Ren'Py - Abandoned - The Patriarch [v0.11a] [TheGary]

Worse than CMA in almost every way.

Started off very strong with a great prologue and some charismatic characters.

Then the sandbox starts. Just awful. Atrocious garbage of a sandbox that's even worse than CMA's. Prettier but less accessible hint system, repetitive scenes and garbage events with just 1 tiny difference where everything else is the same. Instead of just being able to pass the days quickly and get to the scenes, they decided to add a garbage grind system where you're forced to repeat content, and where you can game over if you just want to go to the new content instead of dreadfully repeating the same garbage over and over. Horrible.

The worst part is the characters and the writing. Aside from the initial group of 3 in the prologue with decent charisma the "house" characters are all garbage enigmatic cookie-cutter sex slaves with zero dimensions and nothing appealing about them. It was surprisingly terrible considering the excellent work that was done in the early CMA chapters (though by chapter 4/5 CMA had also fallen into bad writing as well).

It's a pity since the game's opening sequence was amazing—well-rendered, with engaging conversation and a setting that was above average.

The sandbox grind then starts. It destroys the game's narrative structure, interest in the characters, and forward momentum. Any potential interest I could have in the plot, the characters, or the sporadic drip of sensual occurrences begins to be overtaken by the time waste.

I can suggest playing the prologue only unless you have a genuine masochistic attitude toward performing repetitive point-and-click activities.

After getting halfway through game, I realized it wasn't for me, far too much emphasis on anal and bdsm, however I will try and ignore that and focus on the objective technical aspects.

Artwork is fantastic - I love how the game has a consistent color palette of dark green and brown, earthy tones to match the setting.

Animations are very solid, had no complaints and never felt like skipping anything - despite my aforemented disinterest in the specific fetishes.

Dialogue is competent, was obviously written by an english speaker or translated well.

Only mechanical downsides would be a somewhat lacking feeling of choice, yes you can prioritize one of the daughters or the friend's girlfriend, but overall, the main events seem locked on a set of rails. Second would be extremely punitive key junctions, like getting lost in the woods or failing the trial tasks. While I understand these are part of the story, it seems more like a plot armor to relieve workload from the dev at making alternate stories (an idea would be if you fail to complete the trial tasks, it shifts from a harem-bdsm game to mc getting dominated by the mother, etc).

Anyway, overall a solid entry, just not my cup of tea, however, anal and bdsm lovers will delight.

edit- one thing that deserves additional praise - the UI is FANTASTIC. Like one of the best I've ever seen, everything is perfectly balanced - good color scheme with easy-to-understand stat icons, a good balance between form/function - doesnt have the dumb monochrome flat design found everywhere, but still looks sleek and conveys information. Buttons are perfectly sized, and navigation is easy. If you're a dev reading this - take note, this is what an optimal UI/UX is like.

I have Patriarch a good try, but it's ultimately not for me. The story is written poorly, the gameplay is repetitive, and the sex scenes are 3DCG messes that are neither hot nor inventive. The game stretches too long before any meaningful content comes, and none of that is worth the wait.

Overall play down medium level, early very good, late experience is not good.
The preceding works conform to the introduction of a camping accident story.
In the later stage, it is obvious that the author is confused about the development of the story , wanted to follow the story, but made it into a house sandbox .
It has only been a year since the publication of this work, so the author has problems with the story in such a short time, indicating that he still needs to exercise.

Like many, dropped the score because of sandbox. Not that I hate sandboxes, just not needed. There's no surprises wandering around, no branching depending where you go. Nothing that couldn't be done in a VN choice.

If the only thing that's going to happen if you don't chop 10/10 wood is you die (game over), just have a choice chop 10 wood or die. Saves me clicking 10 times. Now if other stuff could happen if you didn't do 10, or moving around triggered a scene that ate time and stopped 10/10. And you weren't sure what would happen if you failed (or how badly could you fail)... then there's a reason and some (like ANY) gameplay type of tension for moving around or making a choice.

Otherwise it's move around, talk to X you find in the usual spot, repeat, gets stats, progress. I did like 6-7 days, then just unpacked the game to look at the pics.
Nice pics though!

Been waiting for this game from start

I played every version of it
( Heck Even BUG FIXES sometimes)

Pro's

* Amazing ans Interesting Story

The story isn't just forced down your throat kinda bdsm where there is alot more corruption going on slowly but surely the character breaks amd becomes your slave or vice versa. It is genuinely an better experience for me that the characters are so much indluged into it they have an actual interest in bdsm for once.

* Resource System

Having played a good amount of RPGs and alot of them on RPGM. This game sets a standard on what an good survival game should be in renpy like having to collect water and wood and the fact that it has an impact on the game. If you like these type of games that actually go ahead and reward you in like a good way this the game.

* Renders ( or even the look of chracters )

Beautiful just amazing they way how the fire is in the tutorial. How the trees like in some games they are just generic textures but here it feels like a great experience to have even in real life.

*** All in all love this game how it unfolds***

Con's ( More Personal )

More Femdom Please. I personally like it so yeah if that gets added i would love it even more than what it is. Like how susan was in first game loved her. I adore me some strong women that can take charge for once of the MC. Loved how Abigail did that to the girl in one of the scene maybe more of it for the MC.
( Loved The Bathroom Urination aswell i am kinky like that )



All that said i have been playing even The Gary's Other game ( Cure My Addiction ) since maybe some of the first versions. I am beyond impressed how he has improved and perfected everything step by step.
This game is even better.

Only 3 stars, but why?

well i could say a lot of positives as they are there, and frankly i love playing the game.
But, while playing i get also annoyed as F... (yup i went there, using the F word), i get annoyed because of one simple fact i see a lot in these games.

The complete lack of knowlwdge of domination, submission, or even humiliation. it becomes aparant in the way "karma" is used in this game.
All forms of dominations you can perform in this game will give the player a negativ karma, the more you do it the more negativ it gets.
Which will result in the impresion you are doing something bad and there cant be love involved, even when mother gives the impression it is a good thing.

A common misunderstanding by the way, there is a no such thing as negativ karma in Bdsm. A dom/sub relationship is much more close depends more on trust and cant exist without love.

The use of negativ karma in this game is a verry bad advertisement for a bdsm relationship, and somehow i keep asking myself if it is on purpose this way.....or ignorance about the subject.

A promising game, I really hope we're in for an interesting adventure as good as the one we saw in Cure My Addiction. I know the author is talented and can do it. As for Patriarch..have been following the game since version 0.1 and so far I like everything, although there are questions about the plot, but I guess we'll find out for ourselves in time.

However, I still have my suspicions that the MCs are just being used.
Anyway, I'm looking forward with great interest to the continuation of this mystery story.

I really liked the previous update (v7), the interaction mechanics in the sex scenes added variety and the animations themselves were very hot and appealing. I missed a bit something like that in this update (yes, you get used to good things quickly and I remember that the same beautiful CMA had almost no animations at all). Nevertheless, I believe that so far v0.7 was one of the best updates in terms of animation quality and I hope that this technical visual level the developer will maintain in future updates.

I have no idea what surprises the esteemed game author has in store for us, but it seems to me that Patriarch will definitely need an unruly troublemaker like Amy was in CMA. I realise that the game is at an early stage of plot development and to wish for "anything and everything" on my part now would be naive, but in the future escalating relationships, intrigue, rivalries, etc. could benefit the game.

I give this still too young game 5 stars in the hope that its author will be able to write an interesting and intriguing story that is as good as the one we saw in his previous work, the gorgeous Cure My Addiction.

Excellent game, at first I was skeptical, because prologue is rather boring, but the sandbox part is absolutely great! Graphics is good, there is a lot of options. Basically harem with 4 girls. Most of the text is easily skippable, if one doesn't like to read much. Waiting for the next updates!

V0.8a review -
This game has a promising prologue with an intriguing story to say the least in the beinning with stunning female models but it seems that is the only good thing about the game . After a prologue it switches to Sandbox mode , there are games with good sandbox elements which I like but this one is not for me . In this game it's not worth the effort / time spent to continue play with collecting timber , fish , water and grinding to increase our stats and a free roam with timed events , it's all too much stopped playing after playing 2 minutes after that Sandbox got introduced . It would be a good game or at least a decent one if dev decided to focus on the story rather than this grinding sandbox gameplay .

Version 0.8a- This game is really good. The animations are great and the models are also great. People who call this NTR don't know what NTR is. This is definitely not an NTR game. In the prologue, you have sex with another guy's girl friend.

First thing's first there is no NTR in the game. In the prologue a couple invites you to have a threesome with them. That's not NTR, you are literally fucking another man's girl. After the prologue you are the only male around and you are meant to stay that way.

If you are into domination, punishment, spanking, bondage, toy use etc. TheGary(dev) is your guy. I have played his previous game and loved it. I must say this one improves upon it. There is less grind, character models and animations are better, and the story progresses quicker.

It is grat gmae with a grat story. You must not skip the prologue.
The beggining of the game is a little bit slow, but after that the story and puzzle keep you in the game. I recon the author of "i cure my addiction" i loved this game. And the new one is the same quality.

This game progresses very well. It has some nice kinks and very good renders. A decent story that may be misjudged by the start.

It should be checked by those who enjoy spanking and maledom themes. The Gary improved on his previously work with the well placed animations inside choices during sex scenes that very few author have the capabilities to do.

The game has what I would consider unavoidable NTR
There is no sound
Renders are okay, animations are meh
Sex scenes have a shitty "interactive" element to them, like you have to achieve the right pain level when you spank the girl or click a "rest" button to keep the scene going, otherwise MC cums automatically
The English and writing is awful
And by far the worst part of this game: the sandbox. You have to grind resources just to unlock scenes. Then you have to repeat the same scenes to farm points to unlock the next scene. It's incredibly tedious and does nothing other than annoying the player.

Just do yourself a favor and skip this game.

I have played this game through version .6c and I think this is as far as I can go with it.

It's such a shame, the beginning of the game was incredible, well rendered, good dialogue, an overall better than average setup for a game.

The inciting event that pushes the game from kinetic novel to sandbox is also actually a fairly interesting plot point. Maybe not entirely original, but well executed with some interesting characters.

And then the sandbox grind begins. It sucks all narrative structure, all interest in the characters and all forward momentum out of the game. I stuck with this one a little longer because I liked the MC and Abigail quite a bit...but by the 25th time I've gone upstairs to watch the same bath scene...or to the lake, again, or 'had fun' in front of a witness...the time waste starts to overtake any possible interest I could have in the story or characters, or occasional drip of erotic events.

It's really too bad. All the elements of a great game are present, but it's hard to recommend unless you are a real masochist about completing point and click tasks and repeatable events. If that is you, this game will be your cup of tea. For all else, I can only recommend giving the prologue a play through.

Like CMA this one has pretty good renders
Like CMA this one has average animations
Like CMA this one has similar sort of situation without faping addiction
Like CMA this one has excruciating sandbox and game mechanics
Like CMA this one too doesn't reward the efforts you put in the game.

So from above equations the conclusion is that he didn't learn anything from his past game instead continued with the same formula, just like Darwin used to say you better evolve or be ready to disintegrate.

I really enjoyed the kinetic novel at the beginning of the game. The characters look great and the eroticism was definitely there.

Then the sandbox started. I don't understand why anyone would like to play a game where you build momentum and tension with a nice beginning, get excited about where it all goes next and all the things you'll do to the girl, and then you grind it to a screeching halt with an extremely boring and uninteresting sandbox grind.

It takes some time to figure out the mechanics, which is annoying. Then you grind for a while, unlock a new scene or two, and realize the degree of repetition required to get more content and... meh, delete.

I feel like too many developers have great ideas, great renderings, and great setups, but they seem hell bent on making "gameplay" that is an obstacle that stands in between the player and what the player is trying to do, instead of making gameplay the thing the player is trying to do.

Sad really, because I genuinely loved the introduction.