Ren'Py - Lust Academy [S4 v4.4.1d] [Bear in the Night]

The game visually is above average good character models that look different from other games , the guide and hud work pretty well apart from a lack of "GO TO MAP" button , the minigames are dog awful boring and tedious but they can be disabled ( only at the start though)

The main thing holding this game back is it feels like its meant to be a story based gamed but the writing is just bad, the MC ranges from good person to very creepy from scene to scene (not affected by choices) , the overall story is pretty predictable and uninteresting coupled with bad overall English leads to the game being a drag to read.
Maybe it will get better when the other characters get more fleshed out and the dev gets more experience writing but currently it's pretty mid

So damn amazingly pretty, its like the Dev got the source code of Emma Watson and even added onto it without making her hideous and actually making her looking even better and so so good.

Every frame is a piece of art that I instinctively save it every frame cause its just so damn memorizing.

So blessed to be existing in this era

review based on 0.7.1d version
beware, this review writed by sandbox fan
PRO:
- great cg
- good animations
- good code
- flaweless ui
- ig hints
- good story
CONS:
- none... ok, two story ewents starting simultaneously in tuesday, so u must w8 1 week

welcome in my top, dear game , "my precious"

Reviewed as of 7.1 (end of what appears to be Season 1).

The weak point to this game is generally the fact that much of the plot is too similar to its obvious reference materials to really draw you in (the story is fun, but kind of tough to stay engaged when it seems like every 5 minutes you're reminded of something else).

Familiarity aside, the story IS still fun. The characters are (mostly) hot. It's possible to feel a connection with a couple of them. Developments with some of the LIs feels forced, but for others it feels earned. Overall enjoyable. Rating a 5 instead of a 4 mostly because of the potential I feel for things that have been set up for the coming updates.

0.71 Season 1

Pros
+ excellent UI, very easy to navigate and easy to find what you're looking for
+ excellent in-game hint system. No walkthrough needed
+ visually the game looks good
+ Good models
+ Gallery contains like 99% of all available H-scenes, so there's almost never a need to make saves to revisit scenes
+ developer is active in the forums and seems to take feedback seriously
+ animated H-scenes with audio. In my opinion, there should have been more H-scenes. Many of the potential love interests lack H-scenes entirely (e.g. Adele, Victoria, Sabrina, Samantha, Vanessa, Molly)
+ If you like Harry Potter, this game is a parody of sorts

Cons
- Story driven game with really bad writing. The plot has no depth and tends to be predictable. Characters are underdeveloped and the important ones tend to make stupid choices. You're playing a character who's inexplicably chosen without doing anything to earn it
- Combat system remains basic the whole way through and never really progresses anywhere. You can only cast 1 spell per turn and 3 of the 4 spells you can cast, can only be used every other turn. All the damaging spells do roughly the same base damage. Practicing a spell in class only adds 1.5 damage to that spell per lesson. It's so bad that the only spell worth leveling is the most basic spell (combat bolt) because you can spam it every turn. So practising that tends to be the best way to do more damage.
- Dueling lacks progression. You duel basically clones of the same opponent. You never get access to higher level opponents
- Money feels worthless. There's just nothing you can really buy that progresses the game, or gives you an advantage
- Thin on content. I expected a lot more content and character progression, but part 1 has finished and there's not much compared to other story driven H-games
- The gameplay loop is very basic and lacks variety
- The H-scene animations often look mechanical

Suggestions
- Hire a writer or take the time to get better at writing before doing season 2
- H-scenes could be faster and more intense. It would be nice if the H-scenes did a better job of building arrousal as they progress (and I don't mean more foreplay). The dialogue for the H-scenes could also be better
- Rework the combat. Add more spells, a passive skill tree, gear, maybe team compositions, and don't limit which spells the player can use. There's a lot of ways to add depth to combat, the minimum is to copy the combat system from another turn based strategy game


Conclusion
I've held back from rating this game until now, because I expected there to be a lot more content for it. Since the game has abruptly finished part 1, I feel like the time is right. There's a lot of potential for this game (still is) but the execution continues to be disappointing. It's thin on content, the story lacks depth, and it tends to be predictable. Characters are unintelligently written, and they make dumb choices. If the H-scenes and gameplay were good, you can still salvage this, but those are mediocre as well. This game is like a movie with fancy special effects but lacks substance

Fantastic game. Btw they really need to spicy up the main quest, put some real evil threats in the game, or something. I don't have anything else to say but I really want to rate this 5 stars so I kept talking XD

Visuals (renders&videos): 5/5
The renders are great, the videos (gifs?) are great. (dude, are you running two RTX3090 on NVlink? XD)

Story (characters/genre): 4.5/5
Fantasy/HP ripoff, but it's great!You guys took a template of an existing franchise, but you managed to give charisma, backstories and high interest (for the player) to find out/discover more about the heroes of this game.

Smoothness: 5/5
It runs perfectly fine in my xiaomi 9. I've never experienced any lags/crashes to this day.

Gameplay: 5/5
The mini-games (sorcerers duels, Fishing, Magic training). The basic things (Roaming around the different areas).
Once again, 0 bugs.

The lewd part isn't what I look mainly for when looking for a game, but if you ask me, the renders are great.

Conclusion: 4.8/5!
It's the best game on this site, and by far. Btw, thanks for the option of being able to remove the "shemale".
Your main character, (I named him Señor Akabur XD), looks physically weak, I don't know if it's the face or the body, but it's the only thing graphics wise that was unpleasant to my eyes, but then again, I'm not into guys, maybe I'm being jealous haha! (Also, he looks like Lando Norris! xD, I mean, right?!)

Version tested: Lust-Academy-0.6.1f.apk

What could have been a very good game is destroyed by a dev who is more interested in forcing certain personal kinks (humiliation, femdom) onto the players. Going so far as to make progress with fan favorite LI's (Sam) progress tied to you as the player dealing with completely awful characters (Audrey) with no recourse to even attempt to stand up to her. You either take the humiliation and total emasculation or say goodbye to two characters.

Then if you can stomach that you get the privilege of playing as a totally retarded MC who likes any semblance of a spine. So if playing as a beta/wimp who is a total submissive loser this game is for you. If not then look elsewhere for your fantasy style gam, this here will only lead to frustration.

To be honest, if I was very strict I'd rate this game with 3* and not because I want to be mean, but there are so many concepts that are not really thought through. Like earning money that you cannot spend, fighting in a competition that you win every week anyway (why have the competition in the first place, when there is zero risk and no tension at all?), having the story peak and taking all decision-making away from you. If this game wasn't so unique, with beautiful art and interesting characters I'd say it was average, because those flaws hit hard when it comes to my immersion. But I cannot really bring myself to go as far with my rating. It wouldn't quite do the overall experience justice.

A visually well done game, good designs and that's it.

Beyond what I already said, there is nothing else positive to say, MC's design is horrible, MC's personality is terrible, dumb, empty, the plot level of the game are boring, slow burn, to all this we have to add the vile and nefarious "Sandbox" mode, it does not help at all in the progress of the game, in any way, quite the opposite, it highlights more the great defects that this game has at the plot level.

Forget about reading a good script, forget about developing a sentimental relationship with some protagonist of the game, forget about watching something exciting, the only thing you will find are boring dialogues and a lot of empty and repetitive grinding.

Its ok, the inspiration for it is pretty clear, but its done pretty well.
Visually the game looks pretty good, characters look good and so do the environments. On the writing side, dialogues between characters can be on the boring side at times, but in general its ok.
Unfortunately, for me personally, all the characters i was the most interested in have the least amount of story content. The rest of the cast and their stories are ok, but i want to see more of the teachers and the vampire lady in the club. But of course these are just minor annoyances.
Overall the game is definitely worth a try.

This game has the potential of being a top 3 game of all time. So far it has been great world building, fantastic renders/animations, and the open world has the bones of something that could be truly spectacular given time. The best of luck to the developer who so far seems to be putting out content at a rate that seems faster than most games I follow.

While animations and renders looks good i cant say anyting good about this game at all. MC is not likeable at all, as a player you dont have choice change to his act aganist other characters at all, story is not well writed at all, couple of love interests (espacily Audrey) act aganist MC and his act aganist them is not acceptable at all. Some characters like Haley have too much grind and teasing while others have well enough content (even penetration) and it makes things unbalanced. Dialogues are dull and boring, their writing is not good. MC dont have any character development, he doesn't change at all. Magic minigame is buggy, you can get highscores with just random drawings but you cant get perfect score with actualy doing it, its just doesn't makes any sense at all.

With all bad points its terrible game, a lot of thing need change and maybe then this game can be better than 1 star.

Not gonna lie, with the quality of the renders and general visual polish here, I didn't think I'd be giving it this low a score. But it's got two pretty major things working against it. First, it's no fun as a game, which isn't too rare, but also means there's no real charm apart from the visuals.

Second and way more distractingly, whoever wrote this might just have never spoken to a girl or woman. MC is a complete tool intended to be an idealized self-insert and the LIs have all the personality of sea sponges. Paying any attention to anything apart from the renders is like jerking off while a particularly stupid friend reads you porn dialogue.

The only good point from this game is animation and renders.But not all are great there is some that look unsettling and weird.Anyway at first I really excited to play this game before we got a Dumbass character as MC.His action with the girls is...ngl I facepalm a couple of time.Fucking Idiot.its like his brain and his dignity thrown away out of windows.Story is nothing worth mentioning,I completely forgot about it after Im going around in the game searching characters quest.Its competely random.The plot is awful.Dialogue is robotic.We also got rushed fan service sex without doing any proper step and knowing each other first.It feels rushed.Naomi character also unbalanced.Audrey is a fucking bitch that you will hate because of how trash she treat MC and MC that know little about her trust her completely,betray the girl that always back him up.Samantha is a Dumb ass same as MC..The Asian chick that I like,her first time is when SHE IS IN APRODISIAC IN THE FOREST AND NOT IN HER RIGHT MIND,WHY??,NOT EVEN ROMANTIC,AND HECK,SHE DOES SAY JUST FORGET ABOUT IT after they got rescued.Pretty stupid dumb plot if this is how you treat ur characters.Sorry,I'm not a fan of Dumb MC and dumb plot.Gudluck dev

The dev keeps grinding us with Haley! And this update is just too much. Maybe in the future this will be considered a good game but for now it's no diifferent than any sandbox game grinding to all hell to milk everyone who plays it! 1 star!

EDIT: Changed my mind. Finally. haha

Worth playing just to score Herm.... ahem... you know you! There is 3 or 4 other characters I think are pretty hot.

The game to play is pretty straightforward, there is nothing that is going to make you go 'wow!' in this game as it's a pretty standard VN formula. The environments feel a bit bare but overall I think the game is quite relaxing to play.

Sometimes I feel games can try too hard with having flashy renders and models and as a result there is slow development. With this game it's not trying so hard in that aspect, not to say the models don't look good, and i think you can be reassured that the game will be completed as it seems to have overall cohesion in the renders and look of the game. In some ways the strive for realism makes games feel less artistic and a lack of style. There definetly is a particular style in this game maybe a bit like 'University Problem; not the latest genesis models but they've made the earlier ones have a good level of polish.

The option to turn mini-games off is good for someone like me who doesn't like games with tedious grind.

The story has it's moments and some of them are quite surprising, I particularly liked the way the MC was 'initiated' into their house at the start of the story. It was a creative twist! More of those would be interesting.

Overall it's a pretty enjoyable game and definetly will come back for the lioness beauty.

After 20 minbutes of gameplay I think i can give the game a 3, and from the first experience, I dont think it will go higher. Why?:

IT makes the mistake of abusing the sliders to the point it's too obvious and breaks proportions. The default DAZ can't take it, it looks awful, so all those females with "exotic" proportions look horrible,and I will skip them. There is no slider for shoulder width, and seems there is no lider for the arms and they remain skinny even if the girl has "big features".

The lighting is decent but you will see the nose bridge with a red color, wich means someone got the subsurface scattering wrong. What Im trying to say is that this is an average product visually speaking, and those are just 2 things i have time to describe.

The writing is there, nothing to good to comment, for the msot part I want to skip cause im not very much invested in the story or the way its told.

For the game...I really dislike when a game gives you a lot of sex scenes with a character you barely know while sending you in an infamous search for questlines with oher characters. I call that fanservice sex, and to watch a scene without story and abrely context there are better options out there in real porn.

So, If you think Haley is your girl, skip this game cause "she doesnt wanna go that fast" MEANING its only been a year of the game development, so you must wait another 2 cause she is the star of blueballing, I mean the story.

If you like other girls try the game, i tha interesting things like magic duels and stuff, but its half baked right now and a lot fo blueballing.

Absolutely gorgeous and unique characters. Gameplay loop that used to suck but is now okay after a few updates. And a better than average setting. Not a unique setting mind you, but still miles better than "Guy comes home after long trip to live with Landlady and Roommate. You won't guess what happens next!"

But the dialogue is absolutely dreadful. Like an AI generated script run through a language translator a couple dozen times then slightly modified by a half-asleep editor. "Listen to me, stupid face!" "Great! I'm very passionate about this now!" Sometimes it's humorous in a so-bad-its-good kind of way, but most of the time it's just disappointing.

Oh also the game has been out for how long? And if you're into Sam or Haley the most you get is making out and some mild groping. I understand a slow burn but the game has been out too long for that.

If/when things progress I might come back and bump up the stars even if the core issues aren't fixed, but right now it's around 2.5 territory for me.

Really appreciate the effort the dev puts into the renders and the animations, also the story started out really good with the whole Harry Potter vibe and Haley being a Hermione clone is cool, Magic effects are cool and the cast of non-human characters is nice (except for one but I'll get to that...). The backgrounds are all pretty unique, but I am not sure if I want to keep playing anymore...

First off, this awful character Audrey who for some reason we are forced to help because apparently Samantha is a complete moron... Even if you try to help her out even without Samanthas pushing you too, this fucking cunt Audrey totally emasculates the MC and he just takes it like a fucking loser and comes back for more... fucking idiot!

Secondly, we got this MC who started out seeming like a competent person but that quickly disappears with the previously mentioned succubus cunt and to top it off he just chooses trust some completely shady fuckwad who just tried to kill him and instead of trusting the one person who truly has his back and just saved his life (Leona), he fucking lies to her and does'nt trust her and puts her in danger I'm sure.

Good luck with your game but I just can't stand when a dev makes the MC go full-on dumbass just to what? Cause some non-sensical mess he will inevitably have to clean up in some equally dumbass way? Then he will just be like "whoops, need to not do that again" then proceed to do some other dumbass thing... *sigh* so much potential wasted...