Ren'Py - Stranded in Space [Days 1-19 Elysium] [WildMan Games]

Theres another VN that is so similar to this game that I thought it was the same dev, but granted I did leave aside some hope because atleast its better and has a little bit of a funny moment here and there where the other VN is just so cringe all the time and drives me nuts 99.9% of the time. The MC just is nonstop with quirky boomer speech all the time.

This VN has that same issue, where its just so overkill beyond belief, makes me wonder if its written by a person that did standup for a long portion of their life but never made it as a comedian and I dont mean this as a harsh negative towards the dev or anything, but theres just so muchhhhhh. I would never down a person for aspiring to be a comedian just to be clear, its respectful to do that, but what I'm saying is, it feels like all the failed jokes and constant quips are overbearing in this dialogue. Like I can only picture Sasha being who the dev really is as a person lol..

Anyway, Girls are attractive, models are nice, the body proportions actually arent that bad. It's not freakishly mutated, it actually works out alot better than most do. Renders are nice, animations are pretty standard. All of that would get a score of like a 4.5 from me genuinely.

But the writing man, the writing.... It wasnt bad when it was just Sasha, and sometimes Umiko, but it just started bleeding into everyones dialogue more and more. It's also gotten wholly absurd where every girl is just like "yeah I got needs, I'm going to basically rape you, cant do 3 years without a penis, sorry" So it never feels like a challenge or a chase or anything to be with anyone (Outside Camilla anyway) Every girl is practically FORCING themselves to hold back. Which again is just all negatives in the writing, then you got Sasha-esq dialogue throughout multiple characters now. The MC is nonstop with it, Paige is worse then he is which bro... why such an overtly horny AI, its painful. Cant really believe somethings gonna bring salvation and is worth fighting for, when it acts like a horny teenage boy every single time it speaks. If the game only consisted of Ishani, Skylar, Ariel, Haylee, Lira and Camilla it would probably be alright because honestly they're the best written out of everyone. Everyone else is just genuinely all over the place and a whole mess.

Further more, the dialogue is just so abundant and repetitive, and slow. Even the skip button is slow lol. You have to go through so many hurdles to even get to a single point of interest. The day's go as follows : MC wakes up, goes on laptop. Laptop has a group convo and side convos (optional but kinda not? since if you skip them, it leaves out alot of context for later in the day when having conversations with others) the laptop is really slow, and super-filled with dialogue, its about 20+ minutes each day just having super benign conversations with inflated dialogue to say "i really wanna see you, your so hot, send me a picture, when are we seeing each other again, cool ttyl" (now just double my review length and thats about how much dialogue you'd have gone through for one message to get that) Theres a delay when the convos end which is really annoying ngl and theres usually about 6 of those conversations daily + group chat to go through (and puzzles if you want even more extras! with a horrible trivia in a incredibly bloated text filled VN asking you questions like "when did X tell you this random thing" "when did you have a nightmare" etc.

Okay we're off the laptop now and onto the main part of the day. Whatever happened on the laptop usually tells you whats gonna happen in the day, aka you'll likely have 3-4 encounters with girls. (which theres 16 in total) sometimes you'll see multiple together, sometimes they're alone. You have no control over this since its mostly a kinetic novel with a couple small major choices. So if you like a specific character, you might be waiting a while since you have to go through this whole routine. You might encounter 1 sexual scene, maybe two if lucky after reading 300 pages of text. Then back to the room.

Now we're at the final part of the day. The RECAP SESSION WITH THE AI PAIGE LETS GOOOO (why...). So everything you JUST DID can be recapped with paige, and she'll give some very unique perspective (sarcasm) to what just happened "today." which is another 50 pages of text and then you go to bed. You might trigger a memory on the specified days they happen, or just wake up and go right back to that damned laptop.

Suffice to say, this could be such a better title if the lolrandomquirky humor was done away with. It's fine on Sasha dont get me wrong, its everyone else participating in it and feeding it that makes it bad and excessive. Everything was summarized way more (which would also leave way more time for renders, animations and the like!) and genuinely just MORE that happens throughout the damn day before shoving us back on that laptop or recapping which should happen in the morning since it seems the dev uploads the start of a NEW day....... lol

I feel bad cause I do like some of the characters and I'm being a bit harsh and critical but man, I just dont know why people go so overboard with writing sometimes. I couldnt imagine doing it myself because you'd have to keep track of so damn much and its harder to have personalities stay consistent when you over-do everything.

Anyway its like a 2.5/5 for me.

Excellent game so far, lots of content. Definitely recommend to any and all harem enjoyers.

The game's main strengths are extensive worldbuilding and high degree of detail given to each harem member, despite the significant headcount. Game has puzzles that are optional, but well-made and offer fun rewards. The plot is complex bordering on convoluted, though not ridiculous.

One downside is the amount of reading, particularly during the "recaps" (since it's about content that's already been experienced), is daunting. Though I generally enjoy learning extra about the characters, and imo the laptop system is outstanding, by approximately day 12 I started skipping the recaps. Fortunately, I don't think it's mattered so far, however it'd be a shame to learn that I missed something important while doing so.

On a more subjective note, I honestly fear that the resolution to the story won't be satisfactory and can't help but question the involvement of the "evil corp" storyline, which could be a whole other game in itself. A lot could be cut to streamline the story with the "main game" still remaining quite unique, first and foremost due to the very well-made laptop system. Hope to be proven wrong.

I'm just gonna stop updating this. Wall of text that almost no one will read. I'll put my final paragraph at the top, as the rest of this is just a mess of thoughts.

My issue is that when most of the characters and interactions are saturated with just the Parody actors and behavior, there is no balance or depth to anything. Not everyone needs complex, layers and massive arcs, it would be exhausting. But there needs to at least be SOME, and preferably balance to it. Otherwise, it lacks believability. This plays like a "Scary Movie" movie, which is a Parody. No one in the audience has any expectations except to maybe laugh and be entertained. Since they know it is a parody, they know what they're signing up for. That is all missing here. I have at least 6 characters who are parody-acting characters, including the MC and the AI in their head. I'm being led, heavy-handed, to not take most of what it said seriously as of Day 4 of 19.
*****
Well, I got to day 16, but I'm done. I really tried, but eventually I started reading and then blasting through the dialog in a scene to get to the next one because I CANNOT stomach this writing anymore. And this choice's matter malarkey. I get why they did it because branching choices increase the development difficulty exponentially. It's like a Fibonacci sequence from hell. But this... this is cheating. Your game, your development choices, and your sanity on the line. So you're entitled. You remove all choices where everyone expects them to be and add in a sample set that you thought would be great. The Pivotal Choices thing has been done before, I never tracked if they actually mattered because I actually like Kinetic Novels and find "Choose Your Own Adventure" heavy games annoying. And I'm assuming the Kirsen sisters choice is supposed to be a monumental choice like who you save in Acting Lessons, only it's not. It seems talked about often in the game thread because of how much people don't like the choice, how it feels unnecessary (and it reeks of forced narrative). It lacks all the meaningful gravitas and is reduced simply to "Eww, she's my sister! Haylee thinks that way too, she's just faking like she's not grossed out!" Props for redeeming Ariel during the date, because I read other people's comments showing that I wasn't the only one who saw Ariel as just young and immature, her behavior raises all kinds of red flags. At least during the date, she lessens some of the severity of those red flags, but it still comes down to "Eww, gross!" Never mind that in this genre is such reasoning ridiculous (doesn't mean you can't do it, but doesn't make it not ridiculous), but in this day and age where sisters, mothers and daughters and having sex with each other for money on fan sites "Ew, gross" doesn't stick the landing and doubles down on feeling forced. Keep in mind, I like neither Ariel nor Haylee by this point in the game, so I'm bent over the decision even existing, not having to choose. I didn't even get to the choice, but I doubt the hinted to option of saying "No" to the pair of them is there, if it is then "KUDOS!", I'll stand correced. I guess you can rationalize this choice as "Nobody else is doing it. I'm forging new ground here! I choose the path less travelled, and it has made all the difference."

I lost it after Ishani went into heat late at night on Day 15 (according to Paige the greatest day ever) and as expected, someone walked in on them at a very inopportune time. Why would anyone knock or ring a bell on someone's private room, one of the few people who even has a private room? Why because it would ruin the scene if they knocked, of course! I was holding down control, so I have no idea what was said. I just said, "Of course..." and closed the game at this point.

Whatever. Each to their own. I tried. The obnoxious jokester characters kept going and spread like a disease into other characters. They even added a new one later in the game, offspring of one of the original ones. And add to the MCs incessantly annoying personality by having him seemingly unable to shut the hell up even when someone tells him to let them monologue for a bit. They get 3 sentences before he chimes in with vapid nonsense and does it twice more during this "monologue". Nothing says, "I respect you and what you have to say." than repeatedly talking over them with one-liners. Even his pseudo-step-sister delivers a figurative kick to the jimmy during that dream sequence the night of Day 15 over his inability to be serious about seemingly anything and his behavior in general. Also during that dream sequence, it's just FINE for the MC to deflect and be noncommittal regarding something he doesn't want to admit to or discuss and just says, "its... complicated", but when someone does that to him, he's outraged and bombards them repeatedly in an effort to berate them into agreeing with him (discussion with Camilla on Day 15 for example).

This game works only because he's in a "last man on earth" scenario on that ship, and he's got MC/Plot armor, and, obviously because they wrote it this way. I shouldn't say it works, it doesn't at all for me. But that probably means it works for most others. I don't really care about any of these people or this story. I wish I did. I kind of like Raegen, Marissa, Lira, and Camila. But I'm punching out.

=====
Day 1 & Morning of Day 2:
I only just started this. It is the day after the MC woke up, but I believe I know where this is going.

This feels very familiar and formulaic. Since there are SO many MCs written like this and story structure framed like this (massive use of inner dialogue, recaps, and useless, non-character building or plot building text), I'm assuming the issue with me. This MC has a VERY slapstick, there's a joke in almost everything, personality. Think the MC from Petal Among Thorns, Moment of Bliss, but there are LOADS of possible examples.

Keep in mind, I'm on the beginning of day 2. But, in my opinion, this undermines the entire story. If almost everything the MC says is a joke or touches on a joke, almost nothing is taken seriously. Building a main character on a foundation of almost everything they say or thinks is disposable, where does that leave the story?? Couple that with, they all seem to universally double-down on this "humor-based" MC with ignorance. It's very Three Stooges. This MC, so far, is mentally intact except that they have no memory of the year prior to being put in cryo-sleep. So their personal development is that of a 20-year-old, but they mentally act MUCH younger. Some of this is distraction-based. The MC spends Isekai anime amounts of time inside their own head, talking to themselves. This is purposeful because the AI (as the last reviewer called them "JarJar", keenly appropriate, as the AI has virtually the same personality as the MC. Like it was smart to write in ANOTHER reason for the MC to talk to themselves.) just pointed out that the MC is oblivious to their surroundings because of the amount of time they spend thinking to themselves.

So Day 2, we've done introductions and already loads of scenarios where the MC is essentially Disney's Goofy character, tripping over himself mentally and fixing his figurative hat while saying, "Gorsh, h'yuk!" But since he's the only male on an all female ship - naturally at least 3 of the ladies has verbally thrown themselves at him and 1 just tried to physically, but got interrupted.

Renders are fine. I have no idea about animations, but those are hard, so if they're missing it's not a big deal for me. And I mute music immediately, so no comment there. No amateur VA's or AI Voiced theatrics either, but I also immediately mute those. I know I'm in the minority here, but these are Visual Novels. Adding visuals to a novel. All these gimmicks getting added, unless they are well done, is a crutch to make up for a lack of talent in the NOVEL portion.

I will update this as I consume more.
--
Day 3 Complete:


Rampant bullshitting/trolling, while littering phrases to reassure that they are totally not empty, vacuous lines. ("Honestly, if I'm being honest, to be honest, to be fair, not gonna lie...") Half his answers in the Elysium questions were what a total tool would say. Do you have trade skills? "You mean other than my winning personality and cute smile?" Committed any crimes? "The only crime I've ever committed was caring too much, Ishani." THESE WERE BACK TO BACK in the script. Immediately followed by Yacht Club and "strange anecdote" addict Sasha.

This is the equivalent of a rag mag (National Enquirer, Star Magazine - think "I gave birth to an Alien baby!" headlines). The entire cast can't be based on utilizing weak humor as their way of handling awkward moments or stress. And they aren't even totally using it that way. Half the time, I think they supposed to be charming or witty when they're doing this, but it just comes off like they're all used car or insurance sales people.

So, renders are a chore. If you love doing them, I imagine they're less of a chore. But even when you're buying or using free assets, setting, posing, lighting and rendering is a pain. I respect anyone that puts in the time for these. So the renders are generally all be fine for me. You can see where corners are cut for this game, but like I said, still get my respect.

===Day 4 Complete
There is animation! It's well done. It feels like different people do the animations vs the static images, but I can understand that because animations are at least 2-3 times more work and time, which is why there are no animations in "Grandma's House". So if there are animations and only one artist, then you're getting roughly half the amount of static renders you could be getting per update. Keep that in mind when you want to whine about how "small" an update is.

I like Sci-Fi and Harem games, so I had to give this one a try.

As Sci-Fi it is a disappointment: while the action is supposedly taking place on a spaceship, the setting is so thin that I find myself expecting to learn the characters are actually on the set of a reality Sci-Fi porn show, rather than flying through space.

It does somewhat better as a harem: there are numerous LIs of various body types, ages and personalities.

The LIs come in two basic varieties: over-the-top comedic characters and straight-(wo)men. The MC falls mostly into the comedic side: pumping up and riffing off the comedy characters, at the expense of the straight-(wo)men. Some of the resulting dialog can be fun to read--for awhile--though after a few hundred-thousand lines of it you may want to tear your eyes out. When the MC is trying to play it straight the dialog is boring, or just cringe.

The MC has an AI running in his head, which can communicate with him mentally, as well as project images of itself into his visual field. It is hideous to look at, and the dialog with it is firmly in the cringe category. It reminds of the character Jar Jar Binks, from Star Wars.

As I write, there are 19 days of story written. Here is how a day will typically go:

1. The MC wakes, then has a long annoying internal dialog with Jar Jar while we look at a single render of him staring at the wall.

2. The MC logs into his laptop, at which point the player gets to spend an hour or two catching up on the ship’s chat between the girls, as well as messaging and having long conversations with whichever ones are online: hours of dialog with no renders at all. As the days pass, additional features are added to this interface, like exciting sliding-picture games! This can all be skipped, fortunately, but if you do so the MCs actions that day won’t make sense.

3. The MC logs off chat and heads out into the ship to fulfill errands and appointments made while messaging the girls. He will meet up with a LI or two, engage in an hour or so of banter with them (depending on the player’s reading speed), frequently interrupted by comments from Jar Jar. This could end in a sex scene with a few simple-animated sequences. Then he might move on to repeat this sequence a time or two before turning in for the night.

4. Before sleep the MC has a long dialog with Jar Jar, in which they review the day’s encounters: in case you had skipped through the graphical versions and just wanted to read a summary. These are largely skipable, fortunately.

5. The MC goes to sleep and has a dream sequence in which he remembers some things that his amnesia had been hiding, followed by more commentary from Jar Jar. Finally we move on to the next day, and do it all over again.

If the idea of reading endless dialog between the MC and various LIs appeals to you, this is your game. I have played a lot of AVNs, but this easily has the highest lines-of-dialog to render ratio I’ve seen.

I think a decent game could be made of this with some hacking: lose about 90% of the dialog, dump the Jar Jar character--or at least make it taciturn and pleasing to look at, tighten up the sci-fi aspects, tone down some of the over-the-top comedy characters, have more of the communication taking place in person instead of via the online chat interface. As is, I could only recommend it to those who love reading endless cheesy dialog punctuated by a handful of renders.

It's a really good game. I always like a good Sci-Fi setting.

The story premise is fun, exciting and mysterious. The MC wakes up on a all female space ship called Endurance on its way to a different planet. For unknown reasons the space ship was hacked by someone on the ship and thus the arrival was severly delayed and people started awakening from cryo-stasis. The whole plot is about figuring out why the MC is on the ship and about who hacked the space ship and why.

There are a lot of different LIs on that ship and all of them are very likeable and fun. Renders are HQ and hot. I like the laptop segment in the morning of each day, because it helps getting to understand all of the girls better.


I don't like the Vespera and club Aegis flashbacks, because it distracts from the main plot around the AI and the situation on the Endurance and it just becomes too much backstory in total (for me).

I also didn't like one of the choices we had to make during the game ...

All in all I'd recommend this game. So far it's a nice Sci-Fi harem game with a lot of great characters. And if you don't like something there are always options to skip it. I wish all the best for this games development.

This is an AMAZING game!!!!
Great characters, renders, plotline, object and scenery assets, significant decision trees with REAL consequences!
This game is repeatable for a few playthroughs. The Major Choices and branching paths make the experience different, but some overlapping scenes due to your past.
My ONLY suggestion is to have the AI take a human form during the nightly 'recaps' and have them as sexual scenes. Not the 'wham bam' type. But just 1 position for a few dialogue posts, changing perspectives between the new angle for back and forth depending upon who's talking. Then a new position to continue the discussion, and after a few positions, have him nut inside of her to finish the discussion.
This would also be EXTREMELY useful during his "recalls" of the past, instead of PAIGE just sticking her finger in his head. Maybe have her stick her finger in his butt, or him suck on her nipple (or BOTH!) to initiate the recall, and then his orgasm ending the recall.
There is also a lot of unnecessary dialogue throughout the game, but I understand this narrative choice and it doesn't detract from the experience AT ALL. It just means a lot of clicking to advance while reading.
The flirtatious ripostes get a bit tiring, but again, I understand the choice. It's just for a long game, they become tedious.
Overall, I give it 5+ stars. Absolutely BRILLIANT game. Up in my top 5 games so far. (I've played about 80+.)

2. For the premise and models.

It *could* have been good. But for all the fucking blather. Nothing but fucking blather. Guy thinks he's writing witty repartee. It is nothing but puerile juvenilism and insufferable personalities. NONE OF WHICH YOU HAVE A CHOICE OVER GETTING INVOLVED WITH. Fuck, I'd raise my rating to 5 if we were just allowed to space Kasumi and Camilla.

This is a purely kinetic, trying to pass itself off as not being one by it's mAjOr ChOiCeS. Which are just deciding who you're going to wake up and have inflicted on you.

Just on the last update alone, holding CTRL 80% of the time, at least, it took me OVER THREE HOURS TO WADE THROUGH ALL THE BLATHER. Stopping periodically to sample. This game is every insufferable ass, who is in love with their own voice and just wont SHUT THE FUCK UP, we ever grew up with and wanted to strangle.

THREE HOURS.

Fuck this noise.

If you want to play an insufferable simp who thinks he's all that and a bag of chips, this simp simuluator is right up your alley.

+ renders & animations
+ models are unique
+ story at some point become interesting..

-..but you have to wait 20 years before that happen
- poorly done romance and relationship stuff
- tons of uninteresting conversations, some are very very long and they are not funny. Just get to the fucking point.. omg. MC is also super annyoing in many of them. He generally is a fucking idiot and simp for some girls, especially toward Camila. His desperation to fuck her is pathetic
- pseudo harem, at some point you have to choose x or y girl. There is few "choices" like this. You also can't see all content/lewd scenes in one playthrough like in a normal harem game
- cocblocking.. yea.. that's what we love
- forced lesbian content and uncontrollable lesbian tendencies - like girls lusting after each other, etc. Dev decided to make every girl BI. Step by step he realize that idiotic plan. You can't prevent it, no choice in the matter. Too bad if you don't like it - middle finger for you dear player
- forced sharing content. MC constantly encourage girls to be together and do "other" things. Key word here is he/MC doing this, not me (player) again no fucking choices in that matter. So.. you want to keep girls for yourself? nah, you can't do that
- music, absolutely no variety there. Same song all the time. A little difference is only during lewd scenes

Game without any important choices when it comes to relationships - total disaster and unacceptable thing. It's rare these days to see something like that in this genre. I don't recommended this game. 1 star

I don't understand the high rating of this game. If the rating was average, I could maybe have given it 2 stars. I played 6 of the 19 days currently available in the game and I was bored out of my mind the whole time.


The worst problem was the ai in MC's head. It is annoying and hideous and it appears its only mission is to hinder any normal conversation or though the MC has

The animations and sex scenes that I have accessed were below average, not immersing, not fun nor a little bit exciting.

The story had a good premise, but it never reached its full potential in the bit I played. MC just wanders and speaks with the LIs without trying to pull his way or actually helping with the stranded situation. He is useless outside the fact that he is a man and has a cock and wants to fuck. Situation that is worsen by the fact that he is mostly passive in achieving this goal, always waiting for the girls to take the initiative and tease him.

The messaging up UI looks nice but is a nightmare, the very long boring conversations has to be advanced by clicking continue with the mouse. If there was a key in the keyboard that could fulfil this task maybe it would be less of a chore, but probably not do to the meaningless content of the conversations.

Sorry but I would not recommend this game. If it gets better in the later days, the first part should go through a complete rework to make it less painful to go through it and the whole AI in the brain should be deleted.

I came to this game for the MILF content so I skipped like 95% of the whole thing including the myriads of text spent on the messaging app, not only because of my kink but 'cause I quickly lost interest in the story as I found there was only the usual bunch of generic girls in the damned place until much later in the storyline. I'm sure they have interesting personalities and could become even likeable provided I had weeks to spend reading their cr** but really, I couldn't care less. The generic and mostly repetitive sex scenes (which again I skipped most of the time) didn't help.

Will all that said, the bits related to Claire are possibly the hottest and best written scenes I remember in a videogame involving a stepmom. I fell in love on the spot at each scene with her. All the endless grinding and boredom with the cheerleaders is worth enduring just to get there. I'd take her and her sister onboard and eject most of those annoying schoolgirls down a chute without a second thought, is all I'm saying. I'd sign up for a one-way trip to the Sun with them both.

This would be an instant 5-star game if the game revolved around the older females only. Keeping it realistic, I'd suggest either adding a "skip" button in the messaging app or severely cutting down what I consider way too many filling material, but I suppose that's just me. I don't want to sound unappreciative for all the work involved but seriously, spamming LMB to read tons and tons of tiny text (and this on a desktop PC) isn't my idea of fun.

believable harem premise of a single guy on a ship of women. I'm only on day 5 but I like the quirky characters - some overtly horny, others seemingly not interested, others looking for a "relationship" etc. I find the dialog amusing and the renders very good.

Great story, great artstyle, great content. One of the few games where its not just about the sex scenes, even though they're great. I geniunely like all the characters and how they interact, because they feel real and fleshed out . Waiting for the next update to continue being amazing

Uggh, where to start, you got almost no choices that are fun and if you don't like one of the LI that is too bad you are going to do things with them anyways. Worst part is I think the 2 best looking of the bunch are the two sisters and you are forced to choose one or the other. I really hate being forced to choose between the only ones i really want to see in scenes. That is why even though i like 2 of them i am forced to choose 1 or the other and to have LIs i am not interested in being forced on me; make this a 1 star game. Harem game where you can't even pick the two you want to be in the Harem.

I really not a fan of sandbox games, but this kind of harem dating sim game really would be better off as sandbox, instead of on rails, bang em all, even if you have zero interest in them, AVNs.

Best thing a sandbox would offer is CHOICE. Need some choices man. Some of these ladies just kill my boner.
Renders are pretty decent.
Needs sexy sounds in the lewd scenes.
Dialogue, writing, character building, are all above average if a bit excessive.

Just breaks the number one rule of a decent harem game. Gotta be able to choose your crew bro.

I know game is not done yet, but as it has progressed, I just liked some of the ladies less and less. Nice that there is a skip sex scene button but would be much better if it could actually not happen.
Beta sub-MC is so into consent, but what about the players consent? I really don't consent to banging some of these ladies, I just don't like them.

Oh well, moving on.

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.