Ren'Py - Lust Theory [v0.4.5] [Inceton Games]

Season 1 is an easy 4 stars, the groundhog day premise and being able to mess around somewhat is great, some really hot scenes.

Season 2 on the other hand seems to forget all of that, the groundhog day premise is still there, but nothing interesting done with it. Repeat things to move the story forward, no choices that lead to hot or interesting things, just linear story pretty much, with an absolutely ludicrous ending (and not in a good way id say).

Season 3 i just stopped "playing" almost instantly.

Long story short, if you like Season 1, just stop playing after it, Season's 2 & 3 are so nothing like it, shame really.

This game was a journey. So much fun.
Game-play was really fun.
Interface: Usual
animations: Very good
voice acting: superb
Story: spectacular

Overall this was a game that took few days to finish and it was amazing.
I really enjoyed personalities of the characters, each had their story, each had past and quirks. I believe an anal scene is available for each character (super important) although with some not explicit.
Very good game if you know what good game is.

The best thing about this game are the renders. They're absolutely fantastic. However, the game is marred by lots of other problems. First off, the premise is that you play a moron who is living the same day over and over again; so basically a porn Groundhog's Day. And therein lies one of the biggest issues of the game: you play a moron who doesn't stop being a moron for the entirety of the game. After a while, the story just drags and drags and becomes less and less interesting the further you go in the game. It also doesn't help that the big plot reveal at the very end of the game comes off as extremely lame.

The sandbox element is completely wasted because the game really plays more like a kinetic novel. What this means is that you can't progress the main story unless you advance every girl manually; even ones you don't care about. You see girls in various areas of the day but you can't even interact with them at all unless it's at a very specific time; which means it might as well be a kinetic novel with all its restrictions.

The voice acting is really hit or miss. Some girls sound bad. Some sound okay and I only thought one of them was excellent. It doesn't help that the voice acting is censored in a sense that none of them say "brother, sister, or mother." This is pretty lame considering I've played plenty of voice visual novels that have no issue saying any of those 3 words.

S1 & S2 combined rating.

If you like groundhog day (the movie) you might find this game amusing. Unfortunately this gimmick of time resetting over and over makes it very hard to build any meaningful sense of progression. Not only within the story itself but also within the characters. This will become even more apparent when you get into season 2. I don't think the writers did an awful job at this, but they certainly could have been more creative with their approach.

Basically forget about the story cause it's not really there. There's just different ways of getting to sex scenes. The sex scenes are decent, but most of them feel very lackluster, basically more of the same. Fails to capture sexual tension and build-up in many cases and there is no shortage of games like that. Turns out making the day reset over and over can really make it hard to develop anything. If I was the writer I would have turned this gimmick on its head in season 2 and actually brought something new to the table, cause it's clearly run its course.

Anyway, the renders are decent, the girls are somewhat unique in their looks, but personality wise they are just cock-hungry sluts who can't stop admiring the MC's horsecock. Having one or two of those girls is fine, but 10+...no. The narration in sex scenes is quite decent, but the same can't be said for the dialogue between characters, again they are basically just too obsessed with the MC beyond a certain point in the game. Add that together with the day resetting and it just becomes a character assassination that would make the most heinous serial killer blush.

The VA is a nice luxury but it can't carry the game on its own.
Still I give S1 & S2 a combined rating of 3.5
Like I said the girls are hot and the scenes are decent. I just wish season 2 took a different route.

I will probably check out season 3 a few updates in, but if it still bangs the same groundhog day drum...

One of the best games out there! I have truly enjoyed it. Every season so far has hit the mark and I am looking forward to see what season 3 brings to the table. It's more than worth it to support the developer.

Game has nice renders, plus voice acting and some smooth animations but that's where the positives end for this.

The concept of a groundhog day type adult vn sounds interesting but is done so poorly it renders the concept useless. The MC is dumb as bricks and it's another generic game with the girls constantly going on about the MC having a huge dick and falling in love fairly easy.

Sex scenes are annoying to get to because there is so much filler and the MC will constantly be cockblocked either by his own stupidity or some other character intervening. Why make it so difficult to get to the parts people play the game for it's just an odd choice for an adult vn that feels like padding to make the game longer.

Way too much repetitive content. It gets super annoying at some point , too much grinding for too little scenes. And MC is dumb AF, it's like he only thinks with his dick. The characters and animations are really good but the story is not good at all. I don't understand how this game is running for so long

Everything on this game is great there are just some small things i dont like that's

Firstly the repetition of the dialogues but that's important for the story and was already toned down by the dev. i don't really have a better solution as already present in the game

Secondly the character routes are not optional you need to make routes of other characters to proceed with the ones you want to proceed with. Again it's important for the story but is something that i don't personally don't like

But since both points are just subjective points from me the game gets 5 stars in everything else objective it's great in every aspect. I can come back every now and then and play it again.

No spoilers. I played Season 1 and Season 2.

It’s okay. Season 1 was great. Season 2 was a disappointment. I suggest playing through S1 fully, and S2 hold CTRL to skip much of the dialogue because the story goes to shit. I’m not going to play S3.

Renders are decent. The ‘button’ added takes away from the game; if you goal is to see the women fully naked then they just provide that to you in the first few slides instead of…playing the game for it? You don’t have much to look forward to, renders or storyline with the feature.

Sex scenes are mechanical. Different positions, similar to MILFY CITY but more robotic. Camera positioning is mid too…could be improved. I did bust a few nuts though so YMMV.

I loved season 1 then as the update wait ground on to season 2 and multiple replays of season 1 ensued the repeated cockblocking and lack of main story continuation this one made me begin to lose interest.I really do not like having mandatory LI's thrust upon the reader in order to further the story. There is something to be said for the harem feature if you choose this. Personally, I like the Ellie and Amy characters, but I'm so keen on the sister Jess and her bi buddy Chloe. The mom is an annoying drunk. With the original scenes of mischief in season one being very rapey. Long ago the whole Groundhog gimmick got old in Season 1. By now it IS old and boring. Originally 4.5 stars in my opinion, but by now 3 is where I am at just meh.

ver S3 E1
Look, don't come here if you want an in depth well plotted story. This ain't Moby Dick. Although the MC does have a whale sized dick if thats your thing. The plot exists to get you to the lewds. After a slowish start, the horny MC eventually starts getting the girls. In fact the way the game is set up, you must get ALL the girls. No scene is optional. I know some of you guys hate that sort of thing. But thats what this is

The game uses a Groundhog's Day type of conceit where you're constantly replaying the day over and over. And every day you get better at picking up the chicks. You bang your family, the teacher, the virginal new girl, the old friend, the other old friend, the girl at the sex shop, etc... You get the idea. Eventually, after a quite slow start, you get ALL THE LEWDS. Like the lewds that are missing in those other games? They're here. And the lewds are well rendered and animated.

The girls are absolutely adorable. So cute. The whole game has a very professional polish to it. The dev has a very good idea what he wants, and doesn't bog the player down with any sort of unnecessary back story. Depending on what you like, that may be a positive OR a negative. I, personally like more in depth characterizations and motivations that make sense. In this game, the characters just are the way they are. They're slutty in a vacuum. I prefer to know more about them. There is none of that here. Hence the 4* rather than 5* review.

While Lust Theory doesn't do particularly outstanding in most parts except for it being a fully voice acted Ren'py entry, it certainly delivers above average quality across the board.

If you haven't played anything and this is your very first try at these type of games, prepare to be disappointed in various aspects from other Ren'py games. At least that's my experience. I have to come back a year later just to give them a great score.

The biggest strength I would say is the balance Incenton Games has managed to achieve. If I'm just looking for a great story there are countless books, tv series, movies out there. If I'm looking for a great RPG game, there are tons of AAA titles to choose from. And if I'm looking for porn alone, y'all know where I'm heading. The developers and the director clearly know what they're trying to do and the voice acting just give it that extra je ne sais quoi ,the game just stands out.

S2 with 100% voice acting is coming soon and with even more actress that they acquired I'm just so excited to play it again.

Lust Theory [v1.2.0]

Pros:
Voice Acting
Decent Music

Cons:
Bad gameplay
Character models
Boring Story
Boring Characters
Sex Scenes are dull
Bad Pacing

I played the first Season a long while ago, and must confess, that I don't remember that much from it anymore.
Now I started Season 2 and I must say, this game is really underwhelming.
Sure, it looks decent, but it feels like you've remastered a certain Milf game, used below average Character Models, and a gameplay design that should be kicked to the curb.
It starts as a VN and then you get thrown in to a Sandbox, where you're basically forced to look at the in-game walkthrough that tells you what to do to trigger a scene, like talk to X at that time of day, for example.
That wouldn't be necessarily an issue, if the gameplay design would not be so fucking bad.
It feels so linear, because you can't do shit, besides the stuff the questlog tells you to do, making the sandbox kinda unnecessary, and the World feel empty.
Neither the characters or the story are intreguing, and you often times get offered choices that are not clear enough.
You get put in a time-loop, being forced to repeat the same shit again, which is just not a fun gameplay experience, and kinda feels half-assed.
Sure, there is voice acting, decent music, good render quality. But that doesn't help when everything else feels meaningless and boring.
Like I already said, the girls look below average or average at best and are pretty much the most basic Daz3D models there are.
The toggle to see girls who are dressed nude feels unnecesarry.
Sex Scenes are ok, but could be so much better, instead of klicking these annoying boxes and having the option to speed up the same animations.
All in all this game is not one I can recommend.

Playing version 1.0.3.7 .. Not gotten through it yet, but have played through the first one, and gotten quite a bit into the second.. Thought I'd chime in with a little review..

Firstly, the graphical quality in this game is excellent. All the girls are sexy and looking amazing. Render quality is awesome, and there are decent animations in the game too. (Well, compared to the average XXX game, I'd say the animations are excellent, but still way of playing like a real video

It's a sandbox, but there is a good hint system so I haven't got stuck yet, so viewing all the sexy content is pretty straight forwards..

There's also decent sound, and some voice acting, which adds to the game if I'm playing in a context where I can actually avoid turning off sounds

The game has an option system for what action you want to do, or what you want to say. If you choose the "wrong" option, you typically get some more or less failure scene playing, and you'll have to test the right option a later day when retrying to get further. Thus, picking the wrong option leads you to see some extra content you'd otherwise miss, so don't fuzz about having to pick the right ones all the time.. I don't know of any option that will affect game play permanently, so the it feels like a fairly linear path, where you can pick wrong and have to restart.. Often you only have wrong options, because you need to pick one of them first to learn what you should do and enable more or other options later.

To not get too repetitive, the game often skips content that is the same as a previous cycle, so you don't have to replay a lot.

The game has an obvious setup as to relations between the characters, but as you input the relations yourself to begin with it side-passes censorship. Sadly, that also means voice acting can't say the relations, nor the configurable player name.

The story is written in good English. I'd say the story is fairly decent from the parts that I've read, but there's so much of it. I quickly get the temperature up looking at the amazing girls, so I'm having a hard time not skipping through a lot of it.

I'm using the hint system a lot, as I don't want to go through all location and times of day to see where and when I need to be to advance the story, which leads to less engagement. The game could possibly have a non free-roam version where you automatically moved forward. The alternative to make it interesting enough to not use the hint system is pretty hard to manage. That would quickly lead to a game with far from linear progress, where the devs would have to put a lot of effort into content few people would see.

All in all, even though I'm not a big fan of the time travel part, the game is of very good quality and highly recommended

So, this Adult Visual Novel had a killer idea, but the story execution? Trash. Luckily, characters saved the day; they were top-notch. Lewd scenes were good, not mind-blowing. If you can overlook a plot disaster for awesome characters and decent lewds, it's a wild ride worth taking

With my background in the film industry, I've learned that the most important thing is to captivate the audience with a thrilling story and stunning visuals. This is what I project into these games, an unexpected story with twists and turns and a good mix of mystery, drama and romance. And well... I'll let the visuals speak for themselves...

Awesome graphics and huge content with almost every possibility explored, story idea is good but it also makes it a bit repetative and not holding attention. Gameplay also sometimes feels repetative and circular but that the advantage and disadvantage of the story idea. Hope season 3 comes out and more story ideas are explored.

Wow, what a surprise. I had experienced good games, like those in my top 10, after 4 years of searching, and I thought that apart from a few exceptions, this ranking wouldn't change much. Especially with the nostalgia that some bring, unshakable just because they were there first. This game, and let's say the entire production in my opinion, has completely shaken things up! The sandbox is perfect (even though it's a shame at times that we can't relive an event because progress is blocked by certain conditions. We can do a "re-live," but instead of preventing the player from replaying the scene at the time of day that suits them, we can't click on it. It's a minor detail, not very important, but it's the only drawback.) The story captivated and surprised me, the concept of time is very well thought out, with some narrative risks taken but practically no incoherence, it's a great job. Thanks to this game, I understood that sandboxes of this kind were my favorite style. It's hard to say, but if all sandboxes could be of this quality, I would have added more to my top list. Initially, I didn't find the girls particularly prettier than others, but they still attract us and we get into the game. There are games with prettier models, but actually when we play, we think about it less and just enjoy. That means it's successful. I'll think about where to place it, but now I really, really want to see what the other games from the same developers are like. A beautiful discovery, unexpected.

What a shame this has turned out to be.

If you had asked me what I thought about this game back around the time when Season 1 was developed I would have said that this has the potential to be the greatest game on this site ... eventually. But man, did it go wrong.

Let's get the good out of the way: The graphics are great, some of the best you'll find in a porn game. I like the music. The voice acting can be good. With that out of the way let's get into it.

I thought the premise of a Groundhog Day scenario was genius. Not only is it a simple way for the devs to reuse renders but it is also such a great way to add some puzzles and detective work and I like my games to have some gameplay.
Early on this promised to be really engaging as all the girls have their schedules and secrets and it is up to you to uncover them and find a way to make use them.
Unfortunately the entire gameplay aspect that comes with the premise was thrown out the window. With updates coming out for Season 2 the walkthrough for a new episode could sometimes be boiled down to "sleep in bed and new content will trigger the next day if you've seen all previous content".
Mind you, this game used to have map-movement, dialogue choices, an inventory system and time management. You have so many possibilites here, like for example do something one day to get information for the future. Set something up in the morning to get a payoff in the evening. All that's gone.

Speaking of gone, the characters basically have no characters anymore.
The one character trait that every female has is that they want to fuck the MC. I replayed some of Season 1 when the Christmas Episode was added and it was jarring how different the characters were. Megan the redhead sister roommate is genuinely hesitant to do anything with the MC and this isn't simply the impression we are given but conveyed through her actual thoughts.
In Season 2 however she will suck the MC's dick at the breakfast table first thing in the morning.

Or have a threesome with the MC and their friend.
Or have a threesome with the MC and the other blonde girl.
Or fuck the MC while he pretends to be in a coma.
Or fuck the MC while he is drunk at a party
Or have a candlelight Dinner with romantic sex with the MC.
Or have a lesbian Pyjama-Party with all the other girls.

Let me remind you that this started out as a Groundhog Day scenario and only a single day has passed since she was hesitant to do anything. None of these events require any sort of clever setup. And yes, I know about the ending, but saying it's all a simulation does not make this any better.

I could excuse the removal of gameplay but the writing is what killed the game for me. Episodes don't exist to extend a cohesive story but to add a series of scenes that the writer thought would be "hot". With the release of the Christmas Episode this has never been more clear. In this the characters are literally different characters. It's bizzare.

Did nobody think that this would hurt the integrity of the story? The MC fucking characters that look like the main cast but aren't? How is this even a "Lust Theory" Christmas Episode when it doesn't include the cast from Lust Theory? But that's the thing - it does include the cast because that is what the cast has been reduced to: models for the MC to fuck each episode, preferably in a group sex scene. It doesn't matter if they act like completely different characters between one scene and another. Actually making them different characters is simply the natural conclusion of this approach to the writing.

It really is unfortunate since the graphics are great and Inceton pumps out releases at a pace putting other devs to shame. It looks like this game is getting a 3D sequel or remake but the graphics were never the ssue.

[SPOILER ALERT]

I suggest you to turn back if you try to play Lust Theory not only for fapping, here's why...

They should've sticked with the old name because this game is literally about a sad empty echo of someone who died around two thousand years ago from a catastrophic disaster which eradicated humanity. You're playing as someone whose memories and DNA have been preserved in AI machine, that's why weird shit happens in this game.

The MC is such an idiot (which is understandable regarding his circumstances), the story is interesting yet mediocre, and I don't even think S3 would happen. Truth to be told, I wanted to give this 2.5 but the rate system won't let me do that.

PS: I updated my rating to 2 out of 5. Very bad execution in the second season.