VN - Ren'Py - Where the Heart Is [S1 v6.1.2024 BETA] [CheekyGimp]

This review is based with my personal experience with the actual Version of the game at Episode 11 , with my specific opinions and feelings .

Where the Heart Is begins in a sad way , telling about the death of the protagonist's mother , many years ago , with the MC that have to leave his childhood house and the best mother friend with her two daughter , to go live with the father in another place . So for many years there was anymore contact with past family , till the death of the father many years after. So at begin the game begins in a really sad way and this make thinking at player how it's possible to be so unlucky .
But all change when he comes back to his old house to meet her old family ; this will open a new world a plenty of new characters , situations. The pace change completely and the Developer decide to write with a comedian style , to give to all future development an unexpected rhythm , with some dialogues really hilarious and funny . This is the best part of the game , the kind of writing , so different to other , the Author explicitly wants to give more importance in which way will be developed the story , with a specific customization of all character , to make all of them more Real; this thins is a peculiar thing not easy to find in other adult games

Pros
-Plot e Writing : Like I've already wrote in my preface , it's the best part of the game ; comedian style with some hilarious and funny parts that give to game a touch of reality ,; for the player it's like to be in the real world not in a Adult game fiction
-Characters : All characters have their own personality , each one completely different from the other ; but most important thing , all relationships grew in the right way , not in a hurry , like in normal life , day by day . All character are like all normal , common people , to obtain the effect like to meet a neighbor In the normal life.
-Choices : Choices are crucial and have a big impact in the future relationships , whatever personal or sexual ; every choice will bring the player to different paths ; romantic , corrupted ,lust , flirting choices , every player can choose what is better for his personal taste .
-Renders : Great quality of the pictures , graphic are absolutely of high quality, amazing
-Girls renders : The author imaged all girls to be real , true and this effect is completely successful ; every girl have a real , perfect style , different from some other games , where there are a plenty of similar all equal models.

Neutral :
-Animations : Single frames animation , in my opinion a little shorter to be compares to other top games . But this is another specific author's choice to be with animation at same rhythm with the development and the writing. So also this choice is perfect for the pace of the game

Cons:
-Music and sound : Actually there are no music and sounds. ; this think in a game with a comedy style and in some particular events ( like for example the party or in the swimming pool ) , the lack of the music is really important : with the rights musical accompaniment I'm sure this game , would have another big improvement

Overall this is a game , absolutely worth to play , with my personal rating that would be between 4 and 5 stars , but I decided to give the maximum 5 stars , for his uniqueness , for the high quality of the art design , so realistic and particular and for the storytelling , interesting , hilarious , with so many jokes inside in all dialogues between characters . This is not a completed game so I'm sure that in next releases the author will be able to improve the small faults that actually games have , to make his work at the top of the market of adult games.

Nice game, I enjoy everytime I play it. The plot is fun and let you prove different decision, also the alternatives give a lots of probabilities for different paths. The CG is amaizing I love the big girls and the different body structure ( ass and tits measures), and the option to get secondary characters and they own paths is funny too.

Liking this game a lot. All the characters have different personalities, and it's fun to explore and interact with them.

The plot definitely picks up in the later episodes, and I'm excited to play future levels.

Very well done.

I this is a game to watch, I was pleasantly surprised when I played it, when I read the description I was a little worried it was one of those games that was meant to have incest in it but took it out, you know why, as I played it became clear that was not the case, it has some pretty cool characters, overall they're pretty hot, the story leaves something to be desired, but the same can be said for most games of it's type, despite my minor gripes this is overall a pretty solid game. I would definitely recommend it!

The game started well but became boring with the continuation of the story...Jokes between mc and Katie are repetitive, the same thing with other girls. Is good to have the possibility to refuse a girl because not all are good looking

Intriguing, it has some themes that give off a taboo, almost incest vibe, but doesn't go all the way, it has something for everyone. The characters are gorgeous. The story leaves something to be desired though. All in all this a pretty solid game. I'm curious to see where the dev takes this game next. I will be watching very closely, I could see this turning into one of the greats.

This game is definitely worth it's rating. This is a story that will leave you wanting more. The characters feel real and they are very distinct. They are also consistent through out the episodes. The models look good, decent amount of "action" while still building up the tension with the main three girls.

Could use some sounds, voices would be interesting. would be nice to have more animation. Not that any of those are going to stop me from playing every episode that gets released.

If you haven't tried this game, do it.

This is absolutely one of the best visual novel I've come across. The developer is taking his time with the plot making the user think about his choices and the renders are beautiful. I highly recommend you give this game a try because you will not be disappointed.

One of the Best game till now.
Story keeps getting interesting and graphics are good too.
Female Characters of story are also hot, sexy and cute.
Everyone should try this game cuz if they don't they don't know what they are missing.

excellent game, very pleasant to play.
The story is ok but love it at the same time, but the characters and the interactions are well developed. It's not just fucking, there is also an emotional aspect.
The art is very well done.

Really good written dialogues. I had to laugh out loud more than one time when MC and Katie interact. The models are sharp and you're going to find everything what you need for a good VN. Thanks a lot for sharing and developing!

Excellent game, very pleasant to play.
The story is not exceptional, but the characters and the interactions are well developed. It's not just fucking, there is also an emotional aspect.
The art is very well done.
Looking forward to see how it progess, maybe with the introduction of new characters ?

REVIEW OF THE GAME UPTO [Ep.10]

Pros

• Great quality of pictures - The earlier versions of this game did have some flaws but now most of the renders look great.
• Very good story - This game has a good plot and lots of humorous jokes which makes skipping unseen texts unnecessary.
• No grind - This game has no grind as it is not a open world type of game.
• Crucial choices - This game has a points based system which allows for certain actions to be taken during conversations. But, other than that, this game also has some crucial choices which are not influenced by its points based system.

Cons

• Lack of sex scenes. The last few updates contributed to most of the sex scenes that are in the game, which is sort of a good thing, but this game still lacks in amount of sex scenes for having 10 releases and being developed for over a year. I started playing this game from it's early releases so it infuriates me that there isn't any sex scene with one of the 3 leading characters even after this long.

CONCLUSION

This game is definitely worth a try! Its a lot of fun; with the quality of the last two updates, it is only getting better. If I could, I would rate this game a 4.6 but that isn't possible, so I am giving it the closest rating of 5 rather than 4.

Wow... this has gotta be one of my favorite games easily.

There's a large variety of characters and they all have interesting personalities that fit their appearances. Characters have great banter and chemistry. The protagonist is amazing, don't change a thing about him! ^^

Lily is the best! Debbie is awesome too!

This game is wonderful. The women all have distinct personalities, and they are very attractive. There is a lot of humour in the game, and it is very well written overall. There is no grind or anything like that, so the game moves along at a good pace. You are given a large amount of control over the main character, so you won't get forced into a relationship with anyone you don't like.

The game is about a young man who recently lost his father and has been kicked out of the house by the gold digging girlfriend of his deceased father. The main character then has to move in with an old friend of his mother, Monica, and her two daughters Katie and Jenna. There is an intriguing bit of mystery to the main plot as you try to investigate the will, but the main focus is squarely on building relationships with the people you meet.

There is a relationship mechanic where you gain or lose points based on the choices you make. There are two types of points; relationship and lust. These will determine what possible choices will be available in future conversations. You are able to see the current total and maximum possible values at the end of each chapter of the game, which is nice because it helps reduce the need for a walkthrough.

All in all, it's a great game.

[Episode 23]
I had this game rated at five stars for a little over three years now, but that doesn't hold up anymore. The game jumped the shark with Katie's dinner date, and it keeps making the same mistakes over and over again. Primary characters have become one dimensional, the humour is stale and overdone, the choices are lacking impact, and shitty side characters are getting stuffed in where they shouldn't be.

This is an unique game and definetly in the Top 5 adult-games. It has a very interesting story and a nice setting. There are many girls you can get intimate with. Katie is absolutely outstanding and one of the best- written characters in adult games, in my opinion. The relationship you can have with her is entierly different to everything I expierenced in these kind of games. Your new-mom is also worth mentioning, as she is a real milf, and dosen't look strangely young and smooth.

In the beginning of thgis game I was disappointed that there's no possibility of incest content but after playing it, I discovered a good story with some hot scenes and the animations aree good in the first episodes and they become sexier and better from ep8. Keep going, this game is gorgeous.

(Played until Episode 10)
This is definitely one of the good ones. The characters are tropey but definitely well written (with Katie being the most interesting one).
The visuals are good, there are plenty of busty babes but standing out here is the fact that the characters look their age and not like someone took a young girl model, slapped a 40 year old skin, saggy breasts and called her a MILF.
The biggest flaw in my view is the game being a bit unforgiving. As is common practice, each heroine has relationship and lust points and along the way there are point requirements to take a certain path but on this game, more often than not I found myself being gated off from scenes with my gathered/maximum possible point difference snowballing throughout the chapters gating me off more more and more content.

Review of: ver Ep.9
First, I want to say that for me, the most important thing in these kind of games is the immersion and the story.
So at the beginning I was really weirded out by Jenna's unnatural skin color and it really hit hard my immersion of the game and I felt like many scenes in the game were unnatural because of the lighting (for example in some scenes at the beginning of the game they talked about how late it is but the scene was white bright, and overall the lighting in the environments of the game felt to me like a filming studio. Sound weird thing to complain about but shook me off).

Anyway, it was interesting to keep playing to unfold the story and see where it goes. I will had that it was cool how the skin color of Jenna can be changed and how Katie becomes more beautiful as the game progress, so big plus on that side.

Another thing that bothered me a bit is the writing. There were too many cheeky scenes to my taste, especially around Monica and Jenna and how insecure they are and need SO much validation.
It felt to me unnatural, mostly because I don't know them, I don't know their history, what led them to be like that so I couldn't sympathize with them (I could understand if it was mild, but on that scale it was something else).
For me, Katie saved it all. I think she was well written, she had deeper layers in her personality and you could see it clearly so it was easier to relate to her and love her.

One more immersion killer (and a big one) for me was the lack of sound in the game. It could really step up to 4-5 stars for me if it had some free to use soundtracks.
The soundtracks help a lot in leading the player to certain emotions you want the scene to convey, if its romantic, sad, funny, dangerous or casual.

The party scene: I liked and disliked the scene.
It was awesome how crazy it was and the possibilities you had there but on the flip side I WAS shocked by the crazy shit you could end up doing. I felt it was so messed up. Doing something like that to a girl could end up making her suicide and I felt so bad doing it and I was flipped out how well and happy Katie was for that, it disgusted me but on the next day when you saw the aftermath and how it hit Katie, it made me as a player feel reassured and like Katie even more because of her depth of personality.
So overall I think that scene had good implication and had a lot to Katie's character. Big LIKE for that (I lied that i disliked it but it more interesting to read it like that).

In conclusion, I think the game is enjoyable and I'm sure it will get better by the upward progress it makes with each chapter release (I felt like some of the character model get more detailed, lighting got better maybe at the last one or two chapters and the characters' personality folds out more). I gave it 3 stars because for me, too many pieces that build immersion were missing, BUT i'll be sure to check it out again soon for re-review.

Note: Not a final review. More content ahead.

Well done! This game is another gem along with only few others featuring on f95. Monica's character is definitely a treat that attracts more and more fans to the game. Although, game features other characters and dialogues that sustain steady lust along episode. Story has a lot of twist moments, which adds spice and charisma to artists.
If other game devs read those reviews to learn receipt of popularity, well... it may sound simple, but somehow it is so hard to see in hundreds VN's/Game releases showing up continuously on updates page. Meantime, receipe is simple enough, but hard to achieve without genuine imagination. It stars with making MILF character realistic and it goes not only to render quality, before rushing to claim MILF tag, you should design real MILF character, which is mature enough to be distinguished from teens around (just adding big tits or calling her mrs/aunt/mom wont make it), it also should be supported by her outlook to things, as she has been for a while so seen a life.
Story, yes, you need plot and relationship in VN, as you are not competing with porn, if you trying to compete with porn by quality of renders, you loose right away, CG is just not same league to be competitive there. Story, that is what what attracts people, so if you can't go beyond porno cliche, once you figure out CG, then it just wont fly.
Once you figure it out, and wrap it around lewd but picante situations, you will be there.
Good luck!