Ren'Py - Life in Santa County [v0.10.1] [Bold Bash Studios]

Starts out pretty strong, then it gets sandbox and pretty much all goes to shit.

Don't get me wrong, there is at least no grinding here. But it still is annoying clicking around on everything that is clickable so find out if there is a new interaction or not.

Dialoges are ok.
"Best friend" is an annoying loser that any sane person would have left in the gutter years ago.
Renders/girls are on the better side.
Story... well let's say some will say its superior some will say it's pretty bad. It is in the middle most of the time with some swings to one and some for the other.
Not only a few people in there are... strange in their behavior to say it in a diplomatic way. Let's be realistic here, the whole city would have gone under years ago in the real world. Society doesn't survive if the normal people are the minority.

I still give it 4/5 stars, because... well most games here are still way worse (yeah it is kind of sad I know) and you can have some fun in there. Maybe drink a beer or three to numb your brain a little.

This game is pretty great. I really like the premise and the way the dev is going about tackling it.

It gets 3 stars for its character design, world building and UX. Where it falls completely flat is the dialogue and story. I feel like hiring someone, or paying for pro Chat GPT, to fix all of the English issues would be a massive improvement. There are times when it is incredibly hard to follow what characters are saying. You get the idea of what the dev wants to get across but there is no depth because the words they are speaking are so disconnected from reality that I have a REALLY hard time making a connection to any character, MC included.

The models are top tier though, you can tell they put a lot of work and love into making sure each character looks unique and is sexy in their own way. Its refreshing to have family members that actually care about you out the gate instead of the bitchy sister trope. But again, its all surface because of the dialogue. A great example This whole scene could be expanded on. Made longer. With better dialogue. You would have a real chance to build a connection with the characters.

Also the skip from prologue to chapter 1 was incredibly disorientating. Like SO many events happen that you don't know about in that time, that you really should know. I recommend that the Dec take the time and just find a way to montage this info with some nice renders. Wouldn't take too much effort I don't think.

Anyhow. Solid game, worth a play through. Can easily be a 5 star game with some help on delivering the story.

The renders have an amazing quality, beautiful girls, that almost all the good things I could say about this one.
The MC is the tipical stupid guy that can't say two words without saying or thinking something stupid, like after he has sex with Ron's mom, later when he is with Ron, who is kind of injured so the MC has to carry him to his house, Ron tell you that maybe his mom will be calling you, the MC suddenly start to freak out like a 12 year old kid that was caught out with a porn magazine and ask "why your mom has my phone number and why she would call me instead of my mom?" The next scene in the kitchen, his mom say that Karen (Ron's mom) called and the MC ask if she said something about him.
The teacher is scolding the MC for being late and the best that the MC has to say is "Seems like your feet hurt, I give foot massages to my mom all the time, you want me to give you one?"
The next day he is scolded again and he say the same thing, looks pretty obvious that the Dev has a foot fetish and didn't know how to put it into the game in a smooth way and he tried to force it.
Like you saw all the scenes are about the MC saying stupid things that a guy at his age wouldn't say or think.
All the women are practically sluts, the crazy classmate craves for the MC dick, the teacher too, Rachel, the sister, I wouldn't be surprised if even his stepfather wanted to have sex with the MC and all of them are interested in him for no reason.
The story is not really interesting or deep, is pretty basic, I would just play it for a quick fap and without losing time reading the plot or the stupid MC thoughts.

In short, this is a very high quality game.

Story is intriguing, nothing special tho.

BUT the GRAPHICS. Renders, models, animations all 11/10, just amazing.

Cant wait for next update, hoping for Hana/Ran action.

Keep it up devs!

Bad:
Story is headache.
No plot for the corruption.
Most the girls are bitchs.
MC is toxic.

Good:
Dev did hard work to script a clean interface.
Good graphics and animation.

Result:
Dev is skilled, but not smart.
Worth downloading for quick fap without wasting your time reading every boring detail.

This game has good art, and the blurb on the front page makes it a genre I tend to enjoy, even when the actual piece of media is painfully mid.

But it immediately pissed me off. Fourth wall breaking shit just to confirm I am an adult? Utterly incompetent humour? All in a few bits of dialogue and renders. It immediately put me in an unforgiving mood.

And guess what? The dialogue needed me in a forgiving mood. Let me go with a random example from the first sequence of the game:

MC: "I'm probably gonna regret going with a dumbass like you but I have to."

Let's ignore the lack of elementary school-level grammar. Why is it structured like this? Entirely to give an info dump that the MC thinks his best friend is a dumbass, despite that being obvious from the interaction itself. What should this line have been?

MC: "I'm going to regret this."

If you're feeling generous, and don't believe we have enough to know the MC thinks his friend is an idiot, then:

MC: "I'm going to regret this, you fucking dumbass."

And this has been the case of every line of dialogue in the game so far. Not just a few. It is utterly incompetent and something I cannot forgive.

If you don't give a shit about this, then you may enjoy the game. The models are all really nice. As for what is meaningful to me? It is atrocious. It makes me angry that it sounded so good when I stumbled across it.

This game takes some getting used to

Initially I thought the characters were pretty terrible looking. The first actual sex scene the womans skin looked so grey she looked like a zombie, but I soldiered on and have begun to really enjoy this game and the characters look better and better

The MC I think is one of the better looking MC's from VN's I've played. I don't mean that in like his overall attractiveness, but rather that he looks believable and not like a weird, goofy teenager with a pompadour. The scenes are animated pretty good and the graphics overall look great. Visually its stunning, and like I said outside of the initial scene everything else looks amazing. The proportions for some characters are obscene but it adds to their appeal, and it looks like there's a wide enough variety of body types for whatever you're into. Even though certain characters were seemingly designed to have below-average faces with a crazy body (the cousin, who the MC basically says has an ugly face with a big butt), her scenes are actually pretty hot and she's becoming one of the more interesting characters

I do think things feel rushed though. The anticipation isn't really there for anyone but the mom as the rest you can get with without much effort. There probably should be a lot more apprehension and resistance about this sort of thing than there is (incest), but hey, it's not so bad it breaks the game or anything.

Lastly I love all the extra features and systems in place. The ways you can make money and the branching paths you can take are great fun. My only hope is that it doesn't become a thing that gets far too big too fast then the updates become smaller and take longer before they slowly stop coming

I completely disagree with people asking the devs to abandon this game. It's super fun to play and hopefully only keeps improving

An awesome game with really good renders and animations. The pacing is okay and the overall quality is excellent. Best thing about it is that it has lots of incest! Two sisters, mom, cousin and aunt.

This game, as well as many others, presents restrictions in its content, which pissed me off a lot when I finished playing it and I realized that I had missed a scene, for those who have not played it, my advice is to put the maximum from the beginning score with all characters, same as intimidation and charisma of the protagonist.
Another aspect would be the fluidity of the animations, I don't know if it's just me, but some of them looked disgusting.
Otherwise excellent entertainment, this game is not based on a good story but on the interaction with the characters. Excellent.

Excellent AVN
IT has everything, not boring sanbox, amazing renders, hottest female designs...
The aunt , the mom and the teacher are the best not only their designs, but the interactions with the protagonist.

This review is based on v0.7.2

The dev is talented in making renders, that's for sure but story telling isn't his thing. I tried. I tried really hard to develop empathy for MC, but it just doesn't work. MC is just a complete idiot. The choices the story forces the player to make are just plain stupid. I have no problem with an AVN lacking in realism. It can still make a good story though. Here, on the other hand, you just want to wish the protagonist from the very first moment that his brain hadn't been removed after he was born. But the other protagonists are also so one-dimensional that it causes me physical pain when I have to read the dialogues. It's a shame. Graphically it's really well done, even if MC is ugly as night is dark and some of the other protagonists wouldn't win a beauty contest either. Unfortunately, good graphics do not make a good AVN. If AVN with bad graphics can still become a top AVN through a very good story, the reverse is unfortunately not possible. Bad stories can never be saved by good graphics. Two stars for the effort and the graphics.

I hope the dev breaks up with this game and start something new. Like I wrote he has the potential in his graphic skills. He only needs good storytelling. This AVN can't be rescued. Just break it and try something new. It's okay to fail. It's the first attempt. The next will be better I guess.

I played this for 2 hrs and i removed it, MC is literally a pussy who every NPC dunks on him, no self esteem and u can't make any major decison, until what i reached so far, choices are just cosmetic they do nothing its like a knetic novel, you are getting blackmailed and humiliated and have no say about it, and you have to do all this to defend a stupid NPC who is rude to you and wants to fuck ur mother, all sex you get you had nothing to do with it just other characters forced you into it.
0/10 fucking waste of time

Love the game. Some aspects can be difficult when figuring out the net affect of choices and content lock/unlock, but very good art and Lauren is a 10.

MC's hair is a little weird and I am not a fan of his patchy facial hair that just makes his face look dirty. As long as scenes are POV, it's no matter.

Can't wait for the next update.

milfs are the best
the beginning is a bit boring but after the intro the good part begins
the bodies look very real and toned, in addition to the drops of sweat that are observed, too real
I will be waiting eagerly for the new update

Life in Santa County [v0.7.0]

Genre:
Linear? Sandbox VN

I put a questionmark after linear because I didn't play long enough to confirm how linear this game is.

This game's got amazing renders and gorgeous detailed environments and a super clean UI with clickable little details everywhere. But it feels soulless.

There wasn't a story interesting enough to draw me in and the amateurish use of English was off-putting from the start. On top of that, the women's proportions all feel off for some reason. Maybe it's the unnatural posing's fault or maybe they're just past the point of being believable as human beings. The facial expressions feel off and aren't properly reflecting what's being said or done.

After playing for a while I downloaded a gallery unlocker so I could check a few sex scenes to see if they could motivate me to keep playing but they actaully did the opposite and I've since uninstalled. They are straight-to-the-point without any notable eroticism and they feel mechanical and boring.

It's sad really, the technical skill on display here is formidable, but this dev is a programmer, not an artist. Or a storyteller. And that makes for a pretty mediocre game in the end.

Honestly, the only really good thing about the game is the renders. Which sort of make the game worthwhile. The story is both underwhelming and convoluted with mediocre "exploring" mechanics. I assume English is not the dev's first language.

Which I would normally just deal with, but the writing isn't...great. The MC was trying to have a "meaningful conversation" with not-the-sister and she's trying to talk about her feelings but the words don't accurately reflect the seriousness of the conversation. Its hard to take a heart-to-heart conversation seriously when half of dialogue is ellipsis and the rest is either misspelled or using literal texting language like "U kno". Still I would feel bad for taking points off for it. English is a tough language

But what really is the most jarring is that how much of the game is lifted straight from another, more notable "school setting" game and that game just does everything better. I dont want to be a dick about it but there's no getting past the the fact that here's very little that this game offers besides strong renders that other high school/college games dont do better

This game is awesome in every sense. Not some random game where you start fucking. It starts with characterization of each character. The way, MC is trapped and corruption happens is something, which is rare in porn games. It is a gold mine. And gratitude to the devs.

I thoroughly enjoy this game. The renders and animations are very high quality. The sandbox element is short and simple. Definitely recommend. Quite a bit of teasing for a while but the game is far enough in development it wont leave you blue balled.

v0.6.1
There's very little I have to say about this game, the renders are very good, the models are very good, the animations are very good, the rest? It's terrible, it causes me actual physical pain knowing that this graphical quality is paired with such terrible storytelling and dialogues, and with such an unbearable MC.

Man, I really wanted to like this and had huge hopes with the synopsis, but I think I'm not exaggerating saying this is one of the greatest disappointments I've ever played.

Good game overall with amazing love interests. If you want great scenes and steady buildup with each of LI, then you'll love this game.

The story goes some interesting places, and I can tell the creator is really experimenting with the technology and typical AVN structure. The choice system around how MC progresses through the investigation and daily life is refreshing.

I'm a fan of the free-roam parts at the school and home too since there are many things that can be missed if you don't dig into them.