VN - Ren'Py - Intertwined [v0.13.2] [Nyx]

Version 0.12.3 Rather impressed with this one. Very good graphics, gameplay and interactions.

The Dev has put allot into this one, many, many twists, turns and "intertwined" relationships. This is not a harem and so you have multiple LIs that you can date, break with, and ...jeez a little confusing to be honest.

I found it very much worthy of a 4 star rating, but I honestly had a hard time liking it. Personally I am not a fan of harem games, as those are just designed to be very easy, you get them all kinda thing, and no stress. This is not a harem, heck even dating 2 of them and you get into trouble - thus "Intertwined." Cool concept, but frustrating, I think by intent.

This game adds stress and consequences for your actions, but at this point in the game it ends up being frustrating as some of the LIs are not finished, you don't know what paths have more content, probably will become clearer as the game continues to fill out.

Excellent character development, beautiful graphics. Look forward to seeing what comes next.

One of the best adult games ever made. The characters are all very pretty and tons of them are my favorite in the genre. The writing is very good, especially the dialogue which is very witty and emotional at moments. As a bisexual man its awesome to have a really hot male character in the game. It makes the sex scenes alot better and this game has the hottest male main character ive seen in a game.

Exceptionally well written and super hot game, models are stunners (valeria, looking at you) and the premise is unique and interesting. this is one of my top favorites on the site at this time. Why must reviews be 200 words?

V0.12.1

hard not to like this one. plenty of characters to chase after, enough to meet many tastes and the writing is on point. none of that childish script that makes my ears leak IQ. plot is pretty vanilla for my taste but it is delivered very well.

not played many routes, as that's an end game thing for me but what i have seen has entertained my reader's itch, even if it IS basically a daytime tv drama. every time the credits roll i start humming the theme tune to 'neighbours'

there may be some shocks down the line, or it might just pan out as mildly entertaining as it has been so far. either way there are hints that the writer is as capable as the artist and i feel confident it will keep it's quality to the bitter/sweet end.

good stuff

This AVN has a very intricately woven plot line that mingles the stories of all the characters, as per the name "Intertwined." The graphics and models are very high quality. The character development is very good. The different paths you can take gives this a ton of replay-ability, trying to figure out how to romance each girl. There are only hints of a taboo topic, as of Version 11, but nothing taboo yet. One of my top 10 AVNs, all time.

Edit: As of version 12, there appears to be strong indications of taboos in some relationships.

The women are amazing, they have personalities and they are not two dimensional, especially Alexis. The story is well thought out. It's like a realistic slice of life where MC's dick isn't the cure for everything like most AVN's.

The most clever aspect of this game is how scenes vary depending on your relationship score. The only drawback is that I wish I could discern whether I am on a specific LI's path. However, it's not that bad because it adds to the replayability.

I'm still discovering new ways for Alexis to dump me.

One of the best games out there. Well written, good models, ample content. Nice for there to be a game with realistic consequences for prior choices instead of simply making it an absurd harem.

Hopefully not many new characters moving forward since we are 3.5 years in, the story feels about ~halfway finished at this point. Given that the story starts out about Erynn... would also make sense for there to be some character and plot development there

This is very clearly a five star game. The dev has put some serious thought into the branching, so much so that I am still finding 'new' stuff after a dozen playthroughs. The models look good and are attractive without the oversized udders that seem so predominant in VNs. And seemingly innocuous choices matter - imagine my delight when I found the way to Elena! My only gripe is that the wroting occasionally seems a bit off, but I think the dev isn't a native English speaker, and the rough edges get smoothed over a little later on.

Summary for ADHD afflicted: interesting story, attractive models, choices matter. 5*.

Look I really tried to like this game, but there is just sooooooooo much drama. Everything is drama drama drama. You also get "choices" in that you can choose to pursue a girl, but you don't get choices in what happens. When you later learn the big secret from your mom, I thought it was quite disgusting and wanted nothing to do with her but still i'm forced to hug her and talk nicely to her and all this other stuff. You don't get choice, you have the illusion of choice. A shame cause the girls are pretty and the writing is decent, but between the lack of choice in the non stop drama, honestly just watch a movie or something.

I love this VN. It is the most immersive VN I have ever played. Each character has its own distinct character, sense of humor and behavior. The story is very good, well thought out and developed. There are different LI and it is worth playing each one of them, because each one has its peculiarities and directs you in a different way. The choices you make have a significant influence on the development of your character and your environment.

Review of v0.11.2...

I really enjoyed Intertwined. Yes it's the typical 'boy comes back to hometown after a long time away' trope, but there are enough twists and surprises to keep it interesting.

The character models are all gorgeous and realistic. Each character also has their own distinct personalities. They are emoted well, and come across as believable.

The dialogue between the characters feels organic and is amusing at times.

There are a few issues I had though....

The writing could be better. I don't know if this is a translation or if only specific sections are or something, and while some areas are fine, there are glaring grammar and syntax errors through the writing in others.

The writing also seems to be inconsistent in places. For example, there is a part where a girl who the MC was previously in a relationship with suddenly shows up to MC's house with a suitcase and clearly upset about something. She cries and talks to the MC's mother. There is never any explanation as to why she suddenly showed up or why she was upset. A few in game days later the MC makes a comment about how the girl has to leave the next day. Again, there was never any indication as to how long she would be there or when she was leaving. Her visit starts with the girl suddenly showing up clearly upset about something and needing a place to stay and ends with everybody acting like she was on a planned visit. It's like there are two writers and one didn't know or care what the other was doing or had planned.

The lewd scene animations are decent, but the lewd scenes rely too much on one or two animations meaning the lewd scenes can be over in basically two clicks.

Some LI's (Valeria) show up pretty late in the current build. So unless the game is only half completed I'm not sure how you could reasonably get anywhere with them.

I was hoping there would be at lease some minor harem elements to the game (I like both Alexis and Eryn), but with the way the game is turning out it doesn't appear so.

I know I seem to have a lot of complaints, but these are mainly my own personal nitpicks (except for the part about the writing). But despite those I would recommend this game to anybody who my be interested in it and I hope to see it completed so I can return and visit these characters again.

This is one of my favorites VN's ever and I sure played some. What I love the most about it is the fact the every girl has her own pros and cons. the LIs are well rounded and all very likeable. They are all super HOT also. For those who want a harem VN go look elsewhere but for people like me who enjoy multiple paths and like the fact that you can play it again and again and have different outcome this is one of the best VNs of it's kind.

I downloaded this when it was on 0.5 and played through it then, didn't think much of it at the time and moved on. The project has since then had several years (I think) to cook and boy howdy have they cooked.

I'd like to preface this with that I do think this is a masterpiece in the making, at least if things progress at the same level of polish and quality.

There are some rough patches, some animations which stutter and take a bit to load in before they play though and sometimes you just click past stuff without seeing the animation which causes some scenes to shift dramatically, but these are small complaints.

I wasn't sure what I thought about the story to begin with but coming back now to 0.11.2, I can say that there are several things that first irked and grated on me. The shift between graphical design of the characters first annoyed me, especially Erynn, but It's grown on me since. There was some initial annoyance but I quickly realized the graphical upgrade wasn't just for character design but for everything, backgrounds, setting, everything. Pleasantly surprised.

I had a day where I was just lazing about and kept playing, got to the point where the game ended in 0.5 and it just kept playing. I expected it to eventually end since this isn't a finished release and the story is still all up in the air, no conclusion in the near future. The game kept going way longer than I had anticipated and I soon realized I had spent the entire day playing the game, getting more and more invested in the story, especially since I kept doing the same stupid mistakes as previously.

You've managed to create quite a well written storyline with many intersecting points but also many clearly defined routes that have each girl mean something and also have an existence outside the MC. Some decisions radically alter what happens and that's a positive thing, at least to me. It shows that there are more to each different girl than simply a difference face or hair color. Each girl is unique in a way and mutually exclusive with others.

I was invested in many different girls plots and the culmination with Layla's pool party and the day after really had me hooked to continue and I was sorely disappointed that's where the current patch ended but I'm quite looking forward to how the project continues. I can see several things happening, you're hinting at things and it's looking bright from where I'm standing. Good job!

[Version Reviewed: v0.11.2]

What I liked:

+ Dialogues: The dialogues are quite well written both in the emotional aspects as well as the humorous ones.

+ Characters: The main character is mostly a blank slate. But, the love interests come in varying levels of being interesting. Most of them have an easily recognizable personality outside their love for the MC.

+ Romance: I think the game has some of the best romantic relationships among AVNs. I suppose it's the benefit of having a slow burn-ish plot development.

What I'm indifferent about:

= Premise: Standard 'attractive guy goes back to his hometown, most women love him and he has a few male friends' but without any incest. The only ground breaking thing about the premise is that most women are connected to each other by some form that the MC doesn't notice, but the players easily do.

= Story: While I enjoyed the slice of life story about the AVN. I do think that the game relies too much on pulling the rug under the MC's feet. It's kinda boring tbh.

= Art: Wildly inconsistent. Some characters like Val and Emily have great character models. Others like Lexi have very old ones.

What I disliked about the game:

- Animations: Yeah, it's pretty poor for a game that's so popular. Think it's the stock animations, yet it's pretty janky at the same time.

- Game Mechanics: It's difficult to play the game without a walkthrough. The player gets punished heavily for making a wrong choice about a few episodes back which leads to the collapse of a path. Val (who has quickly become one of my favorites) appears too late in the game which prevents us from entering into a relationship without causing problems with less interesting LIs.

Overall Rating: 7/10. Solid game all round. The humor is excellent. Could improve on it's artistic elements.

Intertwined is a really well built AVN.

The story revolving around the connection between all the people the MC will meet provide some interesting dynamics and character depth with the "all is not as it seems" .

By example without spoilers, the character Alexis that first interaction will basically make you think "oh ... yet another character attracted by MC magic penis like in 90% of the AVN production" will give you the wrong impression of what Intertwined is all about because it is defintively not a case of "oh another crappy fuckfest like 90% of the AVN are".

As the story develop you'll find so many much depth to that Alexis character that suddenly what happened early will actually make a lot more sense.

Filled with interesting characters and surprising story turn of event and really well written relationships progression and dialogues, Intertwined is a really great AVN with many paths and many events that are linked to your decisions and which love interest the MC will pursue, providing a lot of replayability.

Only weakness is that the MC is sometime completely oblivious at some clues given to him in dialogues and have difficulty to add those obvious clues together to guess who is really who or their connections.

In term of characterisation i found the MC very annoying to unlikable level : sometime talking as if he had some vast experience of life despite he's only 18 , sometime talking as if he was a creep that just got puberty and sometime being just stupid at figuring out something right in front of him.
With the usual AVN "MC has magic penis that attract all the women" trope that is just annoying.

Basically the interest i found in Intertwined was the women characterisation, the MC isn't likeable at all.

still it is completely worthy of 4stars , could have been 5 if the MC was a better character

INTERTWINED: MADDENING MOTIFS AND MIRRORS

Some thoughts and observations on the game:

I came to AVNs late in the game, and later in life. (Although my memory might be playing tricks on me since I recall playing one of those DOS proto AVNs in high school.)

If people came to BADIK for the sex but stayed for the story, I came to Intertwined for the sex but stayed for the drama and the characters.

It's a game about shocking and unexpected connections (in a six degrees of separation telenovela manner), and how history, behavior and life patterns can repeat itself through different generations. But it's also a game about small moments, emotional subtext, intimate gestures and flickers of feelings across characters' faces.

At her best, Nyx uses similar characters scenes, situations, and finds interesting and fun character and plot progression variations that aren't repetitive or redundant. At her worst it's a slow-paced telenovela with all the annoying tropes and cliches magnified.

Like elements of poetry, music and film, in this AVN, it appears that Nyx likes to repeat scenes, actions, locations and characters with obvious or subtle variations. These variations can be redundant at their worst, but at their best, allows the player to make narrative connections, compare and contrast, and emphasize character and relationship development by picking up on tiny, subtle changes.

(Narrative Mirror Scenes, Parallel Narrative Lines, Parallel Scenes, Plot Devices, Motifs, Comparison and Contrast, Scene and Situation Repetitions and Variations, Mirror Reflections of Characters and Mirror Sets of Characters, Visual Repetitions and Variations)


Aside from it being a practical use of limited game assets, as a technique, Nyx likes using the same location with the same characters (usually a pair of characters) repeating similar actions and situations but with subtle variations in their character development, individual behavior and interaction with each other.


Another one of Nyx's strengths is her ability to create so many variations of character's expressions on their faces. The subtle shift of an eyebrow, a look in the eyes, the direction of the eye stare, the turn of a mouth corner can communicate more than one emotion or mental state of a character without using any words. The effect is quite endearing and emotive. It helps me empathize with the different characters (especially the ladies.)

As for the game's flaws, at worst, the characters have inconsistent writing and development. The developer trolls both its fans and detractors by making creative decisions based on their reactions. The developer can create drama only to retcon it when she writes herself into the corner. The slow pace will drive a lot of gamers away - even those used to slow burns.

It's definitely not for everyone, but what keeps me coming back to this maddening game? Obsessive re-playability and it made me care about what happens to the characters, even the ones I don't like. Like it or not, I am emotionally invested and emotionally intertwined to see this game to end or abandonment.

Baffled by some of the poor ratings. The lewd scenes aren't the greatest, but all of the LIs are hot (and really likeable), the story is interesting for a slice of life style game, and the main character actually looks and acts his age. The writing is decent to good, and the art in general (scenes, models, lighting, etc.) is all really nice.

I do wish it allowed for a harem as I'm sure some tough choices are coming, and it's a bummer that the mom is not a LI, but those are design decisions, not quality issues, and I'm not docking a star for them.

(Review is as of 0.11.2)

What I hoped for, based on the title: main character does main character things, circumstances draw the people he interacts with together, events have a ripple effect on himself and others

What I got: everyone already knows at least a few other people the MC interacts with, but this is never brought up unless it adds a plot twist; the MC doesn't recognize people from his teens that he hasn't seen in five years, despite the fact that I've recognized people from my teens 20 years later, even after they went bald, lost 50 pounds, and started a family.

I think the creator took the term "Intertwined" a bit too literally. In this case, once you realize that everyone is already connected in some way, twists cease to be surprising or even all that interesting. Instead, it's just "I wonder which character they already know". That will usually be answered at the exact moment that it creates some kind of complication, and not a moment before.

I felt there was also a lot of inconsistency when it came to interacting with the girls in the MC's life. Check her out at this point or look down her shirt at this point - bonus points, she likes it! Check her out at this point or look at her butt at this point - lose points, what the hell were you thinking? You can also completely sabotage your own efforts just because a new character came along that seemed interesting to you. You've had some good interactions with this one character, and then a new character catches your eye. You haven't formally committed to anything yet, but you want to pursue the newcomer? Well, time to torch this past one!

Lastly, the two girls who I've found to be the most interesting at this point have very little content to them. Sure, that will likely change eventually, but 11 chapters in, it's a bit frustrating.

On the more positive side, the renders are good (the animations, however, are not) and I think most of the characters are actually written pretty well. They talk like people. They mostly act like people. The actual plot is relatively easy to follow and at least semi-grounded in how people might interact, with the exception of the MC's closest guy friend, who turns so quickly that I'm surprised he didn't get whiplash. The MC isn't amazing, but at least he doesn't approach life like everything will just work out for him because he's that damn awesome, and that's appreciated.

This is a ship that can still be righted. The characters are interesting enough to keep the story going, and there are absolutely ways to "Intertwine" everyone without resorting to contrivances. I hope that it does get righted, because there is a lot of potential.

Unless this is one of the first Daz games you've played, I don't recommend bothering with this game. This is the kind of game I'd expect from a Dev with ~200 patrons, not 1,200+.

-The sex scenes consist of the default Daz animations that you'll immediately recognize if you've ever played a Daz game before, and are quite choppy even with using that beginner's aid.

-Pretty much every character has barely any sexual content. That wouldn't be a problem if this was a story-focused game but it is not. It's a "son returns home to Mommy and gets with every girl around him" game except the dev forgot to add the actual incest and decided to branch every path off in ridiculous ways, with "plot twists" that can be seen coming from a mile away. I call them plot twists, but everyone guessed every single one of them long before they actually happened. There's a lot of childish, stupid drama that is just shoved down your throat.

-The (subjectively)best girls don't actually have their own path, and after over 3 years of development, the content for them is slim to none at all. In what is basically a dating sim, some girls are only actually available by being a cheater.