Ren'Py - Lunar's Chosen [Ep.2 v0.3 Public] [PTGames]

tested against v0.16.1 but admittedly not very far in.

It's..... ok... but it suffers from that issue where it feels like it's a sandbox game for no reason other than they're easier to write.

With a visual novel there's a need to connect scenes up, usually via dialogue or exposition (and the required renders that go with it). But with sandbox you can cut away a lot of that by simply making the user click on a map, find the bit they want, click the option and go with nothing other than a line of text which says "I should go to x".

This game suffers from the issue where the player has to click where they want to go, but as it's the only option, the game feels criminally empty, especially in the early game when the cast is quite light. You have a sandbox of all these different places and rooms (10 or so to begin with) in a world split into the standard 4 time slots (morning, afternoon, evening, night), but they're all empty apart from the 1 room you need at 1 particular time frame so you end up spending a lot of time just clicking on every room hoping the trigger to continue the game is in there.

It also feels like the developer is aware of this as there is a guide available to view on the MCs computer but that in itself just highlights the issues with the whole thing. Starting the game you click on the first character you meet and the note you get is "I wonder if she locks the door to the bathroom on Sunday afternoons"..... but it's currently Monday. So you've a week to wait till you can progress with that. Once you're there the scene is you see her naked and she tells you to bolt.... that's it. That's the scene. Ok let's check the guide "I should sunbathe with her on Saturday afternoon. SATURDAY?!? So another whole week of clicking. Now, the argument can be made that while you're waiting a whole week to continue with one character you could be doing something else with that character but it's not made clear what that gives you. There's no feedback from the game to say "well done, you've spoken to x, her affection has increased". You have to go back to the computer again and check the stats to see if they went up. But even doing that raises the issue of what that gives you. As there's very little dialogue it's hard to judge if a higher affection actually does anything that a low affection wouldn't. This actually also bleeds into the story telling the dev is trying to convey. The premise seems to be you're a God or a demigod with powers..... but the chance to use the powers is so spaced out I found myself not really caring about it. "The MC can read minds" that's fun but you only get to use the powers like 3 times in the first few weeks. So all the mystery around magic takes a hit as the player feels frustrated trying to get to the next scene.

You could also make the argument that while waiting for that one moment when you can interact with one character, you can go speak to another, but that character is also only available at one point of the day... so what else can you do... you can go find the library or go for a walk in the park, which doesn't do anything. So why is the game a sandbox when you've only got the one option to do something?

Bizarre. Like... I look at the banner on this game and I see 12 women or so but I never got to look at more than 3 or 4 because the game seems to have created the opposite of grinding. Rather than be forced to do the thing continuously till you get where you need to go you just need to wait for it to happen, and that's boring.

Pros
Game looks nice

Cons
Too many dead areas in a sandbox game which probably shouldn't be a sandbox game
Too big a gap between events with characters
Magic is real apparently, but rarely used.

It's a really nice game. The pacing is good, there is already a lot of content, the characters are well developed, there is very nice fetish content. Very excited to see what the future holds!
The only thing that annoys me a bit is not being able to check how much you make with income after updating your portfolio in the evening because it locks you out because it's too late for work.

Also minor plot misshap;

v0.15.1, completed all content (~5 hrs)

Story: Writing overall decent, tho I felt it was better at the beginning. MC receives minor, limited, mind reading and meets a bunch of characters including magical ones. story is surprisingly very little about the mind reading, halfway through the story I actually completely forgot that that was supposed to be his "power" since it is barely ever used in the game. It's much more about his sperm having positive attributes that is then used for all types of mumbo jumbo. Overall the concept is decent, but the story overall is pretty bland and doesn't utilize it in any interesting way.

Characters: You have a stereotypical shy chick, fitness chick, goth chick, nice girl next door, and a bunch of side chicks including magical stuff, overall I found the characters fairly average, none stuck out too much but none were annoying either. Visually I liked two characters (as in 8/10) but the others were average.

Gameplay: typical sandbox, clicking around on a map with up to 9 locations during 3 times of day and unlocking scenes. there is a PC in MCs room to see how to advance. MC is supposed to make money via photographs but that mechanic is utilized very little as money wasn't really used for anything meaningful, other than the occasional purchase for story progress. The photo shoots are basically if you did 1 you know all of them, they are always the same, woman dressing down, bit of tease, MC telling how beautiful characters are, etc. No real mechanical impact, gameplay wise.

Scenes: below average, very short and not very high fidelity. the majority is static images with 3 or so slightly animated (low quality loop). Dialogue during scenes is rather repetitive and overall average.

Overall not bad, not great - average sand box title.

Lunar’s Chosen 0.15.1

I look for games with a fantasy theme and this one is a heap of fun.

• Production values – good.
• Dialogue - light and breezy.
• Largely sandbox, but by using the hints you can avoid the repetition that turns a lot of sandbox games into a grind or a guess-fest. The game is flexible so I don’t need to follow girls that don’t appeal to me.
• Characters – The MC is a nice guy rather than some macho douche and the girls are almost all attractive and with great diversity in looks and character.
• The sex – It’s an enjoyable part of the game and it’s there for fun rather than to stimulate the player’s ego.

The only let down for me (at 0.15.1) is that a core feature of the initial game (Lunar’s actions on Earth and the development of the fantasy/magic themes) appears to be of little importance to the dev. Yeah we’ve had some tricks and some futa spells, but the game seems to have devolved into finding different ways to have sex with each of the girls (not a bad thing). The whole vampire line seems like an afterthought. Still, there is a great base here for the dev to add more in this regard.

Overall, I’m enjoying it and looking forward to future releases. There is a strong foundation here for a lot of them.

One of the better games in this genre, plus all the girls are lovable.
A couple of requests for the devs, first please add a little more missy screen time and secondly make the mc a little badass, like him being able to use his powers in fighting or proper mind reading etc.
I have done story telling as a subject in my uni and I can tell your story has a lot of potential. Keep up the good work!

Beautiful models, very charismatic romantic options, even some funny dialogue here and there. Scenes are very hot but their descriptions can be a little lacking sometimes. Even so, one of the best games atm.

This game is below average. It is sandbox and of course it has the issue with building up things, and the search for events is slow since you need to visit the bed to skip the day. I find dialogues boring, as if characters are in a hurry to tell you the stuff quick so you leave them alone.

Sex scenes are boring, im repeating the word, but even with incest, this is one of those that the kink doesnt help me get through. My underwear is clean, thats how plain this is.

Designs are Daz, a couple of decent looking ones in certain situations like Claire, the readhead and the dark elf or whatever, but thats it.

I though this one was good, it was in my "to play" folder for 6 months. Too bad.

A positive surprise, I must say. I get the feeling that the plot not taking yourself too seriously and it fits quite well. Nothing nonsense but also not a force comedy. Light and fun, kinky adventure with pleasant characters and very nice views (especially if you sucker for chicks with dicks).Thers not any drama or heavy stuff. MC isn't some horny teenage creep who manipulate or mind control others to molest them when they sleep. (not saying this cant be write good, its just very rarly)

I want to prise dev for not puting any grind/repetitive mechanism just to falsely make it longer (Its not about size... right?). In game tips are stright and understable, not stuck even once. I get all availbe content in around 6h as for version 0.14. I recomend this mosty to futa enthusiast but its completely avoidable and its not even main theme.

I hope to see more of Meg (pink demon amazon) in future for... various reasons. Sorry for bad eng.

Review on v0.14

I love it. I debated even giving it 5 stars just because I enjoy the game so much but I think that would be unfair to some of the problems that still exist. So let's get into it.


Pros

• Sexual content
  
  Just fun times all around. I guess you need to be at least a bit into fantasy and futa stuff but I like how the dev managed to combine weird, kinky, unrealistic sex scenes with an environment where normal relationships and your more vanilla type sex are still possible.
  
  The world is a familiar one, just with fantasy creatures mixed in. I really enjoy that there are no like disgusting, growling, dribbling monsters in here, everything is just very aesthetically pleasing, even the fantasy girls.
  
  Otherwise, like I said, you do have your straightforward vanilla sex but then you also have stuff like belly bulging and being penetrated by a horse cock and all that good shit, it's really fun.
  
  
• Fantasy worldbuilding and magic
  
  In my opinion, the dev managed to find a really unique way of threading the needle here with combining a sort of believable fantasy world and magic system while also obviously exploiting it to engage in all sort of nasty degeneracy.
  
  I think it works because it's not pretentious. The dev clearly knows what they want, and the characters know what they want. They can and do obviously use their magic for non-sexual stuff but they don't pretend like there needs to be a deeper reason for enlarging your boobs or giving women a dick than "it's fun, let's do fun stuff with it". It's straightforward and unapologetic, and also more honest than all these fantasy hentais where they feel the need to explain, "no really, enlarging your tits to a ridiculous size definitely has an important plot purpose".
  If humans had magic, of course they'd use it for nasty stuff, that's just how we roll. So some people might think that the magic is all a bit convenient, a bit too hand-wavy and unexplained, and yeah, that's true as far as it goes, but this isn't GRRM, it's smut and it doesn't need to apologize for that.
  
  So yeah, I'm on board with all of the crazy fantasy worldbuilding and magic shit sort of just being a pretense for more weird sex scenes, that's why we're here, bring it on.
  
  But don't get me wrong, the fantasy aspect is involved in the story for more than sexual content so it doesn't feel completely extraneous, it's actually surprisingly well done
  
  
• Writing
  
  Maybe not the absolutely strongest point of the game but definitely deserving of the pro category.
  
  I really enjoy the different characters, I like how nearly all of the women are confident and have their own life before and without the MC. The MC does have the typical porn-game symptom of women just flying towards his dick but the women generally don't just fall in love with him, I think that's an important distinction to make. They're unapologetic about the fact that they just enjoy themselves some good dicking and there's no reason why they shouldn't get some from our very willing MC.
  
  And as far as the MC himself goes, I also really like his characterization. He's thoughtful and respectful without seeming weak or pathetic and manages to be the rare kind of smut game MC that's both sort of your typical everyman and not a gigantic creep. And I think one really does not need much more than that.
  
  The dialogue also works overall. Some small typos here and there but it's obviously and thankfully written by a native speaker and it just generally feels pretty natural, so yeah, good job there.
  
  The overall story on the other hand is sort of thin and unfocused, I feel like the dev needs to zero in more on driving the plot and at least hint at an endgame. As it stands right now, it's mostly aimless with one story thread being sort of the main drive of the game but not getting that much attention. As much as I like the exploration with all these characters, maybe there's a way to tie that more directly to the actual plot so the scenes where you just hang out with one of the girls don't seem as pointless.

Mehs

• Artwork/animations
  
  It feels sort of unfair to criticize that point too harshly. I think making the renders for a game like this is the most thankless part of the job. Bad renders can ruin a good game, but good renders can't save a bad game.
  
  I don't feel like I need to say a whole lot more. You've all seen the artwork at least in the preview images and on the banner. It's really not bad, I don't mean to imply that it is, it's really not. But it's just not astounding compared to other games.
  It seems like the dev has been experimenting with some actual animations in the last couple updates, that could really improve the sex scenes that so far have unfortunately seemed rather static without them.
  
  Otherwise, well, the render quality never bothered me while playing. It's definitely good enough to not be distracting. But, you know, just barely missing the mark to belong in the pros category.
  
  
• Gameplay/Sandbox
  
  This is a fairly common problem with these sorts of sandbox games and I don't really mind that much, but I still feel like I should mention it.
  
  The sandbox just doesn't really serve a proper function. The only thing that it enables, that a straight-up VN might not allow, is the option to choose the order in which to pursue each of the storylines (to some degree). Other than that, yeah, there is just a lot of skipping days just to get to the place and time you need to be.
  
  You have a very straightforward hint system, which is good, but still, doesn't really feel as organic as it could otherwise be, everything seems pretty disconnected.

Cons

• Secret images
  
  This is actually a really minor con but I can't express how frustratingly hard it is to find the secret images. I don't expect it to be super obvious but you do need some hint of where the button is. The first few ones are actually pretty okay, but after a while, they just become ridiculous.
  I've now been playing the game with the cheat mod that highlights the right places where you can find the images because it's just annoying and honestly sort of impossible otherwise.
  But like I said, a really minor con overall.

Conclusion

There aren't many other games where I look forward to a new update as much as this one.
It's the perfect mix of wholesome and nasty that I'm a sucker for, characters that just know what they want and don't feel a need to apologize for their deviancy

It's just overall great fun and really hot and I don't need much more out of porn games.

Love this game and always look for the updates. The characters are well thought out and beautiful and i cant wait to see where this ends up heading. I hope there are more one offs like the birthday party.

0.13 Public

Played an hour or so and deleted it.
- Graphics are subpar
- Story kinda interesting but girls are just flying to your dick
- Nearly no choices so far
- Empty Sandbox - Most of the time you are clicking throug hthe locations in hope you find new dialogues but mostly its empty

Really enjoying this game.
The girls are all great & the story is entertaining and involving.
It's fun to play, no grindy stuff - which is always a plus!
The supernatural/mystical element is well done and adds another layer to the deep story.
There is plenty of content, the girls are gorgeous and getting them on your dick is straight forward - another plus!
It's not just a fuck-fest though, the story is strong and keeps me interested.

Big thanks to the dev for this. Highly recommended.

Pros
- Good looking models.

- Main story/plot is decent.

- Proper english.

- Not much grind.

Cons
- MC is scrawny midget, as short as the women, but skinnier.

- MC lack any qualities that could explain why all these beautiful women want to have sex with him, apart from a magically enhanced cock (but seriously, even should he only date size queens, that's not something they would find out before having sex with him, so that hardly counts).

- Hardly any need to seduce or corrupt. Most women are perfectly willing after just spending some time with the MC.

- Incest taboo corruption wasted as above rule applies to sister as well.

- Few choices. The gaming part is mainly about clicking on the right place at the right time in order to trigger an event, as there are very few choices (choices mostly revolve around what kind of sex scenes the player wants).

- Ridiculous sandbox that would be unplayable if it wasn't for the hint-system that tell you exactly where and when you need to be, in order to trigger a certain interaction. Many times the place and time has absolutely nothing to do with the triggered scene. Want to tell your sister about magic? Well, that can of course only be achieved by talking to her in her room on sunday morning. Any other time or place, that conversation is impossible. Because magic can only be talked about in bedrooms, during morning on sundays. Right. Also, the sandbox is useless and only serves as an impediment to the game. It isn't that it takes a lot of time (it doesn't, of course it's more clicks than it needs to be, but to be fair, the clicking doesn't take that much time), it's that it kills immersion.

- Way too many conversations circle around what the women look like. Despite that, there's never any talk about what the MC looks like. Maybe because he's scrawny midget?

- Overuse of the gorgeous-but-insecure-woman-trope.

- Said gorgeous but unreasonably insecure women thinks the MC is a therapeutic god just because he says what any normal person would say when confronted with a gorgeous but insecure woman ("no, you really are beautiful, I'm telling the truth, really").

- Gorgeous, but insecure virgin let's the MC lick her pussy and then suck his cock on a warehouse/factory floor after having known him for two - three days, while his other fuckbuddies (including his sister) are waiting in the adjoining room, fully aware of what's going on.

- Harem achieved without MC having to do anything. All the women think it's a great idea that he fucks other women, without him needing to do any sort of convincing. Jealousy and possesiveness are unheard of.

- Porn logic abounds and the MC has ungodly luck in his life, despite not having any skills worth mentioning.

- Cringy and flat dialogue over all and characters are generally speaking immature and shallow.

Now I remember why I don't like sandbox mode games very much. The models of the game are pretty good, but the gameplay is extremely boring. Half the time you can't interact with your sister at her house. Friday and Saturday evening she's not even there for the MC to interact with. Does she just magically disappear? There needs to be a lot more events with the different characters and more of them for this game to get a 5 star rating. Being able to only invite one person a day to the house is also very boring. The UI needs a serious upgrade. Why force the player to go into the MC's room for clues and stats. Having a phone UI would be a lot better so things like that can be checked no matter the location he's at. More locations would also help the game in a lot of ways.

Overall the game is decent, but it's nothing to really rave about in the current state. Updating the characters, locations, and events would give it a much needed boost to make it a fantastic game.

High quality renders, great writing, and good variety in both body types and faces I've not seen in a dozen other games before. I especially like that there's a hint system in game, no need for an external walkthrough to make sure you see all of the content (other than the secrets). Very much looking forward to seeing where this game goes in the future!

The game is a bit above average.

• Renders are OK
• Animations are kinda OK
• Story is pretty common but not bad implemented
• Sandbox system isnt that annoying
• Characters are good, though they could be exploited in a better way, with slower development and more pics

The game's has a lot of focus on Amy (futa), which its good for me, it's a shame your "roommate" ends up abandoned for quite a while though

simply funny, serena as character is awesome, love how she can make the mc uncomfortable but can dazzle him with her experiments.
great renders and great story.
enjoyed a lot of this game, cant wait for future updates of this game

A really great renpy sandbox. The renders are extremely high quality, the writing is great with very few errors or typos and the optional futa content is some of the best I've seen on this site. The girls are a good variety of distinct looks and characteristics and they're all well implemented and consistent. If you're looking for an in-depth RPG experience, this isn't it, but if you're looking for a really well put together, extremely sexy visual novel, I can definitely recommend this one.

If Big Brother didnt have an awful grindy: Lunars Chosen!
Well, good chars, nice renders, not awful story.

But what is gonna keep my attention is the way that the relashionships are going; the girls are superb! No one is boring.

And the list of fetishes and kinks is good and seems that will grow even more. I'm not into "every" fetish irl, but this game menages all so well that i will never complain.

Good Points
+Decent looking renders.
+interesting story.

Bad Points
-Renders looks decent but not good enough for only pictured adult game! Its not animated we have some scenes like flipbook animations but thats it. Its damn shame.
-Its lack of images! Come on man you are making ony pictured game and lots of scenes dont even have enough image for being hot. We got present from someone we are seeing gagget girl in position waiting us we are going and fucking her but we just have one image! Not any position, not any other angle just one picture. And its just poor, realy poor.
-Its sanbox with nonsense gameplay. We have tips but its more like VN sanbox dont have any gameplay elements like need to be it can be VN easly and it could be more easy to play.

For The End
Its have potencial but it cant achive that. Need proper animations or at least more imaged sex scenes, more qualiy renders or animations. Right now its just poor about being adult game and fap material. If i go for story VN i would give 3.5 star but i dont think its deserve with that state. I spend like at least 10 hour to play whole content and it wasnt any good for adult needs if you can cath my word