VN - Ren'Py - The Cabin - Summer Vacation [Ep. 6] [CellStudios]

The first two chapters were fine. I don't like forcing sexual thoughts about characters I have zero interest in (the mother).
There are no real choices here. So far, you pick questions to ask, but you pick all of them, or you pick if you will have two additional characters as love interests. That's it.
A lot of scenes have one render which doesn't show the several scenes that the text is describing. I thought it was bugged and I was missing something. Nope.
Renders are pretty nice and the premise sounds interesting - the only two reasons for the stars. However, I hated the mother from the start and you are forced to get along with her. I tried just skipping over scenes with her, but they really force her on you. I stopped when the MC moans "mom" as he's jerking in the show. Nope.
You're watching a story you are barely involved in and have very little control over.

Usually I prefer slow burn visual novels. But this doesn't feel like a slow burn, more like a kinetic novel with repetitive dialogue.

The premise is great and gives me 80s cabin in the woods vibes, the mother as an alcoholic is an interesting trope not often seen in AVNs, the relationship between the siblings is positive, there is a lot of potential for great bonding moments although they feel pretty close despite the story claiming that they became enstranged. They don't feel enstranged at all. The setting is good and the secrets arouse curiosity.

Still. Why are there so many dialogues and conflicts where I have zero influence? I got bored with this VN and there is actually no reason why it should be like that. The ingredients for a great VN are all there but it doesn't come together because it leads me on a leash like a puppy that misbehaves.

The Cabin has the potential to be great, but it could also turn into yet another tropefest, it's a bit too early to tell, since there's not all that much content yet.

The Cabin is your typical ultra slow burn game about the MC, his mother, his sister and his aunt. I will spoil it right out the gate, because I feel it's important to know that: so far there is zero action between the main characters. The mother has accidentally kissed her son once so far, because she was drunk and believed him to be her husband... and the MC liked it of course and is a bit confused after that, since he can't get that kiss out of his head anymore. The MC can tell the mom that he likes it when she becomes more confident, so it's the very early stages of her route.
And both the sister and MC have walked in on each other masturbating very late into episode 4. The MC also went skinny dipping with his aunt in episode 4. And at the very end of the episode the sister climbs into the MCs bed because she feels a bit scared after seeing some mysterious figure at the window... the temperature is rising here.
So by episode 4 (the most current episode as of early August 2022) we have very first tender signs of romantic attraction between the MC and all main characters, only the mom gets her scene a bit sooner.

About the characters... your usual archetypes:

- troubled (very troubled) mom caught up in a bad marriage, there may be a chance you won't like her backstory. It's not your usual stuff you get in most other VNs, her backstory is "complicated". She may have done a not so moral thing (no cheating! no adultery!) you may not be ok with. I don't think any less of the mother though, I like the character, I can understand her reasoning for the thing she did... but you may not. So be warned that the mother has a secret you may not like
- nerdy, smart and very cute and sexy sister, she's a virgin, she's just adorable through and through, you will like her a lot
- extremely attractive and somewhat more adventurous redhead aunt who is a romance novel writer, single, divorced, also very easy to like

And like so many other (ultra) slow burners The Cabin throws a few bones at you here and there, as some sort of consolation prize. Which means: you can have easy casual sex with inconsequential side characters that don't matter in the grand scheme of things.
The first one is some lady in a clothing shop... for a quick second the MC imagines what she might look like without her clothes, I was not a fan of that at all, I would like to have control over who the MC fantasizes about especially since his sister is giving her brother a little fashion show, trying on various extremely sexy bikinis. Why fantasize about some at best average looking adult clothing store lady here when the prettiest sister in the history of mankind is showing off her body in a quasi micro bikini?????
And shortly after that the MC can get on the route of the shop owner... and I shut off that route immediately. No thanks.

And then The Cabin commits a cardinal sin so many other VNs also commit... there is dream sex featuring some random highschool teacher you know nothing about. And this scene isn't even skippable or avoidable. If you are so concerned people may get bored because all three main characters are ultra slow burners and yet you want the MC to get some action... maybe just make one of the main characters less of a slow burn? Two slow burners are more than enough maybe?

I am generally no fan of the ultra slow burn main characters mixed with super easy casual side characters approach. In my opinion it would always be better to have at least one somewhat more approachable character in the main cast, i.e. either the aunt, mother or sister here. I would say the aunt makes the most sense in this game. And the mother and sister should be the (ultra) slow burners, it makes a lot of sense with them.

But the exact same thing happens again in episode 3... you meet some girl out of nowhere (the sister of a new female friend you found in town), you go to a lake with her 5 seconds later... and you have the option for instant sex. Why? I mean, I know why.... And fortunately you can reject that girl as well, but that whole thing just doesn't feel right, since it cheapens the interactions with the actual love interests.
But it's optional, you can play the game as you like it. With zero sex. Or with random sex. It's ok. I just feel the resources and render time could be spent on more important things like interactions with the main characters.

I absolutely understand why people usually want some fast(er) action as well... but I'd rather have that with an actual love interest, not some inconsequential side girl I have zero attachment to and met 1 second earlier. Again, I feel the aunt would have been a good candiate for someone who is a bit more adventurous. She's writer of steamy romance novels. She's single. Other games solve this by giving the MC a starter girlfriend. But of course not all people love built-in relationships... it's impossible to make everyone happy.

A few words about the story: The Cabin is about a family of four, the mother has severe issues, she's been drinking a lot lately, she's depressed and sad, her husband cannot put up with it anymore, and after yet another argument the mother, the MC and the sister go to the aunt's cabin in the woods for the whole summer.
And as it turns out the woods harbor a dark secret about a cannibal family (there are horror elements in the story! be warned!).

Other than that there are plenty of scenes with the mother, aunt and sister, mostly just talking, you get to know the characters, you have some innocent fun with them. There is no pre-existing attraction in this game. No secret crushes. And that in turn justitfies the ultra slow burn. It makes sense here.
And I don't mind ultra slow burn, that's the reason I checked out this game to begin with. I think slow burners are usually a lot more rewarding when things finally evolve.
But if you need to have more steamy scenes in a slow burn game... just make one of the three main characters a bit more teasing and more open, again, the aunt is the prime candidate for that and you kind of get that with her in episode 4 finally. Maybe this is the plan with her in upcoming episodes. She's certainly the most forward of the three main love interests. I hope the devs will not let all main characters have the same progression speed.

And of course it's ok-ish to have the optional flings in this game. If that's your thing. I just would invest resources into the main characters instead.

Anyway, by episode 4 it gets a bit more steamy and also a lot more tropey, skinny dipping with aunt in the pool... sister walking in on the MC masturbating in the shower... MC walking in on his sister masturbating in the bed, because seeing the MC masturbate in the shower turned her on....

One thing in the story absolutely makes no sense at all. One of the potential flings (April) gets snatched and dragged into a cabin by what is supposedly the son of the cannibal family that used to live in the woods. The MC saves her fortunately, April comes to no harm... but then he never even mentions the fact that crazy murderers may still be living in the woods to his OWN FAMILY. Who does that? It makes no sense. The women need to know this! This is a major plot hole and should be fixed asap, in my opinion.
It would be infuriating if the mother, sister or aunt get intro trouble in future episodes only because the MC failed to mention to them that a madman is roaming the woods, snatching women, maybe trying to literally murder and eat them. No one would fail to mention the creepy encounter to his loved ones.

Some words about the technical aspects... the renders are great, the characters, well the main characters at least, are extremely attractive. The mother and aunt are the usual super busty characters, but it's still within the realm of reason and overall body shape is natural, so they are not caricatures. The sister has normal sized breasts and is extremely cute.
The MC also looks alright, you have seen him in other games maybe... so there's no POV here, it's third person view throughout. I prefer this, but if you don't like third person games you need to be aware that you will see the MC all the time.
I used a mod that added music. I would recommend you give that a try, music was great! It also offers a walkthrough, but you can play this game without a walkthrough as well, most choices are pretty obvious.

I did not care at all for the looks of the two potential flings. It was easy for me to reject them, especially since the game is about the main characters.

I cannot say too much about animations. I did check out the scene with April in the lake, just to see what the animations are like, then I reloaded. The scene with April was ok-ish, it's your standard animation more or less. I hope eventual scenes with the actual love interests will be somewhat more elaborate.
And the unskippable dream sex scene with the random highschool teacher also had ok animations. Everything looks good, but it's what you have seen many times before.

To wrap things up... The Cabin is promising. I just hope it won't be an ultra slow burn for the sake of being an ultra slow burn. I do think it makes absolute sense for the mother and sister in this game, but the aunt (depending on what your wager is in an arcade scene) is not only willing to kiss the MC, she also goes skinny dipping with him in the pool and rubs her breasts against him. So let things escalate with her a bit more rapidly maybe?

So in my opinion, if the devs want the MC to have some action... have the aunt be the one who comes around first instead of dedicating precious render time to April or the clothing store lady. But that's of course just my own preference, I am just no fan of flings and inconsequential side characters. Maybe you are, then everything is fine and you will probably have no complaints at all!

If you like slow burn games that throw one or two bones at you to distract you a bit... if you like a VN with some horror elements (cannibals! mysterious ancient books!)... if you like the typical mother, sister, aunt dynamic... then The Cabin is certainly something you will enjoy a lot. The slice of life elements mixed with the mystery/horror is mostly well written, dialogues are ok, English is fine, I feel a few times the characters talk about nothing of importance though, let's hope there will be some more teasing in upcoming episodes, especially since episode 4 paves the way for that.

If you are a bit more impatient and/or would like the game to have scenes with the actual love interests, instead of random women that throw yourselves at you at the first opportunity... I would recommend you wait maybe 6-12 months and then come back to see if any meaningful progress has been made.

For now The Cabin has everything it takes to become a really good, maybe even excellent game. I recommend you play it if you like slow burners. But a lot will depend on the future direction of the game. I hope the game will focus on the three main love interests and not introduce ever more flings or have the flings become recurring characters you can meet all the time. You don't play this game to romance April or the clothing store owner, you play this game to romance the mother, the sister and the aunt.

I love the way the game is moving forward, you live in a cabin with 3 ladies in midst of woods with a cannibal roaming around the area. The renders are quite nice although I would have expected the milf characters to be a bit more voluptuous but I would just ignore it since the game has all of my fav tags.
It deserves all the love and support it can get.

The game is very good. It doesn't have as many sex scenes and choices as I would like, but it still deserves the 5 stars.

The graphics are really excellent, the girls are pretty and different from each other, the few animations I saw were good. The only point to complain about would be the choices. But that is not enough to take away 1 star from the game.

Perfect start.

Renders are good, characters are cute and unique.
Its not like a game where mommy hugs you with love and passion everytime she sees you. This game actually has a plot and interesting storytelling.
I would be disappointed if we would simply live in a house and corrupt everyone one by one.
It is a slow burn game so far, if you are looking for porn, check 5-6 months later.

Renders : 9/10 ( Some poses are great and unique in its own way. Good to see the dev is not using common poses)
Storytelling : 8/10
Plot : 10/10

Good game overall.
I love the horror/thriller theme, it feels more like an actual story than your typical guy bangs everyone he knows games, which is refreshing.
I really love the renders they're quite well done and the setting/environment is great. The characters have good personalities and are relatable (fairly rare in most games) and have some sense of morality, however I'd say the character development is likely the weakest point.

It already surpasses about 90% of games on F95 with that however it also puts it into a different league for rating since now i actually care about story development and not just waiting for the MC to start banging everyone he can.

Its not super long currently and the pacing feels a bit fast for me. It feels a bit like before you even know the characters they're progressing on there character arcs and changing. I would take this all day over the standard "Here's my new update for the month, 200 near identical renders with endless dialog to establish the MC still wants to bang his family/friends and has no morals" but it feels like a lot of scenes are underutilized with just a snippet of character development before a new scene.
Honestly a rare review as most developers drag a scene on for eternity to save making new scenes and locations. If the developer can keep this level of design gong for the entire game it would be amazing but honestly I'd be fine with a bit more focus/time at the start to build out the characters personalities as they're somewhat interesting compared to most games.

Great game and I look forward to the updates and seeing more out of this developer. Way more parts have been done right and with a few tweaks on the character development side I think they could be making some of the best games out there.

Review from a Newb with zero game dev experience but thousands of hours of playtime.

Review based on Ep4.

Review for Ep.3

I honestly don't know where to begin. I want to preface this review by saying that games I don't like are always more disappointing when they have a higher average score, so take that into consideration.

First up, the well done. I think the renders in this game are relatively well done and good-looking, especially the aunt. Off the top of my head, there wasn't a single character whose render I outright disliked. Next, the spelling and grammar. Normally I don't like using the spelling and grammar as a point to the dev, as a readable script should be the bare minimum when releasing a game. Unfortunately, it has become more and more common for devs to say, "fuck it", and release a game that has "engrish". So here I am, giving props to a dev for forming coherent sentences.

The goods end there for me though. Because of there being no meaningful choices, it became increasingly obvious to me where the story was going and what was going to happen with the mother. With the aunt constantly saying, "she went through a lot", I knew that we would be fed some bullshit sob-story to justify her acting like a piece of shit. Skip two-thirds into the game and, SURPRISE OH THE CENTURY, she suffered an abortion that was only brought on by her ILLEGALLY poking holes in a condom during what seems like a fucking midlife crisis. The moment the story was over, I told myself something. I thought, "if this game forces me to forgive her, I am dipping the fuck outta here." Couple of lines later, the MC forgives the mom with no say from me. So here I am, reviewing a game that had an endless amount of potential ruined by the shitty "choices". Two out of five.

A game that easily deserves 5 stars for me. The renders are very good, the characters are very good and hot, the horror theme is definitely interesting. I like that mc isn't as perverted as in other games. According to an incest game, Mc's relationship with the family is progressing as it should. Although many people expect to have sex with their family members, this is the right thing for me.

Game got great potential. Really loved this game. Renders are above average. Character models are well polished. Loved the sister character. It's a slowburn big plus for me. MC is not a big pervert like in many other games. This one is not a cliche incest game. Game contains mystery and horror elements. Game is mostly silent with little sound effects. When you see it's a horror game you may expect more horroric and creepy sounds. Since the game is mostly silent I got scared when I heard some unexpected sound effects. like the thunder sound. I got scarec when I heard to be honest I didn't expect it. So it's a good idea making the game mostly silent one suggestion I will say is that please add more explicit images when the girl said about the backstory of cabin and the town. This game is really worth playing. Looking forward to next updates

First the good. This appears to be a first effort, and the art itself is above average for new releases around here. The models are interesting, and memorable, and the artist uses camera angles effectively.

I appreciated some of the facial expressions that helped breathe some personality into the characters. The environments were generally sparse, but composed well, and the artist took some care to avoid visible clipping through both posing and camera angles. I did find the women to be universally attractive from an art perspective, and that's where the bulk of this rating is coming from. It was also nice to see depth-of-field used to great effect in some scenes.

While the lighting is often one-dimensional or blown out indoors, the artist does acquit himself well on several scenes outdoors and in darker environments that many would find challenging. It feels odd that he takes the easy way out in some brightly-lit scenes where a little nuance would have elevated much more of the artwork into the upper tier.

Negatives I observed on the art side were a relatively low render density. While this may not matter to some, I often found characters feeling somewhat static for several lines of dialogue without an expression change, which sometimes took me out of immersion. Moving on to pure personal preference, I find whatever denoising/postprocess that is in use here to be overly-aggressive, which looks extremely clean, but comes at the expense of photorealism and sometimes wanders too far into the uncanny valley.

With that aside, I do see a bright future for the developer as an artist. It's when he begins writing that I begin to think he should perhaps partner up with somebody who has deeper skillset in prose.

Again, beginning with the good, there isn't any blatant Engrish here. I genuinely liked Lisa, and I found myself most entertained during the scenes that included her.

There is a modicum of quality control, which unfortunately does not appear to focus on punctuation. I stopped counting missed commas and run-on sentences in the introduction scene.

I'm uncertain if the dev is a native English speaker, but nearly every line of dialogue felt like it was written the way an amateur writer wants conversational English to happen, with very little regard to how it actually does. Similarly, the narration also lacks refinement and polish. It tries with varying levels of success to overcome the lack of render density with cumbersome and inelegant delivery like:

"Hazel looks at her sister, concern on her face, Grace continues to cling to the side of the pool as a tear escapes one eye and drops into the pool."

"Lisa and you continue your walk to town, every once in a while you cast a glance over your shoulder. Otherwise it is a peaceful walk."

"And I don't believe that Lisa and Kevin hate you. They may not be happy that they had to suddenly drive out here to visit. But I bet if they understood they'd be the first to hug you and support you."

Don't get me wrong, these are hardly the most egregious sins a VN writer has committed, but against the backdrop of the beautiful scenery, you can't help but feel the dev is simultaneously at home with the art, but out of his depth with the written word.

As far the story goes, I don't have an issue with a good slow burn, or character development. I'm not going to call out the slower pace of relationship-building here, unless the payoff in future updates proves out the fear that the juice just wasn't worth the squeeze. If the delivery holds true to form, I expect the art to be solid and compelling, while the dialogue misfires just often enough to rob the effort of greatness.

I'll revisit this and update my review as the product matures. Best of luck dev!

It's still an early release, but this game has potential. There are a bunch of things that are really well done in this VN, but there are a couple of things preventing me from giving the game a higher score (though with a little polishing, this could easily jump up a star or potentially two).

PROs:
* The renders are good and the girls are all quite attractive (though I'm not a huge fan of the sister's look, but that's 100% personal preference and not a judgment of the dev's rendering). I haven't noticed any weird facial expressions or odd body positioning, which can be found in a lot of games.

* The writing is for the most part error free, with good English and spelling. I tend to be a little OCD with that stuff, so I was happy to not encounter any jarring mistakes or typos.

* The MC is not a creepy pervert, an asshole, or an idiot. He comes across as a pretty normal, decent guy. Having the MC's sister, mother, and aunt as LIs is obviously far from original, but in too many similar games, MC is constantly creeping on his relatives, coercing them into sex acts, or sexually assaulting them in their sleep. There is none of that so far in this game, thankfully. He inadvertently catches a few peeks here and there, but isn't a creep about it, and is not spying on anyone.

* Similarly, the MC's relationship with his sister is refreshingly normal. In most games of this genre, the sister is either a raging bitch or painfully naïve and childish, but MC's sister is neither. The relationship isn't adversarial or creepy, which is a big plus.

* The story is clearly going to be a slow burn. There is only one "sex scene" (which I will get to shortly), and it's obvious there is going to be a lot of story/relationship development before MC starts getting sexual with the LIs. I prefer this to having sex scenes thrown in early and often with no buid-up.

Now for the CONs:
* Although the writing is clear and mostly error-free, the conversations between characters are often awkward. They aren't cringey or uncomfortable per se, but they don't often seem to flow smoothly or feel like natural conversation. This is really a minor quibble, as a little polishing could easily fix this.

* There are, however, a few dialogues which are needlessly repetitive. It gets tiring to read MC and his Mom repeatedly criticizing the sister for liking to read. Having the MC tease her about her reading at the beginning is fine- it doesn't need to be repeated over and over. Similarly, the Mom's conversations with the Aunt are all basically minor variations of the same conversation: the Mom has a secret which has caused her to develop a drinking problem, her husband doesn't believe whatever the secret is, and she wants to be honest with her kids and tell them about it, so they will understand why she's been acting like such a dick. I don't know why this same conversation needs to be repeated over and over. It's not like the reader is going to forget, and honestly these dialogues start to feel like filler.

* Lastly, my biggest issue with the game, and the primary thing keeping me from giving it a higher score, is the last scene in this update (Episode 2): the dream scene. One of my absolute biggest pet peeves in these games is when random sex dream sequences are inserted unnecessarily into the game. The scene comes out of nowhere, has no connection to the story or characters, and feels like the dev just wanted to shoehorn some type of sex into the episode. I'd much prefer there be no sex scene at all than a random dream scene like this.

By and large, this feels like it could turn into a very solid VN with only minor polishing.

Its a weirdly fresh take on a few longstanding tropes. The relationship with he mum is a little more complex rather than the typical innocent obliviousness, the relationship with the sister is a lot less adversarial than normal and the father character isn't an asshole but rather someone just fed up with a situation which is surprisingly sympathetic.

The idea is curious, the renders are good enough to stand out and I just hope the quality continues to improve.

Good job to the author!

im looking forward to this one
story is perfect believable to me very logical
character relation to each other realistic
the sister look like a Mila Kunis i like mila im not gonna complain about it
render is good overall every thing is good but short
and i find this game out of no where by mistake dev have to to somthing about it
its rly promising game .

Edit Ep.3

My Reaction for this game : I really like it with some hot Milfs

★ Gameplay : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Story : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Spelling : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ renders : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Animations: ✭✭✭✰✰
★ Potential : ✭✭✭✭✭
★ Overall : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Girls physique : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Graphic : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Sex Content : ✭✭✭✭✰
★ Creativity :✭✭✭✭✰

Note :
Excellent improvement , i see clearly the developer working hard for his game , definitely u should play it.

◉ All the best to the developer .

Incredibly promising incest VN.

Great visuals, great character design with an interesting story and personalities.

If you like this kind of VN this one is the best of its genre that I've played in a while. I recommend you play it with KoGa3's mod installed.

Very promising.
I like how the story starts. Unusual. The dynamic between the siblings is also something fairly unusual for an adult VN. For now there isn't really much there that I can talk about without spoiling the story, but I am hoping next update is soon because I am actually interested.
A bit of a spoiler because I was actually laughing pretty hard:
Character renders are great. Environment though is lacking. Noticeable contrast in detail. But it's not distracting so it works, I guess.
Overall. I like it and are, as I said before, looking forward to the next part.

[updated review for Ep 1 part 2]

Graphics is very good, no music just a few sound effects.

Story was actually interesting and engaging and the and writing really good,
MC and LIs were relatable and interesting.


==============

outdated comment for [Ep 1 part 1], this is actually much better in the update!

Unfortunately, in the last minutes or so the game descended into a "worst of adult visual novel" quagmire:
MC (who seemed quite non-psychopathic so far) finds his alcoholic mother passed out on the sofa in the middle of the night and immediately starts grabbing her boobs (no choice, remember), and the release ends with the MC lying in bed afterwards reflecting this wonderful development while sporting his minotaur-sized cock.

It would be really nice if this awful ending was the result of the developers running out of time and patience and rushing out something with lewd contents; ideally once they have more time and energy they would backtrack, pretend these minutes never happened, and continue with the potentially very interesting game before that.

These last minutes would warrant 2 stars, the beginning 5, I end up with 4 for now, not giving up hope...

This gets off to a more substantial start than most incest based VNs do. It still is clearly going to make use of the "I'm the man of the house now" trope, but it seems like it will be used in a different way.

The story is set up well. Though I wish there was a semblance of choice in the beginning, even if it led to the same outcome. The MC *totally not mom* gets into a fight with *totally not dad* and then she takes you and your *totally not sister* to go live with your *totally not aunt*. There is an underlying theme of addiction and recovery early in the game. It doesn't seem like the dev is going to shy away from more touchy topics in the future. There is a part at the end where I wish I had a choice to not do what was done because I didn't really want to do it as the player, but overall I like the direction.

The render are nice. the game is stylized and the characters look like porcelain but not overly so like in "Photo hunt". I've seen all the locations before but I can't say that the character models jump out at me as overly used or used at all. It's all photo frames there is no animation and thus far there isn't really in sexual content (0.1).

The writing and grammar is pretty good, if the dev isn't a native english speaker they sure know how to translate well. What I'm more impressed with is the usage of addiction and how that impacts a family dynamic. I wouldn't be surprised if the dev has had issues with addiction in the family in the past or some other frame of personal reference. I need to add that the beginning you are given the choice to modify names and relationships, which I like, but it got confusing with the aunt and the mom. So be warned, redhead is aunt.

Overall, I like it. There is more here than an overdeveloped sex drive in a young man. There seems to be real conflict that needs resolving. As long as this doesn't turn into a fantastical fuck-fest then I can't wait for more. Thumbs up, dev.

This game is off to a great start. The premise is simple and there's not much content, but the relationships between the characters are fleshed out pretty well thus far. The models are well designed, too. Obviously, this is a review of a very early version with no animations or sex scenes, so we'll have to wait and see if this becomes something.