VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Acting Lessons [v1.0.2] [DrPinkCake]

Amazing writing, characters, and story. I'm not ashamed to admit it made me cry the hardest I've cried in probably 5 years. I don't know if I have the strength to do more than one playthrough. Without spoilers, the game punishes the player really hard emotionally for trying a harem route. Tons of endings with meaningful decisions.

I saw this game recommended all over this site and thought I would give it a shot. I will say I was not disappointed in any way, this has one of the most well crafted stories I have ever played. It is heart warming and heart wrenching, I smiled and I cried and it left me thinking about what happened for a week after. I would highly recommend playing this but would also caution that if you are going through a rough point in life you may want to save this one to play later.

Don't read much about the game before playing. It's very easy to eat an unwanted spoiler. Believe me I did, people don't care much.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Just finished it. I liked it a lot don't get me wrong. There's not many games here where I actually read all the subtitles. It's just not the kind of game you expect to play in this genre, or at least not what I am used to. Even with that, one of the most complex stories I have seen here. It's just overly dramatic. Like it just bases the attraction of the story by basically shocking you with a bunch of unexpected sad things. Sometimes one after another which can get a bit ridiculous. Being used to the generic games here where you are just a chad fucking all that moves, this was very different and unexpected. As others have said, you definitely don't expect to play a game here that makes you so damn guilty of the slightest cheat. Like in order for it to have a happy ending, you have to reject a lot of the opportunities and that's weird in these kind of games.
It's different. It's good. It's one of the best novels here. A MUST PLAY.

Second time I review this game... Well, it's kind of a year since I've played it and wanted to give it another try just to see if I still feel the same emotion than the first times...
Definately it's a big yes.. Ok, games are evolving, renders too, animations either but it's like seeing an old good movie from the 60's... When the content, the story is there, nothing can beat it... And yes I'm still crying at the end...
This is for me by far one, if not THE, best story telling here... Everything seems so real... You're not playing a game, you live a story.
So, of course, Being a DIK push the technical part further, but never forget where you come from. Mr Dr Pinkcake you're a story teller for sure. Maybe the best one to be find here. Even if you will carry on producing amazing games, as you're actually doing with Being a Dik, Acting Lessons is your legacy and it will never be forgotten... Thks soooo much

Strong writing, more a novel than an adult game. Warning for people who are going through hard phases in their lives or struggle with mental health not to play this is appropriate. Liam alone makes this game worth playing.

This is a contender for best erotic visual novel of all time. Huge variety of paths, realistic consequences... sometimes quite dark, but nothing risked nothing gained. Really beautiful renders and animations, good pacing with plenty of early side sex while you pursue the more challenging girlfriend experience. Love when there is a clearly articulated "exclusive" point that feels natural, so you are not blindsided by "I thought we were exclusive". I laughed, cried and ... well you know. Well done!

interesting game with a great story and some nice twists, not a huge fan of the ending scenes though, they sort of feel like they can drag on and make it feel like you are just skipping through if you are going for the other endings. 7.5/10

I know a lot of people easy access to just some porn scenes to get a quick fap in but these VNs where you actually feel for the characters are in my opinion most interesting to play. It gets you invested and I think that's the best feeling. I've played this game through 3 times with different love interests and each one are worth pursuing.

Not gonna lie, I cried a little during few points of this game.

Liam is in my opinion the best character in this game. I wish I had a friend like that.

Alright, not going to lie. I cried a little. I would recommend going in expecting it to get dark, because it kind of does. The story is incredibly wholesome at many points which makes the emotional pain it puts you through so much worse, then it pulls you up and teaches you something as it makes you feel better (at least on the path I took, I imagine it could go very differently).

In terms of negatives, the game starts out pretty rough. The writing is relatively weak at first and it really takes a while to get into things, but when the characters start firing off then the whole thing pulls together very nicely. The writing really shines in the second half of the game in my opinion, you can really feel Dr Pink Cake finding their narrative voice as they became more confident in their decision-making. They took the lessons learned from this game and implemented them superbly in their current game, Being a DIK, which I wholeheartedly recommend as the best game on this site.

In my opinion, Acting Lessons is not really a porn game. Sure, there's porn in it. More in some routes than others. But you'll not be getting the best out of it unless you recognise that the story and the characters really do come first. While I will not be replaying Acting Lessons any time soon, it is not an experience that I intend to forget any time soon.

As is tradition in DPC games, in spite of how great other characters can be, the goofy and crass male best friend is the real MVP. Liam is almost guaranteed to make you laugh at least once or twice.

I can't recommend this game over Being a DIK which is just a better game in pretty much every measurable way, but do not take that as any form of negative on this game; more as a positive on BAD. DPC is a true artist and both of their games are worthy of your time.

Ok guys, sorry about the rating, but this is my true opinion.

I agree that the dev did a good work creating this game, the sountrack is very cool, the plot, the characters personalities and the renders are good (a little clichê, but if clichê was, by itself, a bad thing, it wouldn't make sucess with us).

When i see this game, however, it like an good artist painted a wonderful canvas of a dog shiting. I apreciate the effort, but it is still a dog shitting.

Reasons:
1- How many porn scenes did you get playing it? Unless you reloaded tha save, i'm sure it was very few for such a long game. Then you're gonna say to me: - but this is an adult game not a porn game and it doesn't need to focus on sex. If this is so you could find works like this everywhere, like netflix, mangas, etc. The main point i think everyone is here for is the porn, not some romance mixed with drama and just a tiny of porn.

I agree that a plot is very important to make people to immerge in the story and develop affinity with the characters, but when the game is just about this, there are movies and television programs that does the same.

When i play an porn game i don't expect "emotional moments" or "scary moments", just sex.

2- Making multiple important choices implies in less content. Simples as that.

3- This is an adult game but it made me feel guilty for having sex. Wonderful job. Who could have guessed the dev expected you to play a fiction like it was a real life where you have consequences for cheating? Or that you cant have a harem because you only can end up with one woman despite all the "choices" we had to make in it?

4- There are no MILFs... whats worth playing it with no MILFS? Many peoples daily sex life is way more interesting than this story.. lets be honest.

5- The MC is just impotent.. I know you're expecting some ralism.. but be honest, this is also a fiction. Why should he be totaly bound by reality? I also don't like suprehumans protagonists with amazing dicks banging every chick, but a protagonist with more charisma and more impact is way better than one that only is a subject of the plot.


OVERALL: i liked liam, i liked the story but lets be honest, there was no porn in it. Not even worth the fap altough there were so many content. Unless you have too much idle time to go back to the begining everytime to see different routes, you won't get a good boner playing this.

This is just my personal opinion, no hate please. Also sorry for my bad english, i'm not a native speaker.

This game gave me some strong emotions.
The girls are cute, the scenario is good with some twists
Some things seems to be a bit far-fetched and there are some cliché but it's a VN so it's ok
there is multiple endings but be prepared for some hard time.

At some point, I just stop beating my meat and played the game.

Yeah, I got a pretty fucking bad ending for the game, I won't lie. And I won't deny that the ultimatum you are left with gave me a bit of a sour taste, but that does not, and I repeat, does not, take anything away from the story whatsoever.

The characters were amazing, the plot twists were really well done, and you know what? I actually enjoyed the game.

Are the animations anything to call home about? Of course not. Dr Pink Cake has seriously improved since this game and you can really tell, but it's obvious that his writing skills have always been there since the beginning.

If you want a great visual novel where your choices do impact most of the subsequent events in the story, as well as the ending you get, but not so much the overarching story as a whole, then this game will definitely be for you. The game isn't very kink heavy, so I can't say there is much here for you if that is your interest. If you're looking for something to get off to, you could do better games, but the game isn't exactly a slouch.

But, like I said at the beginning. At some point, I just stopped beating my meat and played the game. And that right there? That really means something, yah know?

One of the few "adult" stories to make me laugh out loud, tear up, and cheer for the cast. The smut aspect might not be anything to write home about, but this game's story put a little spark in my heart, and I can't recommend it nearly enough.

Acting Lessons is an adult visual novel style game with plenty of sexual content, but it stands out for its rather interesting story. I ended up getting quite impressed with this game because it was all well worked out and the even its key point is the story. In the forum I found a comment that said: "this game made me have feelings not felt for more than twenty years", this motivated me to play.

Good: I've never seen a game that your story stands out more than sexual content, even end up getting in the background as you play and de-depth in the story. Well, the game presents themes quite similar to reality and does not focus only on the protagonist, but also on their relationships, be it friendship and even loving, there are also many diverse themes that are situations that can happen in our daily life and this caught my attention, not counting your dialogues beyond funny, and it is quite possible that you cling to certain characters of the plot. It is still good to warn that in this game you can make several decisions that change various situations in the plot and consequently changes the end of the protagonist and the rest of the characters.

Weak: despite what was said earlier, Acting Lessons does have a linear story let's say... only linear in relation to the facts because the order of the events of history does not change and then what happens is that certain events remain the same regardless of their choices.

SCORE: 95

The short version is: “Acting Lessons” is one of the best, if not the best, written visual novels out there.


Also, as a side note – this review will be completely spoiler free (other than mentioning character names that is).


It is normal to expect that your average visual novel will not be written in any special way, their nature makes it so that they don’t have too many crutches they can rely on when the writing is sub-par, this in turn means that only the ones that are truly well done will manage to evoke the feelings that they’re attempting to, “Acting Lessons” succeeds in doing just that, it’s not just one more visual novel that you try to power through to see what the end is like, it is an enjoyable experience from start to finish.


STORY:

There’s a lot of criticism that could be made to pretty much all types of script that, while true, don’t really affect the player/reader’s perception of it – a common one for visual novels being how the story can seem “unrealistic”.


Every single work of fiction is in some degree unrealistic, and that is fine, the truly great ones are those that make you ignore that. It doesn’t matter if things move “too fast” or if character archetypes and reactions are “exaggerated”, what matters is if the story manages to pull you in enough so that you believe it, and “Acting Lessons” does it and does it well.


With that being said, even though, as other reviewers mention, the story extrapolates what you’d expect from realism, it doesn’t matter. Even when the author relies on low blows to evoke a specific feeling on the player – it’s convincing enough, it is good.


In a similar sense, the main themes and conflicts of the game are very real, in particular the struggles of “Melissa” and “Liam”, which are likely to hit many players very close to home – and even though I did mention the narrative extrapolates on realism, it’s still believable and still accomplishes what it intends to.


It is a rather short adventure but that does not hurt the game, it, in fact, helps it, it’s a good sign when you read/watch/play something from start to end and it leaves you with a “I want more” feeling. It delivers all the feelings you’d expect from a good story, moments of happiness, moments of laughter and moments of sadness (some being low blows, but enjoyable still) and for that it deserves to be praised.


In conclusion, the story is “Acting Lessons” main draw, I can’t think of any reason not to recommend it, as of the time of writing this it is the best game of its kind I’ve played, most other’s that I think have potential to trump it are still and development and on their current state don’t really beat this.


CHARACTERS:

It’s a rather short game, so there’s not a huge cast to talk about, but that, again, works in the game’s favor. It is very likely that the player will truly care for the personalities on screen and, weirdly enough, want them to be happy.


It’s not often that visual novels truly achieve this state of “making you care” about the characters, which means it’s truly special when one does.


It helps a lot in character development that it doesn’t seem that they exist in the story purely to please the main character, “Acting Lessons” doesn’t overly rely on sex scenes and this works wonders for its narrative.


The only individual “shoutout” I’ll make will be, surprisingly enough, to the only other male character on the main cast: “Liam”, he truly represents the best friend personality like very few other stories achieve – I very much cherished the scenes that involved him as he did manage to make me laugh about the dumbest things in a way that doesn’t happen often.


SEX SCENES:

To be perfectly frank I don’t really care about the sex scenes on this type of game, they’re not really why I’m playing and most of the time I just find them boring, there are very few that I find graphically enjoyable.


With that being said it’d be unfair for me to be harsh to games on this specific point – I’ll not kink shame though, go nuts people – that’s why I’ll write about them either way.


I wouldn’t say either the graphics or the writing of them specifically are all that good, I did find them rather bland and generic.


What I mean with that is that if you’re from some reason planning on skipping the story to just watch sex scenes this game might not be the best option. They’re there, and they’re alright, but the game doesn’t rely on them too much and it wouldn’t really feel like anything is lacking if they were completely removed.


CONCLUSION:

If reading through a good short story that will take you many different types of emotions for many different reasons sounds interesting to you – give “Acting Lessons” a try.


It is well worth how much time investment it will need and should be an enjoyable experience throughout, it doesn’t really have any “low” points as it manages to keep a steady and consistent pace of progression and enjoyment.


With all that being said – “Acting Lessons” is a very solid 5/5 game, with the added commentary that if it were to become the standard for said rating not many others would join it at that mark.


CREDITS:

If you played and enjoyed this game do support the creator on Patreon at /DrPinkCake.


Special thanks for:

DrPinkCake – creator.
Ignatz – proofreader
DParX – beta tester
Bossapplesauce – beta tester

Just perfect, the history is like no other, I really fall in love with some of the characters they are just so alive where each of those have their own personalities, some stronger than others, drpinkcake is a really brilliant creator and deserve a tons of recognition , it's a real innovation on VN with a remarkable ending

I've played through this game so many times. I love all of the characters so much. No joke, this game made me tear up multiple times. That ending. Oof.

DPC is one of few devs that can write a real, fleshed out MC, and he does it so well. If you've seen this on the highest rated page and kept passing it up, stop right now and play it! You won't be disappointed.

Oh, and Missy is best girl, btw.

5*

As they say, I came for sex and stayed for the story which is one of the best out of all VN's out there. The characters are believable, have some depth to them in terms of likes and dislikes, issues etc. This is no harem/pokemon game where you get them all. Without spoiling the story let me just say that your choices DO matter and the characters will react accordingly. The story is definately on the realistic side and deals with mature themes. Overall this was great for me but it might surprise you how hard it can hit you depending on your state of mind / stage in life. As I already wrote on the forum I was doing some soulsearching around the time when I played this game and in my case it acted as a sort of catalyst bringing various issues to the surface. It was a profund experience for me but a hard one. I hard a rough night after playing it. OTOH no other medium has had this effect on me for a loooong time so Acting Lessons did something right.

Besides that I very much liked the renders and most of the sex scenes were very nicely done. I'm mainly concentrating on the story in this review as this is what stands out the most in comparison to the most VN's but the visual side is very high quality as well. Girls are nice, sexy 10/10 would definately bang

The game has a very few weak points IMO and they mainly consider the last part of the story where you cannot choose how you react to a certain event, which was a bit of a letdown for me especially because up till that point the player was always presented with a choice. This, however, is a minor gripe considering how much I enjoyed the game and how many things it did great.

Overall this is an excellent game that blends porn and well... life together creating captivating story that can make you reflect on various things.

This story was surprisingly good. I downloaded this game for the same purpose as the others (to have a good time) but I actually kept playing to know how the story would end. Everything that happened was thought out into the little details and became absolute perfection. Hope to see more soon of this creator!

Fuck this game for making me feel things.

Acting Lessons is excellent for what it is but it's not light-hearted fap material by any means. The story takes the front seat so much so that the sex scenes almost become a distraction at some point. Not that the sex scenes are bad, it's just that the story is so engrossing that it makes you forget that you actually came here to jerk off in the first place.

I wish more games were this good but in the same way that most people don't appreciate surprise scat when the game wasn't tagged as such, there needs to be a tag for games like this as well. "Soul-destroying" would be a good description.