Ren'Py - The Awakening [v0.4.5b] [SLim Games]

TL/DR: Set an alarm clock to wake you on Christmas 2027, you may have a decent game to play by then


Ok, get in a car accident, wake from a coma 2 years later with no memory, check. Yes we've seen this before, but this one was one of the first times I'd seen this kind of plot. That's how old it is. Granted powers from a supernatural being, again check, and again it was a pretty novel idea at the time. The Dev decided to redo a lot work at some point, I applaud his dedication to producing a quality product.

A large chunk of the game start had been redone and I'm 100% for it. New renders are some of the best around now that it 2003. You like tits? "Landlady" went from a formidable EEE to a whopping HH! All while retaining her 28" waist. "Roommate" went from looking like a toddler took some Barbie and Bratz dolls apart, (went to reassemble then and forgot which pieces went to whom) to now looking like an actual teenage girl (for the most part, still barely a B cup, but that's ok). Dialogue changes feel more natural (turn due the FONT SIZE on the UI PLEASE!!!!)
Why 3 stars?
Us dedicated fans have held the faith longer than the lifespan of a small household pet , and when the update is finally released, IT'S ONLY HALF FINISHED!
I Say "half", but I'm not really sure. All I know I was really starting to enjoy the new merge/update when BAM! A notice smacks you in the face with a warning that you are about the view multiple dessicated corpses of great ideas whose life expired before the artistic skills existed to properly developed them. Grant you, the dialogue was never really bad, and I think it's improved even more with the update, at least the part that was updated.

So basically, your revving along in the muscle car of your choice, cruising and listening to the tunes , you know, life is good, when you fall in to a mud filled crater, and are handed a promise things will be better "soon". Well now I'm slogging through the old game (in the new) which I stopped supporting $$$ because the interface was horrible, even with CHEATS there was little coherence to any actual plan, and 90 % of game play ending up being clicking endlessly around your empty apartment waiting for your mother to get home, or waiting to sleep/rape your sister who would've willingly given it to you.

Oh, honorable mention to adding the voice overs, except they don't exist in the update part yet, and in the old part, the don't work with the existing dialogue.

Unlike others I do hope this is not another money grab and that the dev is committed to the quality of his product, but as for now, without seeing major upswings in the dev cycle (it IS software, after all), my only motivation to start supporting this game again would be so my yet-not-even-conceived grand kids have great grand kids that reach puberty. They may enjoy the game by then, or it may be undergoing another major rewrite. Good luck, Dev

The first time I played this was quite a while ago, I don't even remember exactly when, it was basically just a prologue. I played through again when the first chapter came out and it had been changed. After that to be honest I thought it had been abandoned. This is the third iteration of it I have played.

To be honest I think it looks good. The hospital scene at the beginning was a bit off writing wise. The doctor didn't act much like a doctor.

You can tell some changes have been made to the appearance of the models. Another mom with way over sized boobs, not my thing and I swear they got bigger. Sis is definitely more my type. I prefer models who look realistic.

A couple of spoilers ahead.

The biggest problem is after the haunted house part the next day at school there are a couple of glaring continuity mistakes. It acts as though things that happened previously either didn't happen or happened differently such as sis commenting about the MC playing video games all night and walls being thin when she had actually slept next to the MC. Also MC having a flash back and commenting on her having brown hair when he already had flashbacks of her with brown hair, so it wasn't new.

The look and feel of the game also changes. Interactions between the MC, mom and sis all take a different tone. They suddenly treat each other slightly different. It feels as though someone else took over the writing part way through and changed how the characters act and speak.

This is one of those VNs where you have to click on a choice box even when there is only one choice given. That could stand to be eliminated.

On the upside the sleep creep thing is optional, at least so far which is good, I've never been a fan of that. It's just another way of sneaking in nonconsensual sex. It would be nice to have options on fetishes such as anal sex as well. For me some is fine, it depends on my mood but vaginal is preferred.

Over all this has good potential but the continuity missteps need fixed.

My review on The awakening.
Pros: Renders
I found the models to be excellently drawn. Not too over the top. The Sister and Linda was my favorites since both of them had the 'perfect' size for me. And when a certain event happens with the Fairy....LOVED IT!
Storyline:
It had an interesting twist on an amnesia patient. It was interesting for the MC and you to discover his background.

Cons:
Like 75% of the games on here, you run into the 'under development'/ 'not implemented in this build' wall. It really sucks when you are enjoying a game and it abruptly ends. And having learned from past experience, if you 'support' the creator, a person is rolling the dice. The author may finish it in 3-4 months, never or marked it "Abandoned".

And what was the point of putting your seed 'deep' into one of the women to impregnate them? I had hoped that would at least have went somewhere but it didn't alas.

Verry Nice Game Love playing it !!! Amazing renderings and animations beautiful pictures Keep up the amazing work !!! very interesting story line it's very addictive to play such amazing game Can't wait for next parts to come out

(TL;DR at final paragraph)Have you ever played a game where the beginning is really great, and then shortly after all goes to shit, but the beginning was so interesting that you insisted through all the garbage content just in the hope that it would get good just like in the beginning again sometime? perhaps in your experience your effort was paid off and you enjoyed a good time after some sacrifices. that unfortunately wasn't my case.

Erotic game players play such games not only purely for the imagery of sex, of course. As many already argue in this site constanly, if that was the case, they would simply watch conventional porn, be it animated or filmed. Therefore, it can be said that one of the most basic aspects to compose a good erotic game is a good story and good characters that the player would love to see engaging in such activities; "The Awakening" unfortunately fails critically to deliver that

Perhaps the reason why is a personal "bias"(not really) of mine, which ironically comes from the development team themselves: the characterization established in the prologue. As recommended for those who want to have the definitive experience, I played the prologue first and only after finishing it I went to the main game. The clash between the quality of the writing of those two would frustrate anyone who got attached anyhow to the characters in the prologue.

For clarity's sake, it's perfectly understandable for the prologue to be in a better state than the main game, since it was seemingly developed after. So that's a good sign, it shows that the team are improving in the delivery of quality in this project. However, that does not change the fact that the prologue is still just a prologue. From the team's point of view, it might be that they're just getting started at writing a very good story from the prologue, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the main game is still the main part, it's still where the player expects to receive what they came here for and where they expect to enjoy the game to the fullest.

Now then, elaborating further in why there's such a downgrade in the player's point of view(and upgrade from the team's point of view), it starts with something that is just an observation: the characterization has factually changed. And I say just "characterization" ambiguously because i'm not only talking about the characters, but even the narrative style of the story itself(which is inherently connected with the protagonist's writing). That happens because in the prologue, your protagonist is initially an average joe, there's no special peculiarity at all in him until the game establishes so later(In a scene where he's eating dinner with his mom and they talk about how he uses to think deeply about random things, he always used to). If anything, the protagonist seems to be a really good guy, always caring for those around him and doing his best to develop the best relationships possible with his comeback after 2 years(with the game even juxtaposing his current behavior with the one he had before the accident, a much more selfish and toxic one - perhaps a parallel using metatext to refer to his character in the main game? who knows?). In the game, the main character has a monologue in his head where he basically thinks "I've lied to you, I still lie to you and will continue to do so." in a scene where his mother is basically asking him to be honest with her. There's nothing the player can do about that, nothing they can change. This example is very straightforward in showing how much he changed.

That being said, it goes the same way for Mom's character too(and perhaps other characters that I can't even talk about since I just dropped the game before I even could analyze their lines more carefully. it's just too poorly done). Not only her characterization in the prologue is established as a very caring mother, doing her best to be gentle and pleasable with her son all the time, it's also presented in a very natural and humane way. That results in the Mom's character not being presented as an one-dimentional lady who's only nice all the time, but just as a good mother who's flawed just as much as any other one. She shows as a good and comfortable mothely character simply because that's her at her best, not because it's the only thing the character has to offer. Now then, please take a look at her line, said out loud, directed to her son in the main game: "I never wanted your gross dick anyway, you perverted asshole."(she says as she points her middlefinger to her own son). Of course, one could rightfully say that that's because of her own son's attitude, but that just goes back to my general point: It's the writing style as an whole(that affects all characters) that has also changed.

Talking about the visuals of the sexual scenes now-
I can't. Because the main game softlocked me before I could get to any with the mom. The developer of this game themself has already suggested simply loading old saves if you want to continue the story. Not only the game is poorly written, it's also poorly programmed.

TL;DR That's what sums up my experience here as an whole, even. Simply imagine getting engaged in a erotic story because of a really cool start and then proceeding to get frustrated not only because of the quality of the story itself, but because you can barely get anything beyond that since the game is so poorly constructed you can't get to play the game that much. I don't believe any of my criticisms here are inherent to this project and I hope that the developer fix them in a future update with a lot of polishing and rework.

The dialogue is boring and poorly written. There is no humor or anything that makes you feel anything. It's almost as if a robot had written it. The x-ray vision is overdone and to be honest, I feel this game is a waste of time.

It is a great advance that they have removed all the crappy sandbox elements, but the story remains what it always was, incoherent, poorly written, the characters are mega flat, you just wait for some fairly erotic scene to pull the sausage and that's it.

I think the model of the mother has improved a lot in some angles, like the face, but the breasts are terrible, the other characters are basically the same, at this point of time using Genesis 3 models looks very outdated.

Positive point, the animated intro, the UI, the few animations that can be seen in this prologue are well done, technically it is a well done VN, easily above average, but it still has the same problems as always, a null story , and flat characters, mostly outdated models, for me it's nothing more than another porn game from the pile.

This is a typical fetch-quest open world type game. There are tons of females to pursue, which can be a great thing, but also a bad thing. In this case, some of the bad comes out. Progress can be slow (both for us players and for the dev getting content added), and some events of the girl you want are blocked by events from others. The art and animations are all mostly top notch (most of the sex scenes are a bit too slowly animated for me). There is audio which is nice. The voice acting gives it a nice polish but really isn't necessary imo.

Really what it boils down to for me is that it isn't very sexually compelling. Linda and her mom are fun, but kinda slow to get into. Was hoping for a threesome but due to there being so many girls, the dev likely hasn't gotten around to it yet. The sister is kinda cringe. The mom and teach are great but, again, just a slow pain in the ass to make progress with. The dev does not push the taboo topics much imo, makes the game more on the """"realistic""" side (many quotes for obvious reasons), but it's a sex game with a fairy and magic and incest; let's whip out the over-the-top dialog please.

Anyways, it's fine. I got semi-erect once. If you've only played a few H games, you'll probably love this. If you've played some or many, this will fall unmemorably amongst everything else. I also expect progress to continue to be slow. I was very surprised to find that the dev is still introducing new characters instead of building out the existing ones (two random characters were added late in the current 0.4.1 version). Who knows if he'll get on a whim to add even more and create additional distractions for himself. That seems like a great idea if a dev, for some wanted a game to take a long amount of time to develop

I really like the artwork.
Especially the animations are lovingly designed and even "stills" were partially animated.
Story is absolutely fine. It doesn't always have to be the literary heavy novel.

Nice Storytelling, loveable characters, very good animations it is a lot of fun - way better as the first version. Im really looking forward. Hope this game is going on for a while. The fairy is really a unique character.

Not much content currently but I'll review what there is.

Art is good. Story and pacing are lackluster.

Dialogue is boring and not realistic. More effort put into the story in both dialogue and pacing could make this a better game.

Animation and voice acting truly make this game great. If there was a quality ranking of these games this would be one of the few I place in S tier. just because it is one of the few that makes sure that Music, Visuals, Story, Voice acting and Animation is covered. Keep it up (would just wish there was a way to help you so you could make more content in a shorter amount of time).

Absolutely love the game. It has all the things you want and expect from a adult visual novel:
- Fun, wacky story, easy to follow and enjoy
- Rich of sexual content, beautiful models
Also putting different characters' voices to the game show how much work the team put into this game.

More mind control pls, love it when girls are mindless. The updated arts are really top-tier, you would not regret playing this game. If the protagonist can dominate all the girls with police, lawyer, and other career girls with husbands, even better.

The game was good in terms of gameplay and graphic. But since the progress is very slow, the standard has been raised much higher after these years. The game becomes mediocre now compare to games recently developed.
I don't see the point of playing this game anymore.

well.. this game is a sand box the way i like it and the game let you choose what chick to porgress and it all come down together those sleep sneak sex is great and all of the thing i said I just like it a lot!

Game version: [v0.4.0c]

A flashy amusement park ride that quickly loses its luster after you realize it's just some pretty wallpaper plastered over a cracked foundation.

The renders and animations are impressive, and the writing is decent. The actual plot... not so much. The game suffers from the common sandbox problem of having separate story strands that seem mostly disconnected and like they take place in alternate realities. Choices are just illusions or "pick the right thing if you want to get the sex scene," and the MC can't seem to stick to a personality or decide what he wants (not that we have any say in that.)

The game also indulges in my least favorite "harem" game trope: it lets you fuck all the girls but doesn't want to acknowledge that fact in the narrative, besides one or two exceptions. You go on romantic dates with girls, fuck your sister, your mom, your teacher, call another girl your girlfriend, seduce the neighbor, yada yada yada. It's really more of a cheating simulator. Which would be fine if the game at least had something to say about it, but it doesn't.

This is where the game fell apart for me. There really is no actual plot besides the amnesia/fairy framing device, which doesn't get explored in any meaningful way, and our horny Chad/dimwitted romantic trying to fuck every girl in town while pretending to be deeply in love with half of them. It's all just so fake and game-y that I can't get into it. Your mileage may vary if you care less about story or player expression. Again, the renders and animations are well worth seeing, I just wish they were in service to a better game.

One extra star for the fairy scenes.

I didn't remember that I hadn't rated this game yet, I remember that the first time Dev started the game the MILF was different, it was less beautiful, but it still had the appearance of an older woman, after all she is a MILF and not an 18 year old girl like many do in games with sculpted bodies and new looks and claim to be M...m!

Although I honestly don't like this thing about spells, hypnotism, etc. but I still really like the game!

Dev has an excellent quality to make the arts, and today when I was playing Halloween Version 2021, he surprised me even more, when in the same scene he provided 02 animations with different angles on the same screen, I had not seen this on any other game yet!

Genuinely one of the most fun games I've played. Variety of women with different body types, personalities and witty dialogue. The characters seem genuinely interesting and some of their motivations really make you want to see what happens next instead of just "skip to the next sex scene"

One word: Fairy sex!
Ok, that was two words. But I love her.
Excellent graphics.
I used the walkthrough mod, had a lot of fun. Story is not too heavy, but very good. Love the reference to other games.
5/5 will keep playing!