Ren'Py - Holiday Island [v0.4.1.0] [darkhound1]

Hi Really like this game. Many Beautiful Girls and many events to find out. The dev team take a lot of time and effort to craft this beautiful game keep up the great work guys you are awesome. I will help them to make this game complete.

This has to be one of the best games on the site. I can't help but compare other games to this one, and most often they are found wanting. A hallmark of lewd sandbox development, and what's even better is that the dev is active in the community. One suggestion that I hope gets implemented: I'd love if we could somehow change around which conversation topics the various girls like/dislike - as much as randomization makes each game unique, I think making it possible for some adjustments from the player would make this game even better.

My rating is based around the idea that you have something better to do, if you have nothing better to do, access to no other games and a lot of free time, bump it up to 2 stars.

I can sort of see how this could get high scores, some guy spend literally days getting access to a specific girl and if he acknowledged how much time he wasted for so little it may break him.

This games old and there's a reason no one, or at least no one successful makes them like this anymore, it's a time wasting "skinner box", you feel like you're working towards something but only if you don't stop and think about it, the good looking, varied models can't hide how little there is beneath the surface, the girls are as deep as a dating profile bio.

"Um, wow um I've never talked to a girl before um wow, you are so beautiful *blushes* *smiles* *cums in pants*"

There you go, I just summed up the dialogue in this game.

Fucking kill me.

I have no idea about the rest of the game except the MC is a stuttering fucking loser *blushes and shits myself*.

Convoluted mess.

There are way too many selections/options in this sandbox that make it a real chore to play through. Way too many female characters.

Renders, character models and animations are underwhelming compared to other games that utilize Daz3D models.

This game is really not terrible for a sandbox /simulation.

My personal dislike is from the models - the breast size starts at large and goes to anime balloon size. I tried, but my little friend down there does not want to play along.

I love the game, I love the setting, I love the graphics, I love the girls.

Everything is done to perfection, I love the sandbox idea.

Excellent work, my respects! You truly are a master of your craft.

Briefly run through the game, the game version upon writing is 3.7.1.
Starting off with the heroines/girls. They are mostly attractive but that's subjective. The content for each varies so it highly depends so mileage may vary.

The biggest problem of this moment is the lack of any relationship progression. The 'love' stat feels highly artificial and simply used to calculate if certain checks are passed.

I would like to see a more intimate progression (i.e Love and Base 2 game is a good example of this) where the relationship and how a girl treats the player changes. (i.e Sex friend>Girl friend>Fiance/wife[?]) and the interactions between them evolves.

Events are sometimes highly specific and quite frankly annoying to get to even with hints.

All in all, it's certainly not a bad game, but with the raving reviews I question if it deserves that.

Get this out of the way:
Renders: 5/5
excellent variety, beautiful design
To sum up why the 'game' is a 2/5,
MC is a fit, huge-cocked guy on a harem island with a dozen women who can be 100/100 affectionate/loving/lustful for him, and because of the 'game' design he still has significantly less sex than the average, single person in their early 20s and maybe 1/20th the sex of the average person in their early 20s in a relationship.
Falling back from that, the typical "grinding =/= gameplay" critique is on this game like white on rice. Lots of games have grind, some even manage to make it fun. Calling this game's grind "tedious" is an insult to grinding boulders in Elden Ring. The difference is after an hour of boulders you'll be noticeably stronger but after an hour of grinding Holiday Island you get a boob and another hour of grinding.
Looping back to my initial critique of the lack of sex. This game, and it's weird to say this about a tropical harem game, has ridiculously un-immersive levels of frigidity.
e.g.
Jenny quite literally could not feel more affection for you.
Jenny quite literally could not love you more.
Jenny quite literally could not lust after you more.
Now meet Jenny at these coordinates at this time so you can take a selfie with her.
Oh, did you not spend 5% of your time playing this game jumping through the grind? Well, Jenny doesn't love you enough to take a selfie with you anymore.
Sex??? You want SEX in your porn game?! What kind of anim- you know what, here's 10-20 minutes Texas Hold'em with maybe a 2-frame-animation vanilla titfuck at the end. And I mean "maybe" because if you slacked off your grind you get a goodnight kiss and hospital-tier blueballs.

Holiday Island is an excellent porn game if you prefer your porn games without all the porn or games.

Models are top, gameplay is just awful. This is one of those games where the dev did a terrible job implementing a frustrating gameplay that is not fun. Don't know how is possible that anyone give a possitive feedback about the game or even love it.

My advise: Do not waste your time with this game. Not worth it.

Porn games should be simple, the grind you need here to unlock a single sex scene is obscene.

I rated this average but there's very little average here.

I'd strongly recommend this to other devs, not so much players. here's why.

Some of the features here are executed better than anywhere else. The open world system and lineup customisation options are brilliant and the dev deserves significant credit.

The downside, as others have mentioned, is the payoff. It's not that there is no content, it's just ridiculously hard to access.

here is a real example

Once you've levelled up 3 stats - Seriously
Meet X at bar - fine
On a Wednesday - ok
If she's wearing a green dress - what?
Ask her to come sit down for a drink - one of several options
Scene-trigger

So there's a fair bit of stabbing in the dark to get the whole venue, day, activity lined up but even if you get it, you're supposed to meet your date and then tell her to go get changed while you chat to other women for half an hour because she's rocked up in a black dress. It's counter-intuitive and wrecks what is already a long-shot.

Whats also strange is in the grind to level up an LI's stats, MC stands up and gropes them in a room full of people which makes the difficulty accessing scenes seem doubly weird. Casual molesting over breakfast is fine but any kind of intimacy on a date is a no-no.

I think there's a relatively quick fix here that could improve this title massively and turn it into one of the best sandbox games on the site but until then it's a bit painful. If you got the stats and you got the venue, trigger the scene.

For several hours of playing, I did not see a single sex scene. I don't even seem to understand how to get one. Probably need to grind a week of real life. The animation is terrible. Models are not bad, but the implementation leaves much to be desired. I don't like grinding, especially when it's meaningless.

Edit: I changed it to 1 star. It just got too frustrating to keep going.
You just have to read all of that boring dialogue. Holy shit. Why put all that effort into writing something so damn boring and awkward? As well as all the "OMG"s. Seriously? Who speaks like that?
It's literally just a bunch of teasing with very little reward. You can tell how barren the game is of content and poorly planned out this game is when there's almost nothing to see besides teasing for a vast majority of the characters and maybe 1 sex scene for half of them. The only one that has more is the hugest grind. It's so bad, it's not even worth it when you finally see it.
The MC goes as the only man, to a private island full of models and escorts who are supposedly there to have sex with him only it seems like their real goal is to either get him to fap alone in his hotel room like a sad fuck or get teased 24/7 walking around with blueballs. That's what 95% of the game's content is. If this were some kind of specific kink game then it'd make sense with all the teasing, denial, muscular women fetish, etc. but it's not. Which just makes it weird and dumb. Shit. Maybe this really is that and I just didn't read the premise properly.
And the stupid zoom-ins. Dude, I'm holding ctrl right now just trying to get through all this awkward-ass dialogue I've seen 1,000 times before. Just let me get through this.
I like sandbox games, I really do but this is just bad. Even some of the worst sandbox games I've played still had repeatable content. This makes you jump through hoops and over hurdles to get one scene and then to see it again ... you have to jump through the same hoops and hurdles.
So much more wrong with this game. Just go read the other negative reviews. Those other reviews sum it up better. I'd rather just delete mine but we can't do that so I decided to change it rather than just let it sit there.

After playing this game, I realized it would be quicker for me to get back in shape, learn to code, actually win the lottery, and move to Tahiti in order to get some action in my life.

Jokes aside, this game is GRINDY. I'm a guy who likes some grind and when tits are involved (very much like this game) I can have a shocking level of patience for grind. In the end, I was defeated, it still was too much grind for me.

It's a shame because from what I can tell from the intro and reading about this game, it has a very decent intrigue and plot, and I'm a sucker for that. Personally, I love the art, especially the bimbo aesthetic.

So here is my breakdown:

GOOD

- Story: by most account this game has a well fleshed out, engaging story that we have to discover through playing.
- Art: Lovely models that will please breast-lovers and bimbo-lovers of this world.
- Open world: I like the idea of an open-world and the freedom it gives the players. I like the slight confusion of figuring out what you have to do for the first 1 to 2 hours of a game.

BAD

- Art: I've read that some art has been updated to be higher resolution and I appreciate it. That being said, I did not see any of it. While the characters are gorgeous, most of what I saw is too low-res and seems fuzzy.
- Dialogues: With the sheer amount of repetition necessary for this game, it would be nice if the dialogue was more fleshed-out and more different for any girls. As its stands now, talking with any chick is the same 5 lines with slight flavor added to it.
- Narrative flow: Since there is some much repetition and grind, I've been abusing the "Ctrl" key... meaning I'm sure I've missed sparse tidbits of narrative development buried in the umpteenth repetition of a certain event/dialog.
- H-scenes: The grind was so much that I couldn't get to any worthwhile H-scene, but again poking around the game, I've learned that by most discerning account they are quite underwhelming considering all the gatekeeping one has to overcome before accessing them.

UGLY

- Grind: Seriously, this game is grindy. Personally, I believe that some of it is due to a combination of factors: numbers of stats involved, slow improvement of said stats, convoluted and unintuitive roadblocks on stats improvement, too aggressive RNG checks and stat decay.

I think the game has potential, with a serious update pass on the art to bring it in line with 2022-level graphics, expanded dialogs, and a tweak to how stats are handled this game could become very enjoyable and rewarding without loosing the complexity that the dev obviously worked very hard to implement.

PS.: Dev, I see you "thumbs-up" all the 5 stars review, but don't ignore the less-than-5-stars reviews. I've read all of them and with a few exceptions, even the negative reviews like huge portions of your game. We all want to see your game become the best it can be and I hope that you'll see that making your game more accessible can only be positive in the end. I'll keep following your project, because there is so much here that I like that I can't just walk away.

This is going to be a short** review, because the game is (like so many) a WIP and a lot can change in the future. This almost feels like a five-star game for me. It has a lot going for it in terms of customizability (in terms of LI's, if you can call them that), and activities and player agency. The renders look decent and the Poker mini-game is a fun little time-killer with "alone time" material for a payoff (more if the woman likes you enough).

(** - This ended up not being the case.)

This loses a star for that last bit. "Likes you enough." That sounds straightforward, but this game makes it WAY more complicated than it needs to be. There are variables for lust, love, affection, favor, tease, anger, charm, and these all seem to combine to dictate whether [insert woman here] is at all interested in the advances of you, the literal only man on the island. The man they're ostensibly there to see and hang out with.

Were this a "normal" story -- like a slice-of-life where you're wandering the world [or day-to-day existence] trying to get in the good graces of strangers and/or friends/loved-ones/classmates/whatever, then sure, add all these variable, it'd make sense then (though I've never seen it in that context in a game). But it is just *weird* that on this "holiday island" where it SOUNDS like they're all there to, I don't know, compete for you affection? Cater to you? It's not entirely clear (I should perhaps re-read the intro), but whatever the case, their moods are all over the place, and a woman who hit on you in an email one minute might respond with a sneering tone if you dare respond in kind. [No exaggeration, I received a message from a girl who sent me a lewd pic of herself, so I had the MC send her a sexy text in response, and she ended up being utterly turned off. Makes no sense.)

I don't mind a bit of grind, and if the player does something stupid, then sure, penalize them. But the amount of emotional plate-spinning this game requires every day of every week, keeps this from being a 5-star experience. And I suspect that aspect will not change any time soon, which is a shame because there seems to be a lot of fun and sexy content buried under the "you're hungry but you're not allowed to eat right now on this vacation island" and "we don't know each other enough for me to call you by your first name (WTF?)", etc.

Maybe implement a difficulty setting, or toggles to turn off and on some of these features. Or if you're going to make the player keep up regular maintenance on all of the women, increase the granularity (if that's the right term) of the day, break it down into 15-minute intervals instead of making everything take one or two hours. (Or the half an hour to chit-chat, half hour to masturbate, half hour to shower.) You should be able to take a nap that's less than two hours.

-7 Enthusiasm, new Enthusiasm set to 72.

When i first saw this game and the screen shots. I thought It was a generic Ren'py, with odd looking character models that I've seen 100 times. But when i played it, Holiday Island Exceeded my expectations.

You play as a nameless character that won a lottery to a small island with women and have Intimate relations with them. You find this too good to be true but soon find some mysterious things behind this island and try to find out what's going on here, while having a fun time with the ladies.

The gameplay is more of a sandbox, interactive dating game with minigames. Where you talk to all the girls/women and find their interest, favorites and soon date them and have sex with them. There is a lot of RPG stats like, Hacking, charms, looks, strength, love, affection and much more that make game more realistic and progress which girl you wanted. There is strip poker, HotShots, Butt and Wet T shirt contests, hacking and other interactivity you would love to see.

The Hentai scenes take a LONG time to get it. But you'll be rewarded if you play the Affection, Love, and Lust meter right. The hentai scenes are animated ranging from 20fps-70fps (I don't know why...) and other sexual poses. You'll get many favorite female and some unfavorite as well. My favorite girls are Jennifer, Heather, Eva, and Alice.

There are issues with the game, but it's kinda easy to spot when you're not trying. The character models are hit and miss, as some look pretty and other being the opposite. When Loading a specific file doesn't show the scene or error occured. And the Biggest issue of this game, is that It refuses to start the game in the first place. Find the save file from the C:->User-> Appdata and delete the "persistent" to run it again.

Once you start playing this game. You can't stop playing it. This game has a lot of content, very nice visuals, and a lot of girls to get intimate with.

fantastic game but in all the time i've been playing the voice files for the sex scenes never work can anyone provide a fix the files are all there but don't seem to work.... would be much appreciated and would def enhance the game play experience

With 20+ hours of conent and hundreds of scenes, events and appointments to unlock, this game skyrocketed into my top 10. Absolutely love the game, all the characters and the gameplay. There's so much to learn and unlock and every day in this game feels fufilling in a way. There's always something to do and work towards and all the girls are extremely beatiful and each has their own unique personality, 5/5, 10/10, 100/100 would reccomend

The reason this game is getting 1-star is because the character never gets entitlements from knowing, dating, or having raunchy sex with a girl. I mean if an MC has had such insane sex, why does he have to ask like a pathetic incel to have sex again. This game is plagued with grind for exactly this reason. An MC should be able to call females on the island, and meet and have sex, YES repeat scenes at will. Not do all this date nonsense. Once it's established that they've had sex, the bar has been lowered, but NO NOT in this game. Just forget it. There are other more enjoyable and easier to manage games. 1-star is fitting.

Simply the best erotic game I've ever played. The reviews which complain about the grind don't seem to understand the simulationist, sandbox intent of the game. This isn't a virtual novel where you skip dialogue until sex happens. This is a game where immersing yourself in the context and paying cursory detail to your daily schedule and the various proclivities of the women on the island pays dividends down the line. The game isn't complete yet, but there's a lot of content to enjoy and oodles of potential.