VN - Ren'Py - Where the Heart Is [S1 v2024-09-06 BETA] [CheekyGimp]

I'm not entirely sure about this one. The characters are well done (Even if I - personally - would describe some of them as downright ugly, but that is a preference thing. And I quite like games that offer some variety!). The renders are really nice, but the animations... not so much, but still OK.

The main reason I gave only three stars is the storytelling. The story itself is simply intriguing. But the way the dev chooses to present it is... a little problematic.
This is one of those games that presents dozens of characters who are all potential partners and love-interests, but doesn't want to offer a harem route. The Dev made it very clear there won't be an option for that. BUT... it seems like you are supposed to play the game, as if there were one. Otherwise you will be confronted with quite a few inconsistencies. So you get a choice: You can play as an asshole or as an honest guy. But only one of those two options will actually make sense. So why is the choice even there in the first place?

Before playing, I saw that this game doesn't have a harem-Tag. So I chose one girl and stuck to it. And that made the game quite boring...
There are quite a few characters to get to know in this game. And the days are filled with events that will only happen, if your relationship with a character progressed enough. But as I wrote before... I didn't try to get with EVERY character there is...
Now, it is possible that I misunderstood something. But I'm pretty sure my MC just spend an entire day taking showers in his beach-house. No other events besides that, because I didn't want to get romatically involved with the other characters. Many, many "You wake up alone. The girls are already gone. You spend the day alone in your room"-Screens.
Especially the transition from Episode 16 to 17 makes no god damn sense, if you didn't choose to go with Jolina at the end. Because the first scene in EP17 is a Discussion about what happened in Jolinas Bedroom... even though for me, it didn't happen!

So I started over, installed the walkthrough-mod and said "fuck it". Just gonna do whatever to improve my relationship with every character. And there is so much more content. So much more dialogues, interactions, events... looks like the game is geared towards this. There will not be a harem route. So if you want the story to make sense, if you want to gather as much information from the characters as possible, you better be prepared to break a few hearts and ruin MCs friendships.

Probably one of the best VNs ever. Every character is awesome has a great dinstinct personaltity.

Sex scenes are just fantastic.

Monica is the best girl, with Jenna closely behind... maybe they'll have a scene together one day.

This game is fun there are lot of beautiful girl and choices are frequent. Renders are not top but nice quality. Lewd scenes are average but enough for me. Overall this is not a special game but quality work.

This VN broke my cherry, and it was an excellent first choice. The biggest draw was that the characters simply seemed "real" and each and every one felt genuinely familiar to me.

After playing several other VN's, this one remains one of my favorites and I finally feel as if I can clearly point out the differences in what makes a novel good and bad.

Let's start with the MC. Honestly, I'd fuck him. What we see looks good, but that's the easy part. The difficult part is giving him a personality that is genuinely pretty damned cool, and dialogue options that make him out to be intelligent, witty, and a very natural charmer. It's pretty easy to believe that he can charm the pants off anyone. The standout moments are with my personal best girl Katie. While rendered interactions are limited to a degree (because it's a big deal), the dialogue with Katie pairs with the simple renders that only change her subdued facial expressions and deliver an INTENSITY to the verbal interactions that make the MC (and of course, Katie) pretty amazing. Their first date is an intense staring match paired with verbal sparring reminiscent of virtuosos improvising a jam session... plus, we love Francois.

The ladies meanwhile are on the surface the generic stereotypical bunch, but the author seems far more familiar with the reality of the stereotypes rather than the television and film versions of such... There are some standout points here I'd like to bring up.

"The Hacker Girl" is primarily represented by Jenna, but we'll also be mentioning Joline. Jenna is not a Felicit Smoak styled ditzy hottie or some raver / goth chick like most media portrays. Instead, she is simply a recluse with confidence issues and an internet connection. She knows what normal personal interaction is like, she just doesn't have the confidence in herself to engage as such. This makes her a perfect voyeur, but it's balanced with those dreams of actually being able to engage with real people face to face. So, she's not some Polyanna with no understanding of sexuality, but a smart girl with entirely too much understanding ("The internet is 99% porn"). On the other hand, Joline is also self described as a "techie", but she is pretty normal by most standards and driven more by being an entrepeneur (non tech related)... that's right, nerds can actually be normal and think of things other than anime, computers and comic books.

"The Lesbian" is good old Debbie. Rather than some long, involved seduction meant to "convince" the lesbian she likes cock... well, the author seems to have met real live lesbians before. Debbie will fuck the MC at the drop of a hat because (surprise!) sex feels good. This may sound unrealistic, but there are lots of people who are more than willing to have sex with their non-primary desired gender so long as their partner is willing to keep relations totally casual - it's not the sex itself that is objectionable, but having an actual relationship.

"The Ditzy Girl" is Lily (swoon)... For once, she's not a complete idiot. She's no genius, but she knows her own limitations and chooses to encourage the image purely for the sake of allowing people to underestimate her.

"The MILF"... we've got two of them, but let's focus upon Monica. I shot her down in my first playthrough because on a personal level I don't like the drinkers. The very first scene, she's wined up an ready to go in the early morning. Luckily I played through again. If any main supporting character fit a stereotype, it would be her with her memory (and inhibition) loss due to drinking, and her constant reminders of how wrong a sexual relationship would be when she is sober. What made me love her truly is when she finally does open up to the MC and she escapes that two dimensional portrayal with the admission that the drinking is an excuse. She was always aware of exactly what she was doing, and that made her uncomfortable because she was afraid that the MC advances were just a cheap sexual thrill. Yes, she wanted that, but in reality she wanted more. So long as she could blame the drinking though, she could at least get the thrill without the guilt, and she could maintain the genuine friendship even if she desired true love which she did not think the MC would reciprocate.

Another detail that I enjoyed was that in my playthrough(s), the MC never really lies. A few small lies here and there, and he will lie when he is obligated to another character to do so, but nothing blatant. Maybe there are a set of events I have not found yet where he will lie, but my style of playthrough has not hit that yet. This is a very big point to me, and it is pretty funny that the MC can bang every single female and still keep away from lies. It could even be argued that at many points the MC has attempted to be completely open. I can very literally picture a situation where every supporting character he has fucked finds out all at once, and every last one of them is sitting together, drinking wine, and bringing up that he never really lies about what he has done and has made an honest effort to tell everyone what has been going on. I don't think this will last, but it's a fun fantasy to have over a bunch of fictional characters I have grown to love.

All this writing, and I still haven't even touched upon actual story! Well, that's a slow burn, but intriguing. There is tons of slice-of-life story that is satisfactory just by itself, but there is also an arc about his father's machinations that the author may still be writing when the chapters go to triple digits. While I would REALLY love to find out how the main arc resolves, I'm honestly just happy living in this world.

Overall, this is not the best VN I have ever played... There are others with more features, more original models, more active storytelling... but this is the one I always come back to with the huge amount of content and some of the best characters.

This has to be the game with the most amount of contents and branching paths out there. Truly impressive!

The start of the story is very bland and some characters aren't attractive at all but, DON'T BE FOOLED!! there is good effort putted in every aspect of the game and, it's keeps going on.

You will probably found everything you want along the ride.

Review for chapter 17:

Honestly the game is good. Not superb.

Pros:

1. Decent Writing.
2. Engaging story & choices.
3. Good animations.
4. Some cute models though they r introduced much later in the game. So it's worth ur time.

Cons:

1. The main reason I gave 3 star is because the first 3 female characters we are introduced in it are ugly tbh (To me atleast). Their story follow through is good & these characters also seem to be somewhat of fleshed out which I really liked. It kinda helped me not to drop it at earliest.

2. Writing is good but sometimes way too cringy for my liking.

3. Overall there r only one or two girls which I really liked. All the others are just simple PIA.

P.S. Cheekygimp you did a great job. I didn't mean to discourage u or anything I just said my part. Everyone has their preferences so this is mine. What I personally like in the game is some goody hot girl with thicc thighs. ✌

*Sorry for my english. Not a native one.*

This game is very well done, Story was captiviating, funny and intresting.
The chars were well done. Visiuals were nice, animations were good.

I cant imagine why this game isnt on steam. I think it def deserves to be on the library, I would def add it to mine.

This game kept me captivated and engaged during the this crazy month for a few days, so thanks to the dev for an enjoyable experiance.!

Nice renders and variety in body shapes, boobs, and some attractive faces. I do like some of the dialogue between MC and Katie, Debbie, and Lilly. The story really has me trying to work out the mystery of the email, and the issue with the will. I did have some issues with the way the game tries to push Monica and Zarah onto the MC. Too much in my opinion, and with Monica, a bit OTT considering she was meant to be like a mother to you. There were one or two issues I had with some of the choices and outcomes, but with these kinds of games, sometimes a yes or no answer permanently ends any chance of dating them at any point. Kudos to the developer for an interesting story and characters making me look out for the next chapter(s). One last thing, I just realised that there isn't an Asian girl/woman in the game, or am I wrong?

Jolina>Bella>ALL

I wanna more Jolina stories. She is better than all the girls. I had a lot of tides between Bella and Jolina, but Jolina is much more beautiful than all the girls.
And Bella, she is passionate to being with us, so i think she deserved more story.

I am enjoying the game a lot, but I wanted to give it a less-than-stellar review for one reason in particular:

The length of the game, while taking into account the possibility of bad ends.

In my current game, I'm pursuing everyone (except for Monica and Zarah, because I'm not fond of Monica, and I don't like Zarah. And while I appreciate the inclusion of older ladies for people into that, I find both, but Zarah in particular, to be shockingly ugly).
Now, I have a very strong suspicion that the end will not resolve with a big happy harem. Which means doing what I'm doing will, at best, have a happy end with some and others hurt. And at worst will lead to a straight up bad-end.

And I'm OK with that. A cast this size, a harem ending is unmanageable while trying to maintain a semblance of believably. The problem is the game's scope and length.
The idea of starting the whole thing over and trying to play down a character, or a specific cluster of character's, paths, to get the best ending for them already sounds like a workout.
Doing it again, and again, and again, to see how all routes might play out, and the simple idea almost has you ready to throw in the towel.

But... I said "almost." I haven't, yet, and don't intend to. I'd like to see this through on my current playthrough, and when done, I might even give it one more shot, playing seriously, to get a true ending.

Amazing game with very interesting and original story. It is also well written. The models are quite good (in my opinion). However the render do seem a bit old. This is simply a visual novel, so don´t expect any gameplay elements.

Okay I am probably a weirdo but I love playing this game first without the incest patch and play for my girl Katie then when the incest patch comes out I then play for my girl again Katie lol

I do play all paths eventually and enjoy reading every line of this great visual novel, I love the mystery behind the dads lover, the mystery email, the story of each 'friend/family' member and can't wait to find out who these other women are.

The only slight snag is when it comes to Debbie and the choice system and it's going to sound picky but after telling the game you are not interested in her she still kisses the mc and feels the mc up at the volleyball beach scene I just wish that these scenes would have been removed after making the important choice of not being interested especially when saying something along the lines of "i'm not into sl*ts" for her then to still constantly trying to seduce the mc. But that's just me being nitpicky.

But all said and done it's a fantastic game with great renders and a thrilling storyline that makes me want to keep reading and wanting more each and everytime. Try it you won't be dissapointed.

You can say 'no' to a character but they basically force themselves on you anyway. The renders are nice for the most part, but there's not much to 'fight' for in this one. Would be nice if the characters could reject you for being a huge asshole, but you get railroaded into basically one path regardless.

0815 story where the females fish for compliments over and over and you feel like beeing forced into interactins you don´t want. stoped reading at beginning of ep2 where I have to squeese my way behind a big milf butt. thanks but no thanks, not my taste. renders look great, the girls not realy, but that lies in the eye of the beholder ofc.

This is one of the best games that I've played in quite awhile. I like how it doesn't get in to the h-scenes or lewd scenes right away. The only thing that would make it better is a way to check your stats with the different women instead of having to wait until the end of each episode to see how good or bad you are doing. I'm sure some people like the surprise or not to see how the game is going with the stats. Great game overall and I can't wait to see how the storyline continues.

Well, this is the third review I,m giving on this site and this game deserves it. I always download the game after reading reviews and this game deserves 5 stars.

Story- This game has a really promising story so far and the character development is done very well nothing seems rushed. The story unfolds bit by bit.

As a VN game, playability is very easy. And decent renders are there.

The only downside of this game is its models. Some of the girls look ugly and i try to skip the scenes with them.

I really liked this game, until I have fallen asleep, the start of Ch. 16 just bored me to sleep, gone are the days when it was funny and witty, Katie went from interesting to almost annoying, also using 2 renders for what looks like 2 pages of text made the whole dialog even more boring, I found myself skipping text because the conversation was cringy and not going anywhere, there was nothing new and nothing of value.

I really did enjoy it up to ch.16, after the Katie dialogue I decided this needs to be put back on the shelf and maybe at some point get back to it, there should be a TL;DR it was that long and boring.

As for the previous chapters, dialogues were ok, interesting, renders improved quite a lot, story was nice, ch.15 was already pushing it with a lot of mining-less dialogues, unfortunately for me the magic was gone with ch. 16

This game is excellent. The amount of girls you can fuck is the best part of this game in my opinion. I have been playing it at every chance I get. I can nor bring myself to stop. Lol. I've currently finished fourteen chapters, and must say I can not wait for the rest, as well as future updates!

Overall quite a game so far [reviewing up to ep.16]. There may be some mild spoilers below, but nothing that will ruin the story.

Story: I'm not a fan of incest (if you are, there's a patch for that) and I think the "friends of your family that you lived with long ago" story in this game works pretty well. It feels like it adds some believable tension between the main characters that the game needs without making everything super creepy.

The story is in-depth and has many branches, which I really like. This is one of the longer visual novels I've yet played and it's not even done yet. Kudos to the author for that.

The father's will and his manipulation adds some additional tension, which is also nice, but I don't think that the conditions placed on the MC make for a real dilemma unless the MC is a real jerk (which he mostly isn't). However, I suspect I know already where the story with the will is going to go and it's not in the direction most of the commenters seem to think (but I don't know this for certain).

There are tons of women to romance and up to episode 16 there is nothing stopping you having relationships with basically all of them, but when you have a game with that many characters it gets really, really difficult to square the circle at the end so you can believably maintain relationships with everyone without alienating everyone. It's a porn game, so that might happen, though I think realistically you couldn't keep that many plates spinning.

There are moments in the game when you can decide not to proceed with certain characters, but it's generally only at the point when MC and that character have developed strong feelings for one another (apart from you never flirting with them at all). I feel like there should be a moment before you love someone (if things started developing in tandem) that you admit you're starting to have feelings for someone else but you also like them, etc.

To me, a key aspect of any story is how the characters react. They need to be true to who they are supposed to be. For example, if Katie, a definite favorite in this story, suddenly went from witty banter and bitchiness to doe-eyed fawning from one day to the next that wouldn't be believable. Thankfully, this story does a pretty good job with character development over time. Of course the timeframe everything happens in is greatly compressed (there's no way even an amazingly handsome guy could seduce and then get seriously involved with something like 10 women in the space of what feels like 2 weeks). That being said, I give games a pass on this, as it is a porn game and no one wants to role-play for months of game time day-by-day in order to see results. I do think, however, that there should be some "days or months" pass interludes so the end results feel believable.

Graphics and Animation: Most of the models are well done, but I think the models for the older characters (particularly Monica and her business partner and friend Zorrah) need some work. Most 3D rendering programs do a fine job with young people models but struggle to give middle-aged or older models the right look. For example, Monica's body is OK but her face (and more specifically her mouth) doesn't fit the body and Zorrah's ass (especially in the early scenes) looks like the surface of a basketball and not natural pores. You seem to be able to avoid romancing them completely if you find the models distracting.

The MC's penis is comically large. The way it is rendered it looks like it is a foot an a half long and quite girthy. I'm fine with MCs having big cocks, but I think this is overdone. Also every woman you meet seems to be able to take your entire monster completely without any discomfort. Sigh.

A word on kissing: This game strives for a mostly first person POV and in such cases the author seems not to want to block "the action" with the MC model, so things like kisses look weird. Like the person is kissing a sheet of glass. I've always felt that switching to a third-party view for things like kisses works best. YMMV.

Sound: There aren't many sounds, but they seem to fit when they happen (like thunder and rain). There's no music. While those things certainly help with the atmosphere if the story is strong enough it isn't a big deal. I'd much rather have a meaningful story than lots of sound and music any day.

Conclusion: This is a good game so far. It will be interesting to see how things unfold as the story continues. I suspect I will need to replay the entire game once it is complete to focus on fewer of the love interests in order to get the best ending possible, but we'll see how it goes.

Standing ovation. No. Seriously. Fantastic. I just finished the 16th episode and to say I am hooked is an understatement.

Something tells me some of my choices are going to come back to haunt me as this game progresses and that I will have to go back through being less of a douchebag. Not a problem. This game has plenty of things I won't mind revisiting.

Now, before I get too far into this; I will point one thing out. I decided to not move forward with the Monica romance bit. Sorry. Out of all the characters, I just wasn't that interested in seeing how things played out. I am sure that means I missed out on a fair amount of the game content, but she just wasn't my thing for the most part. A couple times had me considering it, but I opted out.

On to my thoughts then...

Pros:

The story is solid. From start to finish (end of the 16th chapter), I am finding the story arc to be quite nice and satisfying.

The characters are great. Some of them are so good, I want to give them their own Pro slot. Katie, for instance was a quick favorite of mine with her gutter humor and banter. Aside from Katie, I consider several other characters to be incredible. Some are so good, I feel a bit guilty for having my character mess around behind their backs. The characters also look realistic enough to pull the game off nicely.

The back story. I know. I know. This might fall into the story for some, but it is rich enough for me to give it its own section. Solid. Totally solid. I am loving the continuing revelations from the past. Aside from the main character's back story, you also get some interesting background on a number of the characters in the game.

The sex. Good stuff. It's important to this forum and these games. Where the Heart Is does not let you down in this area. You might have to work on it at first, but you end up with tons of it moving forward. The main character is well-equipped, but not enough to make it look unbelievable.

The graphics in general look excellent.

Cons:

At times, I find the game a bit draggy. Don't get me wrong, the story is good. I probably have some attention issues in reality. This leaves me wanting to move some areas along without reading everything that people have to say. I'm not sure it is a big con though. It's more my personal opinions.

Maybe I should have just said con, because I'm really not thinking of anything else that is pushing me away from this game.

Final Thoughts:

More! Give me more! This game is fantastic. I cannot wait for the next episode to come out.

If you like visual novels with plenty of choices and tons of hot and realistic ladies to get dirty with, do not skip this game!