VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Sunshine Love [Ch. 3 v1.01i Extras] [MrDots Games]

A hard one to rate I think.

I mean, it's a Mr Dots game so in terms of build quality it's unmatched. Beautiful game both in terms of renders and UI/UX. The story writing is solid and the characters interact exactly as you'd imagine.

The thing is.... the story. It's layered which again is a sign of quality but the main issue I have is the premise is the MC going away from his girlfriend to a completely different place and is now a "cock amongst the chickens" as it were and you can now flirt with everyone and just generally live out any males fantasy..... but he's still with his girlfriend. The girlfriend is written in such a way that you feel there's something going on there, almost like she regrets being with the MC but at the same time you can see how she's having doubts about the MC leaving to go to work at the hotel.

So..... the MC is still obviously attached to the girlfriend, but with all the flirting and what not going on he's running the risk of coming off as unlikeable who's just out to get his dick wet. The girlfriend hasn't done anything (so far) to warrant the MC straying with any number of the women you're introduced to. They haven't broken up, she's not cheated on him or kicked him out or basically done anything REALLY mean to him. This unfortunately means the game feels like it's being held back. When playing it, everything you do kinda finishes with "oh yeah, he's still got a girlfriend". Yeah sure it's hinted she's a bit overbearing but it's not so far gone that you'd go "well to hell with the girlfriend, I'm going to break free and enjoy life".

As I said, a hard one to rate. Maybe I've just not played it enough. Maybe the girlfriend uses the time away to break up with the MC on her own accord. Certainly it seems like the most logical option from a story point of view as it then frees the game up to really get up to speed. But until that point the game will always run the risk of making the MC a bit of a dick. Which is odd cause Mr Dots games tend to avoid that whole issue.

(v0.0.3i)

The game starts off with an excessively long flashback that explains the background of your character. When we finally get to the present day, we find out that the player character is rather pathetic. He has a girlfriend who he can't satisfy, a job he gets fired from, and then he gets suckered into moving away for a new job that isn't what was promised.

The gameplay is weak. You are given a handful of multiple choice responses where one response will be the correct choice to make a character like you, and the others immediately let you know that you made the wrong choice and should probably just roll back and try again. There are a couple of minor choices where you can prioritize one woman over another, but the game has been very linear so far. There's also an ongoing minigame of spotting donuts to unlock bonus renders, but that is more annoying than fun.

Most of the characters look far younger than they should. There is a 41 year old who looks twenty, a 24 year old who looks as if someone took a child's head and grafted it onto an adult's body, an 18 year old who looks 14, and another 18 year old who looks 12. I hate it when characters are designed to look underage, so having two of them in the game is a huge negative.

Most of the love interests don't interest me at all. The loli stuff creeps me out, the half sister is a selfish liar, the church girl is a recycled character, your girlfriend doesn't respect you, the twins are both so dull that I can't tell them apart, and I'm not too keen on the ex-stepmom. So that only leaves three women I'm interested in, one of whom is underutilized and another who is barely in the game at all.

On top of all these other problems, the game is boring. Really, really, boring. The dialogues are dry and much of the game is spent on mundane activities that should be glossed over. There are gameplay segments on how to make a taco, how to organize a social event, how to repair a shower head, and how to properly check in a hotel guest. What's next? How to mow the lawn? How to change a flat tire? How to get players to fall asleep in front of their computers?

Really enjoying this one... Great models, fun interactions ans story, Keep up the great work... I will be looking forward to more... Like the references to Melody and especially love the quality of the models in this one...

Version: v0.0.3i

Review:
I can’t understand how a game like this that has a high rendering quality is so silly and very childish, you must be wondering why I'm saying this, I'll answer you, there are a lot of silly things about this game that don't seem to be a porn game. Peeping Tom and Donut gallery are the stupidest things a porn game would have, do not take me wrong, but this is a waste of time. I'm not going to talk much about your previous games, but your last one was painful to play, if it weren't for the walkthrough mod I never would have played and your first one I couldn't even enjoy the other chapters. But it seems that it ended up repeating itself, and when we play Sunshine Love, we expect something hotter and slutty, but we are faced with such a boring story and such a bad gameplay that it is quite discouraging to want to continue even though the female renderings are very good , but it's still not surprising. Honestly, I don't see this game as a porn game, I know it is still in the beginning and there is still a long, long time left for it to be complete, but honestly, what a discouraging start.
History:
The introduction could be much shorter, because I wasted my time reading the beginning of the story, in general, the story is reasonable, as there will be nothing that will hold your attention. But it may be that things change, if the proposal of the hotel management is really something interesting, if not, do not expect much because it will be the same boring as the previous game.
Gameplay:
One of the points that I was disappointed is the gameplay of the game. But why? Because certain things are ridiculous. Peeping Tom can be fun, you will see the girls in their bras/panties, without clothes (sometimes not even that), etc. But at the same time it gives the impression that we are only in an erotic game and it ends up being a little annoying. And the donuts? you need to find donuts (it is not mandatory) to unlock images in the gallery, as there are two images galleries and one of scenes, but honestly, this is ridiculous and a waste of time, because again it does not seem to be a porn game but an erotic one. About the choices, well, it's the same as in the previous games, a right choice will increase a point with the character, so nothing different.
Graphics & Sexual Content:
The graphics are good, but the big highlight is the renderings of the models of the female characters. Yes, they have improved a lot if we compare to other previous games. The sex scenes and animations, the scenes are still few, very few and the animations are reasonable, nothing surprising but nothing that is bad or anything like that, are good. But what made me upset about the content is that there’s not even a little moan in sex, I don't know why, but the game has some SFX sounds and a really annoying song but there is no sound at the time of the fuck. This is really bad, very bad.

So, why I did gave 2 stars?
There are a lot of bad things about this game, and I don't understand why porn games are being created that way. I just talked about some critical points, if I was going to talk about more things the review would be really huge. So, the game was far below my expectations, because I expected something better, something that we thought "this is a good start to a new porn game" but it is not. Certain things the developer seems to be afraid of imposing, I don't know, maybe it's that cousin (girl) of the MC? why can't we see your naked body in the peeping tom? Not that I'm like a dog with its tongue out wanting to see, but certain things in the game seem to be very meaningless, something that only you when you play or that you played noticed. Anyway, I expected more from this game, because many things I saw that it was a waste of time, maybe if the game was more objective, that he was more to the point, that things were not as slow as the game is shown. Unfortunately, I do not think it is unfair to give such a low rating, maybe in the future it will improve, but frankly, the previous game was not very comfortable to play, will this be the same? Therefore, I hope that in future updates the game will start to be a porn game and not an erotic silly game.

Just finished v.3 and I gotta say its kinda getting there, but still, the first three hours is the Slowest of the Burns!!! I know Mr Dots Games so I trust that the investment in story will eventually pay off, but for now its just a slog of story and set up. I'm rating this 3 stars for now as it is, knowing it will eventually get to 5 star quality, probably in a year at this rate.....

Can I say though, the Worst thing about Mr Dot Games is, they probably make the BEST looking petite models in all of f95, but always focuses on the most generic looking Bimbos for main objective. I'm sure I'm the minority here, but Bimbo models are a dime a dozen. Girls like Cousin and Yuki are like diamonds, in a sea of lumpy (poorly drawn) coal.

More Cousin! More Yuki! Give us some Elana and Jennifer cameos! Next game All petites, make em all elves, no age factor! Down with balloon tits and Redonkulous asses!

Ever since I found out about this site I ended up playing a reasonable amount of bad games, but none, not even the worst ones I can think of are as offensively boring as this one. Well, that isn't entirely true, since I did try to slog through both of Mr. Dots' previous games, failing miserably and giving up after a good handful of hours out of sheer boredom. I'm all about second chances though, but sadly it seems that all the feedback he got from both DMD and Melody fell on deaf ears. Sunshine Love is plagued by the exact same issues that bog down its predecessors, the most glaring one being the abysmal quality of the writing.

I can't stress this enough, the dialogues between the cookie cutter characters, the inner monologues of the extremely unlikable MC, every written word of this game is simply unbearable to read. If this isn't your first Mr Dots title then you know exactly where I'm going with this: lines over lines of wordy prattle to express even the most basic of concepts, then more paragraphs of useless trivia and information, because everyone knows that more text = content right? It's not even a matter of style over substance, this is pure padding, and more to the point it is not how people talk in real life, not by a long shot. Reading through this game is like listening to someone who is deeply in love with the sound of his own voice rambling on and on ad infinitum. And the worst part is that all these words lead absolutely nowhere. I'm not even going to use the now infamous taco scene as an example. The bottom line is that there's no engaging story to be found here, no character development whatsoever, even after a time skip that goes well over ten years, for Christ's sake. In light of all these problems, it didn't take me long to realize that I was basically playing the same game I already tried to play twice, except under a fresh coat of paint.

The renders of Sunshine Love are most definitely high quality, the models are good and unique albeit a little bit plasticky for my taste. That is pretty much the only good thing I have to say about this slog of a game, and yet there's still something for me to whinge about even when it comes to its visuals. The facial expressions. Yep, you guessed it, they're the same from DMD and Melody. This may be a small nitpick to some, but I find it to be even more aggravating because (much to my annoyance) we get to see the MC's face a whole lot this time around, and seeing that trademark contrite, tight lipped look on his face after his umpteenth inner monologue got old really fast.

All I can say is this: there certainly is a level of consistency when it comes to this dev and the quality of his endeavours. Chances are, if for whatever reason you liked any of his previous stuff, you'll love this one as well. As for me, I think I've finally learned my lesson.

Version played: 0.0.3i Extras

I have enjoyed DMD quite a bit so far so I figured I'd give this one a try.

It is very much in the same vein as that game - similar themes and location (in fact they are directly related to each other with character crossovers as well, which includes DMD (complete with a Dee lookalike which tbh is kind of off-putting to me but I digress) and another game I haven't played), and the writing style is the same.

So that said, so far it is a really slow burn. Lots and lots of exposition and character information as you learn each of their situations. If you're here for a quick fap, you're not going to get it; there's a couple brief scenes near the beginning , a couple shorter "dreamscape" scenes throughout, and one (unfinished) one at the end of this current version, and in total it's a good 5 hours of play time if you're not blasting through text.

I like most of the characters, though like in DMD I am opting not to chase everyone, and the ones I picked seemed interesting enough, and the models all around look excellent. The animations and renders are quite good and I'd consider them "top tier" compared to other games I've personally played here.

There is a points system with each character - some dialogue choices earning or subtracting points from a specific character - but I am unsure what purpose this serves at this time. I usually use a walkthrough so as to eliminate guesswork to save time, and so far it seems that only choices as to timings of activities seem to block or access other choices - not the points system, though it might be utilized later on in the game.

You can also find "hidden" donuts in some scenes that unlock photos of some of the characters in various clothed and unclothed poses that you can view whenever, which is sort of fun. There is a walkthrough for this, but due to there being some branching story paths you'll end up missing a couple here and there if you are unable to rollback far enough.

While I am interested in the story, I will reiterate that there is a lot of exposition and dialogue. Most of it was interesting enough for me to read it, but there were times where I'd speed-read with "short CTRL'd bursts" just to get through a scene. Generally, doing this allowed me to get the gist of a scene and this was all that was really required. I could rollback if I had to, which wasn't often.

I never play these sorts of games with sound on, so while there is apparently music and sound effects I can't comment as to the quality of those.

As I mentioned earlier, if you're looking for a game with lots of nude renders, sex scenes and/or a quick fap you won't be getting it here yet, so I wouldn't recommend this game if that is the case. It might be a better idea to wait a few months for some additional updates that may add more scenes because if you don't really care for the story then there isn't much reason for you to play at all right now.

Overall I personally like this game so far, but the length of time spent reading was a little much even for me, compared to the scarcity of sexual content scenes in this particular version. I am all for a game with an interesting/engaging story line and characters, but this is also a porn game so... Could use an extra dash of that. DMD was similar in this aspect but not as much as here, to my recollection.
That is my only real complaint so far, but I am invested enough to continue as the game is updated.

If you are looking for a quick fap I would advise you to stay away. If you are looking for a game that has a back story and character building this is for you. As with previous games from Dots you are not just gonna bang every girl within the first few updates. There is a lot of character building going on and there are a bunch of girls to choose from.
The renders are great as usual and the story is different from previous games. In my opinion compared to where the other 2 games were at in this early stage this one is far and beyond better.

Defintely top 10 on the site

++ Renders and graphics
++ Animation
++ Variety of LI
++Story


- Sometimes unnecessary text but nothing too bad

Only recommendation would be to maybe not make the characters speak so "perfect proper" english all the time. Not saying they have to use slang but maybe tone the vocabulary down a bit

For me this is easily a 5 star game..

STORY 4/5 -The story is interesting and different, it is a little slow at the moment but there it is still early in development so cannot complain

RENDERS 5/5 - As expected from this dev the renders are great and the characters are all gorgeous, nothing more to say there.

ANIMATION 5/5 - For me this was what I wanted to see in this game, the animations are very much improved from his previous 2 games

Overall it is a very good game, if you are looking for a quick fap just move on. As in the previous games it takes time to build to lewd scenes.

Here is my honest review on Sunshine Love. I love Mr Dots previous work but this game is a shadow of his former projects.

Good points:
- I want to start off by saying that the renders are amazing and are probably the best out of all of Mr Dots other games so far, but thats pretty much the only compliment i can give this game in its current state.

Bad points :
- This game has a decent story concept, but the amount of pointless text in it is absolutely absurd and something i never expected from a game created by one of the best devs around. I constantly find myself skipping through the text because of how repetitive and boring it is, which is something i rarely ever did in the devs other projects.

- There are way too many characters in this game. This makes an already badly written game even worse because of how slow you progress with each character.

- The few lewd scenes that are in the game right now are extremely short and seriously underwhelming considering the wall of text you have to go through before even getting to them.

At this point in time, i can only justify giving this game 2 stars. I would give it 3 but the fact that its from Mr Dots just makes it even worse considering how high my expectations were when this game was announced. Seriously hoping theres an increase in quality as the game goes on or i might just have to give up on this one.

A real step up for Mr.Dots here. The animations for one definitely improved and it is a new concept and more interesting story compared to his previous games in my opinion. It is still early but there is definitely a bunch of content already. There are also a lot of girls to choose from so it is almost guaranteed you will find at least one you like.

I have to say that with this game MrDots has reached a new high point, the renders are excellent, the girls are beautiful(Actually super hot) and we have were to choose (Milf, Lolis, Asiaticas, Twins, Brunettes) the story has not developed well (for the moment) but is promising,it has very interesting interfaces and adding a new item in MrDots games a playlist.

But nothing is perfect, the dialogues are usually very complicated and strange and the MC lacks of personality for this reason I give a 4/5 to Sunshine Love

The renders are good, but reading all of the pointless and repetitive dialog and internal monologue is like watching paint dry. The author needs to learn how to make situations fun and flirty, instead of just spouting off useless information that makes it sound like the characters all think of each other as having the intellectual ability of a 5-year-old. The taco scene is maybe the best example of this. In addition to being mind-numbingly boring dialog, the character who works in a taco truck explains to the MC a number of facts such as:

"There are various types of taco shells, soft or hard, and I have both."
"Whatever protein you choose, a taco surely wouldn’t be the same without the meat."
"Pico de gallo or diced tomatoes can make the taco shell soggy, and putting the lettuce on a taco early prevents it from staying warm."

It's really too bad, because the models and scenery and UI are all beautiful. I don't listen to the music, so I can't comment on that. The characters ARE diverse in appearance, which is another big plus. However, the developer relies on the same facial expressions for each character, and has done so for their previous games, so they all seem very familiar in that regard.

My advice to the developer would be to hire a writer or learn what real people talk like, because I've never met anyone as boring as the characters in this game.

Edit for v0.0.6: This story is SO boring. Changing my review from 2 stars to 1 star. On top of that, 99% of the choices don't matter, so you end up looking at the character scores after a lot of decisions or using a walkthrough mod. Good developers have choices that have trade-offs. For example, love vs. lust, or innocence vs. corruption. This game just has the most basic +2 if you pick choice A, -2 if you pick choice B. It makes it seem like you're interacting with the story, but when you play other games that do it better, you realize it's just bad game design.

We're several patches into the game at this point and I feel I have a good grasp of the tone of the game.

There is nothing happening. The writing is pretty poor, there's a ridiculous amount of dialogue that's completely unnecessary, the characters don't talk like normal people and there's a distinct lack of anything actually happening.

Melody went down a similar path but at the very least there were fewer girls involved. In SL there are more girls, there's way more dialogue and the story is so incredibly dull I ended up CTRL'ing my way through most of it. The latest update (0.0.3i) was devoid of any interesting content, never mind any sexual content.

Very disappointing given that the renders are alright. That said, the lighting is way too bright and unnatural on the models. Every scene feels like it's been taken in a photographer's studio. The models are pretty good so it's a shame.

Overall I'm amazed that Mr Dots didn't learn from the extensive feedback on Melody and the criticism of there being way, way too much exposition and dialogue. It feels as though they're unable to keep to the point which is what drags every update on for a very long time without anything of substance actually happening.

A real shame.

I didn't make it super far, maybe a couple hours, before the game crashed on me (I'm on mac though so I won't hold that against it). My biggest impression from this game is that it's frankly boring. The sex scenes are all very short with pretty lame buildup to them. Often I'd end up less turned on by the end of them than I started, just because the actual scene was so short and there was not really any emotional payoff at that point to counteract that.

The renders are great, as you can see from the preview but the girls look pretty fake sometimes because of that, almost akin to Barbie dolls. The animations are decent, high graphical quality but like I said they're pretty short without much feeling to them.

The plot seems like it has potential to be decent with the characters having their own motivations. I particularly liked that the main character isn't a pushover but isn't a dick either, he seems like a fairly well-adjusted person up to where the game crashed for me. The choices I saw were basically all sets of 3 answers, only one of which raised affection and about half the time one of them would reduce it. That made me feel like I needed to follow a walkthrough, though this is somewhat alleviated by having the stats accessible at all times.

If this wasn't a porn game then I'd likely rate it about 3.5 stars, but I just don't think it's good at what it's meant to do so I can't give it more than 2.

Version: 0.0.2
Visual novel/Script: 5+
Gaming experience: 3 (nice for a visual novel)
Graphic quality: 5+
Character development: 5
Xcitement: 4

Considerations: Few choices to be made, character decisions have a small impact on the story so far. Very good characters and story.

I'll be extremely generous and give Sunshine Love v 0.0.2 a 3.5 stars of 5, which rounds up to 4 stars.

Let's go trough the positives first, shall we? Main LI (the friend/sister) and her buddy Victoria are absolutely stunning. Legit two of the best-looking LIs this year.
Renders are generally of very high quality, clothing and visuals are quite varied and not only go-where-the-bar-is-lowest stock shit.
I like the atmosphere, setting and story in general. It's a story you want to follow (I'll return to this later). Sure, it's a very slow burner, but I don't really mind it at all. However, I'd like to point out that I rarely play these VNs for a quick fap, but also want to experience a good story to pass the time, especially as we are in the midst of a global pandemic.

Then to the Ok things. The characters are visually varied so that there's something for everyone, but it's also a flaw. After 0.0.2 I already know who I'm going after, which are the two I mentioned earlier. For various reasons most other characters I'm just gonna ignore.
While I like the setting, the story is pretty bland. I think it's good that we got to know all relevant characters early on, but there's very little depth to them. Yes, they have commercial differences, but very few personal characteristics in order to make us engaged with them. Most characters have potential to be unique, but so far we have seen nothing of that.
The music is irrelevant, and I switched it off. While the playlist isn't bad, it's just a Spotify playlist and not tied to any events or scenes.

Finally, the bad things which need improvement.
Dialogue is extremely repetitive and even tiresome at point. While having its high points, some of it is like listening to a career politician. Speaking a lot of words, but saying very little.
MC's train of thought is disappointing, even childish. The story has its fair share of plot holes and/or absurd dialogue.
The stepmum. If you're gonna make MILF characters, at least do them properly, and not looking like 25 yos. Compare to Shortcake and Asian Aviatrix lolis who are real lolis. Too loli for my taste.
Because of the wide and early branching, collecting donuts will be a low priority, because you have to play every branch to get them all. The idea is good, but make them appear only in main renders, because the wide variety of so far quite shallow LIs won't make people immersed enough to play all paths even because of boredom.
If not only the dialogue, the character expressions are also pretty repetitive.

In conclusion; the game has great potential, but currently is pretty underwhelming. During writing this, I decided Sunshine Love is currently worth 3/5 stars and not 3.5. Definitely will play the game to its end, but it's not one I would recommend as a must-try one. It has the requirements of becoming a 4-star game, but that depends on future updates. Try it and see if it's for you, I'll guess it's a pretty hit or miss game.

TL;DR: Like every Mr. Dots game, it's very good, with a strong 10 hours of story, great characters, beautiful renders, and an overall polish that screams of passion and dedication.

Version Played: v0.0.6 Extras

Time to Complete: 17 hours

[5/5] Story: The story and characters are incredibly engaging. The game takes place in the same universe as other Mr. Dots games

[4.5/5] Renders: The renders aren't flawless but they are still very good. A tasteful amount of work has been put into the fine details of a render such as in depth of field (which some devs seem to forego or not understand) and in post-processing such as with contrast adjustments. So far I only have two gripes. Firstly, in the prologue to the game, the housing area has a shitty outside appearance, lacking trees, grass, and other details. Secondly, the Seaside Hotel isn't Photoshopped in perfectly, though I admit that I don't know how to make it look better myself. If there were other issues, they were not major enough for me to notice them.

[5/5] Renders -- Characters: The characters are actually perfectly done. One point that really stood out to me was facial expressions. They not only managed to show emotion, but to cause me to feel it. I also did like seeing Georgina, and it makes canonical sense since this dev's games all take place in the same shared universe. Although it layer grew on me, however, I did not initially like seeing Dee's model being almost entirely reused with no major changes whatsoever.

[5/5] Music: The way music is handled in this game is superior to any other game I have played. Unlike other games where music is sometimes an element that is controlled entirely by the script, looping and cutting between tracks, music is handled by an entirely different system with a playlist you can skip through that runs looks to run independently of the script. Somehow the dev even managed to make the playlist almost always fit the scene. Not all the music is entirely for me, but some of it is incredible.

This review turned out longer than expected.

Great game. I think MrDots achieved a new level of rendering and beautiful models.

The story is also pretty interesting and goes beyond that incest. The relations make sense now, and does not follow other formulas that are common here.

Even the context is shown, with images (and hot renders), not just told in a black screen in the first moment of the game. That is the clearly an evolution and the kind of games I'd like to see.

All girls are beautiful and have their own personalities and background stories. Awesome.