Ren'Py - Photo Hunt [v0.20.1 Extra] [Moochie]

Review for version 0.20.1

I'll start with the good:
The female character models are original, you definitely don't feel like you've seen them somewhere before (which is a very common thing in other VNs) and they look good.
Despite using the free roam style, the player doesn't have to click through a bunch of screens/menus, which is common with this style, and you can click through the entire week in a moment (there's even an option to skip straight to the weekend).
Personally, I didn't find the money and stats grind too much, the stats requirements aren't extreme to advance in an event.
The game also contains a few animations that are short but smooth.

And now the bad:
The appearance of the male characters is average at best, but for example the MC and his "friend" Adrian are absolutely terrible (one of the worst I've seen). Sorry, but I find it hard to believe that every woman falls at the feet of someone like that and wants to have sex with him.
The game probably has some kind of overall story (which is somewhat incomprehensibly told in the main character's dream, although it concerns people two generations earlier), but it didn't interest me at all and I quickly clicked off.
Most locations are locked and usually only unlock by progressing in the story of one of the girls/women. I certainly wasn't interested in all the women, so most locations remained locked. The problem was with increasing strength, because the only option was to work in the warehouse in the morning to gain +1 strength. Only later did I learn from the walkthrough that progressing in Lina's story unlocks the gym.
And that brings me to the worst part of this whole creation. In order to unlock something or advance somewhere, I am forced to play events or stories that I am not interested in or really don't want to see. And unfortunately, this doesn't just apply to locations, but also to individual stories/paths of girls/women. I wouldn't have a problem if I was forced into an innocent/friendly move with another woman, but that doesn't exist in this game, everything has to lead straight to flirting or something sexual. Two examples that made the game completely disgusting for me. Rachel (sister), I chose the love route but soon ran into a limitation in the story. The MC has to get rid of her sister's boyfriend, who doesn't really care about her and is only with her to get to Evelyn (mother). That in itself wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have to watch and solve almost this entire sub story so that he wouldn't succeed with Evelyn either. I don't care about Evelyn from the MC's perspective, she's a grown woman and she can deal with some poor boy without a problem. And even if he succeeded and had sex with Evelyn, I wouldn't care at all. And as a bonus, this event only progresses on weekends with a length of 10+ parts.
But the worst came with Grace. Relatively long story and when she had already moved somewhere, a wall appeared. I was forced into a sub story with Oksana, Grace's "nanny". The sub story itself started well, Oksana wants to test the main character to see if he is suitable for Grace. But incomprehensibly, it quickly becomes a sexual affair. And that's the end of the game for me. "Western shota" is something completely disgusting to me and I refuse to watch/read it. Why should I watch a boy MC do anything sexual with a woman 30 years older? My interest was in the story between MC and his classmate Grace, not being forced to watch a sexual relationship with another woman, more than a generation older. That's the end of the game for me and it fell to the worst rating.

Reviewing as of version 20. The game is something of a mixed bag. The good news is there's lots of content to play. Whether you enjoy it or not is going to depend on your bent.

The Good:

- There is a story, or rather a series of stories tucked within a loose over-arc, and while not exactly inspired writing it's solid and not totally idiotic, although to be fair it has its moments. File it under porn game license if you lie. Generally it's ok.
- The beginning lets you build into and create relationships with characters. It's a slow burn to start but keeps your attention as you develop those relationships.
- The characters have distinct personalities and are easily identifiable from each other
- The art work is decent, and the models are decent. The animations less so, but serviceable.
- There are a lot of routes and options to take, and decisions matter. You are also warned of major consequences at major decision points in the game.

The Bad:

- There is a large farming/grinding factor unless you use the cheat mod. Honestly the game would be virtually unplayable without it. Even with the cheat mod some things are time consuming, although everything advances the story
- I like sandbox games, and there's lots of latitude to roam, but the dev made the cardinal mistake of backing important events needed to move the story all into the same damn time spots, and some of those time spots are only once a week, with other time slots being utterly useless. This creates an unnecessary drag on the game. It's a totally avoidable mistake and no care whatsoever was taken to avoid it, frustrating the player.
- Because there's tons of options and routes to take in theory you should have a lot of replayability, but the process of going back and replaying the route might be time-consuming and tedious to the point of discouraging you from doing so. I certainly wouldn't. I think it's pretty much take your best route the first time and go wherever that takes you.
- There are corruption and master/slave routes but honestly there's generally very little corruption, corruption simply generally meaning opening the girl up to sex. The most corrupt girls just simply become sluts shared with other men. There are a variety of share or keep her to yourself routes, but unless you consider pushing a girl to gang bang corruption then there's basically nothing.
- Girls that are your slaves aren't. MC talks about having a "master/slave" relationship with some girls who simply continue to order him around and he agrees to it. His behavior is inconsistent at best and incomprehensible at worst at it relates to this subject.
- Once the sex starts it never stops. Every interaction results in some kind of sexual interplay, often for trivial reasons and with very little imagination. The same type of sex scenes get used over and over again and it's very vanilla, to the point where it gets pretty boring and it's more interesting to advance the story than it is to have the same variety of sex scene with variations of the same dialogue. This is especially true for what are supposed to be corruption/blackmail routes. One never really gets a sense of either discomfort or distress from the girls. It's just, "ok what do you want me to do?" Then they do it. Then they enjoy it tremendously, then they say it's a terrible thing the MC is doing but please do more of it.

TLDR: starts off strong, average graphics, bogs down into the mundane as you go along and trivializes the sex, which is vanilla, but lots of choice and stories. Use the cheat mod to play. It won't ruin the game for you.

3~4/10
gamever 0.20.1
preface this by saying im kinda bias against 3d "realistic" erogames but this had good reviews and looked ok i thought id give it a chance.

game starts off Suppppppppppppper slow, like first 15hours outside of taking some nude photos and maybe a hj or 2 there is nothing. even after 20~25 hours there was barely any action. all the heroines take a ton of events to build up to anything but its not done in a smart way. most of their events feel more like filler events rather then actual bonding and getting to know them.

The eventual sceens you do get arent particularly good either. half of it is stills and when you do get some animation its a very short loop (like 5~10sec) and had a noticeable reset. very disapointing

The amount of time you need to sink into money farming is also terrible. money can be earned in the morning (working at warehouse) and at evening (stealing sht). you get 55$ from morning and like 20 from night, most of the stuff ingame costs 100~400 and some costing beyond that, you also need to buy multiple items (such as phones). i ended up having to basically skip through weeks just farming money.

As usual with most "sandbox" games they always end up loading a ton of character events on the same timeslots resulting in you picking one char to work on and skipping the other half of the day.
credit where credit is due though i didnt run into any blocks of needing to progress other characters to make progress with the characters i was working on for the first 15or so hours, you do eventually reach that point though and for me everything was a weekend event that i needed to catch up on so i was literally skipping through weekdays...


Cant say i enjoyed the random backstory dreams that would get dropped on you outta nowhere when you would end the day that explained how the town came to be. they were super long and mostly consisted of another char (not mc) having sex with other chars.

Im probs not coming back to this game in future updates

Nice to see they use mostly unique models. Lots of content and the latest patches definitely add to it. Lots of Fun scenes! Definitely worth a replay to try out different paths with some of the girls.

Okay where can we start,

Seven years ago this dude drops a VN with some of the hottest renders, sex scenes, and decent story beats of any VN available. The renders from them are still hotter than a lot of what gets dropped today. He pushed multiple paths, multiple versions of the MC depending on the path, and multiple versions of sex scenes depending on how youve treated the women.....and lets not forget Evelyn. Fuck if that isn't one of the top 5 hottest VN women ever created....and whats better is all the other girls are maybe a baby step below her. I mean the roster of women are just insane and they don't hold back on the kinks at all.

So what about today? The exact same VN but more. It still looks amazing. The women are just as hot with zero drop in quality. Once again, Evelyn *shudders in excitement* and the only thing that might slow this guy down are the file sizes at this point. This dude need a subtitle or a part 2 or a season 2, because its getting pretty big at this point.

The only downside is theres no music. VNs don need music, but a good music que in any story can set a scene off just right.

Did I mention Evelyn being hotter than the fucking sun?

Photo Hunt is a very ambitious sandbox game, with an enormous amount of content that it is simply impossible to see everything in a single playthrough.

The quality of writing is very good. While the opening of the game is more tell than show, it's a crude approach to set the scene as fast as possible- you return to your childhood home, a lax peninsula. You are met with several objectives in the early going: paying off a debt to some old geezer for a camera, keeping up your grades in school, and repairing past relationships and forging new ones with a cast of characters. There are eight main LI storylines, with most of them having their own forks, a romantic path and a corruption path.


Some of the LI are rehashed tropes - a shy Librarian type, an ice queen with walls thicker than Fort Knox, an uptight authority/school figure that looks to be unwound, as a few examples- but they have enough depth to them that make their stories interesting. A game with such a massive scope and breadth, there will be parts of storylines that do not resonate as much as others, but there is still a veritable smorgasbord of content. The LI narratives interconnect at points, and it is almost impossible to complete all of an LI's content without having explored another or several LI routes. It can be an issue if a player is only interested in a single LI, but there is a worthy payoff with more available scenes/dialogue that can accessed.

The art of Photo Hunt is some truly stunning work, especially for a DAZ game. The rendering and character designs are absolutely gorgeous, and this is coming from someone who cannot stand the uncanny valley look of DAZ models (much prefer HS). The animations and lewd scenes are fairly reserved in the early going but get much more intricate and spicier as the storylines progress.

Gameplay-wise, the dev makes great use of time and money as resources in a free-roam game. Playing through the first few weeks give an overview of the flow of the game, and the early game is about managing time and money of trying to build up stats and interact with the cast. If it isn't apparent, this is NOT a fast fap game.

Most of the storylines take considerable time to get to the lewd content, but it is worth the wait. The mid-game grind in this game is a minor annoyance but acceptable as it helps to pace the flow of certain narratives. Once you get past it, a lot of the early to mid game resources become less important, and the rewards are being able to access the spicier content of the game. That said, I would highly suggest using the gallery unlocker if the wait through the mid-game becomes annoying.

There is a non-linearity to the game that makes it replayable in trying to see what order of LI stories to pursue from the start. Content is not time-sensitive, as it might be in other games by improper sequencing, but additional dialogue to scenes could open up if you've pursued other relationships (similar to that of Bioware games). The only content that is inaccessible is when the hard forks of certain storylines present themselves.

As mentioned earlier, there are romantic paths and corruption paths to some LI and it requires at least two save files just to see all the content. Having played through up to 0.19.1 and probably spent upwards of 30 hours exhausting the blue routes available, I surmise I've only accessed 60-70% of all the available content.

I'll caveat this next section by mentioning I consider myself a fairly casual gamer and I generally have an aversion to exploration/sandboxes. This game would be difficult to complete without a walkthrough, especially if the intent is to see as much content as possible in the shortest path/time. There is an in-game walkthrough that is functional, but still a work in progress. As of 0.19.1, the in-game walkthrough via laptop is a nuisance to return to as it can only be accessed at home when free roam is possible, but it looks like it may be accessible from the pause screen in the future.

The biggest knock against the game for me is a narrative stumble that appears mid-way through the game. Spoilers forthcoming.


Overall, Photo Hunt is a marvelous game and one that is worthy of your time. This is a slow burn game that is hugely rewarding (there are quite a few lewd sequences that are mind-numbingly hot). I cannot help but admire the scope and breadth of this project, and I look forward to all new content.

Hmmmm.... well.... it took me about 3 days of continuous play to finish ~80% of this game's massive story. No cheat, no skip. I am honestly very satisfied with the author's investment in the plot. Fiona's father's story arc is excellent, and the accompanying soundtrack is great. The 'scenes' (H-scenes) lack smooth transitions and interaction, but the rendering isn't bad.

Overall Rating:

• Rendering & Character Design: 8/10 (Beautiful character renders, but the scenes lack interaction and transitions are a bit rough).
• Story: 8/10 (Some characters have incredible depth).
• Open World: 7/10 (The story still feels linear, and character routes affect one another).
• Gameplay: 7/10 (Stats hardly impact the gameplay; I never hit a wall due to low stats. It doesn't truly feel like a sandbox since all choices are preset based on relationship progression, lacking active stealth or peeping mechanics based on player stats).

=> If you are looking for story depth, a huge amount of content, and meaningful choices, this is a GREAT game. (Personally, I prefer games with active interaction like Alice Awakening or Daily Lives in My Countryside, but a good story is not bad either).

Photo Hunt [v0.19.1 Extra] [Moochie]

Mixed Bag of Emotions

First off, the models in this game are some of the absolute Best I've ever seen. Also the animations are pretty solid and never really have that uncanny valley look. I never play these games with sound so I can't personally attest to it at all.

Now here starts my problems with the game.

Number 1. Forced Sharing.
In multiple routes, there are options that you can take to either avoid or directly pursue these scenes where you share one of the LIs with another man or woman. The issue is the consistency of these choices. For certain character, , you do not have a choice on whether or not she will be shared or not. There is a LI you can make your submissive pretty early on her route and regardless of your choices she will be with other women no matter what. Usually this isn't an issue but, when you give the choice in certain routes and then remove them in others, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Number 2. The MC
Oh my god this guy is one of the dumbest MCs I've ever played. For a game about taking pictures of girls, he refuses to use his camera at the most opportune times. For example, if the goal is to blackmail someone he doesn't take a picture of whatever incriminating evidence in front of him, he just says something stupid about how he can use this for next time. Like why wait? Needlessly padding out the runtime of these routes of no reason. A lot of the text choices boil down to bumbling idiot or ultra perverted weirdo.

Number 3. The Story Structure
Now this may sound super pretentious coming from a random guy reviewing a porn game but, I would prefer if the games I played had a story structure that made any sense at all. The game is broken up into 2 major parts: Main Story and Character Stories. The problem is mainly the fact that the main story runs independently from the character stories while also relying on certain triggers to occur within the character stories to progress the main story. Did that make sense? This creates pretty jarring and immersion breaking inconsistencies in some LIs. One of the LIs dyes her hair in her character story but as you progress th main story, her hair is the oringinal color it was. The dialougue between you and certain characters don't really make sense if you've progressed too far in some routes because "they haven't reached that point" in the main story.

There's other minor problems I have like having so many events relying on 1 part of the day on certain days, routes being progressed locked behind other routes, unnecessary dream sequences that go on for far too long, etc. But I actually do like this game. The writing is fun sometimes. MC is dumb but has his moments. And again some of the best models I've seen period.

It's a fine game overall. 3/5

One of the hidden gems really. You can tell that this game was made with love because no ends were cut short. Almost all characters are really hot (specially my dear Eveyln), scenes are made with care and have a lot of variety and the grind is minimal imo so if you didn't play it please give it a try ur gonna thank me later.

Gonna do this review in sections, since it appears the game is fairly long. The first covers about ~15 hours from the start of the game... and so far gives it around a 2.9 score.

+ Good renders and models, lots of nice details and no re-use of stock stuff.
+ Interesting use of sandbox elements to progress the story.
+ Nice option to corrupt certain women

+/- Optional walkthrough is almost mandatory, to help with progressing LIs

- After the first 15 hours, the MC has not been laid even once. He's received handjobs, a few blowjobs, and even a footjob or two. But absolutely no pussy for him. We've had to settle for watching a dream sequence of a DIFFERENT guy fucking a woman. Total and utter let-down for early content.
- Game is pretty fucking grindy, unless you use cheats, which are unfortunately recommended to get around the grind.
- Game relies heavily on cross-progression of LIs: you can't move one forward without moving others forward, which sucks up a lot of time in useless banter, jobs, and meaningless story.
- There's really no over-arching plot to the game after 15 hours. It's just the MC trying to get closer to girls, either to finally get into their pants, or to corrupt them.
- Money, which is used nearly everywhere, is the major grind in the game. Take some advice: just cheat it in with the mod.
- Teasing appears to be the theme everywhere you go. It's not intentional or active teasing from the LIs, it's the dev teasing us by making us think something might happen, when it actually never does.

Game might deserve more than a 2.9, IF it dished out a little pussy to the MC here and there. So far - nada. No vaginal, no anal, and no throat-fucking. It's like the PG version of "behind the bleachers" in some random high-school.

Will update the further along I get. Hopefully I can stand more grinding and needless boob and foot-jobs, and inane dialog.

I played this game two years ago and really enjoyed it. I was waiting for it to be finished and then forgot about it. It's a good story, interesting characters, and cool situations. The storyline with the mother is absolutely wonderful. I'm glad I found it!

Excellent game, it has everything... Entertaining story, top-notch female designs, fluid sexual animations... high quality. You'll love this game no matter how you look at it. The update times are in line with the level of the game. Great work, Dev!

Great art work, particularily some serious light work that gives true depth to scenes. Bonus praise for the effort on the story scripting. Quite a lot of content for an yet to be completed novel. Would replay it again.

Photo Hunt [v0.19.1 Extra]

game is kinda mid didnt finish it

art 5/5
story 2.5/5
character/design 3.5/5
sex scene 3/5
sound 1/5
vibe 2/5
overall 2.8/5


art really good with high quality renders

story meh it was a hard read

character/design it was good but nothing special i think art of the game hard carry

sex scene idk good enogh i just got few scene

sound i hate the fucking BGM 20 min into game i was going crazy and it was random didnt match the thing was happing on the screen

vibe i would give 1 if art wisent this good hard read annoying BGM
and why i selling pic of my mom and sister ( dont talk about u can chose not to sell if there is option to do )

i though this game gonna be great play with this good visuals i guess 1 thing cant carry other aspects

-1 star for the story which is just decent, but it has gorgeous renders, some great characters, the English is solid and readable, and there's LOTS of content. This is a feast.

fwiw I really like the Mom in this game - she's flawed in a relatable, believable way.

The best game ever. The story is interesting enough, the girls especially Evelynn (the mother) has great face and body details. Every girl have different and complicated stories of their own and most of their paths diverge with each other, they are not just stories independent from each other. All of the stories have their own good(romance) vs bad(slutty/NTR) paths and they are completely different from each other. The game has been on development for quite a while and continuing the game diligently and I hope it won't be abandoned like other great games. It has so much to offer and a lot of stories to tell, it can go on like this for a long time.

This is a strange game to review. On one hand, the writing is generally pretty bad and the sandbox is tedious even with cheats and a guide.

On the other hand, some of the scenes are so depraved and hot I don't want to stop playing. The devs don't fuck around on some of these corruption routes. These corruption routes are really the saving grace of this game. With the writing being awful even by porn-logic standards, romance routes lose their allure. The depraved shit you can get up to is the only reason to play this game.

If sandbox wasn't awful and filled with continuity errors, I think I could forgive the writing a bit more. Despite the major flaws, I still enjoyed the game enough for a 3 star. If we get more helena/becky then 5 star ez.

IMO, The Best Overall Adult VN on this site.

Story:

Varies in content/quality depending on the character it is focused on. That's the beauty of it all, the entire game is built on 'character arcs'. The fleshed-out ones (i.e, the main characters) are beautifully written, and their stories build up the main narrative. (Like how Mass Effect 2 did, for example).
Overall, it felt well put-together. (4 -stars)

Characters:

The strongest part of this VN is its characters. The most consistent and fleshed-out ones I've ever seen here. The amount of detail on how each character behaves in different situations is honestly impressive.
Love all the characters, but special mention goes to:

Evelyn. One of my favorite characters on this entire site. In my opinion, her character/personality almost overshadows her sex appeal (which is red-hot)
One of the only MILF-type characters that actually acts like a mother (albeit an irresponsible one).

Fiona. I'm usually not a big fan of tattoos, but I really can't imagine Fiona looking any different. The strong/seductive rebel. Resembles Quinn from BaDiK, but IMO much more developed. The sheer amount of details that went into her arc really made me love her.

Rachel/Grace/Jen/Monica/Lina/Skylar: Adored every one of them for different reasons (apart from being hot). Even Rachel, being the cute/annoying brat that she is, is so lovable! That's all 8/8 main characters in the 'special mentions'!

Lastly, the Evelyn-MC-Rachel family dynamic is so adorable. I keep thinking 'How will Evelyn/Rachel react?' when they see the MC with another character. (absolutely GOLD tier interactions with Fiona!)

( 5-stars)

Renders/Scenes: One of the best on the site. (5-stars)

Animations: Beautifully done, but lack in number. (4-stars)

Music: Excellent tracks that are very scene-appropriate. (5-stars)

Erotica: Beautiful renders, good 'dirty-talk', great animations, and placement/frequency make the scenes shine and stand out even on an adult site. (5-stars)

Overall: Easy 5-stars

So I was checking the recent updates this morning, saw Photo Hunt in the list, and immediately gave out a little “SQUEE!” sound. My embarrassing outburst was followed up by the thought, “If I’m this excited to see this game updated, how the hell have I not written a review yet?”


Not a lot of games can provoke such a response from me when they’re updated, but Photo Hunt deserves that honor. Excellent story pacing (admittedly going back several years now) with continuing payoffs with future updates as more and more characters expand, group up, with more and more exotic and sexy content as things wrap up. A clumsy menu with far too many clicks to locate the new content is a black mark to be sure, but it doesn’t reduce the enjoyment of the events once you find them.


Photo Hunt takes a more conservative (and in my opinion, better) approach to animations. There will be a significant amount of dialogue between renders, and most adult scenes have only one animation, though some of the larger scenes will sometimes have two. However, the payoff in the quality of both the renders and the animations cannot be understated. Hours have clearly been put in to these renders both in setting them up and in rendering them. These aren’t AI generated nor are they quick and dirty 30 minutes per render garbage. If you’re like me, good renders and good writing trump poor animation, and here we have great renders and writing with quality animations. There may be less overall content per update, but quality > quantity, and there’s still plenty to see each update.


It’s not all gold and rainbows though. The one major drawback, albeit fixed by a skilled modder (You rock Shawnchapp!) is figuring out, with as few clicks as possible, how to access the next event. While some events happen automatically when you sleep, others require going several menus deep and picking up on clues from character bios. This is needlessly clumsy and frustrating, require too many clicks and too much leg work to begin the next scene. Thankfully, Shawnchapp’s mod, a continuation of previous work by Lain, puts all the various events into an easy to read, easy to navigate, side panel. If I were Moochie, I would incorporate this mod into the main game as it’s invaluable to streamlining the gameplay. When possible, less clicks is better. An update to another game with a similar design added a tiny icon to the lower right corner which will say things like, “Something is happening in the garage!” letting you know where events are available to unlock. Perhaps something like that would work as well?


Ah, the music. It’s not just the renders to which great attention has been paid. I even downloaded the music that plays during heavier emotional scenes. Really gives the game a nostalgic feel that you don’t normally expect from games that include sharing love interests with a group!

Speaking of NTR, it’s not NTR. It’s sharing, and it’s optional. If you tell your girlfriend, “Dude, fuck that group of nerds to distract them!”, your girlfriend isn’t betraying you. If you start sleeping with a girl who already has a girl in the side and you agree it’s fine if she keeps both relationships going, she’s not betraying you. Doing it behind your back is betraying you, so none of that “OMG NTR” shit please.


Above and beyond renders, great music choices, and a gallery to die for that clearly and methodically lays out every scenario you’ve played sorted by cast making replay as easy as a click of the mouse. Navigation could be improved, but with this much going right, it’s okay if a couple small things could be improved. 5/5 Highly Recommended!

We’re dealing with a middling title
renders are solid, but character development is average. Among its flaws are the abrupt shifts in certain characters' personalities and their weak storytelling. Some renders are severely lacking, while others are excellent. The gameplay, however, is fun and engaging, and the sheer amount of content is truly impressive. Overall, it’s a mediocre title, but one that’s still worth experiencing