VN - Ren'Py - Maids and Maidens [v0.12.0] [Raybae Games]

Contrary to appearances, the plot of this visual novel isn't primarily about domestic bliss with maids and maidens, but it is a thriller starting with business intrigue, moving on to human trafficking / involuntary prostitution, and more recently dealing with a sex cult as well.

My guess is that the author keeps coming up with cool new ideas to include in his work, and that's why he keeps making the plot more convoluted. This could be a major problem, but in this case it isn't. It still all makes sense, isn't too confusing, and looks like some day all threads will be resolved.

The quality of the writing is generally good, and so is the quality of the renders, which I think are created with Honey Select. The love interests are quite diverse in terms of both looks and character. For now it looks like things could be headed for a harem, though that's not currently a tag. If it isn't, then this is probably going to turn into a dating sim, as there are a number of clearly marriageable love interests.

(PS: What's going with the rating system here? The second I posted this 5-star review, the displayed rating went down from 4.5 stars to 4 stars. Weird.)

Pretty great VN.
Review for Version 0.12.0:

Story is interesting overall. MC is an upcoming CEO working for a technology firm (?) from my understanding. He gets involved with lots of people around the city from his coworkers, neighbors, FBI, and rich rival heirs/heiresses. The latter half of the story takes on a weird twist - but without spoiling TOO much, the MC is a pretty special guy and there's a weird reason everyone's attracted to him by default.

Art and animations are great. Every game that uses honeyselect sees eventual and great improvement in the renders as time goes on, as I've learned. In this case, the renders are very consistent and see steady improvement as expected. I noticed that there were more filters in the later chapters, which felt nice, as the dev found a suitable style to their liking. It's just a shame it wasn't applied earlier on. The animations are wonderful, as there are MANY scenes in the game, it's sort of impressive with how many variations and the amount of detail in each scene.

The game uses a day-night system that counts each passing day. There's tons of choices that can alter relationship dynamics and such. I only played through the loving routes, but I don't think the domination routes are that bad, the MC just seems a tidbit harsher than usual towards some main love interests.

The girls get a somewhat evenly distributed amount of screen time. I personally think that at some point, there are WAY too many love interests. As per my usual thoughts on many harem games, I think that having too many LIs can cause a noticeable drop in quality of their relationship dynamic and writing with the MC. There are some characters that can just be friends with you and eventually lovers, which I really enjoy. I think the fact that you can choose whether to make one of the LIs cheat on her husband with you is REALLY neat. It proves that the dev wrote the LI and MC to have personalities beyond just loving each other. But again, at the end of the day - you'll find that some characters don't fit in the framework of the main storyline at all. Their moments/scenes will feel like filler. IMO, the MC only has like 4-5 main love interests that interact/influence the main plot greatly.

It's a great harem game. I can't usually say that easily, because many of the harem games turn into a unrecognizable mess of a sandbox full of so many side quests and side girls. Or they lose focus of the main plot, which eventually just turns all the girls' scenes into filler to meet a quota. The thing that makes it excel in comparison to other games is that it cares about the main plot, which in turn makes it so that the sex and feelings between characters are far more impactful, which is more than you can say for many games on the site.

I have my typical gripes with almost every harem game, there being too many women and not enough time to develop all of them, but it's still a good game. 4.5/5.

The animation of this game is really impressive, and the storyline is decent as well. As for the characters, they could perhaps be developed to be a bit more mature.I'm not sure if there is an option in the game to make someone pregnant. Perhaps the developer could consider it.

This is a weird one. I feel like it's one of the few games with a interesting and appealing story, good dialogues and a somewhat lifelike characters. As a visual novel, I would say that it is very decent! But the adult part, I don't know; feels like just an add-on.

This is quite subjective, of course, but to me, most of the sex scenes in this games work more like transitions rather than something meant to arouse and entertain you. I don't really play AVNs for the sex scenes so I don't mind but it is true that in this game, they feel quite unreal and passionless. They tend to end up in a very abrupt way, meaning there is no aftersex. The MC and the girls cum at the same time (which is the most unrealistic thing ever), and then they go "Well, I should go. See you later" hahah, there is no intimacy at all. Which is contradictory because the MC can be a very sweet and seemingly loving and caring person, but then there are times when his answer to a "let's have sex" proposal is "sure, why not" lmao. What a cold and passionless motherfucker hahah. Most if the times there is no foreplay and Idk, the sex just feels like porn, which isn't a compliment, of course.

Overall, I think it is worth playing if you just enjoy seeing people fuck and if you want an interesting story.

All the girls wanting the MC just because is something that I see as extremely lazy writting and stupid (even childish) but in this VN they have a justification for it so I can't complain. It would be nice having the option to turn off pregnancy but well, it is obvious the dev has a fetish with that and lactancy and is one of the things he wanted to include in the game.

This is one

For the overall aspect of this game is very worthy to be categorized into a score that is close to perfect. In terms of graphics, rendering, storyline and animation are already good.

I just want to give some input to add sound effects to sex scenes like spanking sounds, clapping sounds during sex, and blowjobs. I'm sure it will make this game more enjoyable and perfect.

For the overall rating I give it a 9/10.

I didnt play very far, but from what ive seen so far, you either simp or you get no sex scenes. Boring as hell, especially since pretty much 9 out of 10 VNs have the exact same protagonist template. It seems like most devs are severely lacking when it comes to innovation.

The renders are so low quality I almost wanted to puke.

Female characters are bland and boring

The only thing that warrants this VN 2 stars is that the spelling, grammar and such was of good quality.

Don't judge a book by it's cover;

I'm guilty of this, since I have seen this avn come through the latest updates a couple times but I didn't bother to download it, but not only for this avn, but also for the content itself. As I started playing I judged some characters as being hateful or annoying. Later in the story, my perspective turned almost 180 on those characters.

The story is amazing! It has a plot that gets you hooked pretty early. The characters are divers and they come with some serious character development as the story progresses. A good corperate intrigue / mystery story is also weaved in.

Also the amount of content is massive! I've read this avn for hours and all that time I was so hooked in the story, I couldn't stop, "just one more page" =P

The only thing I liked less is the evil cliffhanger! I need moar! =D

But seriously, this avn is a (hidden) gem!

Keep up the good work dev! And I'm eagerly awaiting the next update ^^

Story: ++
Originality: ++
Renders: +
Sound (music): ++
Sound: +/-
Playability: ++
Performance: ++
Bugs: N/A (I haven't experienced any bugs)
Animations: +
Grammar: ++
(Total) Amount of content: ++++

This is a really great game. The story is interesting, and the models are gorgeous.

Graphics:
The models are gorgeous, and the environments are nice as well. For me 9/10

Animations:
Animation there are good. For me 9/10

Story:
It's an interesting story and makes a woman pregnant. It is so hot. (Personally, I like harems and pregnancies.) For me 100/10

Characters:
Characters are beautiful, and they have their own personalities very interesting. For me 9/10

Overall 9.5/10 For me
Maids and Maidens is a game worth playing, in my opinion. I really recommend. All the girls are definitely standouts; they are gorgeous.

Maids and Maidens [v0.11.0] August 2024

Pitch
You are a wealthy and successful young man climbing the corporate ladder at a software company who begins to seek companionship. Experience corporate intrigue, a mysterious sex cult, and create a harem of beautiful women.

Final Thoughts
Overall this is a well crafted visual novel with a well balanced mix of story and sex. I strongly recommend the game to anyone that likes the genre, and especially to fans of harem, impregnation, pregnancy, or lactation content.

5/5

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Structure
This is a pure linear visual novel without any sandbox content, though having a significant number of choices to make throughout. These decisions have some impact focused on a specific love interest with most having either an on or off state and a special few having more than one path. The game is structured so that other than the previously mentioned mutually exclusive character paths you can see all content in a single run.

Plot/Story
There are strong over arching narratives in the story relating to business intrigue and a possible sex cult that are interesting on their own. Many of the love interests you encounter will also tie in to the larger story or each other’s character stories in some fashion giving a strong feeling of a large well thought and well executed cohesive story to the game.

Writing/Dialog
The writing is excellent. There are very few if any spelling mistakes, bad grammar or the like. Dialog for different characters has distinct tones and word choices that make them stand out.

Characters
Characters are many and varied with a wide variety of body type, ages, and personalities. More important characters with a lot of screen time are explored in significant detail and are brought to life pretty successfully with their own thoughts, motivations, and agency. With nearly 20 possible love interests there are a lot of side characters that don’t get much attention (nor should they if we want the novel to ever finish), so you may be disappointed if a particular love interest doesn’t get much screen time. Probably the only sore spot perhaps in the entire game over all for me is the character Jameela but to describe why would definitely be a spoiler, suffice to say “cringe”.

Visuals/Graphics/Art
I believe the models and animations were done with Honey Select 2. All of the models, animations, and backgrounds are of good or excellent quality. Even UI elements are nicely done with cohesive style. One suggestion for the developer would be to consider adding the ability to click on women in the “relationships” screen and show a larger picture and short bio for them to help a returning player remember some of the more obscure side characters.

Fetish/Kink
This game has big Harem energy with a large cast of love interests who are more than happy to accept the MC having other relationships. There are quite a few scenes with more than one woman at a time though not too much girl on girl content.

There is a significant and surprising amount of Lactation content, I believe it is all optional. Going hand in hand there is also a fair amount of Pregnancy content with one love interest starting the game pregnant (by someone else) with possible Impregnation coming much later in the story.

A few special characters have multiple paths with a traditional romantic path paired with a decidedly more exploitative dominating path. This isn’t really my cup of tea and is only a small optional part of the game, so its hard to say if fans of Male Dom, or Exploitation would enjoy the game just based on this content alone.

Version 0.10.0

Despite the title, banner, and screenshots featuring maids prominently, the game actually has little to do with French apron donned servants - only one LI Maria is a maid. I’m not sure why it ended up like this, but this unnecessarily put me off from trying this excellent work earlier as I’m not a big fan of maids.

Story
There is currently no overarching plot driving the entire story, it’s structured in a way with a few major plots interweaving around various LIs whom the MC interacts with. Corporate espionage, religious cult, human trafficking are some of the major storylines though there are many other smaller side stories specific to individual LIs.

The story world and character relationships are surprisingly expansive and intertwined. Length wise we are talking about at least 10 hours worth of gameplay at V0.10 - definitely not what I was expecting from a game named “Maids and Maidens”.

Game Mechanics
It’s a standard AVN with choices to either skip scenes with a LI or sometimes result in some minor variations on how the story progress. There is a relationship scoring system which is singular and straightforward.

Background / Character Renders
Character models largely retain their Honey Select looks while background consist mostly of stock CGIs with minor modifications. This is probably the weakest link of M&M.

Character Development
There are 19 LIs to date and naturally not all of them can be developed fully within limited time. However those that are more developed (Maria, Carol, Laura, Yumi, Sam) have good background stories for you to get to know them better and emotionally invested in them.

Also the casts in this game follow a diversity and inclusion philosophy - white, blacks, East Asian, South Asian, Latinos, lesbian, bisexual, thin, fat, prostitute, rich, poor… LOL there is no lack of variety in M&M.

Sex Scenes
Mixed and inconsistent. Some of the scenes look like direct port overs from existing HS assets while others can be quite titillating and seem to be done from scratch. Dialogue is also a bit of hit and miss.

Overall I would grade it anywhere from average to above average, but there’s nothing particularly memorable or unique.

BGM and Sound Effects
Generic BGMs with minimal / no sound effects.

Conclusion
M&M is a 4.0+ experience for me. I think it could do with a more accurate name and product summary, it’s missing a fair share of potential gamers who are not into maid fetish which is a shame. The story’s good and the LIs have the quantity and diversity that should appeal to a wider audience.

Only drawback is the graphics, background, animation and BGM are too Honey Select and as a result inherit many of the drawbacks and limitations of it.

I tried to like this game but it's mediocre at best, the story is dull, the animations, both sexual and non-sexual are bland or outright bad, the love interests are mostly 1-dimensional and the dev doesn't seem to know how to build a heroic saviour type MC up without generic tropes like blackmail and 'rich man helps poor girl'. This is all mostly tolerable if dull, but now i've gotten to the point where the MC as a dark secret from his past revealed in the most unrealistic and tropey way you can imagine and i'm just left sitting here wondering why i am bothering with this boring dull game... 2 stars, so like, a D, D-, not something i'd recommend to anyone.

One thing that is still missing in the AVN Space is a title where you get to boss Maids around while its still being a AVN. With just one Maid this is the closest thing I know of.

MaM is HS Game that isn't really doing anything special technical wise. Afaik it doesn't have special animation or any other shenanigans that would set it apart.

The game has 2 characters the MC can have a Maledom relationship with. Sadly, like so many other AVN's this also makes the mistake of adding to many LI which makes it loose the focus.

The good thing is that the story isn't bad and there are several characters that are quite interesting. Additionally the story itself gets some potential with the MC later being able to join some kind of cult. The implication being a potential dope power fantasy with him becoming the leader.

With some tempered expectations I can recommend to play this game. There is good potential here and the amount of content isn't to bad either.

The dev promised a harem game where the love interests are actual 3D characters, rather than just mindless bimbos eager to bend over for the MC. Given the very nature of harem AVNs, I was skeptical.
However, this was an extremely well-written game. Some thoughts, bulleted for ease of reading: (+ is for positives, - is for negatives.... obviously)
+ There are a lot of choices and interactivity (mostly karmic, with a 'good' and 'evil' option, plus the requisite 'Do you want to bone this woman?').
- There is a bit of a supernatural element to hand-wave why every female in the game is so quick to fall for the MC, which is a bit irritating.
+ Every serious love interest has a backstory that is told in an engaging way. They all get a fair amount of screentime, and are fleshed out enough to feel believable.
+ There is a LOT of content. This is a long story, hard to believe it is only 0.11
- The visuals are.... good, but the MC is very strange looking. And he has a dildo between his legs, rather than a penis (I'm assuming that thing is a dildo, given it is not remotely flesh-colored, nor does it match the MC's skin tone).
+ The main plot of the story is woven well into the stories of each individual love interest. It's really well done.
+ The harem is big... big enough that once or twice I forgot who a person was (usually 'dates' are arranged by text as the MC lays down to go to sleep at night, so sometimes I'd see a message from a name and be like, "who?"), but as I said above, the characters aren't forgettable or flat. There's just a lot of them.
- There are a few moments in the story where the MC does something (to advance the plot) that would be pretty out of character for people following the "Good" choices. Also, there is a time or two where the choices are so nebulous, I had no idea what outcome I was choosing.
Overall Rating/Summary: 9.98/10. This is one of the (or simply "THE") best harem AVNs ever made. This game takes harem VNs like "Grandma's House" out back and suffocates them with a plastic bag. It's an outstanding story, written by a talented developer who has almost certainly interacted with a real-life woman. Play this game! You won't regret it!

I played v0.10.0 through in a few evenings, and found it fairly enjoyable.

The story is decent, though it starts to feel like pulp fiction after awhile: with mysterious cults, industrial espionage, secretive government agents, predatory capitalists, human traffickers, etc.

The graphics are out-of-the-box Honey Select, including many of the sex animations. If you have played HS2, this feels like it could be set in the same world. While the dev gets zero points for graphic originality, he does a better job than many at posing and lighting his scenes; so overall I give this a pass.

Character-wise, the MC is your typical white-knight sort, with an extra-magical dick to assist in panty-dropping. There are a couple of points where the player can briefly choose more dominant or sadistic paths for the MC, but the dev’s heart is clearly not in it. The LI cast is extensive and diverse: virgins, hot-babes, MILFS young and old, a pregnant girl, a lesbian who might have a change of heart, etc. Many of these relationships have yet to be fleshed out. I found it easy to avoid ones that I didn’t want to explore.

Much of it is average fare, but I added a star for the fun story.

I absolutely loved this game! It is one of my favorites for sure. The writing, story, and characters are great and I am so looking forward to updates. It stands out to me in a sea of similar games. I really hope the developer sticks with this. It deserves to be a complete and finished game.

To start off this review, I just want to say that this game is good, but not great. In my humble opinion, the story is just okay and most of the character models are mediocre. Honestly, most of the girls are decent or average-looking, and the truly attractive ones are just side characters with very little content. I'm looking at you, Bianca and Fiona. So yeah, there's not much to write home about in terms of looks. However, that doesn't mean the game is boring. It can actually be quite interesting at times. Despite these two major issues I had with the game, it's still a good experience overall. It's impressive how it brought out such strong feelings in me, so I can say the developer did a good job. I hope the updates continue to go well and I wish the developer the best of luck with this game.

Review of v0.10.0

Maids and Maidens surprised me. Before playing, its name brought to mind a happy go-fucky harem full of women with boobs bigger than their personalities. But it turns out the game is as interested in its story as in its sex.

Yes, you are the stereotypical well off mc whose luck with the ladies is unbelievable. But rather than leave it at that, Maids and Maidens, seeks to weave the mc's attributes, the girls' personalities, and everyone's backstories into the plot. A real effort is made to try to connect plot lines together; for the most part this works, though there are a few threads started and then abandoned without good reason. The girls are well realised and you grow to care for them. And the mc is really likeable (except on some ill conceived corruption routes).

Funnily enough, the main problem Maids and Maidens has is with its sex scenes. For a start, they're often just not that hot. The animations are okay, but the low quality graphics and lack of steamy writing doesn't sell them. Just as importantly, there is often hardly any build-up to them. Rather than things getting progressively spicier with lewd shots in preparation for a scene, we are flung into them straight away from an engaging story; there's no time to get horny. Even worse, after a scene is finished, we often immediately timeskip to the next story event. No cuddles


There are a few other janky features, like the opacity behind the names still being grey after turning the opacity of the textbox off, and some bizarre clipping in the animations. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Maids and Maidens a lot, and hope it continues to improve.

Review @ 0.10.0

Don't be misled by version number. This version already has tons of content. I only assume dev used 0.01... to 0.10 instead of 0.1 to 1.0 .

The total rating would actually be 3,5/5 for me, but since you can't have fractional rating, so 3/5 it is.

Story: 4/5 -- decent background story, also for many of the characters, who are memorable enough. Some suspension of belief is needed, also some sci-fi elems, but only in background so far.

Dialogues 5/5 -- good English, mostly adult conversations, believable enough as well. Not overly winded, except sometimes in background info.

Visuals: 3/5 -- character and background renders are decent: 4/5 (but the bar is very high by now); sex scenes are ... controversial. More about that below.

Maledom: 1/5 -- hey, you tag your game mdom, I am going to include this in rating (as I am only reviewing mdom games by now). So essentially we have MC corruption stat (as revealed by walkthrough), but really the maid is the only one where we can practice that. And maid content is quite decent from mdom perspective, but ends about midgame, after we got her to hj us in shower. Lactation scenes were hot (if you're not averse to that) mostly due to the power play.

But afterwards while there is a big warning about dominance path on one character, and we get MC to do some corrupted stuff in a couple of places, there is practically no mdom sexual scenes and some light spanking with one character is the best you can get.

All in all, something that could work great for mdom lovers, if that part of content was developed. Maid path shows there is a good promise for that.


Other than that, with the rest of girls, it seems you can ONLY do +love path if you want any content with them. Even with those who are dependant on you already.

In general, there have been a large number of LIs introduced, but, perhaps due to that, sex scenes look too similar and they grow simpler with time. The dialogues on top of scenes are also not adding to the experience. There are some attempts of spicing things up, but otherwise whatever the girl it is eat pussy, fuck in pussy (no anal as far as I noticed), cum. Yeah, sometimes there's bj's and hj's, but that's far from given. Rather little amount of tension, girls start to throw themselves at MC sometime in the first half of the content and continue to do so. Mostly it makes for a feeling that sex scenes DON'T MATTER.

To sum it up. Good start on some content. Too many LIs for too little story/content (there's plenty of total content, it's just that each LI gets only a small fraction of that). Good potential for mdom, if the dev feels like it. Something to keep track of.

Game's graphics is good for a Honey Select game. Decent environment (though it's the same asset that's used by other Honey Select VNs), good lighting and shader work, though the character models are hit or miss.

Writing is good as well as the characters. I like the fact that the two choices are actually distinct and not misleading, so the player can actually choose the route he wants. The romance route has better writing as usual for any choice-based VNs.

The biggest drawback on this game is the sex animations. Like holy hell, it looks worse than the default HS animation! Like it's so janky as fuck! The looping is janky, the thrust animation is janky and awkward, the camera work is all over the place. Also made worse by some of the most boring sex dialogues I've ever read. Like the dialogue literally lacks any form of spice to it. It just tells you what the people involved are doing, with no dirty or passion talks at all.

Overall, decent game held back by shitty sex! I could rate this game 3.5/5, but I can't tolerate the garbage sex (which is important for porn games), so it's 3/5.

Damn, I really like the story so far. It has great characters, so I am going to play it till the end. The character designs are good. I like the scenes so far. It's great that all of the characters have different emotions. Every character has a unique story to tell. Humor and story is very good in it .