ok so this one hits different. not in a good way necessarily but like. you know when you're scrolling through a site and you see a game that's clearly made in renpy or whatever and the art is kinda jank but the premise grabs you by the throat? that's JustAFriend. the whole thing is framed as a phone screen. you're literally reading chats and looking at pics that pop up. lisa is bored, her man is always working, and her "friend" suggests this app. you already know where this is going. the ntr tag is right there. but what got me is how mundane it starts. she's just... chatting. sending selfies. the slow creep of it.

the phone format is clever though. feels invasive. like you're holding someone else's unlocked phone at a party while they're in the bathroom. the choices branch into different types of cheating scenarios, ntr and nts paths, and sometimes you lock yourself out of a whole storyline permanently. characters just vanish if you mess up. no takebacks. that's actually kinda brutal for a porn game. most of these things let you save scum your way to every scene but here if lisa ghosts someone, that thread is dead. i respect that even if it pissed me off when i lost the neighbor route early.

the art is inconsistent. some cgs are hot, others look like someone traced over a 3d model and called it a day. the writing has that translated feel, a bit stiff but weirdly charming? like when someone texts you "i am feeling very sensual tonight" and you know what they mean but you still laugh. the sex scenes are explicit, no fade to black bullshit. but the real hook is the dread. watching lisa slide into worse decisions while her boyfriend texts her about overtime. that's the good stuff. the game doesn't judge you for picking the cheating options which i appreciate. it just shows you the mess and lets you wallow in it.