VN - Ren'Py - The Intoxicating Flavor [Fantasies v4.0] [PixelsLab]

While I do play adult Ren'Py games for the usual purpose of having a good time physically and mentally, I do like games where characters don't jump at the MC's cock because he has a big one or just for no reason. This game has that animal attraction between characters, but it's based on their interactions and events bringing them together. While I'm sure everyone's delighted with the speculative elements and the depth of the story and the hint of something big brewing up under the surface just desperate to blast out (heh), it's the human elements that set this game apart from most others I have played. The dev seems to have a good plot in mind, and while I know how things can get difficult when you have such an intricate web of events, I hope they can ensure to tie all the hanging threads in the plot so far and give this story the kind of appearance they have in mind, and which we all would LOVE to see!


While the story and the idea of being something other than porn labelled as a game are amazing here, I quite like the renders as well.

I have a tendency to ramble so i'll try keeping short mostly because I haven't played the game from the beginning in quite some time and want to review the story more than any other aspect.

First of (quickly), the renders are very nice, the animations too. Nothing out of the ordinary but very much amongst the better ones. There's plenty of content (not too much fapping material though but who plays explicit VN's for that?)

The last review I wrote (on another post) started with me saying I wanted more content faster which might seem like it has no place in a review (Reviewing Rules <3) but it's meant as a compliment regarding story telling.
v0.5.2 : Now if I remember correctly the game starts of quite unoriginally and though I enjoy mind control especially the way it's presented here, that dies out quickly. (again haven't started over in a long time, i'll play it through again soon)
PixelsLab seems to have changed his plans on the way and before long the story becomes more complex and and more interesting the characters develop much more personality as the story gains traction.
It's the kind of VN where the story telling is pretty well-done and thought out maybe even to too high a degree. Very much to the point of feeling like nothing changes, since it takes forever for the story to advance (devil being in the details, which I love don't misunderstand).
But VN's written this way often finish abruptly because the effort and time spent by the developer become too much for them.
Alright this got longer and darker than I wanted... It really is a great game, noteveryone will love it but I do!

This game gets two stars for the remarkably well done renders and zero for everything else. The entire game is overly complex in an attempt to be profound or clever. It is neither of those things. If the developer had stuck with what they had in the first chapter and let that evolve I would have been excited. The idea of a MC who is on an empty island and then 3 women showing up, how they interact, the secrets they share, the mystery behind it all - that would have kept my attention. Unfortunately that is more or less abandoned for dream sequences, flashbacks, and more. I got through 2 chapters and didn't give a fuck to read more of the "engrish" profundity.

Pros: Well done renders, first chapter is very promising

Cons: Engrish, boring and overly convoluted plot, unlikable characters.

**NOT QUITE SURE WHAT I JUST PLAYED...BUT IT WASN'T "GOOD"**

So I actually must of had this game on my que list for maybe idk..almost 2 years now maybe? You know, one of those games you notice pop up on the update list that has solid screenshots, tags you like, and a bunch of glowing reviews to stick out. So you bookmark it, and then just continually pick something else out of the that que everytime you decide on a download.

Well, today was the day it finally came out a que winner, and it seemed my subconcious telling me to keep passing it over was right the entire time.

For starters, for all glowing reviews about what a great story this is, I found it a complicated train wreck. Too much going on in the attempt to be "mysterious", and which for me ultimately just played out to lose my interest since it was hard to follow what exactly was going on a large chunk of the time scenes were jumping around. Somebody in an earlier glowing review likened it to a Steven King book where you never really know what is going on until the end, and while i would generally agree that seems to be the attempted approach here, I don't give that anywhere near the same thumbs up in much less depthful VN I downloaded with the intent to play in a single sitdown and hopefully get a fap out of it.

So hours into trudging through the muck of figuring out who is real, who is not, what is a dream, what is not a dream, and a whole lot of WTF is going on moments....I finally just got to the point where i started spam clicking ahead while barely reading anything just to see what sexy time scenes i might be missing before i throw in the towel. Which left me clicking, and clicking, and clicking...

Beyond the story i found it to have average at best sexy time moments. As a guy who always reads people complaining about not liking the MC and completely shrugging that aspect off in my decision I will also say this. The one clear takeaway i did get from the couple hours i did attempt to follow along with the story is that this is the first game where I actually found that off putting. He's a real d-bag.

Long story short the game looks great, and for that alone i'll give it 2 stars. But i'm honestly left guessing a large chunk of the glowing reviews this game is getting is actually due to it catering to one story disguised extreme fetish, surrounding one specific character, and then with a whole lot of re-directing of their praise for that effort on something else that certainly doesn't deserve it. Or at least that is my theory after actually playing this.

Hard pass as a recommendation from me.

Well gotta say you guys proved me wrong, was thinking its another gone case but last few updates were better than expected.
MC being 18 and not behaving like pussy hungry wolf is nice for change, adding to that has nice character development and metahuman angle is somewhat intriguing.
Nice render quality, unique yet very much relatable relationship with female protagonists.
Definitely one of my top 5. Great job

Ok so just to get it out of the way the dev's first language is not english so expect frequent engrish especially at the early parts of the game.. BUT the engrish is not horrible enough that you can't get the major idea of the conversation from context clues most of the time. The character models are great with the exception to the youngest sister (the one with white hair and the leftmost girl on the game banner). She looks incredibly doll like with the eyeliner and exaggerated proportions because in game she is supposed to have mutations or some kind of experiment making her look like the way she is. thankfully i have gotten used to it. the characters are complex and have good characterizations the best part of the game and the overall plot involving the mc is decent if not good.

Closing:
If you can live with engrish and the looks of all the girls then go try it out at least and learn more about the characters the selling point of the game

Highly recommended, a mysterious and interesting story, it always leaves you wanting more, renders are excellent, my favorite character is Katie, the older sister, her model is realistic and perfect, I want to know more about her story.
You are great Pixelslab, no matter how hard life hits you, you always get up and continue the story, it is incredible that you do it all by yourself, thanks for making my favorite story from the visual novels, if I could give you ten stars I would.

Really liked the update ..Inana character has been given a wonderful base..and now we can get a hang of the story, beautiful renders, hoping it can has a harem ending. Waiting for the next update..


The dev has worked quite hard for this one and I hope the story gets more interesting ..

Kinda nice game,played v0.4.5.
The models and the enviroments used are detailed, Animations are fine(could be better), The background sound effects are a nice addition(wouldnt say the same foe the moans tho) and the scenes are set up nice.
Storywise i'd describe this as a rollercoaster.Linear story with not many choices so far (not a bad thing tho).You start abruptly knowing nothing about the MC's situation other than some hints and it slowly starts to reveal wtf is happening on this hole world , i like it. The plot is unravelling nice so far and its goodpaced except from the start.
I noticed 2 bad things so far. One there is some engrish,some minor and some major,major like the severe displacement of the tense was/were.Im not a grammar nazi or anything but out of all the times its been used only once it was correct lol.And two the moans.Idk if the compression is making them sound shit or if its just a bad sample.I usually get startled instead of aroused when they occur .

Definitely worth playing,lots of content to see and the story is quite interesting.But, If you're one of those that need to know everything about wtf is happening wait,we need more (im one of those ,fuck.. ).GL devs

Freaking great game/story, really glad that i stuck with it because it had kind of a ruff start.
But boy it was worth! The renders are freaking gorgeous the Story is getting more and more interresting.

I can´t wait for more content! Great job Pixel on improving not only your renders but also your writing and spelling!

Very great game. The plot is constantly surprising twists and turns. Well-written characters. Nice graphics.
One of my favorite games.
Personally, I do not have enough choices in the dialogues, but this is not critical.

Easily one of the best looking games I've seen. Right up there with the best I think. The story is also very unique is all that I can say. There's just so many layers to the story and you just don't see stuff coming. I'd highly recommend this game to anyone. The girls are great, MC is kind of a jerk but he still does the right thing when it matters, which I think is great. Makes him more likable I'd say. Instead of just a straight up g"goody 2 shoes". Very mysterious story and I'm always disappointed when the update ends because I can't wait for more.

This game is still really good, but I would like to share my thought.

My problems with the game are:
1. too many texts, too many boring dialogs...I really don't like skipping text, but usually they are boring, and because I skipping I cant follow the main story.
2. not enough sex or hot scenes.
3. Katie and Alice don't get enough attention.

If you make less writing and more interesting dialogs, if you start focusing Katie and Alice, If you put more sex or erotic scenes This game gonna more popular. Katie and Alice are well made characters, You don't need more, just use them.
Hope you wont abandon this game, you are so good, just try write less boring filling dialogs

The story is at times quite intricate, which I find to be a great plus in games like that, because at some point easy sex is not just that interesting anymore.
Animations are great, really love the renders, they are well done and the episodes are all quite lengthy and offer substantive possibilities to make choices. Hope is high for even better episodes in the future.

wow..

This is not youre typical game where characters are set in the first few minutes of playing, i reached the end of chapter 4 now and i am still not sure i know the characters or why they behave like they do.
The story reminds a lot of a Steven King story, where you have to read untill the last page inorder to know what the heck was going on in page one.
the mindsets of the chaaracters are realy complicated, with a lot of backflashes which reveal the story graduatly (atleast that i was i think they are for)
somehow characters are conected to eachother, althaugh i am not quite sure how or why.

mystery.
this game and the characters are a mystery to me up to this point, everytime i thaught i got it there is yet another curveball in this game deepening a character even further, or deepening the connecting between characters.
All in all i get why some people dont like this story, everything has a purpose, missing a line will make this story verry weird.

yup i dint mention the two ghostlike characters in this game yet,.
Simply because i havent figgered that one out yet.
other than it seems to be good and bad, althaugh i aint to sure about this statement either.

conclusion.
this game sure isnt for anyone, you will have to be prepared to do a lot of reading and thinking.
but when you like a good mystery, and dont mind to read back now and then i would say this is a game for you...

Version reviewed: 0.4.0

The worst sin one of these porn games can make is to be boring. This is not a problem for The Intoxicating Flavor. The storyline is basically a Greek/Roman tragedy where some god comes down and impregnates a mortal and then neglects their offspring while their trickster siblings mess with their child's life combined with the pacing of a fever dream.

There are moments of lucidity where the game is kind of making sense and then the scene will change to something completely different that may or may not make much sense.

The MC talks a big game about not being a flavorless doormat like most of the MCs of these games, but at the end of the day he's pretty passive and allows himself to be railroaded at pretty much every opportunity. Unusually for a porn game he is devoted to his girlfriend, even though she might be dead or he might be dead or something. To be fair though his girlfriend does appear randomly in ghost form to taunt him for some reason.

The renders look very nice and the sound effects are decent. The sex content is still fairly mild in this version, with supernatural cockblocks preventing the MC from really getting it on with the ladies.

The length is a couple of hours and there's no grind. The dialog isn't completely tedious which is really nice. It doesn't usually crush you under a wall of text as well.

Overall I recommend this for people who are tired of grindy sister-fuckers. The storyline might be a bit too weird and confusing for some people and it's probably going to end up being a dream of a dying character who failed to save his GF and got stabbed or something but it's still more interesting than most every other game.

Not a big fan of daughters' models, especially the younger one, but the story is pretty well written (though a bit confusing so far). But I'll give it 5, coz Liv and Maria are rather hot and I would like to know what's coming next...

The game is very cool and I enjoyed my time playing it. There were some major issues for me though. The story was a bit confusing and there was just sooo much dialogue from dreams and what not. I felt it confusing and I wanted to skip through those parts.

Other than the continuity issues I mentioned, the game is very interesting. I like the dynamic of the girls on the island and it makes for a decent story line.

The girls look unique for the most part and the renders are pretty good. I don't know if the story was too dialogue heavy for anyone else but that really detracted from my enjoyment of the otherwise good game.

Definitely worth trying but I imagine some other people may share my concerns about that heavy dialogue in dreams/visions/memories.

v02 Translation was orgasmic. Found it stashed and didn't play the game. Checked up on it and it's already 0.3.9. Since I speak both languages I can understand some idioms that make no sense in English. However, I haven't played the Russian version to compare the content.

I want to give this 5 out of 5 as I am reading this story and not just clicking through it. But the translation quality drop since v0.3 is apparent. I hope PixelsLabs will find this review helpful and scrutinize the translator. From what I understand it's hired help.

Текст следует переводить, либо хорошо, либо никак. Печально, что смысл истории иногда теряется в переводе. Но, в принципе, я не могу дождаться продолжения. AффтР, дафай истчо!!!

Good

Renders
story

no grind

hot girls

cute little sister

choiches dont really matter that much

Bad

Stupid minigame

its to frustating time goes down so fast somtimes it doesnt recognize the keys
Pressing the right button it doesnt accept it

For the rest game is really great