Ren'Py - Life in Santa County [v0.11.0] [Bold Bash Studios]

This could have been a decent game. However imho it is not.

Unfortunately this is another sad example how a game can end when you invest your time in nicely rendered females only and seemingly don't really put an effort into the rest of the game.

However the worst is choosing the lousiest available male model as MC. Who wants to play a MC looking like a teenage cuck full of pimples? No ... don't answer that.

Better luck with MC model selection next time.

This game could be much more than it is, but it's heavily drawn back by it's plot. First of all, it's full of porn logic and all the girls just love you because they do. It also wants to dangle some plots that are hard to pull right in a game like this, with a crime plot that is randomly advanced or put on hold while the MC goes around fucking everyone, or the university plot which does the same. There are lots of choices and they do impact the game, which is great, but I lost interest in the plot and characters none-the-less.

Render quality is pretty high, which is great, even if facial expressions are sometimes strange. Animations are pretty decent as well and sex scenes are well built. Music is pretty decent as well, for once I did not turn it off. But the game does have some bugs that can force you to load older saves or get stuck without being able to progress.

So, all in all, a pretty decent game, pity it's plot can't carry it to the higher stars.

This "game" should be used as an example for other devs on how not to make an AVN. If you're going to give players choices and branches, do it right, plan it out in advance, and give them an ending that reflects their decisions. The fact that the game behaves the same regardless of your previous choices is a waste of time for the player (and also a deception, because at the beginning the story promises different outcomes based on the choices made). The only thing that "saves" the story are its beautiful renders and good animations, but that's about it...

tldr: impressive models, but uninspired use of them.

The good: Flawless graphics, great diversity in settings, likeable girls. good adult scenes with swith in positions and some kinks covered (though a lot of foot fetish, too much for me^^)

the bad:
the bland story and writing. though the game is trying it just doesn t work, the wimpy MC just doesn't give the "mafia thug" vibe.
The humongous tits on all girls, not a lot of variety in body shapes.
The bugs, content still in dev.
The lack of feedback, some event will not proceed and you won t know why, makes for better replayability but also will waste a lot of your time.

conclusion: great graphims and models, that could benefit from a greater focus on the writing. The game is worth playing, although the 14GB can be a hurdle if you don't have a great internet connection.

This is a very good game. It has some very nice character models, some very good animations.
However I do understand the frustration of not knowing the certain required levels need like intimation, charisma, ... to see certain scenes or to go down certain paths. It is frustration not knowing it , but it makes it more challenging to even personal since every run is unique to an extent. But using of a cheat would make it very more easier to see all scenes.

Love the game. The graphics are great.. A good mix of young women and sexy milfs... My type of game.

The story is not to too bad, with the usual School, and Home, but there are too many characters that you get lost.

Def a top 10 game for me

Very short but has really good renders. It's somewhat hard to know what i am doing in the game and also going to different locations and rooms is somewhat confusing at times. Scenes are well made and some characters i really like and also dislike that feel generic. However I this is another one of those games I can't wait for more updates on.

Positives:
Good visuals and an okay plot but that's it.

Negatives:
Writing is not just bad it's frustrating. There is an idiom in every damn conversation. I can't even imagine how do you even come up with this it should make writing this so hard but the writer did it anyway. Sorry but terrible writing, I tried to ignore the conversations but I couldn't.

Pros

• Fairly a good story emphasizing incest & poly-amorous. Incest approach with mom was very good, especially mom’s reluctance to give-up the morality was good.
• Excellent quality of image renders.
• Excellent quality of animations.
• Most of the casual dialogues are pretty good; though it’s being very realistic of some western slang which outsiders like me can’t understand but able to feel it.
• Great to witness the beautiful picturisation of wetness in pussies and cock which is mostly used to be just the words to describe but an excellent picturisation is simply superb. But this is missing for the scenario with Chloe in adult toy shop sex and with Sophie during the live CAM show
• Well seductive to see the teasing rubbing of cock with pussy followed by tip entrance and then the whole cock swallowed by the pussy.
• Nice crazy public hand job by aunt.
• Performance and grammar are all just OK no issue

Cons

• Walk-through MOD is a biggest mess.
• Sound: Almost no sound except background music
• Little bit of forbidden BSDM hope it won’t be deeper and if so, preferably option to avoid it would be preferred.
• Play-ability: A bit slow.
• Delay of sound; doesn’t match with the image/script/scenario.
• Incest patch is not good; still there are dialogues mentioning ‘tenant’, landlady/landlord’ etc; MC referring as ‘Lauren’ not as mom and the sisters by name never as sister and aunt also never spelled as aunt often as friend. What a messy? The patch only change the title of the dialogue for mom and aunt but nothing for sisters. But there is another incest patch with two files (from https://f95zone.to/threads/life-in-santa-county-v0-9-1-bold-bash-studios.80005/post-13559613) which is very good.
• Addictive to portrait the interruption of sex pretty often.
• Few crashes here and there guess it is due to the MOD.
• Absence of lewd sound.
• Most of the boobs are oversized bulky not nice.

Very good and waiting for the next release.

Ok so I'll have to play with a walkthrough to see how I feel about this game. for now I think the art is overall pretty good. The problem is the various mechanics that aren't really hinting strongly at what will happen if you choose the wrong choice. I ended up on the bad path and really didn't like most of the scenes. They are supposed to be family after all but it feels like actors in a porno. The sex club definitely was not fun and wouldn't be unless you want your main LI to suddenly become a slut who is fine with strangers licking her pussy. I'm going to try playing with a walkthrough and see if it is better. I have no interest in playing an open relationship simulator so hopefully the walkthrough will result in better content.

That is one strike against the game though. I don't know why some devs choose to complicate their games. I'm mostly trying to erase the bad taste I got from the bad playthrough by trying the good path. ,For now average feels about right.

Edit-ok the final review is 1 star. I tried a replay but it didn't feel that different. The side women (if the MC's mom is the main LI in your game) are pretty shallow. The older sister sells her sweaty socks to men online and does special photo sessions on occasion. The aunt is selling the details of her sexual relationship with her nephew to an adult magazine which she is super happy about. I say sexual because it doesn't ever hint that it's anything more than that. No doubt later she'll convince Lauren to be added to the story. As the aunt says "she loves sex and money". How romantic. The cousin is simply an idiot that you can either dominate or let her keep the footage of the MC wacking off to be used later when she feels like it. She also does online cam stuff so the MC gets dragged into that as well with the cousins friend.

Honestly the oldest sister is decent but the others just act like typical porn characters waiting for their cue for a threesome. The mom character seems ok unless you play a bad path which turns her into a slut as soon as they go to the sex club. They get blackmailed into having sex in front of a stripper who then starts licking the mom's twat which of course she loves. Not fun gameplay unless you like NTR type content. While it doesn't fall into the typical NTR category since there is no guy it really feels the same. It really renders the whole buildup between Lauren and the MC pointless since Lauren apparently has no issues getting licked by a stranger. I did read in the thread that there is a gangbanging scene too which Lauren finds interesting and when the MC of course asks her if she liked it she just smiles. Again it doesn't happen but the club has a very NTR vibe and Lauren seems to like it.

I think the game might have been better if there was a simple "good path" and "bad path" option to start with which locked out content you don't care about. As it is now the game has a choice of either "rise" and "fall" which apparently equate to a "criminal or noncriminal". The bad path was the criminal path which of course also has more content. Even though I chose the noncriminal path the game seemed to play out largely the same. Honestly how can you make choices when you have no clue what the result will be? This game would be easy to play if you didn't mind lesbo/borderline ntr content because you just go criminal and high intimidation points. For others it's like a minefield. I think it's crap game design in the end. He would probably be better off just going all in on NTR since it already feels like the main inspiration.

There is also a point system called intimidation and charisma. To get the most scenes you need high intimidation points. The choices seem loosely tied to good and bad. Honestly it's a terrible system because you don't know what your choices are going to lock or sometimes worse, unlock.

I think between the rather crappy characters (which includes the MC) and the ridiculously vague mechanics the game deserves it's one star.

+ music
+ renders & animations
+ smoking hot gals

- story is boring as hell
- unecessary free roam sequences
- annoying, whining and scared MC. Another idiot who doesn't know how to be assertive in lewd scenes - unfortunately girls initiate most of them
- lot of cocblocking scenes. I hate that shit
- relationship development is poorly done
- conversations are really boring, generally characters are dull without any interesing personalites
- 3somes could be better

Somehow i finished this avn, but i was really bored near the end.. 2 stars from me

Awesome Game, love the plot.

Hoping that there will be some more "school" related stuff in S3, looking forward to that.
I would also love to see some new characters being introduced since most oft them got quite busty boobs and maybe now some of the new characters have a more petite body...

There are a lot of reasons to give this game 5 stars and only 1 reasons to give a single star. First, the good... It's well written, there's good character design, the animations are smooth and you get multiple angles and parts to every h-scene. However, ALL of that is overshadowed by a pseudo leveling system. Whenever you complete a milestone, achievement, or hidden side quest (all side quests are hidden, ugh) you choose between a point in intimidation or a point in charisma. Getting even 1 point wrong, at the wrong time, means getting locked out of content. Does the game at least tell you how many you how points in which one you need to have in order to pick the correct choice, no, because that would be the bare minimum and that's too much. It's a completely unnecessary, and useless system that's takes more away than it adds... it takes away 4 full stars from what should be a top tier game on this site.

For a game with decent ratings and decent graphics this is shockingly bad. I couldn't stomach playing more than a little bit of it.

This is one of those games that feels like it was made by an alien that's never actually interacted with a human being, with their only knowledge of how people act coming through having played a couple porn games before.

Everyone reacts to every situation in completely ridiculous ways, with unfitting facial expressions, and even worse dialogue. It's filled with broken English seemingly trying to hide behind using a thesaurus and a book of idioms to have every character sound completely unnatural. Is that girl talking with her father? No ... she's "chatting with pops". "I hope none of this makes it to the school grapevine." "Head to school without any escapades." Who talks like this?! (In this world the answer is everyone. In every scene. Always.)

A massive download that I regretted downloading almost immediately. I'd only recommend this if you're very desperate for something new, don't care about believability at all, preferably are not a native English speaker so you won't be bothered by how unnatural everyone sounds, and have a major milf fetish. If all of those things are true you may actually love this game. But if not you're probably not going to like it.

An absolute gem designwise imo. There are different characters, that stand out, different routes to behave around them. The graphics are great amazing, although some models seem familiar, they are mostly changed enough to be their own thing. So im very thankful to play this and am thinking about supporting the creator to get more of it.

Story 1/5
No matter how good a story might be, not saying this one is worth much but i just cant stand games with forced fetishes, forced relationships, forced sex scenes and so on you get the idea, it makes a game feel kinetic and nothing but a mindless fuckfest which i personaly dont find any fun and this game has all of the shit i dont like.

MC is also the childish type finding any woman hot no matter if its the most ugly milf with huge saggy tits MC loves it.....so yeah again a game where your not allowed to make your own dessions on whos hot or not which just makes impossible to put your self in the shoes of MC while playing.

MC is also extremly submissive one girl forces her self on him and you do get the choice to pick be angry, but MC dosent get angry at all and even next day he tells same girl oh its all good if you ever want to kiss again im your man...
its all just boring and shitty writting if you ask me.

You will be playing as a pure pervert snifing panties and jerking off to them and have a mindset of a 12 year old that cant get enough of big ugly tits.
So it goes without saying to play this you need to be into every fetish and every type of girl and thats just not me.

To make game completely useless its not a harem game? so you can only wonder why game forces you into relationships and sexual shit with multiple womans, whats the point? cant play faithfull route since there are none, cant play harem route since there are none, so all that is left is a mindless fuckfest with no realy story other then fuck whatever whenever, with a shitload of cringy thoughts to read from your MC.

It also has a relationship system? where you gain points with girls but its so broken and pointless, even with 0 points MC will still be forced to do sexual shit with them...it shows how kinetic and awfull it is.

Girls 1/5
Its only for people with big tit fetish, if you dont have that you will prboerly quit within 2 mins of playing since its constantly forced on you, which also means theres no real diversity in builds its big or bigger, as for faces its mostly old and milfs and even the younger ones looks prett bad as well, i think i found only one girl i could care about, so not worth going for that when you cant play faithfull route.

Animations 3/5
Pretty decent animations and proberly the only good thing about this game.

Music 2/5
Standard background stuff and pretty boring on top of it.

Choices 0/5
Well forced LIs, forced sex scenes, forced relationships, forced fetishes like footfetish and big tits and anal and so on, you get the idea.

Sandbox 1/5
Dont really see the point of it, its just a waste of time making you click to get around but still forces you to follow a kinetic set questline.

The good part of this VN is the animations are decent.

I played this long while back and the Devs changed the prologue since then, not for the better. The problem is that the prologue doesn't mesh with the rest of the VN. It's as if the prologue is a mini VN and the main part is it's own stand alone using the same characters.

Even before the story was a bit disjointed, it's worse now. The hard truth is this VN doesn't work well without the family relationships and the new prologue didn't change that. Trying to remove them is foolish without completely changing the story, not just the prologue.

The models emphasize oversized boobs, not much variety there which is unfortunate and yet another Dev overcompensating for them self by giving the MC an OP penis.

Mysterious sister Charlotte. Charlotte shows up in the prologue which is new then she just disappears. She shows up again later briefly then disappears again only to show up yet again later. There is no mention of her or any kind of acknowledgement between appearances. At one point the MC tells her he will go shopping for paint with her then.......nothing. She disappears.

This isn't the only case where the MC agrees to do something for someone then it's seemingly forgotten. This tells me the Dev has no clear idea where they want the story line to go. That or multiple writer are working on it without communicating with each other. It's fine to improvise some details but you have to have a clear beginning, middle and end mapped out when writing a story.

It's not too late to right the ship with some changes.

First the new prologue is like new Coke, a resounding failure. The Devs need to do what Coke did and scrap the new prologue, go back to the original one. They would have been better served just making it so players could define relationships.

They need to own this VN for what it is, an incest story, rather than try to morph it into something it isn't. It just doesn't work well without redoing the entire thing. If they want to make a non incest story that's fine but as it stands this isn't one with any credibility.

It's late in the game but more variety in the women, meaning breast size, would be an improvement.

Also better explanation on how the whole point system works, ie, the charisma, intimidation thing, etc. and how it affects the story would be nice

Lastly the story needs to flow more smoothly. Right now it too disjointed, not just the prologue but the main part as well.

This VN really wasn't ready to be released to the public and just isn't working well as it is but still can be fixed.

Game has been reworked and it's not done coherently. The continuity is severed since the rework has plot holes. Apparently, it was reworked in order to satisfy the criteria for the game to be sold on Steam. Hence, the school part has been twisted, the seemingly violent part (before rework, you were given the idea of killing Dave) and the incest is gone. The worst in the rework is, of course, the story continuity: your long estranged sister Charlotte who came back after a long time of absence is now available since the beginning of the story as if she had never ever left the house before but later on she's taken over the attic and talking about renovating it (she was settled in from the beginning and it was already renovated) and the mom commenting about the family reunion and how she's happy that her daughter is back (when she never left to begin with after rework). All in all, all of this rework doesn't come from a effort of fixing the game or due to the demands of the dev's supporters on Patreon but for his venture of trying to sell the game on Steam, sacrificing the original game in the process in detriment of those who have been supporting the project since the very beginning.

Game has been reworked and it's not done coherently. The continuity is severed since the rework has plot holes. Apparently, it was reworked in order to satisfy the criteria for the game to be sold on Steam. Hence, the school part has been twisted, the seemingly violent part (before rework, you were given the idea of killing Dave) and the incest is gone. The worst in the rework is, of course, the story continuity: your long estranged sister Charlotte who came back after a long time of absence is now available since the beginning of the story as if she had never ever left the house before but later on she's taken over the attic and talking about renovating it (she was settled in from the beginning and it was already renovated) and the mom commenting about the family reunion and how she's happy that her daughter is back (when she never left to begin with after rework). All in all, all of this rework doesn't come from a effort of fixing the game or due to the demands of the dev's supporters on Patreon but for his venture of trying to sell the game on Steam, sacrificing the original game in the process in detriment of those who have been supporting the project since the very beginning.

This game went from a 4.5 to a 2 star with the latest rework. It's still a beautiful game visually, but boy did they really screw things up with the 0.9.0 release.

My review is going to focus on the writing. I'll break down that further into two categories, over arching story and dialogue. The story got worse, but it wasn't great to begin with, so I don't really care that much I guess. What's really killing me and makes this game hard to play for me is the dialogue. In the reworked prologue the conversations barely make sense. It just feels so rushed and poorly made. The flow of dialogue is what keeps me in the game, even when the story isn't the best. If I have to stop every other sentence to decipher what the characters are trying to say then it's complete failure of a story.

TL;DR: The rework needs a rework because this is bad.

Edit: I gave the original review a 2 star because if the devs went back and fixed some of the issues it could be a good game again. They have had the opportunity and have not fixed anything so it's going down to a 1.