Ren'Py - Kamogawa Island [v0.1b] [Fragolina Studio]

Version tested : V 0.1b

Honnestly, pretty well done for a start. Dialogues are logical, i feel like this game was not made by a 16 years old boy and that's nice. The girls are nice, it's not those default koikatsu characters but maybe more variations would be nice (like flat girls, some more thick ones or whatever). The "only" bad point for me is the animations. It's nice for a start as I said and it needs improvement. The sex scenes can be smoother, and the "penetration" scene can be more precise. But yes, this is a good start and I can't wait to see how it will go. Nicely done developer, continue on the same way !

Tl;Dr: Good start, but not much here at all. Come back later.

The game has great presentation from the start. The typical horrid, same faced anime Koikatsu models actually look unique and appealing. The concept is interesting and sets the stage for fast lewd content to the side of a slow burn harem set up. Writing is actually decent for once, at least for character dialogue.

What is currently rough about the project is the lack of stuff in general. Outside of their scripted affection gaining parts, the girls don't really do anything. Plus, there's barely any scenes with said girls. I think, not counting the twitch streamer, there's 2 sexual scenes. The only penetration we can watch is a couple banging at the gym. Plus, one of the girls lacks much content at all, which you discover very quickly. Because of that, the rest of the experience is dampened as you realize that there's not going to be much exciting to work towards.

This game can very easily become a 5/5 masterpiece, and it can easily become abandoned. I feel like it's been shipped far too quickly. Despite creating this interesting world that should have sex around every corner, besides a few screens it feels barren. I'll eagerly keep my eye on this one, but I won't hold my breath.

Also, there's not enough content to justify a 3 gig download at all. If this game becomes big, the dev better learn to compress. Again, probably another sign this was shipped too early. Best of luck to you, dev.

[v0.1a]
Arguably I really haven't played enough to warrant a review but that's kind of my critique.

I'm stuck by how empty the game is? After being dropped into it you're skipping through days to get the next interaction with a girl that's barely been introduced. I'm sure people are often annoyed by these long introductions in VNs but the point is to make you actually invested in the characters and showcase some lewdness to get you hooked.

Right now I'm really not feeling any strong desire to keep playing. The character designs are good (for Koikatsu), I don't have any real complains about dialogue or personalities but it's also just generic harem VN stuff. The promotion and setting really emphasises the sex aspect but the game is surprisingly coy about it.

TL;DR: why should I keep playing this game in particular when there's either better written translated japanese eroges, or the other hundreds of koikatsu VNs that gives you the porn from the start?

My advice would be to have a proper introduction of the girls with the usual breast smothering and walking in on your sister childhood friend showering. Actually give me a reason to care about these people.

Personally I'd also recommend redoing the house navigation. With how much dead space and vague hints the constant clicking around really got to me. I really don't think there's any gameplay reason for why going from the bedroom to living room should take more than one or two clicks. I think it's better to implement a minimap or pop-up menu.

I'm so used to games releasing their demos with like 1 scene and "tadaaah give us money now thank you"

This review is made for the [v0.1a] , but this game really feels like a v0.1 you know what I mean?
There was 2-3 solid hours (for me) of content which shows a really cool foundation for any new update.
Also after playing it I saw the creator comment "This is my first game btw", I was really surprised! Didn't feel amateurish at all

What I really liked what the dialogue! My god there were time where I was actually blushing, there's some real passion behind the lines, feels really human! There's a lot of teasing and I feel like it's taking it's sweet time (in a good way) to give us what we want, it's really well done and would love to see more of it!

Not sure if it's RNG or if it's predetermined, but some events like "go see X at Y at the evening" don't happen every day, at first it seemed a bit grindy or tedious but by trying to get the event I've seen random ones I could've missed otherwise. There's a 4th main girl that's easily missable if you don't get her event at the beach in the morning

One small detail that really helped was that hovering over interactable stuff changes the sprite so you can easily tell, the chair moving to show you can go to the kitchen was really cute to see

There is some graphical bugs if you click or go to the wrong place that can overwrite other sprites.
The developer said they are going to work on it but since it can be easily bypassed by rolling back, it wasn't that much of an issue for me

I'm really hoping this project works out! Good luck for the devs, hope you people don't burn yourselves out