Ren'Py - Photo Hunt [v0.17.1 Extra] [Moochie]

It's overall good, but I do have mixed feelings about it.

The sandbox is done well and there is a lot of content now, including a lot with the attractive sister character.

However some of the content is disgusting and not avoidable and it's another game where good character can be locked behind forced activity with a nasty character - in this case alice, a name that doesnt fit at all. Launching the game also plays loud obnoxious music.

The corruption part of the game is excellent and pretty well paced. Earlier it felt grindy but now that theres a lot of content and less dead ends, it's great.

The renders tend to be good quality, I'd say overall I got a better impression from playing the game than from the previews

[SPOILER ALERT]

It’s been a long time since I wrote my last review, well I’m kinda in the mood today so I’m gonna write my first review in months for Photo Hunt.

I’m going to state the obvious right away. First, the graphics are spectacular (especially the lightings), definitely one of the best out there which is fitting for a game about photography. Second, the women in Photo Hunt are great looking and their expressions are kinda realistic so nothing uncanny.

Now here comes the serious part, I’m going to talk about the story before jumping to the gameplay section. Well, the story is all about a dude who loves photography. Is that it? No, because photography in this AVN is not the main focus here. This game has two stories, characters’ stories and main story. Few of them are mostly connected to the main story and others are not so much. To be honest, they’re quite interesting especially the fact that his mom and dad are still alive and well despite having different… well you know. Unlike many AVNs out there where the MC’s parents (or dad mostly) either missing or dead.

About the gameplay, it’s half sandbox and half visual novel. This is where the game, to me personally, shows its huge flaw. Let’s just say you’re only interested on Rachel, when you almost halfway of her story suddenly the game tells you to stop because the game wants you to play Evelyn path so her story can continue. After few hours doing Evelyn’s, the game suddenly tells you to stop again to continue Jennifer path and so on. This is basically what the entire game looks like and it’s pissing me off. What’s the point of sandbox in this game if that’s literally the only way you play Photo Hunt properly? I feel like I just got blueballed a lot because of that. What makes Photo Hunt worse is the fact that most of the sex scenes aren’t repeatable.

Immediate three stars from me. The way Moochie incorporated Photo Hunt’s story with the sandbox system is a major turn off, at least this game has great renders. Also, Photo Hunt is a blatant harem game, I don't know why there's no harem tag on it.

Photo Hunt ranks 3rd in my heart after the Ocean games!
- One of the best artwork, the picture is just gorgeous.
- Each character has their own deeply written story.
- The main character is not annoying, although I would slightly reduce his depravity.
- Animations are done at a very high level.
- The plot is there and it is really interesting, every time you wonder what will happen next, the most important thing is that after so many years, the developer remembers what this game is about.
- Sandbox does not strain, although I think at the end of 2024 a little outdated mechanics.
- Just a huge pile of content, after finishing all main and side quests, open extra and there is still content waiting for you, well those who support dev.

Well and separately in my heart is Evelyn, just a terrific character, in love up to my ears

Very much waiting for the game on Steam with all the achievements, so that there will be another reason to reach the actual patch.

This game is truly incledible. I have not seen many games that can pull of so many characters in such a believable fashion.

Let's start with the girls that live with you at home, Evelynn and Rachel. At first glance, Evelynn is your typical overworked underappreciated mom. Rachel is the airhead naive girl who misses her brother but doesn't accept it. Both of these characters are very surface level at first glance, but the sheer amount and depth of content compells you to believe everything that is going on. (Seriously, click F2 on the next VN to see how many unique lines of dialogue there is. It will usually be between 5-7k for your average development hell game but this game has 217.667 unique lines of dialogue.)

I also want to highlight two other LI's for their incredible cracter development and writing:

Grace is your typical rich bitch and stays that way for a long time. But you will learn why she is the way she is and it feels like you are watching two very real people interact. She will confuse you a lot, because she is also very confused.

Jennifer is your typical nerd with social anxiety installed from the factory. Her only saving grace at the beggining for both you and everyone else is that she is best friends with Grace. However once you begin to know her, you will see one of the most organic and heartwarming love stories I have ever seen, even counting all other media.

Some shaky stuff exists, because of course it does. Nothing is perfect. My main two gripes are that firstly, the music sucks ass and there is close to no sound design. At least it doesn't take away from your enjoyment. Second, the whole thing with rachel and the "club" really makes zero sense and it is the only section of the game that you need to suspend your disbelief. (A mask, seriously?)

Overall, great game that deserves much more patrons and love for what will provide you hours of content.

[17.1]

There is something about this game that I find hard to put into words, which is why I’m driven to try. It has a number of objectively good qualities that l will enumerate, but I fear what I won’t be able to express as well is my personal sensibility. As a game dev myself, Photo Hunt speaks to me on a molecular level that even I don’t fully understand. Its approach, tone, and presentation are melded in such a distinct way that even now, as I try to organize my thoughts, I feel happy and inspired. I see the warm act of creation and of someone doing what they enjoy; not always perfectly, not always tirelessly, but with pride behind their work. What’s more, I’m grateful that an artist poured some of their limited time on this earth into sharing said work, and it makes me want to simulate that feeling for others with my own.

I know this all probably sounds hyperbolic for a porn game, but I can’t help what I feel. At the end of the day, I’ve simply fallen in love with Photo Hunt. Behind its trope-ladden scenario is a clear, loving care for premise and character. A game that doesn’t shy away from what it is, porn, but embraces it with an enthusiasm that sometimes takes what you’d expect and enriches it and at other times twists it in fun, colorful directions.

With that bit of rambling out of the way, let’s move onto the more substantive and formulated portions of the review. Spoilers ahead!

On the Subject of Smut

Out of all the sections, this is the most subjective. How good is the porn? After all, that is what it is all about, right?

Personally speaking, no matter how good the writing or how fun the systems are, any adult game that doesn’t speak to me on a base level (Rance series aside) has an uphill climb. One that can be made mind you, as good writing can make you care about the characters and give even the most run-of-the-mill scene an erotic edge, but I can be pretty particular. Scenes need some heft to them, some distance, some color. Nothing kills my enthusiasm for a good set up more than truncated sex scenes that feel like an afterthought.

So, let’s first get the obvious out of the way. Both in execution and concept, Photo Hunt is an extremely lewd game that speaks my language. The project’s themes are practically tailor-made to my tastes to an uncanny degree. No other game ingrains photography, voyeurism, corruption, and prostitution as seamlessly into its DNA as here. Hell, the fact that you can induce the player character’s mother down the path to becoming a pornstar shines a light on a specific, fucked up corner of my brain that would be enough to propel it into the filing cabinets of my eternal spank bank.

Now, the scenes aren’t overly long, but they’re varied and have just the right amount of size to ‘em to enjoy. There are a few super short trainer-like scenes, but those act in service as a game play abstraction, and I don’t mind them so much in the greater picture.

Plus, the game has shades to its depravity. There’s a few paths that go full tilt, some that ride the line, and others that are kinda sweet. It ranges from scenarios like reuniting with a childhood friend, to slowly un-icing a rich girl’s frigidity, to the various corruption routes sending characters down the path of the Red Maiden – the secret members-only brothel that our player character may or may not have unwitting ties to. In all cases, even the more innocuous set ups, there is some color to be enjoyed and even the mean stuff is so over the top that it’s fun.

The smut really, really, really works for me is what I’m saying.

On the Subject of Writing and Scenario
*Plus some character stuff, too.

This is, on paper, the most surprising element when weighed against my supposed personal tastes. There is nothing immediately inspiring about the game’s premise. At its onset, its a story about a man who moves in with his “adoptive” mother and sister after an extended separation. Shit goes from there, with a smorgasbord of creepy perverted player character elements that would be right at home in an early days of the Patreon boom. It is a set up as old as time and you’d be forgiven for giving it a hard pass on that basis alone.

However, nestled into Photo Hunt’s scenario is an intersection of intrigue, romance, humor, and good ol’ ball-slapping depravity. Moochie juggles the meeting of numerous character plot lines with a deceptive finesse – and make no mistake, there’s nothing profound here. There’s no tears to be jerked or catharsis to be had (yet), but that is not a negative. Where there are countless mundane fuck fests out there, Photo Hunt layers its scenario with a cast of vivacious characters that are simply fun to spend time with.

In a medium that is primarily character focused, that has to be the secret sauce. Take for example just one bad mama jama:

Evelyn, the player character’s “guardian.”

From the start, she’s not what you’d expect. She forgets to pick up our lonely main character and is quickly revealed to be a workaholic with a drinking problem. She ain’t perfect. She ain’t motherly. She’s got vices, hang ups, and a neglectful dimension to her character.

Yet, she has her charms. Her abrasiveness can be endearing. Funny, cute, and as with anyone attractive, there’s room for sympathy for her. And sure, the scenarios that drive your interactions with Evelyn are absurd. Rooted in a porn logic and just-go-with-it-dude, but they play out with such a distinct voice that you implicitly buy into them. They’re tempered by real notes of helplessness and coping that most people can relate to. And obviously your tolerance for that will vary. You could play it and think man this is fucking stupid, but I truly do believe the character writing in Photo Hunt to be fantastic. It sneaks up on you past the initial intro, where things are bit awkward, and the English is more shaky… but it quickly smooths out and you find yourself just enjoying these colorful characters interacting.

It is worth mentioning that the game also pays a notable care to its male cast. They’re few, but they get screen time, and aren’t wholly bereft a sense of agency. I like that characters like Harry are integral to the plot. Fathers are often missing from these games, and I get a big kick at just how much he informs the player character’s relationship with Evelyn. Not to mention, there’s also Will. It would be so easy to write him as the generic woeful cuck, but goddamn it, you there’s a bit of pathos to him. It is easy for the reader to actually like the dude, and it makes you want to take the Alice route down the slightly more wholesome alternative.

This is a good thing in my books, as I find that AVN writing that takes any dick swinging character outside the MC seriously indicative of a more realized world.

So, yeah, man moves in with his estranged family. Been there and done that. But have you seen …

• Helping a character angrily get over her separated husband by sending him escalating risque photos? Have you navigated your dad dangling one of his college sluts in front of her in a game of sexual chicken? And, somehow at the end of it, inadvertently won his approval?
• Have you saved fthat character’s job from her best friend slash work enemy? The outcome of which I’ll add goes in wildly different and fleshed-out directions.
• Have you ever pushed a character in a new “career” direction as an act of subterfuge against a blackmailing baby mama as your father works on putting a stop to it?

I haven’t, and that’s just a loose overview of one character.

Which is to add, the project is ambitious. There are 8 main heroines, most having two distinct branches. But, smartly done, some come much later into their arcs than others. And when you sprinkle all the side character stuff into the mix you end up with a staggering promise the dev is making to the reader should it be finished.

Fortunately, the game is heavy in content, which bodes well. Filling out stuff to see seems to often present a development problem for serialized sandbox games, but there’s a lot of fun to be had as of v16.3; hours and hours of it if you give the text a fair shake. Much more than some sandbox games with similar development inception dates. And, certainly some paths are more developed than others. All-in-all though, nothing feels too lacking when you’re juggling all the different characters.

With that as a segue…

On the Subject of Sandboxes

Perhaps the most contentious design element an adult game dev can put into their visual novel. There are plenty of people who exclusively avoid them, and for good reason. Personal preference aside, a lot of sandbox games just don’t cut it as games. They feel empty or they’re so grindy that they chop up the pacing of the narrative elements to the utmost detriment.

Not really much so here, in my opinion, although my tolerance for these kind of games are relatively sky high. Still, player economy often just comes down to work for money, raise a stat, or advance a story line. There’s not much in between, little affection points to grind, and no repeat the same event over and over until you are bored. The only issue I foresee is knowing the totality of what to do, but you can buy a walk through via the player character’s computer. That in itself is much clunkier than just simply using a walk through mod, as you have to repeatedly return home to check the next step, but hey: point is, you won’t be getting stuck in this game too much.

If anything, I wish it leaned a bit heavier on the sandbox stuff. At a certain point, potentially before you even clear up the player character’s debt, you’ll be near the soft cap for stat checks, making that aspect of the game mostly useless. That is (highly-likely) a potential plus for most people, though. Similarly, you also run out of a use for money at a certain point, although the game mitigates that by letting you turn your excess cash into a lot of extra goodie renders to leer at.

On the subject of Art

This is an important one; maybe not so much for most adult games, as I usually put an emphasis on writing, but Photo Hunt puts you in the shoes of a nascent photographer — and it is quite fortunate that Moochie’s rendering skills can support that theme.

Now, the start is a bit rough. It still looks good, but some of the initial maps are not high quality and the lighting isn’t nearly as crisp, but that is to be expected. The fact that the game five years ago looks notably worse than it does now is not a not a knock; it’s an aspect to be lauded as a sign of the developer’s growth as an artist - and what a growth, too, as I consider Photo Hunt one of the best looking DAZ games out there.

More than just looking shiny, however, the attention to detail is what sends it over the top for me. There’s oodles and oodles of thoughtfully composed renders, posed with care, that just look gorgeous. Characters have a sense of movement to their posing and nuance in their expressions. Also, the dev cares about hands!

I mean, I know this is gonna sound insane, but bad hand posing in renders stick out to me like a backwards thumb. Just going the distance to make it look like your characters are actually holding the thing that they’re holding, that nothing is clipping, is the sad low standard that gets major points from me. It is a barometer for the question “does this dev give a fuck?“

I’ll add that I enjoy that the game is littered with random renders that support the myriad of talk topics that you can select. These are images that aren’t exactly needed for the few lines of text that occupy the screen, but show just how much love is behind the project that they’ll put the time to create wildly different scenes when its not needed.

One prime, early example is the shot of Lina and Patricia on the high bars.
Honestly, there’s such a variety and liveliness to Photo Hunt’s renders that I often just pause and gawk — and it has nothing to do with feet, I promise.

In Conclusion

If you couldn’t tell, I kinda like this game. Its existence motivates me as a game dev myself, and while Photo Hunt certainly isn’t for everyone, nothing good ever is.

The only negative of this game is it being a sandbox. It's not very grindy and with a WT mod installed, playing it is easy and exciting. The only problem deriving from its sandbox nature is that the natural sequence of events is broken every now and then.
You may fuck the brain out of an LI for quite a while in one location or the plot thread and in other location or thread she only allows kissing her on the cheek and holding hands until finally deciding to go FOR IT for the first time )))
That's the only negative that I can say about this game. The rest is simply excellent: the models are hot, the graphics are very good, the story is solid and interesting, the characters are various, memorable and believable.
Well done!

While I'm searching for an incestuous gem in f95zone, found a box full of treasure.
What a marvellous game it is.
Every characters design is perfectly done.
Even the story is perfectly wrote.
The SHARING content is perfectly blend in it. Just waiting to see what will happen next.

Wish it was release on STEAM, would purchase it asap to support you.
And please please MOOCHIE, don't abandon it.
Watching abandon text beside this marvellous project would be a biggest regret for me.
Take time and cook a delicious dish for us.

Best of Luck with your project
Take Care MOOCHIE

Wow this game gets better after every update
Renders, story and models are the best in this game
I hope Moochie puts more of the Evelyn stories in every update and especially the sharing scene are masterpiece and milked my balls
thank you moochie i can't wait for the next update

worth putting the time in and playing. SUPER UNDERRATED. Go to work, school and park(photos) for a week or two. then just enjoy the game. Principle is the best! Great visuals. Play game twice. one for all the love paths and then one for all the corruption paths.

Two complaints. One, and probably the biggest issue, is that the script needs some touching up. Preferably with a native English speaker doing the proofreading and editing. It improves considerably in later parts, though.

Two, the faces are generally attractive but sometimes have rather off-putting expressions or angles. This is a very minor quibble, though. Most of the time they're very expressive which is definitely refreshing in a sea of games that have the "plastic doll" model problem. (Evelyn's expressions in particular crack me up)

Now with the negative out of the way, let's talk about the positives. Which is literally everything else. The story is fantastic, the pacing and progression are on point, the sandbox, while somewhat grindy at times, never overstays its welcome, and the sex scenes just get better and better. The comedy is well done as well, and most of the jokes and humorous situations land.

There is a TON of content here, and it's still going. I'm not sure how I missed this gem until recently, but rest assured I will be watching this one from now on. Highly recommended!

EDIT: Highly advised to use the walkthrough mod, as the plots are interwoven and sometimes it's unclear where to go next. Also, there are some steps that you want to hold off on until you advance more with another girl, in order to get the optimal result.

Final addendum: Evelyn (the mom) is absolutely hilarious and easily my favorite character!

Review based on v0.16.3:

RenPy sandbox games isnt exactly my thing so I was a bit skeptical going into this one but quite a few hours later I have to say that Photo Hunt does an OK job of it. Its not that grindy in the sense that money does not mean much, maybe for the first hour or so until you unlock the scene to earn more at the storage facility but after that its tolerable and at some point the money rolls in through achievements. And neither does it feel grindy in advancing the story forward since the inbuilt hints in the phone menu makes it really easy to continue the story. There is a lot of game here, tons of scenes and erotic events with some of the best looking cgi's on this site. The girls in the game are many but dev has managed to make them distinct from each other in a good way, their looks and personalities each unique. Story is kind of a slice of life kind of thing with no huge main story going on but instead many smaller plots building into each other in some ways.

So I had a blast with this game and am happy I waited for so long before I finally gave it a try since I got a lot of hours out of it. If I must give it a negative so would it be that sometimes the story gets confused if you advance one girl more than another, in the sense that info you already know about gets "revealed" by another girl. Don't know how many ways I got to know about Fionas dorm room number and every time the game tried to make it seem like MC didn't already know about it, be it that Monica told him, Fiona said it herself or MC found out about it through the teachers room. But this didn't destroy my immersion enough for it to warrant one less star.

Will keep following this, maybe wait a bit between updates so I get a good bunch of content to enjoy.

Photo Hunt is up there as one of the best sandbox games around The characters are fun with some solid writing and well handled scenes but the real highlight is how much content there is for each of them already. Even with branching paths for most of them it has developed each one to a very satisfying point with plenty of scenes for each. I'm so used to these games with multiple characters being quantity over quality, but somehow this has balanced both exceptionally well with still plenty to come in development

High-end product! The characters, the sandbox mode and of course the pictures/poses are brilliant. I like it. I hope this project will run for a while. Looking forward to see more, including some more passion and more sharing.

Good game. Interesting enough story, good and unique LIs. Lots of content.

A few random thoughts:

1. Sandbox is always tricky. There's a reasonable balance here in that there's flexibility in how you go about completing paths (meaning you can complete lots of different events/scenes at the same time rather than following a tedious, linear pattern), but it does come at the expense of the timeline and sometimes scenes/dialogue don't properly align with what has previously occurred as they are completed 'out of order'. It's not too immersion breaking and i imagine it would be stupidly complex to solve.

2. You don't have much of a choice about which LIs to pursue. You have to complete steps with some in order to continue with others. E.G. I have no interest in Monica or Oksana. It's a design choice and broadly the paths do feed back into the main plot so i can get over it, even if there is in some cases a LOT of content.

3. The devs have a good balance between images and text (i.e. not a new photo for every single line of dialogue), which is important in the AVN genre where dev times can be obscene. However there are a few scenes where an action is explicitly described in the text and not shown. It's more noticeable in for instance foreplay scenes. It's a really minor issue that I don't mind too much, but something to think about.

4. You really need a walkthrough to make sense of the branching imo. Even then it's kinda confusing due to the number of LIs and the progression structure of the pathing. Honestly i'm impressed that the devs have kept it as coherent as they have given the non-linearity and branching of some paths.

5. So much content. Even random events for all the LIs and new scenes for the 'repeat scene' sandbox elements.

Nice work overall!

Keeps interest at first, but the restrictive nature of events becomes old quick. First of the art is actually some of the best at least for me personally that I have seen on the site. Many of the storylines are also fairly good and actually try to link with each other across the different girls. Unfortunately this game has become too restrictive with events requiring a certain day & time sometimes this leads to the fatigue of having to skip entire days and weeks. Also because of the branching nature it's hard to get all events and unfortunately due to the massive length of this game it leads to a time waste if you want to play another path even with skipping. Finally, there is corruption but only of the sharing variety.

This is an entertaining game with a few flaws.
The tease scenes with the women are some of the hottest around. Most of the women are gorgeous and have a distinct personality, which is near impossible to find in today's games. So great job with writing all the characters in here. That can't be said for the MC though. He is an alpha male with confidence in one scene and a wimp who can barely say a word to the women in the next. This constantly happens throughout, whenever the specific plot point calls for it.

Its a great looking game with high quality renders, environments and lighting. The women are all very good looking characters with a great range of different looks and bodies. Most are girls from school and a few MILFs.
Music in the game can also be good at times. The amount of renders for each scene should be a bit more. With the game showing the same image for many sentences. Because the writing is top tier a lot of the time, you don't notice it that much.

The sandbox which I usually hate isn't as bad as it could be but still has major issues. Theres minimal of grinding the same scenes over and over. When it is, they have noticeable differences. Biggest problem is the timeframe when tasks can only be done at specific times on specific days. Which gives you overlapping scenes, so sometimes you have to go through another week just to see it. The other major problem with it is, there are many girls in the game and even if you dont want anything to do with a few of them, tough luck. You have to complete their scenes to get to the next stage of the girls you actually want. Sometimes even having to be in a relationship with them and admitting feelings, when that is not what you want. Its a convoluted mess without a walkthrough, as there's so many connecting factors with all the girls that you have to do in specific order to get further in the game.

The individual scenes and stories of the women are extremely well told and some have real emotion and feeling behind them. Only a couple that were a bit contrived, otherwise its top notch for relationship / friendship drama and helping them to get what they need. Then you get what you want from them too lol. Really helps with the immersion when all the girls are each so different with their words, poses and actions. While also having their own issues and dramas that you can either help them with or use to your advantage.

Actual sex takes a while to get to but for me I prefer that, as I find the teasing and foreplay scenes so much hotter. Especially when they have a certain taboo or sneaky aspect to them. Whether it be family, exhibitionist, femdom, romance, prostitution, etc. So many fetishes are there.

If this wasn't a sandbox I would give it 5 stars. The individual stories with the women are great but having to constantly click on maps and hallways or wait days to get to them, does break the immersion.
It is a chore to navigate. Even with that I'd still definitely recommend playing it. With every girl being so unique and having different paths with each of them, its a fun time with some heartfelt moments included.

This game is currently one of my favorites on this site. Its only real weakness is that other games have better 3D graphics but other games with even worse graphics are top of the ratings.

Strong points are the large amount and variety of girls, pacing and its one of the best 'open world' games as long as you use a walkthrough. I think thats par for the course for all open world games I have played.

Story 4/5, Originality 3/5, Renders 3.5/5, Playability 5/5, Animations 2/5, Amount of content 5/5

To tell the truth, It is my first review, and this game deserves to be heard of, whilst thinking about shortcomings of Photo Hunt, I couldn't come up with any, there wasn't a single thing, that I didn't like. So what's great about it:
1. Well designed characters, every woman is unique
2. Beautiful renders, sometimes they are static and not animated, and still look great, and there are A LOT of scenes in this game
3. Nicely developed sandbox, a lot of locations with different interactions, had a feeling, that content in this game is endless. Another positive side is the way the game is built - it is impossible to miss scenes.
To sum up, this is my №2 favourite game and I hope it won't be abandoned. Sorry for poor language, English is not my native, would've written more.

I really like this game but can’t imagine it’d be particularly fun without the walkthrough mod, hence the 4-star rating only.

Lots of content though, with dual love/corruption paths for most of the girls!

Amazing game, tons of scenes with different girls. No lineair progress so you can focus on a specific girl, there basically isnt anything to nitpick about this game in my personal opinion. Looking forward to where it goes!