Koji feels like that guy from every boring salaryman meme. Stable job, stable pay, stable marriage, stable everything, like his whole life is one long default setting on a porn site filter. Got the nice quiet wife at home, Minako, older but still lowkey hot in that “housewife who pretends she doesn’t know how good her ass looks in those leggings” way. Nothing really wrong, nothing really thrilling either. Then Rin drags home this smug little punk as her boyfriend and suddenly the whole safe little world Koji built starts dripping filth in the corners. Not in some overdone drama way, more like your brain just catches one angle too long and suddenly you’re rock hard and pissed off at yourself at the same time. You know that feeling when you watch something on XVideos that you swear you’re not into, then three tabs later that’s exactly what you’re searching for on purpose? Yeah. That.

The good part is how the game sits you right in that ugly horny spot. It doesn’t pretend Koji is a noble dude. He’s working late, tired, scrolling shit on his phone like FapHouse and Pornhub on the train, thinking about his sweet loyal wife while also getting turned on by clips where wives get passed around or talk back to their husbands. Then you come home and Rin’s boyfriend is there, way too loud, way too confident, way too handsy even when he’s just “helping” Minako with something. One scene you’re just watching them make dinner together and it feels normal, next second the camera goes a bit closer on Minako’s chest when she leans over him and Koji’s inner voice goes to a real dark place. Not dark as in murder, dark as in “why does it turn me on seeing my wife standing too close to another man” and then you get the choice to either shut that down or lean into it. Of course you lean into it, you animal. Tiny touches matter here. Stuff like Minako asking if her dress is too tight to meet Rin’s boyfriend, just casual, and Koji can either say “you look modest” or “you look a bit too sexy” and then secretly hope she doesn’t change. The tease is slow and kind of mean.

It plays a lot with the whole “who is stealing who” angle. Sometimes it feels like Minako is being taken from you, sometimes like you are the one serving her up on a plate and pretending to be upset. One route I had her texting other guys at night while Koji sits in the next room trying to focus on some boring company data, pretending he can’t hear the little alert sounds. Another moment she’s sitting on the couch with Rin’s boyfriend, both of them watching some stupid Netflix show, and you stay standing in the doorway too long. He spreads his legs, she doesn’t move away, your chest tightens, and suddenly the game throws you an option like “imagine her on his lap” that you didn’t ask for but your dick did. It’s not just straight “wife gets fucked and you cry”, it slides between jealousy, arousal, shame, actual love for her, and that fucked up happiness when she smiles more after getting attention from other men. And yeah, sometimes it goes full-on cruel, especially if you push the more hardcore stuff, but I liked that it lets Koji be complicit instead of only a victim. He corrupts himself, not just his wife. Though I’m still mad the game never explained why Rin’s boyfriend chews like that in one dinner scene. Couldn’t focus on the dialogue, just wanted to choke him and also watch Minako suck him off right there at the table. Anyway. The whole thing feels like someone recorded that phase where you discover a new kink from some random porn recommendation and turned it into a slow burn story that keeps rubbing salt and cum on the same wound over and over.

This time manipulation visual novel hits different when you realize the protagonist isn't some noble hero wrestling with moral dilemmas. Nah, he's basically a horny dude who stumbled into godlike powers and decides to use them for exactly what you'd expect. The whole "what would you do if you could stop time" premise gets real explicit real fast, and honestly? It's refreshing to see a game that doesn't pretend otherwise.

The yaoi elements blend surprisingly well with the fantasy setting - there's this whole magical academy backdrop that gives context to why time magic exists, but let's be real, nobody's here for the worldbuilding. When our MC discovers he can freeze moments and mess around with whoever catches his eye, things escalate quickly. The art style captures those frozen expressions perfectly, which adds this weird voyeuristic layer that works better than it should. Some scenes drag on too long though, like the developers got carried away with their own concept. The dialogue tries to be clever about the whole time paradox thing but mostly just serves as setup for the next steamy encounter.

What caught me off guard was how the game handles consequences - or rather, how it completely ignores them for most of the runtime. You'd think there'd be some cosmic punishment for abusing temporal powers, but the story seems more interested in exploring every possible scenario our time-stopping protagonist can get into. The fantasy elements feel almost secondary to the gay romance and explicit content, which isn't necessarily bad but makes the genre tags feel a bit misleading. By the end, you're left wondering if the whole time manipulation gimmick was just an excuse to create the ultimate power fantasy scenario. Works for what it is, I guess, but don't expect any deep philosophical questions about free will or temporal ethics.

Riveroaks looks like one of those nice West Coast towns from Instagram, but this game keeps poking the dirty meat under the skin. You play this broke guy who gets kicked out of home and suddenly finds out his estranged dad is a porn mogul with a new gay studio that needs a handler. Not in the fun BDSM sense. In the “sign contracts and worry about profits while staring at six packs” sense. Half the time you are trying to pretend you are a professional businessman, the other half you are trying not to get a visible boner during casting. The fun part is how casual the world treats sex. Everyone already knows you are Leonard King’s kid. Baristas flirt with you like they want a role, gym bros stretch way too close, and every conversation has this small chance to slide into filth. One second someone is talking about lighting, the next they are describing exactly how they want to be fucked on camera, and the game just goes “yeah this is normal”. As a horror nerd I like when a city feels like it has a pulse, and Riveroaks kind of hums like something alive and wet. Every location feels like a different fetish altar. The arcade with sticky neon, the gym with its sweaty muscle cult, the cute café where the “nice guy” director talks about art and then asks if you are comfortable filming a three-way with a choke scene. None of this is subtle. Sometimes it is hilarious and awkward and horny at the same time, like when you are reviewing test footage and realize the actor is staring straight into the camera, dirty talking you of all people, and the dialogue actually acknowledges your flustered silence instead of pretending you are a blank self insert.

What surprised me is how much the management part and the romance keep stepping on each other’s toes. You choose what kind of scenes to produce, who to cast together, what kinks to push, and later you have to sit with the people you just turned into “content” and maybe flirt with them, or listen when they tell you about their trauma, or both. There is this one moment where you schedule a shoot with a cocky twink and a quiet older guy, thinking “ok, this will sell, simple power play vibe”, and by the time you watch the preview cut you realize they actually clicked emotionally in between all the deepthroating. Then the game asks you, softly but not really gently, if you want to push them harder next time for profit or let them have a slower, sweeter scene. Of course I picked the darker option because I am weak and also curious. The aftermath hit harder than I expected, but then the next scene is just a stupidly funny argument in a bistro over whose ass looks better on camera, so your feelings never get to settle. It is messy, like real life, only with a lot more cum. The main character is weirdly relatable too. Not some porn god, just this slightly lost young dude who keeps flipping between horny, bitter, and accidentally caring. One route has you teasing a muscular cameraman in the locker room, trading nasty jokes until he corners you in the shower and asks if you are just playing or if you want him to ruin you for real. Another has you sharing late night drinks with an actor who looks like he walked out of a yaoi doujin, talking about family while his hand sits a little too high on your thigh. The sex scenes commit. They use the dirty words, they linger on bodies, they let you taste that feeling of being looked at like fresh meat. Sometimes the pacing goes weird and you jump from intense emotional build up to “ok, we are sucking dick now” with almost no breath, but honestly that clumsy cut has its own charm. Porn is rarely tidy. In my head I almost read Riveroaks like a cult story, only the cult is gay porn, and instead of summoning Cthulhu you are summoning audience engagement with horny thumbnails. There is something quietly corrupting about how normal it feels after a while to treat desire as a spreadsheet thing. And then a cute guy smiles at you from across the studio, half naked, and you stop caring where exactly your soul went.

Amy shows up in this old guy’s house thinking it will be boring grown up life: run the bar, be the good wife, kiss her husband, pay the bills, repeat. The place looks normal at first, dusty bottles, ugly curtains, quiet town that pretends to sleep early. But the bar has this weird atmosphere, like everyone already knows Manuel and Amy are too innocent for that neighborhood. The game really leans into that slow slide. At the beginning you look at Amy and she still dresses like a newlywed who wants to impress her man, cute tops, shy smiles, trying to be “proper”. Then you start talking to Daniel, the almost-brother, and it gets ugly in a hot way. He is around all the time, always a bit too close, casual touching that is not really casual, hands on her waist when he “helps” in the bar, his eyes staying on her chest when she bends to get a bottle. The camera loves those small things, tiny hip moves, the curve of her ass when she squeezes between clients.

The fun part is how normal stuff turns pervy without big drama. One night you decide the bar uniform should be “more attractive” for the mostly male regulars. Simple choice, right, good for business. Next thing, Amy is there in a short skirt and tight top, pretending she does it only for tips, cheeks red because she knows the whole room is staring at her underwear each time she climbs the tiny step behind the counter. You can move her around, take orders, and there are these little animated loops when guys “accidentally” brush her tits when they pay or press too close when they talk. At first she pulls back and acts offended, later she just freezes for a second, then keeps working like nothing. That change is corruption in small doses, and it hits harder than some games where she just jumps straight to gangbang in a parking lot. There is this one scene where Amy has to clean after closing, alone with Daniel. Music from the shitty radio app on her phone, the bar is half lit, and he stands behind her, guiding her hands when she polishes the counter, fingers sliding from her wrists to her boobs, squeezing slow, like he is testing what he can get away with. She whispers that Manuel could come back any moment, but her body clearly does not want him to stop. You see the hesitation, then she relaxes and lets him grope her while she keeps wiping the table, breathing heavier. It is not subtle, but it feels like something that grew over several choices, not just random porn logic. Later on, when she ends up jerking him off in a storage room while customers sit just a thin wall away, her face is this mix of fear and lust, glancing at the door, trying not to moan when his cum hits her hand. It feels dirty in a very specific “I should not like this but I do” way.

It all plays nice on mobile too, controls are basic tap and swipe, no weird UI puzzle. I was using Chrome on Android and it ran fine, even while I had Telegram, Discord and Spotify fighting in background. The character models are 3D but not super realistic, more like sexy dolls that move just enough to sell the scene. Boobs bounce when she hurries to serve drinks, skirt rides up when she leans to show a bottle on the upper shelf, pussy gets small visual changes as she goes from obedient wife to “I let another man fuck me raw and I probably want more”. Sex scenes go straight into vaginal, not wasting much time on soft romance. The first time she spreads for someone who is not her husband, there is this sick thrill, because the game never hides that it is netorare. Manuel is around, being this clueless good guy, bringing flowers, talking about plans for the bar. While he does that, you are already planning when Amy will sneak behind his back again. The guilt is there but the game kind of laughs at it, like “you clicked the pervy option again, what did you think would happen”. Exhibition stuff pops in often too, like her “innocent” dancing in the bar turning slowly into something closer to stripping, panties briefly visible, drunk regulars cheering, some of them reaching out to touch. You can see the exact moment where she stops acting ashamed and starts enjoying the power, hips rolling on purpose, teasing them, then letting a hand stay on her thigh longer than necessary. I wish you could adjust small details like nail color or different panties for each shift, but that is probably never coming and I keep staring at the same white lace set like a clown. Still, the corruption path feels heavy and sticky, like old beer on the bar floor, and once you get into it, you kinda don’t want to wash it off.