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

Review for Power Vacuum Ch12:

I browsed right on by this game many times because of the futa, netorare, and sandbox tags. The futa and netorare scenes are completely avoidable by disabling them at the start of the game or with other game choices, and that's really good for business. The sandbox is a shining example of what a good sandbox should be.

The sandbox is very well executed. It can get boring at times with nothing at all going on in most time slots when there are very few unfinished quests. It's relatively easy to forward time, but still tedious. How it actually plays out will be different depending on how you play through different story lines and it will likely be different when played as a complete game instead of one update at a time.

The writing is refreshing. The humor frequently had me laughing out loud. Graphics/renders are excellent. Sexual tension build-up and lewd scenes are also excellent. Some players say it's "slow," but I think it's perfect.

While I like the humor and the sex, the overarching story could use some work. The MC doesn't even try to figure out how to defeat the antagonist (Hunter) and instead just passively waits for Hunter's next evil scheme. Note that I mostly played with NTR off, but even when it's on, the MC doesn't act differently toward his situation.

The girls' body shapes (breasts/waist/hips/butt) are a little exaggerated, but not so much that they appear grotesque, and they generally fit in with the humorous theme.

Overall, the game isn't perfect, most people still prefer mindless action, sex, and special effects over Oscar-winning acting.

Review for the WhatIf episodes:

The WhatIf releases started after the game development was in full-swing. These releases are non-canon content that focus on less mainstream fetishes like futa, netorare, and pregnancy. None of them are appealing to me, and that's likely the case for most players. I would be a monetary supporter if the dev didn't spend close to 50% of his time on the WhatIfs; that's time that could be spent on the further development of the actual game. This development style conflicts with a monthly subscription model.

The story is more focused on humor that misses the mark with me versus and actual story. That's probably the goal though, to make another purely fap based game where comedy and sex is the priority.

Story:

MC comes home, meets Landlady/Mom, we see the main obstacle/Hunter who acts and is more of an advarsary then his grandfather. And that's where the childish cat and mouse game begins sadly, the story consists of stopping this guy from drugging and possibly shagging your roomates. There's some weird form of ED which the MC suffers from or bent cock I don't know I spaced out by that time. But the story or lackthereof is about purely incest in family and druggy like behavior.

Gameplay:

Sandbox game, but not as bugging as I've been accustom to, this probably the only plus.

Characters:

Older model characters, big massive tits, unportioned bodies the status quo, the slider effect was present.


This game isn't for me, but I'm older so maybe this game just missed the mark with me and that's fine. Cheers to everyone else.

I never expected the best part of a porn game to be it's self aware humor, but this one nails it. The models and scenes are good, but nothing groundbreaking. The dialogue however always makes me smile. Very few games, porn or otherwise get me audibly laughing but Power Vacuum constantly catches me off guard. It's a good time if I can jack it and laugh, 10/10. On chapter 8 so far and every addition has been fantastic.

I played this game expecting a masterpiece, but it's really nothing out of the ordinary.

Renders: The renders look good not exactly blown away, and the models are okay as well, they do seem dated and reused models, I'm also not big on the facial expressions. Looks foolish sometimes to me.

Story: He's a scrawny loser one minute and incredible hulk with a big dick the other. Still comes off as weak and passive even in his enhanced form. The girls aren't anything special personality wise just a bunch of recycled cliché's. The mother who hard to get, but really is a slut. The Sister that's rough around the edges, but slutty and to dimwitted, curious sister. His main competition is a older grotesque man who relies on rape like actions, scratch that sometimes he just oddly charms his way into the women legs. That's kind of where I laugh and say this game isn't for me. It voids all common sense. It's a reused cliché in these games and it's kind of boring.

Gameplay: It's a sandbox but not excruciatingly painful to maneuver through.

One of the best adult games I have played. The story is great and extremely funny and the animations and characters are well done. I also appreciate how the design of the game is helpful and shows you the way to go, too many games are a senseless grind to get anywhere which only adds hours of game time but for no actual pay off. Other games take a lot of time to figure out your next step. While rail-roading games too easily can also ruin them, certain types of games do not need to be a quiz. Adult games especially is about enjoyment, not time consuming challenges. Top marks for a great game!

This shit is GOATED. Really good character designs, a funny story, and a dash of NTR if you so desire.

The wide range of cast and the sub-stories are honestly all interesting in their own right. Though not all of them appealed to me (the younger sister and the best friend's story were not really my cup of tea), there is still plenty of other characters to make up for it. Pair that with characters that are actually likeable and have their own personalities rather than just being the typical sex slaves and you can actually get quite immersed in the story.

Oh and the bodies. Life doesn't get any better than this.

i love this game its not grindy its got slapstick humour which is a nice change ... the main plot is messed up but also funny ... the animations are great ...and the dialog while not perfect is better than lets say 95% of the other games ... and the models are at least all different .. looking forward to the next chapter keep up the great work

story and game style is average compared to what you'll find here. what stands out is the humor and the comedic writing. yes, the dialogue can be silly, but it's the type you'll laugh about.
the story does have a dark setting underneath, but i think the humor balances it.

I loved this game... the story, the characters with their body contours... their animations... and the way of playing seems to me very successful having to complete a mission first to unlock the following ones... I recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried it yet.... It has convinced me... I'm looking forward to more updates very soon.

I usually stay away from games with any sort of ntr in it unless it's avoidable but in this game i find myself actively choosing those options first because of how absurd they are. That along with random lines thrown in that are genuinely funny make this a definite recommendation.

I struggled to find something that this games does different to the others.

First of all let me say that I don't like the sandbox type games but still decided to give this one a go. This is probably the most grindy VN i've ever seen in my life, you do the same thing over and over again for each chapter. The dialogues doesn't even change that much, i caught myself skipping dialogue at points which is a really bad sign.

The writting is fine, absolutely sterotypical of this genre, hate the little excuses each character gives for having a sexual relantionship with MC. None of the characters have depth.

The models of the characters are super unoriginal, i've seen Orphelia and Brenna probably 10 to 15 times in other VN.

Gave it a 2 stars because of the thumbnail and the graphics aren't so bad I guess.

This review has been a long time coming. I've been playing / following this game since CH 1 first released almost 2 years ago.

I will be writing the good and the bads. I think a review isn't complete unless you tell it all and inform people who have never played the game, what to expect in a full disclosure heads up.

THE CHARACTERS

Ophelia
PROS
Probably my favorite character. She has the body and probably the most believable personality of the 3 main girls. She has the most inhibition and reasoning to not want to do sexual activities with Sterling. Making it so much more believable when you start to work her walls down, before we starting going to work inside her walls. If i had to describe Ophelia, she is "The voice of reason". Though she is hard to get through, she is shown to put her inhibitions aside IF it meant helping some one out. When she broke Sterlings dick, she was willing to strip for sterling to get his ability to have an erection back and again when Kevin tried to blackmail them. She was willing to make a porno with Sterling in order to not destroy their family (damn you Catherine!). Last but not least, she is a MILF!

CONS
Her biggest con is the SLOW burn she has. We didn't get to see her breast for the first time until CH4. Didn't get a HJ from her until CH5, blowjob until CH7 and lastly, boobjob until CH8. We still haven't actually SEEN her vagina and we are coming up on CH9 as of writing this review. So she is slower then most from the main 3 in "giving it up" to Sterling. This is why I say she is a slow burn. I don't have perfect memory, but I don't think there is a sexual activity that Ophelia did before any of the other 2 girls, aka HJ, BJ, boobjob, sex etc.

Brenna
PROS
Brenna is the "Hot girl" IMO. Has an only fans, loves clothes, and all around beautiful. She doesn't however let this all go to her head. She is a real down to earth girl. She is probably the girl who wants to take the relationship to a romantic level out of the 3 girls. It feels like Ophelia's is more pleasure driven and Catherine's is more curiosity. Brenna wants a boyfriend out of the relationship and she is willing to give Sterling a chance. She also makes made a great wing-woman at the start. A sister who is TRYING to get you laid AND lets you use her room to have sex too!

CONS
Probably the least amount of cons of the girls, which is also a PRO. She took a while before realizing that Sterling only wanted her to be happy and not just her body. Other then that, I can't think of a negative in her character.

Catherine
PROS
The innocent and curious one. She is adorable and you will want to protect her. She isn't really dumb, just sheltered / oblivious to the real world and a bit of an airhead some times. That is, until you come home and start breaking her away from her tough Christian / catholic teachings. Definitely the funniest character of the 3 man girls.

CONS
Some would say she is an annoying character and I can get that. She took a little bit more time to grow on me too. When we were giving the 3 main girls, I honestly didn't think I'd care for Cath content much. After seeing the comedy that she brings to the table, she grew on me. So I'm writing this as a con, because to some, her character may never grow on them.

THE STORY

PROS
GOD YES! The story is a parody of your typical incest AVN, but with a twist. You're not suppose to take it serious, but take in the comedy and world building. The core is bread and butter. Dead dad, lonely mother and an older and younger sister to round it out. Pretty standard stuff yeah? That's pretty much where similarities with other games ends. The writing is bother witty and humorous. Seriously, no other game has made me laugh as much as Power Vacuum has. It has had me invested since CH1.

Now this next part is NTR talk and I know not every one is into that, so just skip into the CONS if you don't care for NTR talk. Not only was the game already my favorite game, but the NTR side too has won me over in having the best NTR scenes of any AVN I played. He also includes 2 bad ends every update, what I will refer to as a "main bad end" and "mini bad end". Sure, the endings are not canon, but they are really hot AND funny. Though earlier was more funny and it took the NTR more serious these last few endings, but brought back the humor in CH8, the latest as of writing this. Honestly, which ever way he takes the NTR scenes, I have enjoyed them and don't care how he decides to continue doing them in the future releases.

CONS
The story is a slow burn, I won't deny that. You'll still get a few people who are saying that they are playing it for the first time and even with 8 chapters to binge through, they feel like there isn't much there. I think that's an exaggerration, but some slow burn is definitely there. As of CH8, we have only had vaginal sex with 1 of the 3 main girls. The game is story heavy, so that's why the sexual progress with the main girls takes a back seat in priority. The other thing being, there are too many girls imo. I'm not saying to reduce the amount, no sir. I'm just saying that with so many girls, some get set aside for some updates or see less screen time. Namely side girls of course.

NTR CON talk, If you don't care for NTR talk again, then congrats, this is the end of review and you shouldn't read the rest! The NTR CON should be obvious, The fact that NTR is not canon or gets a hard reset after a scene, but hey, that's part of the story. Really though, I don't think he has done anything that I don't like with the NTR content, I have nothing that I would ask him to change in a story perspective.

Closing statement, WWG, love your game! It's the greatest AVN I've ever played!

Definitely one of the better AVNs out there.
The humor and the build up with the characters are for me the strongest factors of this game. The animations are also top notch.
The sandbox isn't bothersome at all, and to those that are scared of the NTR tag, you can completely shut it off and it isn't even canon at all.
Definitely recommend!

I was going back and forth about what to rate this game. I was as low as a 1 and as high as a 4. I eventually settled on a 3 Star, because the good is really good, but the bad man really drags this game down. Just to warn you, Mild Spoilers ahead.


Overall, if you read through that massive wall of text, or skipped it then here is my TL;DR:

Pros - The renders are fantastic, and the story and dialogue is actually decent. (At least at first) You probably will actually come to like all of the female characters (Except Mallory maybe, she never worked for me as she was talked about as the prettiest one and I just wasn't seeing it). The animations can actually get really hot, and they do a fairly good job incorporating them into the story.

Cons - Hunter is fucking disgusting to look at. Like he actually makes me want to puke. I know I am meant to hate him, but I think Hunter is going overboard. The story also starts to fall apart during and after chapter 4, and you barely get any further with the main trio until the end of the current latest chapter (0.8 is the chapter as of this review). Lastly though, is the grind. The grind is frankly just not fun enough for the time you have to invest. It isn't hard, but tedious. And I find it too tedious for all the teasing that goes on.

For now, the game gets a 3 as I don't know if you get enough out of the game for how long it takes to get through it all. I will say if you love a long grind and/or teasing, then this is a five star game. Otherwise, maybe wait for it to be finished and try it out in one go.

Just finished chapter 8.

I didn't expect much at the start but fell in love with this game.
The writing is the best I've ever read, the characters are hot, the story is interesting and the sex scenes (even if they could be a bit better animated) do their job well.

Its starting so good... the first three Chapters its a 5 Star game i would say... really good Dialogues, Renders, nice Animations here and there, feared a grind first, but there is none. Nice little Story-Setting (nothing new though) and many other things i like... NTR avoidable, slow burn build up with the girls...

But than this game does a massive turn. In the first chapters there was some mockery to other games like that (cause there the MC harrass all girls, made any excuse to get in the pants of others, and so on... most of the time these thing aims at big brother i think) but than it goes the same way...

yeah yeah WWG said his desease is somewhat realistic... of course... and of course the game was always meant to be just a ridiculous satire... but its clear to me that this is not the case. The first three chapters has a whole other "sound" than everything that follows. I would just say the DEV wasnt able to pull off some sort of serious developing relationships and now the game goes downhill just pulling off one hideous and ridicilous scene after another. All the good build up in the first three chapters is completely out of the window.

The MC was a decent normal virgin guy (with a large dick of course) and is now a big buffed sex-Hulk with an even larger monster cock (of course of the priapism as the DEV explained, that is complete realistic... aha thaught this game dont want to be realistic at all? and now this is complete nonsense)

I dont have a problem with satire or funny games which are meant to be this way... but this game starts not even near something like it has become now. And there is not one hint in the discription that this game was meant to be like this... no the DEV just changed his goal with this game, fine, its his work, but dont sell it like something that it was from the start.

So it was a 5 star game at chapter three, with every new chapter it lost a star for me, i am now at 6, so 2 stars left... thats it, i stopped playing cause its getting worse every second. The start of the game, the direction where it hadded in the first three chapters, and the discription showed me whole other game to the one its becoming after chapter 4... and as i said, from there its only downhill in my opinion.

The renders are nice and the creepy antagonist is fun. High praise is also due for the excellent writing. That said, the game gets boring very quickly, the sandbox is just a clumsy interface to progress time. Skipping hours and days to progress events is dull.

The girls are too eager from the start, I have my doubts who is corrupting whom because of that. I stopped playing after chapter two started, it wasn't captivating enough to endure the grind.

The thing i hate the most about NTR games is you cant fucking kill the antagonists. Why are you doing this to me. Please let me kill those disgusting pieces of shit with no brains to show.

Art 5/5 except the antagonists they are the most hideous things i have ever seen.

Story 3/5 Interesting but at the same time not my cup of tea because i hate NTR with every fibre of my body

Gameplay 2/5 its at the same time grindy and not grindy. You need to repeat a scene at a specific time to fill a threshold but its always new. At least when its relevant to the story.

Story:

After running away and living by himself for a few years, MC returns home after the death of his "not dad", to reunite with his "not mom" and "not sisters". An old bastard owns the house now, and he plans to bone our lovely ladies. It's up to MC to stop him, while growing "closer" to his family.

The setup is simple enough, but the story is held together by solid writing. The game doesnt take itself seriously at all, constantly cracking jokes and having absurd situations. In most other games, this would be a recipee for failure, but here, the writing manages to be genuinely funny more often than not, and gives the characters a lot of personality.

The one issue is the extremely slow pace the game handles sex. It's one of those "we can do BJs, boobjobs, assjobs, even anal, but vaginal sex is out of the question, that would be weird" kind of games. I get that the dev wants to create buildup, but I cant help but feel the characters should have lost those blocks 2 chapters ago (we are on Ch 8 at the time of this review).

Gameplay:

Very simple, you can choose to visit areas of the house, and have events with the girls. Some events will have you make decisions in which if you choose wrong, you get an NTR scene as punishment (can be turned off). The game does a rollback if you get it wrong though, so there's no real consequence for your choices.
In order to progress to the next chapter, you will have to see every event, so you are forced to engage with all the girls. So in the end, the game is way more linear than what the "sandbox" tag would have you belive.

Presentation:

The renders are pretty nice, and the animations are smooth and well made (except for a couple of exceptions). One nitpick I have is the overuse of ahegao faces. Those expressions are dumb enough on hentai, and as much as some people are trying to make that a thing IRL, they look even dumber on realistic faces. Though I guess that's a matter of preference.
What was a much bigger problem to me was the UI. The text fonts are hard on the eyes, and the objective menu lacks any polish. This is one area the game does need a huge overhaul.
Another problem is the lack of music. It's a missed opportunity to not have some tunes to set the mood for the scenes.

Conclusion:

Overall, it's a very simple game, with a few problems but still manages to be enjoyable thanks to it's humor and visuals. Well worth checking out.

My review is based on gameplay up until Chapter 3 (as far as I got for now)

Pros:
1. Simple Ren'Py game with no walkthrough needed
2. Images are great, clear, look beautiful
3. Fun storyline and dialog about a young man trying to save his family (with incest addon)
4. Simple fail system (NTR) for making the wrong choice
5. Gallery mode after each chapter is completed.

Cons
1. No audio. It's a little boring and personally I'd prefer something in the background to set the mood. Either a happy, sexy, scary mood. literally anything. Even the spicy scenes are without audio, so no moaning, or slapping, nothing. again boring.

The only thing I'd be unsure about is the inability to live with a bad decision. So far as of Chapter 3 (again, as far as I've gotten so far) you can't. If you make a wrong decision there's a quick NTR scene the game gives you. I love when games use NTR as a punishment however I'm not too sure how I should feel with the quick reset after. I do enjoy being forced to live with consequences but I'm not letting that stop me from enjoying this game. I just like to have a game with a little risk and the risk-free style to this game takes a some of the fun out of it. However thinking back on it... allowing you to live with the consequences would significantly increase the workload by trying to come up with different storylines and paths, so I understand the quick NTR scene and a reset to choose the right decision. I don't necessarily agree but I understand.