Ren'Py - Maeve's Academy [v0.7.1] [Hatchet Games]

Current rating is based on writing quality of the first route, rest of the game seems more like an unresolved tech demo.

First playthrough, I want to say elizabeth's route raised the bar for writing quality, I would give her route a 5/5.
Unfortunately I believe the development for this game has been ongoing for so long that the writing improved over time, it going from amateurish to competent really shows in the common route (3/5).
There were a handful of times early on I had the urge to quit, the lack of music in early scenes does not give justice to the quality of the art, even if it's not the main focus of current development, placeholders can go a long way into new readers experience.
As for the "Trainer Sim" like aspect of love and lust, unfortunately Maeve's academy isn't "gameified" to warrant it in its current state, it just wastes the readers time by being timecycle talk spam that would only worsen as routes are added in its current form.
Completely scrapping it and just adjusting the points to match the scripted events would probably be a better user experience, the talking system is a buggy mess.

Positives:
I really appreciate the unique "Sexually Aloof" fetish that I wouldn't expect to see in this type of game, it really sets it apart from other games and I appreciate that it's being played into.
Later Art focuses on the little things, hands clenching, precare, after sex expressions like being exhausted face flat on the bed. In this AI filled era all these tiny things add up and set it apart with SOVL.
Negatives:
Lack of foundational setup and music in the common route.
The first route in the game is for someone that had almost no screen time in the common route, it's very jarring to be forced onto a route with no buildup for liz, especially when other characters were and just suddenly get cut off when their quirks and charming sides get shown off.
I understand rewrites are a daunting task but I think the common route warrants it just for the above, as well as the writing quality improvement could help new readers stick with it.
Training sim negatives without the positives.

v0.7.0
Disclaimer:
I will keep an eye on this, even if I just give it two stars. There is certainly potential, but it needs a lot of cleaning up. so the 2 stars are for the current state.

the plot, so far, has potential. it's a bit barebones and not really going anywhere, but that can still change...
the artstyle is interesting and actually communicates quite well.

the biggest issue is that the code is a mess...
it's buggy with errormessages and after looking at the source, I understand why...
the code is a mess... best example would be the variable jade_1 (bool) which is defined and checked, but never changed. so since it starts as false, but is never set to true, any check for it being true won't work...
Unless someone goes through every line and figures out which variable does what, I dread the next update...

then there are also long stretches of no visuals. the text describes things you'd really like to see, but text is all you got. no image, no background, just text.

also, there are "dead ends", as I call them. the doctor keeps telling me to come to the infirmary/her lab, but nothing ever happens there.
so it's either bad writing or another issue with variables...

the individual interactions feel like they are half-baked, but instead of finishing one route, the dev(s) half-arse a few, with no satisfying progression/end state.

and finally, the ESL is strong. a simple spellcheck would do wonders...

so as I said at the top, it has potential, but needs a lot more work, even the things already there...

[Ver 0.7.0]
Been a fan of this game since day 1 , this 0.7.0 update impressed me I decided to wrote some review, this game have the potential of becoming one of the best game in this site

The previous update is genuinely scary, its like updating for the sake of keeping this game alive, its not like giving out something new, I was worried tbh, thinking if this game will die. On a random tuesday, opened up to check if any game was updated, then I was blessed by this update.

This update is amazing. The writings turn Elizabeth from a hateful character to redeem herself, our dear girl five stages of grief, struggle, redemption are so lively in the story, while fitting her character.
The cgs are also incredible, unique and sexy. The 2d bouncing makes it lively also, separates it from other renpy games.
To me, a great game need to be not only sexy, but fun to play too, this update proved Maeve's Academy have the potential of achieving this, as a fan this is just a bless.

Although Hatchet and his team did a great job, I gotta say something important
First the game is very buggy, in every version I have played. There are always some errors in every update, lighter ones barely effected the game, but some of it Ive experienced have stuck my games sometimes
Second there are still a lot of things that just...exist there. The task menu, actually the whole bar right there, Elizabeth's talking bar, etcs. There are some of it are buggy, some are useless, but this Im pretty sure it will be fixed and updated.
Third, the constantly changing of character. Although this mostly happened on early game development I want to speak, the constant changing is frustrating as it keep changing how we need to know about a character.

I really do hope the day this game's update has finally come to a complete, thank you Hatchet and your team for working on this.
As always, we will watch your career with great interest.

this review was posted for the elizabeth update

let's give some background before starting. when this game came out i thought it had potential, with a nice art style and fun cast. then Celine got her update that i actually enjoyed quite a bit. and then that update got rolled back. and then Maeve got redesigned twice and the main characters didn't get any scenes with the dev opting for a new npc. so i started to get worried. the game looked nice but the updates felt aimless and like the dev was just making things with no foresight.
I am happy to say that i no longer think this. the elizabeth update is focused and concise. you do what you think you do, you get to date elizabeth and find out about her past and why she's such a hardass. the writing is really good and hit a personal note for me specifically.

so why is it 4 stars? polish and detail. a lot of scenes are still black screens that feel like they should have the same monochrome drawings that are in other scenes, and the sex scenes are all just tacked on the end after you finish Liz's route, so it feels like you "finish her plot" and then you get to watch the sex yay, instead of advancing your relationship with her. Now i will say, this feels like it might just be with her, considering that Liz's personality is... abrasive, to say the least, but i thought i'd mention it. that brings me to the polish. Liz's scenes are odd, there's a blue meter to the right in 2 of them (that fills up REALLY fucking slow btw) that just makes you nut automatically, and there's a pink meter over the speed options in the other 2, which, i'd assume make her cum maybe? but after waiting it out the first time i did NOT have the patience for it. there's also a lot of bugs and empty buttons here. talking does nothing for elizabeth, who's supposed to be the protagonist of the update, and talking during sex stops working if you go fast for some reason, the wardrobe system doesn't let you take her lipstick off once she gets it, which i don't mind that much but y'know, if you have a system like that i'd like the option. the menu also completely breaks if you switch tabs while having a section selected that isn't in the new tab. hats have 3 sections (which do jack shit btw you can't recolor the hats for some reason) and if you select the third one and switch, the game crashes to the main menu. this is ignoring the fact that other characters seem to be even more broken than Liz, according to a lot of comments Lilith is completely busted but i literally never saw her so maybe she's also getting redesigned (please don't i like these designs. i actually prefer the old maeve design instead of her having the least appropriate outfit for a headmistress and brock eyes)

i hope that other characters get the same love and attention that liz had but also that a lot of the glaring technical flaws get patched up, because as much as i love the artstyle and the writing, a game this buggy can't get full marks. I'm starting to get scatterbrained so i'll wrap it up. I have really high hopes for this game that i hope come to earn that final star in my rating

Top notch dialogue writing.
Every scene HITS very well as the writing in it is amazing.
Art is very charming, and as I will die on this hill, Style > Graphics every day.
The way the animation and sprites bounce, even if it's just simple, adds a lot of character to every interaction instead of having a flat 2d still image.
H-Scenes are just bonus to a great story so far.

I found this super randomly and I'm glad to say it was worth it!
The art style is very nice and pleasing to the eye and a bit rare these days. The story so far is pretty good and interesting and not just a "skip skip" story but actually pretty enjoyable one.
The characters are unique to their own and I gotta say Agne is my fav char so far.
There are some small bugs here and there but is to be expected since its still a game in making.
I cant wait for more updates in the future and more content and I hope the creator doesn't give up on this!

V.0.6.1 Review - 5/10 - Although I want to review at a later date, at this point, it felt like a linear story with "choices" . Good art and decent scenes, but is a VN for practical reasons with tons of dialogue. For people who like a more streamline text-based games, try it yourselves.

I will try again on a later update.

good art and i actually laughed at the dialogue. the game is obviously unfinished (and has been for a while) but the characters are likable and the text is readable, albeit with a few grammatical errors. promising game despite the fact that the main character hasn't had real sex with any of the characters yet lol.

It's perfect.
Although an unfinished and still on-going game, I love it. The art is unique and precious. It's not like the 80% of the games on this site who opt to use uncanny looking 3D "realistic" girls, or the remaining 19,9% using anime, it's just perfect.
The girls are lovely. They are very different of each other psychically and personality wise, and that's nice! I don't like games that put the same body on every character just because it turns on the developer.
Although they are very different, you will come to love each one of them. I am not talking about the MC, but you as a player, thrust me. Sadly the story is clearly unfinished, but the bit that we can see everyone stayed true to themselves, to their personality, and I began to like them as they are (yes including you Elizabeth ).
Well at the end it's just a porn game, but I can see that it has been made with love and with the player in mind. Keep it up devs, I can't wait to see more of you

Rating it at 3.5, as a lack of real content should be noted. I also played it on v0.6.1

The good: The art style is definitely the best part of the game, being distinct enough from other porn games to immediately stand out. The characters while tropey definitely help to improve the experience that's there.

The bad: The game in its current state is extremely barebones with a clear lack of things to do. While this would be fine if the story was a kinetic novel. The game is built without this in mind. The dialogue and conflicts as well are quite boring to read through with every major conflict being some flavor of "I don't like X.".

Overall I don't think it's a bad game inherently, but aside from the very limited number of sex scenes, there's nothing to do. And until more things are added that help to improve the experience. You're better off looking for better alternatives. But as it currently stands it's a very average porn game whose only differentiating feature is its art style.

0.6.1 is the first version I play, so can't comment on character redesigns, they look good to me.

Art is an easy 5/5. Seriously, some of the best art on this site, the characters are cute, the animations are good, even the backgrounds are nice.

Story and writing: they're there, they're ok. The atmosphere of the game is nice and cozy, some of the humor is alright, the characters are likeable, but reading long dialogues and inner monologues about nothing gets tiresome and a lot of the writing is poor from technical standpoint. The game gets a pass here, there’s much worse out there. 3.5 /5.

Gameplay: and here we have a problem - what gameplay? The entire game up to 0.6.1 feels like an extended intro sequence because there's next to nothing player input on anything. Having an option to choose between saying ‘YES’ or ‘YES, BUT IN A FUNNY WAY’ every 5 minutes doesn’t count. You could skip all the dialogue and click on things randomly and get the same outcome as someone reading the text. The game is almost entirely linear, at some points you can walk between a few locations and talk to characters, but it’s pointless, 90% of their dialogue options are unavailable, the other 10% give you one line of text, and you can only progress by talking to the one specific character about the one specific thing that a quest requires. There is a skeleton of a game here, but there’s nothing on it. It's bad. Best I can say is that it’s not so bad or clunky that it’s annoying to play like some games. 2/5.

The game desperately needs some gameplay: I don’t expect complex RPG mechanics, but even something as simple as adventure game point and click interactions with the environment and inventory, or dialogues that do something to interact with the world and give you info needed to complete quests, actual freedom to explore locations and interactions with NPCs initiated by the player, some non-linear quests or character sidequest. Anything.

I love this game so much you not only u can interact them and have sex but all I care is the character like these girls has beauty and I don't see them with lust and the plot it self is actually good even it is not finished yet they still promise they'll update the game till it completed even though it took 4 to 8 month to completed one update and still haven't finish the story which I don't judge the plot it self has to be perfect and a beautiful ending even we don't know what will the ending is like but I hope this game has lots of love

the 3 star rating is honestly a personal bias due to the game annoying me

the game provides an incredible and promising basis which makes you believe you'll be getting an amazing choose your own adventure style visual novel where you can choose what you want to do... until i realized none of that is implemented, the 30+ options split across the cast that are greyed out were NEVER available in this build and you are forced to follow a linear questline where at the end you are shown a lovely screen telling you "content's over bub"

however, to be devils advocate to that critique, i understand that these options ARE to be in place and the game IS in development, i just came into it with high hopes that i'd get a taste of it from atleast 1 character

ahem, anyways, sex, it's good. there are about 5 or 6 scenes in the game right now (excluding non sexual) and they are stylized, great, i really did want more content from the teacher, and a few other characters to be fair, but the game is quite ambitious, i really hope to return to this in a few years and experience what i had felt i was promised from the start, i definitely intend to keep an eye on this game

The art style is adorable, the characters have so much personality, and the sex scenes are hot but tasteful
They allow you to opt in or out for certain fetishs which is always a plus
The only complaint I can think of is that the gui is a little buggy on mobile

[v0.5.2]

The games art style amazing in my personal opinion. Gameplay is your standard adventure-game-y kind of thing. Dialogue is a little clunky with constant awkward pauses, but more than good enough for a game like this. Character animations are well done and it honestly does make them feel alive.

A warning, though, some of the personalities on these characters are just grating. The main character is the biggest issue here, since he has a nasty habit of lying (but of course it always works out). On top of this, almost all conflicts in the game are from some level of xenophobia. When used correctly, it can be used to make a good story, but here it's practically the only thing. Conflicts boil down to someone with a nasty personality screaming, "but you're a muggle elf/demon/male!" every time.

I initially played this game year ago and decided there was too little content to even put any thought in to it. Forgot about it until I noticed it again today. Played it again and... There's still far too little content. At it's current state it still feels like its in an alpha 0.1 proof of concept stage with far too little H content to get the job done, so it's not even good for a quick fap. There's not even any sound 60% of the time. This is looking like one of those games that's going to take 5-8 years to have enough content for a real playthrough. By then it'll probably be an easy 5/5, though.

Subjectively, the art work is good. Objectively, the animation is above average when it is there. However, this game has an excessive amount of text. That in itself isn't bad, but much of the text is unnecessary, repetitive, and/or uninteresting. A lot of text is dedicated to establishing the character's personalities as opposed to advancing the narrative or the relationships, but those personalities aren't all that appealing. To make matters worse, the translation is pretty bad, not horrible, but bad enough that it is distracting and takes away from the dialog. Finally, the gameplay feels like an after thought. I don't really feel like I'm interacting with the world or the characters, but instead trying to find the right action to progress the story. Not the worst game I've played, but I hope the dev(s) take some constructive criticism and implement it before getting too close to the end.

A VN with a great foundation that you can spend a few hours with.
The character development is excellent. It’s not much of a rush with any of the ladies. Each has their own unique story and personality. You want to get to know them and what makes them tick.
The writing is above average but could use some editing and proofreading. It’s not enough to misunderstand what’s going on but it can be off putting.
The art design, while not flawless is fun. It can be a bit cartoony during the more intimate scenes but overall is a good touch. I especially like that you can customize each of the characters clothing to some extent.
Obviously this is still a work in progress and if the developers keep building on the foundation they have here this will be considered a gem one day.

Amazing art style, interesting characters. Gameplay can use a bit more polish though - game expects me to talk to a certain person but you get the right dialog only in the right location, this part seems odd.

Version 0.5.2

Short but pretty sweet. I found the artstyle very lively in this VN, with colorful characters and bouncy animations, although the cartoonish artstyle really weakens the adult scenes in my opinion. These could have spared some more details on the characters sprites to better convey their eroticism. There are very few of them too, only locked to two characters.

Overall, the story isn't incredible, but the devs have made a pretty good job of making almost every character likable, and I found Annie's wish for the future really cute, although it could have been better established with more show than tell. For now only a few routes are available and none of them are complete, also some scenes kind of drag on more than they need to, especially the ones with Lulu, but what is there is at least polished and sows a good direction for the rest of the game. It's a nice VN if you have ~30 minutes of your time to spare.

Great art assets, but the quality in writing leaves something to be desired. Having native-speaking English proof-readers would go a long way, but the storytelling is jilted at times and suffers from pacing issues