Ren'Py - Maeve's Academy [v0.6.1] [Hatchet Games]

3.5/5 - v0.3.0

The game obviously has a quality artist behind it, both in terms of character design and UI design, however there's a few things that worry me:

1. Story pacing feels off in terms of world build-up and lewd scenes - one time you're getting a great in-depth explanation about the world and its workings, the other moment you have a dream about when you had sex with your ex-girlfriend (who's the friend that joined the academy alongside you?, that came out of left field).

2. Repetitive and mundane dialogue - this is a critique of one character in particular, but in general I found the dialogue to be needlessly wordy and repetitive at times as well. There's only so many times you can hear a character's self-deluded intro until it gets grating.

3. The artstyle is almost too cute to the point it's difficult to get into the mood. This is of course entirely subjective but it's not an issue I've had with any of the other games on this website thus far so it stood out to me. Artstyle wasn't the sole contributor to this feeling, the character's behaviors also felt too naively childlike. Even though it does make sense considering the story being told, it still felt odd.

I would prefer to give this game a 3/5 but the underlying quality of the game does deserve a rounded up 4/5. It's got potential but maybe wait a few updates before you try this one out.

Honestly, probably one of the best games on this site when it comes to quality, the art is great and so is the writing. I love the little animations. Everything about this game is incredible and I highly recommend it

I'm rating this 5/5, with the caveat that the game is new and there aren't many scenes, and the scenes that do exist aren't particularly "sexy." There are two blowjobs, 1 handjob, 1 defloration, and 1 titjob. The static POV and animations aren't amazing, although for 2d animations they are technically good.

How can I justify 5/5 with that in mind? The art is amazing and unique. All characters have idle animations that are cute. The writing is clearly well thought out. The setting is reasonably interesting and consistent.

This isn't a derivative copy of another game - It is a labor of creativity and quality. One that ought to be supported, even with flaws, to allow it the opportunity to blossom.

beautiful and fun little game that i for one can not wait to see more of, its still in its earlier stages at the moment but you can tell this'll be a real beut once its done. always love to stumble upon things like this

really love the art style and the premise of the story. the variety of characters if there but didn't felt like made to fill the "list" of a usual harem troop. not much at the moment so looking forward to more.

Version: v0.2.2

This game is cute. Very cute. Maybe a little too cute to be a porn game.

The aesthetics of this game is probably its main driving force. It looks and feels like no other VN game right now, and that makes me very excited to see how it develops. The character designs are great, the animations are nice, and it has all these little flourishes that make the game so charming. I love how the characters bounce from expression to expression giving the illusion of animation and making them feel so lively. Also the UI looks phenomenal.

In a way, it all feels too cutesy. While I like the art style, I have an issue with how the rest of the game tries to play up the western-anime style. All the characters are extremely quirky, too much so for me. The cast lives and dies by how much you enjoy very common, tropey archetypes. You have an extremely shy girl, a cringey chuunibyou, an absent-minded narcoleptic teacher, and a mega bitch. Now to be fair, the game is still in extremely early stages, and I am sure these characters will get more fleshed out arcs.

The problem is, the game right now looooves to hear itself talk. The dialogue goes on and on with little to no interaction from the player. It will never even prompt you for a choice outside of asking you some personal fetish preferences at the beginning. After that, the MC will make all the choices for you. So you end up just sitting there watching these characters banter with each other. Again, the enjoyment you get out of this really depends on how well you like the characters, and I did not (Except for Jade and Maeve). At times, I feel like this game would be better as a web comic. That way the we could get more interesting and dynamic art showing what's happening rather than reading it.

I won't comment on the actual story right now since it is so early on in development, other than to say it is extremely rushed. Everything is so far is just set-up for a bog-standard fantasy world. However, it quickly brushes through the MCs backstory and handwaves a lot of the details of the world that it makes it confusing to try to follow along. Many times I was lost and had to reread the dialogue history to try and piece together what just happened. There is some mystery here that got me intrigued, but it's very clearly trying to rush you to the classroom, where the bulk of the game takes place.

There is no gameplay in it other than walking from room to room the few times it actually lets you do so. During these "free roam" moments, you can't even talk to the girls not related to your current quest. There are no additional mini games, there are no stats to raise, there isn't even a currency system in place. I guess there were more gameplay elements in place in previous versions, however instead of trying to improve on them, the dev just cut them out entirely. I hope they get added back in at some point.

It wouldn't too bad if there was more H-content in the game, but there are a total of 4 brief scenes with any sexual content in the game. And those scenes really feel like they had to be forced in there. 3 of them are dream sequences that break up the already bad pacing, and the last one with the doctor is so cookie cutter, I feel like I've seen the exact same scene in 20 other western VN games. It feels like it spends so much time on the cute slice of life elements that it forgets its an H game. It's also very short. Extremely short. For all the dialogue in it, this is still effectively a demo. Only 2-3 hours at most. Thankfully, there are no bugs to report.

I've read a lot of praise for this game, and it's not without merit. There is a lot here to like. And while I have my reservations, I ultimately enjoyed my experience. It's just not on the level of amazing I was expecting. It still has a ton of potential, 3/5 stars. I am looking forward to see how the game progresses.

The game is short in it's current form, but it makes up for its quantity with quality. The entire game, especially the characters, are incredible cute, charming and intriguing.

One thing many Renpy games fumble is thinking a story needs to be incredible contrived and complicated in order to be satisfying... it doesn't. You just need good writing and worldbuilding. This game has both of those things, and I'm sure future updates will only improve on them.

And I absolutely love the art style. It's so charming and expressive. I can't get enough of it.

Can't wait to see what this game will do in future updates.

I can see the potential in this one, it can be one of the best games already

The characters Have excellent designs and their personalities are cute and lewd, all I wish for is more precise goals and more intriguing scenes, I really love this game already and hope the devs do not abandon it.

Story: nothing new but it lands solidly.
Art: Cutesy and perfect for the lewding.
Sex scenes: *chefs kiss*
Gameplay: it's just point and click and very linear but I didn't care because everything else is so good.

All in all: this is really good game, not gameplay but character and story wise. So please keep working on this.

Incredible game.
Currently the game only has 4 chapter, each one of which is fun and unique. The game is pretty linear, but I assume that it due to it still being in development. Great art and is fun. Can't wait to see it develop

v0.2.2 ~ 3.5/5
Very good artistic style with a Great mix of personalities and designs for the heroines, an excellent start to a relatively new game.

My only current gripes which I could see changing as development continues is the rather linear nature of the current content, and the MC's strangely meek personality which I think could use some fine-tuning.

Overall a ~3.5 that I would round up to 4 due to only being able to give full stars.

Very cute and distinct art style as others have mentioned, with lots of potential for more dynamic character poses to match it

With what little there is so far, you get a lot of personality from the cast, a good sense of the plot and what's in store, and fair bit of comedic beats peppered in (IMO).

Some more SFX would certainly help for the comedic beats and sexy moments, as well as more dialogue choices even if just for flavor text and more character personality, but it wouldn't be right to complain about missing features so early in development.

All-in-all definitely worth handing out a fiver on itch or patreon

(v0.2.2 at time of writing)

I love the art style but it's pretty non-sexy so far. There are some (dream) sex scenes, but the sexiness isn't very well integrated with the rest of the content (unlike cuteness which is pretty well integrated). Hopefully this game will continue to improve in this regard as it progresses.

Too adorable. I honestly think this game has so much potential. The only downside is that the sex scenes feel a bit weird because the MC never has his entire dick in someone, it's always like 50% or a bit more at best. But otherwise the plot is adorable and amazing and the game itself is just a blessing. So hyped for updates

Art style? Simple yet very appealing. It gives off like a cartoonish vibe and you won't have to look around so much for every detail. The character designs are straight to the point, if you're not into that give it a chance! They are attractive, TRUST me. (or not)
Story? Cliché but still good. The plot of a boy going to an all girl's school would be interesting if it weren't for all those harem type shows. But there's a small twist that makes it more inducing, of course to my opinion.
Those scenes? GOOD. The animations are quite nice. It's not top tier, so don't expect a lot. There is not a lot yet, but the ones already present should good be enough.
Anything besides that is the text which needs some work. You're probably going to come across some mistakes.
All in all, yeah just play it.
(I can't even play the newer version because of no WinZip access I guess? But I know it's good. Yeah I'm a newbie writing a rating so what)

Well, this is certainly a fun one! The art style is awesome and I'm looking forward to the plot getting rolling.

It's technically a sandbox at this point but probably doesn't need to be, unless the dev plans on giving us repeatable events at all the locations.

Maeve's academy [v0.2.2]

My god this is so sugar sweet I think I just contracted diabetes. In a good way.

Fair warning, the game's pretty short at the moment but don't let that stop you from trying it. It may not be much but it's very very good.

Positives:
+ Excellent writing. I actually read every single line, which only happens in about 5 % of the lewd games I play.
+ Unique, memorable characters.
+ Extremely appealing art style. It's cartoony but it can also deliver on the sexy.
+ Cool world building. It's Harry Potter'y but with it's own thing going on.
+ Fitting music.

Negatives:
Well, there aren't any negatives, but I've got some nitpicks so I'll list them here:
- Not enough content, both story wise and in the lewd department. I have no doubt this will get better as the releases keep coming though.
- The only penetration scene is (of course) a dream scene. That felt cheap, honestly.
- I wouldn't mind some sound effects. (Crashing, munching, slurping et c.)
- The relationship between MC and his childhood friend seems weird. They were at some point intimite, but now they're suddenly not? Why? Also the backstory seems a bit off. Where did they get the wands? What do they know about the magic world? I've got sooo many questions. I think this should be fleshed out.
- Open world, linear progression. At the time of me writing this, if the game was a Kinetic Novel it wouldn't have changed anything. I'm hoping this will get addressed at some point.

All in all, this is a high quality game in the making and Hatchet Games has all the tools needed to succeed in a BIG way. I'm really looking forward to what's next!

Recommended for everyone.

Extremely promising game! All the characters are interesting and fleshed-out, the artstyle is amazing, the romance between the MC and the girls is great, and the sex scenes are very good. My only complaint is that it isn't longer!

I'm looking forward to seeing how this game will evolve in the future!

Honestly, I love this game.
The art is ultra cute and sexy at the same time, all the characters are lovable, the MC is great and don't even get me started on the setting. World building is there but it is subtle and not in your face. It's still quite early in the development so there is not a lot of content but what is there is high quality. The writing as well is great, funny, interesting, and cute. Main Character is also well written and behaves like an actual human being instead of a walking sex machine. You can feel the attention to detail and overall work put into it.
Overall highly recommended, I will follow the development regularly.

It looks like an extremely promising project. Art style is lovely. So far the game is lacking content but that's a given at such early stage of a project.
I will definitely come back to this one many times.
Art 5/5
Story 4.5/5
Gameplay 4/5
Fapability - i'm sure will improve with futute versions 4/5
Originality 3.5/5