Ren'Py - Straitened Times [v0.55.0] [HRelease]

I love it all (Except that theres are a lot of adventures and is impossible to carry all of them at the same time he he ), corruption, voyeur, different kinf of characters, all sexy and well designed and different kind of stories

For me this is a prime example of why people don't like adult sandbox games.
Super grindy, you have forced actions like going to school and the hint system is pretty confusing at times. Also there is no way to tell if you have seen all the scenes with the characters so you just have mindlessly repeat the same events a bunch of times and hopefully you will unlock something new. Also the whole bedroom thing is annoying having to constantly switch rooms with the girs in order to progress with them.
Visually the game looks good. All the girls are good looking and the animations are well done. The story is not revolutionary by any means but it's interesting enough to keep your attention. This could easily be a 5 star game if the way you progress the story was more linear and less grindy.

(For now I will use part of my comment, just to be able to rate the game. Later, if I'm not feeling lazy, I may write an actual review)

OMFG! Mommy Lisa's content hits 98% close to what I ever wanted from this kind of a game. I just wish there would be more event's/poses with her. Also, love the watching porn together, but for now those scenes seem to be a bit basic. More variety, more choices of action and them leading to sex (after it is unlocked) would've been cool.
Can't wait for new updates!

Updated review for v0.47:
I'm done with this game. Playing an update to this game is like going back to work after a long vacation. The combination of randomization and needle-in-a-haystack event discovery is just too much work for not enough reward. The dev discovered a gold mine and intentionally flooded it with water. He could easily triple his patronage by fixing a few things. A "story mode" would be a what most developers would add to give the game mass appeal, but this game was designed in a way that makes it impractical. What a waste. The average rating has been declining over the past couple years and it would be really low if people didn't cheat. I feel sorry for players hoping to ease their frustrations by expecting a decent in-game hint system or a decent third- party walkthrough. Neither are ever likely.

Previous review:
I started playing Straitened Times at version 0.16 and I've now played through version 0.46. I generally don't like sandbox games because they tend to be coupled with mindless or frustrating "grind" which is intentional on the part of the developers because they think it heightens the experience for players. Straitened Times is designed in a way that makes sense for a sandbox: It has many simultaneous and independent quest paths open and allows the player to choose which one(s) to pursue; however, it does also have grind and usually way too much.

Pros: The game has many hot girls and animated sex scenes. The characters/models are beautiful/sexy (mostly). The grinding necessary to progress usually have a small but noticeable progression during each event so players can actually get some feedback that they are doing the right thing.

If you're into incest, it's here: Mother, two sisters, stepmother, two half-sisters, aunt, and two grandmothers. It has the school fetish with teacher, coach, principal, and cheerleader. It has the MILF fetish with mother, aunt, stepmother, motel manager, principal, bank manager, and neighbor. It has GILF fetish with grandmothers and judge.

Cons: The main con people will point out is the grind. I don't like grindy games at all, but strangely, I didn't find this one to be very bad at first. However, my feelings have changed since I started playing at v0.16. The main con with the grind is the randomization. There is an element of randomness for some events to trigger, but the game has so many places and times, a player can be in the right place at the right time, but an event still will not trigger and sometimes the player can miss an event multiple times just being unlucky with randomization. This can be extremely frustrating. What makes this even worse is that there have been occasional coding bugs that prevent events from triggering, so players don't know whether they are encountering a bug or if they are just unlucky. Some events have been insanely grindy. One example was the XShop photoshoots that could only be done once per week, but there are two models and each model has multiple events with multiple stages of progression, so it took over 20 weeks of in-game time with only a few renders as a reward. Such a disappointment. The game mechanics are constantly being tweaked, so it's possible that new players will experience less frustration with the grind and randomizations, but going from the discussion, there are still a lot of issues. Another con is the complexity. For some events, the player needs to set up multiple things in advance to get the event to trigger. Forget one thing, and you've wasted your time, but worse, the event might not even trigger because some other random repeating event triggers and blocks the event you want to occur.

Additionally, the game has grown and now has so many characters, locations, and time slots, having grind is simply no longer necessary (if it ever was) to add play time or make gameplay more enjoyable.

Thankfully, there isn't a lot of story/plot to this game, because the writing is garbage and the English translation is poor. Normally, players can determine the meaning of the dialogue and other in-game information, but occasionally, it's very difficult to understand and I think it's one of the reasons that many players have trouble figuring out what to do next. The poor translation also kills the mood during the sex scenes.

The game has an overly complex, yet incomplete and intentionally vague in-game help/walkthrough system. It has the "Tasks", which tell the player about the story quests and has a calendar for things that are scheduled at a specific place and time. Then there is the "Progress" for each girl which tells the player about the progression of lewd events/scenes with the girl. This is the actual in-game quest/hint system. The Progress also alerts the player that there are more events that the player has not yet encountered. However, the progress descriptions are both vague and poorly translated, so players don't really know what to do next. The Progress pages also occasionally have bugs such as telling the player there is more content available even when there isn't, telling the player there is no more content available when there is, and not tracking events at all. You only need to read a few posts in the discussion thread to see that people get stuck all the time and the reason is that both the game and the hint system are non-intuitive.

The user interface to navigate the sandbox is OK. It would be better if it was completely consistent. Backing out of an area should be easy (i.e., leave the bathroom, leave the motel room, leave the building, and open the map should all be in the same place on the screen). Same for the controls on the phone where exiting the phone is in a different place than exiting phone apps. Why? Also, there are many occasions where the player can accidentally click on something, but there's no way to undo the decision because rollback is sometimes disabled [Edit: this seems to be improving over time, but is still an issue]. The icons for map and skip time aren't consistent with what players expect. It's a case of re-inventing the wheel for no reason.

The unnecessary parts of the grind are just boring. The principal calling the MC out of class 3 days/week [Edit: this was reduced to 1 day/week in v0.21], the bank manager forcing the MC to choose some sexual reward every time he launders money (why not have an option of "Not this time, thanks."), the MC having an erection every night when sleeping with mother, the middle-of-the-night interruptions when sleeping with the mother/sisters/neighbor, the motel manager that always has a vibrator running [Edit: this was reduced to once per day in v0.25], the random events when entering a motel room, etc. These are events are automatic and become tiresome after a few times and some of them no longer make sense with the current progression of the character. They need to be disabled or have a substantially reduced frequency when they no longer serve a purpose for gameplay. There's also the management aspect with the MC needing to maintain an attendance in school, work a specific number of shifts per week in the restaurant, and keep Lisa and Anna sexually satisfied. All of these only serve to make the grind even longer and more boring. Most of us already have boring lives, we play games to escape our boring lives. The games we play shouldn't be boring, too.

There's a lot going on in the game and it's sometimes too much to manage, especially given that some of the tasks aren't tracked in a way the player can understand, which adds to the player's frustration. The quest/hint system is garbage and needs to be completely reworked. There are games that have mastered this type of quest/hint system, but for whatever reason, the developer chose to do his own overly-complicated thing. Again, reinventing the wheel for no reason.

Overall:
I really want to love this game, but there's just as much to dislike in the game as there is to like. Playing from one update to the next was sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating, but always tedious and boring. Most recently, updates have become so tedious that I don't even want to play them anymore. It is clear that the developer is having trouble balancing the game mechanics as well as balancing time spent on new content with time spent on fixing bugs. It's only getting harder to manage as the game becomes more complex and it's evident by the number of new bugs introduced into old content while new content was being developed.

For this to be 5-star game, the game needs the following improvements:

1. Improve the "Progress" system to include hints on what the player can do next to actually make progress.
2. Improve the terrible English translation.
3. Simplify the GUI and make it consistent.
4. Eliminate all random triggers.
5. Eliminate all grinding for lewd events. Daily grind like going to school, work, etc. is fine because it has a "management" aspect, but for the lewd content, there's no need to force players to repeat the exact same things over and over because there's enough content that it's not necessary.

Unfortunately, the developer has doubled down on continuing to move in the same direction, and as a result, players have expressed that they've reached their breaking point and stopped playing. I'm not far behind. Just look at the number of reviews that mention cheat mods and cheating with console commands. This game just isn't fun for most players in its out-of-the box state and the only way many players can enjoy it is to cheat.

It's an amazing game, a sandbox where you have so many things to do you feel like there's not enough hours per day to manage. The renders are very good, the characters are sexy, there are youg ladies and MILFs so everybody's happy.

It revolutionize Renpy, the interface, the UI, a lot of the game is polish and you can feel it. I hope the author of this game will continue on the same direction, this game is one of the best out there. Believe me I played a lot of games on this website, a lot of sandboxes, and I'm not the guy to leave reviews. But this game is so good I had to tell about it.

i do like this kind of game with more effort that makes more scenes not just some yes no nut more action decision, wish can keep updating more contents!!! those animation also good and nice visiting with good shape!!!

amazing game one of the best incest games what i ever played it's sad that i didnt saw this game a year ago rly good job for the author of this epic game! and ofc none blood related hahaha XDD very true

Update at v0.31.1 - Dropping to 2 stars. Picking this game up off the ground and playing through it is impossibly frustrating. The game will give you hints on how to proceed, but you take those actions and nothing happens, or the hints are cryptic and you can't figure out what they mean, or they depend on other events... Early game, the experience is closer to 4 stars these days (there's tons of content and it is fairly easy to progress in), but towards the end the experience is definitely a 1 star (content thins but character count, location count, and general world complexity is astronomical so getting to any of the sparse content is nearly impossible with how little the dev helps you find it).

The characters are really well-made and I think the story is quite interesting as well. Also, I hope that the bugs are ironed properly in the coming updates as well. Overall, best wishes to the dev, and I hope this project succeeds.

This game awesome.Great animation, very hot women etc but blind gameplay. You need to try everything to make proggress with women.

Story looking good but developer need improve story and side story and and and need to change map. New map looking very bad when i see first time "what the fuck is this"

Another grindy game where you need to do all kinds of chores. I don't know why most game developers start with a poor student who has to do all kind of boring stuff to see some nude women. Dude, this is a game , i don't want to attend class, work at the diner etc.. in the game. I want to do sex with women. when you make me grind endlesslly for getting a hug, i just stop playing

Graphics are alright but your entire day is full of boring, awful activities. go to school, work at the diner, talk to everybody, check their interests. this is not a game, this is a nightmare

Stay away

The best milf ever, please continue with the updates.
The contect with Lisa never ever can stop, just create more and more for Lisa, please!
More public actions with Lisa, like pool , school and shopping.

Version: v0.18.0

Review:
A game that has a lot of potential, but a dubious potential. At first, you will find everything confusing, you won't know what to do, you will see a strange interface but then you will stop and look at all that. There is an explanation of almost everything, the tasks you have to do, the relationships with the characters and other things. The game is not that hard to play, you can do everything without using cheats, but there is one exception, the game grind to improve the ''sexual longing'' status is a lot of work, which makes a tiring grind.

History:
The story and plot looks decent, actually I found it quite creative, as I usually find plots that have stories with a bit of nonsense. Halfway through the game the story starts to go well, but suddenly it decays little by little, losing a little of its focus, maybe it's the fact of the lack of content present, because of several characters that are still in development. In a moment, you'll lose some of the story's interest and you'll practically care about the porn content of the game.
Gameplay:
At first it's a little confusing, the interface doesn't help much because the dialog options the box keeps changing color, it's a little annoying but it's not a problem. The gameplay also has good relationship management and you need to keep an eye out, as spending too much time with your roommate will end up causing a fight and the game could give gameover. You need to increase the relationship stats with the characters and increase the sexually longing will have to grind a lot. As the game is point-n-click, sandbox and management, you have to do several tasks a day, which can make you tired in gameplay.
Graphics & Sexual Content:
I think the graphics are average, as well as the renderings of the girls. Some are good and others need to be worked on better, there are some weird renderings, like the maid and also Jill. I think Jill is a sexy girl, but in some scenes her rendering is horrible and weird. The sex scenes are good, the animations too, but not surprising, something to say, not bad. But the game lacks a little bit of sex positions and scenes in other scenarios, so you can feel a little more pleasure as it's hard work having to grind, so the reward has to be fair.

PROS:
It's a game that you interact with a lot of girls, them don't fall on the MC's dick easily and it is necessary to use condoms to fuck them. I didn't need to use money cheats, but increasing sexually stats is a little hard work. The game does not have a non-sense story or plot.

CONS:
1 = There's a boring grind where you have to go to high school, there is a percentage (90%) that you need to keep so that you can interact with the principal. This is quite annoying.
2 = Most of the money you earn is just used to pay for ''room services'' or rather ''room sabotage''. There are no scenes when you watch porn with girls, there could be some scene events, but there isn't. shame.
3 = The MC has a tiredness bar that when it reaches 40% you can't interact with anyone, that's terrible. To recover from tiredness it is necessary to take a nap or sleep. Why not buy a snack?
4 = The Step-Family, girls wear sleeping clothes. But the MC's main family doesn't. Also, there are no sleepsex options in the game, but does the MC try to take the girl's clothes off to snoop around? This sucks, if you can't molest, don't put it. The game even warns that it has strong content .

Why I did gave 2 stars?
It's a game with potential because there are a lot of characters to get involved and some of those characters have content. But that doesn't mean it has enough content, in fact it has significant content, but it still lacks A LOT. It is necessary to make improvements to the interface, because there are some tasks that don't explain exactly what you need to do, so you might end up getting stuck in the game, to content that has no event, so you think you're in some repetitive cycle, there is content to grind which makes it too irritating. So, it's a fun game, but if you're the type who doesn't like sandbox games, try something else.

At the start the game seems to have too much information which i was confused. However, after playing some time, all the info is so relevant and needful for the game. Appreciate the work you have done!

Pros - Great models, engaging gameplay, story progression is not rushed, good content overall
Cons - Grind, too much information in the screen (in Android)
(I'm giving five stars because in the first glance i though is just another ordinary incest game, but the game is well made and probably with time will keep improving)

[edit]
coming back to this game after my initial review about a year ago and going to adjust the rating up.
The grind is still there but the repeating scenes aren't really the issue it's knowing what to repeat. It's still an issue but there is so much good incest content here that i feel like the game deserves 5 stars.
It's a technically solid game with a lot of moving parts and the dev handles it well.
The animations and renders are good and I feel like the dev is improving on that front too.
As always the dirty talk is great if you like that kind of thing.
Finally the amount of content and LIs is pretty absurd, but in a good way for a porn game. There're all currently separated into groups: main family; step-family; neighbors; cops & lawyers; school staff, so it's not overwhelmingly ridiculous.
Narratively the main story is okay but the real reason to play this game is for the porn and it has a ton of it. The writing is competent but still has those odd phrasings and word choices that could be cleaned
overall my recommendation stands one of the most expansive incest games out there (i mean you have two whole families to corrupt) with a ton of good incest (and other) porn. The only caveat being if you are super averse to sandbox/management games you probably won't be able to push through the initial lewdless grind to get to the good stuff

[original review]
Pretty engaging game if you like management/trainer style porn games. There is a lot of grind. The dl from here comes with the console unlocked so i cheated money and occasionally energy, but never relationship stats. The models are all nice looking and the renders and animations are crisp. The characters aren't super nuanced personality wise but they're not cardboard cut outs either.
Some really nice dirty talk during the sex scenes which is always a plus but overall the script could use a native English speaker to do a once over and smooth out some of the stilted language.
I expect some grind in games like this so i don't mind it completely but the dev could dial it down a bit and maybe add a little bit more transparency as far as tips and indicators of how you are doing with the girls.
Overall I'm having fun with it and would recommend to anyone who likes a good incest game and doesn't mind some grind with a sandbox.

Great game. The socials stats between main chars are awesome. More animations would be cool. Switching between characters is good idea it gives you some kind of intimacy with them. Someties grindy but its OK for me.

terrible hint system + grind = not worth it
cheat through the allure checks if you want to see pics otherwise you'll be wasting hours trying to trigger some scenes that might trigger 2 days per week at specific hours that you have no idea of unless you happen to stumble upon them

Expected nothing...and boy i was wrong.
Very good game in my Opinion.
The Quest are good.
The Story is OK.
But personally i think the best thing is the possibilitys to interact with youre "Roommates" and sitch the.
The Relationship and Conflict Systen fits perfekt.
Needs a little bit more polish.

I think the same as Skrotum. Good graphic, beautiful model, a lot of hot spice scene but in the end ... to much grind!!

5 hours in order to unlock some sex scene... well the good point is that the mother, the sister and the other char are not easy people and you have to be persuasive.

In my opinion the grind could be cut to half and every one will be happy.

5 stars if no grind or half of it.

A pity