Ren'Py - Straitened Times [v0.65.1] [HRelease]

In my opinion the best game on the site.
It's a traditional sandbox game, where you have the chance to pursue many different women with different storylines. There is some dependency on each other, but in general you should be able to pursue who you want in priority.
It has that surprise element where even if you are 3 AM Downtown, something might happen that will bring the story forward with a character, so you'll always find something.
I've replayed it at least 3 times, and I believe I'm still missing things I've never seen.

Good game, one of the best sandbox imo.

There is a lot of things to do, a lot of different characters with hot setups, they all have some kind of interactions between them, it make them a bit more alive in contrast to other sandboxs.

A bit grindy sometimes, especially when you have to up your relationship with topics (not a big fan of the mechanic).
The game definitly has to implement quest log (at least some hints?), its hard to keep track of what you still have to do.
Sex scenes are maybe a bit off sometimes, probably need some rework: longer animations, more frames, etc.

I can only recommend you to play it. Hope there will be more updates!

Rating: 3/5


I’m giving this a 3/5, mainly because of the incest mod (yeah, I know, weird). The game has a lot of potential—great art and fun dialogue, even though it’s riddled with typos. But the grind is real. The game has neat ideas, but they get buried under repetitive tasks and chores you have to do to avoid failing. It gets frustrating fast.


The amount of content is fine for an unfinished game, but there’s just way too much dialogue. The characters' stories often overlap, and it’s easy to get lost, especially when you’re not sure if you’re wasting time on the wrong path. After 20 hours, I didn’t even know there was a second or third family to interact with. So, unless you want to spend 35+ hours on this, I’d recommend just loading a save file with everything unlocked.


There’s also a lot to memorize—keeping track of all the characters and their storylines feels like homework. You’ll need a notebook to stay on top of it all. And some game mechanics, like "chatting," aren’t clearly explained.


TL;DR:

• Art: 5/5
• Dialogue: 3/5 (5/5 with mods)
• Content: 3/5 (too much dialogue, not enough clarity)
• Grind: 5/5 (lowers my score)
• Mechanics: 2/5 (needs better explanations)

P.S. Lily and the Aunt Katie or whatever her name is are the best waifus in the game. Don't @ me. lmao

A solid sandbox i enjoy. Unfortunately i had to start over because i didn't save properly. Story is okay with good scenes. Having to go to school everyday is kinda pain but wasn't too bad .Thankfully the mod helps the daily school attendance. Keep up the awesomeness . Ty!

This game is very good. It would have been nice to have some help getting to some scenes, as some are a bit hidden or not intuitive. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished game or the next previews of the game.

PROS:

• Plenty of content and characters
• Story is good enough to have kept me interested through 2 playthroughs at this point
• I've only been playing for the last handful of updates, but they do seem to come at a reasonable pace
• Most of the renders and scenes are good

CONS:

• The grind is punishing - I would never want to play this game 100% vanilla. I've used console commands to help reduce the grind significantly (even then, I'm still at nearly 400 days of in-game time to get near the end of the paths as of 0.64)
• Progression in the game quickly becomes complex and it's often completely unclear exactly what needs to be done to move forwards. Even with the guide it isn't always clear what needs to be done next
• While it is a sandbox, progressing the characters is often heavily intertwined with other characters so you may feel like you're wasting time on characters you don't care about, just to move on with one(s) you do want
• Some of the character skin colors are odd. Notably the lawyer (Victoria) and the cheerleader (Brigitte)
• The writing does suffer a little bit from typos and some "lost in translation" language choices

If you don't like grind, or if you get easily frustrated if the gameplay isn't laid out for you then you definitely won't like this game.

However, if you don't mind a bit of a challenge there's definitely rewards for your efforts with the sex scenes and harem/group choices.

It might not be the best game overall, but it's certainly the most polished and immersive sandbox experience with an incest theme. The pacing and immersion are handled exceptionally well. Some storyline feels somewhat rushed—likely a result of development time constraints, but the game is enjoyable.

One of the best game in the site.
Good story, with good graphics and excellent characters.
The game progression is well done with good mechanics.
A hard job made by the developer and we must thank him

Good game, but way too grindy and overcomplicated.
As someone who likes Sandboxes, I've to say that the game is way too complicated even with mods and walkthrough.
You have to remember topics that you can talk about with each girl to increase their respect for you or something, while at the same time your dialog choices at events influence some sort of relation system is well.
It's all hard to understand and I didn't even bothered. Thanks to mods I just spam everything and visiting each girl in different locations to try to get new dialogs or scenes.
Everything takes forever.
And while sex scenes are mostly good and partial animated, only few have sound effects.
Overall ambient sounds in the game are very inconsistent as well.
The only reason why I won't give the game 2 stars are hot models and decent scenes.
The game has a lot of scenes, they just take forever to find and unlock.

There's a lot of grind but it doesn't really bother me, the main issue is that sometimes it can be tough figuring out how to get the next scene, thankfully there's mods to fix that but they shouldn't be necessary.

Anyway, the game has a ton of content and a lot of scenario's to tickle your fancy. Not every woman is a 10/10 perfect woman, some of the women, especially older ones look more normal, which in a way is a big turn on at times, makes the scenarios more believable. With mods this game is definately one of the best games on the site, without mods it's maybe a 3/5.

It's Straitened Times.

Lots of content, bit of variety (Netori, Incest, threesomes with girls), and interesting relationships. Takes a while to understand game mechanics though. However it's still one of the best games I've played on this site.

This is on the grindy side, that's true. You have to repeat things that you've done over and over and you have to struggle a bit to figure out the game loop. But it nails the incest relationships. The dialogue is written to reflect the depravity of the family and it gets better as you progress. Also, finally a game that starts the group scenes early on and doesn't force you to reach the very end for a couple of shots of all the ladies together. I just hope the dev in the following updates will start mixing all the different ladies with each other. There are so many girls that the number of combinations is a lot! The renders are wonderful, the animations well made and although sex scenes could be a few frames longer, the ones that exist are very clear and well made. This game should be the standard for people who love incest theme.

This game is an absolute grind-fest, and not in a good way. The gameplay is tedious and repetitive, with endless tasks and pointless mini-games that feel more like a chore than entertainment. Progressing the story requires an absurd amount of grinding, whether it's earning in-game currency, leveling up stats, or unlocking scenes. It quickly turns into a mind-numbing loop that sucks all the fun out of the experience.


To make matters worse, the rewards for all this effort are underwhelming at best. Scenes are locked behind ridiculous requirements, and when you finally unlock them, they’re often short, lackluster, and not worth the time spent grinding. The pacing is completely ruined because of this design choice—by the time you get to any meaningful content, you're too bored or frustrated to care.


If you enjoy spending hours doing repetitive tasks for minimal payoff, this game might be for you. Otherwise, save yourself the headache and find a game that respects your time.

Straitened Times [v0.62.0]

I think this game is really boring, way too repetitive and a massive waste of time.
I remember playing one of the early versions and already having a bad feeling about the gameplay.
There are just too many things that hold the game back and I can't see how anyone would think it is fun to play a sandbox game without a questlog and having to deal with stats simutaniously.
The amount of bloat and pixelhunting is crazy. It's a pain in the ass to play this game without a walkthrough and there is so much fucking grind that isn't rewarding at all.
The render quality is really good but the character models look aged and were average in 2020.
I don't understand why it's so hard for Developers to create a sandbox that doesn't sucks ass, with the only purpose to waste your time.
In what world do they think it's fun to waste the players time by doing chores?
It's a total mess and 2* is really the max I can give it.

sandbox is the worst aspect about this game, its pretty much the only thing hindering it. Its 2025 people not 2012, nobody is grinding for one handjob scene.

The renders are decent but they have aged poorly like most daz games

This is the best game with an incest theme overall i have play i think,but it lack of Voice Acting and you needed to follow walkthroughs or couldn't get anywhere ,but i want more of incest screen, btw this game is the 1st time i have review just because of how i love it
Keep up the great work guys!

This game has a lot of interesting features, but the grind simply kills it.

After some time playing (and I played it A LOT), I needed to follow walkthroughs because I couldn't get anywhere.
The lack of a proper quest system makes it even worse, because the HUD of the game is A MESS.

The amount of energy and actions you have to do to progress in the game is another problem. After some time playing normally, I decided to turn on the cheats because I couldn't stand the whole energy system with all the rest you have to deal with. And still, if you don't keep going to school the game is over, which is weird since you have a "100% presence" cheat for school.

The models are fine, same for the scenarios and the whole idea behind the game, but it lacks a straightforward system to reduce the grind or make it a little less terrible.

I like this game. I do. However its a massive trainwreck. Its a massive amount of content surrounded in the grindiest shit. There is so much content, but its a bloated mess and when it was finally wrapping up the dev decided to add an entire extra family. I just wanted to sit in a room and bang the redhead, but noooooooooooooo we gotta add so many extra women who need you to talk them at specific times on specific days over and over.

This game should've been finished years ago.

It may not be the best game overall, but it’s definitely the most polished and immersive sandbox game with an incest theme. The pacing and sense of immersion are nearly perfect. Unfortunately, the stepmother’s storyline feels a bit rushed—possibly due to development deadlines—and the character model of the biological sister isn’t particularly appealing.

This game has solid foundations, and the talent is undoubtedly there, but playing it felt like participating in some twisted self humiliation ritual where the Dev takes pleasure in making coomers go through hell. Its got to be one of the worst thought out renpy games I've come across. There's no reason for a porn game to require a walkthrough screen resembling Excel spreadsheet other than poor gameplay design. Even with cheats enabled the grind is still soul crushing, nothing is straightforward, UI is overwhelming and distracting, and both sandbox and game mechanics are outdated. It honestly requires a major overhaul, but given the fact it's been five years into development its better to just finish it and move on.