VN - Ren'Py - Our Red String [Ch.13.3.6] [Eva Kiss]

What on earth can I say to do this game justice? All I can say is that Eva Kiss and team did it again and has a made an amazing story. This story is much deeper than Good Girl Gone Bad, and even features some characters from that game which is great.

This game is deep on multiple levels. The characters are constantly intertwined and interact with each other. Both main characters have quite many friends that they hang out with, interact with and share their thoughts with. In turn these various characters meet the two main characters and so different dynamics are made. I really like this, as it creates a deep story.

Eva Kiss is also an amazing writer. This is shown through playing as two characters who interact with one another. It takes a steady hand to not mess such a project up - especially when it translates into a game.

The characters have real personality, feelings, aspirations, ambitions, desires and so on. I find that all the character are very distinct - at no point did I have to ask myself who the hell "Ivy" is, because the characters developed well enough for them to stand out. This is shown in multiple ways, but mostly through their personalities. For instance Ivy and or no-nonsense straight forward comments, Louise and her insecurities, Perry with his stuttering thoughtfulness. I could go on, the point is that all the characters are really well made, and it that is shown throughout the story. It makes them very relatable.

The story is exceptionally well written. I'm not just talking in terms of choices of which there are many. I'm talking in terms of how it is written. The different characters "speaks" in different ways and this is excellently shown through the writings. It's just so well made.
It is also really nice where different options becomes available or disable depending on your decisions. Like, do you support your friend in some heated arguement or do you end up sleeping with a girl he likes etc? Likewise, the decisions you take on the romantic paths has great influence on the game. Afterall these are characters with their own feelings and relations with one another. The excellent writings makes it interesting to follow the various characters as you help shape their lives through your actions.

Fair warning; the art is beautiful, but this is not a game where you immediately can unbutton your pants and expect to find some hot scenes 5 minutes in. This is not that type of game. Sure you can fast track, but then you basically lose out on all the good stuff that makes this game so amazing.

Anyway, here's a quick summary:

The Good:

• Beautiful art and there's plenty of it.
• Deep and meaningful story - you even get to play from two perspectives.
• Fleshed out characters with distinct personalities. You really get to feel the friendship with your buddies.
• Decisions that matter and have a lasting impact.
• All the characters are inter-related and interacts with one another inside the story.
• Awesome writing which really helps to outline the characters.

The In-Between:

• It would be cool with more clothing options - especially for Ian.

The Bad:

• I cannot think of anything.

One of the best porn game/vn i ever played, the only comparsion is GGGB from the same dev, the quality of writing and pictures are awesome, the amount of choices u have for both protags is great, the only thing i dislike is the fact u heavily pushed into Ian/Lena relationship, and i feel weird putting them together since i control them both(i dont do self inserts but i still have some connection to them and i'm just not into this), but u can eventually put a stop to this without ruining the friendship so its all good, i like all the girls in this game, but my favorite for Ian is Alison and Minerva, if dev put a real root with good ending for the boss if i'm honest i will just "give" Allison to Jeremy, i just love this milf and this is the real one and not some "i'm a 40 years old milf that looks like 20", Allison is awesome too ofc, on Lena side i really like Louise, but Lena relationship with her seems quite shallow as of 0.8 update so idk, i feel kind of bad for her when i "date" her, since Lena doesnt seems to care about her, the Jeremy thing is a nice side dish but only for fap imo, i did not care much for other guys to be honest, since Robert is kinda trash(idk why he has so many scenes, but they are alright , he just so shallow and plain), and Mike only good for a fap since he is a cheater because of u, so i dont take him seriously(what to stop him from ditching u for the next pussy now that he know how its like to cheat), but i take this plot too seriously, but that the thing about this game, its not just a porn game, in some games u just skip the text since its garbage anyway, but its not the case here, so that a definitive plus, u really care about those characters when u play it, just like u cared about Ashley from GGGB, forgot to mention Holly, she is alright, and the dev definitly sets her up for a future poly or something(she also kinda feel like a dev self insert, but that just my opinion), i romanced her with Lena, cant tell u much on Ian side since i just like Allison and the boss too much to pay her any attention on that end, i reccomend this game to everyone, even if u are not into reading, just play it, u will like it i assure u, good luck to the dev with future updates and other projects!

Just like its prodecesor this game is full of choises. Choice that can make or ruin who wants to sleep with and it follows. If you aren't fully devotion to wooing a girl you ain't wooing her ever. It is much slower pace than Girl Gone Bad though. Which can be considered both strength and weakness.

Worth mentioning that it provide both male and female pov of the story, so thats always interesting. The girls and boys look good, no ugly buisness or netorare. Overall i would enjoy it anytime. But not lust after it.

Best game I've played. Came for a good fap and got not only that, but also a great story that kept me entertained throughout the whole play-through. I am looking forward to the updates, and I highly recommend it.

GGGB was absolutely incredible, probably my favorite game that I've played and Our Red String has the potential to be even better.

I've played up to .8 and it's fantastic. ORS is pretty ambitious when you think about it and Eva Kiss is fucking nailing it. To have multiple protagonists with their own individual yet converging story lines. To have both characters have a multitude of different choices with the possibility of changing the plot at each turn. It's incredible from a creative and technical standpoint.

The artwork in ORS took a step up from GGGB yet it still carries the same draw that made GGGB stand out as unique and beautiful.

As a note, .8 carries an incredible amount of content. A soft guess of about 6-8+ hours in a single play-through.

Compared to the author's previous game, the narrative is unfocused and somewhat dragging. Quite a few superfluous systems add to the tedium of repeated playthroughs (the stats, the book writing, the songwriting, etc.). The more unconventional themes of the previous game are toned down to a pretty vanilla experience, where the most transgressive sexual motifs are its vaguely racist interracial scenes. To top it all off, there's a scene with jarringly offensive transphobic language, and a pervasive sense of problematic ideas informing the narrative.

All in all, pretty disappointing sophomore attempt by Eva Kiss.

I'd initially downloaded this AVN because the story seemed a bit interesting. Never in my wildest dreams had I expected to find such a literary gem on an erotic site. The writing, the art(which is apparently hand-drawn, which deserves its own praise altogether), the way our choices actually seriously affect the story... it's almost unheard of to find an AVN like that.

This AVN is very unique. Every choice mattered and would be used further on in the story. I look back on my own playthrough, and see that if I'd made just one wrong(in my opinion) choice as Lena, it would have changed most of the future chapters and character interactions. That's basically unheard of in an Adult Visual Novel. I have a lot of favorites on this site that I've used just to pass the time, but speaking from an objective standpoint as a writer and artist myself, the only other AVN I can see competing with this from a literary standpoint, would be BADIK. That's not even a guarantee.

Your actions actually have consequences in this AVN. That's something that I wish other developers would use more in their own AVN's. You cannot just waltz around, screwing everyone as you please. The LI's are also not in nun-mode until you decide to sleep with them. If you want something casual, that's what you will get. If you want something serious, then you're going to have to work for it and believe that you may have to discontinue any casual relationships at that time to put more focus into your main relationship. It's frighteningly realistic.

I can go on for a few hours about this AVN, but basically it's an experience. It's unique and not something that you can find emulated in other AVN's on this site. You may find one or two trying, but none this successful. Every choice is connected or has consequences behind it. That alone puts this AVN on an entirely different level than most others on this site.

Plot: 10/10
Art: 10/10 (keep in mind that these characters are indeed hand-drawn)
Soundtrack: 10/10 (nothing unique, but great enough to the point that every song used perfectly fits the mood or situation it is being played in)
Characters: 10/10 (so realistic it's scary)
Dialogue: 10/10 (Also very realistic... like I can go out and witness similar conversations between friends of mine. The quality of dialogue in this AVN is matched by very few on this site)
Overall: 10/10

The story and the branches from choices are better than Telltale or other choice-based games. You actually feel like every decision matters, they don't all lead you to the same thing. The drawings are great as well, but doesn't really matter, the story and choices compensate for anything else!

Was uncertain at first but I grew to love the game. Characters are believable, it is well written and makes for good narrative experience. I like that it has some story and it isn't there to serve as filler between sex scenes. Those are hot too, though and quite variable and it certainly helps. Maybe the best game here overall.

Just perfect. Initially I was a bit apprehensive as I wasn't sure that artwork will interest me but how wrong I was. I loved it. I loved everything about the game.

The art style is unique and characters look great, writing is unbelievable & top-notch. What can I say that others have not said before. This is amazing work. Thank you Eva Kiss.

0.8
great story and believable plot. So much content for a compressed version at 110~ MB file. Along with the great art style there's a great story. One possible improvement was if instead of focusing on 2 protagonists, release 2 games with the 2 different protagonists.

A game where choices do matter is always welcome. Characters are fleshed out and importantly some grow on you over time. Unlike a lot of games where everyone feels set in stone from 0.01. Needs more romance outside of the main pairing but so far top quality.

Wow... just wow...

Dont know where to start.

I had one playthrough so far (v0.8) but i already saw so many options for many many playthroughs. I dont know how many different partners they can get... but i counted at least 6 possibilities for Lena and the same count for Ian... Thats really heavy. And as far as i see it, the ways the Protagonists can go are very very different paths. Never ever played something like this so far at f95.

No other game got so many different paths like this one here, as far as i know.

All Charactres are very different, some are loveable, others are just douchebags or sluts. But everyone seems to be important for the relationships between all the charactres and everyone seems to be intertwined with each other in someway. And most of these relationships will be discovered later in the game as a surprise... what keeps everythign really interesting.

The Art of the hand drawn graphic is really awesome and something else... absolutely top notch. I just love it.

The storytelling is just perfect, every charactre acts really believable i think. (at least in my playthrough) and every charactre has its very unique profile and act like it...

What stands out for me is the fact, that you cant bend the MCs. You have to decide what kind of person Lena and Ian are, and the skillpoint will set the frame how you can act inside of it... I got at some point that i had to kiss Cindy... cause i was getting to near her all the time, i didnt have a will-point at that point of the story and Ian acted just like this... he couldnt get the will together to resist this feeling... (i did a reload and played this thing a little bit different to stay faithful too lena than) and i must say, that was really good writing... it was absolutely plausible to me at this point in my playthrough that there was something buliding up between cindy and Ian, other games will give you than just the option like "go for it" or not... but here its different... how you act the entire game leads to different outcomes and most of the time you cant turn just things around with ONE choice. And thats really remarkable.

To summarize

Awesome look, awesome writing, awesome charctres, awesome charactre development.

This is not just a game, this is Art!

Cant wait for updates and for the game to be finished.

As another guy said, reviews are pretty rhetorical at this point, but it wouldn't feel right to have played this piece of art and not left a rating and a few words.

Just about everything in this game is top notch, but to me the most impressive aspect is the complex structure of intertwining character storylines, and how they tie into both Ian and Lena's weekly lives, with no visible plot holes - that takes crazy writing skill to achieve. It feels dynamic, believable and is thoroughly immersive.

In fact, if I had to describe this game in one word, it would be just that: Immersive.

Well, immersive and hot.

(Especially dominant Ian. Oh my lord...)

At first I was pretty skeptical about this game since the sex scene pretty much looked like stale images, and I thought it would be just another grindfest. So when I started I pretty much came in with low expectations.

To start with the improvement that could be done: the only really thing that could be better about this game could be the sex scenes tbh. I really would like to see some more animated scenes this would even better the total experience. That is the reason for me to give it a 4 instead of a 5, but other than that it's a pretty solid game.

And so I did not came out dissapointed I am quite suprised of how it turned out actually. The story turns out to be really well written I didn't see any gramar mistakes which could put down the experience. The characters were pretty much believeable there was no crazy situation from any character that would be unbelievable or take me out of the story. I actually cared about what was happening to certain characters which does not always happen often to me. And damn the choices there were lots of them which actually had an impact on the story, which is not always the case for many other games where choices are just an illusion of choice.

Some of the choices I couldn't find myself to make on my first playtrough because I didn't fell good on my conscious because it could hurt another character that I would actually care about. And if a game can pull that off to me then man you are on the right track. Altrough I feel like both mcs are just made for each other. Just keep on going and I am happy to see more and to know were it will all end.

If you ever feel useless, remember there was a guy who wrote the 130th review for this game without anything new to add. But since I enjoyed the game so much I wanted to leave a rating anyway.

'Great'. 'Fantastic'. 'Almost perfect'. I doubt that anything I write down would really do the game justice. The writing is superb and realistic, the artwork is unique and gorgeous, there are many different paths and choices that actually have an impact on the story, plenty of lewd settings with various kinks, lovely music, sounds, etc, etc.

The only thing I could think of that would make this game even better are animations. But honestly, who cares about that if the artwork is so freakin' nice and sexy? Not me.

I don't know if there is a better game on this site. I don't know if there is a better interactive visual novel out there. I don't know if there is even an adult game that can accomplish what Our Red String has ambitiously done so far; constructing a world where frequent ravishingly crafted characters who actually assert their existence. More than being objects for our sexual gratification, each of them has a life, problems, shortcomings, that intersect one another in a seemingly mysterious way. And in those characters, like our MCs Ian and Lena, is a libidinal drive that pushes them to strive, to seek, to find.

To do a critical reading of this game is by no means to underappreciate its erotic madness. Especially in the way EvaKiss reveals them in their alluring nakedness. In this aspect alone Our Red String has already put itself at a radically different level than most of the games on this site. With all due respect to other creators who give all their hearts into creating and giving us joy. 3dcg games with built-in models often don't have as much designing freedom and can't bring to life the vibrancy, the intimacy like, for example, the way Eva juxtaposes the ideal male and female bodies, reaching into the depth of our instinct to love, to adore, to infatuate.

Therefore, to be critical of the game is to take it as a serious work of art that sets out to make timeless statements about the human conditions.

Structurally Our Red String is a conservative game. As the lives of Ian, an aspiring writer and Lena, nude model and waitress, fade from frame to frame, we quickly realize that Ian's fate, if he is to be rewarded sexually, is to become a strong confident man who knows just the right things to say, like Lena whose eventual path of participating in sex work is reflective of the way she has to play into and commodify her femininity. To use the terms from Eva's previous work, they can become "bad" to the extreme but only toward the direction that their gender roles allow. In that way Eva has constructed a binary where the "bad" archetypes of the fuckboy and the sexually liberated girl are on one hand, and the romantic ideal of a couple striving for "good" monogamous love on the other.

Why is this binary constructed? Does it have anything to do with the predominant sexual fantasies of us who consume this game? Could that be the reason why there is a curiously lack of gay intimacy whereas lesbian love is not only present, but critically shapes most of the female characters we've seen? Like Ian, who stumbles upon a surreal scenery and is made to confront his free will, we too find the paths of our sexuality pre-written. I think it's important to think about the forces at play that have had an overarching influence over the realm of our sexual imaginary even before we are conscious of desire. If not for anything, for creators to make better games that not only subvert stereotypes, but to even critique the commodified matrix of desire itself.

As a huge fan of Eva's first game, Good Girl Gone Bad, I was a bit sceptical to play this as it has a male and female MC.
Pretty glad i did though. It really drew me in with the way both Lena and Ian's friends interact and not always on good terms.

I played through the current content twice: first time Lena goes for Holly and Louise while Ian goes for Alison and Cindy. The second playthrough I had lena and Ian get serious. Both were fun plays.

Eva does her usual great job at creating drama and interesting but believable characters, I will say that I hated Ian's friends though...Perry is a whiny, annoying loser and Wade is a lazy, complacent douche who takes Cindy for granted. A hot girl will not put up with a lazy couch potato for too long...trust me

Personally I'd love to just play as Lena and pursue just the other hot girls in this game, but that's my own naughty tendencies coming out haha.

Great game with a lot of content so far, beautiful art and great writing. Love your work Eva x

So I bounced of this at first because it takes a while to get started. Came back recently when I saw it in latest. I'm glad I did it turned out to be really good, the build up works in this. It does exactly what a VN should do build up the relationships and dynamics between characters to make the scenes hotter. Overall it's a a well written VN with good scenes, hot women and is good at building characters and the dynamics between them. Allison, Cindy and Emma in particular are great. Having both a male and female MC is also nice.

I have only one criticism and it links to having two main characters. The woman mc is not handled quite as well as Ian the other main. Her and her interactions can be a a bit bland. She's not bad by any means but I found myself looking at the ctrl button more than I'd have liked, her actual scenes though are mostly as good as the male MC's.

This is a masterpiece. Best game on the site by far. Unique art style, engaging story, beautiful characters, beautiful background and the scenes are 10/10. Everything about this game just makes it click. Thank you EvaKiss!