VN - Ren'Py - Independent Horizons [v0.5.2] [SwampyStudio]

Mc is weak pathetic retard that is mostly just a voyeur, he is the dude that watches from the corner as other people get it on, and just having him in sexual situations is so pahtetic and laughable because he is made to be a cuck. The women are so unlikeable, I mean, I know the dev wants to have several options (for some reason) like for pauline, she can either get it on with the retarded mc, or fuck her dad??? what?? He's trying to do way too much while being sevrely limited in storytelling, character building, wrinting. and even having mediocre dialogs.
The whole games is a waste of time, once again I got baited by some pretty graphics, but this is not a romance game at all.

TLRD: pathetic MC, unliable and all over the place LIs, pretty bad writng, sleep inducing and lazy, copypaste story, that is all over the place and no one knows where its going, cringe dialogs, make for a very bad VN.

Yeah, as the v0.5.2 of the game, I could say its definetly interesting, but I gotta say that there are some unexpected twists? that kinda breaks a little the game with a supposed retro futuristic stuff, still the game its above average, even when it needs more scenes but since the MC its a virgin I can see they want to make us wait for the final sex scene of the MC so I can get behind that, the other thing that surprise me its the "sister" since it looks like she is in love with the MC but you kinda can choose for certain options that are not in direct interest with the MC and I like that, it gives me Our Red String vibes where the conection between 2 characters can or cannot be romantical and still be really important.
Cant wait to see the next update

There are interesting scenes and endearing characters (the dormlady, the goth musician girl)...

But the writing is sometimes long-winded. Every step is not just shown, but also explained or described, often in a repetitive manner, with pauses and wooden phrasing. It's boring.

Renders are not bad, except facial expressions. When a taxi driver looked at MC, I sensed murderous intent of a serial killer. But the description said it was a friendly smile. When MC was talking in the spa, at some point he was looking like having an hysterical outburst. But it was just a normal talk. And so on: expressions are often off-putting, ruining whichever atmosphere there was supposed to be.

Models in general are not that bad, some of them are pretty.

There are some coding errors: I chose to name the step-mom "Mommy", but MC addressed her as "Mrs. Cruz".

I don't mind the lack of sound or the interface that could be better, but with all due respect it's not more than 3 stars. (For now).

[v0.5.2]

The game has some very beautiful renders, nice characters, a decent enough story. I wish there were a bit more choices, but It's all good. Very promising, lots of potential! Hoping for more content soon!

As of 0.5.2, the game has terrible plot and pacing.
The plot is the same overused "Character going to new place and meeting a bunch of LIs".
MC looks like a kid who is trying to make Mickey McRich at 13, character models are off sometimes.
Also, the LIs and content is so sparse.
2/5. I would not recommend at this time.

A glass of unexpected events is the best way to describe this project. There's just no telling what real direction it's going to go or what you'll see due the lack of transparency from the creator and that can be a head scratcher for someone like me. The young man filled with unusual strained expressions and emotions was in the big city for all but a day before he ended up in a pleasure massage parlor. Now, there's apparently multiple perspectives from other characters so the MC isn't really the MC. And as I mentioned you don't know what you're going to see or hear dialogue or visual wise and I can't get into that. May as well play this blindfolded. Best of of luck to the Dev but this isn't for me.

The renders right now aren't bad. Some of them like the swim team in the showers show the game has promise, but there's just so much making it poor right now.

This biggest standout is that the author obviously fetishizes any non-white more than netflix does. There's some truly hideous scenes like the massage parlour and its painful slow panning and forced nudity and obesity, but there's a lot of other signs like the out of place hindu forehead spot and mc calling every single non white he sees stunning, no player choice in it.

The Mc looks around 12 years old, definitely younger looking than any of the li's and also shorter than all of them. All the women ridiculously go on and on about how built he is,yet he is also ultra skinny, no muscles to speak of.

Actually the slow pans of all the characters are totally unwanted, since the majority of li's are actually unattractive with unnatural boobs. it should really be the players choice whether they want to stare that hard at someone

We get some minor choice in the adoptive mothers name but we have no choice to rename pauline and cassidy (cassidy?? really????) and eula the licensing agreement, nor their relationship. Childhood friend just sounds weird.

The MC then makes endless shit decisions in the couple of scenes we have so far, most egregiously he runs at a gunman from 20m away all the while yelling to warn him. from that distance its stupidity not bravery and the game only continues due to plot armor and the assailant also be 12 years old.

The game has these constant hangups where you're forced into a loop until you open the phone - why it just open it automatically if it's forced!? That became a problem later when the icon was hidden because of some weird interface choice that i had to check the forums to resolve (as did many others). The same bugginess hits with the forced loserdom of being a guitar playing gimp - you have to guess the pathetically redundant passcode and even though I guessed it, it didn't accept it because of the space and I had to check the forums again. There was absolutely no reason to have a stupid passcode to skip the minigames literally noone wants

Past that there are weird writing choices, the author ALWAYS chooses more text than needed, he narrates what he has already shown like when hanna jumps into the pool. Letting the images do the speaking would feel more polished

... now with all that said, it's still a stronger start than many many novels and I do hope the dev gets this one on track and at least fixes the pain points

I downloaded because of the goofy looking renders, which are cartoony in an appealing way. And you know what? The visuals are pretty darn good in this VN.

Sadly, that's about as much praise as I can offer. Another example of just truly baffling mechanics in a porn game. Some low-lights include:
- Minigames. Don't want to play them? Good news! There is a button to 'skip and win'. Bad news, though - it requires a password that requires you to have paid attention to the insufferably poor dialogue.
- Dwarf MC. It's kind of nice to have a main character who is not 6'8, bulked AF, with a foot-long dick. Except in Independent Horizons, the dev decided to instead have a MC in college who is 5'2 and still has a foot long dick. Blech.
- Bad sandbox construction. This isn't a complaint about sandboxes in general; this is a tirade against THIS sandbox in particular. It is sooooo on the rails that it defeats the purpose of a sandbox with the sole exception of making players click more often. Take the whole 'phone' dynamic. Since sandbox games are meant to allow more freedom and choice for players, one would think that they might be able to ignore text messages or phone calls. WRONG! The game stops and loop with chiding messages until you answer the phone/respond to the text. Also, you're forced at various times to call LIs, whether you like them or not (and thanks to the writing, you definitely won't like them).

The mechanics really are intolerable. I can handle silly/poor writing; this is porn, so it's not like I need amazing prose. But this VN is infuriating.

OVERALL: 2/10

This reviews should be deleted. I reviewed the beta version of the game and that review is no longer applicable. This is now just placeholder text, as I wish to retract my former review, yet I see no way of deleting reviews, and any review that exists needs text. So this is replacement text that says nothing. My review of this game is not favorable, but I have no interest in leaving a longer review than that, so this review should be deleted as it is not constructive, and it should now have enough characters to allow me to submit it.

My old account lost it's password but been on this site for a number of years. This has potential but just starting out. No bad options and some really good break from conformity design choices. Will see where it goes in the future and if it continues but great foundation.

Very good game, very promising. The characters are well done. The rendering is of good quality. The animation is good but could be improved by being a little more fluid, but overall quality animation.

The quality of writing is also very present written in the manner of a novel. It changes compared to the majority of VN. I particularly appreciate it.

The characters are all interesting in my opinion. Can't wait to know more about them, and how they will evolve.

Suggestions:

With maybe sex scenes that don't necessarily involve the MC, if some girls don't interest us. To add even more depth to the characters and their story. By suggesting to the dev to plan sex scenes that involve other male characters than the MC. Without imposing it in order to please everyone. By giving us the choice to spy or not if he hears moans. Obviously if it is planned by the dev, the decision to include this element or not is up to him.

Very good game to watch for me. Keep up the great work on the game.

Pros:

- Renders
- Dialogue and grammar


Cons:

- Dialogue: While the dialogue was understandable...There was far too much narrating throughout this VN. A lot of it was overdramatic and unnecessary.

- Writing: The story is for the most part is a kinetic novel. No choices that matter and you couldn't avoid certain scenes which I'll get into shortly. The MC comes off as naive and very impressionable and not in a good way. The MC seemed smart enough to run interference in a couples argument yet is gullible enough to just except a job at a happy ending joint?

We stumble in a "Massage Parlor" and we see the owner giving a random an assjob. You can't avoid the scene instead she tells the MC to sit and watch and him being gullible and naive just does what she tells him to do. After the black Sigourney Weaver tells the MC that she gives happy endings the MC doesn't ask any questions and ends up showing more interest. He barely knows this women but unloads all of his intimate information on her. Also keep In mind none of this is avoidable and the fact that the MC is a virgin we end up getting a forced footjob. Total red flag for a guy like me. I don't care if she's a prostitution on the side but please give players the option to do other things besides a male prostitute or getting cheap thrills from a prostitute. What, is fast food not appealing anymore?

- Models: The Models for the most part are okay but the MCs face and expressions were cringe. It looked like he was straining the whole time and when he didn't have the constipated look he was sporting the special needs look.

- Gui/Mechanics: Having phones is a must apparently these days but if you're going to have that feature make sure it's simple to use. I would add a back button which should make checking texts a lot easier.