I didn’t expect to care about the outfits so much. The first time Kaylan walks into that smoky cantina wearing something that looks halfway between a pilot’s jacket and a dominatrix vest, I actually paused. Like, *why* does this cheap little visual novel manage to make leather look expensive? Everyone else’s clothes seem one breath away from falling off - especially that Twi’lek bounty hunter with the split skirt that screams “fight me but also ruin me.” It’s ridiculous, yet it works. Maybe it’s because the lighting’s uneven, like someone forgot to polish the render - makes the skin look more real somehow, less glossy doll, more sweaty body after a chase scene. I kept thinking, “This shouldn’t be hot,” but it was.

The sound though - it’s weirdly good. Not the music (that’s just spacey hums and random drum hits), but the way the moans are layered under the blaster sounds, almost like they belong together. There’s this one oral scene in the ship’s medbay where the hum of the engine mixes with her breathing, and it’s… unnerving? I mean, I replayed it twice, so maybe not *that* unnerving. And then suddenly they throw in some heavy drama about betrayal and destiny, like I didn’t just watch someone get pinned against a console five seconds ago. It’s jarring, but kind of perfect. You’re half turned on, half emotionally confused, which might be the point - or maybe the devs just didn’t plan it that way. Hard to tell.

What bugs me is the hair physics. I know, weird thing to fixate on when everyone’s naked half the time, but still. Her braid clips through his shoulder right when things get intense, and I can’t unsee it. Yet I’d still call it romantic, in that messy, sweaty, “we might die in hyperspace” sort of way. The whole thing feels like fanfiction that got drunk and decided to grow up. I’m not sure if I love it or if it just caught me off guard, but I haven’t closed the tab yet.

Three words first: awkward, horny, bittersweet. That is kind of the whole mood here. You’re the straight guy who finally gets confessed to by the cute “girl” from school, the one with the soft voice, stupidly pretty face, nice legs, shy smile, all of that. You panic, you say yes, your brain is screaming “I did it!” and then right after that the world slaps you with “oh yeah, she’s actually a guy.” The game pretty much lives inside that moment of confusion. It milks it. It stretches it. It keeps poking that same bruise: “you said you’re straight, so what the hell are you feeling right now?” And the answer is usually “hard.” The story plays it as romance and comedy at first, but there is this slow, sneaky sadness in there, like the way he keeps calling himself a “replacement girl” and laughs it off. That line stuck in my brain way more than the cumshots, which is kinda annoying because I came for the horny stuff and stayed for emotional damage like an idiot.

What I really liked is how cheap and petty the breakup plan is. You and your best friend literally sit down and go “ok, let’s make you the worst boyfriend ever so he dumps you.” You try to be late on purpose, you act cold, you ignore his texts, you pretend to be gross with your habits, and he still shows up in that cute outfit, blushing, trying so hard to be a good girlfriend even though he knows some people would just call him a trap and walk away. There is one scene where you drag him to a love hotel “by accident,” thinking he will freak out and run, but instead he just looks terrified and still says “if it makes you happy…” and undoes his skirt with shaky hands. That part hit me weird. It is hot, like really explicit, he is nervous and hard and trying to keep his voice from cracking while you touch him, and the game doesn’t fade to black or shy away from the details. At the same time you can feel he is afraid you might finally see “too much” and reject him. The sex is not soft-focus. There is messy blowjob, the kind where he tries to go deep and fails, chokes a little, tears in the corner of his eyes. There is anal where he clenches so hard you feel guilty even as you push inside. No censor bars, nothing. Just skin and precum and that annoying little whimper he does when you pull his hair. It is lewd as hell, but it never fully lets you relax, because the whole time he keeps thanking you for “not giving up on me yet” and it stings in the back of your mind that you are literally planning to throw him away. And yeah, the comedy bits are hit or miss. Sometimes the best friend is funny, sometimes he sounds like a Twitter thread. One of the texts about “straight guys speedrunning bi awakening any%” made me cringe and laugh at same time and I’m still mad about it.

But the game really shines when it goes quiet. There is this park scene, late date, just the two of you on a bench, and he asks if you would still like him if he stopped crossdressing. No sex in that moment, just his bare legs sticking out of that skirt, swinging nervously, and your choice box pops up. You can answer in such a cruel, detached way that it almost feels like you are kicking a puppy, or you can start slipping, saying things a “straight” guy shouldn’t say to a boy with lip gloss. If you keep going for the selfish breakup route, the way the story twists is actually mean. There is a “good” bad ending where you succeed and he dumps you, but you get this scene of him walking away in normal boy clothes, trying to smile, saying he is glad he could “practice being someone’s girlfriend at least once.” Then the game lets you sit there with that. No comforting speech, no heroic redemption on that branch, you just scroll through your phone alone, reading old messages where he spammed you cute selfies and little “good morning” lines. Felt kind of cold in my chest after that. And then on another route, if you let yourself fall for him, the sex scenes change tone. Same body, same dick, same panties, but your inner monologue shifts from “I’m not into guys” to counting the moles on his chest and thinking how nice he looks when he’s flushed and messy and calling your name. The romance is still awkward, the jokes still sometimes land sideways, the art has those weird small inconsistencies that only show up when he’s naked and you stare too close, but in a way I like that. It feels like a horny little VN made by someone who really loves femboys and also secretly enjoys stomping on the reader’s heart a bit. I finished one of the sadder routes, closed the tab, opened it again on another browser like a clown just to see him smile at me from the title screen and pretend I hadn’t already ruined his life once.

Under One Roof: Step by Step is that kind of story that looks innocent for like five seconds, then suddenly you are sitting in front of the screen thinking, “Ok, I really should not be this hard from doing laundry and talking about rent.” It is quiet, slow slice of life, nothing explodes, nobody has magic powers, and still it gets under your skin. You’re this guy sharing a small house with three girls, each one wired completely different, and the game just keeps throwing you into these everyday scenes that slide from cute to horny in this really sneaky way. Breakfast chat about coffee? Five clicks later you are staring at her bare thighs because she forgot the shorts. Or she “forgot.” The whole thing is mostly conversations, tiny choices, and watching how your relationship with each girl shifts when you say something sweet, or when you absolutely fuck up and joke at the wrong time.

What surprised me is how normal some of the sex feels. Not porn-normal, like real-life awkward normal. First time I got a vaginal scene with one of the girls, it was not all “instant pornstar mode.” There was the nervous small talk, her checking if the door is locked, you trying to unhook her bra and failing like an idiot for two tries. The game actually lets that moment breathe. You see her legs shaking, not from some fake screaming, but from tension and excitement, and when he finally slides in, she doesn’t moan like a hentai character, she gasps, stops, adjusts. Then later, when you finish inside her, the creampie is not just a money shot. She lies there, breathing heavy, looking at you with that “you really did that” face, and the whole mood is this mix of warm, dangerous, and slightly stupid. I liked that a lot more than I should. There are softer romantic routes too, with real build up, hand holding, quiet cuddling on the couch, stupid jokes that actually made me laugh out loud once, then the same girl later is sitting on your lap grinding slowly while teasing you that you get turned on too easy. Very realistic, very unfair.

The relationship system is simple but not brain-dead. You choose who you spend time with, who you tease, who you comfort when shit goes sideways, and the game remembers. Say the wrong thing in a dramatic moment and she closes off, and you feel it later when she pulls her foot away when your MC touches it under the table. Speaking of feet, the fetish stuff is not subtle at all. One of my favorite scenes is not even full sex, just her sitting on the bed in oversized hoodie, bare legs, asking you to massage her feet because she is “so tired.” You start innocent, then she places your hand exactly where she wants it, and it turns into this slow, filthy footjob that still feels like a private joke between lovers, not just a kink checklist. She rolls her eyes, calls you a perv, but does not stop. The funny thing, the humor and drama sometimes crash together in weird timing, like a heavy emotional scene followed by a goofy underwear argument, and it feels slightly off, but in a way that reminds me of real life when people cope by joking at the wrong second. UI is fine, nothing fancy, I kept clicking the wrong choice once because the hitbox felt weird and got mad for a moment, then forgot about it when she climbed on top of me and started riding slow while whispering how she doesn’t want the others to hear. It is that kind of game. One minute you are arguing about dirty dishes, next minute there is cum dripping out of her while she kisses you like she actually loves you. I believed it more than I expected.

Everything in this game starts with that awkward feeling of coming back to a place that’s supposed to be “home” but actually feels like a porn parody of your own memories. You’re this guy who returns to his old city for college, carrying some emotional baggage, a phone that never stops buzzing, and a dick that gets him in trouble every ten minutes. It pretends to be a normal school slice-of-life at first, like “oh, classes, dorms, new people”, then suddenly you’re in a party bathroom getting a messy drunk blowjob from someone whose name you don’t even remember, while your in-game notifications keep reminding you you’ve got an exam tomorrow. There’s this really specific vibe: half coming-of-age, half “how fast can I ruin this dude’s life with bad choices and hot people”. And honestly, it works. Mostly.

The game lets you wander around the campus and the city, so you bump into scenes instead of having them thrown in your face in a straight line. One time I just went to the gym because I was bored and somehow ended up peeking through a tiny window into the staff shower, watching a thick Black PE teacher wash off after practice, her ass taking up half the screen while the protagonist slowly strokes himself. That voyeur stuff is handled in a really messy, human way. He feels like a perv, not a hero, and it’s kind of hot and kind of gross at the same time. Then later, if you actually talk to her and don’t act like a total creep, there’s this whole slow-burn thing where she teases him in class, does the “lean on your desk so her tits are in your face” routine, and eventually you end up railroading her in the equipment closet, switching between titjob and deepthroat while she keeps calling you “kid” like that is not making it hotter. The animation is unpolished, some loops are clumsy, but the body language sells the scene better than a lot of big-budget stuff. Faces actually show embarrassment, annoyance, or that “okay, fine, I want this too” kind of look. Then in the very next scene, the MC has this overconfident smirk that made me want to slap him. I liked him and hated him in the same click.

What’s very queer in spirit, even if the content is straight-focused, is how the game doesn’t pretend sex exists in a bubble. You’re not just picking “blowjob” from a menu. You text girls on your phone, get weird drunk voice notes, and watch them shitpost memes on their in-game social app. There’s this one storyline with a mixed-race classmate who deals weed on the side to pay rent. You can either be judgy or join her little side hustle. I went full disaster and helped her. There’s a scene in her cramped room where you’re both high, music from her shitty Bluetooth speaker buzzing, and the conversation just slides from “what are you running from” into her sitting on your face. It’s not some perfect porn angle; her thighs cover half the screen, her belly jiggles a bit, and the camera awkwardly moves when she grinds too hard. Then she pulls off your pants and lazily strokes you, gives you this sloppy half-committed blowjob, almost like she’s testing how much you can take. If you push your luck, she just climbs on and rides you raw while laughing about how terrible your pull-out reflex is. The creampie is framed as both hot and kinda stupid, and the next morning she’s texting about Plan B and money while you’re still replaying the way she shivered when you came inside her. Romance and drama get tangled with all the dirt: arguments in the cafeteria, jealous looks in the hallway, a “friendly” handjob under the table that clearly isn’t just friendly. Sometimes the combat bits feel random, like “oh, now we’re suddenly punching some asshole at a club”, but the bruise on your face shows up in the next scene where some girl licks your busted lip before going down on you, so at least the game remembers. I just wish the bathroom doors didn’t all open the same way; it bothered me for no reason, and now it lives rent free in my brain. Anyway. The whole thing feels unstable, horny, queer in its messiness, and a little too honest about how sex, drugs, and bad choices mix together when you’re pretending to be an adult.