Ren'Py - Abandoned - Secrets of Whispering Pines [Day 6] [BLACKHEART GAMES]

This is easily my favorite of the BH games, and it hurts to hear that it's the least popular and most likely won't be continued past Day 7. The MC isn't a COMPLETE piece of garbage like the MC of PA & maybe BHH (it's not as easy to binge play that one for me).

I'm unsure why anyone finds this particularly enjoyable, honestly. Visually there's clearly talent, and the developer translates this to their future projects, but that's about it. The best description of the writing is "juvenile". The attempt at making a darker story proves as much, as it's only dark in an "I'm a 14 that wants to rebel against my parents" way. None of the 'characters' actually have anything genuinely interesting about them. The 'secrets' in the story aren't nearly interesting enough to justify playing it further than half an hour. There's nothing to keep you invested or interested. It's the equivalent of watching "Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)".

+ Good Renders
+ Good Concept
+ Choose your women

= Decent Animations
= Characters are a mixed bag
= Plenty of choices reguarding morality but the saint and deviant feature feels tacked on and doesn't fit. The game would be better without that particular system.

- Awful Plot
- MC ( beyond incompetent )
- Soap Opera like Drama

V Day 6

I think 3-stars is a bit generous because there was a lot about this that isn't fun or enjoyable.

+ Great use of sound and music to increase immersion.

+ We are given the rare "horror" film story that has some dark and gory scenes.

-- Impact of choices is confusing and unclear.

-- Writing is bad. I don't know if it's an English as a Second Language thing or not, but the writing is often incoherent, tedious, repetitious, and just plain poorly done.

-- Yeah! The MC is finally alone with one of the girls and we have this rushed sex scene without any build up.

-- Few animations and what little there are, aren't fun to watch.

-- VN feels very, very dated.

+ You can have the MC shoot/kill nearly everyone you don't like. That part is pretty cool.


OVERALL:
A story that keeps forcing the same bad guy(s) to screw over the MC and MC keeps falling into their traps. Rinse and repeat 13+ times.

Lame story, I gave 2 stars and not 1 because of the use of background music to increase immersion, the game has the same stupid plot twist of I know the developer is trying to establish a universe, but it is too forced. As someone else said the choices don't give you a sense of accomplishment and the player is left unsatisfied.

The choices don't really matter that much, the Sorry for the rant, I tried to like this game, but I just couldn't, not because of the dark worldbuilding or no real sense of choices, but because of poor writing and originality.

This is just my opinion on this game, everyone should try to form their own after playing this game, but be prepared to be left unsatisfied.

So far the authors best game IMO. Too bad the storylines and the characters of the other games are mixed in, like in all blackheart games. Until that point this is a 5/5 porn thriller, probably the best I've ever seen. But after the characters from the other games starts popping up the story gets way worse IMO. It's a real shame.

I'd still recommend playing this game for everyone who's into darker stuff, but you'd need to play the authors other games to fully understand the later parts of the story.

I just cannot with this game. It has so many good tags, there's nothing wrong with the models or the animation or anything like that.

But the story is so incredibly forced. It's not even tense, it's a literal clown circus of completely harebrained plans by the most ridiculous villains that they only manage to pull off because the plot requires it, the entire story is incredibly weak and would fall apart multiple times in any given episode to the tiniest of reasonable consequence, but reasonable consequence is something this story seems completely immune to.

The MC seemingly accomplishes things quite often but then everything he's done is just completely undone by the laziest deus-ex-machina I think I have ever seen, repeatedly. Nothing is properly connected, there is no reasonable pacing to anything or establishing events as to make them feel earned. They just happen out of nowhere and every single character acts not in any way that would make them feel believable or relatable but just in whatever way happens to be the most inconvenient to the MC. Every single plot point or choice exists not to drive the story but to punish the player. You never get to enjoy a scene or a victory without the game using it to fuck you over later. Well, here's a surprise for you, if the story doesn't allow me to ever feel satisfied, then the story will be incredibly unsatisfying by definition. Congratulations, developer, you played yourself.

The principal feeling this game leaves me with is neither lewdness nor horror, it's humiliation, and I am very much not into that. I doubt it's the developers intention but if you're into being and feeling humiliated this game will probably be great for you, because you play as a MC that can do every single thing right and still be outsmarted and outmaneuvered by literal children at the drop of a hat. It all just ends up being ridiculous in the extreme.

There's just no possible way to enjoy the lewd scenes with the backdrop that this game sets up.

Holy shit! I like that rough style and dark vibe of Blackheart Games but I must say that "Secrets of Whispering Pines" is a masterpiece of horror mystery genre. Mindfuck after mindfuck, I can't believe how good it is. I mean it.

Today I played for the first time and just wanted something for a quick fap but the whole story from the same beginning just blown my mind and while playing very often my jaw dropped to the ground.

Everybody knows how dark games from Blackheart are but this is something else. Hard to tell is there any other VN of mystery horror genre with similar quality which also is not afraid of crossing some kinky boundaries like their production. I bet there is none.

I know that my review is saying almost nothing about details of that game and I'm just general praising it for everything but go on and play it right now and I promise that you will see on your own - from the first minutes of game - that this is a very solid production in all aspects.

Well deserve to rate it at 5/5.

Thank you for your work and keep going @Seath Black , greetings!

Is good. It could have been great.

Great images. Sounds. Lot of work put into the art. A few food scary moments and good sex scenes.

Lots of subject matter. This is a dark game. There's rape, incest, torture, murder, almost all subject matter you can think of. All very explicit/horror/thriller/ and fucked up kinda way. It's not for everyone, you can get it from the negative reviews here.

The main criticism I have is that the game narrative is very "one note". The game narrative uses overdoes the basic thriller loop: Initially is quiet, then weird shit happens, someone's in danger, as you investigate more weird/scary/tense shit happens and at the end there's a big reveal and a twist.

The problem is that we go through that over and over and over. There's a twist after twist after twist, and so on. The game overdoes this. There's lots of exposition and dialog (and yelling) trying to recap what's going on. It just keeps getting more convoluted and absurd and it makes it hard to take it seriously, care about the characters, or pay attention for that matter.

I think the game would have been better if it were shorter and the player hade more agency to 'earn' not only the sex scenes, but also just go and kill the bad guy, because it wouldn't matter at the end, the real killer whas that other character after all! What a twist!

Still I think is a good game. Worth your time if you're into dark stuff. It could have been really great. I'm looking forward to more games from this developer.

Great game , cant find any flaw. Great story, pace, hot girls hope to see more of it. As I can not ask in discussion just a quick question re Julie- She is my favourite girl in this game- I found only two scenes ( Sex & the hand job) with her. Does anyone know if there were more Julie scenes upto Day 6 ?

To be honest I did not have high hopes for this title. The renders are goodish but not great but I think the Dev can tell a good story so I gave it a shot. I'm so glad I did!

The story is delightfully fucked up and the MC can be either a good guy who's done bad things or just a straight up bad guy. The mystery is good and while some elements can seem "convenient" the game stays consistent with itself and the urge to find out what happens next can be overwhelming. Which is very rare for a porn VN where normally you're trying to just get to the next H-Scene. Renders would normally drop this game down a spot but it earns a star back by simply being so enjoyable.

Give this one a shot if you liked fucked-up mysteries and don't mind a little darkness in your games.

Will 100% be listed as one of the best renpy games of all time. The twists caught me off guard every time. It fully creeped me out at some parts. The sex scenes were just so hot, but you know it is a good game when you are more invested in the story. Can't wait to find out where this goes.

Interesting game, the story is plot after plot. Only now did i notice that you are in a whole series with all well-known figures DeLuca and Manchini. I'm curious how it all comes together. But I'll leave that to the dev. the animation is perfect. The story line is good.

Where this AVN shines

1) a compelling horror plot that has lots of mysteries. It's been a really long time since I last thought this much about a game, questioning my choices and relationships with different characters.

2) Even though the same stylistic device is used very often to advance the plot (X disappears, protagonist investigates, while Y disappears, this chain reaction plot device is probably the most used in this VN and while it can be quite annoying, it still works), this approach still kept me permanently in a state of suspense. I never knew where I stood and rejected sexual content just to protect certain characters. For me, it is a good sign for relationship building in an AVN plot if it motivates you to achieve goals that are not sexual in nature.

3) The atmosphere, including the set pieces but also the music, are well chosen. I would have liked the whispering of the first five minutes to have more meaning. But it seems that the developer quickly gave up on that.

4) I don't know of any VN where you can create your main character and the back story so beautifully yourself. It's really up to you to follow the plot here and make yourself a villain and two-faced asshole afterwards or make yourself more or less one of the victims in everything. The developer has gone to great lengths to give you agency here. In the end, that's what convinced me to give the fifth star, because it's really well done.

What could be improved

1) I think the plot could have done with toning down the pornographic elements and focusing more on the thriller. Sometimes there is sex at points where it just seems out of place and where it is not really explainable why a protagonist would rather have sex than do his job. Often you can object to that, but sometimes it feels like you're putting characters in danger. So you have immoral sex not because you are sexually aroused, but because the plot somehow suggests that it is the only way to protect someone. That seems very contrived to me and not necessarily believable. It kind of reminds you that you are playing porn with thriller elements when the game is doing such a good job in other situations to convince you it's a horror thriller that is not afraid to use sex as a plot device.

2) Day 6 is very convoluted. While up to that point the mystery unravels slowly, in Day 6 you are bombarded with new characters and the story is turned upside down several times. That makes it difficult to follow.

Beyond that, however, there is not much to criticise. Yes, the animations and character models are not at the top end of what is currently offered in the AVN scene. But who cares. I have already tried "The Guardian" by the same developer and I think Whispering Pines is the better game in every respect. At times it really feels like playing an interactive Stephen King book. And not many developers can do that. Actually, I can only think of one better horror AVN and it doesn't really have any sexual content.

your art and storytelling is good, very good in fact, but you REALLY need to work on you "happy endings" my dude... also making a whole universe out of seemingly disparate stories never ends well because there start to be glaring discrepancies by 3rd story...

but seriously the endings of your games just feel so bad that a really nice overall game leaves a sour taste and that is a damn shame...

Despite the dark elements, This has some amazing story telling and cute girls. Even if you don;t share Seath's dark mind there is still a route for everyone, and it still pulls the player into the story. And the mysteries keep you hooked!

I think this one is not even average. In the writing department there are too many "she is involved in dark shit" plot twists. There are at least 3 of those.
There are also many instances where the MC or someone close to him is kidnapped. How many times can a person be kidnapped before the writer thinks of another plot device? Then there is some tropes like the 2 "daughters" craving for daddys dick, but this happening with no much build up really.
Withot a solid writing, the sex scenes didnt work for me, they are pretty average and basic, with the exception of a couple of more kinky scenes, that they are still shot in a average way with average poses and camera work.
(to the me in the future and anybody coming from "the other" game from this dev:
Stay away from this one unless you are 2000% horny for some of the girls)

Might be one of my new favorites. It's like Sleepaway camp merged with Twin peaks. The story is great. The sex is a bit basic but very well done only personal complaint I have is a bit too much of the sex is locked behind rape and malicious cheating but it fits the story's tone so it's just a personal gripe. If there's anything approaching a harem I like it to have a poly/sharing vibe and don't like having a cruel aspect. (Yeah I know I picked the wrong game.

But the story and the sex kept me up well into the night. This thing is something special.

Many have tried to make a horror game in this universe, but there is no one who was even close to make anything at this level.

From the second you reach the menu you can sense there is quality about the stuff BlackHeart Games do. The soundtrack is so relaxing and chill, the animations is very well done and as far as the girls goes, the renders looks amazing! The plot; is something which you have to experience to know if it is for you. It's really fascinating to see how many other developers who really have tried to achieve something like this; and yet, they are still in most cases far, far away from anything like THIS.

Yes for some this may be too much, to crazy or to wicked. But I do not have any problems with seeing this as a game with lots of entertainment.

I would def recommend this game to anyone who likes it a bit salty and isn't afraid of the more grey areas. It is after all just a game for your own (wicked or not) entertainment and for those who like that sort of stuff; you are in for a treat right here!

Riffs on slasher films and Twin Peaks weirdness, with an MC you can steer to be a knight in shining armor or truly evil. A wide range (in appearance, age, and relationship to the MC) of babes to romance, corrupt, or abuse. And a plot that will keep you clicking until your clicking finger...and other things...are sore.