VN - Ren'Py - Stormside [v0.23.1.4] [Atemsiel]

This is it!

If you have been looking for a new game to follow after playing every good game on here, this is it! Filled with incredible characters, excellent writing, good humor, great animations.. Seriously, it's the whole package, lots of replay value already. 9.5/10. Only complaint is no mobile version.

This game has very good renders and animations that run very smoothly and look very natural and very good sound effects. What I really like about this game is that the girls don't have a predefined route and you can choose between the romance, submisson or slave route for each of them, which gives this game a good replayability. In addition, the story is not too unrealistic (apart from the magic of course) and easy to understand. So far there is a reasonable amount of content that offers at least a few hours of gameplay, even if you play the game just once.
Overall it is a great game that you should definitely try out.

This review is written by someone who hasn't played the 'new' version.

This game is short, but it packs so much story into what it gives you. The dev, Atemsiel, uses every part of the buffalo to give you an enchanting experience with a promise that leaves you wanting more.

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I have some minor niggles, these are not huge complaints. But I feel I should list them all the same.

At the very end of the first version of this game, it is revealed that
Atemsiel has stated that the game will only be focusing on the "core harem" and that we shouldn't get too attached to other satellite characters. But Chekhov's Gun clearly states, "If the author introduces a gun in the first act, then eventually the VN player should get to fuck that gun." And I would very much like to get a hold of that boomstick we just saw, and test out her hair trigger so to speak.

Uhh...anyway.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was how we learn about the story of this game. This game gives you three different routes. One is "Romance" (pink) where your character is a nice, kind man who helps the girls and presumably rolls in ze hay with them. The other is "Sub"(blue) where your character is still nice and romantic but now introduces some bondage and kink. The final route is "Slave"(red), where your character essentially becomes a bad guy and treats the girls to pure kink. When I read about this system I was determined to do a full Slave Route playthrough, and set out to do exactly that.

But I eventually discovered that for one of the girls, if you go Slave route with her, you lock her out of a major story element for her, completely bypassing a minigame unique to her and essentially closing the door on her story. Atemsiel has mentioned that the game is designed to encourage you to do different playthroughs under all the different routes, that there is content that you won't see if you go with one choice. For example I only learned from discord that one of the girls has a sister, because I didn't end up spending time with her to learn about her story.

But I like story! especially if I'm playing a visual novel where text is doing so much of the heavy lifting to get us from image to image. I don't want to close a girl's path and refuse to do her minigames. And maybe that's to encourage me to do a different playthrough, but this now means that my interests and my..."interests" are in conflict with each other.

I know that this is tricky, that my interests might not match another player's. But I would love, as a Slave Route player, to learn more about the girls under my control. If this story was a beach, I want very much to see the intricate sand castles my subjects have built, their goals and dreams, their anxieties and worries. I would even love to help them sculpt it carefully the way Romance and Sub players do. Because that would make it all the better to eventually kick that sand castle and crush it into yet another dune while the girl watches on.

But, again, that's just me.

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Those are the end of my complaints, I really enjoy what this game has shown us. There's lots of humor, the story is riveting, and the main character has actual chemistry with the other characters, everything he does feels natural. Also, seeing that this is a BDSM-focused game with lots of punishments, the animations for those punishments are really fucking good. Whenever the main character gives a spanking, he uses his entire body and there's follow through whenever he spanks. It looks fantastic.

So yeah, I eagerly look forward to where this game goes from here.

Large cast of wonderful girls, has good amount of content, great MC, funny humour, beautiful renders, hot sex scenes, and can select different routes for each girls. Lots of different paths and branches to explore with the LIs. This game is amazing and a must play if your into BDSM. the in game walkthrough is a god send for me so i love that feature. I had to use a pdf when the game first came out caveman times. The way the charcters talk and interact feel very believable. Can't wait for upcoming updates.

Cute girls, fun times and really good writing. An ambitious game with variety and just the right amount of informed choices to make you feel involved but not "grindy".
All of the usual tropes are present but the character writing gets you invested and the built in walkthrough gives you the option to ignore the characters you dont like.

Top notch VN. Really interesting world building with lots of stories to explore. The LIs are all unique and interesting, with plenty of branches for all sorts of preferred paths. The renders are really good , with lots of animations. Would highly recommend.

A truly refreshing entry in the genre with great characters, great renders, and an intriguing story. I've always been nervous about trying out early builds but the amount of polish we are getting in 0.22 is great, additionally, the dev is very receptive to fap completionists, even going as far as to give them the choice to unlock all renders once a build is done. I'm all in on this game, and I look forward to its completion.

A good game hampered by small issues which although not enough to derail the game, runs the risk of adding up to becoming a big issue earlier.

The game is visually fine, the characters are good. Limited by the engine but all in all the girls are fun to look at.

The issues I feel this game suffers from is one of execution. There's a lot going on but everything seems to be an almost light touch, like the dev doesn't know what plot points to commit to and as such the game feels a bit odd to play.

The game starts with a big exposition about the MC's home life and his mom, but then doesn't seem to mention it again. Now it could be just a means to set up the game but enough attention was paid to the intro that you're left going "well that's very chekov's gun like so it must be important" but as you play, it rarely if at all gets mentioned again. And it isn't even a case of "well it hasn't come up" there's a scene where the MC is talking to a girl about her mum and at no point does the MC explain what happened with his mum. So maybe the whole thing wasn't important?

The MC also has magical powers but really the whole thing is so underutilised or explained that it feels more like the dev got stuck in a rut with a part of the story and realised he could just fix it by giving the MC magic hands. As a concept, the idea of magic is interesting but as it's only mentioned like once.... what's the point?

There's also an issue where the MC is supposedly ex-military but there's nothing to suggest in how he acts or talks that he is, so again it feels like a plot point left dangling in the off chance the dev needs to use it in future.

Even the game itself feels a bit odd. It starts off very much as you'd imagine. There's the MC, there's the childhood friend, there's the slightly more adventurous friend of the friend, seen it all before but then a school gets mentioned which everyone decides to go to and then at this school there just so happens to be a new method of discipline..... the plot is fun to follow but it feels clunky, almost like it's ideas thought up independently and then joined up come hell or high water. It's not as free flowing as some other games.

It's not BAD, but it ticks a few cliche boxes and the issues with you being presented with plot points you're not sure are going to be important or not leaves you kind of feeling unsure when playing it.

Loving the game so far!

The characters are great and interesting each in their own way. The setting is quite fun leaving a lot of options for different playthroughs and the scenes are top quality.

Can't wait for the game to be finished!

Not much to complain about here. The game is very well made. Its visually engaging, the character models and animations are really nice. The game uses animations and transition effects and sound design outside of just the lewd scenes to make it a immersive experience. The jokes and visual gags land, the MC is pretty good. The lesbian scenes which usually aren't my thing are very good and story/character relevant which is nice. Riley's first spanking+fingering scene was really hot and the way the MC manhandles her manages to make the rather ludicrous premise of the game believable in that moment (that is, she trusts him and the way he's treating her is both shocking yet arousing, but she still feels safe and cared for).

The choices are pretty complex and impactful so the dev even makes an in-game walkthrough just as a preference option so no mod installation required? Which is nice because its very not obvious what some innocuous choices might lead to and there's some hard choices putting girls on different "routes"

Also out of fucking nowhere there's a ghost-hunt section that's a point-and-click sandbox adventure?? And its like, actually fucking scary and has some amazing jumpscares? WOW. I was super impressed. Only thing was having to go back to the map was too many clicks and it really was super unclear where clicking would take you. even if you knew where you wanted to get on the map it was hard to get there. Still, if thats not your thing, the whole thing is skippable or viewable in linear vn format and you can enable/disable the jumpscares? Again, WOW. Excellent.

My only... ONLY complaint. Is that the dev has a lot of close-up shots that just look absolutely funky and have some fish-eye effect and so certain close-up shots just look really bad out of nowhere.

5/5 absolutely recommend.

So far for ver 0.22.06 . . . The game has multiple paths available and plenty of different options with each girl. The story can be a little out there, but overall, the game is enjoyable with likeable characters and well made H-scenes. There's plenty of content with the version I played so far and there's plenty of potential more. From what I've seen so far, the creator has been pretty diligent with the writing where each choice may impact a H-scene down the road. An example is there's like 3 different scenes available depending on a few choices made. Great game for multiple playthroughs and it's nice that a single playthrough can let you unlock all the scenes, but I think it's better to just multi-playthrough for the decisions you find interesting.

The dev has given themself a really ambitious number of characters and amount of complexity to work with in terms of player choices/plot branches. There is clearly more to come, but what is already implemented is excellent - both in terms of the writing - which has nice characterisation and good humour; and in terms of the animations/renders. I also very much appreciated the amount of options the dev gives you to configure the game itself, which completely obviates the need for any separate mod or walkthrough.

Fantastic job Atemsiel, thanks very much!

TL;DR = a mix of supernatural horror with dating and abuse simulator.

Story: 4/5
+ MC lives in a world of superpowers. He has a superpower that is especially good at doing perverted things.
+ MC has a sweet childhood female friend who has a crush on him. Her best friend is a nympho who fucks anything with 2 legs.
+ MC is attending an university with experimental perverted program for females. Girls had to consent to being restrained with BDSM, abused, beaten and sexually harrased and penetrated. And girls are like "It seems legit" and they consented. Luckily MC gets put into a position where he is the one doing abusing.
- Story might seem interesting, but MC has really thick "harem protagonist correction" , where all the girls fall for him stupidly. It made me cringe. But if that floats your boat then you might really like this.

Art and Sex stuff: 5/5
+ Girls are hot.
+ Renders are good.
+ Sex scenes are hot.
+ Sex scenes has huge variability. You can choose what kind of scenes you will pursue with each of the girls. There are 3 options. You can go for romance and get basic vanilla scenes. Or you can go for some sort of submissive scenes. Or you can go for full BDSM abuse.

Gameplay: 5/5
+ This is typical VN with choices.
+ Choices has great impact on a game and sex scenes.
+ English is good.
+ Game has decent soundtrack. You will hear different types of music for different situations. It fits quite well.

To sum it up:
I really liked this game. I will definitely recommend this.

I was very positively surprised, i didn't expected much when i started playing it but i really enjoyed it. good looking girls multiple routes that are really different from another, awesome animations and a lot of details that many may not even notice like how the skin really shines when applying the lotion during the massage. that pretty much shows me how the dev even thinks about such details.

loved the gym scene so much that i wouldn't even had mind if i had to go through the entire process of their exercises it was pretty hot i hope that the game keeps the BDSM as much optional as possible and let's the player decide how much he wants to go into it. perfectly executed so far.

can't wait for the next updates and hope that there is tons of content ahead of us!

4.5/5 I wish it wasnt just out of 5 as I dont think it lets me be as specific as I wish lol
I feel like I could end up giving this a full 5/5 rating but since the game isnt finished I dont feel right giving it that full of a blessing

I didn't even really look at the tags for this game too much before downloading it (was just recommended at the end of another game I Loved), And I normally dont think I am much into BDSM because I am a soft and tender harted Boi but this game fucking Did It for me!
What I think is Up:
+I enjoyed how the Girls looked; Cute, Pretty, and not to similar to each other
+Thought the Girls personalities played out well, and were believable for their parts
+Lots of good sound design (i think, Gaming Buzzword ); Spooky places made me feel spooked, General out-n-about noises weren't Jarring or annoying (did turn music almost off but thats just a me thing, i like other tunes)
+I liked how the available choices actually played out, seemed to fit well with how the MC personality is presented but without making me feel too disconnected from the roll
+Liked that in the options I could change what Units of measure were being used in the story, But I do wish I could've also changed the ingame clock to the 12hr am/pm configuration as I did have some trouble quickly connecting the dots of time passage when in Dialog someone would say "7pm" but the clock provided was a 24hr config. Though passage of time isnt really important to experiencing the game as a whole

-MC physical design was a bit... off in someway for me. Not ugly or rough, but just a bit out of place seeming compared to the gals maybe lol
-A sandbox portion (spooky night) did leave me a bit too lost, and confused, Even with hints. I was super into the vibe and everything, got fairly spooked a few times, but eventually I kinda just hit a wall in trying to figure it out. I will admit that maybe I was just really missing something, and Potentially might be a bit dumb at times
-Some English grammar mistakes (even through my own dumbness) but really wasn't all that many. Compared to some this is nearly a boon for the game but Im not comparing it to others, just itself

Im super excited for more of this story, and was just shocked that I made it through what's available. Don't get me wrong! There's a good chunk of content to be had, it's just what is here feels polished enough that i just didnt see the end coming lol

If you've been like me a user that has searched for a proper BDSM Game for a long time then you came to the right place. They are usually either tame or to short/to unfinished. If they are even good at all.
This game is heavily under appreciated and its potential basically through the roof.

As one can see from the Screenshot the game doesn't use the most prettiest model. It uses these weird asian clay textured models that turned me off from playing a game like Eternum.

A new reader also has to be warned that the game takes quite a while to take off. Not totally boring though depending on your patience. There is a looong pre-story before you actually get to the point.
But once your are there. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT!

Finally a game that actually deserves its tags.

Any of the girls can become a romance, submissive girlfriend or a slave. The Game has waay more animations than you are usually used to from a VN and also uses sound in an good way.

It can be a bit wordy to read through. I've skipped about 30% of the dialogue but it didn't stop me from being able to follow what's going on.

The game also features an implemented walkthrough. So no external mod necessary.

At the point of writing this review the story starts with some hints of some metastory. Something imo many games ruin the fun with by adding some unnecessary extra drama and render time.

Lets hope that part won't ruin the fun. But I can't say because at this point you only get like 2 short scenes with some dialogue that doesn't explain much.

If this game would get voice acting (unlikely I know) it could easily outshine the best VN's you find on this site imo. It already competes with them already now from a quality perspective.

I hope we will see this project be finished within a reasonable timeframe.

This game is based. While the story is farfetched and obviously just there to get you to fuck the girls, the girls are actually really unique. In most other games the honey select models are really generic and they all look alike. Here, they are quite different and they all look good. I also like the other stuff thats been included outside of just a sex game like that ghost hunting bit. That was quite cool. I like how the game has an included walkthrough, and is very upfront in what your choices actually do instead of dumb hidden points that many other games do. Overall, based and 5/5 pilled. Play it.

Excellent game.
Girls are cute and interesting.
MC is almost not cringe.
Dialogs are hot.
The highlight of the game: sex scenes - kinky, diverse and imaginative.

And it's one of these games that even non-sex parts of it are interesting. Loved the ghost hunting.

9/10.

Loved the game. The comedy is pretty on point and got quite a few laughs out of me like the principal helicoptering towards the podium out of nowhere.

The girls are pretty interesting so far and do a good job with their distinct personalities. I love Cassie and Riley and also like Sasha, love to hate Olivia since she gives us every reason to as to a lesser extend, Akemi. Hikari is pretty adorable too and Taliya doesn't have much screen time, or at least didn't have with the choices I made.

The ghost hunting bit was a very interesting part too and I appreciate there being a VN version separate from the usual sandbox. Sometimes I just feel like progressing the story and am not a big fan of fumbling around looking for clues, going back and forth and risk missing content.

This VN is ambitious and an impressive technical achievement, but does so at the expense of writing.

Going through Stormside it's impossible not to be struck by the project's ambition. Even just the settings menu makes it clear that the attention to detail is well above-average, between little minigames, sound design, controls over measurement units in displays, etc. The smartphone is one of the better ones I've used overall in RenPy VNs, and this attention to detail really culminates in the ghost hunt minigame which is legitimately pretty impressive. But I couldn't help but ask myself... why?

I think there's a temptation among first-time developers to do more, more, more. Subsystems have huge effort put in, not because in benefits the project in any way, but because there's a sense that high effort is inherently laudable. The ghost hunt is a great example of this: as impressive as it was technically, I quickly backed out and just skipped the whole thing, because fundamentally it subtracted from the experience. It had nothing to do with anything else going on. It was just a complex minigame for the sake of having a complex minigame. This isn't a VN about a ghost hunter, it's just a subplot involving one of dozens of characters.

The writing is at best okay and at worst bad. The characters are at their strongest when they're shallow VN stereotypes—people who won't really challenge your opinions or present something new, but at least might set up a good sex scene or something down the line. At worst they're outright bad. I remember exclaiming to myself a few times that "real people don't talk like this!" And this isn't even in some contrived way to set up a sex scene or something where you just shrug your shoulders and accept the medium—it's often just bad dialogue which serves no purpose whatsoever.

The actual sex scene/relationship setups are often terrible. VNs like this often like to lampshade the absurdity of the main character with others who are meant to appear the same but who are somehow bad by virtue of not being the MC—Logan serves this role here. It's presumably supposed to serve as basic self-awareness, but it just feels clumsy and lame and highlights absurd plot points that are better glossed over for the sake of porn. It also has some aggressive what I like to call "nice guy wish fulfillment garbage," in particular in a party subplot with Riley. There's a bizarre contrast between the toxicity of some Japanese girl/American guy stereotypes, which the game explicitly calls out, and the fact that the game just outright embraces them anyways. I'm not sure if I'm just not the target audience for this, but this stuff just didn't work for me. Not even as porn wish fulfillment. It just felt clumsy and contradictory at best.

The sex scenes are executed with a fair amount of technical mastery, although your investment in them may or may not be impacted by the writing issues discussed above. And I found the game's sense of humour outright charming at times, laughing along with it at a few particularly absurd moments which I didn't expect.

The GATDAM subplot is bizarre. There are other VNs which have gone with this BDSM training style plot before, but most of them have committed to it. Stormside seems to be unsure where it wants to stand, halfheartedly including this content while also including—and arguably even outright encouraging you to take—a more generic harem VN style path. I think it'd be better served by just picking what it wants to be and doing that rather than trying to please everyone.

At the end of v0.22.06, the latest version as of this review, the game introduces yet another military subplot with more characters to an already very bloated story. While I'm sure some folks will find their interest piqued, for me it just elicited a groan. The VN already struggles to keep its myriad characters and subplots in focus, and the last thing it needs is more.

Overall Stormside certainly isn't bad—it has some clear strengths—but it isn't good either. I think it'd benefit a great deal from identifying a clearer focus on what it wants to do, trimming unnecessary fat, and shoring up the quality of the core writing. I can't help but view VNs with this level of production quality and scope as doomed to transition to the "Abandoned" status as progress crawls forwards and the dev eventually becomes exhausted or loses interest, and while I hope Stormside doesn't meet that fate, I think it'll require a radical rethinking of its goals to achieve it. All in all, if you want a mediocre harem VN or BDSM game with some very impressive technical aspects, that's what you'll find here. If you're looking for a somewhat more believable or engaging story (at least by porn standards), this probably isn't the one for you.