VN - Ren'Py - Completed - LustyVerse: Shackbang [Final] [Inceton]

I saw some people bashing on this game here on F95, so I decided to write my own review. Why is there so many negative comments? The story is interesting, there is a lot of content (about 3 hrs of gameplay) and the girls are hot. If high-quality visuals and animations are a must for you, and you like mysterious stories, try playing this game.
I will be reviewing the game in the following three sections:
1) The content
You end up in a cabin with 3 of your, well, let's say friends, and one character that can be your sister/girlfriend, whatever you want because you can choose the relationship with her. Even though you weren't planning on staying for the whole trip, someone messes with your car, and you suddenly realise that there is a dark secret hidden somewhere in or around the cabin. The girls are keeping it to themselves, but things start to unravel. The plot twists are great, and it was very interesting to follow.
2) The visuals
This game has high-quality visuals and animations. The models are beautiful, but the only thing I kind of disliked was the fact that their expressions don't seem to change much. The MC looks quite young, but as it typically is in these games, he is pretty endowed.
3) The playability
This is a visual novel where you mostly follow the story. You don't have many choices, and they don't really influence the progress of the story. I didn't mind that, because the story is interesting enough.

(Only Part1 out at the moment)

I gave it 5 stars because I felt a genuine fear for my life.

The game is good since I'm feeling completely gaslit and fully empathise with the MC to the extent where I felt his fear.

Mc is not stupid but not smart either.
He understands that something is wrong, but does nothing but talk.
For example, he does not take the gun with him for his own safety.
The storytelling is not really well planned.
You make love and then you go on as if nothing happened, there is no feeling.
In order to expand the game in terms of content, they added a lot of filler scenes to the story that did not serve its purpose, which makes the poorly planned story boring.
The transition between scenes is really bad.
Choices don't really affect anything other than wanting or not wanting to have sex.

Graphics and animations are in good condition.

This was a tough one to rate, that's why I went down the middle.

Renders are good which is to be expected from Inceton but the story just fell flat for me. Not just the dialogue but there is barely any emotion in any renders, all the girls are just dead pan all the time and it seemed to start halfway into the story, like just threw you in the middle of a night out, didn't explain who was who or what's going on, just here, drink this.

It's really made me think about my own games and how expressing emotion through the art is a must and something I need to work on.

The game is a complete hit or miss.
you are kinda thrown into wolfs den in the beginning, like you are late to your own story, with very little actual introduction. Characters look good, but in terms of their physical looks, their body types are... almost identical.

There is an easter egg, the hidden buttons on top right and middle right, but when using them you are just thrown into ,,why are they not wearing this in the main story'' feeling, and their bodies look very much alike. also IMHO the buttons should like glow or something, as its really annoying to break immersion after every 2 shots to check if the buttons were there, and many people will probably miss on some great angles and shots if they dont pay attention

aside from the similarity of their bodies, i think we should of had some kind of warning for what type of game this would be (the title screen is kind of a warning but im stupid and ignored it), like mad world did. The game itself is dark, very dark, playing it like a basic porn game is not even possible.


In conclusion, the game does not really do much to make us feel connected with him or other characters, girls and MC are really bitchy from time to time, but if you do manage to connect with the story, cliff hanger will just be a mace to the dome. The game itself isnt bad, renders are not bad, animations are ok (my standards for animations really lowered recently as publishers have started making powerpoint presentations).

(also one last advice, for the publisher, make a scene gallery, as scenes are really nice but short, scrolling trough the game or making 20 saves for them is not convenient)

This has its flaws but it surely isn't a 1 or a 2. Yes, the name might be garbage. Yes, the sex scenes may be a bit rushed or forced way too hard into the plot (but it's a porn game anyways why is this an issue?). No music and only like 3 sound effects for what is a mystery game kills the mood a bit though. And the endings are... yeah, not good.

However, renders and animations are great, writing is way better than average with all characters feeling quite distinct and it has a lot of content with no sandbox crap.

As of part one I'm giving it a 4 just because of how much convoluted crap is shoved into it. You gotta suspend some serious disbelief. The only saving grace is theres no point where the MC could just bail because he was trapped which is good because no one would've just sat through that much bullshit and let it happen. I get what its building to and I like where its going. The characters let clues slip from time to time that not everything is being told to the MC and he clearly gets more and more pissed as this keeps going on and a lot of the bitchy quips they make at each other make way more sense toward the end.

Its told well, the dialogue isnt bad, the animations are good and the girls are hot AF. Honestly they need to answer some serious questions and hopefull this isnt like 6 parts because it feels like it will drag. We got our solid beginning, just need a middle and end. I can't wait for part 2.

Interesting, original story, decent art. It's definitely not your standard landlady game, which is refreshing. Story is mostly linear, and perhaps not entirely plausible, but what do you want here? The girls are hot.

Honestly I'd say it had a good start but in the end it wasn't worth the time I put into it. The set up of characters and plot is nice but as the story goes on it goes downhill. The models and animations are great. The scenes are decent but too spread out which is made worse by some of them getting interrupted. The story and characters start decent but get worse over time. Maxine is the bitchy character who has had a secret past with mc. Lydia is a girl who wants to seem harder than she actually is. Lexi is bubbly and ditzy but can be cunning or pushy. the sister is timid and clearly in love with MC. Mc is a protective and caring older brother. However these characters become horrible over time and the story really feels like it's trying to drag it out by creating more drama through secrets and problems.

All in all, the only good thing the game has going for it is the quality of it's models and sex scenes, but that's sort of screwed over by the fact that it feels more like watching a really frustrating soap opera than an actual porn game.

I have conflicting opinion about this game.

On the one hand, there is a huge amount of story content, good renders and the atmosphere of horrors of the early 2000s,

But overall, I didn't like the dialogue. They are boring.
The plot is good, but only if you don't give up and see the last 5 minutes of the game.
Without that, the motivation of the characters is questionable.
This is a kinetic novel.

I take this chapter as a prologue, and expect a good story in the next update, and hope that all problems will be fixed.

Came here for rape tag, stayed for plot. Pretty interesting story, unveiling gradually. I really like constant change of emotions & trust/distrust you feel to all characters. Great renders too, aside from some outdoor locations. Totally worth playing, and I don't even like Inceton games.

Damn, reviews are all over the place. To me it was pretty damn good.

It check's a lot of boxes. Good Renders, good characters, good story and mostly good animations

What this did for me was that it made me feel a ton of different emotions and some not comfortable to feel. If a story can do that, then it is doing something right.

Edit: 09/05/2023

Lowered to 3 stars because of the story going all wonkers in the second half.

I'm not a fan of this kind of game where everything is forced. Moreover, as other people say, it's very long, you get bored quickly. It would also be interesting for the women to be less alike and for the background of the story to be more surprising. to think about next?

Visuals look good, but story and gameplay are terrible. Characters and their dialogs need a lot of development to become interesting. I know it's only the v0.1, but it is one of the first chapters that made me unsatisfied the most. It has potential, but the person who wrote the storyline made a terrible job on using the games potential. Honestly, if it was a Russian or a Japanese game that had no translation in English, it wouldn't make much difference, because the only thing that is not bad are the visuals.

Really shallow visual novel. Every thing is shallow, the characters, the romances, the dialogs. It feels like ChatGPT could've made a better script. The mystery around the plot is kinda interesting, but not good enough to hold my interest. Besides that, there is no development between the characters, the sex scenes just pop up with no build up. Also those pictures of one of the girls hooking with that Lucas guy really threw me off. So I would recommend people to wait for the next updates, unless you don't mind a shallow story, shallow characters and shallow choices.

I really like the mystery concept behind it, but it was realized on the poorest way possible. I hope the dev brings depth to it on the future builds. I could've been a great mystery/thriller VN, but it wastes almost all its potential.

Having a script mod that rewrote the dialogs, made things avoidable or optional, and gave more depth and charisma to the characters, it could add at least 3 stars to this game.

Having played the game through, I'll chime in with my 0.02. Renders are solid, healthy amount of adult content if that's what you're here for, and an intriguing, extremly unique story, relatively speaking. I say relatively because the plot isn't all that special in terms of all the media that's out there, but it's nothing I've seen in a porn game so far.

The mysteries surrounding the plot are really interesting, and the devs have varied it up with a number of twists.

It's one of those games that steal the spotlight from the actual porn, IMO. By that I mean I'm more interested in seeing the resolution of the mystery, and not as much the sexual content. At the same time, that isn't necessarily a good thing all the time. The sexual relationships that occur aren't completely random, but they do feel pretty shallow - again, the content is there, it's just a bit emotionally dull.

The game is definitely above average, but it falls short from being excellent. I'll follow it and adjust my review if necessary down the road, although I wouldn't be surprised if it is the sort of adult game that is upstaged by the storyline as far as hot content goes.

This game, or at least this first part is about as close to solid as you can probably get.

All of the characters are incredibly distinct, the main character is likeable in that he has an actual backbone and is willing to ask questions of people/assume control of situations when necessary. The LIs are all unique and have actual personalities. I've seen other people complaining about the character writing and dialogue but honestly compared to the other games of this developer I've played these felt the most like actual people.

The renders and animation are top notch. Given who is making these games I wouldn't be surprised if voice acting is introduced at some point down the line, but even if not this game looks as good as you can get.

And most importantly, the plot. The writing for this game is the only time I've been genuinely intrigued by a story being told in a game from this site. So much so I felt compelled to write this as my first review. The concept is strong, there's a good amount of content and it's very well paced. I do agree that in terms of choices it feels somewhat limited at the moment but I don't think this is an inherently bad thing.

So why only 4*?

Now I can't judge the intention of this, and I hesitate to comment too much on it, but in the latter part of the current version, there's one moment that really threw me off and disrupted my enjoyment of the game due to what feels like NTR. I don't think this is going to be a thing going forward due to the circumstances (Ls phone) but it was completely unexpected up to that point and the reaction of the character felt very similar to cuckold plotlines. It is technically avoidable, but given the plot significance I don't think that you will be able to within the context of the next part, so for anyone that doesn't like this aspect of seeing the LIs with other characters this might be an issue.

I think it's probably nothing more than a plot point, but given the genuinely surprising inclusion of it I can't really tell what else the developer plans to do in the future, and there are no "planned" or future tags as of writing this.

"Meh" is the perfect word to describe this game so far. The renders are above average overall unless it's dark in the scenes then it goes downhill pretty fast. The writing is so dull it's actually quite impressive that someone managed to make a dialogue this boring. There are some random sex scenes with no build up that feel out of place and are just there because "you need to have sex scenes in 0.1 to gain interest" or at least that's what it feels like. This is just another cookie cutter Inceton game so if you played stuff from this dev before, you know what to expect. Also this dev has tendency to add "technically not *** because of some made up reason" kind of scenes if you know what I mean so I'd be carefull about that.

Worst Inceton game I've ever played by far.

Models are not that hot, writing is bad, plot is not interesting. Truly there's nothing good in this. Even the lighting seems made by someone who's making his first VN. Inceton Games may have some flaws, but in many aspects (as the ones I highlighted) they are usually great (not so much in writing I admit). But this just doesn't seem like an Inceton game, it's more like a side-studio project signed by Inceton.

It is as generic and uninspiring as 99% of the games in this forum. I'm really disappointed with this 'lustyverse'. Don't play this, it's not worth.

The mystery in the plot is really good, however of comic and lewd moments is terrible, the writer didn't do a good job at making casual conversations, jokes and flirting natural.

As for the characters, all of them look really good, the 3D modeling is excellent, same with the facial expressions, visually there is nothing to say about it. However, again the writing of the characters is bad. All of them are annoying, none of the girls had a personality I like, all of them are annoying, disrespectful and childish, and not just the girls, the protagonist included. Literally all the characters are assholes, not even the "roommate", who is supposed to be kinda the "main girl" is actually likeable. Also the relationships with the two girls are too artificial, they are not developed, they just start to bang all the sudden with no emotional development. They look good, but you need to have characters with relationship development and charismatic personalities, otherwise I would've gone to pornhub instead of a visual novel game, if I just wanted to see photorealistic characters having sex.

Another thing is that it seems that none of the few choices to make matter at all. You can't choosing who you want to be involved with and who you don't, you can't choose anything to say regarding the "body issue", you are just forced to go with the script, you can't choose how the mc will behave, so that kinda kills the purposes of having choices, and the gets even worse when the characters' personalities, dialogs and relationships are not interesting.

That's why I give it 2 stars, because even though it doesn't have a good script, meaningful choices or likeable characters, it has good graphics and good lewd scenes and a mystery plot that keeps you going instead of just quitting the game. I don't give it 3 because it was a pain to keep going, it made me want to keep most of the dialogs, and the only thing that keep me from skipping or just quitting was the mystery part, as I have already said. If I just wanted to see realistic figures and sex scenes, I would have watched porn, after all, real pornactresses are the most realistic graphics you can get, and it has way better sex scenes, so a Visual Novel should be more than that in order to be at least average.

I hope the developer actually puts more depth, development and charisma into the characters on the next builds. then maybe it would become a decent game and have more stars.