VN - Ren'Py - Intertwined [v0.13] [Nyx]

After I played the first section in the plane, I did not expect much from this game. The Render and scene quality was pretty meh, there was no music, and it just didn't feel that interesting.

I gave it a second chance and booted it up again and I'm very glad I did. The story and characters have been quite enjoyable. Quality has been improving and I'm looking forward to upcoming new chapters and re-playing the game with the re-renders.

A little concerned about the length of the game however, we are currently on chapter 10, and there seems to be a some paths left that we have not even begun exploring, like Brooke and Shacarri

For branching we have our main 5, and quite a few characters that seem like realistic main partners, like Elena, Valeria, Iris(maybe?)

On top of others that we will likely get a couple scenes for here and there:
Melissa, Gabi, Tori, Julia(?), Lakeyn(?), Rachel(?), Mom(?)

Curious to see where it goes from here, though I fear we may be in for increased dev time with episodes being shorter for any particular branch going forward

This VN sure shows the touch of a woman in writing. I congragulate the dev for the ambitious writing. In overall, it shows how fucked up things can get if serial monogamy and/or one night stands are too mainstream coupled with lack of contraception in a small town.

Lots of girls with distinct faces and realistic personalities and problems. Good renders, ok animations. Mild het intercourse in general. Unexpected ..cest.

Due to intrinsic issues and complexity in code, in the first playthrough many may experience a hit and miss and you might end up with the girl with the least checkpoints. It's OK tho cuz this game worth a couple of replays. One way to solve this might be giving girls inner dialogue as to show the player their interest in MC has gone or so. Thus, I had to get the walkthrough guide to optimize my experience and RPs.

As in v0.10, we didn't reach the climax yet, imo.

Hope dev keeps up the quality and gives this game the climax and the ending it deserves.

This is my first review on one of these VN's, I've played a good 65+ but this one will definitely be in my top 5 ever. The plot is exceedingly good, the LI's are fleshed out extremely well (screen time for some could be better), renders are okay but I've noticed them improving further into the game and the amount of content this game has is great. Also the MC is fantastic, finally a handsome and likable MC instead of the classic college fratboy.

The only con for me is the classic "RP System", not a huge fan of it and losing scenes because you might be missing "1 relationship point" from a very minimal choice.

Overall this game is definitely worthy of a 9.5/10, hope to see more great content I will definitely be supporting this author!

poorly written story, the mom is a hoe. Alexis is a great girl, and Layla is cute too. However, couldn't get over the mom I just hate her. If you like moms that are whores then this game is for you. Sex scenes are 2/10 there isn't much of passion in them.


Honestly, I have no idea how this game has high reviews. This game literally forces you to play with girls that will lie to you all the time and makes it somehow your fault for being lied to or made fun of.

The mom is a bitch who only cares about how hot men look like and not their personality, your neighbor is a bitch who wants your dick just because you're hot.

Now, all of these things would've been fine if there was an option of revenge or having no scene with the mom and other bitchies. But no you're forced to treat your hoemom nicely, you're forced to treat the girls that lie to you nicely.

Story might be written by a feminist I dunno.

Intertwined.

Finally got around to playing the update (v0.10.2).

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Melissa's very first scene with the MC is a dream sequence...really? Developers still haven't figured out that this trope sucks and kills anticipation, not enhances it? You know you are beating around the bush with a character far too much when you decide to make their first full scene with the MC a dream sequence, in the 10th update,,,, and it wasn't even a tease of a scene. It was literally a fully fledged scene.

On top of this, I think there is just way too much going on here now. Too many girls/LI's, another extremely common trope I am not a fan of.

This is also why I think Melissa got a dream sequence for her first scene, Nyx probably thought "oh shit, I really need to give Melissa a scene with the MC, but want to keep the slow burn going between them" So as a result, we got the dream sex scene. If you absolutely must make a dream sequence scene, make it more of a tease. I think showing an entire first sex scene this way is a massive mistake. Always have, and always will. Intertwined isn't the first VN to do this and sadly will not be the last.

Dream sequence rant over, let's move on to another rant.

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I only really care for Valeria and Melissa, I also like Iris, Nikki & Layla too but all of these girls get sidelined to extremes to fit in a lot of other girls. Pretty sure even more "LI's" are planned too.

Why can't developers ever consider quality over quantity? There are quality girls in Intertwined, but the quantity of them diminishes the entire experience.

I really love a lot of what Intertwined has to offer. Gorgeous girls, with fleshed out relationships with the MC. It is quite well written when it wants to be., the renders are more than serviceable.

This would all be great if only there weren't so many love interests for the MC. This isn't just a fault of Intertwined, however. It's not even really a fault at all if you ask most people, the more the merrier in these games apparently. I just personally feel burnt out playing these stories where my favorite girls get sidelined to fit in so many other love interests, as well as waiting extremely long periods for an update just to see that the girls I like the most aren't even in said update, or get dream sequences for their scenes instead of real ones.

When all is said and done, would I recommend Intertwined? Absolutely. There is a lot here to like & enjoy. As with most Visual Novel's however, get ready to feel disappointed when the girls that you take a shine to the most don't get enough content, in order to fit in a ridiculous amount of LI's for the MC.


And I will say it one more time, please stop with the dream sequence bullshit dev's, for a characters very first scene with the MC especially. It literally ruins the hype.

The story itself is great for a school setting. Just keep in mind that for most of the "love interests" it is a little slow paced. Sceens are also great, no problems here.

But the decision-making part of the game is what's bothering me. This game have meaningful decisions but it's turned up to eleven. Having said that, it is almost impossible to handle without a walkthrough. You want to have sceens with one particular character but suddenly you get -10 relationship because you didn't help some other character which happend to be her friend.

But otherwise it is a great game and has decent amount of content as of v0.10.2. Just keep it in mind.

Seriously one of the top 5 games that I have played so far.
The story is engaging, and not one-dimensional. While there are relationship plots galore, a few side stories are also brewing throughout the game. Characters' relationships between one another AND the MC are carefully cultivated, rather than the typical, "Your Hot, let's do it" you might see in many games. With Intertwined you feel engaged & Invested in the stories between the characters. I'm impressed with the forethought and planning that allows all the characters to be connected to one another either anecdotally or via direct interactions and plotlines. Very clever!

Generally:
Good to great renders
fantastic characters that you care about
Great writing (There are a few minor translation issues such as context, or grammar, but these are easily forgiven and not so egregious as to interfere with the immersion.)

Props to the developer on this one.

Sometimes too much retrospective, but I understand way. I love this game! So good story, and very good characters, not just clones. Every girl is interesting somehow. Sometimes is hard to choose, I have multiple saves with other path, but I understand that. Keep going!

Intertwined could be a solid five star experience simply because it's doing a great job of being an unapologetic telenovela of the highest order. The plot is light to dramatic, with lots of choices and unexpected twists, characters you can empathise with and relationships you can nurture and develop and the stakes for some of the protagonists are high.

But there are also things about Intertwined that I find problematic. This AVN forces you to make mutually exclusive decisions between LI-paths. And even though I think that's okay in principle, I absolutely don't like the fact that the LI I didn't choose almost completely disappears from the plot.
Just because I choose Nikki or Erynn doesn't mean I don't want to have any meaningful interactions with Cara or Alexis. But in Intertwined that's exactly what happens. I feel punished by this mechanic if I'm being completely honest and it breaks my immersion quite a bit.
The way I see it and the way I played the MC he would never abandon a friend like that. It's an artificial design decision that goes contrary to his personality.

Music would do Intertwined a lot of good. There are much worse AVNs that do a much better job of carrying emotions with music and sound.

And finally, I'm not a fan of the points system. Many scenes or relationships are lost because you miss simple decisions. Without a walkthrough, it is VERY difficult to get on some of the LI paths, even if you really like them and treat them with affection.
The plot is written in such a way that a plot-decision can overshadow a relationship-decision and your relationship can suffer if you follow what you consider a plot choice. For instance, just because I want to catch up with Erynn after not having seen her for YEARS that doesn't mean I lack interest or are disloyal to Elena. The game will treat it like that though.

Intertwined is really well done, don't get me wrong. But some of the design decisions are questionable and significantly spoil the overall experience.

largely i enjoy this game. sorting out paths can be tricky, what qualifies or eliminates you from one girl's path is vague. some thing triggers are obvious and some others will probably require a walkthrough. renders have been compressed to keep file size smaller which is appreciated for those of us with bad wifi. the dialogue is decent, it tracks and make sense and characters have a nice back and forth. as it is a work in progress, there are a handful of typos and syntax errors.

characters are often described by a first name so then the last name and who they are and are related to is a "surprise". this gets old after awhile. the whole concept of everything being interconnected is an interesting novelty, but i believe the concept has diminishing returns. this is especially the case with repeated playthroughs, because it hinges on surprise and you already know what that is, you find yourself paying less attention. the push and pull between tension & set up vs surprise.

there is a prevalent use of flashbacks to give backstory and because so much focus and time and renders are devoted to this, i feel it disrupts the pacing and tension of what is going on in the present. it puts focus on the story not the story teller and how they remember the past and what they choose to tell, and what their reactions are to sharing.

the other weird thing is cheating amongst the main character's parents is vilified, yet in game you can pursue multiple girls at once and have a relationship with a married woman. i'm sure because things are intertwined the girls would find out eventually and it would be handled accordingly, but some consistency would be nice if we're going to claim the moral high ground.

on another note, the lack of music is surprising. i checked my speakers twice to assure they weren't broken. i know licensing music is expensive and most sources refuse to allow their music to be in a pornographic game regardless, but something would be nice, it feels empty as is.

the branching paths causes updates to be slow on account of the variety of content and the tricky little variables. the longer the development cycle takes, the more competition this game has. in that way, games with a well defined smaller premise have an advantage over a developer that is attempting a lot by themselves or with a very small crew. i would hate to have to code this game.

a couple other minor points, erin and lexi, if you spend the night with them go to sleep with makeup on. this is addressed in one of the latest updates where you see a makeup-less lexi. another thing is that there are a couple of lines of dialogue where the main character says addresses the plot conveniences of iris being alexis's roommate or his mom going to college with adriana. addressing criticism in game is meta and while i get it, it doesn't excuse the issues.

but the developer is doing the best they can and has a clear vision for what they want to do and is sticking to it. while the game is not perfect, you can't really ask for more than that.

oh, and if we are making pokemon analogies, layla is charmander, lexi is charmeleon and adriana is charizard.

The good
good scenario
good renders

The bad
Limited sex scenes in both duration and number
Points problem the player has to collect points to unlock new scenes one mistake and you are f****d
Only one girl the game restricts the player to be with 1 girl at a time making plus te lack of sex scenes with 90% of the girls this is b****t
Dialogue at sex scenes are terrible

Conclusion there are much netter games out there this is a waste of time

So I was looking for a new game to play and came across this one - it had a high overall rating and the renders from the preview pics in the opening post looked promising...

This is a slower-moving story that focuses more on character / narrative / relationship development, which in my opinion is a very good thing - I find these preferable to games where the MC meets a girl and within an afternoon they're already banging 6 ways from Sunday.

The good stuff in the game are the women are gorgeous, relationships are pretty well-developed, minus all of the women having the fairly typical "goo goo eyes for MC at first sight" that we see so often in VNs - minimal effort required to initiate things with them.

The story is well-developed. You can tell a lot of planning and thought went into the game's narrative - there is a lot of branching code involved for all the interactions and relationship possibilities, so I do give the dev a lot of credit for managing it all.

The negatives are no music in the game, which detracts heavily from the environment - I find that VNs with roaming / situational / character-themed music really helps add a lot of emotion into the game.

And the biggest negative for me is how the mother (Emily) / son relationship is seemingly handled. In the years I've been enjoying VNs, I don't think I've ever really gotten into a mother / son relationship - it's generally not my kink - in the incestual situations of games, I am more into brother / sister stuff, but in this game, I found the mom so unbelievably attractive, that pretty much within the first 20 minutes of playing the game, she was in the #1 slot for me and hasn't budged through Chapter 10. I assumed she was romanceable as there are spots all through the game where you're being shown her cleavage and given choices on how to handle situations with her - even sleeping in her bed and waking up fondling her boobs. There are places later on where you have to decide whether to kiss her on the mouth or not. Whether to let her know she looks sexy or not, etc. See Vidal's Post 17111 for some example screenshots (as long as they're up, at least) - https://f95zone.to/threads/intertwined-v0-10-nyx.53676/post-9328875
What I've come to unfortunately discover in my perusal of the game thread after playing through Chapter 10 is that in all likelihood (if not a certainty) there will NOT be a romance option with the mom. I've lost track of the # of posts where it was stated or implied that that the Dev is trolling people with the development of this relationship. Now I don't know that for a fact, I'm just going off of what I've read in the thread, so we'll see. If something changes, I'll update my review [and the score] accordingly, but I do find this pretty off-putting if it's the case and I think it reflects poorly on the developer as it's literally just teasing people, if true. I am generally the type that, after playing a game on F95, if I enjoyed the game, I like supporting developers by going and buying their game on Steam or GOG and sometimes even backing the game on Patreon to offer additional monetary support, but in this case, needless to say this will negatively affect the score I leave for the game and it will remain an F95 exclusive. This was the first game I've played by this Developer and will likely be the last.

Amazing game looking forward for its continuation! The girls are looking AMAZING (11/10!), at least for my taste.

The replay-ability is high, your choices actually matter (at least more than most other game)!

I am afraid that giving you that many choices will come at the cost of development time. Drastically increasing the paths will exponentially increase the development time, I think (not a developer myself).

I am going to give it a 5/5, not meaning that the game is perfect, but comparing to other game is definitely into the top 10% and a must play game.

Current game version: 0.10

-no audio
- some models are really ugly
-stupid story about how the mom is a lesbian ho who started dating mc "dad" being pregnant with another dude and cheated him with friends mom- and you are told this with graphic detail and you cant skip it
-weak mc who cant be an asshole to the stupid things he being told
+sporty "sister" model is great

Probably my favorite AVN right now.

The amount of thought that was put into this project is astonishing.
You play the update and then find out you haven't seen even 70% of what is really there.

I'm feeling extremely invested into the game as Nyx writes very believable relationships and character developments.

I don't want it to end too soon and I'm enjoying every moment of this story.
I hope Nyx manages to create all the content and ideas they have in the mind.

Val is the best girl!

- No sound or music
- Below average animations for 2022
- Lacks humor
- Some parts of the plot is just plain stupid and is to create drama, really no choices. Every choices is tied to love interest point/path.
+ Characters are pretty well written
+ renders are decent

to me its not memorable

Although the author does a good job overall, the girls' faces appear in many games , the first time I played it I thought it was the work of a fan .
The story itself is wonderful, but the problem is that it's all images that have been used before .
I hope the author can finish this work, although the updating speed is very slow .

This is easily one of the best of the Renpy dating games out there!

First of all, most games I give a chance but generally after a few minutes the dialogue is so stale that I'm just skipping through to the "action". But here its fun and like the story it has unexpected twists. The women in the game are almost universally gorgeous but the specific appearances are varied enough to make it interesting. The sex scenes are well-distributed and VERY well done, too.

Highly recommended!

For me, the gold standard of AVN games, S tier.

Pros:

Good art and renders.
Realistic meshes in renders.
Nice variety of characters and faces.
Good storytelling.
The writing feels organic, and many scenes bring characters a sense of life past anything I've played.

Cons:

Not long enough.
Animations could be better.

But overall, the drawbacks are minor relative to the quality.

First I want to thank some dude on Discord for suggesting this VN to me.
I was reluctant to try this at first Because i wasn't impressed by the previews. (But art inside is actually good)
Episode's 1-4 didn't leave an impression on me. I started to think that this is just another porn game. But the later episodes are great. I'm glad i didn't stop playing it.
The storyline keeps it's promise to it's title.
THE CHARACTERS INSIDE ( except Tori‍♂) HAS AN ATTITUDE ❤.