Ripples

I absolutely loved this game, but episode 4 ending got me wondering if there will be an episode 5?

(This review is based on Ripples 0.4.1 public release)

STORY & CHARACTERS ★★★★☆

Jack Wilson is entering his final year of high school and rejoicing the return of his childhood friend Darci, back from a year away at another school. It feels good for things to get back to normal — until questions start to arise about the power plant accident that killed Jack's father almost 20 years ago. Convinced that there is more to the story than what he's always been told, Jack embarks on an investigative quest that will bring him face-to-face with the events of the past. Choices matter, and for Jack, his choices may even rewrite history.

Ripples presents an engaging time travel story with plenty of mystery and intrigue serving as counterpoint to the everyday adventures of a high school senior, his friends, and his romantic interests. The novel offers a fairly well-balanced mix of slice-of-life, sci-fi mystery & adventure, and intimate encounters. Every scene is interesting and advances the story well, either in terms of core plot or character development.

The story has an interesting and varied range of heroines and supporting cast. Most characters are well developed to some degree or other, ensuring that almost nobody feels like a cardboard standup. There is only one heroine that I feel I don't have an appreciable degree of investment in yet, while at the same time feeling that the author expects I should be invested. This is mostly due to limited scene exposure thus far, and may be rectified with later chapters.

Indeed, with this being a time travel story, Ripples has unique opportunities for backstory development. It has thus far availed itself of these opportunities judiciously, focusing the lens of the past on characters who are (thus far) ancillary presences in the present. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead, Ripples seems intent to capitalize on the opportunity to present two generations of characters at roughly the same age — which of course presents interesting prospects for a story that features sexual encounters prominently.

Ripples wastes no time with such encounters, which is always appreciated in an AVN. But it does so using its main cast of heroines (rather than leveraging side characters for early "quick wins"), and consequently introduces intimate encounters with limited opportunity for the reader to have become fully emotionally invested in the characters. The novel depends on some hastily described history between the main character and these heroines, and in so doing, threatens to undermine the reader's early development of empathy for the characters. (In one of the more egregious examples, a classmate flirts with the main character by flashing her uncovered nether regions in class — and in full view of several other students — in a move so ridiculously unlikely that it taxed my suspension of disbelief almost to the breaking point.)

Fortunately, the game finds its footing later on and manages to avoid developing a terminal case of Pornomancer Syndrome. As the reader directly experiences the interactions between the main character and the heroines, the game starts to patch some backstory gaps, and the characters take on sufficient depth to make later intimate encounters more meaningful and rewarding.

GRAPHICS & ANIMATIONS ★★★★☆

Ripples uses the HS1 rendering engine for its characters and scenes, and I must say, it looks like the author has tried to squeeze every last bit of capability out of the engine. Scene composition is consistently good, and many shots are downright gorgeous for the tech being used. Lighting and DOF are extremely well utilized and give each shot a sense of depth, while also focusing the reader's attention on the main subject matter. Every scene has enough detail that it doesn't feel empty or underdeveloped. Very few scenes look overly flat. The most egregious exception, perhaps, is the ground cover in the forest scenes from Episode 1; and the game manages to redeem itself in Episode 4 with improved forest ground cover, as well as some absolutely stunning flora at the lake.

Characters are what one would expect from the HS toolset, but the author has tried to achieve as much diversity in looks as possible, and mostly succeeded. There are a few cases where facial expressions from one character to the next start to evoke a sense of déjà vu — the dreaded DreamWorks Face — but for the most part each character manages to distinguish itself from other others. Because of its time travel theme, Ripples has additional challenges. Several characters appear in the both the present and the past, and have to look roughly 20 years older/younger while still projecting a sense of continuity in their identity. Mothers have to look the same age as their daughters in the past, but still come across as sufficiently distinct. And as if that wasn't challenge enough, the story includes quite a few sister and twin-sister characters who have to look similar but still distinguish themselves visually. So far, Ripples has done an excellent job on all counts.

As for animations — there are a lot of them. And not just for the intimate encounters. Many characters introductions are handled with toe-to-head camera pans; animations are often devoted to subtle motions like character breathing or other minor acts; and various mundane shots like a car pulling up to the curb at night are fully animated. These all bring a great deal of life to the world, and they also aid in delivering added emotional impact for even non-sexual encounters with some of the heroines.

When it comes to the sexual encounters, I don't think I've seen HS-powered animations done as well as what Ripples achieves. The scene lighting and DOF plays a large part in this. Beyond that, the scene blocking, camera angles, and camera motion loops are all very well thought out and brilliantly executed. Tactical use of camera wobble — not too much and not overdone — marvelously augments the energy of sexual encounters. These elements are what separate "okay" H-scenes from spectacular scenes, and Ripples manages to elevate itself well above most of its peers.

Close contact between characters during intimate scenes is another area that seems to present a lot of challenges for HS-powered scenes. Here too, I was blown away by what the author has achieved. Ripples exhibits a level of detail in contact scenarios — especially labia-phallus interactions — that is absolutely stunning, and there were very few instances where I noticed unsightly polygon clipping that tend to plague games with more hastily designed interactions.

All of these strengths are on display during the sexual encounter with Krystal toward the end of Episode 3 Part 2 — a moment I consider to be the high point of the game. The scene has it all: great scene composition, great lighting and DOF, a wonderfully expressive heroine, near-flawless physical interplay between the main character and heroine, the most detailed and impressive clitoris-phallus interaction I've ever seen in an H-scene, camera work that makes the escalation of the encounter incredibly energetic and satisfying, and full animations for both the female orgasm and the male orgasm (a rare and delightful treat in an AVN). Combined with the sound palette and music selection (more on that later), the scene comes as close to achieving H-scene nirvana as one could hope for.

SOUND & MUSIC ★★★★★

Ripples doesn't skimp in the sound and music department, either. The game boasts an extensive soundtrack, and while it's not original, all of the tracks are very well selected to fit the scene. This is particularly true of the sexual encounters, all of which seem to be paired with musical tracks that are very well matched to the tone and emotion of the encounter. This has a significant bearing on the impact of sexual encounters, so I'm pleased at the thought and planning that the author has committed to this aspect of the storytelling. The looping on some tracks is a little dodgy, but overall not distracting.

(Only one recommendation would I offer: DON'T leverage musical tracks that the Internet psyche has indelibly associated with Kerbal Space Program. I know Kevin MacLeod's music is non-proprietary, but KSP has a de facto monopoly on many of those tracks now — if only because the mood of a scene is severely compromised when the music evokes visions of little green men running around in a launch vehicle assembly hangar.)

Sound effects are well done throughout. In particular, the sounds of physical contact during sexual encounters are good quality, which is important as these sounds are highly repetitive in looped animations. While some refinements could be made, there were no sounds that were so out of place as to be the least bit distracting.

Heroines utter generic moans during sexual encounters, and these are extremely very well done. There seems to be a varied set of "voice packs" leveraged for this purpose, such that many character's moans sound distinctly different from others. There are variations that follow the escalation of the encounter, and the sound loops are very well put together. The result is a powerful synergy with the animations that makes the H-scenes supremely satisfying. (Again, the Krystal encounter toward the end of Episode 3 Part 2 features some fantastic voice work, especially at the height of the copulation. There is even voice work for the animated moments of orgasm. Top notch!)

GAMEPLAY ★★★★☆

In its currently form, Ripples is what I would describe as a "kinetic visual novel with an illusion of choice" — insomuch as the choices that are offered seem to mostly govern whether or not the main character will have an opportunity for future sexual encounters with specific characters. The main plot seems to be essentially on the rails, though I could be failing to discern some longer-term plot deviations that my choices may be affecting. A common ailment of AVNs is that choices tend to accomplish nothing more than selectively limiting opportunities for sexual encounters, rather than guiding truly interesting branches in storyline. It's a malady I've come to grudgingly accept about AVNs, and Ripples walkthroughs are available in the community for those who want to make sure their choices don't irrevocably close the door on future intimate moments. Various response options are even more trivial and simply exist to help vary the dialogue on subsequent replays.

A gallery exists to allow convenient replay of lewd scenes once they have been encountered at least once — a near-mandatory staple feature of AVNs. My main gripe is that the gallery thumbnails are not blurred prior to being unlocked, potentially resulting in some spoilers for the unsuspecting. This may very well be addressed in a future update.

OVERALL ★★★★★

Ripples is shaping up to be my favorite HS-based AVN yet! The story is superb, with an intriguing plot, interesting cast of characters, and range of situational scenes. The novel falters a bit out of the gate trying to balance character development with early H-scenes, but manages to find its stride and deliver a well balanced cocktail of erotic storytelling. The graphics and sound design are top notch, and I still marvel at what the author has accomplished with the HS1 rendering toolset. (I can only imagine what the newer HS2 Studio would be capable of in the hands of such an artist.) Episode 4, recently released at the time of this review, further expands the intrigue of the main plot, and I eagerly look forward to seeing where the author takes the story!

The quality of this game is unmatched and I love it but I did feel like this update was kinda underwhelming as it was so short. I understand if you had other things going on but I am still thankful for what you have given us.

this game has been amazing just wish there were more of it out..

The quality of this is so fucking good i mean damn every scene had me going wow. Just the little details to make it that much more engaging, i love it lmao

Finally chapter 4 is here, literally the best hgame now.

Really happy to start ep 4, this is one of my fav h-games in this site, the artstyle is quite unique from other renpy games and I love the characters, Skylar best girl.

:)

Hi, bought this game here on itch.io some time ago and only recently played it. It's really captivating and I'm hooked since starting it. The scene with Darci and coffee is just hillarious. I would love to see updates, but that you feel well is much more important. Take all the time you need.

Great freaking job im hooked. I see from the comments your not doing so well and i hope you get rest and recover and anything your going through. I wanna keep playing. How many episodes do you have planned? Once i get money id def. Support your patreon.

I love this game.  It immediately starts off funny and engaging.  Only thing comparable to it, to me, is Once in Lifetime and I've caught two references to that already and thought they were great.  The art, animations, and the writing for the girls is superb.  Cannot get enough of Skyler and Darci.  Looking forward to some more Riley and hoping to get close to Lizzie as well.  A+ effort on this one in every regard.

The scenes are not you every day h scenes! They're awesome

Great game. Looking forward for future updates of the game.

pregnancy?

When the ep 4 will release ?

Best girl Darci!

This is one of the funniest porn games I've played. The sex scenes are great, the characters are well written, and the soundtrack is really good. I can't wait for the next update

What's the song that plays when you take a ride with Skyler in her car? I know it from somewhere but I can't seem to place it.