VN - Ren'Py - Onhold - Pact with a Witch [v00.20.04j Premium] [jonnymelabo]

The piece offers an original plot that captivates the audience's attention, accompanied by visually nice graphics and thought-provoking dialogues. Overall, it's a compelling experience that I thoroughly enjoyed!

Reviewing v00.20.04j (There will be spoilers)

Pros
- The story overall is great, that alone it's a 4stars quality, i mean the plot twists? Just fantastically done, the horror-parts left me speechless, just top quality writing overall
- The drawing(the complete ones) are great
- Although flawed(see the Cons) Neus and MC are really great characters

Cons
- Five to Six years(if not more) in development, for like 5-6 in-game days with some incomplete branching...yeah that's slow, and disappointing
- Half of the game is incomplete and i don't mean that the game is not completed yet, i mean minigames, arts, and other events like the BDSM-session with Hiromi which is a minigame, half of it is covered placeholder arts or give the warning that the minigame is not ready to be played but meanwhile the story went on A LOT, but that minigame is still unfinished, and this statement can be applied to half of this game
- The game suffers from several bugs, i reported a few of them but i'm not very optimistic considering where we are with the story and how far back i got those bugs
- Didac and Txell are annoying, Didac's defining trait is that he/she is horny ALL the time, he/she is the unfunny comic-relief of the game, the only reason Didac is part of the main cast is his involvement at the beginning of the story(which is stated in the first sentence of the overview of this game), you could easily replace him with anyone else so long that is MC's bestfriend and nothing would really change, the story doesn't specifically need Didac, his role is just: person who MC cares about enough to help him/her, he/she has no special direct relevance in the game like maybe knowing some plot-relevant secret, nope Didac is just a person who becomes the victim of a spell just so that MC will meet Neus, which happens in the first minutes of the game, after that he/she is useless and annoying to have around.
- Txell is the annoyed one of the main cast, she has always something to complain about, her life is in danger, she knows that better than MC(at first) and still refuse to accept compromises and while is a trait that can be cool or to be proud of, that comes at the price of being unable to adapt to new and unpredictable situations, turning her pride into entitlement and spoiled behaviour, is that on purpose? i hope so because Txell is the most annoying character introduced, she lives to inflate her ego basically, has no ounce of love or respect or decency for anyone but Neus
- Neus can be quite the hypocrite, not sure if it's on purpose but in one of the dark routes i played, MC kills someone, she calls out MC yelling insults and stuff(the usual "i thought you were better/i hate you/i don't want to see you anymore!")...problem is if you then play the main/harem route, you learn HOW she started the whole plot(sure someone else gave her the idea, but she chose to do it) and at the same time, she gets rewarded for the evil things she did to trigger the starting point of the plot, MC gets punished brutally for doing something similar(because MY choices XD), i'm not justifying either of them(i made MC do a horrible thing just to check a choice, i went back but knowing what "could have happened" isn't pleasant), i'm complaining about the double standards. What Neus did that is so bad to be compared to MC killing someone in an alternative route? She kidnapped a child (the one in the news that we learn about as soon as MC goes back home with Didac on Day Zero, it's the classic news "the missing kid is still missing" so you know that the kid went missing a while before that day) and killed him just so she could gather the demon-magic energy necessary to push Didac into trying to rape her, just so MC could save her, turn Didac into a woman and blackmail MC into 3 dates, who gave her such idea? The old lady that Neus calls Baba(the old woman that lives with her), which is MC's biological mom which also is Neus' mom, yeeep Neus and MC are twins...yet Neus apparently lived for centuries(commiting various atrocities during satanic rituals), while MC i don't know..20 years? Someone used a slow-aging spell on him? Sorry i'm ranting, point being Neus killed a child just so MC could approach her, instead of doing the first move herself, but she gets rewarded by reuniting with MC, and yes MC can get mad but can't leave Neus because "our demon-father wants us dead, we must stick together anyway, and i love you so much that i'm willing to kill people just to stay with you forever because you're such a great guy that doesn't kill or rape people, and the fact that you're my brother is not a problem!"...yeah, just let it sink in: Neus killed a child to have MC to approach her...when she could just do the first move.
- Like others pointed out, the game(through its characters) pushes its fetishes on you, no idea if they're avoidable while still getting the best ending possible, i only know that the main route so far, forces you to take part in a gangbang on a beach, or have bdsm-sessions with either a tranny(Hiromi) or C18(aka Txell) on a power-trip which i refused both(not sure if it changes something tho), mostly because my favourite form of BDSM is gentledom, and Txell's job and passion is mindfucking people(she says it on her first date) to twist and turn a person's ideas and convictions until they're whatever she wants them to be, sorry but that's not BDSM, it's straight up abuse with a misleading name, which some people may like it but it doesn't change what it is, real dommes are very respectful and rarely forces their sub to do things at least until the sub "GIVES" up their control, and it's not brutally taken by the master/mistress, there are actually serious rules for this whole bdsm-thing(i studied it just to know if i like the genre XD) while here Txell is basically on the hunt, she wants someone who is(if you make the right choices) unwilling to kneel to her, and yet she still insists and when she doesn't get it, she complains and whine like an entitled brat.

UPDATE:
The dev put the game on hold to begin another game, it loses one star

Conclusion
This could be one of my favourite 5stars-worthy game, but again missing drawings(sometimes even missing placeholders), bugs, poorly written characters(mostly Didac and Txell when she isn't explaining something about the main plot, like her connection with Neus or Neus' family), occasional grammar errors or reading spanish while playing the english translation make this 5stars game(with its plot alone) into a cheap 2stars that is good but not nearly enough. If the dev stops for a while and focus on all the "WIP"-stuff he left behind for a while, my rating may rise, but for now this game will be in the "wait to be completed"-list because it's hard to enjoy something so good and yet so fragmented.

Despite all of the unfinished/missing artwork and the overly longwinded dialogue, I really like this game and I hope it gets finished eventually.

+ Characters and story are interesting
+ Art and cut-out animations are excellent
+ Lots of content

- Words, words and more words
- Minigames are terrible
- Too many placeholder images/scenes
- Really needs a walkthrough to enjoy

Review of v00.19.06a
There's much to say but I'll try to keep it short:

The pros:

• The artsyle, it's original and feels fresh.
• The writing
• The animations were once one of cons but thanks to hard work coming from the dev team, it's now one of the best features implemented in the game. Congrats on the 180 !
• The branching narrative for which I'm always a big fan of is so advanced that most people gave up on the idea of having a functionning walkthrough. I love and hate it at the same time it's kind of funny to me !

The cons

• The sound design
• The dev team was clearly not prepared enough for the over branching story which I talked about before. it is not a matter of incompetence but overambition so I hae hopes it can be solved with time.
• The language, I get that the dev is spanish but most people expect game releases to be in english at least at the same time as the native tongue of the developper. I myself am French speaking both english and un poco de espanol so I'm not particularly affected but most people playing the game probably would be.
• The interactive sections, even the ones close to completion, feel really bare bones. You can see that a lot of work was put into it but it's still not good in my opinion. I can't say exactlt why but my best guess would be that the format of the interactions feels off/weird.

Overall, my review may seem harsh but it's reeeeeeaaaallly close to being a good game.
I had a hard time hesitating between 3 and 4 stars. In its current state, it's unfortunately closer to 3 than to 4 but I think it will change in due time !

This review is for an older version and I will update when I play the new one.

I really like this game the art, the history and the kinks are an interesting mix, but the only thing that I dont like from this game is this thing about Didac (beware spoilers) So with all of this said this game is a 3.5/5 for me the part on the spoiler section takes down a few points but I still recommend this game it is one of those games that get you hoocked up pretty fast and as I said Neus is best girl

This is for v00.19.00e

This game has been in development for so long that it's seen multiple presidencies in the U.S.A.

Seriously, when I first found this game it was incredible and I loved it even though the artwork was fairly lackluster and some of the plot points were ridiculous (like the museum minigame where you have to either have a masters in art, or save scum like never before).
At that point in time, Trump was still president, I was a supervisor at a pizza place, and the content pretty much dead stopped at the first real sex scene where you get to finally have sex with your transformed friend.
Since then, Biden is now president, I work a completely different job on a completely different computer, and the content seems to have barely progressed at all and is still incredibly buggy (wandering anatomy is concerning during sex).

At this point, this game could easily be called a scam where the developer is milking the project for every cent they can.

I recommend checking it out once if you've never played it before, and then completely forgetting about it since it will take the heat-death of the universe before this game will be finished.

OK, keeping it simple:

Good

-Decent Plot.
-Setting is Barcelona, with the art and atmosphere to back it up.

Mixed

-Art seems inconsistent at times. One minute the characters look great, another they look like they're airbrushed on the side of a carnival ride. This is especially true for sex scenes.
-Baffling incomplete sections: Now, to be clear on this, this is obviously a game in progress, so obviously some things aren't going to be done. What vexes me is HOW this is done. Choices you can't pick are still offered, which derails whole plotlines. There's an ending, but no art assets for it currently (which would be fine, except it's 20 minutes of black screen). There's minigames, but the dev even says they are broken. Why include things that don't even seem a quarter baked? I realize having something you can play end to end is nice, but currently it's like having a house that's built, but random rooms just don't have floors.. Its ok to leave stuff out if its not done.

Bad

-Multiple times, the dialogue just.....kept.....going. Building storytelling is great, but there's a point where I just want the scene to move on. I don't need to hear about EVERY bad thing someone did if its taking 20-30 minutes to belabor the point. It screws with the tension. Less can be more.

-One whole Love interest's plot for me is basically ruined because most of her time in the story is A) giving the player a quiz about art that never ends, or B) teaching the player about witchcraft in such minute, slow detail, I saved the game just to have a break to do ANYTHING else. It not good when a player goes "thank god I can use the skip button on that part in the future"


Conclusion:

A solid effort derailed by bad writing choices. Would love to see what the dev learns from this and see their second effort.

At the time of writing this review the game is unfinished. However there is a metric shit ton of reading in this. The story is imaginative, unique, and inventive. If you're in these kinds of things for an experience more than a quick fap then this is definitely a game for you. The sex CGs are actually really well done too though. Overall this is a fucking amazing story.

such an underrated game maybe not too good art style but original and with good animation. The plus of this game is the story, dialogues, and choices what u making also the one hot rape scene is just amazing I hope for more. My fav girl of course is a witch named neus but I hope for more girlsin the future

Very original with story and artwork. The grandma......

I finished it when it was still in construction and the ending artwork wasnt complete. I definitely feel the game as a whole deserves a 4 or higher. The dialog and choices are well thought out. My only complaint would be that the girls proportion seems to be a little ridiculous. Still worth a playthrough.

Liked it great until I hit the kink portion of the game.

Unavoidable sharing, Futa, Femdom, Your cute LI suggesting you get two gay guys involved in your sexual encounter. Just.....no.....

Plot was good. Writing was good. I enjoyed the cultural references and nuance. Point system was fun. Art is relatively cool.

Lack of choices in the kink pathing and weird cucky vibe really ruined what was a rather exciting game baseline for me.

Felt really bad to finally get to the sexual portion of the game after playing through a long portion of character building ect just to get stonewalled by unavoidable and/ or controversial kinks.

If you don't like all the tags- avoid this title; you'll be happier and save yourself time.

The story didn't catch my attention, because looks too forced, a lot of cenversation and mentions are about spain/barcelona, and even mentions of food. Decisions don't change much how the game evolves, because in one conversation you can take like 3 decisions, you choose an option and you lose 3 points with Neus but in the next 2 decisions you can win or lose more or less of those points, so mostly you can mess up one conversation but in the next you will recover them. Some conversations are really boring, she ask you if you know about something about eggs, meat and milk, and she start to explain you. I'll tell you something dev "don't care", just let me play without asking me nonsense, one girl invites you to the museum, she start to ask you about art and you can win or lose points based on that. I don't care abour art and even I don't understand, why I would want someone to ask me about that in a game? And more coming from a girl that was really rude and treated the MC like a stupid kid. In one moment I just started to skip everything just to see what it has.
So almost 6 years of development and I can't say that is a game I wouln'd play, there are other new VNs with drawn art and they acomplished more in content, art and story than this VN in 5 years, and I said that because I just played one and took me like 5 hours complete it the until the last update and I didn't get bored for even a second. Here I get bored after 10 minutes.

1/5 - DNF; Didn't get me off

Gameplay consists of making choices. There is frequently a frustrating lack of choice. From what I've played it looks like a few of the choices do have consequences and lead down different routes.
Story is bad. Writing is at a high school level. Maybe this is because it's translated. But what's worse is the cast. You play as the goody two-shoes adopted boy who stops his evil jock bully friend from beating a misunderstood goth vegan feminist witch. To turn your friend back you have to go on a few dates with the witch who secretly only wants to be loved. Yes, it's that cringy.
Porn is nothing special. I didn't like the art.

In the devs own words, this is a game with porn rather than a porn game. And a good game needs to have either good gameplay or a good story, neither of which you'll find here.


- Devs force their ideology into the narrative. At one point you can optionally listen to three extensive lectures on veganism.

TL;DR A game that has been in development for years with little to show for it. While the unique renders are nice, the lack of control makes this a niche game. Don't go into it thinking your the MC go into it thinking your hearing the story of the MC and you'll be much happier. The game falls between 2-4 stars. 2 If you consider the devleopment cycle, 3 if you don't and 4 if you LOVE a lack of control, don't read the story, and like the renders.

Not to pile on, but dear god, for how long this game has being going on for, it IS NOT worth the price of admission which is, admittedly, free.

As others have mentioned the lack of control, mixed with the extremes leads you to think "This is more like fanfic than a VN" I have to accept the devs kinks or piss off, which when the kinks are extreme is a dodgy development decision.

My main point for this review is the length of development has far exceeded the quality of the product. Now if this game is about artistic expression than fair enough, but if the intent is to create something that can generate income, go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate your choices.

This isn't a one star game, as it's worth playing if A) you haven't played it before B) you enjoy a lack of control or C) enjoy the look of the unique renders. However its not anything over 3 stars because of the niche market and the fact that this has been in development way to long to be this incomplete.

I've played this title several times now, so I feel confident enough to give my review for it.

The story is decent, but dark (overly so in some places). The concepts are decent, the writing is fine but the game falls short in the context of choices or what content the player may like or dislike.

The artwork is (while incomplete as of version 16) overall well done and to a high enough standard.

What brings down the game for me (aside from the 'no win, false choice' of several key story points) is the inconsistency and seemingly needless injection of fetish types that are a turn-off for me. Regardless of the decision that the game seems to give the player, asking several times on several different occasions, the game seems to constantly refer back to these.

In my opinion the worst offender is:


Who should play this game? If you like drama and unexpected darkness (overly so in some cases) where the MC is currently being pushed into gay-sh, futa-ish, submissive situations, you will like this title.

If you prefer to be more of an 'alpha male' type, who is just interested in a story about meeting a girl (or two) without being pushed into near-gay-ish near-futa-ish scenes. Or you dislike having a fetish constantly brought back up or commented on after you have said "nope", then you should probably avoid this game.


Overall I don't think I am going to continue playing or $upporting this title. The comment made by Neus to the response I chose in the public toilets scene (see my spoilers if you want the details), was what finally made me decide this game wasn't worth following.

Though I don't like the direction they took Neus as a character, I can understand it, and given the backstory that was written for her, I can accept many of the revelations that were revealed during the last dates question period as well as by red eyes after the date concludes.

However, the comments from the characters in response to the player's decisions are an indicator of the directions that the authors have decided to take those characters. As it sits now this means that I personally don't get enough enjoyment out of this title, as my dislike for the characters and their seeming preferences, now outweighs any 'like' or interest I had in them or the continuation of the story. To put it another way, the writing and direction are now no longer enjoyable enough to warrant either my playtime or my $upport.

As a side note; I speak Spanish, fluently and regularly talk and correspond in this language (probably as much or more as I do in English). So my 'dislike' isn't some translation issue, or me 'not getting' the content.

Best of luck to the Dev's
Sorry I won't be supporting you further.

Started out pretty good way back when, kept up with it over the years. Not my cup of tea. Main characters have personalities that would turn off anything with a pulse, make the worst decisions ever based on no rationality whatsoever, and frankly unless you really decide not to care about some of them completely, you will be carried along into situations where they will invariably piss you off, you will have no control, and you will not like it. Bad options or worse options, and then blame you for the outcome.

Like I said, not my cup of tea but hey im sure there are lots of people out there who would like this kind of abuse so im not judging.

This tedious clickfest is brought to you by the Barcelona board of vegan tourism. V0.15.06: This vile story of Wikipedia entries is populated by characters who are rapacious, vindictive, stupid, and wholly unsympathetic. Side characters arrive, contribute nothing to the story, then vanish without consequence. Add to that an art style that would be more at home in an action scene from One Punch Man, and you've got a LOT of boring filler with a thin witchcraft plot draped over it. Desperately needs editing, in its current form a complete waste of time.

(v0.15.04)
I played a few years back; it was really short so I decided to check the progress:

TL;DR: Well, I liked... then I didn't...

Starting with The Cast:
MC: Saitama with a gigantic dick that looks like a kid's arm holding an apple
Neus: Satanic Vegan Gothic Waifu Witch
Meritxell: Ex Escort "Lesbian" Dominatrix Therapist armed with a strap-on (Be Careful )
Didac: Nymphomaniac High Maintenance “rapist” Childhood Friend with fixation on Cocks (not only yours )
Besides all of them having an EXTREMELY HIGH (like, really high) sex drive, they are really different, so that could count as a plus... I guess... or maybe not, if don't like personalities that are straying too much from the "normal" spectrum...

The Good Points:
Drawings, the best aspect of the game, the classical anime style is always a good choice, and the drawings itself are good too
Dialogues are quite interesting, Neus mostly, she even looks like a nice girl... if you ignore the fact that she is supposed to be an old satanic witch and a child murderer, then her personality could be really out of character
Interactive sex scenes, I personally like those, maybe I just like to remember those classics flash porn games

Bad Points:
Inconsistent Personalities: Seriously, why the fuck she is so shy? I get the wolf in sheep clothes thing, but if what she said in the ending is true, she is really like that and is honestly unrealistically to think that a girl who had decades of orgies and human sacrifices in all different ways would play the innocent card, even without the orgies and sacrifices, being old like that is enough to not being SO SHY, it's borderline absurd.
Inconsistent Scene Progression: why don’t just draw things as they go? why skip completely some scenes to do the next one? It’s kinda frustrating to reach a scene just to discover that you have to skip it cause only the next one is already done…
Milking: Man, I hate to complain about this, cause firstly, I’m not paying, and secondly, I know how hard is to make games like this, mainly the drawn ones... but almost FIVE YEARS?! To do FIVE in game DAYS that are still missing pieces?!... F.F.S...
Certain Unskippable Scenes: I could be totally wrong in this since someone comment that if you manage to get almost all Didac points you could “theoretically” skip this scene, but I couldn’t replicate so…

If you went to the "beach date" and wants to progress the scene (and win points with the Didac) you will inevitably start giving a sex show in the middle of a public nudist beach surrounded by a bunch of perverts willing to give you an involuntary bukkake, then like it was nothing Didac starts to jerking off an old man like it was nothing and you can only watch while she gets cummed in face and then proceed to jerk off another two other guys and your options here are:
Watch it THEN convince her to stop or encourage and go full cuck mode
You can try to leave before that but you will lose A LOT of points with that character and well... the "party" continues without you anyways...

…If scenes like that are optional or more easily avoided, I’m totally ok, but that was not the case.

Conclusion:
I could easily give it a 3/5, but there are enough reviews here just to throw complements, so let’s leave at 2. I will probably return when this game is complete... in another five years maybe...

Love the story nd the character dynamics, but , most importantly the scenes are hot. The lore that is woven throughout is a lovely touch that you don't see in porn games really but this one is higher caliber.

Review based on v0.15.04 (English version):

Synopsis:
After an incident that takes place at your art school which involves your childhood friend and an odd girl from your class, strange things begin to ensue. The body of your friend starts transforming into the one of the opposite sex and you're conflicted as to how to feel about it. It turns out that the odd girl has bewitched him in order to teach him a lesson for assaulting her, however she might also have some ulterior motives concerning you. In the midst of all this, there's also a quite attractive woman in your class that suddenly begins to display her interest in you.
You begin to unravel the truth about rather magical and unbelievable things which you didn't think were possible. Is the odd girl as innocent as she looks or does she hold a dark secret? How to feel about the transformation of your friend - should you try to help him get his old body back or embrace the changes? Is the attractive woman really interested in you or does she have an agenda of her own which secretly involves you? Or perhaps there are other forces lurking in the shadows and watching your every move that you're unaware of? It's time to piece this puzzle together and find out!

The Good:
+ the story is interesting, it's not quite at horror-level, but at times it gets creepy & disturbing. If you're sold on the premise, you'll be intrigued to find out how this saga ends
+ the dialogues are lengthy, but interesting - they also include plenty of references to actual RL things which (if it piques your curiosity) you can read more about by using the Wikipedia links that are included
+ the art style looks nice
+ the erotic/sex scenes are mostly animated and pretty hot
+ player is allowed to decide which paths he/she wants to pursue and the content is not "forced"
+ the choices you make actually matter, cause the narrative changes because of that and there are actually good and bad endings for the MC (as far as I can tell from the existing storyline)
+ the sound-effects create good ambiance and are used well during dialogues and events
The Neutral:
= currently there are only 3 main characters to interact with, which might not seem enough, however it's understandable given the type of the story and since it's not a "harem" game, it seems though, that there will be some side-characters added in future releases
= there aren't too many sex scenes, which some might find disappointing
= the original version of the game is in Spanish and there are some grammar/context issues in the English version, even a few lines that aren't translated at all
= at times there are some strange reactions when interacting with other characters - more specifically, their expressions don't match with what they're saying - since the story isn't finished yet, it's too soon to tell whether it's intentional or those are bugs that I suspect might be linked to translation
= there are a few instances where some dialogue lines trigger about certain things/activities that are in the game, but you haven't actually done them (hence they shouldn't be displayed)
= there's a lengthy section at the art museum with one of the characters which to some might feel cumbersome and getting through it might require help from a walkthrough
The Bad:
- the game uses an outdated 4:3 resolution (likely since it appears to be ported from Flash), which means that when playing on a widescreen monitor it doesn't use the whole space on the screen to its benefit and there are black bars on the sides
- the resolution of some game assets could be better, especially where static images are used - they are visibly "cubic"
- I got some Ren'Py exception errors mainly due to resizing the screen and rolling back during choices, which weren't game-breaking, but normally shouldn't be there - your mileage may vary

The Verdict:
Right now I'd rate it with 4* with a potential of going higher once finished.
In its current iteration I would recommend checking it out as there's plenty of story content. Keep in mind though, that there are story branches that aren't finished yet so you might run into scenes where art is not present and it's only text.