Ren'Py - Near Hentai Studio Tour – “Down the Rabbit Hole” [v0.009] [Nearphotison]

[v0.009] This is rather an "uncomplex" game where you talk to people in order to increase friendship points and that will progressively unlock sex acts with them. The writing is good, drawings are great, lots of sexual orientations are covered. The negatives: 1. is the game is repetitive, you got through lots of same text in order to get points for the sex acts. 2. the characters are looking young, which is iffy for me but they are drawings, so each to their own. In the end a playthrough is justified, its a good game if you are into what you see in previews

First of all, this is obviously a very artist specific game, so it's expected so many people were clueless over the stuff presented here.

Graphic wise is cool, if you like Near's artstyle, which is a very good one and knows how to draw a wide variety of characters without making them feel too out of place with each other.
Interface is basic, but the many facilities backgrounds are also well done.

Gameplay can get a bit repetitive, i mean, it's the usual loop of interacting the same character over and over until you grind enough point to do the good shit, which is one i played a lot and don't complain personally, but it doesn't vary much besides the rotability of the characters and a few events that a few characters have, ways to ease the grind or do it in alternate ways would be cool.
The easter eggs are cool tho.

Sound wise is interesting, music is basic but nice, adding some voice files from their og series is also a cool touch but there's a point a few of those get boring, but i apreciate the detail anyway.

It's more of the artist personal project, not something mean as a big game, just a funny way for fans of Nearphotison to enjoy the fictional setting he uses for most of his artworks... it's a 4/5 IMO, solid for what it aims to be, and enjoyable if you are a fan of this artist, or just can still get into the random roster of character used here... i can see this rising to a 5 in some future update, will wait for them (same with the NHMLs i always look forward).

A variety of flavors, genders, and characters from a wide range of IPs.
You don't have to worry about having anything forced on you, and can play however you'd like.
The creator hints at even more characters to cum.

really good start to a game thats very taboo, and very few and far between, in regards to having content for ALL. straight? youll like this, gay? youll like this, Bi? youll love this.

such a great focus on anal too, LOVE LOVE LOVE. great art, cool characters. interesting story concept. cool world. Looking forward to see where this goes. and if it proves to be worth the time in regards to regular updates, fan requests, and suggestions being heard, and plenty of stuff to fuck and have fun with, and we're not waiting an age for minimal. THEN I WILL HAPPILY PAY TO SUPPORT THIS. but too early days for me. once it picks up more, and i see that it means buisness. ill grab this without a doubt.

wishlists and requests: Sounds effects during sex scenes dont loop, they cut out after a few seconds, so unless the characters have stopped moving, then the sound should still be playing. 2. let us fuck all the strippers in a variety of ways. 3. let us anally fuck the old lass. 4. more ass play, ass eating, ass spreading, ass stuff. more characters too, and more scenes. just keep doing what youre doing, but expand on it, add more to it, introduce more.. keep the updates regular and consistent. as once i see more cool shits being added more frequently, ill likely be more likely to put money down.

also. see it like this.. for folks that like the game, and they see youre an artist, itll likely be one of the BIGGEST ways for people seeing your skills, art, and will likely end up seeking more of it out. good way to promote it basically man. be consistent.

ultimate wishlist: FULL AND SMOOTH ANIMATIONS WITH DIFFERENT ANGLES AND PERSPECTIVES.


would of been a HUGE bonus if properly animated too!


side note: id rather wait a lil longer with a HUGE amount of content in updates, rather than getting a weekly update to having a blue balling drip feed type releases. take your time, but utilise that time.. dont take months to release something, then only release a couple scenes. (i love writing, so if you wanna focus on art, id happily write the scenes for you)

3.5/5

I have been following Near Hentai/nearphotison for years so I was very glad when I saw this game here:

1º. The art is great: All characters drawings are faithful to the originals. When it comes to sex poses, colouring and perspective, there is barely any room for improvement (I don't think there is).

2º. The gameplay is that of a simple dating sim: You go around and talk with the characters, eventually unlocking sex scenes. You talk more with them, you unlock more sex scenes, and so on.
This can be a valid game mechanic in my opinion, even engaging if done right. However, the dialogues are very limited in relation with the progress required to unlock the sex scenes, so they end up being tedious repetitions you have to skip. Additionally, they are, for the most part, uninteresting (I will talk about this in the next point).

3º. There is almost no story: This is not something bad per se, there are some very good porn games with no story that depend only on a barely mentioned background context (for example "Rogue-like: Evolution", whose context I hardly know). The problem with this game is that it has almost no story: but it does have a story and I believe here lays the most important flaws of this game.

I do not think making a porn game of metafiction is a wise idea, unless it is done in a very careful way. This is not the case:
When you make all the characters conscious of their falsehood; that they live and have always lived in a simulation and their only reaction is "Okay but I like it here so I don't care" they feel empty, boring and unreal.
Some might argue, "they feel unreal because they are, since they are fiction and they know it".

Okay, but why should they also be boring and empty?
What's the point in making this poor exercise of metafiction? Why waste time talking with each one of them? Why do they talk about their background stories and then say "that was fake, this is fake, but I like it here more, hi-hi, do you want sex"? Where is the fun in playing this? You, as all powerful, nearphotison could bring them directly to the sex!
Why is there a need for them to show "emotions" or give rewards? Their personalities are "preserved" and altered in such a stupid unidimensional way that it can not be believed for a second that they do have any individual personality. In this sense, they are very poor caricatures that make us take dull detours, for that I prefer to just look at the images on the website.

With the lost of credibility for the player comes a total lack of empathy with the characters that prevents enjoying a game where primal instinct and the tangible always plays such a big role (a porn game).

Conclusion: This game is a whole fake plastic experience, the creator is conscious of this, tries to "own" it, but seems to be unable to come up with a smarter (or dumber) approach that avoids the problems this generates. The "half-hungry" might come from "half baked".
I gave it a 3,5-4 because it is early on and it has a lot of potential, both for the art and because there are some sparks of intelligence, but things should be rethought and (imo) the metafiction should be avoided or written in a more "realistic" way (anguish, conflict, etc.) to have a decent result. Otherwise right now is more of a 2/5.

Almost forgotten observation: This game has a lot of "antropomorphic varieties" so to speak, I personally enjoy a good part of them but not all. However, that is why tags and images of the game are accessible. Look at them before downloading and do not complain afterwards about Sonic!

[Review for v0.007, whatever that version number is actually supposed to mean.]

Normally I don't like to review games that are this early in development, but I feel like what I've seen of this game is fairly indicative of what's going to be included in future updates.
Right off the bat, my question is... who the fuck was this game made for? Almost every character (aside from a few OCs, I think?) is from random, completely-unrelated pieces of media with no thematic consistency. It'd be one thing if the game said "here's a bunch of catgirls (and/or catboys) from popular games/anime/etc." and centered the game around that. Jarring clashes of art styles aside, who is going to go from fucking the hot old prostitute from Interspecies Reviewers to getting involved in pedo shit with Gon (and Killua) from Hunter x Hunter? Who's the bisexual dude that's going to watch Yu-Gi-Oh GX yaoi on the in-game TV before they go out to hook up with Margaret from Regular Show?
Another issue the game has is that, even if all the content is avoidable, the player doesn't actually have any ability to properly "filter" content. Thank god that rollback is enabled by default, I guess, because otherwise visiting the strip club at certain times would just force you into scenes showing... Sonic the goddamn Hedgehog stripping and showing off cock and hole. Just fantastic.
Issues with the content aside, there's really... no gameplay involved. Click on locations, see if someone's there, slowly build up relationship, get porn. At that point I'd just prefer a scene viewer or something, really. Why should the player care about romancing a character like Tsuyu from Hero Academia if she's completely divorced from the setting that helps make her an interesting character?

So... yeah. Even if the gameplay gets better, I doubt I see myself ever getting back to this one. The base premise has no appeal and even if a character I really liked got added, I'd probably just look for more in-character porn somewhere else.
(Sneaky last complaint: game's tagged [lesbian] and the banner says "lesbian" as well, but there's literally one scene of it. It's not exactly hard-to-find but it's a slightly hidden scene where you walk in on Korra eating Katara out, which is in the preview pictures. Pretty much the only reason why I played was to see if there was more lesbian stuff besides that, and... nope.)

Excellent art and novel! A lot of content even from early updates, we need more games with gay content like this, even if it is avoidable. The idea of making a parody of cartoon characters is good too, keep the good work!!