Ren'Py - The Null Hypothesis [v0.7b] [Ron Chon]

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.

Game is fun, i'm not going to pretend I haven't gotten myself absorbed playing for multiple hours multiple times now. My issue is with the art, I won't through the label at it but I am skeptical despite what people say. When you compare the art of the models in normal play to the art in the 'intimate' scenes once you change poses, the quality degrades massively. It's likely entirely different artists to the point where you could argue that the girl's dont even look like the same person. It looks bad, and reminds me of the massive art degradation in 'Another Chance' once they lost the og artist. It just really kills my boner/excitement once I get to the actual intimate scenes and dont want to just stare at the standing model.
Speaking of the intimate scenes, there's something else weird about that. When you're getting intimate with someone, you're not locked behind crossing certain boundaries that make zero sense when you are locked behind others. Example: You get into your first intimate scene with Laura, you can't kiss her because you're not close enough yet/she doesn't want to give you her first kiss yet. But, you can ask her to lay down, and when characters do that they strip layers. Laura strips off her top and pants, letting you grope her, and you can have her on her hands and knees touching you. Which again.. doesn't really make much sense when she's barely even learned what having a crush on someone means.
The writing is fine, definitely better and more interesting than Rogue-like, all respect to Oni but the art is the real let down here. Also the flat white text boxes popping up as if you're playing a web browser game feels.. awkward when comparing it to the rest of the game's ui. Not a big deal, just something to bring up.

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.

To me this is a quintessential example of a 5 star game, because while it's not near as ambitious as many other games it achieves what it's trying to do with near perfection.

The writing and characters literally feel on the level of the source material, and feel very genuine. (The Rogue of this game is literally in contention for best girl in any game for me) And the gameplay and progression is really fun.

The level of grind feels like too much at first, but once you understand the system it isn't that bad at all. Just buy gifts and give them liberally and the progression actually happens at a very good pace. I wouldn't recommend cheating as the buildup is important and is handled very well.

Only 3 love interests so far, but more to come. Though what it lacks in numbers it makes up for in quality, and high production levels all around.

This is now very close to the top of my "waiting for updates" list.

this frikkin game is amazing
decent writing, great art, actual gameplay for the erotic scenes
only through the first chapter for now but enjoying it a lot. so far nothing seems to prevent you from following multiple paths at once but I have a hard time choosing between the girls. they are all great!

I thought I'd miss Emma Frost since she's my favorite in Rogue-like, but the art of Jean and that gorgeous red mat more than makes up for it.

I have no idea why the game lags sometimes, so that would be my only issue with it. It can get a bit unresponsive, but everything else is so good that I can put up with it. Definitely one of the best games around.

Good writing in both the characters and on the subject of consent. Lots of games will throw even the idea of plot out for the sake of banging as soon as possible but in this game you gotta work for it.

A 5 Star Game!
I'm pretty meh on superheroes, avoid school slice-of-life games like the plague, but this is fantastic enough to be a 5 out of 5 for me. It's the Titanic of romance movies, the Eminem of rap, the whatever of whatever that stands out from the genre with how good it is.

5/5 Gameplay
Sex scenes are interactive and realistic. You get a better score for including unique moves, and since this counts all the foreplay moves, you naturally want to add foreplay at the start (or between orgasms). The characters will say 'No' to advances that are uncomfortable and will realistically leave if you keep trying to annoy them about it.

Outside of the porn gameplay, it's standard VN fare, but the quality of life shortcuts take it to 5/5. You can shortcut jump to locations to reduce tedious VN travel clicking and the map will have a red alert icon when there is a special event to find. Fantastic stuff. No carpel tunnel syndrome here.

5/5 Art
I love the art style, the facial expressions, and the costumes. I love how you can slightly slutify and mix the outfits, from innocent "Why don't you unzip that slightly more?" to making them wear a bra (minus modesty points) covered by a jacket (increases modesty points). I love this realistic way to be slightly slutty without revealing too much skin. It's how girls go clubbing IRL without being called a hoe. Love the realism. The game hints at eventually having them wear vibes, fetish gear, and possibly corrupting their "hero" and "everyday" outfits rather than their "private" "sexy" and "swim" outfits, and I sure hope they do this. The more public outfits have different tolerance scores too, so even after you get them naked you can still progress slutifying their everyday outfits. Fantastic potential here.

4.5/5 Story
The overarching story seems generic X-Men Marvel fare, but the characters are written well. Some characters have accents which is slightly annoying, but they all have unique personalities and even unique texting styles. There is standard VN fare where you have to act as a therapist for them and I find myself fast forwarding some generic conversations where I know the vibe and outcome. The bar isn't high for a porn game, so it passes, even if it is generic writing for a generic plot. There's other superhero corruption games I've played with better writing and crazy plot twists, where I didn't want to fast forward key moments, so it doesn't get a perfect 5/5 here. Maybe there will be twists on the story later? Or more well written porn pervy situations the characters can find themselves in?

Overall
This game is a great girlfriend dating simulator from texting them good morning to "innocently" inviting them over to study at night. The progression is realistic and natural... except that the women will actually pay for dates and even take initiative to ask you out. I don't know if the writer is from the Netherlands or something, but giving us Americans a taste of non-do-everything-for-me-I'm-a-princess women is commendable.

My only gripe is that there is borderline too much grind and inane filler text, but this is partly my fault for attempting to clear all the optional content. I think if I focused on the main story line it'd be at a good pace. It'll take many hours before you get to a fappable spot beyond heavy petting and kissing, which the game even seems to acknowledge by making it hard for your character to orgasm until their lips are around your cock. Any who doesn't want beautiful fit women lips around a cock?

Gorgeous CG, amazing attention to detail, and an actual story. The only thing that really detracts from the experience is the amount of grinding with progression locks galore. Nothing some modding can't fix, of course

Absolutely brilliant game!

The story itself is good. Not the greatest, but good. What impressed me the most was the artwork of all the characters. Laura looks absolutely breathtaking, the ultimate "muscle mommy". Rogue is just... there's no words to describe her but "perfection". Jean is also looking quite juicy. The H-scenes are pretty good, and I overall had lots of fun playing it.

I think, when it comes to improving the game, the best points I could make are:

- The game already gave the option for us to give our character a general appeareance. What about making it visible as we're playing? Giving it a face (hopefully as well done as the girl's), a body, and clothes, so we can actually spend our money on something besides dating.

- The sex scenes are awesome, but I would like to point out that it would be way better if, by turning the option where we can see our character during the sex scenes, we can ACTUALLY see it completely. I understand the idea of keeping the main parts of the girls as visible as possible, but I, particularly, prefer the realism of the scene, and I'm sure many think the same.

- Maybe add a mission system? Naturally, the base of the game is much more of a dating-sim than anything else, but it would be really cool to add some missions that we can go to as we're progressing in the storyline.

Overall, the game is absolutely brilliant. I hope you don't take my observations as criticism in any way. These are simply some advice from someone who had an absolute great time playing this game and enjoyed it a lot!

Waiting for the next update!

Game is pretty decent with a very vanilla story but theres really not much when it comes to the main story, 90% is about progress with the girls and then 10% main story.
The girls has diffrent personalities which works great, but it is mostly a dating sim and it does have a bit of a grind to it as well.

The sex scenes becomes boring really fast since the progress bar is just to damn slow, atleast you have a 3x speed option for MC but why on earth its not an option for the girls as well i dunno..... so you really shouldent play this for a fap but to see if the story will be worth your time playing it.
Progress with girls is really slow as well, it takes like 800 or points in love and trust to finaly fuck one of them and most gains are like 12 points so keep that in mind when you try it out.

The art/girls are really nice and there are some cute facial expressions, so some things are well made.
The sandbox isent that bad, theres a little grind for money and a ton of grind for girls progress and doing the "sex" scenes a million times with each girl before moving from touching them with clothes to underware next, to kissing and so on its extremly slow.

To me the grind was to much compared to story and compared to rewards, the virgins scenes where pretty bad as well, you get an achivement first blood when fucking your first one but there arent any blood so it is very vanilla in every possible way and it dosent make it any more fun hearing "im on the pill" from every single girl its just meh.
Also once you have seen any of the girls sex scenes you have seen all, its pretty much just 3 identical scenes that you have to repeat a million times for each girl so its very repetitive which is what really makes the grind so boring.

Music is ok, standard background stuff.

Excellent art and very good story and game play. Only reason I'm not giving this 5 stars is because of the grind. It takes forever before you can actually sleep with the girls. You have to rise the stats extremely high, go past several story moments before you can do much.

Review for v0.3d

I will admit, I've been avoiding the game for several reasons.

This game is a successor or a spiritual successor of Rogue-Like. I've heard some troubling things about the developer and I was worried about the currently available content I wasn't sure if I was willing to let myself get invested.

But after playing a couple of hours today, I think some of my fears have been abated.

The Null Hypothesis is already shaping up as better than Rogue-Like. What it lacks with girls, it makes up for with the potential. It's not a sandbox like Rogue-like, there's a storyline to keep the player invested. I hope that at some point there's an option for a sandbox since honestly, I feel invested in these characters.

Admittedly, I'm not the biggest comic book fan, the only Marvel comics I religiously read were Punisher and Deadpool. I have a passing familiarity with Jean, X-23, and Rogue. I'm not sure if their characterization is accurate.

Laura is certainly a bit different from what I've heard about her character in the comics. I'm 90% sure, she's a Virgin in the Null Hypothesis and the comics, she isn't because of some pretty dark shit. But it's a difference that I'm not opposed to, X-23 is my favourite and I think removing that part of the comics in her portrayal here doesn't take away from her character. She's still traumatized, she still needs to adjust and spend time with people who haven't had her... Upbringing.

Jean feels the most different from her characterization but honestly, I've never looked up as much as I read up on Laura. My only familiarity is with the films and her characterization here doesn't feel terrible and it feels comic accurate enough so that's a Pro for me.

Rogue is the same and she's by far the biggest draw for me. That's another win for the Null Hypothesis over the Rogue-like... All these women feel like characters. I wouldn't go as far as to say well-written, they're still characters in what is basically a harem game and they're written by horny men like me but at least they feel like they have some autonomy and they exist outside of the main character. Honestly, the game gives me Eternum vibes. The goal is to 'catch 'em all' but the story and the characterization help make everything reasonable and justifiable.

This brings me to the main character. I will say, I love that choices feel like they matter. The customization, little as it may be does enough to make the character feel like it's mine. I made the mistake of playing around with the slider for the skin and realized, there was special mention to it. It's a bit finicky, I just wanted another skin colour but honestly, that could be fixed in the future and I realized the options available were tanned enough that it wasn't a problem to roll back. I did, however, try playing with a mutated ear and there were initial comments on that which I liked. It made the choice to give my character weird ears, feel like it mattered.

Null is also a lot more likeable compared to Zero. The removal of the addiction mechanic was something I wasn't sure about but organically getting a relationship felt more earned compared to basically mind-controlling these women. There's still corruption but in the form of Enabling women in certain behaviours.
Jean and her Big-Siscon tendencies
X-23 and her protectiveness/possessiveness
Though, honestly... Rogue is the one I'm a bit more concerned about... Jean and X-23 mean I'm playing a bit submissive to their strong personalities. This isn't a big problem, especially if the game manages to limit that to private relationships whereas the public persona of Null is maintained. I've noticed that in the dialogue options at least where Null is still independent in how he treated Rogue being in danger and was confronted by both Jean and Laura. Which brings me back to Rogue... I'm worried that enabling her more... Submissive nature is doing more harm to her than good. I'm doing my best to make her feel better and keep her happy, I make sure I never get a negative love or trust result but she still has a tendency to be insecure. Maybe it's because we've only been together for 1 and a half seasons so she hasn't really become more confident. I'm not sure if her wearing dresses the show off her arms is just the game randomly generating what she wears day-to-day or if it means she is more confident but honestly, I kinda of wish I knew if Rogue is becoming more or less confident the more I decide I'll order for her whenever we're out on a date.

Anyway, enough about the characterization. The Gameplay loop, while a bit grindy, isn't so bad. Going to class, sparring and doing 'chores' hasn't gotten too boring and honestly, I appreciate the fact that Classes have different blurbs. It feels dynamic. The Sex is a bit confusing but after getting used to it and finally getting how it works and how to actually make them orgasm and get that damn A. I definitely love it.

The art style I have to admit is reminiscent of one of the Doom Trainer games I saw but the heads belong to the body and I love that. There's no uncanny valley on how the head and neck body look.

Oh, and I fucking love Laura's Abs. I fucking love that she has pubic hair and I think so does Rogue, I haven't managed to get her nude yet but I think I saw strands of white and so far, this game is just checking my fetish for realistically drawn women and pubic hair.

Oh yeah, I love Kurt. A part of me wishes there was more interaction with him. You don't often get other male characters in Harem games and the fact that Jean, Laura and Rogue imply that I'm the only eligible male in the entire school makes me think we're unlikely to have other male characters who have any autonomy... But yeah, more platonic interactions! Hell, I want to hang out with Colossus, the man went toe to toe with Juggy. Sure, am I also hoping for Kitty in this Game? Expecting or assuming that she'll either be his Ex-girlfriend or current girlfriend and add some spice by stealing her from him? Hell yeah! But I still wanna hang out with the man before I fuck things up because Null can't help himself.

That's pretty much my review. The Null Hypothesis while yes, is a spiritual successor. The way it's made, the way it's being made feels like an improvement. In the next section, I'll voice my concerns and worries but I want to give the game and the developer the benefit of the doubt.

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I'm not active in the Rogue-Like community but I know Null Hypothesis had a rough start. Something about the developer unwilling to accept free help and advice from others? It seems like things changed because the game went from beta to having enough content so I'm feeling positive that things are looking up.

At least one of the Dev Team members is active on the forum, though, I will say that they came off as a bit abrasive but volunteer work as far as I know and they at least don't seem to be an asshole. I have to take into account that text doesn't convey tone very well so there could be some misunderstanding on my part.

One of my biggest concern, however, was if this game was going to have continued support.

As mentioned, it came out of beta unexpectedly. I assumed it didn't have a lot of content but after playing v0.3d. I couldn't be more wrong, there's enough content from what I can see. And best of all, it seems to update in a semi-regular manner. Every couple of weeks? Maybe a couple of months? Honestly, regularity isn't my concern. Quality over quantity, in my opinion. It does help that there seems to be a roadmap that's being followed. I was concerned this was another case of an over-eager game dev who didn't like something about the original and decided to do their own but after some updates, gave up on the game.

I'm looking at you, Something Trainer. You had so much potential and then you went and disappeared...

So yeah, at least it seems like the Null Hypothesis isn't going to get abandoned. A part of me is still paranoid but honestly, I'm hopeful. The Null Hypothesis is scratching that X-Men/Marvel itch that I didn't know that I had...

Now if only I knew when Storm was going to become available. And who else will follow her I feel like these women come in threes...

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TL;DR

The game is worth your attention. Play it for the Trainer, sexing up and seducing and romancing the X-Men Gals. Stay for the characterization (not just the current trio. Kurt, Juggy, Colossus, Storm and Prof-X are decently portrayed. Stay for the worldbuilding and plot made for this game.

Oh and the fact that the bad guy is the Shadow King was a choice that I do not hate. I loved Legion (I need to finish that series though). I'm looking forward to more from this game and the game dev team.