Ren'Py - School Game [v0.970 bugfix3] [Sloths Command]

Rating for version 0.931

There are a lot of games like this one floating around, however, there are 2 major differences in these types:

1) It's a game that's fresh and assets are commissioned.
2) It's a game that's not fresh and assets are "borrowed" and regurgitated.

This game falls under the second one. While it has a lot of elements some other simulators don't, I just find it really hard to respect a game where the majority of its assets are borrowed. Obviously, as a new developer, you're going to be borrowing. Yet this game has been out for several years, making money for several years, and not correcting the fact he's borrowing. I know look at me complaining about borrowing as an uploader of F95Zone .

This is not the true point of it though. Most games get tiresome fast when you see the same assets used over and over again across many developers.

The same can be said of the actual story/concept of the game. It's reused and regurgitated so much with no real variance. The number of games I have seen that is school related in a simulator format is just astronomical. The only thing this game adds that others seem not to is extra options to "customize" your experience. That's pretty much it. The characters are bland and not unique either.

All in all, if you're into school simulators this might be for you, but really there are better ones out there that use their own assets and at least attempt to be unique.

Some cool ideas here. Great art. Interesting core gameplay loop.
But it lacks oh so much for a release that's close to v1:
Character design variety.
Sex scene variety.
Technical polish (a lot of the content in the game currently can not be finished due to constant errors).
A proper engine - this game stretches Ren'Py past it's limits it would seem, and quite a lot of the functions in the game appear to be hacks to get around the engine limitations.
Content - the game is quite thin.

Nevertheless, i look forward to the final version when it's done. Might buy it on steam if it is released there.

This game showed a little bit of promise...
- It has borrowed graphics,
- machine translated text into English, extremely badly translated, just barely playable,
- online verification (version 931+), which in this industry has been abused in the past to sell user data, for those that don't realize any reason for why that's bad,
- bugs... when four main quest starters give you an insurmountable error and you remember there were just as many errors years of updates ago...

v0.930b
This is a weird game to review because I like it to some extent but the shortcomings it has are very frustrating. The concept is fun, but it falls short on many other levels.
1) Crashes and bugs. I constantly ran into random crashes and occasionally I would also run into bugs/crashes that would essentially brick my save and force me to load a much earlier one. I'd either get stuck on some crash I can't get around or I'd be bugged into a menu I can't leave.
2) The art is taken from other games. I constantly felt that the scenes I'm looking at are probably much better accompanied in the context of their own games rather than what is presented in this game.
3) The translation is dog shit. For the most part I could get a general sense of what's going on but always felt like I was missing out on the specifics due to the translation. I get the feeling that there is a lot of details given in the conversation but they fail to be delivered in an understandable way at times.
4) There is an ultimate decision in the game where you essentially choose between keeping a developed character in the game or choosing the logical decision of usurping her which causes her to disappear entirely. Why is it logical? Because all the given evidence points to the character needing to be replaced, to such an extent that the character even had planned this entire affair for you to replace them. So if usurping her was a mutually beneficial goal and she has shown quite the interest in you, why does she just disappear from the game entirely? It makes either decision not sit right with me for the wrong reasons. Not only that, you are forced into being as bad or even worse than her. A lot of the game's events also revolve around this character so when you end up taking them out of it, it suddenly feels hollow. If you try to keep them in the game however, you essentially solved nothing.
5) A lot of things in this game just end up becoming click-chores. I got sick of trying to keep up with going to classes, going to work, going to the occult club, and going to the journalism club over and over that I really just wanted it to stop. At least some automation needs to be implemented for it even if it's a checkbox that just makes you automatically go to classes/work at such and such times everyday. Especially given that the journalism club tasks after usurping the president can take literal in-game months with not much else going on.

I will say, there is some fun to be had in this game in the interactions and story lines, but that's just about where it stops unfortunately.

I love the game concept, it reminds of Artificial Academy 2 but after trying it out for a few hours it feels so awkward to play, as in the characters don't act natural, heck they act so bizarre.

I'll chock it to translation problems but all this did was made me want to replay AA2.

This game still has a ways to go before it will truly start showing how good it truly is but the groundwork has been laid and with a few tweaks to the skills i would say the game will only lack more events, something that should be much easier to implement compared to the NPC generation that has been done.

Edit : Sadly came back to the game and not much has improved, and seeing the speed of the updates i dont have much faith in it now.

[v0.927]
Legitimately a great game with huge potential. It may sounds pompous to say so, but I only briefly read the description, downloaded it just mostly out of curiosity.
And going into the game expecting nothing more than a couple of lewd scenes and maybe a barely working simulation of the school, I was fucking smitten.
Already at the character creation stage, I was impressed.
Then the impression scale continued to grow exponentially.
"Hey, is that a ton of randomized NPCs with a ton of parameters?" Wow.
"Hey, is this a ton of gameplay mechanics?" Wow x2
"Hey, wait, is this a pretty well-written(well-glued) story and working (from the point of narration) characters?" Wow x3
The only downside is the lack of their own art pieces of key characters and cg moments.(I mean, c'mon you guys, with all this funding?)
I'm not a fan of writing reviews, but here I decided to make an exception because it hurts to see such a low rating for a actually good game.
Prosperity to developers. They have gold on their hands.

comments for 946
I do not change my rating. a lot of new stuff that are really interesting with RNPC. But:
- too much bugs. I highly recommend to stop development of new feature for a while and to focus for the next version on the bugs that are really painfull. Reaction of RNPC in case you fight an hooligan attacking you is dealt in the same way you are yourself an hooligan. you will loose frienship and love and gain fear. it's not the good way. even if you deceide to help somebody who is victim of bullying, at the end, you are an hooligan. please change your way on this matter cause I avoid all fights and I miss some interesting parts of the game.
could you make difference between friendship and love, currently, it's just a question of time and I would appreciate that boys in my game stay friends and I am not interested in the next step. I really think you should implement the sexual orientation of the RNPC and adapt the mecanism to take that into account.
about the main NPC, story is interesting but too slow to get any result. still a shame that they are not original design and that they are censored... I don't understand your way on that. anyway good luck and I am waiting for the next version
my comments about 934 :
I keep the 4 stars for the following reasons :
- a lot of improvement with NPC. the game is still grindy, but mechanism is no so complex. you can reach the kiss in less than one day. animation are good enough except for the blowjob that should be redone: the POV view is clearly not the best option.
- the main characters are now properly defined and the main quest properly detailled to let you advance in the quest. unfortunately (that's why the game is not yet a 5 stars) the pictures with Ayano are not good, some of them clearly decensored. developpers should clearly hire a independant drwaer to replace them by something more original. the way to get some result with them is also a little bit to long (especilaly compared to NPC).
- way to improve : add the sexual orientation of the NPC and let the player choose the rate of each category. reaction to flirt could be adapted regarding this orientation. remove all censored picture, it's a shame. in the club management, skills and weakness of NPC were displayed in the previous version, it's no longer the case and it's less interesting. for the combat, some perks could be added to improve the fight skills.

I have tried this game a couple of month ago and I was disapointed : the main characters were not interesting, the plot was confused and the NPC without any interest. On top of that grinding was so important that the game even wasn't worth 2 stars.
with the new version (0.927), I have to admit that a lot of improvement have been acomplished. the main improvement is with the NPC. now you can really do some stuf with them and try to have all of them. the game is still gringy, but as soon as you have understood the mechanism, it's not so difficult. My main concern is still with the main plot. the part with the quest has to be improved as it's not clear what to do to advance in the story. some picture have also to be redone : it's a pity to have (limited) animations for NPC and nothing for main characters (some of the pictures are even censored...). So I think the game is on the good path, but a lot of improvement have to be done with the main story and the quest book. What was done for NPC is really good and I wish the developper will find a way to have even more involvement of them in the main story, so they would not just be random NPC without interest.

the grind is real, but the random npc interactions and the rpg mechanics makes this game a gem, the only thing that takes the shine of this game are the bugs and that there no consequence for unprotected sex.

Absolutely awful. The English is on the level of some the worst MTL you'll see on this site, occasionally I couldn't even guess what was meant to be conveyed. Gameplay is pretty typical of a game like this, grind for stats and cash to hook up with girls. The problem is the pay off because there isn't any. There are 3 or 4 static characters, the rest are random npcs. Exactly none of them are good, the static ones are horrible because the English indecipherable and even if I could understand it I doubt it would be groundbreaking. The random npcs are absolutely miserable because they are nothing. The dev expects you to get it up for something that in the majority of games I would gut to jump the line for a bad cannoli and their pocket change, and because of their nature as randomly generated npcs they have no story and no personality. Without that then all I have is a shitty anime pic to nut to and that does nothing for me by itself. If that does work for you then you still won't like this game because of the grind and shit UI. I've written enough so I won't go too deep into the game, just know the UI is on par with Vinfamy's Lifeplay, which is fucking incomprehensible.

Really grindy, but has interesting random characters mechanics, that are impressive.Sadly relationships with random characters are kinda shallow and grindy, but with improvements it would make this game stand out.That really isn't the main thing in this game right now, cause there are scripted characters that are fleshed out, and are quite interesting.
If there would be less grind, improved interactions with random characters, and overall more content this game would deserve 4 stars for sure, but for now(as of v0.923) it doesn't deserve it, treat it as if i rated 3,5 stars.Still, in future this game could be pretty great, so for now i'll rate it that.

I love it. The game gives complete freedom of action. The plot is interesting, not linear, which gives the game replayability. This is a sandbox with a huge number of different characters. you can start playing as a bully and knock money out of classmates. You can work diligently in the store. Or you can become a hikikomori programmer. Amazing freedom for the genre. Other hentai guide you through the plot and inevitably end. You can play this game for days and not worry that it will end)))

For those who have never played such games, I can advise three main things:

1) do not try to always get the best result. Defeats in fights and the loss of all the money is also good. Do you want to know why? try to lose the fight 25 times)))

2) always stick to your character's character line. If you play for the good character, do only good things. You will play for the evil one next time. If you don't know what is good, what is bad, ask your parents))

3) Don't try to beat the game. The sandbox is made to play it and have fun. each of us played in the sandbox as a child, now we are older, but the principle remains the same.

I've been following the project for several months. It is developing very rapidly. The potential of sandboxes is huge. The developer always communicates with his patrons and develops the game in the direction where the players ask him. I can recommend this game to any fan of visual novels.

p/s Excuse my ugly English. I taught it at school 20 years ago.

Can you even have an intercourse with an npc? Inviting someone home only leads to playing, talking and drinking. So apart from few "quests" with shitty otaku writing the game has no content? All it consists of is useless grind system and pretty, yet really user non-friendly UI that makes navigation a pain in the ass. I saw this game before and I can't spot what has improved over the year or so. Doubt It'll ever be playable.

Good afternoon. I saw a large number of negative reviews on the game and was extremely surprised by what people write, so I decided to write my useless opinion. To begin with, I would like to say that the game has long been missing grind in large quantities. If we talk about the scenes, there are a lot of them, but people did not look further than one folder. All the pictures are scattered on the corresponding characters. Open your eyes. Although there are a lot of bugs in the game, but for this there is a discord channel where you can throw off the found error, and then the developer will try to fix it. Personally, I like the game, as a person who has been playing it since 2019, I can say that a lot has changed for the better.

This game seryously need walthrough detailed, or some mod to be playable or something, i played it for and hours and didnt do shit, i cant even left my room....
this games control is so much different from what ive played so far, that i dont understand it even after watching help at the beginning, that is why it is absolutely unplayable in my opinion for now.

The mechanics and framework for this game is good and is still coming along. Once it get's filled up with more content and H-scenes it will be a real gem. I really wanna see where it gets taken. In the future it would be nice to see more rewards for the amount of play time that gets put in.

The assets such as character avatars are borrowed, which also means that a lot of students will share the same avatar, so it kind of makes it bland and pointless to pick your "favorite" person, because there are around 5 other girls or guys with the same avatar. The students have no soul, all of them act the same in all of the situations, which is also boring.
The student council president has no way for you to interact with her apart 3 options, 2 of which are useless and 1 for exiting the options menu, also her quest is not completed yet.
For the girl in the swimming pool, you don't even need to buy the camera and get evidence to tell her that you have evidence, also can tell her to shut down the development of the club which doesn't host any point as of yet.
The students often just disappear from the game, if you come to school before 8 and then skip time to 8 am, the class won't start unless you leave and enter again. Also no students are around anywhere in the school after the first lesson which makes no sense (probably a bug),you need to time skip past 2nd lesson then they reappear. Talking to people is just a time waster on repeat, nothing interesting about it,once again students are soulless and bland, all of them act the same and there is nothing new to be gained after talking to one.
Overall very incomplete, lacks content and is kinda sad that the assets are borrowed and repeat on multiple characters, also the game is quite glitchy, and the tutorial shows russian words in the background while text is in english.

Negatives:
As of v0.904 what you see in preview pics is 90% of the content, i can see that there is also a bit of a grind, but as there is currently nothing to grind for and a simple cheat gets rid of it altogether i would just ignore it. Language is also not great, even for non-native speaker like myself, but honestly it was good enough that it didn't bother me too much.

Positives:
The game has neat systems and mechanics, they feel pretty good and are a good base for adding more content. Graphic and scenes are really good.


This is a complete frame for a game, ready to be filled with content and the best thing devs could do is to support modders.

A weird set up where the game has undeniable charm, but is also an absolute trainwreck of poor translation, hellacious grinding and of course a lack of content. Even if this gets tidied up I don't think it'll amount to much.