Reclaim Reality

What would you do if you woke up and found the world empty of people? What if you kept having weird sex fantasies about all your hot chick friends? These are just some of the questions posed by Reclaim Reality, a kinky visual novel and adventure game of sci-fi mystery and dirty hentai fucking.

Reclaim Reality is, unfortunately, only a demo and will never be completed. Still, that demo continues to garner attention and lamentations from perverts who wish they could have played the full thing. It’s readily available as a free download for Windows, or you can play the web version right now like I did.

The Saga of a Canceled Porn Game

The development and cancelation of Reclaim Reality is a pretty fascinating case study on the making of an indie porn game. The main dev posted an extensive document about why they had to stop working on the game that I recommend taking a look at if you’re at all interested in how these things get put together.

Reclaim Reality was always funded by fans on Patreon. In fact, after the loading screen, you’ll see “An important note about the future of this game,” which is a screen basically begging for donations. At that point, they were getting about $800 a month and needed a couple of K just for their team of artists, voice actors, musician, writer, and programmer to stay afloat.

Long story short, one artist bailed, and they decided to give up after all the emails from people saying they wouldn’t play a game that combines yuri and machine sex. The main dude lost around $11,000 in the process. The irony is that comment sections around the web now talk about how much they would have loved to fap to the full version. The full storyline is included in that post-cancelation document.

The good news is that the developers learned from their mistakes and managed to earn a strong following online. They’ve got some new Patreon-funded adult games in the works, including one already pulling $12k a month (Future Fragments). Who knows? Maybe if there’s enough of a buzz, they’ll start working on Reclaim Reality again.

A Futuristic Mystery with Hentai Lesbians

I don’t normally talk that much about the development of these games, but this one’s been interesting. Also, I needed to flesh out this review, as I can’t tell you too much about this game. That would ruin the mystery and spoil the surprises.

The storyline of Reclaim Reality is driven by sex, mystery, and mysterious sex. There’s no fancy, animated intro; that was planned, but all you get is a more text-based summary of the story so far. You wake up trapped in a hotel room with an unknown voice talking in your head. That voice helps you escape the room, into a weirdly abandoned downtown area.

Almost immediately, you have a strange vision of yourself and three friends being restrained, groped, and molested by a robot with a bunch of little tentacle arms. This is our first glimpse of the hentai in the game. It’s unanimated, but drawn really well. If you’re into that rough tentacle stuff, you’re going to like this.

Much of the game plays out like a standard visual novel. There’s a ton of dialog to click through, often just your character (Melinda) talking to herself as she pieces together the puzzle of just what exactly the fuck is going on. There’s some voice acting every once in a while, never saying exactly what’s on the screen but simply backing it up somehow. The voice acting is good, though maybe it’s hard to be bad with short lines like, “Oh, shit!” and “I don’t know what she’s doing here!”

Explore a Sci-Fi World and Fuck Your Friends

When you’re not clicking through dialog, you’ll do some point-and-click exploration of the environments. Reclaim Reality takes place in a near-future with self-cleaning sidewalks and mandatory hedges on all balconies, which you’ll learn about by clicking. The first place you’ll explore is the hotel room you’re trapped in, where you need to find something to help you get out.

Once you do get out of the hotel, the game introduces you to the map. The navigation controls are the only part of the menu that was really developed to completion or near-completion. It’s simple pointing and clicking here, too. A couple of locations unlock when you go downstairs, so you can get out there and start exploring immediately.

I walked around downtown, looking at shit and wondering what the hell was happening. Not only was the city abandoned, but it seemed to have changed in ways I can’t exactly put my finger on. Did that building always have the crazy curved glass out front? Was that weird skyscraper there before? Melinda isn’t sure, but she doesn’t think so.

Here’s where we officially meet Ruth, our purple-haired boss/friend. You see her, and the game gives you a choice between talking to her or avoiding her. She was one of the girls from the initial threesome vision Melinda had, so I figured I should give her the old “Sup girl” treatment.

Ruth is fucking oblivious to what’s going on, more concerned about getting back to work than figuring out where everybody went. She’s pissed off she can’t get into that mysterious building, but doesn’t seem all that interested in whether it was there before or not.

“You need to grope the entity to transport,” the voice in my head tells me, encouraging me to grope my friend. I really wanted to, guys, but it turned out to be more of a friendly thing than a sexual one. My chick takes Ruth by the arm, and they go inside, thanks to some unexplained power she’s still figuring out.

Why a Canceled Game Still Gets Played

I sometimes find the visual novel style tedious. I’m more of a masturbating pervert than a lover of fine literature, so sometimes I find myself just clicking through the dialog in search of the sex scenes. While I was eager to see more of that dirty hentai with the girls of Reclaim Reality, I was also genuinely intrigued by the mystery. The writing is fucking strong, without the stilted, cringy dialog of other examples of the genre.

Ruth and I explored the building a bit as we worked our way to the top. I ended up with more questions than answers. This building has trees inside even though that’s illegal, and self-cleaning grass even though there’s nobody to walk on it. Our heroine is also utterly baffled by the lack of chairs behind the reception desk.

Do you like spoilers for your mystery games? I’m not sure how much more of this I should tell you. You’ll soon have your first an encounter with a robot, with the option to either flee or stick around. I’m not going to tell you which I chose, but both Ruth and I ended up with our clothes shredded and hanging off or our shapely, sexy manga bodies.

This is also around the point in the story where you get your first big reveal. Like I said, Reclaim Reality has really fucking strong writing, and I loved how this scene plays out. After the earth-shattering revelation, you have to choose which of your girlfriends to have some nice lesbian action with. It’s a tough decision, but I have faith you’ll make the right call.

Of course, you can always go back and do it again if you change your mind. That’s one of the neat things about fucking anime babes in virtual novels. If you remember to save your game, you don’t even have to click through all the dialog needed to get you there. I’m not sure if you can die in Reclaim Reality, as I didn’t run into anything that made me have to go back.

It’s a shame Reclaim Reality was canceled before it could be completed, because it shows a hell of a lot of promise. The hybrid of visual novel and adventure game is the perfect vehicle for bringing this erotic, futuristic mystery to life. They had a killer team working on the game, and their efforts shine through on almost every level, from the gameplay to the storyline to the art and the music. Though it will never be completed, the demo is worth a look if you like solving mysteries and popping wood for manga girls.