Ren'Py - Monster Girl Dreams [v26.b Alpha] [Threshold]

This is the kind of game I've been looking for. Quality Erotica, "battles" where you have to strategize carefully, and just enough quality art to prime your imagination's pump. I also appreciate that most encounters are repeatable, and that a "loss" isn't a Game Over.

Up until tis update (V 22) this has been an incredible game with good story, well writen characters with different personalities, a combat system entertaining that builds up well with the game theme and of course lots of H scenes everywhere with all kinds of kinks. There´s also the constant updates that keep the game fresh, the only bad point (and that depends on your likes) is that it´s text based so basically no CG scenes still the dialogues are quite well writen so in general as long as you not only care for what you see you´ll have a good time (btw there´re some images of the characters that even change according to the situation and seems all will eventually get their own image so that´s a bit more of help if you need it or worry to only look at walls of text)

Review for v22.2a

And here we are with another free-clicking poorly-programmed full-of-unnecessary-text game...

First of all - as lots of fight/strategy porn games - you spend the majority of your time farming. By the way, you farm for nothing, as usual : you fight slimegirls for starters, and win each time approx. 20 eros, when you know that you'll spend 200 on buying an energy potion that'll give you only 25 mp afterwards... That is clearly not profitable, and it's only the beginning! It'll get worse and worse as the game continues and the challenges grow harder.
So this farming necessity is just boring. Maybe this is the reason why the devs implemented a modding option (again...). Yes, you could argue it's to offset the lacks of the game, but here it's the 22nd version... So maybe all that unbalanced rewarding/bonus/malus system could have been changed in the past versions, as the player can clearly see the numerous defaults of the gameplay.

Secondly, the art is average : the quality is good, but it lacks of variety. There is not many different scenes, and the content is partially identical from a monstergirl to another. Only you can see few variations on the face of the different mobs. And damn, there is a lot of useless text, making you want to skip it all the time and making you lose vital information that no post, no sum up would give you afterwards.

And finally, as we got a modding system, and marking all these defaults, it would be a shame not to try balancing these with a few welcome cheats.
Foolish that I was... Actually I started the game over with little changes, like less expensive items, more powerful, etc. and still it was unbalanced, and I could only win the fights after a lot of farming.
So I decided I would create an item that would make my character untouchable, a sort of paladin (HP = 10 000, MP = 3000, SP = 200, STATS = 30, SENSITIVITY = -1500%). I started over again. And even with this fully cheated character, I would lose boss fights, my leveling up was definitely slow when it should not be... And I couldn't trigger the cavern's ending leading to the rest of the map though I defeated every boss.
It clearly showed me that the game was coded to make you lose even if you were a demigod... Here is all the interest of a cheat mod : you see clearly all the limits of the game program.

So, no, I truly don't understand why it is so appreciated by the community...

I went in having never played any text-based game before, and left extremely supprised. The writing is amazing, the sex scenes are astonishing despite not having any animations or images (appart from character sprite), and while the combat needs some fleshing out, i believe that Threshold will deliver in the updates to come. Definitely would recommend to anyone who wants to try out a new exprerience.

Honestly, this is the best text-based (with graphics) hentai bfrpg I have ever come across on this site and if you are looking for detailed, sensual, with a touch of comedic flair, this is it.

Great work on the game and looking forward to future updates!

Great game with a lot of potential. Hope to see it continue such high quality development.

The relationships you can form with some of the monsters can get really personal and serious. Kotone's story is so dark and it is a real challenge getting her to open up with yourself. There are lots of relationships like that and it adds so much depth to the game. Really is a fabulous game.

I would definitely recommend trying it. The "combat" is a lot of fun and it feels like there is a real lot of content.

Great game and developer somehow gone under the radar. Similar feel to the original Monster Girl Quest. Enemies have a good bit of personality, with a range of encounters and methods for getting through them. Looking forward to further expansions.

Very well written monster girl text based game with plenty of fetishes to appeal to. Lots of variety in both monster girls and scenes, fun dialogue and deceptively good combat system. Sometimes on new releases there will be a lot of bugs/crashes, but that's usually sorted out quickly by the developer Threshold. The art is amazing, and even the music added in recently helps create moods.

Definitely one of the best games I have played here. Monster girls are my jam, and battle fuck mechanics elevate the turn based RPG combat into something really special.

The sex scenes are well-written and descriptive, the art is amazing and the gameplay is fun and addicting. There are a lot of different viable builds you can make, and from what I can tell every stat has some level of importance. I really liked playing my willpower based sex mage, magically binding my opponents and making them cum with sexomancy. I've completed most of the main path, and I might just restart as a technique build to see how it changes things up.

This latest update adds a new dungeon (which I kind of blazed through with my over-leveled character), it's just a shame that new art takes so long to add. The descriptions for the new girls are great and all, but having the character bust on screen really helps to visualize the action. Hopefully the creator will get more patrons so he'll be able to add more art more quickly.

Also, there is a ton of side content that I missed on my first run. Kaia the manticore and Mika's content in particular took some searching in the discord to figure out. So there's more here than you'd think at first glance. Though, my girl Nicci needs more content! She's basically the poster girl, but there doesn't seem to be any extra love routes or anything for her. What's up with that?

Overall, an excellent game with excellent core mechanics that I wish would progress just a little faster.

The general idea is pretty interesting, as I don't think I've heard of someone doing this sort of thing in Ren'Py; all I know it for in these communities are pisspoor Daz renders. I feel like the writing is probably the game's strongest point. Up to this point, there hasn't been a single scene that I dislike or have ignored. Maybe I'm just a normie fuck, but every single scene is written in a way that feels interesting to go through. There isn't a whole lot yet, but it is alpha. Plus, if for some reason you feel like grinding, nearly every area has additional content, like additional handicaps and superbosses. The overall difficulty shouldn't be too much of a struggle, though. The game's developed pretty actively, with common updates and dev contact.

Modding the game looks like colossal pain, especially if you don't get programming at all and/or don't feel like dealing with a cluster of different files to make, but the fact there's care being put towards mod support is a worthwhile fact in itself.

This is probably one of the better games to follow the development of, not gonna lie.

First of all I will say the obvious, it's a good game and I expect it to grow quite a bit over time.

Having said that let's start to analyze it:

-The story basically tells us that we are a hero with an incredibly big debt, the goddess can be interacted with in the temple and she helps to low our desires and sensibilities, which is quite necessary.

Overall it isn't a really complex setting but it does what is meant to do, give us a setting.

-About level ups and stats: Here is when we come into the most complex part of the game, this part needs a few optimizations to make it better, personally I recommend a tiny buff to level up in which you receive 2 attribute points and one core point, meaning a point that can be used to increase lust or energy. The reason I believe it is necessary is because many skills have high attribute requirements and using points to increase lust or energy can leave you in a tiny problem to achieve it, having to grind much more.

Even if that point wasn't given every level if it's each 2 levels it would be okay, perhaps even better for balance.

Another point is that it would be better that only skills that you can choose while levelling up should appear, rather than all skills, just add an additional option called "show all skills" so that players that want to planify can do it.

Lastly it may be fun a hardcore mode in which fetishes can't be lowered after they achieve certain point (3, 7 and 10) basically if you get a fetish to level 3 you can't lower below that, the same as 7 and 10.

-About the combat: It can be quite fun, while it isn't perfect it is very interactive, overall I would like perhaps that enemies would aim at your fetishes when discovered, if the character has a foot fetish they will prefer to focus on that rather than using diverse attacks. Perhaps it could be a good option for hardcore mode.

-Monster girls level up and level drain: This is a personal expectation but it would be nice that we get some encounters like the slime one in which the enemy is training and levelling up, even more an enemy with level drain may be interesting too.

-About the city: there are too few interactions within the city, and most of them are related to the brothel, it would be nice to be able to seduce the girls that are in the city to have sex or something like that, I personally would really want that nun.

-About blessings: It is quite a nice addition, it would be really nice that we can find ways to obtain extra attribute points or bonuses, low blessings would be overall positive and increase core stats on 1 or 2 attribute points, more complex ones as it is it's okay. Some fully positive and some that can have a counterpart.

An interesting addition would be that you could get cursed.

Overall it's an interesting game to play and I recommend it.

Monster Girl Quest/Lulu Farea, but with femdom and A LOT of content, game is moddable so even more potential content.

Story is good, writing is great, setting is funny and interesting, characters are well made, etc.

Gameplay is good, battle is in battle-fuck style and it is well done, it might become pretty repetitive after a few hours, but you can skip most of them and boss battles are always engaging same with unique NPCs.

Art is great, but there is not much of it, it would be a flaw if it wasn't used so well to complement writing.


TL&DR
Story 5/5
Writing 5/5
Gameplay 4.5/5
Art 4/5

One of the best games i have seen on this site, as i didn't follow this game before i'm not sure how fast is the development going, but the end result will be great.

God damn it ,i loved it.
The characters could react if you came more than one time plus the intimacy and the possible creation of a harem makes me wanting for more.
Nice game one of my favorite ones.

Monster Girl Dreams has amazing writing, ideas and art to go with it. Doesn't have too much content yet but the content in it so far is by far the best I've seen in a pornographic game in a long time. Is still being updated every now and then from what I can tell and has a lot more potential.

Shit, I wrote an in-depth review, but clicked outside the message window by mistake so it disappeared and I lost everything. So I'll make this one a bit shorter instead.
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Update: Looks like I utterly failed at that
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Anyways... Game is fucking great. Great writing and surprisingly good art for a text-game. Especially, great choice in not allowing race/body options. Those things always results in shitty lewd scenes with an incoherent mishmash of useless customization information. Having a single generic MC in mind makes everything a lot more fluent and coherent.

That being said, even great things can be improved, so here's a few suggestions. All (or almost all) similar games suffer from the same problems I'm addressing so it shouldn't be taken as a criticism for this particular one.

Suggestion 1: Kill All Battle Repetition
If I use the same butt-fuck attack 37 times in an encounter, I don't want to read through the same text each single time. You can't possibly make 37 unique descriptions so just give us the ones you got and then whenever I use butt-fuck attack again, simply write an effect summary like this:
----------------------------------
Butt-fuck Success
Monster +42 arousal
You +9 arousal
----------------------------------

Suggestion 2: Kill All Other Repetition Too
So I meet some red slime chick a second time and half-way through the text I start thinking "did I read the exact same thing an hour ago". Now half my brain is occupied with that question. A bit later I realize the question is "yes" and start clicking to skip, but what if something new comes along? Well, I can use the ren'py "only skip seen text" option (if it worked), so I don't click through unseen text by mistake, but then I don't remember the context.

More importantly, all this shit removes focus from the story and breaks immersion. If there's a situation where dialogue would be repeated, then write it away. If I meet red slime chick again and it will ultimately lead to battle, then just start the battle immediately. If it leads to a decision instead, then make the dialogue short so I remember what it's about but doesn't waste time. Oh, and make it obvious which choices I've already made.

Suggestion 3: Kill All Unnecessary Clicks
If I've surrendered to the red slime chick and things are getting hot and dirty in a lewd scene, I don't want to click every 3rd-10th second just to read the next few lines. Make 60 pct of the leftmost screen text, place the picture on the right of it (or vice versa) and remove all other visual distractions (buttons, stats etc).

Suggestion 1-3 aren't just "nice to have". They're absolutely critical for how a game feels. Imagine a 4 hour movie that constantly repeats the old scenes and stops every 3rd-10th second until you click. Sure, you can just fast-forward and click when needed, but you're not really enjoying the movie the same way anymore. The writing in this game is goddamn great and it is a shame I can't enjoy it fully because of these technicalities.

Bonus-suggestion: Lewd Content Accessibility
If you relentlessly murder all repetition like a rabies infected hamster on meth, then what if you want to experience a particularly hot scene again? One way is to simply make it available as a specific dialogue option or an even easier (but less immersive) option is to "dream" about them in the inn.

Regardless of the choice, I can't see a reason to keep content from the user. For instance, I beat the red slime chick on the first battle, but then read in the wiki that she had a loss scene that is now inaccessable to me. Naturally, I immediately began crying hysterically and then just felt empty. Incomplete. This seemed like the only rational response instead of, you know, re-loading an old save.

Not only do the player miss good material this way, but he's also forced to repeat the same battles. Some encounters even have several lose scenes depending on how you lost. Then you have to repeat them each time to somehow end in a specific position and if you fuck it up, you have to do it again and again. Better to just unlock all relevant content when you beat a specific monster girl. In red slime girl's case, I could ask her "what would have happened if I lost" to which she'd say "let's find out". Or I could, as mentioned, just dream about it.

I don't want to end on a negative note though, because this is a great game compared to the rest of the genre. Yes, I know I'm repeating myself, but hypocrisy is an important aspect of being a leader, and if writing shitty reviews of porn games for free is not the physical embodiment of true leadership then I don't know what the hell is.

I love it so far with v19.6 alpha and i really want to see this game go places. It is pretty entertaining and going full on masochist may even hurt your progress with is more than enough to encourage you, the player to make a mixed bag of choices. A lot of monster girl stories that involve a male protagonist tend to lean toward the shota angle, but not this one. This one is clearly out of mandatory schooling as well as elective schooling (training academy, [akin to college]) and the player isnt afraid to get dirty (in every sense of the phrase). This is definitely a game to check out, even if you arent a fan of text based adventures. Come for the lewds, stay for the almost* D&D style game play.

I'm not a fan of text-based games, but this one is quite fantastic. There's a ton of content already, and there is a lot of variation in the type of events that happen (not to mention the writing is quite good, barring a few infrequent typos). In it's current state it's definitely worth playing, and definitely a game worth checking up on when some more updates roll out.

It's also of a rare breed of eroge that actually has a gameplay component with could reasonably stand on its own merits.

This game is a text-based sex adventure with DnD elements and good fap material. If you enjoy text-based games but don't want to read too much, this game is for you.

Pros:
+ Good writing, no broken english
+ Good sexy stuff
+ Good amount of content (as of Alpha v19.2)
+ Plot is good enough
+ Awesome use of the Ren'Py engine, I'm honestly surprised
+ Monster girls with different personalities and traits

Cons:
- Too grindy for a sex game

Review fo Alpha v18.5

A game that target a very specific community of monster girl quest players that were somehow disappointed with monster girls in other text based games (like CoC or TiTS): No futa, no transformation, just female-male stuff. Due to the lack of any other game for that audience, the game automatically starts with a good impression.

Everything is their to create a unique and good game: original combat mechanics, based on sexual stances; A clear game progression zone->combat events+roleplay events->quest; Illustrations to help picturing some girls; Devs that encourage the community to share their opinions.
In my opinion, the game is good as it is but I certainly hope it will get better in the future.

There game rely on RPG elements--stats, passives, skills. However the story is linear and neither you nor your stats really affect it that much. No real companions/waifus/harem members/slaves, the NPC that share a story with the player are restricted to specific zones and events which limit the roleplay element. Fetishes are also there but it's more for the player to get rid of them. An obvious solution would be to write more events, but the game being in Alpha, this can not count as a major issue.

The modding option is a huge plus, as it may attract writer and help the game grow--and maybe add the hidden scenes/facultative elements the game lacks for now. It's a bet and I can't say for sure it will pay off.

When it comes to grading a game, the question then is: what game is better than MGD that I would rather be playing and which could serve as reference for the devs? Well, nothing really. So 5 stars due to the lack of competition and the game being good already as it is--only in alpha.

Having played text based games before, I was used to and enjoy these games somewhat more than those that have images already, even though there are some here as well. The intro is great as to how it basically lets you know this is a sex battle kind of game. It may take a bit to grind at first, but there is a nice bit of strategy to the game as well. It helps with the text being in one box at the bottom during combat, and the combat can unfold in quite a few ways, with a few varied lose scenes depending on your choices. It only crashed a couple times on me, but this is definitely a game worth trying.