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

Review for0.5.4

This game seemed to have a lot of potential, but it's withering with every update. The developer broke older saves, then spent multiple releases changing the sandbox, adding "gaming" elements (e.g., panty collecting seriously?), and reworking renders and animations. It's nice to know that feedback on previous parts of the game is being addressed, but it needs to be balanced with new content. Without enough forward progress, the game is killing itself.

Previous review for v0.3

Very good renders. Models are great.

The story/plot is kind of average. I doubt many players are anticipating the next release to see how the story unfolds.

The writing is terrible. I don't know how anybody could give this 5 stars unless they either can't read English or just aren't bothering to read the text. The English is tedious to read. The meaning isn't completely lost, but nobody writes like that and nobody talks like that. The writer is obviously not a native English speaker and there's nothing wrong with that, but then why is English the only language available?

The modified user interface is annoying. It's just another thing that makes the game hard to play. There's so many more things that should've been fixed/changed before messing with the UI.

The free roams are unnatural to move around in. This is very common with games that have free roams and it's strange that games that have hundreds of renders per update can't have a couple of extra renders to make free roam navigation more natural.

v0.4.3 EDIT: They really did a good job fixing their game, added missing animations and dialog, fixing bugs, fixing the UI and fixing all the grammar and spelling errors. Glad to see the improvement, gonna bump it up to 5 stars now.

v0.3
The game is still very early in development so I can only rate the early content, might edit my rating later on if things change.

Life in Santa County is yet another incest harem game that switches between VN sections and limited sandbox sections, like a certain popular college game. You got a lonely mother who recently broke up with her boyfriend. You got a hot sister who recently broke up with her boyfriend. You got an aunt who recently divorced and now she moves into your mother's house because she needs a place to stay. She brings along her daughter, your cousin, who is a popular social media star and kind of a bitch towards you, but she secretly really likes you.
.... so yeah it is a lot of the usual tropes.
The game has a story about shady drug dealing business happening at the school that MC has to deal with. However it is so early on that I can't say much about it, good or bad.

The game's biggest strength are it's visuals. The girls and the renders look gorgeous. The animations are good, though nothing ground breaking. The girls are mostly really curvy, so prepare for lots of big tits and asses. However there are a few more petite looking LIs too.
The writing is actually quite good aside from the Engrish. There is some banter with MC's best friend which is funny. The whole arc with Dave was entertaining. The talk with MC's sister, cousin and mom were really sweet.
The game actually uses a lot of music for different scenes, which is nice given how many lazy devs just don't bother with music at all.

My biggest complaint about the game, aside from it's lack of originality, is the total lack of polish and quality control. The Engrish is quite bad. Lots of awkward sounding sentences and bad grammar, clearly written by someone with English as their second language. Lots of spelling errors. Hell, the game uses "u" instead of "you" a couple of times. Come on, devs...
The graphics for "charisma" and "intimidation" are switched. This is supposed to be one of the main mechanics of the game, choosing if you want to be a talker or an intimidating roughian. How does something like that make it past play testing. Was there even any play testing?
v0.3 does not contain any animations. The sex scenes also contain almost no text. Why? The early sex scenes in 0.1 where you fuck your best friend's mom was animated and had a lot of dirty talk. So why are the most recent sex scenes just a lazy series of still renders with no text? Did someone point a gun to the dev's head and force him to release 0.3 before it was ready?

In conclusion LISC is a promising game but currently suffering from a severe lack of quality control. I give the game 3,5 stars and generously gonna round up to 4 stars hoping some of the stuff I mentioned gets fixed. And to the devs: please get a proof reader to fix your script and please do not release a build without finishing the sex scenes (animations and dirty talk). With some more polish this could definitely be a really good game.

One of the most promising games of this year.

First, the graphics -> pretty good renders

Secondly, the MILFs are fucking amazing. Love 'em.

The storyline's pretty good, and the English is decent (at least readable).

Since there's no 4.5, this one gets 5 starts.

its been a long time since i loved a game as much as i loved this.

great renders,charecters,story and the models are amazing.

it has no animations for the sex scenes yet other than thati loved every thing about it.

keep up the good work this could be the next big game.

one of (if not the) best game around.
plot is enjoyable: it's not the story of an ordinary college dude. plus, the insertion of an open world system seems appropriate. on the other hand, i hope a choice-made game won't impact that much.
renders and models are great (a personal applause goes to mom and aunt); probably, we will see animated scenes soon (though not essential imho). the abundant quantity of female characters may affect the manage of the plot.
i hope we will get more frequent (even though shorter) updates.

Review for LISC v0.3

The renders are good and the animations in the prologue are good but the update doesn’t have animations yet.

Story/writing the prologue is so badly written that I could even get through it in one go, the writing gets better after the prologue but I already hate the MC and his best friend Ron. The MC is an insecure wimp who gets dragged into trouble by his braindead friend Ron.

The models, for the most part, are good-looking but the game focuses too much on big tits, and asses a bit more variety would be better. Additionally, the Devs changed 2 models (sister and aunt) with 0.3 and in both cases I like the original models more

LIs, most of them are the usual cliche characters, the ones that stood out the most but in a negative way are the aunt, who comes across like a slut with multiple ex-husbands. The cousin takes the role of the bitchy older sister who acts as she hates the MC but she loves him (tsundere). The sister is lying to the MC about her relationship with the now-dead bad guy (she tells the MC that Dave didn’t even get to kiss her but when she talks with Iris she says his hands were magical).

Gameplay, the game is a sandbox game with different variables for the MC, Intimidation, and Charisma and 2 different paths Rise and Fall, additionally a money system, an inventory system, and collectibles. Basically, I hate everything I just listed about the gameplay.

For a harem game, it already seems that the game will have too many different branches. The first decision between girls is who will accompany the MC to the party, Jasmin or Elena. Having to decide between girls in a harem game is a no-go for me.

First when I saw that hideous blue haired creature on the banner I was like nope I'm not going to try this.
But when I saw that lady mom I tried it (v0.3) and I must say that I liked the game and glad that sis model was changed. That banner and screens should be changed too.
Mom and new model for Sis are one of the prettiest models. One thing I did not like was that MC was forced on the neighbour (his friend's mom) in the prologue.
Looking forward to new content.

Visually excellent, especially if you like curvy women.
A lot of different mechanics are introduced after the prologue, at least for an adult game. I really appreciate developers trying something different. There is a new coat of paint given to a more-then-once-seen story structure, which I also value.

Good game with lots of potential. The plot is not bad, with some options depending of your choices. The rendersare superb, even without animations, and the characters are very interesting. It has room to improve but overall it started with good quality and eye catching development. K.eep up the good work

Looks good, but everyone is either extremely annoying or a massive asshole.

There only two characters who I wouldn't fire out of a cannon. 1 is the sister, who "dated" the MC's blackmailer and is friends with the massive, massive cunt female cousin and 2 is the girl who has a crush on you, but apparently she is the sister of the same blackmailer. The mom, aunt, teacher and BF's mom are sluts, the mom is fucking rando school boys and really enjoys DP(the game heavily alludes to this at least), the aunt marries rich men for their money, the cousin is similar but also an instagram whore (puke) and the BF's mom is into cucking her psycho husband.

And of course that fucking idiot of a "best friend" who couldn't do better at ruining the MC's life if he tried. Literally, he is so stupid and incompetent I suspect he wouldn't succeed at wiping his own ass. So far the BF is the main antagonist to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if there was a twist reveal that he is doing it all intentionally.

well

the story - the style of writing is .. how to put this .... lightheaded
with every scene its getting more weird
mc forced to do things without a choice and no end at sight..
after the first "request" i would dump that stupid friend
(bro-mance - a reason to drop this game asap - there is no game out here where this leads to good things ...)
at every slightly difficult situation the mc acts like a deer in headlight ...

renders and animations are good

3 stars for now - change maybe later

Life in Santa County [v0.2] [Bold Bash Studios]

Borderline five-star game, covering all the bases for something truly spectacular. From incredibly stunning and unique models that I haven't seen ever before, and loved every single one, to them being beautifully rendered in well lit environments. The well written, witty and charming dialogue that's told to us in a not bloated manner. And the natural interactions from the characters that feel grounded to the world the MC is living in, including his relationships with everyone. Honestly, I can't praise this game enough, I found the story easy to get invested in, and even the surprise twist at the end caught me off guard. The friendship between the MC and his mate was really spot on, they completely acted like two bros who enjoy banter and getting into all kinds of bullshit, then fighting about it. Speaking off the MC, he really is a well-rounded character that you feel sympathetic towards and want to help him through his struggles, definitely not one of those sociopath schizoid MC's. Lewd content as it is right now in the game, is well paced and very sensual, the build-up for most of the scenes is great, especially the fetishes. Even the game play, what little we get of it, is quite refreshing and not intrusive. My only con and personal pet peeve would be, why does the sister have that awful attention seeking blue hair? She should have that beautiful red hair like her pubes. Edit: So now they not only they changed her hair color, but entire model all together to look like snooky.
I didn't really understand the splash screens at the end credits, where characters had some sort of code names or virtues or something, also I didn't turn on the gas, yet the MC was acting like he did.
98

Lauren Is So beautifully characterized and displayed so far , I am Completely into her . The game Gives you an aura and vibes of sensations different from Normal Games . Render Quality is very good . Also Story Direction is pointing game towards something massive and Awesome . All the Best Dev , Keep it Up.

Predicate: I was only able to withstand playing an initial chunk of the game and my opinions are based upon that experience.

I found the plot to be distractingly generic and the characters annoyingly juvenile—their interactions in the vein of bad pornos or undergraduate film student scripts.

Transition skipping and any font or text box settings are not available. The GUI looks fancy but is unfortunately an example form over substance. I found some icons can be unintuitive and transparency became an issue when GUI layers were displayed over others.

The visual quality was average (including models, textures, lighting, posing, camera, setting, etc.)

A well made game with an odd target audience. The MC (a male) gets dominated by a biker dude drug dealer while also being forced to pleasure old women. I'm not into that but some people clearly are as this game is very well made technically. Good graphics and writing

Version: 0.3.1

Top tier renders but uninteresting story.

Graphics
The strongest suit of this VN. Attractive girls with light erotic scenes - not necessarily cum-worthy yet. And a clean UI.

• character models - absolutely some of the most unique and sexiest 3d model renders I've seen (specifically Ron's mom, mc's asian classmate, mc's sister, aunt and cousin). the mc also looks unique from what we are use to seeing in male protag 3dcgs
• animation - a hit or miss imo. while the renders are gorgeous, the sex scenes look too mechanical. however, the explosion at the end of episode 2 was well done so I know the dev can do better. Big improvements made, my pc can't even handle it
• backgrounds - detailed and full with unique background characters.

Story
Very bored and annoyed by the Dave and Ron story as well as their characters. Their characters are one dimensional (Dave - persistent dick; Ron - dumb best friend) so anytime there is extended dialogue it just feels drawn out and repetitive.
Not the reason I'm playing the game but there's a heavy load of story with plot that isn't sex related. The crime stuff just doesn't interest me.
I much would rather just have more development put into the people living with MC as there's the added benefit of more erotic scenarios.
Content
A fair amount of content with a lot of tease - the absolute good kind (ogling and accidents). Events are accessible specific to the choices you make - very choice heavy in the recent update.
The sandbox playstyle allows a more personalised player experience.

In conclusion this game has some amazing graphic designs and a lot of attractive girls to interact with but a story that would only draw me in if there was more women involved for erotic scenarios.
The game should play to its strengths and add more erotic content to balance it with the Dave story arc. Making it more sandbox could help this so that players can unlock events with the girls and when they are ready can progress with the main storyline.

As a plot it won't be the best, but for those who are attracted to this genre of 3D art, it's not easy to find games like this. Good graphics, fluid story, well structured especially in the exciting sex scenes. The milfs can be improved but they are appreciated very well even so.

The characters design is not bad but the story is all over the place. repetitive tropes with the go bring your friend mom pants then go bring me your mom pants ... i was expecting your sister pants too lol its so stupid its not even funny.
i dont even know who's more stupid the BF or the mc who's hanging with him
the sandbox aspect is just annoying
there is not NTR in this game like the dev wrote but oh boy if you dont like NTR like things then avoid playing it because this game have it all. in the other hand if you are into beta male mc this game is for you.

[v0.2]
This is actually quite a bold project. The dev didn't shy away from controversial material just to play it safe. I will say it outright that people who are really sensitive to anything resembling NTR should not play this. Honestly. No, seriously. Don't play it if you get erked by the usual stuff that sparks NTR discussions in these game threads. This game has those questionable material story elements. It really isn't an NTR story, but neither is it a game that intentionally caters it's story to the harem/romance crowd.

EDIT: BIG CHANGES in the narrative in the latest update (v0.3.1). If you stick with the game, you will find that the MC does turn into a kind of chad that can stand up for himself and take all the women. NTR vibes were nonexistent in this update, and the story developed in a direction where there probably won't be any more situations that make anti-NTR people nervous.


The overview and the first few lines of the game make it clear what were dealing with here. It's a story about the dark side of humanity. Nearly everyone in this seemingly nice community are going through some terrible ordeal, harboring some dark secrets, or are just outright terrible people. This is one of those games where we follow a spineless, and quite possibly, a retarded MC as he is yanked around by outside forces and stumbles on some lewd action by accident.

The surprising thing about this game is... these characters actually have some depth. Those who've played it might be scratching their heads, but it's true. Because none of these characters are bound by the usual safe backstories and characteristics that devs try to follow, we see many unusual and original archetypes. Plus, the dialogue writing is actually pretty good. No problems with the English and they managed to make these character sound human.

The retard duo of MC and his best friend will make people who try to self insert groan with disgust, but their friendship is actually kind of endearing lol. If you think about these interactions as being part of a porn game for wish fulfillment, you might get annoyed every time the best friend mentions how hot the MC's mom is and how he should get to fuck her since MC fucked his mom. However, if you think about these as actual characters with established relationships, it could make more sense.

I could talk more about the characters, but I'll just leave it at that. People who self insert and try to "win" as the MC will not have a great time here. Maybe in the future, he might grow a spine, but he certainly is a massive chump so far. Those who are able to step back and just watch the situation spiral out of control with morbid curiosity might have something to enjoy. And for those of you who can get past the "NTR vibes," there is actually a pretty nice, albeit cliche, build up and teasing for the mom character. The usual "my son is so grown now" trope being saved by above average writing and built up tension revolving around a certain plot element.

Oh, and lastly, the general presentation, renders, animations, models stand quite above average. It looks very good. Music is a bit of a miss though.

edit: Version v0.3.1 makes a drastic change, both in terms of the tone of the story and in the gameplay. It's absolutely much higher quality in terms of production value. It adds a pretty good sandbox system if you manage to not pull your hair out at all the hidden item searches. The story does away with the bumbling idiot MC and all the "not NTR but kinda NTR vibes" situations and develops into a standard "alpha MC" going for all the chicks. To the people that are squeamish about anything resembling NTR, you might be rewarded with a more straightforward story you can enjoy if you can get through the early parts.

Damn this game got some stuff already. Just finished the 1st episode and it was already an hour or 2 worth of gameplay. The renders are amazing and so are the animations. Really impressed by the story as well. Only downside that i found was the lack of a walkthrough and some annoying bugs that got fixed . A walkthrough would be deeply appreciated. For the free roam part a help button or tasks button would be an awesome addition . Characters are well written and fuk dave that guy was an evil asshole but shouldnt have got that coming .Looking forward to find out who blew that shit up .