VN - Ren'Py - The Survival of Sarah Rose [v0.1.9.9] [HappyDaedalus]

Ambitious but promising game so far looks great with impactful decisions, art is good. Story has a wide arc with some odd turns that would be good to smoothen out but overall it is very interesting. Good luck

This is probably the most ambitious branching visual novel I've seen here. The future of the game is daunting but I'm impressed with what I see so far. When I play these "choices matter" games I frankly expect frequent plot resets to control the sprawl. It really is a pleasant surprise to see a visual novel actually commit to it's branching plots. The fascinating thing about this game is even it's prologue doesn't have a plot reset. It is also a welcome surprise that choices in this game are coherent and have reasonable payoffs and consequences. I am just so used to some unpredictable bullshit coming up in these branching visual novels, usually for the sake of resetting the plot.

The game can be surprisingly romantic depending on your route, or more of a kinky fantasy or even a power fantasy. I'm impressed by the writer(s) ambition and confidence to give the player this much agency.

I only have a couple small complaints; 1. There's a noticeable inconsistency in art style across character models. 2. Characters in dialogue screens often seem awkwardly slapped in place with little care for their scaling and composition.

This game, while at an early stage of development, is already amazing and shows so much promise. The writing is excellent, as the art, and very different routes are playable, i just felt the choice of the routes arrived a bit too early in the scenario.

Positive:
Love the artstyle
The dialogs are very well written and interesting
Well paced
Interesting choices that actually make an impact
There are so many paths to choose from
Main character is insanely likeable and other characters are great as well

Negative:
Game needs more CGs

I have never before seen so much passion in making game here. No shortcuts there are so many ways to play this game so many paths that you can explore more people shoud give this game a try I am sure you won't regret it. There are some downsides of course but the devs have a lot ahead of them and I am sure they will dissapear with time.

Great game. If you are a fan of medieval/fantasy climate you should for sure try it out. There are many paths and writing is really good. I think it is (not the best) but for sure the game i most enjoyed.

Good shit. Art and characters are all great. Also the route are actually really diferent. Love it.
I hope we get more content for the Warrior (?) route soon because it's super interesting.
RN i'm doing Princess route and it's super fun. Vargo is super fun, Marrion is a good asshole character and i want to throw Thomas into a locker, i'm saying this in most positive way possible.
Keep up the good work devs.

When I downloaded a porn game I didn't expect something so goddamn.. heavy? The H-Scenes are hot and all but this game really excels in it's writing. The plot is fairly generic, yet the authors still manage to make it incredibly gripping and interesting. First time I ever felt compelled to write a review about a porn game, and damn am I looking forward to the future updates.

The sheer amount of branching paths already in the game is downright impressive. I keep replaying and trying new combos of choices, just to try and discover every possible path. My one nit-pick would be that some h-events currently don't have visuals, but I feel that is outweighed by the number of ones that do.

Pros: One of the best written female protganonists of any VN, good choices for what branches will exist, and a suprising amount/diversity of content if you know where to look.
Cons: Routes aren't intuitive from your choices to a degree you either need to be exhaustive replaying seemingly identical paths with one minor variation or find a guide else you'll hit "to be continued" LONG before actual end of content. While newest art is very high quality the total amount is limited and some of the older art could already do with being brought up to standard. The one writing "quirk" is repeating the same notion in a few different wordings almost consecuitively, a bit of copy editor pruning would turn writing into a 10/10 as gramma word choice ect are otherwise great.

This game is a game like very few others I have played yet. In short, where this game comes short in it's number of art works, sprites, etc. , it more than makes up for that with its story.

Let me elaborate. The Survival of Sarah Rose features a story that rivals some of the best VNs out there. It features choices that majorly alter the path of the story. As of now, I have counted 4+ different major story lines, all with their own long and complicated plot and all with their multiple different endings, which still all follow one major story arch, leading to you ending up in different positions in the same event. (The endings and story lines I counted are: Staying in the castle and a) you win the war (-> (no) marriage) or b) you lose the war (-> you arrive in Al Gahaem); Leaving the castle with Kate and a) become a thief, b) become a mage, c) be alone in the city (not really implemented yet) or d) become a mercenary (they end up in Bagrad). If I forgot any paths/endings, I am sorry, but there are just so many of them.) And while many of these lines are not finished yet (the game is still in development after all), many of them are already incredibly fleshed out. In addition to this there are many, many explicit scenes strewn throughout the whole story. Another thing that should also be noted is the way these stories are being told. The writing in this game is spectacular with tension, release, uncertainty and something that let's the need in me arise to want to know where the story will take me next. This also helps to make the choices in this game make way more meaningful. As you are able to see by all the wildly different major routes one can take, there is also a lot that changes in this story. And most of what can change is caused by ones own choices. As an example, whether or not Rosana will fall is being determined by which choices you make in the council meetings based on the sparse information your advisors can give you or how you can decide in Lethram where you will end up by choosing what you do. This is how I want a good, story driven game to be. Your own choices based on your own limited knowledge of the circumstances and with a little bit of unpredictable things thrown into the mix affecting your life, or rather the life of the character you have the honor to follow.
There is a downside to this though. The accompanying artworks are sadly only very few. With some scenes having placeholders and the amount of different sprites always feeling a bit lacking to me. Although the quality of the art pieces is still pristine with a clearly defined art style and the artist clearly not lacking the skill. What also needs to be noted is that the dev said that he plans to rework many scenes since "The game had quite a lot of scenes for its initial release, so getting around to completing them all was not feasible. "

But in the end I feel like the goods far outweigh the bads for this game. Where the number of artworks is little, it always managed to support the text. The text, to which my main focus was being drawn due to its outstanding quality in both the quantity and quality and to the choices, which were almost always hard to make, outweighing what the risks and rewards of each one are, acting based on my limited knowledge of the circumstances surrounding them. Just how choices should be. Hence, my 5 stars.
The last thing I will note here is that the game version I played is version 0.20, although I do not expect this game to become incredibly worse in the future, since what is here already makes for a worthy game of its own.

This is actually really good. I was initially sceptical since there is a serious lack of variety when it comes to character art but it is still early days for this game. Writing is outstanding, choices feel meaning- and impactful and the characters are convincing but hard to read, which seems appropriate for a game about royalty. So I am positively surprised about the potential of this game and I just hope it stays on course.

One of the most promising games, great writing accompanied by awesome art. It offers a tonne of different options with great characters whose roles change based on your choices. It is a title worth paying attention to. The only possible complaint could potentially be that there's some missing art for some of the scenes but it will surely be fixed as time goes on.

one of the best games. I normaly don't make review, because my skill for writting are not realy good in english. But, for this games, I make the effort. A really good games, the story rest in my mind for many day. The potentiel of the games are very huge and I'm impatient to see the next. The part with Kate was really well made, you love her, hate her and love her in the same swing. Not juste a good sex games, but a good romance one.

Positive:
I like the artstyle
The dialogs are very well written
Good pace
Interesting choices
Princess theme is an interesting one.

Negative:
Too few illustrated scenes (CGs)
Too few sprites yet.

I cannot wait for more content!

Pretty good first start, some black screens here and there, but its understandable since its a pretty new game and not all scenes are ready. Couple of personal thoughts on the game which may or may not be considered.

1) Sex scenes can be longer, adding in character lines or thoughts can extend it somewhat. Maybe have different facial expressions if possible at different points of the scene?

2) Corruption aspect could be expanded on abit more, adding in player options to "resist" or "give in", like the 2nd scene with the ship captain for example.

3) Sarah seems to jump straight from inexperienced to professional BJ artist in an instant with no in between.

All in all, pretty good first couple of releases, interested to see where this goes.

This game is much better than I expected it to be, it has branching paths, the choices feel like they have weight and meaning. The sex scenes could honestly use some work, especially the ones on the boat where all you get is a black screen. But this is only 1.0 so hopefully, those will be filled in with time. I'd like to be able to customise my character a bit, but that's just a wishlist item.

A visual novel with a very promising branching story, with a good drawing style.
I love this type of art, since it is different from the 3d models used by most of the games that I currently follow. i'm giving it 4 stars as a kick start, if i'm convinced in one or two updates i'll become a patreon

v0.2.7

I was the first to review the 0.1 version, gave it 4* with caveats that it could be really great, if content is regularly added to all available paths and graphics were improved and added upon.

Well, I must say that game has so far done that and more. The content is varied and great, the story is interesting, visuals are much better.

It is slowly becoming one of my favourite adult visual novels.

5/5, easily.

v0.1

If I tried to sum it up in one word, it would be ambitious.

The graphics remind of 80's/90's anime shows, which might be good or bad, depending on your point of view. I can't say I'm personally a great fan, but I assume most people will like it. The quality is quite good, there's no doubt about it. Biggest gripe is the main character for me. She looks very child-like, and her face is extremely bland, almost a like a character from a manga aimed at children.
There are no aminations and character images are static and it often spoils the mood. It turns a potentially interesting dialogue into a boring expose. Characters don't even take a seat, change posture or facial expression.

The writing itself is acceptable, there's nothing to really stand out as bad, but, in the same vein, I found nothing particularly extraordinary about it. It does the job.

Sex scenes themselves would be rated similarly as writing - good but not great. There's no animation, at least one of them is just a black screen with text and it would appear images during sex scenes are still WIP. You usually just have a single image for a sex scene.

What sets this game apart from others is that I find it very ambitious, maybe to the point of it being a detriment. There are apparently several routes you can take, and they are indeed completely different. Each takes MC in a totally different locale, with completely different support characters. While it is indeed laudable that designer(s) did truly make each choice have consequence, it is very hard to envision them not getting lost under the weight of some potential paths the player could take.

As I've said, I'm not great fan of graphics style, but that's a matter of taste, so I won't let it affect my rating.
I am indeed keen to see how the story develops further, given the author's ambition. The first thing to improve would be to add some life to characters, both MC and supporting characters. Different posture, different facial expressions, different positions based on what they're doing. It would breathe so much life into the story. Same goes for sex scenes - I don't mind still images, but there should be more than one per sex scene.

4/5* would be a final rating based on all that. I hope authors continue adding content, and if possible, improves on graphics, both in terms of quantity and quality. It could potentially end up being a really good story.