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

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!

Pros :
-Very Good renders
-Good storytelling (well , as good a VN about trying to bang 8 or so females can get)
-Decent dialogue , it doesn't feel cheesy .
-Good pacing , you don't get fuck everyone in the first day .
-Good length
Cons : well , more like nitpicks really lol
-no music or sounds ,i have to use music from other games to play the game.
-the original background story is kinda bad , you need the incest patch but to each his own , i guess it's kinda subjective so give the original a shot if your not into incest .
- you can miss out on content if you don't pick the best choices , so you might need a mod if you don't feel like replaying a lot .

*Rating : 8.9/10*
a lot of effort and love went into this so i'll give it 5 stars and overlook my nitpicks .
Anyway if you haven't already just play the damn game it's for free .....

Played through to Ep 16, OSX:

At the start of the game, it looks as though i'm stuck with a sh-- sandwich full of very aging women with overly large chests and not much going for them in terms of character or phyiscal appeal. Unfortunately The younger sister of the attractive woman at the beginning of the game also falls into the category of "Do I really have be to in the same room as this one!?"
I almost felt as if the Dev was insisting I had to bang the ones who were incredibly uninteresting in order to get further along with some of the content where it was including more interesting options.

When Katie comes into the picture that's where a glimmer of hope for the persons journeying through the story, when her friends come into the picture it gets even better.
Some of the writing for Katie gives her character and some depth, her physical attributes are perfect. Her friends are just as good.

There is some minor intrigue in the story lines regarding Dad and the family dynamics there but it doesn't go into that much further that I'm aware of.

If you fast forward through the portions of being forced to interact with frumpy (borderline) unattractive older women it does get better, so there is the silver lining. The rendering of the women in here early on in the game leads one to believe this is not going to be a good experience, but that improves somewhat later on too.

I really enjoy this story, the main character being strong and competent rather than just a weaselly voyeur is a nice change from most of the games I've seen. I look forward to seeing more of the story (I played to chapetr 16).

This game is excellent, I really like how the game doesn't throw you into sex right off the bat, you actually have to develop a relationship with the characters and always pick the best choice, really realistic imo. There's so many branches in this game too, with different endings and outcomes depending on what you choose to say, honestly an amazing game and I can tell that alot of time has been put into it. 10/10

some hookups feel a little quick but apart from the number of interactions it takes in game the actual dialogue feels genuine to me. I mean if I wanted realistic I'd be playing that other game called 'real life'. This game (imho) is what an adult game should be: believable enough to draw you in, interesting & sexy enough to keep you there. Slow enough so it doesnt feel like a meet & fuck title but just fast enough to not get bored/give up on game.

At this point I just hope I don't end up like I usually do in these games: in the beginning I want to choose 1 or 2, but the more you get to know some of them the harder it gets to keep it simple & before I know it I'm headed down the 'I hope this has a true harem ending or I've probably just screwed myself....again' path lmao

I will start by the positives:

• regular updates, and the dev is clearly invested
• huge amount of content
• the writing for the sex scenes is okay and I find the situations exciting

Now to the bad things:

• the 3D models and the animations are very poorly done
• the 1st person POV kisses look ridiculous
• there are a lot of very cheesy lines that take you out of the story (especially with Katie)

This is one of my all-time favorite VNs. What will the MC do about the will? He'll tell the lawyer to shove his inheritance up his ass. His new-found family will be ecstatic until they discover that he's been "doing" all of them while professing his undying love and devotion to each one. They tie him up and toast his still-attached cock over the barbeque. Dickless, penniless he flees to his beach house . One-by-one the utilities are turned off and he's forced to use candles. One night the curtains catch fire and his once fabulous home burns to the ground. He frantically contacts his insurance agent only to find out that his policy lapsed long ago. The game ends with the warning:
"KARMA: Fuck your family and they'll cluster fuck you,
turn your penis into jerky, and take turns chewing on it"
Hello friends I hope you enjoyed the game. Please support my next project "Torturing Mommy" .

Game:

- Rendering is very good
- the Animations are great (it wasn't like that at the beginning)


Story:

- the Story will be told well and succinctly
- I find no long and annoying Dialogues great

Characters:

- Not all female characters are pretty, but most of them are and only that is important to me.


Conclusion:

This game has made a great Development for my compliment to the Dev.

5/5

This game earns 5 stars just from the excellent renders and stunning girls alone. Katie and her friends are beyond gorgeous.
The transformation of Jenna from nerdy girl to tanned beauty with a kinky side is even more amazing, and I can't wait to see where this game takes her. She already looks so good, and she's promised to buy more slutty clothes. Love her in those boots too!
Wanda, the bitchy model who gets off on being degraded by you, is also a quality character.
There are many more women the game - the only two I can't get into are Monica and Zarah - their faces are a real turn-off.
I'm left wondering how the relationships are going to work out. So far it's been possible to romance them all - are we going to be able to become one big happy poly family, or are we going to have to make difficult decisions at some point?

very well made one of the best games I have played. the game has updates come out consistently adding to an already well made story I like the idea behind it kind of like a series with monthly epsiodes

So the game is fantastic, I feel a bit guilty only giving it 4 stars, so let me get that bit out of the way first. Sadly, I feel that the unattractiveness of some of the characters detracts from the story and the enjoyment of trying to corrupt them and so on. The worst offender is the mother character, I'm a fairly impatient person so generally have my attention glued to the bottom fifth of the screen just reading through the text as quickly as I can, but then I'd occasionally glance up and find myself face to face with this horrific demon entity trying to melt the flesh from my bones with it's hideous gaze, haha. Obviously some of it's subjective, I hate the whole cow-tits thing (but seem to be in the minority there)... but yeah, I felt myself getting largely pulled towards the older sister, as I was wondering why, but then I realised it was just because her model was much better than the others ... though admittedly the younger sister somehow got better when she went full blackface but there's still something very lifeless about her.

However, despite that... the game is real solid... I really enjoyed the slow burn of it all, I was playing with the incest mod, which I think helps in that regards too. I think one sign that it's a really great game is that this is probably the first time I've actually felt guilty, normally in games I can sling my dick in everything, rape, lie, cheat and steal and not care... but when I told the younger sister I loved her and we were a full couple now I actually felt bad knowing I'd drop her the first time that being with her might interfere with the other sister. Speaking of which, another sign it's a great game is that while I'll keep pushing everyone's routes how I can until this house of cards falls down around me (I think we're up to 10 women now with an 11th contender entering the ring), I'd actually be up for a second playthrough just picking one girl and trying to be nice to the others but nothing unfaithful... but I'd probably wait for a full release before that.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to more of this, I'm curious who the 3rd beneficiary is (I'm suspicious about the step-mothers sister and coffee girl just in general) and I'm really hoping I get that 4 way with Kate and her friends ... I think my dream situation is to end up with Kate, with Deb and Lily a couple but the understanding that any of us can mess around with the others in the group... I was glad that I got a chance to encourage their lesbianism and that things seem to be heading that way at least a bit.

Потрясающий диалог. Лучшая игра с медленной коррупцией / сопротивлением, в которую я играл со времен Dreams of Desire (особенно если использовать патч / мод). 3д модели может быть немного хуже, но все остальное, наверное, лучше. Меньше сюжета (без забот), лучше диалог, лучше строить. Если вам понравилась эта игра и вы ищете что-то лучшее, то это она!

Finished game little while ago. Game has many good things but also things which i really dont like, so...

Pros:

I liked story, dialogues were quite enjoyable read even though some conversations were somewhat long, but that didnt bother me. Build ups with characters was also nice.

Decent renders, not the best but definitely nowhere near worst either!

Katie and Jenna were very likeable persons, Bella wasnt bad either.

Very good amount of content to play!

Cons:

Lets start with thing which annoyed me the most, POV kissing and sex scenes/angles. Especially POV kissing ruins the mood completely for me, its just looks so stupid. Some of POV sex scenes/angles was decent but i mostly didnt enjoy cuz cant see the faces of girls, would like more 3rd person angles, most of them was on POV.

More renders if long dialogues. That was the second thing which i didnt like. Sometimes there was long scenes with only few renders and so much of dialogue, it gets very boring to watch same render over and over again when they talk a lot.

Also i noticed that the same renders were used again and again later in the game which we already saw earlier (especially when he/she used same renders with different sex scenes was very bad imo, Katie's first time, for example)

Still, i give the game 3 stars, but oh boy this could been easily my top 3 game if only... Well, if u read "cons" then u know why it wasnt. But definitely enjoyable game storywise!

Well, I played only 'til episode 9 so far, so I'll give a more detailed review once I'm up to speed with the latest release, but what I can say so far is this:

The things I think are more important in this type of game are: Visuals and Story... 1a and 1b to me... And both of them are not great in this game (obviously I can't say that much about the story cause I played just a little over half of it so far)

Visuals: Average. Most characters have a really weird gray-ish skin tone, and their facial expressions are not that good either. And the locations, objects, etc don't look real or natural..

Story: Oh, look, another story where the MC goes back home to his mother and 2 sisters. Except there is no incest, so they're replaced by his mom's friend and her 2 daughters. And all of them are really impressed and attracted by your gigantic dick. How original.

Whoa boy, this is going to be a really difficult review to write.

The artwork is all over the place, character models range from well done to plastic barbie doll to downright ugly. Backgrounds amount to huge blobs of colour to dictate where everything is, to the point it's quite noticeable. Animations are all over the place, with some being flipbook, some being really janky and poorly done, and some being actually really high quality. There's no soundtrack either so that's another mark against the game. Overall, it just lacks a lot of polish. Once the game is finished, if the dev spent a few weeks, months, however long it took, to really nail down detail work and animation quality then this could be a much better game.

There's a few saving graces however.

The writing is witty and humorous, the characters are distinct and despite most of them being cliches of the adult VN genre they all feel just a little bit different to the norm. The story is an engaging mystery that plays out like some Machiavellian drama without taking itself totally seriously.

I do really enjoy the game in it's current state but the lack of quality in terms of presentation really drags this game down in comparison to some of it's peers. If it gets a coat of polish in the future, I won't hesitate to upgrade my score to a perfect.

Certainly one of the best games here. Choices affect the game but they are not too constrictive and the plot is interesting but easy to follow. The game is also regularly updated every 4-6 weeks. The pacing of the story is good and while I don't find every character interesting, they are different from each other.

Chapter16.
You know that slide when the story of the VN goes downhill when you start *ucking everyone? Not here! This is a rare gem where everything just keeps getting better and better! Some say the girls should look better.. Dont mind them! There´s a lot of fap material here! You really just end up liking the girls! Because they're awesome and well fleshed out characters that seem real and that includes the MC. Tee writing of this game is growing and it´s clear for us why the girls are interest is the MC and very clear why we like them. Just try it!

honestly i played a lot of games here, hands down this has to be one of my top games if not the top game so far.

when the BASEMENT exchange was happening i had to take a moment to reflect on how amazing the writing is. the plot, the jokes, the banter and the relationship with everyone it makes the game way more enjoyable to play and work on your relationship with every character because it is worth it.

the character development is amazing and you can easily lose yourself playing it wishing it can never end.

took me a long time to get to it but am very very glad i got to this game. everyone interested in an actual game and story in this site should try it because it is easily one of the most satisfying game stories you can experience...

the only downside is now it set the bar pretty high for any other games i play XD