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.

You wake up in this weird in‑between place that feels like someone smashed a porn studio, a nerd convention and a haunted house together and forgot to clean up the lore. Nobody is surprised you just popped in from some random reality. They’re more interested in your dick, your schedule, and whether you sign the consent forms. It’s all very casual. People wander around half-dressed, fully naked, or in outfits that probably break like three different labor laws, but everyone treats it like just another workday. You’re the new guy with way too much freedom and way too little supervision, which is exactly how the game likes it.

The whole thing plays like a lazy day on your phone when you should be answering emails but instead you’re switching between Pornhub, F95, and Telegram. One minute you’re flirting with a stacked milf who has that “I’ve ruined men before” vibe, next minute you accidentally wander into a horror-themed set where a monster girl is chained up for a scene and asks if you want to “rehearse” the tentacle bit. There’s this nice rhythm where you can just walk around, peek into rooms, catch people mid-blowjob or bent over a couch, and decide if you want to join, watch from the dark corner, or act like a professional and go buy coffee. Nobody forces you into anything, which is honestly kinda hot when some cocky actress rolls her eyes and goes “Then don’t, I’ve got five more guys on call.” The power fantasy is there, but it doesn’t hold your hand. You pick who you chase, who you ignore, who you keep as that one late-night regular you always come back to for a quick creampie before touching anything else.

What sells it for me is how filthy it goes without pretending to be classy. You’ve got big tits stuffed into outfits three sizes too small, big asses that just beg for a hard slap, anal scenes that start with teasing and end with “okay, that looked like it hurt but she’s smiling so fine.” There’s straight stuff, lesbian scenes where two girls forget the camera and just devour each other, some surprisingly tender gay content that makes the male MC feel more like a real perv than a porn robot, and then those group things where everyone is on everyone and you basically give up trying to label what’s happening and just enjoy the mess. The voyeur side is strong too; half of my early game was just me peeking through windows or pretending to look for props while people got railed in the background. There’s this old gilf studio manager who flirts so aggressively you kind of hope she finally drags you into her office and “negotiates your contract” on her desk, but she keeps getting interrupted by some stupid production issue and it drove me insane. And then you forget because a monster girl with horns and drool on her chin asks if you wanna try something “unsafe for YouTube but perfect for here,” and suddenly you’re on your knees, nobody’s talking about contracts anymore, and your only real problem is deciding which of these insane people you’re going to keep in your personal little harem ending once you’ve seen enough to know exactly how wrong this place can get in the best possible way.

Debt feels sexy in this one, in a really fucked up way. You start with this couple that already looks tired of life, pockets empty, dignity hanging by a thread, and then the Hyena Brotherhood comes in and just squeezes them like a lemon. No slow build, no “maybe we can fix this”. You can feel from the first scenes that someone is going to sell their body, or their lover, or both, to crawl out of that hole. And not in a noble way. This game really likes to kick you in the gut with humiliation. The girl trying to keep a brave face while being ordered to “prove her loyalty” in some filthy backroom, the guy pretending he’s fine while other dudes push deeper into what used to be just “his” pussy. It’s the kind of thing where you click the next scene even while mumbling “ok this is too much” and still you want to see how low they go. The art is 2D but animated enough that you actually feel the thrusts, the spit, the little twitches when he finishes inside and you get that internal view of cum pouring in like she’s a container and not a person. Romantic, right?

What surprised me is how much it plays like a dirty management sim hidden under a porn comic. You’re juggling money, favors, how much shame each of them can still swallow before breaking. You decide if she takes the “easy” job giving blowjobs in some trashy alley, or goes all in with anal just because the pay is a bit better and the Brotherhood accountant is an asshole about deadlines. Sometimes you push the guy too, send him into gay stuff he clearly never signed up for, just to keep the numbers in green. That moment when you choose to rent out his ass for a night, and later see him watching his girl getting creampied while some furry enforcer calls him a useless man, that hits different. The game plays with cheating and NTR in this very mean way where it’s not just “haha your waifu is stolen” but more “you sold her” and the guilt is basically the third protagonist. And then the cult of pleasure shows up like, “hey, you can have freedom through desire” and you just know it means more chains, just shinier. There is pregnancy in the mix too, of course, because why not make the consequences permanent, right when you already feel dirty. I wish the store menu for jobs was less ugly, but whatever, you’re not here for UI screenshots. You’re here to watch two people sink, moan, and maybe smile while everything important burns around them.