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

Review for v0.3d

On the surface this game looks great, and I have no doubt there's a lot of effort going into this. The art is very good, the UI looks nice (and I like the comic book-esque dialogue boxes), I'm not struggling trying to read bad translations, some neat mechanics, etc etc. The game has a foundation. But as I looked past all these shiny things and got into the core gameplay loop, I realized I just do not enjoy this game.

First keep in mind I'm writing this review knowing next to nothing about X-Men and never being particularly interested in super heroes. What caught my eye was the art, as you could probably guess. So I gave this a shot. I can't speak to how accurate to the original source it is.

Now what exactly is The Null Hypothesis? Dating sim is a good label, and I'd also lump in trainer game with a heavy emphasis on being a sandbox. After a rather nonchalant intro of us awakening our powers, which happen to be the nullification of other people's powers, we are dumped into a school for "mutants." We get some brief character introductions and then it's time for the grind to start.

And damn do you have to grind. It's not as if it's hard, but just incredibly uninteresting. Each girl has a trust and love level to raise. As you might guess, you repeat events such as training and studying to raise them, along with saying the right things in dialogue. My big issue with this is that like 70%? of the games events get summarized with a couple lines of flavor text. Sometimes you get some extra dialogue with a girl, but not much before it ends and you do it again the next day. There's not even close to enough unique scenarios, causing it to feel very stale very quickly.

The MC is designed for you to be able to self insert. He has minimal background, and you never see any part of his body. Unfortunately this just means he's very forgettable. Every once in awhile he talks about his struggles adapting to this new school and having powers, but in no way does that really get portrayed. You literally don't do anything besides get friendlier with the girls. I was waiting for the game to maybe pick up with some type of action where we actually have to use our powers or implement our combat training, but in the few hours I played that didn't happen.

So the focus seems to solely be on the girls then, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The thing is my other, and probably biggest, issue with the game is how relationships are handled. Everything feels designed to be repeatable, leading to no events that actually feel unique. I focused on romancing Rogue just so I could see what the love/lewd parts of the game were like. After raising her stats enough, she eventually asks to start dating. Go on a basic date, repeat that twice, and she's your girlfriend now. You do get some cute new dialogue lines, but in essence all this is really doing is unlocking more lewd options.

What exactly do I mean by lewd options? Let me tell you. We get what I can best describe as opening up a gallery. If you've ever played any of those old mid flash games where it puts a girl in front of you and you're given a list of options such as "grope, kiss, change positions, undress, fuck, handjob" etc etc, it's exactly like that. You just pick from a list of options that progressively unlock from raising love while you get some basic sex scene lines as they happen. This does nothing for me. You see it once you've seen all of it type of thing. I think this part was probably the biggest killer for me.

Edit: Talking with one of the devs a bit clued me in on the fact that there actually is a couple fully scripted sex scenes. Namely "the first penetrative sex scene with each girl." I personally did not play long enough to get to them (I thought they didn't exist at first), but it feels disingenuous not to mention it now that I'm aware of them. Especially considering one of my entire gripes was the game seemingly not having scripted sex scenes.

I wouldn't call this bad or even average at the end of the day, but it really just isn't a game for me I suppose. It's a trainer sandbox with a lot of polish, and if that's appealing to you then I think you'd like this one. For me the lack of interesting events and the way the relationships/sex scenes are handled caused the game to simply not capture me. That all being said, it is a game very much in development and the devs have communicated that a lot of my issues are in fact being worked on. At the least, I can see myself checking in on this down the line to see if further development sways my feelings.

Needs more characters,. but other than that, what's not to like?
Great art, good story and writing.
The 3 romanceable female characters are fairly well developed and I enjoyed the interactions between them (harem/sharing, etc)

Absolutely Fantastic.
The Premise itself is brilliant, and I commend the effort to Not go overboard with 20 LI to bloat the plot with non of them serving meaning. All characters have personality, the interactions are heart felt, written intelligently, and I really enjoy the MC as well.
Absolutely GORGEOUS Art.
My Only "cons" would be wanting a little slower escalation pacing and deeper interaction in the intimacy game, but besides that, this is a banger.

Such a gem.

I really excellent game for those casual fans of Marvel comics. The game play is good once mastered, the models are very pleasing, the plot understandable from a comic perspective. The only caveat I might point out is that I'm not sure why everyone thinks the MC is irresistable. The three heroines to date all have solid reasoning for pursuing MC, I'm very curious as to where this is all heading but wherever that is I'll be along for the ride. Good Job!

There is a lot to like in this game and especially considering it is relatively early in development it is very promising.

The game has gorgeous and detailed art and expands the formula with the aspect of storytelling. Art is detailed, plentiful and consistent. Girls are very attractive, I might have preferred more roguish, flirty Rogue, Jim Lee style. Sexual sandbox is already decently developed but more than that this game is leading players with a story and giving them goals to achieve, adding a sense of direction. Storytelling has two main conduits: big story events between chapters/seasons and some second hand stories you hear during conversations (with a nice touch that some characters are on occasions unavailable because they are on missions).

I like much of the writing (with one big exception, below). It is fun to take girls to movies, where you can get to know them better by observing their different reactions. Girls have their own stories and struggles. Their powers factor in your relationships too to a degree, their powers having some interactions with yours. Like the interfaces a lot too, very modern, very clean, one of the best I have seen in Renpy game. Seems decently balanced, gaining favour with the girls, earning money or XP engage you in main game loop and sandbox but does not get too tedious, with a bit of exception to hunting optional mini-events that have unspecified requirements, not sure if they random or trigger at relationship thresholds.


However, there are some problems. I start with ones I consider minor. So far this story events have very little hook, they seem rather random. You stumble into a fight, you unlock some powers, you need to train some more (after). No sense of mystery, existing challenge or rising threat, and certainly no sense of agency. There are some choices, kinda, would be actually grateful if someone spelled it out for me how much impact that this whole Determined /Reluctant /Bitter thing can even have on events (can I get better/ different options /outcomes of any events choosing differently?) - so far it doesn't seem to do much, tie to anything meaningful - and from searching the game thread, seems to be flavour only, but is introduced in very dramatic fashion, with special icons and context and explanations. Sure, your attitude (and no, it is not personality, personality is something stable, you don't change your personality 4 times a year) IRL will have major effects on your motivation and approach/avoidance psychological systems, but there are no such systems in game. And the game pretty explicitly seems to signal to you, that there will be no supervillany stuff here, no going renegade, no abuse of power so why bother with such obvious illusion of choice?


And this is not the only confusing choice subsystem: the one with lips or crossed lips icons is somewhat explained before you encounter it, but without mention of the icons, so when I encountered it I thought lips means continuing romance and crossed lips stopping it, but then after few times when I chose always lips it dawned on me, that it seems to be more about girls... flavour? Fetish? Quirk? And I remember Kurt mentioning reinforcing or discouraging some of the girls behaviours. So in total you have 3 type of choices. Standard ones (no icons) are the most clear: number go up or down (trust/love), part of the main game loop. Other two with icons, not so much, game creators seem to have some idea for it, but seems unwilling to spell it out what could be the consequences, and just playing the game choosing one over another doesn't seem to make much difference so far. So I would say design language was not intuitive for me, and would be clearer without icons suggesting that I'm making some crucial decision here (rejecting a girl or choosing a path for myself). Or just spell the effects like in normal choices (for example, "you encouraged Laura protectives" similar to "you gained 6 trust").


There are some missing functions I hope will improve. Girls can get levels, seen a notification popping up, but blink, and it is gone. Haven't found any place to check what level they are currently, nor what exactly changes with levels. They don't seem to gain stamina, and there is no other stat that we can observe. The poor communication of some very important facts and stats. There seem to be level 5 cap for yourself, you can reach it early, and there is no indication that you can progress any further (like when you reach max trust or love), in fact you seem to still be getting XP, just bar stops moving, but It's really hard to say if it completely stops or is just progressing more slowly. And there are still nodes in your skill tree that you want to reach, and they present as available. There is actually no value to check only very small bar (especially on Steam Deck screen). Same with sex minigame, at first you hit a cap, but you can't really be sure what is going on.


The last of the minor criticisms might be work in progress kinda thing. There is "combat" tab in character info screens, but it is empty, there is constant training, but there is no combat action, not even simplest kind. There is character progression, and gaining powers, but absolutely no way for you to use them in any shape or form.


There is one MAJOR gripe I have with the game: borderline bureaucratic management in sex scenes. Let me make myself clear: I don't begrudge creators for emphasizing consent. IRL consent is important, because real people can get really hurt if you are not responsible. I fully get that. I will admit that porn games with abuse of power and strong sexual domination fantasies are my preference, for fantasies that have no place in real life, but this criticism is not about that, I'm not trying to force my preference here. There are other games that cater to these fantasies. However, and I know it was already mentioned few times before, verbally and explicitly asking EVERY TIME you make any, even smallest, action during sex scenes is absolutely ridiculous and just kills the flow or excitement or spirit of play. You can actually kiss the same girl without written application in triplicate as a flirt action. Girls can take initiative too. But when you start sexual action, even when you are already balls depp in her pussy after she swallowed your firs load, you still have to verbally confirm if she is for sure absolutely comfortable holding hands. Seriously. So you are saying, that you cannot learn your preferences and boundaries, there is no body language that factors into the equation you cannot even set ground rules before if you're so worried about misreading more subtle cues. You cannot, for example, write it: "you slowly rise your hand to her breast and see her nod/smile/shudder with anticipation". Maybe this explicit verbal consent could make sense if you are role-playing submissive with domina situation. Or maybe (just spitballing) as a for of sexual therapy for someone that was mind controlled and need to regain their sense of control and agency.

I'm usualy just a lurker, but this game is such a gem that for the first time I've felt compeled to rate something.
The art is really well made, not just the portraits, the background and music also.
There's also the attention to details, there is a app where some other x-men post somethings or the daily bugle news.
The character development happens in a well done pace and makes you want to keep reading what going on.
The only "problem" is that may take some time to get to the "action" in a way that most intends too, but honestly ? It makes it even more worth it.

My favorite x-men game. The art style is really nice. I usually don't like sandbox, but I never felt lost since the game isn't punishing with time management, so you have freedom to fool around. However, this is a dating sim/trainer game so it has an inherent grind element to it. Personally, I enjoy a more casual experience but the game was engaging enough to go through the grind to move on with the story.

Looking forward to a Storm update.

Game really good. well written dialogue. beautiful art palpable story thus far if i had any criticisms im not big on the dyi sex scenes due to the length personally but that's likely a personal opinion perhaps a button that does it on auto but also switches setups occasionally would be nice

Starting with the cons- Pacing is a bit slow and things are a bit grindy as other folks have mentioned, and it took a solid minute for my brain to really accept that the the art isn't AI generated, but...

Pros- The art is actually pretty solid once you get past the surface-level resemblance to AI images, but more importantly: the writing is fucking fantastic. This is one of those games that draws me in past the sexy stuff due to its writers just knowing what the hell they're doing with the plot, character development, and world building, to say nothing of the humor. While things could be less grindy, a lot of the pacing fits well with the somewhat more realistic approach they're taking with the superhero-dating-sex-trainer simulator.

Side note, it's been cool to see how involved the devs are in this thread and over on the Discord- they're clearly passionate about their work and having a lot of fun with it, which is just lovely to see. I'm only giving 4 stars at this point because it's pretty early in the project and there's room to grow, but I'm sure it won't take long for me to revise that score as the devs progress.

This is easily the game I'm most excited about on the site currently. Here's why.

ART:
It's very good with lots of details. Here and there some parts are a little sub-par or seem mismatched with the other art, but from what I can tell the devs are planning to gradually revamp a lot of it, and what's already here is way better than most other games, both in terms of sheer quality and including things like facial expressions, arm positioning, etc. where most games do the bare minimum.

STORY:
Unlike That Other Game, this one has a story. This is potentially a mixed bag. Story's not a huge priority to me for porn, and it does get in the way of the sandbox elements a bit. In That Other Game, you could get very dirty with the girls very quickly if you played it right, but here the relationships have to evolve gradually alongside the story. It does feel more realistic this way, but it takes some of the fun out of it. OTOH, the girls' personalities do come through more strongly with more stuff for them to do outside of just fucking and going to class, which makes them more fun to romance, and more distinct from eachother. In general, That Other Game had a charming, cartoonish sandboxiness that this one has replaced with a more grounded, story-having approach. Both are good, legit ways of doing things IMO, but it's worth pointing out how they relate for people who played the other one and are wondering what to expect here.

GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay is pretty basic. You make dialogue choices, do stuff to get money and stats, etc. It's in the sweet spot of being simple enough that you don't need to think a lot about it, but complex enough to feel like you're not just mindlessly clicking whatever: it's not fun in the way an action game is fun, but it's a great delivery vehicle for story and porn, and otherwise doesn't get in the way. The dialogue choices feel meaningful without feeling so crucial that you have to savescum.


SEX SCENES:
The sex scenes are very interactive. I've played ones with more options, but most of them are games consisting entirely of the sex scenes and nothing else, and this is early days yet. To me this is a huge, huge selling point. This has always seemed like kind of the point of porn games to me. If I just want a porn scene, I can watch a video. If I want good gameplay, almost any decent non-porn game will beat almost any porn game (and I can play it even when other people are around). If I want a good story, I can watch TV or read a book. Yet so many porn games end up feeling like generic games or stories with generic porn taped on to them. There's a little extra immersion from general interactivity, but it still sucks to be in control of the MC all the way up until the part I actually want to do. It's like an action game where you can control your character almost everywhere, except the fights are cutscenes with maybe a couple quicktime events thrown in, if you're lucky. This game is one of the very few that doesn't do that, and it's like finding a Zelda in a sea of walking simulators.

THE FUTURE:
I'm really encouraged by the detailed planning that seems to be going on with this. It looks like they're actually making a solid game engine before racing off to continue the story, which is the right call, as impatient as I am to put my dick in Storm. They're actually thinking about things like gameplay loops, which I don't think I've ever even seen another porn game dev mention, much less devote time to reworking. Even in its current, early state, I'd consider it a much better porn game than most of the stuff that shows up on here, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here if everything stays on track.

amazing and in-depth, good gameplay, good system, great art and good inspiration from the original game. I am suprised how well this game turned out. Still waiting for more content to be added but what the game has so far is pretty great. Overall 9.5/10

Great story and animation, and considering this is still an early beta, it is generally very good. So far, the dialogue and side activities seem to be lacking in variety. The Live2D animation looks amazing. It would be a shame if updates were not released as frequently as we would prefer.

Rogue Llike Evolution with more modern artstyle, just finished main story for this version (0.3c) and hopefully in the future dev would add more content, a lot of potential in this one. Small suggestion, it would be more interesting and open many possibilities if dev add 3 variables regarding pc relationship and not just 2 (love and trust), theres should also lewdness/corruption factor in this game, but for the current state i think with such content this game is more than enough to be considered playable, which is great.

A technically really well made game. Very pretty and well crafted characters with lots of work put into them to make them each different. Writing is solid and the setting is interesting. My main issue is that the sex scenes just kinda suck.. Its sort of a like a sandbox sex scene like you would find in the Koikatsu games and its just not my cup of tea. I think most people will really enjoy this if you can put up with the awkward sex scenes.

one of my favourite games I've played on this site, imagine rouge-like evolution but more polished and modern, with better art and a slight focus on plot and staying true to the X-men comics. thoroughly enjoyed the 4 or so hours i put in. only real critic is that i wish it had the same amount of focus on all the girls and their outfit options and that it had more content in total.

Art is great
Writing is good
Content is where it lacks has tons of content but there is no as much freedom as i would like and some events and scenes are forced to the player and I'm not talking about story events but sub events and sex scenes

I will return to give more stars when these issues are fixed

I don't usually rate unless i enjoy the game and this game is, even in early access as it is, one of the best games on this platform with the potential to be the best.
The blend of gameplay to story is just right while staying faithful to x-men lore and an accurate portrayal of the heroines. the sandbox attribute is similar to rogue-like but that was also a very enjoyable game and this games direct predecessor, which is another game i highly enjoy.
I am biased as shit as i love x-men, but even without that, this game has the bones to be a real competitor on the most liked page

Edit: also, a massive, massive plus is that the devs are highly active and responsive to questions on this site

Has a lot of potential, could become one of the best games on here.

There is a lot unimplemented, but it's done in a way that doesn't get in the way.

The art is super fucked. Pretty early on there is a scene with Rouge crossing her arms, and she just doesn't have any hands. Storm looks super low res, like almost ms-paint. There are certainly a few select images that are great, but a lot of them look really poorly done. Makes me worry since it's so inconsistent.

- 2 stars cause when the art is bad, it's really bad.

When I first booted up this game, I thought to myself: "The art is way too good, the outfits system is too ambitious, it's overall way too high-quality - so this is deffo another one of those 'front-end great content and then milk the fans' projects.

But I delved deeper and, no, this is the real deal.

Only at 0.3 so far, but it already has enough content to warrant 5 stars, imo:
-A legit interesting story with clear reverence to the source material that promises to develop and one day end (Unlike the game that inspired this one)
-Beautiful art and fitting music
-Neat animations (Idle and sex ones) that are soon to improve even more
-Really good presentation and relationships that develop at a realistic rate (Seriously)

I don't know how far this project will make it, but it's honestly amazing that they've made it this far already.

It's really the cat's pyjamas. Maybe a bit of a slow burn at first, but so worth it in the long run.

Without a doubt, this is a 5 star game. But I believe it is very important to understand why it is so and what to expect from it.

To give context, this game never compelled me to masturbate while I played it. It has some sexual scenes for sure, and the body art of the women along with most of the art are very well drawn and extremely good, but I was more preoccupied with trying to spend time with the women rather than just dick them.

This leads me to the writing. This game has excellent writing, and the women are extremely well written. One unique thing I've found in this game (and I've played a lot of erotic games) is how women behave. They take the lead, they do things you would expect a man to do in relationships. They want to protect you. I cannot stress how good it makes you feel while playing the game, and I prefer to be the dominant person in relationships. That's how good it is.

Another good part is how consent plays into it. They may do these things, but you always have the choice to tell them not to do it. They ask for consent, and your character can also ask for consent. It isn't forced, it is just there as a choice. This is top notch stuff.

Another great thing the game does is differentiate the women. All of the women feel different, they have different characters and behave in different ways. Again, top notch, more of the same please!

This game feels like a real game as opposed to just an excuse to masturbate. You have classes, training, and you can work to earn money. The more you do these things, the more xp you gain. Get enough xp and you gain a level, which unlocks new features for your character. Again, writing it here is one thing, but playing it feels really good and fun, trust me on this.

There are systems in place to change the clothes of the women. There is a rudimentary system where you can gift them stuff they can put in their room. If these were fleshed out more (I hope it will) it will be that much better.

I only have 2 complaints, but this is nitpicking at this point. First, I wish there were more corruption options for the player to choose. I understand the setting, but I wish the main character could become evil or perverted and corrupt the women. Not 'destroy the institute and then the world' type, or 'make them fail their classes' type, but just sluttier in general, stuff like making them friends, then making them kiss each other, then threesomes/foursomes type. Being able to influence them in those ways seems very hot, I don't know.

Secondly, I understand how much of a major role the setting plays into it, but I wish this wasn't the setting chosen for this game. I fear that at some point, this game will be hit with a lawsuit, because it is clear that it will become a major hit in the next few months a la 'Being a Dik'. A unique setting from these devs would be incredibly fun, and also open the road to official releases (like Steam). After Nitrolith, this is another dev team that should be supported in my opinion.