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

Game is good fun.....oh well..how bitchy Alex can get ^^
Maybe it is not possible to come forward without the walkthrough document...well I finally needed it badly ...

Hower...Greate ONE! Looking forward for an update and maybe more clothing for Alex XD *smirks

This is a proper game - a sandbox, not just a visual novel. Content-wise it's already pretty huge (at version 0.4.3). The game mechanics get introduced at a comfortable pace and you quickly learn to balance the different needs of the MC. For a quicker play-through, you may want to enable the console to help with money and arousal (thus avoiding some grind). Apart from that, it's a highly enjoyable experience.

Visually, the game is top notch. The world is huge and feels well fleshed out. The different locations are pretty and the renders utilize quite a lot of "extras" (characters you don't interact with), thus avoiding that feeling of emptiness which is so common in these games.

The number of NPCs is pretty massive as well, which makes it even more impressive to me, just how much work has gone into making them unique. While you may recognize a few of the DAZ models, I'm sure you'll appreciate the little tweaks that have been made to them.

Of all the characters you interact with, only one so far has what I consider to be "abnormally large breasts" and even she is fairly reasonably proportioned, especially when compared to other games. (There's also a real dickzilla in there, but my focus tends to be on the female characters.) Overall the characters are varied and well posed.

Story-wise the game offers a lot of side quests, in addition to a fairly long main quest. Most of these are set to be expanded upon in future versions. The writing is perhaps the only negative side to this game as of now. Don't get me wrong, the story itself is novel and well structured, it's the translation that suffers a bit. There's some strange use of idioms here and there, as well as some grammatical quirks and awkward sentence structure. In other words, nothing really major, but currently the game's weakest point in my mind. With all the other aspects of this game being so well made, this point is too trivial to deduct a whole star.

Bright Past started as a beautiful game with great art, interesting locations, quests, and side quests.

Whilst it still looks fantastic it has unfortunately turned into My Boring Band Simulator 2019.

New content is now usually hidden by being triggered by speaking to specific people at very specific times and days of the week.

Grinding includes working boring jobs, sleeping, smoking, going the gym, getting haircuts, buying groceries, travelling on buses, travelling on trains, cooking food, and managing the mood of the main character. What's fun or exciting about that?

e.g. working at a casino could and should be fun in a game. But no, no random events or progress, you're literally just clicking to complete a shift and earn a few bucks at a casino.

The main quests are now concerned literally with the logistics of starting a band e.g. practising guitar, hiring someone to light some fireworks at a gig, finding cover for someone's work shift so they can do some PR for the band.

Most side quests started as exciting but there is no new content to be able to complete. Dates, secrets, and deliveries of suspicious packages are more exciting than the main quest of finding someone to play bass.


Suggestions to fix?

Indicate which characters have new content with an icon appearing above their heads. I don't want to see "I'll come later" for every character. Instead they could suggest a hint what you need to do or speak to next.

No more time and week day specific content gates. If you need to talk to someone to progress a quest you should be able to find them easily.

Complete / add content / or just remove the side quests!

For every new boring band task event add one exciting sexy event.

Pros:

• Top art quality
• Right amount of text
• Pleasant story (except one event)
• Very good pace of MC corruption

Cons:

• To enjoy the game, walkthrough is a must
  • I can understand that though - to have some interesting grinding in adult game, it would be some adultery - that would break stable pace of MC's corruption

The game in its unfinished state is really fine.
A bit buggy, a bit blatant, extremely grindy, but still has its charm with attractive models and delicate encounters.
What it lacks as of August 2019:
1) interactions with males.
2) full lesbian, not just bi, character development.
3) influence on NPCs development.
4) quitting smoking (or I didn't find a way); maybe simply by purchasing a nicotine plaster, maybe turn it into a quest.0.87 Not anymore! The character can quit smoking by simply abstaining for several weeks.
5) random encounters valuable for story.
6) dominant/neutral/submissive routes of development
7) scroll-back to check the placed order (bypassed by UNREN, but still...)
8)

Looking forward to new content. It's more complex than just a VN slideshow, but without the obtrusive mechanics of some (especially RPGM) games. I guess the reason so few people write reviews is because they are required to be excessively long.

There are a lot of things to like about this game, especially
1. The female (and male, sans the absurd mutant penis syndrome) character avatars. They are attractive when they are supposed to be, and different from one another. You never have the problem of trying to remember who this character is.
2. Attractive and appropriate backgrounds. They are mostly static, but they give a good feel for the areas they are supposed to represent, and there are variations on many of them (like the bus stops) so you have the feel of a living world.
3. An interface that is intuitive but not intrusive. I don't recall ever having to try to think of how I was going to do what I wanted to do. A good blend of point-and-click and click-on-icon.

The problem with all of these good things is that they are deployed in the service of a story that is very unclear and a game play that is boring. The player feels like a mouse in a maze, trying to unlock the next mysterious threshold that will make the next "wait for story" event to unfold. What causes those to unfold isn't clear, so the player never knows if they are making progress or treading water. Quest log hints are uselessly vague.

None of the NPCs are fleshed out at all. 99.9% of the player's intereactions with NPCs will give the player only the choice to "come back later." A few have a few vague hints of backstory (and one, the band leader, has a very-well-fleshed out backstory) and it doesn't seem like the main character is relating to real people, but just puppets spouting lines once some threshold has been reached, after which they are "come back another time."

I'd rail against the absurd mutant penises, but what's the point? Compared to the bland gameplay and frustrating "quest" system, mutant penises just don't register.

I remember the developer's Bright Future QSP game with some nostalgia. It never went anywhere, but the player always had a goal and could plan how to meet it. In this game, the player is blundering around blind, just hoping to get a threshold stat or repeat an action enough times to get something to change and some progress to be evinced. The vast majority of the time, the player will be disappointed, and they won't know why.

If I were writing a game like this, I'd have a LOT more internal dialogue for the MC and a lot more (even if random) dialogue for the NPCs. I'd have a story that was slowly unfolding in front of the MC so that she would have a sense that, while she felt her own situation most keenly, there were other people feeling theirs just as keenly, and maybe she could do something about that. I think that it's probably too late to do that for this game, though, so I will just wish the developer good luck, thank him or her for BF, and move on.

Very good game! Keep going on! Beautiful characters, good story! Nice gameplay, instresting quests. need more girl on girl scenes, play this game only for G/G and not disappointed thanks author for this game.

Version reviewed: 0.2

Plot:
Seems it´s about a girl who is new in the big city but we have almost no details of her life before. I know it´s one of the firsts versions but at the beggining Dev should put an intro to more or less put everyone in situation, at least is what i think. I only saw when she had sex first time in the past.

Renders and animations:

Renders are awesome.
Female characters are perfect quality and very realistic (leaving aside that almost everyone is a gorgeus model) but male ones i guess cash were lower there i don´t see that quality.
Animatios: I only saw 2 animations and i think they are very short one of them is literaly 2 frames in a loop, give us 4 or 5 at least.

Characters:

The most important THING is that i don´t like Alex because she says she is from a worse neighborhood but is naive as hell. And i saw in the stats she only had sex i time and orgasmed one too so why she becames incredibly wet looking at everyone and has to masturbate so many times at that pace she´d had done it 10000 times now.
And being so naive even in a normal neighborhood she would be a fucktoy.
And i can´t get why she is all calm when she has hard sex with Leo if she had sex only one time before in her life and time ago. She have to be so sore down there.

I like most of characters because i think they have nothing wrong, but maybe the only thing is that I don´t feel them. I mean they have very short dialogues or references to them and i like to see deeper characters.
Example: Valerie is a close person to Alex but i know very little about her. Some photos that makes Alex remember and her sister thing but ...

Females are like models I only saw a thing like that when i were in Moscow that seemed like heave with so much angel babies in there XD but is ok. Moscow district for me gg.

Males dick are humongous i mean it´s not real Rudo have a trunk larger than both of Alex arms and almost thicker than Alex when his trousers are normal.


Gameplay:

I think some activities like reading should be better achievable not doing same thing for ever. but i heard Dev was changing it so i´ll pass it.


So much dialogues in everything is necessary but especially in sex scenes the are empty. I like to see what she say or thought deeper or what the other person says to convince her or while having sex with her.

In conclusion it has potential but has some things i don´t like i i would like if dev improve this on the future.
Like in sex scenes or in meetings Alex reacts to other person smell and other person to yours. Or if you get cum in you to get bad smell but with the option to palliate without going home this cleaning yourself with the wet wipes.
And other reacting to your cum depending onn where it is.

Grind and unnecessary game mechanics..Dev is trying to fit in a QSP game-like mechanics in renpy format. Creating renders for all possible scenarios is going to be difficult. We will see V1.0 in a decade at this pace.

Good fundations with great characters, locations and renders. Enough quests to keep the player interested for the upcoming updates

That being said, the problem of this game is the same as so many others: It is WAY TOO MUCH GRINDY. Actually it is so grindy you can not play it without cheating otherwise you just become crazy.

You better fix that quickly, making your game almost unplayable without cheat is really stupid tbh, and such a waiste for all the work you done ! Don't waiste it. I Still want to give 4 starts to thig game because the dev is aware of this issue and is currently working on changing that. So no need to go too harsh I guess

One of the greatest games here. graphics are awesome, story makes sense, the girl is both adorable and hot as hell. The corruption is credible and takes time. Its also quite good at play level, not just a fap fest without meaning.

My Rating of this Game (v0.18.3 )is:

Pros:
+ Fantastic Renders

Cons:
-Grinding Game Play

Conclusion:
This game has very good graphics,but just doesn't hit the Spot with me,
don't get me wrong,but I like some rewards after some minutes of game play,and I hate to be walking back and forth in game, just kills the fun for me.
But I do believe that this game is some fun with a couple of people so have fun with it.

The idea of this game is really good, but right now, at this point of the development (v0.15.2) I would not recommend to play it. Too frustrating.

- Playability - 0/10 - Terrible - F***** GRIND. You have to repeat the same extremely boring tasks for HOURS in order of getting money enough or one more point of some stat. BORING. Also, the game is a fake sandbox. Actually the story is totally lineal and there are no choices or different paths.
- Initial plot - 8/10 - Good - Slice of the life of a new girl in a new town. Can be interesting. Characters and situations are good too. Reasonably realistics. Aceptable writing, but there are not long texts during the sexual scenes or kinky dialogues.
- Images - 8/10 - Good - Problem is, there aren't a lot of scenes, and most of the scenes are only one or two images and some text. And you have to grind for hours in order of getting them.
- Updates 3/10 - Poor - Updates are really short in this game.
- Sex - 3/10 - Poor - Not a lot of sexual scenes, and pretty vanilla right now. No fetishes.
Maybe in a couple of years, when this game will be finished (if it's finished) is going to be a good game. Right now, the lack of contents, the extreme grind and the fact that all the plots and stories are "under development", the game is terribly frustrating. Spending 8 or 10 hours of gameplay in this game to see only a few scenes of a couple of images or a extremely short animation is terribly frustrating and a waste of time.

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."

I really enjoyed the overarching plot and twists in this game, as it encompasses all the classic elements of a good story. Although the standalone routes weren’t by any means remarkable, they were great at building suspense and a sense of urgency to figure out the pieces of the puzzle in order to solve the mystery. The universe of this games grows increasingly more complex and interesting the further you delve into the storyline. This demonstrates solid world-building and good storyline pacing by the writers.

Review as of 0.09.

A sandbox game that looks good, but is very tedious to play. It needs to get a lot more content to make it rewarding.

THE GOOD:
- Good visuals.
- Good UI. Quest log. Hint system.
- Likeable MC.

THE BAD:
- Grindy. A lot of clicking involved to get where you need to go at the right time. There is also hunger and fatigue to manage.
- There is very little storytelling involved.
- No real choices. Either you do the quests or don't.
- There is rape. Not sure how it is avoidable.

THE UGLY:
- The log.

The game is still in its early stages, but already I enjoy it. The 3D models look great (Barbara <3) and the sandbox gameplay is simple, but well designed and easy to understand.
My only gripe at the moment is the English. Even as a non-native English speaker, I recognize how awkward some of the language is.

The underlying writing, however is solid and it's nice to have a main character, who seems to be inexperienced but not a complete airhead.

I'll definitely be following the development of this one. Good luck to the developer!

As it stands this game is a 2/5 and is not worth the drive space. You've seen it done before and there's not a lot new that's brought to the table. The renders are better than a lot of games, and the skeleton of the game feels structured well, but there's just not enough content, too little in fact, and it feels annoying. Will check back in 4-6 months and see what's changed.

The following review is based off my personal experience with playing this Game/Visual Novel... I try to be as brutally honest and detailed as I can, and these are my own opinions and thoughts, from one or more play throughs...

(Review Update - 05 June 2019 - v0.201)

It's been over a year since I first tried the initial demo release of this VN/Game... And this VN/Game has added some new content, but not sure it's really what you would normally expect from over a years worth of development...

The visual style and quality has not changed and still looks primarily unique and high resolution... The navigation is still the same, but now you will open up new places to go as you progress through various quest chains... There is a quest system that gives points, but not sure what those points actually do for the overall game play... Perhaps they gate content, but it is never made fully clear... You can tell the developers have put a lot of thought into the UI and game play mechanics... There are a few animations, but they are very plastic looking and short... Many of the sexual themed visuals consist of just a tiny handful of still images, in most cases...

The script is still full of occasional broken English, MANY misused words, and still has the same spelling/grammar errors in both original release content, and all the new content from the past year or so... With the high attempt at including so much story text, along with dialogue and monologue, I expected the developers to have gotten past the translation and interpretation issues, they had initially and going forward... And even when I looked past the text issues, I had some occasional moments where the story telling was a bit odd... Not sure if it is due to bad interpretation of the translation from Russian to English, or if it is some cultural divide with how the story is being told... But all in all some, if not much, of the text needs some various revisiting...

The game play mechanics are very grindy, as I had first suspected with the demo... The quests slightly hint at steps required to move those story arcs along, but it's not always obvious what that next step requires, or what you need to actually do... I found that in several cases, I just had to do the daily grind routine and at some random moment the next step would happen... It's not like that for all quests or all quest steps, but it does increase the tediousness of the grind elements, now and then... The biggest qualm I had with the grind style game play mechanics was with food... It seems like an unnecessary mechanic, that either pushes you to waste the money that is so required for some story arcs... Or, you end up having to stick to a strict morning pattern, where there is a tight window of opportunity to eat free food, at the table with the friend and her mother...

Another mechanic I was not a fan of, was how Real Porn photos are used here and there to add to the female protagonists horniness stat... First off, was permission given to use those photos? Because if that is not the case, then this whole project is violating the law since it makes money for the developers... I really hate it when VN/Games in this industry use real porn in their projects, especially without explicit written permission or license from either the publishing company or the people in the pictures... It shows a lack of originality, creativity, and feels a bit lazy...

Now, as to the content itself, even though the grind takes a while for some quest story arcs, initially I didn't mind the content (outside of the text issues) but very quickly I noticed a pattern... Especially when it concerned anything sexual in nature, where this VN/Game was pushing for the porn fest side... In the long run, this VN/Game is really pushing towards varying forms of porn fest type situations, with some being casual (which is more realistic) and some being way over the top... An example of one way over the top moment, involved the black basketball player, where he initially seemed to be a genuine nice guy, trying to help the protagonist get past some gang members... But instead, he then demands sexual favors, and out of nowhere his whole personality changes, as he very quickly just pulls out his penis... And it was so large and long (while being flaccid), that it took two hands for the protagonist to hold it up (not even sure why she just immediately grabbed ahold of it)... It was the most ridiculous looking over sized penis I've seen, thus far, in any of these VN/Games yet... In essence it appeared to be about 2 or more feet in length, and about 5 to maybe 6 inches in thickness... She couldn't even get her hands completely around the the half way point, while holding it... It was so outrageously large, that I pretty much called it quits at that point... Especially when the character tried to explain away how any woman could handle it if they started off slow... The thing was impossibly huge... There are other moments in this VN/Game where I had questioned why I was playing/reading it, but during those moments I decided to let a majority of it go... But that whole scene/event was way too overboard... Totally ridiculous...

There are also several bugs where Russian text appears, rather then English... Such as in the Options Menu, where the option below the music volume was labelled in Russian... And several of the pop up screens for things like the quest screen and other screens, had the upper title in Russian...

Overall, the primarily decent visuals can not make up for all the other text and story related issues... The game play mechanics are also time consuming, especially when having to worry about cleanliness and food... The questing system is a nice touch, but isn't always informative or easy to figure out what the next step/s actually entails... There are some small amounts of somewhat adventure game style mechanics, but it's not this VN/Games strong suit... I really did expect a bit more content from over a years worth of development, compared to the average VN/Game being developed in this market, but each developer is different in how quickly they release new content... I feel as though the path this VN/Game is taking is the path of being an over the top porn fest, even though it doesn't go too over the top initially... The original promise I felt it had, for maybe being a more story focused and grounded VN/Game, is no longer the case, from what I've experienced in the current content... I do wish the developers the best of luck, but I will not be revisiting this VN/Game... With the inaction towards fixing the text issues, and the very over the top themes and visuals for several of the story arcs, I just don't like what I experienced now as compared to the initial release... Having good overall visuals (other then a few cases) are not going to save this VN/Game, when the play experience, as a whole, is not as good...


(Original Review - 21 March 2018 - v0.001 Demo)

For the moment this claims to be a Demo, but it feels more like the introduction to a grind style game with story elements...

The visuals of the characters are pretty good, and with mostly normal body proportions, thank goodness... The backdrops are a mix of unique/creative ones and a few I've seen before in other visual novel/games... The user interface is pretty good, although it would be a nice quality of life upgrade to have the locations show text of the place they represent, when hovering over them... But even so, the interaction buttons are also a very nice touch... Makes interactive items stick out...

The script is ok, but has a lot of spelling/grammar errors... Maybe even an itty bitty amount of broken English... So it needs some more proofreading... The plot revolves around a female protagonist farm girl (she is into Rock n' Roll) who moves to the big city, to seek out her dreams and future... She moves in with a friend she met when searching for colleges, which she never got accepted to... The friends mother, brother, and little sister also live there... But the little sister is currently staying at the dorms of her college, so the protagonist sleeps in her room...

Once the introduction is done, the game portion begins... It's you're typical grind style game play with a 24 hour day, 7 day week... Each activity uses up so much time, including moving from room to room... So time management will be something you really need to pay attention to at some point... There are not a whole lot of places to navigate to, outside the home so far... There are also some other things you have to micro-manage for the protagonist... Such as hygiene, eating food, sleep, money, and apparently smoking cigarettes (something I've not seen as a necessity before in any game I've ever played)... Smoking increases her happiness (I guess that is what you can call it), and you see this on her portrait in the lower right corner... I'm also assuming relationship building will be necessary as well, but you don't get to experience much of that...

There are some bugs in the game play... Such as clicking on your friends mother in her bedroom brings up a blank text screen... Or when working at the ice cream parlor, you are told you can only work specific times each day, yet I was able to work there when ever I wanted for how ever I wanted... Also, clicking on Sleep for 8 hours, only sleeps for 1 hour... Once you get the job, meet the mother, and talk to your friend when she is naked in her room trying on lingerie, then the game is done... So for the moment, there is a limited amount of things you can do...

Overall, the game looks nice, seems easy to figure out, and shows promise... Even though it is not a visual novel, there are story elements, so in some ways it has some meaningful story with some depth... I look forward to seeing how this game develops... I will definitely revisit it, if it actually goes into full development...