VN - Ren'Py - The Last Challenge [S1 Ch.2b v0.2.4] [LustyDonkey]

Crazy excellent game.
Great characters, nice renders, good animations.
Story gets to darker themes sometimes, but overall tone is positive, based on the cliffhanger at the end of 0.2.4 it could change tho.

Plot prefers to stay realisitc.
If you decide to blackmail/force yourself on a girl, guess what?
She'll either fight you back, or will comply but will not suddenly discover that she actually she likes it.
The only aspect I really didnt like, is CRAZY amount of branching and choices.
IF in this one particular scene you'll be more aggressive, THEN a girl will be interested in you, IF you choose to rail her, and IF you decide to take your time, the story deviates in a completely different direction,
And while the outcomes of choices are mostly logical, there's still too much of them.
Also doubt it affects development speed in a positive way.
Nevertheless, a great story, be sure to check it!

Its fun and silly and serious all at the same time, and sex is great, lots of devs completely ignore tits during sex, most make stupid large tits and done thats it about tits, here tits look real and fucking sexy and are part of sex scenes. Story so far has been about Mc and friends background, the game story is still to be seen.

The one thing i think its good and bad is the amount of choices, yes its great to have so many choices but as the game moves forward it will drag the development speed down, i hope dev can find a nice balance

5 stars so far
good luck

This is one of the very rare games where I’ve truly seen choices alter not just dialogue but the entire flow of events, and I’m genuinely curious and extremely excited to see exactly where everything leads next.

This may be an excellent game, I don't know, yet, as I just started. But I have to say... I HATE multiple-clicks to advance unchanging frames/images. Especially(!) in a game that devotes frames to lengthy explanations about not using "rollback" because they've coded their decision trees to be fickle and can break if you use rollback and make you miss something you should have gotten if not for their delicate decision trees.

What do you think is the most common reaction to clicking to advance the frames and NO CHANGE happens on screen? More clicking, right? They use 3 phantom-clicks REPEATEDLY to advance single frames in this game. How often is "repeatedly"? There have been at least a dozen, and I am only just past the gas station pit stop - still on the bus going home. They're adding "drama" or "suspense" by doing this, I imagine. Manga, Anime, JRPGS, and even some poor games on here at least put a growing stack of ellipses in the text box to INFORM that something IS happening. This one is just quietly, "TEE HEE!" giggles and doesn't do anything. No, no, your mouse isn't breaking - it's done on purpose for effect. Real review later, if I remember or something else triggers me. Thanks.

*UPDATE*
It's not for drama or suspense. It's just the passage of time. He just did it for the MC and Lexa taking a swig of beer. 3-clicks that do nothing on screen so you can "feel" time passed as they took one swig of beer. At least a dozen times now. Come on...

**UPDATE**
Oh my god, dude, multiple times in the same conversation, one sentence apart?? How does throwing away 2 out of 3 mouse clicks equate to a meaningful gameplay or narrative tool in your mind that you use it THIS MUCH. You also use post-click delay, so even when the mouse-click is acknowledged, you pad a buffer in the next dialogue before the text appears. So half the time, one thinks it's another ghost-clicks issue until they see a brief glimpse of the delayed text before it switches to the next dialogue. So you FORCE them to perform a "not recommended" rollback to see what they missed. This also gets used multiple times, but not nearly as much as the ghost-clicks.

***UPDATE***
This entire conversation between Lexa and the MC is supposed to be impactful. It's completely undermined by these stupid ghost-clicks. They're *trying* to use these as "caesura's" or "pregnant pauses" in the literary and music fields, but they do it as many times (if not double) in this conversation and the reveal of when they get back to their hometown as they did in the entirety of the game up to those points. So when you take the "trick" that you're using to impart meaning to a statement and do it dozens of times, back to back, with barely a gap between them being used - it GROSSLY lessens the effectiveness of the tool.

Think of it like someone doing a jump scare on you and got you the first time, but then do it like 2 dozen times just standing in front of you, not even trying to hide. How many times before you're just annoyed and want to knock them out just to get them to stop?

****Final Update****
Jesus, I had no idea I was two sentences from the end of the build when I posted the last update.

OK, well... if you take out what I've been nitpicking, which would be a petty nitpick if it didn't happen dozens of times in the short time span of this game, so far - this is a decent game. They don't fall into inner monologue traps. There are distinct personalities for the characters that you get a feel for via the scenes and reminiscing they do. The models and scenes look good. The lighting is well done.

I like the idea of the story, but honestly, that last conversation with Lexa and the Reveal of the Hometown almost got me to throw in the towel with the ghost-clicks. This is habitual for them, like inner monologue is for most others. For all their effort and expense put in everywhere else, they're completely pulling the rug out from under themselves with this habit. It's NOT doing what you think. The opposite, in fact, in my opinion. Lowering from preliminary 5-stars to 3-stars. It probably deserves 4, but the tricks ruin it for me.

*****For Realsies*****
I have to state. I just started rapid firing choices I didn't make, and man, I have to up this to 4-Stars just on the quality of the alternate choices branch lines. These aren't just "tacked-on", mildly different, twigs of a storyline. These are fully fleshed out, could be the main story level, storyline branches. So if the dev reads my review, I'm not taking back what I said, but you have talent. It feels really rare to find a diamond in this pile of low-effort (which ends up still being quite a bit of effort because of how much work there is in making games) trash that we all wade through here. It's likely not as rare as it feels, and I'm probably jaded and cynical, but when I stumble upon someone that makes me say, "Wow...", and not negatively, I hope to remember to say something positive. Kudos for this, I hope you get support and are able to keep this going.

HOLY SHIT, this game is a wild rollercoaster of emotions, and it's still only in development, the characters look so good, the storey is so good already and the humor I found myself chucking a lot of the time, the sex scenes too where amazing and the choices matter, this game looks so beautiful, and I can not wait for more to release!

great game but still doesn't have many updates yet, game has been released almost 2 year ago and still is in the chapter 2. But talking about the game itself, its prety damn good, lots of choices, good renders, good animations, lots of options during sex scenes, nice variety of girls and a nice humor and story built, even though it lacks updates this still great, 5 stars for sure

I like the concept of the branching options and the drastically different story that can play out as a result. The op is very ambitious with the features he seems to want to implement. There is robust cast of characters with hot models and renders. Story is intriguing with a pandemic like backdroup mixed with a college like enviorment. Intrested to see what way the appocyalptic city play outs.

No clue how this game is over 11 gigabytes. Thats insane for a few hours of content

Would like to rate this a lot higher, but way too many characters (over a dozen and counting), and it branches in too many directions early on. I dont see a way forward on how paths will get developed in a satisfying manner. The latest update is the end of the intro


What is there is very solid, its just too ambitious

Great start, loads and i mean LOADS of impactful choices. This game looks like it's really ambitious, maybe a bit too ambitious. But so far a really cool well flowing game.

The introduction alone has more choices then some games have in their entirety and i'm all for it. Great start.

I'm amazed that I didn't discover this great game earlier.

Each choice has the potential to lead you down a different path. Even the first prologue can be played in so many different ways that it's really amazing, and it's clear that a lot of thought went into the design of this game.

The producer's skills extend beyond the realm of storytelling. They demonstrate remarkable talent in crafting engaging conversations, ensuring that even extended dialogues within a single setting remain captivating and flow seamlessly.

It's definitely one of my top three. My overall assessment of this game is 4.7 out of 5.

Things just happen to happen. The background of the game feels shallow but the character writing is phenomenal. Huge fan of the way liquid is used in scenes. But not a fan of how clueless I feel when things are just happening in front of me because I was thrown into a pair of shoes who already did everything so I can't learn with the main character. and just have to rip guesses.

TL;DR = pretty decent relationship (teen) drama.

Story: 4/5
Pros:
+ There is this group of teenagers who are forced to live together for few years. You can imagine what kind of relationship drama will emerge from that.
+ It was kinda entertaining and I was engaged into a story.
+ Story is decent as far as erotic VN are concerned. If you dont expect more then you might be entartained.
Cons:
- There is this alternative storyline, where MC gets separed from his friends and instead it changes into some military bullshit. It was boring as hell. There is no sex here. Luckily you can easily avoid this shit.

Art and Sex stuff: 5/5
Pros:
+ Renders are good.
+ Girls are hot.
+ Sex scenes are good.
+ Sex scenes have animations.
+ There is a quite lot of sex in this game.
Cons:
- I cant think of anything.

Gameplay: 4/5
Pros:
+ This is typical VN witch choices.
+ Choices have impact on the gameplay.
+ English is decent.
+ Game has sountrack. But it is barely there. Nothing extraordinary.
+ Game has sound effects. Like girls moaning during sex.
Cons:
- The game has a lot of choices and those choices might lead you into different branches of story. If you are unlucky you might end up going into a boring military side story.

To sum it up:
I really enjoyed this game and thats why I will recommend this.

Ok, the story just begun, but I love the graphics, I mean renders, art and scenes. Some videos also perfect and I'm not a fan of vids.
Sex scenes are ok.
But the 5 stars are because I never played a game like this one. Finally we have something new.
The dialogues, the characters and the story development. (Not MC, still the alpha, seducer, giant cock that all girls love)
Yet, great work.

REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY enjoyed this one.


its not just a porn game, its a game with porn. great story, i was really enjoying it!!! wish it was further developed!

the animations are top notch *some needs better smoothing on the loops, and the moans need more variety as hearing the same one moan on repeat gets annoying*. but other than that, fantastic. some are better than others.

characters are interesting, not your typical porn game trope characters. different looks and personalities, they feel like actual people.


the story starts off feeling like "oh typical", but when you get into it, it really begins to unravel, and becomes super engaging. really loved it. came for the tags, stayed for the story!

WHY ARE THE BEST GAMES ALWAYS SUPER EARLY IN DEVELOPMENTTTTTTT

Support this one if you can, its still very early in development, but its SOOOO GOOOOD

*Warning - some spoilers follow*

A difficult game to review and rate.

On the one hand, the game's presentation - from the renders, to the user interface, to the music - oozes class. This is obviously a developer working on a labour of love project who genuinely values quality and taking their time to polish everything to a brilliant sheen. You will struggle to find many other AVNs that look and feel this professional. The level of ambition in terms of the character breadth and narrative scope is also impressive.

But by pitching to, and largely achieving, this level of superior quality the game also creates a rod for its own back. Story contrived and unbelievable? Welcome to 99% of AVNs. But here it kind of feels like these same rules that apply to other AVNs aren't so valid. It's a clearly superior product so it feels like the story and scripting should also be judged to a higher standard too. It's just not remotely believable or logical in its premise. The writer has a particular scenario in mind - create a group narrative where individuals with varied personalities are forced to work together in challenging situations, but has got themselves into such a convoluted and illogical mess trying to deliver on this. Have them travel to a location where for no apparent reason the virus that is ravaging the world doesn't exist. Oh and they need to be a bit horny so make them college students. Oh and they have to have this long and complex shared history so pretend they've been locked down from leaving. Oh and they can't know what's happening in the rest of the world so come up with this weird plot device where the governement has installed towers that block all communication. And lets just ignore the fact that during this time, they, including one of the main characters, has apparently been trading with outside world for goods, but somehow no one mentioned anything about how things were on the outside. Oh and when they have to go home someone (the govt?) lifts the quarantine despite the fact that the rest of the world has apparently turned into the zombie apocalyse, and despite the fact they those in the valley can't communicate with the outside they all just merrily hop on a bus and drive out with a few packets of potato chips and some club sodas. Aarrrgh! I never thought I'd say this, but for f*&ks sake just plonk them on a desert island or something. Surely it doesn't have to be this complicated and nonsensical. Ok rant over. I struggle with the story to a level that it affects my enjoyment of the game.

There are also issues with the scripting. Again it's like the writer is trying too hard. Yes it's good to have a story with emotional depth and drama. But this level of emotional depth? We can't just have a character who had an abusive father - it has to be a father who killed her dog and then threw the dog in the trash (amongst other things). We can't have a character with a bitchy sister - it has to be a sister that sets his toys on fire and puts him in a headlock to force him to watch. It feels like the writer is straining for emotional punch, but like a band that play at 11 for their whole set any impact and subtlety is lost. In real life folks get effed up and make stupid decisions for a lot of reasons, a lot of which are mundane or depressingly ordinary, but not here - they have to have gone through extreme and sustained trauma. When combined with the aforementioned story it just feels like the whole thing is constantly straining.

I don't find any of the girls particularly amazing looking, but I'm prepared to give the developers a leave pass on that front because it boils down to personal preference after all. However as other reviewers have noted, they all tend to have the same or a similar body type, which is either your thing or it isn't. What is less forgivable is the fact that for pretty much 2 hours and 45 minutes of the 3 hour game length you are forced to look at a bunch of people sweating profusely. I don't just mean with a damp brow - I mean with rivers of liquid literally cascading down their bodies. Again dude, we get it - it's hot, but sometimes (again) less is more and I just found it all a bit gross even though I like athletic women doing athletic things (including sweating) generally.

So yeah, a pretty harsh take from me. I kind of felt that I SHOULD love the game but I just couldn't, which is a real shame. Why 4 stars? Well it's certainly not a bad game and indeed the developer deserves a lot of credit for what they are trying here, a tonne of work has gone into this and it certainly has massive potential, and I'm sure a lot of people will love it. I will also, despite all I've said be tuning in for the next update. But for now I'm struggling.

⠀
[S1 Ch.2b v0.2.4]

⠀⠀⠀I'm afraid this project is way too ambitious for it's own good. The game only just starts and there is already a lot of branching with crap load of choices. There is also a crap load of characters, already over 20 and we just started. Not sure how many of these are going to become love interests but they all have their unique personalities and backgrounds and are not just sex dolls or simple backdrops. If the dev isn't cutting on content, this game won't release till heat death of the universe.

⠀⠀⠀Sorry but this plot is ridiculous, it's so fucking dumb, that it's hard to take anything seriously. The story doesn't know what the fuck it wants to be. Is it an absurd comedy or serious drama? Idk, a stupid sex joke and a tragic trauma dumping can happen two paragraphs apart. The narrative skipping whole ten fucking years forward after the prologue doesn't help with consistency either. MC and his girlfriend broke up after 6 years of relationship (somehow went out for all those years being purely platonic), because he blurted someone else's name during their first time having sex? And then they went 4 years apart without talking it out even tho they are madly in love with each other? Are you fucking kidding me? 9 year olds with asperger's could come up with a better excuse. No sob story about difficult childhood is saving such horrible writing.

⠀⠀⠀Sex scenes are executed poorly. They are made in 'sandbox' style, where you can infinitely choose poses and camera angles. Suffice to say it makes them feel fake and lifeless, not to mention there is zero naughty/erotic dialogue. Scenes that are fully directed by the devs will always be a better deal that this crap.

⠀⠀⠀There is only 3 hours of reading and 4 sex scenes with all the available paths combined and the game already takes 11 gigabytes of drive space, wtf is the dev smoking?

⠀⠀⠀Don't get me wrong, the game has many positives like animated cut-scenes, competent sound design with lots of sound effects and ambient noise, lots of attractive and interesting girls, funny jokes, stunning visuals, complex character glossary with lots of lore and other info, etc. The dev is very talented and it's apparent. But the script is absurd and super inconsistent, I also highly doubt this game will ever be finished with such grandiose scope of it's ambitions. There is huge potential, but the road to get there seems to have no end in sight.

A game with various options And it's fun to do. I like it. And please don't stop improving. May this game continue to develop and good luck. I enjoyed giving it a 9/10 rating first. And another thing, I'd like the developers to open support channels that are easy to talk to, such as discord and patreon.

Great game, the story seems to be taking an interesting turn.
I really like the fact that every aspect is so hard work, you can tell that the developer is really putting his heart into the game, plus I think it's a very good decision that it is not the typical game where you can get into the panties of all the girls without consequences, I love it, there are few games like this, I hope the creator continues with this enthusiasm because he is creating a jewel for which it is worth waiting for each update.

10/10

Pretty damn good game, love the story even though it hasent really gotten started yet but i love that you have a choice in relationships and that you can dump hes (ex)girlfriend if you want to, so no one is forced.
Theres plenty of fun parts in the story as well even though it might become a bit more serious going forward considering where current version stopped.

Also i like that there are a decent number of girls even though im not sure how many since alot are already in relationships and such but atleast the potential is there.

As for the girls i think there is a bit of diversity in builds, most are what i would call normal size tits and then a few bigger and smaller sizes so it seems pretty decent really.

The sex scenes im not really a fan off though, theres 0 talk doing them since its the animation type where you can click cam views and has an idiotic next button, to me personaly it just feels idiotic and kills the flow in sex scenes and removes immersion altogether, its much much better to just have animatons going while having some sex talk happening then a stupid next button, so it lost a star on that for me.

Then theres the size, 11 gigs and really not all that much content, if it keeps up like this it will be a huge size when its finished.

Cant wait to see how this will go forward, it sure has potential to be a good story and choice driven game.

One of the best game I have ever played until now. Full-rounded characters, intriguing plot and amazing sex scenes. The renderings are very beautiful. That's all for now, I have to play the second part of the game.