VN - Ren'Py - Abandoned - Hot Sand of Antarctica [v0.09] [Grinvald]

Theres really nothing i can say that hasn't been said by other 1* reviews here. So im just gonna regurgitate the glaringly obvious points.
I really don't understand the high rating this game got.

It's not a terrible game. Which is the only reason i'm not giving it 1*. Also maybe a bit of pity. I am getting soft on my old days it seems.
You can see the dev at least tried in some places to do something with the story but it falls flat almost immediately.
Loads and loads of contradictory actions, statements and story bits.
I don't know it it's the translation or the script but everything feels incredibly porn-brained.
From the It just seems like the author thought about how to solve or create a situation for about 3 seconds and just went with the first thing that came to mind.
The models are pretty good which is a shame because the sex scenes are nothing but a weird 2012 internet dating sim'esque 2 second loop.

The translation is horrible and either done by some absolute not native english speaker or google translate.
But even with better translation the dialogue got my cringing A LOT of times.

So 2* because dev seems to try and at least delivers something (i think. I didn't research the development time or if he tries to milk it)
But everything else except the models 1*.

EDIT: Lowered to 1* after seeing the prison scenes. Seems like dev just completely ran out of ideas and defaulted to shock gore

Great renders, good world building, hot LIs, also many gory scenes

Good thing that the dev actually tried to make an interesting plot instead of easy fuckfest like in many other games, I love it, this has potential.

Really well made, beautiful models, a story that seems to go somewhere, great world building.

IMO could/would 100% make money if this dev decides to put it on steam, very high quality images, sound design e.t.c.

Seems to be inspired by Mad Max imo, very fucked up things happening, violence in every corner but obviously at the heart of it the MC is just trying to survive and take care of his family.

Come for the porn, stay for the plot tbh.

Quite a lot of content for such a low version number, more than some games I've seen marked as complete, so don't let that deter you.

Overall, a pretty alright experience. You're a high-ranking member of a warlord's city in the post-apocalypse that's pretty much directly in the same lane as another game that apparently we're not supposed to mention for whatever dumb reason, however it finds it's own flavor in that lane.

Renders start out quite rough and are very much in that Gmod zone, but author is clearly improving as he goes and some of the later renders are actually pretty good. Scenes at their best are very hot, though again, namely only later on. Being a gun autist I have some issues with how some of the equipment and fights look, lets just say it's very 'asset store', but I doubt most would care.

The girls are pretty good and distinguishable, but some are definitely the author's focus though. Namely the twins who take the spotlight while the 2nd wife might as well not even exist. Also, I wish the girls were a bit more wastelandery, not sure where they're getting all this makeup and I feel like I'm missing out on the setting's potential for some sweaty bushy females.

Story isn't anything phenomenal, but it does have some mystery boxes to keep you interested (though I feel like I might have guessed the twist). It also has have the balls to change up the status quo quite often which is refreshing. Choices seem largely irrelevant though and are dropping off rapidly so seems the author is moving in a more kinetic direction, but that's fine.

Overall serves well as a post-apoc harem builder fantasy, worth a play. May be worth the authors effort to remaster the early content to be more in-line with the later direction though if they ever finish it, as it does feel like an amateurish divide right now.

Uhhhh, let's start with good things about this 'game'
- nice renders, quite decent posing, the models are kinda hot.

everything else is utterly terrible in this 'game'.

Holy guacamole, the writing is abysmal and made me cringe countless times. I guess that the script is translated via google translate, therefore it looks like a terrible mishmash of letters. I'm not even talking about the characters. To have a character, you need to have a coherent idea plus you need to gather all traits into one person and try to describe it.
MC is just a set of the worst cliches on this site 'amplified' by poor writing.

World-building... I swear, when someone uses this word, it looks like that person doesn't know what they're talking about. The setup of the events of the game is passable at best (nonsensical tbh).

Sex scenes are not even half-way decent, and I'm confused by comments and reviews that praised the scenes.

0.5 out of 10.

Sorry, but this is terrible VN, i really don't know how it managed to get so many good ratings.

Writing is cringe worthy, juvenile, terrible overall. Also translation is not the best, it reads like google translate.

After being disappointed by story and writing i was at least hoping sex scenes would be good because some reviews mentioned they are "top notch" or "high quality", but they are really not, they are not sexy or erotic, they are too short, consisting of 10-20 renders, with one or two second long animation loop, with maybe ten sentences of bad dialogue, i mean it's Adult VN so i expected more text and dialogue in sex scenes, but writing is terrible anyway so it's probably better this way.

Only passable things are renders of hot ladies and that's it.

[v0.08]
Excellent game. At the start I was a bit disappointed by the low amount of sex scenes, but it improves when you progress the game.
The sex scenes are waited but the quality is matching your expectation so it's not really a problem.

Also, the story is very interesting for a dystopian game, it's not only the MC acting like a brute. It's not a "simple" plot, you have various characters, twists and major changes in the story. You never guess what is gonna happen, and it's really pleasant, usually a lot of games are too obivous and you don't pay attention to the story anymore.
I like how the dev puts a few flashback in the story.

The girls are hot and different (even the twin!). I think you shouldn't add too many girls in the future, to have time to progress with the one already in the game.

It started well. The choices and consequences and the karma system looked interesting but after a few hours the pace of the story slowed down a lot. Too much was happening at once and a lot of new characters were being introduced, but it became difficult to make sense of everything at once. The main plot feels very scattered and unfocused. Also, contrary to the game's claim, there are fewer choices to influence the story as you progress and it feels more like a kinetic VN. Still, it's a game with potential. I think it can be successful if development continues, but for now I'm a bit bored with the linear gameplay and long dialogs.

A pretty nice story so far, but I'm curious how it makes any sense. Also in Antartica you rarely have an actual day/night cycle unless the Earth had suddenly twisted 90 degrees, pushing Antartica to the equator instead of the pole. Lots of story, though not many choices after the beginning, and the game crashes frequently, probably overbuffered from so many images. On the plus side, I do really love building a large harem. I wish you had more choices to play with them more though.

There is really only 1 actually positive factor about this game. The modelling is great and the women are hot. That's it.

The story is stupid and uninteresting, the world-building is nonsensical and bland, and the dialogue is incredibly mediocre and generic. It takes the worst tropes and cliches of the genres it inhabits and uses all of them to varying degrees. There is genuinely nothing interesting about anything written in this AVN. In that department it's largely a waste of time, unless you want to use it purely as a writing exercise to see what you'd do to improve it.

Models are great, but thats about all it has going for it.


Outside of model differences, the characters are indistinguishable from each other. Every character wants to jump on the MC immediately and provide zero substance to the story beyond sex. The karma system introduced in the first chapter swiftly vanishes from the game. The plot also does not make much sense - starts with mad max and then next you know its about clones and futuristic technology.

After 2.5 years of development the story just left the exposition and there is about 2 hours of content. It is very difficult to see this ever getting completed, since it is probably only 20% complete now.

[Reviewed v0.08]

This game hits all the right notes -- fun premise and story, great models and tons of H-scenes with animations, hours of content. If you like family harem games with a light sci-fi / survival setting, this will become a favorite. Unfortunately, it can't quite compete with a very similarly-themed game also in production, so it loses some shine on direct comparison.

The Good ()

• A diversity of girls with different personalities and body types
• Well-done renders and environments, with some unique settings
• Entertaining if sometimes incoherent story content
• A family harem game that makes (some) sense within the story

The Not-So-Good ()

• A bit of a cliche "MC is the savior and everyone is in love with him" setup, but this is part of the narrative so it is more forgivable
• Some of the story is rushed and not realistic
• The plot / premise seem directly ripped off another, better, well-reviewed game. I guess if you can't beat 'em, copy 'em!

Lots to like with this one if you're a fan of the setting and genre.

I like dystopian worlds. I think that to stay a dystopian world, it is probably pretty harsh living with harsh decisions. I feel novels like this should give the choice between hero route and nasty, I come first F everyone else route. This novel doesn't really give you the nasty route. I think being a hero in this kind of setting probably leads you to a quick death and is therefore not very believable. This novel started off with a karma system that I thought would distinguish between hero and nasty, but it kind of disappears in the beginning of the novel. Not really many decisions after that and I quickly lost interest in the bland story.

The LIs would look great if everyone didn't look kind of doll like (shiny with arms that you know wouldn't bend at the elbow). That really took away any immersion I had. Once the immersion is gone, I tried to quickly move through the story to find a fappable animation. I got all the way to the end of this version (v8?) without one fap. Ugggg, not a good way to spend an hour and a half. I'll be deleting this novel and removing it from my follow list.

I like the whole apocalypse thing and the story is pretty good so far. The women are really good looking and there is plenty of sex. I can't wait to see what happens, all though the updates seem to be pretty slow.

3.5/5 I so wanna give it a 4 but just not quite there for me

+Liked how the gals looked
+Enjoyed the setting and concept, is interesting
+The Main parts of the Story interested me

-I found some of the scenes a bit dark visually, even tried turning up my monitor brightness
-Usage of English was rough in some parts. Pretty much nothing was wrong technically but I did find myself getting distracted at times because some Dialog or Description would just not be said in a way an English speaker would say it
-Chunks of the Story/experience that I pretty much just skipped through because I was just bored of the character describing what was being shown, or Remembering something from the past that probably didnt need more than a handfull of sentences to say but instead had several scenes and stills
-Some animations were a bit stiff but not really all that bad

3.5/5 Was between Ok and Good, am interested to see how the Overall story could play out

Definitely in top 3 VNs I have played.
I love this game, just wish development was quicker.
The twin redhed daughters are amazing.
The setting is interesting and the story is engaging enough.
The family dynamic is the star of the show and we need more of it.

A somewhat unusual story takes a backseat to your average male power fantasy with the MC white knighting his way through the story and women spreading their legs for him at every opportunity.

Oh, what a novel concept, right? But that's what you all are here for, so I am sure you'll love it.

*yawn*

Mindless fun. You won't find the absolute deepest story or best renders or most daring situations, but Hot Sands knows what it wants to do, isn't ashamed to do it, and has a good time along the way. Everything leads into some sort of unsurprising tropey porn setup, and I found myself cheering it on every step of the way.

Review of v0.08

It's impossible to review Hot Sand of Antarctica (it should definitely be Sands btw) without reference to a certain other extremely popular, post-apocalyptic game set in a desert in which you play a skilled fighter with a wife and two daughters, but it is against the reviewing rules to mention other games, so it will go nameless. Nevertheless, the parallels don't even stop at what I've mentioned above. This gives rise to the question: why bother play a clearly derivative work? The answer is that despite the similarities, Hot Sand still differentiates itself in its plot and some other enjoyable ways (a bigger dick, more of a harem-esque feel, twins), and frankly more of a good thing is still good. Also there are countless AVNs with the two sisters one mother slice of life setup, or massive harem wholesome slice of life, etc., so the genre is basically an ouroboros anyway.

At the start of the game I was worried about the mc being unlikable due to his attitude, but this quickly changed as we got to see his softer side. Other than that, everything was great: the plot, the characters (which are a little 2D at the moment but we are seeing development), the visuals (not S-tier quality but still good), the writing (dialogue feels natural; some occasional odd turns of phrase, but few and far between), and the hot as fuck sex scenes. It is still quite short, though I suppose quality is better than quantity.

A 5-star rating system is difficult to utilise because you could argue that only S-tier games should get 5, but I think it's best to be generous when you really enjoy a game, so 5 stars it is!

Excellent story, very well created characters with their plots and personalities. Sceneries of great quality and rendered of very high level. Action and suspense very well tuned with the plot. Very interesting events to follow with surprises and plot twists. Incredible sex scenes. Women of very exquisite taste and distinctive characters when it comes to relationships. One of the best games of F95Zone.