Ren'Py - Red Brim [v0.19 alpha] [Euphoria Studios]

Version 19alpha

First, the bad points:

• It's hardly a game. There's no real gameplay. You go from one day to the next, clicking on everything that's clickable, and sometimes something happens. There a a few minigames (lockpicking and photograph) but they are pointless and bring nothing… for now. At least the photograph one allows us to see pretty sexy girls. But more serious, for me, are the skills that are useless. Skills are a tricky element of gameplay, they have to be used effectively, and this is far from the case here. They're useless! It's better to remove them entirely.
• The world feels lifeless, empty… I wish there were more interactions, more questions to ask, more dialog to have, more surprises! There are a few like the trapping of Bea but it’s really not enough. And it would be even better if we had more opportunities to use the hero's photographic superpower.

So for me, that’s two stars down. Of course, this may change in the future but I test what I play.
End of laments !

• The graphics are decent. They're AI-generated, which doesn't bother me. AI is a tool like any other and it's not going anywhere, so you might as well learn to live with it and use it. OK then.
• Animations aren't essential for a game of this type, but they're present, simple but they do the job. OK.
• The characters are standard for this type of game. Big boobs and easy girls are commun and that’s great. I’m playing for fantasy, not for some realist boring ‘real life’…
• The story barely begins, nothing transcendent but I want to know what happens next.

So, in conclusion, this is a solid, decent 3-star game that can still evolve and grow. There's plenty of fun to be had for enthusiasts.

Many thanks to the creator for his work!

First review: June 28, 2024 - Version 0.14
2nd - November 20, 2024 - Version 0.18

-Story/Setting
The author(s) does not convey any emotion. I found it very hard to not turn on the skip all text feature to get this over with and there's not much to get through. I do like the mysterious Red Brim figure and was hoping for a more polished intro to really set the stage.
-Update for v0.18
The entire story is lazily written. Nothing has changed in months to indicate the dev(s) cares about this aspect. At the very least you could learn to write a story. If you can't do that then maybe you can do art. If you can't do that and resort to AI art...then hopefully you know how to program. But if all you can do is the bare minimum, why should we jerk off to shitty Ren'py programming, AI art, and what I like to call "shit the bed" writing.

The city feels completely empty. Aside from the few characters that can be interacted with and the women in the university changing room there exist no traces of other living beings in the city.

-Renders
It's AI art...so some assets looks bizarre. Depth, placement of objects, anatomy. Characters can look different (or downright unattractive) from scene to scene. The "university" looks like a grade school and the 2nd floor's resemblance to the first had me thinking I had stumbled upon a bug when I clicked on the hallway to navigate.

As of 0.14 there's a window to the women's changing room that's right next to the entrance of the "university".

The render of Lora in the shower looks concerning when her legs open slightly due to the right hip bone appearing as if it may erupt from her flesh.

As of v0.18, there is still a window to the women's locker room. That just so happens to be in the main entry of the "university". Lora's anatomy in the shower is still weird. Taylin looks inhuman under the desk. Agatha scenes are just as weird. There's nothing sexy or attractive about this game.

Renders for the town at night are mostly not in place except during what I can assume is the main plot with Taylin.

But... the university has changed so that you can tell one floor apart from the other. So at least the dev(s) have that going for them. Which is nice.

There are too many issues to list and I am not going to take the time to enumerate each and every one of them. I assume some will be fixed in short order. This appears to be a major drawback of using AI generated art.

-Sound
Forgettable and sparse, but you can easily play your own music over it if you wish.

-Playability/Performance/Bugs
Playable start to finish and no unexpected errors. The hint system via the phone makes sure of that. There are a few minor tweaks that could be done to make navigation easier. The red text is unreadable during the cafe scenes due to the red sofa as of 0.14.
As of v0.18, speech can be read, but the name of the speaker is still the same hue as the sofa and thus cannot be read. Navigation and flow of story is pathetic.


-Animations
God awful animations. There's nothing wrong with granny love, but the scenes with Agatha were really bad. Taylin under the desk scene is laughable. Zoe scenes are meh.

-Grammar
In the beginning I held the belief that the script was written with chatgpt and then edited. Towards the end of my play through the text seemed hastily whipped out and without proper capitalization or punctuation. So maybe it's a mix of both.

As of v0.18, still a bag of shit.

-Amount of content
Not much considering it's been out for a year.
As of v0.18, still nothing to get excited about.

There are obvious similarities to another game that is/was very popular.

All in all...nothing of worth in this game so far. I did not even get a flutter in my dick. 0/10.

I will change my review if/when this game gets updated. Maybe another 5-6 months , but judging by this last update perhaps I should wait a 3-4 years to change my review.

Story 1/5
Story dident do anything for me and being a dating sim makes so little sense when you fuck girls 2 seconds after your first meeting and ofcause you got no choices what so ever, so yes this is a mindless fuckfest where everyone is forced on you and a full blown kinetic novel hidden in a sandbox.

Sandbox 2/5
The sandbox it self is quite bad as well, no pointers as to what you can click so have to move mouse around to figure if you can open a door or what is clickable, hint system is pretty shitty on top of that, it tells you pretty close to nothing, quests are also linked and cant progress one before another and you have no clue which quest you need to do first.

Girls 3/5
The ai art is good and its the only reason i added a star making it 2.

Animations 2/5
It also claims to be animated but no, 2 frames / 2 still images to make it look like movement is not animated by any means, i did see one animation but its was meh and sure as fuck not one i wanted to see with a granny getting fucked.

Music 3/5
Its pretty nice but nothing special, kinda suits the game and dosent seem to get annoying to have in the background.

Choices 0/5
There are none, follow the kinetic questlines fuck everyone and thats about it, dating sim tag should most deffently not be there.

Version tested: 0.11 alpha

Just wrapped up my time with Red Brim, and boy, am I torn! On one hand, this game is an absolute feast for the eyes. The art style combined with own drawings with AI is like nothing I've seen before in a lewd game – seriously impressive stuff.

But, and it's a big but, the storytelling can be a bit all over the place. Characters come and go faster than you can remember their names, and sometimes you're left scratching your head wondering what just happened. Not a deal-breaker by any means, but it definitely takes away from the overall experience.

That being said, Red Brim is still in its baby stages, so there's hope yet! You can tell the creator has a ton of passion and vision for this game. It's just a matter of finding the right balance between the jaw-dropping art and some more coherent writing.

There's no denying the potential here. The main mystery with the woman in the red hat had me hooked, and the whole concept of photos altering the timeline is indeed an interesting twist. If the creator can figure out how to marry their artistic vision with tighter writing and a clearer focus, Red Brim could deserve my 5 stars..

So, while it may not be perfect just yet, Red Brim is definitely a game to keep an eye on. With a little polish and some fine-tuning, it has all the makings of something truly special. Here's hoping the creator can harness that potential and deliver a knockout experience in the future!

Pretty good so far. AI art generated game can't complain about the style of it. The story on the other hand could be little better, but other then how slow some of it feels its pretty good so far. I'm enjoying it so far, but lets see how it continues on.

[v0.8.1] You are a student photographer and manage to take a picture of a mysterious and alluring woman in red. She vanishes shortly after and you are left wanting to find her again. Explore the town and interact with the people around you to find the woman in red, and even uncover secrets about yourself and the world you never could have imagined.

The story for this game is both complex and simple. There is a plot about multiple branching timelines that you can interact with, leading to confusion and weird events being possible. Besides this plot though, when it comes to interacting with other people in the city, most of the story is relatively straight-forward and simple. Simple isn't bad and in fact is preferable to me. While I appreciate the more complex plot elements, there is nothing wrong with simply introducing a good looking woman, presenting a reason to interact with them, and letting kinky situations ensue.

The AI art is well done. The characters and environments are consistently presented with the same art style and design. The women are good looking. Sex scenes are okay, as they normally consist of a single sex position, 2 in and out pictures, and a cumshot. Functional, but lacking when it comes to making a game specifically for getting off.

The game has an open world design, but dialogue in scenes make it clear (most of the time) how to proceed to the next scene. So far there is no grinding for money or stats, but systems seem to be in place to support this later. Hopefully the author doesn't bog the player down with these inconveniences in the future.

And finally, there are two characters that fit the 'Mother' and 'Sister' role, but they are presented as just two people you recently moved in with. Not every story needs to have incest, but if you're going to give us characters like this either go all in or not at all. A patch in the future would be nice.

For an AI Art game, this is a promising start. The art is good and consistent, there are already several sex scenes and different characters to enjoy, and the plot is simple enough to not get in the way of fapping yet also interesting enough to keep you wanting to play more. Great work!

The Art isn't bad, even if i have a feeling of Déjà-Vu, i wonder why...
The story is still in it's infancy, so it might turn ok at some point.
But what the hell is goign on with the characters and dialogue... I don't expect a lot of romance or character building in a porn game, even if some do it really well, but come on , 2 chicks introduced themselves, the day after one of the girls is supposed to be my girlfriend, and her sister wants to get the D to make her jealous or something.
Went for 0 to 100 overnight, without me talking to any of them. Feels like the dev had to put some sex into the game, but couldn't find a way or couldn't be bothered to build up to it.
For a supposed dating sim, "hello what's your name? Let's fuck!" is a bit minimalistic to my tastes.

I'll check again in a few updates, but i don't have a lot of hopes.

I think too many people see ai art and have a melty. The same thing happens when some people see a sandbox styled game. The fact that this game has both puts it at an immediate disadvantage in the minds of part of the community. I think the art looks great and is a good example of what ai art could be when handled correctly. There are a few places that could use some touchups with hands/feet/fingers, but otherwise it wasn't bad at all.

Now that aside, the story/dialogue/character development are all lacking. You can't pick a name for the mc, you don't really know who your housemates are, since they aren't introduced. Imo you should be able to choose a player name/housemate names/relationships as it adds a level of customization and people like that kinda thing, it makes them more invested in it. I got to agree with the other people that have said it feels like an ai wrote this as it is lacking any kinda depth.

Since there is no real kinda story, just a thinly veiled idea you visit a few locations. Let's go to the cafe, the dude never orders anything and bam already he's friends with the two girls that work there. Who are they? Don't know! Next scene and he is banging one of them. The school scene with the barging in on girls in a locker room too seems very unlikely, like maybe he could mistake the boys and girls locker rooms if he was in a hurry, but mistaking the principles office for a locker room is just beyond goofy. The 'office' where you need to go to was more like a kiosk and then the coffee scene went from like sure eyeroll whatever to super rapey really quick. There are only so many ecchi anime mishaps that you can pull off with no writing to support it and anything exceeding 0 is too much. Another thing I noticed is I am pretty sure Isabel never introduced herself, the mc just divined her name by looking at the dialogue box I guess? A similar thing happens after his weird dream/vision where he just breaks the fourth wall and talks to the player, like what?

Game really needs help with the writing. Characters are just faces with nothing to them. Who are they? Why should we care about them? Could benefit from some QoL stuff like changing mc/housemates names and relationships.

tl;dr very good ai art, with no writing to support it at all

A little boring story, but very good art, need more content and characters. I'll wait a couple of updates and see where the development is going. I hope the developer does not abandon the project and continues active development. For now I will give 5 points))

I was really hopeful for this game. It seemed like the art was unique and there seemed to be a good hook. The problem was everything else in the game. The characters have no backstory. Every new event is thrust on you with no subtly. I know, I am talking about a porn game, but still. There is no motivation for any character to do anything other than to advance the game. The lack of music was jarring as well. It left me to sit there and cringe at every new scene. Usually, I can dismiss things with growing pains, but the bad writing makes me think this one is destined for failure.

So yeah, obviously this is a low effort rip-off. Not just the character models (which are pretty blatant) but in the name of the town "Sunhaven - the city of sunshine", the inclusion of a (much more boring looking) world map, the layout out of the house... the list goes on. It isn't just the art either. This game feels like it was written by an AI as well. Events happen, people engage in dialogue, but everything just feels soulless and by-the-numbers. Oh, our MC walked into the girl's changing room by accident. Better have a cheerleader turn up and call him a pervert. And that's it. End scene. Dialogue is robotic and perfunctory. There's no characterisation to be had anywhere unless its served up in the most blunt manner possible. One character literally introduces herself and her sister with "I'm Zoe, the firecracker of this joint. Emma here is the shy one." Like, fucking hell. I know writing characters can be hard but this isn't even trying.

This game reminds me of those low-budget studios that rip-off popular movies. Only in those you might at least enjoy the bad acting and terrible VFX. This game just feels dull. And yeah, some of the art is technically competent. AI is improving all the time. But it isn't anything amazing either and it can't disguise how lazy this whole game is.