VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - The Mysterious Island [0.4.0b] [Abere Lucifer]

For what started as a very good/enjoyable game - or at least the potential for same - this game tanked to the bottom of the shit pile very fast.

1) after only about 4 updates, very little in progression or content has been added in ANY update,

2) This game was last updated in 14 September 2020, and yet it is already on hold for him to start a new game, apparently,

3) NOW he is talking about rebooting the game in DAZ3D, which means it is going to be probably another 6 months to a year before this game is worth playing at any point.

4) waiting on this developer to work on, add content or progression within the game, or even FINISH the game, is simply a waste of time since it has been this long already.

Like I said, it started out good, and tanked almost immediately.

Personally, I would not recommend this, or any other game made by this developer, since it is apparent he is either scamming people on the game or not professional enough to bother keeping his integrity intact enough or his honesty provable to be believable.

My personal belief, unfortunately, is that he is following in the footsteps of Slonique, Incstor, and the various other developers who - rather than honestly working on and completing a decent game - instead scam, lie, and cheat people here just to steal money from them.

This isn't really a game, so much as a linear walk through the same set pieces over and over again with no choices or progression or exploration.

This is especially disappointing considering how many great games have been made using the same base engine for both coding and rendering. My suggestion would be to avoid this, or just look at the CG, if you're into that. There are better games you can give your time to.

Review for version 0.3.0a

I'm not going to go into too much detail here because there's not really much to say about this game other than the fact that it's pretty solid and entertaining. Instead I'll just say that I give 4 star ratings for games that I find enjoyable enough that I'm looking forward to the next update without requiring any major changes to make it feel interesting or functional.

Writing: 4/5 - it's pretty good. I've seen a few errors, but none that are consistent or noteworthy enough to ruin my enjoyment

Story: 3.7/5 - It's a basic tale where the MC is a new teacher in an all girls school for delinquent girls. If you've played something like "The headmaster" you've seen similar setups. Though this one doesn't focus as much on changing the girl's behaviors. Instead the core of the story is the relationships that the girls have with the MC and each other and the mystery surrounding why the school was founded in the first place

Also the tone is not too serious at all. Some of the girls have unrealistic gaps in their knowledge. Some of them come onto the mc rather quickly (though there may be plot reasons for this). It's all played pretty lighthearted and never so exaggerated as to be annoying. So It struck the right ballance for me.

characters: 3.5/5 - they're not amazingly deep or anything. But they're all decently distinct enough and mostly likeable. I'd give them a 4/5 if they were a bit more realistic, but they're fine as they are.

Renders: 4/5 - they're good enough for me. There's not a lot of variation in the sex scenes. But the scenese themselves are short enough that they don't rely on a lot of visuals. I know some people might find this unsatisfying, but for me personally the brevity works. Outside of sex scenes the variations of pictures were good enough that I can't really remember having any issues with it. It's all standard Koikatsu stuff.

Gameplay: it's a visual novel where most of the choices are on the level of "Fuck the girl"/"Don't fuck the girl". Not worth rating. If you like this kind of thing like I do, then you know it. If you hate this kind of thing, then you probably already know that as well.

Overall enjoyment: 4/5 - For me personally this story is better than the sum of its parts. It's not really fantastic in any particular area. The writing is decent, but occasionally humorous enough to not be boring. There's some intrigue here with the titular mystery, but not so much that I'm on the edge of my seat or anything. It feels pretty bog standard for this type of game and I feel like my guesses for what's going on are probably going to be pretty close to accurate. The characters aren't amazing, but they're far from bad.

Despite not sounding particularly spectacular. It's still an enjoyable game for me. I'm sure some other people will rate it lower, since it's not incredibly polished or even original. But I like what I like and I like this.

(Edit: For some reason I always say "I'm not going to say alot about this game" then write a book)