Ren'Py - Seeds of Chaos [v0.4.09] [Vénus Noire]

A game that has become a directionless mess after a series of poor design choices early on...

There are two sides to this game:

Firstly, there is the 'game' bit where you are hired by a couple of demons to serve as a general to their armies. In practice this means telling people to build stuff and then wandering around a map having encounters. The map stuff takes up a lot of time and space but is quite poorly designed as the key to doing it properly is to make sure that you visit certain encounters and certain places with specific stats and specific army sizes. Do stuff too soon and you'll find yourself locked out. This may look like a 4X civ-style game but there's no way to be clever or strategic about any of this. Given that this game has been in development for years and has had a steam release you'd expected this aspect of the game to be more finished but it isn't.

Secondly, there's the courtly intrigue where you recruit, befriend, and seduce various colourful NPCs. This is the meat of the game and while all of the paths are almost perfectly linear, the artwork is good, the writing is good, and the situations are pretty hot if you are into trans, bi, and NTR stuff. A lot of people aren't, which explains a lot of the complaints in these reviews.

On top of the relationships with the various NPCs, there's also a degree of management to the MC's relationship with both his boss and his wife: You can be more submissive to your boss and you can encourage your wife to be more slutty and evil, at which point you get into the NTR stuff.

There's a case to be made that this game is actually all about the wife and that the game is all about managing her transformation from a goody two-shoes trad-wife to a degenerate noblewoman in an evil empire but the game never addresses any of the decisions made with regards to the wife head-on. Indeed, this game has a terrible tendency to encourage you to make an ill-informed choice only to either pull the rug out from beneath you with unexpected consequences or soft-block you for taking the wrong path.

The tendency to by cryptic and obscure applies to every aspect of the game and makes for a really frustrating experience. The relationships with the various NPC department heads are hot and well-managed but every other aspect of this game feels like smoke and mirrors.

Great game in every imaginable way. Unfortunately, a few aspects occasionally made the game less enjoyable.

Firstly, I genuinely believe that rolling for stats is an unfortunate mechanic. I don’t think it adds anything to replayability and often just causes frustration, especially when rolling low in a leveled skill. It only adds to the game's crypticity, as the rollable values are probably between 1 and 6—but who knows?

In general, I felt discouraged from reading all the text. While the well-written descriptions enhance immersion, they are ever-present, making them feel like the largest portion of the game’s text—even if that’s not actually the case. By the later parts of Act 1, I found myself skipping the initial moments of each situation. Perhaps related to this is the feeling of a lack of progress when exploring the map. Neither movement costs nor action points help you navigate more efficiently, as the only remaining activities involve random events on new tiles. These events are often vague and seem to serve as a source of money, yet in the later stages, they start to feel useless and empty—especially once one reach the point where grinding through unexplored tiles becomes the primary gameplay loop.

I hope to return to this game once it’s either finished or nearing completion. The story, along with the unique personalities and perceptions of each character, is well-written and engaging.

The game in question has great potential, and the quality it offers is already quite high. True, there are complaints about productivity and the frequency of updates, but in my opinion, what it brings to the table is often well worth the wait.

As for the storyline, I won’t go too far in my judgment. It’s good and capable of engaging many players, but it would be wise to wait until the game is 100% complete. However, in its current state, the story cannot be criticized negatively at all. There are many characters, both male and female, with whom you can develop intimate relationships, love interests, or even rivalries. Every choice has consequences that influence your relationships with the cast of characters.

At its core, this is nothing more than a management/visual novel-style dating sim. Expand your political influence and power, and turn your allies into companions to warm your bed. And I’ll say this: while it might sound reductive, it’s fairly accurate.

The real strength of the game, however, lies in its art style. Honestly, while the “it’s a matter of taste” argument always stands, it’s undeniable that the game is supported by and the result of work from talented artists with plenty of experience.

I've followed that game for years, the original idea is quite good, with a corruption side really well engaged for the main hero.
There're really good points, the art i s really impressive and the characters are well done. The story is quite engaging and you want to follow it to the end.

BUT, there're as many flows and they still there after all those years of developpment.
First, the main story is on hold for a very long time, after Rastedel, invasion, nothing more for the main plot. The developper added plenty of side quests, but nothing for the main course.
Then, there's not point in staying on the good side, you can't be faithful to your wife or you'll got a bad end as many of the events requires you to betray in everything your character trusts.
And of course, you can't rebel or betray your masters, with is a disapointment.

Great CG´s and I love the slow corruption of the characters. There are a lot of choices that actually have consequences, and the female main character is a 10/10. If you like NTR or femdom its a must play.

I’ve been playing this game on and off for the past few years and it is one of the best, if not the best, eroge I've ever played. I'll explain why.

Story & Atmosphere:
The story is hands down the real star of the show. The world-building on display here is top-tier and the plot definitely has moments that give you that gripping tension that gets you hooked into the narrative. The characters definitely feel alive here and the storytelling is so immersive that I sometimes forget I’m playing an eroge. On top of that, the artwork is absolutely stunning. Seriously, it might be the best I’ve ever seen in a game like this.

Gameplay:
Now, is the gameplay groundbreaking? No, not really. But that’s not the main draw here. Seeds of Chaos is a story-driven, visual novel-esque experience. The “combat” and “exploration” mechanics here exist mostly as side elements to enrich the world, not as a central feature. It’s fair to say it’s lacking if you’re expecting a gameplay-heavy experience, but for fans of narrative-focused titles, the gameplay is perfectly serviceable.

Development Journey:
It’s hard to ignore the fact that development has been rocky with 8 years in development, and we’re only reaching the end of the first arc. Still, in my view, the passion behind this project is clear, and there’s so much love poured into every corner of this game.

Final Thoughts:
Criticizing a narrative-driven title primarily for “not having good enough gameplay” is missing the point. If you enjoy getting lost in a captivating story - and you can stomach some uncertainty in terms of development timelines - then SoC is well worth your time. It’s a work of passion, and it shines as a true diamond in the rough.

TL;DR: Try it for the story and the art. If you go in expecting a robust gameplay experience, you’ll be let down. But if you’re looking for a visual novel that brims with potential, it’s well worth ignoring the critics.

Unbelievably expansive game with amazing writing and very-clearly engaged developers.

Can't wait to see how it continues to flesh out (for the lack of a better term...)

Usually don't go for games rated less than 4 stars, but this is an absolute exception.

I played this game and it was one of the worst, if not the worst, I've ever played. I'll explain why.

NEGATIVE POINTS:
STORY: The game tells the story of Rowan, a strategist and warrior who is defeated and has all his people killed by demons. Rowan and his girlfriend are FORCED to serve the demon brothers, you have no choice, you have no freedom of choice and while you are imprisoned, the demon keeps having sex with your girlfriend. And the rest of the game will be like this, you serving and dedicating yourself to please the demon brothers while they fuck your girlfriend.

GAMEPLAY: THE WORST OF ALL! You explore the game map through movements, where there is a limit to the number of movements the player can make. MOST OF THE TIME you walk into nowhere and POOW! Time's up! And a week goes by, and you can't make any significant progress. And if you can't do anything, the demon brothers will end up killing you and that's game over.
• CHEATS: Using cheats, you can progress and conquer the cities on the other side of the map. After you conquer the main city, you basically stagnate and manage your demon army, like a farm game, with nothing else, no content.

SEX SCENES: There are few sex scenes in the game. You have to fight a lot to unlock these scenes, and most of them are the demon flirting and eating your girlfriend (NTR) or you being sexually dominated by them.

POSITIVE POINTS:

ART: As bad as the game is, the art is excellent and pleasant to look at.

I would recommend this game to anyone who likes NTR, but the gameplay is so terrible that I won't recommend it to ANYONE!

8 years in the making.

I bought it on Steam, and since then, nothing important has been implemented.
The game is in limbo; with 20-30 CGs every 4 months, it will never be finished.

Can't see why, after all, if you look at the Patreon, the dev makes $10,000 per month.
Who would see this coming?

Maybe AI art will finally make games without paying $1,000,000 for an eternal early access.

My bad for not looking through the reviews lmao. Pretty much downloaded instantly because of the art and the mentioned books/games the dev were inspired by to create this.

Yeah, no. The only real comparison would be Corruptions of Champions. This is 100% a railroad simulator with a random dom route/options added to it.

At least it has good art but do not get tricked by the overview, the protagonist is a dense cuck with no real similaties to Guts/Geralt etc because the dev failed entirely at making the dom aspects/route satisfying. As others has said, even when blocking NTR you still feel like a cuck when playing this because obviously the intended gameplay is catered to subs.

All in all, if you're into being a slave cuck with no real light at the end of the tunnel then by all means play this. This game cannot be an enjoyable experience for people wanting full dom playthroughs.

Seeds of Chaos is my favorite adult game. It has a very interesting story, with great main characters. I love the male/female protagonists and the corruption mechanics. The dark fantasy setting is also great and gives a good atmosphere. Another major strenght of the game is the art which is beautiful.

There isn't much more I can write without making this boring, since I have so much praise for this game. What I am hoping for the future is for the first part of the game to finish up, so we can see the main storyline progess even further. I also hope to see more Alexia corruption

Amazing art and stories.
Nice mix of domination and submission scenes.
The game contains a wide variety of fetishes.
NTR, while can be disabled at the start, is a pretty big chunk of the content and I would go so far to say that to fully enjoy this game you should be fond of this specifc kink.
The game is rather text heavy, which I like. The characters and situations are very fleshed out and add lots of tension andweight to the scenes.
For some there might be too much text. Escpecially later in the capital city arc there is a lot of exposition dumped on you.
The free exploration mode is a bit scuffed, but I hope it will get ironed out in the future.

One of my all time favourites. Highly recommended.

I'll get into the major issue I have with the game: I NEVER knew where to go or what to do. That might be a skill issue on my part, simce the game does say for example "conquer Raeve Keep", but I simply don't know where that is or how to get there. That would also be less of an issue if you weren't on a timer.
My first playthrough ended after I failed to even see Raeve Keep, triggering a game over. My second ended because I found no way to conquer/ally myself with the capital. The 'hint' the game gave me was "everything is quiet, I could probably focus on finding more about the twins!", which wasn't helpful to me.

The art is quite nice and (most) of the story is acceptable. It does devolve into meaningless name-dropping sometimes, but it wasn't too annoying. The gameplay boils down to watching a scene, exploring and interacting with towns, villages and mines on the map, and then going back to the twins. You're on a timer, so you're supposed to do the tasks they assign to you quickly, lest you want to face a game over.

The characters are kinda static, as in, they don't change that much during the story or between different choices. This is compounded by the fact that advancing the scenes/path for each character takes a long while, since you can only do so once per day after a number of explorations.

My last criticism is one that might not be easily fixable: the mobile ui is TINY. Switching savefile pages is borderline impossible because of it.

Anyway, if anyone's interested in a slower, more story focused game, this one isn't bad. However I'd probably use a guide if you're interested in a specific path.

+ original art
+ a lot of kinks
+ good writing
+ multiple genres in one game

- quality - there are a lot of scenes with missed background and absent paper dolls on the screen, need to be fixed
- it's hard to complete mission somehow because you need explore a large area on the map. Dev need to find better motivation for player to explore the map
- some parts of the interface are not intuitive and you may miss some content because of it, again it's a polishing issue

in general the game is rather good than bad. it's not a masterpiece, but not a bad game either

I would recommend it to play if you like an exploration and sandbox

Concept,art,story are excellent i like their is two god who are brother and sister their idea of the world is opposite from each other and what role Rowen play in this overall excellent game i like how story plays out and choices really matters looking forward to play finished act 1 and what comes In act 2

This feels more like a VN than anything else, and thats okay since i think thats the strong point of the Game, even though overall i like the writing and wide election of choices, i think one of the weakest points is the MC, or rather his Naivity, someone with the reputation of Rowan should have a more Sly mind even before the corruption, like a Rogue, instead he feel to "Goodie", but yeah, overall is more than okay

Rowan a cuck.

The story is that a couple of demons start conquering the world and they force Rowan to be their lackey. And then Rowans wife starts banging one of the demons. Yes, it is dependant on decisions the player makes but playing this with Rowan being a good guy and his wife not being a slut is completely and utterly pointless because Rowan never actually stands up against the two demons even if you go that route. The only way playing this is worth if you go full on corruption degeneracy. Good playthrough is a no go.

The artstyle is nice, the sex scenes look really good (for a 2d game) and there are lots of decisions you make in as to how they play out. The main problem I have though is how meaningless those decisions in the end are. Rowans wife being a slut for red demon hardly impacts the relationship between Rowan, there is never a moment where Rowan realizes that oh crap I lost my wife. Instead she has sex with red demon guy and rowan is none the wiser. No matter the decisions you make, there is hardly ever any cross impact with any other storyline which makes the decisions feel utterly meaningless. This is a weakness of the more decentralized story structure the game has. If everything was happening in linear order, the impact of decisions could be more clear but that isn't how the game was made and the narrative suffers as a result.

The open world exploration is also a waste of time. Some locations have sex scenes but once again they change nothing. Some locations give you resources but you would get them anyways by simply waiting. Everything feels rather pointless and disconnected.

The devs keep adding new characters, new events new locations new scenes but in the process they keep making the disconnect greater and greater. None of the new characters tie into the main storyline in any significant way. Sometimes there is cameo from a main character, but it simply feels tacked on. I understand why they are doing it though, simply check the patreon.

There is a lot of content, the sex scenes look nice. But instead of ending the game they keep adding new characters and scenes to the middle where they continue to harm character development further. Filler scenes on top of filler scenes with no substance. Finish the game already

Also there is some kind of thing in place which locks you into certain decisions which nerfs the use of rollback. I hate it. It just forces you to save scum instead of rolling back scenes. It wastes my time. Annoying af.

Stupid game. Absolutely not worth experiencing.
Rowan in this first arc is shortsighted and stupid, definitely not the genius tactician that we are told about. He is only saved by the fact that the demon twins are even stupider than he is. He sees their pointless cruelty all through the game and doesn't do a thing to start planning his exit strategy. His priority should be how do I get these magical slave collars off my and my wife's necks and not I have to stop these demons from doing stupid things. If I were him I wouldn't do a thing to stop Andras from murdering his troops every time he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. He could use that to drive a wedge between the twins. "I tried to conquer that village but your brother murdered a few dozen troops last week in a rage fueled rampage. Not my fault."

The demons on their part are so damn stupid that they don't realize that them pointlessly poking Rowan isn't going to win his loyalty. They can at least pretend to be nice to him, it costs them nothing to not turn Helayana into a mindless sex addict and then try to use her to drive a wedge between him and his wife. Jezera doesn't have to try to humiliate Rowan by having him lick her feet or pussy under the table during negotiations. If they showed him even a modicum of respect that the human nobles didn't, he (and the players) might genuinely want to side with them.

The only reason people are upset by Rowan's submissiveness is because of the stagnation of the main plot. If he doesn't wake up after Rastadel then he would be one of the stupidest MCs in AVN history.

I played this a while ago, but it stands out as a longstanding favorite in a huge sea of more forgettable h-games. The NTR is pretty great, the demon characters are interesting, the art is good. There's a fair bit of game-play that's pretty developed & interesting. I normally wouldn't review, it's just I think it's weird this game currently has a 4-star rating when it's I think as good or better than the majority of 4.5/4.6-star games from a pure quality standpoint. I was thinking of making an h-game for a while, and this one was pry my biggest thematic inspiration.