Ren'Py - The Long Way [v0.09.3] [Muffin Maker]

Started playing from v08 and I love the way it integrates with The Hard Way,

The story seems to revolve around rebuilding an empire while battling an invading force, gathering a collection of rather nice looking girls.
Characters age differently in this universe, so the girls all look young, but they're legal, with some interesting artistic license with the alien girls and human girls from heavy gravity worlds.

The animations are specific to each girl, aside from the dance on the character menu. Though some don't like the dancing characters, I think it's a step up from the usual faces. They also do their little dance nude, once they like you enough.
Would love to have pregnancy in this one too, but I suppose the devs are going a different route this time.

If this game follows their previous games rapid development, it's going to be epic.

Animation is a bit static. Storyline is fairly common. Scripting needs some editing and perhaps a little more love. Overall this is a fairly OK game. Lots of good things here but feels a bit empty and disjointed, not sure if the characters are sexy or robotic.

I don’t know how to put it (more) polite…

The same girls (with the same names) as in The Long Way and as in TLW always the same animations.
I guess it quite not a good plan to split your attention to two games…
The mainplot is the same too, you just collect a lot of girls… and what's this with these animated pics on the overview of the girls?

If I would mention all the things that I’ve reconised it would quite be a roman…

Review of 0.03.5 on 2024/01/27

General:
'The Long Way' takes place in an epic sci-fi setting. We find Moose, the MC, on a ship hiding away between the remnants of a vast intergalactic empire.
If you've seen Andromeda, you'll be familiar with this setup. The ship Moose finds himself on is the last surviving Sentinel, and due to the empire's technological decline, is now the most powerful warship in the known universe.
Bina, the living avatar of the ship, found Moose in a life pod, accompanied by 3 NPCs (who are clones of people Moose knew), and the genetic material of 1000 different people.

When the dev describes the game as “infinitely expandable”, this what he means. There's really no limit to the number of women, planets, or stories that he can tell. Discovering a new planet or cloning a new person is trivial, and the world building establishes this. My main worry here is that it could make the game seem an ocean wide but a puddle deep. If Love Interests are added because they're physically different, then I wonder if they'll have enough story for us to see their personality.

Gameplay and interface:
The game's main menu is largely unchanged from vanilla Ren'Py. There's no music or sound effects either, though I don't mind this personally.
While playing, the UI is heavily customized, with easy access to intergalactic or planetary travel, a character overview and a quest book. A freeroam section lets the player navigate inside the ship to find NPCs and events.

Freeroam:
Because the events themselves are kinetic, the freeroam system itself falls flat. As far as I can tell, events have to be played in the order the quest book gives them. This makes the story and its events linear. Freeroam does get used to its effect by allowing players to replay events by clicking interactables or NPCs. The ship has three decks and countless rooms, which makes finding an NPC a hassle. By the end of the current game, I started to get a feel for where certain NPCs might be, but this required countless clicks.

Visuals:
Visually, the game is outstanding. The characters are visually varying and appealing. This setting allows the dev to use esoteric models, and he seems to be willing to use this to its full effect. The environments are detailed, with characters being sprites on top of them.
Animation wise, I'd call the game innovative. We'll see Moose undress in a quick succession (not fluid animation) of rendered frames, which seamlessly transition into a sexual animation. The character screen will show the LI moving or dancing, which is a nice touch as well.
Even during dialog, we'll sometimes be treated to a succession of renders that show an NPC walking around a table, or going from lying to sitting up.