RPGM - Ren'Py - Shadows of Desire [v0.5b EA] [Shamantr]

Oh man, it really pains me to even rate this game... The fact that I'm doing it anyway shows that I do care what happens to the good approach. Rarely have I experienced such a discrepancy between a great story approach with quite successful graphics and an incredibly fucked-up writing style and completely derailed facial expressions.



So first the positives:

1. The female characters in particular are well done. Cami is a real feast for the eyes, but Melissa is also a real eye-catcher. The other girls are hardly inferior to them, and it is of course a matter of taste whether you prefer voluptuous, feminine curves or a slimmer figure. - 5/5

2. The story itself is exactly what the various NTR fans want: A woman who initially only has eyes for her partner, but then becomes increasingly corrupted and starts to take an interest in another man - her boyfriend's bully, of all people. Of course, the dev uses the usual cliché that the “bad” black man steals the girl from the “good” white man. The physical proportions of the men also correspond to the classic “prejudices”. But be that as it may, that's exactly why we're here, isn't it? And the fact that the paths are divided into “Blackmail”, “Cheating” and “Cuckold” is great. - 5/5

So, regardless of what follows, if you're a BBC and NTR fan, the game is definitely worth a look.

Unfortunately, the above was all the positive things I could take away from the game.

On the minus side, I see:

3. The emotional facial expressions. Unfortunately, the graphics don't match the dev's intentions at all. Fred looks like a thirteen-year-old boy who is constantly shitting his pants and instead of looking angry when he catches Jason making a pass at his girlfriend, this “boy” just looks scared or disgusted. The expressions of the other characters are mostly - but not always - similarly unsuccessful. - 2/5

4. The storytelling is completely illogical and far-fetched. Characters appear suddenly and completely out of context in the game. - 0/5

5. The writing style, if you can call it style at all, unfortunately corresponds to the intellectual level of the main character, a boy of about thirteen. However, Fred has probably had a better education... Choppy sentences and unbelievable grammatical errors. I only speak a bad English myself. So, when I stumble across it, that's really saying something! Even if the dev is not a native speaker, nowadays there are translation programs that help to avoid at least the worst mistakes (I’ve used DeepL.com i.e.). - 0/5

6. I don't want to put too high a price on what I consider to be a failed attempt to continue a game that was originally developed for RPGM in Ren'Py. You can tell that there is a lack of experience here. Nevertheless, some buildings seem to have been implemented into the game rather haphazardly, others are well done. The controls in buildings are completely random. Sometimes you are looking for a small strip on the floor which, when clicked, exits the room, sometimes it is a door that you have to select and other times it is the “World Map” button that leads you out of the building. Whereby “World” means a square field with 16 different buildings. It just seems unkind. - 2/5

7. The download size. I really wonder how you can manage to use up so much storage space for so few animations. 11.5 GB for the first four chapters (RPGM) and 6.2 GB for chapter 5 are bad jokes. - 0/5

***

My conclusion: Too bad about the great idea and the promising basic story. Perhaps the dev should concentrate on the graphics and find someone to write the story for him. Otherwise, the game will unfortunately become one of the many corpses of which there are already too many here. I've given the game 3 out of 5 stars with a stomachache, combined with the hope that the game will improve with the dev's increasing experience.

***

By the way, the Ren'Py port of the first 4 chapters turned out really bad in my opinion. Sorry, Doshima, you can't help the template, and you write yourself that you're still a newbie. Nevertheless, the lack of context is unfortunately even more noticeable in the port, as the scene changes were simply clapped together in a linear fashion. I'd rather play the original.

***

Dear Shamantr, I didn't write this to insult you or to simply slam your game. On the contrary, I would like to encourage you to continue. Your fantasy is basically spot on with my taste.

The purpose of criticism is to make you aware of your weaknesses and work on them. In this way, you can ensure that you build up a loyal fan base over time. Good luck!

Game is excellent, but once you try the renpy version, it's hard to go back to the rpgm version for the other routes. While the writing can be all over the place, some scenes are the hottest I've ever seen in a NTR game (the birthday party drinking games section is my favorite) and the animations, while short offer a lot of immersion, and the sex positions/camera angles chosen are all top notch (lots and lots of grinding and foreplay which are noticeably lacking in a lot of NTR media). I'm not usually a fan of 3dcg games on here but the rendering and scene designs were all 10/10.

The love interest's corruption makes or breaks a NTR game, and Cami's corruption is well set up...in some routes...and only some of the time... NTR games always run into the issue of "How do I set up a big memorable scene while being able to keep the story grounded afterwards?" and once you head into the renpy sections most content of the routes end up facing this dilemma. It's clear the creator tries to remedy this by inserting a lot of scenes with side characters to keep the juices flowing (literally).

The problem I have with this is I simply do not care about any of the side characters... I'm honestly surprised anyone does. While Cami understandably has small personality differences between the routes, the side characters personalities change based on the whims of the scene and god are there a lot. I feel pretty confident in saying like 1/3 of the sexual content in this game is side character content bc there are just so many side characters...and more still added as you go on. If you play just one route ever then it's probably ok bc I did invest in the side characters at one time, but after playing all 3, the scenes just start to be boring, and their dialogue feels like going through the motions to get to the part most people care about in the first place. This leads me to my final gripe.

This game is borderline a Netori game for most of the sexual content. It kind of clashes with how well the scenes are setup bc it interrupts the flow. What do I mean? You end up playing as Jason (the bull) A LOT. One example is when Fred is all setup with a hidden camera on Cami, sees Jason enter behind her and then......you swap to Jason's pov...except...you have to play like 10 min of pointless side character content leading up to that same scene to finally enter the room again. As someone who preferes the voyeuristic side of NTR, I would've preferred just witnessing the whole thing through hidden cam in the first place but that is personal preference ofc. While some people like the differences in perspective, Jason himself has very little interesting and downright despicable qualities as a character. This ties back to the side characters, bc the game has a lot of fluff during these sections (mandatory btw) where the corruption of Cami is interrupted by long stretches of talking to side characters and randomly getting your freak on bc Jason is always like hurrdurr I need my dick wet all the time. It ultimately dilutes the tone of the game, and although it makes the Cami scenes shine more bc they are just way more creative and in depth, it does add a level of exhaustion bc I simply do not care about Jason and his horny side adventures blocking progression.

Overall, I would still recommend it because it definitely has high quality, and the scope of the project is quite impressive. The three routes all feel distinct from one another with each having exclusive scenes (even for the side characters if you're into that), the renders are amazing and it's nice to have thicc yet realistic bodies, and the Camila scenes are so hot they definitely justify getting through the less than savory parts of the game.

The female protagonist has to be one of the hottest I've seen in a while. The NTR is slow but really good, and the story is decent. One of my favorite NTR games out right now. The animations are decent and fluid, and I don't know about anyone else, but the sound effects, which in my opinion makes for a good game, is really good as well.

+You won't find anything better in the ntr/interracial genres than this.
+There are 3 branches of story development. Cheating/Cuckold/Blackmail. The plot is slightly different in each. But the goal is the same everywhere. It's to steal Fred's girlfriend Camille. And the other side girls, of which there are also quite a few and they are just as well done as the main character's girlfriend.
+If you have played previous "attempts" from Shaman, you will be able to notice the main plus...Camille's character development. Now she's in no hurry to jump on the main antagonist's cock. And she's not crazy about him as soon as she sees him in front of her. Now Jason has to work hard in each of the routes to seduce her and get what he wants.
+Updates are coming out pretty quickly. And trust me. They'll be worth it in the end. If you have the opportunity, be sure to support the project in a monetary way.
-Strange facial expressions in some moments.
-The gameplay needs to be tweaked or removed altogether. The important thing is not to make it worse. Right now it's just clicking on selected objects to advance the story and move through locations.

the game feels like a glorified chore.
every move, dialogue and scene feels like it's actively demanding your work to get through.
totally wasted models for throwaway scenes and huge walls of text on top
everything but not enjoyable

Really enjoyable game. If you like Corruption, NTR and Interracial this is definitely going to be one you want to play.

The 3 different paths, 'Cuckold', 'Cheating' and 'Blackmail' all have their own unique content and worthwhile playing each one, even if it isn't your favourite path.

The girls and scenes are mostly 10/10.

My only complaint relates to something that happens in the plot
But overall this has definitely been one of the games I most look forward to playing whenever the new update drops.

I never reviewed any game before and never thought of doing but this game changed my mind.

And i can say it with confidence that its hard to impress me be it porn or games.

Surprisingly SOD made me review it and give it a 5 star despite it being moved to Renpy and has not even got near to completion but still did so well that many other games.

Shamantr if you are reading this then kudos to you. You are an artist. Dont stop the good work. We love you

Now onto the game

**Story** - **8/10** which is impressive given that it is the first work from the author

**Girls** - **HOTTEST GIRL YOU WOULD EVER FIND IN A GAME** BELIEVE ME **10/10**

**Sex scenes** - **10/10** Nothing better can be done according to me

**Gameplay** - I never felt lost so i think the games author did a pretty good work there too so 10/10

**These all are my personal views and i dont think any game which has ntr in it has both such good looking girls, plot and gameplay mechanics in it so that player doesnt get lost.

GOOD WORK!!

4 star for first part of story other than that hardl deserves like 3 star not lying here believe me its nothing but BBc and MC have small penish nothing more FMC is even more retard first part of story was good especially cheating one but later author just said nah just BBC nothing more and i am not even joking like last update of cuckhold is fully BBC nothing more no story but BBC scenes nothing.

The above is my personal tastes. Some things in this game and story appeal to me and some do not.

What i do like is the art style of this game. The main female character, and the other females too, have buxom shapely figures and the camera angles utilize that perfectly, and i love it.

The unfinished stories for me work.

The renpy slash rpgm style of story telling works, especially in those scenes where the boyfriend is looking for the girlfriend. But technically it feels a little clunky at this time. And personally would only use it for those type of scenes.

Ch.5 Cheating Path.
The build up in the change room was enjoyable and exciting but the final sex felt out of place. She loses her virginity in front of her boyfriend, which is exciting. But she is unaware that it's going to happen which felt out of place because of the build up to this act. And again falls back into rapey

My three stars are based on the love/hate i have for this one.

Visually i love it. Primarily because of the cameras close angle fixation on the big asses & curves.

Added to my watch list. If my opinion changes, i will update this also.

My rating only concerns the 2nd game (chapter 5, in Ren'Py). It's easy to see how difficult it was for the developer to make the transition from RPG Maker coding to Ren'Py. On the "Cheating" path it's can okay, but on the "Cuckold" path he spreads himself too thin.. The dev apparently wanted to test new things in terms of the interface. Unfortunately, not every idea is a good one, even if it sounds good at first.

For example, on the "Cuckold" path, ALL choices and directions were replaced by images. This may sound pretty and not too disturbing if you're fluent in English, but it also makes it impossible to translate the game. The person translating the game would have to recreate, one by one, all the images making up the choices. And it needlessly increases the size of the game too. What's more, having the choices regularly change places is a little disorienting (one choice in the top right, the next in the bottom middle, the one after that in the top left, ...).

Unfortunately, all this quest for change is reflected in the story. I hope the dev will soon find his feet so he can concentrate more on the story.

v0.4c
Overloaded with stop moments

I recommend it to those who have troubles with sleep, it's a very effective "pill" - the effect appears in just 5 minutes. I tried to play at least three times and did not find previous saves (apparently, I passed out like dead, not realizing what was going on).

The creator in his masterpieceof[-you-know] skillfully combines such elements as: fade-transitions, single-option choices, point-and-click navigation, active zone hunting (pixel-hunting) navigation, "turn left / turn right" duncrawl-style navigation.

Quite often you have to solve a puzzle mini-game: try to find the next activity point. The solution usually exists in the singular. During the mini-game all the above mentioned elements are dumped on the player at once [so the soporific effect is multiplied several times over].

Call me when kinetic mode comes up, I'll try to appreciate the plot and other niceties...


Story: failed to savor,
Renders: renpy - okay, rpgm - outdated
Sound: comme ci, comme ca
Playability: terrible
Performance: frameworks are evil
Bugs: hiding in their holes
Animations: technical and unsexy
Voice Acting: voices in my head
Grammar: eyes do not leak out
Amount of content: 20 tons

Rating is only for relating to chapter 5. I haven't played ch1 to ch4. But seems like the whole corruption process is moving real slow. What should I start with first. There are annoying looney tunes sound effects that really pull you out of the story. The main bull has a boss music with chanting in it that plays every time he's on screen that after a while just becomes funny. (IDK maybe intentional) The MC is ghoulish not like ugly he like doesn't look human at times. Main girl is really hot and honestly the saving grace of the game. Writing is okay. There is this corruption scene in chapter 5 where like you are given choices for sex scenes but actually only one of them is the correct answer at a given time. The girl says like these cringey dialogue tells you want you need to press in that moment to progress. Honestly the game should get some brownie points for being a bbc cuck game that actually not terrible which I hear is rare. The animations are also not bad.

Very linear game, graphics not very beautiful, audio does not exist, various choice options, but many do not prevent certain choices, a Mc with a great character, but everything else very small, the Bull BBC an example of a super man, super gifted, a classic game of Bullying in porn form. too obvious.

Well, we finally have it, an explicitly BBC - themed cuck game that isn't cringey garbage. It does graze that line somewhat, but manages to stay on the right side of it thanks to taking its time with the corruption. Just because the theme is based on dehumanizing stereotypes doesn't give you a carte blanche to disregard all notions of believable human interaction, and the dev understands that. It is held back by some technical issues and unfocused design.

+ The character models are generally appealing and memorable, with only a few generic forgettable faces on some side characters (Jennifer, Sarita, Melissa)

+ 3 routes each with its own exclusive scenes, so there is replayability

+ Optional side-content

+ Really hot scenes, especially as the game goes on. Fair number of animations.

+ The dialogue, while often flawed, manages to maintain an appropriate tone for the interactions between characters, sometimes campy, sometimes serious, sometimes suspenseful, and it works. You get a quite decent corruption progression reflected in the sex scenes and non-sexual interactions between characters. Crucially for a corruption game, it feels earned and suspension of disbelief is not completely busted during sex scenes. It's still unmistakeably porn with a porn-plot, but better-delivered than pretty much any other game with this fetish.


- The early animations are really janky, but by the end of the current content they are much nicer.

- The tutorialization in the early game is not clear enough and gives the wrong impression about the routes. There is one choice that locks you into the Blackmail route and that's the only that matters in that regard. The Cheating and Cuckold routes are less clear, but as I understand it they are also set early in the game and don't flow into each other based on player actions like the tutorial seems to suggest. I could be wrong on this, even the walkthrough doesn't make it clear.

- Quite a lot of technical jank when it comes to dialogue and videos, especially during scenes. The whole dialogue system on RPGM feels sluggish and unresponsive (instant text should be a ubiquitous option in every RPGM game), especially when it's also trying to play picture slides as an animation. Ren'py is better in this respect, but then some of the videos run at a low framerate as the engine struggles.

- The first few days of the game are chock-full of character introductions, subplots and tasks for the character that it's very difficult to remember them all. Not just for the player, but for the characters themselves (MC forgets to do something important more than once, and so do other characters) but also the game itself (some subplots are just lost into the ether, and some scenes are unintentionally repeatable). Somewhere in all this there was supposed to be a job system for the MC to earn money and presumably there was going to be a day system with a slower pacing of events as well as multiple relevant stats (Jason's Madness stat comes up once and is never mentioned again), but that got dropped too in favor of just being a linear VN, which is a pity.

- The dialogue early in the game is often hokey and punctuated with freaking text emoticons and Spanish punctuation that doesn't belong. Thankfully this is largely dropped and the overall writing quality improves noticeably over the course of the game.

- The scenes can repeat themselves with having to see the same animation more than once, though in these cases there is a progression to it with more variations to come.


= The sound design can be fairly goofy, with constant whimsickal tinkling sound effects, like the antagonist is casting his Black Magic on the girl during scenes. For me it fits the half-serious tone of the game, but I can see it being a nuisance to some players. It's supposed to indicate progress, but damn is it incessant in a lot of scenes. The choice of music is goofy too, with sped-up and slowed-down tracks cribbed from other sources (and I mean multiple variations of the same track), and sometimes it's pretty over-the-top, like when the antagonist is plotting some mischief and it literally sounds like a horror game, including sinister whispering.

= No "pure" route, if you care.

Mixed opinion on this one.

EXCELLENT
- Camila-Jason Cheating Path, Fred's and Camila's family getting BBC

MEDIOCRE
- RPGM Engine for Chapters 1-4, all minor characters (not family related)

Still, would recommend trying it out, as it is always amusing watching Fred's 0.5 inch baby carrot getting supplanted by Jason's 14 inch staff

Well, there's some light and quite a lot of shadow unfortunately. First of all, the switch to ren'py was great. This game has no business being in RPGM.

Unfortunately, the new 'game mechanics' actually make the game worse. Moving around is cumbersome and since you have no idea where you need to be, you'll randomly click rooms until you are somehow allowed to leave. Not fun. Not good gameplay. I am not sure how anyone can think this is a good idea.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't know where it wants to go. There is a lot of scenes that really don't add anything. The writing urgently needs some editing. The animations are fairly poor, but they are there if that's important to you.

That leaves us with a fairly interesting setting and a FP that looks unique. Not sure if this is worth it at this time.

Can really tell the passion behind the dev with the work put into this, has a good story and visuals, with some rough edges that will work themselves out, can see the potential for an awesome NTR/NTS game

I can see the potential, I can see the Dev's passion when they made the female models, but the male characters' faces and expressions definitely need more work. And of course, file compression issues.

It's a good NTR + Corruption + BBC game. The female characters are really hot with some really good sex scenes.

But the writing, the dialogue and some scenarios are pretty rough and unrealistic. The story is messy, it's not hard to follow but it's hard to care.

v0.4
I played trough the cuckold route, it starts good but the overall tone gets very weird later, it does some very creative stuff with the nightmare section, very original but it's way, waay too long, should be half of what it is or less-
It doesnt help the very weird tone shift after the nightmare section makes you feel MC is still dreaming, like the shop owner with the gang of dudes , also the eerie music doesnt help one bit at all, changing it to something more normal would help a ton with the mood.

Also there's too much focus on the Antagonist, way too much, the main girl should be the focus of an NTS/NTR game after all.
Theres potential for a great game here, and you can tell the talent of the dev,
I'd reccomend ditching the RPG mechanics entirely and fleshing out the writing more.