itch.io

Okay, normally I finish games like this before leaving any kind of review,
but this time I thought to myself even before reaching the end:
“Let’s take a look at Discord – and especially at the comments.”

First, about the game itself:
Personally, I really like both the graphics and the anime-style art. Everything fits nicely into the world and looks well put together — I honestly have nothing to complain about here!
The style stays consistent throughout, with a few intentional variations that, in my opinion, make the experience feel refreshingly dynamic.

Since I’m only at the end of the prologue, and this update is relatively small compared to my last playthrough, I have to say: I think it has improved!
I played it about a year ago — not much new content has been added since then, but a lot of bugs and glitches seem to have been fixed, which makes the overall experience much smoother.
It’s now easier to focus on the story and characters, which really enhances the game’s flow and tone.

As for the story itself:
What I’ve seen so far is genuinely good and interesting!

There is, however, one major dramatic issue that I think should be reconsidered.
Warning, minor spoiler:
In the parallel storyline with Ari, Elisabeth, and Leticia — when they’re hiding in the magic shop — it’s mentioned too early that they will travel to the MC’s town.
From a storytelling perspective, this is a bit unfortunate, because later scenes are meant to highlight the tension between the MC and the townspeople.
The MC is only a temporary hero, working to earn money. So when he’s faced with his upcoming departure, we as players already know his family will soon join him — which deflates the tension.
The way it’s presented also makes it clear that things will work out and that the MC will end up staying in town anyway.

So I’d recommend reworking that magic shop scene and removing the spoiler.
Keep the urgency of their departure, but leave the destination unknown — that would keep the player guessing and even increase the emotional tension:
“Will the MC reach his home-town in time before they leave?”

Other than that, I think the story is very well told!
It doesn’t take itself too seriously, it’s often unexpectedly funny and entertaining, yet it still manages to include some emotional depth and tension.

The erotic content is also very well integrated! It doesn’t feel flat or forced.
In the erotic scenes themselves, I feel there’s a bit of emotional depth or relational context missing between the MC and the other characters — but that’s honestly a difficult thing to achieve. Besides, your work isn’t really meant to focus on that aspect, and that’s perfectly fine!

What I especially like is how deliberately multi-layered your characters are.
Take Lucy, for example: she comes across as open and cheerful, yet you can clearly feel her inner scars at several points throughout the story.

Another thing that stood out to me in a very positive way is how well you’ve managed to connect the individual characters to the story — and at the same time, keep them distinct when needed.
That’s something many creators struggle with.
From a narrative standpoint, you’ve avoided accidental overlaps or inconsistent transitions.
Each conversation makes sense within its own character’s context, and your breakpoints are well placed, which makes the flow and continuity feel natural and consistent.
Even some studios fail to keep things this clean and coherent.

The gameplay is a bit grindy, but the mechanics themselves are simple, and overall it feels more like a small but enjoyable time killer — not like a frustrating grind loop.
The menus and structure are cleanly done, especially considering the limitations of Ren’Py.
(Just a side note: have you ever looked into Godot? For this kind of mechanic, it might actually be a smoother development environment. C# and GDScript aren’t hard to learn — just something to think about 😉)

All in all, I have to say — even though the game is short, what’s being offered here for free is absolutely worth playing!
It was genuinely fun to read through, and even the collecting elements felt balanced.
Maybe it would just help to tie them a bit more tightly into the daily quest and flirt/sex flow, so the grind feels less noticeable.

About some of the comments I’ve seen here:
I honestly don’t understand how people can complain about a developer who takes time  his time but puts a lot of effort into their project!
Patreon support is voluntary and can be ended at any time.
Complaining about long development times, when it’s clear the dev is aiming for quality, makes no sense to me — especially from users who probably don’t even support the project financially.

Personally, I avoid Patreon subscriptions — so I apologize for not supporting you directly.
That’s why I try to contribute by writing helpful and objective reviews instead.
But if, for example, you had released a small DLC for around $5 that continues after the prologue, I’d gladly have bought it just to support you once 😉
Especially since I found the prologue genuinely enjoyable!
You could still make that kind of DLC accessible to Patreon supporters in some special way — just a thought.

Keep up the good work, and don’t rush. I think you’ve got the right focus for your project.

And for you as an author and developer:
Every story, every writer has their own tone! Yours just isn’t for everyone — that’s something you have to live with as a writer and developer. You can’t please everyone!

What’s far more important is that your narrative tone and your characters stay consistent. If they don’t, others will lose interest later on.

The opener is a bit unexpected given the game’s title, but apart from that, I don’t see any issues with the dialogues or other texts — I actually like them!
I think you’ve managed to capture that distinct anime-style tone quite well, especially in the later parts. You don’t take it too seriously; your story has a certain playful charm, occasionally touches on more serious tones — in a fitting flow — but you break it up (intentionally?) with humor, in a way that works really well in my opinion.

The erotic content is also very well integrated! It doesn’t feel flat or forced.
In the erotic scenes themselves, I feel there’s a bit of emotional depth or relational context missing between the MC and the other characters — but that’s honestly a difficult thing to achieve. Besides, your work isn’t really meant to focus on that aspect, and that’s perfectly fine!

Have a little more faith in your writing — I think you did a pretty good job!

BTW (while writing this comment):
I’ve reached the end of the prologue and I’m playing the current version (v0.1.2.3b). I write myself, and I can tell you: to me, it reads coherent and solid — both for what it presents and for what it aims to be!

I wouldn’t say it like that!!!

Always a pleasure!
But be careful with community opinions or suggestions. You have to think like a developer and check whether things complement each other well or interfere with one another — and how they can technically be implemented together, depending on the engine, etc. (for your next game). Most players in the community don’t do that. They have a short flash of inspiration they think is cool: “I’d love it if we had a build menu where we could place furniture, recolor it, and add patterns!” But they have no idea that this mechanic, while theoretically possible, would in practice require an enormous amount of work — maybe even a completely different engine! Just a small warning ;) Not every mechanic makes sense within every type of game concept. As a developer, you have to weigh that carefully in terms of cost and benefit.

Your point that you’d basically have to rebuild the entire game for the changes I suggested is absolutely understandable — I get the amount of work behind that.
But let me tell you this: perfection is always partly in the eye of the beholder — and on the other hand, it’s entirely possible to rebuild a game from scratch in just a fraction of the original time. Because most of the hard work has already been done.
Refactoring should always be considered when core mechanics are causing issues — especially if you’re already on the home stretch and don’t plan to add any new mechanics or systems anymore. In that case, it’s worth at least thinking about it, and estimating the amount of work.

From a technical point of view, you could copy most of the existing content and just adjust the elements that stand in the player’s way or reduce the fun factor. All your scenes, text, and much more would remain exactly the same. Refactoring doesn’t mean you have to redo everything from zero — it means rebuilding the game while fixing or adjusting what doesn’t work as intended, or what was added later even though it didn’t really fit. ^^

As for the time it takes to finish the game:
I have to point out that I’m German! English isn’t my native language, so I read a bit slower, sometimes have to look up a word, or even a whole sentence. Secondly, I generally read slowly and like to enjoy the context. Your choice of words was wonderfully smooth, which made it pleasant to read overall. Still, these little pauses and thought breaks naturally add to the total playtime.
As I said: 5 days, about 12 hours each — roughly 60 hours of total playtime!
Minus about 20% for searching = around 48 hours.

With farming, milking, getting to know the characters, etc., I’d say roughly 75% of that time was spent reading.
So that’s around 36 hours of pure reading time.
Depending on reading speed, you can of course subtract a few hours. Non-native speakers, slow readers, or those who like to take their time — so most people will probably finish in about 15–30 hours. Unless they skip the text, but honestly, I don’t understand why anyone would play a VN-based game just to skip the writing. There’s plenty of adult content elsewhere!

I want to start by saying that this isn’t meant to be a rant or a takedown of the developer. I’m trying to approach this as objectively as possible, without letting my personal preferences for this particular kink or similar things influence my opinion.

What I think about A Bellyful Life—and also its Unreal version—is that it feels absolutely unfinished and offers very little in the way of meaningful interaction.

On one hand, the worldbuilding, menus, and graphics give a solid first impression and make it seem like a playable experience. But that made it all the more disappointing to see what you can actually do in the game—and how quickly you run into walls, because so many things either weren’t properly thought through, connected together, or simply leave you alone in a sandbox with no clear direction on what you can or should do.

After trying the 2D version of A Bellyful Life, I immediately tested the Unreal 3D version afterward—and to me, that one is even worse. In the 2D version, I still felt like: “Okay, I can earn money through side jobs, streaming, and increasing my body mass while interacting with the other girls.” But the 3D version? It’s really just a sandbox where you can run around completely aimlessly.

As I said, the base structure seems relatively solid, and at least in the 2D version, I didn’t encounter any bugs or crashes. In the 3D version… well, it’s UE5—what can I say—it freaked out a lot.

While the 2D version, through its various dialogues and interaction options, still invites you to explore and experiment, the 3D version completely kills that motivation. Don’t get me wrong—many of the animations are fine—but a lot of the features you’d expect simply don’t work because they’re not implemented, unfinished, or lack the necessary assets.

The issue here isn’t that the developer is incapable—quite the opposite, actually. The problem, from what I saw after a bit of research, clearly lies in the number of projects. Aside from a few minigames that do exactly what they’re supposed to—quick, cute, funny little time-killers—there are so many other projects where the developer seems unfocused, constantly jumping between ideas, adding bits and pieces here and there, and occasionally starting completely new games.

Everyone has their own creative flow and working style, and I respect that. Starting a new side project now and then? Absolutely fine. But at some point, you’ve got to get truly invested in one larger project, keep working on it, make consistent progress, and give players something substantial.

The worst part for me in the 3D version was the completely unexplained controls. There are no settings for mouse sensitivity, and overall, it feels incredibly raw and unpolished. NPC dialogue boxes appear through walls and buildings, and interaction prompts pop up everywhere—an overwhelming flood of input that just leaves you confused.

After about 30 minutes of running around and experimenting, I turned it off because it just repelled me from a gameplay perspective. It wasn’t the inflation or the kink that bothered me—it was how the whole thing played. The controls feel chaotic, the feedback is overwhelming, and basic information—like small quests or even a simple “How the fuck do I control this and what exactly can I do here?”—is completely missing.

In my opinion, everything the developer has released (apart from the minigames) feels so unfinished and unplayable that it’s hard to find any real enjoyment in it. What I did see, however, shows definite potential—especially in terms of visual design and the attempt to implement mechanics in a structured, functional way. But the overall impression remains that of something started without a clear plan.

Keep going, try to focus on one project, and I wish you the best of luck. Thanks for the free experience.

Sorry spoiler:
Bianca:"oh my god! You are fucking the mayor!?"
You:"She loves it!"

Bianca transformed into a cow girl "Ím a cow-power-ranger!"
Mayor:"WTF she ... transmute?" jaw drops "why are you not freaking out?" You:"well ... I´m already kind of used to it ... There´s a goddess walking through the walls of my house, my vegetables grow overnight and she turns into a cow." shrugs

And this, in short, tells you everything you need to know about the game! I love this game! The story, the way it’s written, the dialogues, the craziness, and all the insane stuff that hits you—it’s just divinely hilarious! I think I’ve laughed more in the last five days (that’s how long it took me to reach the absolute end of Patch 0.1.3) than I did in the previous four weeks combined. You can take that as a fair warning: if you don’t find yourself smirking within the first five minutes (even if the start doesn’t seem to give much reason to), you might as well just quit right there.

It’s a festival of references to various anime tropes and clichés—especially the sexually charged, cheeky kind—that you really have to take with humor. If you can’t do that, this game is absolutely not for you. Between all the incestuous sex, the game builds such a brilliant bridge of humor that I just have to give it credit. I was laughing to tears more than once!

The story itself takes a while to really get going because the creators took their time to build and explain a wild but surprisingly believable setup. It can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour before you truly start to see where the whole thing might be heading.

On top of that, I find the story’s mix of goddess lore and mystery elements extremely well done. The game lets you piece things together yourself—you’re given just enough, or sometimes just barely enough, information to really have to think, which I love. It challenges the reader a bit, but just skimming and laughing your way through won’t cut it if you actually want to enjoy it! If there’s anything to nitpick, it might be some (still) unused details that could have been skipped—they serve world-building but occasionally create a few redundancies that weren’t strictly necessary. But they’re rare enough not to be annoying or distracting!!!

Now, after all that praise, a few mixed thoughts and maybe some constructive criticism: while the mechanics are all kept pretty simple and you basically can’t do anything wrong in the game, I find the UI somewhat clunky in places. Take the milk planner, for example: I see what the intention was—organizing different people and days in a clear way—but why not just use simple color coding? Click on Bianca → Monday gets highlighted in the color matching the assigned task: free, milking, fighting, laying eggs—whatever. You’d only need a small color legend and could just click the day until the color fits—done! This back-and-forth between assigning a person to a day and fiddling with submenus is exactly where it becomes needlessly tedious (no offense!).

The same goes for the quest system and several other things that are solid and well-structured at their core, but feel a bit cumbersome and somewhat buggy in execution.

I think the balancing still needs a bit of fine-tuning. While the early game feels pretty drawn-out when it comes to making money and pulling your weight around the household — putting in all that work in the fields and so on — it later becomes way too easy, especially once milk production kicks in.

On the other hand, upgrading crops is an extreme grind that takes far too much time! And again, it’s more about the UI and the overall design that causes problems than the grind itself. It’s the mindless repetition — sacrificing vegetables and eating cakes — that really gets on your nerves and turns into tedious click work that quickly becomes annoying as hell. A slightly more complex menu that lets you choose how much energy and which veggies you want to invest — with sliders or dropdowns — and then just confirm, would already fix that. The whole energy recharging through pumpkin pie is also a pain if you actually want to use it for that purpose. Having to eat cake 20 times in a row gets old fast. Here, the real issues lie in the game mechanics and the UI — not in writing or in creating good graphics and animations!

Some of the pregnancy and other animations also aren’t implemented cleanly; they keep requiring clicks that either don’t do anything or where the UI shows up too late.

Now for the things that are really bad and downright irritating: while I actually think the story itself is really well written and put together — especially considering the characters, the themes of the goddesses, and all that stuff that’s been neatly tied together — the backend fails again. First off, it’s genuinely annoying that every scene transition has a fade-out and then a fade-in — especially ones that take this long! (I hope you’re at least using one single backend function for that so you can adjust it globally or even make it a menu option.) Because while the fades might feel nice at first, by the third in-game day they just drive you crazy, and you end up spamming clicks just to get that damn fade out of the way so you can move on to the next screen/text/scene. (They’re just too long — 0.2 seconds would be plenty to create a smooth effect without eye strain or flashing!)

Now, the quest system: while I understand you’re probably trying to give the player more freedom (which this game doesn’t really need) and allow multiple events to be available at once so players can make their own choices, I’d say — as it stands — it’s a complete double disaster. With so many locations, NPCs, and quests that can appear — most of which can only be triggered early in the morning — we end up with a very linear storytelling flow (which in itself isn’t bad).
But every single time, I have to search my list for the next place and character the game allows me to visit! By the end — and even quite often midway through — I could only trigger events in the morning unless they were marked as “evening” (and even then, sometimes that didn’t work right). So I kept switching from place to place, from character to character, until I finally found the next quest that would progress — because the others were either blocked or only allowed one event per day. That easily ate up 20–30% of my total playtime just searching! And with such a long story and so much content, that’s just bullshit (sorry, but seriously — it was hell at times!). Only the good, cheeky jokes kept me going!
Do yourself and the game a favor: either make it properly complex — with breakpoints that let you go through quests throughout the day until a chapter shift happens in the backend — or make it strictly linear and only show the next available quest location! Because as it stands, having access to every place and every character while the quest system is more or less useless just makes you run around like an idiot — and it’s a total waste of time!

The game itself is a jumble of awesome mystery with goddesses who revolve around you, your family, then a city—and seemingly the world, maybe even the whole cosmos. On top of that, there are plenty of humorous elements that caught me so off guard that I had at least five full-on laughing fits, each lasting about a minute! I would absolutely keep playing it (and really want to!). Like everyone else, I’m eagerly waiting for the next update.

It definitely still needs a bit of polish in the UI, and it might be a good idea to take a step back and rethink the backend—and spend a few hours (if not days) actually playing it yourself, to better get a feel for where its weak spots are and understand what could or should be improved. Because personally, I think the story is top-notch—the game and the creator don’t take themselves too seriously. That’s why each new crazy twist doesn’t feel like something the developer/author is forcing, but rather slips in naturally as just the next insane element in this completely bonkers world. Please keep up the great work!
Visually, sure, there are fancier games—but this one is clean and solidly done! So there’s really nothing to complain about; if anything, I’d just point out that it’s obvious a lot of effort went into making it look neat. And personally, I really like this anime style.

Spoiler ahead: I personally can’t deal with incest at all, and I also think that the translation and renaming to “Roommate” or “Landlady” only partially work within the story context and text. It becomes clear that the two girls (Bianca and Isabelle) are his sisters, and that Sophia is probably more than just his stepmother. I think it becomes apparent—at the latest when interacting with Marian—that somehow, you seem to share at least one parent with half the town! Which I don’t really mind; I can personally look past it. But the texts—especially in the sex scenes—keep nudging you in that direction, because they are less based on names or nicknames and more on the underlying context, where the roles of “sister” or “mother” are clearly felt, even if not explicitly stated.

Especially in the VN genre, I can never quite understand why developers feel the need to withhold information from the player and turn it into some kind of secret—like, for example, the “Good Boy / Bad Boy” points (I read about that on your Discord!), or other things hidden in the backend—especially when they actively influence gameplay and can unlock or block certain actions!

Your VN took me five days to finish (around 12 hours per day), and from what I understand, that’s only about 50% of what you plan to release. So ask yourself honestly: would you have that much free time to play such a game—one that demands you to think and pay attention—and would you really want to replay it multiple times to discover every possible path, given that amount of time?

I’d play it once! And if you put too many secrets in my way—ones I can’t immediately recognize as such—or too many obstacles that keep me from seeing a second path, then that path will stay hidden for me forever. Because I’m not going to waste my life replaying a game a hundred times just to unlock one more scene! Even if skipping speeds things up, it still takes time—and I can only hope there’s actually another scene waiting behind it.

The magic word here is clearly communication (through the UI, that is!). Mixing puzzle mechanics into a long story-driven game isn’t a great concept! In the absence of clear information, it would be nice to have things like a time display or similar indicators.

From what I’ve understood about the gameplay, there are three time segments: morning (when most quests and conversations can be triggered), a broad daytime where you can do various things, and an evening that automatically begins once your energy runs out. The issue is that energy is variable, and sometimes you still need some in the evening for certain quests. Which means you sometimes have to deliberately fast-forward time until evening just so you still have enough energy left for nighttime quest/activities.

One thing I think I also read in the comments, and would also criticize, is the inconsistent game progression with things you should actually be able to unlock actively, but are instead blocked for ages by quests. Whether it’s new ladies as cows, or a sex scene with a lady announced for the next day (or even the same day XD), and much, much more—everything is pretty linear and runs far too rigidly and strictly for the current gameplay approach, delivering the desired benefits way too late.

Among other things, I was constantly confused by Bastet’s “Bless my Farm” option, where I never really understood the “Overgrowth”! It says something about “x turns left,” but I never fully got what that meant. That it refers to the ongoing costs for the farm, and that you always need at least 50 energy in Bastet’s account for things on the farm to keep growing… well, somehow that information got lost on me after all the text and five days of gameplay. Especially since it looks like a clickable option.

No direct criticism, since the game is far from finished:
Many things still seem very much up in the air in terms of game mechanics! From the beginning, the state of the house is criticized—only one window, cracks in the walls, far too little space, and a bathroom outside. There was talk of remodeling, expansions, and improvements—but in my playthrough, nothing happened. Also, the money system seems pretty rudimentary and unfinished, and I don’t really understand what I’m supposed to do with it. Even though there are possibilities for spending—and they were mentioned (“TV, game console, house expansion, remodeling, sex toys for the temple,” etc.)—none of that has been implemented yet, and the money just accumulates without any benefit… except if you invest it in pumpkin pies and condoms, which thankfully aren’t expensive.

Even an alternative house construction in Bastet’s sanctuary was mentioned, but it was understandably not pursued further due to energy consumption. Basically, I see a lot of ideas and suggestions that went into the project, the world, and the game management, which were briefly mentioned but then abandoned, not consistently followed up, or at least not properly worked out.

A restaurant with only two dishes on the menu? Why even have energy? (Not Bastet’s, but energy for working and especially for interacting during quests!?) And many other things that, while nice ideas, overload the game and feel somewhat half-baked. Definitely unfinished!

The sex scenes are quite entertaining and also varied. The ladies all have wonderfully different characters and designs, even if some of them are very focused on anime clichés (which isn’t a problem, as long as you like that!). The main issue, however, is with character depiction. On one hand, I understand why most characters were drawn with large to overwhelmingly huge breasts (because you can use them as cows XD). On the other hand, there’s a lack of variety in breast size. No one has small breasts—only large, oversized, overwhelmingly huge, and “Holy shit, how does this woman walk or stand without tipping forward? Who messed with gravity here?”

To conclude, I’d like to leave a tip for the developer(s)! The promotion and short description of the game do not at all reflect what one can actually expect! I don’t know if there’s already been advertising somewhere—I haven’t looked into that! In my opinion, besides the cute girls with huge boobs, the game’s real strength lies in the humor that hits you so unexpectedly that it knocks you down laughing. And that is not visible at all in the Itch.io description!

My tip: Use the lines I quoted above from the game (even though I slightly reworded them) and create a small mini-trailer with the corresponding images! The scene is yours, and feel free to use my rewording of the dialogues as well—I make no claim to them! Make it into a short teaser or trailer, censor if needed, add voice-over if possible, and support it with music. Make a short 15–20 second video highlighting the game: “Farm. Flirt. F_ck. Freak out.” Patreon, Itch.io, Steam—whatever—and then put the links in the YouTube description, etc. You’ll surely find someone to do the voices if you’re too shy to do it yourself, or someone to polish the video cheaply. In my view, that would be the ideal and fitting promotion for your project.

I really enjoyed playing it and would like to see it as what it is: “A small, rough gem that could really shine one day!” I can’t support you financially, so I poured as much as I could into this review as recognition and tried to be honest but also objective ;) Cheers

I played just the demo, but I would say that was enough to feel that this is not a game for me. The graphics, menu, and most of the stuff I have seen so far look pretty well done, so no complaints on that side.

Points where I think the game could improve: the story is really bland. I couldn't read more than 3 text boxes without getting annoyed, and it feels lazy, like an excuse: "this is a porn game, so we don't need any good story." And at that point, I ask you: if you don't want to write a good story, why make a story-based visual novel XD? You can put some effort in there, or scratch it from the to-do list and put more effort into other mechanics in my opinion ^^!
The story writing is very mediocre because it is redundant, contextually uninteresting, and especially the dialogues sound unnatural. This could be a translation issue, but as an author, I would say the core problem really lies in the chosen context and basic formulations. Not everyone has to be a writer, but for story-based games like visual novels, you should have stronger writing skills than what the game currently shows. Arcade games in the erotic genre are no less popular. In my view, the texts even harm the rest of the work because they are so mediocre to poorly executed.

The other thing is that the mechanics for fooling around and sex are really basic. I’m not saying you did a bad job, but it doesn’t feel worth playing. The sound is nice because the girls are cute, and I think the moans for the scenes you created fit, but there should be more — more sex and more moaning, so that you actually have a chance of enjoying this part.

The graphics, in my opinion, turned out quite well and show clear potential for more! Even though the gameplay and mechanics are a bit on the weaker side, I didn’t encounter any issues compared to many others here. 
Not a single bug from the start to the end of the demo — solid work in Unity.

A commonly seen problem like “can’t install” or “flagged as a virus,” etc., can clearly be identified as a Windows issue caused by User Account Control and the overly sensitive Windows Defender. Because the executable is not digitally signed. This is normal for unsigned Unity builds and does not mean the game is unsafe. Simply adding a note in the game description explaining this can reduce confusion or reports. If you want to fully prevent these reports, signing the executable with a code-signing certificate is required, though that can be costly.