Ren'Py - Scarlet Law [v0.3.17] [JYP Games]

This game is potential, but is currently too bland and unfocused to really stand out. I'm rating it 4 stars because the actual gameplay is pretty solid if shallow, the characters are generally likeable, there seem to be good intentions behind the game, and there are no bait-and-switches like I've seen on various games on this site.

However, to really be worth remembering, the gameplay and narrative need to be better intertwined, with the contracts having more impact than coming up every once in a while. I'm not saying there needs to be a corruption path, but the MC doesn't seem to be able with the contracts beyond sending the LIs on jobs which may or may not pay out, and the storylines don't seem to reflect that the MC literally owns these women.

On a side note, it does seem that only women have contracts, and only men can buy them, and this detail could use clarification in the story.

Good
-Renders are nice
-Intro was compelling: MC has to save roommates/family from slavery somehow
-Nice music through 90% of game
-Map to fast travel easily

Bad
-Story is resolved in 5 minutes: mom/older roommate is freed at start and can spam work to get money for younger sister/roommate. Easy conflicts create weak characters and a weak story. Create harder problems or make an antagonist for the MC to deal with or he'll just be another horny teenager MC games who want to bang everything with a hole
-Sex felt very short and few
-Grinding affection points to get scene events to trigger. Would rather events just appear
-Picking flowers: extra cash not a bad mechanic, but the outline makes it incredibly hard to click
-CANNOT ROLLBACK SOME CHOICES THAT LEAD TO SEX SCENES FOR A RENPY GAME. might as well use Unity

Art is good, and I do like the idle animations and character designs.
Lewd animations are... good but extremely short and few and far between.
Little to no repeatable events.
Environments are okay
The premise of the game is interesting.

The interesting premise however is wasted on incredibly lazy writing and bland characters. The game starts off strong with a crisis for the MC as he finds his family are going to be bought as slaves and taken from him. The stakes seem high, but this is basically resolved within 10 minutes of gameplay and never mentioned again. The mysterious buyer is never developed into a villain, and everyone goes about their normal lives. Except for the thirsty-AF mother character who takes being your slave as an opportunity to jump the MC's bones, and then proceeds to have 0 content or repeatable lewds for the next hour of gameplay.

Nothing that happens or anything you can do makes sense in this game.

There's a princess character you meet early on, and she helps you. But pretty much immediately after that you can walk into her house and watch her while she sleeps at any point during the day and also she apparently has nothing to do but sit around and watch cartoons and you can join her in that.

After the initial crisis is resolved the plot is driven by a character you meet in the woods wanting to move into your house. And, the game has several scenes referencing that she's in your house, and sharing the sister character's bed at night. She's never actually there.

Every 5 minutes of gameplay there's a scene where the MC asks an interesting question about something, and the answer is something like "I'm just a side character I don't even have a name or a backstory" or "this isn't that kind of game." The 4th wall breaking is constant and gets old quickly.

There's a "builder" character that I guess does construction. You know this because she carries around a hammer. Not like, a regular hammer. Like a two handed warhammer. Her primary motivation in the game is to "save the builder's guild" which is a fine motivation to have. Except there is no builder's guild anymore because she's the last one alive in her family, and everyone else in the guild quit, which you learn just before you meet her. Nothing makes sense here.

4.5 but site does not allow half stars so I am rounding up to 5.

The game is quite charming. The scarlet laws sound quite stupid at a glance. You think "wow surely this will cause a rebellion". But that law is actually backed up by a divine curse from an ancient "dead" deity and there are actually groups who fight against slavery despite that the curse.

The world is an original modern-ish fantasy world that is showing some actual originality instead of being the typical lord of the rings ripoff. The girls are cute and I am having fun.

People are complaining about the reboot but to be honest it was necessary. When this project started the author was just writing whatever came to their mind without a plan and it showed. They wrote themselves into a corner with a bunch of plot holes.

The reboot aims to fix the plot issues and also improve the art a lot. People are saying it is to milk patreons but it really does not feel that way to me. They are reintroducing content quite quickly and they really fixed up the game in both plot and art quality. I am personally happy that it got rebooted.

The game has an excellent built in walkthrough so you never feel lost.

After the latest update it's much worse. The MC is still terrified of girls..... I just couldn't take it anymore. Just so bad. Such childish storytelling.

It's a game about a guy who seems to suffer from gynophobia to some extent. Maybe in future releases he will get over it.
Otherwise, beautiful and bright colors used and a good job with the story which is about a MC who, for various reasons, ends up purchasing female slaves to hopefully give them better lives. That isn't a very good one liner description, but there it is..... Just keep in mind, it's a light- hearted game and not meant to be a look at the history of slavery.... It's just a game.

Cheers

The time and effort put into this game really shows with the content always getting better each time. A very good plot and set of characters with you anticipating what the future holds. A lot of cool mechanics as well as some great renders and animations! Look forward to seeing this game grow

(v0.2.2) Best game I've played in a while, I don't understand why the rating is so low. If you enjoy the art style it's a definite must play.

What the game is:
Open world standard renpy game with times of day, dialogue isn't trying to be funny or meta, the gallery is the best implementation I've seen(not the gallery on the computer, the one when you click the red heart), there is a currency system but not much grinding(at least this version. I hear complaints about this but you just work full time and pick flowers?), chat responses are pretty clear cut ( no hidden score system between girls or cryptic correct response guessing) and animated scenes.

Objections to the game:

1. MC being a cuck but I assume that will change.
2. MORE CONTENT. This is my first play through and the length felt a little too short (in terms of sex scenes, only having 2+1/2? penetration scenes). I am reading that there was a reboot so hopefully this game won't be snailed.

I really enjoyed the story originally. I played to the end of progress before the reboot and enjoyed most of it.

That said, I understand how disappointed people are over the reboot. It presently is a fraction of what it once was to clean up some code (I think) and rework to add idle animations. (Again from what I've noticed). The frustration at wanting to see more of the original story, while now having to wait months is going to be rough for the reviews to weather so I am rating it highly instead of the more solid 4/5 stars.

Normally I would take away a star for the 'weekly waifu tax' that got added. While not an intense pressure it still pushes a pressure that to me feels needless on top of the game's otherwise fantastically fun framework. I imagine that this will go away eventually once you can again invest in things but that... again is potentially months away. (Not gunna stop me from keeping an eye on it thought)

Graphics are overall solid, a nice change from the standard 3D models that are common to games and slightly higher on average than some of the 'anime inspired' types. The idle animations are an alright addition, not something I would have sacrificed a huge amount of story for if given the choice but acceptable overall.

Sound design is minimal but present. There are a few solid tracks that appear for different types of characters that give a bit of feeling. overall no real complaints there.

Story is nice. It's probably not going to change your life, however, it IS nice, like coming home after a long trip. Comfortable and kind. I can see threads growing for how MC is going to change scarlett and some potential betrayals that I hope don't happen but you are never fed the great quest. You are fed smaller quests. Save the girl by winning her contract and treating her nicely afterward. Pleasant 'slavery' not a thing you see all the time.

Kinks are mostly pretty vanilla (With the exception of incest if you define your relationships that way) I would love to see some light BDSM stuff for girls who like that or a girl that needs punishment. (Get at me Dev. I'll happily consult on proper use of BDSM kinks that aren't going to leave your player feeling like an asshole)

Map navigation is.. a little dicey till you get the hang of it now. You should adapt pretty quickly. Not what I would call an upgrade exactly but not unusable either. (Simple suggestion, label the rooms early)

Overall... Scarlet Law will be really good in a few months (0.2.1 at time of writing) Give it some time to build itself up again and if you can support the dev till they get enough monthly to roll full-time. Its a chance, but a chance worth taking if you can spare the #3 a month.

amazing game was all of sudden "reworked" to add more grind and new graphics. it also has no story from past devolpment in the "Rework".
it is clear that the only reason for the rework was to milk money from the audience not to actually make the game better.

[v0.2.1] I am going to be quite brutal here, in my opinion the game will not be better than mediocre and right now calling it a demo will won't be too excessive.

Main problems that would not let this game shine and make it a good game.

*Animations - The animations in game are bad really bad, they do not follow the normal human atomy of the human body, the first thing as a game dev you learn how the body moves and I am surprised to see such amateur mistake. As well some animations are slow when they don't need to be slow and janky here and there.

*The story/gameplay - As right now I know only about "Landlady" and "Roommate" but in such a dark world the solution to their problem of Scarlet Law came to easy, at first you don't even know how much you need to pay for them with creates an illusion that you can't do anything at all by helping them big mistake here without someone comes to save them with exactly what happened.

Second, the princess pays immediately for the mother with a mistake in my opinion as well, you don't fight for her you don't struggle to get her it just shows how the problem wasn't a real problem from the get go.

*Affection - Now you buy the girls just to start getting their affection is a problem too, it should be the other way around in my opinion you should raise the affection of the girls so you could buy them, otherwise why would they care if you own them or some other dude.

*World Setting - Its a dark world setting that immediately get broken as everyone is good and you are a saint that won't force yourself on the girls. In my opinion this needed to be change a little bit as right now its just a dating sym where you buy your girls as an excuse, best thing you can do is to add a curse to the Scarlet Law that make the girls horny or something like that aka forces them to do naughty stuff with you.

*Money - Last thing and the biggest one, how an unskilled person need to get a huge sum of money to buyout his loved ones? The answer is simple he need to endanger his life aka fighting monsters as an adventure in a dungeon is the perfect solution. That way you can make it that you risk your life and find a corpse of a great monster and make enough cash at least to buy out your "Landlady" instead of someone just giving you the cash.

This will be a lot more realistic than working part time or colleting flowers to pay for your the Scarlet Law. I know that the last one can be really hard to do in RenPy but I just don't see other solution, do you really believe that you can buy a slave by selling flowers? Why wouldn't everyone do it then, the hole in the plot is too big too miss.

In my opinion those are the biggest problems the game have, if you want to make this game better you need to address them in someway even if its not as I suggested because right now they are holding your game down. Good luck.

TBH I love Scarlet Law, I've dealt with much grindier games, and I don't mind the reboot, It has made the overworld much more appealing, and the grind much easier, Instead of

"open map> work with Selena> open map> work with the princess >open map> go to bed"

you only need to open it twice work with Selena and then pick up flowers and go home, also the flower stock market is a neat idea that lessens the grind (Please name the flower girl)

Also don't piss on the guy for rebooting, I've heard from other devs that this shit is hard, I don't want Scarlet Law to grey out due to the dev losing enthusiasm.

My only gripe is that the reboot set it back 1.0 with new animations. but that's an annoyance that be gone in a couple of months, and the "waifu tax". "more with every girl" by the end of 1.8 we had at least 5 contracts, 500 bucks a week, an "Overtime Shift" doesn't get you that much cash, so Its something that needs to be scraped or reworked to not feel like a kick in the balls every week.

Version 0.2.0.
Do i recommend the game? If you like this type of game, you should definitely try out scarlet law
I've read many bad reviews after the game was rebooted, many of them were utterly ridicolous, and the people who wrote them acted like crybabys whose toy was taken away by their parents. I understand that having to restart the game and the story is frustrating, it is for me too, but it's clearly for the better. That's why i've decided to write this review to clarify some things, and also to show my support to the developer, JYP, because i know what it means to feel discouraged as a game developer.
First of all, i've seen a lot of people complaining about a new mechanic, the waifu tax. I personally like it, as i think it adds some "spice" to the gameplay, but if you don't like it (and you think that it makes the game 'even' more grindy), here's some data you should consider: i've tested the game, and the average waifu tax is 188,4$, over a sample of 5 waifu taxes ((241+156+161+177+207)/5). Then, i obviously calculated the average income from the job at Serena's store (full-time option), and it's 287,2$, over 5 days of work ((304+244+243+330+315)/5). This means that in order to be able to afford the waifu tax you need to work full-time ONE DAY OUT OF SEVEN, does this make the game grindy? I don't think so (and i did not consider the new flower mechanic, which is an awesome way of making money). I don't think that things will change when you'll own more contracts, as there'll obviously be new ways of making more money. Some people also stated that having to repeat the same action to raise a girl's affection makes the game grindy. Well, i think that if you don't have the energy (or patience), to click a button 5-10 times, you should be hospitalized. Here are my thoughts on the reboot: i really, really like the new graphics and the new movement system, and as i already said, i love the idea of the waifu tax and the new flower picking mechanic, and even if we had to restart, i understand that the reboot was needed and have absolutely no problems with that. Apart from the reboot, as i already said on itchio 289 days ago "i just wanted to say that i really really enjoyed the game. The plot is very original, the characters' design is good, and i especially liked the narration and the dialogues, they are well written and some scenes are really funny. Best wishes to you and to the game". I still wish you the best JYP, and i'll look forward to each update of this game, because it's special to me, and to many others. Keep on keeping on

Overall I like the concept, being someone who played the previous version I really like the change to the HUD. But the most obvious problem in my eyes is that it seems that the protagonist will remain largely the same lame protagonist of the first version. I understand about holding back on Estelle and "Landlady" but I didn't understand why he held back with the others when they were willing to.
Edit (v0.2.1): It seems that the MC will not be so bad, with that out I think it will be a good game .
Another thing is that it seems to me that this game has the potential to have routes, but that is more of a suggestion.

At v0.2.0

Before the reboot, the game had severe flaws already. It was horribly grindy, often for a little payoff that manifested in slice of life conversations that felt like were chopped up and could've done just them as one sequence, the MC was an utter beta idiot, the progression was very slow, it was full of badly written 4th wall breaking jokes but it had an interesting lore and mostly likeable girl characters.

After the reboot, the story and the characters remained the same, but the negative points were all toned up.

- The previos progresson got completely cancelled out.

- Maps got expanded, while the minimap function in the areas that had more sections than one was removed, making it a massive clickfest.

- The treshold of affection was somewhat changed, but the indicator of that from the hint system were removed, and you have to wait for days sometimes for the new hint to appear, while you have to hunt for places to get the events thanks to the minimap not being there. So while it was toned down, it was also toned up in a manner, basically changing nothing.

- Azula, one of the main girls seems to remain the same useless leech, giving generic advice that anyone else could do.

- Tax system was introduced for "money management" with a game over option, but don't worry, you just have to grind more in order to not get it.

From being bearable on boring days, the game went to "I'd rather stab myself in the dick" category in an instant.

once upon a time this was a good but almost unreasonably grindy game.
Then a reboot happened that took every bad part and made it 100x worse while removing all the good parts and wasting the players time, in fact, without a money cheat it isnt even worth playing at all anymore

# Review for Scarlet Law [v0.1.8b Part 2]
Recommended = If you have patience

# TL: DR
If you can stomach a lame MC, grindy gameplay, and bad humor from the developer give it a try

# Pros And Cons
## Pros:
+ I found characters and their stories interesting
+ Has Animations
## Cons:
- Shitty humor [ He constantly breaks 4-wall to promote his Patreon. CONSTANTLY. It pissed me off. Suggestion: DON'T DO THAT! ]
- Lame MC [ The MC is supposed to be a Valla, a god-like being, but he is weak as hell and stupid as a .... He gets scammed multiple times by the same person, the second someone mentions he's dick he starts screaming like a madman. ]
- Short H Scenes [ The scenes are short and usually start and end with the same sex position ]
- Too grindy [ You have to increase their affection by 10 points to progress an individual's character's story and you can only gain a max of 3 a day. So you have to spend an entire week just skipping text and clicking to interact with them only to see the same interaction scene you have seen the 100 before. The grind adds nothing to the game! Same problem with the money system. It takes way too long to make the money necessary to advance the story, Suggestion: if you don't want to lower the prices for the contracts, increase the value you get from the store and other facilities daily by a fair amount ]

i like this game a lot, no superhero just a "normal" mc

funny sidechars with different character traits / story

every update progress from the dev side (last patch animations get better)

i recommend this game for people who like a story that is not 0815

- Grind/content ratio really bad
- So much self-promotion, its not funny
- Terrible MC, he cant speak for himself even when he want, he just slave
I can't even count how many times anyone use him
- linear storytelling (cant concentrate or ignore route)
- Real name "Law of henpecked"
- Shortest scene in the world
(ha with this protagonist
i dont surprised at all)

Good things
-visual
-plot tie

- v0.3.13
- Bad writing
- Grindy as hell
- No mentionable story
- Standard Koikatsu models and animations

---

"As the protagonist, it will be your duty to save the girls by buying out their contracts before they are sold... Buy the girls and be the hero of the story..."

...no. You are NOT about to become the hero of the story. You are about to become the most simpiest of simps in existence. The only part of the description that is actually true, is the part about this being your duty. That's actually how it feels. Unrewarding because you're simply doing what's necessary to survive.

Look... You bought the girls and now they are required to do anything and everything you ask of them. And, believe it or not, they are all immediately willing to do so! Sounds like a great opener for an epic time, right? But the MC doesn't want that. In fact, he rather runs away every time the girls actively offer themselves to him.

Once you bought the first girl (like, 10 minutes into playing), the story part of this "Novel" is over. Now, all you do is grind yourself through repeated events with that girl until you earn enough points to see the next event. Then you grind yourself through work, to earn money, so you can buy the next girl you can grind yourself through repeated events until a new one appears. And of course, those events follow the established order.

Even though the first girl shows up in your bedroom immediately willing and ready to get it on, you rather sleep. Then she shows up in the bathroom, again willing and ready to get it on, but all the courage you can muster up is barely enough to accept a handjob. Then follows the oral, the titjob, the sex... you get the idea.

If this was somehow framed as your MC having to come to terms with now suddenly owning his family as slaves, and needing to be eased into using them in this way, it would be one thing. But this is NOT what this game is about. Your MC is reluctant to partake in his slaves because, otherwise, the game would be over after an hour of playtime. The characters have no depth, no character, and no backstories (the four new characters have suddenly a backstory and character description that is so long, I could barely take it all in. The dev just suddenly dumps that stuff on you with no regard to human attention spans. And the established characters that were introduced in earlier versions are still just... sex dolls).

If you don't have enough material for a game... don't make one. Don't stretch it with senseless grinding to make it seem like there was actual content.
Even the models and Animations are the exact same Koikatsu-default stuff you see in basically every Koikatsu game. There is nothing unique or interesting in this one.

An excellent game. The story is unique and engaging, the art looks very nice, and there is a great variety of characters in the game. I really love how this game developed from version 1.2. The story now has a lot more depth and a lot more side content.