Lust Academy

Lust Academy, by Bear in the Night Games, is arguably one of the most highly regarded porn games out right now. While most adult video games are thrown together by some lone pervert with a stray fan or two before being given away on the free porn game archives, Bear in the Night has managed to build up a sizable following who are willing to pay for their games. They've got around a thousand Patrons right now. And given how many cheapskate weeaboos live in their mom's basement and spend their allowance on fedoras and waifu pillows, I'm guessing the Patrons are just a tiny fraction of Lust Academy players.

All that begs the question: what's so fucking special about Lust Academy? It's a visual novel about a young man who goes to a wizard school and bangs a lot of hot girls, which honestly sounds pretty similar to a lot of other porn games out there. However, it obviously isn't like the rest of the throwaways and bullshit Flash games out there, so I decided to download the game and give it a test drive for myself.

To Pay or Just to Play

Like many other porn game operations, Bear in the Night doesn't even conduct their business from a catchy personalized domain like they might if they were hawking premium lesbian videos. Or perhaps an archive of porn reviews written by a big-headed, big-cocked, red-headed mascot. On the contrary, their main home on the internet is their Patreon page, which you can find by following my link or typing patreon.com/bearinthenight into your browser. Patreon itself is pretty fucking popular, with 85 million visitors a month, so maybe it's a wise move for BearInTheNight to set up shop here instead of their own domain.

Beneath a header for Lust Academy that shows slutty co-eds mingling with wizards, they get right into the prices for their different Patreon membership tiers. They start at $3 a month for basic access but go up to $500 for the big spenders who really want to support the development of Lust Academy. They've clearly got a thirsty fan base to even consider tiers in the hundreds-of-dollars range.

Here's some good news for the broke-ass jokes and jobless neckbeards who love one-handed video gaming: Lust Academy can be downloaded for free via their Patreon page. Patrons get earlier access to various things, but let's face it, most of you weren't planning on paying for it. I feel like Bear in the Night is looking after their players by giving out the game for free. If it weren't readily available as a free download, a bunch of the cheap-asses would infect their PCs with malware trying to download Lust Academy off the pirate sites.

It seems like only a few years ago when Flash porn games ruled the scene, letting you fuck bitches and fight naked trolls from the comfort of your browser. While I love the immediacy of the web-based stuff, downloadable games tend to have better production values, graphics, and gameplay. For what it's worth, Lust Academy is available for Windows, Mac, Android, and Linux. Sorry to all the iPhone users out there; you'll have to use a different gadget to play this motherfucker on.

As a reviewer, I'm obligated to do a little bit of nitpicking. One of the only things I could find to complain about at patreon.com/bearinthenight is that those free downloads are hosted on file locker services. The first link I tried was on Google Drive, and it didn't work because Lust Academy had already exceeded their bandwidth. The second worked, but I did have a little bit of waiting to do. It wasn't precisely dial-up speed, but it wasn't blazing fast, either.

While waiting for the download to finish, I watched the Lust Academy trailer they'd linked on the Patreon page. Even within the first few seconds, it's clear this isn't your typical half-ass CG visual novel. The renders are gorgeous and 100% fapworthy. Fuck, the graphics are sexy as fuck! I do wish there were more full-on animations instead of the usual panned/zoomed stills and basic motion effects, but the animations they have included are smooth and sexy. I can't wait to see the really filthy stuff.

Let’s Play Lust Academy

Once the download was finished, I was ready to fire that bad boy up. I unzipped the folder and clicked the Lust Academy icon, and off I went! A few seconds later, the animated Bear in the Night logo flashed across the screen, followed by a warning that this game is full of grownups doing violence, sex, rude humor, smoking, and profanity. It sounds like my kind of game!

If you've played Ren'Py visual novels before, you're going to feel right at home as soon as the game starts. If you haven't, well, you'll feel right at home a few minutes later. There isn't a huge learning curve to it.

As soon as you click New Game, Lust Academy asks if you want to play the game as a visual novel or in sandbox mode. I was about to explain the difference between the two, but I assume you're already a gamer, so you already know. Most games put you somewhere between the two categories, but it's rare to get a real choice like this. I'm curious how different the two playstyles are, which may lead me to play the game repeatedly. Perhaps that's one of the reasons Lust Academy is so fucking popular: sandbox mode increases the replay value.

Since it was my first go at it, I chose the Visual Novel option. But before the game actually started, I got another warning about how they've added ambient sounds, "including those of an erotic nature." It's funny as hell because the warning seems to imply a lot of you deviates are going to be playing this at work or while your offspring is in the next room. "We hope this did not cause you any trouble," it reads, but you know what? If I end up getting kicked out of Starbucks again, it means it's a good, sexy game!

Finally, the game asks if you want to enable or disable LGBTQ+ content. I'm into seeing girls hump each other and less into seeing dudes buttfucking, but I enabled it just to see what was up. A couple of seconds later, I entered my name as the story opened up on my CG stand-in, filling us all in on the premise.

There's a lot of click-through dialog, as with any visual novel. I hate when that shit drags on without any fun stuff, but within a minute of starting Lust Academy and learning about my character, a sexy stepmom steps into the room to stir things up. She's an absolute bitch, but goddamn, does she look good.

After stepmom bitched me out, I immediately went to my stepsister's room. Sissy didn't notice as I gawked at her stretching in her underwear, but it's a bit of a tease since the game kicks me out a few seconds later. Before we bang the step-sibling, there's other stuff to do, like talk to the old man downstairs. He's a fucking asshole, too, but at least all the assholes and the hotties in this game speak clear English. If you play visual novels regularly, you know why I have to mention this. I wish I didn't have to get this excited just because the characters aren't speaking broken pidgin English, but that stuff often comes standard.

After the old man bitched me out, I ran into my other stepsister in the kitchen. She offers me some tea with her cleavage hanging out, and we commiserate a bit before I head out. That's when I check the mail and get my invitation to wizard school, the titular Lust Academy, though its "real" name is Cordale Academy.

It didn't take me very long to see why Patreon.com/bearinthenight has so many Patrons. The writing is strong, the 3D renders are fucking bonerific, and the whole thing is packed with enough details to make it feel realistic. Immersion's a big fucking deal because if I can get lost in the game, I'm going to play it a lot longer. Incidentally, I'm about ready to settle in for an actual marathon session of Lust Academy, which means I've got to wrap up this review. Bear in the Night has rightfully earned their reputation among the porn game scene. If you aren't convinced yet, go ahead and try it out for free.