Ren'Py - Completed - Timeless Island [v1.0 Bugfix] [Arioh Daerthe]

It's kind of hard to write a review for it since it left conflicting emotions all around. None of the other reviews really told me what i wanted to know before jumping in so i might as well talk about it. I will just say it's not a bad 3 stars, it's more of a "good game with some very critical flaws" kind of a situation, so if those flaws are important to you, you will have a tremendously worse time with it.

So one of this game's biggest strengths is that it does not take itself seriously from start to finish and it does well in being comfortably lighthearted, however that comes along with a big issue of story being... wouldn't say strictly bad, but it's rushed, underdeveloped, it doesn't really have stakes and the final confrontation and everything about it was god awful and done within literally 20 sentences or so. It did not feel good or deserved and it felt like an awful payoff for a decently long read. So if you expect a semi decent story out of this one, this ain't it, it's barely enough to hold your attention and is of tolerable quality at most.

Second issue i have with it is actually my biggest one and very subjective, but if it matters to you as much as for me i wouldn't recommend the game at all. I very much prefer to have emotional connection, care and romance in my games, harems or otherwise, romantic harems been done really well many times so it's not uncommon. So the issue is there is not a shred of romance, emotional connection and anything resembling close, respectful relashionships with each other, every single girl in the game is just a casual friendly sex thing. There is no build up towards any scenes ever, it's always a very soulless "-hey, let's bang -aight" kind of a thing. If you don't mind it won't be a flaw to you at all, but for me it killed my enjoyment really hard.

Which leads to my third issue, while i actually loved most girls the protagonist is absolutely awful. It's an immature brainless prick with no likable qualities and he often acts dangerously close to an asshole, not crossing the line though. I did not have a good time being in his shoes at all.

That said, despite repetition in animations scenes were pretty good, girl variety was great and the game sort of keep you engaged through most of this nonsense.

In summary, i did have a decent time with it but it's a comedic fuckfest with awful MC, subpar story and without emotional connections. If that is your cup of tea, by all means it's a pretty great game. But if you are looking with something nice, warm and emotional this is a very hard skip.

In summary the game is good and every thing is blanced.
The story and the animation where mid but have lot of content did not get bored completed the game in around 25hrs.
The gameplay where blanced(did not have any tedious grind).Did not face any major bugs and crashes,smooth gameplay.
The in-game instruction (Ques) where not that clear but not completely usless (reffer the walkthrough if u are planning to play).
Most of the character models where unique in the game and quater of the game H-seans where reused(same possion and angle but different charactor and background).

Game starts off by killing MC and he then meets a god of fire or whatever and she can bring him back to earth for a second chance if he finds an amulet for her on an island.

It started off pretty good with the goth girl i liked her and her build, but then game goes into big tit fetish mode and trow one bimbo at you after the other..pretty shitty when you dont have the fetish nor like big tits.

MC is the standard hated type, childish, perverted, mindset of a 12 year old, flirts with everyone, has a tit fetish, peeks whenever he can.....

Its also kinetic/linear and your forced to fuck everyone in other words its a forced harem game not choice driven, girls questlines are also tied together so cant skip those you hate, so your really not in controle of anything at all, its a pure mindless fuckfest which is fine for those into that, sex scenes and dialogs are pretty poor as well just like the overall game bland and broing locations, everything is just a bit below average in quality.

Girls are meh, i liked maybe one or two but when theres so many others i hated it was just impossible to play to get to the content with those i wanted.

Sandbox is not the worse since it has a map you can click on instend of using idiotic arrows to get around, but its quite grindy.

A fantastic game! kept me engaged almost the whole time, though, the... music, is quite troublesome, since it's a bit weird how the roman girl has kalinka, a traditional russian song, as a theme (?) song. but otherwise very good! sometimes even funny! which is awesome.

I found the typical Point And Click gameplay fun, since you require to use your eyes for some of the upgrades. I also really liked the jigsaw puzzles! and the laptop minigames also got me hooked. my highscore in tetris is 6337, can you beat it?!

The story is also very good, a bit... flaky at times, with the grammar but hey! it's fun, its interesting.

I haven't fully finished the game, I have the feeling that it's atleast 10 hours long. But so far I had a good time!

= Bare Bones Plot but it works ( somewhat offbeat, but charming )
= Decent Characters
= Decent Renders
= Decent Animations

- Grindy where is waldo like gameplay for leveling AND scenes ( finite resource )
- Sex scenes are janky ( there are some very abrupt animation to static image transitions )

Excellent game. A few bottlenecks that are difficult to get past, even with the built-in hints. And yes, the three god questions are almost impossible to get past without looking them up.
But overall, very entertaining and a great story.

Well that was moderately hot. And moderately good. There's a ton of content, but a lot of it is using base Illusion assets. The ending was a bit abrupt. But it is a completed game, with a lot to do, and I congratulate the creator for finishing this bizarre creation. I'm glad they stuck it out.

Just thought I'd drop a little review, as this game deserves a bit more attention.
Fun little fantasy game with interesting story, and lots of lovely ladies and lewd content.
In game guide was pretty good, though the guide to repeatable scenes could have been better.
Each girl is unique and has a decent amount of story content.
Overall, quite fun game and well worth a play.
Biggest gripe and reason it's not 5 stars, is lewd scenes are a bit lackluster.
Honey Select was made for lewd scenes, it's just sad many Devs don't utilize it properly.
Multiple camera angles are great, but the lewds need sound! Also dialogue and dirty talk during the sex is what makes them fun to replay.
Most of the sex scenes in the game are replayable, but most of them are pretty meh, so not much reason to replay them.
Still a fun game, and I hope the next game will have fap worthy lewds

As shown by the improvement poll, the biggest challenge this game has is lifelessness. This game feels empty and alone, which makes sense because it takes place on an island of only a dozen people, but even the girls don't pop out that much. I think they're all attractive, but something about this game will always have me disconnected from it.

That being said, the game is pretty good, offering easy and accessible content. Animations are good, but the biggest drawback is no dialogue during the scenes, which just contributes to the lifelessness this game has. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this a "must have". If you're in the mood for a VN but one that doesn't take itself seriously, then this is a good choice.

One of the best on Ren'Py I ever played. Good animation, long interesting story, easy game - all that makes an amazing game experience. Would reccomend to play to all, who is ok with such thematics. Hope to play more games of the author in future

Good game overall - one thing which I really appreciated/respected about Timeless Island is that there was always tons of stuff to do. Oftentimes these sorts of games have a tendency to get bottlenecked by either grindy content or narrow progression paths (you need to do one particular thing to unlock content and the way to do it can be unclear or can involve just skipping through days until you can do the one thing), but Timeless Island does a great job of having pretty clear (though not perfect) instructions on how to proceed and there seemed to always be several progress paths open due to how many girls the game dumps on you.

Beyond this, the graphics and writing were not amazing and it's clear that the writer just wanted to focus on what he liked - harem routes with a single male and pregnancies. Thankfully this overlaps well enough with what I like.

The actual game mechanics are a bit rough (there's a HP/MP system but it's not used that much) but it ultimately is not that important. I did think that collecting Firestones or Discs as a method of unlocking content was somewhat neat though and having to acquire new spells and such to unlock new areas gave the game sort of a Metroidvania feel to it, which is actually something I'd like to see more games like this lean into. Unlocking new areas would mean that the girls would start spending time in these areas, which would unlock new content, which would drive the unlocking of new areas... I thought this was a neat gameplay loop.

Looking forward to the writer's next project!

I will try to be objective but I also don't believe it's possible to not factor personal tastes.

Is the game perfect? Of course not but I think it does enough stuff well enough to deserve 5 stars.

I have now played it in its 1.0 version. Which has a proper ending. Something I believe adds a lot to the game.

There is a lot of variety in the characters. If you like fantasy elements it gives you quite a bit without having much if any of the more extreme less human stuff.

It is sandbox but I didn't find it to be hard to navigate and complete everything with just the ingame hints.

I like the art style. Probably one of the most subjective things about any game. Personally this is one of my favorite styles. It does switch between two styles and I think it does it pretty well.

The game has a lot of content. It may lean towards quantity but I think it still does it well enough that that is a good thing.

Overall if the elements involved are stuff you like then I think it is a great game that you will enjoy.

Version Played: 0.6.5, downloaded from here

Where do I begin with Timeless Island? In short, it does have its flaws, and it's not going to be for everyone - but there is some good stuff here, if you have the patience for it, and I think if Arioh went back for a quality pass on some stuff, I could budge the rating up to a 5 - as it is, I maybe should have gone 3/5?

Characters: They're... good. I hesitate slightly, because the game does suffer slightly across the board, from a quantity over quality issue. There are a lot of characters at this point, and it feels like some uniquness is being lost. That said, there are some distinct designs, and there a few characters I really like.

Renders: Solid enough 4/5 - the actual models are alright, there' s a few questionable renders, and there's a common issue: the dude looks like they've had way less care than all of the ladies. I have to say, the "anime world" thing is kind of silly in retrospect - but while playing, it honestly fit in with the game, and it's used as a fun way to change the style of renders for some parts. Animation is so so, but I deride the quantity a bit as quality suffers - but sometimes quantity is a quality all on its own.

There are a LOT of renders in this game.

Story & Writing: The biggest thing that could be improved, is Arioh or a beta reader going through and fixing dialogue. There's potential some story inconsistencies - although the story is insane. The premise is simple, and basically an excuse to combine characters that wouldn't otherwise make sense together... but it's leaned into super hard, the story does actually rely on the premise, so it's not completely place holder/hot swapable. And there are some genuinely interesting (if predictable) story points later on. The plot... I can only describe it as entirely derailed, yet absolutely on course, at the same time.

But the dialogue... well, it's likely english isn't their first langauge, and that's what it is - I only speak one langauge, so if I'm right - they are more skilled than me there. But, the game would be more enjoyable, the english was a little more fluent. Except Aeria, the Yoda speak there really does help define her character.

The Sex: See render comments for quantity over quality. Not that the quality is bad, to the contrary, each scene has a nice amount of angles and speeds you can switch between, that part is honestly well done. Thea ctual quality of those animations does vary, some are definitely better than others. And when I say quantity, the 100+ on the front page is not a lie, or an exaggeration. I haven't actually counted, but there is a lot of content in this game.

Mechanics and Gameplay: 4/5, decent. The firestones were alright, got slightly annoying trying to find the last 1 or 2 I needed, but the guide helped. Combat is... not pointless, but close to it, it's more of a story beat than any actual gameplay.

Closing Notes & Thoughts: I really do like this game, but I think it could be better. My suggested improvements to the dev are:

1) Dialogue: a pass over all of the dialogue, would make a huge improvement on the games quality.
2) In a few places it's unlcear what you need to do - like returning the ware house with Lina, I figured that was just for sex - when it was one of the next steps for a quest.
3) The cosplay party seems like it's supposed to be a big thing - but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of content in it.
4) A personal one that isn't actually a game changer: Kaiah is best girl, why is there only one scene for her at night in Imira's bar?

It will feel a little slap dash here, and a little low quality there - but it is in my opinion, a genuinely good play, and the amount of content on offer is nothing to sneeze at. If any of the older stuff mentioned is improved, I'm likely coming back here to add the last star.

honestly i think this game is great. lots of content, the pacing is great (not too much text and keeps the scenes moving), and the girls are diverse and engaging.

gonna keep watch on this game. sure the scenes arent like 10/10 perfect but there is enough content in this release at this point that its really enjoyable.

I like the theme of this game. Maybe not the most original, but still very good. Keep it up and that will keep me satisfied (intelectually).

I have a little problem with the quest system when you have to do another quest beforehand. It would be good to see where that quest is, like common, anime, any of the girls and then which and so on. Then it's to little to do in the morning compared to afternoon and evening. Still most of the time no problem with the quests.

I also like the differences in the girls and that you have to approach them differently. Saw some complaints about sex scenes but I like that you can see different views in different tempos (slow and faster). Maybe seen better done but also seen much worse. So both girls and sex is OK by both of us, aka me and my namesake. (Hint: My given name isn't Richard and the D in my alias here is the first letter in my name!)

So waiting for the next update, keep up the good work and 4 stars may be 5!

I have been following this game from the very start and it hasn't improved a bit since then. More content, but it still lacks in quality control in every aspect. The characters look sth between weird, sexy and malformed. The animation quality is "ok" at best. The story is.. not the worst I've seen, but not very good either. One if the bigger issue is the navigation- like in most of these sandbox games. There are arrows to show you possible paths to go to, but the different locations are not well connected. A GOOD thing is the map, which even allows fast travelling once you have visited a place once.

The biggest issue is the overall presentation. The rooms and locations are just VERY ugly, same with most of the models.

More of this. Sure I needed a walkthrough but I was able to stumble on most of the content on my own. Needs some translation help but don't we all? The flip of art style in the game during the story is genius! No spoiler. So creative. I love dimensions and pocket dimensions and altered reality. Thank you! The mini games are easy if you mash the mouse button and the control key. The music is fantastic. I did all I could to do all I could in this game. The characters are great. The scenes are very well done. This would be a perfect if not for the weird grammer at times but I always knew what what they meant so that is a compliment in itself. A+++++ Super sexy Island fun. Tall Vampire Lady. Cooking Hot Meat.

review based on 0.2.8 version
PRO:
- cg
- animations
- very good ui (except sundays routine- they out of screen)
- hints presents
- story presents
NEUTRAL:
- less than 25% content done
CONS:
- sundays routine of screen
- total firestones ig count means- only patrons with cheats can unlock some scenes (type in console fs+=10 to add firestones)
- some hint not precise- i mean some events have weekdays conditions

good game in genre harembuider/sandbox in early development stage.

[Rev @ v0.2.6]

Art's dull; custom girl render software over simplistic custom backgrounds. Composition is ok on SFW imagery but NSFW stuff can't seem to decide if it's 1st or 3rd person and just feels a bit lifeless.

Writing is bad. Scenario is derivative, voice and fluency are poor, narrative is contrived. Characterization is surface-level at best and the dialog is pretty cringe.

TLDR: Couldn't keep me interested. Will check back in the future to get the devs more of a fair chance.

characters: really good and with a nice variety.

scenes (erotic ones): freaking hot and nicely done .

story: tottally catchy and fun to read.

gameplay: meh, is good.

music and sounds: well done, it could be better.

draws: they are good, it could be better.

conclussion: in general this game is a really well done videogame, the story and characters work so well together, that you dont need to work too much to make things flow forward.
the only negative point i see, is that needs a lot of polish and upgrades, (wich is NOT a bad thing) especialy on the gameplay part, but that is.

this game TOTTALLY deserve your time and money.