VN - Ren'Py - Welcome to North Brooke [v0.4] [RiftStudios]

I do not normally leave reviews, but I felt compelled for this game. It's not the best game I've ever played, but it doesn't deserve just 2.5 stars either. There's something genuinely enjoyable about it and I hope the creator continues the development of it.

It's insane to me this game is rated so low. Literal garbage that has been milking patreon since the late 2010s has 5 stars but htis game is 2.5? Some of ya'll are clearly playing outside your genres and it shows. Is it a top tier game? Probably not but it's genuinely fun and the story makes literally as much sense as any of these. Seriously guys, they're porn games. I say that as someone who plays pretty explicitly for the stories too. Dev, on the off chance you read these reviews, please don't get disheartened. Some of us enjoy a fun simple game with hot girls. Not every game needs to be high fantasy or scifi.

Unfortunately I think this game falls into the trap of everyone wanting to have sex with mc as soon as they meet him.
If it wasn't in that trap, the storyline is okay, although it seems at the moment like there isn't much bigger picture going on.
Renders are resonably good as well.

Story dident really make much sense to me, one girl comes in the middle of the night and knocks on MCs door, shes hes naighbor and shes living with another girl, she explains absolutly nothing and ask to stay the night? why?
she lives right next door and party should be long over so? you can let her go back to her appartment which might be the better choices because letting her sleep over dosent make any sense, she dident even like MC and they barely spoke more then a few words. so your just left with a huge ?

To make it more weird Jade is thinking "i wonder if MC knows about me and Ashley" that part made absolutly no sense either, i mean i get she might have a crush on Ashley but shes thinking like they are a couple which makes no sense considering how hard Ashley is coming on to MC....theres just very little that makes any sense.

At hes new job he keeps slapping hes co-workers ass and you have 0 controle over anything....

As for the MC hes the standard idiot that cant stop looking at tits and asses none stop and it really is constant, proberly one of the worst ive seen to date and thats saying something....he truely has the mindset of a 12 year old which only gets annoying and every single girl he meets he wants to be with or fuck or whatever, its just cringy and annoying with that kind of thought process when you as the player has 0 interrest in a girl and MC goes "man i hope we will become more then friends" while hes zooming in on her ass....

And its one of those type of games where every single girl just trows them selfs at MC its just meh, people you havent even talked to invites you to a room to have sex i mean it really is that bad, he also has a donkey dick which looks idiotic.
Funny enough it has a relationship system where you can gain ponts but i have no clue why its there.

At one point MC sees hes boss spanking hes co-worker in the office and if you pick stay when boss say go away, its not to try to protect the co-worker nono MC ends up going inside and spank the co-worker as well, i mean what fuck and not once does MC wonder about what the fuck just happened or whats going on no no he fucking ask the co-worker out on a date????? its truely rare to see such a shitty story.....and when he finaly talks about it with the co-worker all he says is that he enjoyed spanking her?? really??
story is a shit show that makes no sense, its like its was written by a 10 year old.

Then we get to choices in the game which is just as weird as the rest, you can turn some people down and then game forces other LIs on you, personaly i hate forced LIs it just ruins the game and make it feel kinetic and i wouldent want anything to do with Ashley before knowing wtf went on in the office, but with a MC that just goes "i enjoyed spanking you to" its clear that you wont ever figure out anything.

Girls look ok, would have liked a bit more diversity since its mostly focused at big tits which im not really a fan of.

Animations is about averge, good enough to enjoy and proberly the best part of the game, but it wont help with story being shit.

Choices where weird, turn down some girls while others are forced.

Music is 0 since there arent any, sound effects are decent but its mostly just silent.

If this game can be turned around into something good i really dont know, i think it would take to many changes and a new brain for MC.

<--- Graphics --->

Nothing much to say here, the engine is well used, with very nice models and good lighting.
The animations are what they are in this engine. Decent enough, but nothing to call out.

<--- GUI --->

Quite good, with one sole exception, no "panic button". The Esc key keeps the image of the game on screen, needing an extra click for the Save menu that covers the image. While well done, this small issue can cause some problems for some users.

<--- Audio --->

The sound effects and background noise are good, keep that up, the music was non-interfering and added a calming effect. Good job.

<--- Gameplay --->

The quite unnecessary point & click parts where besides that well done. I failed to see the purpose, but there weren't any errors or problems with them. The presentations to the fellow students and the teachers and the house navigation, really weren't needed.

<--- Writing --->

There are several typos and weird grammar. Nothing really frequent, but, annoying nonetheless. Knowing that there are free apps that can aid in that in a very easy way, it feels like this is made on purpose. Please consider using one of them, it will improve your writing.

<--- Story --->

There really is nothing extraordinary in this title. But, also, there's nothing majorly wrong either.

The MC leaves a broken home and starts a new life somewhere. This version of a very old plot, has some Extra spice by the hands of one of the LI's.

The scenes succeed because they are told with simplicity and porn logic, providing the player with shutdown options.

There's some complexity and some nuanced relationships, that so far haven't gone anywhere, but the insinuation is there.

What there is of story is well done, nothing special, but not clumsy and overly forced (with the exception of Mia).

<--- Conclusion --->

Not a bad game. Not a great one.

Good enough to play for a few hours. Future development of the story and of the characters relationships, can improve it, or, kill it. There's ample space for improvement and even more for real development.

As it is right now, it is a on the verge of being good enough to yearn for it, but not really there yet. To be absolutely fair, if the next update takes too long, I'll probably will have forgotten that this even exists.

The story needs "something" to break it out of "Generic As Fuck " Category. There's nothing wrong with being generic, after all, it is in great company there. But, if the author aims to something else, it needs to find it and bring it.

<--- Rating --->

I rate this as a solid 3, maybe 3,5.

In its Current State i give the game an Overall: 1.9/10. I rate overalls based on 4 Weighted Categories: Story 40%, Sexual Content 25%, Renders 20%, and Character Models 15%.

Now im sure you saw that overall and thought wow either this guy is an a-hole or this game is bad. and ill say this I hate giving negative reviews, which is funny because normally the only things i can find are the negative's about something. but I tend to call things medicore if i think its bad, very rarely do i actually say something is bad. I am also aware this is a demo, however demo or not it was criminally bad. I couldnt tell you a good thing about this game.

The Story, if there was a story in this demo 1/10: the only thing i gathered was that the MC will be going to college. The characters aren't really introduced, we meet a few but only a few dialogue lines are exchanged nothing note worthy happened. The Dialogue is very plain and almost robotic. It was criminally short even for a demo, if your going to release a demo you need to have enough content to make people look forward to future releases, this game fails at that. Also you can very easily miss out on points super early which is annoying speaking you know nothing about the characters yet.

SC 0/10 : No content as of now, which is not unusual for demos. No im not going to count a dream scene where two characters barley undress.

Renders 5/10: Average HS renders, nothing special.

Character Models 3/10: Honestly they are sorta creepy. None of them are really my type. It doesnt seem like the quality is that great either. The sisters are really the only two that seem good looking, but the landlady creeps me out.

Like i said i hate writing bad reviews but this game should not have been released in its current state. If Demos are supposed to be the trailer to the game, this felt like an announcement trailer that only shows the title for a game. You only get one shot for a demo to capture your audience.