VN - Ren'Py - Our Red String [Ch. 13.1 ALPHA] [Eva Kiss]

I thoroughly enjoyed playing Evas GGGB before this one but... ORS falls into a completely different category.
ORS by far has the most innovative and exciting approach to VN I have ever seen.
You are actually playing two opposite characters which, let's say, are on their way to developing very deep intellectual, emotional, and physical relations.
I have been an alpha male all my life and thanks to my wits and charm I usually always got what I wanted. Years of experience, I hope, gave me a pretty good insight into women's psychology but... playing a woman or actually dating myself, as the game puts me in the two opposing roles, is a real challenge and so far (V 0.4) I really love it.
Supporting NPCs are well developed and feel like real-life people you can love or hate or just be friends with and the main story progression so far has been very exciting and exquisitely written.
The visual art style used is far better than in GGGB and right up my alley.
In the end, once it's finished, I expect ORS to become a new standard for quality VNs.

This is one of the best made Stories ever seen on this site. Very fleshed out characters and dialogues. Its probably the first time, i did not try to create a harem and actually help my Friends. This only happens, when you actually care for the characters. So all of you, who are only here for the sex, you will be disappointet. Everybody else will have a avery good Novel at hand.

Love your style. GGGB was excellently written and so is this so far. Love to see that there’s effort put into characters and backstories. Actually makes them seem believable instead of just standard tropes. Glad to see art improve, and looking forward to more!

V0.7 update: The story has been tightened up some, in my opinion. There are still moments when the narrative feels a little exposition-dumpy, but overall I'm eagerly awaiting every update and sucked into every character's story. 5/5

(This review is very early, at v0.3) Tags: Vanilla, slow burn, dating/life sim.

I'm going to begin with the con because it does stand out. First, when I say this is a slow burn, I mean SLOW. Not only does Our Red String make an effort to establish every character's backstory and current situation before any plot point, sexual or otherwise, takes place, but the establishment itself is excessively wordy. It's not so much a matter of purple prose as it is a matter of showing more than the tip of iceberg, and explaining things that were already adequately implied. However, this will probably be tightened up in later versions.

With that out of the way, Our Red String does something really cool with its dual protagonists. Each protagonist has their own stats, which means each protagonist develops a unique personality based on those stats. I'm really excited about this because it looks like the player's choices will shape not only whether the characters' actions lead them together, but their compatibility and the type of relationship they'll have.

In addition to that, there's an awesome story in here about pursuing dreams and falling in love during a delicate time of disillusionment--both institutional and personal. There are deep, established friendships you'll actually care about. Yes, the sex looks pretty vanilla so far, and its kinks and sexual situations feel very similar to Good Girl Gone Bad, but Our Red String has a hell of a story in the works for anyone seeking some legit erotica.

Evakiss is doing it again! The art in this game is really well done and the writing is what separates it from every other game. Cringiness is rare and the connections feel realistic. Probably the best part is the endless options and trees available for the player to choose from. It's definitely not easy to write those much less to write them so well. Looking forward for more content

**Here's the 0.7 ALPHA Update to my review.**
If you wish to read my earlier writeups, do so, but I need to make something clear: 5/5 doesn't cut it. I rated this game a perfect note early on, but I can't revise it higher... Chapter 7 is too much of a gamechanger. To keep this review spoiler free: I'll just say the payoff for the narrative buildups is very significant.

After a few years trying different H-games / VNs / Sex mods, you get jaded by the overused tropes: 1) H-JRPGs (Kagura, etc.) that are essentially variations on the same concepts (the heroine will invariably work in a tavern at some point, seems like); 2) RenPy "harem" VNs full of MILFs / "How I Met My Mother?"; 3) "Trainers" that are reaching for ideas on how to sluttify the female secondary "protag" after they exhausted their initial pitch...

I don't want to insult other genres too much (to each their kinks), but H-games afficionados become extremely cautious about trying new titles. I played GGGB when it was still in mid development, and I thought it was one of the best. I tried replaying it recently, and it pales in comparison to Our Red String. I expect some of the better elements of GGGB to eventually come to ORS (tattoos, piercings, more clothing options, perhaps haircuts/), but on it's own, ORS is a much more solid foundation, and a much more original take on the genre. To this day, it is the only H-game I recommend to my friends shamelessly, regardless of gender. I talked about it to both my ex and to my best friend who teaches in university, both women.

The downside with great games, is that they make it hard to go back to other titles. There a quite a few other good VNs out there, but none of them do it for me like ORS does. It is a mature game for people who enjoy their porn with interesting drama. EvaKiss deserves my utmost respect.

Older reviews:
While this review is done based on v0.3 ALPHA, this game is bound to become one of my Top 10 favorite H-games (based on 300+ games tried). I was already enamored with GGGB, the art is much better in this one, and while I am not a huge fan of male protagonist games in general (I play mostly female protag.), this one is really stimulating. Playing both sides of a linked story is something I haven't seen that much before.

I'll update the review based on future releases.

v0.5 ALPHA Update: I'll definitely have to try and add more to my review of this game. I find myself coming back to look for updates of this title more frequently than I usually look for. I've played so many games, yet this is the only one in which I have legitimately had such strong emotional reactions to the characters. It's partly a matter of taste, because while I like un-relatable bimboification stories where people get slutified by cosmic rays or space parasites, it's fun to read a story that *could happen* to people around you.

It's still early to give this 5 stars, but I did anyway because this VN is really good. While I liked EvaKiss's other game, I was not a huge fan of the character. The characters in this game, however, have drawn me in. For example, I normally can take or leave the NTRish aspects in games and am not usually bothered when a female character breaks from their love interest, but man, I found myself really feeling all angsty when Lana was with other dudes. It will be interesting moving forward to see how I play it.

The writing is as good as her other game and the story is solid. I like that the women have brains as well as looks and you can direct them according. Not all the guys are cocky bastards, but they are not all perfect gentlemen either.

My only cons are that the BBC characters always seem to be players and hung up on their size and think all women will swoon over them yada yada yada. I like BBC scenes, but the portrayal of the guys just seems stereotypical and easy. There are couple other things I have issues with, but it is too early to make judgements on them as the story needs to develop more.

If you are into story driven games/VNs then this is a good one. There are plenty of paths; if you want to avoid NTR, you can. If you don't mind a little, you can do that as well. If you want to be pure as the driven snow, you have that option as well. It will be interesting to see how the story plays out.

UPDATE: As of version 0.6, I am dropping a star. SPOILERS TO FOLLOW.

Lena has obviously been kinky in the past. Some of the things she hinted at with Alex leads one to believe she was a submissive and into some form of BDSM so we know there more there than the girl next door. At the same time, she seems to have "seen the light" so to speak and is obviously looking for something more than the shallow relationship she had with Alex. So it's odd to me that she can go from having a flirty, sexting with Ian and immediately go into thinking about Mike, Robert and Alex (if she kept the photos) all in the same scene.

The whole Mike thing bothers me anyway. I like that Lena can opt out because she was on the other end of the cheating previously, but if she opts in, she seriously opts in and basically is belittling the GF. While this makes for a hot scene, it does not fit the character of Lena.

For my money, if she is seeing Ian regularly, then her desire/thoughts for the other guys should be going down. At the very least, there should be some impact to her dialogue where she start questioning all the guys. There should be some drama there. Should she continue seeing other guys? How does she really feel about Ian?

Up until that point, it seemed to be fine, but suddenly Lena turns into supper slut. Just dissapointed.

O.R.S. is really a bread&butter of EvaKiss - great art style, high attention to details, almost perfect narration and of course involving story full of kinks.
Those familiar with previous EvaKiss projects will surely find many similiarities because the influence is strong. However, there's also a lot of new stuff - new game offers more complex character advancement (by stats and skills) and multiple protagonist system.
I truly recommend this one, it's very addictive!

Already has the potential to be way better than Eva's previous game, GGGB.

Pros

Very well written characters. There's eight female characters (so far), excluding one of the protagonists and they all feel unique. There's individual quirks and personality to all of them. The same goes for the men. There's nuance here which is greatly appreciated.

The female protagonist doesn't start the game off as a prude or a slut, but rather someone who is very liberal in how she views sex and her body. With her insecurities shed it makes her potential corruption far more believable because she never really had that many hangups to begin with, it's more like reconciling with the fact that "Hey, maybe I'm a slut now and that's okay."

It feels like a story of normal people. Most of the women are gorgeous but the characters are relatable and seem like people that one might have in their circle of friends.

I'm a fan of this art style, and at first I thought this was a knock-off of GGGB until I saw who the developer was and got instantly excited.

A very believable at work sexual harassment subplot. This is par for the course with corruption games but it's handled very tactfully here where her boss uses his power to his advantage, in a subtle way, so our heroine going along with it makes absolute sense from a self-preservation standpoint. It's not blackmail, but leveraging, which is a thing that definitely happens in real life.

Quite a bit of gameplay for it only being in chapter two.

RPG-esque skill unlocks. Choosing specific responses increases ones aptitude in something such as Charisma, Wit, Athletics and Lust. So far I'm not really sure how these factor in, though, but it's a foundation for... something.

Your choices absolutely do have consequences.

*The two protag approach is interesting.

Limbo

Definitely seeds here for some heavy ntr despite that not being included among the tags. It seems avoidable but it depends on your choices. For instance, if you choose not to pursue one girl, your friend will, but if you pursue her how will that affect your relationship with the other protagonist? It feels like a slippery slope. Be forewarned if ntr takes you to your sad place.

Cons

*The game is really pushing for the two protags to be involved romantically. Even if you try to pick the worst responses when interacting with the other character they'll still think about the missed opportunity or whatever and it took me awhile before the female protag was like "Maybe I don't care about this guy at all."

I'm not really a fan of male protag games because so many seem like wish-fulfillment more than anything else, while this game isn't that since it's far more grounded in reality, I still find myself not caring about the male character in this game even if he seems fine enough. If I have the option to make his life miserable though, I will relish in that and turn this con into a pro. I do, oddly enough, like his camaraderie with his friends as it feels really organic.

Depending on how you play there's not a whole lot of sexual content so far. I chose stupid things for the guy and slutty options for the girl and there were two scenes for her, both of which were with the same character.

Summation

Very, very strong potential. Excellent writing, which is great since there's not much sex! The two character system is a nice concept, though I wish they weren't so dependent upon each other. Can't wait for the next update and honestly, I'll probably go be a Patron of this game because I believe in it, and the developer.

Loving everything this author does - early stages in this game but already looking so promising. At first I wasn't sure about the dual protagonists, but I think after the redo of the first chapter it's on a really balance level now. The biggest thing I hate about this game is waiting for a new release! At least she is quite regular and prompt with updates - looking forward to the next!

Review based on v 0.2. The problem, that the previous game had, has been solved in new game. The quality of the art has grown impressively. Multiple characters. New "rpg based" game mechanics looks good. Same interesting topics about: work, adult life, sport, relationship and love. 5 stars as an advance

after the great success of good girl gone bad I started with very high expectations and I am really happy to be able to say that, for the moment, they seem satisfied. compared to the first chapter, the technical sector has improved a lot. the touch of eva kiss is recognized in the drawings and in its ability to capture human emotions, but all with a renewed and improved graphic design. the idea of dividing the story with two different focuses is brilliant, because it allows you to experience the adventure from all points of view. the plot, as in the previous chapter, is fundamental, for the moment well written and will certainly be well developed, given the bases set. the plot seems to be able to assume enormous proportions and the ramifications of the plot due to the choices seem to be dozens and dozens, even more than in gggb. surely this is an ambitious project, which I hope the developer can carry out with the perseverance and commitment shown so far, with full-bodied monthly updates as it has always been. something is still missing to give the maximum, because it is a game just started, but I can not give less than 4 stars, by virtue of the aforementioned. I hope not to be disappointed and I thank developer and admin for adding it to the catalog.

DIsappointing, after the promise of the first chapter I found the new chapter to be a real disappointment. It seems the Dev is setting up the female protagonist to have multiple men vying for her attention, yet the male protagonist tries to hook up with the girl he's known since high school and he can't get it up. She is the one other girl who has expressed any interest in him and he had to compete against another friend for her attentions. I know that often in real life attractive men don't get as much attention as attractive women but the fact that he ends up with ED the first time that he attempts sex with someone is ridiculous. The rest of the game is a real slow burn, real slow burn.

Pros: Well done art, even though 2D, okay story

Cons: Okay story, no fappable material, uninspiring characters.

After playing through .2 its pretty clear that EvaKiss is going to do it again. Eva Kiss has been in my opinion the most impressive creator on patreon giving consistent and satisfying updates on a schedule that is like clockwork. The writing is effective and engaging the art is clean and erotic from the top down everything about EvaKiss screams professionalism and talent and i look forward to anything that has their name on it. A word of warning for people jumping in for the first time There are tons of routes and when that happens your favorite route may not get updated i imagine this problem is going to be exaserbated because ORS has multiple protagonists. Have patience and know that when its your turn to get what you want it will be done to a level of quality that only evakiss can provide.

Eva went from creating crazy, unexpected and exciting situations with GGGB to this: a generic pornhub scene generato. Pretty much every character is a young top model, every scenes and relationships are boring and predictable.

I don't like the dicision of going with 2 main characters either, Ian is unnecessary.

The visuals and overall production is great, but gadamn this is as boring as it can get. Not even gonna talk about the fact that updates take ages to come and there is some constant back and forth rewriting characters for no reason such as Stan.

Really enjoy the game as a whole. The story and setting bring it all together really well along with the choices that actually make a difference! I've got high hopes that this game keeps on going strong with updates!

Interesting Slice of Life storyline (+)
Great looking art (+)
Basic and fast gameplay (+)
Interesting characters (+)
Male and female protagonists (+)
EvaKiss (+)

I can't wait for spending some high quality time with Cindy

review for the 0.1 , I will update my note as the game is developed


well ... disappointed ...

for the good point :

the art is good
some reference to GGGB like the porn video , hi Ashley , too bad she is not in bimbo mode
aaaaaand that's all ( game in early development , no much to say about it right now )

now for the bad point :...

first , two character is not a good idea , or at least let us chose which one we want to play but don't force us to play both
the last game was re-playable many time so if you let us chose we can replay a lot of time and explore each character

the character are not very interesting right now , I know it's just the beginning , but in GGGB the character were far more interesting at the beginning
right now , the majority are just ... meh ... , and some of them are fucking annoying like the roommate friend of the male MC , he is just a idiot and every time he speak he make me want to punch him with his fucking s-s-s-stutter
and the male roommate of the female mc ( yeah I don't retain the name right now ) is fucking ugly , I know it's the cliché of the fat ugly nerd but right here its too much and more disappointing , he don't act like a total perv or a total sub at the boot of the female mc

and the sexual content , the most disappointing part , 1 hour in game a no fucking sex scene , just a dick , some tits and that's all ...
seriously , in GGGB in the first 15 min I already had fucked 3 different person ( or at least , had the choice to do it )
why the male mc can't try to seduce every girl he met at the beginning ?
why the female mc can't act like a total slut at the beginning ?
so much sexual opportunity missed in this story ..
I WANT CHOICES , I just want real choices , and here I just got choices that influence obscure stat ..

I hope the future update won't just continue the story but also add content to the already existing story

but right now I'm afraid this game will not be half as good as the first one , who was on my top 3 of the best porn game I've played ( and I played a lot of game )
seriously I've played GGGB 20 time and I'm still discovering new things , so it will be hard to beat

Both sides now


After the excellent Good Girl Gone Bad with its numerous choices and possible routes I had high hopes for Our Red String - and I haven't been disappointed so far.


The good

• Gorgeous illustrations (I was reserved at first when I saw previews of the new char design with its saturated shading, but in combination with the beautiful, colourful backdrops it looks just right).
• Nice selection of music
• Both male and female MC PoV (= innovative game design)
• Interesting, realistic and relatable characters
• Decent writing (proper English, slice-of-life dialogue & story)
• Tons of (sometimes even branched) choices with meaningful consequences
• Beautiful UI (smartphone)
• Slim & stylish text box with excellent readability
• A pinch of RPG atmosphere thanks to the stats system
• Lola (too bad she didn't turn out to be the MC as "promised" ).

The improvable

• Lena not recognising Ian when they meet again (remastered intro) seems weird.
• Some anatomic details (especially concealed breasts) look off.
• Stat requirements to unlock certain conversation options are sometimes too strict.
• Annoying 4th wall breaking "acid trip" scene which felt completely out of place.
• Lena's awful looking ahegao faces.
• Minor bugs (at times display of wrong names when someone is talking).
• (Very few) typos
• Compared to GGGB saving / loading has become less convenient.

Eva Kiss strikes again - no other adult content creator manages to deliver such a perfect blend of art, music, characters, writing, choices and user interface.
Our Red String is one of my favourite adult VNs right now, highly recommended.

Excellent so far, and far better than I expected.

Pros (+) and cons (-)

+ Great artstyle. Absolutely love it! I personally think we need more of these beautiful 2D games instead of the uncanny valley 3D models (yuck) that everyone's been using. This game's characters are beautifully drawn.
+ Very interesting slice-of-life story line. Not too stereotypical, not too try-hard. Just enough for it to be a relatable.
+ Very believable characters that don't fill the tropes. They have diverse personalities. For example, one character seems like a "mean girl" at first glance, but she's actually very friendly. One is good with women, yet he is not your stereotypical superstar hunk. Another one is full of potential, but not really interested in pursuing them. Their struggles are very relatable. Not everyone is super successful, but not everyone is down in the drains also.

- So far? Not really. I mean I'm struggling to think of any cons as I'm typing this. Uh, no sex scenes so far I guess (alpha version)?