Ren'Py - Lust Theory [v0.5.1] [Inceton Games]

One of the best games in my opinion
The writing is funny and of good quality, the visuals are great
Good pacing and a great concept!
Even the voices are fitting and pleasant which is a HUGE plus for any game having such a thing.
I hope this project lives on because its awesome ❤

Play season 3 if you love getting cockblocked and being left with blue balls. It's ridiculously obnoxious. The dev loves resetting the story and ruining any progress you made with the seasons in previous seasons.

This review is only for Season 1, I don't plan to play the others.

This game has insanely high production values with amazing renders, beautiful character models and great voice acting which adds a lot to the game. Sadly, besides that Production Value this game doesn't have a whole lot else.
The main character of this game actively worsens it exhibiting complete cowardice, a lack of charisma, cringe inner monologue and still appears awkward even in moments where he's supposed to have an advantage in information.
Instead of a soulless, thoughtless blank-state like in most h games his every action actively worsens the game. Of course he still has no depth or real characterization to offer.

The rest of the characters in this game are extremely forgettable and outside of nice character models have nothing to offer. They are one-note and do nothing outside of their defined archetype (Bitchy Older Sister, Playful younger sister and sexless Mother)
which already appear in countless other games. Stilted dialogue with no subtext offer awkward interactions which feel nothing like an actual family, the characters also barely interact with one another making things even less interesting as their only interactions come with the loser main character.

Paired along with an extremely repetitive story (having literally set itself up to have nothing happen) where scenes repeat themselves with very slight differences it leads to a boring, bothersome reading experience. In a very lazily made, unnecessary sandbox the game is bothersome to even navigate. Progressing through this game is a chore when nothing happens with uninteresting characters with a fake choice system that's aimed to provide artificial time by repeating scenes (having no real choices, only "right," and "wrong," ones forcing the players to go back and choose the "right," ones if they originally didn't).

The h scenes have terrible cringe dialogue akin to studio-made American porn which ruins one of the only good thing the game offers (good renders and character models). It completely demeans the little characterization it tried to have and is impossible to take seriously. I wonder why developers create entire games with no story pretty much exclusively made for it's h scenes then make TERRIBLE h scenes, short, shitty basic angles/positions with no foreplay, terrible animations and horrible dialogue. If you aren't going to have a story and proper characters at the very least try to make half-decent h, this game fails at doing any of those.

This game is getting 2 stars on production value alone.

Note: Review relates only to season one, have not tried season two.

Nice character graphics and animations with a decent story and a gameplay experience marred by an unnecessary sandbox system that is pointless and unergonomic.

Story
MC is a normal college student who got trapped in a one-day time loop where he slowly advances on his agenda to bed the women around him by constantly fine tuning his interactions with them during the repeated one-day period.

The plot is simple enough while the interactions where MC slowly figures out how to get into the pants of a particular girl by trial and error during each repeated day is interesting and comical at times. It's no Academy winning plot, but does provide light hearted entertainment for an adult game.

Game Mechanic
An underutilized and unergonomic sandbox system that sticks out like a sore thumb. The sandbox doesn't add any value as everything is linear while the interface adds a lot of unnecessary clicks just to move around or time skip.

Background / Character Renders
The backgrounds mostly comprise of venues around the neighborhood and serve their purpose.

The characters were made with Daz3D, so inherited both its pros (more realistic facial features and proportions) and cons (crude and jagged looks).

All the LIs are pleasant enough and I'm glad to see the game is not filled with inked and pierced characters which plague most Daz3D college games.

Character Development
Surprisingly quite strong in this area. I was expecting this to be a brainless fuck fest, but Inceton put in a good effort to build each of the LIs up and we get to experience the process of how a LI starts out from being hostile to the MC to eventually have sex with him.

Incest is one of the main themes of the game and MC's complex relationship with his mother Elizabeth and sisters Jessica & Megan is well depicted, not the usual instant corruption and then non-stop fucking thereafter.

There are also a few other LIs of various personalities whom MC gets to interact and develop a relationship with. The only thing that requires a suspension of disbelief is the idea that all this can be done within a day through repeated trial and error.

Sex Scenes
Definitely a strong area of this game - it shines through in both quantity and quality. All are nicely done with passionate dialogue, believable sound effects, fitting music and good animations.

BGM and Sound Effects
The selected BGM tracks are complimentary and there are a few basic sound effects that support the narrative well. Only complaint I have is the volume is set too low and even at max requires you to up your system audio level to an unnaturally high level.

Conclusion
Lust Theory is a game that sells on sex and it delivers in what it set out to do. As a bonus, the story and characterization while nothing spectacular, does exceed that of similar games in this genre.

Only nagging irritant is its sandbox UI which adds a whole lot of clicks for nothing as this game could have just run on a visual novel format perfectly.

Nothing but a visual novel. You get to make almost no choices. I spammed spacebar for about 20 minutes, saw 1 bj scene and that was it. My wrist became sore so I closed the game and made this review. The tags say this is a sandbox game, and this is one tag that I always make sure a game has before playing, but it is NOT a sandbox game. Disappointed and do not recommend.

1st season was pretty good, the story was down to eart, the sandbox mechanic although under-utilized was at some extend there, with some extremely easy missions to get money buy X item to Y. The scenes were fine as well since you had some kind of build up with the characters and I love the choice of choosing whom I want to spend my time to.

2nd&3rd season is bad, like drooling-tier bad.All the characters have been fed stillwater from Ohio and now the MC is aware of being in skibidis brainrot simulation and we have some completely irrelevant to the plot flashbacks that do not seem to add anything to the story other than some build whoever is writing this sht believes he building up to. Also the game goes completelyon VN rails where you have to sit through the most worthless of discussions and menial problems of each and every character terribly written in way to DESPERETALY trying to make them feel real. Whoever is writing this is trying hard, but he clearly lacks basic theatrical knowledge to create a coherent dialogue between 2 characters. I am not gonna waste your time more with rambling, each patch shows and seaon 2&3 just aint it.

Now is a visual novel. No choices. No development of the characters.
The graphics are good.
Nothing good like season 1.
Maybe is time to let die this story and start with a new one, because it looks like the author ran out of ideas

Excellent game. Beautiful characters. The storyline is good. I have played this game from the beginning and have enjoyed it. This is without a doubt one of my favorites. You should definitely give it a try.

It's a crying shame how this game cratered during the second season.

Season 1 would've been an easy 5/5: Great visuals, interesting premise, well written, and good characters, not taking itself too seriously.

Season 2... all the character growth from season 1 goes away, with the MC acting like a bigger idiot than during the first season. Somehow the "groundhog day" premise was completely botched, becoming a drag. The MC starts splitting himself... was anyone actually asking for this crap?

Can't be arsed to play the third season, since there doesn't seem to be anything worth saving after season 2.

This game has a lot of positive aspects, the renders are pretty good, the girls are all super hot, and the voice acting is a really nice touch that helps immerse you in the world, from a technical standpoint this game is great, from a writing standpoint this game lacks a bit, it has its moments and it does sometimes surprise you with depth and emotional weight, but for the most part it falls flat, the main gimmick insures that nothing you do in the game ever matters no matter what and this soon becomes stale and tedious, there is still plenty of fun to be had, but at some points you have to turn off your brain to have said fun

It's pretty great as a nukige.

The pacing of the storytelling is great, dialogue and characters well done.

I have a whole litany of complaints though.

• The lack of transition skip is inexcusable.
• It's basically a kinetic novel, no meaningful choices.
• The sandbox is essentially fake, there's no gameplay or choice at all, you just choose which scene to see first and follow the hint instructions like a baby. But IMO this is just fine, and it's better to have a fake sandbox than an annoying one.
• I'm just not very into the whole supernatural mystery aspect of it, it ruins the premise of the "repeating days, can do what you want" fantasy. It makes you feel like a labrat being watched waiting for the moment when the M Night Shamaylan happens.
• Not sure how I like everything happening in a *single day. The game would feel less rushed if it's a week or something, a single day really makes it hard to pretend it's not a porn game, everyone's fucking with basically no time talking.
• There's also a fake sex system where there are no choice or mechanics, it's just every sex clip is gated behind having to make a couple of clicks on a menu to access. It's strange and annoying, horrible UI. (Means I have to move my hand off my cock to move the mouse instead of just hitting spacebar you stupid idiot designers.)

But all in all despite all these foibles the characters feel decent and I like the premise.

Edit: Finished Season 2 and lowered the score 1 star. Story is so trash lmao.

The animations/scenes are the only thing that kept the interest in the game going, but that can only go so far.

Funnily enough, such as you get stuck inside a day (or a few) loop, it feels like this game is stuck in what was cool or new years ago. At least considering gameplay and story. Once again, the looks do the heavy work.

The gameplay and progression are purposely delayed in ways to make you annoyed (I's guess trying to make you keep playing to see what happens next). This can be proved by narrator comments left by the dev saying things like: "one could be annoyed by this happening now". Not exactly those words, but you get the meaning. I think this is a really outdated gameplay loop that h-games had and really show how old the game really is. As stuck years ago as you are inside the same day in the game.

Another old cliché is the loser, stupid and annoying MC. And what bothers me the most is the lack of progression with him. He still is overly insecure, afraid, etc, all those behaviors you can guess with the kind of adjectives I'm using. I totally get he being like that in the beginning, but it really annoys me how he keeps freaking out for plot reasons.

With the above, another thing that really bothers is the writing, its pace, its sense of humor. I understand that I may just not be the target audience, but this feels to be written for a 14-year-old, or less.

Progression is also a big problem since you get stuck inside a loop.
This could have been resolved with the MC maturing, but there is nothing in that regard. It got really uninteresting seeing scenes knowing that they would not have any impact in the gameplay. Maybe it was supposed to be in the same dillema as the MC who never knew when the day would progress and so should always be alert to that, but even that doesn't happen...

Can't say anything about VO since I don't like it. Turned it on a few times and didn't enjoy any.

Choices felt mostly fake, since where it mattered, there were always an exact string of choices to be made. It was cool early on to see some variations, but soon enough it got boring.

The way the game is implemented also have too much repetition. The Dev already tried to attend this skipping when variations were occurring, but frankly, it stills feels boring with how much you see the scenes repeating.

I'm a immersion kinda player who usually reads ALL the story/dialogues, but in here I needed to start skipping to make it to the end of Act 2. Btw, totally skipped all that ending event. Felt reaaaaally uninteresting,
Visual are the saving grace, though. Animations are really good and definitely still great up to this day .
I'd even recommend trying the game for them alone, even if I'd start skipping the story earlier....

In the end, I really wanted to like this game, but concept or delivery, it just doesn't get there, you know? The idea makes the game stretch itself too much and makes you feel like not enough happened (not trying to make a joke about in game days not progressing).

Would play just for the visuals

Started pretty good. I almost exclusively play incest games, and this one used to be in the absolute top because of the models and the actual sex scenes.

But that "Absolute Top" was more of a "hope" than actual reality. Had it progressed at a decent pace (2018 lmao, I was a different person back then). Not did it not keep up the top quality. It kinda degraded. There's only so far you can take the idea of this game and the dev just had no idea how to pivot.

However, none of this would have been so bad, if it weren't a faux-sandbox. You get no benefit from it being a sandbox, except that you can KINDA do events in what order you want. But not really.

Also, big issue. The world feels empty. Characters don't really interact with one another, so it's just MC and FuckToy. But the MC is the most limp dicked looser ever. And the fuck toys ain't that great either. The mom and the school m8 with a crush are okay. I guess the teacher being unlikable is fun for a blackmail route. But tbh, I only like the mom, and no one else.

I keep seeing the game in my feed and my dick goes "we should really check the new update out". But then my brain catches up and says "do we, really?"

It's not that bad. But again. 2018. Had this been a 2022 game, I'd give it some slack. But, it's not.

3 Stars is the absolute most I can give it. And honestly, incest is kinda +1. If you're not into that. There's good models and it's not that grindy.

Mc is an absolutely immature loser, which is way too common in these games. The art is fantastic although way too many of the models are a bit too btba/milfy for me. The loop is fairly well thought out and the english is good quality.

Biggest downfalls are that after you do the set content, the characters just disappear, the house is always empty and the sex scenes such because there are controls, but the player has zero control - you have to have sex exactly as the dev does. no choice

Pretty decent game until roughly half way through season 2. I found the direction the story took to be a major boner-killer. I started rapidly clicking through scenes hoping it was just a weird one-time thing and the day would reset returning things to some form of normalcy. But no, just when you think it's gone over the top it finds a new peak to crest. Longer and longer sex scenes which I found to be completely uninteresting because none of the parties involved had any agency. And then the season was over.

Oh well. At least season 2 has a satisfying enough ending to just stop there. It makes sense narratively and I feel no compulsion to play through season 3 like I would if it had ended on a cliff hanger. So kudos to the dev for that. Over all I'd still give it 4/5 despite the flaws.

Season 1 was kinda quirky and funny in a ok way.
However.
This really stopped being funny rather long time ago.

From a sandbox game, one would expect very little things happening and being locked behind grindfest.
This one, however, takes it up to eleven, and even further - the MC is stuck in the literal groundhog day.
Which means events go as follows:
- you accidentally stumble upon a scene with a girl
- the scene gets interrupted due to MC being an epitome of idiot
- you try again the "next day" with MC having meta-knowledge
- the scene gets interrupted due to a female character (whom the scene was with) suddenly deciding to use her brains and not porn logic
- repeat ad nauseam

This gets old rather fast. And it is not like you get to develop some sort of connection with characters, since each day gets reset.

To add insult to injury, MC is basically - regardless of what his age is stated to be in game - a 12-year old.
In one of the scenes he literally jizzed his pants just from touching a girl.
This is just... unbelievable.
Do not recommend at all.

Not a bad game overall.
The protag's cougar is very nice, which is a huge plus.
Start of game is fun, but it becomes somewhat repetitive and boring towards end.
IMHO there ain't enough variety and I gradually lost interest.
TBF might be worth a play and a fap, but don't expect to get hooked.

Story starts out fine in season one but from season 2 it just gets to boring.

Game is very repetitive which you kinda would expect from being a groundhog dag plot, but its a bit to much of the same dialogs over and over, so it really gets boring pretty fast.

The the other thing is that the game is all out kinetic just hiding it behind a sandbox...i wish devs would learn to put in kinetic tag even if it is a sandbox since not all are kinetic like this one.

That also means LIs are forced on you, same with kinks and fetishes and to me thats one of the biggest turn-offs, when you can pick who to fuck since not everyone is into mother/son sex or big tits or loli and so on.

Like i said its a sandbox game and its one of worst types where you have no freedom at all, you just follow the kinetic set questline which makes the hole point of sandbox pointless and a waste of time, its so bad that even questlines are tied together so you cant progress untill you have done everything with every girl, so you truely have 0 controle over anything when it comes to relationships.

MC is also the type i truely hate, hes very childish and absolutly brainless and add to that massive pervert, playing him is just not fun and that alone ruins alot of the story and game.
MC dosent make sense either, first he meets a girl in the pool and just from putting hes hand on her bikini touching tits MC cums..??? i mean either he has a serious problem or its just idiotic and yeah its just idiotic since a min later he fucks her fine, which makes 0 sense since he should cum before even putting it in, its just a very weird game.

Girls 4/5
I liked the look for the girls and theres a bit of diversity in builds as well so thats all good.

Animations 3/5
Pretty standard stuff nothing special.

Music 3/5
Average background music.

Sandbox and Choices 1/5
Its kinetic hidden behind being a sandbox game, you have no freedom other then follow the quests and since they are tied together you cant skip someone you hate either.

Lust Theory offers an engaging and enjoyable experience, especially shining in its early stages. Season 1 is particularly captivating, utilizing a humorous and innovative time loop mechanic inspired by Groundhog Day to create an intriguing and entertaining narrative. The game features impressive renders, well-executed animations, and high-quality voice acting, which together bring the characters and scenarios to life. The exploration and progression through various scenarios keep players hooked, eager to see how each day unfolds and what new interactions and surprises await. While subsequent seasons may not fully capture the magic of the first, they still provide ample content and excitement for fans of the genre. Overall, Lust Theory is a well-crafted and fun game that stands out for its unique concept, engaging story, and polished presentation.

Like others have said, season 1 is really great. The time loop is funny and it puts a good spin on the cliche porn game tropes.

Voice acting is weird to get used to, cause barley any AVGN has it. But its good for the most part. Most of the renders are great. The mom is really hot. But i never really liked the other characters besides your sisters friend. They are just kinda bland, like what you would expect from a AVGN game.

Season 2 is just so boring. At this point the time loop feels really forced. The scenarios that the game puts you in are just bland and not interesting. Also the mom has barely any content which sucks.