Ren'Py - Time Loop Hunter [v0.72.00] [Hydrahenker]

This would be one of the best games if it were coded well enough. It's about a time looper. Groundhogs day sort of scenarios. That is an awesome premise for a visual novel.

The problem is the game is far too hard even with a guide built in. Getting to a scene that you want is a bit tough.

You need to do things in a very specific order at a very specific time and location. You will repeat a lot of the same scenes. You will get nowhere for a while then look at the guide, and if you look at the guide too often then it removes the guide temporarily!? Like what the fuck is that about!?

Sometimes you need to do so many things to get somewhere and then it leads to nowhere.

Another problem is a lot of times many locations are pointless to go to at most times.

I really wanted this to be a good game because I love the theme, but the way it's coded is just so punishing.

There's a good amount of content but this game takes the crown as the most complicated and frustrating game I've ever played.
Don't even try to play it without the walkthrough, you'll encounter roadblocks if you try to explore it your way.

To Cryptic and overcomplicated. something is triggering something. Stuck now for 3 hours with cryptic "hints" from CAS. "Next logic step: BE nice to mia" I am, doing everything which gives me any favor, but changes nothing. "When you can't save the girls bring backup" yeah, ok, who is this "backup" have no clue, ask everyone by now. "Maybe you should see if someone takes advantage of the slutty beauty" who is the slutty beauty?

Great underrated game, lots of content, pretty hard at the start though and you will probably need the guide to know what the right combinations are to get to a extra stat point or reach day 3 (or 4) for example. 5 stars 100%

The game is unplayable without a walkthrough ... In my opinion, it's an endless loop grinder. You start and think you have a certain overview ... then it takes quite a long time until the next update comes and you can basically start all over again because you no longer know where you currently stand. The whole thing just feels confusing to me ... that's why my current reaction is "I'm deleting the game" ... there are enough more playable games that are also interesting.

If it's going to be such a grind, at least give us better rewards with the ladies. The "animations" aren't really animations, they're just cut-frames put in sequence. Give us some actual animations. This would make the grind a lot more tolerable.

Quite possibly the most tedious AVN I have ever played. Just awful. You have to play over and over and over again in an attempt to figure out what to do, and you get very little direction in the very specific way they want you to do it. It is intensely frustrating to play, so much so that once you actually progress, you feel more relief than excitement.

If the writing and visuals were great, maybe I'd suggest toughing out the absurdly tedious game mechanics, but there isn't even that. I've played plenty of point-and-clicks where the game is needlessly dated and clunky, but you're fine reading the walkthrough to get another laugh or enjoy the next twist in the story. This game has none of that. Things just...happen. As mentioned, there's more a feeling of relief every time you actually progress than excitement that something actually changed. It's because you're hoping that you actually get to see some CONTENT, although it fails to provide any reward the waste of time. Visually it's serviceable, and if the other elements of the AVN surrounding the visuals were actually good, I'd give it 4 stars, hell maybe even 5 stars if the story and writing blew my socks off. But it's not there.

The writing and models don't justify such an intensely irritating game design. I can't think of a single great time loop AVN, and the ones that at least pass off as good have to work AROUND the time loop, rather than benefiting FROM it. This is because time loops inherently require far more writing skill, because not only do you have to work around player choice, you have to try and keep the story fresh while also reducing repetition as much as possible. The biggest downfall for time loop games will ALWAYS be a sandbox, because you'll click through the same areas forever.

I think this is actually quite a fun little puzzle game. I say little, but there's actually a fuck ton of content in this game. I really like trying different things to see what happens in different timelines. Seeing what happens further down the line, and seeing how to get around the various obstacles that get thrown at you.

I disagree with people who say you need a walkthrough to play this. I only needed to look things up once or twice. The hint system really helps to keep you on track and reminds you of what to do.

Some things in the game don't entirely make sense to me, and some things feel a bit arbitrary, but overall I think it really works. Looking forward to the complete version.

I enjoy the game and when it is complete, I plan to play it through.

And I have a huge amount of respect for the ambition of the project. Keeping the story straight, and writing the game, and coding, so it works is a MASSIVE achievment.

So, why three stars?
Because I think this will lose more followers over time, and fail to appeal to new players.
For one, it is completely, utterly, and entirely unplayable without the walkthrough. There is too much happening, that involve too many jumps, timelines, and choices as you progress, to make it through the content without a handhold. I'm not against walkthroughs or mods, at all. They help navigate choices that sometimes seem counter-intuitive, help guide to different endings, find missed content, etc.
That isn't the case here. You literally can't play the game without a walkthrough.

The second major issue is having a clue what is happening, when you load a save on a new build. I'm lost, and end up needing to start a new game. Of course, thanks to walkthrough changes as the game progresses, that can become inevitable anyhow.

The third issue is the age of the game. It is six years old now. The dev continues to update and make progress, so my concern isn't that the game will die, but at this rate, even for the literal mountain of content there is now, it could take another six years to finish. And it looks, feels, and plays quite dated. The experience is ultimately worth it, in my opinion, but I fear it will turn away prospective new players, and even long standing players may find the game has aged poorly and give up on it.


My verdict is, this game is a masterpiece of coding, just to make all of its variables work. It has an interesting story, an insane amount of content, and, especially when complete, utterly worth your time.
But the age it shows, the knowledge that competition could be far away, and the inability to play without a step-by-step guide that, if you mess up while following could lead you to go mad to figure out what you have to correct to advance, strongly detract from the game's appeal.

I like it. I think it's worth it. I can't wait for it to finally be complete and to play through it all. I think it is worth respect, and worth consideration. But I'm not blind to its flaws, I know it is a hard sell to people, and I worry many people would find the game to old looking, confusing, and guide dependent, for it to be worth their time.

Know what you're going into, play it for what it is, appreciate the scope of the devs vision, and hopefully you'll enjoy it.

i have played this game 3 years ago , this one of the worst game i have ever played , it is so hard to play this game to many bugs and too many missions to do just to get to a little bit of action , it would be great if this game is not sandbox game .
i downloaded the game today to give it a one more try after 3 years i thought that the game have been developed and got better but it was so disapponting that after 3 years its the same bullshit .

Like some others said, I'm adding my vote to the ratings.
The game is way too confusing, and grindy. I've tried playing it a few times over the years because the premise of time loop is interesting and rare, but the execution is very poor.

This game is a huge jigsaw puzzle where u play hours to gain only a handful of puzzle pieces. If you follow the guide step by step (if that is even possible, because the guide is more confusing than the game), you may do better? but even so, the end picture of that puzzle, or the reward, is not all that worth it.
So.. back to repeating days to find another path.

This game does not challenge your puzzle-solving. It's just jumbled beyond solving by the developer and it's just frustrating at this point.

Sad state really, for a game that's in development for 6 years.

The premise of the game is really interesting but the execution is really bad. The game is not intuitive at all, you have to grind hours and hours just to bypass the first 2 days and unlock the third. I played this game many times in these years and that never got better, to progress you are forced to read all the time a walkthought or the hints, and the hints aren't helpful at all. I played this version for like 5 hours and from the start (the last time I played this game was like 3 years ago) and I can't get the third day and I don't know how to upgrade the stats. This game more than entertain you, stress you. Now I will stop playing this game without wishes to play it again because at some point is unbearable. You have to unlock things in an specific order and in an specific place and in an specific hour. All that work is not worth it.

I tried replaying this game so many times
But it's so confusing . I have no idea just what to do
The story is confusing Every time i revisit and i see it's a new update
i hope somthing has changed to make scenes easier to get
But always end up quiting and just moving on until i revisit the game and then the same things happening

No bugs

Hi, I'm a lurker here. After a year lurking this forum, I decided to spend my first post to Time Loop Hunter.
I've tried a lot of games here at F95, some of them are very good, but TimeLoopHunter is a refreshing RenPy-game! In the beginning it is dificult to understand what you are supposed to do, but after a few hours, once you get the hang of it, it is a refreshing game. Very different than the usual virtual novels.

Sometimes I hate this game. I got stuck with Claire if I want to sleep the night. I hate Claire!
But thanks to the walkthroughs and the comments here at this forum, I slowly progress. Very slowly.

I hate this game, and I love it too.
I hate to get stuck, or start over again. And I love the slowly progression, and the purpose of starting over again. Wish RL has a button for that.

Resume: A nice game! Addictive. Still like it, although I am still at day 2 (for the thousandth time)
Keep up the good work!

P.S. :
Can you please make CAS in a next update more attractive? Yes I already asked her about her looks, but please??

I really tried to like this, I spent a dozen hours trying to get into the storyline, but after a while, after replaying and rewinding, none of it made a lot of sense...everything had to be done in specific order so that other content was unlocked...it became confusing and it wasn't much fun!
I liked the premise for sure, but the application was a perpetual grind that wasn't fun.

This game has the absolute worst grind I have ever seen in an adult game, bar none. There are quite literally thousands of incredibly repetitive steps you have to take in exact sequence to complete current content. I probably have ten hours and over two-hundred loops of the first week under my belt (that doesn't count daily loops) and I've had actual sex with two of the girls I think a total of three times. The visuals are good but it just isn't worth it.

The game is just too big and too intricate, with every interaction potentially changing on a fifth or tenth or twentieth iteration because of a memory or item in your inventory. Even with a walkthrough, current content would take something like ten hours to complete, and you'd be operating like a robot pressing whatever option the walkthrough tells you to in sequence over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Without a walkthrough...the hint system has recently been updated and it is far better than it used to be, but you need to basically have the walkthrough open to supplement the hint system.

As an example, I had a save that was close to 100% complete as of ~2 years ago, version 0.31. I loaded it up and there were no errors. I went to the new hint system and it told me to go to the club Saturday. So, I go to the club. I am told I need money and I should sell panties to give to the drug dealer. But, I don't remember when my character ever had panties, so I have to open the walkthrough. I find a case of my character getting panties, and go to sell them...only to be told my character didn't take pictures of the panties on the girl so I have to get a different set of interactions to get the panties. To do that, I'll have to go back to the first day and set up events such that I can get the demonstration to end in arrests, the cops to let me tease one of the girls, and then I can get the panties, sell them with proof to the drug dealer, get the money to go to the club Saturday night.

And this is step one in one of the literally several hundred things I have to do at this point. And you have to do dozens or hundreds of these for your character to get laid. The concept is neat, the visuals are good and I find this to be the least enjoyable and most aggravating game I have ever played. I am being serious and not flippant or hyperbolic when I say this game, for me, is a pretty good simulation of a poetic rather than brutal version hell; just enough motivation for you to keep doing something that you hate and end up torturing yourself. I can't recommend strongly enough that you never start playing.

There is layer upon layer of juicy content to discover, but you have to work to find it all. Randomly clicking will not get you anywhere.
If you stick with it, then the payoff is great.
One minute everything just clicks!

I haven't played this since 2018, and I can't say it's improved much in that time. I was hoping that the built in hints system would be enough to fix the problems of the early versions. Yet I have the walkthrough open in another tab as I write this review after more than 70 loops in v0.53. By far the biggest problem in the game is the parole officer arriving first thing on Day 3. This made sense as a block back when there were only 2 days of content, but it now serves as a wall players will slam into repeatedly for dozens, maybe even hundreds, of loops. The training and information gathering needed to progress the story being completely inaccessible until the player deals with this one specific plotline. Maybe this is meant as a bottleneck to limit the game's complexity, but it's very frustrating from a player pov.

On paper the idea sounds great. An intentional timeloop with a concrete specific goal and time butterflies.

You loop a specific set of days and slowly and carefully learn and master the various paths in which you could butterfly time.

I don't think author messed up the implementation so much as this just being a very neat sounding idea that is just not as good as it sounds. The end result is grind and a extreme complexity. Where you basically need to follow a walkthrough like a robot instead of playing the game.

In some ways this is my favorite game on this site. It's one of the few 'Groundhog Day' games that feels truly interactive, and not just a VN that allows you to time travel when the story requires it.

The game often feels like you're solving a puzzle: steal sleeping pills, make sure your mom is working late at the hospital, unlock a window and spike your sister's drink when you meet her, ... all so you can sneak in that same evening to molest her while she is sleeping. When you figure these things out you feel a sense of accomplishment.

However, I have a couple of serious issues with the game. The first is the interface. When I move to a certain location (e.g. the school), why are my options not immediately on the screen? Why do I need to request to see them. This may seem like a minor thing, but this extra clicking every minute or so really adds up if you play through the game. Related: it takes too much effort to navigate around the university. Perhaps don't distinguish between indoors and outdoors, just make it a single location.

Second, as you progress you get the ability to save 'paths' so you don't need to go through the first days every time. This is a useful feature, but without a walkthrough it's impossible to use this efficiently. I think the developer should prescribe the paths, rather than allowing the play to create their own. They could use a simple branching tree structure to represent the different paths that are available.

Finally, the game is complex which is great, and one reason why I've played through it a couple of times already and keep coming back to it. However, especially around the demonstration there are just too many options without a clear indication which choices lead to which outcomes. I think this could be simplified with fewer choices leading to fewer outcomes.

Overall a great game. It's not for everyone as it's complex and it takes a while to get into. But it's rewarding to play if you have the patience. Some interface and gameplay issues become annoying over time, especially because the game takes a long time to play through.