Ren'Py - Tales of Terrara [v0.4.0 Prepatched] [Thunder One]

Review on v0.1.3

Awesome start so far, can't wait for more!

Gameplay

Take notes, people, this is how you should approach a Ren'Py sandbox game.
The different game mechanics are introduced bit by bit in a very smart way so they don't overwhelm you right out of the gate and don't need a huge tutorial to be able to understand and deal with.

The inventory is used in a smart way, you being able to pick up stuff you might need but might not and could just make your quest easier (like being able to distract the dog with a piece of meat instead of having to fight it). That way, it feels like it pays off to look more closely and explore everything while not technically being necessary to get to all the content.
The map mechanic works just fine with the MC being able to explore any nearby location, but not any location, from their current position. The quest interface is handled well too with a clear overview of main and side quests.
The only weird thing was the time feature because you didn't really have a time indicator but could rest for a certain amount of time and then sometimes it was night but you only noticed it because your cellmate was sleeping and the guards told you to go to sleep. But you didn't really know the time of day apart from that. So just a bit weird.

Overall, I really enjoyed the gameplay, which is pretty surprising in a sandbox game like this, mostly devs don't seem to know how to handle this sort of game.

Story and Writing

The story is kind of hard to evaluate so far because this version pretty much only covers a sort of prologue, with the main quest and other side quests being started but not really explored yet. But I feel pretty confident that this will turn out well because everything we've seen so far has been really good. The main story is definitely interesting as are the potential side quests you pick up later on. It's hard to really see where it will go but it wasn't boring at any point so it's just fine.

This is all helped along by the fact that the writing is quite good on the whole. The dialogue seems natural and I didn't actually encounter any typos that I can remember. The exposition of the background lore of the universe interspersed with current story elements is pretty well done, the exposition doesn't feel overwhelming or gratuitous at any point and the pacing of the story is fairly pleasant.

So yes, once again, good job by the writer(s) of the game.

Characters

To some degree, character exploration has maybe been a bit lacking so far because of the intensity of the prologue plot that had to be dealt with first. But we've definitely seen some interesting beats so far.

The MC is... fine. I've only played with a female MC, I don't know if I'll do a male playthrough but I assume they're pretty similar in both versions. Sort of your run-of-the-mill regular person that gets thrown into various situations and hasn't been the most active of characters so far. But that's fine since the story is definitely headed in a direction where that will change and we've already seen hints of this so that should be pretty fun in the future.

Besides the MC, the other characters are a bit more interesting. Your best friend is maybe only slightly less bland than the MC, but you have other interesting characters like Mol, an attractive young transgressive female goblin, or Tsua and Pao, prostitutes with Asian features and apparently pretty interesting backstories, and many more.

So yeah, there's undeniably some interesting stuff there.

Visuals, Animation and Sexual content

Overall, the game is gorgeous. The renders are really great, and especially considering how dimly many of the early cave scenes are lit, I gotta appreciate that making something like this isn't easy. The animations in the sex scenes are also done really well, it's hard to pull that off without them feeling too robotic but I really see no issues there, so all in all, props to the dev.

As for the sexual content so far, it's really got me wanting more. Sex scenes with Mol, the half-human sized female goblin with the double-human sized tongue, should be particularly interesting in the future...

You probably need to be on board with some goblin dicks, some noncon/rape stuff, but apart from that, the game's most kinky stuff like futa transformation for the female MC or bestiality, seems to be completely optional, so that's a plus for all you prudes out there

Minor bugs, glitches or similar

You do notice here and there that the game is still in early development. I got a weird scene right at the start where I wanted to see where the story would go if I rejected Hana at first and it lead to them having a talk that actually didn't make sense until later because they were discussing a dream the MC hadn't actually had yet. So there's some weird issue going on there.

Minor bugs I encountered were something like a warning that the MC can't rest in a dangerous place being frozen on-screen if you changed location too fast after getting the warning or the game basically crashing when you try and open up the character/love statistics which is probably due to that feature not really being implemented.
I also felt like saving and loading times were always a bit long compared to other Ren'Py games so maybe the coding has to be fine-tuned in some way there.

But these were minor issues all in all.

Conclusion

I really have no major complaints about this game.

The most pleasantly surprising thing, at least for me, was the gameplay; I'm usually somewhat skeptical of sandbox games and actually try and avoid them to a degree but this game shows that it's not being a sandbox game that makes some games bad, it's being a bad sandbox game that makes them bad. Tales of Terrara really succeeds where so many other have failed and I thoroughly enjoyed myself playing this game and will probably continue to do so with future updates.

Other than that, much of this game seems almost tailor-made for my particular tastes, be it in terms of weird fetish sexual content, or the somewhat disproportionate focus on female characters, or the fantasy genre in general.

I'm really disappointed that there isn't more content as of yet but I guess good things take their time and I'll definitely be following future updates closely

Awesome potential.

So far there is no plain reason to have a party member, I can only assume that will become clear later. I was thinking either give them additional attacks or make them give them MC stat boosts. Maybe Hana is a bonus to attack, and Mol a bonus to dodge. Obviously having them in the party adds to roleplay options, but they should also participate in combat.

I like that the game has both scene art that changes, and characters on the sides during conversations. The animations are decent. The combat seems too random, took me ten tries to kill Kria.

The travel/camping scenes between Mol and Hana... Hana's head is to large, or body too small. The disproportion is annoying to watch, need to redo those. Good scenes though, except for that.

I was surprised the home for the MC wasnt done yet, I figured you would do that before the inn, considering we dont have the gold to try out the hookers.

I killed Kria, then went back to zweb but couldnt name him boss yet.

Looks great! Flesh out what you have, and new content will define if this is awesome or not.

Thanks or sharing.

Great animations and 3d models, great kinks and fetishes, decent enough storyline for what there is of it, overall very enjoyable. Definitely on my watch list for more updates. You can tell the developer means what they say at the beginning that they are going for more quality then quantity. And while that can seem to make the game a little lacking in content, I like how good everything is so far.

I normally prefer a female main character so it's nice in this game. Graphics are nice too. The script isn't bad. I hope prostitution scenes are added to the game. Even Hana should join this. I give full points.

User freedom of choice is excellent, Graphics are good to excellent, frequency of adult material is excellent, quantity of material is limited (early in dev stages).

Skyrim has nearly unlimited user freedom of choice but ultimately every game must follow a story line laid out by the dev. The more a user has the illusion of choice.. the better the game... otherwise you are just clicking to read a story.

This game has tremendous potential for both delicious adult content and game play that supports the illusion of choice. While adult content is a largely personal matter... and my preferences are BDSM, slave, force fantasy... I think there is enough potential here for a wide range of kink interests..

I would not normally rate a title so early in its development. But in the case of Tales of Terrara, I will gladly make an exception.

I'm big on the little things. As a professional video editor I have little patience for people either not taking pride in their work or being lazy in their approach to production. Case in point: audio effects. I have mentioned this subject previously in this forum and have been surprised at the some of the responses which have ranged from 'who cares' to 'don't have time'. This game proves that taking a few extra minutes to add audio effects makes a huge difference in quality. There's really no excuse to forego their inclusion as there are many resources available to use clips that are free or very inexpensive.

Secondly, the renders are also excellent and top notch.

Thirdly, the animations are superb.

Fourth, the script is way above average, both in structure and scope. I could nitpick a few grammatical inconsistencies, but they are minor and don't detract.

Fifth, there are numerous choices to make and that's always a plus for me. I want to be involved or I might as well just watch Netflix.

I think this game has huge promise and am looking forward to its continuation. Well done, so far, team.

Oh! Mol Mol Mol Mol Mol!.................I quite liked this dev's other game so I gave this a try. I think the first thing one has to get right in a sex game is the Sex. This game has a few very nice animated sex scenes, smooth and very hot. Crowned at the moment by Mol and her tongue. When you see it You'll know what I mean....beautiful work.

Background: previously creator built punkmon named game which was almost identical pokemon parody and got sued hard by nintendo so he had to drop it.

Why is that game relevant you ask? Well that game mostly was female protagonist fucking pokemons and letting your mom deep kiss and rub your boobs. So if you are into that stuff this game might be for you.

Anyway back to this game. I played 0.06 version and understood-able there isn't much to do but the ground work is clear. This game will be bestiality/xeno/monster/selfcest/lesbian/rape/futa/molesting themed game. The good thing is that the game doesnt force its fetishes on you.

The graphics are as good as you can get from 3d. Animations are masterful and this comes from person who doesnt really like 3d (me!).

I dont know what this game will become, but I will definitely return here after a year. So far this game has been quite promising.

Renders and animations are great. Story is fun and straight forward. Great that you can avoid any kink that you don't like. One thing that would be good, that i always like in open world games especially that have time-triggers, is to be notified or informed in some way when there is no more content to play. It's annoying running around and skipping time wondering if there is more to do. Looking forward to more content, and more Mol!

Really enjoyed that one! finally someone giving goblins some love the scenes and models are really hot and and well animated! definitly recommend trying out, even it´s not that much content yet, it already has some amazing sexy scenes including lesbian, oral and nice goblin action. The best part is that the MC is not only hot but is actively choosing her path and wether she wants the sex or not.

Based on the most recent update (v0.0.4a), this seems very promising. Not many times has there been game with a female protagonist who is not raped or exploited by monsters but rather takes the initiative in her environment. Sex scenes, animations and the renders have been very good so far. Using a time mechanic without a sandbox feature seems rather new (at least I have never seen it in another game) and also an interesting mechanic. The story is also relatively original (once again, there are only a few games I can name where the female protagonist is not exploited in a fantasy environment). Finally, there has not been any gamebreaking bugs, glitches or severe instances of Engrish to cry about. Ultimately, a very promising game.