VN - Ren'Py - Completed - The Interim Domain [v0.31.0] [ILSProductions]

Version reviewed: v0.31.0 (Completed)

I played this game since I loved the author's earlier game 'Now & Then'.

The author develops another game in the very old Honey Select 1 rendering tool. The character models are terrible and barely serviceable even by Honey Select 1 standards. Honey Select 2 would have been a much better choice.

I expected to have a good experience with this game also but I just couldn't get immersed in the story. There is slow burn, extreme burn, and epic burn. This game is an epic burn. No attempt is made to get to the point or summarize anything. The author loves to write but I have no desire to read a 500+ page slow burn novel that constantly fails to keep my interest.

Pros

• Good writing (way too verbose however and sometimes boring)
• Good characters
• Unique game world
• Unique story

Cons

• Poor quality renders
• Poor quality character models (really bad, especially in 2022-2024)
• Poor character development
• Slow burn to the extreme
• Never could get invested/immersed in the story
• Poor balance between the story and lewd content (99% story)
• Terrible game pace

The bottom line is that the game and story were boring to me. The story premise is unique and interesting at first but the pages of endless boring text/story/dialog ruined the game for me. Perhaps if you love to read and don't care about anything else then this would be a good game for you.

Loved 'Now & Then' but couldn't enjoy this game no matter how hard I tried, sorry... I wanted to like this game, I really did but it ended up being a big disappointment.

I haven't finished this yet, but I'm compelled to write this. Just like with Now & Then, I care about these characters. I made the mistake of balancing all the storylines at the same pace. So at the end here, I'm just doing an onion cutting marathon of completing these stories one after another. It's all so bittersweet. The best possible outcome for these girls, but it's so heartbreaking at the same time. The moments of realization, the initial denial and then acceptance but with sorrowful heartache. And then they do these flashback montages of where you started with them, fuck. Just REALLY hits you in the feels and, like an idiot, I paced all of these to finish at the same time.

It's a very interesting concept. Very well done Honey Select renders. And, as I mentioned, just skillful writing. This is top tier VN that is a NOVEL to it's core. You won't find many kinks getting their back scratched here. I couldn't care less. It is so refreshing to play a game with writing at this level that has adult themes all done so well.

Alright I'm not going to go on a huge rant about the intricacies of this game. I will say this is well written and deals with a lot of deep personal things. This is worth trying. Now and Then was great. The Interim Domain is amazing. Both have their faults but are great games none the less. This one is unique. I look forward to the next outing with ILS.

5 out of 5 stars.

It's got more than a few typos at this point. The quality of the models varies. I've never really liked the bush and tanlines approach that ILS uses, nor the sound effects of the women. And there are probably a few too many love interests, which spreads things a little thin.

And fuck it, it's getting a 5 anyway.

There's actual writing here. The setting is a big departure from Now & Then and represents a sincere attempt at doing something different. The people largely act like people and there are arcs and personalities and themes. This is even more impressive considering the fact that, as I said, there are probably a few too many love interests: a slightly narrower focus could have fleshed the characters out even more. Overall, it's a bit of a slow burn, but I found the overall theme of dealing with loss and moving on to be surprisingly compelling. It's somehow underrated at only a 4-star average as I write this. Personally, I think it's even better than Now & Then, which was a great story in its own right.

If you like slow burns and/or even remotely liked Now & Then, I highly recommend this.

I broke my lurking rules for this game.

It is, at its core, the best written game you're going to find on this website (or in this genre). Its main themes deal with loss and moving on. It shares the same settings and setup as the May I Help You? and Hotel del Luna K-dramas in that you serve as the conduit for helping the lost souls to move on to their afterlife. Of course since this is R material, a lot of sexual shenanigans ensue. If you take away all the R-rated stuff, and tighten up the storytelling a little bit, this can be a very compelling move or web-series. My recommendation for the gamers is this, if you are dealing with losses in your own personal life as well, DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME; your headspace may not be able to handle the extra gut punch. But, at the same time, this may just be what you need to finally be able to move on as well.

The main criticism of the game I have is there's a huge noticeable downgrade in terms of graphics quality compared to the previous entry (Now & Then). The video clips seem to be rendered at an acceptable 1080p, but the static images seem to have been rendered at 720p. They can look very blocky and take away from the experience. If the production team can come back and re-render everything at a higher resolution for the director's cut (same treatment as Now & Then), I wouldn't mind replaying the experience again.

My secondary criticism is there may be possibly too many characters and as a result to many character arcs to keep track. I believe the recommendation is you want to spread and balance your activities across the characters, but this episodic type of storytelling can introduce a lot of disconnects. At the same time, I appreciate being able to pick and choose my own pace; I don't a simple guided VN where my path is already picked out. I think an indication of how many "episodes" remain for a character may help, or may be some sort of quick recap for each character arc could do wonders.

This dev is crazy! A complete game in 2 years, with multiple REAL choices and REAL endings? If nobody appreciates the effort, let me congratulate them and watch out for future games. Gameplay itself is simple, keep clicking an LI and make a few choices.

What's not easy is the story; damn some hit HARD. Family, unrequited love, abuse, religion are just some themes the subplots touch on. TBH, I would suggest half the number of LIs just so we can go deeper into each backstory. TL;DR version - came for the porn, stayed for the game.

This game involves good character writing and generally well done sex scenes. However, one thing that really annoys me is how all the character models are redone for the endings. We grow so attached to them throughout the game, but now they're nearly unrecognizable, which leaves a sour taste on an otherwise good game.

I found the game quite good (albeit the now and then VN its half tier above it in my opinion)
Mc was quite good and the stories of different LIs where interesting ,some where extremely good , some other where very good and some ok.
I loved Mira though and in end i chose her.
but i also run few more endings with other Lis.
2nd favorite ending was with Apollyon (my 2nd choice)
Marissa was my 3d favorite ending
and Allison was the 4 favorite.
I run few other ending too but they where far away than the top 4.
The thing is that This Vn gave some some bittersweet feelings especially with the LIs i liked because i knew that they where dead and i have to let them go in the end of their stories , although i was expecting something will happen in the end while MC create the new world.
Even so in the end we had to choose one LI so the bittersweet feeling remained especially because this VN its not like other VN,
in this VN we had to play the stories of all Lis so in a sense we learned about them and become closer with them but in the end we could only choose one and this made it harder to make a choice and not think about other LIs.
Moreover except 3 lis the rest didnt have memories of MC .. so even though MC started the world again and turn the time back most of lis had other lovers before meet MC again... (personally i didn't like that but thats my personal taste in this matter)
While Mira and Apollyon had memories and remained loyal while searching for MC. ( i liked that fact)
and i loved their stories though i didnt like the fact that they both met MC after college so their where around 24 years old and basically they met again after 7-8 years ... thats too much time skip in my opinion they could have met after high school around 18 that would be much better (in my opinion)
i wish we had a throuple option with Mira and Apollyon ... it would be a perfect choice lol and i believe its the only Throuple option possible with how the story ended after all both Mira and Apollyon had their memories remained and had a threesome scene with MC too..
One last thing i loved Marisa ending and that she subconsciously was waiting for MC
and Allison ending was quite good too.
Nonetheless i believe its a very good VN and one of better ones in this site and surely worth playing.
4,5 /5 stars (i gave it 5 because i cant give it 4.5 and the 3.90 it currently have its too low for this VN)

I played v0.30.0 through to one of its endings over a period of a couple weeks, at two or three hours an evening. There is a lot of material.

The game caters heavily to the White Knights among us: the MC rides to the rescue of a whole series of fair maidens in distress, solving their problems and graciously accepting the sex they offer in return.

At its heart this is an extremely mundane game. Every morning the player chooses which girl the MC will focus on for the day. He then tracks the selectee down and solves some little problem of theirs: gives them a ride, buys them a meal, takes them shopping, offers some advice, etc. After a number of such encounters the girl will start to put out. After considerably more she will fall in love with the MC: at which point it is time for him to dump her and move on.

To liven up this dull parade, the devs have given the story a post-eschatological setting. I rather liked this: it kept my interest enough to endure what would otherwise have been a fairly tedious slog.

As might be expected in a sandbox of this scope—where the player can choose the order in which the girls are pursued—there are occasional continuity errors. I think I only once had a character make a cameo appearance after exiting the world, so it isn’t a big problem.

Pros: Lots of material provides many hours of play. Numerous hot LIs and sex scenes (of middling quality). Entertaining setting.

Cons: Its a long, slow, and mostly-mundane burn; enlivened occasionally by some Interim Domain magic.

Recommended for White Knights and those looking for a game that will provide a great many hours of play.

Genuinely amazed by how hard some of the story beats in this hit me. Not ashamed to say I teared up at multiple moments throughout: Marissa, Tina Nat. So many unique well written subplots. For me the moment where it all culminated is when Poly absolutely blazes and for spoiler reasons I won't say more. The story is well written and thought out. The villain is cartoony at times but also chilling when needed.

The victory was a gorgeous pay off I felt. I will say the inability to choose Selene made me a little mad, I really cared/liked her arc (or maybe I messed up?). I loved all the little references dropped, my favourites being Calvin & Hobbes and the Tenacious D diet soda one. Final thing I'll say is that I really enjoyed how the MC was written. There's a tendency for these games to be domineering wish fulfillment so it was nice to have caring loving wish fulfillment instead. Also fitted the games theme.

For negatives, I think there was several moments where continuity broke down, possibly because I blitzed Marissa's route until realising there was overlap with other characters and started going down a loop top to bottom. Graphics in these games are never really huge selling points for me but I'd be lying if I said the art was amazing. I do find it a little funny you never see the MC's face. I come out of this hoping whoever wrote it has more stuff for me to consume. Easy recommend.

(not so much of a spoiler just a little heads up if you struggle with afterlife/loss, any of that nature or hell even self-insert, you might wanna steer clear of this. probably will hit alot worse for those types than others.)

Would give this a full 5 (more like a 4.5) but theres alot of tedium at times and things going all over the place, some character interactions kind of break theme/personality and its pretty obvious. Sequence breaks due to order of events. Theres a few bits of tropes that are like "well im super MC and can do what I want" which is atleast covered by the story.

Aside from that, this may be the only title I can admittedly say made me a bit misty-eyed haha. Reminds me of the movie wristcutters which was an absolute blast back in the day but it hit me with a bit of "fear" with the afterlife that I hate to admit personally, but this story takes a bit of a trip into a similar realm where you're basically living inbetween, inside purgatory, before ending up wherever you go. I was dying for the reference of the mustang eating a pair of sunglasses or something but it never came .

But yeah connecting with someone so deeply throughout the entire story only to be like "its time" and thats all that happens, its a tough battle. You come to love the cast and what each of them represents and its a scary thought when you put it into logic haha. Not an ideal way to spend the last of your days. I struggled with the most probably, was a bit of a gutwrencher not gonna lie. Admittedly I do like to form a little attachment to characters, always have, its a bit more immersive that way. Not too big on the self-inserting part. Putting the person in a position to say goodbye has that effect though haha.

Animations are solid, the voicing on the scenes is actually pretty solid since it just kinda fits universally which is rare in these types of things. The characters each have a strong representation of an issue holding them back though sometimes they break their own character with a little bit of over the top way of dealing with things (looking at you mainly Anita, sometimes I hated her haha) stories written good, not broken english,not many typos, the idea is pretty original. Love the hell outta Mira even with the rocky start and the other Entende are each endearing in their own way. The villain is pretty solid, I like how he ties into everything and yeah.

Would say like a 4.5/5 for sure. Solid title, just some minor things that kind of steer it off perfection. Along with the tedium and sequence breaking that comes in part due to the tedium of how you go about going through the story (ie: one i ran into is a character left already, but there was an event with a trip, which the character was still attending and happened AFTER she left already. Trying to avoid some spoilers with a bit of coded language). Not gonna cheat it a 5 star since I cant rate halves though

I'm a big fan of VNs which go deep into character details, and ILS Productions has a proven record of just that (Now and Then still contains one of my favorite heroine to this day, Carol).
Even if The Interim Domain didn't provide a heroine as awesome as Carol, the world building and many different and interesting characters in it more than make up for it.
Looking forward to being able to read Mira's ending. Keep up the good work and thank you for providing us with such great VNs to read!

one of the best games out. great story characters and a lot of excellent lore in a unique and interesting setting. the premise is solid and the little mysteries keep you guessing and engaged. the individual stories have a great way of interweaving with each other and making the game feel more alive.

Version 0.18.0

TID has by far the best character development over a large number of LIs out of all the AVNs I’ve tried. The developer came up with something that played to their strengths in story telling while avoiding pitfalls in their previous game Now & Then.

Story
The main story is intriguing - someone triggered an apocalypse and everyone died. However some of the souls are trapped in “interim”, a purgatory-like dimension, and cannot move on. The MC is one of the few souls selected to be Archons- an entity whose main job is to help the trapped souls move on and in return he accumulates Qi which allows him to reshape the next world in his perception. Heavy stuff.

Besides the main story, many of the trapped souls (i.e. your LIs) will have their own unique background stories which explain why they are trapped in the interim. Many of these stories are everyday issues we face and relatable on a personal level, challenges like money, job, family relationships, religion, discrimination, physical / emotional trauma etc

The only caveat is it’s not a good idea to play this game when you are down and out in life as the material tends to be negative and depressing (MC is supposed to help them overcome personal issues and move on after all)

Game Mechanics
We often see visual novels disguised as sandboxes to create some illusion of flexibility when in fact everything’s fixed. TID manages to do it the other way round, disguising a sandbox game as a visual novel one. You have full flexibility to select which LI you want to play first (or if at all) and in what order and there is a LI, FWB, and bad ending for each of them depending on your choices.

It is technically possible to even just go along with the main story without engaging one LI though I would imagine this leads to a bad end eventually. It is far more flexible than most of the self-proclaimed sandbox games out there.

Background / Character Renders
The background has a wide variety ranging from everyday life scenery to strangeness seen in a distorting interim. Kudos to the developer for on point use of colors and shading to create a mysterious and somber mood befitting of the story.

Character renders trace their origins to Honey Select, but through careful customization they are unique, distinguishable and different from the anime with wild colored hair feel we usually get.

Character Development
First off there are a lot of characters - 12 trapped souls as official LIs, other archons, each archon’s aide and a host of other minor characters.

Many of them have a complete well rounded development as MC will be interacting extensively with each of them. In the middle / later chapters, many of the LIs will even interact with each other and form friendships among themselves.

This would not have been possible if this is your standard duration AVN, but the game’s huge. I have only played till Chapter 18 (V0.18) and it already took me like 10 - 12 hours since I pursued every LI and the game is currently at Chapter 27 and slated to end around Chapter 30.

Sex Scenes
A lot of them, but because of the story you won’t get to see them in the earlier chapters. There are no cheap stunts like dream sequence, flashbacks or prostitutes to forcefully place a sex scene early in the game.

The lewd scenes are generally tame, you won’t get any kinks or fetishes, so those looking for a “hardcore” experience won’t find it here. Plus point is all of them come with nice sound effects which adds to the whole experience.

On the whole I would say they are mostly above average with some hits and some mediocre ones along the way.

BGM and Sound Effects
BGMs mostly convey a mystical mood and even the ones paired with mundane everyday scenes carry an air of mental claustrophobia which complements the story material very well.

Some basic sound effects here and there, nothing to shout about in this department though.

Conclusion
TID is a niche gem that will not appeal to everyone. It’s an emotionally dark tale that focuses a lot on real life challenges we all face at some point in our lives. It doesn’t have the humor, mystery, action, romance or the no holds barred kinky sex on the first date you see in other AVNs.

However, it’s something that lifts up to what it means to be an Adult Visual Novel. Adult not only because of sex but also adult issues, Visual because it does create a compelling visual spectacle and Novel because the literary skills of the developer are up to scratch.

I tried this game out because of the amount of positive reviews it had but it has some of the most boring story, i have ever read. The Graphics and Animations also don't help, it has some of the worst i have seen on this site.

Love the story, the ladies are just a plus. The writing for ILS Productions really pull you into what's going on in the game. Some of it is long winded with some of the ladies at times though. I feel like things develop very slowly with some characters and others are done EXTREMELY fast. There's a fine line in with a plot like this, but the surprises are worth the time.

I start by saying that I really liked the developer's last game.

I'm also usually someone who plays slow burn games but here I struggle to go beyond the first 30 mins of reading.

I'm sorry but the start is horrible, boring, not enticing. I suppose the story might get better after a while but man the struggle to go further is real.

I'd like to give this project 3 stars but I'll give it 2 because the renders and the models are pretty much the same of the past project which first came out years ago. So, no improvement whatsoever in this regard.

I'd suggest a remake of the first minutes of the story and add more rythm to the narration.

ILSProduction is probably the only developer on this site which makes adult games I play primarily for the story and not the porn. While I am a sucker for anything zombie and horror related hence why I prefer their previous work (Now and Then), but Interim Domain retains the same premium quality in its writing and pacing. Highly recommended.

Before starting i will tell i like his old work.
So why do i think about this one ?
Honestly i hate it, you take everything i liked in the old game ... you remove it and push some new thing i don't like and boom interim domain.

First the story is .. ok not fan fan but interesting at minimum.
The problem lie in the fact this game smell too much a game, after like 3 or time i just hit control and make the game run without reading.

Unlike the precedent game he've done this one i don't care about the NPC because or they don't exist or they are people trapped in their life.

Second the overaull quality of texture don't have changed, so i really canot give star for that.

At the end of the day this game is enough rebutting to me to not even watch it hoping it change.

Will watch from afar the dev hoping it's next game will be better for me.

ILSProductions has done it again. I didn't think I could be more impressed with a VN than Now & Then, (their previous work), but I find my self at least equally enthralled with The Interim Domain. It's nearly impossible to create an erotic visual novel with this many romanceable characters and have each one feel not only completely justified, but also well rounded and worthy of empathy. Each of these "lingering humans" give the reader a completely unique and heartwrenching story which both captivates far beyond what normally is written in these types of stories and forces them to care for these characters. I found myself more interested in helping each of these women deal with the bonds which force them to be tethered to this purgatoryesque nightmare than I was in seducing them (but obviously I also wanted to seduce them, they're all gorgeous). I cannot wait to see what else ILSProductions has to come, and I'm anxiously awaiting each update. Consider me a fan for life.