VN - Ren'Py - White Cube [v0.5c] [Anekin69]

Where do we start with this game?


When it comes to the decent and good parts it would be:

• Actually having animations -> not the best mind you but with the tired'old 3D model maker they are using it's still a rarity to see actual animations and them not being absolutely awful.
• The main plot point is actually pretty decent, 2 strangers trapped in a room, both have their inner demons and they have to figure a way out.
• The game seems to be pretty decent in terms of code/product quality, can't confirm it since I haven't de-compiled it, but there are some small custom renpy stuff added.

Now a common critic of this game I've noticed is that there's a certain incident that happens in the story that a lot of people dislike: That John gets killed, in my opinion I think this is the least of the plots issues.

Spoiler ahead for the real issues I see with the game's story:
Firstly the suddenly mind-bending reality that happens in this game, it makes absolutely 0 sense, and while there will probably be an explanation for this once the game is done, I can't really see how it's justified given it's been 5 releases so far and not a hint of what actually the "white cube" is.

With this I don't mean we ought to know all there is about the white cube, but at least we have to get some ground rules, every horror games does this, they all set fundamental rules that is meant to be strictly followed, if these rules are meant for a bigger twist... then that happens naturally.

In this game however, it gives this false pretense that this is all within our actual world, which is fine, but then suddenly we get unexplained situations appearing like a shower being installed spontaneously and then later on we see the room get extended, we even see them being "transported" to the "void room".

All of this of course ruins the entire point of what we should be understanding to be the basic rules, if this is meant to be a bait'n switch then... why expose so much? If it's meant to be surrealist, then why throw in realistic depictions (such as the sleeping gas and the man going inside, or even the camera, this is a non-real world why do we need any of these??).

Now my suspicion is that this is all within a matrix-like simulation, probably from a similar place where John was captured and taken to be "milked" so he can "breed" women.
If this is the case, it'll be imo one hell of a disappointment since it'll literally be: it was all just a dream.

On top of this we got the other annoying part of the story:
Tired old cliché of abusive step-father, which is the actual trauma for Emma.
Now this would've been fine if it wasn't so damn tacky, I'm fine with one-dimensional villains, but there has to be an actual point to it, just using them as the point of their trauma... without showing the clear trauma is well... pointless, especially when every trauma scene is a repeat of the last one: step-dad fucks Emma's mom.

John's story is a lot better int hat regard, is it perfect? Far from it, but at least there's some mystique and ambiguity of what the hell is going on.

Getting back to John's death, the introduction of the now revived step-father is just really begging for this to be the lamest plot twist I've seen, there are also a couple of issues:

1. It breaks the established "rules", rewards are meant to be rewards, not punishments.
2. Mark being introduced makes little sense here, presumably it's Mark is meant to represent 2 things: Make Emma "sluttified" while facing her trauma and to give Emma the feeling of "protecting" someone from the one who she couldn't protect anyone she held near and dear.

Personally I don't mind the flashbacks, they aren't too long and does develop the characters a tiny bit... but Emma's backstory is tragic for how cliché it is.

It's really eye-rolling seeing how this plot is turning against itself to establish "plot-twists", it's such a shame that some guy in Sweden can make an entire expansive lore with a shoestring budget (Autumn Boulevard) using the same foundation while White Cube developer's story line is... like a fish desperately trying to flop around.

Which bring us to the characters, here again it manage to disappoint, the characters are not being developed in the slightest, one moment John is in rape mode, then in domination mode then into normal mode, with no established or even remotely explainable reason for why, unless the developer thinks that people are literal caveman when we get naked.

It's the same for Emma, one day she's paranoid, one day she's accepting and cooperative then the next moment she's in bitch mode.
All of this would've been fine if there was a plot point explaining this erratic behavior, hell just some expose about how being in this white cube drives you insane would've been fine, but instead it's unironically meant to be seen as normal to have bipolar.

Amelia is eh, neither good nor bad.

Oh and the music, jesus christ some of these choices are earrape inducing and the god awful "jump scare" that looks like a rip from a gmod face in 2007 is something else.

In the end it's hard to give it a good score, but at the same time there is respect to given for the actual HQ work the developer does put in... but honestly I still think horror wise you're far better of with the games that DiscipleofVirginia produces.

The game has potential, it can easily get 4/5 or even 5/5 but it needs to work on the characters and the plot.

Great game. I think the white cube is a hallucinatory, dystopian setting and does not represent reality. I think Jon is not dead, but someone makes him look like Mark in Emma's mind. Because the manipulator plays with the emotions of the main characters and probably Amelia is also not in the room but is another mental projection to play with the emotions of the main characters. Reality maybe is the prison lab where Jonh was locked up and Emma the imprisoned woman with the shaved head. That would explain everything.

Started off being just ok, but killing off John that's just dumb.
Also, the DEV wrote if one protagonist FAILS a Test, Both Fail, then Boom goes their heads.
IMO the DEV needs to rework this and stay on point with their on plot that was stated at the beginning, with that said this isn't a Horror AVN, it's disgusting attempt to Glorify a Rapist MC to carry the story going forward after killing off John. John isn't a saint, but Mark is what you're using to carry the content going onward that's idiotic.

Started interesting......then we get the twist where they kill the MC after introducing his sister and it falls flat. It serves no purpose even if he's magically resurrected. Now we have the other girl's (step) father (?) here for the game and he's weirdly as young as he was when she was a little girl. Its not a bad concept but if you're waiting for updates the surprise kinda fizzles out by the time a new one is released and the obvious route would have been to have the MC and Sister be forced to do something or that you could choose who takes it up the ass. Naw though we get MC angry bad man because war, dumb lesbian sub plot where sister likes stranger she met 5 minutes ago over her brother, and now random death and cloning? I'm still interested and its not like the game looks bad, but the plot is getting really squirrely. That's what happens when after two years the updates are as slow as they are and the dev changes their mind on what the story is. Hopefully there is a course corrections somewhere in here.....

Also if you're gonna have a flashback to a sex scene with the big titted sister of the female MC, at least show the sex scene.

boring story they didn't even bother to put the ntr tag on low quality renders

I had rated this game 5/5 for the great storyline, suspense and tension build up.
That was until the Dev killed the MC (for good or faked it ?), still the game turn to 180° to a ghost cuckold story.
So the game has gone to a 5/5 down to 2/5. I will not play it until it's repaired, so is most of the fanbase.

It has probably the lamest plot twist in a video game I've seen. The writing is horrible.

Starts promising but it escalates beyond what's reasonable IMO.

The renders aren't that bad. But the thing is, if you have a game where the setting is a white cube. All your scenarios, your scenes, all are super constrained.

What's left? The writing and the renders. The writing is bad and the renders cannot carry a game alone if the whole purpose is to be "twisted and mysterious"

Anyway that's my opinion; I think this game is due a remake. Specially a developer with a first game. Focus on one protagonist. Otherwise the game is going to keep biting more than it can chew.

Although it’s not my favorite just yet, it feels pretty good, and the storyline makes me want to keep watching.

I hope the upcoming content includes more mysterious elements or additional family members, but ultimately, it’s up to the developers’ vision.

A kinetic novel with mediocre writing, boring characters and and nonsensical plot. There is very few good things to say about this VN. The Renders are good, and the sex scenes that exist are ok, but are not great. The game is really mediocre in all fields.

PROS
+ Prologue was promising.
+ It has quite unique, and interesting main menu design.

CONS
- Story is wasted, a lot of thing doesn't make any sense at all, and some stuff is just makes the game worse like at some point John just dies, John's step sister comes to room, or Emma's stepfather appears for no reason, and girls gets forced to have sex with him, etc, list goes on...
- Characters are quite annoying, considering the situation they are in this could be great game to show these characer bond, etc, but since they are not really likeable, especially Emma is quite annoying,so it feels like wasted opportunity.
- Main menu music starting when you open the save page is bit annoying especially if you save a lot.
- Especially at first parts of the game textures/renders, and models looks bit old, and low quality, they get better later on, but still sometimes there are weird white effects on the screen, etc.
- Females doesn't look attaractive enough, some are decent, some are mid at best, and some are kind of unataractive.
- Sex scenes are bad, some have no animation, and have pictures with bad angles/positions, some have static pictures as a animations, and some have animations, but animations don't has good physics, or angles/positions.
- It doesn't have enough content for 3 years old game.

VERDICT
Not sure what to say, it's a game with great potential, but execution is quite poor.

I'm on the line on this one. The concept I find very interesting and different from what you normally find in the web, but it's execution is so-so. Writing is decent, but not great, and quite often the characters seem to change their minds for no clear reason, especially Mark and his outburtsts. The fact that there are very few choices and they don't seem to matter at all takes all the tension out of the story, as you are mostly a witness to events, and characters breaking the fourth wall to speak to you directly breaks inmersion (I guess that's why it doesn't happen much as you advance the game). Which made me detach from those events and, since I could do little about them, care little for the results.

Render quality is pretty good and character models are well done and built. Poses, lighting and such work pretty well, but animations are a bit lackluster and only enter the scene ones you've advanced quite a bit. I took out the music but the sounds effect were sometimes good and sometimes repetitive; voice acting is present, but it's very inconsistent especially in the first half when most lines are not voiced but some are. ç

So, all in all, I'll keep an eye on this one to see where it goes, production values have been going up as it advances (animations, voice acting, etc.) and there seem to be more choices and meaningful ones, so it may be in the right direction to make up for it's past shortcomings. We'll see.

Edit: I update that choices clearly don't matter. I had to redo the game for my reasons and chose completely opposite things and ended up getting the same results. Even saying "no" in the bathroom scene changes nothing of Anna's fate.

Best vn on f95 for all degenerates like me who enjoy rape, blackmail, humiliation, sexual slavery and NTR (actually there are NOT any of these fetishes - except maybe humiliation - but people who enjoys them will enjoy the game immensely since it gives similar emotions).
I wouldn't call it exactly NTR because John didn't even felt like fully-fledged protagonist, tbh. It's feeling more like third-perspective story rather than first one. May be I will be in minority - but I really enjoy in what direction this story is going after last update. I am big fan of such astronomically rare fetish as CONSENSUAL HATE SEX - and if this will be the main theme - I am going to be happy man. It's instantly 10/10 for me. I really can't wait and excited about what next sweet humiliation tasks these two proud strongwilled sextoys are going to endure, ehehe.
The only minus would be omission of incest fetish - for development of which there was lot of promise from appearance of sister character. But here are so many incest games that it's not that big of a deal. And maybe a little bit too many flashbacks - I am not a really big fan of them as plot device since it breaks the pacing of a story.
Death game is interesting setting - and production values of the game is outstanding. Superb quality of models and POV angles, all these movies, music and sounds, voice acting is on unprecedented for typical f95 content level. Probably one of the best SEXUAL TENSION building novels I read as well.
Negative reviews are from NTR and dark content haters - so don't pay any attention to them. This is a must read for dark sexual content connoiseurs - you are not going to regret it.

Dumb game and latest update only solidified that opinion. Started out as a trite but engaging psychological horror. Updates went by with little advancement but i kept it on my radar. Finally we come to the final update, or at least as far as i got, which ends up with the dude and girl from the beginning getting their head blow off after trying to shove a dildo the size of a watermelon inside her ass. I actually appreciated the realism of having a MC without a donkey dick, but that dont mean i want to see what really happens when you try to shove a bowl ball up someones ass. Anyway I'm out, and if this aint your thing I hope ive steered you away from a couple hours you'll never be able to get back.

3 years - and no content. This game not goin to anywhere, but to pockets of dons. 200 characters you say? ok "...It may even inflict this status effect on several creatures, if they are close by the attacked one. This pairs great with... "

The choices you make have zero consequences in the story except minor dialog changes. Not only that, but John, the male MC gets his head blown off in task 5 no matter what you do and he's replaced by Emma's rapey dead stepfather. Just how moronic can a story get? It's not even consistent with the collars since they said it would inject poison in the first part of the story, not explode. I'm glad I didn't give this dev any money and you shouldn't either.

Story went downhill, old male character is killed and the story is just fucked right now. Dev says the story is already written and if he insists this is the way to go with the story. Then he must have made some things clear with the story line. It has kind of an NTR content right now. This is the first game that I gave a 1 star review.

Story went downhill, New annoying male character. The only way that the dev could save the game is to rewrite the whole game and start new. Dev wanted to add shock value but failed miserably.Dev killed a plot line even if he wants to talk about the past actions of the first male Mc, It doesn't matter anymore.

Literraly a game of thrones update. Down the drain it goes.

I followed the development of this since the very beginning, as it had a nice and somewhat different style, and it started quite fine, but the more it advances, the more dumb and absurd it gets. Nothing makes sense and it's like all is totally improvised with nothing that may attract the viewer. If it continues this way it may get worse than Rings of Power, which is something seriously difficult to achieve xD