Ren'Py - My Brother's Wife [v0.12] [Beanie Guy Studio]

Yeah, I think I am calling it here. I really liked the first two release of this project, but things have been stagnant since then with very little actual development in the main relationship and then worse a dream sequence. So, it can claim to have a sexual scene. I was willing to overlook even that however and keep up my patronage until 0.5 rolled out and most of the content including the sex scene involves a newly introduced and likely 1 off stripper character, instead of the female character we are supposed to be trying to seduce in the game who is supposedly the main focus.

It feels to me the game is trying to be too much at once and is suffering as a result. What started out as a simple enough premise and character cast is I feel expanding too rapidly without being fleshed out, I started to see the writing on the wall of this when the horny neighbor lady was introduced but ignored it back then. In addition to this problem the male character we are playing as is starting to appear worse and worse especially in this update I was under the impression that you were at least on the love route supposed to be a better man than your brother, but I do not think that is the case you seem just as lecherous and manipulative as he is even in the love path.

Besides the decent start (hence why i give 2 stars), there is nothing really good.
Renders are average, the story is kind of basic - at least that part what you COULD call as "story".
After 5 releases, there is not really any progression to the main girl at all.
A game whith a slowly developing story can be called "slow burn" - but how should you call this one then? there is nothing moving forward at all.
I would give stars for story content, but there is none - so sorry: no stars (except one for the promising basic setup as mentioned)

My Brother's Wife (v 0.4) has some good ideas but I think missess on the execution. First of all, in the story. I like well developed characters, believable situations, and slowly evolving the relationships. But in this case, this all happens extremely slowly and in a lot of interactions that are too much slice-of-life for me, with little real interest. This makes the game feel like it's going nowhere or, at least, going there slower than I can handle. Second problem I have with the game is the (unfortunately common) connection between the love path being caring and nice, and the domination path being basically a jerk (when not directly outright toxic). I wanted to take the domination path, I always do, but I don't think it implies being a horrible human being and apparently in this game it kind of does.

Render quality is pretty decent and I like the look of the female models, which are hot but not in an unbelievable way. Animations are there, but some are better executed than others (the running animation was just off). And sound doesn't have much so far, just a few sound effects here and there.

All in all, I wanted to like the game but I just couldn't do it.

If slow burns aren't your thing, then I would suggest waiting until it's complete. As someone who only started playing with this update (0.4), I had no problem with the pacing. Had I waited seven months to get here? Who knows. A couple of hours of content can seem extremely long when spread out over seven months.

As the player, you choose between a corruption path or a love path. On the corruption path, you side with your brother. On the other, you side with his wife. I ended up siding with the wife.

For me, I like the character interactions. While the English could be better, I didn't have any problems figuring out the context.

The cheating with your wife/gf sister or mother scenario is one of the most exciting for me, so I thought that even this one could be fun, with all the moral implications of betraying your own brother and stuff. Unfortunately every possible layer of conflict is stripped away by this game, 'cause the brother is just an unbelieavable character with no redeeming quality. Kind of boring. Graphics are ok, writing is not very good.
Over and out.

Review of version 0.4

Graphics: 5/5. The characters look good and I especially enjoy Jennifer's look.

Animation: 5/5. The running animation scene seemed a bit jerky. However, do not know if this is due to my computer or the actual scene. Therefore, i will score it high.

Grammar: 3/5. The grammar wasn't bad, but there were a few mistakes. Use of double negatives and poor work choices or sentence arrangement. That may sound harsh but it isn't meant to be. After rereading the sentence, I could comprehend what was being said.

Overall, this game was very enjoyable. I'm interested to see how the MC and Jennifer's relationship develops. I look forward to the next update.

Doing good with the story,keep it like that. Dont rush... Invest a bit in graphics,animations. Make us want more and more content. Surprise players.
You are on a good way to make it excellent. I havent seen story like this in other games. Put in some more caracters in future,but not so soon. Make me want it to play every update.

v0.4
Very noticeable that the developer is not fluent in English, pretty poor writing throughout. It's legible, but a bit annoying.

Models are mediocre and not very expressive (e.g. text will state (winks) but the model doesn't wink.) The golden rule of "Show, don't tell" is ignored.

Only some scenes in the beginning have any music/sound, most sequences are entirely silent.
Some sound effects don't stop when they are supposed to if you are a fast reader, it will still make the noises from many frames ago that are no longer relevant.

Plot: you finish school and move to your brother, who is married to a young, hot, kind but air headed chick. Brother is a grumpy asshole and the marriage is already lame upon arrival.

There are no scenes except a short "handjob" (bare sliding loop), nothing else. No content yet, so wait.

Overall, barely average.

Very enjoyable thus far. The premise is solidly setup and nicely introduced. Getting an early read on the characters of brother and wife it is very difficult to believe the couple could ever have got as far as marriage, but the prospects the current situation offers are more than enough temptation for me to grant all the latitude in credibility the creator decides he/she needs to take in order to deliver his payload. So, with that in mind, there is in prospect a significant flow of warm and playful intimacy to come.

It does seem extremely likely (but I do hope we get actual proof in advance) that the mc's brother is already cheating on his wife Jennifer, which, having previously witnessed her no-nonsense ability for pin-point payback on her husband, will hopefully land her, in full-bloodedly righteous retaliation, in our lucky mc's welcoming bed.

So, I am really looking forward to developments between two very nice people whose easy going temperaments, reciprocal appreciation and, of course, mutual physical and emotional attraction are, despite their best efforts at restraint, forging an increasingly irresistible connection between them.

Great premise. Decent renders. Bad writing and pacing. Horrible dialogue. It's clear that English is not the developer's first language, which is just fine, but for a project like this, recruiting an editor/proof-reader would improve the game by leaps and bounds. The broken dialogue is incredibly distracting.

On top of this, "slow burn" visual novels are fine, you don't have to jump right into sex scenes, but if you're going to do that, you have to at least build up the sexual tension. That's the value of the slow burn - you create this build up, so that when things start getting physical, you're psyched up and ready. This game? It's. Just. Boring. There isn't just a lack of sex, there's a complete lack of titillation altogether.

As of v.0.2, there's not much gameplay or progress, so to speak, but there's a really nice base that's being built to set up this romance. The love interest is very cute and sexy and the moments of flirting are well done. There's also some depth in the relationship with the brother that could make for intriguing plot strings, but I'm also a little confused as to what paths will eventually be laid out for the MC in regards to how he treats both other characters. Other than that, a superb start!

I liked the story a lot; the game is in an early stage so i cannot say for sure if it's going to be end up good, but for what i've played (v0.2) it looks very promising.

The story is cliche that's for sure but I think for now it's been executed pretty well. The sister in law model looks good to me too.

Edited for:
v0.2 - v0.3 - v0.4

Complete waste of time.

Starts out as a choice-based VN with choices having no effect on the relationship points, after initial day is over and you're settled in you are treated to a lazy and empty openworld with no indication of what to do and where to go other than two locations that ends freeroam, after this we are back to the choicebased VN and points are finally rewarded, sorta..

Assets come across as underworked and even unfinished.
As far as content there is none, apart from a tame voyeur scene containing a lukewarm handjob with no finish.

Characters are boring and nothing not seen before in a hundred other games like it before.
-Asshole husband (with a magical beard)
-Neglected wife
-Cliché protagonist that is better than the husband (his brother) in every way 'cept for his wallet.
On that note, MC seems to be more reserved with a bit of a perverse thought pattern but nothing that make it seem like the MC you see in the title screen. I've a feeling when more juicier scenes will be added it'll feel out of left field with how tame the first two updates are so far.

Writing and grammar is not great but notcompletely terrible as I've seen worse.
As for story, it initially starts out like you'd think but never takes off. MC graduates, moves into his brothers house with him and his wife.
If I read it right they've been married for two years... So how they would have meet and have even stayed together for so long with how they treat each other I certainly have no idea.
MC and sister-in-law have apparantly never met but hits it off right away. (imo would have been much better if the marriage had started a long time ago so MC actually knows the wife and some longterm one-sided infatuation would be present instead)
After this nothing of note happens and MC and wife is left alone and bond further, a nosy neighbor(cue slutty cougar) watches from afar andboth the day and game ends with even more nothing having happened.

Choices in 0.3 apparantly as I see it still doesn't matter as far as love/sub points go.

0.4 keep the boring-trend going, but at least there is an actual lewd scene this time, only a h**d-job and not that exciting tbh, but still something.
Idk what it is, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't get some of the choices to activate. Because of the terrible point system there is also no clear indication if I simply don't have enough dom/love Ps to see it.
But I suspect its just badly coded and a bug probably.
Bottom line: Literally still a waste of time.

I'll give it 2/5 since 1 star reviews are reserved for literally unplayable games.
This one is just boring and uninspired.

Basically, you live with your asshole brother, and you choose how much of an asshole to be to him and to his wife.

He is grumpy, busy and disregarding others. She is bored and disenchanted. The atmosphere in the game is boredom and uneasiness.

In the first two days all the erotic content was one brief voyer scene (she gives him a bit of a handjob).

Females aren't ugly, but not too attractive either.

There are silly errors in the game code and dialog, and the brother magically swaps between being shaved and having a beard.

Free roam is empty: you can't even use your laptop ("I don't see what I could do") or the gym, the pool etc. As of v0.2, it's still much like a sloppy demo. Playing it I feel wasting my time.

I fail to see anything interesting in this game, so I give it 2 stars. I wanted to be generous and give it 3, but some other guys have already been too generous, giving it 5.

I like it, and I want to like it, but at the same time I'm also a bit disappointed.

The setup is very promising, the characters look good (although the MC is one of those standard guys) and the dialogue feels realistic. Overall I got the feeling that this could really become something special. That this game would be more original and realistic than many similar games. But in the end it contained the same generic bullshit as all the other ntr/cheating games.

The most annoying thing is the character of your brother. Apparently there's a standard rule in these games that the other male love interest(s) always has to be the biggest dickhead you can possibly imagine. I understand that the dev wants to create tension between the characters, but this is simply too much.

Your brother is a rude jackass who treats you and his wife like crap and has exactly zero positive qualities. Instead of wondering how you can 'steal' his wife you're just constantly asking yourself how those two ever got married in the first place. Seducing her doesn't feel like an achievement at all. Even a can of tomato soup is more charismatic than your brother.

Second are the choices and how they influence the story. Or rather, how they don't. On my first playhthrough I was super nice to my brother and his wife. On my second playthrough I acted like a complete asshole, and the story turned out to be exactly the same (with some small dialogue changes). I don't really care if the story is linear but if that's the case then I don't see why you get any choices to begin with.

Now, I see how this review may not seem to pair with a 4 star rating but I do think the game has potential. I like the setting and I like how the MC is not a complete sex-addicted monkey, in contrast to most of these games. It is still early and I hope the negative points will improve over time.

Really nice start for this game. The story beginns slowly and build up a nice tension. The graphic is not the best, but good. The female model is unique, the MC looks like often seen in other games, but that doesn´t disturb the gameplay. This game has from my point of view the chance to become a great one. I will try future updates too...

The game has great possibilities to tell tales about fidelity, betrayal, conflicts, plots, alliance and fraternal collaboration, to tell stories about cheatings, cuckoldings and swingings, as about shaping a family with members sticking together. The first part is promising: the characters are hot, the story and, the animation and the voice effects are well done. I love the status point system as an immediate feedback after choosing : it is simple and spectacular.

For a demo, this game has an outstanding foundation in regards to the story, images, and character interaction with the MC. The story itself is interesting that can be played multiple ways, that makes you want to have multiple play throughs. I will be watching this game very closely, and can't wait for the next update. Keep up the good work.