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

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.

Sexy women, outstanding story. However:

• Pubic hair of blondes and redheads should be of corresponding color, not black.
• The author doesn't like blonde and especially redhead girls (they are the worst people in the game).
• The story is interesting, with large branches, and diligently crafted. However, I prefer one long and highly satisfying story rather than replaying several not exactly long variations with not exactly happy endings.
• The author doesn't like harems and polygamy, which is kinda counter-intuitive for players of typical erotic VNs. Though I can relate if the author wanted to send some message, to give us some learning experience. Still, monogamous relationships aren't universally the best. Polyamory comes from the fact that people can love more than one partner, just like they can love more than one parent, more than one child, more than one friend...

Pro:

Visuals are good. The girls are pretty. The story is realistic and interesting. (I mean, even though all the girls like the MC, it doesn't grow to unrealistic proportions as in some games where all the girls give the MC their blessings to do anything he wants). Erotic scenes are emotionally well prepared and intertwined with the story. (Some sex animations are not so outstanding, but some are pretty good). Lots of sick humor.

Con:

First, the game feels a bit short. Even though there are lots of contents, with all those multiple branches, I would enjoy it for a bit longer. Secondly, there's a stupid turn of the story in Episode 6. Really, would you refuse to report a crime to the police just because that criminal might have connections among cops? Would you start cover his crimes? That's unbelievable, especially as the MC is supposed to be an experienced middle-age businessman, probably knowing about IA, FBI etc., who would love to hear about corrupt cops. So that stupid move kinda kills the mood. ...And then that Deux ex machina which blows everything up. Finally, the game remains in confines of prejudices. What is "cheating"? Giving some happiness to a needy woman does not, in itself, harm anyone.

Conclusion: the story is the most remarkable feature of this masterpiece; and it also contains the worst faults of the game. Still, it's crafted so well that it doesn't deserve less than five stars.

PS. Sometims the game crashes, often with "Out of memory" error.

One of the better written stories out there, and a few of the twists really were set up brilliantly throughout the game.
The ending is totally out of tune with what one might expect from a game on this website, but if anything, that makes it rise to a different level.

I suppose I will have to play it through at least once more to see if different choices might change the outcomes significantly..though I expect the main twists will still be there, and that certain plot elements are inevitable.
I will not do that playthrough anytime soon though.. I think I will let this simmer for a while, first.

The only negative side of this story is that in fact, the things that happen at the very last chapters are set in motion before the game even begins, so from a gaming perspective, there isn't a whole lot of agency to alter those inevitable plot points.
That said, this may turn out not to be true, in further playthroughs (but I doubt it)..

In a way it does make you feel cheated of a happy ending (and potentially a lot more hanky panky, which is what ultimately one expects from a game found here).. but that doesn't take away from the quality of the story.

tldr: Conclusion: THIS IS A VISUAL NOVEL!
Good Overall Writing, Good Scenario writing, Good Character Development (except for few side/minor characters) + Good Renders + limited uncanny valley models + Good Soundtrack

Not going to comment about animations because i think indie animation is still in its infancy and can still be developed further when development tools becomes accessible/cheaper. that is why I still prefer reading actions/descriptions vs. animated scenes.

This is not a typical game/story, at least from my experience so far (a year on this site).
I downloaded this game thinking that there must be something really good about the animations or art because of the reviews and having tried the other work from this creator, but when I played it, it's really about the story.

You'll laugh, get horny, cry, and learn because of this game. It's really that good. I don't have much to add that hasn't been said before, but just leave my 5 stars!

Kinda late to the party I must say, but glad I discovered this masterpiece it kinda reminds me of myself abit following Rena romance path. But enough of that the game is solid well built with a great story to it and nice character models 10/10 expect a few tips in the future from me.

Well, the story is over, at the beginning I came here because of the morbidity and the sex scenes nothing else, but the story as it progressed, I became more interested and in the end the sex scenes were the least important to me, in the end I chose the route of Melisa since I liked her more than Megan, many mixed feelings, sad at first about Liam, then with what happened with the nurse and Mega, but in the end I decided to leave Rena to Liam and stay with Melisa

very good story

Wow!
I love this game. The story is so amazing and I really adore this Liam character! Every single decision has so much impact on the overall gameplay and makes you really think about what your decisions could cause.
It will definitely take me a lot more hours to look at more endings.

I had only tried three adult visual novels (AVN) before playing Acting Lessons.
I'm not into hentai so I don't play AVN to fap, but to enjoy a whimsical story with some kinks and beautiful renders.

The creator of Acting Lessons states that it is "an adult VN that many players and fans only could find the strength to play once". Sounds like the usual, self-serving marketing gimmick, huh ?

Well. As it turned out, Acting Lessons is the AVN equivalent of animes such as Kimi ga Nozomu Eien or (so I'm told) Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Something that starts as a run-of-the-mill, light, enjoyable experience... and then becomes an emotional rollercoaster. Something so lifelike that it can and will hit too close to home ; that you better experience when your own real life is in order, because it'll otherwise leave you bittersweet... torn between the dramatic developments, upsetting even - and the all-around quality of this game, which elevates the genre to that of true cultural artefacts, on par with books and movies.

There's a reason why this visual novel enjoys rave reviews and has become a true classic.

Get this gem and buckle up, because you're in for one hell of a ride.

It's smart and sexy and Dr. Pink Cake actually made me laugh out loud a few times. It doesn't beat around the bush forever before you see any action too. I haven't played lots of these games yet, but this is the best so far.