VN - Ren'Py - The Nature of Magic [Ch.1] [Slate Interactive]

I've only seen one other project have a 5-star rating on this forums (which has no sexual content ironically), so seeing The Nature of Magic also have 5-stars after taking notice of it's initial release was a bit surprising. I'm kicking myself for waiting five months to finally try out this title…

A Rich Experience
TNoM is a project that combines the worldbuilding of Bioware with the storytelling of Larian Studios resulting in an experience that is near absent in AVNs. Right from the beginning the audience is exposed to events that encourage curiosity in learning more about who the antagonists are, what their goals might be, and how they intend to achieve them. Care is given to the races that make up the population as to their archetypical behaviors and personalities, which is evident by historical events that seem likely to have occurred. All of this culminates in the initial statement attesting to the author’s capability of creating a world the audience can easily immerse themselves in to.

The author has also managed to create a diverse cast of characters that are not only interesting, but react in unique, personable ways that allows the audience to relate to them. Cymhen fills the role of wise old mentor, Cerys acts as the perfect counterpart to the protagonist, Aine serves as the kind and caring maternal figure, and Anwen slots in nicely as a naive and competitive force. However, the author takes it a step further by also fleshing out the wards such that they feel equivalent to the family figures. Each on adds a level of complexity to the relationship dynamics that were already complex with the four initial characters introduced, and it’s all accomplished in a way that immensely benefits the story being told.

Not the Chosen One
A common trope in visual and non visual novels is the “chosen one” story. We’ve seen this play out more than a dozen times with little to no variation. TNoM takes this premise and inverts it such that every character has earned their position through discipline and dedication. A prime example is the dichotomy between the protagonist and Cerys, wherein Cerys vastly outclasses the protagonist in terms of formal training, but the protagonist through his own effort discovers a new way of perceiving the world that gives him a unique advantage. Both characters are powerful for different reasons, but neither vastly overpowers the other as to force the author into a corner when introducing satisfying conflicts. It’s a case of the author carefully crafting each character to be unique while avoiding their strengths and weaknesses differing to ludicrous degrees.

Closing Thoughts
It’s abundantly clear that a great deal of thought and effort went into creating this project to stand out in the sea of titles all vying for attention. The story, characters, and underlying core all share a story of an author that is genuinely passionate about his creation and wants the audience to share in said passion. While a single chapter is not indicative of the quality of future releases, this project has come out swinging for the fences. Time will tell whether it truly is a home run, or another ill-fated attempt destined to fail.

interesting story, well written, really good banter between the characters. The beginning is very slow - don't get discouraged by all of the exposition, because it will pass. When the first sex scene finally does arrive, it becomes clear that the writer knows how to make it hot. And there is every reason to think that its going to accelerate faster going forward.

It's that rare harem game that actually makes sense as a harem, in fact the main LI is an excellent cuckquean who has very good reasons to affirmatively help the protagonist rope her friends into the harem.

My only real objection is the usual one I have when Honey Select models are used. The LIs all have enormous tits bigger than basketballs, and gigantic dumptruck asses. I hate it when the female LIs clearly outweigh the MC by 50 pounds. It's not a reason to deduct a star - it's just a pet peeve of mine.

This game has great potential.

This one has a lot of promise. I hope people pick it up as they will like it. Characters look cool, girls are beautiful and story seems good aswell. Waiting to see what happens further, but for now it's the kind of game that may end up on the front page of highest rated games, if it fulfills it's immense promise.

I typically don't pick up games as fresh as this because I don't like waiting, but if the developer keeps with a good schedule and story pacing, then I could definitely see myself enjoying and putting this in my favorites list. Only episode one is out so far, but it did a good job setting up the story/world and introducing the characters, which I like so far. The episode also felt like it ended at a good place, which is nice. Fair warning, while it does seem like there are many hot H-scenes in this games future, the story and character relationships are obviously one of, if not, the games main focus.

The MC is cool so far, at first I was worried from the opening that he was going to be some edgelord, but so far that worry seems unfounded and he looks to be a chill and relatable guy, aside from the whole magic thing. There hasn't been any huge deeper revelations about his character or anything, but it's also only episode 1, and there could still be more to uncover as we learn more about him and he traverses his new situation. It's a nice change from the usual horny teenage boys that never take anything seriously or the "Chads" who are just as cringy in their own way and have woman swooning at their mere presence.

The love interests look and seem interesting. It's only the beginning, so we don't know much about the LI's yet, really, except for Cerys. There are 8 LIs, and you have the option to pick and choose which ones you want or if you even want them all. I'm not sure why you wouldn't want them all though, I feel like you'd be missing out on a lot if you didn't, considering the "harem" seems like it'll be pretty integral to the storyline. I do hope the developer sticks with just these 8 because that's already a lot, and I feel like heroine bloat is one of the biggest contributors to the degradation of games on this site and a contributor to those same games never getting finished. There's also the fact that the more heroines there are, that harder it becomes to give everyone content, and an update being posted without someone's favorite girl getting content has been the start of many a comment war.

In terms of graphics/visual quality, I feel like that's where the game is kind of average; it seems it's just Honey Select graphics with few, if any, touch-ups from what I can tell, which, while serviceable, isn't anything super special. Some people may not care; for others, that could be a dealbreaker. For me, I don't really care as long as some effort is put into character designs, which this one I think did a good job at. As for H-Scenes and animations, there's only one scene in episode one, but I think the dev did a better job than most games on making it hot presentation and posing-wise, and the animation itself was good enough.

As for soundtracks, this game does have basic background music and the sounds aren't overly annoying and irritating so that's a pass for me. You're probably not going to be zoning out and jamming to the music or anything though, or maybe you will I don't know, there's no accounting for taste after all.

All in all, good start. I look forward to the future of the game and hope the dev keeps on keeping on.

Genuine wow from me on all fronts. I can't think of a single flaw for me, this ticks all the boxes of a VN. For some, this might be too wordy with not enough sexual content in a first episode, but the world-building, the MC, the girls, and the overall plot, are amazing.

World-Building: 9/10, I think it does kind of drop you into the deep end at the very start of the game, but as the chapter goes along it gets fleshed out as you and the MC learn more of the families in power, and it's a great time.

Girls: 10/10 Such a diverse array of characters, with a feasible reason for the MC to romance/fuck any of them. Obviously, we have to highlight Cerys, when a VN throws a main love interest at a player, they better deliver, because if they are underwhelming it can ruin the game. She is the best part of a great game, she is gorgeous, sexy, and has a fun and vibrant personality. The other girls don't get as much time to shine besides Aine, who also is amazing, and Anwen has her moments, but that's just the Grym family. The other girls all fit a diverse array of personality types and appearances, but I am most intrigued by Faedh and Laela, can't wait to explore more.

Plot: 9/10, I think this can fall under world building, a little, but the plot is so far, tight, it makes sense for everyone involved to be doing what they are doing, and each character has their own sets of goals.

MC: 10/10, God so many VN's nail everything but the MC, and it's arguably the most important part of a VN, because he/she is the agent in which we see the world/story the author has created. He is not a slimy old man, he is not a prepubescent nerd, he isn't super Chad McJock, he is a handsome, reasonably built and fit, character that is believable to be attractive. He can be charming based on your dialogue choices, but you can also make him reserved and shy and less flirty, which is always a strong point when you can dictate how a MC can react to situations.

A very, very strong start. I hope the author has the resources and time to continue to craft this beautiful story and world.

renders are good, story is developing in an interesting direction, not much so far for plot, but decent set up. dialogue is where this game shines. well done dialogue, fun banter, some of the jokes had me outright laughing. barely any lewd content so far (Chapter 1) but this is definitely a story focused game. plus its setting up for all sorts of bedroom shenanigans'.

Short review time:

Incredible amount of content for a first release. Characters are all very likeable, varied and beautiful. The dialogue is also very fluid and I caught very few typos overall, so the grammar is also excellent. The story is pretty good and it's guaranteed to provide plenty of intimate moments with the girls via its setting. Renders and animations are also great and the first scene was also pretty good. It shows a lot of promise.

The character, story and world-building kept me rivetted even with the only minor amount of adult content in chapter one. I really don't have more to say that wouldn't be spoilery, but I am forced to type more to reach the two hundred character requirement.

The game is very high quality. I liked the plot, which is very rare. The characters are unique and attractive, especially the girlfriend. There is a lot of content for version 0.1. I'm waiting for you to continue.

Great presentation, pleasant visuals, stunning character design, no shortage of eye candy there. Even smaller elements, like UI menus and music, everything in its place. Great setup for an interesting story, attention to little details, unique lore, some good and funny pieces of writing here and there. So why only four stars?

Writing style: very elaborate and flowery, works in one places, but feels stiff, unnatural and even pretentious in others, mostly in dialogue. Author likes his own setting a little bit too much for his own good, felt overwhelmed by all the infodumps. It negatively impacts senses of pacing, I was feeling bored in the middle of the chapter. Complete lack of intimacy (and I’m not counting teasing and flirtatious banter as intimacy) in most of the chapter doesn't help either, I was going to leave even a lower rating before I saw a sex scene, which to some extent saved the situation.
I’m still hooked enough to continue reading, but if the pacing stays the same, I doubt I'll last more than a few more chapters.

An incredibly solid and well-developed initial release! The story, character development, dialog, and storytelling are all exceptionally good. Definitely one to follow. If I had money to support this project it would be one of 2 or 3 priorities for me. My own personal desire would be for more variability in body shapes, but that's minor in a presentation of such consistently high quality.

This was spectacular, more than anything I really gravitate toward good writing before all else. And The Nature of Magic delivers in spades. Enough intrigue and mystery to keep me hooked and compelling and well written characters. Couldn't ask for anything more. Thanks so much to everybody who worked on this.

Review for Ch.1

Honestly when I seen all the initial five star reviews for what is the first version of the game, I myself grew skeptical more than anything. I've been let down many a time trusting the numbers so to speak. In this case though, I am extremely happy to have had that skepticism utterly destroyed. I'll say right away this might not be for everyone, but as a lover of harem games this is a great first version.

Calling it the first "version" though is an understatement. It's a full fledged hours long chapter of a story the dev clearly has thought out and put a lot of time into. That's the first real piece of praise I have for this game. I think it's pretty common to come across new AVNs where the dev is clearly a beginner in some respect and is more figuring things out as they go. Not here though. The difference is night and day really. While there's a few pieces of plot I could sort of nitpick apart, it's overall a very solid and consistent experience so far that feels like it has had some real passion and ideas behind it. Very refreshing.

I neglected to read the overview as I often do, and because of that the games plot caught me off guard a bit. Now it's a very harem setup for sure. It uses a rather tropey "MC is one of the last few men" capable of magic in this case, and in a world where magic is very important to these influential families, makes him a sort of hot commodity (because a child will only be born with magical affinity if their parents have it) Despite that though, I appreciate it's taken further to have real in-universe connotations that yes magic is indeed dying, and another part of the plot is trying to figure out why. There's actually a lot of details to the whole thing, but for both mine and readers sake I'm not gonna splurge it all out here. Suffice to say this is doing more than just being a cushiony harem game and I like it a lot more because of that.

Don't get me wrong though, this still is a cushiony harem game so far as well. The reason I think some people may not be into it is because it moves at a slow (but steady) pace. There's a ton of dialogue and banter more than anything else. There's a few moments of action or intrigue too, but it pales in comparison to all the talking. I for one love it because again the dev took time to create interesting and charismatic characters, MC included. The shit I often love in harem games it just cute little day-in-the-life moments with the girls, and there's plenty of that. Tons of cute details honestly.

Which brings me to the love interests themselves. Cerys, your new fiancé, is just great. It's nice when a lewd game lets a love interest be confidant and willing to have actual banter and teasing with the MC, and the MC being able to take that in stride and dish it out right back in a playful way. It really does a great job of conveying some of the intimacy between them. We get less with the other girls, but again all endearing in their own ways so far.

This isn't the most technically impressive game you'll have played when looking at renders and such, but again it's got that soul that makes up for it. And that's not even to say the game looks rough either. There isn't true animations, but rather an imitation of them by the dev stringing together a series of renders. Looking at sex scenes specifically, while on it's own may not be as ideal as other games, the writing going into the scenes themselves more than makes up for it. At least for the one sex scene present, but it's a good sign anyway.

I really feel like this is a rare case where I could be singing the games praises a lot more, but I'm trying to keep this somewhat short at the same time. The game is a breathe of fresh air into the harem genre for me, and while maybe not the most unique thing you've played, it's still incredibly solid at what it's doing thus far. A game I will be watching with interest.

I am loving the story so far! The way everything flows is good, none of that constantly rewording the same shit some people do. It kept my attention very well and all the characters feel like the have personality AND you cna see facial expressions. The animations were good but this is my personal opinion, the need to be looped or steamed together a lil better. I had a spot where the movement felt a lil clunky. Other than that very minor detail i love it. Its up there with Goddess whim and cosy cafe for me so 10)10

This one blew me away. Absolutely fantastic, and even more impressive considering it is only a version 1 release.

Dialogue/Story:
The dialogue immediately drew me in as significantly better than most other AVNs. The conversations are quite natural and I don't recall any stilted exposition like "Hello, my best friend's dad!" that no-one would ever say.
The story is very well-crafted and held me to the point where I accidentally completed the entire update in a single 4hr sitting. I really like the characters and the magic system, neither of which seem to be a tired reuse of common tropes. The characters actually have depth, which on its own puts this novel above most on this site.
There is a bit too much info dumping due to the large number of "families" to keep track of, which is mitigated somewhat by a glossary/menu but it still gets overwhelming at times. Also the banter is a bit too over-the-top for my preferences, but it fits the characters and scenes well enough that I think it would work for most readers.

Audio:
Good use of background music that I haven't heard 1000 times in other novels. I find it very distracting to hear a song that I associate with another novel, and this one avoided that problem for me.

Visuals:
Good quality renders, but more importantly there are details in the background so that scenes look believable. Time was also clearly put into making each of the character models, and it pays off. They each look unique and memorable.

i almost overlooked this game as i normaly wite for a few updates first but glad i didn't its a good story sofar and good amount of content for one chapter looking forward to more content will be keeping a look out for updates

Honestly, this is pretty fantastic.

There were a few "first-time" HS2 games this year that people were touting as amazing; that I thought were pretty damn mediocre.

This is way above them in the writing department. There's an interesting, coherent story here, a wide-range of characters, all dealing with something that sets them apart as interesting.

My only negative about the writing is a taste thing. I don't like in depth explanations of magic or imagined-science. I like to get the basic idea, and then to move the fuck on. This AVN goes to town on the intricate details, and that's going to be great for you autists and engineers out there, but for me, it's pretty boring and brings the pace to a stutter.

Having said that, I was fully immersed at all other times, and constantly interested in what might happen next. The same can't be said of other, highly-praised, titles that manage to look good-to-great, but read like a first-grader's "learn-to-read" book.

An objective negative is that it is well below standard for HS2 visuals. I assume this is the fault of the dev not having a decent GPU because they show some decent lighting in some scenes where things aren't too taxing, but others just look like they didn't bother with anything except the shitty cam light for real time rendering in HS2.

Some subjective drawnbacks:
I don't really like urban fantasy, so I'm not into the genre. However this is also a subjective plus because the fact that it has me invested despite being a genre I dislike is an incredibly strong argument for its quality.

The girls... Not my type. Bael has the body, but, for some reason, has an old lady's face. Cerys has comically large breasts that I really hate looking at. Same with most of the other girls. I don't like tits so big that the person would have to have a birth defect to possess them. Elephantitis of the mammaries. Some of the faces are ugly too - the developer's character creation is not my speed at all.

However, they all have interesting personalities, and that holds greater overall weight for me.

You're also given a lot of information in this first chapter. It's unavoidable with such complicated lore, but I can't help but wonder if the developer could have offloaded some of it to episodes 2 and 3 . It's going to be impossible to remember some of the things revealed here because it was so dense.

Also, a lot of it is "told" through conversation, rather than dramatised through conflict, scene, and action. Obviously the latter requires many more renders, but might take this to the next level; and I think the developer is capable enough.

In a sea of shit where people write in English, despite being completely incapable of forming simple sentences without the help of ChatGPT - this AVN has the elusive quality factor when it comes to story and writing.

If they can make the small jump higher, this is going to be really special...

... And hopefully get a better PC so they can render images of a quality that the story deserves.

I like it so far! If the developer keeps up the good work, this could turn into a truly great game.
There’s no textbox at all, which makes it hard to read in bright scenes. Other than that, I didn’t notice anything else missing or wrong. Keep up the great work!

This is one of the best starting AVN's I have played! Will definitely be in my Top 10!

The only hesitation I have is with the Combat system, but I will need to see it in action to make a decision on it. Great choice, though, not to have a ridiculous timer punctuating the spell casts!

The story is solid and believable! The humour is good!
The female characters are all beautiful, with lots of Gingers in the mix!

All in all this is a story I will enjoy playing more than once!!

I would normally never write a review for a first version of a game, usually because they are either too short or just lack quietly.. but sometimes something like this comes along and just wow. Too any aspiring developer this should be the gold standard for first versions.

The world building is excellent and its isn't all dumped on the player but carefully dropped in piece by piece through out the game. The writing is also of a very high standard and you can tell time and care went into its structure and the way the characters interact is also very good and consistent. The characters all seem to be highly customized honey select and all have a unique and distinct look and personality. The harem aspect also isn't just there because harem, its part of the world building and seems like all character seem to be optional so far which is rare. Its just excellent from beginning to end and i wanted more after it finished. The only negative I have is the animations are not great but devs tend to get better at things like that as the learn there craft and improve. Highly recommend.