Ren'Py - The Null Hypothesis [v0.8a] [Ron Chon]

At the time of writing, there are 149 reviews, with an average of 4.5 stars.
While another review is clearly not needed, i am still so in awe of this VN that i want to praise it regardless.

The production value here is so damn high. The art is unbelievably good, with an amount of portrait diversity i have not seen before. The amount of clothes, hair styles, facial expressions and how they are integrated in the story is phenomenal. Why, of course the appearance changes depending on season, activities like training, showering and so on, or if they went sunbathing lately. And of course you can buy new clothes and change their clothes setup. Oh, and the lewd scenes are animated too.
And all this is just the art and the relevant background systems alone.

Coupled with well written characters you feel for and can influence with certain behaviors, and a generally light main story, i would have given 6 stars if possible.

Really looking forward to new updates.

Art is excellent, and I do mean excellent, the girls look top tier. Animations are good in some parts, basic in others.

Only things that let it down really are the triggers for quests and the serious grind time.

I am a completionist, so games that give you side quests that fail to trigger when you meet all the criteria for ages, like over an hour at one point, really grind my gears so star lost for that.

Then there is the story, pretty well written, but the writer is obviously trying for the porn game award oscars and it keeps telling you the same basic information but in different ways, over and over at some points.

After approx 8 hours gameplay total, it actually just got boring so stopped playing.

Some tweaks here and there, it might be a 4 to 5 star game for me.

The girls are amazing, each one of them has a unique and well-written personality.
The intimacy progression is great too, nothing too quick to feel 'unrealistic' (not earn) but not too grindy either. The game has a good flow. The sandbox is the icing on the cake. For example, is such a small nice touch. In summary, a perfectly executed sandbox game, rich in interactions and surprises.

For the a porn game the characters seem really fleshed out, if you're here for a nice experience and not for just beating your dick then you'll enjoy it i guess.

If you're here for the sole purpose to beat it or whatever then you can find better material elsewhere, it takes some time to get any meaningful action, but, I don't believe that that's the point of the game.

Rarely do I actually give a shit about the characters in a game like this, but god damn, it seems that I kind of do. Probably helps that the art is super well done. Super interested to see where this one goes in the future.

A real good time. love the art and characters, Laura's my favorite out of the girls. hoping we get more fight scenes with the MC, he's got a couple loss's he needs to make up for. All in all love the game

(0.4.B)

Good:
Relationship-driven game with fleshed out character fitting goals of chapter based structure & erotic payoffs.

Bad:
Art ambushes. Coherent art, then BAM you've unlocked a disjointed police-Photofit-feel sex pose.

A lot of work went to technical aspects like interfaces, character interactions and animation at the cost of performance.u
Story events and characters usually sticks to the og material as far as the community discuss, and they participate a lot so devs get constant feedback.
For the future I recommend keeping the same girl count, flesh out those interactions, grind and optimization for a more dense dating sim experience, like actually seeing eyecandy jogging or training sessions, that would keep the pacing on track while also rewarding players for taking part on the events.

So I played v.0.5a having played an earlier version previously.
Really enjoying this. Very well written and the art is stunning.
I'm going to play again a v.0.10 or so and if it continues progressing at the same rate it'll be a great game by that point.

It keeps getting better and better, you just have to be patient. I deeply enjoy playing this game, it makes me feel oddly jealous that people are so creative when they have a passion for things they like. I can't wait to see this game go further beyond what we have experienced thus far. If you are new and are still considering playing it, there's no better time than now.

Overall it's an amazing game, with such rich girls and graphs, the grind is a bit tiring, but its all worth it, i suggest more tasks and maybe more interaction with nightcrawler and the others.

Either way, i have some really high hopes for the next updates and incoming content, i really liked the way the chapters and story progress, i hope for more options and a bit of weight on the choices during the the story and combat. Of course there are things that need a polishment and all, but it's amazing and early, high hopes for the future updates!

Very Similar to the game its inspired by with better art assets and stable code.
Honestly its impressive as hell but I'll admit I am aprehensive to how it continues.
Currently the gameplay rewards are sexy outfits to dress up girls in and some sex scenes in multiple positions. At this moment the game could go two ways, expand the roster of girls ad infinity, or increase the depth of the girls and the "Quirk" system.
My hope is this game will go for quality over quantity but time will tell.

Love the graphics, nice story and great premise which look like will grow over time. Each girl has a unique story and personality.

I am looking forward to what they do next and how the bring more girls into the story.

Extremely polished visual novel, based on X-Men comics. Character visual design is very good and praise worthy. Some sex animation, does appear to be work in progress. Storytelling is engaging, nuanced, and true to the source material. Excellent entry in school harem genre.

Economy is grindy like all visual novels, but the income source does scale. Money gets you toys, outfits, and items to quickly gain points toward leveling the cast.

Giving 5 stars, but would like to see quality of life tweaks to UI navigation (main menu but costume menu in particular), tweaks to item economy pricing, added sfx audio during scenes, and many more chapters that take from other X-men storylines and characters to play with.

Tbh I'm having fun playing and loving it just because of the story and relationship we get to have with the people in the X-Men, I couldn't care less about the sex, that's just a bonus.

Add even more fan favorites members from the X-Men (Kitty, Emma Frost, Madelyn Pryor, Psylocke, Jubilee, Polaris, Mystique?!) and more autonomy sandbox, and I can see this hitting it off even better if it isn't already!

For Version: 0.4b

The visuals are great, progression feels satisfying, the quests are described very well and I doubt many people will get lost. For an earlier version it has way more content than I expected and it is very polished. The story that is set up is very little (at least for now). Most of what I would call a story is your developing relationship with the girls and Kurt/Nightcrawler. If you are looking for a big narrative this is not the game, yet.

This is the beginning of an amazing game with an immense potential and I hope it doesn't go squandered.

Great writing with excellent art and plenty of tasks without feeling too tedious to do them as the character interactions are still interesting and rewarding, especially with your favorite. Overall a very well-done game

Only play this if you really love the X-Men Evolution cartoon style, maybe some of the more recent movies. It's not like 97 or OG series, and doesn't feel or look like most of the comics I'd read, but maybe the newer comics are this style too.

Obviously this is a derivative work of the X-Men. It is the dev's interpretation but there is little change or attempt to hide it and they in fact openly disclose it as such.

Game is quite grindy, and has that annoying quest style sandbox. A lot of work has been put in on the menus and various systems, from a technical standpoint it's extremely high level and proficient. Art is inconsistent, and at times the shifts are jarring. There isn't a real overarching story, the narrative is rather weak. The characters are the main focus, so far the three you see in the banner, each with their own personality. I do not know if more characters will be added.

There is a sort of issue with progression, where the game is clearly designed progressing each character (and you have to in order to advance) but they will throw fits if you so much as talk to or study with another girl. I've had them insist they're busy, then call in another girl to study, and then one of the girls barges in angrily and is angry about it, which means a drop in points for them and they won't talk to you for several days. There is a sex mini-game too with very slow progressing bars, if you click auto advance and then try to click options, the girl might refuse consent and get mad that you asked ending the sex scene immediately, albeit only a minor stat drop. But considering how low stat gains are it's kind of annoying too. You have ability points to add to your character but you get very few of them and they don't seem to do much of anything anyway, it is another designed locked progression.

All in all I'd probably give it 3.5 stars especially if you're a fan of these chars and the grind and design decisions do not bother you. I suppose that means 4 or higher, but I'm rounding down this time. I'm surprised this has such high reviews, but I guess I can kind of see why. I hope it rounds out better with more content, it seems to have been developed for about 1.5 years now, it's a solid amount of content for that much time, but still could develop into something greater.

More than anything else, I appreciate that the devs for this game clearly took the time to make these characters feel like their source material, which is an amazing feat. I can tell that this is a game made with love for the x-men.

Rated at VER 0.4a

Criminally good. You can sense the passion the developer has for this game because of how everything is polished and fitted together. The User Interface fits the X-men theme well with it's industrial, minimalist font and coloring.

While many consider art style to be subjective, I doubt I could find even 5 people in a room of 100 who would rate the art below 3 stars. It's rendered superbly as well as being animated smoothly with minimal stutters, even on potato PC builds. (played this on a 7-year old laptop intel i7 CPU).

The plot line is genuinely captivating and intriguing, and I can tell the developer has actually thought about the story! So many devs for other RenPy games are incredibly talented with renders/art styles but fall short on story, relying on their art to carry their work - but this excels in both departments. I am looking forward to seeing the stories of the other girls develop, as well as our mysterious protagonist - something I cannot say for other "traditionally" good porn games.

TLDR: 5 stars. Great fit and finish, great art, great story.