LewdLab has just made episode 2 of Dreams of Desire available for free to the public. Fans of incest and mind control may find some promise in this flawed but interesting title.

LewdLab has been hard at work on a 3D rendered adult visual novel called Dreams of Desire. This title puts a heavy focus on incest, mind control, and hypnosis. LewdLab has recently released episode 2, or to be more accurate, a combination of episode 1 and 2, and I had a chance to take a look at it. While it’s certainly not perfect, anyone looking for a title that focuses on these specific elements will find some enjoyment.

These tutorials get annoying at the beginning of the game, and this is a lie since it takes only one bad choice to cause a Game Over.

The story begins with your typical high school graduate who doesn’t know what he wants to do with the rest of his life. In a classic creepy pasta trope, the protagonist comes across a magic spell while wasting his time online. This spell gives him the power to hypnotize any unsuspecting victims. Due to a recent suggestion by his best friend, Markus, he tests the spell out on his sleeping mother. This of course occurs after he already decided to spy on her in the shower.

Actually, there is a lot of spying in this game.

From this point, he begins doing increasingly perverted things with his mind-warped mother. Things escalate further when he coincidentally finds an old book that was hidden at the library. This mysterious manuscript gives him additional information about the spell he had already found by pure chance. When his bitchy, older sister comes home for a visit, he works his very literal magic on her as well.

Now, the use of 3D models in adult games has been a point of contention for quite some time. Many people believe the models to be unappealing, the games that use them are typically indistinguishable, and their use comes across as lazy. With that said, it’s much easier and cost effective. The ease of use allows for a much more natural visual progression of stories, since an artist doesn’t have to draw entire CGs out by hand. Most developers don’t do this however, and that is what makes those games feel so cheap. Despite my prior experience with other 3D titles, I’m happy to report that LewdLab does take advantage of this.

There’s a lot at work here when it comes to the story. Unlike many VNs that offer merely the illusion of choice, Dreams of Desire has choices that matter — the game even warns you of that. Minor choices made at certain points lead to much different outcomes later down the road. Again, this would be very costly to pull off using hand-drawn CGs, so it’s nice to see them using their models to the fullest potential.

Maybe you can use your time at the library to learn to spell.

Dreams of Desire has a very promising premise, but the writing could certainly use some work. The game can become intriguing when it decides to build a rich atmosphere around the mysterious spell and the odd situation which led the protagonist to its discovery, but moments like this are few. A majority of the time, the story feels quite cheesy. While there is a lot going on, and the plot is rather intricate, the major plot points seem to occur for the sake of it, rather than part of natural progression. Parts of the story are very poorly worded, and there are a multitude of typos and spelling errors which don’t help matters. In addition to that, there are occasional “trap choices” which lead to an instant game over. No matter how many times Dreams of Desire warns you to save frequently, this is still awful game design.

A majority of the sex scenes in Chapters 1 and 2 are the MC using sleeping characters to masturbate.

Despite the shortcomings, Dreams of Desire does have promise. For one, it’s got more replay value that most VNs on the market. It also has real incest, which should certainly please those who are often disappointed by step-cest. The sex scenes, while a bit samey, are frequent, have partial voice overs, and are lightly animated. There is also an exploration mode which hopefully hints at more interactive segments in the future.

Episode 1 and 2 of Dreams of Desire have been made free to the public on LewdLab’s Patreon page. If you like it enough, you can also gain access to episode 3 by becoming a supporter. If episode 3 begins where episode 2 leaves off, it will introduce the younger sister Alice into the mix.