Ren'Py - Another Chance [v1.41.1] [TimeWizardStudios]

Wholesome, but not in a way that makes you roll your eyes. I'm normally not huge on vanilla games (though, tbf, this game might not be vanilla as I've not actually reached any lewd scenes that aren't in the MC's imagination....), but the art style and humor make this a really fun, laid-back experience.

The characters are all great, familiar enough to fit into typical archetypes, but individual enough that you actually want to learn more about them/follow their paths.

The writing is stellar. Really, really fantastic. TimeWizard, whoever you are, you are one funny MF-er! The constant stream of jokes land really well, and the dialogue choices are self-deprecating enough to not hate the MC, but intelligent enough to still respect him. 10/10, for sure.

The only reason I dropped a star is because of how intricate all of the quests are. If it weren't for the 'Guide' option, I would never have been able to advance past the first day of this game.
Just as an example, there's a moment where you have to find the school nurse. So you follow a collection of candy wrappers that lead you to a locked cabinet. To pick the lock, you have to go back to the nurses office and click a cup full of lollipops to get an unseen safety pin at the bottom of the cup. Then you have to collect a ball of yarn from a desk in your homeroom. Then you have to combine the safety pin and the yarn to make.... a safety pin with string attached, and for some reason THAT enables you to pick the lock on the cupboard. After all that, the nurse isn't in the cupboard, a cat is, so you have to chase the cat around, let it sniff the candy wrappers, then follow it outside the school to finally find the nurse.
(Keep in mind you will have a dozen or so quests like this going at once, at any given point in the game).

Like.... seriously?? There is nothing remotely intuitive about any of that. So the game is designed in a way where you HAVE to use the Guide/Hints, which inevitably makes it feel less like a game and more like you're just checking items off of a list. Which, in a VN with writing this good, is a real bummer.

Still, I would recommend this game to anyone. The quality of the narrative is well beyond 90% of most of what you'll find on these forums, and that deserves recognition. The art is great, the dialogue is great, and the plot is strong.

Another Chance v1.40

I'm allergic to any game that is a Sandbox or has 2D art. I avoid them at all costs.

But this game is amazing. I've only played a little bit of it. I met a new classmate and I'm almost done giving her a tour around the school. But every moment of the game so far as been outstanding.

The art is great. The UI is great. The dialogue is good. The dark humor and puns are good. The girls look great. There is X-ray vision (that you don't have to unlock or pay for) that you can use to see through any female's clothing. I didn't mind the Sandbox aspect, maybe because it feels like I am really there and there are so many things to interact with in each and every room.

One thing that bothered me was that you only have 100 energy and you use up around 15 energy anytime you do something. Even if you don't inspect, look at, or take something, you still run out of energy after only a few moves. I fixed this by installing URM (Universal Renpy Mod), and I made it so that every interaction uses up 0 energy points. But there are a lot of energy interactions that you need to change in URM to accomplish this, and you have to force URM to remember those changes.

It's a great game so now I have something to look forward to playing each day until I am caught up to the end.

Love it. Art is amazing, story is actually interesting. Just make sure you save often to get the full experience. They did a really good job at making sure each character has unique and thoughtful personalities/backgrounds. Gameplay could be more engaging I suppose, but that’s not really an issue to me and would honestly kind of be a hindrance since I personally just wanna absorb the story. My only complaint is we need more Maya, but i’m sure that’s coming soon.

I want to like this game a lot more than I actually do, like some other people said in the reviews it just feels like a chore to play this game. The art is phenomenal and the story/writing is fine to good but man its just one of those games where I'm always worried I made the wrong choice and it will prevent me from seeing content. There are so many little nitpicks I could make with this game that I feel like it needs an update with no new content and just quality of life features maybe with a built-in walkthrough. Really good art but the game built around it is annoying as hell

A very good game, I'm having a lot of fun with this one thus far

Best thing about it is that I'm not even that far into it yet.

One of the few games I keep in my library (I download and delete games as soon as I don't feel like this is for me, so the fact that this passed the test deserves a high rating on it's own)

Why haven't I seen this game before? idk

It's a bit boring in the beginning, but the further you go, the more the game draws you in. I have no idea how things are with updates (probably the same way as with SummertimeSaga), but in any case, what is already there - worthy to play.

Drawing is cool, scenes too, quest system is implemented in a very interesting way, and minigames only add points to the game.

A good game with good art that's let down by it's lack of structure.

First off, the art in this game, super good. I wish the animations were... actual animations instead of automated repeating slideshows, but the art itself is great. The x-ray mode is a cool and novel idea and it's nice to have something to look at while you're doing sidequests.

The characters are also really good! Nothing super new or unique, they all have the usual character archetypes typical of high school games, but the quests are nice moments to learn about them and bond. They're all distinct and it's nice.

Now for my issue with the game, which I think is what is stopping this game from really being great -- The structure, or lack thereof.

The game is basically just a million quests, it's not even really possible to discern what's a side or main quest, it's just... quests. That isn't bad in itself but these quests are clearly meant to have some kind of structure to them, some quests mention events that happen in other quests, some quests require items from other quests but the game does not tell or even point you in the direction of what order you're meant to do them in. I'm not talking about a walkthrough of "Do quests in this order", just basic signposting like "We need this item to do this, who would have this item? Oh, that person? Well we probably should ask them" which would lead to another quest. The game instead just halts progress until you do that quest with no signposting, no hint, so instead of feeling like you're doing a chain of things with a goal in mind, it just feels like you're doing random stuff until you accidentally stumble upon the right conditions to do other random stuff.

This wouldn't be as bad an issue if it at least felt like the devs kept track of their quest conditionals as well, but it really doesn't. A few examples of this:

- In one quest you need a camera to take a picture of something for the school newspaper so the newspaper editor gives you her camera to take pictures of it. In a seperate quest you need to get something from the vents in the school and the same editor gives you her camera with an 'x-ray enhancement' to track where in the vents you need to go. It's the same camera, so if you hand in one quest while you still need to do the other you end up locking yourself because you give her back the camera and you no longer have the camera for the other.

Another example:

In one quest you help Isabelle kidnap Maxine's cat to get revenge for something. Isabelle is clearly super angry at Maxine during this whole thing but during or even after this while Isabelle is super mad at Maxine and still has her cat kidnapped, you and Isabelle can go to Maxine about a different quest and it's as if there's no beef between them at all.

There are a bunch of issues like this which make me wonder if a change of structure would not just help us, as players, actually enjoy the game and understand what's going on, but the developers in helping them keep track of all the story threads they're writing.

There is an in game guide which lets you mindlessly click towards your next objective, but that's a crutch. If you can't figure out how to do a quest without an in game hint system telling you exactly what to click, it's a poorly designed quest.

Anyway, rant over, I guess.

Game has potential, art is great, I don't mind the grind/payoff ratio, from what I can gather the overall story has some interesting hooks and the character moments and development is good. It's just got a huge problem with the lack of structure.

Great art and gameplay, a lot of loveable girls, pretty well done "easy mode" where you can just track a quest from someone and follow it without having to think about what to do. Overall, an excellent game, unique and hot.

in my opinion, this game can be a rare treasure

positiv:
-music is ok
-story can be emotionaly, but basicly fun and interesting
-the characters have cute design and they are a little bit more than typically cliche
-big plus, the choices are effectiv, have great influence on the story
-i am not so good in english, but perfectly understand the story and etc.. eazy english

negativ:
-there are a few bugs, but they are not so annoying, can be ignored
-naming the choices req by scene and missions with arrows not 100% user friendly

This is an incredibly well done game. Fantastic art style and great writing which leads to well crafted scenes. One of the only games here I want to play all the way through instead of just unlocking the gallery.

I played it for the femdom tag and it didn't disappoint. The femdom path if chosen is fantastic. Kate is a proper femdom character, and although the art in general is not my favourite (it's good but I'd rather have honey select or daz renders), the writing is so good that it makes the game worth it.

I'd like to see more fetishes like more foot and ass worshipp, facesitting, findom, etc. But I loved what is already in the game and I like that Kate is a bitch and is all about her, it makes the femdom way better.

I just only hope there will a lot more content from her and that she can break other characters (besides us and the ones she did) into a submissive role. Maybe the MC close family or the teacher? That would be hot.

As a con, this last update needs a ridiculous number of strenght points to unlock one spicy Kate scene. I had to use a save editor and it's a shame the number of people who'll miss it. I believe if someone chooses the submissive to Kate path he/she wouldn't prioritize strenght points and would probably be stuck there. But the pros outweight the cons, thus my 5 star rating.

Great game for femdom fans although this is not the main focus.

Unbearable, insufferable, cookie clicker, with myriad buttons, boring story, boring dialogues, endless click there click here quests which you can fail if you chose wrong option in boring dialogues.

Subpar generic art, none of the models are looking hot, some look like a clone copies reskinned with different hair color.

This game is a complete mess, it has no storyline, no depth, no real characters, it is content for the sake of content, pointless stupid quests.

Bad art + Bad Story + Chore like clicking gameplay = 1/5

pretty good click adventure game, really like how quests could have loads of different endings and your choices actually matter. also really appreciate the guides, the official guide google doc is way out of date though.

i can fix kate but i dont want to, she can break me instead.

Quite enjoyable if you anticipate light comedy with a lot of unrealistic chicanery and shenannigans.
Fun original arts, some better some worse, but good overall.
Oh, and don't make me start on this thing...

This game could be much better, if the story/quests were more structured, clear cut, and organized. I can't enjoy this one, due to how all over the place it is. There doesnt seem to be any set path to anything, you basically just feel like you're stumbling from one thing to the next. For example, you have 10 different quests, this one can't be completed until that one is done, but for that one you need an item that you exchange for another item. Then when you do that, you can only find the character you need in a 3-5 hour period of the day, but in doing the quest you're already past that point. It's like a never ending fetch quest with dialogue in-between... or herding cats on speed.

I gave this one as much of a shot as I could, but it's just not for me.

While I ran into some bugs and find the structure and main narrative somewhat questionable, the great art and excellent scenes kept me moving through the game with a fervor that almost no other game, wether more or less polished, manages to elicit.

[v1.37]
All the girls are fantastic. You will be yearning for an H-Scene with each and every one of them. Problem is that the story doesn't feel like it flows very well. Originally I had written a rather irritated review on this game. But I had returned after reading some of the other reviews about bugs. I don't think I specifically ran into any bugs, but what definitely did happen was I was able to do later content, before finishing earlier content, that was very clearly needed to actually understand what, and why, a heroine or the protagonist was reacting a certain way. So there is very clearly a problem with progression in the game. Other reviewers that say you need to follow a walkthough are very correct. Without one, you will basically run into later content, before finishing stuff you should have done before hand. Or simply lock yourself out of a relationship or H-Scene with someone due to a seemingly unrelated choice in a conversation.

Also, the writer has a very bizarre idea of what corruption is, and isn't.
For Instance:
Honestly, I found this pretty fked up. On top of that, the person that this seems to happen with the most, is the Heroine that I was most looking forward to. So either Psychopathic, or sociopath are your two options for "Romance" with some of the heroines. Which really ruins the mood, cuz the game is centered around a Dating Sim environment. Yet it forces you to be a colossal creep that is fked in the head one moment, and then gentle and caring the next.

The game often feels like it should be named "Bi-Polar Express," instead of Another Chance.

Despite these major flaws the game isn't that bad. However, there is still a lot that it appears the devs want to add, and a lot that is needed. Given that this has been in development for the past 4years+, and their only at the very beginning of "Season 2," of what looks to be a length story containing at least 4 season(according to the menu layout.) It's going to be quite some time before the game is anywhere near completed. It also appears that some scenes have more details then others, and some parts of scenes are just black screens, while they describe what is likely to be a picture/scene that has yet to be added/completed. Meaning, despite being on Season 2, they will likely go back and add to Season 1, and and rework some of the art. So I'd wager this game won't be complete for at the very least, another 4 years, unless they either get a huge increase in funding, or cut down on a lot of content (which I hope they don't do.)

All in all, the game definitely has some great kinks to it, and it fairly enjoyable. However, they really need to flesh out some of -in-between- conversations that can occur, and a degree of the story progression. Some times it feels like your doing a lot of nothing, for no reason with a bunch of the fetch quests, that do almost nothing for the main story. Other times it feels like the story is being B-Lined(or hail mary'd) to progress. In other words it feels like you get a bunch of Filler, and then the Canon occurs, and it's basically a legitimate Canon, loud bang, and it's done and over with in two seconds. It is, however, possible the story will really pick up through-out season 2 and 3 for a decent finale, and possibly season 1 was just supposed to be a slice of life sorta deal to get you comfortable with the world your thrown into. But if that's the case, and it's taken them 4 years just to make the Slice of Life part of the game, then I don't even want to know how long it will take them to make the more plot heavy seasons.... Yikes.

This game was very enjoyable to play. The art is high quality, on par with familiar titles SS and GE in this same art style. The animations are also nice and smooth. The story is pretty compelling even if not super far along in terms of the main quest. There is ample side content that can be fun to engage.

In terms of downside, the inventory system can be pretty cumbersome. The hint system for the quests is both really good and not quite fleshed out at the same time. The hint system is vital to completing quests without a tremendous amount of groping around in the dark. However, it doesn't do a good job of helping with what order to complete the quests in to avoid missing content which you are definitely in danger of.

This game is absolutely worth a play, and one I will follow closely for future updates!

Review for Another Chance v1.37:

Overall: 3/5 - The game is decent, but the releasing of coherent updates has been poor. It really appears that the developer didn't have a good plan for incremental releases and it's been a complete mess for me. The developer added the Chapter select feature because save games kept getting broken, but if you download an update, then read the changelog, you can't figure out how an update translates into a chapter. Plus, the changelog indicates that a lot of changes are going into old content. The current game content is probably fine for someone playing for the first time, but I don't see that following the game updates is ever going to actually be fun. I expect this will be a solid 4/5 game when it's complete, but individual updates are not deserving of that rating.

Story: 2/5 - It's mostly OK, but it's trying to integrate a bunch of WTFs concepts like tentacle porn, possession/mind control, some super-hacker, reincarnation of the MC, etc. It's just too much unnecessary baggage. There are also a lot of contrived and cliche situations that make me want to puke.

Writing: 3.5/5 - It's OK, there's some bad translations. Definitely better than average, but I wouldn't call it good.

Renders/Art: 5/5 - I really like the artwork. It's outstanding in the realm of 2D adult games.

Animations: 3/5 - They're average, but the game deserves better than the jerky animations in this game.

Sound: 4/5 - Music and sound effects are good and not annoying.

Gameplay: 3/5 - The game has a hint system that works well. I think it would be even be more useful when playing the game from the beginning, because the game is kind of linear when playing individual updates. On the downside, some choices seem to have a profound negative affect on character relationships. I don't have the patience to create saves and try things over and over, save that for the console monkeys. The sandbox UI is a bit tedious. Too many clicks for some things. Some hotspots are too small and hard to select.

Bugs: 3/5 - I encountered a few, and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you can't complete a quest because of a bug and have to restart because you don't have a save from the right place, and you still hit the same bug. It's one of the reasons that playing updates as they are released might not be fun.

Review For Another Chance [v1.37]
Let me start by saying that this game had so much potential to be amazing. I might be coming on strong, but honestly, this game deserved so much more. I first played it about 3 years ago during quarantine, and the beginning of the game was really promising. The art was fantastic, and the music was so soothing. However, as I continued playing, the story turned into a never-ending boring fetch quest and useless sandbox.
It was frustrating to realize that one wrong choice could completely mess up your playthrough with a character. I mean, seriously, just one choice! And then you think you're still on their path, only to find out that you're not. It was incredibly frustrating. Plus, the fact that you needed a walkthrough to stick to a certain girl's path was just ridiculous. Any game that requires a walkthrough to follow the story properly is not a good thing at all.
Anyway, after a few hours of playing, I was like, "Wait, isn't this supposed to be a porn game? Why the hell is there no sexy stuff happening yet?" It was just a ton of grinding and boring quests that ended up with the main character continuing to being a loser who only pretended to be cool in front of certain girls when the whole point was for him to change his ways and become better. It almost made me want to quit the game, but I soldiered on until I finally reached the first scene in my playthrough. And guess what? It was a pegging scene. Yes, you heard it right, boys. A pegging scene where you get your ass destroyed(I have nothing against pegging but seriously no warning whatsoever.) I was like, "Okay, what the heck?" So I checked the walkthrough and it turns out that wearing a certain outfit would trigger that scene. I said, "Screw it," and continued playing. A couple of hours later, there was finally another scene, and at that point, I decided that I wasn't going to play this game again until it had more content. So I deleted it.
Now, here I am, 3 years later. Did the game improve during those 3 years? Well, yes and no. The writing has definitely gotten better, and the art is still as amazing as I remember. And obviously, there are more scenes now... BUT! Despite being around for such a long time, the game hasn't really changed much in the past 3 years. It still takes forever to get to the sex scenes, there are still a ton of boring fetch quests, and the sandbox feels pointless and grindy. It's enough to make you want to bang your head against the computer screen. And on top of all that, the main character is still a total pushover. Seriously, I don't understand how any of the girls could actually like this guy. He's the type who would be better off getting cheated on than actually the one having sex. His personality is just so cringeworthy that I can't help but wonder if the person writing his dialogue is projecting their own awkwardness onto him.
It's not uncommon for porn games to have weak main characters, but this guy takes it to a whole new level. His ridiculous monologues only serve to emphasize how much of a loser he is, even after being given a second chance at life. And every time he sees a girl, his only thought is "Damn, she's hot." We get it, dude. We have eyes. We can see that the girls are attractive. It's just frustrating that throughout the entire game, the main character comes across as a creepy loser, and yet the girls still somehow like him. I honestly can't explain it. Anyway, aside from the main character being a creepy loser and the girls being oblivious, the story isn't terrible, but it's not really going anywhere. There are more sex scenes, and they're okay, but the amount of time it takes to get to them just isn't worth it. And like I mentioned earlier, there are a ton of boring fetch quests and equally uninteresting side quests for the girls. I got really bored after spending a few hours on it and decided to delete the game again. It's a shame because I actually like all the girls in the game, even the bully cheerleader. She's way better than the main character, who is a total loser. I find it more entertaining when she bullies him than whenever he opens his mouth to speak.
Overall, I would rate this game a zero out of five, but I'll give it a star because I love the artwork and the girls. However, my rating won't make much of a difference among the sea of hundred other ratings, since people will still play it. Some will be disappointed and feel like they wasted their time, while others will enjoy it. It's not a bad game, just not my cup of tea.
In my opinion, if the developer focuses more on building the story and giving the main character a proper character arc to stop being such a loser, and less on boring and useless side quests, this game could easily be a five out of five. But I highly doubt that will happen anytime soon.