Ren'Py - Three and One: The Cursed Mansion [v0.22 Public] [Man from icecream van]

Really good art, and interesting base story and quite good story-telling. I'd like lewder content (no surprise here) but it's clearly a good in-dev game (may be it will become excellent).

I like different branches to explore in games, but it's not clear if in this, the decissions (will) change the story.

[v0.21]


Story:
⠀⠀⠀The premise is that three girls, former schoolmates of our MC ask him to drive them over to a concert, and on their way there they drove throw the town which seems to be absorbed into some kind of dimensional anomaly, so now they are trapped here with the locals. There is a rumor that if you gather enough money, you can buy yourself a freedom from this place, so our group decided to work for it. Whether they will have to work normally or prostitute themselves, I guess depends on the player. The writing is actually pretty solid and I'm curious about what happens next.

Characters/relationships:
⠀⠀⠀The main character is kind of an unlikable sad sack of potatoes. When the girls treat him like a servant, he just sucks it up, but when a guy at the reception is treating him kindly, now he's being an asshole and a turd. He's also very socially awkward, and it's sort of embarrassing to watch him trying to communicate with others, he lacks any charm and charisma. His most regular expressions are: "Okay...", "Probably...", "Yeah..." and "I guess so...". There are choices that apparently buildup protagonist's self-esteem, but it seems that he's still a loser, no matter what. At least he's not retarded (tho at times he's as clueless as a caveman) and rarely he's even quick-witted, so thanks for that, unfortunately no balls tho.
⠀⠀⠀The blonde girl is a bitch that treats you like shit, and the only way you improve relations with her is by basically serving her. Don't know why would you pursue her unless you're a masochist, she's easily the most repulsive character here. The other two are okay, fairly likable, though you don't have the best of relationships with them either. The game's sorta slow-burn, as it takes a while to get anywhere with them. There are no sex scenes with the main girls yet.

Visuals:
⠀⠀⠀The girls, albeit AI-generated, but very attractive, I really like this more realistic style. Background are either edited photos or AI imagery. Some character images are inconsistent, tho nothing ridiculous like 6 fingers or anything of the sort.

Erotic content:
⠀⠀⠀Sex scenes feature no dialogue, have decent imagery and animations (which are very few and far in between), but are relatively short. Very little sexual content, especially without NTR. Speaking of netorare: there is no sex yet, mostly undressing and groping, and I'm not sure if it's all preventable. It's not a simple yes or no kind of decision here, more like a result of a whole chain of choices. And from what I gathered, you have to basically sacrifice one girl to save the other and can't save them all. But I could be wrong, it's hard to tell, this needs a walkthrough, there are a lot of ambiguous choices and hidden variables.

Gameplay:
⠀⠀⠀It's really just a VN with some free-roam sections. The problem is that you're not really "free" to do whatever you want during those and have to do only whatever the dev wants you to, in a strict order no less. There is a 'loader' minigame but it's just a clicker, and you have to do it only three times so far. As for VN portion - there is a lot of choices to make and they're usually not cosmetic.

Playtime: ~5 hours

The previous title is more accurate, Three Chicks and a Loser. Definitely not a revenge game, MC is still a loser, and will probably remain one for the entirety of the game even when not on the NTR route.
Graphics 7/10, The quality is consistent.
Story 6/10, Generic and too much info too fast, pacing is important. Although the characters do feel like different people, not the same copy paste. (Everyone annoying as hell though.)
Minigames 4/10, Generic grind, repeat and repeat (and keep repeating in the next updates.)
Gameplay 7/10, I truly like that you don't have to search for a specific trigger in 50 different locations in a map to advance the story, events are linear too.
Sex Scenes 3/10, Bland. Tension is non existent. Even in the NTR scenes, it just feels like watching strangers get it on, no connection whatsoever with the MC. The Non-NTR scenes are also bland.
Potential 5/10, Game needs a polishing all around but that is normal when starting, the main problem is that the dev needs to properly decide the direction of the game, right now it feels like he wants to include a little bit of everything, but doesn't want to commit to anything.

Final Rating: 5.3, Will give it one last try half a year later, I've had enough for now.

For an AI game, it's good.

Graphics:

- The models are hot and relatively consistent.
- The backgrounds need... creativity. I guess with AI, you would use inpainting. But they really just serve as backdrop for the characters. In a story where creepy monsters are supposed to have taken over a town, the plain backgrounds are a missed opportunity for further storytelling.
- I'd suggest Dev look up how to change the opacity on textbox. On PC it's fine, but on Android, the textbox covers a third of the screen. Common problem with a relatively easy solution.
- I appreciate the realistic style of AI over anime or cartoon style.

Story:

- It has potential. I'm certainly intrigued.
- On mystery stories like this, I try to reserve judgement in the early stages, because it's very easy to "set up" mysteries, but harder to make them pay off.
- If the developer figures out how to pay off mysteries/close story arcs, then I will be very excited about this "Under The Dome" mysteries.

Dialogue:
- The characters have different personalities, which is great, even if their speaking "voice" isn't much varied. That's okay, I can feel Bianca as the sulky chick, "Cola" as the sweet one, etc.

Gameplay:
- I'm okay with point-and-click so long as it serves a function. The usual criticisms of sandbox apply here: I'm clicking on doors and navigating the world only to reach the next scene. The whole point of sandbox is to make the world feel "alive" with "activities". Even some small chat with side characters would make the sandbox feel more full.
- The pacing is decent. Yeah, there's point-and-click "work" at the bar, but at least it's not a big grind. Takes twenty seconds at most.
- The popups for buying more lewd packs feels a little "mobile game"-ish. I trust that it actually is just AI images that didn't make the cut, however I'm not surprised some players are a little irked and feel like they're being paywalled from the real scene. I think that by adding a bit more length to the in-game scenes, players might be more satisfied with what they did see, and so they won't be as upset at the asset pack popups.
- I'd like to feel like my actions have more weight on the actual story. Right now, most choices feel like it only affects whether or not you see tiddies or not.

Overall, very solid, lots of potential. Now it's time to fulfill that potential.

Rarely I write a review but I would pledge this dev because I feel a great potential in his story. In particular its unique and with intrigue so I can't wait to see where it will go!
I usually don't like ai but this one are good with consistency between frames and different from cartoon or too realistic.
I gave just 4 instead of 5 stars because every episode are short.

Started out interesting when it first started. The story was interesting enough. Now the game just feels like a cash grab. I'm not against paywalls as long as they are not overly obtrusive or frequent but interrupting scenes is a huge mood breaker. I can edge myself well enough on my own, thank you very much.

I'm even pretty sure that some of the scenes that used to be included for free with the first bar girl are now paywalled. Graphics do look improved a little. Better AI CGI at least. Otherwise, I couldn't be bothered after a while to get as far as I did in the past versions. Not even sure if the story stays intriguing or not.

Edit: I looked again to try and see if old scenes were paywalled and I can't say that is the case after another quick look. They still feel abrupt before the paywall popup, but I could just be mistaken. Doesn't change that the popups are still not immersion breaking.

Unless your desperate to pay for scenes that, while decent, are not so breathtaking that you can't find anywhere else on this site -- hard pass.

The game itself is pretty decent. An interesting narrative that has great potential. Even the scenes are pretty good. My negatives are the lack of sound which would've completely elevated a mystical genre game like this one, and then obvious one - the paywalled scenes. What is the point of constantly asking the user to pay for extra scenes within every sex scene in the game, honestly just pissed me off.

Playing the games since release, the plot is great and unique not your typical plot, the AI art is consistent and not all over the place like some other games

Pros:
Unique plot
Not rushed
Great consistency on AI art

Cons:
Very small updates
Choice and impact don't show the results right away may require guide in future

This game’s main kink was NTR. Then halfway through dev changed his mind and decided to turn it into a dark harem game. I am sure you can imagine how this kind of 180 degree change can impact to already weak game. Story was forced and generic, and now it makes totally no sense.

Character renders are ok, but backgrounds are terrible. They don’t blend well. Music and sound effects are just there, nothing astonishing.

i find the ai art pretty but seems there is no longer going be NTR/Sharing. we are going get "soft" bad ends whatever that means.

I tried both playthroughs as of 0.141 being nice and being mean or ignoring, doesn't seem to have any outcome on the story so far. so it feels like a kinect novel so far.

the only sex is with the bartender woman currently. wish choices have better impact on future updates. not a fan of the blonde roomate, but love the red head and big titty goth girl.

The story is good so far, but that's all there is to it so far. There's practically no sex scenes at all aside from some groping. The AI images are decent and consistent enough to be immersive, which is good.


Check back in a year or so once there's more content, so far the game is barely out of the intro.

It's a review for the v0.13, I hesitated between 4 or 5 stars since it's so early but I kinda want to encourage the dev.
Visually the game is quite beautiful, and the 3 main girls are very well designed and hot. In that update, the dev corrected some visual consistency issues the game had in its first release, so I think he's improving and that it's going in the right direction.
The concept of the game is interesting, I like the oppressive city and the feeling of being trapped with the hotties.
Not a lot more to say for a now, it's still very early in the game's development.
The game will apparently feature some optional ntr and maybe (fingers crossed) some swinging/sharing too, even if it doesn't seem certain yet.
In any case I'm excited to see how this game will develop.

Big fan of the setting and NTR/sharing, which makes perfect sense in it. I can already imagine multiple ways the author can create opportunities for the MC to earn various benefits or just money using the girls. I hope the MC won't just become a loser who gets NTR'ed all the time.

What I'm not a fan of is the occasional AI art inconsistency that goes over my tolerance level. Like the scene when Tori bends over and Ian talks with the MC. In each new frame, her shorts' length changes drastically. In one, they barely cover her ass, and in the other, it's completely covered.

I also didn't like the writing at the beginning. I especially remember the messages feeling unnatural, but as I played, it either improved or I got used to it.

Leaving aside the occasional inconsistency, the art is quite good, and the story is interesting enough for me to want to play the next update. The score may seem a bit low, but that's my neutral rating for now and how I feel about the game. I don't want to rate based on what I hope the game will be, and I’ll update the score in the future.