VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Mythos: Book One [v1.1.0.0] [Nine of Swords]

4 very good and well written chapter so far . The initial exposure of the characters , the lore and tying it all into a murder mystery was very smart and well done .
Having a choice between male and female protagonist is a nice plus as well .
The renders are excellent , and only improving so far . The characters designs are pretty good , even for those i assume to be lesser NPCs , which is rather rare

Review for 4.1.0
Well as this game is 4.8 rated I just had to give it a try. However, it did dissapoint me a bit but there are definitely some good elements in the game so lets get into it.

First of all, this is probably one of the most expiremental and extreme game i've found out there. Especially in the first scenes of the game where a lot of sounds/music/animations and such have been effectively used to create mostly jokes/funny moments. But personally I felt like the humor was a bit over the top and childish. All the animations, sounds and the personalities of the love interests felt a bit off/unrealistic and too extreme for me to actually enjoy it.
Dont get me wrong, personalities are definitely appreciated in games but this was a bit too much.

The romance furthermore also felt similar to the general feeling of the game, a bit extreme and over the top.
The graphics are decent (a bit outdated maybe) and the sex scenes are animated surprisingly well. Because of the graphics and the expiremental style of the game I will have to give it three stars at minimum but because of the dialogue and romance I cant go higher than that.

I wrote quite a bit about the game in the thread already, but since I neither wanna just copy+paste the stuff not simply repeat myself I feel like I should write a bit about my experience with this game, why I feel it deserves 5 stars even though to me personally it's more on the 4,5 star end of things & what makes this game stand out as one of my favorite VNs I read in recent memory.

First things first: I'm not a native speaker, so my praise for the writing should be taken with a grain of salt. I am pretty sure I'd notice repeated typos or if something was really odd, but I mostly go by intuition when writing english myself, so I wouldn't know if there are some advanced grammar or language rules getting broken.

That out of the way I will now shamelessly praise the writing in this, to me it's extremely easy to read, it transports the emotions I would expect in the respective scenes, there is a light tone overall but the tragedy around Lisa & the protagonist, especially Lisa's passing & the fact she never gave them a chance to come clear or work out a solution is treated with the appropriate level of sincerity, seriousness and soft melancholy on the writer's end. From there we, as the players, are given a more than satisfying level of control over how exactly Nelson feels about things.
There's also a very competent use of humor, not only does it balance things out in contrast to the gloomy aspects of the story, but it also never goes too far in the other direction. There is some ridicule in the 4th wall breaks, but it is never directed at the important characters, least the player, instead it lands some decent hits against porn logic, porn games that take themself to seriously, or even the writer themselves and the fact that some things happening in the game are a bit convenient, for the sake of preserving the author's sanity as well as making sure the game is as enjoyable and wholesome as possible.
Maybe it's just bad luck on my end, but compared to my usual experiences with 4th wall breaks specifically this really impresses me. Normally I'm clicking through and ignoring 4th wall breaks, here they made me smile or even laugh at 1 or 2 occasions.

Next I wanna talk about the characters, which have all been very likeable for different quirks (primarily, but certainly not only, the main cast, which to me are mostly the characters having a dedicated romance route), their interest in the protagonist comes across as genuine (I'm playing female Nelson, so I will say it surely helps making it pretty believable that female Nelson isn't simply pretty or busty but an actual, gorgeous cutie with just the right amount of imperfection - especially in regards to her facial features - to seem exceptionally attractive but not like an immaculate doll or statue.) but certainly based on physical attraction as much as (potentially) liking her. Here player choice's seem to play a significant role.

I tried out 2 seperate romance routes and went for just romancing everyone at once 1 time, so I can't tell for absolutely sure, but it seemed to me as if the story and characters very well register the difference, so they have a bit of varying dialogues depending on the player faithfully sticking to just 1 loveinterest or wooing them all. The latter part doesn't lead to any major conflict yet, in fact I think every character specifically states they are open for polyarmory, but I will say I felt as if there was a slight amount of (in my opinion not undeserved) wit directed at the fact that it's obviously one of those conveniences, that exist to make the game accessible for different types of players.
Personally I see that as a positive, despite not enjoying harem and especially polyamory stuff all that much, because I don't think a game should try to lecture the players about those things. Yes, in reality it would be a pretty selfish and shitty attitude to want a bunch of lovers for oneself, without necessarily feeling okay with the other way around, but that's obviously 1 of the reasons why people enjoy having it in a game.
Kudos to everyone who can guess which Devs I'm taking a friendly shot at when I say that it probably helps a lot to not have a dozen self-insert characters of the authors in game, which they then are unable to treat like NPCs with the main purpose of making the players enjoy the game as freely as possible. Believe me, I fully understand that sentiment, but I think it has no place in business and when you expect people to praise your game.

To end this probably a bit overly lengthy review: The music in Mythos is nice in my opinion, visually the game is very appealing, the characters look good (well, Tara looks a bit strange in a lot of scenes but I'm not even sure why. In her animated scene she didn't look off, so I think it's a mix of my eyes and lighting.
Speaking of the animations: They are simple but look very smooth, some of the best animations I've seen in this type of VN.
The reasons why I would give this 4,5 stars rather than 5 on a purely subjective level is that I feel like this would be even better if it was a bit slower & lengthier, more scenes for the characters and the protagonist to grow close to each other, a bit more idle time with scenes not serving any other purpose than being enjoyable to read (yeah, wholesomeness, you got me, I want as much of that as possible :c), a bit more buildup to the whole story and the twists and turns (of which there have been 2 big ones to me by now, especially the 2nd one just caught me entirely off guard) and just some more alone time with the chosen loveinterest.
I can't in good faith give 4 stars for that though, it's entirely personal preference on my end and especially it isn't the Dev's fault that there are no half star ratings on this site.

So...take your 5 stars, you doodle, and don't you dare not at least releasing 1 or 2 games for Nelson & the loveinterests from this game, otherwise I'll throw K-Pop collections at you.

Okay, I'm big into AVNs with good stories....This on is really aweome! There are lots of games on this site that are carbon copy , blah junk. This one is truly unique! If you're into AVN's (duh why would you be here if you wernt), into shows like true blood anf the magicians....check this out its very high quality and I could see the story made into a tv series like those. Really fun stuff!

v3.11 (i am at the start of ch2)

This Game is a Gem , polished to near perfection.
Slowburn made really well.

The writing is flawless , funny and without ,like at most games , the overused vulgar sexual undertone.

The Renders are awesome , the girls looking really great.
I would deduct a half point for the Animations , but i think it will get better,
so full 5 stars.

I really like the subtle hints to other games (the metareference achievement for example).

The Lorebook is well made and well implemented.

I am excited to see where this game will lead us, and how many "Books" we are get.

Thank you for sharing your work with us here, Nine of Swords, and good luck and success for the Future.

Story is different. Premise is different. First chapter and introduction got a little boring to be honest, could be better. As for the end of 3rd chapter, it picked up pace and got interesting. Hope it stays that way. Dev is trying to utilize the engine to its limit, which deserves appreciation. The mystery solving in a VN should not be easy to code and implement, hope dev can overcome the challenge. While a mystery drama, it has a comic tone to it. (meh for me)

We might need shorter inner dirty talks, while I give credit for ostentatious writing , describing the visually ongoing deed with Dostoyevsky-like precision can get tedious for reader, so I skipped mostly.

Likeable characters and interesting world building. Quite interested, what this will amount to.

Any game that has at least TWO Ryan George references gets a 5 stars from me. Most of the LIs aren't my type but the characters are interesting enough and the story seems promising so far so I'm willing to see where the game goes. I like Mara and Tara enough,and the walkthrough mod plus hints setting are saving graces.

This game is the absolute bomb.
Do you like mysteries? Check.
Do you like very attractive ladies? Check.
Do you like to see them naked? Check.
Would you like to have sex with one, several, or all of them? Well, it's a game, hon, you can't. But you're in-game avatar can!

It's funny, it's pretty, it sounds good, it might be porn but dang if it ain't wholesome too.

And then there is the Dev -- she will listen to her fans, and make adjustments to her game (within reason) because she, get this, wants you to have a good experience.

Also, she is enormously talented. She's even writing the music.

Support this Dev!

You will be glad you did.

[v3.0] Mythos starts out as a run-of-the-mill supernatural murder mystery. You are Kylie. Your no-contact ex-girlfriend dies suddenly and unexpectedly. Something feels off to you, though you can't pinpoint exactly what. You start pulling on loose threads here and there, and a huge world beyond imagination starts revealing itself to you.

There is much to praise here. Nine of Swords is a talented writer and developer. The world of Mythos is deep and immersive (do read the codex!) with a central mystery that has me completely invested. The cast is lively and colourful. Many of them would be really annoying to be around in real life, but in Mythos they bring much appreciated charm and witticism, nicely balancing the dreary plot.

The game also features an original soundtrack. That's rare in the AVN world, but Mythos is a perfect example of its value proposition. The music is the dev's own work, and it is just the right mix of understated and impactful. It really elevates the experience.

I've written a lot on these forums about LI agency and how much it means to me. It's so rare for a developer to have LIs have their own agenda and not merely follow the player's whims. It seems Nine have decided to take that idea to a genre-defying extreme and I couldn't be happier. As things stand, all LIs (and many non-LIs) are acting at least a little bit suspiciously, and Kylie has been told that one or more of them might actively be conspiring against her. All you get to do to is search for clues and decide who you trust or suspect. It's honestly a breath of fresh air for a whodunnit, and I'm really looking forward to what comes next

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Well written story. Fun characters. Interesting mystery. Well crafted environments and characters.

Animations are not up to par with the rest of the talent on display in this game. Not horrible by any means, but definitely stand-out mediocre at best.

Story convenience and the "everybody knows everybody" factors are too high, probably in an attempt to push the story pacing up to where the author wants it. Still, these flaws are all to prevalent in games today. Makes the world the author is setting up too small.

Doesn't tick all my boxes but *sigh* that's not unusual or unexpected. I'd still recommend giving this a try.

(Review is as of Chapter 3. Disclosure: Thor's Hamster is a beta tester for Mythos.)

Mythos is a murder mystery adventure with a healthy dose of ancient lore and the supernatural tossed in to present a fresh, fun and sometimes hilarious take on the genre. When you accidentally find out that your ex-girlfriend — with whom you haven't spoken in over a year — just died, something doesn't feel right. As you start to pick at the circumstances surrounding her death, you discover things about her — and yourself — that challenge everything you thought you knew about the world. What really happened to your ex-girlfriend? And who among your expanding circle of friends and acquaintances can you really trust?

STORY AND CHARACTERS ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Mythos bills itself as a murder mystery, but there's a lot of unconventional elements here that make the story stand out. Elements of lore — drawn from such influences as Judaism, Greek mythology, and ancient Egypt — are re-imagined to weave a much larger fictional world than the premise would initially suggest. The murder is really just the tip of a very large iceberg, and the fun of the game is discovering just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

The first feature that distinguishes Mythos from most of its peers is that the player can select the gender for the main character. Both a female and male version of the MC are offered; the female version is considered "canon", but both versions are handled very well — particularly in the sexual encounters, where the difference will obviously be the most pronounced. Separate versions of each encounter have been designed for both genders, with the same level of care afforded to each version. Consequently, the game has something to offer for players who prefer to play a female MC as well as those who prefer a male MC.

(Note: regardless of which gender you choose for your MC, the cast of available love interests are all female. In other words, you will play as either a straight male MC or a lesbian female MC.)

The cast of characters is varied and quite interesting. You start the story with several existing friends, and as you begin your investigation, your list of acquaintances steadily grows. Each core character has unique personality quirks that makes them fun to interact with, and they are all memorable. The extended cast of characters includes a number of visual novel crossover cameos and some additional characters that show promise of becoming more central to the plot later on. Some of these are at times a bit more forgettable, but often only because their place in the story is not yet obvious.

The story pacing seems to be spot on, though with only three chapters out so far, it's difficult to say for certain. So far, clues and reveals have been doled out at a healthy rate — not too quickly, but just often enough to keep things interesting and keep the story moving forward.

The world-building behind Mythos is showcased in the supplemental stories that have been written about the characters and their backstory. Dubbed "Tales from Mythos", the stories were originally offered as standalone reading but are now available to read directly within the game. These are text stories only — no visuals — but they offer exciting peeks into the broader Mythos world and some of the elements that seem to be converging on the present-day story.

GRAPHICS AND ANIMATION ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Mythos visuals are Daz Studio renders, and they look wonderful. The 3D scenes are all interesting to look at; and although the lighting is, at times, a bit one-dimensional, the shots never look flat or difficult to parse. The character design is superb, and the facial expressions are lively but not overdone. Mythos incorporates a lot of fun visual effects to liven up the presentation, including original animated scene transitions, dramatic and often humorous character introduction sequences, cartoon-style visual depictions of key sound effects, and other dynamic moments to really bring the story to life.

Animations were employed in Chapters 1 and 2; these were simple but all well done. Chapter 3 did not include animations, and this trend may continue for future Mythos chapters. If you are dead set on having animated sexual encounters, this might come as a disappointment. Nonetheless, the detailed narrative and the quality of the still shots combine to make the sex suitably titillating, even if not a perfect replacement for a fully animated experience.

SOUND AND MUSIC ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Mythos boasts an almost completely original soundtrack composed by the author. An original soundtrack is something of a rarity in the visual novel space, and an author-composed soundtrack more so. The music is well done and never takes itself too seriously, which is an appropriate reflection of the overall tone of the game itself. Each character and location has a unique musical theme, which adds an additional layer of personality to both people and places.

Sound effects are used throughout, and critical sound effects are accompanied by visual cues (often animated and stylized). The sound effects are good quality and are leveraged appropriately.

GAMEPLAY AND EXPERIENCE ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Mythos is powered by the Ren'py visual novel engine, and the core of the gameplay is the standard choice-based visual novel experience. However, Mythos adds a number of creative elements to breath more life into the user experience. A "heist" encounter empowers the player to customize who will handle what job during the operation, resulting in a plethora of different ways that the heist might play out. An in-game achievements system rewards the player with custom artwork for different characters (generally nude) in response to unusual circumstances in how they play the game. Easter eggs in various places provide humorous reactions to player interactions. As the investigation gets under way in full force, the player can click on bits of conversations that seem particularly noteworthy, often being rewarded with additional clues to ponder. And the aforementioned "Tales from Mythos", consisting of additional stories that are unlocked at key points throughout the main story, offer players the opportunity to delve into the world of Mythos more deeply.

While all of these features exist with the aim to make the experience more varied and entertaining, some of them work better than others. Many of the achievements are based on such specific and niche conditions that they might never be achieved without prior knowledge of what those conditions are. (Until they are unlocked, they offer no clues as to what they might be.) The Easter eggs are similarly oblique, with nothing resembling clear hints to the player that a particular scene might have a hidden gem. Finally, dialogue that hides additional clues has no distinguishing characteristics, so players may not even be aware that an additional clue is available.

The difficult-to-find extras are purely optional, but completionists may nevertheless find their presence vexing. These days, the standard formula for extras like these is to provide adequate hints to players who specifically want to pursue the extras, while still ensuring that they are sufficiently challenged in their pursuit. This is fairly difficult to do in the visual novel format, in which the gamut of interactions that a player can have with the game is limited.

The dialogue of Mythos is funny and witty, with some really hilarious moments and a few instances of brilliant fourth wall breaking. The author has a wonderful sense of humor that really shines in the storytelling and keeps things from ever getting too somber or heavy.

OVERALL ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Mythos has a solid story with a lot of interesting lore behind it, and the story is told in a fun and engaging way. The pacing is on point, and the cast of characters is diverse and distinct. The visuals are well done and include some animation elements that go beyond the basic visual novel experience, and the original musical soundtrack complements the storytelling beautifully. While not the focus of the story, there are a number of sexual encounters to keep things spicy. The "Tales from Mythos" stories expand the world-building and make the main story even more interesting. Mythos is definitely worth a play!

Nine of Swords is a fantastic dev. Mythos has a strong and unique story, interesting characters and nicely done rendering. I am very much looking forward to this next installment. Mythos hooked me early on and has kept my attention. Can't wait to see what happens next.

this is just a beautiful game!
and I use the term "beautiful" mainly for the whole package: lots of charm (for example, the individual indroductions for every charakter; the lore), witty writting (the RIGHT amount of funny remarks and situations - what was the name of the waitress again?), lots of individuality for the characters - and their own speech-pattern (! that typicall kind of extra-work you will find here on every corner)

and, last but not least, the absence of the "stare at her *insert body part here*" routine, the lack of "spy at her in shower" or "nude accident" standards (which makes it very well possible, that a woman wrote this)

its just pure fun playing and reading this, without the usuall facepalm reflex
if you are not alergic to fantasy elements, you owe it to yourself to play this game!

If you are looking for a VN with a female protagonist and lesbian content, look no further. Mythos is one of the best VNs on this topic. The dialogue is well written, the characters diverse and deep. The plot has secrets that only slowly unravel. The renders are good, the character designs not off the shelf. Mythos is just a really well done fantasy VN, with and without the sex.

My only problem is that the updates take a while and I'm not known for my patience.

The humor is the selling point of this game, I laughed out loud several times while playing through its content

Characters are great too, diverse in both physical appearance and personality, that's always welcome.

Highly recommended

It's hard to be short and concise with a review of Mythos: Book One, but here goes:

Humor as a selling point: The game is hilarious. The dialog is well-written, either by a native English speaker, or involving someone with an excellent grasp of English (worth mentioning as many games in these genres are sub-par from a language perspective).

Presentation as a selling point: From the transitions, to the introduction of characters, this game has so many things going for it. The renders are solid, the animations do the job and are smooth. There is humor in the presentation itself, beyond the dialog. The addition of the lore book is great for remembering, and very welcome in that it doesn't restate, but rather rewrites with alternative descriptions, what you may have discovered about a character.

Narration and Storytelling as a selling point: A good mystery is presented early on, and the developers do a great job of dropping enticing cookie crumbs as you progress at an inviting pace, keeping me interested in the story itself, certainly in addition to, and either in lieu of lewd scenes, or simply bridging them. As other reviewers have stated, this is a good story that has lewd scenes. Not every AVN pulls that off, but Mythos has so far, for me.

Perhaps the best single thing I can say about Mythos: Book One, is that I have chuckled, or snorted, out loud more than once from legitimate, intended humor. That alone is enough to keep me clicking.

Reasons this got 5 stars from me.

• Story – This is very much a story that has lewd moments more than a lewd after lewd fap fest. I really like good stories that keep you interested in continuing to play. If this were just a fap fest AVN I would have probably skipped it after the first release. But it is an intriguing murder mystery wrapped in a supernatural setting
• Choice of male or female MC – I know for a lot of people this is a drawback, I understand wanting to play as a male but as I have the great fortune to play these games with my wife this was a change of pace for us as a couple to play a game from a female protagonist perspective. We had only tried a couple of other female protagonist games and picked the wrongs ones to try as they seemed more like slut fest AVN. As of this review we have only played Mythos as a female protagonist.
• Diversity of love interests – Mythos has a great diversity of love interests and though we don’t like picking favorites both the wife and I each have favorites. No, they are not the same lol

A game that doesn't take itself too seriously and is a lot of fun. Dev has a great sense of humour as seen in the playful and witty dialogue and player thoughts. I like the story so far, quite enjoyable.

I appreciated that the dev mixes in references from D&D (table top game). Model renders look good and animations are less jarring than many other games.

This game is just top quality.
The writing, the humor, the presentation... wow, I can't believe I've only discovered this now [Ch2.0.4]. Already one of my favorites!

Some random thoughts to end this review:
- Introduction of characters is superb (age: aquarius)
- They might be giants?
- While the sex scenes might not be the hottest (still pretty hot imho), they make up with excellent writing.
I'm so tired of the juvenile "Give me your cock, fill me with your cum"
This game handles the sexy times way better.
- Also: murder mysteries, investigations, choosing paths...
I'm in!