HTML - The Monastery [v0.8.0.2] [Alcahest]

I expected this to be similar to most of the twine/sugarcube games in that you could speedread and play fast.

The author however seems to have devoted themselves to narrative here in a great way. Excellent use of heresy and religious source material. The main character keeps a consistent worldview even as they slide into corruption in a way that I think is rare in games posted to this site. There is obviously still a lot of porn, but it is well integrated into the narrative and you will care about that narrative.

The only criticisms I have are that it can be a bit grindy at times, and even with Veteran Detective mode active, as you get deeper into the story there will be a few segments that become very careful calculations of lust and temptation management which feel at odds with the rest of the narrative.

Pretty easily the best HTML game I've come across. Does a pretty excellent job of doing the premise both staying true to it while also getting creative with it/not making it stale or repetitive content-wise. It is however kinda repetitive grind wise and can sometimes feel like I'm not sure if I'm stuck or not sure how to progress but once you get a sense of the game it's quite good. I kinda wish it was RENPY both because while the dialogue is mostly pretty good, sometimes there are moments that get kinda bro-speak-y or just not very believable to the premise but 85% of it does a better job than most of making it feel like the premise. So I wish it was RENPY just so I could customize/edit/finetune the dialogue some and don't really know how to for an HTML game. Something I think the developer does really well is getting a sense of what more specific character premise fits the look of this or that character and orchestrating the various events with how they are paced to each other. Like it doesn't do the mistake of introducing each character in a very similar/same way where it feels repetitive/predictable then they all have sex at the same point in the game but instead have interlaying arcs over each other where there's pretty much always something good going on thru out the game.

I feel I have a divine mission to review this game ! It is an amazing piece of work and dedication. It really deserves a 5 for the quality. However I will only go to 4 because it is rather poor on the porn side... Too vanilla and repetitive (limited by the paucity of good available religious porn videos, I know). And it is not a true sandbox, it tries to convey the impression of free choice but you are railroaded into a grinding strategy (for instance I would have liked to act as a true sadistic inquisitor with Jana...). Further most nuns are not that interesting (pornwise...) more dull and no spice...
However I can only pour praise on the author for the quality of his knowledge of christian heresy and western occult tradition (I have academic expertise on these topics). It means that the detective game is more interesting than the porn. So I highly recommend this game even it is not "fap-friendly".
Take note that despite my positive appreciation I think the investigation is becoming too long (we have in fact no more clue than in the beginning) with too many red herrings (which could not be red finally).
Finally the writing is excellent and the humor is INTENSE (a priest thanking God for sodomizing teen nuns...), this is the best in this game. It reminds me of the Enlightenment libertine tradition of trashing the Church...

0.4.1

Very well written with a very good premise, unfortunatley let down by the grind and broken quests.

The real porn, for me, was pretty tame and very repetitive, what little there was, after 5 hours played.

I think part of the problem is sharing the stat points out amongst the two options you have in the game, which left me without enough to continue the content and no way of getting more.

TBH before that the grind was real, with whole periods where literally nothing happened after several weeks gameplay. Part of the problem maybe that you don't know how to progress because its hidden behind a paywall, though I think the timing is just crap overall and not balanced if you don't go all in on the stat of choice.

"How to Start Your Cult for Dummies - The Game".
I'm not really a fan of the whole nun fetish thing, but this is a really well-made game.
It's an intriguing detective story in a religious framework. I found myself genuinely invested in unravelling what was actually going on at this convent and whether it was supernatural?
I mean, it's also a pretty great lewd game, but mix in apocryphal texts, heresy, corruption and the potential pregnancies and the MC's path to becoming a degenerate cult leader suddenly becomes a super fun experience to play.
The only criticism is that choice in this game, is a bit of an illusion. There is essentially only 1 path for progress. But that's fine, it's fun regardless.

(V 4.1)
OK I've been playing/following this game for a while now and there is enough content/progression to give my opinion.

First off, my family is catholic so I'm fairly familiar with the various rites & whatnot and the mindset behind the underpinning world in which this all takes place, so I may have a completely different insight into certain plot points than someone else.

I don't have a nun fetish, but simply as porn, @Alcahest has managed to gather together some rather good clips of niche material. The text caters to the particular clips presented in the scene, that is so rare, I actually noticed it.

Having said that, I can't stop laughing. This VN should receive a Pulitzer prize as an instructional manual on how to start your own sex cult ala the Branch Davidions or Manson Family lol. The use of 1900+ year old scripture to justify everything taking place is just genius. Sister Emma as the "Renfield" to the MC's "Dracula" is delicious.

The actual choices that matter are really only if you take a hard or soft approach toward achieving the MC's goals, or what strength contraceptive to make. I recommend picking 1 approach & sticking with it. I haven't played both sides of the trust/authority paths to see what if any difference there is or if it just dictates which clips of your target you see. I'm hoping it has major impact further down the plot, but that's impossible to tell with the current content.

All of the mechanics work in a logical way. The paywalled "detective mode" works well by not presenting areas of no interest on the map, but is hardly necessary. The corruption system is both a plot timing system and faithfully allows the reader to watch the MC ignore his core morality more and more in the name of "serving the greater good".

I will not lie, there are many moments of frustration when you fail to remember that visiting a location will give you too much lust to continue or that you needed x amount of temptation as well as the corruption level in order to progress with a nun. My advice? relax, it's just a game. Missing a quest or whatever forces you to pay attention to locations like a game of concentration. There's no time limit on the game that I can see, though the game does keep a count of how many in game days you've spent. You can also use the back button on the upper left of the GUI to go back a page or 2 or save scum to avoid having to wait a day to retry the quest.
Oh & since I'm not lying, I did use saveeditonline to set the default resistance to 50 in order to make acquiring temptation a bit easier. I wouldn't recommend changing any of the other stats though.

Have a blast with this one & feel no guilt whatsoever, for thou art doing the Lord's work pervs.

Really enjoying it so far. The story is actually interesting enough on its own. The porn is just a bonus. Looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here. There's a nice mix of characters. I was worried the nuns would all be the same but they are very distinct from each other. Also there is an element of gameplay in terms of planning out your stats going into events so its not just clicking through.

The Monastery [v0.4.1] review

Genre: Point-and-click real-porn corruption & detective game set in a monastery.

The game is centered around trying to solve a mystery and corrupting nuns, students and catholic women visiting your confessional with your Holy Rod. To accomplish this you try to balance your Lust to the appropriate levels where your character succumbs to temptation and increases his Corruption, unlocking even lewder acts. It's a clever mechanic where you need to figure out how to make your character horny enough to get corrupted without overdoing it.
Overall the story and execution is really excellent and this is by far the best HTML game I've played. If you're into corrupting and banging hot nuns then this game is pure gold.

Positives:
+ Excellent choice of real-porn clips and stills. It's really steaming hot.
+ Excellent writing and storytelling.
+ Interesting and unique corruption mechanics.
+ Gratuituous use of creampie scenes.

Negatives:
- Pay-to-solve riddles. (Not really pay-to-win, but the "easy mode" walkthrough is only for paying patreons.) I don't mind it because I liked the challenge, but I can see how some people with limited mental faculties could be annoyed by this.
- Almost completely without sound.
- No music.

Strongly recommended!

Edit: After trying the 0.5 version I've decided to remove a star. The game has become super grindy and all the "Sleep to progress" and "talk to the same character again the next day, then repeat."-shit is starting to annoy me. I never liked time skips to advance a story and this dev somehow now thinks this is the way to go. It really isn't.

I was playing version 0.4
First of all, let's say it loud, it's a game about nuns having wild sex The sex is mixed with talking about religion and quoting biblical passages. If it offends you, then it's okay, just leave this game alone.

If it doesn't offend you then you may actually like it, especially if you like some dark detective stories on the edge of something supernatural (demons?). The game has a nice, solid story that actually required some research and interesting mechanics that require some real planning and not just clicking.

It has quite a lot of graphics and movies. It wasn't created by the author but rather "borrowed" from different corners of internet, yet
it looks mostly nice and pretty.

The actresses in movies don't look like real nuns so if you expect to see
some innocent, shy virgins you may be dissapointed. They are your typical
porn bitches with high heels, big fake tits and full makeup pretending
to be shy virgins Well, what did you expect? Real nuns in the porn?

So the movies are okay I guess. And the story is good. I'd like to see more
of it so take my 5 stars

First Rating I ever done, but this game earned it.
Top game, one of the best I played till now.
Good storytelling, interessting setting, good choice of pictures and vids.
Wish the best of luck to the dev for complete this game.

the concept is unique, at least i never seen any other game with this concept, also both the story and the mechanics of corruption are really well designed, the game offers quality experience for those who enjoy the religious, sin type of themes.

What an amazing little game! Really not my fetish, or at least the kind of chastity I'm into, so quite frustrating for me, but 5/5 gameplay, story, and UI! Loved the heresy, too, but not in a sexual way. My only complaint is that I didn't find it sexually interesting. Still, that's subjective and I can't hold that against you. Keep up the good work. Probably in the top 2 twine games I've seen. Highly recommend anyone who's thinking of writing a game to look at how this one's done.

What's this? An HTML game where it looks like the Dev's put the effort in to give the game a spine as opposed to just a way of roping pictures taken from the internet together? Well shucks.

This has everything going for it. There's a story you want to read, for an HTML game it's well designed and stylish. And on top of all that it has a game mechanic that forces you to plan out without it simply being "grind x until you can afford y" All in all top rate.

In order to give the review balance I'm trying to think of points I didn't like. I'll be honest there's not much bad I can say about it. It's early doors so coming out and complaining about the lack of content is stupid (not to mention there's quite a bit of content in there). The only thing I could say is the game mechanic of progressing the plot is such that it can require a bit of planning to play the game and a mistake will basically mean you need to go to bed and try again. That's literally how the game's meant to be played so I'm not that salty about it, but it'd be nice if there was a bit more structure about how to progress tasks to cut down on retrying. There's a patreon only thing which I'm assuming fixes that problem.

If I have to think of anything else I'd have to say the setting itself may ultimately limit things. As it's set in a monastery with nuns then all the girls are nuns (naturally) but I fear this will limit the type of scenes the MC will find himself in. There's very little known scope for going beyond that (as of version 0.3) so if you like Nuns, you're in for a treat, but currently it's a one trick pony.

Worth your time and attention though, the dev puts the effort in to make something distinct, and that should be rewarded.

This is like a 3.5 star for me today, but I can see it becoming a 4-to-5 star. Mechanics are kinda unique, easy to grind, but there is still a lot of repetitive actions required. Sex content is okay... I hope things get more depraved as time goes on but the MC is written as if he doesn't want to fuck women (religious reasons) so... I'm curious how that will play out. Obviously he does fuck women, but... anyways, just play it to find out, it's at least decent and should only get better in time.

Long have I been a fan of Paradise Found. The writing was superb, the characters well-developed, and just the right amount of faplay ratio.

The Monastery (v0.3) is living up to Alcahest's high standard! This time, using my favorite of all engines: Twine.

The story is so well developed, the spelling and grammar have no flaws that I've noticed (and I get quite picky sometimes), and only once did I think I hit end-of-content where I was just about to close it when suddenly something else happened. I am taking a break to write this.

Alcahest, you are a legend. I'm proud to be a follower of two games now. I didn't know it was you when I started this one, only found out when I went to write this review!

I guess as a necessary balance I should say something negative. Only thing I can think of would be a toggle switch for the horror nun videos at certain points. I'm okay with it, but there's definitely a fear boner factor involved for those small bits. Possibly not for everyone, let the Sisters experience the horror, I'll simply cure them with my Holy Rod, Holy Seed

Big fan of the creator's previous work I waited long enough before trying The Monastery as I knew I wouldn't be able to mentally overcome the frustration from the end of current content. Well, nothing else to play anyway, therefore my review for the version v0.2.0.8
1) Amazing writing and really profound knowledge of the subject that is knitted in perfectly in the scenes and the game overall
2) The talent to link the text to what is happening on the screen is unspeakable as always. In the backmind I understand that the author had to write it in a way the available content allows him to but the logic and writing is there so it does not sound artificial.
3) Lot of content already and when I thought I'm over with the quests the new big path opened up.
4) Girls are beautiful, theme is intriguing
5) The horror part caught me off guard and I loved it, for me it was a great immersion into the plot and the game itself
6) Not grindy at all and even if there is some it's all justified and as a player I understand these or thoses decisions of my character or other characters.
Many, many more...

As of what I'm anticipating to find later in the game is deeper connection with some girls, longer build-up. Theesomes, of course. More horror scenes, for sure. And some content with townfolks at the chapel (it has this veil of surprise and unpredictability that I'm fond of very much, when you click on the room and think, what if a new girl/event there).

Best of luck to the dev, there is purely no competition when it comes down to real porn games.

Great game dev seems like they put real work into it I would highly recommend, if you do not like games that talk about god or religion I wouldn't play this game but I think that's pretty obvious have a good one

My favorite game with a religious theme so far. It's a bit of a slow burn in the beginning and at times a bit confusing . (You actually have to read to progress in a text based game, can you believe it?)
At this point some of the erotic content feels a bit repetitive as you need to "grind" to have enough stats to progress, but that's part of the gameplay aspect and I don't have any good suggestions on how to do it differently.
Overall I'm very excited to see how the future updates pan out and what kind of new content we get.

In version 0.2.0.8 the game has little content but it really shows whats it will deliver, a great game, great lore, perhaps too soon to call it a masterpiece? will def check the others games from the dev

Outstanding Game!
The dev clearly found a balance formula between grinding, porn, and some kind of puzzle system where you've got to reach certain level of excitment to unlock new actions.
The system is complex enought to make the game interesting but simple enought to provide a great gameplay.
And there is this stunning blue eyed nun... candy to my eyes!
Thanks for your hardwork Alcahest.
This is a masterpiece.