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

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 .

I'll give this game 4star all because of those girls and sex scenes. Also, this game has a high-quality GUI and works smoothly unlike the other games. but I must say that the mc looks really weird, and his friend is a fucking idiot. Really hope it will improve in the future update. This game gots potential.

Excellent game !
its been a while i didn't see such a Excellent game like this one .. bravo !
The story... 9/10
Hot Milfs... 9/10 with Incest 10/10
Dialogue ... 8/10
I will watch this game closely ..this game will be one of the best games i am sure 100% .
All the best to the developer and the team .

Version Reviewed: v0.2

Overview: A hapless boy finds himself being forced into crazy sex scenes by crazy circumstances.

Story: You are a completely brainless zombie with a huge pecker that somehow sill manages to go to school sometimes. You have a scumbag friend that drags you into some obviously bad deal with a psycopath, but having no will of your own you go along with it. At school you are abused by the staff but other than constantly freaking out in your head you do nothing. At home you're in a standard sisterfucker storyline.

Graphics: Very nice. Someone knows DAZ and how to get crisp clean scenes out of it. The models are pretty well designed, although several a just a touch on the "so perfect they're kinda ugly" scale.

Gameplay: Mostly a VN. There are a handful of free roam segments, but they're basically just padding currently, as there is only one useful clickable object at any time in the "free roam" segment. There's a cell phone feature but it's a skeleton at this point, only used once in a required sequence.

Overall: The completely spineless and functionally retarded MC made this one hard for me to get through. All of the sex is sprung on him randomly, the only intitative he has is a few peeping scenes and checking out some butts. On the plus side there is zero grinding. None of your choices seem to matter, they're all "do scene/don't do scene" as far as I can tell. This might change in the future, but I'm rating on the current game.

To get an idea of the level of writing in this game, at one point a psycopahtic gigachad guy your friend got you entangled with tells you that he needs a pair of your friend's mom's underwear. Instead of sending your friend to his own house to steal some out of a hamper you get sent to break in and steal them. Never once does your character try a "I think I left some homework in his room, can I go grab it?", his only plan is to sneak in an open window and hide in plain sight until someone catches him. This completely insane turn of events leads to a completely insane sex scene for no reason.

First off, the renders are gorgeous. And that is the only redeeming aspect to this game.

Now the cons: The MC and his best friend are 2 of the dumbest characters to ever star in a VN. Words cannot begin to describe how stupid these 2 are. Most of the female characters are unlikable personality wise as well.

And the MC and his friend are just the worst. I cannot reiterate this enough.

Now meta game criticism: this dev is trying to be clever and failing. They keep trying to subvert expectations, by setting up a NTR scenario,like the mom locking g herself in the female bathroom with 2 boys,then being like lol they were just scrap booking. Its obnoxious as fuck.

The free roam,is pointless and poorly designed as well.

The renders are really nice and the girls all seem like characters I want to see in a game like this, but I gotta agree with a lot of other people in the criticism of the MC. I don't like the way he looks or acts, he acts like a massive bellend to his friend 100% of the time, even if her deserves it I want to chose how to talk to people. If hes not acting like a massive cunt just thinks about fucking everyone around him and for some reason they seem to like him.

I think changing the way the MC looks and acts would make this game a lot better, I think it would also make it easier for the player to be immersed when playing the MC if the camera never shows his face like in games such as Light of my life and DMD, it really takes me out of the game when I gotta be reminded that I'm playing this dude that I don't like the look of when I would much rather it be left to my imagination what the MC looks like.

Also the first scene scene you get is really weird and very out of left field, it comes out of no where, there isn't any build up or choice in the matter its just very odd. I like NTR elements in the games but you have a least got to give the player a choice in the matter, I really didn't like the idea of the scene after you try to steal the panties it was just way to soon.

So I hope this game gets better in time, I would hope the MC and Ron get changed/ removed because I think this game has a lot of potential.

Let me introduce you to our MC: Cuck the simplord. I don't know if I've ever played a game that stars a man with less of a spine than this one. He looks tough I guess, but he is literally a doormat for everyone other than his friend who is somehow more meek than himself. If you are into being dominated by every human being in your life, this game is for you.

The writing is okay as far as grammar goes. The story is...blackmail. That's it. Most sexual encounters the MC transforms into a sniveling little twerp. Of course your *totally not sister and mom* can't resist your oozing sex appeal. There are limited open world sections that are straight forward and a cellphone that is mostly unimplimented so far.

The models are nice, but not great. It's one of those games where the skin textures make them look like a pumas stone or discount bologna. The facial expressions are uncomfortable and the poses are extreme. Oh, and every woman above the age of 40 wears clothes that show an absurd amount of areola.

I'm probably being hard on this game because being dominated is not at all my thing. But more than that I just can't stand the personality of the MC. He just seems like he is on the verge of crying all the time. His mind is consumed by sex whenever he sees any woman ever but seems like he will have an anxiety attack when a woman even glances at his penis.

If this is your thing then I truly hope you enjoy, but if blackmail and femdom isn't your cup of tea: proceed with caution.

MC is a weird looking sub who keeps getting dominated. There was clearly effort put into making the skin look good, and they did avoid the "plastic" look, but now the texture looks really strange. As do quite a few facial expressions.

Have to give it just 3 stars even i would rerally like to give it more cause it has quality and makes quite a lot things really good. But thats my personal review. And yes, i played it till day 3.

Pros:
+ great renders, models
+ all women and girls are tastfully curvy
+ nice animations
+ explosion looked dope (even i didn't run on gas kinda strange)
+ old men look old and some also fat nice
+ great english
+ great soundmix with personalised tracks for certain characters/locations)
+ timberlake motherlover track +1
+professional looking outro and tasteful mainscreen
+ even the filling background ppl are detailed and sexy!
Cons:
- no ntr
- forced cuckold with the mc...
- can't "lose" girls really to other guys...
- no sex scenes with those awesome old guys lik Billy or Sario
- some milf faces look too "cornered"
- not really avoidable flirting and sex with the mc...
- ron looks more sympathetic than mc
- both are smooth boys...
- phone navigations is interesting but superfluous
- not even multiple characters (like playing as the girls) or at least billy as the mc...

About the girls visuals:
- Lauren: looks hot nice body, reminds me a bit of that girl from Resident Evil sad she doesn't has wild sex with her old sugardaddy
- Rose: Face looks a bit bland but nice curves and dominant attitude
- Camelia: cute one nice style nice curves nice freckles but for not an attractive face and not that fitting hairstyle imo
- Iris: nice
- Sophia: great! would love to see her with Billy
- Chloe: very curvy but least attractive face of all females
- Elena: sweet and sexy
- Karen and Sarah also really nice
- Alessia: one of my favs with Sophia and a few others
my gosh even the Rose-Seller is hot and curvy.

Sad this is not ntr and you can only cheat with the mc i am not interested in.... not even really multiple characters.... but i have to stay objective and can't give the game a worser rating sadly even it was sexual-fetish wise a big bummer (and thats the focus on adult games normally). Cause the quality and girls are just too good. fuck.

I would highly recommend to put the disclaimer that this game is not ntr and a boring mainstream project on the top over the intro and not in way too small letters somewhere in the middle of everything..

Click to expand...

Excellent images and animations.
MILFs and girls in general with excellent bodies.

If it were to give a suggestion about the appearance of the female characters, some points would be:

Both the mother, aunt and teacher have short hair, being very similar to each other, not that they are ugly, but to give more difference between the characters that seem to be from the main arc of the story, there could be a greater variation of models and colors of hair.

And the blue haired sister's face could also look a little younger!
Answered New Rating after 0.3
(I don't if the dev readed my rating before, but that IRIS (sister) now not have more blue hair and have her appearance most young with sure stayied much better!)

Story to be very promising too.
Answered New Rating after 0.3
(made me very curious to know the whole mystery of the school)

My score will CONTINUED being 5 to motivate the author to continue the game doing better and better!

Man... The renders are so good that I WANT to like this game. But the dialogue just kills it. Flat out murders any desire to continue.

Starting off with the "MC's BF is a legit braindead moron who get caught up indebted to a drug dealer" was a major turnoff for me to start with... and it just got worse and worse.

ANY sane guy would have told Ron to go fix his own mess, no matter how good of a friend he was. No. Just... No.
I tried to get pass the godawful writing but I just couldn't be arsed. Ended up just unrening the renders to see whats in there. It is good stuff. Shame they are tied to such bad writing.
Hard pass.
Man... The renders are so good that I WANT to like this game. But the dialogue just kills it. Flat out murders any desire to continue.

Starting off with the "MC's BF is a legit braindead moron who get caught up indebted to a drug dealer" was a major turnoff for me to start with... and it just got worse and worse.

ANY sane guy would have told Ron to go fix his own mess, no matter how good of a friend he was. No. Just... No.
I tried to get pass the godawful writing but I just couldn't be arsed. Ended up just unrening the renders to see whats in there. It is good stuff. Shame they are tied to such bad writing.
Hard pass.

Very promising nice game. Congratulate all the people working on this game. Expecting further version. hope will climb the place the game deserves asap.
It is 2.3 gb but graph and story looks promising. For the first version it is in very good level.