VN - Ren'Py - Leaving DNA [Ep. 3] [Impious Monk]

Great opening. There are lots of things I love so far.

- The Renders are really quite good. Nicely composited. I also enjoy how the renders are used to tell parts of the story, as in visual storytelling, in a VN? I know! Like intro to the MC, love the way the office is introduced. Very nicely done.

- The girls look good. All the characters are well done. Jamie however, takes the cake. Red hair, green eyes, short and cute! Love all the subtle changes in facial expressions, really helps build the characters and make them feel like actual characters, rather then bland flat people.

- The writing is very well done. Good English. Engaging story that seems interesting so far.

Looking forward to seeing where this one is going but already is making my list of must plays on here! Definitely give Leaving DNA a try!

What a great game. Dialogues is interesting and story is intriguing. Really like talk about the morals about incest. Also like the mini game detective where you identify things.
Story 5/5
Characters 5/5
Models 5/5
Render 5/5
Dialogue 5/5
Definitely recommended to play.

Part One.

Not surprisingly I'm a big fan of a good story and the dev did everything to build a foundation for that.

Cute girls, a good mixture between serious and funny scenes together with good renders. Well, I'm not sure what to think about the teddy bear

For a part one it has a lot of content/play time and I can't wait to see where this story goes.

Lets start by saying this game might not be the best ive evr played and there are games that look better but this one is still great and worth playing.
To go into a little more detail: The Plot seems very interesting whith some mysterie you have to discover and having some information but you cant really know where the story will go and what will bve revealed as you progress your investigation. I like that there are quite some things teased early in the story where you have no idea where this might come in and how it will influence the story. I also like that you play a "good guy". The MC has values and if you want to influence how your MC behaves in every situation this might disturb you but for me its nice to have a MC who is a nice person. Overall the story is nicely written and contains humour, drama and feelings.

I hope you will get to make more choices and influence the story and the MC in some situations and not just choose the girl with your decisions but also have impact in the story.

As i meantioned in the beginning its not the best looking game but its still looking really good imo and the women seem to be designed so everyone has one they like. There is only one adult scene in the first chapter but it looked very nice and good animated.

I really value sound in VNs and dislike silent periods very much but that is the only thing i dont like about this game. I think either add music and sound everywhere or dont bother at all, because ill have to play music in the background anyway. I get that you want to enhance certain scenes but i think that can still be achieved with the right choice of sound and music.

Overall i can only recommend the game and say that you should try it because thats the least this game is worth: a try.

Absolutely one of the better written VN's out there, lewd or otherwise. I don't hand out 5 stars, hardly ever: but this one is on track for that rating if it finishes as strong as it has started.

Grounded, realistic and entertaining cast of characters.

Interesting story.

Beautiful and believable love interests.

Intriguing mystery.

The only thing that defies belief so far... is the cast of honest lawyers.

Try this one out, you probably won't feel like you wasted your time and you'll probably be interested (and impatient) for the next part of the story.

A demo that I'm sooo glad I checked out. I loved it. And the first release was no short of surprising, in a good way.

The renders are beautiful and music is very well done.

The love interests are beautiful and are varied in terms of looks! (even their heights are different)

And the real star: Story
I have never played or even seen a game where you play as a D.A. So that made me even more intrigued to check it out and when I did I instantly got the feeling of being inside a TV show, that's how immersive this game is. The story ranges from being full of mystery, to being somberly, to being wholesome. It's a complete package!

The dialogue feels so believable, realistic, and can be very witty at times!

The expressions also deserve limelight: they are SO well done, it's things like these that immerse you even more into an already believable world and bring you closer to the characters.

The MC himself feels way more mature than any other MC that I have played as, his personality remains consistent throughout and he is a genuinely nice dude.

There is no sexual content YET, so if you're good with that then- *makes deep voice* get ready to experience the beginning of a mysterious story!

Strongly recommended for everyone that wants to try something fresh and grounded, kindly support the developer if you end up loving the game and can afford to!

Edit: Redid the whole thing because this game deserves an in-depth review.

It's really messed up that the game is this good when it doesn't even have any sexual content yet. Not sure I've ever given a game the benefit of the doubt for future content the way I am here. If ya know, 6 months go by and there's radio silence, maybe this rating goes down but in the meantime this is a killer opening chapter (it's 8-24-22 btw, can't remember if reviews have dates). But anyways the game is really well written, with funny and likeable characters, and great minor touches such as very intentional camera placement and reactive facial expressions.

The two main love interests are hot and expressive as hell. I really enjoy Jamie's emotions and facial animations, you don't see those done effectively very often. The side characters have a little wonkiness to them, like the silent girl you say hi to at the basketball court seems a bit too short and young in my opinion, and the others seem a touch plain for a VN where you hope to eventually have sex with some of the cast. But I suppose it's a refreshing change of pace compared to some of the boob/cheekbone/lips+hips slider-maxed characters we see here.

Three very minor cons:
1. Some of the dialogue and scenes can be a bit too realistic to be interesting. In movies we don't need to see the whole car trip when a character travels from A to B. We cut it to keep the moments onscreen interesting to the viewer. Similarly, we don't really need scenes where the Judge discusses courtroom availability scheduling with the MC. I understand this sets up the eventual "Vega" character, but it's too much and too boring to be kept in, imo.
2. On the opposite end, some dialogue, such as everyone being overly enamored with the MC's life at the bar, and also the incest conversation at the bar, skew towards being too unrealistic. Characters seem a little too stiff and robotic in their delivery, rather than casual, especially for friends and colleagues chatting at a bar. Little changes, like maybe just Sara asking too many pestering questions rather than everyone, or more of the table being vocally opposed to talking about incest rape cases while relaxing at the bar, would go a long way to fixing this.
3. I'm mildly annoyed that the intro cutscene seems to have no relation to other events so far. MC's mom is Magnolia and the woman is named Jimena, so it's not his mom. It's not the Amy Mall they investigate later. It's not the incest case Jamie and Sara are working on. It's not the gang revenge murder. This game has like 5 cases, and you open the game with one, and it's not related to any of them? If your updates are months apart, it's annoying to set up threads like this and not even hint at resolving or explaining them. At least in my opinion, maybe some people like that.

EDIT: fixed some ambiguously phrased sentences

Great start! no engrish, characters act sensibly, no sudden paranormal fantasy elements and dialogue feels natural. Graphics are solid too and the game takes it premise seriously. Game is one of those story driven games where it prioritizes telling it's story over getting laid and meeting more girls.

Gonna give it 5 stars to encourage the dev to not abandon the game and encourage more people to give it a shot.

A pleasant surprise. One of the oldest genre tropes in the book but somehow wasn't too bogged down and was actually enjoyable to play through

Outside of a few incredibly lengthy monologues by our favorite beer belly Armenian, I found the dialogue to be pretty realistic and enjoyable with the right amount of quips to induce to right amount of laughs. The character dynamics are also pretty enjoyable/relatable and once again, not too tropey for us to cringe too hard

There's no forced sexual content just to please those special people and it seems to be focused more on the plot which is always encouraging to see....even better when terms are used correctly to add to the realism

I'm glad I stumbled onto this game and look forward to see how the story progresses

Impressive. A good writing, captivate detective plot, mixed with casual dialogues and life scenes, it makes the story very realistic. Also there are nice renderings and likeable female characters. MC at first glance seems like a normal guy, not a sexual tyrannosaurus. Defenitely, I'm looking forward to the next update.

It's been a while to find a dev that actually read some books. A Pleasure nonetheless. All this game needs now is consistency and this will just be a major success. Looking forward to support this game. Still, Just don't be an obnoxious vegan who loves to parade in front of a meat restaurant and we're all be cool

Part 1

Pros
+ Very realistically written characters
+ the character development feels natural
+ Attractive models
+ a serious crime mystery story

Cons
- only one sex scene in part 1.
- story progression slow rolls really hard and there's not that much content yet.
- I strongly feel that a lot of the character development could have been done more concisely. The social scenes feel longer than they need to be for it's function. And the group bar scene feels redundant for plot.
- you need to type in 2 words when prompted for noticing contradictions, as opposed to a multiple choice system like Pheonix Wright. Obviously this system requires the player to be more precise and have a high attention to detail, but I prefer multiple choice.
- File size is extremely big for the amount of content in the game.

Conclusion
I'd say if you're REALLY interested in crime mysteries, give this a try, but otherwise, I would not recommend. My rating only reflects where the game stands in Part 1 and will likely change once Part 2 comes out

What the dev calls a demo is more than many other devs deliver in a year.

Render quality is good and it looks like a really good story driven game.

There are limited LI's but as it is a story and realistic VN, it fits the settings.

Leaving DNA [Demo]

For a demo release this one got more playing time than other demo releases. First of all the game is mostly story centric. And I'm glad with it. MC is not a horny guy that's another plus. Loved the visuals of the game. There is only one choice in this release. If you are looking for a story centric AVN you won't regret playing this.

Loved this one looking forward to next updates

+ Story centric
+ Visuals

Very impressed with my first helping of Leaving DNA. It just feels like it's going to be a great story to follow.

Story:
From what I've seen this is going to be a good one, we already have the plot, there's the mysterious death of Amy Mall that could lead to all the way back to the mystery of the main character's father. Speaking of the main character, he's a pretty well-rounded character. He has poise, confidence, I enjoy his mannerisms, just an all around likable character. Of course, he's not perfect, he has his flaws. He's 35 and can't hold a steady relationship and it's because of his past and him not wanting to let anyone in.

Jamie is a great leading lady, I love her charm and wit, on top of that she's a gorgeous beauty. She clearly cares for the main character and has his back. Aghavni is the ex-girlfriend of the ours. She dumped the MC but it was clear that he was at fault. She's another beautiful woman, who's very determined when it comes to her job and obviously still have feelings for the MC.

This was enough to strike my attention among other things like having a friend like Sean that's not annoying or full of himself. This mystery character is another example, I thought she was a young girl but turns out she's a teacher or at least that's what she said to Sean and the MC. I found it weird that she didn't want to go to the cops about the thugs that could've raped her, there's definitely something she's not telling us.

Renders:
Beautiful.

Characters:
Well rounded cast , a good balance.

Animations:
TBD

Dialogue:
Well done.

Overall, great story to follow, it deserves more attention and notoriety. Best of luck to the Dev and once again thanks for presented something different outside of the standard tropes.

Fantastic start to a game! The story is intriguing and could go in a number of different directions. I will be interested to see how choices are going to affect the story. Understandably there is only one choice so far as the start is more about setting up the story. It will clearly be a story driven VN with lewd scenes adding to the story. The LIs look great and one in particular has already won me over. It's great to have another game with an actual adult MC with a legit job that would actually be attractive to women. I appreciate the warning at the beginning because some of the scenes could be triggering for some people.

Good render quality
Obviously a heavy plot supporting the story
A story driven VN, lewd scenes will probably come as a support, not as goal.
So far the 'heavy' stuff has been treated in a very discreet manner, which is way better considering the warning given by the dev about what the story encompasses

I'm really impressed with this first release. Well done. Like many of the other comments, I felt like it's setting a really good tone, with believable characters that act professional, good banter and internal monologues, i appreciate your interest in the legal system, and I like the models. I'm definitely a big fan right now of Jamie, but any good story can make me care about just about any character, so I'm excited to see where it goes from here. Great work!

[Demo] Extremely strong start to what looks to be a very promising game!

Leaving DNA is a police procedural with rather heavy themes. MC, an assistant district attorney, is a tortured soul, but not stereotypically so. He is kind, rational, sensible. He even refuses to participate in adultery on moral grounds. How novel!

The story revolves around a mystery surrounding his missing father, and a loosely connected murder. It's intriguing stuff, and I already feel invested.

The writing is superb, with excellent SPaG. The renders are so good for a newbie dev, and a ton of attention has been paid to facial expressions, conveying just the right emotions.

My only complaint is that both Jamie and Aghavni (but especially the latter) have massively oversized breasts for their frames

Once in a while a real story lands here
That's what we have here, so far it is all very interesting and promising

It is just a demo but decent length for a demo. There is good chemistry between John and Jamie which is both funny and sweet. We have yet to really meet the other characters but a small cast with good connection is a big plus in my book.

5 stars for a great start, Best of luck with the development Impious Monk