Ren'Py - Dying Dream [v0.6.5] [Skoegul]

This game really breaks the mold when it comes to what you expect from a Ren'Py game.

I don't know how strongly different choices actually affect outcomes later in the game because I've only done one playthrough and only explored different paths through certain quests briefly. So, what I can say for certain is that your choices have extremely different immediate consequences, and the game at the very least gives you a convincing illusion of long time consequences.

The minigames are nothing groundbreaking, but I think they're appropriately designed for each situation and well balanced.

Quests often take the form of area exploration, where you need to solve various problems in a locale to get items, information or resources and use them to solve problems or puzzles, and sometimes you have to make choices between using them for immediate rewards, possible long time rewards, or sex (which is basically a way to gain more powers in the long run.)

It also offers a surprisingly meaningful stat and skill system. Your choices can make you "proficient" in various social skills, giving you bonuses to dialog checks. You also have stats like knowledge, fame, and a couple others that also offer you certain dialog options. Lastly, at one point you gain other skills that have (non-renewable?) point costs. These are either one time use for a new passive benefit, or specific boosts that last for one day or one interaction.

I can't emphasize this enough, your choices really feel important. I think the game will throw you a lot of lifelines so you don't end up in a failstate. I'm not even sure if it will let you fail at all. But so far I haven't been at a point where it forced me to take an opportunity if I didn't want to.

I don't want to hype this game up too much, but at some point I almost felt like this was made by an ex Larian Employee or something. Yeah, good job me not hyping this up.

Goddamn...

Do you know how rare it is to have a GOOD sandbox AVN?

This is one of them. The user interface is great and gets even better once you complete the first collection of quests. It never wastes your time and each task has story moments that really add to the experience.

That is so fucking rare for a sandbox AVN.

There are fun little game elements that add to the sandbox game and it's GOOD. There's some minigames, character perks, etc that make your choices a little more meaningful too.

The story is really good as well, especially after you complete first and and is really worth the read to learn more about the MC and the Isekai world it takes place in. There's magic and it's fun. The ladies are interesting, especially the genius character that suddenly appears.

The renders and animations are a bit rough at first, but they also improve over the course of the game.

9.5/10

I hate sandbox but this game make it enjoyable. Story is cliche but well executed. (i really enjoyed bank robbery and fishermen arc.)
Dialogs are not fill with boring text but engaging and entertaining.
Music and sound done well.
Art is good. I love Honey select 1,2 art when its done right. And author is done well.
Ui and game menu really nice and clean. Skill and dice mechanic is enjoyable.

Overall is very engaging and entertaining game.

Hey Skosha ! First of all I have to say, It takes alot of time to finish yer game, i even thought I will gonna finish yer game in 2 or 3 days but again I thought nah let's finish this today, now I finally finish yer game.
Ok, now back to point.
1st thing about yer game is sandbox mod, tbh I fcuking hate sandbox mod, but, but, but, I think, I think sandbox totally suit yer game I mean if we play in VN mod, then we're gonna miss lots of interesting minigames, well we can still play minigames in VN MOD but it's suit much better in sandbox, so sandbox is one of the thing I like about yer game.
2nd thing is MC, man we can totally change MC however we want this is really good, but still we can't be always a kind guy, sometimes ya have to become little bit of perv and a little bit of jerk, if not then you will gonna make MC a weak-ass.
3rd thing and this is the most interesting thing I found about this game, lots of NPCs not some black shadow but a real character even in backgrounds I saw alot of NPCs and side characters, about this i have to give that ya really put alot of effort and I really like it.
That's all I have to say, you said yourself that it's a harem game then please add a harem tag, because of this you're gonna miss lots of players, well I hope in next update we'll gonna see Joe in some action, he always beat up by this dude, Tylor? I think.
Okay that's all I have to say good luck with yer game.❤❤

This is one of the few games that are sandbox and at the same time fun, interesting and at the same time you are encouraged to explore it without getting bored, the story is a 10/10, I hope you don't give up and leave the project and that you can move forward.

I posted the same thing in discussion section but pretty sure new people usually check reviews first. Also the review is long so sorry in advance lol.

The game is fun storywise the aspect of being in new world and transforming mc from a loser to a confident chad is really satisfying.
The characters are also interesting but I seriously hope the dev doesn't cluster it too much unless he can insure that the story that he is weaving can handle the weight.

There have not been any really super original or groundbreaking story aspects and has bit of generic energy at FIRST like any other games with kinda similar plot,

But as I kept on playing, I got hooked on this and enjoyed a lot with how the mysterious the world is the other sins, Alice the best partner and the landlord lady the best villan lol, I must say the Penny or Paige is seriously the best character in it with dynamic personality, I thought she was going to be super annoying but as the story progressed I am super hooked on her, and glad the dev decided to follow up on her story.

I really like the skill thing that the dev did clearly inspired by the slime anime. Hopefully there will be a guide to how to unlock different skill in future. The gameplay is also cool and the interactive aspect of it is not annoying like generic sandbox types (I skipped the mini games so no comments on it lol, glad the game has an option to turn it off).

BUT I SERIOUSLY DON'T LIKE THE DICE THING. Only way to get good result is to save at the quest menu and try it bunch of times. Please make is so that backing the game a bit resets the variables and not when on the quest menu.(Or just get rid of it lol).

I really don't understand to why the dev decided to put it on hiatus, it is a really good game and could have been more popular. Hopefully this time it goes better.

ALSO PLEASE DEV LET US LEARN FIGHTING IN THE NEXT UPDATE I SERIOUSLY WANT TO FUCKING PUNCH THOSE ASSHOLES TO OBLIVION also those thugs in the latest update. Please . Best of luck man really looking forward to it.

This game is great. The renders are good, you have choices that actually matter. The game might not be the most original or groundbreaking but it's really fucking fun. Really excited for future updates!

Reviewing v0.5.3

Short Version: Clichè plot but done it good, unexpectedly pleasant characters, graphic a bit above basic HoneySelect 1 but still overall good, the dice-stuff is not random but not a major problem.

The Good

- Even in an isekai context, MC feels like a real person, ups and downs, the personality-system (Cruel/Benevolent/Smartass/etc.) is a good way to enhance MC's personality while keeping in mind the player's choices.
- The overall plot is a bit clichè but written in a way that is pleasant, god knows how many times we got the "embodiments of a sin fight each other and possibly the embodiments of Virtues" plot, and how many times i got disappointed, is not original but it's a good remake of such concept, not perfect but excellently written
- You can hate a character at the beginning to love it later, and this is fantastic when it's done the right way(see Paige/Penelope)

The Annoying

- The graphic is very hit or miss, it's honeyselect1 which i prefer more often than not, but the colors are often faded like they spent lots of time in the sun while washed with too much bleach. Even characters humble and down to earth like Chisa wear makeup and lipstick, nothing against it but it doesn't fit her, nor it fits the color of her makeup.
- The rolling dices mechanic is scripted, no luck, no chances, if you fail a roll, just accept that it's meant to be like that, i even tried by cheating and save editing, nope, the failed rolls are meant to fail.

The Bad

- The amount of content is abysmal for the time this game has been on development(or at least in this website), first release on f95 is dated September 11th 2021...3 year of development for this little amount of content? It's just sad.

Conclusion

- Despite the things i find annoying and bad, this game has a great unexpressed potential for being at least in the top60 best VNs on this website, which considering the amount of VNs, it would be an amazing achievement.

Story 2/5
Game had some potential, story isent bad even though the plot is the same shit you have seen a million times over by now, my issue is the lack of diversity in builds and the lack of choices which game talks so highly about which is also why it came to my supprise that it forces LIs on you which means no choices...and to make it worse the first girl your forced to sleep with is a whore who just uses sex as a tool couldent really be more of a turn-off, MC is even a virgin and thats who he would pick as hes first? one that is mostly doing it as part of a job and who barely likes him..... it just makes him an even bigger loser and again i hate that theres no choice in it.

MC dies and turns into a spirit and make a deal with the a god/devil/demon or whatever it is, where MC will get a new body in a new world which he has to protect, as for the plot MC needs to grow stronger and the way he gets stronger is supprise supprise...by fucking girls...it really is a overused plot so its a bit boring, MC needs to fuck atleast one girl a month and it has to be a diffrent one each time, problem is theres nowhere near 12 girls i would even want to touch in this game, its made for people with big tit fetish which i personaly hate so that really hurts the game.

And with forced LIs its just one turn-off after the other when your forced to fuck some big tittet bimbo and arent into that shit and you cant skip scenes either, dont think ive seen any smols, maybe a few with more normal sizes but not many, so far i think MC can fuck 3 girls all ugly bimbos with big tits where 2 of those are forced LIs, not sure about the last one.

MC is a whimp who gets hes ass kicked over and over all pretty standard stuff which you have seen many times and girls still fall in love with him.
Cant say for sure if main girls are forced or not since theres only really a single one in game with any content, i did pick the worst choices doing the 3 dates with her but after the last date you can choose to save her or not and if you dont its end of content and if you do you fuck her.

When you read about the game on the front page it says stuff like
"Choose your own path " or "20 girls to choose from" note the word choose..
then it says "The game is designed in such a way that you will not miss a single scene" which could mean everything is forced on you just like the first girl MC loses hes virginity to and it does seem like there is no choice and it feels like a mindless fuckfest game, i say that since 2 girls has already been forced on you where MC fucks them, first the catgirl then a random girl sleeping outside school.

Doing the game the catgirl ask what you want and the choices is "true love one girl" or "harem with those you select" or "fuck everyone" again choice means nothing at all and giving a choice to say true love after forceing a girl on you seems a bit idiotic, pick any choice you like but only the fuck everyone seems to be true or it wouldent have forced LIs.

And at another time it ask you what you want with a girl where choices are slave, friend or lover, again no clue if choice means anything, i picked friend and MC says she can still be hes lover? so yeah... oh and MC is also sterile making it even less fun.


I did like the RPG aspect having to pick skills and having the catgirl do stuff as well, but its to little when theres so much that drags it down and its not really a part of the game yet either.

Girls 2/5
I do not have a big tit fetish and that seems to be the main focus for the girls so it loses alot of points on that, faces looks cute and unique atleast and they have diffrent personalities which is nice, but there needs to be alot better diversity in builds and not just focus on a single fetish, i counted around 8 girls already with big or huge tits and maybe 3-4 normal and 0 smols maybe teacher has small ones not sure.

Animations 4/5
This is harder to rate, the animation at the end of current version with Penelope is really good and fun due to all the interactions you have in it, but all of the others which arent many are more average.

Music 3/5
Its pretty standard background music, but it does change for diffrent scenes so it dosent get annoying or boring.

Choices 2/5
Some probely matters but 90% means noting, and trow in a few fake choices wont help either, like ask for water in the bar and you get told to pick someting else since alot of the story is kinetic and game needs you drunk, so its better to not add choices if they dont matter.

Short Summary:
Good: Well writting, Good sandbox, Animations, RPG/Skills system.

Bad: Forced LIs. Main focus big tit fetish so poor diversity in builds. Missing rape tag. Whimp/pervert MC, lack of choices and fake choices. Overused plot and still to little content, story has barely even started and its been about 2½ years in the makings now and very few H-scenes.

Game could have been a 4 maybe even 5 star game but it would take alot of improvements, most importen things would be no forced LIs and alot better diversity in builds would go along way.

this is hardly a game at this point. srsly there are hundreds of games that "look promising" but which of these really deliver? under 1%. Not worth playing at all at this point. There is still a huge amount of work that needs to be done here and i doubt it will be in the near future.
Conclusion:
setting is nice and writing good
hardly any H

(Version v0.4)
A small review as encouragement. And a good one because this game is very promising.

Story is pretty interesting and shows some potential for the future.

There are numerous and interesting Characters to meet and their design are varied and realistic, which is a good point.

Gameplay is fun, if you like sandbox as I do. As only the prologue is available currently, there's not so much to do but I'm confident this will improve later.

Graphics are average and lightening is irregular, but the dev already knows it and, as I am writing this review, is remaking the game with improved rendering so that's why I do not take it into account in my current review.

Keep it up dev! That's a very good start!

Yeah this is an excellent one. Not just a simple 5-star one, but a real STAR among lots of 5-star ones.
Story is fascinating, draws me totally in. Graphics are gorgeous, girls are too ofc. Text is fine, almost flawless.
What else to say? A clear recommendation.
Although the game is only in the beginning, it has decent content already.
Edit: Hehe, I even dreamed about this story (and gameplay things). This happens to me sometimes, but extremely rarely - only with exceptional games (and this was not in the last 2 years)
_________________________________________________________________
Edit:
Contiued to play with 0.5.4 (Feb 2024).
Already in my TOP5 ever (10 years), this is going to be my absolute TOP1.

I just love this dev. The way he creates this game, smart and humorous texts, logic storyline … everything so well done.

And the graphics, oh my. All girls like from heaven. How can someone create such a beauty – beyond words (Penny)? Never saw such eyes – gleaming – heart touching – like that of Penelope.

Looking into the stats (handy), we can guess what the dev is planning to. Game has a lot of depth. I am so much forward for the next updates.

This one got good story. A promising one. Developer did a good job here. Renders are good for a HONEYSELECT game. Only gripe for me is the sandbox part. It's not annoying nor grindy. It's a simple part. But that's what makes me little annoying. Because there is no need for it dev can instead make it a proper VN. Other than that everything is ok. I like animes so like these kinda stories. Waiting for the day where MC will lose his weight looking forward to next updates keep up the good work dev

So far, so good! I'll propably change my review when I have seen more of the game. And by change I mean the review, not necessarily my 5* rating.

I like the plot, the girls and the graphics. Even if it's a Ren'Py. Some trouble when a character is a bad guy in one game then a good in another! I take the good part, hopefully that's why I made the test. So, just waiting, for next upgrade. Time for next game then...

My review of Dying Dream [v0.4]

Story/Writing
The writing is excellent.
It's very similar to Once In A Lifetime, except with incel instead of incest humor.
Characters talk and think like real people (in a porn game) and each character has their own interesting personality.

Graphics
The graphics are mostly standard Honey Select stuff - slightly above average, but nothing special.
The highlights here are the characters, which all look very different and attractive, instead of having sameface/samebody-syndrome.
Everything looks consistent and there are no clashing artstyle or weird shadow mapping artifacts.
Unfortunately is has an ugly textbox background though, instead of just font outlines with a transparent textbox.

Sound
The sound is very good.
Everything has background music and even sound effects.
Stuff like Honey Select pig-squealing and fake moans are luckily absent - the only unpleasant sound is 1 unnecessary chair creaking at the beginning.

Gameplay
The gameplay mostly is like a regular VN so far.
In the morning you go to school, which almost always advances the story and has no repeating scenes.
In the evening you can do stuff like school work or jogging, which also leads to story events and no longer has to be repeated once you are fit/smart enough.
The sandbox-grind is almost non-existent if you focus on getting fit first.
After finishing all the "grind" you and your classmates have to take a final test, to not get thrown out of school and a few days after that the current version (which is just the prologue) ends.

Game Length
The game is about 3 hours long at the moment (depending how good or bad you are at simple mathematics).

Final thoughts
I usually don't review games this early in development, but I think it is good enough to be on page 1 or 2 (weighted rating) if the quality stays the same.
I just hope future versions will be as enjoyable as the current one and the game doesn't get abandoned.

A very well-deserved 5 stars. This is what happens when someone learns how to write properly, takes an absolute cliché-filled genre and says: "I'll show you how it's done, fuckers!"

Consistent tone, absolutely excellent pacing, manageable scope without a bloated cast. Great set-ups for hopefully properly escalating payoffs. Even some life lessons mixed in presented so well you'd think it's your own concusion.

Every game-play mechanic so far only exists to demonstrate narrative character progression, or add impact to choices you made or will make. Design is stellar.

Characterization is also very good as it adds just enough of real emotions to cliché characters to make them interesting.

As for criticism, I felt one scene where Kira confronts you wasn't up to par. Player reactions were mishandled and it broke my immersion, but it wasn't all terrible either, just not being able to react how 99% of people would have.

If you like good writing, this game has it in abundance. As of 0.4 there isn't enough lewd stuff for a proper fap, but the setups are very promising.

Wholeheartedly recommended.

Bad cliche and boring story animations....
Mc idiot with horrible appearance and as he could not miss a horrible comedy, the female characters are all idiots, they seem to be late except for the neko.

I see a lot of potential here!

The writing is engaging and everyone seems like their own person. It's a fun comeback story, but with an extra dose of potential danger.

Of course, what's coming is going to change how I feel about the game. Next up, a sandbox. I generally find them fine, but based on the description, it seems this game wants to be really ambitious.

So, until then, this game has hot characters and a whole lot of intrigue.

Played version 0.4

Fuck me.

Every once in a blue moon I find a title on this site that blows me away for all the right reasons and this game is one of those titles. As of the time of the review we only have what passes for a prologue and a short update right after, but it's still 3-4 hours of gameplay or so. Very solid gameplay.

The writing is great. Good English, distinctive voices for all the characters. Dialogue flows naturally, the premise is pretty original and the setting seems to be pretty damn deep. Just from what I've seen so far, I'd play the game even if there was no porn.

Gameplay has so far consisted of making various choices (influencing some hidden statistics?) and pretty neat minigames that you have a chance to skip if you want to, but there's some incentives to power through them yourself. With rollback and quicksaves it's really easy to do so. Game promises a sandbox that has yet to be implemented so can't comment on that as of the time of writing.

Art is very nice, especially for the women, and promises a nice variety for all tastes. Animations exist and are pretty hot. Some clipping issues in one of them but they didn't take away from the enjoyment. Visually speaking the game does great.

There is only one avenue of concern: the scope. The developer has a huge ambition, which, if successful, will result in probably the grandest game on here. I have yet to see a game of such scope being finished by an amateur developer without a studio backing it, but I certainly hope he succeeds. This game is already great and has the potential to be truly amazing in the future. Please support it if you can.

The review may be updated in the future, when the sandbox update comes out.

As of version 0.4
The story started out good with nice renders and very good and interesting female characters after a while Grinding SANDBOX ruins the game where you have to run and have to manage diet repeat it for 10 to 20 times . Not everyone loves mini games and puzzles , if they do good for them and there is no option to skip these mini games . After a while Sandbox is given more importance than the story and I can see that it is going to be worse when MC starts to earn money and few more inventory added to the list . And the game says there are no bad choices but there are certain planned tags ( NTR ) that most would avoid in the game . I don't like those tags , the game gives us so many choices what would happen if you end up there as a mistake . It would have been helpful it controversial tags are mentioned under planned genre instead have to go through thread messages to see what is planned .
Overall apart from the story and characters other things like Sandbox , minigames and puzzles are worst as they can't be skipped and I'll check this game later if any of those things changes and controversial tags are avoidable and I'll update my review later .