Your kid sucks. Hey, but I'm free. Take me. Take me to the store. We can get some pudding pops and large teas there. We should go. In fact should we go and stay there for much too long, as to be considered 'loitering'(i still think it's a fake term but whateverrrrr) and then we'll sneak into the underpaid employees house and have sex! We nutured a grudge against them, because they decided to be there at that unforunate time. We hated them, because they were unfortunate to be them at that one moment. And we could put all our powers into hating them, because we were father and son, and no matter how much hate we gave them, we had love in our life.

Liked the presentation. I like having a dad, and this novel has that. Also I agree with Fuse very much, you could've had the sex be nerdy. Ah, but the dad is lame, you say? Well, he can be nerdy, it's just not focused on so much. That could've been alright, too. The sex scenes were good! Ezra growing as a person was great! It was happy.

Oh, my favourite line in the novel was, "He hadn't thought this through, had he?" Palindrome.

This is a visual novel I enjoyed a considerable amount, but I do think it’s held back by some questionable writing decisions. This is kinda hard to review because there’s a bunch of little things going on, so excuse me if I’m a bit scattered here. The friend group is fine for the plot. They have terrible chemistry with each other, but it’s still entertaining, and it’s believable that you’d have a group of people who just hang out with each other because they’re the only people who’d play DnD with each other (And I know it’s not called DnD, but it’s DnD with a different name). I really enjoyed Harvey; he is my trash, as I love divorced dads desperate for love (See Asgore from Undertale/Deltarune and Brendan Baker from By Your Hands). Bias aside, however, he’s not a very deep character and seems to be more of a flat character with various traits assigned to him. That’s basically every character in this VN, more or less. Like, I can’t really imagine any of the characters acting outside of the scenario of the VN. Like, Erza’s character is defined by his situation. He wants revenge on his cheating ex before he realizes that he genuinely wants to fuck his ex’s dad. Take away the scenario, and there’s not much left to him. Also, while the romance between Erza and Harvey is cute, it’s also very rushed and kinda awkward. I’m going to explain that more in the spoiler section, but I just find it hard to believe that these two characters have any chemistry beyond a simple friendship. Before I go into spoilers, I do want to touch on some other things. The presentation is good. It’s nothing crazy, but it works well with the VN. The music’s fine, but it didn’t really add much to the VN. I also find the narration to be a bit odd at times. It’s written in third person, but some lines are written as if they’re from Erza’s perspective. The only reason why it seems to be written in third person is so that it can narrate two scenes outside of Erza’s perspective that could be taken out of the VN without much trouble.

And now for spoilers. If you want to read the VN for yourself, I recommend you don’t read the section below.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this VN, but objectively, it’s just okay. If you want more dadfuckers in the world, I recommend reading it, but don’t expect anything special.

Hmm… How can I fairly rate this story when the objective target is almost an antithesis to me? Don’t misunderstand me, I can see why someone could enjoy this story. It has its fun points, and—I guess— that dad bod is a thirsted body type. I won’t talk about the morality of fucking your ex’s dad, anyone of us would like a 101 moral class now.

As I said before, this story is not for me, but that doesn't mean that the plot is bad by itself, it doesn't drag more than it should and doesn't try to be more than it is, a horny story about fucking DILF.

It has some silly moments that actually made me chuckle, and the management of the sprites shows an understanding of composition for narrations. The music was a nice addition, not too overboard but not repetitive either, and the BG, despite some details here and there, correctly synthesized the situation and locations.

The characters, however, flopped a little bit; they feel more like tools to make the ending happen rather than actual people reacting to the situations they are in. Most of them are one-note or moldable characters that say whatever is required at the moment. I recognize the effort to make them slightly different, like the lazy one, the silly one, or the flirty one, but it really doesn't matter if they act according to the plot requirements.

I think the most obvious of this is Harvey. We have this guy, whom the plot established that the protagonist has to fuck, being weirdly open with his sexuality, using a more than revealing outfit, and jumping at the first chance to shower with him because ‘it was the only one with hot water’ —I’m paraphrasing, I’m sorry if that wasn’t the actual excuse—. If at one moment, they needed to sleep together because ‘there is only one bed’ I wouldn’t bat an eye at that moment.

This story is not for me, but that’s not something bad, you can’t please everybody, so do your best to please those who you can —I swear to God, if someone sees an innuendo there, I’ll skin everybody alive— I see the potential, and your other stories also have something worth telling for what I’ve seen of them!

I unfortunately don't think I can rate this because I couldn't finish it. I couldn't get past the awkward interactions. I'm sure that it was probably supposed to be awkward cause it is an awkward situation but I think it worked too well.

"This was supposed to be a quick and silly horny idea" Yes! Check.

"but I feel like it grew into something more." Mmmmm respectfully I don't know about that one, boss.

This one didn't do much for me, but, as is often the case with the hornier entries, I also accept that I tend to be out of the target audience for this kind of thing. 

Implementation of Theme:

Hvcho Capko appears to be our link to folklore here, which upon some light internet searching appears to be a cryptid based on Seminole tradition. That's neat! Unfortunately, it's also a bit underutilized, with its reference in the LARP session being more or less superficial. That whole scene is really just setting up the conversation between Ezra and Harvey, the photo, and the subsequent third act breakup, and the "plot" of the LARP session could have been pretty much anything and nothing would have changed. There's definitely an attempt here, but it feels a little tacked on to hit the theme requirement rather than integrated into the narrative in a meaningful way.

Presentation:

Presentation was solid here. No penalties for stock assets here obviously and they were used about as well as you could, getting the most out of the costumes and expressions you had available. Music was mostly fitting as well, though the intro did seem a bit off. Maybe a bit too casual for how angry Ezra is supposed to be in that moment, and a bit of tension in the music could have conveyed that a bit better. Not really a major complaint though. 

Writing was mechanically impeccable, too. This was very well proofread, and I don't think I caught a single typo here. Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but I'm like 75% of the way through the entries now and I think that's the first time I've been able to say that, so I think it is commendable. Really solid category here, not much else to say.

Story/Writing/Creativity:

Merging the rest together here since they're pretty intertwined in this case. The story is based almost entirely on a string of contrivances that had me questioning at various points whether this was supposed to be parody or not. Like, some of the stuff is so over the top like the sequence of popping a boner, immediately deciding that taking a shower is the best way out of that situation (for some reason?), there only being one working shower, and the guy that made you pop a boner deciding that you should shower together because you played sports, even though this is like the second time you've ever interacted, but some of the emotional moments are played so straight that it's kinda hard to tell? I think if this was supposed to lean into the humor, it wasn't really coming through for me, and if it was supposed to lean into serious emotion, that wasn't working either. 

If there's anything that jumps out as an actual problem, it's the way Stella and her mom are written, to the extent they are at all. Stella is characterized as a one-note turbo jerk that only shows up in a couple scenes to be overtly rude (which is not how actual manipulators tend to act, but whatever), her mom seems to be similarly painted in a bad light, with her not even showing up for Stella apparently, and Ezra's friends refer to Stella as a few variations of "manipulative bitch." I don't think this was the intent, but characterizing the only female characters present in your story as one-dimensional bitches came off just a little misogynistic to me. 

This kind of begs the question for me of why Stella is even a girl to begin with though. Like this story doesn't really feel all that interested in exploring coming to terms with your sexuality - Ezra comes out the gate thinking about dicks and asses every ten seconds and, despite being ostensibly straight until like yesterday, flicks Harvey's nipple piercings, eats his ass, and calls him a slut like he's been doing this for years and not someone who's having their literal first gay sexual experience. Setting aside the fact that the whole idea of revenge fucking someone's parent is really messed up and uncomfortable to a level the VN doesn't really engage with beyond the briefest of nods, if you were determined to use that plot, why not just make it Ezra's boyfriend's dad? All the other awkward moments with the age gap and the ex connection would still be there, you just save yourself a step and avoid the accidental misogyny.

Others have touched on this as well, but the side characters were generally underdeveloped, if not completely undeveloped. Aside from Stella, who, as discussed, isn't so much a person as a nebulous embodiment of Ezra's ire, the rest of the D&D group kinda just... exist? They provide occasional peanut gallery commentary and contribute to the aforementioned third act breakup contrivance, after which they completely disappear, but that's about it. I don't even know if I could give a baseline personality trait for any of them. Given how much of the script is playing RPGs together, I think there are some missed opportunities for character development and associated comedy, and if you really weren't interested in utilizing those characters, I wonder if some of the D&D scenes could have been cut down to focus on the actual plot and leads. 

At the end of the day though, it's mostly just a porn plot. If banging your ex's dad, with a heavy focus on said dad's signature dad bod, presses all your buttons, you'll probably have a good time with this, but I don't think it goes much deeper than that. It didn't really land for me, but I'm glad others seem to have had a much better time with it. 

Final score of 8 magic missiles out of 7 other magic missiles that are clearly just shaped like dicks.

I enjoyed this a lot. Not quite my thing, but very well executed and written, and the theme was implemented very well. 

A fun little sexy romp with a bit of a rom-com twist: dating your ex’s father!?^^ Seeing the plan becoming feelings was pretty nice, but a bit inconsistent too. The characters seemed to flip flop on stuff a bit too often. The friend group dynamic was a bit of disaster too in a funny way. (I don’t play ttrpgs but even I could tell that DMing was a bit weird and mean.^^) And finally, the smut was fun to read as well.

The presentation was pretty standard, the sprites were well used, the music fit well. It was a bit weird that the same photos were used for both Ezra’s and Harvey’s house. Also, what’s up with that textbox?

Overall, it was fun, but had some flaws. Good job!

A pretty simple story about two guys getting together over unusual circumstances. While it wasn't especially amazing or unique, it was well made and I enjoyed my time with this VN. Was an enjoyable experience

Hot, cute, old man fuck yeah. It's a good read. I'm expecting horny stuff, I get horny stuff, and I think it's done alright. Very porny in how "All of a sudden, everything that's the usual is causing us to inexplicably come close to each other." The implementation of the theme is very minimal, dedicated mostly to the LARP scenes, and even then, the mention of it was limited to a few lines of dialogue in the introduction by Harvey and when he and Ezra interacted on the tree. I don't have other notes other than my brain going, "Danger, why is he telling you to be more open while both of you are in the shower?" But I took a quick re-read, and the conversation was fine. 2, 4, 4, 4, 4.

In this house, we support dadfucking. 

The Games We play is a lighthearted romp following a jilted man on a mission - to fuck his ex's dad. It's a worthwhile mission, albeit not a particularly noble one, on account of said dad being absurdly hot.  

I think the story is at its best when it focuses on the comedy inherent to this concept - from Harvey's seemingly oblivious nature as he makes advances on Ezra, to Ezra's musings about totally not being gay or anything like that, the plot is thoroughly enjoyable when it focuses on the central relationship. I do think that the surroundings characters, however, are somewhat weaker - they feel distinct from each other, but they ultimately weren't all that compelling to me on account of not really feeling like proper friends of the MC. 

For all the screentime they had within the DND and LARP sections, they felt more like plot devices meant to advance the story rather than a group of actual friends. I think this is in part because of how these sections are presented - the characters mostly banter and make snide jabs at each other, and they don't even seem to particularly enjoy each other's company - so it felt hard for me to grasp why it is that these characters even play TTRPGs together and what it is that they enjoy in it.

Of course, it's not uncommon for these types of friendships to be hard to grasp, or to seem "adversarial" to outsiders - especially within the context of TTRPG groups that have existed for a long time, with their own rules and inside jokes and whatnot - but at the end of the day I feel as though the story could have done a better job of getting the nuances of these relationships across.

Despite that, like I said - when this game focuses on the central relationship, it's a damn good game about dadfucking. I think the more serious plot surrounding the relationship and the motivations behind it winds up getting bogged down a bit by the presence of the friend group, but I do like what's presented here - and by the time I reached the ending scenes, I was practically hooting and hollering when the pair finally got together. RysaEa deserves all the praise he's gotten for the final CG, and the writing of the accompanying sex scene was fantastic as well - it's all top tier stuff.

⭐⭐⭐

By its own definition, The Games We Play is "a quick and silly horny idea" and it does that well. Thing is, it also claims to be "something more," which I don't quite see. It's true enough that a well-structured character arc carries this playful, erotic plot, I don't feel it does much beyond only being the latter. There are scenes that hint at a more interesting exploration of age gap relationships and performative masculinity/heterosexuality, however these are tiny atolls in a sea of sex comedy plot beats. The way I see it this strong contrast ends up taking the wind out of any particularly unique thematic examination. Aside from that, I found the writing often poor and overreliant on emotion-tells. By constantly telling how Ezra is feeling, this VN curbs the emotional impact of its scenes and the potential for player resonance and makes for a tedious reading experience. Even so, this project is competent enough that pacing suffers no great issues. When it comes to presentation, the same level of skill is displayed through mindful blocking, animation, and transitions. Maybe it's fine for The Games We Play to be so simplistic and horny, but I wanted something more to chew on or a tighter erotic package, not something stuck in-between.

Interesting story, mixing D&D and cheating with his ex’s dad! It was a wild ride indeed.

'The Games We Play' is an erotic romantic farce where a guy goes from getting cheated on by his ex to sleeping with her dad. It shines in both it's premise not being entirely porn-plot where stuff happens because it would be hot, but the narrative is spun in a way where I can believe where what started out as a revenge plot turned into an exploration of a man's sexuality. The erotica is also really well done as well, with some great moments of teasing and foreplay before getting into the big climax.

The story is cleverly constructed, especially on the character arc that Ezra goes on. He goes from straight guy trying to hurt his girlfriend who hurt him, to forging a friendship with her father, to questioning his sexuality and attraction to her father, to fully committing to his bisexuality. I'm familiar with a lot of older man/younger man dynamics in comic and art forms, so it's nice to see it also have a very nice visual novel representation. Framing the story and characters as a bunch of nerdy guys that are into DnD and LARPing also is a clever way to incorporate the pre-rendered sprite's costumes. All the characters feel like they are their own flavor of socially awkward nerd, which helps establish the bit plot misunderstandings and mishaps. The group encouraging Ezra to make it look like he's dating his ex's father, and then following it up with taking the picture because they don't know Ezra's started to be genuine is classic rom-com 'shoe-dropping'. All the story beats were good, though I feel like the LARPing section was the weakest, at least in terms of it being used as a filter for Ezra and Harvey to flirt and make their 'roleplay confessions'. Perhaps it was the self-deprecating nature of the roleplay, or the lack of a structure to it, where events just happened in order to happen. Even after the lowest point where Ezra goes back to the roleplay area, Harvey also just shows up as well, while a bit too plot convenient, I think there might've been a stronger choice somewhere in how to get the two of them back together. That being said, once the two of them are together is some really hot scenes which are the highlights of the story. You get a little bit of everything, from the solo jerk session, to the casual nudity, to the full on sex scene with a bit of dirty talk in there. Part of me wants feels like Harvey's role and personal motivation in the story does get a bit muddy, especially with how eager he is to spend time with Ezra in the beginning watching movies, fully putting on a revealing armor costume and then sharing a shower with Ezra, to so easily talking sexual advice, makes me assume that Harvey was also very much flirting and trying to get with his daughter's ex boyfriend, though never fully having him come out to say it. Then again, maybe that's just the subtext that I'm reading into much and intentional.

The presentation is serviceable, with the classic pre-rendered sprites on stock backgrounds and some really good usage of sprite movements and zooming into the right spots for immersive point of views. Audio work was also adequate, never feeling like it distracted and helped enhance the reading experience. The character voices really shined through the writing prose, with Ezra being that angsty hot-head and Harvey being the wizened and self-assured old man. As mentioned before, I think the LARPing section is the place where I felt the writing struggling to find a way for Harvey to find out about the revenge plot while also deepening the attraction that Ezra had for Harvey. The erotic scenes through? Great. I have no notes for how those played out, I thoroughly enjoyed them.  That being said, I do think you could've played around more creatively with the sex scenes. While I don't hate a straight-forward erotic scene of two men exploring each other's bodies, there was so many opportunities for some creative use of costumers in the sex scenes, or maybe some more sexually charged mishaps like the "can you help me unbuckle my cod-piece" moment. Let the nerds have some nerdy sex.

As for the folklore element, I think that might've been where you were trying to incorporate the folklore into the LARPing portion and didn't come off as strong as it could have. Trying to fit a folklore element into plot of what is a rom-com involving sleeping with a dad is a tall order, but I do admire the effort. Overall, this is a solid entry amongst the other game jam entries you've done in the past, and I'm glad to see that it indulges an erotic dynamic that isn't seen as much as others. Great use of the pre-rendered sprites as usual, though I could see the difficulties of trying to write a plot that captures all the themes and ideas into one visual novel. I'd say keep on indulging in your kinks and interests when making these visual novels, the passion shows and it'll attract the right collaborators into wanting to bring your ideas to the next level.

I don't know if I should be offended or validated that Yuri flirts with Harvey. So true though, NB folks can be Bros 😌

It really is what it says on the box! Admittedly I don't know if that's how dnd or LARPing works technically, but I get their use as a narrative device. I think sometimes the game clashes with itself on what it wants to be. Sometimes it's a cheesy romance and sometimes it's the silly porn plot, so it pushes the boundaries of what I'm willing to accept at face value. For a freshly dumped newly minted bisexual, he sure throws the word love around easily. I guess we get the impression that they kind of already have some rapport because they were dating each other, but it feels a little lost in the sauce.

THAT SAID, I do feel seen because DILF topping truly is the bisexual activity of all time. I'm going to fuck your dad and give him a better kid. And RysaEa is a legendary pull for that CG. Good work Gatr! I'm sorry I was unable to help with the music after bringing it up, but I thought it worked fairly well the whole time ;v;7

LARPing awayyyyyyyy!