VN - Others - Completed - Shale Hill Secrets [v0.18.8] [Love-Joint]

Updated till Chapter 6
I think the biggest complement this this AVN can get is how fluid the novelization is. Love Joint gets better with every release across all their VNs till now.

The best part of Shell Hill is its world building and the plot. Every moment has to be earned. While their may not be game defining choices, but even then by Chapter 3 you will thoroughly enjoy the plot.

The characters are so well made. You just absolutely admire them all the time. You can see real work has been done on character motives and dialogues.

The only downside I can think of is that there is o game defining choices. The story is pretty linear but mind every character is a person in their own and has brain (except Alexa).

I held off playing this for a long time. I admit, I was a bit salty after their broken promises regarding Double Homework's release and the online only nature of that game, but I really like story driven games like that, so it was just a matter of time.

Shale Hill Secret has exceptional production values, art & animations are great and the writing is competent. It is also an engine that emulates renpy pretty well.

Some of the criticism is valid enough. It is wordy, close to being needlessly so, but only if you consider this a porn game. It is not. It is a mystery story with well-crafted, multi-faceted characters and they do take time to develop. Personally, the major issue I have with this game is how similar it is to Double Homework. All the characters have secrets and discovering them is basically the story arc, but as in their previous games all the characters are needlessly secretive about stuff. The MC's "friend" (sister) senselessly follows him around for 4 episodes, which really hurts her story development and she doesn't much recover from that after. And it is like that (to varying degrees) with all the characters. Building tension that way didn't work in Double HW and it is annoying here as well.

But if you liked their other games, you will like this one. It's improved on all technical aspects and it is a great game on its own and well worth your support.

I played this game a number of years ago and enjoyed it then. I played it again over the christmas break and find it still holds up. The story is so well written and has depth without being overly complex.

Version Reviewed: 0.48 Bugfix

My opinion on this game has been waffling a bit as I've gotten my way through Episode 4. Ideally I would give it 3.5/5 stars.

PROS:

• Great renders, even though the women all seem to have the exact same body shape. Much more interesting that your cookie-cutter Daz models that most games seem to use these days.
• I have a soft spot for shy redheaded girls, so Maggie is definitely a win in my book. Honestly, if the game were just about her I'd be happy.
• Story is unique and has me interested to see where it's leading. Having a mute protagonist leads to some interesting situations (even though it seems unusual/fortuitous that so many people around him understand ASL).
• The differing personalities of the characters are really where this game shines. I've enjoyed the build up of getting to know all these characters, and I appreciate that you are not forced to be intimate with them should they not strike your fancy (looking at you, Alexis).
• The sex scenes, while a little few and far between, feel well crafted and quite erotic.

CONS:

• The sandbox element of this game seems somewhat unnecessary. It ends up leading to a lot of repetitive transitions and empty scenes that serve no purpose (time for me to go to bed>fade>time to go to school>fade>time for me to go to work>fade> etc.)
• During sex scenes there's a loading screen for animations. This is kind of jarring and seems to be a limitation of the engine this is being developed on. I've never seen that happen on a Ren'Py game.
• By far my biggest complaint with this game is how wordy it is. I appreciate how well written the dialogue is, but sometimes I feel like I'm playing something written by Aaron Sorkin with how often the MC pontificates on things. I'm reminded of Kevin from The Office saying "Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick."

Overall, the long-winded dialogue, combined with frequent forced transitions, non-instant text speed and seemingly unnecessary sandbox elements makes it seem like the developer is trying to either pad out the length of the game, or doesn't respect their players' time. I suppose the transitions, text speed and loading screen before animations could be a limitation of the engine, but the end result unfortunately makes this game feel a bit like a slog to get through.

That being said, I still think the game is redeemed by its story and its characters. If you have some patience, I think you'll enjoy what it has to offer.

Version reviewed: [v0.4.8 Bugfix]

This game is pretty neat. It does everything that a VN should do right for the most part, and it has earned his spot among my favourite games on this site, albeit not without some caveats.

First and foremost, the writing is arguably its strongest point. This is one of the few titles I've played where I never really felt the urge to hit the skip button at any point. Yes, there are a lot of lines of text (imagine that!) but they're all serving the often sadly underlooked purpose of building up proper interest in the story and characters, whose interactions by the way are both believable and entertaining. I don't know much about the whole overarching story yet to pass judgment on it, all I can say is that the narration can feel a bit weird because of the odd way the game has you progress through the different scenes, letting you pick the order you want to play them in during the so called "investigation" phases. I can't help but think that the events should be played in a certain order, and as it happens I did end up experiencing some chronological fuckery in my playthrough. Nothing really immersion breaking or paradoxical, but I get the feeling that a "kinetic novel" kind of approach to storytelling would have been more appropriate, perhaps shifting the player's agency towards dialogue choices instead. Especially because the order in which you choose to witness the various scenes is ultimately inconsequential to how the story unfolds.

The visuals are...an acquired taste and an interesting matter of discussion. The quality of the renders is definitely top tier and I really grew fond of the unique art style on display, but whereas I immensely appreciate how cute the girls look and how different they act, talk and look from one another, I also can't deny the fact that sometimes I found the faces of some of the models to be quite jarring to look at (yes, I'm talking mainly about Maggie's). On a more positive note, the sex scenes are really nicely done with some good animation work, and I feel that overall they are getting better with each passing episode.

I would suggest to give this game a try, especially if you like character buildup and some decent romance over the usual low effort fap fests. Chances are you're gonna enjoy this one.

Played until 0.4.4. I think 3 stars is generous, after finishing i think the word i would use to describe my experience with the game is: exhausting. I don't think i will be following this one, i will revisit when its finished.
It has many flaws but main one imo its the story, don't get me wrong its not bad but it doesn't fit the MC which is the 2nd main flaw. I find MCs actions quite nonsensical and his actions don't reflect his character. The writing doesn't help either with narration going and going about stuff that we shouldn't be doing or care about. E.g: We spend like 1 hour (5 in game days) going around looking for a phone just because, me as a player don't care at all but we have to go though a non ending portion on the game on this. Then we often find ourselves on sketchy situations and again we don't call the cops or for help because. I could keep going about the story and MC but i made my point i think.
On the other side renders are fine, LIs look interesting and dialogues are the strong pro of the game. The MC being mute is whatever cause it has 0 effect.

I give the game a 5/10, below average. The game engine is an upgrade from the one they used before but its still a big con for the game. For the moment i cant recommend.

Updated review for v0.4.6

The major improvement for this update is several more lewd scenes. I think Ch4 had as many as Ch1-Ch3 combined. Unfortunately, the dialogue and narration are still too long-winded. It's like the developer took a pre-written full-length novel and is trying to put all of the text into a visual novel instead of strategically using the visuals to help tell the story. There are sometimes more than a dozen screens of dialog using the same render. The writing is overly-descriptive of both obvious and unnecessary details and subsequently, it's frequently just boring. Also, the story is just getting too dark with the suicide theme and there's the retarded idea that the boss works in the office right next to the MC but nobody has ever seen him. I guess it's supposed to be an overly-dramatic erotic sci-fi thriller, but it doesn't work. It definitely kills the erotic nature of the game. However, even with the downsides, it's still way better-than-average for games available on F95Zone.


Previous review for v0.4.4

Pros:
Great story. Great renders. Good animations.

Cons:
The writing is overboard for a visual novel-type game. There's way too much unnecessary dialogue and narration that elaborates on various points of the story. I spent so much time reading dialogue and narration and thinking to myself "Yeah, yeah, I get it, please, please... just get on with the story." Instead of a visual novel, it's trying to be a novel with visual aids. Don't get me wrong, the writing is good, it's just not the right balance of writing and visuals for this type of game. Fixing this balance would make it a great game overall, but that would require the writer to go back and rewrite all of the dialogue and narration in about 70% fewer words.

The other low point is the basic game engine mechanics. You can make text "instant", but the game tells you it might cause problems, you can make transitions "very fast", but the game tells you that might cause problems. Experienced developers know that players want instant text and they want to be able to skip transitions. I understand that developers are also artists and they want players to experience the game the way they intend it to be experienced. However, this game, like so many other similar games, has choices and most players save/reload to see what happens when making different choices. The experience for those players is very different the second, third, or fourth time through, and not being able to speed up the process is frustrating.

Combine the slow text and transitions with the excessive amount of text to read and you'd think the dev is getting paid by the hour... of playtime.

Summary:
It's still a good game compared to what's available, but it's disappointing that this experienced VN developer created a new game with such fundamental issues.

The story has its charm and own personal drama. It has that glow which allows you to forget the time that you have started and its quite engaging. The plot will keep you on your toes. Much better then their other games in my opinion

Pros:
.Fun story, keeps me invested
.Amazing character designs, just eghhh *dribbles*
.Interesting idea for the male to be mute, I can roll with this.
.Hank is just fun.
.Definite improvement on DfD and Homework. Though you can clearly tell they are by the same people (R.I.P Palmer).
Interested to see where Batman (who totally isnt Moe Mortelli) goes in future.
. The saved nudes are great but we could really use a way to see them whenever we like. a phone menu or something.
Cons:
.Way too many options to go over what we know in episode 4. just way too many.
Interface isn't amazing, its not horrible, I've DEFINATELY seen worse. Probably just the lack of some functionality available in Ren'Py games.
The saving/load screen needs a bit of work, better off making two separate screens for save and load function. way it is now, people will manage to load old saves instead of saving.

Other:
.Leah following you and lying got nipped in the bud quickly. made me really dislike Amanda back in DfD so glad we weren't keeping that up for long.

Altogether:
A fun game, looking forward to seeing where it all goes. worth a download.
Though if you're looking for sexual content might wanna wait a couple updates. There is some amazing stuff but just not a lot of it yet. Love-Joint like to make us work for those nuts

I found myself engrossed in the game wanting to see how the story progressed far more than seeing tiddy, I feel like that should say something about the writing. I was so shook

buggy pile of crap hand coded game, can't handle basic ease of access needs without breaking. I have a picture memory and take whole images in at a glance, so I need the text to populate instantly or I'm bored out of my mind waiting, and need to cut out heavy-handed transitions between almost every scene, and if I do that the game starts glitching out and after a while can only "Skip" forwards or exit, can't even save. It's too bad because I was enjoying the story.

Very solid game, deserves more attention based on its story and render quality. (0.4.2)

Renders and characters look great, I do wish the characters looked just a little bit older, not necessarily matured but they all look younger than college age imo.

Story is very solid, of course there are some concepts/storylines that are not necessarily realistic or don't have a great explanation but I think that's OK for a game, as long as elements aren't nonsensical to the point of distraction. Overall I became surprisingly interested in the overall plot and progression

Gameplay is a little odd - not really a sandbox but you have "Investigation" stages where you choose which places to start to investigate out of a few options, however it's very linear and you end up seeing all of the scenes from the places anyways. The most important choices you make are basically whether to progress with a girl or not, and the rest of the story pretty much plays out for you, which again is fine.

And the scenes are pretty solid, not the highest tier animations but passable, and I like the dev giving you some position options. They get the job done, which I think can be said about most of the important elements of this game.

Part way through Chapter 3 and still undecided whether to continue or not....
I'm intrigued by the story and like the characters apart from MC. He thinks too much and do we really need pages and pages on inner dialogue?
It would be helpful to know why he became mute (no background details revealed yet unless I skipped past this through boredom). Why did his ex break up with him? Good to know before you decide whether or not to shag her. Maybe, he was pleased about the break up because you had your eye on someone else?!
Graphics are good as are the animations, girls and the story. The problem is the writer seems to suffer with verbal diarrhoea i.e. why use one sentence when 20 will do?!
If I continue playing I will probably miss half the dialogue skipping through pages of tedious writing which will be disappointing.

First, the renders. For me the characters are definitely attractive and well rendered. The body proportions are relatively as normal as you can get for the aesthetic. Since the LIs are all university/college students, it is pretty reasonable none of them have excessively large breasts or butts. In regards to diversity in proportions for the LIs, I'm afraid it won't make sense lore/story-wise. Shale Hill has a history of suicide and bullying, any girl who isn't conventionally attractive would definitely be subjected to abuse, enough to make her quit. It would make a good plot if this was during their 1st year but the story takes place sophomore year so the MC wouldn't be able to meet someone like that and last the full year. There might be a bit of bias on my side since I really like the aesthetic. Large eyes, the anime-ish designs of the characters, and even the anime-esque body styles are quite appealing to me as someone who mainly played JP VNs and watch anime. The animations are great but I agree is not the best. The motions are fluid enough and the frames are smooth but lacks force. I mean, the faster option in the scenes are like just 1.25x the normal speed. I'd like this to be faster to show more force or at least emulate what normally happens when coming close. Right now, it's barely any different from the normal speed.

Second, the plot. I found the plot quite intriguing and despite downloading it because it's an adult game, I stayed for the story. I didn't even mind that episode 1 didn't have any H-scenes. A mute MC sure is novel, yes doesn't really matter much so far, but brings a lot to the character's background. For me though, it needs to be emphasized that the fact he can't talk has certain implications (like a scene where he loses his phone or runs out of power and needs to communicate with someone who can't understand ASL during a critical event) because right now, he is treated like any other person which is progressive but becomes less significant in the story if nothing happens because of it. The mystery however is what keeps me coming back. I want to learn more, to see what will happen. I'm just a teeny bit disappointed that currently, your actions in the previous episode doesn't impact the next episode much (don't know if this will have impact down the line but certainly no immediate repercussions)You can say that you don't like Emily or have no feelings for her anymore in EP1 but still have sex in EP2. I like that there's music and they usually match whatever is happening on screen, but I cannot comment on this well since I play at really low volume. The pacing is great. Not too slow, and not too fast, and it brings enough bait to keep you hooked for the next episode.

Third, the characters. Okay, some characters are not the best but they definitely have quality and they seem more "normal" and real people, except Leah, that kind of person is really rare. I like how each has a different, clear personality and knows who they are and not just cookie-cutter stereotypes. I don't find any particular character annoying except that bitch ass manager of the comic book shop. She's like an unholy implosion of a karen who got promoted to a manager. God help us anyone asks for her manager. Each character also has their own way of speaking. From the cold, sharp, business-like tone from the current Emily, the ditzy and random l33t-speak from Sam, the shy and awkward Maggie, the friendly and concerned conversations with Leah, the wise yet sultry innuendos from Valerie, and Haley... well... she mostly listens...

Final thoughts: Great game. I love it. Can't wait for more. Keep up the good work. Keeping it at 4/5 for now at least until about EP 9 when there's more to the plot. Don't care about H-scenes right now, need more of the story.

So, this is excellent and I'm shocked at how few reviews this game has.

The renders, environments, and characters look great, with plenty of distinctive looking girls. The sex scenes are well animated and varied.

The dialogue feels really natural and flows well, with lots of genuine chemistry between the cast. The characters themselves all feel quite fleshed out and developed.

The story is actually really interesting and manages to get you invested and interested in what happens pretty quickly.

Very few games on here managed to nail all these points. And I've played a lot of them. This game deserves a lot more attention cause it deserves it.

I'll start by saying that i don't usually write reviews (mainly because of my poor english), but i had to because to me this game is already the best VN i've played.

The game has everything, well written story with good balance of mistery/drama/romance, beautiful stylized models, beautiful environment and renders/animations in general.

The LIs are not only very distinct in appearance, they all have very distinct personalities and problems to go with it, it's really hard to chose a favorite.

I've seen some people not liking MC being a mute, to me this actually is a plus and adds alot to the story as you get to know how he was before and after the surgery and how it affected his life (and the ones around him) in general.

Ok let's start here : DfD was fine in my opinion while DH was bad... This one is still early but kinda in between.

The good :
well the engine of this game is now better. Still not the best but it get the job done. On my old Pc loading for animations were pretty slow but everithing worked so... No problem for me here.
While not the most impressive, visuals are fine, same for music. Some might find the girls to "cartoonish" maybe. By my standarts it's totaly fine.

The "less" good :
Mc is mute. That's a bold choice... Except not that much. There's not a lot of "special" interaction or... Anythiing with that. I guess you can say they want to proove that mute people are normal too (sure no problem they are)... But in a story, if you go for something "out of the ordinary", you can't really treat that like it's nothing. Can happen later in the story but for now almost nothing is done with that.
The investigations are... Weird. I understand you can't do everything in the same episode... But why I am only investigating for Sam & Halley in episode 4 ? Again, you can't do everything but here, it's likethe other problems doesn't really exist. "It's not the time so let's not speak about it". As a game I understand, as a story it feels really weird.

And the bad :
Problem is that the bad look like it's the favorite narative gimick of those love joint games (at least in DH & this one). You don't have any background at the start of the game. You have to wait aroud mid episode 3 to finally know what kind of character you are (and getting some infos for others too). And then you have choices like : Do I still have feelings for my ex ? Answer : How the fuck should I know ?! I just met the girl, I don't know how we broke up, how she is... Nothing !
Same for others. You will learn episode 4 that maybe you had feelings for one of the girls in the past...
I guest that if you are playing with a guide or only trying to get to "the good stuff" it doesn't matter... But those game focus more on narrative, they are not good game for a quick fap... So why going again with this weird choice of "you play a character but know nothing about it at the start"... Mc is mute, he doesn't have amnesya, I should know some basic stuff before playing the role.

Conclusion : the game is still early and can improve. For me it's still average or slitghly above which is a lot better than DH for me... Main drawback is still the writting... Maybe because they try to hard, bite more than they can chew (there's a lot of plot/subplot)...Only 4 episodes for now,I'll wait more to be sure but it need to improve

Ps: still french, still trying to be understandable in my writing

I would say... the best work so far from Love joint.

I really loved DfD and DH... but this is something even better so far.

And i dont know why people complain about the engine... its really a good one and the DEVs can do what ever they want with it... renpy has it good sides, but also flaws and its kinda a corset.

There are some things in DH and DfD which were annoying... there wasnt really a continuation of the actions you did in the episode before... some things were ignored, and than forced on you... for example in DfD i didnt pursued any other girls... but in the next episode the MC and girls kinda act that i did something with them, even had sex... which i didnt. So the actions didnt matter really... and only in the last episodes you could decide "what you want and with whom" makes most of the playthrough kinda pointless... same goes for DH. So beeing faithful or not doesnt count, i doenst has an effect on the outcome in the end... all that matter was the choice you make in the last episodes.

Hopefully its not the same thing with this game... I know many aorund here dont like to do multiple playthroughs, but for me its the better thing. To screw every girl without any consquences and in the end just to choose the endig you want is kinda weird to me. So hopefully there will be conequences if "you play the field" But if i look back to the other games, i dont think so...

Lets get back to it...

The writing is good, the story interesting. In DfD and DH there were some very very over the top and ridiculous angles in the story that were just way too much for my taste.

But in shale hill its kinda grounded now... nothing to "over the top"... the "recently" app is kinda comprehensible and works fine in the story so far without being completly unrealistic. Hopefully it stays this way... sometimes less is more i would say.

The mute MC is kind of unique but to be honest... it doesnt matter much for the game. The MC is talking just like any other person. Doenst matter if he uses signs or the voice app... to say it frankly, i dont get it why he has to be mute in the first place, it doesnt add anything to the game, kinda pointless so far to me.
But doesnt matter realy, its not a bad thing, but doenst add something to the game either.

So the renders are top, i dont know why, but the girls got some "big eyes", but its just the art-style here... they all look cute though. I really like different personas, some are likeable, some are not, but every person is unique... thats a very good thing cause in most games around here there are just some stereotypes recycled everytime... the horny slut that jumps everything, the shy cute girl with no confidence, and so on... of course shale hill does have these stereotypes too, but not too much and overall the characters are believable, kinda reasonable and overall comprehensible.

The sound is very nice, the music too... really a big plus.

I like the animations too, they are not at the top, but decent and good enough to be a plus too.

I love the Tosater-detective btw... really nice appearance after the events of DfD... cant remeber his name though, and i cant recall exactly what happens with him in the end of DfD... but i dont think there were events that lead him to be a homeless crazy guy now Doesnt matter... important thing, he has the toaster maybe he will be playing a bigger role and we get an explanation what happened to him after DfD in the next episodes.

Dont know what the plan is, and how much episodes youre planning... but there is already plenty of content, i would say at least half the amount of Double Homework for now... and double Homework got 19 episodes... if its going to be near 19 episodes with this one, it would be HUGE ;D

So overall... for now i would give 4/5. with more content and developing the story out it will get easily a 5/5 but for this i have to wait for some more updates... will come back to the game in a while for sure!

What happed to the usual art style? I don't get it why every character looks to be underage. This's not my cup of tea ngl.
Besides that everything else seems to be very polished, I can't stand the arts so I stop playing after 10 mins but this might be for you if you like the style.

An interesting VN with good dialogue and very pleasant-looking visuals, especially the character design.

The story revolves around plenty of mysteries and personal drama and generally is well-written though not sure if most dialogue choices matter much. And some minor gripe, the MC tends to overreact and make things way more serious than they are and the dialogue is at times a bit too prolonged shorter but to the point would make reading it more fun... keep a well-balanced tempo.

Gameplay-wise the UI is easy to use and functions well and the only bug I encountered is characters' eyes blinking animation mispositioned to the center of the screen.

The sex scenes are well-structured and optional with additional animation and options, and the sound and music being used are pretty standard but fitting.

Overall, so far I enjoyed the game and its presentation as a whole. The only thing that might change my opinion negatively is how the story and character progression and their behavior will play out further. Hope the devs will keep it simple and not make things too convoluted.


Edit: Sadly the game's writing gets worse in later updates, should've kept it simple. Visuals still look good though.