Ren'Py - The Headmaster [v0.16.4.3] [Altos and Herdone]

0.11.1-Public

This was the game that got me back into adult gaming and into modern AVNs for the first time. The last build I played is a bit outdated and, though I revisit the game from time to time, it's been a long time since I finished playing it so excuse any inaccuracies or lack of detail.

The story is ridiculous, but meaningfully so, and plenty self-aware. The premise the game is built around is simply great for those of us that enjoy at least parts of what The Headmaster's punishment/discipline (somewhat corruption) system entails. While I don't really get anything out of the spanking aspect myself (other than watching the jiggle physics at work, yum), the humiliation and pleasure pieces of the equation make the system extremely appealing and progression very satisfying. There is are plenty of other tastes catered to besides just the basics of the system as well.

The writing is done brilliantly, constantly mixing sexy and humorous without the slightest of issues. I feel like this is a big part of what makes the game great and is yet easily overlooked or forgotten. The scenes also wouldn't be nearly as hot if not for the authors knowing how to write such steamy scenarios or characters that we're given reasons to become invested in - each in their own way.

The characters are mostly great and progression with them is usually quite a treat. The only downside here is that there are perhaps too many characters and given that this game is still in progress the imbalance in how much content there is for certain characters vs. others can cause some frustration.

Renders are decent and animations quality varies but have become better over time... so somewhere between serviceable to decent. Whether you like the style of the models used is down to personal taste. The only minor nitpick was that some of the renders can be pretty bright and with a lot of very light skinned characters they can seem so bright that details can become hard to distinguish on them (could be my own brightness settings as well though).

Gameplay loop I found to be enjoyable and rewarding without being stressful. They are a few stats to manage but it's pretty easy to do so and there's no time limits enforced (that I'm aware of yet). It's sandbox but there are a pretty limited number of places and times per day compared to a lot of sandbox games that get carried away. While I did't find it grindy, there's a repetitive nature inherent to the gameplay loop so people looking for a more straight forward VN might see things differently. The only thing that could potentially be an annoyance is there is a certain amount of RNG in the game so certain scenes/events (and the variations of them) can be hard to happen upon. It's also nice that it's a game that doesn't really require a walkthrough (though there are some) or ridiculously careful planning. I played without any walkthrough and there was only one scene that I had missed by the time I finished (which luckily I was able to find a save just before and play - but there is built in cheat functionality if I hadn't been that lucky as well).

The music is pretty generic and you'll hear it a lot over and over again but it does a good job of signalling what type of scene you're in and it does it's job effectively without being annoying. However, I grew to associate that music with things I cannot unnassociate which can be strange when it shows up in something else or a different game, haha. The sound, particularly the lewd scene sounds aren't particularly great but are better than not having them.

This is game that isn't finished but felt like it had more than enough content in it when I played it (and more since then). I'd easily suggest this to anyone even slightly interested in it as is. It's one of the best school-setting corruption power fantasies I know of.

As a bonus, this game has a couple of my favorite holiday specials.

I was gonna wait to review this until I got further, but then I got to the water fight and I just couldn't resist reviewing now.

So this game is a major grind, and normally that would really put me off, but the writing is actually probably the funniest of any game I've played (the water fight being a perfect example of this). If you're like 25-35 years old, a lot of these jokes are just gonna make you bust up. If you're outside of that range, you might not fully appreciate every joke, but you'll still laugh I'm sure.

So anyway for an actual review of the game, thus far there's been a lot of buildup. I've played for like 6ish hours and there's been two penetrative sex scenes so far. It's honey select graphics, which again would normally put me off, but I had such a great time playing Pale Carnations that I'm open to the medium.

The thing that really set this game off is that it's actually very well written. The premise is a simple enough idea, but it sounds so obviously creepy that I think 99% of people who see this game immediately get a bit uncomfortable (that was certainly my initial reaction). Once you see how the world is setup though and how gradual the buildup to sexual acts is, it's surprisingly believable/plausible. It's still a bit beyond belief, but I would say only a bit. I actually find it much more believable than like 90% of other games on the site where you're just randomly fucking everyone in family because of a magic book or something.

Pros:
-Extremely fluid dance animations (apparently the sex scenes get much better later, but I'm still pretty early and so far they're very average)
-Decent music variety
-Unique student and staff characters
-Excellent writing + top notch humor.
-The advantage of using Honey Select is because all lighting looks over exposed, nothing looks blatantly unrealistic (because it's all equally cartoony). This usually ends up as an advantage over games pursuing ultra-realism.
Cons:
-Honey Select engine means none of the girls really have hips? It's all Japanese style. and although it can be passable, it's a detractor for me
-To get to sex scenes prepare for many hours of grind and learning a unique gameplay system. I found the game entertaining and funny so it wasn't so bad (plus I think buildup makes you appreciate the sex scenes more). If you don't enjoy the humor and whatnot though, you may not be patient enough to wait.

TLDR: Surprisingly plausible and well-written game that was clearly led by someone with some class and intelligence. Lots of kinky content, but it's a long road to get to it. Humor and writing quality makes the grind doable imo.

I put off downloading this for a long time as I thought the premise was a bit creepy and thought the HS art style was jarring.

But what a treat this is - sexy, funny, knowing, and surprising. The girls are varied, unique and believable and the developments at the school are hilarious when they're not arousing, and frequently both. It's a rare experience that doesn't have you blasting your way through the dialog to get the goods, but this is an exception - the writing is fantastic. Top tier fun.

(v0.13.2 Public) I loved the game. I am a great fan of the school theme so maybe that isn't a big deal but I think you can enjoy the game, at the current state, even if you are not. The game has bad things ofc, but overall I think the game is notable.

- Notable story. The premise is simple: the rich owners of a rural female school make you headmaster and you have the freedom of use physical disciplinarian methods againts the girls in order to improve their behaviour and grades. Simple. But the girls's stories are very good, they have different personalities, traumas, backstories etc, so you come to empathize with them.
- Good H-scenes. Here each one has his taste but for me there are good scenes and a few of them are great.
- Average sound. The music is repetitive because the game itselft is but it has some awesome tracks in emotional or "serious" moments.
- Good humour moments.
- Repetitive gameplay. You have a school schedule and you can teach history class, patrol the school or do some paperwork. 90% of the game event it unlock this way.
- Si no te gusta el sado, como a mí, vas a estar a dos velas durante gran parte del juego.
- If you don't like the sado, or spank people, like me, you will be a long part of the game waiting for the H scenes. Also there are things in game that are hardly justifiable and dont bring any joy to the player, like groping the girls body in the hall.
- Unexpected crashes and expections which are still un-catched.

I have decided that trainers, for me, are mostly equivalent to sandbox VNs. I just don't like the gindy nature. It really detracts from the enjoyment of the experience.

This game comes highly recommended on any Request category post for games centered around corruption, manipulation, etc. And with good reason; you are absolutely engaging in the corruption and manipulation of the other characters.

However, where I feel this game falls short is in the non-linear direction you're forced to take, while still accounting for stats that rise/fall based on the choices you make, passively, which is a huge distraction from enjoying a pure corruption and manipulation experience. For example: you can't focus on gaining the stats you might prefer without sacrificing other stats that negatively affect you in the long run. This amounts to spending more time grinding through repeatable events and trying to manage said stats more than actually experiencing something new. Yes, I'm aware this is standard for sandbox/trainer genres. This is largely why I avoid them; I want a story, I want to be part of that story when and where it makes sense to, and I don't want to feel like I'm playing an RPG with elevated suggestive content.

1 star for concept
1 star for creative implementation (there's a lot of mechanics)
1 star for what I'll call semi-realism in physics; you spank someone, you get a somewhat realistic "jiggle" effect (wish this was present in more games tbh)

-1 star for how long it takes to actually get to satisfying lewd content
-1 star for less-than-great character models/renders.

I haven't had the time to finish this (there's a lot of content) but if you like power fantasy, domination and school girls this game is a must try. While the graphics aren't the greatest and latest all the girls are easy to tell apart and a lot of care is put into the details.

Not bad, not great. Too many girls that don't have sex scenes. The characters have an ok degree of personality, but could use some more. The map has a decent size yet it still manages to feel kind of empty. I would have given it 3 or even 4 stars if it wasn't because I spent more time checking the walkthroughs than playing the game myself. Not a fan of that kind of approach.

I am pretty lukewarm on this one. The premise is.....extremly generic. There are dozens of games that riff on a concept like this one; being a perverted headteacher. Everything from Corruption to HHS+ has attempted this concept.

This game is one of many which present themselves as a management game, but aren't really. Only like 2-3 major milestones in the game at this stage require any engagement with its management mechanics and even then it is extremly simple and passive. This is no Mystwood Manor thats for sure. That said the management mechanics, as limp as they are, do add to the theme a bit. Gives everything a sense of immersion and that's fine in its own way.

For what it is, this game has some good dynamics and good characters. I like the underdog place the MC starts in, it actually gives the game some real direction. It builds up a lot of momentum in its early updates and has some pretty awesome scenes. AND THEN....

The game enters a slow development hell where things seem ultra stagnant. The game does still recieve updates, but they usually focus on providing content for a single subplot at a time and aren't that big. The results are that there are some subplots that have recieved zero content in around 3 years.

Overall this is the kind of game I would check out every 18 months or so. Enjoy the new content, play the roulette wheel to see if a subplot you liked got any attention in that time and then put it to rest.

If the theme held up more im sure I would be a bit kinder. But for real just play HHS+.

It´s a great spanking-game, very nice characters, the story is good, I like how the game is structured, I really like the way the erotic scenes are built up step by step, Unfortunately, the girls' butts don't always have red welts, even if they've just been spanked, I hope this will be fixed in a later update, it´s one of the best games I have ever played!

This is an update and correction of my initial rating (see below) nearly two years ago. The initial rating was for 0.9.2 on Jan 2023, this update is for 0.16.3 on Dec 2024.

Since my initial rating the game story unfortunately hasn't made much progress. The game offers two different kind of quests: "main quests" and "character quests" which are subdivided into quests for fellow teachers and students. Besides the quests, there are random events which allow the main character to punish (i.e. molest or fuck) the female students if he catches them misbehaving.

The main quests are actually what the game made interesting for me and which led to the original 4-star-rating (see below). The main quest made the game some sort of detective/puzzle-solving/investigative game. The main character wants to find out who is pulling the strings behind the board of school owners and why the previous headmaster disappeared. The side quests and the randomly punishment of misbehaving girls kept the game spicy.

Unfortunately, since my first review, the main quests didn't receive any or only little update. Since then the developers only added more and more girls to the game which you can now fuck during random events, but the only variation is the clothing style, skin tone and body shape of the girl. The overall game mechanics remained the same, i.e. you randomly catch some girl with some wrong-doing (i.e. smoking on school grounds, disrespecting the school uniform, etc.) during a stroll and then you fuck her. That's getting repetitive and boring.

It seems that the developers have no idea how (or lost interest in) extending the main quests.

----------

This is a review for version 0.9.2-public of the game.

In my opinion this is one of the best adult games.

• Non-linear adventure game with different statistics and options: I really appreciate the non-linearity of the plot and the different options which it provides. I am bored of the many adult games where the player basically clicks through endless dialogs with nearly no or little choices. This game is a refreshing exception
• Realistic, naturally looking and believable characters: Nowadays, many games seem to be trying to outgun each other with girls who have exaggeratedly sized breast, ridiculously large butts, etc. I mean who likes that? This game just gets it right. All the girls (18-19yo) are different in style but still look like they could actually be high school seniors. Also the style of clothing is plausible. Even if some of the girls are dressed more revealing (like in the weekend scenes), the style of clothing still appears "natural". I really like that.
• Overall plausible story line: The story line is plausible. Surely, one has to accept a boarding school which runs an experimental program based on corporal punishment and sexual exploitation. But this is still an adult game. Hence, this is fine. But after one has accepted this basic supposition, the remaining plot is coherent. The reaction of the girls and the fellow school staff is convincing.

Now, the critical points

• Poor rendering: The renderings require some polishing. Especially, the bodies and faces of the girls are quite "flat". (Don't get me wrong, I am not referring to missing female curve, see above). However, some faces or torsos are simply made of one shape with a single color (without any shadows, texture, etc.) Also the hair could be improved and sometime a strand of hair looks rather like a wooden peg. I believe most of the work has been put into the gym teacher and this is clearly visible as her character looks a lot better than the others.
• The headmaster is a turn-off: While all character are plausible and really nice to look at, the character of the headmaster is a turn-off. First of all, he looks like a 15-years-old baby face who has been put into a suit against his will by his mother in order to spruce him for guests. Regardless of his appearance, the background story does not add up either. At some point in the story, we are told that he is 35. (I believe, may be it has been 36.) There is no way how someone could be a headmaster of a school at this age. Maybe the character was made that young in order to keep the age difference to the students small. But it would be much more plausible, if he was mid-40.

Has a great story/plot, that follows events to there worlds logical result. Basically this game has porn logic that makes enough sense in the moment to not give you whiplash between scenes, all while getting/keeping you in the mood. Also as the devs are a husband & wife duo you get a females input that helps make the characters well rounded & overall more enjoyable.

This is the game that got me into adult games. Graphics are great, the story is fun and all the girls are likeable. This is a game worth checking out and very easy to play with one hand . AltosandHerdone have done a very good job making a believable world where this doesn't seem crazy.

Biggest strength of this game is crazy amount of content nice (and weird) story and large cast of characters. Art wise I'm not under huge impression (standard 3d) but amount of scenes covers up for it.
Art 2.5/5
Story 4/5
Gameplay 4.5/5
Fapability 4/5
Originality 4.5/5

Version Played: Various, up to v0.13.2

This is an extremely solid game. It's a cross between a trainer game and a narratively driven story - you have to grind to raise stats generally, and also work to progress "levels" for the girls, but there's also a good central narrative and a separate story for each girl.

As someone who tends to narrative games, but also every so often really pines for a good trainer, I like this balance and think this is probably the best "best of both worlds" game I've played.

Positives:

1. Art is very good. Not god-tier, but solid and enjoyable.
2. I like the story / setting. It's a very fun little dark-comedy, and I enjoy wondering how exactly we're going to continue the slide into depravity next.
3. There's a lot to do in the game. Because of the trainer aspect mixed into the narrative style, there's just tons you can do and you'll always have something on the go. It's nice to not be reaching for content all the time.

Negatives:

1. Probably the speed of updates. The pace of new content added is quite slow compared to other games. This is unfortunate, and can mean long waits before it's worth going back to the game.
2. Sometimes it feels a bit unclear what I should do next. I have active quests still, but I'm just not sure what the best way to progress them is. Probably more a me thing than the game though.

I like the questing aspect. It is not too difficult to progress with the help of the quest-tracker... there are some moments, where you have to be at the right place at the right time, which were a little bit difficult to find...

The whole idea was promising , but not anymore after playing the game

I played this game 2 years ago version 0.8 and now I replayed the game 0.13.2 and I don't see much have changed in the game, if the creator made 2 images per day it would have much more content

I wanted to play this game when it would be 1.0 (which mean a complete version of the game) I assumed that 0.8 > 0.9 > 1.0 however the creator went 0.9 > 0.10

it feels like that the creator is making the minimum thing to earn the tag
the game is mostly unsatisfying to play , it feels like you are getting scammed every time you reach a goal

for the H-Scene as of 0.13.2 It's a regular western vanilla scenes where the focus on anal/oral sex , sex toys and birth control with a mix of male domination and slapping

The Great Wall: you will reach the wall wherever you look, nothing completed , I assume there is 1 character that almost complete , however including everything in the game right now and looking on how the story is playing out that means less than 10% of the game is complete, whatever your goal you will change it countless amount of times because you will reach "this will be done in the next update" block of text, and with this speed look like the creator wont finish the game before 2050

I will make sure to tell my great-grandchildren to update this review when the game is complete.

One of my favorite games on the site, and one of the few I've joined the Patreon of, at least around new releases.

Overall the game is very well-written, very nice renders, the dev dedicates time each release to update older animations in a way that doesn't seem to slow down progress, and choices seem to actually matter in a way that doesn't have one "clearly the best" option.

The game can feel a bit grindy, but that grind can be 100% skipped in a way that doesn't impact other progression or the story with the cheat menu, and the different thresholds to grind to actually feel relevant to the story.

Finally, I've seen people talk about how long it takes to get to sex scenes. If all you're looking for is penetration then you might be a bit disappointed, at least until much further in development. But there's a lot of good sexual content here still with a lot of different premises.

Pretty sure the dev inserted himself in as the MC. Narcisistic, sadist who drones on endlessly about boring psychological methods blah blah blah, while spanking the same girls over and over again for very little reward if any. No intimacy, no relationship building, just spank them til they work for you. There are so many other games that do the same thing with far less grind and a hell of a lot less .. spanking. I will never look at another girls ass again without feeling an overwhelming impulse to spank it.

Not to say that the actual game itself is bad, because its not. The visuals are great, the mechanics are great, the UI is good, and even the built in quest tracker is niceley done. Theres just a lot of potential here but its not getting past this guys huge ego. pun intended.

I've played several school games where the protagonist is the headmaster or a teacher. Well, this is the best of all so far. Good renders, excellent story, excellent writing and quite long game. I loove the punishments and the brain poking the Headmater does to the girls. They are superior to the ones I would come up with myself! Congrats to the author - you're wicked, man!

Excellent gameplay and characters. Love that each character is unique, and that the things u learn in the game actually make sense and can be useful.

Also liked the nicely timed and selected music in certain scenes(particularly the marching theme)