VN - Ren'Py - Hot Sand of Antarctica [v0.08] [Grinvald]

[v0.08]
Excellent game. At the start I was a bit disappointed by the low amount of sex scenes, but it improves when you progress the game.
The sex scenes are waited but the quality is matching your expectation so it's not really a problem.

Also, the story is very interesting for a dystopian game, it's not only the MC acting like a brute. It's not a "simple" plot, you have various characters, twists and major changes in the story. You never guess what is gonna happen, and it's really pleasant, usually a lot of games are too obivous and you don't pay attention to the story anymore.
I like how the dev puts a few flashback in the story.

The girls are hot and different (even the twin!). I think you shouldn't add too many girls in the future, to have time to progress with the one already in the game.

It started well. The choices and consequences and the karma system looked interesting but after a few hours the pace of the story slowed down a lot. Too much was happening at once and a lot of new characters were being introduced, but it became difficult to make sense of everything at once. The main plot feels very scattered and unfocused. Also, contrary to the game's claim, there are fewer choices to influence the story as you progress and it feels more like a kinetic VN. Still, it's a game with potential. I think it can be successful if development continues, but for now I'm a bit bored with the linear gameplay and long dialogs.

A pretty nice story so far, but I'm curious how it makes any sense. Also in Antartica you rarely have an actual day/night cycle unless the Earth had suddenly twisted 90 degrees, pushing Antartica to the equator instead of the pole. Lots of story, though not many choices after the beginning, and the game crashes frequently, probably overbuffered from so many images. On the plus side, I do really love building a large harem. I wish you had more choices to play with them more though.

Just finished playing this game (ver 0.08). WOW! Some people say that it is a cheap downgraded version of Desert Stalker. I strongly disagree with that. In the beginning it might feel like that but now I think it is even better in many parts.
For example, the Twins dynamics and how Katie is fooling with Jane trying to seduce her. It is one of the hottest things I've seen in any AVN. And I also like the models in this game more then those in the DS.
I also like that this game is pretty much linear. I don't care much about the branching paths and normally play with a walkthrough anyway. They are a waste of Devs' time and resources in most of the cases IMO.
The story is rather simple but coherent (unlike in many AVNs). The writing and dialogues are quite good as well. I don't know what the commenter below didn't like about them but belive me. I have seen a lot of bad writing in AVNs. This is not that case at all.

There is really only 1 actually positive factor about this game. The modelling is great and the women are hot. That's it.

The story is stupid and uninteresting, the world-building is nonsensical and bland, and the dialogue is incredibly mediocre and generic. It takes the worst tropes and cliches of the genres it inhabits and uses all of them to varying degrees. There is genuinely nothing interesting about anything written in this AVN. In that department it's largely a waste of time, unless you want to use it purely as a writing exercise to see what you'd do to improve it.

Great game, wonderful story, girls and scenes! Pity the development goes so slowly. Unusual, different from other RenPy games. Together with desert stalker, which is set in similar environment, one of the best!

Models are great, but thats about all it has going for it.


Outside of model differences, the characters are indistinguishable from each other. Every character wants to jump on the MC immediately and provide zero substance to the story beyond sex. The karma system introduced in the first chapter swiftly vanishes from the game. The plot also does not make much sense - starts with mad max and then next you know its about clones and futuristic technology.

After 2.5 years of development the story just left the exposition and there is about 2 hours of content. It is very difficult to see this ever getting completed, since it is probably only 20% complete now.

[Reviewed v0.08]

This game hits all the right notes -- fun premise and story, great models and tons of H-scenes with animations, hours of content. If you like family harem games with a light sci-fi / survival setting, this will become a favorite. Unfortunately, it can't quite compete with a very similarly-themed game also in production, so it loses some shine on direct comparison.

The Good ()

• A diversity of girls with different personalities and body types
• Well-done renders and environments, with some unique settings
• Entertaining if sometimes incoherent story content
• A family harem game that makes (some) sense within the story

The Not-So-Good ()

• A bit of a cliche "MC is the savior and everyone is in love with him" setup, but this is part of the narrative so it is more forgivable
• Some of the story is rushed and not realistic
• The plot / premise seem directly ripped off another, better, well-reviewed game. I guess if you can't beat 'em, copy 'em!

Lots to like with this one if you're a fan of the setting and genre.

I like dystopian worlds. I think that to stay a dystopian world, it is probably pretty harsh living with harsh decisions. I feel novels like this should give the choice between hero route and nasty, I come first F everyone else route. This novel doesn't really give you the nasty route. I think being a hero in this kind of setting probably leads you to a quick death and is therefore not very believable. This novel started off with a karma system that I thought would distinguish between hero and nasty, but it kind of disappears in the beginning of the novel. Not really many decisions after that and I quickly lost interest in the bland story.

The LIs would look great if everyone didn't look kind of doll like (shiny with arms that you know wouldn't bend at the elbow). That really took away any immersion I had. Once the immersion is gone, I tried to quickly move through the story to find a fappable animation. I got all the way to the end of this version (v8?) without one fap. Ugggg, not a good way to spend an hour and a half. I'll be deleting this novel and removing it from my follow list.

I like the whole apocalypse thing and the story is pretty good so far. The women are really good looking and there is plenty of sex. I can't wait to see what happens, all though the updates seem to be pretty slow.

3.5/5 I so wanna give it a 4 but just not quite there for me

+Liked how the gals looked
+Enjoyed the setting and concept, is interesting
+The Main parts of the Story interested me

-I found some of the scenes a bit dark visually, even tried turning up my monitor brightness
-Usage of English was rough in some parts. Pretty much nothing was wrong technically but I did find myself getting distracted at times because some Dialog or Description would just not be said in a way an English speaker would say it
-Chunks of the Story/experience that I pretty much just skipped through because I was just bored of the character describing what was being shown, or Remembering something from the past that probably didnt need more than a handfull of sentences to say but instead had several scenes and stills
-Some animations were a bit stiff but not really all that bad

3.5/5 Was between Ok and Good, am interested to see how the Overall story could play out

Definitely in top 3 VNs I have played.
I love this game, just wish development was quicker.
The twin redhed daughters are amazing.
The setting is interesting and the story is engaging enough.
The family dynamic is the star of the show and we need more of it.

A somewhat unusual story takes a backseat to your average male power fantasy with the MC white knighting his way through the story and women spreading their legs for him at every opportunity.

Oh, what a novel concept, right? But that's what you all are here for, so I am sure you'll love it.

*yawn*

Mindless fun. You won't find the absolute deepest story or best renders or most daring situations, but Hot Sands knows what it wants to do, isn't ashamed to do it, and has a good time along the way. Everything leads into some sort of unsurprising tropey porn setup, and I found myself cheering it on every step of the way.

Review of v0.08

It's impossible to review Hot Sand of Antarctica (it should definitely be Sands btw) without reference to a certain other extremely popular, post-apocalyptic game set in a desert in which you play a skilled fighter with a wife and two daughters, but it is against the reviewing rules to mention other games, so it will go nameless. Nevertheless, the parallels don't even stop at what I've mentioned above. This gives rise to the question: why bother play a clearly derivative work? The answer is that despite the similarities, Hot Sand still differentiates itself in its plot and some other enjoyable ways (a bigger dick, more of a harem-esque feel, twins), and frankly more of a good thing is still good. Also there are countless AVNs with the two sisters one mother slice of life setup, or massive harem wholesome slice of life, etc., so the genre is basically an ouroboros anyway.

At the start of the game I was worried about the mc being unlikable due to his attitude, but this quickly changed as we got to see his softer side. Other than that, everything was great: the plot, the characters (which are a little 2D at the moment but we are seeing development), the visuals (not S-tier quality but still good), the writing (dialogue feels natural; some occasional odd turns of phrase, but few and far between), and the hot as fuck sex scenes. It is still quite short, though I suppose quality is better than quantity.

A 5-star rating system is difficult to utilise because you could argue that only S-tier games should get 5, but I think it's best to be generous when you really enjoy a game, so 5 stars it is!

Aaaaaand instant favorite. If you like Desert Stalker, you'll love this one. It has a lot of similarities (harem, strong male figure, dystopian world, graphic violence, incest, etc). But it is also very much its own distinct game, with its own story, its own universe, mysteries, depth, etc. The art is great, sexy at times, creepy at others. The characters are unique and feel fantastic. The harem feels like its actually poly (well.. poly in the male-dominated harem extreme, not like how its actually practiced) in that there is actual relationship tension and drama between various people in the relationship, not just everyone instantly accepting every new person to the relationship. There aren't a Lot of actual choices, and some actually end up feeling pretty obvious... but there are just enough that it somehow feels like a game you're involved in, rather then just a comic you click through. (Could do with a Bit more choice, especially after prologue). But yea.. I'm loving it and can't wait to see how it plays out!

Excellent story, very well created characters with their plots and personalities. Sceneries of great quality and rendered of very high level. Action and suspense very well tuned with the plot. Very interesting events to follow with surprises and plot twists. Incredible sex scenes. Women of very exquisite taste and distinctive characters when it comes to relationships. One of the best games of F95Zone.

Review for v0.08

It's without a doubt one of the better games on F95, but the issues it has are severe enough to warrant the 3 stars. Nothing that can't be fixed though.

We'll start with the positives. The renders are great and the dev doesn't shy away from the violence of the setting, so there's plenty of blood and other gruesome things on display. The animations are also top-notch, fluid and well-composed. The girls are all attractive, perhaps even too much given the fact it's a post-apocalyptic setting but it doesn't bother me that much. Also, special shoutout to the MC for actually being competent without being invincible, it's a line many VNs fail to toe.

Now for the negatives. My biggest problem is the grammar, it's obviously translated word-for-word from another language, which means there are weird idioms, words out of order, and even entire sentences that make no sense. It needs someone fluent in English to give it a once or twice-over and clean it up so everything makes sense. I also didn't like how many times the MC would randomly start thinking about a memory that was, at best, tangentially related to what was happening, as well as the overuse of flashbacks. I also feel like the story is slowly getting out of hand in terms of concepts, going from a fairly vanilla post-apocalypse to clones and advanced cloaking tech. It's still early enough that it doesn't entirely feel disconnected from the setting, but it hasn't been smooth sailing.

My recommendation is to give it a shot, it's pretty enjoyable so long as you can forgive the grammar mistakes and keep an open mind about the more sci-fi tone it seems to be taking.

A good game if you don't think about it too much.

It's one of those games the dev has spent time actually trying to tell a story, and that should be applauded and because of that it should be given the benefit of the doubt for any oddities which the game ultimately presents you with.

So the character renders are first rate, all lovely looking women. A harem game, quite literally. It's the end of the world, you can do what you want.

Game has a lot going for it, a story which is actually interesting with enough going on where you can't just see through it immediately, the characters are interesting and worth actually listening to and overall it'll probably become a great game.

The issues are skin deep really. It's one of those games where it really hammers home the Apocalypse but at the same time everyone looks like they're off the set of 90210, lipstick is non existent but all look like they're ready for a night on the town with most wearing clothes you'd expect to see in a club. Water is in short supply but they have baths. That sort of thing. As I said, it's better to just not think too much into it cause I feel if you do then it'll become a bit absurd. Just sit back and enjoy.

I think the only issue I really have is the release schedule. 2 years, version 0.08. It's not an issue but because the game is so story focused I worry that it may be years before we reach a point where we expect some answers.

Oh, and shout out to the dev for not pulling their punches. There's some gore in here and they don't shy away from it (although they give the option to before it really kicks off)

Really well built. I really enjoyed playing the game. After a long time i found a very good game with good content. Visuals a good but still need some improvements. Need more flexibility in sex options. BESEV my man you really did a very good job. I own you a Salute. Thanks and keep updating. I am still waiting for a lot of content in this game. Keep it up