Ren'Py - Straitened Times [v0.61.2] [HRelease]

Came across this game a dozen times before I decided to try it. You know how you avoid a game or AVN for months for one reason or another, but then finally decide to give a go and it turns out to be great? This wasn't that. It started out okay, the story and characters were a little interesting at first, then the whole freeroam sandbox lost me.

There's only so many hours in a day and so much energy, Find a job and work, go to school everyday, don't miss any days, go home, have dinner, go to sleep, wake up, do it again. But try to find things you can do to move the story forward before you forget there is a story, can't go anywhere because it's always a waste of travel time and there is never anything to do anywhere. Except grind yourself into a depressive state and question why you played this longer than a few hours. Also, the women play hard to get and tease you but never put out. Not sure if they ever will. By the end of the 2nd week I got so I couldn't play more than 10 minutes without dozing off.

It's like a real life simulator without any fun parts of real life. Not sure who this appeals to, but anyone who spends less than 20 hours a day living in their parents basement probably won't enjoy this.

This review may seem long, but at least it ends. But hey, if you enjoy this type of game more power to you, it's just not my cup of tea. Have a nice day.

Honestly this game is simply amazing. It has almost everything to make it perfect, though I bet more will be included in further updates. Just give it a try, it has massive amounts of content, plenty of characters and a compelling story.

lots of content, choices and open world. The only complain I got for it is it is a lil bit grindy at first, also the task completion system and the quest system and UI need some work. well really alot of the ui can be redone in my opinion but overall awesome game.

• Story

The story is not the best part of the game for me, and the names are kind of confusing. I know that must sound weird to read this first while seeing I gave it a five-star review, but don't mind it; it's not like it takes over the rest of the game.

• Originality

This isn't the most original idea, but having a way to sleep with different women and let the tension build-up is damn great.

• Renders

The renders are average, but I like the design of the different girls available. They each have unique attributes and personalities.

• Sound

Some moans and ambience. Nothing notable to add here.

• Playability

It's grindy, but it's worth it, so do try it. Over than that, the gameplay is rather simple, even if I must admit that I've used cheats to reduce the time needed to advance and stop conflicts.

• Performance

It runs fairly well; nothing bad worth mentioning.

• Bugs

I've encountered only one bug while suggesting watching a porno with Kate. In a game with so much content and interactions, that gives you a hint as to how the developer makes sure everything is done well.

• Animations

Average, but they do the job.

• Grammar

That's another bad point for the game. Sometimes it's strangely worded sentences, and other times it's not the right word or it's not at the right place. The game could do with some proofreading.

• Amount of content

Great, that's the main good point for me.

The game is on of the best examples of a true corruption game.

• I can't even be asked to dock points for it being grindy, because it feels very rewarding.
• The animations are hot and well executed.
• The progression feels nice, although it sometimes requires a walkthrough.
• If you like incestuous fun the story is amazing for that as well.
• Only thing i can recommend is for some more transparency for conditions of certain events, as the in game phone doesn't provide much info.

One of my all time favorites.

A 5 star game weighed down by grind. A few tweaked numbers in the game would make it perfect. The game has fun scenarios, great graphics, good ideas, but you just have to do everything 5 times before you can move onto the next scene. Seems like a way to make the game longer when there's already tons of really hot content,

Straitened Times is great. The game creates a story that allows you to navigate through different moments with the story of the MC with different characters. But mostly the scenes are very lewd and a great turn on for the imagination. A good story with good images and very good animations.

really like the game, but the grinding and mechanical issues gives it a backlash... playing it without cheats is way too boresome... IMO there is much room for improvement in the HUD for getting objectives and scenes more straight upforward

All i love about this game is that my fantasize ....milfs gilfs and redhead demn bro i just fcking in love with this game i wish i can be regressed in that game as MC.....then who gonna save the LIL and lisa demn bro demn hats offf

Here's a cliche: Don't judge a book by its cover. I stayed away from the game because I didn't find the cover image and the name very attractive. I finally gave it a try and it's very good! I love a grind where you have to build a relationship with a character and a sandbox style too. This has it all. Really enjoying discovering new places, new women!

It is structured a bit like a sandbox but not so noticeable as the progress is visible quite quickly. It follows a fairly clear game progression with many characters getting together. Basically it has everything a good game needs, several job opportunities to earn money and many varied events. And well made designs. I especially like it because there is no competition so far and the main character has free rein and can enter into many relationships.

The character models alone deserve all the stars! The designs are on point, and the main character looks great: handsome and fit without being over-the-top. I'd personally like him a little darker, but that’s just me.

I think the game would be even better as a visual novel instead of a sandbox. VN’s are just easier to jump into and get lost in.

Also, love that there are spots where you can make choices. Choices make the story way more interesting and so much better than just a straightforward, no-options story.

I like sandboxes, I dont mind grind and I especially like corruption. This game has all three but it just doesnt work.

There is tooo much grind, everything works against eachother with every decision leading to utterly ridiculous opinion changes with no rollback

Some scenes end up beign letdowns. Like you'll have a massage scene where the woman is very attractive but ones you progress to fucking the graphics are really ugly.

Theres zero realism, everyone wakes up from everything at night because stupid mc has zero skills but then just says stop, no emotion

Content is soooo sparse between grinds and even if everything is unlocked then the girls always 'need time to recover'

Basically all the fun got sucked out somewhere

Grindiest game I've ever played, and incesty as fuck, which is usually a problem for me, but somehow the very very thin veil of "she's not your mother in this family of yours, she's the Holy Mother of this Commune" amuses me enough to not be weirded out by the happenings. It helps that the characters and interactions are hot, and while grinding everything will take you forever, you can get to some very sexy repeatable events fairly quickly. I liked this game very much, but it's very much a Your Mileage May Vary.

Too much grind and its not like it adds something to the story, its just for the sake of making the game longer or something.
The visuals are fine nothing special.
The interactions sometimes makes sense and sometimes they don't.
I have mixed feelings about this game but good luck to dev

The grind is real, but the pay-offs are worth it. Definitely worth playing if your thing, is the slower/more intimate, relationship build-up. The dialogue has been pretty well written throughout. Also probably the only game in two years to provoke me to leave a review, in hopes that the dev sees the project through to the envisioned story conclusion.

An amazing game!
Beautiful models and borderline good writing!

PROS
- Content There is just so much content and that too top quality.
-Beautiful models
-Takes your imagination for a ride as there are so many scenarios taking place together.
- satisfying scenarios
- The only game I have played which connects 3 or more large group of women.

CONS
-Randomness of some events
- Broken money system
-Grind (There should be some a point or bar system so as to check progress with individual characters)

There is a lot to like about this title and there are some very good PROS about it but unfortunately the CONS outweigh any PROS by far.

PROS - The Story for the most part is fun and interesting. The character models mostly look good and attractive. It is FUN early on in your playthrough.

CONS -
RANDOMNESS and GRIND!! This game should be called Straitened times the ULTIMATE time waster. To get new content you have to complete tasks and days OVER and OVER and OVER again!! Until some RANDOM event you luckily complete at some RANDOM time, just happens to take place.

The MODS and cheats are a necessity, I could not even imagine playing this title without mods and going through the FULL GRIND!

The Sad part is I was having FUN initially, but then the GRIND set in and ruined this experience. I have played Tencent Gotcha games that had less GRIND where they sell you microtransactions to fix the grind.

I deluded myself into thinking I was having enough fun to come back to this title, and as updates keep passing and I fail to come back I finally realized I was dreading with every fiber of my being playing this title again. 54.1 is out now and there is still no GALLERY mod so I'm done. I can't do it, this is the first game I like and I want to like more but the GRIND has broken me.

This title is good for a dedicated explorer of adult VN's with a crap load of time on there hands.

I salute you players that can but the content is nowhere near incredible enough to over come my dread of grinding out another 50 hours as if I'm trying to beat the hardest boss in Elden Ring on Insane difficulty!!

Give it a shot if you want, the early game is fun with mods but be careful to know when the fun ends and the chore like grinding begins. This is NOT a bad VN, it's a Good VN, saddled with some horrible mechanics.

I'm sad to say, at this time, I can only rate this one 2 stars. There's a LOT of content, which is great. Most games don't have this much content in a full game, much less an incomplete one like this. However, due to the disorganized, unclear, janky, grindy objective/point system per character, it gets really repetitive, tedious and annoying to figure out how to move forward with many of the characters. If some of the options were simplified and trimmed down in how many points you need, it would help this game immensely. This way, you don't have to spend in game weeks grinding the same relationships trying to find some obscure dialogue option you didn't know you were missing. If you don't want to simplify that, there at least needs to be a compact, simplified tracker for love interest based objectives to show you what you’re missing.

Beyond that, I am always annoyed by bad spelling and grammar, which is abundant in this game. This could easily be a 4-star game if some systems were polished, some unnecessary repetition was removed, and some kind of objective tracker with clear hints was put into the game. To clarify, The story quests already have a tracker in the phone in game, which works just fine. This game just needs better tracking for the love interest objectives. Anyway, iron out those issues, and you'll have a pretty fantastic game.

Very good game and highly recommended. It has quite acceptable animations.

Sometimes you can get lost in the character requirements because the quest guide is very ambiguous and confusing at times, but when you manage to continue with the stories, the animation and text are excellent.