VN - Ren'Py - The Mason Gambit [Ch.10] [CorForce Productions]

I tend to try games that look like they have an interesting or exciting storyline - even if the review score is not great. After all, everyone's tastes vary. This one caught my eye because of the military/action theme to it.

It started off quite well. The story was interesting and had my attention, the main character seemed quite balanced and an all round good guy.
I even laughed at the whole MC being the only virile male for these women spreading the nasty virus around. Oh boy, that was a clue right there.

Then I got some creepy vibes from some of the narrative as it progressed...but I stuck with it, thinking it might be some one off things...

All I can say is the viewpoint that unfolds would not be out of place on r/niceguys. Women who have sex before marriage are sluts....same if they use dildos to masturbate....but hey it's okay to have an incestuous themed harem

MC's best friend has been seeing a guy for 3 years but when MC asks why they have only kissed, she shouts "I'm not the kind of slut that spreads her legs.."

That's the type of mentality in this VN

This all leads to burning questions..

Does the dev live in actual modern times? or is he in fact Terry the Taliban? what the actual...did I read? why am I even playing this?

The unfolding narrative is from one warped mindset! if a guy said that stuff to me, he would get a knee in his balls and told to crawl back into his basement.

Creepy virgins will probably lap this stuff up as they have this image of their perfect woman being angelic and chaste till marriage...ugh. They will stay virgins until old age listening to this type of misogyny bs.

That was as much as I could stomach.

The renders were average but with weird twisted expressions/poses at times that did not compliment them and also grainy with terrible lighting or lack off. Some of the models are fugly and have weird skin - Tara looks permanently sunburned and as for Cynthia (mommy)...her weird blue eyes make her look like some kind of killer android...hello, I stepped into Westworld...

As for the story, well it just became more downright stupid as it progressed.

Games like this make me glad I usually go for only a small selection of the titles on here and ones with female protagonists that are represented decently. This just leaves a nasty taste from playing it.

The Mason Gambit [Ch.7]
TLDR: This AVN is what you call a fantasy of an insecure trash.

The renders: Perhaps they would be called reasonable if this was made 4 years ago. Not now. The grainy images don’t help.

The story: Military-related story for a porn game was never my cup of tea. But the start was interesting. But it got boring as I moved forward—nothing to keep me interested. I dropped after a trashy event.

The Models: They are nothing special from other Daz games. You will find the same kind of models in other games. They have no distinguishing features that separate them from the rest.

The Girls: They have no personality. They exist to be your cock sleeves. The girls that are not for you are labeled a slut by the authors.

The sex scenes: They are horrible.

The mc: A total trash for an MC. The MC is narcissist trash. I won’t spoil what he does to be called that. Read a few detailed reviews and, you will know. I don't have a problem with him being trash. But it is a problem when the author/developer tries to glorify/justify his trashy actions and make him look like a hero.

On a side note, I doubt the author is an adult. Because the things that are said in the Novel are not something an adult would say. Plus, I am not here to hear things like a girl is a slut if she sleeps before marriage stuff. If I wanted to hear that I would have read the Bible and not play an AVN.

Why do people give this high rating?
Reread the first line and you will understand if you are an adult or have the mind of one.

Ch 7 review -
Excellent game dev , amazing renders and stunning female characters and plot is very interesting . Nice to see MC with a personality which is becomming rare these days And writing is excellent . I don't mind kinetic novel as story is intriguing and like others loved the scene where MC banishes his mom , what kind of mom can't recognise her own son . Great game altogether looking forward to future updates .

I didn't realize, at first, what it was that was irking me about this game.
I thought it was just the usual SF or Mystic excuse for creating a giant harem and didn't really mind it.
Let's face it, with that kind of premise it is not really easy to be original, so for me the way the story is told, the qualities of dialogue, characterization, the sex scenes, the renders etc. those are what sell these games to me.

In regard to that, the game wasn't so bad, the renders were okay if somewhat flat when it comes to lighting and a bit grainy. The characters were the usual tropes in these games, when it comes to sisters and mother-like characters.
Sadly, at a closer look, a lot of it falls apart.
For one, this is the same boring approach, where every single woman the hero encounters is head over heels for him in a matter of hours or days, if they aren't already in love with him from the start.
The MC is a complete Mary Sue, he can do everything and anything, he knows everything, he is basically perfect in every way. Except, I admit he often appears pretty passive, except when he can lord it out over people who have "sinned."

And then we come to the propaganda, and I really can't name it any other way.
It's rare to encounter a game that is so obviously preachy and enforcing a certain view on the audience.
At first, I thought this was all a joke, because it seems so exaggerated that I honestly couldn't take it seriously.
For one thing, we have ridiculous over the top feminist outbursts, no it would be an insult to any actual, rational feminist, to call it that, this is actually what you call feminazi.
Again, I thought this was a joke or a bad satire, because it is so ridiculous, how could this be serious?
On the other hand, any sexual freedom a woman could have is a sin, immoral and totally horrible.
Having multiple sexual partners, you're a whore, using a dildo is an insult to the man in your life etc..
Abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous. And here, as well, I thought this was either a joke or someone would give the characters spouting that bs an enlightenment.
But no, this is absolutely serious. It goes so far that the MC infects his own biological mother with a virus and condemns the young stud she screws around with to sterility due to that. And that for the horrible crime of having a healthy sex life. Obviously, that can only be allowed for the MC and his harem, and I'm pretty sure no woman in this game will EVER touch another woman in a sensual way, not if she wants to get to bang the MC.

Get this, it gets even better, the MC basically hates his mom, because when he was younger, she screwed a few of his classmates, and yes, that is pretty shitty, his FATHER however is the one responsible for the virus that leads humanity to the edge of extinction, by sterilizing most males.
And of course, he lied to him his entire life as well. Obviously, these sins are easily forgivable. But his mom screwed a few of his classmates and OMG! embarrassed the poor guy. That harlot should burn! (the last sentence is satire, for the not so bright among us.)

And that is of course where the game shows its true colours. This is written for that loud and aggressive and obnoxious group of players who decry any interaction between a possible LI in a game and a man who is not the MC, as NTR. Oh, and women as well. And basically every woman who considers fucking anyone but the MC is a slut and a harlot and the worst and deserves to die.

Honestly, this is insecure and misogynistic on a level that makes me sick.

Some people here think rape games are sick, but those are fantasies, not what reality should be like, with this type of game, it absolutely feels like the approach is "this is how it should be in the real world as well."

But what a weird balance act it is, to have both this over the top feminist attitude, and the toxic misogynist one, in the same game/ story.

Never felt such creeping cringe and utter disgust reading what sounded like a good story.

Starts off strong, actiony, looks like it will lead to good things.

A few red flags go off, far too much over the top feminism including a rant at a soldier for daring to say sir infront of a woman. Could she have corrected his mistake, sure, but why do that when you can have a full on rant in his face for 5 minutes.

Then it happened, the most eye rolling enducing bullshit i've ever had the misfortune to read anywhere never mind a game.

Starts off meeting his friend and then he goes on a full on abusive tirade about a girl the knew in high school that like sex. He pulls out all the go to's your typical "nice guy" uses. She's a rancid slut, a whore, works street corners etc...

All that from a guy that's been nothing but respectful up until that moment.

And then I find out why.

His "best friend" then goes on a rant about sex before marriage or finding your "true love" and how having sex before meeting them is somehow cheating....

All this in a fucking adult game being read by people that have had sex. It could be an advertisement for a Christian playgroup it's that in your face.

I would say it's easy to overlook but this shit has an entire scene dedicated to it.

It is, quite possibly, the most woke adult game i've seen on here.

It's so fucking weird. It's like half really good action thriller and half feminist commentary. Just so fucking weird.

I can't rateit any higher even if half of it is okay. I don't like prechy bullshit, keep that to yourself dev. I don't give a shit what your beliefs are, don't ram them down our throats in a games script.

I can't believe i'm going to type these words but .... it got worse.

So, picture the scene, dead girl found and they search her home where they happen to find a dildo...

Now the words "any woman that does that has no respect for her man whatsoever, probably even hates men". Then goes on to say it's emasculating.

Now, it's painfully obvious this was written by a man. Whoever that man is, damn you must have some terrible insecurities where a woman masturbating emasculates you.

Stop, get some help.

And keep this shit out of games. We don't need you projecting your faults on us.

Terrible renders for modern AVN;s.

Looney plot. Seems interesting at first but just gets more confusing and boring along the way.

The story they chose is about a guy who finds sex outside of marriage and a committed relationship is a full fledged war crime or something.

Interesting characters but everything just seems like base level. Everything in this game feels like an intro to something bigger or a good game that's about to get going but it never does. I wasted 2 hours playing this mediocre thing.

Graphics and the models were good but the dialogue and the actions were off putting with a "holier than thou" attitude from several of the characters were repeatedly, and extendly, shoved in your face, especially with regards to any sexual act that wasn't with their "one true love" were seen as slutty and whorish.

excellent story and dev's attitude is refreshing to say the least, it has been long awaited that these stories are stories which do not survive on the perversion and abuse of others, yes this story has some sad events but Mason and his crew work tirlessly to resovle and stop them from happening, I love it

Great game (version .6)

Overall, the graphics are klunky. It is too shiny at times.

Next is the music. A pretty good variety of music to fit the different situations and typically not the same music you here everywhere.

The story, while probably not the most original, is still interesting. It has good action scenes.

The girls are meh, but the sex scenes are so far very few. This is a very vanilla, romance harem game, so expect the characters/story to reflect this. So while the sex scenes are few, they are slowly happening and they are good. Girls start to contradict themselves b/t their words and actions.

Overall, the story and music are good, but music and LIs need improvement.

The short: Likely hundreds of hours on rendering images of what look like aliens at best, or really creepy faced people at worst. Writing is bland and verbose. Don't waste your time or bandwith.

The longer bit: I wonder how many people are working on this AVN since it really seems to have at least two different people working on the script and art from the way it veers back and forth from poor to mediocre quality.

The only positive is the game didn't crash or give any errors, so the coding is ok, which is probably because it's a kinetic novel, with zero paths or choices that matter.

Absolutely love the game. Renders, story, girls ect. are all great. Really love the video game/avn references as well. A little harsh in the beginning maybe with the "anyone who sleeps with more than one person is a slut" dialogue (biological mother excluded), but to each there own. It doesn't deter from the story for me personally, but i can see how it might for some if it's drug out to much. Really looking forward to more myself.

Update for chapter 8: At this point I just checked in as sort of a "morbid curiosity" type thing. Nothing is better about this. And ultimately this is "Look how much I know about military jargon," "Look how little I value women," and "If women masturbate, even though I, the deranged writer of this VN, can't satisfy them sexually they're an emasculating slut that deserves bad things to happen to them." Those are the actual views proudly boasted in this story. If you NEED a headache or migraine, read this. It will get you out of whatever you need to do that day. And since I can't rate lower than one star, I'm piling on my negative thoughts about this trash. It's filled with kink shaming, lifestyle shaming, and just complete disrespect for anyone who isn't MC for no reason. He's just a default 3D model with the muscle and height sliders turned all the way up and a shitty crew cut, because this heavily romanticizes PTSD and army life. I honestly think there's not more sex in this is because the writer gets jealous and angry at the MC having sex with the digital females instead of him. Oh and I guess the summaries for ch7 and ch8 are: The disease makes bimbo amazonian women that can only have sex with MC, and MC's friend died and he goes on a killing spree to make himself feel better and Allison kissed MC but hasn't talked to Nicole yet so she feels guilty. Respectively.

This has honestly been a mind-boggling experience for me, I really don't know a better way to describe it. There are times when it's an okay-ish story and the rest of the time it's just preachy for WAY longer than it needs to be, like, I honestly feel like it's a joke. I read the other reviews for this and thought "No way it's actually like that..." But it is, my god. And there is absolutely no subtlety in it, the moral of this story is "If a woman has sex that's not with you, it devalues her as a living thing." and also "Surround yourself in an echo chamber so no ideas that contradict yours can hurt you." Which is hilarious as this is 100% a beta male, white knight, wannabe SJW power fantasy type story. All that on top of over romanticizing military lifestyle, which is another thing entirely.

The story is a little messy so I will try to sum it up as best as possible. You follow MC Mason, a military elite that was presumed dead and used that to enact special ops missions with his team. He learns his father's killed himself and has to come out of hiding and take over the family business. That just so happens to be a worldwide pharmaceutical conglomerate that "accidentally" made a virus that makes men sterile and impotent. But the effect it has on women is it makes them essentially bimbos that are good at everything. Oh and MC has been given a shot that prevents him from catching the virus. Anyway, Mason comes home to say he's not dead and learns his dad also runs a black ops force that polices the world. But for some reason, he didn't use it to find the people threatening his family until after he killed himself...? Plot hole right there, but whatever. And the people doing that are also human traffickers that sell virgins to people. The plot is trying to stop the criminals and dealing with the virus his father made.

The characters are okay, I guess, at first. Allison is the closed off secretary that's married to her job but two days after meeting Mason she wants a relationship. That partnered with the fact that any time Mason and her go anywhere a guy asks her out to "increase her worth" because she turns them all down. Also she explodes on MC about not knowing everything about him after a week during a mission so that's a weird thing to have in this "airtight" story. Nikki, Mason's best friend growing up and everyone knew they loved each other and took him coming back from the dead for them to do anything. And as soon as she's introduced she goes on a tirade that I'll get into in a bit. Then you have the typical family love interests. Tara energetic younger sister that wants to be seen as a woman by big brother. Selena, the career focused sister that's also in love with her brother. And Cynthia, mother that's been in two marriages that ended in death, now being pushed into a relationship with her step son only weeks after her husband's suicide.

So I bought into this story because I saw "slow burn" from the dev himself. But it is only a slow burn at the surface level. Every love interest is either already in love with or falls for Mason almost immediately. The only reason they aren't banging like rabbits is because Mason is out murdering people like a psychopath every other night. He never has the time. And good lord is this game preachy. The tirade I mentioned earlier was Nikki literally out of nowhere ranting about how if women have sex with more than one person in their lifetime, she's a cheap slut. And every time I think the story is done trying to tell me that fact, another character robotically brings it up out of nowhere. And the virus adds another little bubble around most of the love interests because if they have sex with someone, they'll never be able to again and the virus will spread. So obviously MC is the only person they can ever have sex with.

This story goes on and on (and ON) about how having multiple sexual partners is awful. The MC even visits his birth mother and learns that she (a bored middle aged woman) is having sex with people, how awful. He gets so mad he infects her with the human race ending virus and lets her infect one of her partners all because he's so morally righteous. But circle back to all the women in his life, they immediately get the idea to have a polyamorous relationship with him. Because somehow double standards don't exist. And THEY CONTINUE TO BRING THIS UP SO UNNATURALLY! They'll be sitting there, talking about the weather, then suddenly, "So MC, if I had fallen for someone before you came back to life, would you still accept my feelings or cry like a little bitch because I had physical intimacy with someone before you?" And preach "We don't care about the way other people live, as long as it's the way we live and think about things."

A lot of the dialog in this is references to pop culture or other adult VN's, coincidentally the most prominent reference is to the one I dislike the most. It involves three red heads and is very long winded. The watermelon and ham was a funny nod but that story suffers from the same problem this one does. The characters are stuck in an isolated bubble. Hell, even a lot of the military references are from Mass Effect. And the only real "twist" in the story ends up being that MC knew what was going on the whole time, because Gary-Stu's aren't allowed to be surprised by anything.

I'd like to take a second to say I find it odd that this is centered heavily around being American and such when all the vernacular and speech patterns are obviously british, even the spelling. And Ichika changes heavily from bright-eyed rookie to straight out of Japan ninja, using honorifics and language suddenly. We all knew she was Japanese, she didn't need any of that. And the sex scene at the very end of this update(Chapter 6) that came probably only due to pestering from patrons, I thought it was funny that you can skip it.

The morals in this story aren't healthy, which isn't saying much in a forum about porn games. The women all have those lumpy, silicone, fake boob look. And I was gonna give this 2 stars because the story beats aren't terrible. I'm actually a little interested to see how this pans out at the cost of the wrinkles in my brain. But it has the default RenPy UI, and not spending time or money to change a couple pictures and variables is lazy.

Review of release that includes Ch. 5.

This review will contain spoilers, so skip to the overview at the end if you don't want spoilers.

There are a number of things to like about this game. The renders are good, the overall structure of the story seems to be moving in interesting directions and the story itself is somewhat novel.

That being said, there are a number of issues with the story as it stands:

1. The story is super preachy in ways that are very forced and completely out-of-character. Remember kids, according to the story, having sex with anyone, ever, who isn't your known forever partner in life is really, really, really bad. You'll hate yourself if you do it and ruin things for other people! You're useless as a human being if you've had sexual experiences with anyone else. Honestly, several of the characters spend entirely too much time talking about how they all, independently, feel this way. It is absolutely ridiculous given who these characters are and what many of them do for a living. It is even more out of place in a harem game. Look, I get a lot of people don't like NTR (whatever they happen to define that as), but this is not a good setup for this sort of game, nor is a fun read. The MC also tries to completely destroys an 18 YO kid's life and that of his biological mother because sex. Oh, and don't forget to only, ever, surround yourself with people who feel exactly the same way you do about everything. It's not like anyone ever got into trouble for doing exactly that. FFS
2. The game breaks the fourth wall a ton at completely random times, usually to just emphasize what one of the in-game characters has just said. There are times and places in a game where it can be fun to break the fourth wall, but this game doesn't handle it well.
3. The background story for how the MC ended up not talking with anyone other than his dad for all of those years doesn't match up properly with who the MC is at that point in his life. I'm only referring to the point where everyone thinks he is dead but before he joins the undercover team. Sure, people make mistakes, but the MC's explained actions from back then don't make sense, and they could have, narratively, with a bit more work.

Music and sound effects are decent, but not as good as some other games.

All-in-all, I'll keep an eye on the game, but I just can't imagine it is going to have a satisfying ending given some of the issues mentioned above. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

Overview:

Pros

• Interesting plot structure.
• Great renders.

Cons

• Ham-fisted preaching about how sex outside of a sole, committed relationship is going to absolutely destroy your life.
• Character motivations don't always feel real.
• The MC's backstory could use some work.

Review for Chapter 5
PROS-
Excellent story - Just WOW .
Good renders and stunning girls .
Finally a Main character who is intelligent , caring with a bit of personality .
Nice animated scenes no H scenes till now looking forward to future .
Nice music and sounds effects .
And I loved reference to some other popular VN games .
There is no negatives that I can think of at least .
In the end an excellent game CoryF with one hell of a story with interesting characters . And I don't get people complaining in the reviews or thread about lack of choices in the game when it clearly tagged KINETIC NOVEL , there are some choices like to peek or not which is to those who don't wanna act as a creep by spying on girls in bathroom . Definitely recommended if you don't mind lack of choices or love Kinetic novels , looking forward to see how the game moves forward .

I like this one. It has a nice, comic book vibe. The renders are solid and creative, with good use of angles and perspective...(Hmmm, Dev is a photog perhaps) . This is a nice break from the usual..."Guy with huge mutant dick...wrecks every pu$$1e that crossed his path, story" The story seems to be going somewhere and it is funny.

I am probably a bit harsh here, but while I enjoyed the VN, it is a bit limiting. To be fair, this is not really a game. The choices the MC has are limited and just an option to see extra scenes. I have not looked at the code, but I doubt these decisions have any impact on the story.

It's also very preachy. There is a ton of dialogue explaining why everyone is a virgin and their whole belief system. I am not knocking the ideas and concepts, but there is just a ton of expostition.

You should also be aware this is really a VN and you are watching a story unfold. You do not have any real say in the behavior of the MC and at one point, the MC declares his love for someone and it caught me completely off guard. It's interesting to me that the Dev includes multiple potential love interests, yet the MC choses one pretty early on with very little warning and zero input from the viewer. What is going to happen to the other LIs? Makes me think something bad is going to happen to the one he chose, but who knows.

There is also a wierd amount of references. Some of which are for other adult VNs, but there are others like the Terminator and Pinky and the Brain. I also appreciate the humor; my favorite was the "gunslinger" scene at the pool with the beach ball substituting for a tumbleweed.

Also have to give it up for the story, which is pretty good and well thought out. Lots of great, little used assets and the renders are mostly good although there were a number of grainy and out of focus shots in some sections. I am not sure if this was intentional as most of the renders are solid enough. Also, the scene blocking and the pacing of the story, for the most part, is very good. The dev has talent and it is well written, I just think it could be tightened up a bit.

Anyway, I will be keeping an eye on it and I am hopeful now that the first part of the story is out of the way, we can start seeing more of the direction the story is going. It's worth a download as a lot of people obviously love this story, but expect a VN with very few choices.

UPDATE: Well... it's a preachy mess with zero fap content. Plus, all the characters are starting to get annoyingly perfect. It is starting to suffer from a Mary/Gary Sue syndrome but in this case, it's all the good guys not just the MC. I am also beginning to wonder if there are more than one person doing the renders as some of them are not good... at all... while there are others that are really good. It's become a bit of an odd entry into the adult content VNs. I will keep following it and recommend you try it, but be ready for an odd journey.

For chapter 3

The renders are decent but nothing special. At the beginning the story seemed interesting but its slowly getting needlessly complicated without any payoffs. The dialogue is really bad. The needless military jabber gets real annoying real fast. The character faces are sometimes real scary. The expressions sometimes look like someone stuck a foot down the character's ass. The story was interesting at the beginning but it is very quickly losing its charm as the generic porn tropes become apparent. Half the characters are dumb and the other half try so hard to be smart that they seem even dumber. Can be salvaged if the writing improves but if it goes down this path it seems its going down a pit.

For Chapter 4

Oof... Went from bad to worse... The renders are still the same and nothing has improved. If military people actually talked the way they do here, half of them would end up killing the other half... The story is really getting dumber and dumber and more convoluted as the updates roll out... The dev needs a writer pronto... When somebody has anxiety they either don't sleep, or stop functioning and hyperventilating when something triggers them. They don't wake up screaming from dreams and then go and about killing people in the evening as if nothing happened the night before. Our mc wakes up every morning screaming from night terrors but somehow is never sleep deprived, copes with the anxiety without any substance abuse or therapy and still deals with firefights as if he is the Terminator. And how the fuck would a bus with stealth coating help anyone. Nobody is using a radar to find a bus in a city. And an electric motor powering that big a bus is not going to be silent at all. I understand that the dev puts things like the bus thing and the military jargon to give a sense or "realism" but is anything was actually even a bit real, the way Ms. Special agent is built, she would throw out her shoulder out of it's socket the second she fired her weapon. Either be actually real and genuine with everything or don't try at all, cause if you half ass it, it just feels worse.

Tldr: quite frankly one of the worst games on the site... meh renders and bad story. Don't try if you actually think while playing

Ok I decided to wait until Ch.3 came out to actually download and play this VN. It's great! Great story line and I can actually follow the dialog unlike some VNs on here where the author has to use a translator to put the dialog in. The only issue I have in here is the main character believes if someone is not a virgin then they are sluts, whores, ect. That part of the story I can do without, but the rest is great. The fact that after I was finished it still had me thinking about "where is the story going to go?" If you haven't yet, you should definitely try it out!

As of Chapter 3
One of the best games that I have played in terms of story with a huge potential to be greatest of all time ( GOAT ) , writing and dialogues are good , loved the references of some other great games and a decent main character . Renders are nice and all female models look stunning . Game has music and it adds a nice touch while playing the game . There is no sex scenes till now as it is a slow burn but I don't mind it as I love the story and character buildup of each females makes up for the lack of sex . It is a kinetic novel ( no choices ) which has no NTR threat and with a nice harem building and all the female character are well written so I don't mind the lack of choices .
In the end 5 stars as I loved this game for the story , music , renders and MC Great game @CoryF, looking forward to future updates .