VN - Ren'Py - The Nature of Magic [Ch.2 Part 1] [Slate Interactive]

I don't know that I can say enough good things about this game. I'll keep the review short since I have nothing other than a minor criticism.

Con-
Some of the animations are a bit choppy, while others less so. It's a little odd for the animation quality to differ in the same scene, but at least at the beginning that's what we're left with.

Pros-
Literally everything else. The game looks gorgeous, the story is interesting, and the characters are all distinct and seem to actually HAVE character. There is a degree of variety in the body proportions of the LIs, though they tend towards large chests so if that's not your thing you'll be unhappy with that. It seems that you can pick the nature of your relationship with each one, so while it looks like you'll have to be cordial with all of them, you don't have to sleep with anyone you don't want to. Maybe. There is one LI that you have to marry, and story-wise you'll likely have to sleep with women to make sure magic doesn't die out, but that may be an epilogue type scenario that never actually impacts the player.

If the overview sounds interesting to you, play this game. There's a ton of content for such an early release, and the content that's there is excellent.

Fantastic, excellent, beautiful, and brilliantly written VN. Don't expect a ton of choice yet in the game, though it does appear you get to choose every love interest, which is nice. The writing is incredible, with a good amount of humor and depth. The renders are great, outfits and models are all unique and varied and interesting.

I love the world building and how the harem is naturally set up within the setting instead of seemingly shoe-horned in, and the promise of lots of mff sex alongside the typical mf sex is super welcome.

If I had to make some contextual comparisons (not to compare the games themselves but just to give ideas to people not yet sold). Vibes wise it feels like a mixture of Now&Then, and The Fiery Scion. Absolutely check it out, and if you enjoy it, please support the devs!

A brilliant game that starts a bit slowly. There is a lot of world building to get through, which is understandable when the developer crafts a new fantasy world for their story, however it does drag a bit.

The exposition is an enduring plague clinging to the otherwise fun and easy to digest dialogue between characters. Forgive me for sounding like an English teacher but the game is at it's weakest when it is telling you about a world it isn't letting you see.

It is no suprise then that the game improves significantly with the gradual arrival of the wards, five girls that each represent (but also don't perfectly reflect) a world which you have so far only heard of.

This proves to be the remedy for the ailment of exposition, from this point forward you feel as is you are experiencing the story rather than reading about it. I found the game morphing from something I was playing because I had already downloaded it and the main girl was hot, to something I was geniunely interested in.

This is a great game. It always was, it was just hard to appreciate through the world building. Now though it is starting to shine. I eagerly await the next update.

The story reads like a book instead of a VN with way way way too much details on things that are completely unneeded, it feels like you are reading a long fan fiction of what is a pretty basic VN, the main story is at the moment very simple and predictable.

So many things are solved/done at the start that it makes you think, what do you need me the player for?
Getting engaged(with someone the MC likes and who likes him back) right at the start of the game cripples any idea of romance being a big part of the game, he gets a bodyguard for protection and a loving rich family to live with, so why do i need to keep playing?

After that you are given a long over complicated explanation of the relationships between the families followed by a long over complicated explanation of the people the MC is going to meet and then after that comes a long over complicated explanation of the way the magic works which is very reminiscent of that scene in the matrix 3 where they use over complicated big words for no reason, finally after all that comes a long over complicated talk on security, finally once that is done you get your first taste of combat in the form of a practice match and even through the MC is a very competent mercenary with several years of experience in battles that earned him the nickname "The Daemon" and who easily killed an entire strike team at the start with no effort is beaten/emasculated/humiliated all in under a minute by his new fiance(oh and even through it is said there were minor choices available in the battle, there were none as every "choice" let to exactly the same outcome in the same way)

The MC's role gets reduced to being nothing more than a cum filled dildo with legs, is he strong? no, does he make any decisions? no, does he have to do anything for the women to want him? no, is he helpful dealing with the families? no, and its even implied that his whole life he has been nothing but a puppet being led to this outcome.

Even with the huge amount of text the female characters still come off as one dimensional, and as the whole point of the game is for the MC to make a harem with them its very obvious how there story lines are going to play out making any conflict they currently have nothing but boring.

Art quality is low to medium at best, unfortunately i didn't get any sex scenes on my play through and i didn't like any of the women enough to go back and try again.

Story 1/5 (simple but bloated with unnecessary info)
Art 2/5 (ok)
Sex N/A (didn't get any)
Fetishes 0/5 (none that were obvious without seeing sex scenes)
Choices 1/5 (battle ones didn't change anything, and didn't try girl ones)
Characters 1/5 (like the story simple but bloated)

No doubt about this one.
It's got a decent plot, which appears to be getting better.
It's got good girls: diverse, real personalities, don't exist just for cock, fairly hot.
It's got good banter, and some humor.
It has good sex scenes, with some of the best dirty talk I've encountered in these games, and the promise of more kinky stuff later, which I'm looking forward too.

It can be a bit... mundane (ironically) at times, and I can't remember how to pronounce anyone's name, but this is definitely a top-tier game. It's sexy, gripping, meaningful, and sexy.

Although the story contains a theme about magic, it seems to portray more about emotional stability and social and psychological problems,
the MC with a history of having made wrong and childish choices in the past due to emotional instability and now seeking comfort in a new family.
a more psychologically sensitive MC, with a more passive attitude and gives the feeling of being a "simp" person in relation to the other girls, always accepting everything and not giving much of an opinion about what he wants.

My problem with the game was the fact that it forces you to marry 6 girls politically without giving you any choice for story reasons, at the beginning of the game a character with a daughter and 2 granddaughters, says that he will marry one of them, but does not let the player choose which one... and the other two that are left will not be available for marriage... since it seems to be a marriage with only one woman from each faction in the game, it could at least let the player choose one of the 3 initials from the initial family.

and this leads to another problem, the choices in general that the game offers to the player... it's not a real choice since it's always like this
NPC: "Do you want to go there with me?"
Answer "1 - yes 2 - sure"
What changes is the enthusiasm of the MC who gives the answer, if he answers in a happy and enthusiastic way he will gain relationship points with the girls (which so far doesn't seem to change at all), and if he answers in a simpler and weaker way the girls just say "ok" but the story continues as if it were all the same without changing at all.
It kind of gives the feeling of being a kinetic game.

However, the positive points are quite obvious, the girls' appearance and the magic theme in the game.

An interesting game that I'm still trying to figure out if I'll actually follow due to what I said above.

A pleasent read. Dev really deserves the praise he gets for all the world-building, design and thought behind the concepts. They are nothing ground-breaking. But it's clear he spend more than %95 of the developers in this site while thinking about the game he makes.

Setting and characters are nice. Nothing feels unbearable out of place. Except some scenes with MC. After being exposed to tons of paragraphs written by ChatGPT, I can recognize the cliche exteremely flamboyed, over the top language at first glance. Of course it's nothing to be ashamed of but I'd advise dev to take it easy with them a little bit. They might be some sort of royal family but, some sentences or words are painfully out of place.

Lastly, the other negative point; models are not great. They seem like exact copy of each other with different colors, mostly the same face and body structure, even to the breast size. Everybody has huge breasts here lol. Then again this might be some people's cup of tea.

Overall it's fun, would recommend. One thing I'd request from the dev would be though, please add incest. See ya.

I really enjoy the story of the game – the character development is engaging and refreshingly different from what we usually see. It also introduces some original and unconventional gameplay mechanics, which I find intriguing, though it’s still in the early stages of development.

I appreciate the effort going into the magic system; I just hope it won’t be too complex to maintain for a small team. The animations during scenes are excellent, with expressive characters and compelling backstories.
I really enjoy the teasing between scenes; I think this is key for games like these.

Really looking forward to seeing how this one develops!

One of the most promising new releases so far. It has a really interesting take on magic, solid worldbuilding, and lore that mostly makes sense and helps drive the story. The game does a good job of showing the different motivations of the cast.


The love interests and side characters are very well done, especially in terms of visual design (mainly for the LIs — the MC and male characters aren’t as strong) and their personalities.


There’s not much to complain about, honestly. Most things here are done well: the plot, humor, characters, sound, visuals, and animations.


If I had to nitpick, it would be how quickly everyone falls for the MC — pretty typical for a vanilla harem game. Still, the story does a decent job of making it feel a bit more believable.

Review as of Chapter 2 part 1.

This game is really good. The story line so far has been a slow burn but it is teaching you about the world and how magic is used while still keeping the flow going with intelligent dialogue and humor. The models are good.

It uses a different take on magic. The combat system doesn't rush you to make choices and spells don't just blow up your enemies up with one shot.

After the big combat scene at the end of the update the first thing that came to mind was "Wow" and when does the next update come out!

[Written during game version: Chapter 2, Part 1]

This game is a gem and an extremely pleasant surprise. Absolutely deserves 4, if not 5 star rating, easily. I'm giving it 4- stars for the moment, will change it to 5 in the future, after more content is out and more updates have been released.

Writing is exceptional, pacing is excellent, storytelling and world-building is on point, the humor is great as well.

I do have some hangups with some of the cast of characters though, but I'll straight up say that most of it has to do with personal preference of mine, and despite the way I worded things, they're great overall.

Design-wise, they're gorgeous. Some have some very generous proportions, but (thankfully) nothing that enters into the realm of ridiculousness in which characters look like inflatable dolls.

Personality-wise, they are quite diverse with distinct voices and very well-written, with quite well-defined personalities and motivations. That isn't present only in the written text itself, but also in how they are visually presented, from facial expressions to mannerisms. The attention to detail is absolutely insane.

So what was it that I didn't like that I alluded to before? Well, that'd be the overall "vibe" that some of the characters give out (and some heavily allude to) of promiscuity - and I just happen to loathe promiscuity in LIs, regardless if it's past or present in the context of the story.

So like I said before, it's a preference thing, but one that heavily affects my impression towards the game as a whole. After all, the cast of characters tend to compose about 70 to 90% of player's interests in an AVN, barring some notable exceptions.

To exemplify what I mean (and starting to delve into spoilery territory):

Despite all that, this game is absolutely amazing and I'll watch it like a hawk, waiting for the next updates.

Personally, I'm hoping for a lot more political intrigues. Some people might think/say the game is a little bit "too wordy". I'd disagree.

I didn't feel like the text went around in circles nor felt bloated. To me, as a story-first reader, it striked very close to perfect.

Just try the game out.

Oh, a question/suggestion regarding Anwen: I really liked that Anwen "lost" her nipple piercings in her scene. Personally I dislike nipple piercings and would prefer it if they never made a comeback. HOWEVER, I know that I lot of people do in fact love them. Would it be possible to have scene variations with and without them in the future? Something along the lines of Anwen asking us if we'd prefer her with or without them, and then rolling with it?

I wouldn't even ask this if this was a Daz game since rendering there is apparently very consuming, but in this HS engine I hear it's blazing fast, and the main difficulty of creating scenes is in the posing of the characters and lightning, not in the rendering process itself. I hope that's something that is possible to do.

This is one of the best AVNs I've ever played. Although there have only been two releases so far, there's already plenty of content, I haven't timed it exactly, but I'd estimate between 5 and 7 hours of reading.

What sets it apart from other AVNs I've tried is the writing. I genuinely think this is one of the best-written visual novels I've come across. There's some exposition in the first half of Chapter 1, I loved it personally, but even if someone finds it a bit slow, I strongly recommend sticking with it. The writing is absolutely worth it.

The dialogue between characters is a joy to read. The humor is spot-on, the romance is really well done, and both the build-up and the sex scenes themselves (while still few and fairly vanilla at this stage) are some of the hottest I’ve seen in any VN. Keep in mind, there have only been two releases so far, so there's plenty of room for that aspect to grow.

The girls are all visually stunning, in my opinion (and hey, there are three redheads! ). The characterization has been excellent so far. Each one feels distinct from the others and is a fully developed individual with her own personality, background, and problems. They come across as real people, each unique in a meaningful way.

The story has been great as well. I don't want to spoil too much, so I'll leave it at that, but there's a solid, believable reason for the harem to form, which is definitely a big plus in my book.

I really enjoyed this one its been a while since i did not want to skip at least a little bit in a game but that one is certainly one of them i enjoyed reading the conversations and the inner thoughts the LIs are awesome (funny, interesting and unique) the models look great and i enjoyed the facial expressions when making a dumb joke ^^
Iam looking forward for more (i kinda suck at the whole review thing but yea had to give that one 5* )

I love this game!!!!! The story is great. Love how characters develop with each dialog with them. Developer still surprise me with actions just like before end of current version-that was great. Anticipation for next version is huge. Thank you for you efforts!!!

Here's your fucking review, just go play it.

What? Still reading a random stranger's review? Okay.

I said, go fucking play it.

...fine, I will use more words to explain "why you should play The Nature of Magic?".

It is on the very, very, VERY high tier of writing, the likes of which less than ten other AVNs possess.

Chapter 1 does provide quite the exposition dump, although nothing too extreme, but it does deliver the basics on which the world the game happens in, works. And while other times, when the MC supposedly knows the characters but the player doesn't, it can be a bit risky and not work out in making the player care, in this AVN each of them is introduced in such a way that you as the player do get to know them, and pretty quickly.

And by god, the dialogues with said characters is really, really well done. Even if the yappathon of exposition that is Chapter 1 makes you feel this game is not for you, Chapter 2 picks the pace the fuck up. Much less exposition, way more getting to know (and getting down to business with some of the LIs), and the dangers that were explained in Chapter 1, start taking effect.

Next, visuals. As the dev's HS2 journey has only recently begun, there is room to improve a lot in some aspects, but the basics like lighting and image composition and cameras, are good. While Chapter 1's animated sequences are lacking (but not bad by any stretch of the imagination), Chapter 2 has proper animations that are *really* good, and seeing that much improvement with barely the second release, down the line we're in for a treat.

tldr, if you are not afraid of diving into an AVN which will require you to use more than three braincells (on top of your hand), I can very easily recommend playing this.

Just a fantastic game. Extensive and creative world-building, amazing and hilarious writing, and THE CHARACTERS. Varied, compelling, and three-dimensional. Very exciting plot, just an amazing game. Deserves much more attention

When the Dev is passionate enough to include spelling for their world building names, you maybe in for a good treat. Oh boy, I was not wrong.
This maybe one of the best quality game I've played, the story is captivating, erotic scene build up is very good.
Good luck Dev, I'll be cheering you on this game.

Do yourself a favor and play this game.

Despite this being the dev’s first game, and only one release out to the public as of this writing (though the 2nd is currently out with Patrons for early access and improves upon perfection), the game is absolutely amazing and already has hours of content to play in the first chapter.

There is a complex world built from scratch here. There is an in-game reason for the story to lore dump on you, but it doesn’t beat you over the head with too much of an info dump in my opinion. That being said, prepare for a little more reading than your average more “casual” AVN. The magic system is fresh, the political family drama is intriguing, and there’s a cast of beautiful women that are unique in their physical appearance and personas so there’s surely someone to love for everyone. They’re all believably their own person, and each have their own motivations for being part of the story that you can either assist with to keep them around in the future, or choose not to and you’ll be able to keep them as a platonic relationship for now and possibly turn them away later. The overarching plot is a mature and well written story, and the banter dialogue between the characters is fantastic. The animations in the initial release could’ve been better, and good news, in the next release that’s currently out with Patrons, it is!

Each of the relationships themselves feels earned and rewarding, and while the MC has a benefit of being one of a declining number of men in the world born with the Affinity that makes him more valuable as a partner, all of the relationships with the woman feel like they’re earned if you want it to be based on more than your political value/unique trait. Additionally, all the relationships have the option of being entirely platonic, not only between each of the girls in the harem, but also between all of them and you, meaning you’ll be able to do a romance-less run if you want, or encourage a romance between some of them in addition to yourself. The choice is really yours.

For me, this game sets a bar that’s going to be hard for other games to match for initial releases, but I could not be more impressed.

I'm honestly not sure how to put into words how much I enjoy this AVN, something about the characters and the devs writing fits beautifully which you would hope for since its their characters and writing (you could almost say its magic, sorry i had to). At the start your given just enough background and introduction that things make sense even though you don't have the full picture, and as things progress and you meet more characters and learn more background about them and the worlds things kinda click (at least for me) and it makes you want to learn more and get a deeper understanding of the world and characters.

Super talky. More exposition than action. The humor fell flat for me. I don't get the extremely high ratings for this. The beginning is good. The ending scene is good. The middle dragged.

The games on here don't all have to be ones you could get off to, but this one doesn't satisfy for eroticism or compelling storytelling.

You are immediately betrothed to a woman who you are told you were best friends with. You spent five years away from her. If you were able to go five years without communication with her, that's definitely someone who is only a friend (with benefits?), not someone you're in love with. Anyway, she's alright. I didn't get more interested in her as I read. A loveless, political marriage with the girl you grew up with? Lame, but I can roll with it for the story if I liked the rest of it. The story? Six families grappling for power, and they want to make babies with you or kill you. Then talking, talking, talking.

The MC wears a thong in one scene. Emasculating and dumb. It might have been a funny scene if it had been a player choice. Forced? Get out of here with that. Realistically, most men would get into the pool wearing shorts, rolled up pants, boxers, or even naked before they'd get in wearing a thong.

The pronunciation guides should be in the lore pages, if included at all. In the story itself, they're distracting and unnecessary. These aren't real people, so it's okay if we butcher the intended pronunciations.

The weave is like the Force, and it was explained well the first time it's brought up.

I didn't have fun reading this. Other than the old guy, I didn't care about any of the characters. This game is 2* for me personally, but I think it deserves a third star for the obvious amount of effort that's gone into it.