Ren'Py - Abandoned - Power Vacuum [Ch. 12 Official] [What? Why? Games]

Revised review for Chapters 1-10

Started out pretty good, bit of a grind to get the ball rolling as per usual with these type of games. In the beginning there was a bit of a corruption vibe and the "non-canon" stuff was sold as bad ends and came off pretty comedically, that feeling sort of shifts as the game goes on. Thankfully it is toggleable and as someone who hates ntr/cuckold content it was very much appreciated. However as the project grew in scope and quality the time between updates increased. I wanted to see all that PV had to offer, the ntr scenes definitely seemed like they got more production value than the main scenes and kind of made it seem like the goal rather than the consequence, seeing as how the ntr antag gets vaginal sex with the main girls before the mc.

It has your quasi-sandbox click on rooms with icons in it and repeat tasks a number of times with some unique scenes thrown in in to gradually advance the story. The pacing is terrible, normally in these types of game you have your typical flirt>kiss>touching>oral>sex type deal and for the most part that's true, but the MC doesn't get any main girl penetration til seven chapters in. The same is not true of the "alternate paths" the first sex scene in the game is one of the bad ends (in chapter 2) and as mentioned before with 1 exception the ntr has vaginal with every main girl before the mc, again they are avoidable and non-canon as in they don't ever actually happen as far as the story is concerned, but an example of extreme pacing issues. Not to mention how padded the game gets by the time you get to chapter 10 with all sorts of side girls and characters to continue the blueballing with the main girls.

Another testament to the pacing is 10 chapters in and I counted about 14 full scenes(not all vaginal mind you, there are probably a couple arguably are not full scenes) with the 3 main girls. If you only count vaginal there are a whopping 7 vaginal scenes, mind you about 9 of these 14 scenes came in chapters 9 and 10 with 10 being by far and away the most full scenes with the main girls yet. By full scene I mean more than one sexual activity or scenes with buildup and escalation

The proportions and faces are for the most part attractive, there are definitely some characters that range from kind of odd looking to outright disgusting. The render quality until about chapter 9 isn't the best and there are definitely some glaring issues, mostly in the earlier chapters, such as several transitions meant to emphasize some facial expression that end up taking quite a while to load and move in slow motion. But in the latest few chapters renders and animations got a major upgrade.

Certain aspects run very dry after a while, there is a constant running theme throughout the game of characters interrupting scenes and their personalities shifting. A near constant push-pull where you get to or past a certain level in a relationship and they become hesitant to do it again or advance further or they/another character have a sudden personality shift and the interrupting commences. Basically tons of blueballing the mc. Frankly the mc doesnt even start getting good scenes with the main girls til chapter 7 which is when the first penetration happens.

There is some comedic writing sprinkled in here and there but YMMV as to how funny you find it, sometimes it most certainly gets a bit wordy and the characters can come off as having the exact same personalities/sense of humor/taboos with the obvious exceptions of when they have super dramatic personality shifts seemingly random. The younger sister starts off a curious innocent girl and by the time you get to the end she's a complete horndog. The mom has several massive personality shifts as well being a normal mom to a sub then a dom and all sorts of stuff in between.

All in all it's a halfway decent game, doesn't break any molds or anything and there is certainly some disturbing content and some questionable dev practices, but definitely worth a few faps if nothing else. But the laundry list of complaints I and many others have with pacing, blue balling, focus on the nasty old guy getting all the good scenes, until recently not so good renders and an overall lack of sense of direction the game has, It's a skip-through looking for booba scenes type of game. There is a reason the most liked reviews are the negative/mixed ones

The following is my old review for chapter 1-9 and is for posterity. Upon further review I've changed some of my thoughts

time to rate this. I was trying to wait until it was done.
but with "what if..6" I just thought. thats it, I don't need to be convinced anymore.
so, what if..6 is the best of "what ifs" so far, and this little gem was very well done, erotic and hot and lots of animations. this standalone story deserve a 5 on its own.

so, the main game, even if sandbox, its manageable, its intuitive and u can not get stuck. u can just look at the list of todo, and u can focus on that. good in-game help I would say.

the game has that "if wrong choice, u get a ntr-scene and game-over that instead returns u to the choice before" and u can select the "right one".
I always thought, this game is a solid 4 star. good story, good models,funny, and hot scenes. but I always felt, I wanted more Hunter, and the what if is that. they complete the story, giving me that part I missed in the vanilla game. so, from a 4 to a 5 star.

now, I do hope the what if.. will continue for a long time, giving me lots of hot scenes with Hunter and the girls. this is the perfect "ugly" and "beauty" theme we have.

First off, most of the models and visuals look really good. They are probably better than most of the other 3d porn games out there. So if you are playing these games solely for visuals, this is a good one to check out.

However, the rest of the game's construction is why I only gave this three stars. Game play consists of clicking different room icons during different times of the day, clicking through repetitive scenes, and doing it all the next day. Progression moves at a glacial pace, and even after almost three years of development, most characters do not have proper/traditional sex scenes with the MC. Many scenes that look like they are going somewhere end up with some kind of cockblock. I feel like the developers are trying too hard to please both NTR and non-NTR crowds with content such as the "What If" series, which severely limits the rate at which other types of content can be implemented.

The biggest offender of grinding progress to a halt is the younger sister character Catherine. Every time it looks like H-scene progress is about to be made, this character butts in with some unfunny dialogue. It was funny the first time, but each time this situation happens it becomes more annoying. This is personal taste, but as I find her model to be the worst looking, her character feels like a total waste and detriment to the game, and her sex scenes should have gone to another character with better results.

Finally, while the dialogue is pretty clever and funny at times, it gets overwhelming and a little annoying after a while. It feels like every piece of dialogue is set up for some pun, gag, or obscure word play. The story is a comedy first and foremost, but over stuffing it with quips has resulted in severely diminishing returns for me. Eventually it gets grating enough that skipping through it doesn't feel like a loss of meaningful content.

Give the game a shot for sure, but don't feel guilty about Ctrl-skipping your way through a lot of the dialogue and content milking.

This review is for Chapter 9 + What If 1-5

I honestly could have dismissed this game after the first few clicks. As it's one of those games that repeat itself until you can move on after doing everything in the Chapter. And I had my fair share of those games and they're usually tedious grinding repeating everyday to do something to progress. It is in no way comparable to other games that are story centric and the narrative moves on with every click. This is more like a mini game of trying to bang your family while stopping other men from banging them. Story is more like a structure or a premise just so you know what the fuck is happening. I also advise everyone to patch this game with the Incest patch because that is way better than the warden shit that is just clearly a way to circumvent Patreon's Rules.

With that said the best thing I like about this game is the sense of humor, Catherine is the best in that regards. She's just this innocent to an idiotic degree funny. I can't remember how many times I LOLed because of her. Aside from the humor I also like the NTR, which I get, not everybody would like. I do like Hunter especially when he's your gramps and not just a random warden which is fucking weird. One thing I dislike about VN games is that most MCs are perfect fucking machines and barely have any rivals. How good would it be if BADIK has Hunter in it wreaking havoc in B&R? Instead you got fucking Tybalt and Chad who doesn't really pose any threats to MC of that game. But I digress, I just appreciate the addition of a malevolent force that can actually do harm to your harem even though you'll be forced to go back to the past to undo it.

Fappability is high because that is the main selling point of this game and in my opinion, it delivers.

Story is low, there isn't much. Just like the first Super Mario that doesn't really tell you why mario is chasing down peach when you power up the game. He just does, deal with it.

User Interface, it works.

5 Stars for the laughs and the bodily fluids.

Fappability - 9/10
Story - 4/10
User Interface - 7/10

Hunter is an Over the top vile old man (seriously disgusting)
moves in with your “step”-mom/sisters. Dad died and left them deep in debt and hunter is exploiting this by renting a room in their house while planning to exploit their emotional vulnerability over the death of father/husband to fuck and chuck them. His intent is explicitly malicious and scummy.

MC comes up with the brilliant plan of stopping Hunter by seducing the girls first into an incesteous relationship.
You also use a bunch of cruel and frankly hilarious methods to sabotage the old man like spiking his food with ipecac, making his hearing aid overload, messing with the drugs he feeds your sister so that she punches his teeth out instead of fucking him, etc.
Also will acquire a few other girls who are not your family to round up the harem later on.

The MC's explicit goal in the game is to avoid getting NTRed. He is building harem and defending it very aggressively.
The actual plot is linear and the True plot is one where you successfully defend your harem. The game has two modes of play
[NTR on] mode you are allowed to fail, resulting in a “bad end” NTR scene (which is gross because as mentioned he is extremely vile and decrepit looking. Hunter makes a pig orc look handsome in comparison) followed by automatic time travel back to when you made the mistake so you can pick the correct choice.
[NTR off] mode disables your ability to click on dumb choices in the first place so you always succeed in protecting your harem.

The game is a bit slow, but not exactly grinding. Rather each scene is small incremental progress with unique dialog.
Most of the humor is slapstick with varying degree of funny. Some of it is just cringe though. Such as bashing other games in the genre while still falling into the same foibles.

MC starts out as a wussy shrimp meant to invoke shota. With the mom having a giantess build.
After a week of excercise MC mysteriously grows a foot taller and transforms from a shrimp into an adonis with the physique of a body builder.
Then his mother accidentally breaks his penis and through a convoluted scenario it heals bigger, becoming a bitch breaker.
This is, technically, not a retcon.

DEAR GOD WHYYYYYY?!??!
*takes a deep breath*

So this review is for the Chapter 9 version since the What Ifs are just optional side pieces of content.

Aight, so. The GAME!
I have had a hard time finding anything wrong with this game. Over all this is a great sandbox visual novel. The renders COULD be better, but it more than makes up for it with its Unique models in the game... Seriously, I haven't seen anything more grotesque than Hunter.... God he's ugly! The animations can be a bit of a hit and miss mainly, because of how much work was put into each of them.

But the scenes??? They are pretty damn good which is what really keeps me coming back to this game. Whether it's whaching something as grotesque or hot, you are going to keep coming back to replay these scenes.

I also have no complaints about the story. It definitely keeps you engaged with it's humor and it's characters. Even the NTR scenes are well written to where you can't help, but giggle a bit. I just wish there were a couple of NTR scenes that take Hunter out of the picture all together were canon.

So uhh... yeah. Peep this game yo! Along with it's side content (AT YOUR OWN RISK!).

One of the best games on the site if not the best, Great writing, gameplay is pretty straightforward once you pick up how it plays out. The sex scenes at the beginning of the game were average but have greatly picked up as the chapters get higher and higher.

When i first started playing the game, it had a nice plot, sexy, funny scenes, good humor, banter, and this "corruption" feeling, that you can enjoy in a good game...
But then it got worse, and worse... Corruption was replaced by pounding, and there was not that many good scenes...
Models are still ok but they feel like a bit rushed, in compare to earlier releases.
NTR... Not a big fan, I dont mind, but to spend most time on rendering side stories (maybe for top tier patrons...) damaged the image of the main game. And i mean it... Played 2 what if, ald left it there.

This game is slow to progress with sex but gives a lot of time to bind with the LI so its dialogue heavy. now to do what I never thought I'd do and defend NTR.
I'll start by saying that I'm not a fan of NTR but if you want the most out of this game you'll want to leave it enabled, most of the NTR scenes are over the top and with the game dev making a joke then pausing and rewinding to before your bad decision it kind of feels like a dream scenario, it also reaffirms that what the MC is doing is important and that he's protecting his family. the only 2 scenes that I really felt were too much were Brenna CH7 and sleepover CH9 since if felt like more of an emotional NTR.
Another thing to factor in about this game is that most of it is foreplay, dialogue, and binding with the LI and penetrative sex takes a pretty long time to come around, so without the NTR you end up with foreplay for a very long time, I actually think this slow approach to the LI is a good thing since it gives a chance to get to know them and care for them , it also make certain acts much more meaningful like a certain blowjob, if you play this you would probably know which one I'm taking about.
Also if you don't like how the MC looks he'll get better over time, I didn't like how he looked at the beginning too
not a good review since I dint actually talk about the game but oh well, just know its a great game and worth playing

It's generally a nice game. Decent renders, pretty girls and good dialogues. However there are two huge cons which ruin the game completely.

1. Way too much cock teasing. Imagine ordinary relationship path in any other porn game. First you get girl undressed, then handjob > boobjob > blowjob > oral sex > vaginal > anal etc. Now imagine you have to repeat every activity 10-20 times with a slightly different dialog to progress to the next step. Yeah, that what Power Vacuum is.
2. So, you've repeated handjob session 20 times and want to progress to the next step. Can you? No! You can't progress the game with only girls you like, you have to progress with all of them at the same time. So, to unlock the next level first make 15 foot massages with another character and so on and so on. I hate Kate's and especially Lucia's paths yet I had to play it to progress with other girls.

The game really should be like 3x times shorter. This endless cock teasing is just tiresome. Reading walls of text to only see the same animation 20 times is no fun. Honestly, I skipped all dialogues in the last 3 chapters to only see sex scenes. I hope someone will upload Ophelia sex scenes to the Pornhub, because there's no way I will play it again.

NOTE: I only played this once and will again when I have time and change review if necessary.

Lets start with good stuff first!

Massive amounts of content, and it is funny without having to rely on obnoxious sound effects too much. Also, it has taken a risk with its story, I will not spoil but all can say is it does not do the same cookie-cutter BS and most other games and actually tries to stand out from the crowd. I don’t mind the NTR. +3

Cons

The bodies of the characters do not look good at all! The breasts look super weird. The dialogue can seem a little off but this only happens sometimes. The renders are poor. This is a very important aspect of a 3D game on renpy. The models look very low quality.

This is a great fucking game. It's hilarious, looks pretty good and features some simply excellent writing. I'm not overly fond of sandbox games, but this one avoids a lot of the pitfalls of the genre. It's not very grindy, there's no money to worry about (except in a story sense) and no dumb minigames. I was also never left baffled about how to advance a character's story, it's fairly straightforward and the game offers hints if you need them. The LIs are hot, but some have somewhat ludicrous dimensions going on. All in all, if you somehow haven't played this yet, do yourself a favor and fix that!

Almost a masterpiece!

This is a gem of the adult VN community.
The teasing, the humor and the facial expressions are on spot.

Each and every character is unique, with well-developed personality traits and well understood profiles. The only downside I see here is that, while well developed and unique, they are also ridden with a great deal of similarities - mainly their mannerism and quick wit almost being genetically passed down.
Unless intended, this is hard for a single author to notice or escape from, which is why a good editor could do wonders for some counter-play and advice. But this is where my criticism ends.

I applaud the developer/author for doing something I rarely give kudos for here on F95 - and that is delivering a proper easy to follow plot with a ton of supporting- and original sub-plots. The banter is enjoyable and funny. Each character is developing and growing, not to mention the MC *wink wink*.

Playing this game in the later hours of the evening has almost become a minor ritual for me. Especially since I wish to end every day on a positive note in order to steer clear from any depressive triggers.

I wish to thank @What? Why? Games for letting me enjoy the world and characters they have created. You have my utmost respect and gratitude.
Keep adding, keep making and expanding to this wonderful quirky family.

P.S. I love the optional NTR. I rather have it off.

First thoughts of this game were that it was rather cheaply done, but that opinion has changed a little. It does still have a cheap feeling to it, some of the story line and renders are not exactly excellent. Still it grew on me rather fast.

Story - 8/10 There is quite a lot of comical commentary which is not bad although it does go overboard a little. The rest is pretty much involved in close to every usual fetish that is known. Some are a little much, still for some reason it does capture interest.

Originality - 9/10 Have not come across a story/game that tries so hard to involve so many fetishes. I must say that it is done pretty well, there is room for improvement, and it does go a little fast. Still it is more interesting that many others out there.

Renders - 7/10 Here there is definitely room for improvement. A great deal of the renders feel out of date. Although there is a lot to see that is fine. It still has that feeling that it is outdated.

Animations - 9/10 This is where it shines, the animations although certainly not the best. Are a vast improvement over so many others. I give the dev high marks for this, Animations and story are the Main draw in these story/games, and it is quite well done in this one. Of course the sex scenes are still rather short in my opinion, i have seen others that do a better job, still this one is pretty well done.

Grammar - 8/10 There are certainly spelling and grammar errors, as well as comments that don't make sense. A more thorough proof read before putting the chapters out would fix that.

Amount of content - 9/10 Very good amount of content in most chapters, some feel a little short. Certainly high marks for this.


Overall well done, still room for improvement. at first i was not impressed by this story/game at first viewing. That changed after my first complete play through. If the renders were improved along with some of the story, and the animations were longer and a little more involved. This would certainly be a more highly rated and well known story/game. I do like this one, just wish it were better.

This game.... I mean, I really should hate it. It has a lot of things I hate in it, yet for some reason, I enjoyed way too many hours playing.

CONS:
To be honest, the only thing I have against the game is it is way too wordy. I know the banter is part of the charm of this game, but it could tonned down a bit. When you play it from the beginning, it gets to be too much. Plus you know it's just banter, so you start to skim it anyway. I would also like to see the character icons go away from the room selection when they don't do anything anymore. Like Catherine and the spa or Brenna and the pool.

PROS:
I normally don't even bother with games containing incest; it's just not my thing. Additionally, I dislike most sandbox style games. I am also not a hug fan of grind to get to the good stuff. But here I am, talking about how great this game is.

I think for me, it's like watching incest porn. You know they are actors and not really related so I could really care less. In this case, the dev has made this family so much NOT a family and with such crazy banter, that I don't view them as "real". What I mean by that is sometimes these games/VNs have a more serious, realistic story to them where the siblings develop serious feelings for each other. Well, there is nothing serious in this story so it makes it easier for me to get past my uncomfortable feelings.

I also think every game should have a Hunter character. This is the best thing to ever happen to NTR. Seriously. I love everyone of his scenes. He is the skeviest, nastiest, grossest big dick bastered I have ever seen in these games. I think every dev should immediately him to their stories.

Conclussion: If you are looking for a serious game, there is nothing at all to see here. If you are looking for a fun romp through wacking material and totally unrealistic situations and behaviours, then look no furthur. Just becareful what you eat and drink while you are there.

Exceptionally good game. One of the best, certainly in the top ten. Probably even top five. Well-developed characters (both main and side), funny ideas, appealing texts, and the iPatch tops things off . The facial expressions and animations in the hot scenes are awesome.

For me, it also came to the fact that I had not updated the game since 2019 (chapter 2). Somehow I always overlooked the updates. Now I'm on chapter 7 in the game and each chapter tops the previous one.

This game is a must play! Hats off to the developer...

I admit, I had mixed feelings during chapter 1, but once I got through it, I started to really appreciate the slow pace. What else can I say? It's a really good fucking game. You'll be blueballed for the first few chapters, but it's totaly worth it!
Trust me, dev put a lot more work into it than I into writing this review.

The dialogue is witty and well written. The renders and character models are good as well. The premise is so absurd and so are the resulting scenarios but the commitment to the world created and its rules is one hundred percent, which coupled with the rapid fire witticisms gives playing the game a feeling akin to alice stepping into wonderland albeit a slightly perverse one. 5/5 stars.

So far is the best game I've ever played.
The game has a good story, a wonderful art, fantastic milf and excellent animations.
The NTR is right on point, you have the choice to decide if you wanna see it or not, which i found it a great solution for the NTR haters.

Just waiting for and fucking with Ophelia, now a clicker will be waiting for us
.in the beginning, interestingly thin now madly thinning. everyone is waiting for him to fuck Ophelia! Perhaps it will be waiting for it to be worth it, Otherwise, like the game the average of Ophelia and Brena ok, I would like to spice up some super characters and the entanglement rather do the sequel II