THE SHRiNK [v0.7] is a hard game to describe, much less review, as it makes very little sense overall. A reconstruction might be as follows: the central character, Alex, is celebrating his twenty-third birthday. He lives at home, out in the middle of nowhere with his mom and three sisters. A standard flag-bearer of harem scenarios, he’s a fatherless, hopeless virgin, who somehow succeeds in seducing his family into sex. Other characters—all transgender and optional—are introduced later on: a cousin, the maid of the house, and an old friend. While this is happening, there is a science experiment gone wrong, and a ‘satire’ (I use the term loosely) of American politics, the COVID-19 pandemic, and of zombie action films occurs back in forth.
Every once in a while, a chyron indicates cheer up, don’t take things too seriously (Fair enough; after all, it’s a comedy.) However, the humor is contextless, and its sensibility derived from internet culture, and things start feeling a little too familiar. The cast is better on this front. Alice is the cute redhead, kind and generous, she makes for a good love interest. She's lovable and innocent. Melissa is fit, athletic, with purple hair. She's a female dominant type, cruel in an older sister type of way. Aiko is the bratty sister, who takes after Melissa, the youngest and most outwardly violent out of the three. Unrealistic and exaggerated, this game has a outré-anime style and feel. The body types represented here are fuller, and more curvy: large breasts, hips, asses, with flat, defined stomachs. The overall effect is pleasing. The models look good, and the animations get better as the game goes on, as do the renders. The mother, Leliana, is the most fleshiest member of the family, though she’s barely in the game. The transgender girls take up more time, which comprises of three people, Karishma, Brenda, and Vanessa. They’re cute and harmless. The sex scenes are great, though there isn't much way of character development (surprise, everyone loves the MC!) or story, the style is enough to pick up the slack on this end.
The game is brimming with content, there are many paths and options available here. There’s the love and lust routes, dominant, submissive routes, and you can choose a specific girl, of which there are several, meaning multiple playthroughs are required to see the whole thing. Is it worth the investment? In terms of available content, certainly. Otherwise, you'll learn everything you want to learn from the game in the first ten minutes.
If THE SHRiNK leaned into its strengths and focused on the family members and culled the extraneous stuff around the game, mainly the nonsensical story-within-a-story, it would be a better game for it. For now, the game is a mess, but it doesn’t have to be. There are no real characters, and the story is a self-parody, and scenes begin and end at a whim. That’s not a bad thing in and of itself, but it’s unsure of what it wants to be tonally, a boner comedy, a porn game, or a genre bending thriller. The SHRiNK could use a shrink. Some trimming and sharpening the family dynamics are two things that would improve the game dramatically. Just don't make it all story, that would be a mistake.
(3/5 stars, could easily be more if things were improved.)
