VN - Ren'Py - Jessica O'Neil's Hard News [v0.65 BETA] [stoperArt]

It's not very often I find a story with a female protag that I enjoy. But this one is worthy of all the praise it receives. The amount of dialogue changes and routes/scene variations is pretty astounding. The story itself is attention grabbing. A newspaper journalist tracking a story about a vigilante that her veteran boyfriend (who you can cuck or be loyal to) is somehow involved in. Juicy stuff. Excited to see where this story goes and hopefully we won't have to wait too long between updates. Also, the renders are fantastic and while the animations are not consistent they are still very good.

Insanely good. Like, the best game on here good. And it particularly blows about 99% of other female protagonist games out of the water.

The renders, the plot, the themes, the sex scenes, the writing and the dialogue, pretty much everything about it is great.

If the content at all interests you, and you were ever to support one of these NSFW games monetarily, this should be the one.

But... it's really just a big shame that Stoper seems to have trouble finding the motivation or creative inspiration to work on the game consistently, and is more or less GRRM-lite. Updates have become infrequent.

The author has expressed a desire to fix that, so hopefully it will be improved somehow.

I think it's a great game, what's most appealing about it is the quality of the renders, which are great. The story, so far, is very solid and has been growing in eroticism. In short, it's one of those games that you look forward to with each update.

The quality of the game is out of this world. Easily top 10 games ever developed.

The only real bad thing that I can say about is the extremely long development circles. I am not sure it it will ever get finished.

I definitely recommend it.

Current version: 0.65 BETA
Rating: 5/5 (it would take 10/10 if the scale was more detailed and probably even 20/20 ...).

Simple rating system; 1 star for each of the 5 categories. I round up in each category, so as long as the category leans hard towards positive, despite what I felt was lacking, then the category gets a full star.

Version .65
Story: There's a good story behind this game that progesses at a good pace. It's leading but it definitely keeps you guessing. The story is believable and not overly sensationalized.

Character Development: I wouldn't say the development was deep but it's sufficient given the game is story driven. There's a good variety of personalities and body types; ranging from young to old and from HOT to NOT. The characters are relatable and even the antagonists (light) are somewhat likeable. I say "light" because there aren't any hard core villains yet as of the current version, and the FMC has full control over the direction/decisions during the interactions with any potential antagonists. One of the things I like most is the lack of weak/soft characters. There's nothing worse than a weak, insecure MC or FMC lost in his/her thoughts that ends up being a door mat for all the other characters. They all seem to be at least fairly confident, none of which are getting run over by a bus. The only thing I'd like to see more of is character expressions, it seemed a bit lacking in this area. IMO... the more expressive a character is the easier it is to relate/bond with it.

Writing: The writing is solid. I didn't encounter any grammar or spelling issues, at least none that I detected. Most of the script is dialogue, very little "thought" monologues (which can be very annoying). The writing could be a bit more clever, and humorous, but that's just my preference and the lack of doesn't take away from the quality. There are plenty of choices and the player is in full control of the direction of the game. Sure, there's some sharing, lesbian and NTR content but it's all avoidable. I should also note that those paths seem soft, none of it feels bitter or revengeful by the FMC and a lot of it includes the MC... which I enjoyed. There are plenty of sex scenes and they're animated - although minimal. The animation is okay, not great, but it's good enough not to detract from the immersion.

Render Quality: Again, very solid in this area. The lighting of the images weren't under/over saturated and there's plenty of images to compliment/express the dialogue. There's plenty of pov and camera angles to keep the interest, and the scene environments changed often as well.

Immersion: The story flows well and stays on point. Nothing triggered and ejected me from the ride, I felt engaged from start to finish. There were a few moments where the dialogue felt like it was floating but no doubt that's due to a scene that could've been more fleshed out based on my path choice, so that's on me.

Final Note: There's a lot of Dev bashing in the thread about the time gaps in updates, and a lot of the comments are fueled with emotion. Clearly, if you're emotional then you're invested in the game. If you're invested in the game then support a developer that delivers quality content, even it it's not at the pace your comfortable with. If you're a unhappy patron then stop your patronage, it's that simple. If you're not a patron then you're getting free entertainment and you have no room to complain. Sure, I'd like to see faster updates too but I'm just happy to get quality content... which is very rare in the VN world. Nobody is inspired to deliver when they're getting hammered with insults and complaints. Nuf said...

I like it very much, mostly because of the story. Playing as Jessica is very immersive, whichever route is taken. I especially applaud the creator of the game for not having unavoidable (and stereotypical) corruption, i.e. there are viable choices for Jessica., and nuances. It may not update often but when it does it is always a treat. Outstanding work.

Very nice renders, story and plot is amazing. There is no rush and the game explores the story and characters slowly.
The only downside is the content creation and development speed, as the game is already in development for over 6 years, but still has only few hours of gameplay.

This is a great slow burn story I thought that really held my attention. I personally liked most of the characters. They boyfriend is a bit of a tool, but I guess that helps with the reason for our MC to become corrupted. Nearly all of the h-scenes were quite hot and I'm really looking forward to seeing them progress. While the models and renders aren't the best, they certainly work well.

Plenty of negatives though. First is the extremely long development time between releases. If this had a lot of choice variation, or extensive animations, than I'd get it. However, choices in the game are literally "do you screw around with this person or not" and the animations are very minimal and rather basic.

Either way, I'll be keeping it on my watchlist and will look forward to this VN progressing.

+ renders
+ nice threesomes

- Jess bf is a loser. Her neighbor have to teach him how to eat pussy, that's embarrassing xd
- story/characters are boring
- unlikable mc, she is a bit arrogant
- game is too much focused on Heather and Conner - both have most content
- so many years of development and Jess still don't get a real action with other dudes
- no music
- no gangbang/dp scenes
- Jess logic: doing lewd stuff with other girl is totally ok, but with guy is not. Why she is so resistant every time? It makes no sense


I expected much more from this avn. 2 stars for now

Too bad about the long update cycle (since 2018), this is truly a gem. From the pacing to the renders, it's a truly 5 star game.

Enough story for a strong base, but nowhere near complete so looks like another 5 years easy, if anyone wants to wait. 4 stars because it's more likely to end up abandoned.

Great renders with somewhat underwhelming animations. Story and character progression is moving in slow motion. What makes this somewhat of a letdown is the development speed and lack of content on the different routes. So far it's alot of teasing thats it...

Great renders but average playing experience, Jessica is hot but she is not very likeable.

The game very good, hope had chance to go steam.
Jessica very beautiful, This how a female protagonist game should be.

But developer very slow update always reason and patreon member too stubborn and fools.

A game that has a lot of potential, which unfortunately the developer himself is killing due to its slowness, how do you create something beautiful and then demolish it, graphics etc. it deserves 5 even more, but with all my heart, it's discouraging to have to wait an eternity, you almost forget you played it, I hope for something quicker

Used to be a 5-star game, but the story is going nowhere due to the massive amount of time between updates.

Also seems like the developer is putting less effort into the game on all fronts in general.

2 stars for good looking renders, but that's about it.

Great game with a lot of potential and fantastic renders, but sadly the updates are extremely slow, and, like many games on this website, it seems potentially at risk of being abandoned entirely.

Renders/Artwork: 8/10
Scenarios/Fetishes: 7/10
Writing/Story: 7/10 (only on *some* of the routes)
Animations: 6/10 (fairly basic, but not bad)
Sounds/Music: 4/10 (no music)
Update Frequency: 1/10 (waiting a year for a 5 minute update is never a good thing)

A very sexy game that will take some patience.

The pros is that the sex scenes are very well written, have proper build up, there's seduction and flirty banter and its all done well.

The con is that there's a lot of writing... a LOT. It'll be tempting to skip the actual plot of the game with the skip function to get to the relationship scenes only which can be stimulating but you'll have much less context to what's happening.

Even still, a very well written story game most sex games can't live up to.

Writing is good. The way the artist handled the sexual tension with other npc was nice. I like that she simply didn't fuck everyone, instead teased them which made the next scene even more interesting for me. But this game felt like 20% finished. At this rate I don't think this game will ever finish(I don't like unfinished games)

Don`t like the Story... It doesnt catch me.. Renders are super, but too much shittalking. Also, the different facets of Jessica do not give a coherent picture. Her basic motivation is somehow all too suspect for me

This game is great, not only the visuals are amazing, the design of Jessica is one of the best or one of my favs at least, but it does something not many does, and its to portrait the "old-young" sex scenes in a incredible sexy and healthy way, and by healthy i mean that usually we see that on games as the typical "old ugly bastard" that the girl dont want to have sex. Here its completly diferent. Animations are really good and story too.

This game is massively overrated. Jessica is so damn stupid and constantly makes bad decisions not related to player choice. One of the most annoying things about this game is that no matter how you're choosing to play, this game will force her boyfriend down your throat. If you're watching someone else have sex it's "I wonder how me and conner look," if you're masturbating it's constant "oh conner yeah!" Like even if you're trying to not be faithful to him the game gives you no choice if you want to have sex with him or not. Also the game tries it's hardest to make another female coworker seem like a bitch, with Jessica's inner monologue saying so and her acting shocked at the way her coworker acts and talks. In reality, the coworker is just up front and honest about things and Jessica is a damn pushover. She thinks that saying no to something is the same as bullying a person. Her reasoning for doing things is also insanely stupid. I so wanted to like this game as I saw and heard so many rave reviews, but with the story as it is there is not enough choices where there should be. There are so many points where there should be a choice (mostly regarding the boyfriend). There was just not enough actual choice in this game and the story is not strong enough to carry it on it's own. Very disappointing.