Ren'Py - The Hard Way [v0.43.0] [Muffin Maker]

Came for tags, stood for... umm... I'm not sure. Stockholm syndrome?

At the beginning it was ok, just... okay. Plot was kinda cliche - a guy who lost father and is trying to find him. Seen something similar in few games already, but reading it wasn't bad. Interactions with characters were very repeatable and I felt totally no passion, but well, it's natural for games with so big harem, so I expected this. Until some point this part of game was average++, maybe even good, but then dev decided to add a lot of conspiracy theories. Seriously. WTF. Discussions, if earth is flat or not in porn game? Since this moment I skipped big part of story (everytime it was mentioned I just pressed skip) and started playing every fourth update or so, because it was just dumb and unreadable. Lost some part of plot, because of it, but I don't regret - reading this bullshit would be a big waste of time.

Graphic is ok, there are some really pretty faces and various of bodies. Unfortunately, game lack of good scenes in comparision to other 4 years old games. Mostly it's based on repeatable and ugly generic scenes that unlock with affection, but there are some dedicated scenes that are hot. Game would get a big improvement, if we'd be able to repeat those non-generic scenes via talking with LIs.

Do I regret starting it? No. With some improvements this game can be a solid 4 star game and I always believe that improvement is possible. For now it's just an average game with nice (for me) tags and thanks to skip feature I'm able to play it.

VERSION: 0.43.0
SUMMARY: Total rubbish, not worth the review let alone the play
RATINGS: (out of 5):

NOTE: The following categories and scoring method are my own criteria and may require more context. Additionally, scoring is based on the state, and what is in the current version and not what may or may not be.

1. Model Visuals..................... : ⭐⭐
2. General Visuals................... : ⭐⭐
3. Animation Quality................. : ⭐
4. Character (Persona)............... : ⭐⭐
5. Story Quality & Pacing............ : ⭐⭐
6. Writing Quality & Dialogue........ : ⭐⭐⭐
7. UI & Game-play Mechanics...........: ⭐
8. Playtime & General Quality.........: ⭐⭐
9. Sounds & Music.....................: ⭐
10. H-Content & Fetishes.............. : ⭐⭐

Average: X of 50 possible points giving a X% rating i.e. X stars.

PROS:

1. Some fetishes, but really its actually not even worth mentioning
2. Written fairly well and reads well, albeit bullshit
3. Story is semi interesting but really not great either.

CONS:

1. No sounds of any kind, music, ambient, lewd, you name it.
2. Renders are grainy and small, because its more side scroller than anything else IMO.
3. Animations are renders that are slow and poor quality.
4. Kinks are not kinky at all, no cum shots, no close ups, doggy the LI and she and the MC face the screen.
5. SANDBOX BULLSHIT, game is a grindfest of note
6. Too many LIs and busy work having to gather rep with them
7. Beasitiality and incest are a joke, its not what the player would naturally think. See comments
8. The MC is a odd looking FUGLY little twerp, baby face with odd proportions and there is nothing exceptional about him, its all implied and sorry, that does not cut it.

FINAL REMARKS, OPINIONS & SUGGESTIONS:

NOTE: The following remarks are my personal opinions and thoughts, which may provide more context and could be useful to the developer.

• Due to sandbox, which slows the game down it takes ages to do anything and you best off cheating, but honestly thats too much effort and even if you did it the game is such poor quality you wont get any satisfaction.
• Too many LIs and interactions, needing to get points, greet, compliment, flirt, make out ALL THE SAME EACH DAY and they progress unlocking a little more but its all to get points to do something with in terms of lewd, which really are such shitty lewds its a joke.
• Regarding beastiality, its not what you think, its simply "furry" content, so a chick that looks like she was spliced with cat or cow DNA...so not beastiality, bad tag.
• Regarding incest, its not what you think either, the MCs "dad" spliced 40 womans DNA to create an embryo that he fertilized, these woman, are implied mothers to the MC and their daughters are implied sisters of the MC, its so far removed and is not kinky at all, its another bullshit tag.

TLDR:

All in all this game is bad, its bad on SO many levels and I seldom give a 1 star for a game, but this get one star or zero if I could simply because of all the busy work bullshit the player needs to get through for sub standard and flat out bad content. The system created by the dev is all good and intricate and congrats on that, but the content itself is not fun, its not good, its quality is poor and its appeal in terms of story and sexiness is just not there, its stale and bland.

Overall, I like the game. There's a lot going on to keep one's interest. The art work is fine. My only real complaint is the lack of animation. What little there is gets repetitive really fast. And, as always, I prefer voice acting but I don't expect it so I don't take of points if it's not included.

From a fame that had a large range of kinks... there isn't any 99% of it is knocking up girls. Plot, what little I didn't skip is rubbish.

Barely any content what so ever that isn't one of the 85 girls doing the same 3 frame animation. When you get later into the game you get surprise sex and optional scenes, but the buttons are hidden so good luck finding them.

Just don't bother.

Review for - v0.41.0
Pros:

• Variety of Models & Characters – The game offers a wide selection of models and diverse characters.
• Impressive Graphics – The visuals are better than 70-75% of similar projects in this genre.

Cons:

• Misleading Open-World Mechanics – Despite being marketed with open-world elements, the game plays more like a linear visual novel. The open-world aspect feels unnecessary in its current state, as it doesn’t add meaningful depth to gameplay.
• Shallow Character Interactions – Most characters feel very similar, with little differentiation beyond their models. Interactions lack depth and variety, making the open world feel underutilized. (This could improve in future updates.)
• Repetitive Gameplay – While not excessively grindy (at least in the portion I played), some repetitive elements are noticeable.

The Story – A Wild Ride (Bring Your Tin Foil Hat!)
The story is so conspiracy-laden that you’ll need a tin foil hat just to play it or better to say read it, because it's a novel with no significant choices found by me yet. Maybe the different carma value will affect something but i did not spot anything like it yet!
The narrative mixes real scientific terms, alternative theories, and speculative ideas across physics, biology, sociology, and politics. If you’re not familiar with these topics, the dialogue might even sound convincing—thanks to clever use of jargon and half-truths. At times, it’s so absurd that it becomes hilarious.


Final Verdict: 3/5 Stars
I’m giving this game 3 stars—mainly for the effort put into the wide range of character models and the sheer entertainment value of its over-the-top conspiracy theories. While the gameplay lacks depth (and the "open world" feels tacked on), the absurdly fun storytelling makes up for some of its shortcomings. If you enjoy weird sci-fi mixed with pseudoscience and don’t mind repetitive (pointless) interactions, you might still have a decent time. Just keep those expectations in check!

Too many boring repetitive actions with sex positions almost being too similar.

The game takes a long time to grind and has a lot of unnecessary stats.

The dev isn't even considering the players feedbacks.

It feels like the game might not last long if this keeps up.

In my opinion this is the best game out there right now, yes there is a lot of running around but in my opinion it is well worth it. The only criticism if it even is one is not enough pregnancies.

Can't wait for the next update

It's been a while since I played this, I thought I would give it another chance but what I found is one of the most boring games I've played in the while, grinding for sex is a slog and there are too many girls which wouldn't be a problem if the grinding wasn't such a tedious task, the plot gets into schizo conspiracy theories which I wouldn't have a problem with after all who plays these games for plot but the sex is so goddamn boring which is the worst thing in a porn game, outside of a few scripted scenes most sex scenes are about the same with different models and even the dialogue is the same, the animation is stiff and lifeless and by the time I was able to impregnate the girls I lost interest, real disappointing because there could've been a good game in there.

It's an experience, some positives, some negatives, some very ehs.

Pros
* Lots of content
* Game is actually fairly stable, I think I only crashed it once or twice, which is impressive for something this long
* If your kinks fall in line of pregnancy and breeding, well, you're in the right place.
* The underlying story is pretty good (see cons)

Cons
* While the game rarely crashed, there are still plenty of bugs, and unfortunately, the dev has not provided a real good place to share them to be fixed.
* There is an animation tag, but at best, it's stop-motion, no actual animation.
* All the sex scenes are (almost all) identical. There are around 50+ women, but really, once you've been with one you've been with them all. (variety is the spice of life, remember this dev)
* "wooing" the girls, so to speak, consists of cycling through 3 actions, at most 3 times. For each of them, it pulls from a small pool of the absolute worst one liners in existence (the girls call you out on it...all of them...in the exact same way)
* Speaking of the same line for all the girls, telling Shakria that you like what she's wearing? (if you know, you know) and even more, she responds with how she wishes it was true or something I don't know...I gave up writing down suggestions, typos, bugs, and other issues after the dev didn't respond IMMEDIATELY on patreon /eyeroll.
* The underlying story is pretty good, and it was enjoyable at first, but then someone hit the dev with a book titled, "Every Conspiracy Theory Ever 4chan Edition" and...my god...it was somewhat sane at first but then quickly took a turn for crazy town, all aboard the opium fueled train.
* If your kinks fall in line with pregnancy and breeding, well, you may be in the right place but you'll probably regret it when you see your first nightmare spawn, courtesy of a night out with the bride of Chucky and a vat of acid. Can we get a cheat code to erase children? I've decided I'm all for retroactive abortion now, kthx.

lots of different girls, but all same positions, good story line, no real stats to grind, but need to move from one place to another all the time.

Dev - different positions and animations would be nice

This is someone's personal god complex where they want every woman in town to fawn over them like horny rabbits. The game has an IMMENSE grind, the story is randomly shat out, and there are just way too many women. It's not even done in a "Well each woman appeals to a certain fetish" way either because every sex scene with every woman is the same. The story itself seems to trip over it's own feet as it's just constantly belaboring the point that the MC is special, the MC's dad is special, "oh you're just so special please fuck us." type shit that gets tired very fast. This is also a conspiracy theorists wet dream as basically every one you meet will explain how one thing or another in REAL LIFE isn't how it actually seems.

Every single sex scene is the exact same, just with a different girl and a slightly different body. Even the dialogue for each sex scene is identical. Speaking of dialogue, the author really needs to get an editor, or even just run the text through spellcheck. But one of the biggest issues is the plot. This seems to be nothing more than a vehicle for the author to push the most ridiculous conspiracy theories. It wouldn't be so bad if it were treated as a parody, but it's fairly obvious that the author actually believes them.

Overall this game should either be redone or abandoned. The graphics are outdated, the "animations" are some of most basic and horrible I've ever seen, and the conspiracy and history crap needs to go. I don't play adult VN's to read about conspiracy theories. The MC is one of the worst looking models I've ever seen in a game that I've played. The models for the rest aren't that better either. Plus there's no background music or any type of sound effects for the sex scenes. Considering how short they go it wouldn't really work. There's also a ton of spelling errors and the grammar and dialogue need a major overhaul from the start. Maybe one day the game might be worth a 3 star or above rating, but considering how long's it's been in development I wouldn't count on it.

Dev's coding skills make this game unplayable, and their paranoia about someone stealing their work makes modding impossible. The art doesn't help, either. The writing is like something out of QAnon or /pol/, but with none of the "humor". the concept had so much potential, too.

Repetitive animations and boring grind combined with a good amount of content would have made this a solid three out of five, but then the game forces you into reading a series of essays dripping with bizarre Q-Anon nonsense.

That's not a joke, or an exaggeration. In this porn game, the developer decided a good idea would be to force you to talk to the in-game teachers so they can spout dreck about dinosaurs not existing and vaccines being lies. It's mind boggling.

Short version, don't bother with this game.

Too many characters!

It's a sandbox so half the time you're scratching your head wondering what the heck to do next.

Far too many characters!

Most of the females are quite nice looking and each of them seems to have a bit of a story to differentiate them from the other 'fuckables' at your mercy, even the non humans have an odd sexy look to them. There's a long drawn out process (grind) of getting them to a state where they become a fuckable rather than an ornament though and some of them never seem to respond.

Has a ridiculous number of characters!

The interface, in spite of being unique as far as I can see, actually works quite well. Didn't have any issues at all getting things to work as expected.

Did I mention that there are rather a lot of npc's?

The game has an ok story, other than that the sex scenes and the animations, are all the same low quality uninspired stuff.
I think it would have been a lot better investing in creating more original H content rather than creating so many different models but with the same H scenes

i liked it playing through. for its genre it was made really good. only one big bug (magic) but thats alright. it have potential for much more content. so no need for a following game. in other words, put "a long way" into this game .

Great story.

Could have use a better way to do the sex with the women but hey it still has a great story.
Would like to see more ways to have sex with the girls.

Its a little hard and takes time to build up but once you get there you don't have any more problems with money.
Most of the women you have interactions with are in the schools, or you can get to them through the schools.

All in all its a great story just wish there was better sex actions.

After multiple hours in this game there's 2 sex scenes total - one set of generic animations with the girl model swapped out, and one unique with one of the generic interchangable milfs and no I don't remember their names there's a dozen of them with slightly different hairstyles.

There's only a few characters in this game: 4 girls (teenager who wants to jump your dick, milf who wants to jump your dick, alien who wants to jump your dick, and possessed who want to jump your dick). It's just that there's dozens and dozens of models and names for each of them for some reason. Not that it matters because they all share the same sex scene.

The only characters that exist on their own and have distinct personalities are the men: MC, the mayor, the not-corrupt cop and the rapist. All the girls have the exact same dialogue unless they're currently the mouthpiece for whatever exposition needs to happen. Does it matter if yvette or xena is the one who tells you something? Nope!

The gameplay is an enormous grindfest where you earn a quarter point of stats at a time while managing constantly decreasing money, hunger, sleep and hygeine. The time is managed down to the minute "for realism" and you have to walk everywhere which can take over an hour cross-town.

All the characters teleport from place to place every hour. Good luck getting to where you need to be before they move, maybe off-map so wait until tomorrow (or 3 game-days if it's the weekend!)

Even fixing up your "house" is a grindfest, 16 full days of work doing nothing but walking there, doing construction, walking back to your hovel and sleeping/showering/eating.

To fuck a girl you talk to her, complement her, come back the next day and you can get to flirting, come back a few more times of giving them a hug then their panties spontaneously combust and they jump on your dick. All the dialogue is identical across the board.

tl;dr: play something else.