**Spoiler Warning**

I said it last time. Because the update... Just came out. 

Update Review

So, another update, and thus another month, has passed. You know what that means? It's review time!
Spoiler warning, because of course, this is a review on the update.

 
First, let's start with the wake up scene. I smiled ear-to-ear just seeing her(Lily) laying there, and the boldness she's gained from learning of all the MC's ventures makes it even better. For her character, it's reinforcing the aspects of her that we hear the mc express when talking to Morgan, she has an adventurous, and slightly wild, side hidden beneath her cutesy exterior. She also says this herself many times. It creates this nice dynamic, where Lily is almost always bound to be in every update, or every in-game day, which can quell all concerns of wifey not getting enough attention in the future updates as more characters are added. Her meeting with Bree also went amazingly, in my opinion, and it turned out about how you'd expect it to. I like how Bree doesn't just immediately switch characters, and stays true to her nervous self before she gets to know people. It sounds like goblins, or at least this one, are more akin to cat anthros than any others, despite what it may seem like at first. It also served to give purpose to a later meeting with Amber after Lily left and Amber arrived, and I think having the characters around the mc, even if they aren't directly given scenes, is amazing for the story's progression, where the game progresses with the mindset of "no characters left behind", which is good for all of us. It also helps the friendships and relationships feel real, and it keeps Oakridge feeling like home.

Next was Daisy's quest, a true work of art. It showcases the mc's charitability(something often pointed out), while also highlighting how he doesn't really have anything to do BESIDES help out. It's good for him to help out, and have all this free time, but having Morgan plant the idea for him to question him on his own position hammers it in that even if it's all magical and heaven-like, Oakridge is still a society and he'll probably want something to do and a practice to call his own. But outside of those general messages, the steps we took through the quest are individually great.
Bart and Penny, for the first time, were shown working together! It's kind of unbelievable, but we really never saw them working the restaurant together, maybe Penny cooking at our first arrival, but we still didn't even see a full glimpse of that. Having father and daughter at work together really created this wholesome environment, and it once again solidified MFN as the Happiest game of all time. Was also cool that there's always a different mood depending on the time in Dragon's Head, and that Cactus has kept that consistent through the updates.

 

Then we went to Morgan, you can skip this part if you didn't engage with him. It's a bit gay. I seriously, seriously wished upon all the shooting stars that the tea would have cum in it(I know, I'm a pervert. Sue me.) Sadly, it did not. Cactus prioritized the character's integrity and the realisticity of their actions over horny pervy shit... What a shame, man. But that's really a plus in the end, since you won't be throwing away any character traits for porn. Thanks, Cactus. I'd comment more on this scene itself, but it'd all sound like horny nonsense. I said before I'm a bit biased towards femboys, and I wasn't lying. 

But in terms of character and story, this did a lot to reveal the struggles that Morgan faced, with growing up, and with romance. I think it was honestly really cute how he struggled with romance, something that, really, most of us who play these types of games most likely can relate to. Though for different reasons, I'd imagine. It's nice to see a character that struggled growing up, but still pushed through, and even as his hopes for romance faded, his passion for books kept him, well, passionate, and himself. Love to see it, and I love how the mc kind of made him gay, in a sense.

Now to Hazel and then Daisy. Hazel, you are evil. You're the cause of that goddamn cliffhanger! Keep your magical potions in a box at least, woman!
But otherwise, yeah, it was good seeing the mc help out even more. Hazel also, as usual, tried to get in the mc's pants. I think she's grown addicted to human dick already, but I digress. Daisy, you wonderful, wonderful beauty. I don't know about you guys, but I chose all the sub options, and something about this actual care-taker esc character calling me good boy made me weak in the heart. Incredibly strong in the nether regions, though, and my dopamine flooded like a tsunami into my brain too. Daisy acted as the wise listener again, and I like how similar the mc and his grandma are, at least from Daisy's point of view. It makes me wonder though, how many anthro guys did grandma have intercourse with, but I'm just gonna ignore that and act like she was lesbian in her later years. She's also not dead. I have a very large suggestion that I need to send to Cactus about what she could be doing, but again, I digress.

Then this fucking CLIFFHANGER HIT. I may have gotten a bit spoiled, for no fault other than my own, so it wasn't as shocking, but holyyyy dude. It's like Cactus is forcing us to be extremely excited for the next update. Get me off of this cliff, and get me on the next update! Seriously, I'm losing my mind here.

I had a bit more emotion in this one as compared to the last two, but I think I still provided a relatively intellectual review on this update. Believe me, I tried. I didn't. That's a lie. I just rant in these.  Anyway, hope you had a great time playing the update and reading my review, and I'll see you in the next one. Much love!

 P.S. If you have suggestions, go to the discord and recommend them. It could be something as simple as adding a certain kind of character(preferably non-sexual, since the cast is getting insanely large), or a minigame you want to see added. Always good to have more voices for things like suggestions. 

All the games I played around that time are mostly a blur but I might be able to find it in my old saves, do you know what it was called? Or maybe a couple words? Also, if you can't really remember that much the way to find all your saves for all Ren'py games is to go to "C:\Users\"yourwindowsusername"\AppData\Roaming\RenPy" in the files explorer, and you might be able to find it in there if the title isn't abbreviated or something like that, or it strikes a memory. If you're mobile, though, there isn't really a way to find all those save files unless you hook it up to a pc and go through a whole process to look at appdata I think. 

Passion into the writing? I don't really know what point you're trying to make here. Getting skilled enough at art would take years, especially if trying to get good enough for a wide-scale project like a game, and 99% of the time a developer can NOT AFFORD an artist. It's not a matter of effort, it's a matter of availability. If there is no artist available, and you don't have the artistic skill or know-how to learn incredibly quickly, then AI is the best route to still make a game that can be enjoyable. I don't really much like the normalization of AI usage, but this is one of the very few cases where AI is less of something used to detriment effort and more to actually fulfill an effort's purpose.
It's not like anyone is losing out. If he didn't use AI, he wouldn't hire an artist, and the game just wouldn't exist. We'd all be losing out, because it's a greatly written game. 
AI is the pathway to creation, in this instance, not a way to jump past passion and effort put into the work. 

Oh my GOD, they're alive!! 

Although it's a shame that this game will probably be put on hiatus for a couple years, and I'll miss all these characters(Especially Sasha 😭), you giving an update and actual hints on what you might make next gives me hope beyond my own imagination. 

I'm sure that no matter what you make, everyone will love it, so here's hoping it turns out well! 

Just because images are generated with AI doesn't make a game slop. I've seen over a hundred games who didn't use AI, that have nowhere near the level of writing, let alone the passion or time put into them. 

Yeah, but not entirely

When you're in the baths with Hazel, you get an extra image when you select the option to stay hidden behind the bushes and watch her bathe. 

The backgrounds are all made in Unity

**Spoiler Warning**

(Since the update just came out)

Update Review

So, just before starting, I am sincerely shocked at the amount of content. For just one update, this proved pretty large, even by the massive standards Cactus has for their updates, which I would assume is why it was delayed. Despite this, it all flowed perfectly. I think the real reason this update was so large was just because the whole day was all one big arc, and even with all this content there wasn't anywhere to really split it, so to say. 

This, of course, meant that there was a lot to go through while playing. Two new characters, somehow(no idea how Cactus continues to print them out so easily), or one if you don't want to count the previously hinted at character in Bart's daughter, Penny. 

The consistency of the characters remained, well, consistent, and the author here somehow managed to make it seamlessly feel like the rest of the game(Which I should really expect, at this point, but it'll never cease to amaze...) in its general vibe. 

I feel like with this update, we got to see a lot more of the main character's side of things. And to be honest, he is real as hell. I mean, the thoughtalogue after(and during, I guess) meeting Morgan was just great. I also like how it didn't force the issue, even in the dialogue, though the mc was a bit... Curious, I guess I could say? It seemed like the mc was just like the rest of us, really, in discovering a new kind of sexiness showcasing itself. To be honest, I was really agreeing with all of his thoughts, I mean it's like Cactus was peering into the future of my brain when he wrote it. Suspicious... 

Also, I REALLY love how the author portrays the MC in general. Even in the dialogue, where the mc picks up new habits as easily as breathing, like memorizing routes to the bathing river, it's like he was meant to be here. It doesn't feel like some odd-man out, but more like, within a matter of days, he's acclimated completely to the new world. I guess his grandma's genes really do run through him, huh? 

But, changing the topic a bit, am I crazy, or did Cactus steal something straight from my last review? I'm not gonna point fingers, but one of us might as well have been reading the other's mind, and it shocked me when I saw it(I may have been screaming internally, though that's better left unsaid). 

Specifically, I'm talking about the part where out of nowhere, Lily just straight up said(basically), "I'm not monogamous," and it blew me off my feet, really. I had known she wouldn't really care, but as if to address any future concerns people may have with the thought of being an NTR monster, and being morally concerned with 'cheating' on best girl, Lily just straight up said she didn't really care all that much. Of course, it's completely in character. Not like someone like Lily would hide anything behind closed doors, after all. I also felt like it really stole from me because she called out her own role right to the mc's face. "I'm the main girl", she said. But whatever. Maybe I'm just a prophet. 

And I think this was really the perfect time to do that, out of any in the plotline. It'd be horrid if you woke up next to your beloved, and a goblin you NTR'd her with(though it doesn't apply anymore, since Lily doesn't gaf), is just standing at the doorway. But more seriously, the mc is at a major crossroads right now(though it's too happy to really call it that, but whatever). He's just gotten a true, loving confession from Lily, and he's reciprocated it. Lily being so straight up, and amazingly honest about it, just patched up any potential holes that would arise in the future. I think this also helps to support you in the way you format the game, where outside of the particular particulars, like anything outside of overall vanilla(such as our new femboy friend), you'll probably never lock any routes, at least in my eyes, and that'd require hard locking a lot of the content in the unskippable VN part. I think it'll be helpful for that, where a lot of players would've had a problem, this one bunch of sentences perfectly fixes all issues, apart from the issues of those who are the utmost loyal partners. I sincerely doubt they'll resist when seeing all the amazing characters, but still. 

To the other characters, besides the mc and Lily, we have Penny. A perfect character, if I do say so myself, and personally the only real fit to be Bart's daughter(Unless, of course, you introduce more). Her personality perfectly coencides, in my mind, with an upbringing hosted by Bart's amazingly big heart. She's the perfect little ball of nervousness we all deserved. I can't help but think the family loving food so much is a gag on them being pig-anthros, but for sake of not sounding rude I'll ignore it.

Then we have Morgan. I do love femboys, a bit more unfairly than other archetypes of characters, but I'll try to remain as unaffected by that as possible with my review of him. 

For starters, he's just great. The misunderstanding at the start of their conversation, which, I also had a bit of, since the AI didn't really think to include a bulge in his sprites and his proportions seemed a bit more feminine than you'd expect, was pretty funny. I knew that the 'Morgan' name would probably be a boy's, but it still somehow made me think in the other direction in their convo. The character trait that really wowed me with him, was how he's genuinely like a cat in terms of personality. I never really thought about it before, but the species of all of the anthros kind of matches their general IRL behavior, albeit different when it has to be. Morgan is a bit finicky, just like a cat, and his overall demeanor seems kind of like he only really gets comfortable enough to talk to someone honestly when he gets a good grasp on their overall personality. The dialogue also engrained in my soul how these guys are really entirely different species than us humans. I mean, just him so simply calling his child form a kitty, made me remember that. It's great. 

Another part about Morgan I really liked, was how his upbringing didn't force anything from our society, on how femboys are generally brought up, onto his backstory. He was simply a bit smaller than the others, a bit more feminine, and still that never really turned completely, well, gay. It seems to me like his wide variety of books, specifically how he has romances(where I'll assume men are the saviors) probably will be the reason he'll be interested in the mc, since it seems relatively unheard of around these rural parts. 

But, ah, I've ranted for too long again. Wait, I can't say that yet. 

ROXIE! She's been turned into even more of a dumbass, to put it roughly. It really matches her, ya know? Not really thinking of the consequences of her actions, and only seeing the benefits laid out right in her face. I say this, because, well, she keeps thinking she's gonna completely ignore all the consequences of continually seducing the MC. She won't, she won't get even close. Though, I wouldn't really doubt it if it was revealed later that she was actually realizing it the whole time, and was just sort of ignoring it for the time being. or maybe even hoping for it, seeing as her attitude probably blocks everyone apart from the MC from even considering her in a sexual way. Overall, her character was the same in this update, though she seems to be devolving her intelligence whenever she's around the MC. Amazing dynamic. 

Finally, I can finish up. Amazing update, as always, and the little features like Roxie's sort of 'magnifying glass' aspect, and the new memory card game(which really shocked me, I didn't think that'd be the minigame when I first saw Penny tell us there'd be one)  continue to make the game even greater. 

I hope to see this progress continue(which will probably happen no matter what, seeing how dedicated is to the game) into the far-far future, and beyond. Can't wait to see what the game evolves into in the next update, so I'll see you in a month(hopefully I can review two updates at that month mark, but we'll see)! 

1500 words on a fucking review is insane. I'm sorry for going on for so long 😭

Much love, can't wait for the next update! 

I imagine most creators will probably make free subs for their patreon or subscribestar for non-paying users to download the free releases, but outside of that probably only lewdzone and f95? Most games won't be wiped from the website but for ones like this where some character's relation to each other is... sketchy at best, I don't really know how it'll go. I saw another creator's post where they said it was mostly targeted at the worse stuff, like r, incest, and similar genres where I suppose most would think that's perfectly reasonable. Just hope it never goes past that, I guess? 

Finally came back to this after a month since release, guess I missed an update and just played two right now.
I think I've somehow fallen even harder for this game? Like, I know the characters and setting are just pure joy, and the game is just a ball of nothing but endless happiness for everyone, but jeez. 
Also, I realized something about all the characters while reading, and I guess it ties into the setting. 
The characters act realistic, in their dialogue, in their reactions, but at the same time it's surreal. Something so happy, so adventurous, like Amber's sudden decision to do what she did in the forest, is just wild to me. 
And I think it's meant to be like that, not just because it's a porn game, and to just throw scenes in there, but to showcase what the author really wants to showcase with this game and spread through it.
For me, the thing the setting showcases the most, is peace. Not just peace as in no conflict/war, but true peace, without division, without greed, just peace in the truest sense. In this peace, there lies the environment to raise these somewhat "unreal" characters, even though their traits are completely possible in the setting, if it were to ever come to be.
This makes a lot of the story make a lot more sense in retrospect, and the mc even highlights how it's like the best fucking place in the world in the recap. If the game also keeps updating at this pace, then I'll keep falling in love with it more and more, especially if it keeps the consistency.
Now, enough with the blabber about the writing of the setting, and the worldbuilding magic. 
Cactus, I fucking LOVE the characters you make, ALL OF THEM.  You take things that would usually just be side characters or parts of quests and bring them to life, which many other games don't do at all or well in my opinion. For example, Bree could've just been found, and left alone, or given a free house by the council. But through the everlasting love in the mc's heart, she will now remain a part of the game until its eventual conclusion, most likely, as she lives with him. 
Also, when a character is assigned a "role" per se, they fulfill it fully. For Amber, it's the FWB who is just really adventurous, and it ties up her character plotline very well(though it isn't finished, just saying it ties the writing really well). None of the characters lose their magic, which I was afraid of, because how the hell did you pull off keeping the positive energy and good vibes so consistent? 
Thinking of their relationships, as well, the game lines everything up perfectly. It's like everyone will have their place in the mc's life, that doesn't go against anyone else's relationship with him. For Lily, it's pretty clear she'll be the main lover, but the setting makes it so that almost every character just doesn't care about monogamy as long as it's someone they genuinely love, like the mc here. And because the MC is all smiles and a genuine and good person, everyone knows he has no ill intent, no matter how super-lustful or greedy his actions may seem to get(though I think he's just reacting realistically to the situations here, lmao).

I've already ranted way too much in my excitement(this game literally makes me applaud at the pure joy these characters showcase and spread) so I'll end it here, and probably wait another month to play again, since it seems you doubled the gameplay in just two updates, and I'll probably have the same amount of time to play the next time. :)

Also, I like how you're getting better at the RPG sort of aspects of Ren'Py! I can tell you're still learning since you're adding more and more activities(like the forest search) and it makes me excited for whatever you come up with in the future(open-world version in the far-far future, anyone?).
Have a great day and stay consistent with the updates Cactus, because it's pure joy to play the game! 

I don't think that could ever happen as it's run through unity, which isn't really compatible with mobile devices afaik. Even without that, I think it'd be a long time coming before a mobile version was released, since the game is nowhere near even sort of being complete.

Ah, sorry, I should've made it more clear. When I used (slop), I was referring to all the games that aren't made by devs who care, and are sloppily put together by just using all kinds of AI with no real story. That's what makes yours even more refreshing! 

Love this. Although I usually hate AI(slop), you can tell the dev actually enjoyed writing the story and didn't just want to throw something together for clicks, and also put effort into some of the scenes/combination of scene and art itself.
The story, the worldbuilding, species-building, and the way that the story can so easily be expanded on make me want even more updates! What I love most is the characters, it gives a sort of homey-feely vibe, while still portraying a fresh experience for the mc, which I like since most games that go somewhere new have the mc as a complete idiot 😂
Anyway, great work on the game Cactus! Look forward to future updates, since this is one of the few VNs I actually read through with consistent enjoyment 🙂

Yeah, I think that's the only problem with the game really. Making one decision can completely remove a character from the future of the game, and there's no real warnings to save unless you use the walkthrough. The replayability is also meh, just because it's so linear. 

I'm glad it's at least planned! A lot of games don't go through the effort of actually making stuff like that.

Yeah, it'd be nice if there was an infinite mode of some kind to just combat for hours on end, considering the lack of overall replayability.

I love the game, but please, add animations for when someone is in the bathroom. It was so disappointing for me when I crouched to see through walls and they were just standing there, half-way meshed into the end of the map! Also, with this trick, I found that they actually have sleepwear(excluding the Aunt, sadly, she doesn't even have a sleeping model) and a sleeping animation which just confused me even more. It's not like you can get in there anyways