Ren'Py - Bright Past [v0.99.1] [Kosmos Games]

+ music
+ renders

- sandbox is not so good, everything quickly become monotonous
- too much lesbian content, straight is poorly done
- short and boring sex scenes
- errors and bugs
- uninteresting characters and conversations between them
- story

One of the most boring games i played, 2 stars from me

I really love both the story and the game play in this. I think the ability to write your own song titles and is a really novel one that is not often seen here. I also think the character is pretty cool, driven, goal oriented, not super innocent and doing everything she can to explore herself and make a career as a rockstar. Also no incest (well not much) nor implied incest to work around, everyone is just an adult living their own lives in their own houses.

Honestly it might be my favorite game here and I look forward to the final release so I can really dig in but also not lose my progress with each update.

The idea of creating as realistic an environment as possible around the game's protagonist is a good and interesting one. However, as usual, not all of these tools and the author's vision are well received by the players. Either the implementation of the features is not very good, or the feature itself is bad or unnecessary. For example, when in all civilised countries smoking is banned in life and movies, in this game you have to click hundreds of times to buy cigarettes and smoke them... This only happens in the 4th world.
But the game has great graphics and models. If they are not all beautiful, they are more or less acceptable, not squares or triangles as in most games. Everything seems to be in order.
Money. What kind of balance sheet is this, where a waitress works for 1 hour and gets paid only 20 dollars, but goes into town and pays 50 dollars for a coffee from a vending machine? With that kind of income, she will never buy a pickup truck from a dealership. Not even a pickup truck, not even clothes and food. That is stupid, both in life and in the game. It shouldn't be like that, at least in a game, if the author's life is like that. It makes the gameplay worse, it drags out the time, the game becomes boring because of delays and expectations.
English. Or what the game offers instead. It's terrible even for non-native speakers, but for those who notice mistakes and want to play and learn English. Sometimes some nonsense slips through untranslated into English with hieroglyphics.
But the most disappointing thing was the way the quest log and interface were created. When you change location, there is no indication of where you are.
But the most disappointing thing was the way the quest log and interface were created. When you change locations, there are no markers of where you are, and there are no markers of the NPCs you are interacting with. It's all very inconvenient, makes the gameplay worse and creates confusion. And the quest tasks are not clear, without explanation, without hints or clues. The game should entertain the player, not stress him or her with guesses that only the author knows in his or her misconception of usability.

Undoubtedly, one of the best sandboxes presented on this resource.
If you don't like sandboxes, this game is not for you.
The game is very close to its completion, so we can confidently name its advantages and its faults.
Pros:
1. graphics, renders, animations - 5 points out of 5
2. Story - 5 out of 5.
3. Degree of involvement in gameplay - 5 out of 5.
4. Grind - for sandbox lovers, it's OK.
5. Lots of content.
6. For the first time in my time here (since May 2019) I met a game where my native language (Russian) is not distorted by machine translation. Obviously, the author is a Russian native speaker.
Cons:
1. Music and voice acting - gets boring quickly, I turned it off early in the game and never turned it on again.
2. and, oddly enough, grind. At the initial stage of the game it is a lot, which may scare away some of the audience. Yes, there is a cheat mod, but with its help I recommend to increase only money, it makes it easier to pass the game at an early stage. The rest of the characteristics better not touch - you risk losing some of the content.
3 Once again I repeat - this is a sandbox. If you do not like such games, do not touch it, so as not to be disappointed.
4. In my opinion, lacks a good, preferably authorized walkthrough, without it you can get confused in the ramifications of the plot. Yes, there is a list of ongoing tasks, but the tasks are listed very vague, lacking specificity. And the game is very big, it took me about 60 hours, if you still move blindly, it only unnecessarily increases the gameplay time.
One more warning - if you need porn and only porn, this game is not for you. Here the story balances the hot content, if you need only sex, then pass by.
Another warning - fans of wincest can skip this game. This project is not for you.
Having carefully weighed all the pros and cons, I give this game the highest rating - 5 out of 5, for the advantages outweigh purely its disadvantages. And in general, if the game did not let go quite mature man (I am 40+) 60 hours - it says a lot.

The game has supposedly some really good content judging from the screenshots. But it is locked behind some of the most frustrating grinding I have ever seen.

For one, the game economy is simply obnoxious. That means you need way more unnecessary grinding with the work mechanic than necessary.

And the work mechanics are locked behind aggressive hunger and *smoking* mechanics so even more incessant clicking.

Meanwhile scene unlocks are bottlenecked to a ridiculous extent. Which all adds up to some sloooooooow pacing. Absolute time waste with some carrot of decent smut scenes hanging out in the horizon. But I do not like wasting hours running at it.

Oh and there is racism. Yep.

This game could be good but I find there are too much events with little impact, too much "grind" (like "do this or that X times" before a next step in the quest appears), and too much places with little importance (the decor doesn't matter at all in most scene, except for the story point of view).

Some girls are very good (like the milf character), other feels forgettable.

I played this from the earliest version and it has really gained content over the consistent updates. Each update usually brings it's own bunch of bugs too, but overall I find Bright Past to be an enjoyable experience overall.

I enjoy making Alex into a rockstar with the neat option to write songs and join a band as the lead vocalist on stage. My Alex also tends to indulge in girl on girl action too

The gfx are really nice in this game and I love Alex having tats because hey many of us girls do have them nowadays and if you're a rock chick then definitely..

Only downside can be the grinding with money, managing addictions and mood etc. although there is a cheats option to help that side.

I've just downloaded the latest update, so I'm off to check it out but yes, I would recommend this to anyone wanting to play a female protagonist game where you can mould their experiences.

overall not really a bad game, the 3.5* is almost a bit too much, 2* or 2.5* would do the game justice.

what i like:
- the idea of being able to decide for yourself what to do and when. that's far too rare;
- time-dependent triggering of events;
- interesting characters, but unfortunately with far too little interaction after completing the individual paths (actually none at all);
- the choice of clothing, unfortunately a little too little choice overall;
- the pastry shop in the old town, unfortunately only with a time bonus.


expandable:
- apparently not a linear novel, to really continue with the story things have to be done that you don't feel like doing. Refusing should also be able to get you further;
- too slow build-up of the important skills (courage, charm, oratory);
- unfortunately no motorcycle for Alex.


what I don't like:
- That the game does not recognize when you complete paths in a slightly different order;- paths cannot be bypassed/rejected
- DP with "Mistress" and "Martina Hill" - absolutely unnecessary, rejected means rejected, Alex is not a fucking whore;
- same with "Broom" what for?! the guy doesn't interest me, no means no damn. especially stupid because after that the path is considered "done"........;
- the trucker is uninteresting and superfluous, money or not, it doesn't do Alex any good, just getting fucked/pregnant makes no sense in the whole story;
this is better solved in "Beauty and the Thug". fuck you and end (if necessary with cheat)

one thing in advance if you think you can play her lesbian without any other male involved, don't even bother to start the game, it's like most other fem protag games, she becomes a total slut does things you may not want her to do and every interesting girl gets either fucked by some dude or loves working as webcammodel or prostitute.

in addition comes eternal grind without any help so walktrough is most likely needed if you don't want to search for hours for something. the only good thing and why i give it 2 stars are the renders and good looking girls but that does not mean anything if the rest is just not worth playing.

Bright Past [v0.97.0]

Pros:
Decent renders

Neutral:
Character Models look average and feel aged

Cons:
extremely grindy and repetitive
UI is too overwhelming
no auto/skip function
forced quests and actions
bad sex scenes
terrible stat grinding
dull story
Characters are uninteresting

Conclusion:
I thought of giving this game 2* because it looks decent, but this game is just too frustrating to play and has some major issues that takes the fun out of it.
It´s such a huge waste of time and nearly unplayable without cheats, or it just feels like an endless circle of grind and frustration with few rewards.

Love this game! The best 'visual novel' Ive ever played. It actually has choices and ways to interact with the game as your character, instead of just clicking forever through boring conversation + content.
Love it!

one of the best games ever! if they add corruption it will be perfect! i think it would be good to remove the smoking and refueling because it's a bit annoying, i personally hope for a development of the story with Valerie and her mother..

I give this Game 3 star.

Reason why-

Pros-

+Hot Protagonist.
+Good Graphics.
+Writing

Cons-

-Too much hard.
-No Character Development.
-Bad story presentation.

Conclusion- I like this game, but why is this so had and confusing. I played this but even now I can't finish it. Everytime I saw something confusing and I quit it. This is my personal opinion but if I said overall game has very decent graphics, Theam and music. You only need patience but I don't think you can hold your patience in porn games.
Thanks.

Yeah still can't play this game even after so many years.

I think the dev was going for a hardcore life sim with it ups and downs.

If you want to fap this game is not for you, if you want to listen to music while you scroll around throw maps for hours and doing pointless chores boy you hit the jackspot with this one.

The models are ugly af
The grind is unbearable
The story is confusing like the map and the NPC
The sex scenes are very few but it will like they are none since you have to grind somewhere between 5 to 38 hours to get 1.


Just an really awful "game"

Versão 0.93

This game is even worth a higher score, 4/5, or 8/10.

This simulation part is well done, and very interesting. I like it this way, (however I confess that I play using cheat, I even suggest putting a god mode for the game).

My negative criticism for the game is that the game does well a service simulation needs, vices....

But there are parts that the game gets linear and also and ends up forcing us to do things we do not want to do, just to gain courage, money, or other attribute. (In my case as I said, I use cheat to avoid and continue, otherwise I would have quit)

I'm playing the full lesbian path, and I would like to avoid almost every straight path, even if it shortens the game.
I think the dev is doing that now, since some options are impossible if certain points are missing.

With this I suggest to have the possibility to refuse quests and still gain the attribute, or to find another easier way to gain courage.
This would close the quests that we don't want to do,
for example. Playing basketball, putting on makeup and going to the highway, or going to the laundry room.
I won't do these things, and the quest stays open and irritates me.

I hope in the end I increase this grade here, because as I said, it is a good game, even though I don't like the female protagonist so much.

I see some low reviews here, based on repetitive actions.
I can see where they are coming from, when most Ren'Py games are linear novel where your choices barely matter and some people just scroll through the story. This certainly isn't something you can do with this game.

That being said, this is one of the best open world erotic games in existence. The UI is pretty intuitive, and repetitive events are very minor compared to the mess of other open world games like Girl Life.
The story hits a perfect mix of freedom and character developement, and the task list really helps with never getting lost.

The only awkward moments start when one approaches the end of content, when a lot of the story lines have ended, but for a few which then leaves one with a lot of waiting time between those events in those story lines. This however is to be expected for a game in active developement and I couldn't be more satisfied with the integration and planing of these interwoven story lines.

[v0.92.0]
What can I say, I was actually hesitant to give this game only 2 stars and wanted to give it more, but I really can't.
The game starts off on a good footing, it introduces some really neat mechanics and features and the characters look good, the story seems interesting enough, and after the intro is done you enter a free roam to basically do whatever you want, except that's not actually true.
The game is extremely rigid in how it flows and any sense of agency you have is completely superficial, You will HAVE to play the game a specific way to progress, and you will HAVE to do certain acts and actions that you may not be willing to do or see, you only want lesbian content? tough luck, you don't want lesbian content? also tough luck.
The entire game is intertwined, some characters are only available after certain actions, some actions are only available after meeting certain characters, and the biggest handicap the game uses is your stats, you'll need certain requirements to unlock certain scenes or progress storylines, and how do you get those? by progressing other storylines, sometimes those can only be done if you've already progressed OTHER storylines, or you need certain skill requirements that are lower than the first one but still higher than what you currently have, the game is very counterintuitive and you will not know what to do most of the time, even if you resign yourself to playing all storylines despite not wanting to do so, you'll still find yourself stuck and clueless.
The game is also extremely grindy and repetitive, you'll find yourself doing things over and over and over, after you've done all of this, you will be rewarded with short unimpressive sex scenes that make you wonder what the hell have you been doing all this for. Overall you'll find yourself having wasted HOURS grinding through the game only to get fuck all in return, I honestly would not recommend this game, even if you use the cheats.

A very good game with an interesting theme. The processing quality, a lot of repetitive activities is quite annoying and lacks the possibility to develop some things. A cool variant is the purely lesbian orientation, the theme with the boss is cool. It is quite well worked out the progress through the game and intuitive controls. I would have welcomed a more detailed evaluation of the relationships, but that can be added. Otherwise I recommend it to everyone who likes anal story.

Pretty fun game with awesome renders and an interesting main character. It can be a little bit grindy sometimes, but it's surprisingly deep in terms of game mechanics and story progression. Definitely one of the best uses of the Ren'Py engine, in my opinion.
It's also one of the few female-centric games on this site that does not feel cheap or dumbed down, which makes the generous lesbian content feel much more grounded. If you play it, just make sure to put some time aside - you'll sink hours into unlocking content before you even realize it.