Ren'Py - Horton Bay Stories - Jake [v0.5.3.2] [Lumphorn Games]

[v.0.5.2.2.]


⠀⠀At first glance the game seemingly has a ton of content: so many locations to visit and so many girls to pursue. Unfortunately you soon discover that half of places are empty placeholders and all the characters are "in development" after their introduction and maybe a couple of events. In fact "in development" warning is the most frequent constant you will be met with.
⠀⠀Progression is quite grindy. Most girls will have several stages of intimacy, each one requiring you to go through same event 5+ times, while dialogue stays the same as if the event is happening for the first time. For that reason, I'd recommend turning the cheat mode on.
⠀⠀Gallery is whack. You can access it by sleeping in your bed and it doesn't contain even half the scenes that happened.
⠀⠀My god Adel is ugly. Like it's not even opinion, there is something seriously wrong with her facial features objectively. Also since when is she so in love with MC? They've just met, then I look away for a second and she is already head over heels with him. How? When? Why? And yet you still have to grind her stats just like any other character.
⠀⠀It's not just her. Some of the other females are conventionally unattractive (faces only). But most of the time it's not facial features that are at fault, but expressions. Whenever they show some kind of emotion their face gets all wrinkly and foldy which makes them look deformed and 10-20 years older than they actually are. That's all not concerning the bodies btw, they're hot.
⠀⠀Phone UI and Map navigation are abhorrent. Your phone contains a list of characters with hints to their progression. Here's problemo - there is over ONE HUNDRED characters! There isn't even a search function! You have to manually scroll and look for each of them to get the hints. And as for navigation, sometimes (quite a lot actually) you will have to use arrow pointers to move places, and it's super confusing and takes a while to get used to.
⠀⠀Game is extremely laggy at transitions and animations. You gotta do something seriously wrong for your renpy game to do that.
⠀⠀Not enough options to assert dominance. Look I get it, it's a NTR focused game. But even if you turn it off, MC still gets trampled over A LOT, and you, the player, have no say in the matter. It would be nice to allow for more decision making that leads to MC bulling the others and not the other way around.
⠀⠀So yeah, to force cuckoldry upon players, author didn't come up with anything better than making all other male characters major assholes and Bill Cosby wannabe sex offenders. Off the top of my mind I can think of only one character who's not either an aspiring rapist or a spineless cuckold, and that is Ronnie Coleman looking ahh mfker named Bear. He's pretty cool.
⠀⠀Central plot is all over the place. First it was about secret druglab distributing roofies. Then we've revenge plot, then we have to help out the cam girl for some reason, now all of the sudden your parents divorce, etc. And by this point we already forgot about drugs and this criminal organization associated with them.

I mean the situation is not unsolvable. The base game is not bad, author clearly knows what he's doing. But he really needs to fix some issues and progress already existing characters and main plot-line instead of adding more and more placeholder girls and places.

As of 5.0.2 (Haven't played new update yet):

I am truly shocked at some of the negative reviews of this game. Perhaps some of them are older reviews, but still... Anyways, let's get started!

Animations/Artwork - 4/5

Let me start by saying the bodies and models used are amazing. And there are plenty of girls and some different size girls (though some aren't implemented yet). The animations are quite good. Some are a little janky where the physics look kinda off, but still very good. I think my only concern is some of the faces of the girls. Like when they get sad or upset, their faces look can look odd. Not sure if it's intentional, but again, it's only a couple of them. Overall, still very good, and very fappable. :3

Storyline/Dialogue - 5/5

Holy hell, a sandbox VN with a story I actually want to read! While it's not the most in depth out there, it's definitely good enough to pay attention to. It's a fun adventure for me anyways, and there are girls galore! It's taken me a bit to get used to the UK English, but it's not like... insanely hard to understand. No like "Oi, give, chipper weather, innit?" Just some commonly used terms from across the pond. Still, the spelling and grammar is great, and it's very readable and enjoyable.

Gameplay/Dialogue - 5/5

So one of my biggest pet peeves on sandbox games is when devs go out of their way to build stat systems and things like that. Some can get absurdly grindy and unplayable. I am pleased to say HBS:J is not one of them. This is a very well designed sandbox game. Yes, you do still have to build stats and do some grinding, and yes, some of those stats can degrade if ignored. But it's not tedious to rebuild them. I'm not the biggest fan of the navigation system, but it's not terrible to get used to.

Overall, very solid game. As of now, it's a very good sized game that won't end abruptly on you, and the dev puts out very consistent updates. Highly recommend.

Cheers.

Radical Dreamer

Horton Bay Stories - Jake [v0.5.1.2]

Bad, if not for the girls/models and some kinky scenes. You're more than welcome to try this VN, even tho most of it is rough and janky. That's it.

Story - ~0,5/5. It is present here.
Choices - 3.5/5. You can choose some things.
Characters - 0-2,6/5. Pretty one-dimensional. You mostly won't care about them.
Models/animations - 3/5. They're good. I'm really surprised how good they look, but sometimes there are a lot of junk and just passable moments.
Grammar - 3/5. Eh, whatever.

I only started this game. So far its been a fun game. You can turn off NTR. Some parts of game still include males trying to poach your harem, but as I said its still fun. Looking forward to more content.

Graphics are decent.
Story is good.
Have decent teeth for British.
Funny Posters, esp in Doctors office.
Prego content is always a plus.

Built in cheat system for those that cant stand the grind. (its in phone>settings>cheat enable). Comes with warning not to save a cheats used game but whatever.


Should finish by adding; You don't have to be "Jake", can pick a name of your choosing.

This review/opinion is most likely opposite of popular preferences and opinions, but models in this game are such a fresh and great thing to look at.

Personally, I feel honestly tired of every popular game having the same character models with samish proportions and basically no body imperfections - it gets boring real fast.

Most of the models in the game could be considered not conventionally pretty, but it makes this game so much hotter - it does feel much more immersive and real. Characters in this game still are attractive (at least in my opinion) with great bodies, but the key factor is variety and realistic body proportions - which is such a small portion of games on this forum.

The only things - that currently annoy me, are definitely the sandbox . It can get a little confusing and you definitely will be needing a walkthrough to progress further for some characters. Animations and facial expressions in sex scenes are my second annoynace, some of them are super janky and way too slowed down - faster animations and better facial expressions would make the experience so much better.

I am definitely a huge fan and can't wait to see more from this game developer - most fans of variety and more realistic look will definitely find this game highly enjoyable.

Easily one of the best, largest and most consistently updated games in F95, with lots of girls to pursue, lots of guys to compete against, lots of scenes, and plenty of kinks for almost everyone, with a cohesive (although not always necessarily coherent) story, easyto understand gameplay loop, and a built in guide to progress without trouble.
Having said that, like most games in here, it isn't without it's flaws.
First off, I get the feeling that the idea was to present a different art style from the assets everyone else often uses, with more realistic bodily proportions and characters with their own characteristics, however, there are more than a few characters in desperate need of a glow up, like Lillie (she's like watching gizmo getting railed), the three main female characters (I read somebody saying that they looked like they had been hit with joker gas, and I agree), the three main romantic interests should be easily the most attractive ones, and at this point, I would take Shelley, Marley or Regan over any of them (Adel looks like a young old lady, Christine is easily the joker's sister and Gemma looks like a trappy femboy).
Content wise, updates have been steadily coming in, but as of late, I feel like content has become more and more scarce with every new update (currently two or three scenes per update, if we're lucky), bug correction is much appreciated and so are new characters, but I believe more content with existing characters without updates for several months or even longer than that should be priority (Louise, for example).
Story is good, but little to no advancement as of late.
Gameplay is simple to follow and the guide makes it easy to move along, however, most characters feel inconsequential to the main plot, and most vastly under fleshed out, as do plot points (Mc knows about the serum, it would make sense for him to able to dose girls at, say, scoundrel to make the morality system matter), or perhaps having the principal take care of your scores once you establish a sub/dom relationship with her.
I also suggest Mc character development, like setting up a counter for number of NTR scenes seen, until after reaching a certain number, Mc begins to wonder if he truly dislikes such sightings and his dialogs change in consequence (the opposite isn't necessary, as those who don't like that suff will likely turn NTR off anyways)
Overall, definitely a game that desoite it's shortcomings, shines for it's scope, quantity of content and QoL features.
In any case, these are my two cents, hoping this can be of any help to it's developers.

One word: Awesome. Story wonderful, excitation wonderful, sensuality wonderful. Only the visual reality could be a little better, but it would turn work into VR porn rather than a game. Each move puts you into a different labyrinth. It's a game that doesn't make it easy to predict what will happen to you. If the characters become more realistic during the game development process, this game will definitely become many people's favorite game. Finally, it would be better if a gallery section containing all the sexual scenes was opened.

It is between 2 and 3 stars.

Redeeming qualities - there is a lot of game content and scenes, the dialogues and situation settings are all good. The cheat button inbuilt in the phone works well.

Now about why, it is 2 stars. The faces, those are the most ugly faces you can imagine. Few of the characters are looking decent here, with most young females having a face of grandma with some extra genetic diseases on top of wrinkles. I am not certain why the Developer insists on using such faces, it cannot be hard to change or improve it. Faces alone can bring you nighmares and horrors. In particular take a look at Adel, white haired girl you live with.

Second, the interface. The UI/UX of this game is straight out of 90s, a lot of time is spent scrolling through 50 various buildings or the map trying to find the location to go to.

Amazing game ! good work so far. I love the characters and the scenes. I would love for more content involving Lucas and the girls, some sharing or going 2nd and finishing the girls after Lucas has had his way.

Graphics: 3/5
Models: 3/5
Scenes: 3/5
Story: 5/5
Gameplay: 4/5

An interesting project that surprises for the freedom of choices you can make which involve an evolution of relationships with the characters and the story itself.
In this regard, a more detailed guide could be useful when you are faced with choices to make, so that you can predict what direction the story will take.

Still, it's a good game.

seems like everything of worth while in terms of the sleep sex itself, and the interesting characters are still in development. so when theres more of a game to review, ill review it. however as it stands, animations are good, but the loop could be smoother to be less noticable and more immersive.

Version 0.4.1.6 Another difficult one to review, so much to comment on and it swings wildly from poor to great to meh. So I'll give it a shot.

Graphics - well..different can only describe it. Quality is good, some animations and rather well done. The models, are extremely different and kinda weird, but it is throughout the game. Personally I initially didn't like the models at first, but found after some time it worked and I got into it, and some of the models got better. Many weird faces, large hobbit feet and such...bizarre.

Gameplay - so there is a ton of content in here. It has a sandbox, which is not the easiest to navigate, once you start getting locations they show up on the map (most of them) others are difficult to find and the navigation when walking is kinda messed up and very difficult to use. As for the "Ton of Content" that is probably the entry into one of my problems with this game, finding everything.

Interactions are based of specific times, places, and other actions having been done. Now there is a in game mission hint, and the characters have a simple hint system in the character cards - but there is so much, finding things is a chore - and there is literally dozens of NPCs. The hint system is really burdensome and not intuitive. I keep on playing this game, and I have never gotten every scene as I get bored and can't be bothered to go write down all the times, places I need to be to progress certain LIs.

NTR - this one is interesting, so I am not a NTR or Cuck fan at all, don't even like the swinging thing, cheating is fine, but I do enjoy the stress, and adventure of the possibility of losing the girls. So I leave it on, it really helps with the story line. So with it on, you absolutely see your girlfriend getting fucked by the teacher at the beginning...kinda the main plot moment. After that all the NTR moments I have found can be avoided by doing the right things and the girls don't get fucked...screw up and they do. (there is another scene where they teacher and ex phone you as well) but don't worry, it seems we will be getting revenge on him with his daughter and wife in the future.

So after all that, still a 4 star game for a pile of content, decent graphics, a storyline that is reasonable, good english. Pregnancy system is in place, a few milfs (could use more), impregnation and lots of fucking.

A little fix on the navigation, and a easier hint system would be better it would make this an excellent game. i.e. when with a LI a character card is visible and hints readily available, or even mark a certain LI and her hints and timings would be visible during normal gameplay until you selected another.

Solid hours of gametime if you can get used to the models used.

has sleep sex in the tags, there is only like 1 scene with sleep sex. has rape tag but very little rape content. MC has extremely boring good buy sensibilities. But most of the scenes are decent, though highly repetitive. The models' face look very strange on some of these.

Really underrated game. One of the very few games that I binged to complete. I really really like the Christine character model. Even though it was a sandbox game, it did not feel grindy (also cheat system available to check out other paths). Looking forward to the next update with Christine, as well as the interesting main plotline. Possibilities are endless

My review is for the none NTR path where you have it turned off.

From the very start doing the intro/prologue it already starts to feel off, MC and hes girlfriend and hes friend get into a small arguement which ends with MC trowing them out of the room/house, next MC changes college and moves out due to never wanting to see them again, this is waaay overkill compared to what happened and its extremly clear that its not the real story meaning the real reason is due to the NTR path where hes friend fucks MCs girlfriend.

The problem with that is that its just to easy to spot and its like there has been put 0 effort into making the none NTR path work or make any sense.
Also even with NTR turned off the first time you go to sleep you can pick to dream about your exgirlfriend where you see the hole scene of girlfriend cheating on MC with hes friend....so even with NTR off scenes still shows under dreams which i also found a bit idiotic since it dosent have anything to do with the none NTR story path, it even happens in the game like if you sell a video it will show the NTR video in the none NTR path which is really bad if you dont want it.

Some girls will pretty much just trow them selfs at MC, but atleast most you need to build up a relationship with so thats nice.
In the start i couldent get used to the girls they where/are just ugly, weird looks, some almost look evil, it does get a little bit better later on when you meet a ton of other girls so get past the start and you might find something you like since it does get a little better.

It has one huge issue wich effects the game in a bad way, and thats to many LIs, alot will only have very few scenes and arent given enough screen time and you will also run into "in development" alot, i only just got to the the college and proberly seen it 10+ times, it feels like dev just kept adding stuff but at some point it just gets to big so progress will be very slow with to much that hasent even started yet, like 100% of the teachers and some girls are "in development" right after meeting them for the first time.

Its a bit disappointing to see considering game is more then 2 years old now and so many things hasent even started up yet, even main story has barely got anywhere and same with the main girls gets hit by "in development" pretty fast, no pregnancy yet other then a sign saying they are pregnant, so there really isent all the much in game after 2 years, at this rate it will take another 5+ years to finish.

None NTR Story 2/5
The start felt a bit off due to the missing NTR which made it weird, but atleast the rest of the game it rarely feels as stupid as the start when having NTR off, you will however see NTR like sellings vids it shows worng vids with NTR in none NTR path which is just a no go, alot hate NTR so it just shouldent be there when NTR is off, and it does ruin the story as well since it dosent match up with the storyline in none NTR path.

Animations 3/5
They are pretty decent but not great, some are a bit off and jumpy but most are fine.

Girls/LIs 2/5
Got to say i dident really find many if any of them hot, the faces just seems off to me or even ugly in most cases, some look like aliens with very tin bodies and face dident help either, Adel looks evil and old not sure if its the eyes or the weird facial expressions most LIs has but man to me they just feel off and look worng, it does get a little better later on atleast.

Music 3/5
is average background stuff, no bad but nothing special either.

Sandbox 2/5
It is way to grindy to get money, you use more time on that then anything else, the sandbox works fine with out any issues, the hint system is mostly ok as well.

All in all its not a bad game there just to little content and to many LIs which results in...yeah you guessed it, to little content and to few scenes with the LIs, it really hurts the game when there is to much, and its just not fun to wait for more then a year and never see any content with the girls you want.
Also it makes you waste alot of time trying to raise points with girls that has 0 content but dosent say "end of content" so you wont know there isent any.

Rev @ Horton Bay Stories - Jake [v0.3.7.3]

Art's alright, bit amateurish but passable. The faces though are all Brown-Bag Specials and all the girls need an IV drip of sammiches.

Writing is weak, just like all of these are. Scenario is Mom + 2 Hot Daughters subtype 31: 'mom' is Sister #3 and relations are coated with thin veil of Patreon-pleasing.

Porn's alright. Too much peeing and anal, needs more pregnancy that isn't swung around like Damocles.

Gameplay makes my brain hurt. Unironically. If there's a polar opposite to the Scouts' Orienteering badge I nominate whoever made the map for it. Cardinal directions trade off from screen to screen, and it's entirely possible to walk south so far you wind up at the northernmost screen again, and then walk east far enough to wind up on the northernmost map again. Noneuclidian cartography is this game's most noteworthy contribution.

TLDR: Do you suppose the maps hit the faces and that's why they're all so fucked up?

So im going to keep it shot this games story is pretty good but navigating the game is just awful also i wish i could make is so some of the missions i dont want to do wont pop up like some of the male characters side missions

The game isn´t really good but has potential.

First there are a lot of characters, but most don´t have enough scenes.

The gameplay is trash, it is too user unfriendly navigating is confusing, you can´t change the time except in cheap mode, and the UI is awful looking.

The characters are all pretty boring and have little personality.

The models are either okay or just weird, but I didn´t mind anyone except, Adlen her face look awful as if she was 90 years old.

The sex scenes have okay animations.

There is a lot of NTR so if you don´t like it play something else, there is a option to disable NTR but it feels wrong like it isn´t the way it was intented to play, so I would recommend turning NTR on.


But I wouldn´t recommend it the gameplay ruins it for me.

A solid story and solid visuals held back by clunky progression once you get past the first 70% of the game and some issues with the UI. With either more linearity or more clear directions that were less ponderous to use this game would be top-tier... Also for the love of god someone please make the prequal VN of the GFs becoming sluts in HS.

Well, let's be honest... The blonde is scary as hell... A skinny woman with a piercing seems to have escaped from Buckenwald... And NTR is either you're a cuckold or an alpha... Why you can't fuck girls together, etc., it's not clear... But of course the game is not VN and it is much better than most of the "games" here... But only it is not completed... [v0.3.5.3] if we take the finished version 1.0 and 2021 as a start for the value... Everything is sad. .. I hope the game will be completed and improved...