VN - Ren'Py - Stray Incubus [S2 Ch.3a] [IP Studios]

Someone already said what is wrong with the latest content/dev switch, so I'll try to keep my gripe short. Quality has plummeted, and the content is nonexistent, especially with the 7 months IP had it for. You can tell when the switch was made. And it made seeing the difference all the more clear.

There are no more animations; it's now just a slideshow. Not to mention, feels like they traded character detail with saturated lighting to compensate or something. The quality just isn't the same.

I'll gladly change my mind if they go back and polish up. But my hot take is if this is how it's going to be moving forward, then it might as well be abandoned. Especially since they stated they plan to rework some of the previous season. That sounds like cutting content and downgrading to me.

Old dev's substantial content: low 5 stars
New devs' content (after the first dev abandoned the project): 1 star

The new devs have basically shown they have what it takes (in terms of quality renders) to keep this at a 4 or 5 star level if they so choose, but their first "effort" was extremely poor. If they simply took time to visually illustrate what's alledgedly happening (combat/sex/other), this could still be fantastic, but they couldn't be bothered to create necessary renders or animations. We've got non-existent fights, non-existent blowjobs, non-existent lapdances, non-existent kisses, non-existent sex, couples undressing each other without ever approaching each other...

Sometimes, they illustrated 10% of what was necessary, but other times it was 0%. On at least one occassion, they tried to play the non-existent scene off as a joke (one-sided sparring match ending before it began), but it wasn't funny, and it only became less funny over time as it became obvious they simply weren't going to illustrate much of anything.

This lack of illustration is nearly all-encompassing. You don't show a man and woman in an amorous embrace in a pool immediately followed by a render of her standing well outside the pool telling him goodbye. You show her pulling away from him. You show her getting out of the pool. But no, they just don't want to do any work.

I do get that, as new devs just learning the ropes, it might take them a long time to create visual content. My suggestion would be to create proper scenes and update less often. If it takes them five years between updates, so be it, but don't do this horseshit where you simply refuse to illustrate the action.

If they choose to do this properly next time, I will adjust my rating accordingly.

Lesser problems:


* Melodramatic music is repeatedly miscategorized as something other than "music," so you have to turn off "sound" if you don't like it. It may be best to keep it off. I turned it back on to hear kissing sounds when two people's faces were a good distance away from each other.

* If you load an old save, the old dev's content will not unlock in the gallery.

As to the old dev, he was basically the opposite. All action (combat/sex/other) was thoroughly illustrated and often animated at a high level. He did a nice job combining sex/humor/story/combat. He did have a couple weak points, though:

* His knowledge of Greek mythology was terrible, which is very odd since the story revolves very heavily around Greek mythology. For example, he treated "Keres" as both a singular noun and a title, when it is neither. He also portrayed Keres as good and powerful when they were neutral-to-bad but essentially powerless by tradition.

* Phenomena such as architecture, furniture, and categories of people (e.g. ninjas) span multiple millennia across the globe. This is not a time travel VN. The dev simply refused to stick to any one coherent setting. He might have come across a lot of art assets that didn't work together well and just decided to have fun by making it as incoherent as possible.

I played for about 50 minutes the first season.
This may be the worst VN in F95. Let's be real, this is not a "sex game" and that's ok, my rating is not over this.
The models are beatiful and pleasing to look at. The writing and dialogs are... bad, above average for sex games, but still pretty bad.
For 50 minutes there's no sex scenes, but the girls are pretty, the writing is passable... but...
There's no objective, no goal, things just happen, disconnected, feels surreal even. Girls are assholes to MC for no reason, so he can feel righteous, but trully MC is a pussy that does nothing and everything that happens happens to him and never by him.

- That's my review, below only a rant -

When I came to review I saw the 'abandoned' tag, and kinda the universe fell in place, I'm amazed this went on for so long, how do you create a "game" about nothing for all this time? People, this should be a sex game about an incubus having lots of sex all the time, right? How could you fuck up so bad? Four and a half stars in over 160 reviews? My god! This is zero stars 100% sure.

One of my favorite VNs. I can't believe this gem is got abandoned!!! Good thing some other team took it. Lets see how it goes.
But still, in current stage, this game has plenty of contents and with each chapter, it gets better and better and hotter and hotter. And I rarely find scenes hot!
And not to forget the immersion and the depth in the characters and the story. If this had no sex, I would still enjoyed the story and character(even though the sex makes it multiple times better and more immersive(realistic) to me.)
Would give it a 4.6 but that's not possible. So, 5 it is.

Brilliant game. Really loved every bit of it till season 2. Its sad to see it being abandoned now, since it felt like a real gem to me when I first found it and played it. Would have loved to know how the story goes, maybe one day the dev will come back and continue his work. But for now this game will remain as one of the few gems that I really enjoyed in a long time. Thanks for making the game

Stray Incubus is a long visual novel made by Flynn, now abandoned during the development of chapter two. It’s said that a new pair of devs picked up the project and are yet to show any progress. The story is about a young incubus, unique of his race, with unique powers, and unique past, living in a land of ninjas, monsters, and greek gods. Protagonist decides to train and be able to fight the perils of this strange and wonky world alongside many pretty girls and the obvious follows. Besides the visual novel aspects, the game also has a relationship counter that rises with certain choices and will unlock scenes with the girls around you. This mechanic isn’t deeply explored, seemingly almost pointless since you can not miss on points throughout the game. The story ranges from mysticism, horror, and bits of comedy and levity, making it a little confusing to what the heart of the writing is about. It's a very chaotic and overall messy story with many elements being dropped and never being relevant again. The mixing of ninjas and greek mythology certainly does not fit properly, and the weird missions and sideline quests they go for thousands of panels instead of a more centered story hurts the pacing immensely. On top of that, the player is overwhelmed by random visions, nightmares, mysticalisms, dreams, illusions, and every other exposition trope known. Using the Honey Select engine, Flynn created a diverse set of beautiful models, varying in size, body type, and color, while utilizing all available tools, all of them specialized on being cute or being hot. The scenes are also very well done, with good camera panels and different angles allowing you to absorb the scene in its totality. The engine is still limited for certain animations, seemingly flimsy and peppered with clipping. Flynn decided to develop his game focused on quantity instead of quality. The game presents sixteen romanceable girls with multiple stats to grow and a bunch of random encounters in between. Obviously, as in with every other visual game that does this, all the characters lack development. When there are too many girls in a visual novel, you can expect most of them to be sidelined without reason, to be forgotten, and to all of them feel like they don’t have enough scenes with the protagonist. Even if Flynn had reduced to half the total, it would still be an enormous work to develop them. This necessity for overwork after the frame is already established usually ends up in the developer burning out and abandoning the project, Stray Incubus being another example. If the developer had focused more on a few characters with deeper dialogue and a single, cohesive story instead of trying to cover multiple genres and quests, Stray Incubus would have been a significantly better visual novel and Flynn wouldn’t have faced such an exhausting task.

Reviewing as of completing chapter one.

Stray Incubus has a good amount of diverse writing within. It balances story, humor, and lustful scenes pretty well.
The animations are pretty good quality, and the models while looking similar to each other are at the very least, high quality.
Can't really fault the protagonist of the game for having magic penis syndrome because it's kinda built in biologically. (See, INCUBUS) Additionally, I'd like to mention that all the girls do have a sense of uniqueness. The girls feel like individual personalities, and not just a model with a stereotype.

The game doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's a fun romp. I've enjoyed the story so far. There are some horror elements to it, and some jump scares which I did not expect in a smut game.

The only reason it isn't a 5 star game is because I feel like there's still a roughness to the game. There are some moments where the game cuts from one scene to another seemingly mid-scene that's a little jarring. In the beginning the cutaway vignettes are a little too close together, breaking immersion. (Also, tiny gripe, but it's hard to take a character named Candy seriously. There are some great names in the game, but there are a few strange choices as well.

Tl;dr- It's a fun game, with power-fantasy aspects. Good models, great animations. Needs some polish but far above average.

Don't know what's happened between the dev('s?) but I hope nothing but the best for all involved. It's a good game, and it's got potential.

This is one of those games where it starts off pretty crappy but you can see the developer improve drastically the further you play as the writing and renders get better with each update. The story revolves around an incubus being raised by an Olympian warrior after his race was massacred. After being sheltered all his life, he randomly decides to be a ninja in the ninja village and pretty much the story follows his adventures in getting to know other women and his true upbringing and becoming more powerful. The author is pretty good at making horror themed chapters. There's a good variety of women and good sex scenes. A lot of the story beats are stereotypical anime plot writing. The design of the women also changes throughout the game too. In season 2, the story starts feeling rushed. Overall, it's a nice romp and worth a play.

Just heard this is being abandoned. Very sad to hear. This one hurts. The game is amazing! Good plot, decent mini games, great humor, good variety of characters and sex scenes, and nive world building. This seriously was one of the best VNs out there. Seriously hope the dev either changes his mind, of someone else picks it up at some point. This game is way to good to die!

Google Translate: The game is great, you can see the love that went into the creation of the characters and the story with its humorous and dark nuances, and you can't compare what I know about the creator; he did it for the love of art as the last vestige of life.

A great game and a great VN. I have been following it since day 1. Good writing, great models and animations and a very interesting story. The dev has been doing a really good job so far, can't wait to see future updates.

Season 1 ending too rushed, along with season 2 start. Personally ruined it for me. The pacing was amazing through the season 1 and I hope it get's better. Also the transition between scenes and settings has gotten waay rougher in the ending. Please take the time to make the game dev, these small things break immersion

First Review i've ever made but This one deserves it.

Patience is a virtue and Stray incubus heeds that saying to the letter. First few chapters may not hook you in but if you persevere, you will be rewarded. It's astonishing how much better, especially in visuals,the game becomes throughout the chapters. More importantly, it does so without causing a whiplash effect.

why not the 5 stars: Those first few chapters, especially 1 and 2 are rough. I would give 4.5 but I don't know how xD. Honestly, I am glad someone mentioned this on a server i'm on and i'm glad I tried it out.Stray incubus is a gem that deserves more attention

Story is great (athena depiction is especially good), the world building while not too deep isn't also shallow. My suspense of disbelief wasn't harmed in the playing of this game. Characters are unique and stand out and while I don't like all them, I can see how one would like them.

A promosing game with a promising Dev, I can't say much more

(if I've done something wrong with this review, my sincerest apologies)

One of the best action/fantasy VNs at this site, without a question.
A bit rough at the beginning but picks up very fast, quality improves
significantly from episode to episode.

The world building is a mixed bag of Greek mythology, classic fantasy, a bit modern world and... ninjas, yep. And somehow it works, really well.

Models, characters, scenes, story, animations and writing are all very good.

The Dev has a talent for fighting scenes.

I was a bit unsure while playing through chapter 1 but very glad I perservered. You can definitely tell this dev cares about his work and strives to improve in all areas.

Love the characters as they each feel unique and have some personality about them, and I am definitely enjoying the story that comes through.

Maybe starting the game at 2am was a bad idea... didn't sleep till 10am... so worth it though! Definitely can't wait for future updates and definitely cemented itself as one of my favourites (as proven by me leaving a review)

Version Reviewed: S2 Ch.2a

Overview: Get your black belt in fucking

Story: Hold on to your pants, this game has quite a bit of original storytelling. It's way beyond the typical sisterfucker style game. The protagonist is not only an Incubus, but also a Greek demigod. And yes, more Greek gods appear throughout the storyline. The protagonist joins a Naruto-esque ninja village and goes to Ninja school that operates like a combination of a strip mall Karate school and a mercenary outfit. It is at this school where he meets most of the women of the village, each with their own personality and distinctive character design. Most of the characters even get some backstory and characterization.

The storylines mostly consist of going on "missions" and usually solving some mystery and getting into a fight or two. Between missions you attend "class" and do some training.

This is not a game where you want to hold CTRL and skip the story. It's actually worth reading.

Graphics: Honey Select graphics, but with effort into making each character distinctive. The sex scenes are well rendered and even animated at times.

Sexual content: This is one of those games that tries to include as many fetishes as it can. You do get a do/do not prompt before each sex scene so if there is something you don't like you can skip it. One great thing is that it doesn't make you wait too long between scenes. This is not one of those VNs that fillibusters the sex content when the dev gets too wrapped up in the story.

Gameplay: There isn't a lot. It's mostly a VN, but there are some minigames of middling fun. The game also keeps track of various stats for each character, but it's not clear to me if those stats ever matter. At least one of the minigames is really hard, a BDSM "interrogation" minigame near the end of the first part just has too many options for random guessing and too little feedback. I had to look up a solution in this thread.

Conclusion: This is a cut above almost every pornogame. There is no reason to not give this a spin.

Honestly, I'm shocked this game isn't more popular, definitely one of the best I've played. I don't usually review things, but damn, this game is good, the setting, the characters, the relationships it's all exactly how I like it. Only slight misgiving I can say, is not being able to see all content in one playthrough. However, I am aware this is a personal criticism. Keep up the good work, can't wait to see more of this game and the future ones you will make.

I think almost a whole year ago, I got halfway through a review for this game that I never ended up posting because I thought it 'deserved more words'. Lmao, who cares how flowery I make my review, right?
This game is seriously great guys. I'll admit that when I first played it, it was a rocky start and took me a few tries to get into it, but when I did oh man I was hooked. Lots of late nights that have fucked me up the next day because I couldn't stop playing.
As I said the story's start is a bit rough around the edges, MC sometimes looks like a twink shota lol, wears a comically large beanie to hide his pointy ears that look goofy, and some dialogue feels a bit stiff. But this all changed very very fast.
But I'm not gonna dwell on that because the story comes together quite fast.

Find yourself thrust into a world of so many differing fantasy elements that you SHOULD get headspins, but instead, it's all smooth, immersive and fascinating. Greek mythos, demons, magic, all manners of fantasy elements and... Ninjas? Oh fuck yeah.

Most VNs either keep a small main cast with side character support or accidentally bog themselves down with too many prominent characters and story threads. Im happy to tell you that Stray Incubus has not fallen to that trap. Never have I encountered a story with so many differing characters that all manage to be unique and interesting in their own ways. With their own personalities, flaws and interests. And importantly of course is MEMORABLE. With each update I still remember who everyone is despite not playing for a few months, and for someone as forgetful as me I find that impressive.

Of course outside of my praise for the plot (without spoiling the story) The game has great and ever-improving render and animation quality. High-effort sound design, music and effects. A beautiful and effective balance between light and endearing comedic moments and suspenseful, dramatic events.
And of course, to the relief of many players, I'm sure, absolutely SUPERB lewd sequences. Of course with an Incubus MC, you will not be disappointed there because holy shit some of these scenes are crazy. I've honestly had this game tickle kinks I didn't even know I had lol, but that's bordering on TMI.

Great game, highly recommend, should get and play.
Lots of love xx

i love all the characters and how its made that you can see their emotions, the eternum references , character details, the story is very good and original. and so many things, can't wait for S3, keep up the good job

This game is one of my favourites. The visuals are a little dated, and aren't as impressive as some of the more recent renpy games, but this more than makes up for it with its engaging story, great humour (that always seems to fit the mood and not ruin it), incredible characters, great music and surprisingly enjoyable fight scenes (considering its shonen battles). My only complaint is the slow pace of updates (I might die of old age before the story finishes), but it's one dev making it, and that's life. 10/10, highly recommended