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

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.

Man that sucks, I really wanted to like this game as it ticks off pretty much all my boxes in terms of its premise.

But the dialog is just so fucking bad,
Its like dev is purposefully trying to slap you out of immersion and its infuriating because the graphics and scenery are just so well put together.

I though that it could be because of the incest patch that makes the dialog appear weird as fuck, but without it its all even fucking worse!

your mother calls you honey, your aunt calls you honey, your sister calls you honey, your cousing calls you honey, you little sister calls you honey..
Hell even the mature lady selling flowers on the street calls you honey.
Youre everybodys sweetie and baby in this game.

And where does the idea to end every single fucking sentence with Mom comes from when talking to Lauren?!

Hey, Mom.
Bye, Mom.
How are you doing, Mom.
I feel like something is bothering you, Mom.
Do you really think that I have the means to steal your panties?, Mom.

Why the fuck change chloe's name to Aunt this is so fucking beyond me.
Your Aunt
Our Aunt
My Aunt
Their Aunt
Whos Aunt again? srry I forgot

Seriuosly dialog is so broken the patch doesnt make it better some would argue it actually makes everything worse.

Even without considering the conversation between family members,Characters express themselves in a robotic and...dumb way, I really cant describe it differently
The dialogue is dumb!

As I said 2 stars for graphics and UI, overall technical implemntation is well executed, but the writing oh god.

Very good game. I like it equally, both the graphic component and the story, and most importantly the characters. Especially interesting is the cousin of the main character and how their relationship is built and her gradual submission / taming. The story itself is not trivial, and most importantly, it really exists here, unlike most incest-themed games, where the whole plot is based on the fact that you finally fucked your mother, in this game it happens (will happen) rather in addition to the main story and that's how it should be!

Its a shame to give this such a low rating since the renders are so good and the girls have something different and unique to all their looks. Nothing , however can help the truly dreadful storytelling. Honestly I cant even tell you what the dialogue choices mean half the time the English is so bad. Just awful. People gotta learn to use Grammarly or something to help themselves out if English isnt something they are good at and they cant get a native English speaker to translate their translations. Like i said its a real shame since its all so pretty to look at.

The sandbox was very difficult to play in the beginning , it's almost impossible to play without a walkthrough .
Now with the 0.6 version, the game is great after the authors have eliminated the sandbox .
In its own very high quality, the author also enlightened , this game will be a classic in the future .

This is the best game on this site, hands down. The graphics are outstanding, the female characters are breathtaking (not to mention fully fleshed out, with distinct personalities) and the story is surprisingly deep and complex, with moral choices that lead your character down different paths.
I had come across this game many times, but never bothered to play it until recently, and I was shocked at how much content there is, and how much the story actually progresses in a short period of time. This is not the same old "guy lives with his landlady and roommates" story we've seen.
The story takes a bit to get started, and there's plenty of setting up scenes that will become important in future chapters, but goddamn, once it becomes free-roam, the game truly begins to shine. The whole thing just oozes originality and vision, even when it delves into a bit of fan service.
Give it a shot - you won't regret it.

I'll start off by saying that the strongest points of this game is its visual quality, animation quality, and the many stunning girls, particularly the girls who are "closest" to him, if you get my meaning.

However, that's pretty much where the good points end.

The story is completely all over the place and feels very chaotic, like the devs don't really know how to handle the story they're trying to craft. It feels like it just throws too much at you all at once with these really high stakes and sinister, shady goings-on. It's just one thing after another with little time to breath in between and things often move at too quick of a pace, particularly many of the romantic relationships. It also suffers from pretty bad "Engrish" at times where characters say things that make absolutely no sense in native English speech and this can add to the confusion when trying to understand what's going on in the story.

After the prologue, things sort of settle down, but that's when the story really feels like it falls apart and doesn't seem to know where it's going. Again, more details are just thrown at you without much context, or build-up, or really any great care to make you actually invested in them. It tosses girls at you and expects you to just like them straight away, but they aren't really given any kind of decent development.

Then there's the freeroam and "levelling" systems which feel clunky, unnecessary, and oftentimes pointless when they throw in what seems like really arbitrary things and things which make no sense because they haven't been given any kind of decent context. The devs would honestly be better off removing the freeroams and just making these sections more kinetic in terms of the scene order but still include choices when necessary.

There is a lot of potential for this game because its visual quality is excellent and I can appreciate that the devs are trying to craft a serious, gritty story, but I feel that falls flat in this regard with shallow character development and a messy plot that doesn't seem to know what it's supposed to be. The latest update, for example, all but abandons the central plot for a typical AVN feel of spending time doing lewd things wth sexy women and building towards more lewd things later but without feeling like there's any real plot in the background.

I'd honestly say this game is in need of a major overhaul. I think it could be a huge success and close to a 5 star game if it were to have a better paced and clearer story, no freeroam, and a greater focus on meaningful relationship building.

Ok, this game could be a 4, not perfect but pretty good.

BUT… That prologue is too horrendous and discordant from the rest of the game!

For real, after that the game actually gets good, but seems like the prologue purposely wants you to HATE EVERY SINGLE CHARATHER!

And surprisingly after the explosion (prologue's end) almost every character change, some “disappear” (luckily Ron and some “husbands” ) or even change completely, take the MC for example, from a spineless bitch to someone that somehow get the things done (barely, but still… )
Also, the prologue apparently wants you believe that almost every girl is a slut, just to backtrack that in the next updates.

Seriously... why? You know… first impressions matter!

And sadly, many people will never give this game a chance after that horrible prologue.

Fantastic models, very very hot sex scenes, and a compelling story. Overall a great experience, the only flaw is that I wish there was more content, though as problems go this is a good one to have. Congrats to the devs for a great experience

Great Great Great Game! The character renders are absolutely gorgeous and the story compelling however I took off two stars for a very large reason. The biggest reason is how you have to answer every dialogue question 100% correct in order to unlock a certain scene. Scenes crucial to the plot of the story! For example, you can choose certain pathways in the game.

Linking point progression with only a specific pathway ruins entire game. The different pathways should only effect non important character scenes not scenes with Main Character that would've happened regardless. Now i'm missing out on points to progress relationship with a main character because of it. This translates to story progression. 3/5 stars

Female renders are stunning the male renders are something else and I dont mean that in a good way the MC has one of the most punchable faces I have seen in a adult VN. Kills the whole vibe everytime I see the MC wish this game was first person only.

Ok, I tried this game and I have to say that it is a hot mess.

The Good - The renders are really good.

The bad - Everything else.

Right from the beginning you are stuck with the single most annoying character in the game... Ron, his "best" friend. As friends goes, this is a guy that nobody in their right mind would spend two minutes with.

The MC is little more that an impudent pussy. He has no back bone, he lets himself get pulled into Ron's messes when he should be telling him to get lost and he is just an all around wimp. His personality should make women cringe and yet somehow everyone in the game wants to get in his pants.

The story is just kind of all over the place. Once you get to the Free-roam, the game just becomes broken and isn't worth going any further with. I really wanted to like this story but it is just a train wreck and should be avoided.

Edit 2: I tried to just proofread everything but the script is so fundamentally garbage that only a complete rewrite from someone who isn't retarded could save it.
I mean, wow. I remember it just being shitty grammar and spelling but it's not. It's like it was written by someone who is cringe incarnate and doesn't have a good understanding of English.

Poor grammar and spelling. Images of some obnoxious weeabo keep popping into my head whenever I try to read the dialogue. Are you writing a story or are you talking to people online?

• A mix between way too formal and internet slang no one would use in real conversation or even say in their heads.
• That's really bad for something that's supposed to be a visual novel.
• Learn how people talk, dude. No one says "WTF" in real life. Also, it's not "cashes". It's just "cash". Get a proofreader. I'm calling bs on that "professional writer" you got.
• There's actually not a lot of scenes so I think they're seriously thinking of having the story carry the game

I'm pretty sure the only reason this game is highly rated is because of the renders.
Nothing in this game makes sense.

• I got the gist of the story but I actually can't sit through any dialogue without cringing at how terrible it is so I just speed through. Then at some point, I find that I can't even roll back.
• A lot of times, I'll look back through the log because I feel like I missed important context but I actually didn't. The characters just start talking about something like I should know about it.
• I don't know what working out even does, nothing was explained.
• Bugs everywhere - message notifications when there aren't any more messages, weird screen blinks, can't even get to some places in free roam without the fast-travel UI, etc.

From the prologue, I thought it was just the terrible writing that looked like most of it came from memes and internet slang but that was just the tip of the iceberg.
The renders make this game look like it's going to be a lot better than it actually is. Imagine getting a gift for free. This gift is in an immaculate, mahogany box wrapped in extravagant, gold wrapping paper then you look inside and find ... a turd. The people that would be all happy about the packaging while completely ignoring that they just opened a box to a wet turd are the people that would give this game 5 stars.

Edit: You have to understand that the renders are so fucking great and crisp but everything else is so awful that the stark contrast gives me a feeling of great revulsion.

It's pretty easy to give a 5 star to this game.
Amazing renders, Great story. Awesome animation. Interesting characters with actual personalities.
If anyone wanna play this for the first time, please go ahead and enjoy it, you'll not be disappointed.

This game is PERFECT, except for the prologue that takes about 15-20 minutes. The prologue is misleading: it has NTR vibes(not actual NTR), a weak MC and annoying characters. It turned me off big time but I kept playing and I'm glad I did, because the rest of the game isn't like that at all. If I gave up during the prologue I would have given this 1*, and I'm assuming that's what some reviewers did.

As for the game(except the prologue) it has:
* A MC that isn't wimpy or silly
* Amazing models and animations
* The usual incest setting we all love and cherish
* Lots of foot stuff
* Easy to follow quest objectives and NO grinding