Ren'Py - Raven [Eleanor Route] [Midnight Stories]

TLDR/ This game would be better served being made into a pure "VN". I think the current "sandbox" ideas, while interesting, will remain empty for a good number of episodes. While the current implementation is only really a 3/5 I'm rating it as a 4/5 as it has intersting elements that hopefully will lead to a full story.

REVIEW
The story as told is pretty disjointed at the start with the flurry of characters but the Eleanor route flows fairly smoothly. Writing is not bad though with so many of the LIs having similar names I assume any new player gets lost pretty quickly. The worldbuilding underlying is well done but not well presented. The family at the center of the story are VERY similar which is not a bad thing if you like the type. The level of intimacy is unreal and honestly jarring in some instances with the lingerie the family uses a particular example. It seems strange that a game that could do a great thing with the dark imagery usually used in some form of corruption but in this story the family is effectivly pre-corrupted.
The Eleanor route itself is "OK". A neat little jokey crime episode. The faux narrative motif for the start of segments gets old pretty quick but I can forgive it at this point as it flows better than the first segments previously released and the humor is on point at least.

Sadly the current sandbox structure through the "integration" through the Raven symbol really breaks the flow of the story since the sandbox has zero relevance to anything yet within the story. Having to skip entire days or go hour by hour to hit the right day period to press the Raven, click several boxes to open a VN segment which actually moves the story really slows the pace of the story with no benefit.

Due to the large number of LIs with similar features and names (within respective families), it would be helpful if the Dev incorporated some form of character list. It could be done either as something to access from a right click or through the currently useless "computer" in the MC's room, like many similar games. This might alleviate some of the confusion.

This is the third time I've played through so I can confidently identify all the myriad of LIs (mostly) but I expect most of them will be a long time before the story gets to them.
I grabbed this because of the Dev notes but I expect what is said there to be primarily aspirational until far in the future. Currently the only sex content as of the Eleanor route is the aforementioned Aunt Eleanor sex scene and some very vague scenes glimpsed as pictures from the PI works she and the MC undertake.
I'll keep an eye on this one but I'm unsure if it will live up to what the Dev outlines.

This game isn't good, but it isn't horrible. It's just "meh".

All of the female family members or housemates or whatever are basically identical. One is slightly slimmer and less busty than the others, but the other 3 are copies of each other. This makes the game dull.

Terrible writing. Don't remember any characters names as they are so forgettable and similar they all blend together. I don't know why everyone is always naked? The whole game just seems kind of nonsensical.

Renders are avg I guess.

I would enjoy having a family of bimbo brunettes walking around in lingerie. I'm guessing the people with Umbrae potential are brunettes and the Luxae potential are blondes.

The story is interesting and is all viewable in Kinetic Novel by clicking on the Raven in the MC room. The free roam is nothing much at the moment but should improve as the certain stages are reached with the different girls.

Interesting story so far.

On the positive side you have a couple aunts, mom, and 3 sisters all whom are comfortable walking around in front of the MC in various stages of undress which I can wholly get behind.

Another positive is not having the bitchy sister who seems to hate the MC for who knows what reason. I also hope we get to spend more time with the aunts.

I saw no problem with the free roam and I can see where it's going to be more interesting as the VN progresses.

The critiques I have are that you are pretty much dropped in the thick of things, some back story would have been nice along with a deeper look into the main characters.

Also you are introduced to so many characters so quickly a guide would be nice. Not to mention there were like 5 miss Lees and many of the girls look very similar.

Speaking of which, more variety in breast and below the waist sizes would have been nice.

This has potential to be a fun VN, I look forward to seeing more.

The narrative has been captivating up to this point, and I appreciate the quality of the renders and the appealing selection of clothing. I've always enjoyed the teasing and more subtle aspects of games, and this experience is truly satisfying that preference for me thus far.

There's some good in there but it's not quite there.

Free Roam so far doesn't seem to have very much content, the Story could be interesting however it dumps a lot of lore and throws way too many characters at you from the get go.

The worst part is the Ladies almost exclusively look nearly identical. I hope you like the girls in the preview pictures because you get about 10 of them and I had real issues telling them apart.

This is made even more difficult because they mostly have a completely empty and neutral expression.

Overall I see the potential however the dev needs to work on the faces of the characters and find a way to distinguish them more in a visual way plus I would recommend a slower start into the story.

V. segment 03 (wtf is that all about? segments? it's an orange now? sometimes different just looks ridiculous)

'boring' is my one word description for this one.
it was made so by the sandbox grind-for-a-scene design.
i spent 10 minutes going from location to location to find something happening and just got bored.
why this is not a VN design i will never know as i can see no reason why this would not be a huge improvement on player experience. really boggles the mind why some devs choose the worst design options.

art is somewhere between average and above average. does the job. not an art fan over plot/writing so i don't swoon over visuals like many do.

the writing and plot is kinda interesting but poorly delivered. some of that is the plain vanilla writing and the rest is the horrible design that wastes player time on nothing.

the whole thing is just a really bad scene grinder. great if you wanna beat out to visuals, as many here clearly do, a plethora of reviews only mentioning looks tells THAT story across this site, but i just find it dull.
imagine, if you will, reading a VN that asks you to click say 20 times between each scene instead of just once. that is all the sandbox adds.

needs a rethink for me. too busy throwing nudity in my face to hide the emptiness. not impressed

I like what i see.
Not many games here that do casual nudity among family so thats a huge plus,
Content right now is barebones but the prologue was interesting.
Models are great, but a little more variety in body sizes and measurements would have been another huge plus. Almost all the models look similar.
i need a scene with the principal !!!

Pros:

1. Models are gorgeous, this is a fact, even if many look similar
2. ...pretty much it...nothing else is good...oh yes, the story seems interesting, clearly some alternate universe that is not set in our reality or applies our understanding of physics etc. So interesting...thats really it.
3. Again, only thing thats decent is the story or concept, its different but its also completely wasted with how this game is developed...

Cons:

1. Sandbox...I simply hate sandbox games as its usually never really done very well, creates unnecessary busy work for the player which serves no purpose but to delay the game story and content. Basically the lazy persons way to keep the player invested to see what happens next...
2. No context, the world is not explained really, the family dynamic...is WTF, whole family is just woman who seemingly have no issue being naked/semi-naked, get off in-front of the MC who is family like its the most normal thing in the world...while this is hot in its own way, its makes no sense unless the world is fleshed out so the player understands the MCs universe.
3. Sandbox is useless, there is nothing to see or explore, there is a main plot which is released in Segements but there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, no side anything, a few pics here and there of persons in the house at various times of day but nothing ever new and its all luck if you havent seen it. Simply worst way to make a game.

Suggest visiting this game much later to see if the developer has taken to heart the comments and restructured the game before it becomes too stupid too quickly.

It's early and it's short. I like what I see, and I see the possibility of an amzing game, if the dev keeps pushing and making new content. It might just as well fall off. No way to know at this point.

That being said, a note of warning. This might not be for everyone. I find it perfect and muuuch better than a huge swath of other games. But why? Because it's just porn, and, I, personally, really like porn.

You play as a dude. Who has already achieved "my family is my harem". You don't need to creep on sleeping sisters or mom. You don't need to conquer. If you want a foursome, just take a morning shower with all your sisters (note: not ingame yet, just implied).

It's just porn, and it's insanely good. I love it. Might not be your coup of tea.

Review for Segment 02

Edit: Talked with the dev a bit, and I will say I appreciate them reaching out to someone who had a negative review for feedback and such. At the least I'll give this another shot some point down the line to see if my opinions change.

This one is definitely not for me so far. I personally found this kind of awful. So awful in fact, that it somehow flipped my brain into enjoying it in a way where you can't help but laugh at what you're seeing. Kinda like watching a movie that's bad, and because it's so bad, you enjoy it more. I almost want to give this a three stars because of that, and at the same time I want to objectively give it one star. Maybe the first game I've played that made me feel like this. Points for that?

This has like every generic harem power fantasy trope shoved into it and turned up to eleven combined with strange dialogue you might expect from a dev who doesn't primarily speak English. (Not to judge them on that part, is what it is). I'll say the translations themselves aren't that bad, but there are a fair few moments where I was just like "yeah, people don't really talk like this." Unrelaistic is a good blanket term for this.

I don't know where to begin simply because I could have something negative to say about every part of this game. Every woman is immediately in love with the MC and wants to fuck him. Is it because the MC is charming? No, we play as the bog standard college pervert nice guy. What about the family? Much like every other woman, they love us perving on them and are more than comfortable showing off to us for some reason. Could I tell you much more about any of them, or how they differ from each other? Not really. We also awaken OP superpowers randomly because of course we do lol. The list really goes on and on.

The renders are pretty average, and all the women have the same body type. Also the family characters are just exact carbon copies of each other with different hair styles? Actually very uncanny.

This game is definitely going for a more unrealistic/porny approach. I'll say I generally like my porn games accompanied by more in depth writing. This lacking on that aspect, I can only see someone liking this if you're super into even the most mindless of power fantasies. Though if you can REALLY suspend belief, maybe you'll enjoy it for just how wacky it feels.

Interesting story thus far, I like the renders, and the choices of clothes are very nice. I have always like the teasing section and more soft core parts of games so this really scratches that itch so far.

STUNNING.

Was not sure what to think when I saw "prologue" but was very surprized, wish I had a family like that . A bit funny that there are just one guy in the game excluding the "Father" that he helped.

But would be interesting to see where this goes. I would have taken the last bit where you end in your room and unable to do anything after out for now to make it easier to DL as it makes on diff to the game. But I hope Midnight makes more as it would be interesting to see where this goes.

Well done on a stunning Prologue so far!