking is kinda messed up and very difficult to use. As for the "Ton of Content" that is probably the entry into one of my problems with this game, finding everything.

Interactions are based of specific times, places, and other actions having been done. Now there is a in game mission hint, and the characters have a simple hint system in the character cards - but there is so much, finding things is a chore - and there is literally dozens of NPCs. The hint system is really burdensome and not intuitive. I keep on playing this game, and I have never gotten every scene as I get bored and can't be bothered to go write down all the times, places I need to be to progress certain LIs.

NTR - this one is interesting, so I am not a NTR or Cuck fan at all, don't even like the swinging thing, cheating is fine, but I do enjoy the stress, and adventure of the possibility of losing the girls. So I leave it on, it really helps with the story line. So with it on, you absolutely see your girlfriend getting fucked by the teacher at the beginning...kinda the main plot moment. After that all the NTR moments I have found can be avoided by doing the right things and the girls don't get fucked...screw up and they do. (there is another scene where they teacher and ex phone you as well) but don't worry, it seems we will be getting revenge on him with his daughter and wife in the future.

So after all that, still a 4 star game for a pile of content, decent graphics, a storyline that is reasonable, good english. Pregnancy system is in place, a few milfs (could use more), impregnation and lots of fucking.

A little fix on the navigation, and a easier hint system would be better it would make this an excellent game. i.e. when with a LI a character card is visible and hints readily available, or even mark a certain LI and her hints and timings would be visible during normal gameplay until you selected another.

Solid hours of gametime if you can get used to the models used.