VN - Ren'Py - Move the Chains [v0.3] [MissFortune]

I abso-fucking-lutely loved the update. Don't know why people complain about MMC being an asshole. The environment in which he was raised, you have to be asshole to survive and it's not like it's out of character that MMC behaves that way. I believe this attitude and personality suits MMC perfectly, especially after he spent a year in jail.

Dev melted my heart in UI department. I just loved the UI and the animations used in UI. Renders and animations as you know are already great, no lagging when animations play.

I really believe think that story will get more and more interesting as we move forward and this episode shows exactly that very clearly. Loved with the ease the story flows, reveals the bits, immersively.

Characters are lovely and I love detailing on characters. You'll see what I'm talking about when you play the game.
Emily gonna lose her other eye too. Bitch emptied her brain when lost first one. I already knew she will jeopardize Diana when MMC saw her with Dwight the twat.

KEEP GROWING!
STAY HEALTHY!

GOLDLUCK! MissFortune

The premise is a good one, not enough games of the sportsball genre here. The story feels a little disjointed in the beginning, that it doesn't flow well. Part of me expects that's intentional... that the game is trying to introduce the player to all of the set pieces before jumping into the meat of the story and that requires going to all the places, for better or worse, and being introduced to all the people. While it's likely the developer feels this is necessary to ensure players don't feel like the story is being cobbled together on the fly, it isn't really necessary. We don't need to introduce the player to all of the people, places, and things to know they were fleshed out and exist, we only need to hear of them. It feels like we ran into 15-20 girls (I'd have to replay it to know for sure) during the first episode's content, and most of those interactions felt forced.

In spite of the early story tripping over itself to introduce us to all of the players, I do actually like the characters being introduced. Most of them seem to have very different personalities with some gentle overlap, even if the characters with personality overlap don't necessarily interact with one another--yet. For instance, Nicole and Swallow come to the story as a sort of package deal, yet have personalities that are as diametrically opposed as the north is from the south. Episode 1 wraps up with tension between characters simply being a part of the MC's life in various capacity, and while I'm sure it will ease up--the MC's sister of all people can't keep up jealousy of other women without causing social problems for the MC in the long-term--It's still a fun hurdle to come across and overcome.

Scene backgrounds are choice and the character designs are amazing, they are very high quality and while they're obviously 3DCG, they have very realistic qualities (I loved seeing the MC and Yuna in the pool at the end of E01; that is high detail). I don't intend to come off as mean to the other game in the sportsball genre--it's a good game and I'm still playing it--but realistic faces really give me a better impression, and the visual quality is on par with some of the very best games on the forum... in any genre.

I enjoy most of the music. I look forward to the developer adding more to the jukebox. Ambient sounds work well, all of the music and sounds are generally normalized so nothing comes out of left field suddenly blowing out your eardrum (problematic in one or two games I've played). I will note that I'm not a fan of the music stopping when you go to the menu. It feels like it pulls you out of the element, and I understand the very action of going to the menu technically takes you out of the element, but it feels like some platformer being paused rather than simply going to look at something in the menu... the menu isn't just a pause button, after all; it's where all the extras are at.

For the moment, I'm giving this 5 stars.

Through about 3/4 of the first episode, I was leaning towards 4 stars... and that had pretty much everything to do with how forced some of the scenes felt in the beginning. However, as I've moved into v0.2 content (S01E02), I've come to the conclusion that it was simply the developer trying to plug us into all of the coming content rather than letting it come naturally with the story... it really feels like the story has slowed into a more natural pacing, and I appreciate it.

Looking forward to future content, and hopefully that will include a season worth of good sportsball content. The adult content will come, but remember: Without a good story--chock full of as much detail that a genre-savvy player can stand--all adult games will simply boil down to a lazy porn plot. Don't be that writer.

PS: Love Dean, he sings the song of the MC's people--loud and proud.

I wouldn't know a cornerback from a diamondback, but I still enjoyed this game.

For a start, the game explained a lot of the sports terms as it goes, so that helped.

But the characters were great, and they acted consistently with their personalities.

The highlight though is the rendering. It's amazing, and definitely some of the best work in any AVN.

Outstanding job.

So I love the game. Renders are awesome, beautiful girls. Very interesting story, which has some great potential for some deep moments.

Aside from a few weird grammar things, and a few misspelled words, the dialog makes sense and reads well.

The only real complaint is I want more, and I want it now, lol.

Keep up the terrific work, really excited to see how this game comes together.

Enjoyed the game so far; unique and interesting premise, nice renders and good writing. The HUD looks crazy good with all the animated logos.

I quite liked the choice to keep the MC's face a mystery at the start, it kind of left the visuals up to imagination, so I was a little disappointed when you could see the MC's face in the renders afterwards, but that is not really a big issue.

Well overall a great game,
Great renders,
Good music,
Good Characters,
Story is a bit confusing for me since i dont understand American football and its core of this VN,
The interactions with some of the characters are vague at this point but i can see of them coming together.
Will consider supporting n Looking forward to the next update.

Eh, this is only on 0.2. Shouldn't be much to it, but I'll give it a look--

>Great music
>Fits the atmosphere perfectly
>Great renders
>literal hours of genuinely well-crafted story
>No character falls flat
>Even the damn world feels fleshed out
>MC is an actual character not just a vehicle for the reader

bruh

My expectations were blown out of the water. I couldn't have been more than 20 minutes in before I was hooked. Hell, I don't even care about football, but having the narrative tightly focused around it and through it has gotten me really damn invested in it.

If you took any one thing away from this (the writing, the visuals, the focus, the music) it would merely be above average. Good, don't get me wrong, but not great. Except, with how its all put together, I was instead left feeling like I'd just been watching the sort of polished show/movie/game that blows up and gets a cult following for however many years it runs.

Overall, I'd say this is one of the rare games where every element of a VN manages to come together into something greater than the sum of all its parts.

Oh man, I really want to enjoy this game because the renders are beautiful, but for some reason I can't. (TLDR at the bottom)
It might be because I was expecting a 'normal-ish' harem game based on the tag but it's not really that, at least not for me.
Granted it's not clear what kind of a harem game this will be, it might have the tag out of necessity and it is not aimed for vanilla harem players like me.


I don't really want a harem of slutty girls, while I don't have a problem with LIs who have a past, also they don't have to be virgins, I just don't like them to be part of a harem. It's fine if they are side girls or a ONS.
Hopefully there are some 'normal' girls as well who we yet to meet or get to know better and they act 'less slutty' so there can be some romance in that relationship.
What's missing for me is the romance part to be honest, but not sure if it fits the MC so that could be the reason why it's kinda lacking on that front.

The cast is quite large, which might not be issue now, not sure how long this game supposed to be. It is really ambitious though to have this many LIs even in a harem game. (I'm sliglty concerned since the dev have another game on-hold so not sure what to expect.)

Why make a hot mother figure character if she is not romanceable is a sore point for me (don't want to compare it to a certain 3 letter game, but it's hard not to..), why not just make her an older women in her 50s/60s who is not that attractive or not have her at all. At least she is not sexualized, but since we found out her backstory I just want her to be happy, find love again and have a child, but that's off the table I guess, she'll be a tag along and just exist as a mother figure while for some reason the 'female roommate' is romanceble. So not sure about the reasoning why she is not an LI, hopefully she won't get together with an NPC, I don't want to see/hear that. I see no value having her around in this capacity (same as in that 3 letter game) as her 'arc' is kinda complete, she helped MC and took care of him and his 'female roommate'. Although surely something will happen with her character to add more drama, otherwise there is no point having her around in my opinion.


I'm not really a fan of this 'hood' talk and environment, but that's probably my personal preference, not an issue really.
This game is too heavy on the drama side, it's brewing everywhere and it might just be too much for me.


TLDR:
+ beautiful renders and girls all around
+ love the detailed sport aspect of the game
+ good story and writing besides a few type or missing words (although my next point kinda contradicts this point..)
- too much drama all around and it feels like it will keep coming
- questionable LIs for a harem game (this might be just my preference, could be a non-issue for others)
- the existence of the non-romanceable mother figure character left a bad taste in my mouth
- too much 'hood' talk (this might be just my preference, could be a non-issue for others)

Overall it's not a bad game, I'd recommend playing it or at least trying it out.
Others might find it 5/5 and maybe I'm too nitpicky or I have a unique taste in harem games.

Good luck to the dev!

Review: "Move the Chains V0.2"

Move the Chains is essentially an American football enthusiast's wet dream come to life. From start to finish, the narrative is dominated by the intricacies of the game, leaving little room for genuine romantic development.

The core narrative of "Move the Chains" struggles to break free from the shackles of mediocrity, much like a third-string player hoping for a shot at the big leagues. Our protagonist, is supposed to hail from the gritty streets of Inglewood, but his portrayal feels about as authentic as a Hollywood set piece. Instead of embodying the raw energy of his supposed upbringing, the MC comes across as an edgy pretty boy straight out of Echo Park, complete with a wardrobe more suited to a fashion runway than a football field. As for the characters, they're introduced with all the subtlety of a linebacker blitzing the quarterback – expect to be left scratching your head as you try to decipher who's who in this gridiron soap opera. And let's not forget the barrage of American football terminologies and mind-numbing banter that permeate every dialogue exchange; it's enough to make you wonder if the developers mistook this for a playbook instead of a visual novel that's enough to make even the most dedicated sports fan yearn for a timeout.

In the midst of the touchdown dances and intercepted romances, "Move the Chains" does offer a few silver linings. The renders shine brightly, displaying a level of craftsmanship that could rival even the most polished helmets on game day. Likewise, the writing, though often lost in a sea of football terminology, showcases glimpses of genuine talent. It's clear that the developer possesses the necessary skills to craft compelling visual novels; however, "Moving Chains" falls short of reaching its full potential. With a more nuanced approach and a willingness to tackle themes beyond the gridiron, future projects could see this developer emerging as a true MVP in the realm of interactive storytelling

Promising storyline great characters, loved the interactions with diana so far she is my favourite character/Li, i loved the back story of diana and the MC and the scenes with conflicts between them were Top-notch, All the best with your VN will be looking forward to more updates and hope they will be frequent

V0.2

i am over half a century old, a brit and spent nearly two decades in the hospitality trade, 4 years of which was both working and managing a bar and cellar, and as a brit have never tried, served nor ever known anyone to drink warm beer.....except guiness in ireland where it is served in half pints traditionally from the barrel.
from an american writer, i find the lack of knowledge understandable as i have been to the states and tried the fizzy chemical piss they serve so the thought of real beer can seem scary and create false horror stories in imaginations
(at least i made no jibe about the sport)

making a VN one would think that the N is just as important as the V right?
it would seem not. the writing errors throughout are abundant and immersion breaking for me. developers do not check before release what they are releasing, which i translate as 'could care less'.
it's a sloppy practice

there are hints of good characterization for some but not all, but early days i guess. it does go on a bit and at one point the developer loses enough focus that one woman gets two names during one conversation.
the humour fell as flat as the many other game plugs and mentions in the writing and art. curious after the opening warning at game start.

the first thing it does to me, as a reader, is make me then stop reading and start thinking about those other games. hey presto, immersion broken.

the art is good/great (not my forte so hard to tell) as nothing i see looked weird or drew the eye for the wrong reason. no extra fingers or legs bent at strange angles. no odd lighting etc.
the V got all the good attention.

no renpy exceptions and good design choice. if the writing was error free then full immersion would be possible. the choice to go the VN without the clutter of stat screens and the breaks for sandbox/P-A-C styles is a great choice for this middling plot.

with better care this could be an easy 4 out of 5
but with too much outside influence and shoddy quality control i remain swimming the lake looking for the hook

after playing version 0.1
- Excellent story showing what we see in many American films and series, about poor young people who seek, through sport, to get a scholarship to pay for college and be able to help their family.
- Excellent images, with well-designed poses and lighting as well.
- Characters well introduced into the story.

TL/DR: I am an avid hand-egg fan so this title's hook was an easy buy-in for me. The plot is a tad cliche- but it is a nice cliche that is often mirrored in real life and the author is dryly aware of it in their writing. Gal's body types were a bit too homogeneous for my tastes, but there was pretty good variety of personalities. Very healthy amount of content for a 0.2.

v 0.2 Update; Kick it up a star. The addition of stats and UI improvements took it over the top for me. Consistent release to release improvement is a great quality for a game to have.

+ The SC SFx merged with a dolphin noise after opening the game cracked me up.
+ I like hand-egg
+ The drum-line music at the start screen really suits the theme and it is a nice riff.
+ Nice that the dev gave us some toggles. Though I left everything on, I appreciate a developer that is willing to code extra to give players options.
+ I like the prose. Nice crisp sentences.
+ Did well with the football jargon.
+ Thank god it started with football- there are some sports H games that took years of development to actually focus on the core narrative at all. Yikes for them....good for this title.
+ MC has a clear goal of making it big and getting his family / people he cares about outta poverty. Nice to add extra layers to stuff.
+ Great Musical score
+ MC is not a wimp. He feels amusingly out of place since he is a white corner who looks like an emo, 90s anime protagonist. But he isn't short, and he is handsome, so I'll take him along with that healthy dose of cognitive dissonance.
+ The "landladies" ass deserves its own slot in the "pros" list b/c she is out there looking like a pixar mum. Thx for the fan-servicey camera angles dev-kun.
+ The coaches names with the flipped letters were giggle-worthy.
+Smooth animations
+ Hyperlink in the dialogue to the technical terms is a great touch for anyone not familiar with American football.
+ Additional stats look promising.

Neutrals
~Trans LI. I usually do the routes to see the romance, but it def a downgrade from the XX chromosome characters. Long as it isn't too large of a slice of the pie and is selectively avoidable it's okay- but I'd prefer a different kink to spice the content. They are a sweet character, but I cannot say I enjoyed another potential LI tuggin' the Trans cock without player input when I was just expecting a topping scene. Irrelevant if Renee is exclusive to that path or not a LI- but if she isn't that is a bummer.
~Some clerical errors like uncapitalized words or missing punctuation- but not with enough frequency to detract.
~ I cannot figure out how to get at the script to look at it naked. Sad times. Usually do that for most games. Unren / my own knowledge failed me in this case. :-(

Cons:
- RIP 5 o'clock shadow. Bro was more handsome without the baby-face.
- Teasing Eisly about fucking her dog was not a cool vibe- even if it was just joking. This Mc's brain goes some weird places.
- Some of the sex scenes are not very erotically written / too terse. The MC constantly talking about how close he is to coming after like 10 seconds is a buzzkill, but is mitigated by the fact the man can cum and has like a 0 second refractory period for round 2.
- The protagonist gets too much free shit. I woulda liked to see him earn some of this in game. We've just jumped through hoops at warp speed- and that is boring. Hopefully there will be more challenged in the future for him to overcome b/c there isn't much tension in the plot once the guy actually gets to the school.
- The fourth wall breaking stuff where the MC is like "I'm just like the protagonist in one of those porn games" is pretty fuckin lame . More subtle stuff like a character getting stuck on the f95 was funny though.

Review for V0.1
So first of all, there is really a decent amount of content for a first version, therefore I think the game is reviewable even after one version.

I gave the game three stars, because I see some possible improvement in the way characters are introduced. A lot of very important characters (like Diana, Laura or Deshaun) are introduced very quickly and vague. It takes quite some time before you figure out who these people are. These people are appearantly very important to the MC but I just fail to feel any connection to them. First of all, because of the way there are introduced, so in the beginning you feel a bit confused. Secondly, in the way they act. There are quite some emotional moments, which lack the emotion quite literally.
Furthermore, some interaction feel a bit of and confusing but it is not all bad. The characters and general graphics look quite good and I can really appreciate the attention to background sounds and music to create more immersion. I do think that there was not enough emphasize on the fact that they lived in a very bad neighbourhood. From playing the game you do not exactly get that vibe.

So in general pretty decent but a lot of improvements possible imo. Therefore thee stars right now seem to be reasonable.

0.2: I really liked the first version. But I'm really relieved I didn't support the dev(s) right away. Artistically it all looks really good. It's the reason I'm giving one star above the minimal this time. But the writing needs improving and attention. There's quite a few typos that would be easily corrected with revision.
The biggest BUT is the lazy and unnatural use of the "N" bomb. Makes it really hard not to picture the writer being a white guy that is abusing this excuse to use the word. Tone it down a lot of notches.
I'll come and check 0.3 or whatever comes next hopping to find corrections and substantial improvement before making a more drastic review. Sadly not expecting a lot anymore.

For a football fan (american football) like me, this is an amazing game. Love the original story, the character quality, renders, good looking and original looking girls and great future potential. The writing is great as well, as you can truely see the progressive character building of the MC, dealing with the aftermath of his past.

Really cool how the dev made the MC a 'corner back' and not a chad 'quarterback' like you'd expect with a football story.
Really show's an original take to a common 'start athlete' genre.
I really love games that show the dev's knowledge in that particular theme, you can see that in some of the top rated games on here, and this game is nothing short of that, with the dev's knowledge of the game, makes the MC being a 'star athlete' move believable.

Glad to see that the dev will be adding a glossary into the game in the next update about american football terms/ references, because it would be very very confusing to someone who doesn't know anything about American Football.

I can see future struggles with the large amount of LI's (interested to see how this is handled), but so far the one's introduced have some nice character building, except for Diana, which I expected more from, and to me needs more one-on-one scenes like the skate park, to show how close her and the MC are, although I expect more to come with how v0.1 ended

There are some bits of the story that are confusing, especially with the amount of characters there are in this world and the MC referencing them without any visual or written context, untill way later into v0.1 (perhaps a character reference feature would be cool as well).
Plus a few cringy MC dialogs.

It's a 5 from me because it has loads of potential, great renders, good looking LI's and great story telling , and happens to be about a sport that I love.

Nice job dev!, excited for the future!

I'll keep it short and simple.

Pro:

• Beautiful renders
• Different types of LIs keep it interesting
• Football aspects are pretty cool, and I kind of like that the dude is cocky, it fits
• The harem feels much less forced than I've seen in other sports-based harem games.
• Great first release and I hope the dev keeps it up

Cons:

• Overly dramatic. I really liked it at the beginning but it feels like every conversation MC has is very deep, and over dramatic. It gets really tiring. Sometimes things need to have some lightness too.
• Preaching - Right along side all of the drama is a lot of preaching. At first, it fit, from the coach, and from the guy at the gym. But then everyone was putting their two cents in and it got very tedious.
• Culture War BS - Having a different point of view is fine, having a bit of it being part of the character arc is also fine, but forcing your players to have to read "their" MC spouting some of this non-sense is actively distracting and a complete put off. It was even worse when Maya, the semi-stoic attorney drops some 4-chan style shit. It just took the fun out game...because this is a game for fun, right? I actually downloaded the "snowflake patch" to see what the dialog changes were and they were much better. The Dev was forced to actually write adult dialog that still got his message across loud and clear without bringing Kyle fucking Rittenhouse into the picture. Seriously? Why even try and divide your audience like that? Moving on...
• The constant flubbing of real-life names and words. It got to be too much. I get that Dev doesn't want to get sued, but at some point all of the fake words took away from the story. My advice to the dev would be to find a way to avoid having to use those words.

Overall I find that this game has a lot of great potential. The Gary Stu-ness is not too high, the renders are great, but the drama needs to turn down a little bit.

Been watching this one for a while. Pretty solid start.

Story - Seems to be coming along nicely. Darker/more adult version of Friday Night Lights or One Tree Hill. Not as dramatic thankfully. The switch between scenes was sometimes jarring could use some work to make it flow better.

Graphics - Renders are very high quality if some of them lack a bit of inspiration. Overall very good.

Animations - Could be better, the sex scenes were kinda robotic and boring to me.

Dialogue - Maybe tries a bit too hard. Can be long-winded at times. The long monologues are a bit offputting.

Characters - Well the dev certainly has a type! Could use more variation imo. 90% of the girls are long dark haired and half of them are tattooed to the gills. Probably introduced too many at once, only just finished playing and barely remember a few of their names. None of them really stand out that much.

Overall a good game with potential to be great.

This game is excellent in every aspect (story, rendering, model, animation, atmosphere, MC, etc.)

But it has a big weakness, the characters don't have physiology! That is, the total number of different facial expressions of a person is not more than 2, this makes the characters very soulless

I give it a score of 3. If this problem is solved in the future, I will raise the score to 5

TLDR, writing is solid, characters are well-built: they behave as you would expect given the circumstances. There's a lot of drama and the story is quite serious. Renders are a masterpiece, the 3D art of MTC is very solid. A lot of care, attention to detail and love has been put into this game.

I'm not a fan of Football. TBH I've never watched a single game from start to end.And here I am, writing a 5-star review. So even if you're no football fan either, just give it a try.

I will not be surprised if this game will reach the big leagues in no time.


WHAT I LIKED:

The story is deep, and as other people has said, feels real. Characters speak to eachother as if they were real people. The dialogs have lots of background that you will uncover as the story progress. It's not like one of those netflix mass-consuming productions that everything is chewed up... you may need to use a few braincells to follow up certain parts, and be patient until things unravel. This is something I appreciated a lot.

The girls are, most of the times, gorgeous, and their bodies are believable. Other games tend to have clones, or body that seem to appeal more the player than the real narrative of the game.

The 3D is top-notch. I have not seen many games with such quality. You can appreciate the hard work behind it. All scenes use very interesting camera-shots and DoF. The animations are also well-made. Hot and enjoyable.

THINGS I'M NOT FAN:

Some pictures look dark. I think it's because the scenes don't have any fake ilumination (If there's a dim light in the scene, that's what you get. I didn't notice extra lights to stand out the charcters). This is most likely due to the style of the developer.

I'm a comedy person. This game is as real as life itself, and that creates a lot of dramatic situations. I'm not that much into drama.

Disclaimer: I had the pleasure of exchanging a few messages with the developer, MissFortune, and he's one of the good ones. Very responsive and approachable.