VN - Ren'Py - The Nature of Magic [Part 3] [Slate Interactive]

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.

all can say is this update has taken this VN to an entirely another level. this VN in a class of its own , from the storytelling to the action it is amazing . the ending of the last episode was out of this world . 5 stars hands down great

This one is definitely special.
A lot of content for the first release.
I love the characters, banter and conflict between them, brings a lot of personality.
The models are really well done (i mean, main LI is a redhead, what more do you need?)
The story is interesting, specially how the magic system is view and explained.
The only problem i had was that the game throws a lot of words, concepts and names at you, by the end o the update you do grab a general grasp at the situation, but it's definitely a little overwhelming at first.
Other them that, i really look forward for this one.

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.