Ren'Py - Indecent Desires - The Game [v0.28 Alpha] [Vilelab]

Confusing as hell. It seems good from the start, but after a while there's no obvious clues on how to continue the game. The game doesn't even have the thing that's pretty much standardised in these games, the small buttons at the bottom of the screen that help's you easily navigate the the different rooms in the house. Here you have to "walk" around in the house, check all the rooms, again and again, just to see if there is someone or something to interact with there. There's no journal or anything that tells you where to go next. At least not that I could find. My last save is from July this year. Back then I hoped the game had updated and changed things. It hadn't. Today I tried playing it again from that save, but still no improvements. I have no idea what to do, and where to go. It just feels like a huge waste of time.

Review is based on 0.007 build. This is the case when I can't tell did I like plot and gameplay or absolutely don't like it. Ok. Plot, gameplay, rendering, animations etc in general is NOT bad. But i have very conflicting feelings.
In this game is implemented just a terrible movement system-uncomfortable and too boring.
The only known way to earn money (And you need a lot of money) is a boring mini game that you have to win many times. I was gonna rate this game on 2 star.....
But after 0.7 I changed my mind. So- 4 star only for transgender content! Yes! (Keep that in mind if you're not tempted by such things) The developer is on the right track. Keep up the good work

For 0.7

This started very well but went downhill after the free roam was introduced in 0.4 i believe. Free roam is very clunky and annoying and is just put in a manner that make the story and events totally chaotic. If the dev would quit this free roam bullshit, game would be good; story and events are interesting, girls look very good, lots of things would be overall enjoyable and entertaining.

Good Points
+ We have good loking renders.
+ We have good looking characters.
+ Our sex scenes are animated and they are not just static images.

Bad Points
- Our plot story is not well written and have a lot of plot hole.
- Story itself is pretty empty and not interesting nor well written.
- Playing this game is realy confusing and i cant say its enjoyable at all, so you gotta use walkthrough for every step of yours while playing which makes game pretty boring...
- IU (HUD) desing pretty bad/annoying. Even for just going your room you gotta click a lot of button and there is no list shows which place is which one, so for finding even your own room you gonna remember where it was.
- Animations could use improvement for physics and quality.
- Its developing since 2018 and we dont have nowhere close content for 3-4 year of developing time at all...

For The End
This game needs a lot of improve but most important and clear one is VN mod, which would make game more enjoyable, but we didn't get that for years and i dont think we gonna get in near future either...

To grindy no content in most of the rooms most of the time, whats with the attitude from the aunt, and whats with the attitude towards the maid, and this idea that they will just pimp her out to the old man, started out good , but crashed fast ,
no need to even follow its progres

This game is a a lot better than i expected. I really enjoyed playing it and the models are GREAT! It shows that much thought, time and effort has been put into designing the characters. Yeah, the story isn't wow, but when combined with everything else it sure adds up to a great game. And the amount of foot fetish content in this game is really appreciated, at least by me. It's a shame that yet another game was off the radar just because there isn't a foot fetish tag on this forum.

An in game objectives screen would be a lot more useful than a walk through pdf for each update. Also some music and sound effects would really add so much to the game.

It gets a 4.5 from me.

Keep it up dev!

EDIT:
Well I have to be honest I'm really not as hyped about the game as before after the update V.0.7. I had to lower my original rating from 5 to 3 because of the lack of in game hints! Seriously it's way too confusing and ridiculously time consuming!

I can't progress in the game smoothly without having to check for a walkthrough or spoilers in the replies on the game's forum, and there's a chance I don't find what I'm looking for without having to post and ask.

Don't get me wrong, I still think the game has some of the best renders and the story is still promising when you can actually find a way to progress in it. (And the foot fetish tag/content is a huge plus for me)! But.. It needs major fixes.

I really hope the DEV implement's an objectives list or some kind of proper hint system. Might as well get rid of the whole sandbox shit and add some free roaming here and there but definitely not the current setup, because as of now, the game is unplayable for me. Which is a shame, I was really looking forward for this update.

To start on a positive note... the highlight of this game is excellent renders - absolutely gorgeous models!
I know many games now have great models since character gen software is getting better all the time, but the models in this game have been customised very well, and some of the models are outstanding!
(Monique in particular - top left corner of the opening post pic)

Not so good is the story and the MC's scripting.
The story plays out like a mediocre daytime soap opera. The characters are all quite good, but the plot... it's DULL!!

As for the MC... for a guy that is supposed to be smart enough to get into an elite university, he really is thick as shit! He's not just naive or awkward talking to women, he only ever seems to think with his cock, possibly because he doesn't have a brain in his head.

Why do I care about this?
It's very hard to get into a game or VN if you are playing a character that's an idiot, and you're steered by dialogue and options that make you swear at the screen because its just so stupid.

The bad... no, make that the totally fucking dreadful, is this VN is a sandbox type game (or should that be kitty litter tray type game) with a very limited number of interactions that happen only at certain times. No random events, nothing to do at all but search blindly in every location for that one character in that one location that will help the game to progress.

Developer, FFS, put a hint system in the game!

As other reviewers have said, without the walkthrough, this game is a frustrating waste of time.

Simply terrible, abysmal content for a game with updates that occurs monthly, counter intuitive gameplay, without a walkthrough you'd be spending 99% of your time playing this looking for what to do with little to no clue on what the hell you're supposed to unlocked the story / events. Don't bother downloading this unless by a miracle the dev decides to implement at least some QOL improvements and a little more content for each update. On the bright side the models are looking really good it's just a shame this is wasted on some shitty ass gameplay that also has the luxury to be grindy on top of that.

I have never seen such a poorly designed game in my life the nav system is beyond annoying instead of being able to goto the city nav map from anywhere every location you have to retrace your steps back to the very beginning before leaving.

The game itself gives no hint or clues what you are supposed to do the guide will say something like shower on a sat five times to progress the story it makes zero sense. I am stuck every person says I need to raise the affection or blackmail. I can't be bothered to figure out how to advance or what I did wrong.

Avoid. It has okay renders but if you want the pics just look at them then delete is game this irredeemable and it's been out for long enough if the Dev wanted to fix the issues he would already have.

first off: The graphics are good, well done textures, especially the nipples striked me as extra good.

The whole thing has lots of lesbian and (fem)dom content, which can't be skipped (for the most part) should you not like it (I did not mind).

Gameplay wise its relatively easy and linear most (all?) of the attributes do not have any effect now, I am looking forward to see how the pictures and blackmailing will work out later on.

Awesome game. The story is fairly well-written, the renders are very well-made, and the sex scenes have something for everyone. The characters also have very distinct personalities, though they are a little hollow - but what do you expect for a porn game? The development seems somewhat slow, but hopefully it'll be rectified soon.

Great renders. Terrible gameplay. After about two minutes, you just start wandering aimlessly in the hopes of encountering...someone. The world is very empty and you don't know where to go. Walkthroughs should be used as reference if you can't figure out a part of a quest or story line. It should not be 100% required to do everything in the game, which is the way it is currently. Without a walkthrough, I don't know where anyone is, much less how to interact with them to progress the story. There are so many places to go and every room is empty. People you do find don't want to talk with you.

World is empty, gameplay is non-existent. But damn those renders on the previews look great!

Extremely complicated. That could be a very good game (the render is very good), without a what to do, what's next, where's the character, you are lose and just repeting cycles that makes the game boring and tedious. Could be very potencial game if only gives you a what to do, and how to increment affection, etc.

I thought this game had potential but now I don't even care to play it anymore. The game doesn't even include a quest or hint log to help you. So you either need a walkthrough or wander around and hope you find out how to trigger scenes. Skip this game you be glad you did.

I'm going to go by my normal review format of Pros vs Cons and then an overall afterthought with maybe a few suggestions for the future:

Pros:

+ The characters look good and show neat facial expressions
+ A renpy game with open world features isn't a bad idea and can potentially work well (see for example Summertime Saga)
+ nice music fitting the scene

Cons:
- I have yet to find a really likable character in this game (will be explained further in the afterthoughts), which makes it hard to really want to follow through with the story and find out what the hell is even going on with everyone
- without a walkthrough the "open world" means a lot of pointless room switching with no content to see (just wandering to find the right room for the next scene)

I understand that the dev seems to want to portrait a scenario of somebody uprooted and having to live with people who are total strangers even if your family knew them long ago. Yet (I'm going from the original version) of these people being your expanded family, they seem incredibly hostile at times. If I was really mean, I would say, that the family has medical issues with Bipolar Disorder...
The stranger in a foreign environment would be more engaging if one character would be a kind of anchor in the game. Somebody who is likable and immediately relatable that 'guides' the MC through the game would help to wade through the flaws and bad sides of the characters until you hopefully find some reasons why they are so hostile and weird as it is heavily hinted at that something is going with that family and why there was a fallout with your family side. At the moment though feeling any empathy towards the characters is a futile task. Even Aiko after you suggest to help her with her problem with Sarah dismisses you in a fashion that would make me (if I was in MC's shoes) to not care for her ever again. I would have asked to go back to Lysa as it's not worth these people. That would mean the end of the game and at this point it might be for the better. You just walk around that house pointlessly anyways. There are more productive things to do with your life

from a great vn game to a shitty sandbox one..i dont know what the dev was thinking but imo (and the majority) he ruined a potential amazing game by switching to sand box to cover the small content in each update,plus the game is a real mess you cant play it without a walkthrough, you run around like a headless chicken trying to figure out what to do and how to trigger the next (short) scene that was added in the update.1 star is to much for what the dev did to this game

Aimlessly wandering around, only to find out that there isnt anything left to do. What a waste of time. Very little lewds and mostly unfinished everything. Not to mention slow updates. Don't waste your time

This game started out with good potential. The renders were great, the characters were beautiful and somewhat interesting, and the story progressed at a decent enough pace.

However, the game for no obvious reason, suddenly decides that it wants to be a sandbox. Now, I have nothing against sandbox games... when they are made well. This attempt is not well-made.
The interface is terrible, the icons for traveling are hard to find and you find yourself spending 99% of your time, checking every single available location, before you finally find the correct combination of location & time, in order to get the next 30 seconds of progress, before you are back to searching the locations all over again.

I will give the game 2 stars, due to the renders and characters, but the sandbox makes it impossible to rate it higher. The second the sandbox starts, I no longer feel any desire to play.
And if the gameplay in a game, makes you want not to play, then the game has failed to do the most important of tasks: Entertain

This once promising game is dying a slow and torturous death as it is grotesquely transformed into a free-roaming monstrosity.

It was originally a straight forward visual novel that moved along at a good pace. Now, you just wander around checking every room in every location hoping to stumble across a means to progress the story. Then, when you finally realize there's nothing to do, you have to advance time and revisit every location again. You must keep doing this for every phase of every day of the week until you eventually find something new. After that, you come to realization that this sure as shit weren't worth the effort.

I'm really sad to see this game fall off so hard and so fast. It caught my interest in the beginning, but the game is just determined to self destruct. It needlessly added navigation between rooms in the house, which did nothing but slow the game down, and it's only gotten worse since. Now it has different times of day, a map for traveling between locations, and a whole lot of nothing to see or do anywhere. It's truly terrible.

After starting out pretty hopefully, current updates have turned it into a sandbox piece of something that lacks any progress and sense of direction.

Graphics are still worth watching, but I don't expect the game to be good any time soon.