Ren'Py - Abandoned - Insight [v0.7.0] [Doragin]

Review for Insight [v0.6.0] "The Revival"
(Unofficial name but that's what I'm gonna call it)

I wanna start by saying my opinion is from the perspective of a fairly newer Ren'Py enjoyer, I've been playing games of this style for a little over a year so I believe I know what I'm talking about when It comes to what qualifies as a "Good Ren'Py/VN game" and lemme tell you this one is a diamond in the rough. I'll do my best to keep this review as least wordy as possible but uh.... no promises

In the Intro to the game we are introduced to our strapping young man who demonstrates that he has the ability to sense other people's emotions/feelings by a scene I can only describe as shock value. Don't get me the scene definitely draws your attention in and demonstrates how sensing works but after that it's completely forgotten. The sense mechanic is actually pretty cool and can have some great functionality in the future when you are tasked with making an important decision, however the prompts that inform you of your ability are a bit confusing at times. When you sense an emotion for feeling the prompt will always say "you feel *Blank* " which sometimes feels like it's referring to you the player and not the other person in the area. You could cut out the train ride and start the game from the moment he gets lost and the game wouldn't suffer at all, I point this out due to this first scene as it sets up the wrong impression.

In the following scene, you end up talking to yourself while lost on the streets showing us the wacky humor the game has to offer as we're put In an awkward moment where a young girl watches from the ally dumpster. This is where I feel in fell for this game, The awkwardness of the conversation and the back and forth teasing brings a smile to my face. This is when we're introduced to the first girl of our harem Noelle, you offer her shelter then boom! you're now into the main game which is open world.

There are plenty of Ren'Py games out there but not many of them justify a good reason for you to be involved with a Harem yet Insight makes a great attempt at stringing together characters to keep a steady pace. A perfect example of this is when you go to the coffee shop with Noelle and meet someone close to her, from there this girl will lead you to a job opportunity where you meet a large number of characters enough to finish off the harem candidates.

A perfect segway into another one of my praises which is the character designs!
I love the girls you meet so far, each one has just enough uniqueness that allows you to easily differentiate every girl from the last, yeah it's a very generic anime format with each girl having a color associated with them but It works really well here. That being said the colors aren't too loud, the shades are made so that the colors are easy on the eyes and don't distract you.

I've think I covered enough without spoiling all the naughty bits, so here comes my final thoughts on this project as a whole.

This game may not have huge amounts of content but what Insight makes up for is its identity allowing it to stand up to others and still provide a playthrough especially if you're like me and love some story and humor with a side of sex.
I do wanna mention that I downloaded this game for the first time as of [0.6.0] which is when the developer picked the project back up after a hiatus, I know this kinda goes against the rules but I think it's important to mention this because I always like to think about possibilities and if Doragin never updated this game I may not have ever found Insight.

This game has a ton of potential and I know for a fact that this game is getting my full support!

A very interesting and somehow lovely beginning. Cute models, a lot of ideas to release as far as I see. This will be a gem after some deep content (no pun intended), I'm sure.
Dev, keep it up. We believe in you!

review for v0.4.1

This game has an interesting premise, but ultimately poor execution. Depending on your tollorance for sandbox mechanics, there's nothing in the game that makes it terrible. But there's also very little that elevates it above average.

The idea of a main character who can read people's emotions is interesting. And it seems like the MC may not be the only person with abilities in the game. The opening scenes are amusing enough. But once the game begins it's sandbox gameplay, issues quickly arise.

One annoying thing is that traveling between rooms advances time by 1 minute. This time interval is small enough that it won't make you miss anything. But it's such an insigificant feature that I find it mildly annoying. Either time should not change when you travel, or it should change by a significant enough margin to actually make a difference in the gameplay (IMO). Generally I prefer time not to change when travelling and instead only change when players skip time, or perform an action of some sort that automatically advances time. (Note: also I don't see any point in actually using minutes. Just schedule events based on hours. It's easier for the player to skip through without feeling like they're missing something, especially when there's so little content available)

The next problem is navigation. It's annoying to navigate through the MC's home. Largely because it feels like the camera keeps flipping to show different angles in each room, so it doesn't feel like you logically came out of the room you have to click on to go back the way you came. I much prefer the "room button" method that other games use where you can instantly navigate from any room to any other.

Next, the writing and characters are pretty mediocre right now. Not bad. There's just very little to get attached to.

The renders are a step above passable. Some of them are kinda good. Most are underwhelming but again, never bad.

I think with more content these shortcomings would be easier to overlook. As is I'm not really interested in playing this game again until it has updated many times, or has a game-play overhaul. It can be improved though. There is definitely things here worth salvaging... it's just not an interesting game in its current form.

[0.3.2 review]

I'm a sucker for pointy eared devil waifus, But the concept of being able to sense the emotional state of the people around you to know what choice to make is a very fun mechanic, you wouldn't need a guide, walkthrough, cheats to progress through the game if you just read their emotions at the current state, this allows for some really cool obstacles/choices/interactions later down the road, I just wanted to start off with that, it's cool.

The graphics/textures are really nice, the animations that are currently in the game as of now are very fluid and not choppy.

I wish the house as a better layout tbh, felt wonky going through it, or maybe add a mini-map so players can progress through the house by clicking the pictures of the rooms they want to go in.

The "Alarm" mechanic is cool, I'm assuming a lot of time based events will exist because not only can you advance by a handful of minutes, but also single hours, or by increments of 4. With the alarm, you can quickly repeat certain events that happen at certain times, like how the main female protagonist is (Almost) always in the bathroom at 18:00 for you to peak in on.

The dialogue is well thought out and done as well, no complaints there.

Currently giving the game a 5, while there's not much content in the game, what is here is golden, it's definitely worth a play.