Ren'Py - Stranded in Space [Days 1-18 Elysium] [WildMan Games]

This is one of my favorite VNs out there. The characters are well written. The story is centered around a mystery and any of the LI's can be the culprit. There are flashbacks full of gorgeous models. I really enjoy the setting. There are mini games on the laptop. There are laptop conversations that add to the story. There are diverging paths with necessitate multiple playthroughs to get all the scenes. The diverging paths add to the overall experience of the story. There is an escape room. It is a harem game at its heart so you will get to experience scenes with all the girls. You cannot deny any of them( who would want to). The only thing wrong with this is that there are only 18 days so far. The review may be a little biased because I enjoyed this game so much but I think everyone should give it a try.

Good Things

• A lot of content
• Some banter is pretty good
• Sex talk is hot
• Story is OK
• Decent variety in situations
• Unusual setting
• Mostly good tits

Bad points

• Most LIs aren’t very hot, and look dated
• Girls actions, attire, openness, attitude towards you are not believable
• Everyone wants to fuck you, without you trying much
• Most animations and expressions are simplistic and wooden
• Bad unresponsive UI
• Completely linear
• You wanted to avoid one girl because she is ugly, so you didn’t write to her once? Too bad, she will fuck you on day 9, on schedule.

Summary and criticism:


MC wakes up on a spaceship filled with women only. He then fucks all of them. Some mystery happens in the background, related to his memory loss and weird things happening on the ship.


There is a lot of text, which isn’t an issue in itself, but the problem is - it’s all without choices and the walls of text happen in front of a couple of static renders, making for a boring reading, especially considering a lot of introspection is happening. There are literally sequences of 5-10min reading in front of one single render, not changing.


Many people claim great writing and dialogues here. While they are not terrible, they are failing on many levels. Mostly to do with believability and character agency.


Author goes way WAY overboard with the whole “understanding, compassion, consent” thing.


Here is an example:


he is standing naked in front of a girl, who very clearly and explicitly stated that she wants to suck him off. Girl goes “oh I’m sorry, you are completely naked and I have my top on”. MC then talks how its not her fault and she should only do what she is comfortable with. …. OK, but then he repeats the same shit countless more times in the next few minutes. Girl doesn’t know what to do and asks him to guide her, as she is of course a virgin. Instead of doing that, he stands there like a naked dummy and only parrots back:


“do what you are comfortable with” “do what you think is right” “only what you want” “it’s your first time so you should be in control” “if you want” “we can if you wish to” and so on and on and on. Fucking kill me now. Oh, and the naïve unsure virgin mid-sentence switches to words like “jerk your cock off” ”come to me every night, I want to do everything with your cock, use every part of me as you please” “cum all over me” “is it weird if I don’t wash off your cum and leave it to dry on me?”. While the sexy talk is not bad, it doesn’t fit the character AT ALL, and doesn’t fit the established mood. Also, experience MC looks like a wimp being raped by a virgin in all of it.


Next are the girls:

• dozens of them, so you can probably find someone you like
• generally have low-detailed faces and skin (except for tits, which are generally good quality)
• many are ugly or uninspired, or recycled from other games
• majority of them have similar facial features, so you are going by hairstyles to even distinguish them, unless you are invested in a specific character.
• most have the libido, inhibitions, and subtlety of a horny teenage boy. The moment they meet you all they talk about is boobs, sweaty naked girls, and get intrigued and horny for your dick.
• all of them - the virgins, the milfs, your relatives, robots - want to fuck you as soon as you look at them. And since you don’t really make any choices it feels unearned
• three sets of expression for all, with no in-between - naive teen dummy, horny no-inhibitions milf, or sulking brow-furrowing ice-queen

Version: Day18


In 'Stranded in Space' we get to play as a young guy who wakes up with amnesia on all female spaceship on its way to Elysium, a different planet.
We have no idea why MC woke up, why he's on an all female ship, or what the hell is going on.
What we do know is that its probably be a couple of years before getting to Elysium, lucky us, we have a bunch of beautiful women to keep us company.

I'm gonna say it right now, the game has some issues, one of them is very glaring but it is also somewhat avoidable.
Still, I feel like despite that there are VERY VERY few games with this level of quality and this amount of good content, so despite the issues I'm gonna round up and give this 5/5.

I'll start with the things 'Stranded in Space' does well.
The renders are great, the models are beautiful and the cast is very diverse. there's some BGM which is good.
The animations are pretty fluid and the sex scenes are pretty hot.

Now for the greatest aspect of 'Stranded in Space', which, at times, is also his worst.
There's a LOT of text, like really, a whole lot. mostly, that's a good thing.
We get to know the characters which are interesting and complex, we get a lot of 'slice of life' dialogue that allows us to really feel for them, to care about them.
At some point you're forced to choose between two characters, which I found pretty difficult because they are written good enough I ended up caring for both,
which I feel really goes to show how complex and well written the characters are.
The MC himself is one of the better MC's I've experienced over hundreds of AVN's, he's kind of a likeable duffus, but also charming, conflicted and complex.

The story itself is interesting enough and I'm definitely interested to know where things will go.
As the days go by the MC starts to remember things from the year he lost to his amnesia, and we get some great background about him and some juicy scenes, also, a little break from the long days on the ship.
So, while things progress over the ship, we also get to experience the MC's past and get some clues about what's going on and how or why he got there.
It's written really really well.
Unfortunately, while the writing flows really nicely and is by far the strongest point of SiS, there's too much text.
Notably as the MC's summeries his day, its always a bunch of text you can 100% skip without a second thought.
I'm gonna be completely honest and admit, without liberal use of the skip function, this game drops to a 4/5 immediately.
Still, it's not too bad, while the skippable text is, well, skippable, its not like it is boring or bad, it's still very much enjoyable, it's just there's too much of it.
I'd say SiS could lose 30% of the text without losing much, and be better for it. and I'm saying that as someone who really liked the writing and loves text heavy VN's.

Now, the sex is pretty good. there's plenty of it, plenty of kinks, plenty of girls and preferences.
The setting of being the single man stuck for years in space with a bunch of beautiful women serves as a great setup.
The game does start pretty slow on that aspect, so its mostly teasing and light stuff in the first few days, but trust me, it is worth the wait.
The sexual tension builds somewhat slowly over time in a really great way and eventually pays off big time.

Other than that I have a few small gripes that mostly comes to the models (some bad cases of origami nipples) and scenes (air blow jobs - lips kinda hover around MC's cock sometimes), but that's it.
Overall 'Stranded in Space' is really really great, it is well written, comes with a wide cast of interesting, complex and beautiful LI's, a really decent story and witty writing.
The scenes are really hot, and the pacing is absolutely on point.
Do you like Harams? well written dialogue? text heavy VN's with emphasis on relationship building and complex characters? this one is definitely for you.
(I do suggest a somewhat liberal use of the skip function on the 'daily summery' sections)
I had a great time and was surprised by both the quality and the amount of content, highly recommended.

I'm just gonna say this: I love this game, and I can't stop playing it (I dread knowing I'm getting close to the end of the released content). It's not even close to perfect, there's actually a ton that could be improved about it, but there are games that just click with you, and this is one of those for me: the girls are fun and sexy and varied, the story does have some intrigue and mystery that it's working towards that I'm curious about, and the game is very honest about what it is and what it isn't. I appreciate that.

If you want details of what is potentially wrong with it and why this game might not be for you, I'll just recommend you read @prov2 's review right below this one: I don't think I could have described it better than they did.

I usually try to boil my reviews down to the essentials. This one is a little more complex (in terms of story issues) and I will try to explain it without sounding like I'm going too deep into a porn game.

EDIT (1/4/2024): I have played farther into the game and have updated the review where applicable. Consider any section without edit tags a review of Days 1-11 which account for at least a few hours of gameplay if nothing is skipped.

It's good. It's quite good. Worse than no potential however is wasted potential. Liking something a lot amplifies the things that stand out as bad and makes them more frustrating.

+ Variety/Design of girls
+ Lots of content
+ Unapologetically linear
+ Doesn't shoehorn in morality system to have pointless game-overs
+ Content locks are well defined and purposeful
+ Story doesn't take itself too seriously but also doesn't overdo it

- Scenes drag because of the anxiety-induced writing
- Personality tropes are pushed too hard for too long
- Actual sex scenes pretty sparse compared to just teasing
- A few too many characters that the game can't focus on any one of them for too long

I've been putting a lot of time into it. I'm on day... I dunno maybe 12? Writing this while in the medbay getting a refill on the sperm pills.

Sex: The sex scenes are good. They would be better as usual if there were more of them, but that's just a personal preference. My balance of sex vs time spent earning it is pretty tight. After all, the longer an AVN goes on the more I realize my time could be spent with more professionally made games and more professionally written stories, so for me there needs to be a good amount of sexual content and while I'm not unhappy, there are fewer than I'd like for its length. This is partially because there is a lot of talking about sex and teasing/softcore pretty much all the time to keep one placated between actual sex acts. This worked, but also leads to my primary issue with the story when we get to that section.

Devs who use this engine for their renders and animations often can't get me going because they look uncanny, unnatural, and contorted. For the most part, this game doesn't suffer from that. The one major complaint with the renders is the forehead wrinkles when girls are smiling looks bad (like they are klingons) and I get that it's realistic but it would probably look better if there weren't any wrinkles there at all. Otherwise the dev seems to know the limitations and manages to keep everything looking good. Some of the poses used in certain scenes are especially nice but overall it's just above average. I don't really have a huge boobs fetish and I wish there were a few more average proportioned girls to choose from but I won't dock it any points for that.

3.5/5

EDIT: Having now played up to day 15 I am upping this rating to a 4/5. Both the frequency and quality have increased since my initial review. I feel like the renders are better too and though I would still say it took a novel's worth of time to get there, the buildup of teasing did payoff much quicker than I thought. The dev probably got better as they went along because there are also now better cumshots with auto-playing multi-frame reactions, so the payoff is literally better as well as figuratively.

Gameplay: There really isn't much to say. It's a visual novel. Click through and read. The computer has a couple puzzle minigames. They're fine. If you like those it's all good and they are not mandatory if you don't.

The few choices that really matter are announced properly and didn't take much thinking, which was good for this one in particular. It's really preferential whether you like major diversions in the story but it's casual enough that the balance of choices to consequences doesn't tax you much, though I do dread picking between Hailey and Ariel at some point, (haven't gotten there yet but it's the only choice that isn't easy so far) but the gameplay and tone fit well together and I have no complaints so far.

4/5

Story: I'm torn. All the pieces are there. Overall if you don't want to read the incoming rant it's very safe as far as harem stories go and the writer has a good sense of point-of-view and can also be quite funny at times. While the big picture isn't very original, each scene on its own is very charming and the character interactions are fun.

3/5

EDIT: I am upping the story rating to a 3.5/5. While it took far too long to find the characters and pick up the pace, it has certainly improved past day 11 and my whole picture of the game has improved with it.

The Rant:
There is a problem with MC writing in AVNS like this that is never more prominent than here. The writer is trying to have all the cake and eat it too, to the pace's detriment. He is written as do-good chameleon protag with only the best intentions and a practical, logical way of dealing with conflict. That's fine, but as a self-insert who is trying not only to please every personality of every girl on the ship, but also every possible dude trying to play this game, I find the entire experience is dragged down by how he and the girls have to overexplain and justify the harem setup in nearly every line of dialogue and narration. And I do mean all of them

It's as though every girl is a voice in the writer's head trying to force them all to constantly evaluate every thought and decision the MC makes. It's introspection overload. Every girl who has any conflict with him in any way, even if it's only a joke, has to be resolved immediately or at least internally resolved immediately so that the player feels NO GUILT ABOUT STARTING A HAREM. It gets obnoxious really fast, so much so that very early on a character is introduced literally just to be a voice in his head that he can talk even more about how to solve every problem and situation possible so that nobody's feelings are hurt EVER, or to validate him when he wants to just think about sex for a bit. Because god forbid he enjoy himself without writing an essay about how it's OK to do that.

If it was just the MC I would chalk it up to a character trait I personally just don't relate to this extent with, but the anxiety is only worsened by the enabling traits of every other character to have long, drawn out philosophical debates over whether or not it's OK to enjoy the game that was setup to be this way.

The writer needs to justify their own story SO BADLY that they even have characters made to specifically tell the MC (and clearly the player) that it's OK not to think about it so much, while simultaneously and ironically overthinking it even more.

I wasn't even kidding about the joke thing. If a character makes a joke at someone else's expense, get ready to hear at minimum 3 more lines afterwards either taking it back or justifying it.

Example (Not actual dialogue but a good summary of the issue):
MC: "Wow, that mech is almost as big as your boobs"
Girl: "Haha, yeah you're probably right about that"
MC: "Just kidding, I really love you for more than your body but I also do love your body so even though it's a joke I'm serious but I'm very aware of how that might have come off so I apologize for even making it but it really was funny so I don't regret it but I do regret it if it upset you in any way"
Girl: "It's OK, I know you only meant it as a joke and even though you are talking about my body I actually like that you find me so attractive and I love that we can joke about that."

I guess my point is, as a community when it comes to improving on these games I really hope writers like this can strike a better balance between getting in their own heads and not relating to their audience at all. I find most games take on either extreme with linear storytelling.

On the one hand, you have something like Lessons in Love, which doesn't give a fuck what you think and would rather preach at you for extended periods of time while criticizing the very fundamental drive to play these games you and (ironically) they have. Either because they are ashamed of the tropes, fetishes, and content they are clearly into, or because they are just edge lords who want to punish you for trying to self-insert at all into the MC.

And on the other hand you have Stranded in Space and games like it, where the writer really clearly enjoys AVNs and wants you to have fun in the space, but is so worried about pleasing you that it forgets to have its own personality and define itself a little more clearly.

They are both opposite extremes of the same coin when it comes to writing these games:
- Guilt about enjoying the content
- Being overly meta

Both traits keep both the example games I used from being truly great because they are insecure about being an AVN at all. Both are so close because they understand the genre so well, but fall short because they can't commit to being vulnerable and always either vilifying or deifying themselves and their players. I definitely prefer this game over Lessons in Love's approach to the problem, but the answer is somewhere in between and I hope writers who are inspired to make their own AVNs (like myself) can learn from that and make some actually incredible games.

/RANT

Close, but not quite. Looking forward to seeing if the story can relax, if only so that I am less tempted to skip dialogue and get to the next scene.

EDIT: The story has relaxed somewhat. There is slightly less MC introspection, or at least where there is the writer seems less and less insecure about the story after Day 11, or perhaps it just took that long to find its groove. That said, things are moving faster now and it's an improvement. There are still major pacing issues but there is less self-shaming and circular apologetic dialogue. I have higher hopes for it now.

First of all I will speak to what I really like about the game. The story is fun, light, full of comedy and intrigue. The characters are all unique with their own quirks and areas of interest. The graphics are nice and the animations are done rather well. I love the laptop chats, and minor decisions being made throughout. If you like puzzles as well this is definitely a bonus for this game.

now what I do not really care for us the lack of choice in some areas that confine to the linear argument. Do you get to make a few major choices? Sure, but the lack of control for who you are interested in and how you tackle the relationship is very linear. For example and I know would say it’s a harem game. Sure that’s true, but what if I did not like a certain girl? Or what if I wanted to pursue romance with a few for after the main story or just wanted some for sex and some for romance? Would that really affect the game that much or instead give it more nuance? In my opinion there’s room for both and I feel the lack of choices outside a few leave a lot that could turn this game from fun, to one of my top five. I have never been a fan of games that take the choice of kinks, romance, corruption, or anything else out of the experience. I feel that is what makes this a 3, instead of a five.

now having said that I did really enjoy the game I just think there is some meat left on the bone that could make it from a above average game to something really special.

The game has way too many characters, we're talking upwards of 20, the skip speed is reduced by the dev which aggravates the problem.
Too much dialogue, especially introspection with the ai, it just goes on and on.
The main plot barely moves throughout the game. It's "stranded in space" except for 1/4 of the game which are flashbacks, again with more characters.

The good parts of the game would be that the dialogue and characters are decently written, the sex scenes are average, and the renders are good although sparse.

Pretty boring game with couple of nice features and a hell lot of bad ones.
You have big pull of LI but you will barely see those you are interested in.
You can chat with some of the girls online every day, but it's basically pointless.
What made me stop playing is the lack of player agency. If some girl wants to force herself on you she will suck your dick or fuck you, you won't get "decline" option. Combined with the fact that better half of girls are ranged from mid to ugly it's really bonerkill.
Also prepare to use LCtrl a lot, especially while talking to a pink robot girl. 1 cg for 50+ lines of dialog, sometimes more, MUCH more.

So it's not like game is bad, but for me there's no point in playing since i only like 4-5 girls and it's mostly kinetic novel, you have very little choices.

Won't recommend.

Excellent VN. the script by itself makes it worth going through the novel. It really is what makes it apart from other VN’s. Nothing is more disappointing than great graphics and poor scripting. The pace is well controlled.

Finally, reasonable character dialogue that doesn't make you hate the main character between actually good sex scenes with decent character models. Sure there are some characters I don't care about at all, but there's a variety and I don't need everything specifically catered to me because I'm not a child. Good-ass game!

This game has a ton of things going for it... a fun premise, nice looking girls, ok animations, and should at least be a 3 star game... but it's flaws can be summed up in 2 words "unnecessary dialogue"!

There is simply WAAAAAY to much useless back and forth between the characters. I honestly did my best to keep reading it, but it just kept going on and on, and I eventually just gave up and started clicking as quickly as I could just to advance the story.

A solid 75% of the dialogue could be cut out and it would be a significant improvement.

This game is the prototype. Every wannabe developer out there, take note, "THIS IS HOW WE DO IT". The messenger correspondence is legendary. Man if it was only real. Maybe one day. The only problem with this genre is that you have to do what the developer says, even if its your name in front. My choices obviously wouldn't be the same, but this is probably as good as it gets. (Skylar is mine, don't even get any ideas).

Great game. I really like the character models, the storyline is interesting. The animations are very good. The characters are nicely written. The author has a cool sense of humor, I really like the dialogues. The graphics are great. Personally, I don't like the fact that almost every girl is bisexual, I wish there was some choice whether we want threesomes or lesbian content. This game is every man's dream.
I bought the game on steam.
I look forward to the next update.
For me it's 5/5

I would really like to give this VN a 3.5 however that wasn't an option on the scale.

There is a lot to like here: the renders and models are well done. Lots of models to choose from which is something I really enjoy. Plenty of body shapes as well for everyone to find something or someone they like. The story is actually an interesting premise and the laptop content is really different and refreshing in a VN.

Unfortunately that's about all of the good here. This game suffers from a severe pacing problem. The game is so slow, and at one point I had to take a nap. I kind of expect an harem focused AVN title to feature more sex and more engaging scenes. Feels like we're being blue balled to death. You do eventually have sex with some of the girls but the one you do wants little to nothing to do with you besides the physical, you can't even choose to go see her. It also suffers from a lack of interaction with the user. Others have said this, but you can't even turn down people you just have to go along with it. I think there is an immense opportunity here to do branching and unfortunately the dev has already stated that this is a limitation of the dev.

The AI is a big big miss here. Overall I like the premise but it falls flat a lot. They have too many dialog lines and you can't even interact with the AI sexually. She talks a big game, but you never get to do anything with her, nor does she do anything to you. This could be a way to beef up the sex scene ratio and tone down the blue balling.

I have only been able to get to day 8 without losing interest but I really am not a fan of games that require you to invest a ton of time getting to know the interests before being able to pursue them sexually. I'm not sure this can even be classified as a harem game as several of the ladies aren't keen on sharing and it sounds like at some point you'll have to choose.

Not my bag overall, and there is some potential here just a lot of missed opportunities.

Whoever recommended this to me saying it's a really good game, you and I have very different definitions of good. Granted I only played about 3 hours into the game, perhaps it does get better later on but I don't care to find out.

This game is about absolutely nothing at all. MC existing in a spaceship filled with girls is the main narrative of this game. It had so much potential for setting up a good story - MC mysteriously finds himself in a spaceship with 1 year worth of lost memories and an AI mysteriously embedded into his brain. You can do so much from this but instead all of it is forgotten within the first 5 minutes of the game, instead MC immediately sets off on his main and only goal of sticking his dick into anything that fogs up the glass.

There is no agency given to players, there are no sense of participation for players as there are literally NO CHOICES in the game (up until what I have played), and I'm not saying that as an exaggeration, there literally hasn't been a single choice prompt 3 hours into the game. It's like watching the dev play the game while you're sitting on a chair on the back looking over their shoulder having no say in it.

The characters go on and on about stuff, they talk about nothing and everything at the same time, half of the girls throw themselves at MC, the other half are rude to him for no reason at all. "hey I'm a nice guy give me a chance" seems to be a recurring theme in this game. The ai inside MCs head is annoying as fuck, at the beginning she says something like she can read microexpressions of people and have a deeper grasp on them, that ability is not used a single time in the game, instead all she talks about is boobs and sex and MC continues going around acting like a goofball with the intelligence of a tree frog.

I haven't read a novel in a while, and it shows while playing this game because, holy shit, there is an insane level of dialogue. I'm sure the game has a nice story, but I couldn't confirm that because I was battling the sleep demons while playing it, and I lost.

When I woke up, we were still conversing with the AI in our head about the events that had occurred a few minutes ago. Like I needed a summary.

Best game (of this type/genre) I've played. If I could give it 6 stars, I would. The story is well written, with a few grammatical and spelling errors, but very believable and also really funny. The girls for the most part are attractive, with some exceptions, and the personalities and quirks of each are highly entertaining. Good job, man. I recommend this game to everyone.

I think this might be my favorite visual novel currently that is under the harem category but I will admit there are flaws to this game, mainly, not being able to turn down women. Seriously, I cannot believe in a visual novel revolving around lots of girls you'd think I'd have a choice about who I wanted to sleep with. Maybe I want to be loyal to my girl Ishani, have you thought of that?! In all seriousness, it's a great game with lovable characters, and the "choice" we had to make at the end of day 16 I think it was, was a brutal one, which I think is good for this kind of game. 5-star game, please in the future can we have more choices regarding if we want a romantic or friendly relationship on the ship? If I could give 4.5 stars I would but this game is definitely closer to a 5 than a 4.

Definitely one of my favorites right now. Excellent cast of characters, renders and animations. What shines the most is the dialogue. Many would be upset how wordy this is, but when you really take the time to read it, it is hilarious.

Always looking forward to the next update and Steam release.

great game a little long winded but awesome graphic waiting for future update need to be able to fast the chat in the computure sec and shorten the recap in the bed every day serve no puprose its better to shorten it or just remove it at all