VN - Ren'Py - No Place Like Home [Ch. 14 - Associates] [Burst Out Games]

Review for version : [Ch. 14 - Associates]

Pretty glad I tried this one despite the somewhat low ratings. The only reason I'm giving 4 stars instead of 5 is because this game has seemingly been in development for a few years now, and the content has been pretty slow to drop, as the meat of the story seems to be barely even starting.

I've quite frankly never seen a VN with so many pop culture references & Jokes. I think it's great, as it adds a lot of humor to the game, even if it is to the cost of a little immersion.

The story is quite decent, frankly, and the characters have diverse personalities, making them feel unique and alive. There's so far around 5 characters that seems to be somewhat romance-able, either in the actual game or in the foreseeable future, but the latest chapter makes it look promising for the future for those that prefer a larger pool of girls.

I've seen another review say there weren't any animations, which seems to have been taken into consideration by the Dev, as animations made a debut in the latest chapter (14).

It's true what everybody else said, though, you shouldn't be fooled by the high chapter count, as the amount of content the game actually has, is around the same amount a single chapter from a bigger game would have. That being said, I can't help to feel like that latest Chapter was bigger than the other ones, although not nearly enough. It might be one of those games you have to forget for a few years before coming back to, instead of checking out every Chapter, since they're so small, but nevertheless, I recommend this game, it's got potential that's for sure.

I wish I could give this 3 and a half stars because there are some glaring issues but I also can't justify only giving it 3.

I particularly like the pacing. It doesn't just jump straight into sex in a goofy way like a lot of the instant fap material games which is a plus, but more importantly, it gets to the stuff you want to see reasonably fast without that sub milking trash. That being said, while I'm sure the dev is doing his best the longevity of chapters is best described as cartoonishly short. There are multiple chapters that are a single brief conversation in one area. Its to the degree that its almost comedic.

I really want to love this game but the wait for updates that end up being a couple paragraphs makes it hard to justify buying a higher tier subscription.

The story wasent that bad and its not really a slowburn since the chapters are very short so it might feel like it is.
Also game is 2 years old and it really dosent have much content at all, so it would take another 200 chapters for it to get finished.

Also no animation which makes it a bit boring when you do finaly get to a sex scene.

Girls looks pretty good atleast.

Biggest problem is it feels like a milking machine that will never get finished, since the creator is making 3 other games at the same time so 4 in total where one of them is on hold, its just never a good sign when creators dont concentrate and finish one game at a time, which is proberly why chapter are very short and i would expect it to be same all of the other games as well.

Cant really say its more then average, even 3 stars is on the nice side due to the lack of contant and animations.

v. chapter 10

this developer has 3 projects on the go and one on hold. in other words, split focus, which really shows here.

chapters are short. imagine a book where a new chapter starts with each turn of the page. yep, that short.
the basic plot is as generic as i have ever seen and has a loose tie in to another ongoing game. it does nothing at all to make this game more interesting so those scenes are just pointless additions.

the writing is not bad but not great either as it has no plot to build on and falls flat.
the art is middling. it does the job but art is not a strong point for this developer. one female character i found mildly attractive but the rest i would put in my nightmare category rather than, which is what i and probably others come for, my fantasy category. a rather odd choice for a game no matter how you cut it.

quite honestly, this shows how poorly developers do when focus is split. their main game has started to suffer the same lack of focus and this one comes off as an after thought project that has not been planned out with any real conviction.

the characters HAVE no character and by the time i reached a sex scene i was already bored. even going to 50 chapters will not help this recover from such a dull start.
i imagine if an accountant, who spent most of their life reorganising spreadsheets and collecting stamps, decided to write a story, this is what they would create and use words like 'titillating' to describe it.

not bad enough to warrant 1 star, as what is here is fine, Bland but fine.
it just has nothing good about it

I played the game that the Dev says this pathetic lazily thrown together slap job is tied into. That game was actually not that bad on a whole. This one however is horrible. Let me give you my reasons for saying that.

The people do not match the backgrounds or the story. The people in the story are obviously just floating against a backdrop and there was no effort made to blend them in. Either the dev was drunk or just flat out lazy when they slapped this one together but it shows.

The floating fucking cat. Yes the cat that doesn't fit into a damn thing and is too big for the environment its in as well. Yes that monstrous prop thrown in to try to be cute but does not provide a distraction from an already bad story.

Same stupid one liners used over and over from other games. They were dumb the first time, the more you read the same crap over and over again it gets really annoying.

The one character I saw carry over from the other game was the worst and most pathetic character in that game. Sorry my gag reflex allowed to stick it out for 4 chapters of this barf fest but no longer.

There was an obvious effort made with the dev's other works but it sure was not put into this one. Hey if you just want to see a bit of sex, the character models look good. I did not stick around long enough to see if the animations in this one are worse than the other games or not though. Nut is it all holds true then there will a sex scene every 2 or 3 chapters with no real rhyme or reasoning to it. The girl or girls will either just happily jump into a threesome or give it up patheticly super easy to their supposed family member. But hey, I am not complaining, after all we are all just here to see the sex anyway.

If you want to play something decent enough and you stand the stupid one liners, the other works by this dev will satisfy you way more than this chop job will. I sadly am very disappointed by this one and did not even bother to complete playing it.

Couldn't enjoy this game at all. The old-school character separate from background technique of old VNs really doesn't work well anymore, especially when breaking perspective.
Characters and dialogue feel very artificial, unrelateable and out of touch and superficial with whatever trope/stereotype it is they're supposed to represent.
Attempt at humor failed entirely for me as well. MC having "bad sense of humor" as a character trait is an overdone dad-joke kind of stereotype which could even work on some level, if spaced out correctly and actually using dad joke material. But the way it's done here was nothing but annoying and repetitive to me and only disconnected me even further from a non-existant immersion to begin with.
And the general meme hell influence on this game is downright insufferable.
0/10

This is a game with great renders, and a slow burn relationship build up, and an understanding of including walkthroughs and information to the player to guide them in a way to enjoy the game more easily. There's not a lot of sexual behavior in the game at the moment...but in a few updates this is going to be a 5 star game guaranteed.

The models are pretty good and the dialogue is fine. Unfortunately i got to chapter 7 of 8 and don't really like anyone. Melissa is ok but you barley spend any time with her. Eve is a little pushy and worst is completely ok with subverting melissa's parenting by letting you daughter get drunk in her club. half the choices with her are be responsible vs irresponsible and the choice she likes is irresponsible. Trixie is a tiktok thot and way to sexual. hinata is ok but she seems to be as much of a party girl as trixie just nicer. tessa is ok but thats is. The worst part is 90% of the relationships are moved forward by taking advantage of the girls being drunk. You don't want to act innapropriate with trixie when she is drunk, too bad cause thats the wrong choice. she won't be happy that you didn't let her blow you when she is wasted in a club bathroom.

There really isn't a lot going on yet, I expected more seeing as it's chapter 8.

The renders are not that good, things like a cat that looks huge and seems to float in the air, models with no expression that makes them look like they were frozen in the moment.

The worst part is the writing. Just like in Powers That Be the dev throws in slang though not quite as often thankfully though it's still used in moments where it doesn't really fit. Also they call the uncle "boomer" The last year for baby boomers was 1964 so for him to be an actual " boomer" he would have to be at least 60 years old. I get that they're using it to mean anyone from an older generation but a pet peeve of mine is when writers propagate the misuse of words or phrases. As a writer you should be better than that.

I get his schtick is telling bad jokes but the MC goes above and beyond. He got the gist of the translation of in vino veritas but his actual translation was off.

In Powers that be the dev threw in Russian, I'm not familiar with Russian so I can't speak on it, this time it's Japanese and that wasn't always used correctly.

This VN doesn't look very good, the writing is bad and the content is lacking.

As of chapter 7 still not a lot of content. It's not just that it's slow burn, which is fine, but the chapters are really short. Not complaining, it is what it is.
The game so far is pretty typical for the genre, though there are a couple things I like over it's peers: It always bugs me when the "son/brother" shows up from some contrived absence and is now the sole love interest of everyone. I mean it's a needed premise, but there are only so many ways to work it. This works better as the brother/uncle. We will see about the love interest part when actual content is available.
Otherwise, it's pretty normal, and very early days. Hope it continues well!

v.0.0.5

Game is bad with barely any content.
(Read every dialogue, game took 10 minute to finish for now)
Humor is literal garbage, dialogue is even more garbage, forced used of zoomer slang, author is a weeb who had to make the asian character speak japanese in the dialogues to english speakers, her bestfriend who happens to be your niece also uses japanese terms for what ever reason.
Of course the MC somehow understands japanese and speaks it a bit, why wouldn't it be a self insert character?
The MC doesn't need to be perfect, funny, handsome and loved by everyone, but for the love of god you're simply making him a loser with the dialogue, change that. Had to force myself to not skip his dialogue because I was cringing.
The nieces are also madly in love with you, cliche from this site so w/e, but so the dev wouldn't have the "no sexual content" tag, he had to add a masturbation scene from the shyest girl on earth, who did it on purpose so the MC would notice her.
Right after that, the other niece tries to seduce the MC and make you pay 200$ to fuck her.
Oh but she didn't want the 200$, she's a deep character that simply wanted love because the MC, who's simply their uncle, apparently abandoned them.
(They had both parents, dev is setting this up for the MC to fuck his sister and replace the dad and then also fuck the nieces, I sure wonder what big game did this before)

Ironically, the niece and the asian character are the only ones with a decent model.
The main character has a shitty beard and a skintight top for what ever reason.
MC's sister's best friend is 25, even though the former is 42.
You wouldn't know the best friend is 25 though if the sister didn't tell you and try to set you up with her, because she looks the same age.
Second niece is a default model with no work done on them, or they were made to be as plain as possible, but I doubt it.
Characters also have a plastic texture and the lighting is shit.

The official patch barely works, the niece randomly calls you step uncle randomly.

I'll give it a 2/5 for effort, but I doubt this game will get better.

I like the renders. New faces that are expressive without looking ugly.
The story is interesting, but nothing new. Man leaves, gets back after 10+ years and every girl missed him and falls for him (probably).

It is a little short for 10 months of work and each update is with 5 minutes content (if you read very slow and concentrate on the pictures very hard). So I will probably wait for 3 to 4 updates before downloading the next 20 minutes of content.

Well the story starts and there are 3 Females, so you go meet them, and you talk to the first one a lot. She is like 42 and she looks like Micheal Jackson, and not the black version of his early youth, he looked decent, im talking about his late 40-50 stage. Her hair is one of those that you try to make as fast as possible with blender particle system, it loks like it, cause i did one of those yesterday.

So you arrive home, and one of the other girls barely speaks to you and leaves, and the other girl is not even home. There is another girl there that is supposed to be 25, but you only know it when the first lady tells you, cause she doest look younger than the 42 yeal old.
This is another game from this dev where the MC tells a lot of stupid jokes, that are known to be bad inside the game lore, but are also bad outside of it, and there are a lot of them.

The conclusion? The writing is boring, and the MC is older than his behaviour and personality.
That is basically the first chapter of the game.

After this, there is a conversation that takes like 5 minutes to read, with a lot of jokes, adn after that you can peek one girl matrubating, cause a dev should avoid "no sexual content" tag, so a girl amsturbating with the door open is a good game mechanic to facilitate early sexual content in your tags.

Wel this was kind of spoiling the 0.2 version of the game, in which there is nothing of sexual nature building, other than the MC having some thoughts.

Do i think this game deserves a good rating right now? NO i dont. Not for the writing, not for the sexual content, thats for sure.
DO i believe this game can improve in the near future? No i dont.
DO i think it can reach an average level in 6 months? I have my doubts, and thats because of how these first 2 chapters are: short and empty of anything, so much that they shouldnt be chapters, more like a prologue.. Im guessing its a marketing strategy or something, its just that the product is subpar.
It doesnt showcase anything, only the interior design, if anything.

review for V0.2

Really good start for a early version


Not much content

Renders are really good

no bugs

Story is good

Originality, : Really good mc wife cheated so he goes living with his sister

I hope we get some good scenes soon

Looking forward to more updates

Seems like a solid game, feel like renders are a bit better compared to his previous game, characters seems likeable so far if a bit overused when it comes to the shy teen and rebelious teen but i personally dont mind that, this does seem to have the same puns and meme references like Powers That Be so if u hate that u gonna hate it in this to but i like it, only things i would change is either get rid of the beard the MC has or fill it in more, right now it looks to patchy for a 35 year old guy, and secondly the step bullshit is annoying and makes the dialogue seems weird but i understand why its in there overall i think this is a good game.