Ren'Py - Of Devotion and Despondence [v0.2.15] [Earliestbird]

Solid visuals with great text - other games often make the mistake of skimping/cutting on the text component which can derail an entire scene.

Gameplay can be a bit grindy but thats easily fixed by editing your save stats or cheats.

I thought this use of AI would open up more possibilities or be a useful tool to allow for a better focus on story, gameplay, or other areas; however, it's just another example of AI being used to replace the need for talent, which this game desperately needs.

Graphics - 2/5
Everything is generated by AI. Scenery and women look absolutely beautiful, but the AI is utilized ineffectively when it comes to the latter. Too many variations between images of the same character, and edits are atrocious. (i.e. The image of Raven's hands painted over, her head being large making her look kid like, and her eye lids having a bloody swollen look to them). My advice is to not use AI beyond generating scenery and portraits.

Story - 2/5
Linear story, choices don't matter. There's some genuine effort into making the story, but narrative is too long with few choices made in between. The UI is a nice difference, but doesn't look good nor make reading any more interesting.

Gameplay - 1/5
Basic RPG elements. Resource gathering/grinding. Uninteresting combat system.

Characters - 1/5
2 main lady followers, occasional event but the inability to interreact with them and generate dialogue makes them as bland as any other NPC.

Music - 0/5
No music beyond menu. Some SFX.

Eroticism - 0/5
The only rewards are AI generated images of naked women or women slathered in copious amounts of cum, and one blowjob image. I expected way more with AI being used as a tool, but got close to nothing. I have been cucked by an AI, and I must scream.

Really a great start to a text based game that rewards users with great graphics in the course of the story. It's great that the creator makes a coherent new world and works on character development. This game has so much potential and could really be extensible enough to expand into a whole universe of possibilities. Although the gameplay can be somewhat grindy, I like how you can go back and play as different protagonists with different skillsets. This game shows a lot of early promise.

This is one of those games that makes me feel like I'm missing...everything? The plot is weird and, at times, incoherent. This is a pretty big issue because the game itself, which is very much not a porn game at its core, is incredibly intent on telling its story. It's uncompelling and very poorly presented.

The game's engine is terrible, and the presentation is equally awful. For whatever reason, all the text is one one side of the screen and seems to mimic reading something on your phone. The text comes up slowly and in chunks, which is only mildly annoying at first, but grows old quickly.

The art itself is just god awful, the typical garbage you'd expect from AI generation, but with...quirks. I will give credit for this part. The dev seems to use the AI's horrid generator and disfigurement of characters as part of the plot, which would honestly be cool in better circumstances. In this, though, it just looks bad and lazy.

The porn is...borderline non existent, at least within the first hour of tedious, annoying grinding. The combat isn't awful, but it's not smart, either. It's just something that is there, and shouldn't be. The game clearly wants to be a VN, but can't commit to being so linear, so they added combat. If you get lewds after losing, I genuinely don't know since I didn't lose any fights. They take zero forethought. What porn I DID get was...potentially written by an AI, now that I think about it. It was soulless and bland, feeling in every way like it was churned out by a robot. Yikes if that's not the case.

All in all, waste of time. Ugly UI, uglier art, and very weak porn.

A great game so far. Cannot wait for more of the breeding content

Pros:
Graphics: While this is debatable, I think the art looks good. It is unique looking, fairly consistent, and nice to look at. You can tell there was some editing done, and it looks better than an average Daz game.

Story: Interesting so far. It is still in the beginning stages, but it is well done so far, and it will compliment the central fetish of pregnancy quite well.

Sex Scenes: The breeding and cumplay scenes are well written and hot.

Grammar: Did not see too many spelling/grammar mistakes.

Length: Good amount of content so far, but not many sex scenes yet with the main LIs.

Battle Cards: I like that the more pregnancies you have, the stronger you get.

Neutral
Battles: While the battle mechanics are not hard to grasp, they are alright. I think the initial introduction to them could be better written (took me awhile to figure out what to do), but after that, the battle require some thought, but not too much either. There are a couple hard fights, but, so far, after you get better equipment, they become a breeze.

Cons
Saves: The worst thing about this game so far is that the saves break with every update. This kills any of the grinding you may have done in previous saves, However, the dev did include a cheat option, but you still are required to start from the beginning, which is very annoying.

Grinding: Some of the initial grinding at the start and midway through the game can be rough. Once you get all 3 LIs, it gets better, but it is rough at the beginning.

Skill Checks: While I do not mind this that much, there are random skill checks to complete certain areas (it should also say how much you are off or at least a range). Since there is not a good way to get skill upgrades to the MC, this can be very grindy.

Amount of Sex/Romance: While the sex scenes themselves are fine, there is little so far, and there has been little romance with the main 3 LIs.

Sex Scenes Renders: Like the above point, there could be more renders per sex scene and show the MC in them more often (his penis at least). This would help a lot with the hotness of the scenes (just 1 or 2 more renders per scene would help).

Overall, an enjoyable game so far with good story-telling and world building. Breaking saves and the grinding are the downsides so far.

The story is quite bad. It's rambling and boring. The characters don't really seem to have much depth or really anything interesting to differentiate them. Even the main character is generic and doesn't really have any particular traits except for "is sad".

The writing itself is also pretty poor quality. The dialogue is flat and uninspired, takes a long time to say anything. In particular the sexy stuff is awkward and mechanical. There's no eroticism. A lot of people can deal with bad character and story writing in a porn game, but bad sex writing is a much more significant issue!

The actual gameplay is... fine? it's not amazing but it's not terrible. it's perfectly mediocre. Disappointingly, that makes it the best thing about the game. When your porn game could have all the porn removed and actually increase in quality, that's kind of a problem.

The art is... well, regardless of one's feelings on AI image generation, it clearly has some huge practical limitations. Whatever process the dev is using is evidently capable of (sometimes) producing "nice"-looking images, admittedly with an airbrushed look that's sort of like the cover of a magazine. The character faces portraits are okay. But it's just utter trash at making sexy images. Not a single CG in the entire game is even remotely erotic! Even the simplest of compositions, like a girl by herself without clothes on and nothing else in the image, manages to look kind of ugly and off, like it was drawn by an alien who didn't really know what humans looked like. Anything more complex - anything with multiple people in the image - is even worse. What's the point of a porn game where you can't fap to the porn because you keep noticing the weird fingers and the limbs melding into one another and getting creeped out?

But ironically while the art is AI-generated and looks pretty awful, the text, which isn't AI-generated, also manages to read like it was written by a fairly primitive AI!

In conclusion: avoid.

TL;DR: Pretty boring and shallow, with the AI art being more of a detriment than a boon. Has some decent ideas but doesn't really give you a reason to be invested.

I was expecting good things after keeping my eye on the game and seeing people praise it but I just don't see it. Let's just get into it, yeah?

The art:
This will be mercifully short: It's not great. I already don't like AI art for feeling lifeless and lacking style, but on top of that there are flaws with it everywhere. Clothes morph into skin, hands weird as usual, most of the background art is really low quality for some reason, etc. I would honestly much rather the dev spend time on other things like writing or gameplay than trying to salvage the art with edits.

The writing:
Definitely the most underwhelming part of this game for me. There's just... nothing here it feels like. I can see a glimmer of interesting and good ideas hidden beneath, but it's just so bogged down by expedited and boring writing. What do I mean by this? Well let's just look at the intro as an example.

MC is lead up to a mountain for punishment, and it seems as if his death is at hand. The mood is somber and dreary from the get-go as it should be. Once MC gets to the summit of the mountain, his guards leave him be to guard the roads off the mountain when they could just be guarding MC still, and MC... falls asleep. Just out of the blue, right before he thinks he's going to die....Okay. Sure I guess? Maybe it'll be explained in a second(nope).

MC wakes up in another world and while curious, the only real thing on his mind is survival. He comes across the dead body of an animal and a disembodied voice from the woods tells him he shouldn't touch flesh. MC listens to this strange voice for whatever reason and moves on to wander a bit and find his home for the time being.

That's... that's it? We wake up in a completely different place after we think we're going to be executed still alive, a random disembodied voice that for all you know could be a hallucination tells you not to touch flesh, and you just accept all this? No questions? No thoughts of going insane perhaps? This series of completely unbelievable events is just something our MC accepts? That's... silly. And massive fucking wasted potential. Millions of things should be going through MC's head. Where the fuck am I? Why should I listen to this random voice? Am I still going to be killed? Is this my punishment? Are they going to find me? Etc. I don't care how stone cold a character is(which he isn't), they're going to react in a much stronger way to this series events than what was written.

Okay iffy intro aside, what about the rest of the game? Ehhhhh. A lot of it feels stiff and clumsy. Sort of like the writer had a list of things he wanted to get through, and didn't really care how unnatural it felt. Pretty much every piece of dialogue exemplifies this. It just feels like these aren't real people, since it feels so robotic and stiff. Perhaps you could argue this was a stylistic choice with the characters, but that should be explained to the player and even then I feel it could be done better.

The characters are just... okay. MC is depressed and tries to do anything to keep his mind off of it. Pretty interesting and opens up interesting story-telling, right? Well he immediately simps over the first girl he sees to the point where he knows touching her will kill him(as far as he knows at that point), yet seriously admits he might be tempted to fuck her at some point. Huh? Listen I like pussy as much as the next guy, but I'm not killing myself over a crumb of pussy. No sane man would.

Raven the first girl and camp member just feels like an annoying child. Whether it be her just saying random bullshit I don't care about, moving from one topic to another like she has ADHD, or her calling a vagina a "puss-puss", it just feels like I'm not interacting with an adult. The other girl D'Alena has probably spoken about 10 words total to me. It's definitely intentional but I can't see it's too endearing to have both camp members either be purposefully obtuse or not talk at all. Maybe she has more content that would endear me to her but I'm just too bored of the game at this point.

Which segues very well into my next point:
The game is just boring, man.
I tried to enjoy it, I really did. But there's just nothing to make me care about it. No interesting story hook, combat is boring and mid at best, basically no sound, the game doesn't even full-screen properly, etc. The writing has some interesting ideas and is decently presented but it all feels so hollow. If you've ever played an HTML game, that's exactly what the writing feels like.

You're just a guy who got isekai'd into a somewhat interesting world but all you do are boring encounters interspersed with okay sex scenes or meh dialogue. You're plopped into this world without a real goal and are expected to care about what's going on.

I wanted to like this one but I just couldn't.

V0.1.9

i have tried this a couple of times now and am not a fan.
the whole AI created art is a gimmick. nothing more and not that impressive.
to be used as a selling point highlights that it is ALL this will be known for. a positive? not really

art aside, the game is designed to force you along a single path designed by the developer. any other way of playing WILL lead to a game over. you play exactly how the developer wants you to play and like it or keep restarting until you do......it really is disappointing

the mechanics are designed very much to force you into this single path and the whole game is more a creation for frustrating players into rage quitting or discovering a penchant for masochism.

if strangled gameplay and game design is your thing then this may well be right up your street, however if you are a player who likes a little freedom to your games, much like myself, then i recommend this for the ignore list

Honestly, I didn't expect much going into this game, but I was pleasantly surprised by the universe and the characters. They're not the deepest that have ever been created, but they serve well their role of dangerous, lonely creatures in a world just as mysterious and dangerous, and I for once I think the imperfections in the AI art help a lot in selling this aspect of your companions and enemies not beig quite human, so I'd say the immersion is a success.

As for the rest, I'm not a fan of management games, but here it's not too overly complex and it gets less and less grindy as I leveled up and got new upgrades and companions. I like the randomness of the travels and enemy encounters, it reminds me of Corruption of Champions in a good way, with the unpredictable nature of the world and its inhabitants, although that feeling wears off quickly on repeated playthroughs.

As for the sex scenes, I think this is where the AI art is a detriment to the game. It's good to see Stable Diffusion is finally capable of making illustrations of nude girls, but it's certainly not there for actual porn, and the images have to be carried by the text to be meaningful in any way. Also, due to AI unpredictability, the NPCs and landscape illustrations constantly change between each image, which can be quite a pain to paint a mental picture of the world and its inhabitants. The game tries to cover this up as the in-game world shifting like a spirit world, which I find funny and appropriate in a way.

The dev really tried his hardest to use the potential of AI art to its fullest, and I honestly applaud that effort. I know many people hate AI art for what it represents, but just for once, I think people should take a look at this game and give it a chance. It's a pretty shallow game in the end, but at least it's not stupidly hard or frustrating like other games in that genre can be.

Good luck for your project! I'll be keeping an eye out for it.

This is probably one of the best games on this site, though be warned that it's more akin to an HTML game than you traditional Ren'Py fare. Everything from the fetishes explored to the writing to the systems is excellent. Despite being very text-based, it's incredibly evocative and my only regret is finding it in its early stages and therefore when it has the least amount of content.

I can't recommend this enough and I sincerely hope the dev keeps up the quality; truly amazing.

5 starts for the dialogue box alone. I loved it when Disco Elysium showed me there was a better way to show text in a video game then the old rectangle on the bottom.

Art's good, writing has some actual skill in it, and there might even be actual world building.

Minor nitipick with the settlement and combat UI, but that's relative to the look of the gorgeous dialogue box. Have I told you how much I love it?

[v0.1.3]
The strengths of the game lies in the world that has been presented. The characters while few at the moment, are well crafted and I hope to see them fleshed out with further updates. The writing so far has been excellent, and I have no complaints- assuming their is no steep grind in the future, of course. Overall, this was an interesting experience (in a good way) and I'm looking forward to the plot progression.

Love the art made from Stable Diffusion. AI-generated art is awesome. The game itself is fun so far and has a lot of potential. Definitely a game that's going on my watchlist and eagerly waiting updates.

this is for [v0.1.2], i.e., a very early version; accordingly rating is provisionally

Very promising start. Excellent writing, interesting world building and story. The AI generated images are fine. There is some danger of grind, I suppose, we will see how this develops.

Excellent first start.
v0.1.1 review.

It's always hard to judge a first build but what's here shows a lot of potentials. The writing and storytelling in the game is fantastic, the UI and layout of the game elements are all solid, and you get a sense of where this game is going to go. The AI generated artwork feels different and fresh and yet at the same time a little bit familiar, which is what happens with AI art. But still, I think there's great potential for the game, even if at this stage there is a lot of polish and building to go.

I will give it 4 stars, not 5, because quite frankly for the while I played, there was some NSFW but really nothing fappable. We'll see where that goes in the future.