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

Honestly, this is good, but it leaves me a bit mixed.

The game has a boring premise that is made more interesting by the existence of your lecher grandpa who wants to be the MC of the story and indulge in the haremesque "landlady and roommates" fun that our MC inevitably will put himself into. It makes the game interesting in a weird way.

The art of the game is rather decent (though facial expressions can feel off to some and I feel a distinct lack of movement in their faces on the render when speaking); it's by no means bad and while some points may not be for everyone's tastes, I think it's a very safe spot where it is both conventionally decent while also having a very unique direction that creates its own style.

The lack of sound other than the main menu bothers me a bit, but nothing major.

The main issue with this is the writing. The writing is... well, it's fun. At the start. It's filled with weird innuendos and jokes between the characters who are all weird and quirky in their own way - and it's kinda funny at the start, honestly. But it oversaturates fucking fast. Like, really fast. There's only so many times I can read euphemisms about fucking and cumming from the characters banters before it kinda loses its luster. It becomes this weird aspect of the game where it's like it's wasting textboxes to try to make me laugh when I kinda just want to get on with the story. This is made worse by the fact that the main way to progress the game is through following repeated events until they progress slowly towards a variation or a new event; at the start, the writing was nice to read and it felt like it was growing on me, but doing the repeated events eventually derailed into me wanting to get rid of a couple characters existence entirely because I couldn't stand their quirky dialogues and personality(Catherine, mostly).

That, paired with really bad spacing of these events on the time-system in game, lower my enjoyment. If you put a time system in your game and I'm gated from moving forward with content because I need to regularly keep skipping time for the one thing that I need to do, you fucked up in your balancing of events somewhere, dude.

Other than these two gripes, the game is good. Not the type of game to binge through, given the writing will start grating on you, but it's still a nice game. Ironic, because until the relationship between the characters actually start happening, it's a very slow burn.

Best game in the world. I don't have any criticism. Thank you for the great work you did. I loved both the plot and the characters. I think the animations are great. I hope that in the future they can evolve their games much more.

Came for the porn, stayed for the writing (and the porn, who am I kidding).
Honestly, there have been very few porn games that have made me laugh so much, and believe me, I have played a LOOOT of porn games in the last couple of decades. References to popular culture, movies, and fuck me, even philosophy kept me googling things I found picked my curiosity.
The models and animations are really good. OK. facial expressions may not be for everybody, but all in all I would put them towards the top of the scale.
I downloaded it a few versions ago, saw the assets, saw the girls with the grandpa and assumed it was another NTR game with an ugly fuck, and left it to check other games. Nothing can be further from the truth. Yes, the ugly fuck is trying to nail the girls, but the only times it happens is in the non-canonical part of the story. IF you choose wrong (or right, depends what tickles your fancy) the ugly fuck nails the girls. Otherwise, he is just trying... And if he nails the girls it immediately jumps to the part where you made the wrong (or right) choice and you can be the one nailing her.
The story is pretty silly, but it is a game that it is not taking itself seriously.
What I can say about the plot is that it is really well written, with plenty of humour (I was laughing out loud in quite a few occasions).
All in all, I would REALLY recommend this game. It has 5 stars and 300+ reviews for a reason. (at least in chapter 12)

I just finished the chapter 12 and i first played the game back in 2021. If you had asked me then i would have given a 5star.

I was enjoying this game so much until the dev released the first what-if (i believe it was chapter 7-8) and then he kept releasing what-ifs, since then the main game kinda got down towards a strange road. Until then, dev seemed to love his own game as well and wanted to keep it inside his own preferations, keep it clean, story-focused. Rest of the review will explain what i mean.
(STORY):
The main story of the game is that the mc (sterling) competes with the old man(hunter) at who is going to get more girls. Hunter isnt appealing so he uses other unethical ways to do so, and the mc has to do it with other more ethical ways.

(FIRST PLAYTHROUGH-NTR CONTENT):
When i first played the game i saw the NTR disable option, but i didnt know what NTR was since im not an english native speaker and didnt bother changing it as i thought i might lose content. As you have already understood from the other reviews the game is kinetic which means you cant affect the story by choices. At some points tho you would have to choose between two options. This is why i was tricked at first. I remember the first time i saw a NTR scene by accident because i chose the wrong option for Eva(Brenna's friend) and then would proceed to see hunter getting his way with her. I was disappointed but at the same time liked the game a bit more. Because after the scene there was a narrator(robot) message "oh no, hunter stole one from you" or something like that. Which made the whole story(the competition between hunter-mc) more visible. I thought back then that since he stole a girl from me i wouldnt be able to have more scenes with the girl, which would raise my hatred towards him and would be beneficial to the game as it lead to a better "justice state" when sterling was the one to get a girl.(ofc i would load save to not lose to him but only the idea that i could pick a wrong choice would make the game far more interesting). I kept loading my saves if i lost a girl to hunter because im not into NTR stuff at all, in fact i hate them, and when i found out that my choice wouldnt matter at all i got disappointed, but not to the point that i wouldnt like the game.

All this changed after the release of the first what-if because the NTR option would now not be just a simple fuck, but it would progress as a story line. Even non-canonical it ruined the image of the girls and even the entire game's story in my head, not exclusively because of the what-ifs(which were basically NTR expands from the main story and they are connected to an extend), but also because the dev kept releasing the new chapters' NTR with story of its own just like the what-ifs.

ALL IN ALL, what i want to say about NTR is that in the beggining the NTR was just a simple fuck, which would just make your hatred towards hunter rise(which in my opinion is beneficial to the story), and after the whatifs the NTR scenes had their own "ending" with pregnant shit and making mc a BIG loser generally(You play as the mc so you are the loser I HATED THAT). At that point i kept playing the game only for the scenes and lost complete interest on the story. I understand that most patreons are NTR fans, and dev tried succesfully to keep the game in the lines of "canonicality" till the checkpoint of the first what-if, but in the end as it seems money won and he went full on NTR, which i dont hate him for since i would probably have done the same. Its just that for the non NTR fans it ruined the game.

Now for the non-NTR-story related content.
(WRITING):
His writing is insane, the best of all the games i have played. These lines that connect the game to the real world in a humorous style is just so good. Even while in a sex scene i think it makes it seem more casual as the characters are now really close enough to be joking while doing the deed. I had my laughs at times, which i really appreciated in a porn game. To not enjoy a game just for its porn.
(SCENES):
Sex scenes are pretty decent, really good quality, the only thing that i kinda didnt like is the non-succesfull attempt to make "sexy faces". It lead more often to uncanny valley than sexy.
(PROGRESS SPEED):
Many reviews hated the slow progress with the girls, but i presonally like it. Its one of the things i also appreciate. I dont mind getting a bit blue balled for a while if it makes it more realistic. Wouldnt it be really unrealistic if the mc fucked his family members in just 3 meetings? It also made me notice that this little detail would make me appreciate the low intimacy scenes ( clothed shit, handjobs, etc), whereas in other games i would straight up wait for the "good shit".
(MY ADVICE):
Play the game if you'd like to chapter 8 for the story, then if you want more scenes play the rest, but dont expect the story to end up to your liking.

The game's not terrible overall. It's an extremely on-the-rails VN with decent animations & CG.

I have two complaints that keep me from enjoying this one as an adult game. The first is the writing. Dear god, why does every sex scene feel like all the involved characters are engaged in a competition to see who can put out more Marvel-esque one-liners? It's sex, not standup comedy. The writing can really make or break an adult VN, and while a chunk of it is funny here, it's about as far from sexy as it's possible to be. Keep the comedy out of the scenes.

The second complaint is the decision for facial expressions. the younger sister is the biggest offender here. She already looks like a gremlin 2/3 of the time, why make it worse by making her make ridiculous faces? And don't get me started on the ridiculous ahegao faces they try to shoehorn into every seen - you know the kind, it's not "fucked silly" like it's intended to be, it's more of the influencer-esque "look as dumb as fucking possible" face.

Overall a shame, because there's not enough games that are actually content-rich like this (even if it did take four years).

I really like this game and it had a good amount of content up to this latest release. Humor was my favorite part and got some pretty good laughs out of it. glad NTR wasnt a big thing in the game and really looking forward to more.

This is peak. You won't find many games better than this. While the story is alright, the scenes are absolutely amazing. You live with you younger and older sister as well as your mother and you progress in their storylines and unlock more and more scenes. There's a ton of content and the game is still being updated (extremely slowly). There's content for all kinds of people and avoidable NTR (you can turn it off before the game starts). There's also side stories you can download that are pretty good and dive into more genres. Please play this game.

This is one of the best games on this website by far. I just finished ch 11 and after playing many games, this one does everthing better than most of them. First of all, and something that isnt (at least for me) super regular on the games i been playing, this game is funny af. It has to be the best writing out of any game, the amount of references to pop culture, music, movies, etc, is perfect and the dialog in general is great. Every character has a place and its well writen. And on the technical aspect, yes, early chapters look dated ofc, but still are good, but oh my once you hit the upgrade on last chapters....is one of the most beautiful and the lewd scenes are for me top 3. Overall a fun and great game that deserve every praise.
p.d: Ophelia >

I started out absolutely loving this game, mainly for the humour, but also some nice characters but it took a turn for the worst. With the far too many transvestite references, religious references, feminism, excessive fluids which I find disgusting, but thought I could tolerate, stupid cross-eyed faces during sex, all the women are stronger than the MC and can kick his ass, even his little sister, his stupid responses that go against what every male is like etc... my love for the game, where the humor was great and it was becoming one of my favourites has tanked, sadly.

. . . .. . .. . . . . kinetic. . . .. sandbox. . . . . . grind.
Damn. . .. .
ntr path or not.
This shit is fucking messed up. This being kinetic does not help.
you know how usually the landlord/dad in incest porn gotta die off or be a villain? When playing through this, you realize it is seriously messed up how the antagonist traumatized the father. leading to his mistreating the mc enough that the mc didn't miss him until he learned about how his life and family got broken.

The mc seems wimpy to the porn world with his restraint. And the girls have serious reservations about him. Hell, quite often, the mc mentions how he is being used for their gratification while being treated like shit. That and the exhibitionsim scene made me particularly annoyed about this being kinetic. After a certain amount of double standard BS, you don't do shit as it's kinetic. The mc gets a rant, but you don't get to close a path off if you're finally tired of this shit.

And like just about all ntr that ruins the characters of the girls. The mc has to work a fuck ton and go through about a 100 rejections for the girls. Especially so when a lot of the game feels like you're grinding just like this game does. Then the girls just bend over for the antagonists.

Ntr really isn't avoidable. I'll concede it ain't a part of the story if you turn it off. But the transition scenes from chapter to chapter are like reminders (using some poor brothers irl examples) that
- your girl hugs every new member of a football team for a full 5 minutes regardless of the fact that this guy was a stranger 5 minutes before the hug
while
- she took eternity to get beyond handholding with you

constantly reinforces that you don't matter that much. Then supports the notion that the competition has more than just a leg up. Maybe both legs and a dick inserted. Now, she/ntr lovers/advocates tend to be pretty determined at gaslighting you as the new player into thinking it really ain't anything of substance, or it's not what it looks like.
The geezer does use drugs. But not all the time. The transition scenes between episodes or just about any scene with the old shit and any one of the LIs; even with ntr disabled, show the chicks being more open to the geezer than they were with the mc.
One could say this is to demonstrate the difference between the mc's restraint and respect compared to the geezer hunting inexperienced prey while looking like he has a skin disease for a face.
Still, that is character murder.

And it makes zero sense to have all lights on, everything visible. And the walking skin disease convinces the girls he is the mc with just a change of clothes and some voice acting. No they're not visually impaired. They didn't seem to be drugged either.

If you want me to list some pros.
The girls are sexy beyond any doubt.
The dev did try to put jokes, poem/rhymes and a bit.

But that takes me back to another con in the dev doing the regular thing when bringing a non-cult religion into porn. "Let's bring christianity into this and bash it"

Seriously. . . . when setting up an incest scene the characters say "what would Jesus do?"

That is beyond mockery of religion and morals. That's pretty much saying "I did this shit. Now what are you going to do? Show me you're real?"

Maybe that's a pro for many here who likely hate christianity or love to call them out for believing in a fake or imaginary figurehead. But those who like to do that will just as quickly turn around and say "yo! kink shaming is not cool" when something genuinely weird, immoral, and more get's a reasonable reaction.

Unique and great game.

Only reason im giving 3 stars is H scenes. Animations could be improved apart from loops of same frames and lacking of sounds of sex is my main problems with the game. The rest of it was amazing.

Great writing, great renders, great game. One of the few games that made me like all of the girls and made them unique characters. Does a fantastic job juggling them all as well. NTR scenes are well done too, even if it's not my cup of tea.

Easily some of the best art in any porn game, decent story with hot avoidable non-canon NTR, there's a gallery built in, great girls, huge dicks, definitely worth trying out for anybody. The only porn game where I'm actually keeping track of the updates

Terrible, absolutely terrible. This game is a click-fest. There are many events like this:

"Moms night event 1/15", which means you have to experience the same event 15 times in order to accomplish it. Now add that up to 8-10 events per chapter, for all characters.

The event is a little bit different each time (slow progress), but the progress is REALLY slow. The entire first chapter happened without any actual sexual interaction (a kiss on the mouth and a foot massage with the hands were the highlights). For instance, one event (0/9) with mom is that you sleep on her lap on the couch after watching TV with her. And I think 4 times or so it's just the same goodnight kiss on the cheek / closer to the lips with a little bit different text). Then it's another 3 times 2cm closer to the mouth - a joke.

The problem is though, that the dialogues are boring as fuck. Because the characters talk about unimportant nonsense all the time. The generic family topics about your deceased father that you've read a 100 times in Incest games. About how the MC has left the family and they missed him and lil sis was angry. Nothing original.

But that's just 5% of the dialouges. The other 95% is about the household, cooking food, playing games, movies and stuff that is just uninteresting to read, so CTRL is your best friend.

The "gameplay "consists of grinding through the text and bringing the 1/15 counters up to 15/15. (To be fair, some of them are only limited to 3-5 times, 15 was the biggest one so far. But overall they add up).

The old fuck (your grandfather) is disgusting on purpose with very ugly skin and long fingernails and he's groping the girls and trying to be close to them. Part of the game consists of interrupting him, so your boner will constantly get killed when you see that walking corpse next to the beautiful girls.

I turned NTR off, I assume a "bad ending" is where HE fucks them.. I can't even imagine this obscurity. Unbelievable someone designs that by free will.

Anyway, you won't miss anything if you skip this game. In fact, if you pick any other of the good rated incest games, you'll have a 10 times better experience. Because this here is thematically just a rip off from other games (big and lil sis, big sis wants you to take pictures of her, little one knows nothing about sex etc.).

The only good thing is the models, but they don't make up for the underaverage experience. And most other incest games have great models too.

This game is a parody, story makes almost no sense and it gets even crazier as it goes on, same for the LIs, with that being said the game knows that and it doesn't pretend to be something else, it doesn't even have to try to be funny, it just is with the help of the writing which is just as crazy as the rest of the story (in a good way).
The renders and animations improve drastically as the game progresses and there's a lot of lewd content past the first few chapters. The sandbox aspect is very simple and straight to the point, so you won't waste time figuring out how to progress the story.

Was about to drop the game when I started to see how pathetic MC is, how boring the story is, how easily corruptible the female characters are by Hunter and how literally every girl here is a lesbian.

But then.... Drew came, that was the straw that broke the camel's back, his introduction feels like a literal hugbox.

Catherine
What an awful character, had to skip all of her scenes, not only is she probably the ugliest girl in the game (Yes, evenDrewis hotter FFS) but her personality is just terrible, at times feels like she is mentally slow and thats a boner breaker.

Hated her stuff with Amber.

Brenna
Was fine at the beginning but then they had to include that other girl, her friend, EVERYWHERE; Not much else to say, she is kind of hot so if the big sister who is kind of a bitch seems appealing to you, you will probably like her.

Aliza
Not much to say, very little scenes till the last chapters, but she is hot and has a fun personality.

Mallory
Best girl.

Lucia
Not a fan.

Rebecca
Skipped the game to see her scenes...yeah that took a bad turn, she had the hot blonde looks and the conservative farm girl air around her aaaaaand the dev ruined her.

Ophelia
Cant say much, if you are here for the Mom/Milf scenes, it will take you a LOT of hours in to the game before they happen, and honestly? not that great.

She also turns in to your typical femdom milf character, boring and overused.

Futa Dude Drew
No comment at all,I do not like transgender characters in my games, also I believe he doesn't have a lot of scenes in this game, yet.

MC DAD
If I read it right while I was skipping through the last chapter, what the hell was the point of making the MC dad a bottom gay character who liked to fuck Drew? doesn't fit his personality from what the MC read in his journal at all and come on, really dev? Were the whole female lesbian/bisexual cast and the transgender characters not enough for the LGBT representation?


Conclusion
Game is overrated, it is a kinetic novel with no choices at all (obviously, thats what kinetic means, thats my fault for not checking the tags throughly), MC is pathethic and submissive, has no strong personality, has no personality but being boss around by the girls The only glimpse of personality I EVER SAW of him was in one of the bad ends where he kills hunter, he looks cool though, I'll give the game one extra star for having him glow up.

The models of Ophelia, Rebecca, Mallory are hot, everyone else, meh, game takes too long for anything beyond foreplay to happen (which I guess its normal, devs have to earn some money and what better way than milking a game).

There is too much LGBT stuff in this game, which could break or make the game for you (broke it for me), so that's a plus or a con depending on you.



Overall, I would NOT recommend playing it, if you are here for the NTR, just play the What if Stories to be honest.

Excellent from story telling to H content.
At first you might not like some characters but their personalities grow with the quality of the game and you will start to see that it's one of the few games that does feature absolutely different personalities.
NTR stuff is hot and not bound. Animations and models are amazing. Teasing and build-up is great and by level 11 you get a lot of it so the pacing is really good.
Jokes....jokes....well, you can get tired of them, they can sometimes be a no-boner and out of place but overall they are really good especially if you are familiar with the context of references (I wasn't 30% of the time). But the ones I got were really funny.

Simply great. Nice story, great characters, NTR is toggable. Sadly there seems to be some futa-content which I don't like at all and hope is pretty much nonexistent, but we will see (CH 11). Would be great if there were more updated, but I prefer quality over quantity.

Hot and funny game. It starts a bit rough, and I personally took a while to get into it, but the game gets better with each chapter.

The jokes and references do get a bit much from time to time which does take some getting used to and is probably not for everyone.

Don't let the NTR tags scare you off, I hate NTR and luckily the NTR filter in this game does a good job of letting you completely avoid it without feeling like you're missing out on anything.

Good characters (both models and personalities), great sex scenes, and the best humor I've seen in nearly *any* game (regardless of genre). I actually laughed out loud quite a few times while playing. I'll be donating on Patreon as soon as I am able.