Review updated for Ep. 23:
When I found this game, I'd been playing adult VNs and similar adult games for about 18 months after being stuck at home and bored during the pandemic. I've now played over
250 350 games that were nearly all 3D-rendered Ren'Py games. I started playing Where the Heart Is after Episode 18 was released and I've now played through Episode 23. The game is outstanding and I rank it at #2 among all the adult games I've played.
The plot/story is good. Some parts are contrived, but it keeps the player engaged and entertained. You can read the discussion thread to see that there is/was a lot of excitement and anticipation on the story continuation when the Episodes got into the late teens.
The writing is superb. In visual novels, there are limits/tradeoffs the writer must make in prose, but the developer nailed it in this game. It's refreshing to just find an adult visual novel written in good native English, but this game has actual style. [Side note: I've noticed a few reviews that complain about the writing in this game when the reviews themselves are written in broken English. Go figure.]
I love the crude but playful humor. The banter between the MC and Katie had me laughing out loud. I appreciated it, but I'm guessing some players were not enthused and that's why the "tone it down" option was added and I can understand it being a welcome choice by some players.
The graphics/art/rendering/animations are good. I wouldn't say they're outstanding, at least not consistently. Players can see that the graphics are more crude in earlier episodes with lighting and shading issues, but they get
significantly more refined in later episodes. The developer says the earlier scenes will be remastered after the game is completed, which I like since so many developers just stop game progress for several months to go back and work on old content. [Edit, as of March 2023, the developer decided to pause the game to go back and remaster Episodes 1 -10. It's disappointing, but probably makes the most financial sense.]
The character models are attractive. The faces are pretty but not perfect or fake-looking. The character's body shapes vary a lot but they're all beautiful and even seem a little too good compared to the faces. I suppose that's not a bad thing for a porn game, and at least they don't all look like balloon-titted Barbie dolls. The exceptions are Zarah, who I found unattractive before about Ep 18 and Monica's hair which looks like it belongs on a 70-year-old, not a 40-year-old (sorry Monica fans).
There is plenty of hot sex and plenty of potential partners to choose from. The tension build-up varies with the different girls. There's something for most tastes although the types of sex are pretty mainstream. The male-domination, humiliation, and spanking scenes are very tame and I think that's a good thing. The group sex is either MFF or MFFF. There's a good variety of different types of sex, but the game doesn't cater to niche or more controversial kinks, and that gives it broader appeal.
The interactive choices in the game are mostly limited to wooing/seducing specific girls, which basically leads to the various sex scenes with those girls. I think fits well into a porn game, but players looking for more of a "gaming" experience aren't going to be happy since this makes it more of a kinetic novel than a game. I read complaints that the choices seem like the developer is forcing the player down specific paths. I didn't encounter that on my playthrough, as my goal was to have the MC attempt to have sex with every hot girl in the game. However, it was easy to succeed at that goal, maybe too easy. I did go back and play the game differently and I understand the complaint. I suspect the developer has the story and the game paths completely mapped-out and is coaxing the player down the most "entertaining" path. I guess we'll see.
The "Start Any Episode" feature is awesome. I have seen this feature in only two other VN games that I can recall. The feature allows the player to try different paths from specific points in the game without having to manually create and keep track of dozens of save games. It also very clearly reveals which choices (or groups of choices) in the game actually matter.
The game
had a built-in gallery feature that allows players to replay scenes. The interface was a little clunky, but it worked. However, after Ep 18, the gallery was never updated and after Ep22, the gallery feature was completely removed. The "Start Any Episode" feature helps to make up for the lack of a gallery, but if players want to replay a scene that's' not at the beginning of an episode, then it's very tedious to skip forward to a specific scene because of all of the choices. [Edit: It will be interesting to see if Cheeky will add the gallery back in as part of the Episodes 1-10 remaster.]