Ren'Py - Abandoned - Sensei Overnight [v0.19.0] [Pers0nas]

This isn't much of an actual game at all. The story, what little I could get through, doesn't play out with a series of event and character development. No, it is quite literally told to you through endless inner monologue and exposition that you just click through waiting for some form of player agency that never seems to come and the choices you are given are hollow with no real impact. the first dream sequence choice your given ends the same way no matter what you choose making it and many other choices completely irrelevant. I really don't like when games use cheap dream scenes just to push lewd scenes that have no relevance to the actual plot whatsoever.

I suppose the characters are different enough in personality, though generally tropey, to not be just girl 1 and girl 2 but I didn't see any real growth in them personally. It seems they pick a stereotype and that's them for the entirety of the game.

I play games to see the story unfold through action of myself or the world around me but that is not the case here. This just seems to be a short story under the guise of a game.

I can't give this more than two stars personally and that is just for the art. Its a higher level of detail than other games that use charastudio.

This game has a well written story and nice characters. It is a little slow at the start but takes of later and that are the parts I liked.
Almost didn't went on but later in the game it gets interesting, so do not give up to early!

Although its still in early stage, I hope to see more of it!

Sensei Overnight is a visual novel that takes a little time to get the gears going, but once it does, I appreciate the cute, fun, and interesting characters it has, as well as the slightly disturbing undertone. While it certainly wears its inspiration on its sleeve, I think it stands on its own in both presentation and storytelling. It's still in the early stages, but I eagerly look forward to future updates.

Editing since I haven't done a rating since 0.3.5:
Rating for 0.6 part 1

Story: 8/10
Now, I won't go saying that the blackouts are in any way similar to what Sensei of LiL is going through, because we already know what's causing the blackouts in LiL and we know what's causing the blackouts in SO and they're completely different for fundamentally different reasons, and the story has continued to completely branch itself from being a "LiL clone" as so many people are apt to call it. SO's sensei has been drifting into the spirit world, and even at times seems to be forced into it. There seems to be two different forces at play here, 1,000 and something that continually torments Sensei in the guise of a broken Dayai, bringing back memories that were somehow suppressed. Pain he's suppressed. It's continued to go into a nonlinear divergence from LiL and the mastery of Personas' writing has continued to improve and the girls themselves seem much more integral to pushing the plot than just occasional "happy scenes" in LiL's case, versus the Light scenes of SO. The girls seem more intertwined with sensei outside of those and even more so intertwined with his story. There's the forgotten girl, you have Oki who actually hasn't been present in any Light scenes whereas Maya has been in almost all of LiLs happy scenes. Not to mention Oki is actively pushing the story forward, whereas Maya resets it, figuratively and literally it seems. We also have Mori who is now pardon the pun, neck deep in sensei's story as well.

Renders: 8/10
The renders have been constantly improving as Personas continues to improve the content he pushes out. He's gotten a better hang of lighting for sure, his renders are also much cleaner.

Sound: 9/10
The soundtrack has been and continues to be great and it only continues to get better as development goes on.

Bugs: 9/10
I've yet to see and game changing bugs, or anything that's worth mentioning.

Amount of content: 10/10
There's always a good amount of content with every update, and what's even greater about the updates is it's not all internal monologue. It's actually become a meme at this point that the girls "interrupt" his internal monologues lol.

Overall I'd give it a 9/10.

This review is for the version 0.3.5.

First of all I want to say that I really enjoyed this game and played it since the initial release, but I wanted to wait a few updates before writing a review.

So, let's start:

Story
I won't write much about the story to avoid spoilers, but I will say that the writing is very very good. It is not perfect, it has some flaws, but overall impression is positive. I must agree with some of the comments that the MC is talking too much, but I cannot agree this is a bad thing. For me it was really neutral. It is just the way the story is written and I see no problem in that. I do however see a couple of isues with the story in general. But I will give it the benefit of the doubt and wait for the next updates. The grammar is good, the writing is quite enjoyable. Overall I think the story is fun. Maybe not the greatest read out there, but deffinitely in my top 10.

Renders
Okay, I know it is Koikatsu, but it is much harder to make good looking models that it looks like. I am currently working on a KK based game myself, so I know what I am talking about. Good models can make or brake a game and it is really easy to make a lot of mistakes here. Fortunately this game has absolutely great renders. The girls are cute, their proportions are correct, and the style is consistent. I think the models are one of the strongest points of this title, and kudos to the dev for putting effort into them!

Sound
The music in this game is very solid, but from time to time it does not fit the scene. I understand that this might be my personal preference though. Some of the tracks are memorable. Generaly, the music doesn't get in the way, which is good thing.

Bugs
I have not encountered any major bugs, nor the one that would prevent me from playing/completing somethig. I have seen that other people did, but during my playthrough there were none.

Amount of content
Currently there is not very much content, but it is because the game is in early stages of development. In fact the updates bring much more new things and the dev is very active. One could say that full month is a long time between updates, but regularity and amount of content in each update completely justify the time.

Another thing is the amount of sexual content. There is not much of it compared to the rest of the game. A lot of people might see this as a flaw, but I don't have a problem with it. Again, it is the dev choice how to handle the story.

After considering all of the above, I rate this game 5/5. It is a solid product, that gave me a lot of fun. It has it flaws here and there but I can honestly recommend it.

I don't mean to be impatient but I've mind-numbingly clicked around in this "game" for... oh, 2 hours now? Just reading and clicking and reading and clicking... And I haven't seen any explicit sexual content. An image that MIGHT be a blow job??? And then isnt. And then an image that MIGHT be sex??? And then isn't.

Need I say more? What a waste of time.

Edit: holy fuck, I decided to just let "skip" skip unseen text and just skipped who knows how many hours of content and there are like... 2 animated sex scenes??? A handjob and a blowjob from the purple hair girl??? Fucking hell, I'm literally offended that this is even on this site to waste anyone's time...

Too much inner dialogue, meme references and just overall boring. I tried playing the game a few updates ago and am still disappointed with the massive clicking to get through the boring dialogue. Still not enough events to make the game interesting.

I'm not expecting a game like this to get straight to the h-scenes and sex, but if there aren't any repeatable events on the weekend give the player an option to skip it. For 2 in game weeks I just clicked the same boring options just to not see anything new or interesting happen.

UPDATE: Tried playing this again and I forgot how boring it is. Just a bunch of clicking doing as little as possible seems to be the thing with this game. After one week of in games days with nothing happening isn't a game. The game either needs to be completely redone or completely abandoned at this point.

Although still in development, so far it's good, both the plot, buildup and animations. Can't really say much as i've completed few events, but the game's, I have to say i love the joke, some of the in between memes and comedy. Keep up man, looking to see how this turns out.

The reason for the 5 stars is mainly: The dialog!
It's Silly, Funny, Stupid, Serious and Very engaging! I love how each of the characters are so unique ( Musn't forget about Spudge). You really get interested and invested in them!

I could go on about how much I like The art and Enviroment too. But I feel that would be to long. I'd rather edit this at a later time

The art of the game is nice to look at and the premise is a good one, however, the gameplay isn't objective. It gets repetitive and boring after a while as it seems like the dev wanted a normal VN with sandbox elements. There are hardly any choices that the MC has to make other than where to visit after school and during the weekends. The only two stats the game has is compassion and desire, and after reaching 100+ compassion with minimal progress with the girls except for Kio, I stopped playing as it felt like I was wandering about aimlessly. On the plus side, the dialogues are interesting to read, except for the rasta bunny. The concept of the bunny was fine but as a person that hails from one of the countries that started the Rastafarian movement and have a grandfather from the aforementioned movement, the dialogue for the bunny was cringy and you had "E" where there should be "I" eg the words "Me" and "Fe" should be "Mi" and "Fi" respectfully but I'm not butthurt over it, just had to point that out. I'll still keep an eye on this game though.

Simple so far -- with a weird habit of constantly using the word 'was' in place of 'were' but the art is as good as expected from this style. Very little content so far, but what is there is quiet nice. I'm eagerly waiting for it to grow.

Okay, so. First of all the game starts with a really interesting scene which is meant to get you to understand the whole concept and atmosphere of the plot behind the ecchi and fun scenes. Some might say that the isekai setting is overdone, but it is overdone for a reason: it's good, and Personas does it in a more unique way. Rather than the MC dying or being reborn into a different world, his life simply gets "rerolled", and that is enough to make it original and different from generic "reborn in a new world" games.

If you are looking for a good story driven game that has scenes which really gets your brain gears moving and is presented to you in an ero dating-sim fashion, then this game will be one you will thoroughly enjoy. Even though it's very early in development I am very intrigued about what is to come next.

There are some more wonky parts of the game, but it's overall very well done for being such a fresh game. I especially enjoyed the internal monologues because it gives us more insight on how the MC thinks and feels. VN's with a "you are the MC" kind of protagonists are boring for me personally.

Disclaimer: If you are solely looking for something to milk your snake to, then you might not enjoy it as much. But if you would immerse yourself into the characters' dialogue and narration, then it's a completely different experience.

Overall I would give it a 4.5/5, so round it up and you get 5/5

It really is difficult to review a game when it's this early. There's so many things that can change, either for good or ill. Even with a great opening, you could end up with Rise of Skywalker or the Mandalorian.

It's all just a dice game.

Personas has put out a new visual novel with a fairly recognizable setting. School. Teenagers. The MC is the janitor sensei. Looking at the front page, you can easily get the same kind of vibes as other games. There's a ton of reasons why these games continually are developed, but one of the main reasons is because the setting and themes are insanely popular with players. The player knows what they are going to get. School setting. Harem. Koi engine.

The key to success in making a game from such familiar surroundings and backstory is to make it different. Do something different. Do several things different. Overnight Sensei is different enough to make the story intriguing with enough introspection and humor to keep the player's attention. There's enough going on, even at this early stage, to differentiate it from an older and established game like Lessons in Love.

It's still way too early to really say whether Overnight Sensei is going to become a classic, but Personas has himself and all the girls in Overnight Sensei on the right path, and he's clever with his use of the setting and theme. This isn't just another school setting game with a main character in the sensei's role. Thoughtful, creative, and surprising... there's a different tone present in this you don't see in other games. I picked up on several small pieces of dialogue that, while not beaten over our heads with, hint at some very interesting possibilities in future updates.

Keep up the great work.

It has potential, but really needs animation and to have mechanics fleshed out. I Like the characters. The Story is ok, a bit overdone, but it's still early in the build. The dialogue isn't bad, but again is isn't breaking ground. It still deserves 4 stars and I would like to play it down the line.

Very few choices, large sections of the game are unfinished so what few choices there are have little impact, and the MC just won't shut up. If you like reading pages of some random janitor talking to himself while everything else is out of focus you'll enjoy this. If you're looking for porn, or a game, or even the basic components of a story look somewhere else.

This review and rating is done with the initial release, 0.1. A few things to note before starting. Needs a couple of additional tags added, incest and loli. The initial release is rather short, and is primarily character and world building.

Graphics/Art: You can clearly see the art style from the initial previews and screenshots. The renders are clear, and the world is colorful. The girls are differentiated well enough, but mostly though hair styles and colors. Everything else is fairly standard for this type of art.

Audio: There is plenty of music in the game, and the choices do reflect the scene styles fairly well. Some 4th wall breaking occurs where it might not otherwise match the scene, which is actually quite fun when devs do that.

Story: There is very little story so far. As stated in the post, you're meant to be a janitor, but after praying real hard, you wake up the next day as a Sensei, with no idea of how to go about doing it. That is pretty much the extent of the story building so far for the initial release.

Gameplay: Gameplay is 20 to 30 minutes for the initial release. It is almost entirely centered around introducing characters and doing initial development on them. You get a chance to see each of the girls one on one, in what I'm guessing will be their preferred locations in the game (Shrine, Koi Cafe, Hairshop, etc). There is a SMALL amount of sexual content, but very very very little. Again, it is shown primarily in the form of character development and the minor advancement of the story.

Thoughts/Things I noticed:

1) Throughout the 0.1 version, the character gets seemingly random increases to a couple of stats, namely compassion and desire. These happen without any actual input or choice by the character, nor are the impacts stated in any way. This should either be explained, or hidden, as it makes very little sense.

2) Internal monologues. So, many, internal, monologues. I've seen worse, but yeah, its still excessive. Over half of the 0.1 is spent clicking through the internal monologues, and it gets old, quick. Gotta condense those down a bit.

3) English is actually quite good. I only noticed a couple places where the wrong word was used (wondering instead of wandering, as an example), and almost no grammatical mistakes.

Look forward to seeing this continue!