VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - We Were Just Kids [v0.3b] [MissFortune]

An ambiguous opinion remained after completing the game.
On the one hand, you can't say "Wow, I advise everyone", but on the other hand it's not "ugh, what shit, how can you play this". Many shortcomings are written off due to the fact that this is the developer's first game. And he himself promises that as soon as the game is finished, the shortcomings of the first versions will be fixed.

The graphics are unreal, the drawing of the characters is quite pleasing to the eye. I can't judge animation. After DICK, where do you take the animation and put it on your desktop as a live wallpaper. That's it, and thanks for that.

Thanks to the developer for still letting us rename the characters we play for. The narrative, unfortunately, is ragged, jumping from one hero to another. It was necessary if he decided to make several main characters, then first the story of one, then the other, and in the end they were already combined.

The variability here is completely the reality of 2022, namely the complete absence of any variability in the game. It all comes down to watching a scene, skipping a scene. As an example, the female protagonist, the photo session, skip the scene further, or show that she is a nymphomaniac, which take and tr *x *y.

It is unclear for what purposes the *nc *st patch is here. Yes, there are games where this very *nc *st patch is critically important, for example DMD. And there is where it does not affect the plot at all, as an example of Sunny love. What to play with it, what without, you won't notice much difference. Also, here I did not understand at all what the *nc * st patch does. He's more of a hindrance here. Like, for example, the mother of a female hero. Then she walks naked in front of her and her friend, and then it's not clear who she's dumping her cleavage on to the player or her daughter. Similarly, the male hero sister did not tell us any background why she wants a brother, you know. The developer left this behind the scenes.

In general, if you have something to play, it's better to play it. And if you've gone through everything and are looking for something to play, you can check out this game.It is too early to put an assessment, we must wait for what will happen next and then it will be possible to put an assessment.

Excellent, just all around excellent. Okay, it won't be for everyone. The renders are great and the girls are beautiful, but everything is dark (both in color and mood). The girls are very.... alt-girl. Think tats and such. The darkness is a thing running all through the game, so if you need bright happy AVNs, this maybe isnt for you. Its still pretty early in development, but there is plenty of content here to experience. The dev here is just a really talented guy, I hope yall support him. This game is super deserving of that. Its a bit of a niche offering, and wont appeal to everyone. I hope yall at least take a look though.

A little more specificity now:
Renders - As mentioned the dev does a terrific render. He really understands depth and lighting. There alot going on there, and he chooses unusual angles and set ups (in a good way) .
Writing/plot - Plot is convoluted, perhaps unnecessarily so. Its a little much to keep track of tbh, that said its very very well written. It makes sense, and is written in clear well done prose.
BGM/Music - no idea, kept the sound down most of the time. There was music that popped suddenly out of silent soundstage in a very loud sorta way, so I just turned it off. What I heard was fine though.

v0.3.1a

I went through 1 chapter and can't make myself to proceed.
There are too much characters, at least there are obviously more of them then writer can handle.
Dialogues and stuff are everywhere, for the most part everybody is talking the same.
The fact that most of the characters look like edgelord convention doesn't really help.
So i found nothing for myself. Characters look like meh all at once, stuff is happening but it's all pale or boring, you just go " yeah, that happened, next scene''.
Can't say it's bad though, but can't give it average either cause average games i can t least skip through scenes, this one on the other hand haven't shown that it is worth of pressing Lctrl for me.
GL to Dev, hope that my opinion will be unpopular and he\she will find audience.

first a confession: I was pretty harsh on this game at first, mainly because I wasn't a fan of the character design, the scene, the whole Emo-stuff.
but give it at least half an hour and it comes on really strong. a lot of heavy stuff starts to happen, a lot of hard decisions to make (how many VNs do you know, where you Ex(?) asks you, if she should get an abortion or not?)
btw, games like this should be played as you would decide in real life, meaning NOT taking every offer but consider what`s best for you(r MC).
there is A LOT going on here. maybe to much. a lot of scenes where ??? talks to ??? about ????. I hope, this can all be connected to an epic game later on. But, honestly, most of these kind of games never see the finishing line, because the author bit off more than he could chew. anyway, for now, I am giving this 5 stars for ambition.

I almost stopped playing after the first 15 minutes or so, it took a while before the game won me over mostly, and it was almost too late. as I was getting frustrated.

Too much forced edginess, too mopey, way too emo overall. All this angst and Weltschmerz isn't really something I can relate to at the same level anymore. Too old for that.
IDK, all these pseudo-poetic interludes, this is stuff that works as a poem (for angsty teenagers) or maybe lyrics to a song (b an Emo band obviously), what annoyed me somewhat was that it is pretty much unnecessary, the characters tell their stories themselves quite well, without all the monologuing and extra mopey interludes.

In addition, it is a bit much, there's everything from abuse, to rape, to sexual harassment, to incestuous rape, to pseudo-step-siblings sex, to excessive gang wars with dozens of victims in a single incident? To secretive crime organizations, who seem to be Nazis, but then the story seems to forget about? Then we have the Mafia, with someone who is either a psychotic murderer or an assassin who has a bit too much fun doing his job. Then of course someone has a relationship with a teacher, a school shooting and and and. It is as if the dev just put anything they could think of into this one story.
Honestly, if you removed half the characters and plot points, you would still have enough to tell at least two VNs

It's all a bit too much tragedy and over the top crime and all.

And then you have all these weird Dutch camera angles, seriously, why always cut away half of the character's heads? It's not like we never see them, but we also constantly get those renders that cut off at the nose.

Jason is cool though, he makes me laugh with his goofiness and is a welcome change to all the depression and edginess the others exude constantly.

If you look behind all that, there is actually some good writing and nice characterization behind it, once the characters forget to speak like characters in a Riverdale like teen show, the dialogue also isn't that bad and the renders look nice.
The girls are all beautiful, I guess, except when you don't like tattoos, then it might be a bit too much for you.

Obviously, Miss Fortune should tell the story they want, but my advice would be, cut away a bit of the melodrama, let the characters be teens a bit more and forget talking like they are characters in a greek tragedy, maybe really let go of a few plot lines as it is way too convoluted, and also get rid of the characters involved with them.
I know that isn't likely to happen, but at least let some parts of the story take a back burner and concentrate on a few points for now.

Just my two cents, obviously.

This isn't a bad game, but it is too convoluted and messy to get more than three stars from me. There is good stuff in there, but you have to walk through a lot of dredge to get to it.

This was a tough one to put a 3 star on, it could easily be a 4 because it's really a good story and the dialogue for the most part is pretty solid, but there is a certain flow to the chapters that was hard for my particular mindset to wrap around, there is a placeholder feel to some chapters. There is definitely a feeling of suspense that is captured and I do look forward to seeing where this story will go.

Version 0.3.1a

This is one of the absolute highest quality games in production. There are few games that can match Dev's render quality. Every render is lit, posed, and colored beautifully. Rainn is adorable. The art matches the moody tenor of the writing perfectly. And the writing is terrific. Characters convey real emotion and the dialogue is leagues above what we usually see in these games. Story is told from the perspective of two MC's which gives it added depth.

Great work, Dev!

This game offers nice graphics and renders. Unfortunately I dont see much more positives. Personally I dont like tattos all around so much so that is propably also negative for me. The story is something what I didnt enjoy that much so skip function was needed.

Story is all over the place. You get introduced (hardly) to dozens of characters. Kudo's to anyone who can follow along. More is not always better. You can't make a story about EVERYTHING. That's not a good story.

More specifically: no music, and then suddenly music in the "Sound" track, not good. Screen shakes without any reference, so what's happening?, should I be seeing or hearing something too?, not good. Sex is over like BLAM, I guess someone climaxed, I didn't see anything that looked like it though, not good. EVERYONE has tattoos and piercings and purple hair, that's unlikely, especially with this number of characters, not good. Renders are great, composition is a bit too artsy, good.

On the one hand I'm curious to see where this is going. On the other hand I'm very much dreading even more winding story and even more contextless characters.

[v0.3]

How to describe this... Hmm... It's a bit dark. Very angsty. A little bit philosophical. Kinda pretentious and nihilistic. But overall, it's a pretty solid story.

The game uses multiple protagonists. You mainly make choices for the male and female MC, but there was another minor playable character. This is certainly not a self insert or 1st person story. It's similar to watching a TV show.

The story itself seems to have 2 main elements. There is the sections involving the main characters as they go about their school/home life, preparing for their pursuit of music. On the other side, there is a crime drama involving some Proud Boys type of organization, among others. The two sides are loosely linked by character relations and will likely come to a head at some point.

The writing is pretty good. Dialogues are on the natural side. I think the narration breaks that pop up once in a while gets a bit long winded and repetitive. I mean... I get it, determinism sucks and life seems meaningless. It does achieve the goal of setting the tone of the overall story, but I don't know... maybe tone it down a little bit. One thing to watch out for is the story being a bit hard to follow. There are a lot of scene jumps to minor characters you are not familiar with and name drops that you might not remember.

The visual side is quite good. I'm not a fan of all this tatted up, pierced look everyone is sporting, but hey, I guess that is the appropriate look for this subculture. Camera work is pretty good and adds to the cinematic feel of the storytelling. Sex scenes are on the short side. It's pretty hot but ends before it really builds up.

Audio is generally pretty nice. I like the various tracks and sound effects. One thing that could have been great is if the sections where the female MC is singing had actual audio for it. Maybe commissioning someone from Fiverr? Just some wishful thinking lol. It would be copyright nightmare unless original songs are made.

This is a pretty interesting story, but it's certainly not for everyone. Very sensitive people should probably stay away.

The art, and character development are excellent. However, the multiple protags and the splicing in of characters in "sub-scenes" (for lack of a better phrase) leaves me feeling disjointed, and breaks the story. I suppose the dev is trying to integrate some mystery, but whatever it is this hopping around within the story is too jarring. Otherwise, this would be a 5 star for me. I care about the 2 main characters, but not as much as I would if there was a bit more focus on them and less on characters not in their immediate sphere. I say immediate, since I feel the jumps in the story away from the main protagonists are early introductions of people that will come into their sphere or have been there in the past; why else introduce them? The pacing and art, not just the character renders, are well done. Overall this VN just misses making me happy, which is irritating, but it is far above many other VN's/games on this site that have 4 star ratings, and I cannot in good conscience rate it any lower. Best of luck to the Dev, and if you are a fan of the darker side of life stories told in an art film sort of way, this should be your cup of espresso.

Review of v0.3

We Were Just Kids is a good VN with great potential.

it's an intriguing story that isn't afraid to touch heavy themes, but that are there as part of the story and characters.

The protagonists, Rainn and Logan, are very empathetic and charismatic which makes us want to know more about them. The renders are good, dialogue is well written and it establishes the characters' personalities well. And the models are beautiful and unique. If you like black, tatoos, piercings and the emo/goth style then this is a VN for you

Great story so far, the renders and sex scenes are interesting, and the girl models are amazing. I like the kinks and the subject matter of 2000s music is a great subject. Only negative I can say, is the POV swaps are making it hard to do any "self Insert" because there is no main lead to empathize with, I would suggest sticking with 2 POVS of just Rain and Logan, and ditching the rest as it bogs down the story telling.

Slight spoiler about content involving sexual abuse of a main character
Plot:5/5
Characters 3/5: too many POVS
Renders/animations: 5/5
Sex scenes 5/5: sparse so far, but its early days

Overall 4.5/5

Reviewing WWJK as 0.2

Man, i saw a v0.2 and somewhat of 800 mb of content and gave it a try (i usually don't).

That was so worth it. Great overall story, nice character development. AWESOME music, and TON of content.
Seriously, about 1000 renders, but i still got hours and hours of really captivating reading.

Now before i put a rating - here is a WARNING - game contains some quite disturbing images, so i warned you)

Story 4 out of 5. There were some difficulties about understanding what's going on. New characters out of blue, quite hard to follow whats going on with each chapter. But overall plot is nice and enjoyable.

Characters 5 out of 5. For the main ones - bright personalities, and very charismatic MCs.

Images - waries from 3 to 5 (first chapters are quite bad) but later ones are really topnotch. Rework of first couple of chapters graphicwise later on will definetely be good for VN

AS A 0.3b IMAGES ARE FIXED so it's 5/5 now!

H+ scenes 5 out of 5 very enjoyable ones. Nothing more to say without spoiling too much

Music 5 out of 5. I'm not really a metalhead. But this one has some BANGERS in it. It has ambient sounds and all feels natural.

Overall this game is simply AWESOME, it needs some love. You will love it. So if you're reading this - click download button and enjoy this road. If you like this game, please consider pledging on Patreon

From the get-go, the writing is top notch. One of the few games I've played that is able to mesh good writing as well as crude, creative humor and make it work pretty well. It's pretty clear the dev has a strong grasp on the overall language and tone to be conveyed in an industry that is predicated on competition

Renders are above average and nothing that disrupts our viewing pleasure. I'm typically not too big on piercings and/or tattoos but Rainn honestly could end up being one of my favorite protagonists I've seen. There's a wide range of characters so it's not always punk/emo

I do agree to a degree though with a review below me saying that the presentation of having two different protagonists is a bit disjointing. Even though it's briefly mentioned in the synopsis, it's quite easy to forget that that's a thing and the transitions in perspectives between the two without notice can cause slight motion sickness. It's not serious but it makes things harder to keep track of overall, esp with so many different characters introduced and the plot having a setting of suspense and tension.

Overall, it's still a very well made game with above average writing and rendering and humor that did make me lol. Really am looking forward to see how the game progresses. This looks to be a good one

A real gem. If you ever read Love & Rockets comics, you'll have the same feels I had. Young, beautiful characters, rock, gangs, sex. Art, story, GUI, dialogues, animation, sounds and music are great! My only suggestion is to have smaller but more frequent updates. Keep up the excellent work.

We Were Just Kids is really quite well written , with nice renders and some decent characters. I however feel like it's downfall (for me personally) is the multiple protagonists (which I already knew was going to be a problem of mine before starting, but gave it a try regardless since it looked really good)

Having multiple protags here just isn't really working, I feel. This is mostly because of how the story is written and presented. Not only do you have multiple MC's (Rainn and Logan), but you also have A LOT of other characters stories being shown as well as the two MC's stories. This makes the story feel extremely disjointed to me and while I was really enjoying what I read I ultimately had to put it down because I couldn't get invested in to any individual character, there was simply too much going on at once for me. I also found it really ''confusing'' how the Male MC (Logan) lives with ''Leigh'' who is supposed to be someone he grew up with, but they also incidentally have the same mother...hmmmm I wonder why that is hahaha.

I think when you want to have a character driven and focused game/story (one that fleshes out multiple characters, not just the MC) it works a lot better with just the one MC. Because the constant switching of MC's, as well as seeing other individual character's stories is all just a bit too much I feel.

This game could definitely be a favorite of mine if it had a bit more focus and maybe one MC (preferably male if it were up to me, even though I quite enjoyed Rainn's character) or spend more time fleshing out the MC's instead of focusing on too many other characters stories.

Still a very solid job dev, and I will keep an eye on this for sure, despite my problems with the game I really did enjoy it and see that it has a lot of potential. Just needs a bit more focus (something a lot of VN's do admittedly struggle with).

TL;DR: An interesting and well done story. Can recommend it.

Version 0.3b is more polished and smooth than 0.2 which I reviewed earlier. I like this new one better. The scene in the toilet stall is sexier. The scene in the park is not as impressive as before (which had sucking a strangers' dildo) but less disgusting either.

I'd love to see the game continued.

The original review [v0.2]:

An interesting, though very dramatic, maybe even cruel story about young musicians, vices, criminal stuff, school, (optional) BDSM etc.

The models are good, some women are pretty. Renders are OK (some are too dark but hopefully they'll be better in further releases).

I don't like that kind of music (punk or metal or whatever noisy shit that is), but I guess that's the flavor of this story.

Some of the erotic stuff is great, some is not much to my liking, but I guess BDSM elements help to keep that flavor and dramatic tension (mostly intriguing).

The writing is good, with a lot of details and multiple storylines.

So even if I prefer happier vibe, and some scenes smell of fan service, I think I can recommend this to those who love good stories and endearing characters.

When we were young


It's not often I'm impressed by adult VNs / games because - frankly - a lot of them are either mediocre or downright terrible.
Some of them are little more than digitalised wet dreams.
Thankfully, We Were Just Kids is different.
It has an actual plot (or rather several concurrent plots) which kept me hooked.
It's far from perfect, though.


Visuals

Renders and animations are decent. Not mind-blowing, but good enough.

During one sex scene there are some slightly visible lines on Veronica's naked body (and no, it's not a tattoo).
Unfortunately, the dev decided to address this issue in the middle of the scene, thereby breaking the 4th wall.
No offense, but either fix your shit - or don't mention it. Way to ruin a sex scene.

Another issue I've noticed is the S.W.A.T. vehicle in the last scene which looks strangely out of proportion (too small).


Sound

There's some subtle music and sound effects which I like a lot, but unfortunately they are far and between.
Several times during my playthrough I had to check if I didn't accidentally hit the mute button because the silence became quite apparent - especially whenever Rainn is singing while playing piano or guitar.


Characters

The characters are (mostly) interesting, but (imo) not overly attractive.
I'm not a fan of tattoos, piercings and big boobs - and there's a lot of those in We Were Just Kids.
Most of the girls are rather well endowed, not comically so, but borderline for my taste.

Rainn is probably my favourite character so far - I like her raw and angry energy.
For some reason she reminds me of Avril Lavigne.

Luke's mother Alessa looks way too young (like she's in her 20s).
I honestly don't understand why so many devs seem to be unable or -willing to create proper MILFs, women who actually look like they are in their late 30s or early 40s (they still look magnificent at that age).

I like that character names are only revealed once we learned about them.


Writing

The writing is overall pretty good, the English on a very high level.
There are a few typos and mistakes (hear / here, quit / quite), but nothing that can't be fixed with a bit of proofreading.

I also like the narrative style - there's a framework story and instead of a single protagonist (the protagonist) there are different protagonists in several concurrent plots, which gives off vibes of reading an actual novel or watching a movie.
I hope the dev won't listen to the people who want to turn this VN into yet another egocentric harem simulator because they can't immerse themselves otherwise.
There are already hundreds of adult VNs and games out there which let you name your MC after yourself and let you bang your girlfriend, sister, mom and half the town, so please, leave this VN, that does things different for once, alone.

However, there are also some issues:

The dialogue seems a bit too artificial, stilted and verbose.
I was constantly wondering: Do people actually talk like this? And why does everyone seem to talk in the same precocious way?
This gives the impression the writer uses the characters as talking heads to tell the story.

Then there's this somewhat weird mix of deep thoughts (frame narrative by the writer) and some rather cheapish writing (especially when it comes to explicit scenes).
One moment you ponder over an almost philosophical statement by the writer regarding life - the next moment there's an awkward and rather out of place (sex) scene.
I found the whole scene in the park rather odd.
What girl would masturbate on a park table at night and then leave her dildo behind?
Why would Rainn willingly strip down and get herself fingered by someone she only just met and was (almost) flogging with some minutes ago?
Same with the BJ scene at school.
What teacher would give their student a BJ in broad daylight in a classroom with A FUCKING SEE-THROUGH DOOR?
Sorry, that's just ridiculous.
To be honest: Some of these scenes seem like the dev wanted to implement them as a crowd-pleaser, to meet some unwritten quota of sex scenes in adult games.
Overall, the explicit scenes are probably my least favourite part of We Were Just Kids.
Not only are they fairly implausible (everyone seems a bit too DTF) - they are also not overly erotic.
Finger, finger, cum. Blow, blow, cum. Thrust, thrust, cum.
It's kind of appalling that the writer, who otherwise seems so well-spoken, falters to make these scenes more arousing.
A little bit more reluctance, empathy and eroticism goes a long way...

I also recall this odd scene with Rainn singing in the barber shop.
She was doing so well that even a passerby on the street stopped and listened, but when she finally put down the guitar:
Not. A. Single. Fucking. Reaction. Weird.


Choices

There aren't many choices right now which I personally don't mind if a story is engaging enough.
The few existing choices are mostly regarding explicit content (for example if Luke should "cheat" on his girlfriend or not).

There's one single choice during Luke's date with Veronica where she offers him a bet and you can only select "Do it".
I don't know what's the purpose of this or if it's simply an oversight by the dev. Right now it's redundant.

If you later choose to have sex with Veronica, Luke states he's about to cum, then the screen shakes 3 times (I assume he has an orgasm) and THEN a choice comes up to cum inside her or pull out. Huh?

There's also a choice to get more rough with Jada during the BJ scene.
Maybe there's something wrong with my eyes, but I couldn't really spot a different outcome regardless of what I chose.


User Interface

I like the UI and menus, they are unobtrusive yet stylish. Same with the neat little intro sequence.
Some UI elements in the main menu (start, load, options, help, quit) are too prominent, though, and should be reduced in size.

The placement of choices on the left side of the screen seems a bit odd.
It would be better if they were placed in the lower center of the screen, above the text box.

The text box doesn't interfere with the renders too much and also offers good readability.
When characters are whispering or talking further away, the font size is smaller (which is a nice touch), but it's actually so small that I had a hard time reading it.


Conclusion

Despite all criticism I really like this visual novel and can't wait to see how the story will unfold.

It's unfortunate that such an interesting VN doesn't gain more traction.
I truly hope the dev doesn't get discouraged by this, but continues working on We Were Just Kids.

I also hope they will stick to their guns and cater to the people who can actually appreciate what they are trying to achieve.

I'm looking forward to future updates.

"In a world with seven billion people, they are shockingly hard to find, but some people just have the power to create change."

While only at 0.1, this game has already gained my loyal following, which is rare for me in general. Distinct characters and styles, and potential to be amazing journey. I'm yet to form an emotional attachment to any of the characters, but I'm guessing as this builds up, so will the attachment.