VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - Summer Camp [v0.005] [snow squirrel]

I'm giving five stars because I absolutely loved the art and the comedy elements of this game, both remind me a lot of animated tv series ''Archer'' (which I'm a huge fan of) though obviously with completely different settings and characters.

Art is great, there aren't many animations at the moment but they look very nice, story and characters development are obviously work in progress but are showing a lot of promise in my opinion. Hope to see more games like this.

This game is unique in both its art and its storytelling humor. It is quirky and odd but entertaining and visually interesting. While it does have some room for improvement, the author has been experimenting with new rendering, storytelling, and comedy techniques as he updates the game. I would gladly give this game a 4.5 star review if I could, but as it does have significant room to grow yet, I am stuck with only a 4.

I would have to give this a 4* because I like the unique art style, it's pretty cool and unique and has good and well-done animations. The setting itself is also pretty cool and I like it. The biggest issue for me is the story and how confusing following a bullet point conversation is, this is something that can be worked on a fixed and that's what I'm hoping for in the future.

Best of luck to the developer.

I wrote this after playing version 0.004.

"Objectively speaking", it's not very good. Subjectively, it's great. It's a big blur about girls, sexuality, discovery, etc. Reminds me of those days when the world was confusing and new and even my closest friends surprised me in new ways and stuff. I can ignore the... writing and just let the general vibe of it wash over me.

I really want this to be a game about those first baby gay experiences. It'd be niche but great. For now it's just a shell for me to project memories onto.

Ok, four stars is me being really generous. I will get to that at the end though.

First, the good:
The art style is not great, but not bad either. I got used to it really fast.
The models look like what teenagers would realistically look like.
Animations are OK. Not a huge fan, but then again, they are OK for what they do, which is visualize the scene without using text. That is important because...

The bad:
... the text is bad. The dialogue is wooden, often confusing (who talks when?) and littered with mistakes. I hope the dev gets at least someone to proofread for them.
The plot/story is weird, but not in a good way. I jumps from normal teenagers fooling around to supernatural intermissions and back again, for no reason. There is no storyline so far, and I think if one develops, it will be among the worst ever seen.
Many of the choices are redundant, and feel like they were offered for no reason whatsoever. Most choices are about rewatching an animation, going to the next one, or changing perspective. All of those could be done by just stringing those animations together one after the other, and if the player wants to rewatch something, just let them use the mousewheel to go back (which is already possible).

Those negatives heavily outweigh the positives right now, and I dont know if they will be fixed. The game has potential to go down to two stars...

...but I give it four stars. I see massive potential; the art style/rendering method used lends itself to rapid development, even if the dev does not put a lot of effort in, it will still look decent. Should be several times easier to set a scene and render it than in comparable games.
Paired with the nonsensical story and wonky characters, I expect the game to swell up in content rapidly, which is why I give it four stars. I actually like the lesbian scenes, and hope for more escalation on that front (bondage, sextoys, maybe some kinkier fetishes).

Here are some concrete suggestions, on top of what I wrote above:
- color coordinate the dialogue with the girls hair colors. Give the blonde yellow text, the brown haired one brown text, the ginger orange text, and kitty maybe purple (her kitty shirt outlines the cat purple, and its close to black). Or name the girls and dialogueboxes.
- get rid of the "next scene" choices. Just string them together, perspectives as well. You already have a scene gallery and rollback is enabled.
- get someone to proofread the dialogue. Send me a private message, I might do it myself, at least for the next couple versions.
- the nonsensical over the top comedy is great, because you dont have to fuss over the plot and things dont have to make sense. Try to get some story or subplots going though, right now you have a bunch of random scenes that feel like they have no purpose at all.

I look forward to future updates.

This project has potential to be great if worked on by staying true to it's vision. Dev needs to gape open up more of his/her creativity or find more influences to make this project a more rich, exciting and inviting creation for it to successfully float through time.