RPGM - Ren'Py - Shadows of Desire [v0.4c T2] [Shamantr]

The above is my personal tastes. Some things in this game and story appeal to me and some do not.

What i do like is the art style of this game. The main female character, and the other females too, have buxom shapely figures and the camera angles utilize that perfectly, and i love it.

The unfinished stories for me work.

The renpy slash rpgm style of story telling works, especially in those scenes where the boyfriend is looking for the girlfriend. But technically it feels a little clunky at this time. And personally would only use it for those type of scenes.

Ch.5 Cheating Path.
The build up in the change room was enjoyable and exciting but the final sex felt out of place. She loses her virginity in front of her boyfriend, which is exciting. But she is unaware that it's going to happen which felt out of place because of the build up to this act. And again falls back into rapey

My three stars are based on the love/hate i have for this one.

Visually i love it. Primarily because of the cameras close angle fixation on the big asses & curves.

Added to my watch list. If my opinion changes, i will update this also.

My rating only concerns the 2nd game (chapter 5, in Ren'Py). It's easy to see how difficult it was for the developer to make the transition from RPG Maker coding to Ren'Py. On the "Cheating" path it's can okay, but on the "Cuckold" path he spreads himself too thin.. The dev apparently wanted to test new things in terms of the interface. Unfortunately, not every idea is a good one, even if it sounds good at first.

For example, on the "Cuckold" path, ALL choices and directions were replaced by images. This may sound pretty and not too disturbing if you're fluent in English, but it also makes it impossible to translate the game. The person translating the game would have to recreate, one by one, all the images making up the choices. And it needlessly increases the size of the game too. What's more, having the choices regularly change places is a little disorienting (one choice in the top right, the next in the bottom middle, the one after that in the top left, ...).

Unfortunately, all this quest for change is reflected in the story. I hope the dev will soon find his feet so he can concentrate more on the story.

v0.4c
Overloaded with stop moments

I recommend it to those who have troubles with sleep, it's a very effective "pill" - the effect appears in just 5 minutes. I tried to play at least three times and did not find previous saves (apparently, I passed out like dead, not realizing what was going on).

The creator in his masterpieceof[-you-know] skillfully combines such elements as: fade-transitions, single-option choices, point-and-click navigation, active zone hunting (pixel-hunting) navigation, "turn left / turn right" duncrawl-style navigation.

Quite often you have to solve a puzzle mini-game: try to find the next activity point. The solution usually exists in the singular. During the mini-game all the above mentioned elements are dumped on the player at once [so the soporific effect is multiplied several times over].

Call me when kinetic mode comes up, I'll try to appreciate the plot and other niceties...


Story: failed to savor,
Renders: renpy - okay, rpgm - outdated
Sound: comme ci, comme ca
Playability: terrible
Performance: frameworks are evil
Bugs: hiding in their holes
Animations: technical and unsexy
Voice Acting: voices in my head
Grammar: eyes do not leak out
Amount of content: 20 tons

Rating is only for relating to chapter 5. I haven't played ch1 to ch4. But seems like the whole corruption process is moving real slow. What should I start with first. There are annoying looney tunes sound effects that really pull you out of the story. The main bull has a boss music with chanting in it that plays every time he's on screen that after a while just becomes funny. (IDK maybe intentional) The MC is ghoulish not like ugly he like doesn't look human at times. Main girl is really hot and honestly the saving grace of the game. Writing is okay. There is this corruption scene in chapter 5 where like you are given choices for sex scenes but actually only one of them is the correct answer at a given time. The girl says like these cringey dialogue tells you want you need to press in that moment to progress. Honestly the game should get some brownie points for being a bbc cuck game that actually not terrible which I hear is rare. The animations are also not bad.

The game in question, unfortunately, didn’t meet my expectations. The gameplay is confusing, the graphics are outdated, and the story didn’t engage me. Honestly, I think there are much better options out there.

Very linear game, graphics not very beautiful, audio does not exist, various choice options, but many do not prevent certain choices, a Mc with a great character, but everything else very small, the Bull BBC an example of a super man, super gifted, a classic game of Bullying in porn form. too obvious.

Well, we finally have it, an explicitly BBC - themed cuck game that isn't cringey garbage. It does graze that line somewhat, but manages to stay on the right side of it thanks to taking its time with the corruption. Just because the theme is based on dehumanizing stereotypes doesn't give you a carte blanche to disregard all notions of believable human interaction, and the dev understands that. It is held back by some technical issues and unfocused design.

+ The character models are generally appealing and memorable, with only a few generic forgettable faces on some side characters (Jennifer, Sarita, Melissa)

+ 3 routes each with its own exclusive scenes, so there is replayability

+ Optional side-content

+ Really hot scenes, especially as the game goes on. Fair number of animations.

+ The dialogue, while often flawed, manages to maintain an appropriate tone for the interactions between characters, sometimes campy, sometimes serious, sometimes suspenseful, and it works. You get a quite decent corruption progression reflected in the sex scenes and non-sexual interactions between characters. Crucially for a corruption game, it feels earned and suspension of disbelief is not completely busted during sex scenes. It's still unmistakeably porn with a porn-plot, but better-delivered than pretty much any other game with this fetish.


- The early animations are really janky, but by the end of the current content they are much nicer.

- The tutorialization in the early game is not clear enough and gives the wrong impression about the routes. There is one choice that locks you into the Blackmail route and that's the only that matters in that regard. The Cheating and Cuckold routes are less clear, but as I understand it they are also set early in the game and don't flow into each other based on player actions like the tutorial seems to suggest. I could be wrong on this, even the walkthrough doesn't make it clear.

- Quite a lot of technical jank when it comes to dialogue and videos, especially during scenes. The whole dialogue system on RPGM feels sluggish and unresponsive (instant text should be a ubiquitous option in every RPGM game), especially when it's also trying to play picture slides as an animation. Ren'py is better in this respect, but then some of the videos run at a low framerate as the engine struggles.

- The first few days of the game are chock-full of character introductions, subplots and tasks for the character that it's very difficult to remember them all. Not just for the player, but for the characters themselves (MC forgets to do something important more than once, and so do other characters) but also the game itself (some subplots are just lost into the ether, and some scenes are unintentionally repeatable). Somewhere in all this there was supposed to be a job system for the MC to earn money and presumably there was going to be a day system with a slower pacing of events as well as multiple relevant stats (Jason's Madness stat comes up once and is never mentioned again), but that got dropped too in favor of just being a linear VN, which is a pity.

- The dialogue early in the game is often hokey and punctuated with freaking text emoticons and Spanish punctuation that doesn't belong. Thankfully this is largely dropped and the overall writing quality improves noticeably over the course of the game.

- The scenes can repeat themselves with having to see the same animation more than once, though in these cases there is a progression to it with more variations to come.


= The sound design can be fairly goofy, with constant whimsickal tinkling sound effects, like the antagonist is casting his Black Magic on the girl during scenes. For me it fits the half-serious tone of the game, but I can see it being a nuisance to some players. It's supposed to indicate progress, but damn is it incessant in a lot of scenes. The choice of music is goofy too, with sped-up and slowed-down tracks cribbed from other sources (and I mean multiple variations of the same track), and sometimes it's pretty over-the-top, like when the antagonist is plotting some mischief and it literally sounds like a horror game, including sinister whispering.

= No "pure" route, if you care.

Mixed opinion on this one.

EXCELLENT
- Camila-Jason Cheating Path, Fred's and Camila's family getting BBC

MEDIOCRE
- RPGM Engine for Chapters 1-4, all minor characters (not family related)

Still, would recommend trying it out, as it is always amusing watching Fred's 0.5 inch baby carrot getting supplanted by Jason's 14 inch staff

Well, there's some light and quite a lot of shadow unfortunately. First of all, the switch to ren'py was great. This game has no business being in RPGM.

Unfortunately, the new 'game mechanics' actually make the game worse. Moving around is cumbersome and since you have no idea where you need to be, you'll randomly click rooms until you are somehow allowed to leave. Not fun. Not good gameplay. I am not sure how anyone can think this is a good idea.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't know where it wants to go. There is a lot of scenes that really don't add anything. The writing urgently needs some editing. The animations are fairly poor, but they are there if that's important to you.

That leaves us with a fairly interesting setting and a FP that looks unique. Not sure if this is worth it at this time.

Can really tell the passion behind the dev with the work put into this, has a good story and visuals, with some rough edges that will work themselves out, can see the potential for an awesome NTR/NTS game

I can see the potential, I can see the Dev's passion when they made the female models, but the male characters' faces and expressions definitely need more work. And of course, file compression issues.

It's a good NTR + Corruption + BBC game. The female characters are really hot with some really good sex scenes.

But the writing, the dialogue and some scenarios are pretty rough and unrealistic. The story is messy, it's not hard to follow but it's hard to care.

v0.4
I played trough the cuckold route, it starts good but the overall tone gets very weird later, it does some very creative stuff with the nightmare section, very original but it's way, waay too long, should be half of what it is or less-
It doesnt help the very weird tone shift after the nightmare section makes you feel MC is still dreaming, like the shop owner with the gang of dudes , also the eerie music doesnt help one bit at all, changing it to something more normal would help a ton with the mood.

Also there's too much focus on the Antagonist, way too much, the main girl should be the focus of an NTS/NTR game after all.
Theres potential for a great game here, and you can tell the talent of the dev,
I'd reccomend ditching the RPG mechanics entirely and fleshing out the writing more.

The art is great. Lovely. Very appealing I don't mind rpgm. It keeps me investing in stead just clicking and reading away, Distraction.

Story is messy. Written like nonsense. Almost dumb. Gameplay mechanics and resources become completely useless and irrelevant.

Need a lot work in the story. Maybe even a ret con. Game needs to follow a main goal so it feels more like a game. 3 stars. Good luck.

The game is graphically fantastic, its setting and the expressions of its characters are 10/10, I understand that it is one of the author's first games and I personally think that it has a very high level, and it is unfair that they give it Bad marks just for being an ntr game, in the first game I do feel that Camila's personality is very different but it is positive since this version is a little more realistic, and in the other game she needed to be more flirtatious since it was a shorter game and a version alternative.

Haven't played all yet but a masterpiece so far.
The game has a bit of building up and running around in the beginning. Yet it's a cool story and it doesn't really feel like way too much of a pain. A bit at school like someone mentioned.
I also appreciate NTR RPGM games. When you approach that door with a heart sign on it, there is a feel to that.
Great hot girlfriend.
Would have preferred if words like <removed> and such were excluded but I'm not that picky about it and it's not overly used either.
That routes were marked better, like maybe with colors or something.

Definitely worth 4 stars at least for any NTR fan. So far I'm giving it 5. Could change when I've played more but I highly doubt it.

Also there are three routes explained, all that leads to NTR, 1 cuckold, 2 cheating 3 blackmail.

If you're not in to NTR, this is a hard pass for you.

Also one thing this game does better than most, is the sound. Sad music and heart beats and such. It really adds to the tension and atmosphere.
I hope more devs will copy that.

Although it is rough around the edges, this is actually what I might call an NTR masterpiece. It was clearly made with soul. Artist really did a good job with Camilla, she is so beautiful. I think that RPGmaker combined with rendered art gives the game a unique vibe.

The language needs amendments as it is in broken English from a Spanish speaker.

I'm sure it's been said a bunch but I love this main female character. Camilla. Beautiful, innocent and eager for corruption. Weak boyfriend getting fooled and cucked with humorous dialogue and events. However racially charged it makes for great taboo. Only thing that could make it better is a more complete game. Not sure if a bug but V 3.0 I began to get error messages towards seemingly the end of Birthday party. Gonna have to peep this patreon for exclusive content cause it's hot.

I don't know if it's just me, but the girlfriend is the most attractive character in all the netorare I've played. If this is just me, the author and I probably have interconnected minds.

Talking serious. The corruption is slow and good, the rpg is a little slow in the school part but the rest of the game works well. The girlfriend's expressions are incredible, I have no words

EDIT 2: It's really just the cheating path that gets good. Cuck path has a couple of genuinely great visual scenes in chapter 5 but plausibility is hot trash. lol. Blackmail path is also very uneven & less hot than the other two. At its best parts: Hotter than any individual scene by EvaKiss. As a whole: Wildly uneven and can definitely use some trimming & focus for quality. Dev definitely has some very strong talents and skills though, seen in bursts of great quality in-between much poorer stretches. If he can add more focus to his game/story design & improve on his weak-points I can see his next game being pure dynamite. Or alternately a retcon at the end of development on this game with his newly developing skills to fix visual sore-points, condense focus and sharpen the story for plausibility. (This is his first game).

Edit: PREVIOUSLY TWO STARS: Gave this another shot for the Chapter 5 Renpy release. Marked improvement brings it from 2 stars to 3.5. If earlier chapters get a BIG writing rework when converted to Renpy & the male (especially black) faces are improved to not look ridiculous, this could become a 5-star (for a porn game) title.

Faces of the black male characters in the latest chapter are still cringeworthy at parts, with the white-guy-painted-brown effect from certain angles & lighting, namely in the hair texture/color, eyes, cheeks & brow ridge, which is a huge pet peeve for me. Though still a marked improvement from early chapters. Another character also has a huge body & tiny-ass head. Plus white male MC is still weird looking. Yet the female characters for the most part are designed well. Writing in early chapters also still awful & will hopefully be cleaned up when those get converted to Renpy.

REASON FOR EDIT: Despite the above, everything from the writing to the graphics are a marked improvement, if still not perfect. The female characters - especially the main LR - are of super-hot design and Renpy is a much more palatable format. I'm truly hoping the dev focuses on the male characters' heads, faces and hair because it's still just such a huge sore spot in a game that's really stepped it up in all other ways.
Honestly, the final sex scene of Chapter 5 is about the hottest I've seen in one of these games which is another huge reason for this edit. The skill & talent is there & the dev has put a lot of effort in to improve. both writing and graphics (or maybe got some help). It's still just very uneven at times. Hoping more support will help the dev work out the flaws in the game.
______________________________________________ Original Impression from RPGM
Very poor writing: Dialogue, motivations & interactions are completely implausible. It's as if written by someone who has never had a relationship or even regular day-to-day interactions with other human beings. There isn't even the thinnest iota of writing ability here.

Poor format: RPGM makes absolutely no sense for this sort of game. User going from point A to point B adds nothing but time-waste here. There are no relevant functions where RPGM would be apt. No battling or equipment/item management. This would be better in RenPy.

Very poor graphics/design: On top of the grossness that is MC's hair, a variety of characters are weird or unnatural looking. Facial expressions are ridiculous as well. Pet peeve that's the absolute worst: Dev just picked a Caucasian Das3d model & painted him brown, putting an afro on him. It looks just as described. Why, when you can get free models with African facial features on F95Zone? This just makes me thing it was due to sheer laziness & no care for quality whatsoever. The model looks ridiculous.

Even if you like the fetishes/scenarios this game aims for, it's a waste of time. Unless you have absolutely no standards for quality whatsoever & your capacity for suspension of disbelief is retard-strength.