VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Now & Then [v1.00.0] [ILSProductions]

Now & Then. A game that should be way more focused on the "Now" instead of the "Then".
This game is rough to recommend and for that reason I would recommend NOT trying it.
The game has sub-par graphics and even worse animations, the sex too in this game is bland and vanilla, the only interesting tag in this game is the Incest and even that it has to hide away from by being an adopted daughter that you adopted when she was in her early teens.
This game is clearly more focused on its story than its sexual content, but even that falls short. I will admit, the first part of the story got me hooked by having a nice blend of the "Now & Then" story decision. As it introduced characters before they even showed up in the main story, leading for me to get attached to them even before they were in an apocalypse. But the "Then" part gets in the way after they get settled in the school, as we already know about the characters, their traits, and their likes and dislikes. We do not need another 5 or 10 min backstory about what we already know about the characters. The story also suffers from a lack of an antagonist/ tension. As the zombies are dispatched easily, the leader of a pack of bandits died, leaving no Antagonist, having no tension or interesting parts in the story. The other problem is the lack of choice, most decisions don't impact the grand arc as only one or two scenes gets changed. And you are romancing the characters boils down to: "Get closer to her" or "Do not get closer to her".
So once again, I will not recommend this game. As it's bland, unoriginal and drags on too long in its story.

Positives-

Impressive story

Unique Concept

Perfect dialogue deliveries

Realistic pacing

Unstable but Often Great H-Scenes

Well calculated Environment

Awesome Transitions

Aging is also good.

Music is not bad.


Negatives-

Poor Quality Renders.

Not a good UI.(optimized althou)

some unnecessary incidents stretched out.





This GEM of a game needs to be REMASTERED

The rendering might have been good for the time it was released, but for today's standards, a good remastering would be beneficial.

- Zombie apocalypse with minimal encounters with zombies, where they are barely an obstacle and resources are hardly a problem.

- The MC's internal monologue reaches an intense and extremely high level, almost to the point of schizophrenic, to the point where a second persona appears beside the MC to talk to himself, even in the middle of the day and in front of a tragically dead woman, the MC engaging in monologues, dialoguing about random things with himself.


- MC is very uptight and full of morals, to the point of not even letting his own adopted daughter call him dad, "but she's not my biological daughter."

The girl always had a crush on MC, but after some unrequited displays of affection, MC started distancing himself from Li since her adolescence, preferring to let other people raise his daughter rather than himself.

And distancing himself to the point of not even letting her sit next to him on the sofa to watch a movie so that there wouldn't be any intimate touching, and with that, Li preferred to spend more time away from home than with MC.

In short, time wasted on moral issues, instead of enjoying the little time they would have together.


It seems that the MC follows the same recipe as the MC from the developer's other game... and the world-building focuses more on psychological issues than on an actual zombie apocalypse.
I came to test this game because of the high reviews, thinking that the MC would be a little more different and daring, and the game world would be more of a survival game than a drama about living in a pandemic.
However, it seems that games will always follow this same recipe...

The stepfather/daughter dynamic made me a little uncomfortable initially however other than that an extremely good game. Excellent story with deep fleshed out characters, graphic are a tad outdated but animations and lewd scenes are very well done. Does a really good job in the zombie trope can highly recommend. Music and ambience is also a strong point.

Absolute masterpiece
I know for the time the graphic is kinda dated but the story is absolute amazing
The story make you feel nervous for the next event to unfold
And there is so much emotional moments that I truly heartbreak

This is probably one of the longest VN on the site.

Just decided to check it out of curiosity. And then all of a sudden I was spending like three days reading through this VN, like a retarded moth being drawn to a flame. It's an peculiar VN because the ero-scenes weren't particularly interesting. Sure they were there but they weren't outstanding. Like on one hand I'd sort of preferred if there were even less and were thus more impactful, but on the other hand virtually all of them were skippable and there wasn't going to be massive backlash for skipping them.

Writing was good. It was consistent, but other than for minor mistakes I don't have anything bad to say about it. Character actions felt consistent for the most part, the world logic was mostly consistent.

Technical execusion was good. Stock voices, nothing too interesting there, sounds were okay. Might be interested in playing around with Ren'py and seeing what kind of fun things could be pulled off, in regards to audio engineering and the scenes.

Graphics were okay, other than rare animation error there were no issues with textures or models. Obviously visual quality got better as the VN progressed.

Was it absolutely perfect? No. It had minor flaws. Worst of all, it made me feel sappy, which feels awful. Would recommend, though I will not touch this VN again due to writing being that good. Overall, it was a wonderful VN and it's giving me that itch of having a go at making a VN myself.

Now & Then [v1.00.0] not recommend

art 4/5
story 3.5/5
character/design 4/5
sex scene 2/5
sound 3/5
vibe 1/5
overall 2.9/5

* idid not finish the game

art i like this style of 3d if done good and its bad at all

story i think the story is great but the problem is pacing and some stuff (like adopted girl)

character/design characters look good and i like that mc face is hidden

sex scene scenes are okay but the flashbacks ruined

sound good sound effect and really BGM but it keep replaying

vibe it game pacing is so ass fells like watching one piece and idont FW adopted girl its weird idc about incest but this one its weird

Without question one of the best avn I have played. The zombie apocalyptic story is right up my alley, not too dark or too light, just perfect.
The mc is great. He is calm, collected and extremely dependable.
The LIs are great. My favorite was Alice.

Highly recommended

It successfully portrays the zombie apocalypse atmoster. I can't say that I liked the looks of the female characters very much, but they were all good in different aspects. Animations were good for a honey select game level (I assume the game was made with honey select) The story started well, continued in an average way and ended. It could have been better, but I believe it is a game that deserves 5 stars in total.

This is a pretty decent visual novel with a good story and presentation. As someone here for incest content and the incest tag this game has applied, it did nothing for me, though I kept playing because the story was good.

For me, an adopted daughter isn't incest - it's taboo, but not incest. I'd probably give this a solid 5/5 if this had been your actual daughter or a little sister or something, but oh no I had sex with someone I'm not blood related to - whoop-de-doo.

Now & Then lives up to its name, telling its story in two distinct ways: the “Now” and the “Then.”

You begin the game a few weeks after a zombie apocalypse, stuck in your apartment with your adopted daughter. Through flashbacks, you learn about your late wife, who passed away from cancer, and how, in your grief, you eventually chose to adopt a teenager in need of love and care. This pseudo-prologue sets the stage beautifully, giving you a strong emotional foundation and making the bond between you and your daughter feel meaningful and genuine.

As the story unfolds and you struggle to survive in this infected new world, more characters are introduced — some from your past, others entirely new. The group grows gradually until you reach the final roster. With each new addition, flashbacks continue to provide context, fleshing out backstories and helping you understand why each person matters. This is one of the game’s greatest strengths: its storytelling makes you actually care about the characters and worry about their fate.

Of course, it’s not perfect. Some decisions and actions taken by characters can feel questionable, leaving you wondering why they happened. Thankfully, these moments don’t derail the flow or pacing of the narrative. One thing the game does especially well is instilling a constant sense of danger. Even though you know it’s unlikely something catastrophic will happen to the main cast, the atmosphere keeps you on edge, and the tension is always present while playing.

The game also offers a wide range of choices, which can lead to premature endings if you’re reckless, or to a well-deserved happy ending — sometimes alongside one (or more) love interests you’ve built relationships with along the way.

Visually, the game presents a variety of environments and settings that keep things engaging. The character modeling might not appeal to everyone, but it’s done really well — the models are realistic to a point, attractive, and enjoyable to watch. Expressions and emotions are especially well-crafted, adding weight to the story and helping you connect with the cast. Combined with the diverse, well-animated intimate scenes, the visuals elevate the overall experience and make it more immersive.

No game is perfect, and Now & Then is no exception. But in my opinion, this one comes surprisingly close to that impossible standard of perfection.

Based on everything:

• Story → Strong emotional core with well-done flashbacks and pacing. Some decisions and character actions feel odd, but they don’t break the flow. 8.8/10
• Player Choices → Plenty of decisions that shape endings, relationships, and survival. Some paths are stronger than others, but overall they feel meaningful. 8.5/10
• Art Style → The models might not appeal to everyone, but they’re attractive and expressive, which really adds to immersion. Backgrounds and scenarios are varied and polished. 8.3/10
• Sex Scenes → Well-crafted, diverse, and supported by good animations. Not flawless, but they fit the story and elevate the experience. 8.5/10

Overall Score → 8.5/10

I'm pretty late the party on this one. I enjoyed my time with Now and Then, about 25 hours for the full playthrough if I had to guess, but I'd be lying if I said it was always smooth sailing.

First off, though, I'll lay out some positives. I liked basically all the characters, there were tense moments throughout the story that had me itching to just keep reading another chapter, and the overall concept was executed well. I enjoyed how they framed how boring the apocalypse is until it suddenly isn't boring, something I don't think I've seen many pieces of media express quite so well. I also liked the majority of the dialogue between characters and had a few good laughs and a few heartfelt moments were sprinkled in throughout.

My negative nitpicks, though, are a little too annoying to me personally to avoid talking about. First off, the third act is very good and well paced, for the most part. The third act definitely salvaged my opinion of the game which, at that point, I was only going through because I'd already gotten that far and just wanted to finish it. Act 1 and Act 2 are slow. Act 2 especially felt like it dragged on for way too long without anything of note actually happening. There were a few stressor moments, but they came and went quickly and then you were just lulled into some boring filler until the characters reached the next far more interesting set piece.

Funny little thing about me, I don't actually play lewd games or AVNs with the intent to goon, I just find them a very interesting and endearing medium to tell stories. For a lot of Now and Then, this worked in my favor, though I think I'd be correct in saying (without actually counting) that there were more lewd scenes in the last couple chapters than there were in the first two acts. That may be incorrect, but they would douse the pacing with cold water constantly. The scenes themselves were fine, and became exponentially better by around the halfway mark of the AVN, but it got to the point where I was just skipping through some of them to get to the next part of the plot.

Finally, my biggest gripe with the game, is the game's core "gimmick". Now and Then takes place primarily in "Now" where the main story is happening and you occasionally get "Then" segments that give a little context to current situations through flashbacks. For the first half of the game, this was a great narrative device to try and give a little slice of life for the characters from their lives prior to the pandemic the game is centered around. However, they become absolutely unnecessary by the end of act 2 but there seems to be at least one in every chapter that just kicks the pacing in the teeth and they don't really add anything to current events. For instance, there was a section where the characters slept in a motel and the MC had a flashback to a time where he and his adopted daughter stayed at a motel. It was maybe 4 to 8 lines of dialogue and then it went back to the present day story. It was just. . . Off putting and completely unnecessary. I got the feeling towards the end that they were only included in each episode because the author felt the gimmick was core to the game's identity.

I know I kinda tore into this one a bit but I will say that I liked it overall. It dragged in spots, sure, but it's a completed AVN with a pretty decent story with believable characters and worldbuilding and I really liked almost all the love interests. Give the game a shot if you like the art style especially knowing it does get better as the game goes on. 25 hours is just north of the sweet spot for me with most avns so I do personally think it's a touch too long, but I'm sure plenty of people will get enjoyment out of this one.

The pacing of this game is amazing. The flashbacks add so much backstory to the characters and really helps you understand them and their actions better. By the end, I was just playing this for the story.

Excellence all around. The story is uniquely compelling, the visuals are great, it hits most if not all the emotional notes.
Only wish there was a bit more to the epilogue, too often they make me feel like there's more to the story and leave you hanging.

20 - 30 hour playthrough. There's no branching routes, game is very much focused on telling a story not a game, the characters relationships and how their surroundings affect them is the main selling point.

Pros:

1. Story rich. Like duh, it's 20+ hours
2. Cute characters. Dated models but surprisingly with how many renders are in this game, and the effort to animate H scenes, I think it's fair
3. Completed story. It's got an epilogue, and the game ends off on a good note.

Cons:

1. Plots points are often ignored to introduce new ones.
   Spoiler: Spoiler

   You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
2. The lighting is terrible. I do not like how most scenes look with really harsh lighting.
3. The options where you have to choose a girl to see, locking you out of meeting other girls for the day. Hate those, just get a mod that lets you choose all the options
4. H scenes are always done 1 on 1. You're banging all of them, so why does finding somewhere private matter. It's just silly with how much you have sex and not being caught still matters at that point.

It is a good game, just don't see myself playing it again with how little changes. And in typical Zombie media fashion, we never know how or when the "infected" will end.

I've played a few zombie-setting games before. I think this was the most realistic one of them. especially the atmosphere was so good that you really feel yourself in a zombie apocalypse in the game. Although the game repeats itself a bit towards the end, it is still a successful production.

What a wonderful gem I stumbled upon. Not that I think anyone specifically reads my reviews but if they happened to see me elsewhere I am a huge fan of harem/poly romance titles that actually think about the dynamics of the people involved, and I had never really considered it before but a setting like the one here really helps both get the relationships off the ground in a way that doesn't require me to bend over backwards to suspend my disbelief but also feels as organic as something involving both the end of civilization as we currently know it could do.

The characters were cute, they all felt both real and had their own growth throughout, some that surprised me even as there were character I was expecting to not really like all based on first impressions or their relationships already established with another character, but I somehow found myself falling for them after some more time getting to know them in this new world that these characters are learning to adapt to. The music which I normally don't notice all that much was very on point in almost every scene and I never had to resort to turning on my own playlist due to anything getting repetitive so bravo, as an attention to detail part of crafting a narrative in this kind of medium I feel that goes sorely under utilized so I was very happy to see that upon further reflection.

If there was anything to possibly criticize, I suppose it may be that for all the nice erotic scenes we get, there were maybe 3 sound clips for the girls upon climax total? Which if that is your main motivation for playing I suppose that would dock some points for people, but for me it is mostly just a foot note. Some larger variety would be appreciated in any new title, but more than anything I just hope there is a new title that pays this much attention to their characters. All around I was extremely pleased and would urge anyone else to both give it a try and afterwards find your most convenient way of supporting so we can hopefully get more gems like this.

TLDR: A good game, through and through. It's the best at nothing, does some things quite well, messes up in some others. It is complete, runs well on phones, has quite a lot of content, has a fully functional scene player. Worth playing if the premise interests you. Adoptive daughter-father incest is not optional, mostly everything else is.

The Review

The game has a lot more content than I expected it to (there's 25 chapters + an epilogue). On one hand, that is because the story delves into more details about its world and has far more relationship development than you might expect, on the other hand, that is also because a lot of things are mentioned multiple times with different words throughout the story or because the game is quickly trying to connect the branching paths back into a single line so its easier to manage, so it needs you to see something that is mostly irrelevant to the path you chose, just so it can mention that later and you're aware it happened.

It is also because the game has a lot of downtime between major story moments. This was often a positive to me, since it allows relationships to develop more organically, allows us to see what the day-to-day in the apocalypse looks like, and allows tension to build up. It also gives you quite a lot of time to get h-scenes, although I wouldn't say that is this game's strongest suit. However, the downtime was overdone at points, it slowed down the pace a bit too much, and it was during these slow periods that we often had the most rehashes of information, which means that it was essentially padding to play through.

There are issues with choice pathing in this game. "Now & Then" is quite kinetic, you are choosing flavour more than substance most of the time, and that's okay, but when you are given an actual choice, that should be respected. There are moments where you reveal info to a character only for both you and them to react like its the first time you're telling them that same piece of info later (doesn't happen often, but it takes you out of your immersion when it does), and there is one major relationship (Naomi) that the game offers you to say "no" to, only for the narrator, that romantic interest, people around you, and even your own protagonist to all behave as if something is eventually going to happen/has been happening even though you said you weren't interested and never went back on your word (the game does address that this is happening, but it feels poorly integrated into the story, its done in a way that it feels more like addressing it was an afterthough, more than feeling like your choices made a real path you should pick).

The characters are quite nice here. The long length of the game and the large amount of downtime gives the narrative a lot of time to show and explore character dynamics and growth. Even characters I was uninterested in for the most part grew on me eventually, be it in a sexual or non-sexual way. I also really liked that the game does give you quite a bit of closure, exploring relationships all the way to their conclusions.

As I mentioned before, h-scenes are not the main thing this game has got going for it, in my opinion. The voice over is repetitive, and for some characters it was deplorable enough that I had to turn the sounds down to 0 (unfortunately, moaning is on the "Sounds" slider, not "Voices", so I think I might have lost some other sound details as a result of that). There's nothing wrong with the scenes, but I feel they're both a bit too predictable and have too little setup, somehow. Yeah, spontaneous sex can be hot too, but not if it's the only kind you get, you know? Dialogue during these scenes is also quite repetitive.

This game struggles a bit in terms of its identity in regards to realism. A lot of the game is rather believable, not being overly dramatic or dark like a lot of zombie apocalypse media is, but there are sequences that just feel at odds with this more grounded setting. The most egregious cases surround your protagonist and his capabilities, you are still a rather traditional porn game protagonist and that doesn't really vibe with realism. It is, still, however, far more interesting of a post-apocalypse premise to me than something like The Walking Dead, though, even if its not consistent within its own style.

Conclusion

It might feel a bit weird for me to give the game 4 stars with all the criticism and the small amount of praise I gave it, but it truly is an above-average experience in my opinion, its just that it does many things well enough to improve the experience but not well enough to merit specific praise. The failings it has also were not big or frequent enough to ruin the overall experience, especially given how long it is. This is worth playing, just don't expect something that will change your life.

Disappointment.

The main problems of this game is pacing and lack of understanding when it supposed to finally end
I mean first chapter was really good. The second had some logical flaws in the story and first symptoms of future problem that will occur with pacing but overall it was still interesting to read.

But on the third chapter I just dropped reading this . The story just evolved into "slice of life" thing where everyone fucks every 5 minutes (literally) without any plot developing or whatever. For the game that initially started as heavily story-based game just with some h-elements , it ended like your typical hentai soulless game, made by 15 y.o. guy, without any worth to read slow-paced plot in it, that exists solely just as an excuse for a bunch of animated h-scenes to happen so the author could show to his patreon subscribers that the game is not abandoned and that they should keep spend their $.

Technically speaking, there is actual "progress" of the general storyline but it's progressing so slowly and ends with nothing more than disappointment that at some point you ask yourself "why I'm even spending my lifetime on this"
At this point I was so tired to give this any more chances, I just dropped it.

This game honestly surprised me. It doesnt have the best looking style ever. But I promise it makes up for it in story and girls. All the girls are completly different and all have their own "challenges". I didnt think id enjoy this game as much but the reviews made me download it and try it. I suggest you do the same if youre even thinking about it.