VN - Ren'Py - The Arson Betrayal [v0.7.5] [Crispy Chicken Productions]

Nice game! The story is very interesting which is what I think is most important. No grinding or dumb sandbox mechanics, which is great. This is a VN. Not the Witcher 3. So this is how it should be in my opinion. The sexual content is nice, it has a nice variety. The model design is tasteful. The characters themselves are well written. Great work and good luck to you, dev.

This Vn is just great, the story, characters, relationship progression, it's all perfect, favourite Li if I had to choose with a gun to my head would be tiff, no doubt

Also no ntr or sharing so can't get any better plus a harem and a full cast of virgins, man

Loved it! Soundtrack was fitting and the humor was decent! Pretty good plot and likable characters. I loved that the gallery section had a "hint" to see what scenes you are missing. I dig the animations and the character designs in general as well. Looking forward to seeing where this all goes!

I have to say this game is well made with a solid plot with many plot twists, the characters have their own personalities and are not flat two dimensional cookie cutter characters.

The artwork/renders are top notch and the sound and music are pleasing to the ears.

If you are unsure about this game take it from me I doubt you will be disappointed with this fine game.

Damn, I can’t believe that while I was looking for new and interesting games for myself, this masterpiece was under my nose and I didn't seem to notice it.
I'm incredibly grateful to the person who told me about this project.
In this game, I liked literally everything, from the characters and their personalities to the setting and plot. I was already addicted to this game after 15 minutes, the beginning is very interesting and intriguing.

Enough beating around the bush, let's get down to the pros and cons of the game.

Pros :

• Interesting and engaging story
• Very beautiful and well-writen characters with different personalities
• Enjoyable music
• Good writing, so far I didn't notice any mistakes or bad moments throughout whole game.
• Smooth and great animations, even where you don't expect them at all
• Unexpected plot twists (at least they were unexpected for such an ordinary player like me)

Cons :

• To be honest, apart from some moments in the graphics and animations, I can not highlight the cons in this game.
  Slightly strange looking character tears and sometimes too much glow on the characters' bodies
• Also a few animations looks weird and too fast, because of that they felt unnatural. But it's okay, I don't mind too much.

Otherwise, everything is fine, more than acceptable graphics, personally, I'm not picky at all in this regard.
I have nothing more to say, in general the game is just great and deserves much more attention and popularity.
It actually hurts me enough that this game hasn't gotten the attention and recognition it deserves.
Although I am sure that sooner or later the developer and his project will receive its fame and popularity, I will hope that this will happen as soon as possible. People should know about this game, definitely.

Btw, this is the review of v0.5.1

I am not usually a big fan of honeyselect rendered games/vn. This one is a class of its own, where the renders are far less important than the story, and yet don't fail or impact the captivating VN.

The writing is good, dialogue is well thought and the cliff hangers keep coming in ways that makes you keep going hoping to learn what is going to happen next. If you are looking for an engaging VN, this one is for you. I am really enjoying it.

I really don't understand why this game isn't more popular, like really for me this is a masterpiece. Seriously it is painful to see.
I just love this game, the story is sooo good and intriguing plus the developer has become really good at using sound, music and cinematic to making it even more compelling. Not only that but the plot is actually innovative for an AVN. The bads guy are kinda cliche but money is a good motivator so I'm not complaining much. Another strong point is that the story doesn't shy away from darker things like murder or torture and it actually make your responsable for the life and death of your companions.
Characters are well fleshed out and not just the girls but other like Ben or Kenny are well portrayed in the game.
I have to admit that I personally love Honey Select and I find the girls are soooo cute. They have they own struggles, personalities and their own role to play in the story and I really like that. My favourites so far are Tiffany (love her tsundere and submissive side) and Jessica. It is confirmed to be a harem with some drama and thats always a great plus.
On a side note Crispy Chicken is one of my favourite devs out there, he has been open about his game and always answering questions. That's always something worth mentioning.
I absolutely recommend this. A must play.

If you are on the fence about giving this game a try, now is the absolute perfect place to jump in since the first arc has concluded. Crispy Chicken is woven an exciting thriller, with really heartfelt writing and characters with true depth. I really hope this hidden gem doesn't stay hidden for much longer.

The Arson Betryal is a story driven action thriller. It's a Honey Select game, so you know what to expect. Girls are cute and stylized, the men all look different kinds of weird and have a very distinct Japanese appearance. The MC used here in this game is still one of the better looking default Honey Select males, you have most likely seen him in quite a few other Honey Select games.

The presentation is quite exceptional in the game. You have a few animated cutscenes, the various sex scenes are also animated of course. But on top of that the characters emote and react to dialogue. So there's mouth movement, eye movement and head movement between dialogue lines. Things are rarely static here.
The renders themselves are fine, but it's more or less what you expect from Honey Select. But as far as HS is concerned everyting looks great.

The female character design is varied, however many of the potential love interests have larger breasts. And the shape of the breasts is a bit unnatural, it defies gravity. And the breasts have a tendency to stick out too much, they look a bit pointy as well here and there.

The animated sex scenes are more or less ok, but the scenes have limited interactions, you can go faster, you can change a camera angle, you can sometimes decide where to finish. That's it. So far there are no major kinks here, everything is vanilla. I like that however.
But while the game uses a third person perspective in the game in the sex scenes it very often switches to a POV perspective. And here things begin to look weird. In the POV parts an ultra wide angle perspective is chosen and things therefore look very warped, think ultra wide angle lens on a camera, almost like a fisheye lens even. These scenes look pretty bad, limbs and faces are very distorted. A third person view would have been better here. Or at least a different field of view.

The game also has music and many sound effects. The music is great and fits the mood of the game.

The story: the MC works at a coffee shop, trying to save money so he can go to university. One night he comes across a girl who is threatened by two policemen with guns. The MC decides to help her and is slowly drawn into a dangerous web of corrupt politicians who are in league with crime gangs and the equally corrupt police department. The girl the MC saves is the daughter of a scientist who was killed, he left his daughter a hard drive and instructions to go to a cabin on the other side of the country so she can decrypt the info stored on the hard drive.
But as is quickly revealed the hard drive contains a formula for something that the mayor and his associates are after. And things heat up more and more as the mayor, mercenaries and corrupt police try to track down Alice, so they can seize the hard drive from her.
Along the way the MC will meet several women, almost all of them can be potential love interests, but is it a wise idea to pursue everyone?

The game has several game over options. So you can fail at various points in the story. Be aware of that. It's usually obvious what to avoid. But you can still easily fail here and there if you don't pay attention.

If you like story driven VNs The Arson Betrayal is definitely one of the best experiences. The thriller story is well written and pretty interesting. There are various action scenes in the VN, sometimes with cutscenes, at other times you get quick time events, i.e. you have to choose a correct option with your mouse before the timer runs out.

Where the VN stumbles a bit, in my opinion, is unfortunately in the romance and love interest department. Now, you can, in theory, try to reject everyone or go after everyone, but you may not always be able to reject everyone. If you close a route with someone you will get an opportunity to reopen it later.

The problem with the love interests is that they are your stereotypical collection of slow burners and super thirsty bi-curious girls who fall for the MC at the first opportunity for no particular reason.
Again, you don't need to engage with (most) females in a romantic way, but if you do engage with them things become tropeladen and a bit silly.

The first scene with the MC shows him making out with Sydney in the bathroom of the coffee shop, apparently it was a dare. She's a virgin. Of course.
Sydney has a friend, Jessica, who is also super thirsty for the MC for no given reason. You can take her virginity (she's a virgin too, of course) in the coffee shop behind the counter if you like. Or you can postpone things and do it later. Or you can reject her.
If you don't reject her Jessica is one of those girls who just LOVE sharing the MC with her best friend: Sydney. So you can get a threesome with the two of them eventually. And sure, Jessica goes down on Sydney, why not. Just like that. And it's never even talked about or mentioned again. Why should they...
Now most people will probably like this... there's this common belief that all men love bisexual love interests in VNs and lesbian scenes.
I feel these things should always be optional. I don't like bi-curious love interests at all. Of course you can reject Jessica but you basically lock yourself out from content if you reject love interests here. But in theory you can avoid these scenes, just ignore Jessica altogether.
If you do like Jessica there is, to my knowledge, no way yet to have her without Sydney. Jessica even points out that she doesn't want to lose her friend over her entanglement with the MC, so she wants to share him with her.

Then there's quasi tsundere Tiffany who allegedly dislikes the MC, she's the sister of his best male friend. But of course Tiffany actually has the hots for the MC (and the MC had a crush an her in the past)... and one morning the MC walks in on her in his bathroom, she's sitting on the toilet, he's naked... and she immediately begins to masturbate. Like any girl would do.
This is the the level of romance you usually get here. Super unrealistic and silly scenes that stretch credibility.
Jessica is later revealed to be somewhat submissive... I really dislike submissive or dominant love interests, but at least you will eventually get a choice to base the relationship on romance or corruption, you basically either tell her you like her or you tell her she's your slave now.
Tiffany is also apparently 100% ok with sharing, she watches the MC and Jessica having sex in his apartment and of course she masturbates while watching them.

Then there's the daughter of the coffee shop owner, Bailey. You can go on a date with her (which can result in sex with Tiffany in the bathroom (she works at the place you go to). And immediately after the date Bailey, the virgin (lots of virgins here), tells the MC she's bisexual and would not be disinclined to have fun with him and another girl (she comments on Tiffany).
I just rolled my eyes. And yes, you can reject Bailey as well of course. But later her mother heavily encourages the MC to please go after Bailey. So maybe she's unavoidable in future updates.

The only potential love interests I found actually interesting are Alice and Luna. You can also choose a love and corruption route for Alice. On the love route there's some dry humping later in the game. She's one of the archetypical "I am not ready yet" characters, at least on the love route. So you know the drill, you know what you get. Or you try to corrupt her... I cannot tell you though what happens then, I never choose corruption routes.

Ironically enough Bailey is also yet another "I am not ready yet" character (but she's bisexual?), but in a scene with her she is eventually overwhelmed by desire and IS ready... the MC is about to enter her... but then you are interrupted by her mother. The usual.

The other female character I like is Luna, the redhead cop. I am not entirely certain she even is a proper love interest, if she is, she's the super slow burner here. There is nothing going on with her, not even teasing. Not even a hint of romance. Probably in future episodes. I pray to the VN gods that she's not yet another "I am not ready yet" bi-curious sharing fan. We'll see.

So where does this leave things?
If you play The Arson Betrayal for the story and if you don't mind the clichéd romance and usual tropes and stereotypes you'll get with the love interests... it's a great experience!
If you like games that put a bit more emphasis on believable romance... you may not find it here or you need to be very selective and try to reject several girls. Alice is the most "normal" romance here. She's also the most important female in this game. Luna may be yet another "normal" romance, but so far there's nothing with her.
If you don't mind the usual bi-curious virgins who fall on the MC's penis at the first opportunity you can have that here as well. So if you like that you will appreciate the inclusion of the super easy girls who are ok with sharing. If you don't like it you need to reject Jessica all the way. You can still engage with her friend Sydney though, later in the game. Also, maybe reject Bailey if you are tired of bisexual virgins in VNs. Tiffany is kind of ok, especially if you like her somewhat submissive nature. The verdict is still out on how her love/romance route will develop. The "you're my slave path" is pretty obvious, I would guess.

Anyway, despite my criticism regarding many of the love interests, The Arson Betrayal is a good game. The focus here is more on the story and the hunt for Alice and the hard drive. The game has just the right balance between story and romance.
Too bad the romance is something that I found clichéd and a bit annoying even at times. If you reject everyone but Alice (and Luna) maybe you will virtually play a game without sex. Tiffany is ok-ish, but the submissive undertones and the "I haven't allowed you to cum yet" line by the MC really ruins her path for me. Maybe her love route which becomes available later will improve things.
So it's up to you. You can have a thriller with just one main love interest... or you can have a thriller where the MC has time to fool around with half a dozen girls, most of whom are tropes.
But choice is always great, you get it here. And it's not that the various girls don't have depth to them, outside of the romance the girls are all ok, they are not one dimensional here, each of them has a backstory. It's only in the romance parts of their arcs that things are a bit too easy and/or too silly. But maybe you like super easy and silly.
I feel it doesn't really fit the tone of the story though which is very serious and at times even dark. A more fleshed out Alice romance would have been better here maybe instead of creating this medium sized harem. If there even is a harem. The game has no harem tag. So chances are you will eventually have to choose between girls, with only some of them becoming an option for a throuple or so.

I find it somewhat surprising that this game is not more popular, since it's absolutely one of the better overall experiences with a strong plot. Give it a try! Chances are high you will even like the romance parts in this game. And if not, then just play it for the story and focus on just one or two girls.

Final remark about the English and another review found here: while there are some mistakes here and there the English in the current build is mostly perfectly fine. Also, text and images never mismatch. This can be the side effect of a mod. Just don't use the mod and instead consult the PDF walkthrough if you want to know something.

Review after v0.5.1 release.
I really feel like this game is flying under the radar. It already has much content, an interesting story that feels grand and dark, and characters that feel somewhat deeper than in your standard run-off-the-mill game you often find here.

The scenes are great, all characters are cute (imo, especially Tiffany ) and there are some choices, albeit mostly about the girls. That's fine, if the story branches too much the workload typically is too much for a single dev so I don't mind that at all.

Overall, I enjoyed my time playing The Arson Betrayal immensely and can not wait for futures updates! I hope it gets some more attention as well. Thumbs up!

Excellent game so far. The plot is really good and fast paced. Good animations and action. The sounds are nice, the girls look great and the lewd content is very nice. Looking forward to a lot more of this game.

At it's core, it's a cliched harem story with a gang intrigued twist.

However, cliche's are always bad if they are done well as I find is the case for this game.

The characters, I think, are fun. They have their own motivations and reasons that makes them more believable. However, what always gets me with certain stories is "insta-love", where a character appears once and suddenly they love you out of nowhere. Sadly, this story has one of those which you may or may not attribute to characters being young and stupid.

The scenes are hot enough though if you don't like HS models, then it probably isn't for you.

All in all, I liked it and I through it was a good novel. Waiting for the next updates.

Note: If you found your images doesn't exactly match the dialogue in the game, you might want to uninstall your Walkthrough mod.

I thought that the game would be well, so-so, but a little further I really liked the game and very much nothing the plot is a good paw atmosphere there is a prosirovka done well and I liked it good luck to you further with the game and success

A great harem game, and it does the mafia story very well.

Pros:
Story. It is a pretty unique story and is entertaining
Girls are great and fun
Humor. Some of the scenes and lines can be funny
Sex scenes and graphics are good

Cons:
Takes multiple playthroughs to see everything
Forced sandbox parts in a VN
Multiple protagonist for no reason to see other content.

Promising game with lots of potential. Good writing, intriguing plot and a nice number of sexy scenes already. The game has some slight re-playability with alternate versions of certain scenes.

Highly worth taking a look.

Engaging and well written narrative with some really nice spicy sex scenes. The visuals are pretty standard HS and are a bit dated but the game still looks nice and it does not detract from the overall game or the H scenes. The game is a bit pathy and you will miss scenes. This could be an issue for some especially since the game bills itself as a harem game and a game where you can "focus on one or focus on all of them." As long as it's possible to stay on all the girl's paths at the same time or at least a plurality of them, it seems fine to me to have the player miss out on a few scenes in the name of realism/gameplay. I would take issue however if the player looses paths due to unclear choices. All this is to say it is a game best played with a walkthrough if you are looking to play it as a harem game. Regardless of those issues well worth playing for pretty much everybody as it is entertaining and there are not any extreme kinks

The Arson Betrayal is one of the undiscovered gems of this site. The graphics are good enough, some minor clipping and such, but if you like the HS style there is nothing to complain about here. The story however is where this shines, it is immediately engrossing and kept me engaged from the start to the end of current content. I am looking forward to seeing the continuation of the story and have enjoyed the authors style so far. If you are looking for something new to play, you've stumbled on to the right game.

Wasn't blown away by the graphics.. but they are decent. However the story more than makes up for it. Well written and kept me interested from start to finish.. Can't wait to come back to this one as it progresses.

v0.3

The story is actually pretty intriguing, although I've recently played a lot of crime based games, they're nowhere near as numerous as incest moving in type of stories, so it's pretty refreshing and it looks like the story is heading towards a more interesting place.

The models and the scenes are fine, a bit of lag in some of the newer scenes, the models could be better, but generally I like HS models so I'm still giving a high rating, the character are unique as well for the most part since I haven't seen them used in other games, at least not 100%. Most of the characters are edited base characters, as in you can tell which model it is, however it's edited enough so you can see that an effort has been put in.

If I could give half stars, it would be 4.5, however I'm closer to a 4 than a 5 so I'm rating 4 stars.

As of v0.3
Great game loving the story so far , renders are nice and beautiful Hs models and well written characters . Game has music and sex scenes are animated which is good . The only drawback is that we have to have multiple saves to see all the scenes but I'm happy that we are not forced to choose between girls and have one girl per route and dev said there will be an option for Harem route as the game progresses .
Overall Amazing game with nice story and likeable characters and game gets frequent updates which is a Huge plus , looking forward to future updates .