Unity - Midnight Sin [v0.5.1] [Faerin]

early stage of the game but very good, played the last games too and you notice an improvement. Characters are very beatuyful, cant wait to see more. Only wating for the next update playing Manors again in between.

TL/DR: Has a few red-flags like too much inner monologue, empty sandbox elements, ect- but it is a relatively new title that looks to be crafted with care and has a actually manly dude as a protagonist so its easy to overlook its warts and hope it'll become great!

+ Nice to be able to play as a handsome adult man instead of the usual VN fare.
+ Nice UI and some novel game-play elements.
+ The integration of paintings is a nice touch. Makes the sandbox feel more meaningful / interactive.
+ Map was nice to reduce endless clicking.
+ UI for character bio is really clean looking.
+ LI look nice and are produced with high quality.

Neutral:
~ Premise is a lil slap-dash, but it works
~Lots of empty non-interactive sandbox elements. Which is TBE in a fresh game, but is a red-flag to me since the devs other finished title Mystwood Manor had a major issue with unused locations and empty sandbox.
~Not much to do at the moment in the game. You just end clicking the time skip button a ton each day until you get to the one event you can do.

Cons:
- The protagonist's inner monologue does not match his looks. It is vibe whiplash. Why does this handsome fucker act like a virgin schoolboy so much. All the hehe's and other random cutesy shit didn't make much sense on him. It is like the dev literally cannot put themselves in the shoes of this character even just to write from their POV.
-Save functionality only works during certain times
-Meaningless railroading choices. Often one leads to a game-over, the other keeps you on the tracks. Also, there is pointless and unfunny 4th wall breaking text from the dev if you get a bad ending.
-The ratio of listening to this protagonist inner monologue about the same shit over and over again to anything actually happening is too damned high.
-A lot of the text in the ui elements is lower case when it should be capitalized.
-Progression systems of Love Points / Lust points is beaten to death at this point. Boring.
-The gals height being very homogeneous is a little aesthetically boring.
-Dialogue is porny and not very natural

Still in the begging but looks like is going to be one of the best if it keeps the current flowing! Beautiful art style good and ideas for developing the characters histories!

The creator is a compromissed one who have finished all his previus games, so im really excited to see what is coming from this one!

Version v0.1.5

First of all, having played Faerin's previous game "Mystwood Manor" I have to say I got some expectations for this new one.

In terms of story, its pretty early to comment about this but I hope it comes with more twist and turns than MM, since it was easy to spot who the bad guy was since the beginning.

About the bond you have with the characters, I understand there is a need to show intercourse early to catch the audience but with Rebecca it felt insanely rushed. Is she crazy? Or did I do something wrong?

About originality I hope this game is long, so no matter if the premise is simple, the development of the story is what entangles you, so right now at this stage is pretty difficult to say but I have hope in the creativity of the author.

Renders are, to me, pretty amazing. Why? I know... Not ultra realistic, but they have a unique touch and you can see there is a huge effort in post production to make them feel original, also you can see that even in the dialogues the character moves a little which is a wonderful touch of care and professionalism.

In the characters field I feel somehow disappointed (for now), why? Because in MM you had eight (8) beautiful and very different main female characters who had a very decent amount of scenes, also another six female minor characters to have fun with.

There was the black haired ultra voluptuous nurse, or the perfect nordic cutie who actually looked a lot like a normal nordic hottie, or the MILF who reminded me of Stifler's mom and how could I forget the last unlocked character who was a true bombshell and the redhead with her small tits and slender body.

In "Midnight Sin" you have 4 main and blood-related (similar) love interests and two minor characters with whom you can have fun with, at the moment. Hopefully, we can get many more characters with whom we can have several intercourse scenes with.

About the sound, pretty neat, I like the music choice and the way songs are made to be there, not take the spotlight and not be boring.

The playability in this game is very good, I feel that it still lacks a bit of visual development (in the map in particular) to the level to which Faerin had us accustomed, since the bar is so high. The user interface is easy to go by and I don't find any punctual difficulties with its use.

So, for the record I expect "Midnight Sin" to be much better than Faerin's previous work which was amazing, the bar is high but this is early in development so there is a lot of room for improvement. My five stars are in hopes for a much better game since I know how amazing his work can be.

Thanks for your attention and have a nice one!

Updating for v0.2.1 - let's call it a 3.5 but I'm very conflicted on this game.

My previous review (below) basically stands. The models and renders look very nice and the navigation is the best I've seen. You can travel anywhere with one click, everyone's location is always shown, and you can skip time straight from the map. Every game should have a system so good. Also, the painting puzzle was very clever. A+ for that.

The plot and gameplay are where this game falls flat for me. Not because they're unoriginal (which they are) but because of how forced everything feels. A lot of the relationship building happens during mandatory once-per-week trips you escort the girls on which contributes to empty sandbox feeling where you're skipping 12 hours every day to do "the content".

Even the free-roam stuff is railroaded. The main quest is to find five books. Why? Because the game tells you to search the house and, while doing so, you'll eventually find a weird bookcase missing five books and the MC decides to find the other books. Why not, instead, have the stalker drop a hint about the bookcase or maybe the MC hears a noise and goes downstairs and sees it move or something? Also, you can't find the books before locating the bookcase or find them out of order. They'll be there, but you can't interact with them until the game lets you.

There's a similar situation with two of the sisters where you can help them skip chores. At dinner, their mom will call them out on it and the first time you're only allowed to lie for the girls but after that you can snitch. It never felt like there was a reason to snitch but the hints tell you to do it and the game won't progress if you don't.

So, I like the visuals. I liked the painting puzzle. I don't like the fighting minigame (it's a rhythm game but the music doesn't match the visuals). And I don't like how much it felt like I was just doing what the in-game hints were telling me to do and not like I was investigating a murder.

So we have a new game from Faerin, again it did not disappoint, because it is at the beginning, the only problem is that you have to start the game from the beginning with each update, a problem that I think will be solved in the next updates. The characters are very well done in terms of design, although Olivia when she smiles makes me think of Chucky . As the story is going at the moment, I suspect that we will also have secondary characters with hot scenes.... Finally, congratulations to Faerin.

Updated Review for v0.4.2

Having been over a year since my initial review of a very early version of the game, now felt like a good time to take another crack at this and see if my opinion of it improved. While I'd say it has overall, I still think the three star rating fits.

Midnight Sin, for the most part, is playing it safe. It's a style of game I've played many times before and in a way almost feels nostalgic. It reminds me of those old harem sandbox games I first came across when checking out games on the site. My question going in was, especially for a dev with two completed games under their belt, how was this going to make itself stand out from the rest. Stand out from both it's predecessors and other harem sandboxes. The answer, and my real issue with this game, is that it really does almost nothing to do so.

The game plays exactly like you'd expect if you've played any other sandbox. You have your map, girls moving to different spots based on their schedule, lots of time skipping, boring minigames (that you can skip thankfully)l, stat grinds that events get locked behind, and money you have to earn to buy items and clothes from the mall. This isn't that big of a deal to me truth be told, but because the game is still relatively empty it just isn't that engaging.

Though I enjoyed Mystwood Manor for what it was, my biggest problem with that game was the lack of complex characters and general character development. I was worried the same thing was going to happen here, and while it isn't quite as bad, I feel Midnight Sin is only a few small steps up from Mystwood Manor in that regard. I think the characters are just boring. Most of them are based off very clear tropes I've seen done many times. While each do have aspects that branch them out a bit more from the usual, they still are very small branches. They just aren't very compelling? Though to be fair they have their cute moments as well, and I do find myself partial to the shy gamer sister. That might also be because she's the most attractive IMO.

This brings me to the MC, another character I just find boring more than anything. This doubly sucks considering we play as him. I feel the decision to make him 36 years old was purely a stylistic choice, because honest to god you could make him 10 years younger and nothing would change. He lacks a certain competence and maturity that just makes it feel like you're playing a teenager in a mans body. I initially had a much harsher critique of him truth be told, but it seems like his pervy dialogue has been dialed back a bit which is nice.

Plot wise It seems the focus is more on the girls themselves, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is painfully obvious who is blackmailing us (though if I am wrong on this one, I'll take the egg on my face). Considering the MC was supposed to be running a security business, it feels comical how he is immediately made helpless. The best comparison I can make is that he feels like the jobber bodyguard who gets taken out by the main character of an action movie. Besides that each girl thus far has had their own small plotline that really only pushes you along the very standard lewd scene pipeline. Events themselves aren't very played out maybe is the word? For example: you beat up this dickhead who is harassing one of the girls you're protecting at the gym. Instead of giving me a render of a nice punch to the jaw, it throws up the fighting minigame and then cuts to him just bruised on the floor. That is not satisfying.

The lewd scenes aren't doing much for me. Yeah most of the girls are attractive (I couldn't care less about the maids tbh) but there really hasn't been any good writing going into them. You mostly just watch the animation play out, maybe get a horny comment from the MC, and that's that. Which again is kinda boring.

There is one single aspect of this that feels a bit different from your usual harem incest sandbox. You'll learn at some point that the mother has a punishment room where she takes her daughters when they misbehave. BDSM gear, spanking, a mother daughter kiss on the lips, etc. Truth be told I'm not into BDSM and sub/dom stuff, but I do think mother daughter stuff is hot. So I'm mixed? I have no doubt the MC will take over the punishment role at some point which again I don't really care about, but I do wonder if there will be a decent chunk of lesbian content down the road.

At the end of the day it's a pretty standard incest sandbox game, just with a few more bells and whistles going into it. It's a genre that's been tried and tested, and I can get the appeal of wanting something more mindless like I believe this game is. If you want a game with more complexity in its writing though, I'd say look elsewhere. I don't think I'll ever love this game but I can see myself potentially playing it on a rainy day in the future. Maybe the game will surprise me once it fills itself out more.