Ren'Py - Abandoned - The DeLuca Family [Season 1] [HopesGaming]

Review after restructuring the story:
Still amazing and set apart from your classic VNs. Treat it differently and it will reward you with anticipation.

Delete old saves and save regularly during the play-through as gallery is broken and needs a better approach.

It is a really good game.
And it is wonderful to have opportunity to disable all minigames and grinding.

But the main plus of the game are characters.
I hope that dev will find enough resources and inspiration to finish this project on the same high level.

First of all, they pushed the game too hard. We used to be able to do tasks more comfortably. Now they've gone into too much detail. The old menu style was easier, clearer and more fluid. I didn't expect the producer to push so hard. I'm sorry if my comment is wrong...

By far the best writing I've seen in a VN, bar none. It's a bit lightweight on the H-scenes, but I can see why the author didn't want to throw them in right away. Would be nice if they included a way to repeat H-scenes as well.

The revamp is definitively an improvement over the standard VN trope.

It is a little wordy and there is no option to scroll back in the new contract system. Which makes it difficult for the reading impaired.

Lot of pretty visuals, but not enough sex scenes. We finally get one and it's not with the main 3. I'm hoping there will be a Harem ending or some more smut.

Wouldn't mind seeing more stills/renders with the Protagonist and the girls. Him sitting boss like, while girls drape on him like Conan girls, etc.

Thats how sandbox should be made!
Gameplay - 5/5
You have all the "features" sandbox offers - money, various locations, time of day and events BUT you have complete understanding what to do. Game offers a built-in walkthrough so you always know what to do. Grindy part made as "Contracts" which are text made in D&D style. You don't grind same and same events but you enjoying story inside this contracts
Story and writing - 5/5
Story is well written and very enjoyable. It offers to player plenty of humorous moments but also a lot of dark and heavy ones. You WILL empathize to every character in that VN
Music - 5/5
Very immersive and fitting that setting perfectly


TLDR If you are NOT AFRAID OF ALMOST 0 H CONTENT you definetely should try this out

v0.07.1 was disappointing and I don't like where the game is heading.

I absolutely don't understand why Hopes is trying so hard to keep and add more sandbox and RPG-elements. The vast majority of players here fell in love with this game because of the plot and characters, the VN part of the game.

Ok, simple contracts from Wilfred were not that bad. But they were grindy. Maybe it would be better to make them disposable. One success -> no more available, go to another contract.

It was very disappointing that the mission to save Eiza's sister turned out to be mostly text-based. I expected to see something similar to the mission with the attack on Straffan's base. So many characters, so much potential!

But I guess, your expectations are your problems.

The only question is, will all side missions with action be like this from now on? Text + renders? Pity if yes.

About sex scenes.
I guess Hopes decided to add them just to stop fappers from constant whining.
Sister Amita (or Amata?) sucked MC off just because he's cute? Eiza scene?
I think both scenes were too rushed with no build up.

Even tho I disliked new update I can't give this game 3 star or less.
The whole game doesn't deserve to suffer for the sins of the new version.

At first I was skeptical playing this game after seeing lots of complaining about the lack of sex scenes. Even so, the few pictures I have seen has convinced me to give it a try. Oh man, what a ride. I didn't even care about sex anymore, just wanted to play and never stop.

This game is simply amazing! One of the best AVN I've ever played. I love everything about The DeLuca Family. Characters with unique personalities, emotions, good animations and pure art like reflections, shadows and light.

If you are looking for something different this game is for you.

Yes, the game went through some major changes recently and it took a long time for the update (at the time of writing this), but I have the following to say.

The art in this game is amazing. I've rarely seen a higher quality. And the story is just superb. Combines drama, romance, action, and other genres into a great story. The characters seem as if they could be real people. I could just keep going on and on about the positives of this game.

However, there will be negatives. I much preferred the older system of dealing with contracts and all that. That's to say the many clicks to resolve what used to be a couple clicks and holding ctrl. Also, some of the stat checks seem a bit rough. For example, the only way I could peek in the bathroom was having exactly 6 sneak.

Overall, I'd definitely say it's worth a play. Even if you're not into the whole quest and grinding thing, there will be other options. I play the Full Experience, but there are also two other modes, one of which lets you basically skip the gameplay but get all the story and many lewd scenes.

Ok, so I just played the update (v.0.7.1) and don't have pretty much anything good to say. I really enjoyed the game at first, good renders, somewhat good animations, and a good story and I was even a supporter for some time. But the months passed, 9 to be exact, and I saw that an update was coming to the game so I just waited. It turns out that the new content with characters is pretty much 0. So what's new? Contracts. Yea, that's the only new thing. And what are contracts? A boring mess. I don't get how after 9 months we get such a bad update with not even a single new event with Luna or Gracie or Cordia. Luna hasn't gotten a new event since 0.05 and Gracie since 0.04 so over a year without them getting a single event. I don't know what the developer was thinking but that was not the right decision chief.

A decently made game in the mafia theme that through its good characterization has garnered a (maybe too) passionate fandom.

MC is a dude who suddenly finds himself employed by a Mafia family. We are witnessing his journey up the ranks while meeting the members.

The characters are its strong point with a distinct cast. Although I admit I don't see it as the pinnacle of character writing on here like many do. It has a weird mix of anime-type tropes and a mafia story and sometimes the two don't mess well. And while this is not the first game that does it, it always creeps me out when a character looks like a fully grown female supermodel and yet is written like a very inexperienced virgin who acts nothing like her supposed age. Especially in what looks like a modern setting and not the puritan era. Still the game avoids the trope of having a bunch of personality clones and the family members are different enough to have their own character.

The renders are decent and the models nice to look at. The gameplay on the other hand, is its weakest point. Tedious stat/money grinding that pads the game. When you take all that out of each release, the amount of actual story progression in each update is laughably little.

Even with that it would probably get a 3 star overall for me. But dev decided to take almost a year to update and when they did, it turned out a mechanical rework nobody really asked for (game was fine on the user end with its previous systems). A rework that added even more tedious padding in a game with story that was already moving at a glacial pace. I won't share my thoughts about the reasons but for that fact alone it gets a poor rating.

I will try to revisit it in the future, because the initial concept is good. As long as it makes it to a final product that is. Because at current pace, that's a task for the future generations.

7.1 update
Good rescue mission and rewards
Y like the new contract sistem .
The new gameplay it's good. Possible need little fix
The chibi was good.
New sides girls are hot.
Good update and good info

It's one of the best games I've ever played. I played for a second without blinking. Even activities to make money not boring for me. The characters are all very unique one by one. The music that plays on scenes fits beautifully on that scenes. In the game, the story is beautifully told without boring you. There's nothing wrong with game that catches my eye, and therefore there's nothing in the game I can disprogate. Thank you to everyone who made this game and made it happen.

nice renders and great history, its immersive and entertainment Luna is my favorite Dev keep it up the good work. One of the best that i played, sorry for mistakes in writting i not native english speaker

Best story based game out there, also i love the mafia theme
you should look at this game as more of a visual novel cause story is carrying it and as i said best story ever.
overall its amazing and everyone should play this.

First thing that impressed me when I started playing this game was the animations, it is not the usual 2 seconds animation that just plays in loop, it's almost like watching anime with 3d graphics. I really liked how unique the main and each characters' stories as well (especially Luna's, though I hate and condemn those people who did those things, it really made my blood boil) or maybe I am just being biased being Luna's fan. I can say that this is one of the best games that I have played so far and I can't wait for the next update.

3.5/5
the story is above, and developer writes pretty well but here is also the problem. The amount of reading is not supported by the amount of render. The whole game is spending time more on reading than appreciating the render. So maybe future could cut abit on the writing to make it more balance.

One of the best game on this site. I loved every character in this story, especially Luna... The MC is probably is my favorite mc in this site. He is so witty and bold. I am waiting for the next update to drop in...

After all this time, this is still an unfinished, sluggishly developed, poor in content, work in progress. And it’s not even an adult game (no lewd scenes). It is a boring, badly designed visual novel with terrible UI (interface), overly complicated gameplay, convoluted free roam section with noting to do (door opening simulator) to cover the lack of content, with no dialogue options, illusory choices and a pathetic loser as a MC.

The gameplay is the standard grinding that plagues just about every game. Slogging through badly designed interface and grinding in architecturaly challenged house to perv on some girls from time to time.

Story is badly written, childish cliche. It takes itself far too seriously for its content and seems to think it is revolutionary when it's actually droll. Every single character is two dimensional and shallow, weird for the sake of being wierd, eccentric or silly. They do not behave or talk like normal people. Progression of relationships is ridiculous and non-rewarding grind. Lewd themes are very childish, like none of the characters know what sex is and are teasing each other like it is elementary school. The choices you make don't really have an effect on the story or characters, so why even bother putting them in. The visuals aren't that good either as all girls look the same (like teens in anime).

MC is a constanly friendzoned loser, who risks his life on multiple occasions for a friendly hug and his actions as a mob hitman (in boring minigames) are completely detatched from the story where he is some servant slave who’s been made to live in someone else’s bathroom, for some reason.

Badly designed VN with a childish unfinished story from a bad developer even by adult game standards.

The vivid characters, the backstories, the slow seduction , it's just wow. The building suspense and slow relationship development with characters, its something to watch. Doing chores to gain favors that open up future possibilities presented in a very unique way.