VN - Ren'Py - Imperial Chronicles [v0.11] [Lazy Monkey]

[v1.0]

This has one of the best political and faction based storytelling in any western porn VN that I've played thus far.

It's legitimately well written how all factions are presented without a clear bad guy (some are obviously more questionable than others though). Each faction has their justifications, ideals, pros, and cons. And the overall narrative is set up in successive story arcs that build up to a pretty satisfying conclusion to each arc.

The real beauty is that the choices make a huge impact on your run. It's coded quite brilliantly with various branching pathways that converge back to a common story path while keeping track of all the major flags so it can be called on later. And there can be some significant divergences, from allying with different factions to your relationship dynamics and even the eventual fate of major NPCs.

I do have a lot of critiques that I will get to, but the above points were so well done that this is a solid 4* for me.

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The main issue with this game is the translation. It's clearly not written by a native English speaker. Whether it's machine translated or done by some ESL dude, the nuance of the dialogues are probably getting lost a lot of times. There are a lot of silly and incorrect word choices that take you out of it as well. And even if the characterizations and mannerisms were not completely lost in translation, it still leaves you with the thought that this game could have been so much better with a better translation. Also, throughout the entire game, you will regularly run into blank dialogue lines that I guess is some kind of error in translating mechanism they used. You will miss parts of the story and have to just guess what was said in the blank text box.

The second most annoying thing is the fact that the dev pretty much drops the impact of the MC's class right after the intro. You can choose whether the MC is a warrior, mage, or bookworm. This trait is called only when the dev feels like it. Most of the time, it's just ignored in situations where it should make some impact logically.

For example, the mage MC acts like he has no idea how magic works most of the time (let alone use it effectively) because the dev doesn't bother calling this variable.

The third issue is that while the models are pretty attractive all around, the render quality itself is pretty low quality and grainy at times.

The sex scenes are decent. There are some decent sex dialogues and kinky aspects to it that elevates it above some other games that have 2 second sex scenes that end after you click a few times. That said, the camera angles and visual framing leaves something to be desired a lot of times.

Where it is now, IC is a very good AVN, it's our guess as to where it will end up but why I would recommend this, if you browse through what has came before IC, they blur together, I believe IC stands out from the crowd and delivers us something I'd say we didn't expect and for those willing to try this game, falls for the game. Good visuals, but the storyline is where it gets you, at least gets me. Of course it has a engaging cast... Just try if you haven't and I don't think you will be disappointed.

Let's be honest, we don't often play this type of game for the story...So at the beginning I pressed 'skip' to get to 'the good stuff'.
But then I realized this game actually has a good story that is worthy of reading, a mystery and most surprisingly...replayability (choosing different classes will unlock different scenes).
Besides, the graphics are good.
So, 5/5 so far.

Worth 5 stars even where it's at now - worth playing right now if you're looking for something, even if it's not finished.

Very incestuous and with a few options on how to get there. Mother, older half-sister, twin sister, and a little sister. A cousin and aunt have also been introduced but not further, though I'm sure we'll get there.

-1 star because the translation is truly ass - pay someone, don't use AI! - but it's got decent graphics, good LIs, lots of incest, and a great story, so check it out.

Lazy Monkey is just one of the GOATs innit?

Interesting story, interesting characters, great comedy and top tier incest. I didn't think the comedy and incest in 'Monkey Business' could be topped but LM has only gotten better.

Add in the regular and consistent updates (a couple months per update) and he's truly cemented himself as one of the best creators on this website.

A full 5★ so far (Season 1 end)

There are a lot of choices that affect the game, but they start to feel shallow as the story goes on. At that point, it feels like you’d need completely separate routes to keep things meaningful. I played both White and Green, and I thought I was heading toward a dom Cass path where she makes every decision for the throne. But I was disappointed by how little the White and Green routes actually differed for the protagonist.


The game is still solid, with a well-thought-out story and satisfying family relationships. It just got a bit tiring when sex scenes kept popping up at points where I wanted the story to move forward. I wish those scenes also pushed the plot along instead of just being there to satisfy patreons.

It ain't perfect, but damn is it good.
Interesting enough story to make you wanna pay attention. Very easy to get attached to the people around you. Grammar can definitely be improved, it is quite bad and distracting in the earlier parts.
Overall tho, one of the best games here. I check the page almost daily to see if it's updated.

[v1.0]
TL;DR
Overrated. Not bad story. Not bad visuals. Meh H-scenes.

Story 3.5/5
First and foremost, it's a story-focused game. It's pretty long and has a lot of branches. Sure, it's not GoT, but with suspension of disbelief the story is rather interesting. There are some ridiculous events and character actions, but the plot is still above the average fantasy AVN. Characters are mostly not one-dimensional, but there are too many of them, and some don't have enough screen time. For me, there are also too many choices. Personally, I don't like doing more than one playthrough, but here you can't get the full picture with just one. When the game is finished (if ever?), it will be interesting to play it without full information.

Visuals 4/5
Renders are good, both technically and stylistically. Armor, weapons, clothing, and environments mostly look authentic — no silly two-meter-long swords or weird armor. Some backgrounds are made with AI; I'm not against it, but most of them look out of place. Animations are bad at the beginning of the game, but they get pretty good later.

H-scenes 2/5
Again, story is the main focus of the game, so if you're not interested in it, don't waste your time. Sex scenes are sparse, short, and just not hot enough. There is no narration, often no dirty talk — just chatting about random stuff. Too many side LIs: they appear for one or two short scenes just to tick boxes. Main LIs are sisters and Mom, but most scenes with them aren’t good either. Not enough build-up, not enough tension, and mostly no sense of taboo. It feels like nudity and incest are normal in this world — the elder sister just starts jerking off the MC out of nowhere like it's an absolutely normal thing.

LM leads with excellent writing and it makes for a excellent AVN.

Models are fantastic, lore keeps me engaged, and the choice based narrative offers the right amount of choice and branches I love in an AVN.

I was having a tough time finding something to scratch my "To be a King" itch and I am glad I found IC. The lore that guides the story is intriguing and being on chapter 3, I very much look forward to seeing how the story progresses as the MC is seemingly faced with perilous paths no matter what destiny he chooses.

I very much look forward to completing the game (as 1.0 was recently released) and urge fans who enjoy choice based narratives to give it a try.

So far one of my favorite game I've played. Love the story and characters.
Well-designed and they are beautiful. Keep working on this, please.

My only criticism is that it's not long enough, I need more, but please don't rush it. Take your time. I also love the story development, it's unique.

The game is actually amazing! When I first started it, I surely wasn't expecting a game with so much possibilities and complicated storyline... I'm at my 5th playthrough and I'm still encountering new line and renders! With so much decisions to make!! I just love it, total 5 star!

Great characters, great render quality, great rigging, lots of story and lore and great writing, can't wait to see where this series(?) goes.
Honestly not enough games with wholesome relationships revolving around incest, especially where the MC isn't a complete asshole. Also the story and world lore is surprisingly deep and the characters are interesting so I got pretty invested in the story.

Awesome game honestly, my only complaint is I feel like the English translations could do with some cleaning up, at least earlier on.

But the good things you can say about it are close to endless honestly.

Really interesting world, great plot, very nice graphically and some great LIs ( your sisters and your mother especially )

And something that will be a massive plus to some or a negative for others. A LOT of replayability with some nice branching. It's a toss up between the White and Green coronations for the best paths personally IMO. As I could never do the Red one because.

--RED PATH SPOILERS-- I could never kill Cass... I am going to fix her.

But yeah, overall a brilliant game already, with a bright future

Pro:

• Plot heavy. Always a choice to be made after a certain point.
• Lots of characters, some that can be killed off, which is always nice in a story.

Neutral:

• This family is bonkers. Which may be the point of a royal family.

Cons:

• Little sister fucks you at breakfast, on your lap. No one pays attention, despite everyone being gaga for princey and can't stop thinking about sex. The hell?
• Although now that I think of it, everything seems to be Cass-plot heavy, as if anytime something happens, she's involved. I wonder what would happen if you can try to get rid of her? (Which is an option, so I hope that plays out.)
• Some of these plots -- the coup, taking over the west -- are so ridiculous, you just turn your brain off and accept everyone is either scared of losing their family, or retarded.
• I do find the MC to be a ridiculous horndog. I get that he's in charge and can do nearly anything he wants. But whoa! Almost no female is safe. How many bastards is he siring? Doesn't the family talk? There's a lot of talk about iron blood this or elven blood that, but apparently he doesn't care and gets to impregnating. I can only imagine the group photo at the end of this.
• Would like to see more involvement with the 3 origin of scholar/mage/warrior be used more. I'm sure it's scenario dependent.
• Confused about white blood, how it's a disease, and a drug to take for hallucinations, and now suddenly has a potential cure. Like the MC needs more headaches and visions to confuse everyone even more.
• Some of the magical creatures, and visions, are heavy handed and unclear. I get mystery, but even mysteries have to be consistent; having two voices in your visions rambling on and now fighting each other is ridiculous. And then there're more voices? What is going on here?
• I guess half-elves don't get facial hair after weeks on horseback.
• The alternate world/B plot portal stuff seems very tacked on and unnecessary. Unless this is going to be relevant later, just dump this crap.
• And it seems there's so much hard-coded or un-translated Russian language present, even when set to English during the transition screens of each character. Sloppy.
• Art and assets are not bad, but definitely not of high quality. Animation is relatively good, but can use some more work and need to be cleaned up.

I don't see the point in talking much about the game. All its advantages can be read below.

I can say that this is one of the best games in terms of plot development, relationships, and character motivations.

The cons include a very small amount of music, grainy renders, and extremely poorly chosen camera angles in some scenes.

But despite this, it's a solid 5/5, at least for now.

PS: Elin is the best girl.

Imperial Chronicles [v1.0]

This game fooled me. At first, I thought it was just another erotic game with a bit of lore slapped on. But it wasn’t. It was something else entirely.

It was the kind of game I had wanted to play for years—deep world-building, real political stakes, characters with scars and secrets. It was smarter than it looked. Smarter than it had any right to be. And the biggest compliment I could give it was this: by the time the sex scenes showed up, I didn’t care about them anymore. I just wanted to see what happened next.

But with ambition came mess. And this game was messy.

There were too many choices. Too many plotlines. Too many forks in the road that all seemed minor—until hours later I realized I had missed something important. I found myself second-guessing every little scene. Replaying it all just to catch what had slipped past. It wore me down. But it also pulled me in deeper. The writing had this poetic, cryptic, Russian soul to it—“Runglish” that could trip me up, but when I let it flow, the scenes landed hard. Some of them stuck with me. They hurt in the right way.

Still, the tone was scattered. One moment the MC was knee-deep in courtly betrayal and sorcery, and the next he was watching the little sister play games like in a slice-of-life anime. It was hard to square those moods. Ophelia suffered from hybrid fever. Elin was a top-tier sorceress. But they acted like giddy schoolgirls half the time. Meanwhile, people were dying off-screen, and empires were shifting.

The deeper the MC got, the more surreal it became. Prophecies. Entities. Future visions. One told him to trust his reflection. Another said to kill it. Then he was told to break the wheel, which someone else had just warned him not to touch. It spiraled. He had seizures and fever dreams and barely understood any of it. Neither did I. Not really.

And the court mage? She was in on it all. No matter which origin I picked, she slinked off untouched. She was the spider in the web. And the worst that happened was she teleported away with no consequences. That stung.

The multiple origins were where the game stumbled most. The scholar got a vampire bodyguard. The mage got spells. The warrior got brute strength. Each path was good—but fractured. It felt like the main character should have been all of them. Or each origin should have been a full game of its own. Instead, I got parts of a whole that never quite fit.

Some characters seemed important but never spoke. The mother was supposedly revered in her homeland and part of a secret order, but she said nothing. She was just horny because of reasons. The elder sister wanted revenge, but her motive was paper-thin. The alternate realities Elin could open? Sometimes goofy, sometimes gut-wrenching, never explained. They just happened.

And yet I played for days. Dozens of hours. Every night. My pants never came off. That’s how good the writing was. The erotic content was rare, and honestly, it didn’t need more. The music was repetitive, sure, but when it hit, it hit hard.

What really threw me was how the story handled momentum. Just when the main character started making real choices, just when it felt like he was stepping into his role—bam. A coup in the capital. Suddenly, he was sent west to settle some diplomatic crisis. It felt like the game pulled the rug out. Like the dev was afraid to let him live in the castle and deal with the consequences. Afraid it would turn into just another porn game, maybe.

The mentors? One turned into a cat. One died chained in a dungeon. The third ran when the MC asked her hard questions—even though he had seen visions of her crimes. Visions that never came up again, no matter what I did. Same with the visions of his future daughters. He saw them—little girls from different wives. One more adorable than the next. Then it was never brought up again.

The game felt torn—between heavy political drama and weird, dreamy fantasy. Each part worked on its own. Together, they sometimes clashed. But even then, it still worked. Against the odds.

It was a beautiful mess. Wild. Flawed. Overstuffed. But still one of the best games I had played in the genre. It shot for something huge and didn’t land every blow, but damn, it got close.

The game is absolutely amazing. It is definitely one of the best games on this website in terms of sheer quality.
It has the best visual, very good writing, interesting characters and story, a ton of choices for ppl who like it, and a crazy number of sex scenes.
I found hilarious a negative comment from the guy who blamed game for being too Russian because the MC says that "It is not rape if she gets wet". But the thing is that you made the choice to rape someone lmao. The story and MC's worldview depend on your choices.
I should warn ppl that it is not a harem story where you collect all girls. Dont play it like Eternum. Dont just chase after all girls and make meaningful choices if you dont wanna ruin your game experience.
Also, the game revolves around incest. Almost all girls that you can get in this game are your family. For some ppl, this is probably a disappointment.
All in all, I recommend this game because it is simply well-made.

shitton of choices that matter, loads of paths, you get to decide how you wanna act, along with good graphics and an interesting setting with good overall story.

wish more devs put this amount of effort into their games

It's a good story and flow. maybe mc could be more bendable like more dominant dialogues or any other type.
Still I think better than most of vn games.
They are a lot of choices, like it should be that is also a big positive.

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