VN - Ren'Py - Living with Vicky [v4.0] [StannyStanny]

VERSION: 1.0 Remake... Re-Review v4.0
SUMMARY: Not bad, not great either with "good" inconsistent renders...
RATINGS: (out of 5): ⭐⭐

NOTE: The following categories and scoring method are my own criteria and may require more context. Additionally, scoring is based on the state, and what is in the current version and not what may or may not be introduced at a later point.

1. Character (Model) Visuals......... : ⭐⭐⭐
2. General (World) Visuals........... : ⭐⭐⭐
3. Animation Quality................. : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
4. Character Personality(Persona).... : ⭐⭐
5. Story & Dialogue.................. : ⭐⭐⭐
6. Writing & Grammar................. : ⭐
7. UX/UI, Game Type & Mechanics.......: ⭐⭐⭐
8. Playtime & Pacing..................: ⭐⭐⭐
9. Music & Sounds.....................: ⭐
10. Adult Content & Fetishes.......... : ⭐⭐⭐

Average: X of 50 possible points giving a X% rating i.e. X stars.

PROS: - See my opinions section for details.

1. Models look good, at least the female ones do (LI), but (see CONS)
2. Animations are pretty impressive, hopefully we will see more of that.
3. General visuals are pretty good.
4. Able to set relationships

CONS: - See my opinions section for details.

1. MC skinhead? Whats with that, did the poor kid get his head shaved due to lice? I am sorry but his look is like that of a serial killer or some gansta...he also looks like a 14yo with weird stretch marks on his face, burn victim had the pox?
2. Inconsistent look of the "mother", her face and age changes from the first scene. Her face often changes from one scene or animation to another, sometimes making her look actually ugly as sin and old.
3. Writing is bad but and doesn't read well nor is spelling checked. e.g. Holly and holy are not the same... The punctuation is also poor and needs decent revision.
4. Pointless one button choices, why have them if thats the only option you have? One button choices still in the game, FML, this developer...*shake head in disbelief
5. MC setup to be a pervert on his "mother", "landlady" whatever is stupid. Needs more context and less deliberate, thats boring and has porn logic...MC is shallow and little to any personality apart from being a perverted, weak, beta pussy, which kills the game because you play as the twerp...
6. Story is nothing new, interesting or complex, its just "feelings" and bs driving a particular narrative with no choices.
7. Short and little content here to give a decent review.
8. No sounds at all, neither ambient, H-scene or music, major disappointment, but guess that fits what the developer was trying to do eh...
9. Some character faces are really bad, the waitress at the coffee shop looks like a female version of the MC with hair and makeup, the way she laughs and pulls her face, looks like something from a twisted horror flick.

OPINIONS, SUGGESTIONS & FINAL REMARKS:

NOTE: The following remarks are my personal opinions and thoughts, which may provide more context and could be useful to the developer. (Read them or don't)

• The first few sentences have repeating words in like our MCs thoughts while packing the car e.g., "holly hell, I hate moving" immediately after "where the hell is..." next line "...new town, new job, new everything" immediately afterward "....get new job, soon". You simply don't write this way because you don't speak this way.
• Per the MC being a pervert to his "mother", if the woman bent down right at MC face level, tripped and showed her panties and that set off a chain of naughty perverted thoughts with the MC then fine, its more believable and planned and we players can kinda get it and understand the MC warming to his "mother" maybe add to that something about the MC always checking her out, just to build some history and no off the bat immediately zoom in on the first woman, it comes across as unnatural.
• Per con about "mothers" face and age. Check the first picture of her on the porch, she looks young, firm tits and face barely has a wrinkle. 2nd pic after animation, looks same, 3rd pic you can clearly see the crows feet around the eyes, still fine...can live with that due to lighting? Keep going though, with each pic more lines come up, around mouth, uneven skin, saggy skin until in the car and then you can really tell she is older (especially when she yawns). In some scenes it doesnt even look like the same person. Even the MCs face looks like it has lines, like stretch marks or cellulite. Maybe I am nitpicking here, but its clear as fucking daylight...
• This game has some potential even in its porn logic story kinda way. Simply because the current "mother" LI does "potentially" look good and the visuals show that this can look good. Its just inconsistent in the game, particularly her face changes and ages from one render/scene to the next and her face looks like clay when there is a smile, laugh, sad or any significant expressions. While this is undoubtedly difficult to do and create good renders etc, its sadly just too apparent not to notice and drops this games rating down as a half baked game. This is not helped by the MC look, average writing and short amount of content that is here, not to mention it was released in 2023 and since had already had a remake, this is the remake...*cough... Sad
• Boggles the mind how there are people who rate this game 5 stars lets alone 4 or even 3. This AVN is simply not good, not compared to actually good games out there, which there are plenty of. Go educate yourselves please, this game is simply not good in the slightest...

TLDR:

My initial review still carries weight only now I dropped the rating to 2 stars because since version 1 the developer made ZERO improvements to the game. The MC still looks like a 14yo serial killer with his bald, pox scarred skin. The writing is still riddled with errors and cringe worthy dialogue. The renders are still inconsistent and faces change from and often look ugly due to poor design skills. This is not said to slight the developer, kudos to anyone building a game in their free time, but don't expect a slap on the back for shoddy quality, this is too damn inconsistent and between now and version 1 without any fixes to things that are CLEARLY bad, it speaks volumes about the developers attitude toward supporters.

i would give it 2.5 stars. It's a kinetic vn where you are an absolute perv from the get go. There is no nuance in this game you are drooling over your "caretaker" from the get go.

The renders are a bit hit and miss, i like the vicky character but the protagonist is a bit meh. Also some of the surroundings feel like it's made by ai that has no clue what the real world looks like(talking specifically about the car on the road when there's an electricity pole every meter). But that's a bit nitpicking.

Overall the renders have improved sadly the dialog/story hasn't.

the remake in my opinion is gonna be a total blast if it won't get abandoned. the new model of Vicky is almost real life mature woman (i.e. total MILF), looks very believable, behaves normally and is just sweetheart. the original game was nice so I hope that remake will give it a second life and serious improvement. good luck and hope to see it through to the happy end
one thing, that is totally need correction - the text is too small and fair - you can't see s**t and I nearly broke my eyes trying to read. please do make it more suitable for reading unless you want players just to scroll through the game

After 2yrs of production and 6 chapters in, lets do a remake thats worse than the original, and not a whole lot changed between this version and the old version for chapter 1, the only major difference is mc looks younger taking on a bit of shocon look to the game.

This character, her animations causes the uncanny valley effect. Really scary. Story is absolutely boring and no interesting, but more important ugly model of vicky. Disgusting face animations became to you in your dreams. Not recommend .

Pros
A. The new artwork is impressive and the MC is a lot more introspective. It's upsetting that it has taken so long and so much of the story to be retold but the improved graphics make this justifiable IMO.
B. MC isn't an intolerable bastard
Complaints:
1. too many shots on the MC. Most are during his time thinking to himself and struggling with his urges but all the same.
2. the flashing/moving screen shown to display travel is seizure inducing, Slow that shit down.
3. the fantasy of her on his dick isn't a loop.

La historia esta muy bien enfocada en generar una relacion mas profunda, los ersonajes son buenos y la calidad de imagen es buena tambien, la novela visual es muy interesante de principio a fin, aunque suele tener ciertos detalles con algunos renders no es imortante comparado con el resultado final en general

• Mother being a lady who had divorced her husband for cheating (financially dominated male) and her loving son forcing her for sex is not appropriate concept.
• Lack of seductiveness in sexual approach.
• Lot of spell errors.
• No sound / music.
• Game/Story title ending with the name of the landlady limits the opportunity for customizing the name for landlady

Lot of opportunities for improvement.

This is probably the game that best depicts the fantasy of having a "close" relationship with your mom. The slow burn is truly well done and everything happens when it has to and not a moment too soon. The first time you manage to get a blowjob from her is very different to what you get in other games. It feels the closest to what you might experience IRL if you have this kink, because all the teasing until reaching that point is brilliantly done. In addition to that, the MILF is presented in a realistic way, yet she looks terribly hot and sexy.

Animations are quite simplistic and the MC definitely looks like a creep, but don't let that keep you from giving this one a try, you would be missing out!

Really great renders hampered by very amateurish writing.

And I do mean they are very good. Granted they're Genesis 9 models so it's hard to make them look bad, but it's amazing how many devs on this site still manage to. Here though the dev actually has a pretty solid grasp of shot framing and lighting that really let them shine, every scene (at least visually) is super well done and hot. It also uses frame dissolve faux-animations for it's scenes which I'm actually a fan of, offers a great compromise between stills and time-consuming real animations.

My only small critique visually is that the dev overdoes the DoF effects a bit, feels like when video games first got it back in the Crysis 2 era and you saw extreme full-screen bokahs everywhere.

But with all that praise out of the way... we come to the story. Best I can put it, the story makes this game feels like it should have been rendered in Gmod. It's one of those games where you're just dropped feet running into the most mindlessly horny protagonist you'll ever meet who has literally no other thought in his head than being horny. Pretty much the first thing he does is try to hit on his mom, and it just intensifies from there. I could be on board with that if it was a more silly hentai thing where it's just shallow porn, but with the realism it's presented with it just comes off as kinda gross and amateur.

It also makes it's linear kinetic direction a shame. Usually I quite like kinetic novels, but the hornybrained MC makes me desperately wish there was some choice and paths here. I feel like I'm stuck playing a game where the MC makes every worst choice. All it needs are some illusionary choices that offer scene variants and set a few variables for alternate dialogue and it would be a vastly better experience. You can keep the same linear progression, but just with different flavors.

Overall, it's worth a play for it's renders, they're all highly fappable and enough to carry it even with all it's problems. But it desperately needs a story re-write though, I've never seen a game with such a contrast in quality before. I'm really torn between a 3 or a 4 here, but with the lack of sounds or any UI polish too, I'll leave it with a 3 with the hope it helps motivate the dev to make it the game it could be.

There was nothing interesting in this "game". Its way too linear to be called a game when choices don't feel significant in any way. Add to it that the story is boring as hell. The only good point is how realisticly unattractive Vicky is as a mom in her 40+ years. I mean... I play the games for unrealisticly attractive women and girls. This one isn't that type of game. The younger girl gives some hope for this story to pick my interests, but for now there is almost no content with her.

Every dev is a person. I don’t wanna crush that person. But can’t give this more than 1 Star… at BEST. I’ll point form it because there’s too much.

-Engrish. For shits and giggles, I used the URM mod to correct spelling mistakes. I got 6+ pages.
-MC: Too thin / loser to be a believable male-dom. Too creepy to be loving. Pick a lane.
-Day/dreams that ruin the reveal if/when it happens for real ex: Sis.
-Loss of Focus. Mom. Then Mom + Sis. Now intro a bunch of new LI… it’s called Living with VICKY.
-Graphics. Yes. Vicky looks like a Milf with a model I haven’t seen. But some expressions are horrid.
-Animations. I’m ok with no animations. But loops of 2-3 pictures done 4+ times… stop!
-MC that can’t do a task without flaking. Ex: Editing pictures. That just makes me hate the MC.

This dev is definitely NOT the only one doing the above stuff… but I actually like the potential of this game (!)

It’s all fixable though. Get a proofreader. Narrow it up to Vicky +/- sister. Ditch the fake animations. Live with stills or wait till you can do “real” animations. Lose resolution if you have to but make the faces attractive. STOP with the “I have to do this… but I won’t… hurr… hurr…” MCs.

Finally, please, pretty please, with sugar on top: if you make changes… make them going forward. Please do not rework old material. You lose momentum and/or creativity.

Despite the above, I really want to see a new and improved Living with Vicky and I hope the dev achieves it…

If I could, I'd give it a 4.5. Only because the render quality isn't the best out there and scenes aren't animated either.

I think there are a lot of really great games that are more "complete" story-wise, with more complex characters and more interactivity . But it's nice to have a decent, linear experience with simple story every once in a while. And this one does that pretty well imo.

This game's pacing is already completely ruined, short of rewriting the entire thing. There's very little element of corruption, because it's possible to have the MC say some pretty damn suggestive things to his own MOTHER right there in the beginning of the game and she just acts like it's hot. In little to no time, you're putting sunscreen on her and basically sticking your fingers in her ass. There's very little content so far and it immediately goes to a sexual place, with the mom giving very little consideration to the implications of her son acting like this toward her. At least, I don't think she's thinking much of it— it's kind of hard to tell when the English is complete trash and I can only halfway understand what anyone is saying or thinking.

The worst part, I'd say, is that skipping any progressive corruption and immediately moving toward perversion isn't really even a choice. You can try to be sweet to her instead of aggressively flirty, but it doesn't make much difference in what happens here. The multiple dialogue selections are, first of all, only an illusion of choice, and second, extremely unclear on exactly what path they'll set you down should you choose them. It's just wildly poorly-written.

This game has also gotten a surprising amount of praise for its graphics, but I must be missing something on that front. I'm not an expert in high-quality renders, but I play enough of these games to know outstanding graphics when I see them, and mostly all I see here are unnatural, blocky characters with weird, thin-looking hair that looks like it was messily glued onto their scalps and who always seem to be making the wrong facial expression for the situation. I won't say it looks TERRIBLE, but it's not much of a standout and honestly it reminds me more than it should of the Ren'Py porn games that shaped the genre back in like 2017/2018.

The story is quite banal but hey we make do with it . For the characters , Vicky is pretty much okay but as for the MC " WTF" is he stupid or what ? Personally i feel tis way as in many others games !!! So stupid and very ugly a real dick head , he really looks so much like nothing that you can't believe in the game or get into the skin of the character! A game with potential but disappointing , really a shame !!!
Donc pour moi ça sera 2 étoiles et elles sont pour Vicky !

Real milf,no huge melons. I really enjoy the game. If patreon had a payment method I could use, I would definitely support it. I'm very looking forward to the next update. 很棒的游戏， 加油！/That's great! Keep it up!

The overview says - " Will you use this new change to bond with your mother or be a complete pervert. "
But you are never given a choice!!! MC is always a pervert, keeps perving on the mom, forcing her to do stuff. Wants the mom to be his girlfriend, but then starts fantasizing about the sister. Doesnt the help the fact that the MC looks like a psychopath in many renders.
So to the Dev if you are reading reviews, give players a choice to not be a pervert and treat Vicky like a lady, not just to satisfy some pervy fantasies.

needs better proof reading and work on the pacing. I mean the mc wants to jump Vicky within in the first 5 minutes and ask to see his sister in undies in the first 10 minutes, no build up or relationship building. unfortunately i had to stop playing because of this.

Don't think this is written very well, it has very few choices and ALL of them have 0 impact so far(why even have them).

Overall the "game" is just a run of the mill incest VN, because you can't call this a game as nothing has actual impact.

Everything in this VN has been done by devs that write better or animate/render better or devs that give actual choices with impact.

I don't see any redeeming qualities in this VN it does not separate or outshine any other games in this genre in any of the aspects.

So far one of my favorite visual novels ever so far. "Landlady" is so fricking hot and her reactions are somewhat realistic of a lonely housewife isolated with the "tenant", who is giving her all the attention her husband didn't.
The dude is a real horny bastard and very forward with her. Love the focus so far on just the two of them, no 10 other characters I don't give a shit about, and I'm very much looking forward to the "room mate" joining them in the future. The game is straight to the point, no endless pointless dialogue, just the necessary amount to drive the plot forward. Just how I like it.

Cons: Their relationship is moving a bit too fast and I feel the build up to them finally have sex will be over soon. Can pace it out a bit more.