VN - Ren'Py - My Dorm [v0.27.3 S3 Ch.7] [Tropecita Games]

TL;DR: Overall, this is a pretty average AVN. It could scratch your itch, but keep your expectations from getting too high.

1. The dialogue is understandable English, not suffering from bad Engrish often found in AVNs. On the other hand, it’s not very exciting. It feels like the dev thinks about the updates from the perspective of fans following from one update to the next. If you do that, than the dialogue could seem fine. But if you're like me, jumping into this from the start, the dialogue doesn't take long to become a drag. I didn't even make it through the first "season" before I started skimming the dialogue. It's "realistic", I suppose, but that's not necessarily a good thing. The way that many conversations feel similar adds to the tedium.

2. There’s a very large variety of love interests to pursue, and always the player’s choice whether to pursue or not. If everyone was getting plenty of content, then it could work. But that's really not the case. Just like the dialogue, it feels like the dev is aiming development at fans following from one update to the next, and so a couple lewd scenes seem fine in an update. But then you think about the fact there's something like 20 - 30 love interests and realize there's no way most of them get robust content unless the dev intends for development to continue for another decade. Can't say I find that prospect appealing.

3. It's nice that the dev eventually makes the animated scenes a bit longer and with more variation, and sometimes seems to have a knack for good lighting. But it's inconsistent in quality and sometimes the animations have a weird jitteriness, particularly with hands but also hair, etc. Also, it's often obvious when a loop starts over, which is far from ideal. There's also a certain stiffness in general to the animations.

4. Moan sfx are included for some scenes in Season 1 and in Season 2, which is nice. But some scenes in the first two seasons do not get them, and the moan sfx are completely gone in Season 3. As a fan of this kind of thing, it was disappointing especially to get to Martha's lewd scene in Season 1 and find no sfx. Not really cool to get set up for that expectation, only for it to be dashed. And then for moan sfx to show up in the very next scene, it's like a slap in the face that it’s missing in the most anticipated scene but not others. I confess I'm a bit salty about that.

5. The visual novel is called "My Dorm", but it’s not really important enough to be the title. The dorm is there and plays a role for sure, just not really the centerpiece of the story that one might think it's supposed to be. All the more bizarre that we never really see the "school" that the students are supposed to be attending, even once the students finally show up to “the dorm”. There's a whole other plot that's the real story driver. It feels like the dev originally had the dorm idea, but then the story just went a different direction for the main focus, in order to add some excitement.

All in all, it doesn't do anything very bad, but it's kind of bland as nothing stands out, from the story to the dialogue to the lewd content, and the lewd content is inconsistent in quality. At least the dev continues to push out regular updates.

It would be much better for the dev to focus on a few love interests to have more focused story telling and character development, put some effort into more dynamic and engaging dialogues, and give more attention to improving the quality of animations for lewd scenes. With some experience, handling bigger and bigger projects to build up to something like this would then be reasonable.

However, the dev seems to be in a spot where they are habituated into an update-focused approach for the next several years of this project with an overly large and unmanageable cast in a vain attempt to please all tastes. A quality upgrade is not in the cards and it is doubtful this project will ever finish, at least in a satisfying way.

So keep your expectations low for this one. As long as you do that, it should be fine and you can enjoy it for what it is. I don’t recommend trying to get through it in one sitting.

Nota bene: In the description in the OP there is a link to the dev explaining three stages of development, where the third stage involves a time skip with pregnancy. BUT, this does not correspond with seasons. So "Season 3" is not at stage 3. You'll have to wait for some future season when the preggo stage is reached if that's what you're into.

VERSION: 0.27.1 S3 Ch.7 (Need a barcode scanner for this one)
SUMMARY: Decent enough, but doesn't amount to anything interesting or very good.
RATINGS: (out of 5): ⭐⭐⭐

NOTE: The following categories and scoring method are my own criteria and may require more context. Additionally, scoring is based on the state, and what is in the current version and not what may or may not be introduced at a later point.

1. Character (Model) Visuals......... : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. General (World) Visuals........... : ⭐⭐⭐
3. Animation Quality................. : ⭐⭐⭐⭐
4. Character Personality(Persona).... : ⭐⭐
5. Story & Dialogue.................. : ⭐⭐
6. Writing & Grammar................. : ⭐⭐⭐
7. UX/UI, Game Type & Mechanics.......: ⭐⭐⭐
8. Playtime & Pacing..................: ⭐⭐⭐
9. Music & Sounds.....................: ⭐⭐⭐
10. Adult Content & Fetishes.......... : ⭐⭐⭐

Average: X of 50 possible points giving a X% rating i.e. X stars.

PROS: - See my opinions section for details.

1. Good looking LI models overall.
2. Nice details with small movements like eyes and such during normal scenes.
3. Decent writing, structured and reads well.
4. Plenty of LIs, but...see Cons
5. Decent amount of kinks and fetishes, but...see Cons

CONS: - See my opinions section for details.

1. The developer has a good enough UX/UI but sadly misses the opacity setting for the dialogue box, one of the most basic settings.
2. Too many LIs (characters) makes that most interactions are more of the same and just add to the ridiculousness of having so many LIs.
3. Not enough content, variety and scenes with a particular LI to drive their personal story, kinks etc, again compounded by too many LIs. Look at a game like Power Vacuum that uses a handful of LIs but gives each a good amount of unique content.
4. Story is actually incredibly stupid, works fine for porn logic though and if thats your thing. Its like the developer didnt know what do to so just threw a lot of ideas together...
5. Added to the story, interpersonal dialogues seem "ordinary" yet the premise and everything else is anything but. Makes for a jarring AVN and conversations between characters feel like you watching a soap opera. Then add clones? and an MC thats banging a small village, but everyone is talking about their feelings and school and the weather...it all feels detached, fake and filled with too much bullshit to actually reconcile it all. Woman knowingly being part of a harem, no corruption, no attempt even really by MC, he is simply just SOOO NICE? Lol
6. Kinks are decent but the events or situations are few and far between, one character is lactating of the 1000 that there are..., they all knocked up, but its just told, you never see changes to them. Kinks are vanilla in there implementation and "delivery" to the player.
7. Music is ok, but no other sounds like lewd scenes which is disappointing as that adds to the kinkiness and immersion.

OPINIONS, SUGGESTIONS & FINAL REMARKS:

NOTE: The following remarks are my personal opinions and thoughts, which may provide more context and could be useful to the developer. (Read them or don't)

• The story is really so a amalgamation of things that you can tell its asshole from it earhole. The game really has such weird leaps and plots, not even a single plot that is worth calling, its all really stupid random nonsense thrown together in a blender and told "here is a game story" You also notice this when the most simple story, starts putting in "cloned" versions of the MCs family who have military training and there to protect his family...what a crock of shit...really...?
• The above point is compounded by the fact that this AVN has been around for a long time, its not done, went through a facelift and yet still has inconsistencies/disparities if you go from start to current. Would have been nice to have had the game then said here is a face lift, maybe spent more time making a more interesting story instead of throwing more LIs and bullshit at the player to fill up the mindlessness of it all.
• While I love kinks and pregnancy, this game fails to implement many of them if not all in a really good way. Pregnancies are "oh im pregnant" not enough time goes by to appreciate the physical changes to the LIs, larger bellies, bigger tits, more lactation etc, its simply such a stupid wasted opportunity.
• Per above point, the MC "unlocks" and knocks up LIs over time, so we have a good reason to want to see more changes to the first woman knocked up, the first ones who have been "corrupted" who's inhibitions have taken a nose dive and are open to more kinks. Why not show that?
• This AVN feels like a guinea pig, like a lab experiment that went through several iterations and is now some chimera that is really a mixed bag of good and bad. I honestly feel this game needs a reset, hard look and just throw it away, take the good and what works, redo it, put it in another game, but FFS learn from the experience. There is plenty to use and plenty to improve on.

TLDR:

A game that has improved over time, but still can't shake off what has come before, nor can it stand on its own feet in terms of plot or intrigue and its H-content is relatively boring and vanilla despite it having decent enough kinks, it simply fails to capitalize on them in any meaningful ways or make the player really enjoy them. Simply boring and stupid "story and plots" filled with too many LIs doing too little new/unique and too much of the same *yawn.

Pro:
The writing is ok, some of the girls are hot. There are some choices, it lets you pick your LI sometimes.

Con:
Sexual scenes forced on player with MILF and elderly women. If you're grossed out by old ladies, want not see them undress, avoid this game.

Squirting. If you like, good for you, but if you hate squirting, it happens anyway. At least on sister romance.

+ lesbo is avoidable. No sharing you girls with others, no cuck scenes. All girls truly belong only to MC
+ long and well done lewd scenes. MC is also not afraid and he can eat girl like normal man would do. In most avns that thing for some reasons is fucking forbidden and doesn't exist. Kudos for dev
+ gallery, always good to have it! Much easier to track and see if you unlocked every possible scene
+ music
+ mature writing. MC behave like normal fucking adult during simple situations or conversations with girls. Congrats
+ farting scene was hilarious, it made me laugh

- barely any femdom stuff. I would like to see one LI to be truly devoted femdom character or just more roleplay scenes. Maybe one of the new girls who will soon arrive to the dorm could be like that?
- too much vanilla. Game needs more variety
- main story is boring, maybe put some unstoppable charismatic villian who wants to destroy protagonists "empire" or a few OMG/WTF moments to make it more exciting

Avn with tons of content. Right now game contains almost 33k dialogue lines :O it will take a while to finish it, believe me. 3 or 4 stars is good rate for this one - 4 from me

Honestly, I don't like this game. I think it's ass, and that's just my opinion on it. Mostly because the main character looks terrible and makes decisions I wouldn't.

Also the developer is a strong man who can handle a negative review well, and won't complain at all.

It started great with an interesting story that sadly moved more and more into the background because of the amount of loveinterests introducted.
For me it is quantity over quality.
So many dialoques became similar with the girls because of the harem that I got bored and lost interest pretty fast
For me it is a disappointment but because of the good start and the good renders i`ll still give 3/5

Thoroughly enjoying this game so far. Looking forward to how things progress in the third part. I have played a lot of games in this 'genre' lately, but I can say with certainty that this is in my top favorites. Hope this continues to be a game under active development as too many of the good ones get abandoned along the way.

Its a good VN with a good background story. There are many beautiful female LI's. TBH now that I'm on to season 3, I wish I could go back and reduce the number I had chosen as there are too many really. This is the first VN I ever thought that. It really slows the story down. You feel like you have to wait to move on as there are so many women to get through. It means there are many similar scenes with different women but at the time you have to choose you don't know them and it takes time get to know their individual characters. I had already cut five but I could easily remove another five from my earlier selection without a problem.

Really fun and interesting game. I love all the women and how they look. I also love how some of the women have pubic hair, a thing that many games do not have. Hey, I'm a 70's-80's kid so I am partial to fur down there.

This game suffers from the infamous "too much girls to fuck and love" problem. Because there are so many girls, most of them feel bland, uninteresting, empty shells. Yes they are "beautiful" by design, but they are devoid of interesting things to say, they do not even have interesting kirks, desires, sex scenes. Too bad.

I confess, I've rarely had as much fun with a game as I did with these. And this has little to do with the wonderful models and the sex, but with the situation comedy, the allusions to films, series and other games and, above all, the love for each other. Why do I mind unnatural language or the wonderfully exaggerated world? With every scene, with every image, you can see the joy that must have gone into its creation. And it gives me pleasure, it brightens my day, it gives me moments of remembrance and that's exactly why I say thank you for the game. Much more of it, please ...

The story is pretty good and fairly original as well. Most of the models are alright, when they don't have any particular facial expression at least, when they try to look a certain way they become grotesque. The biggest problem I have is the language used. I'll provide some examples to illustrate my point:

The lack of gracility in the impalement... (the word gracility does not mean what the dev/translator think it does).

I want to eat your lipstick (who in their right mind want to eat lipstick?)

This time I can undress you, with calm (Slowly or taking my time would be how a normal human would say it).

There are A LOT of instances where the English just feels so unnatural imo.

If you don't mind something that is written like it's an AI trying to impersonate a human, this is the game for you. With better writing I would have given this game 3.5/5, now it's more like 2.5/5.

Kind of a definitive 3 star game, if you ask me. I don't have a lot to say about it, because there isn't a lot that stands out. Girls: ok. Girl diversity: good. sex scenes: ok. plot: not good. number of girls: waay too high. There isn't anything terribly wrong with it, but there isn't anything that would make me want to finish the game.

Beautiful game. It quickly became one of my favorites. I like the models and also the fact that there is a little bit of everything. The skinny and the fat, the busty and the flat, the young and the old, etc. The story is not particularly heavy. There is no exaggerated drama. There's a little bit of everything--a little bit of drama, a little bit of mystery, a little bit of adventure, etc., but no one aspect becomes predominant. The really predominant thing is the interpersonal relationships between the various characters, and these are very nice and result in a lot of exciting if not overwhelming moments. The thing I liked least about this game are the animations, which I find adequate but nothing more. The two things I liked best were the soundtrack, especially in the first season (maybe in the other two there were copyright issues?) and especially the gallery. I have never seen a gallery like that. It doesn't point to the animations. It's not just a collection of videos. The gallery points to the beginning of the exciting situations I mentioned earlier. Truly outstanding.

i m not sure if i can leave review
i played S1 long time ago and S2 recently
Honestly this game is pretty solid
There is a walkthru mode that let you know what you are even selecting
3D models looks okey, at least you can tell girl A from girl B eventually
Game is a bit disconnected from reality, you can kind of cheat on the girls, but also can't at the same time, i m not exactly sure how being seen sexing other girl affect the story
you can chose to be dominant in some interactions and avoid stupid kinks that are not for me

Game is finite (this is mostly a plus)
and replaying it feels very stale (this is mostly a minus)
Honestly i had some fun with it, would prefer girl customization beyond cheat menu asking if i get girl A pregnant or told her about girl B or told her i wanna fuck her... solid 8/10 mostly bcs its big game with a lot of things

Up to MyDorm-v0.20.1-S2C8-pc

Its the try to compensate lack of lewd and sexual fantasy/imagination with loads of characters thrown at the MC to fuck. And when I say fuck, its all plain vanilla! It gets so boring very fast. The teasing of anal and the 2 anal (plug) scenes is not realy worth mentioning. Lactation is merely teased. The squirting ist passing by fast and the cream looks like plastic. It feels all so dead and atifical never natural, the lewd scenes are mostly repetative and all screams lack of a perverts imagination but of the pope lecturing about sexual intercourse in a harem.

What I liked was the incest or the family relationships, wich in the end I realized kept me going because of expectations to see them realy realy come to life but never do, because - lack of imaginative writing skill and sexual perversion - .
It becomes a huge dissapointment at the start of Chapter 2 as one finaly realizes: there will never be more than what were already there in C1. And C1 was only a tease. This VN nowhere in the lewd scenes goes all the way, its so boring!

And yes there was a plot, I lost because I got to remember who was who and what/why 20 woman ...

Still I recommend it... as it is a tease to waste your time.

Graphics: 4/5
Writing: 3/5
Plot: 1/5
Lewd: 1/5
Audio: yes

Final verdict: not fuckable if your in for kink; but vanilla

One of the best VN's I've played in the last twelve month The story line is a bit of a push, but few if any are "believable" renders are very well done and refreshing to actually see a vast selection of body types

Cute girls, each one with her own personality, tastes and fears. It may not be the game with the deepest story but I like the situations around each girl and the interactions between them.
So, as I said, it may not be the deepest game, but if you want a cute game with a well written story to enjoy and pass the time, I think this game is great

Honestly the scenes and the renders are top notch. If you're looking for something to fap to then this is a 5/5 guaranteed.
It's a fuck fest. MC fucks literally all of the girls. If they show a hint of jealousy he tells them if they don't like it then they can bounce. Then they proceed to bounce on his dick anyways.
While there is a somewhat interesting background story involving mega corporations and elite assassin ass kicking clones, which MC also fucks, the updates are pretty constant but also very small.
I've become very bored with this story because it takes forever to progress. All of the girls are either pregnant or trying to become so. Maybe I'm just tired of the same old tired ass incest stories. But this is one of the better ones. The animations also improve drastically as the updates move forward so that's fuel for the fappers.

Just Completed Season 1 - Overall I like the My Dorm setup of Girls and (2) Mothers in particularly. I have enjoy getting to know each of the Girls

Pros:
1. BEAUTIFUL Renders of the Girls and Enviroments including the Stills Rendering of Lewd Scenes.
2. I like the Story about getting to know the Girls and Helping them in Various Situations they encounter and being A Loving Big Brother to all of them
3. The Different Women that we Meet in the Game all have varied backgrounds and different stories. I found them to be Very Belivable and Genuine
4. Fun Parties, Opportunities to play the Hero and The Over-Arching Story is a bit of mystery as well.
5. I LOVE the New Students (Particullarly, Debbie) in the house at the End of Season 1 really added to the enjoyment (and MC's Juggling Ability...lol)
6. Currently recording and playing for 2nd Time, Season 1 is really Shining now

Cons
1. Animations
A. Too Short in duration with 2 Second loops - They need to be lengthen to at least 10 - 15 Second Loops and Slower, More Sensual
B. Have Glitches in the the actual Animations some Uncanny Valley feeling.

2. Too Many Words - Dev You need to reduce the number of words significantly and move the ACTION Along. A Lot less talk and More Action!
3. MC lectures TOO much and is too Prudish at times. Too many times he is pointing is finger at girls.
4. More Player Agency by adding more choices and Less of the MC making Choices for Us.

I hope you will look at this and implement them because I have Overall enjoyed the Story and Premise of "My Dorm"

Thank you for Your Hard Work Tropecita and Keep Going! 5/5

SEASON 2 REVIEW (COMPLETED)

LOVING It and the evolution of the Main Story is VERY Good and integration of the many Girls is WELL Done!
Fun times on the Beach.

An AMAZING Nite-Out with One of My Favorite and Most Incrediblly Intelligent of the Girls. Delicious and HOT Scene with Her that was Really Well Done from Start to Finish.

Fantastic fun with D&D Session and some HOT Hot Tub action ;P

Looking forward to more of Season 3
5/5