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

this was my introduction to VN's and now I'm hooked, but this set the bar waay too high. I found nearly all the characters extremely endearing which was a huge surprise considering what I thought this would be so the writing is pretty great!

The good: Great characters and visuals, awesome writing and engaging story. I love that so many of your choices have major impacts on the story. 2/3 of the game was amazing and I was really excited to play it through multiple times and explore the various options.

Then shit fell apart. I don't want to spoil things too much but the story takes an incredibly dark turn and hit me with gut punch after gut punch. This is not what I want from a porn game. I couldn't finish it.

I know many people admire this game. But for me this is even not a porn game. No matter how good story is. Playing this game makes me feel uncomfortable. total boner killer. I couldn't complete this game and deleted.

Story= 4/5
Sex Scene= 3/5
Animations-Image Quality= 3/5
Gameplay= 2/5


TOTAL= 3/5 (AVERAGE GAME )

This is a very difficult game to rate properly, because the whole is significantly less than the sum of its parts.

The character work is outstanding; the characters are memorable, enjoyable and well crafted. The dialog is good. The music is fun. The gameplay is simple but offers a lot of variations based on your choices. The sex scenes are varied and enticing. The plot is extremely well crafted. A lot of work clearly went into every facet of this game.

That's why it's such a shame that the game is its own worst enemy. First, the story deliberately misrepresents itself. It wants to come across as a standard hook-up-with-multiple-women sex farce, only to drop the boom later when you face consequences for your actions. That, I think, would have been fine on its own.

Unfortunately, the game doubles down by having 'real life' tragedies intervene to ensure there will be no totally happy endings, then quadruples down by completely shifting focus in the final stages; it practically wallows in the misery it inflicts.

The final two acts of this game are literally the main character struggling to come to terms with the actions of an NPC that, from a narrative perspective, came straight out of nowhere.

The end result is that as much as I normally love playing around with alternate endings, I actively want to avoid playing this game again. The desire to see alternate sex scenes feels... almost exploitative given how utterly dark the journey to get them will be. The desire to see how my actions could change things is undercut by the knowledge that, in the end, my actions aren't the ones driving the story.

I can't help but feel this speaks to a fundamental failure of Acting Lessons as a game. I do not regret playing this game. But I'm pretty sure playing it again would only decrease my enjoyment, and I don't think I could really recommend to anyone sight unseen.

I'm giving it a final rating of Average, but this is anything but a typical game.

Wow.... Just wow.... did not expect to bawl like a baby.... but here I am. I'm guessing that no matter what choices are made that it will always have the same outcome at the end. I want to replay and see if anything changes but can't handle that right now. If you haven't played.... Download it now. By far the best VN I have ever played

What a rollercoaster of emotions.
This game had me on the edge of my food stained recliner.
DrPinkCake has created something truly fantastic here ,
A great story filled with nail biting twists and turns.
Don't even get me started on the ending I got.
Beautiful work
5 out of 5 tissue boxes for the sea of tears
I'm currently drying.

bro i just wanted to beat my meat not cry

in all honesty this is easily one of if not THE best visual novels i've ever played. the writing is some of the best and most honest i have ever seen. liam is officially one of my favourite video game characters of all time. i came in with expectations of another porn game to waste the hours with and ended up leaving feeling somewhat enlightened. 100% give this game a shot.

10/10 for story wise...

completing Rena's route in one go without any hints then my heart melts away (in a good way)

Truly satisfying by far..

6/10 for fap wise (but it's acceptable)

9/10 for character design (all of them are really hot)

I really recommend this game if you want to ride "the rollercoaster of emotions"

Just ended the game,
But damn, I understand what people meant by 'emotional rollercoaster'. Tried to do a 'perfect' playthrough, ie to get all the scenes, but somehow understood, at some point, that consequences would -really- come back later, unlike other games...

To be totally honest, didn't even care about the naughty stuff, I just wanted the story to go further.

Megan was great, Rena too, but Melissa, damn... I really have a soft spot for 'tortured souls/broken people', fell for her instantly, just wanted her to feel... I don't know, loved, cared for.

Oh, and Liam is awesome.

On a side note, is it me or are there similarities in some characters from AL and BaDIK, physically ? Like Rena/Jill and Ana/Josy ?

Anyway, the kind of game I'll probably only play once, but I sure will remember.

This game has been enjoyable, with some surprises and unexpected turns. Of course, this review contains minimal spoilers, but as an older game, occasional spoiling seems unavoidable.

The initially buildup of the story can feel a bit forced, but personally these are acceptable breaks from reality for the sake of experience. Sexual contents are fun, and some can even be emotional, since the story itself can sometimes serve as foreplay. I also like how sleeping around will have consequences in your relationships with the central love interests, but I'm certainly not a fan of how it was executed (you will know why if you played through yourself).

The central love interests didn't feel equally fleshed out and ultimately, I only found two as viable choices. However, the side girls had enough coverage for some to become red herrings. Overall, the central love interests were enjoyable and realistically likable, which makes the final curveball a bigger gut punch than expected. I must also give compliments to Dr PinkCake for MC's best friend, as he has a nice enough subplot that feels natural and makes him less of an obligatory male friend but a functioning part of the story that provides extra emotional weight.

In conclusion, Acting Lessons was a pleasant journey. Since I began playing Being a DIK before I even heard of this game, this game also makes me look forward to how Being a DIK will develop.

I'm usually quite critical of games so when i say this is a complete masterpiece you can believe it, a rival of any book, movie or tv show you have ever seen.
I like most people here was expecting a simple porn game with the same old choices that dont matter in the slightest like so many other games but by the end of this masterpiece i am feeling genuine guilt for what i did, which is something no other game has done.
The game crashes often but stick with it as i doubt you will find another game with this much depth in story(given how long it is, which is quite long for these types of games) for a very good while, really one of the top games you will ever play.

the game has some fun characters and sceens were well made but i found the story too dark for my taste its like every bad thing that can ever happen to people crammed into one story. To be honest it felt like i was watching a daytime soap once you hit the halfway point.

nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I can't count how many crashes I received for wich there is no excuse in a renpy game. Started off as a generic game, after 2 episodes had some story potential, but of course someone had other ideas about episode 6 with no imagination results in taking a decent game down to dirt in just 1 choice, I never got my path with everyone together, but I got instead some cheesy chick horror dead end with no salt to it, with no other choices in a so called final game. Can we get some great content next time someone wants to please ?

It's a fun game, and it's complete, which is a huge plus.
Pros: Pretty good graphics and renders, good consequences for your actions.

Good game, good scenes, decent buildup to scenes. Only complaint is the ending goes from 0-100 and the illusion of choice is pretty strong in the beginning not affecting the endings as much as you'd like. Good enough for a porn game so I'll take it as it is. Also not that big of a fan of the episodic style games, but I understand that some people like it

An outstanding game, loved the characters and it hooked me on the dev. Look forward to playing everything DrPinkCake creates. First of these games that actually evoked an emotional response.

Pros: Great renders, well written characters, some actually funny moments

Cons: The ending was a big downer, no harem ending, leaves you depressed.

A very replayable game even with the sad ending.

Amazing and simple writing. Reminds me of a good soap opera, with a ton of great twists and turns with genuinely lovable characters and an ending that varies greatly with you feeling wholly responsible for the outcome

Simply a great game! So well written and engrossing. The characters all look great and not the same renders you see used over and over again on this site. This is probably the deepest choose your path game I have ever played, dirty or not. Well done!