VN - Ren'Py - Completed - SandStorm (EraStorm Saga #1) [v2.01] [GleenX Studio]

i played for about an hour and the story is good, but needs more corrections. i spent alot of the time fixing the errors in my head which took me out of the game. i can see the developer did a good job trying, but still needs a little work. the models are great, but the animations are a bit choppy. if you can over look the errors and the animations, then give it a go.

The game is nice, but if you use the mod to play around you realize the point system is somewhat misleading.
Balanced choices can bring nothing, and some points are acting as triggers.
For example, a single point in Nora's lust can change the whole storyline no matter the points with the , so it feels more like a VN with branching paths.

In this case, a pathlike replay/walkthrough like in Midnight Ride should be better: you don't feel like missing out and it feels better experimenting choices.

Aside from that, game deserves its score

First of all the creator gets props for completing a game, hundreds of them seem to drag on forever with small insignificant updates year in year out.

It's not that hard to make a renpy game so obviously a lot of developers seem to want to milk the patreon tit for as long as possible.

The game is good. Hot renders, frequent and good sex scenes. A lot of choices. A lot of paths. 11 endings.

Depending on if you really want a story in might be 5 starts. If you are looking for good fap material it's more like a 3 or a 4. For the simple reason that it's incredibly vanilla and a very small part of the game is sex scenes.
And it's mostly vaginal vanilla sex, a little rough here and there but very basic.

All the girls have roughly the same kinks and sex scenes.

Having said that it's kind of funny and choices actually matter.

Story + sex scenes as well as kinks and variety make it a 4 in my opinion.

Sandstorm is a VN about a life and death, Indiana Jones style, throwdown in the desert and the group of helpless desert tourists who trip into it.

It doesn't do anything particularly mold-breaking as far as VNs go. That said, while the inevitable story bottleneck does come to pass, there's a frankly impressive number of ways to get there and a good number of endings based on your decisions along the way. I'll award a few bonus points for nice renders, though the animations aren't great. From a gameplay perspective, Sandstorm is a very good VN.

Unfortunately, the characters and story didn't really do much for me. The "helpless tourists" angle of the story meant that the opening just wasn't engaging. There was no hook to really draw me into things. This is pretty sad, as the story behind Sandstorm is actually interesting, but the way in which the game tells it forces the focus onto the boring "helpless tourists" angle for nearly the first half of the game.

In addition, the characters didn't feel like they had much in the way of chemistry, making the dialogue fall flat. I think this springs from a lack of clever banter between the characters; conversations where the characters are just having fun or joking around. Any conversation between characters in which they weren't trying to achieve a goal felt like filler, burning time until the story advanced. Admittedly, that kind of writing is hard to do well.

Overall, I feel like Sandstorm is worth playing, but it isn't going to redefine the genre. I feel like the sequel has a good chance to be better since the "helpless tourist" angle is impossible given the events in this story.

I almost deleted the game after the first 20-30 minutes as it imho starts out rather bad, however after that time the writing improves, the renders improve, the story picks up, ... and now that I've finished a few endings, I have to say I love this game.

+ Interesting story (serious at times, funny at others)
+ Cute and hot girls (especially Rion)
+ Some very hot (optional) NTR scenes
+ Different routes and lots of endings

~ Animations are ok
~ Not a big fan of 5 minute videos in my VNs

- Some grammar mistakes, especially early in the game
- The first 20-30 min are pretty bad but thankfully not represantative of the rest of the game
- Not enough NTR / sharing content!

Also I wish
Anyway, loved the game enough to join the Patreon! Will play some more now and definitely keep an eye on the sequel!

Reviewing v1.0
As this game reaches completion state, it is time to rate it and say well done.

The game is set up in an adventure setting with an Indiana Jones vibe that I loved. The story itself is interesting if you like that premise, but it can also get a bit complicated. But the good thing then is that there is a fair amount of replay-ability, especially with all the different paths you can take, as well as the many different endings.
Those path include 3 different love interests, each with different personalities. Rion was my favourite model from the start and the only reason I even tried it (she still is) but all 3 are gorgeous.

So far so good, so why didn't I give it an 'excellent' rating?
It falls short in the framing department. Not the rendering, which is pretty good, but the camera angles. Many times I felt the dev was choosing angles purposefully to hide certain things. I'm guessing models didn't have the level of details they wanted in places, or they struggled with some posing? What I do know, is it spoiled the broth for me too many times.

That being said it still remains a good interactive novel, and is well worth playing.

Up until the last chapter I had this game at 5/5.

The 3 girls available are completely different, their motivations more or less interesting, and love routes generally cute.

The only reason it's 1 star less is chapter 9. I was going for one specific girl, something happens, I decided: "OK, let's be honest with 2nd girl and drop first one because story reasons". Game is fine with that...so fine with that it completely stops acknowledging I ever chased first girl. It completely ignores all love scenes, messages and plot and switches 100% to mode as if you were always with 2nd girl. With which I, until last chapter, had nice round 0 points with.
I know making additional route would be ton of work and all, but few different lines of text would have gone a long way. It genuinely felt like nothing I did up until that point mattered in the slightest.

Outside of that little rant the game is f-ing amazing and unfortunately overlooked (guess due to NTR tag).

After playing version 0.9 and all paths this is rating Wasted Protentional 2/5

Whole experience felt like mish mash of routes. there are many holes and crossing in paths. whole game felt like I was playing last part of story instead of beginning. 3 weeks in game experience were crammed in 3 days. Romances felt like rushed and incomplete.

Only LI I kinda liked was Rion and her model but her character was butcher, When she suddenly declared she loved Nora out of nowhere. it felt out of place and rushed. There was no development in their Relationship..

In story word love is used very carelessly. it loses all the intense and deep meaning. feels very cheap.. Whole story feels very rushed. It could have been very good but unfortunately its wasted.. On technical side Animations are very very bad. Static renders would have been better then this horrible animation.

If you are looking good romance and love story this game is not for you. If you are looking for good sex scenes this game is not for you. Whole sex is mehh in this game. At best you will gate midcore experience of rushed game

Edit: Review of Beta 1.00

The full product is something I want to love, but has parts that kinda fall short. I thought about dropping the rating from a 5 to a 4 but decided against it. The reason is it is a full product, that has obvious care from start to finish. It is still among the product I have held the most interest and the parts I have problems with are on my part nitpicky. The full review is down bellow, this edit is just covering final thoughts and my nitpicks of the endings.

Review as of v0.9

The game has a lot to like to the game. the three main girls are great, from their models, personalities and interactions with the mc. Having explored all of the romantic aspects thus far for the three solo romances and the one duel route, I personally find Rion's solo route to be my favorite. if you follow the romance side and not the lust side (didn't touch more than seeing scenes, don't know how in-depth the lust focus impacts.) The chemistry between Rion and the mc is actually outstanding. The pacing is good and the bittersweet aspects hit. Her route has a lot of heartfelt, romantic scenes if you aim for them. Without spoilers the campfire scene honestly sold her route hard for me. She is my favorite model and storyline.

Next is Maddie, who also is no slouch as a character and partner. Her heartfelt moments are definitely there, however her romantic moments are a bit more rare not that they are lacking. Maddie is just a more guarded character and it shows with how she develops her relationship. With the v0.9 update you can see more on their relationship, and I actually really liked the interaction between them from the time they get on the bike to they end of the current build. You see the two start to rely on each other and makes the relationship way better in my mind. That jeep scene was pretty hot btw. I cant say a lot on her route as it has a lot of the main plot mixed in.
She is my third favorite model and second favorite storyline.

Lastly is Nora, I really really like her. She is another that I cant say much about do to plot. She is sweet, kind, but also manipulative. She has a decent amount of really good scenes with both the MC and her other female LI. My only issue with her is unlike with the other two character there is no prior history so there are parts that feel a little on the rushed side, but its still effective in its intents. She is my second favorite model, but fourth favorite storyline.

The Duel route is good but wont be talked about in case people want to naturally find the pair (not that its secret). This is my third favorite storyline.

Sound is hit or miss. The music is top notch, with a vast variety of songs that usually do great job to set the mood for the scene. The sound effects are the issue. Some do a good job to get a chuckle, or do as desired. the sounds during some of the intimate scene are well just atrocious. not all, but personally they are hard to ignore and cant be turned off without disabling all sound effects.

NTR. Outside of the evil route with the most recent scenes of this patch there is almost none. There are dreams that included it, but outside of 1 scene that you might consider a ntr dream are all optional. personally speaking the only ntr scenes that happen without you having a choice are not ntr. if you do not spend any attention to the two girls who are in the duel route they might sleep together. you can spy on it. this happens if you just really fuck up. the other that i know about is Rion might or might not go back to her room with her boyfriend to do the dirty. one they are dating and you have yet to try anything. this again only happens if you are not actively going after her. i personally didn't see or here anything its just might be implied depending on how there relationship is at that point based off your choices.
The new scene for Rion is without a doubt the first REAL NTR scene and SPOILER

An AWESOME GAME made by Gleen X Studio. There are MANY PATHS that you can take which shows us how much effort the developer is putting in the game. Definitely check this game out and Make sure to SUPPORT THE CREATER in any possible way. The PLOT in this game is INTERESTING
THANK YOU Gleen X Studio for making this wonderful game . I hope you continue this project till the end.

Reviewing 0.8 version of the game.

This game is probably one of my personal favorites on this site. It definetely has some flaws and it's not perfect, but there is just something about this game that makes it stand out from the other ones.

Character design - 5/5. Main LI's look stunning (Rion and Nora are my favorites and TOP 10 from all games on this site )

Story, setting and overall feel of a game - 5/5. Really digging Egyptian setting. Story does it's job, cinematics are nice, with well chosen music and aesthetic. Stands out from other games. Points and routes system is easy to understand.

Romance / Adult content - 4.5/5. Most important point in these kinda games and this one is kinda hard to rate. Animations needs some work and can be improved a lot. Some of the scenes can use more descriptions (I personally hate sex scenes with only pictures and animations. If I want that, I would just watch porn) It would make them even better and they are already pretty good in my opinion. I considered giving 5 stars just for variety of scenes. Definetely not only overused vanilla, has some spice and for that dev deserves some praise for it.
There are 3 main paths - romance, lust and evil path. All three are very well made and worth a playthrough with different heroines.

Final - 5/5. One of my favorite adult games. It does not have a funding or polish of the most popular ones, but it has something magical, that I really like and it is hard to pin point what exactly. This game definetely deserves more support. I was shocked to see such a low patreon numbers, compared to the quality of the game. It was one the reasons I decided to write this review, because I usually never do this. Good luck to the devs and I hope they get recognition they deserve, from this amazing game.

I really appreciate the fact that the developer worked for a long time on the story before publishing the project and in my opinion every project should be started like this and not improvised as many do but if anything improved during development. It seems to me a nice game I started playing it from ver. 0.6, unusual and imaginative story I think also with good potential but currently not very exciting for the part that concerns the erotic and sexual aspect I hope in the future the dev will be able to cure this aspect with spicy dialogues that stimulate the imagination of playing in the moments that precede the sex scenes and in this regard personally I like to glimpse more than watching obvious sex scenes and I also hope it will improve the graphics, acceptable until now. Another positive note is that of being able to choose the path and therefore to shape, in some way, the story according to one's own tendencies. I don't like some characters but they seem to me, if not avoidable, marginally manageable along the way. I wish this dev the best and hope he can entertain us and enjoy him as much as possible.

V.06
5/5 Character design (appearence, personalities). Maddie, my favorite is great, deep and realistic.
5/5 Story. Deep and compelling. History, Mysteries, adventure, romance, lewed, all in one.
3/5 Graphics. Functional, but need improvement in Camera angles, light schemes, depth of field.
5/5 Music. Nice and very well picked.
3/5 Sex scenes. Weird. See them for yourself.
5/5 Choice system. Great use of Choice throuout the story, with important story relevant differencies.
5/5 Menu and Extras. Very well thought.
5/5 MC development. Plenty of options. Nice balls there. YOU can actually choose one love Interest and stick with it, without the need to turn into "harem" mode. Your choices matter.
4/5 Animations. Not many. Suffers from the same issue than graphics.

I have been playing for 30 minutes and so far there is 1 negative thing, and 2 positives:

The two positives are the renders, which are of a very decent quality but since the Egypt thing is kind of new and fresh, im inclined to rate it higher than average. So far i have only seen a couple of attempts at sex scenes, im guessing those dont represent the actual quality of sexscenes in the game. It would be bad.
And the other positive thing is the dialogue, its fluid and imaginative, not over the top funny of the drama club type. A Really interesting and enjoyable reading.

The bad thing are the Lewd scenes:
So far i have seen one scene, performed by 3rd parties, another scenes performed during a dream, or a trance that wont affect the plot or the relationships, and a third scene which is a dream. Im not liking this 100% dream related scenes. I REALLY dislike it. And those scene are not good, are kind of bad actually, this may end in disaster, I hope not.

Another bad thing:
Unavoidable sex scene, in a game that is about choices. If you try to pursue a romance, im sure a girl that you just met and had 0 interaction with is the girl to have sex with. This is a narrative killer and also substracts points. Well i dont like Zaya, why do have to to have sex with her TWICE?
All the game making choices to have some attempt at lewd with the other girls and i get to have sex with another girl twice?

And this leads to another thing, the sex scene is bad, and it is already the 4th one, its definetly a pattern. This is gonna end badly.

Well i noticed the music sometimes is kind of squizo, is nice that it is there but most of the times it creates a mood that doesnt fit the scene all that well. Sex scenes are still bad, i finished the Rionrnrner route and they are definetly below average, i can not tell if they are the focus of the game, it doesnt seem so.

After the scene where Nora is introduced, with that cinematic thing...The game kind of died for me. I cant tell why dev decided to lose production time in that when his sex scenes are so lacking. The effort should better be put in improving those, which are the foundation of a porn game.

Well the game went down from 4 to 2 stars, and its saved cause renders are pleasant to watch.

I am not native when it comes to english, but whenever i see grammatical mistakes it breaks my immersion times 100. Do the developers burn their eyes out after writing their texts? Alone for that i need to deduct 2 of 5.

The story itself seems fresh but badly executed. The NPCs and the MC are beyond retarded when it comes to risk managemant and just seem to jump into their misery like those movie-mentally-held-back-people. The blonde girl has somewhat of a brain but still follows the group and that also makes her dumb like her friends.

The male FrIeNd is another nutcase. He is with his girlfriend on this trip and makes himself out as a giga coomer to the point i want to just shoot him and let the MC bang his girlfriend (a former crush).

Edit: the fuck is a promess dude, its called promise even my deranged sister knows that. After a little research i found out its the french version but im playing in english so why.
Edit2: the little cinematic in the second town is interesting but the immersion gets destroyed the moment the woman doesnt touch the floor anymore when she belly dances. OMFG the moment the dancer wobbled her head to both sides i died.
Edit3: trying to get out of any NTR is hardcore you literally need to min/max your stats and need to plan everything

Really great game with multiple paths and multiple choices. Due to the divergent number of paths, you cannot see everything in one playthrough and need to have multiple walkthroughs to see all scenes, which is great, as each path feels unique. You can be a lover or an asshole, you can cheat around or establish relationships, all is up to the player.

I disliked 75% of this game, but it's the 25% that caused me to give the game 5 stars. There are four scenes that were highly erotic, triggering great eroticism. Explanation of those four scenes, 2 NTR, 2 Harem (I hope the dev reads this too):


Music was fantastic and top notch.

I wasn't into the rest of the game because the MC has the kind of face you just want to punch really hard. It would've been better to never see the MC's face, so you could self insert more.

Often times the scene & clothing assets don't match. A lot of assets like cars and structures don't mesh well. But, hey that's not an easy task. Creating a believable fantastical world is insanely difficult. This hurt immersion for me. But, at times, he did nail the scenes right, and the assets all meshed well. Yet most scenes didn't really produce a good erotic impact for me.

The extra dude at the start of the game who sits with the girls isn't necessary, just cut him out. He complicates the dialogue in a needless way.

Maddie wears all black, which is a SAFE color. But if her outfit was given more color, it would bring out her beauty even more. Lara croft colors are always a safe bet, brown, cyan, any color that represents rustic, with low saturation of course.

Nightshow didn't produce any eroticism, but that's subjective I guess. I don't find belly dance to be erotic, it looks kind of stupid to be honest. Modern stripper dances are far more erotic IMO.

I find Nora & Rion to be extremely annoying and immature. The maturity of Maddie is far more attractive, but that's subjective also. It feels like the game was supposed to be centered around Maddie, and that Nora & Rion were tacked on. IMO, it should just be the MC & Maddie. Rion & Nora complicate the plot, and unless you're quenten tarantino, it's too hard to bring all these characters together in a story; imo.

Initial Impression: So I started and from the two intro girls, I picked Rion cause she is just more my type, but man, I can tell you I almost switch to Nora when she appeared because dayum son, she fine. I will say the three options to meet her all being the same, just worded differently, made me laugh. I think it works in some situations, doesn't in others, this one it worked. I will say, thank you, so much developer, if you are reading this, for not making me play the mini-game. Dear god, do I hate most mini-games especially in adult games. Hopefully, when/if that mini game is completed, you don't make it mandatory.

The Hotel/Desert sequence wasn't bad, for those reading, was purposely doing the solo Rion route even thought it seems a Rion/MC/Nora route may be possible [I imagine you could get cut out if you don't have enough relations with them]. So if you want some Harem, I think that may be your shot but that wasn't what I was looking for. Telling her you only love her [Rion] does seem to cut that route off completely, which is good. I like when developers make it very clear what a decision means and if you don't want something, you can just say so rather then them keep trying to shoe horn it in. That is where this version ended for me.

Music: I play all sex games with sound turned off. Can't say much in regards here.

Story: Its solid. Few errors here and there, some sentences were a bit clumsy in construction and didn't flow well. But I think it got better as the game went out, story seems interesting and I am curious to see where it goes.

Models/Animation: I think the sex animations are good, I prefer being able to manually toggle through it rather then being an animation you have to watch as it slowly plays out least skip it, but they were good. If you click too fast and skip it by accident, its okay, rollback is a thing. Also, Nora and Rion? Good taste. Also love to see middle eastern people in an adult game. Its not something you normally see and I enjoyed it. Really love the models, great job [Not a Maddie guy, but I respect that she is an option for others!]

Overall: This is just my opinion, but its a very solid game. Worth playing. If you like it, and have the means, support them. As I played and the days moved, the game got better, less errors I saw and more.. cohesive, I chalk that up to getting more comfortable and experienced. I give it 4/5 stars on my 'My opinion actually doesn't matter' meter and am curious to see where this goes.

On Harems: I don't mind the decision to not include it. I do not buy into the 'believable' or 'realistic' stuff when you have a magical penis enlarging gallon bucket cum inducing priestess, [That is kinda like saying you want to make Mulan realistic so not bring in Mushu but also give Mulan the Force] but I do believe in atmosphere and immersion. Harems are difficult to make immersive and not 'jump the shark' as it were. Usually, I feel, stories that want to have immersion with Harems have to really plan around it, not just tack it on, if they wanna avoid jumping the shark or keeping it immersive outside of something to get off to. The developer of this game wanting to make an immersive game where you either stick to one, or pursue many and possibly end up failing hard core [I have yet to try this path and, honestly, probably won't] is immersive for the game world they built. I see no reason for them to change this just to suit some power fantasy [I do not, in any way, dog on people for wanting power fantasy. We are playing a adult game to get off, lets not pretend we are high brow who beat their souls off to Oscar bait] because its their work and vision, so okay, more power to them in wanting to shape a world around their belief, and vision, of how the world is.

Due to actually, you know, reading what the developer had to say on his game, [Especially if I see the dreaded NTR tag] I approached it as less 'me in a game to get laid with every woman,' and more 'Make a fictional character and see them fall in love with a single person and explore that relationship'. Because I went in with the latter mindset, I came out of the game content with the gameplay available. If it helps, give your MC a different name then normal to help set them up as a separate entity or a more joking name [I often use BigDickJohn when I do this because I am a manchild at heart.]

On NTR: I can't speak for every path, but the one I did was Rion, specifically Romance, because, well, she was great and I am a sucker for a good love story. The first 'NTR' I saw was an optional scene where you can either watch a DREAM SEQUENCE threesome [which I did not pick, but through later events, I now assume is watching said girl with the priestess and priest] now keep in mind they put a giant NTR right next to it to let you know what will happen if you click on it so its not like they hid it or a duo scene with MC and Rion. Now, Rion did see the threesome scene, however it was:

1. A Dream and, come on, dreams are dreams. Few people are Hal from Malcolm in the Middle who love and think of only one person forever and ever, wish I was like Hal because such dedication is, frankly, amazing [but he is also a fictional character], someone having a dream [or a magically induced hallucinations] isn't what I'd consider NTR especially if they don't really talk about it [Also, you do the same thing to her later that night, only, you know, physically and so not a dream, so don't throw rocks in a glass house, that said, you also can't reject that scene which does make it not a glass house and more like... a fiberglass house]. Seriously, wish you could turn her down for the hottub but still have her rape you for the story. More choices, and power, to the player in these kinds of games, the better, imo. But I get maybe being afraid that you could mess up the story or, make players feel powerless for denying her but being raped anyways thus making the choice pointless in the long run [But, also, come on, choices rarely make a difference in games, its all a grand illusion]. That is just my personal preference however.

2. The two characters are not even together yet. [Seriously, this is like having a crush on someone and considering it betrayal and NTR if they sleep with their partner. That isn't NTR, that is you being a stalker. Avoid that, if you would, consider that friendly neighborhood porn guy advice.]

3. Her path, if you are going for the solo romance path, the one I picked, you are cucking your friend and stealing her away. You cuck, you don't get cucked.

4. Entirely possible this scene would have been different if I had a higher relationship with Rion, ended the chapter with 90/100 [But I kinda doubt it, although, I do think it would be cool if Rion saw the Them and your MC scene if you had max relation possible by that point. But I also get it seems to be more magic caused and the MC is more... resistant to it then others so had more control. Still, would be neat if its not a thing.]

On my route, I saw two [or was it three?] other possible NTR for those who have a very broad view on what counts as NTR. One [or two, I can't remember] was a dream sequence with a threesome between Nora, Rion and Yourself. Mind you, again, its a dream [I didn't actually see the truck one because that one is locked to supports] and the last being Rion being interested in having a relationship with Nora and you. Mind, that was likely only because of the route I was on, Rion, while still having a high favor with Nora. Entirely possible that Rion's path, if you don't go for her, is to end up with Nora.

So the NTR is just dreams [most people, I find, don't count threesomes, especially, if they are the only one of their gender or are in a position of control/dominace to be cheating], mind you, this is all purely on the path I picked. Your mileage may vary, but the developer seems decent at dodging forced NTR.

This is a very original game. The renders are very good, the main Love Interests are very different for appearance and personality (and very likeable), but what makes special the game is the "Indiana Jones atmosphere". The storyline, infact, is very thrilling, that is unusual for this kind of games. And the humour is funny. Can't wait for next updates.

Really great game so far, that gets better with every update.
Good visuals, all three girls are great looking, interesting and very likeable, scenes are pretty hot, choices actually matter, and there is a good sense of "adventure" with developing story. Mc starts as kind of immature teenager early on, but there is clear some character development as story moves forward.
Some ( minor) cons: humor can be a bit of hit/miss early on, and environment visuals could be improved.