VN - Ren'Py - The Grey Dream [Ep.6 P1 Patreon Release] [TheGreys]

soooo...
uhmmmm...

this one is a great example of good renders, pretty models and the beauty of each shot, some decent posing and lighting, which covers the 'V' in AVN..

but as an ADULT NOVEL (both aspects) - this is utterly terrible. I mean - I literally fell asleep while reading.

- MC has 0.0% agency, he is uninteresting, bland and boooooooring as fuck
- the choices are meaningless
- the characters are as one-dimensional as it can possibly be - there is no depth to the characters whatsoever.
- the pacing itself is weird, some scenes that are divided by time jumps make zero sense.
- and the sex scenes. I (almost) never comment on the adult content - but that's some really uninspired fucking over there.

With all that being said, sorry - I cannot recommend this one to any person.

0,15/10 stars

The good looks of the game can't save it, unfortunately.

The writing is bad, and the issue is two-fold: the dialogues are really bad and robotic, and the pacing and construction of the story makes it very hard for me to feel engaged.

Regarding the visuals, even if the characters do look very good, they feel like empty dolls with no interior life whatsoever, no changing facial expressions at all.

I find it impossible to care about the characters or the story.

The quality of renders and attractive characters cannot save The Grey Dream from two of its major faults: bad writing and bad sex scenes.

I will be the first to admit that this game has a lot of attractive women. Even the men are well-designed. The makers spent a lot of time and effort on lighting and camera work, and it shows.

But it's one of these games where you get tired of skipping through dialogue. Some games have a plot and clumsily stumble through stilted prose from scene to scene. In this game you will never guess what happens next because the plot meanders blindly.

Maybe the sex scenes are good? Not really. The first few are all with throwaway characters that didn't get any exposition for you to get invested in them, and the animation loops are all short enough that the camera needlessly moving back and forth gets really annoying.

Their second game looks like it has a more straightforward plot (go to college, fuck chicks), so I hope this means they realized what was going wrong with The Grey Dream themselves.

Beautiful characters and an interesting story, good grammar and at times the soundtrack was good, which earns this 3 stars. Don't take this as anything but constructive criticism to improve, but the dialog is a bit dry. They all speak the same way and carry the same facial expression, like they're bored or sleepy. Makes the reader bored and sleepy, especially when some elevator music starts playing. There were so many missed opportunities for a little humor and just when you think there may be a little action it cuts right back to dry dialog. The skiing scene, party or hostage rescue could have added so much more excitement for example. Props for moving the story along but that alone won't keep the reader engaged. This could easily go from decent to great. Keep improving and your stories could go 5 star.

I feel that I have to give the game a 5.

I thoroughly enjoy the game. I like the more or less realistic relationships in the game. (A couple of one night stands plus the platonic, plus more possible long term relationships.)

The girls are very sexy, the sex scenes are pretty good.
Very nice animation.
Good music and sound.

The story is not bad, but also not the best. it's an average crime mystery case.
The story is the weakest part of the game but is not terrible. It's passible.

The choices is very meaningful in who you get to romance or spend time with. It offers multiple playthroughs to see all the girls.

Maybe a 4 rating would be better, but since the graphics, interface and amount of content is so good I'm happy with a 5.

The Grey Dream looks great, but beauty is only skin deep.

That statement is a little too simplified, as there are some good elements about this VN; it's just that each element is brought down by poor design choices or poor execution.

For example:

The girls are damn fine looking - but they come thick and fast, and many look too similar, that you lose track of whom is who.

The story hook is actually decent enough - seek to obtain a percentage of the business to secure ownership for the Grey family. But the scenes are so disjointed. There is a distinct lack of flow to what is going on.

The animations ain't bad, at least there is a sequence, and the girls are hot. But, fixing the camera to the characters so it jerks all over the place is just not a good way to do it. A dynamic camera is great, just make sure it has its own dedicated spline/track.

Some other things that stand out as bad are:

The dialogue. My gawd, it is terrible. And sometimes verges on the edge of non-sensical.

There is no real rapport with the girls, no build-up, no tension, no sense of conquering - I just don't care about any of them. Personally, I like the chase, but there's none of that here.

The first two main sex scenes are flashbacks.... The rest are random encounters (as of ep3.5 - I had to stop).

This VN comes across as a first draft against a beautiful backdrop. First drafts should never see the light of day.

Man, there's just no soul.

Despite all what I have said, I do think a lot of the issues can be worked out, hence the three stars.

Hence the opening statement.

..........................................................................................................................................................Amazing renders
Amazing scenes
Amazing quality
Amazing story
Overall 4.9/5
............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

the game itself is very pleasant and the plot is pleasant to read in it, the characters are very beautifully made, the surrounding world is also made pleasant. I can say I bought the game in steam, I did not regret that I bought it. the atmosphere of the plot and the characters themselves and the whole game as a whole is very good with the game

There is something truly great here, the renders are breathtaking and are some of the highest quality you will ever find, every girl is extremely hot and for the most part well written, the writing is solid, and I love the setting where it takes place in the business world, I think this is a true gem of a game and with more updates and more story fleshed out i think it will quickly climb to one of my favorites

The game simply didn't capture my attention. Played for about an hour and I just don't care to continue. Story didn't grab me, dialogue is pretty straight-forward, same as all the characters. You meet someone and they immediately act like you were friends for years, inviting you to all sorts of activities, trusting you with things they shouldn't... Also, in an hour I talked with more women, than I did in 5 years in real life. They just keep coming and many look similar. I completely forgot most of who is who and what their names are.

The Grey Dream EP5

Good
+Models are nice and girls are attractive (if a bit too similar with some of their looks and proportions).
+Renders are nice when most of what you're looking at isn't too blurry due to ridiculously overused shallow depth of field.

Neutral
=Animations vary in quality from pretty decent to pretty poor - almost all are brief loops. Some are nice to look at but the scenes they're in just are brief and not particularly hot the majority of the time even when the girls and animations are.
=Music and some basic sounds exist but don't add much most of the time.

Bad
-Otherwise great renders and animations are marred by overuse of very shallow depth of field making way too much of them just completely blurry. Shallow DoF effects are good for making the characters stand out from the background and to draw attention to specific parts of a shot selectively but when you're just slapping it on every render and it's so shallow that when it's focused on the face the chest is completely blurry (and vice versa), you've gone way too far. So many renders/anims of beautiful women are completely ruined by blur from the DoF here. Some may find it pleasingly artistic somehow but I find it unbearable to rarely be able to see more than one small part of a woman's body clearly at the same time (let alone anything even slightly in the background/foreground). I'd take lesser quality renders that I can actually see the details of over these any day. Other problems are issues with the images having overdone lighting effects, being too dark, too washed out, or occasionally appearing grainy even with all the blur. Some issues are worse earlier in the game but a lot frustratingly persist throughout.

-MC and many other characters lack changes of facial expression especially during dialogue in most of the scenes - it just alternates between mouth open and mouth shut if it bothers to do that. This makes the game feel lifeless and the characters too static with expressions that don't match up to the dialogue most of the time. Visual story telling overall just isn't something the game does well.

-Timings used when transitioning automatically between a few sequential renders can be way too fast and aren't usually necessary (would be better in most of the cases to move between them manually).

-The story is boring and soulless - nothing is really interesting, exciting, or entertaining. Even the lewd content isn't particularly interesting or sexy - it's mostly just things that happen with little to no buildup and then are quickly over. The pacing is also awful. It feels like almost every single thing in the game is rushed through with little of substance ever really being said followed by a black screen with "X amount of time later" displayed and then it's just on to the next scene often in jarring manner that doesn't necessarily connect well. Tone also suffers as you hop between scenes - one minute you'll be smack dab in the middle of what's supposed to be serious intrigue and the next you're just having a lighthearted slice of life scene hanging with your gal pals. Logic and explanation as to how people frequently know exactly what to do next and how one part of the story leads to the next is often either extremely lacking or frustrating due to needless ambiguity and characters not realizing the obvious things they should be questioning. It's a game that wants you to think it's telling an interesting story of intrigue without putting in any of the effort so you end up feeling like you just need to turn your brain off and not question anything to avoid being confused or annoyed by the issues which is the opposite of what should be happening. Dialogue is also pretty terrible and frequent humor attempts are generally awful.

-I liked some of the LIs based on their looks alone but even though some routes are starting to take shape I found I have no real investment in any of them and still feel like I barely know them. The routes themselves seem to be starting in earnest in EP 4 and 5 (and likely beyond) but they're already a bit too restrictive for choices with girls you have no commitment to and have barely gotten involved with most of yet. Assuming these are actual routes being formed at this point it's already off to a bad start with some of them being too unclear (not at all intuitive) or restrictive. I won't even get into how badly they blundered what seems to be the beginning of Kelly's route in EP5 or I'll go on a tirade. At this point it also seems like there's at least as much if not more lewd content with random girls than there is with any of the primary characters or LIs. All LIs except for Anna are basically a slow burn or no burn so far, but not in a good way - barely any real romantic or sexual tension build up. If there's any anticipation we have for these characters, it has nothing to do with the story but rather what's in our heads after seeing them looking hot in renders throughout the AVN.

-Lots of cumshots that don't show the results - there's a render of it shooting out towards the girl's body and then it cuts away. Even when the girl asks the MC to cum on her and he seemingly obliges we still don't see the results on her body. The exceptions are three facials (two with random girls) and one body shot which we do get to see the results of so I'm not sure why the renders are used in these scenes but not the others - it's strangely inconsistent (even within the same scene in one case finishing on the face shows the facial but finishing on the body just shows it shooting out over the body and then just ends the scene there).

-The whole Alpha/Sigma points system is pretty dumb and so far only really affects part of what you see in two of the early lewd scenes and a handful of dialogue differences in EP 5. The whole system should just be dropped in favor of letting the player just decide what they want to do in a given scene/situation.

Overall, it's clear whoever is doing the renders has some of talent when it comes to making renders of attractive women (when not ruining them with improperly used shallow DoF effects) but the writer lacks the competency to write intrigue that works at all, dialogue that isn't awful, scenes that are interesting, characters with any depth, relationships that are compelling, or lewd content that's actually sexy. Almost everything feels like you know what the author is trying to do but they just don't know how to effectively. There's so much wasted potential here that it's frustrating. I'd normally consider revisiting a game like this once it's done but I don't feel like this one can be salvaged, likely don't care about any of the girls enough to be invested in progressing their routes (which is a shame given how hot they are), and don't have faith that there will be anything that's in any way satisfying enough to play more for. I'd be happy to wrong about these things though if they do manage to turn things around... either way I'm sure it'll do fine as there's a large demographic of people that will buy in for pretty renders alone.

I'm enjoying it so far.

I've seen people complaining about the story, which i think is somewhat unfair given that there are implied (as yet unrevealed) reasons for things happening as they are. I'm happy to suspend disbelief until such a time as those plotlines are revealed.

My one real complaint is that as an obvious non-native speaker, the dev could do with having some of the dialogue re-written or polished as it's a bit jarring or offputting at times. The best example of this would be the sex scene with Kelly. The prior character development is all there for the scene to be tender and emotional, but then the dialogue just comes out of nowhere and doesn't really fit what could be a fantastic scene.

(8/10)
Beautiful renders
Smooth Animations
Pretty LI's
Engaging Storyline
Interesting characters

I hope they add name features to the saves so it is easy to keep check of saves with different choices and branches.

Stunning visuals, a compelling and unique story, although it can be difficult to follow at times.
Different characters and branches provide plenty of opportunities and replayability, really enjoyed the game

the gameplay itself is very good and it's nice to read the musical component is a very pleasant atmosphere of music and plot wonderfully made characters in general very atmospheric and pleasant emotions the game evokes in you that the game further wants to play it

Simply Stunning!!!

The best thing about this game is its female character models. They are just so damn good looking. I mean every single one of them even random npcs. Don't want to talk about story much as it's still episode 5 only. But damn those models .

I have liked this AVN from the beginning. There are not too many LIs and there is a decent story running throughout. Plus the graphics are good, the scene blocking, pacing, etc... are all pretty good. The problem, IMO, is the writing.

I am pretty sure English is not the devs first language as the dialogue is not good. Dialogue is hard to write, even as a native speaker but more so when it's not your first language. Needless to say, this gets in the way of the actual story. While you can get a feel for what is going on, the details are a bit sketchy and some of the MC's plans/schemes while they sort of sound good, they don't really play well. I think this is more to do with the grasp of English than the actual story and ideas.

Regardless, the awkward storytelling and dialogue do cause problems when it comes to staying immersed in the story. Also, there are some scenes that could use a little more meat on them but instead end up lacking and falling short of the intended concept.

I will say the h scenes are pretty darn good, but again, there are some gaps in the language in those scenes as well. Still, they work a whole lot better than the rest of the story.

Despite the obvious talent of the dev, their skills are not enough to make up for the language defects. If they can right that ship and get the story on track, they will have a great little AVN. Until then, it is hard for me to rate this higher than just average.

On a totally different note, I have no idea why this AVN has a sandbox tag. There is no sandbox. There is one segment of point and click/free roam but thankfully, that's it. There are no silly maps. No senseless clicking places hoping you trigger something. None of that, so not sure why it is listed.

I think this is my favorite release yet, models are so unique and the game is so good looking. I like the three gallery option with scenes, rewards etc included. I really hope more episodes won't take too long

Nice one Dev!

This game is being released in Early Access. That means that the game may, or may not, change from its current state.

Too Long Didn't Read Version

Recommend
✔Yes, at list price, on sale, or part of a bundle
Visual Novel Type
Railroad
Acts
Oral✔, Vaginal✔, Feet✔, Femdom
Censorship?
No
Hours of Gameplay
Three to four hours
Difficulty
Normal
Graphics
Beautiful
Animation
Stills - Animated
Audio
Music
Art Style
3D Model
Bugs
A few here and there
Replayability
Once is Enough
Multiple Monitors
Stays up, with audio, when not in game. Cursor not locked to window.
Overall Rating
Good

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Synopsis
The Grey Dream is a RenPy railroad visual novel.

Story
You're a lawyer, fresh out of law school, getting ready for you job interview with Grey LLC. Your interview is with the big guy himself, Mr. Grey. The interview is short as Mr. Grey tells you that you were already hired before the interview even started. Then in walks Mr. Grey's daughter, Helen. Three months ago you had a brief fling with Helen when you were both interning at a different company. It didn't end well.

Gameplay
You start off by entering the first name of the main character, the last name is Robins. Next you are given the option to turn on voyeurism.

The choice selections for this game pop up in the lower right hand corner, not centered like many RenPy games.

The scenes are animated and broken into sections, mainly different camera angles. At the end of a section you have given the option to rewatch the scene from the different angles or continue.

Currently there are about 48 choices to make. None of them have a major impact on the story, but your choices will have a minor impact on the story, i.e. do you go out with character A or character B.

All of the models are beautiful. The main character is a metrosexual guy. The story is okay, but it is difficult to say where it is going with the game in its current state.

As is normal for most RenPy games the text isn't perfect, but it is very good, for the most part. A few misspelling and incorrect word usages, but nothing major.

The Gallery
The Gallery is accessed from the Extras option on the main menu. There is a Gallery, which allows you to rewatch the scenes you have experienced in the game. There is also a side story option that gives you a little more insight into some of the characters.

Final Verdict
The game is currently at version 3.5 which means three and a half chapters. There is one main scene per chapter and most of the game is advancing the story.

System Specs
Intel i7-8086K Coffee Lake 6-Core 4.00GHz CPU
Crucial Ballistix Sport AT 2666 MHz DDR4 RAM (16GB x 2)
ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 Overclocked 8G GDDR6

First off the characters look amazing in this game especially Haley lol. So far the game is really good and has a really good plot that keeps you interested and characters that are all done very well and have good back stories. This is definitely worth picking up. I'm excited for what comes next in the following chapters and can't wait to read more. Hats off to The Greys for this awesome vn.