Ren'Py - Another Chance [v1.42] [TimeWizardStudios]

This game is unique. But not necessarily in a good way.

The game starts in a weird way.. Sad, lonely MC wants to end it all, but suddenly travels back in time when he was a senior in high school. I loved this start because most H-games have little to no history behind the MC. He's given literally "Another Chance" where he probably screwed up the most, to repair his mistakes and save the relationships between him and the people he loves.

The art is genuinely amazing, a masterpiece if you would. Never in a H-game have I ever seen art so good.

But that's kind of where it ends with the good stuff.. The story is incredibly confusing, unless it's a quest with direct interaction between 2 characters, you never see them being friends or acknowledging each other. Take Jacklyn and Flora for example, a single time there's some sort of interaction between them and it's on a quest, afterwards there's simply nothing.
Halfway through the already short game, only then do I realize Jo is the principal (I think?) of the high school. Speaking of, the high school feels dead. There's like 10 people in the entire school, 12 if you consider the janitor-lady and Maya, both of which I haven't seen/discovered yet. There are lockers, but no people to associate them with, except Isabelle's and your own. Then out of nowhere, while playing the piano for Isabelle, a crowd of people suddenly appears.
Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the story, but the quests just didn't make sense and weren't explained in any way. Randomly combining items in hope that it gets you the quest item is infuriating. Yeah you have 2 sticks but you have to combine them to get the "Two Sticks" item which is just 2 sticks. Doing so much work on quests, you expect 3 scenes at the end but all you get is a +1 love stat to the character. You get rewarded with a scene like 5 times throught the entire game.
The characters make me sad, some in a good way, some in a bad way. Speaking to Lindsey, Isabelle or Flora makes you feel like an actual human. Genuine and caring, these 3 characters are what kept me from closing. However, there are awful, narcissistic or rather evil characters. Meeting Jo for the first time would make you think that she's a loving mother figure for the MC, and would help him in anyway she could. Well not exactly, she's very very cold and uncaring. And then there's Kate. Can't say much, as I couldn't bring myself to be an asshole, and make others feel horrible for the sake of being harassed by a whore and her goons. I fucking hated this character from the beginning. I had hoped she would have a redemption arc or at least apologize to the people she's hurt, but no, it only gets worse.
The game forcing you to pick between characters and locking away scenes is awful design. Why do I have to ruin lives and morale just to get a scene that looks like rape?
The game really looks good on paper, but it's so unsatisfying in the end that at this moment (v.1.19) it's simply not worth playing. Not enough wholesome scenes, too many "be an awful human being" scenes.

Great art, somewhat good story telling, an ok questing system and overall a decent game. You know you're "finished" the game when you no longer have "unstarted quests". Unfortunately, to complete the gallery you have to play through several times. For a game netting ~$7,000 on Patreon, it could be a lot better - only time will tell.

The amount of grind this game requires in the form of time is unbearable. Several hours of gameplay need to happen before we get any form of sexual content. This wouldn't be a problem if walkthroughs were updated to the latest releases, but they aren't. So, making the wrong decision or omitting important items become a regular occurrence, which forces some players to backtrack and greatly lengthen the time needed to get somewhere. Please update walkthroughs regularly. Please add some optional form of indicator for key items and decisions that change the course of the story. Please add a note in the description of the expected duration of gameplay as I was personally not expecting to spend more than two hours of my time in this game. Thank You.

The art is pretty good, and there is some honestly funny writing, but it is massively bogged down by some old school Sierra style adventure game nonsense. By the end of current content, I had a more than 50 items in my inventory, and some of the item combinations you need to complete quests are esoteric as hell. The built in guide works well for the most part, but it's almost required at points because of how the game is designed. Going through this wouldn't be so bad if the payoff was worth it, but the game has very little in the way of erotic content.

If you go into it with the understanding that you're probably not going to get much of a fap out of it, it's decently written, so 3 stars for me.

For me it's a 5/5. This game have beautifuls arts, incredible characters (Kate is my favorite. I love to follow her orders and yes I'm clearly falling for a 2D girl) and there's so much differents ways to go in this game. When there is so much differents endings in a game, I can surely said that it's a 5/5 game.

Do you like the King's Quest series of games? Do you like randomly clicking shit for what feels like forever, trying to figure out inane quests that seemingly have no point to them? Do you like frustratingly trying to combine items that don't seem to go together at all in the hopes of randomly coming across the right mix? Then you'll love Another Chance.

Seriously... Like, I like games that are more than just, "and here's this girl. And now you bang." but goddamn... The number of steps to finish these quests is insane. And trying to find half the stuff is just impossible. I was trying to find the sister's phone in the bathroom for what felt like forever. Never did figure it out. I've been trying to find a fucking piece of paper for an hour so I can leave a note in a plant. I've gotten 3 sticks together to create an easel, even though there's several all around the school I could seemingly just use. No clue if 3 is enough. There's sugar just laying all over the place...

Just... I like the concept. I like the artwork. I like the general idea of the quests. But trying to follow the logic in some of them is just impossible. I'm sure, to the developers, all the quests make perfect sense. But to those of us that can't read their brain, it's a frustrating slog clicking buttons all around, trying to randomly hope to find the one thing you're finally looking for.

Reviewed: v1.17

I remember reading a comment by the main dev, probably somewhere in this very thread, where he mentioned somewhere along the lines of being inspired by old school adventure games like Leisure Suit Larry and Monkey Island. I've honestly never played those type of games, but considering their reputation as basically puzzles, I can totally see the influence.

You have several general stats and love and lust stats for specific girls, which will determine what choices you can pick. You can upgrade some of them by finding items in the world, but mainly it will be determined by what choices you choose. Some choices are also only open based on a choice beforehand, meaning there are basically branching routes, but not in a specific sense. However, none of the routes or story itself seems mostly finished at its current state, although there is still a decent amount of content storywise. As a result of its pacing though, there aren't a lot of lewd scenes as one might expect. The gameplay loop involves moving around the game's setting and interacting with the girls to start or do quests. You can "talk" and answer a few questions, but it's very barebones and basically unnecessary currently.

As you've probably already heard, the quests tend to be really grindy. They almost all involve having to grab some items somewhere in the world, combining them with another item, sometimes multiple times, and then interacting with an object in a room. Almost every interactable has two options, "inspect" or "interact", even doors so you'll have to tediously have to click on "interact" everytime. Inspect may be useful, but for us coomers the quests tend to be puzzling or convoluted like you're playing a hardcore point and click adventure game from the 90s. I'd say using "inspect" is pretty much useless because the hint system will carry you through almost 100% of the time. It almost always helps but there are a few times in which it's not specific enough, such as assuming you already have an item when it should have told you where to get it. Even then, the quest itself may feel too long than it should be.

Despite those flaws, I still really like Another Chance. In my opinion, its strengths are too great to stop me playing and keeping tabs on its development. I love the unique art style and the design of the girls, appreciating each one of them. I think the scene CGs that the game currently has are great, although I wish the sex scenes were properly animated instead of fading between two or three frames. What I do think is really top notch though is the writing.

The writing feels well written and natural, well for a lewd game at least. Although the quests are tedious, I otherwise like the pacing of the writing. They may be point A to point B, but it's not like next thing you know a girl is automatically on your dick. It has enough build up that feels rewarding when you finally get into the sex scenes. This is especially if you made the right choices or leveled up your stats beforehand, which add a bit of replaybility since you can basically branch out. The writing can be very funny but also be surprisingly deep. When doing quests for one girl, I'm actually getting my heart-strings pulled, but sometimes just laughing my ass off.

One more thing I'll say is that the current rate of updates is one quest a month, which is kind of slow. These quests may feel grindy, but they aren't that long either. To conclude, I think Another Chance as a game is unpolished and its aspects don't really feel validated. The devs have recognized this and have plans to improve it later, although at the current rate it'll probably take a long while til that starts. In my opinion though, it's still really worth trying out due to the excellent art and writing. I don't know any other game like it.

This game is like Taffy Tales if it were way less depraved. Lots of clicking and story-based tasks you have to accomplish, yet humerous.

Menus are polished and clean, character models/art are great. But it’s a whole lot of clicking for little sexual content. It’s actually stunning how little fappable content there is for how many updates/how long this game has been out.

Giving three stars for now cause the potential is there, but it needs a lot more content that will keep people cumming back

I find it adorable and about all very, very , very funny.
It is well drawn, girls and women are just adorable, full of plots and subplots.
Both the sex and romance route are also quite credible, ladies have their own character and perks, so everyone could choose their own waifu (or their best friend, with benefit obviously) .

Update:
No,no, no, no, you cruel, merciless bastards, you cannot do such a horrible thing!No, no, Lyndsey NOOOO!!!!!

Ok! Ok! In the meantime I made my first review, things are going really, really dark there.
The final quests of this first part of the story, both Stepping on the Rose than Dethroning the Queen are definitively shocking and quite disturbing in their sadism and what happened to Lindsey is something just unbearable to think about.
I have said previously that one of the great merit of such a game is to really get to tick (and quite well, I must say) other boxes that the usual ones you expect from a sex game but I was referring to the Humor and Romance part, you know, something light and even relieving along the long road, with a spark of yistery added to made things get more quizzling...
No, it was not a sort of mystery subplot to fuel the rest of a very funny story in a sort of Scooby doo release...
We are instead projected ALL of a SUDDEN into a real Horror and a very painful one given that they are hurting fully developed personages (and above all the most innocent, positive and adorable one between all of them...you rotten sadists!) you have spent hours to built an affective relation with...
And worst of all it is not vampires and ghosts: it is a Lovecraftian one (Chtulu poster was not there by accident) in which you get only small glimpses over unspeakable horrors buried under locked doors (how many we have still not opened until now?) and no one around you is really what you thought he/she is.
Spiders, spiders on the wall...

I love everything about this game as others have written. Art, characters, story, everything. EXCEPT way too much "game" and not nearly enough " fap". You can play for hours and the most you will see are girls in their panties. Will keep it on my "watch" list but only because I hope the dev reads all these similar reviews. Could be one of the best games here if there were more h content

I am going to be very short in my explanation of why a star.
Basically they want us to believe that this is an erotic visual novel but the only good thing is the art and if that can attract you but don't be fooled to get to see something erotic they will have to spend hours in this click simulator giving clicks like crazy to the map and how not talking 1000000 times with the characters to earn a measly point... meh mega boring and tedious.

this game is great, with only round 330 MB, has more content as games with like 1000000000000 GB,
and the content is really good,
possibilities, with wide array of kinks, and great text and wicked, but smart fun,
yes, you need first a little time to understand,
how is this game working,
but then you cant stop to play,

warning - this game is not safe space

Despite the stars I gave this game, I kinda enjoyed it... as a pg13 game.

What's good are the art, the attention to detail, the fact that apart from the two older females the rest have realistic sizes, and the hint system which was the reason this game can be somewhat enjoyable (and playable), etc.

But what's bad... that's really bad.
First of all, the idea of discovering quests and then doing them for possible rewards are good. But in this game, there are two issues with these quests.
The first is that they can become annoying, dumb, and almost offensive (when you have to destroy a whole ecosystem just to kill that beaver... really?).
In general, you have to go around the whole map, clicking on this and that to complete the goal and then you are done. Which isn't a problem.
The problem is that after spending your precious time on doing the quest and pleasing the girls, what do you get? Something naughty? No! You only get some stat points. Yay...
And this is the second main problem with the quests. Apart from a couple, there is basically no reward and since the game is based on the idea of doing these quests, the game has no reward.
This is supposed to be an adult game, with at least erotic stuff, but if you don't turn on the x-ray, or hover over the girls when you talk with them, this game just becomes a pg13 game.

I can count on my hands how many "good" scenes were in the game, and if you compare that to the amount of content and opportunities that the game offers, it begs the question "does it worth it?". Not just from the point of the player, but from the point of the dev too.

This game in its current state is skippable.
The only reason why I still give "this many stars" is because of the potential it can have. But to reach that potential the dev should either focus on making it into a proper adult game, with meaningful and rewarding quests, or drop the not that present adult content and turn it into a fun little game for kids.

Version: v1.16

Review:
I like art-style games and I also like to play sandbox games that have a comfortable gameplay even if there is a grind, but this game is not the case. Another Chance looked promising, as there is a dating sim that choices matter during the conversation and some of them you will gain stat points, love and affection with the characters. But unfortunately the game as a whole turned out to be boring to play, because there are too many tasks for too few satisfying rewards.

History:
At a certain point when looking around the scenario I realized that following the story and dialogs would waste my time, so unfortunately I ended up choosing not to follow. I love games with a school setting, but if the game was a little more objective like some games of the same style here on the site, maybe I would care more.But if you like to follow and be entertained by the story, it is a good alternative for you and you will definitely enjoy spending some free time. However, it's not a bad story but unfortunately not for me.
Gameplay:
POS:
Fortunately the game has an easy way to play, this is a positive thing. You can select a task and the game will show you what you need to do, it's good for those who feel dumb or are confused about something, but during the game, I missed more text info, because at one point an NPC was not in the place that the task was saying, I would have to do other tasks to get the NPC to appear again. Another positive point is earning money in the game, an easy and useful way that other games should have, the simple mechanics that for me are to be congratulated, you find money in places around the scenario.
CONS:
You do too many tasks and the reward is not worth it. I didn't expect something like, help that girl and get a blowjob, no, but you do so many things that there comes a time when you get bored, I took hours of gameplay to get only two pornographic scenes because the rest of the game is very weak eroticism, because X-Ray mode doesn't count for me. Another thing that has become tiresome is a large number of items in the game, you have to fetch an item and then craft it and then go back to that same cycle, fetch an item, put the item in a quest, craft, etc. For a porn game it depends per person, I don't see a problem but at some point it gets tiring.
Graphics & Sexual Content:
The graphic style of the artwork is good, although some girls have similar faces that change in appearance because of their hair and eyes. But not all. The bodies are also a bit similar, but nothing that is bad to appreciate.
Talking about the sexual content, it's disappointing to be honest, if there are 4 pornographic scenes its too much because most of them are erotic scenes and not very satisfying, maybe some but I think the game should focus more on that. I spent +4h without following much of the dialogs or the story, played hurriedly and only got 2 sex scenes, a blowjob and an anal. For a game that could have great potential, it ended up being a bit of a disappointment.

Why I did gave 1 star?
Unfortunately, this game did not impress me. I had played this in the past. The game does not have a comfortable gameplay, something that even if there is a grind you enjoy playing, that you feel the game is progressing as you advance through the story, but this is not the case with Another Chance.
There are three pillars for a successful game, a good story, good gameplay and good sexual content. Most people opt for the game to have good sexual content, I opt for that and also to have good gameplay. So, At a certain point the game seems to be fun, but you get scared by the amount of things in the scenario, I usually don't like point-n-click games very much for the reason that I have to click on everything to know if that item is useful or not. But, the reason I give this game a low rating is because the gameplay is tiring (not bad) and also because of the lack of sex scenes. I wish the devs luck, I'm not trying to take all their merit away, it's a good game with good management, but it lacked even the reward that was supposed to be a dating sim more summarized and not too long.

I really enjoy the characters, I don't know that there are any that have already been added that aren't charming in there own way. It's still in development but I'd recommend it regardless. The quest may be a little confusing at times but a guide is included in game which is convenient and makes it difficult to ever be completely lost.

Played v 1.14

This game hits the ground running and attracts attention just with its premise. Then it keeps you around with its hook of an introduction. A one-two punch of solid writing that hits close to home and a plot with intrigue that leaves you asking questions and wanting answers.

Not to mention the art and music which are both exquisitely well done, just on the fundamentals I can already give this game a recommendation.

That being said, the game starts slowly losing steam once the premise fades into the background. The mystery elements occur more and more sporadically as the game shifts into fetch quest hell. Completing the episodic side quests with the in-game guide feels tedious and hand-holdy, but doing it without help feels like running around like a headless chicken.

The game takes on a very surrealist, and dare I say random, tone as it goes along but I can't fault it too much because I feel this surreal writing style does meld with the central supernatural theme. It's a story that thrives on redefining what's normal to the main character. At its worst it reads like an overly cheesy tribute to 90s point and clicks. But at its best, there's some emotionally powerful moments in here. God knows there's people in my life long since gone that I'd love to just hang around with again. I just wish this game hits those emotional highs more often, because even it knows it can.

All in all, I can recommend this game only if you like a good story-driven adventure, and even then I'd probably bow out once the sidequests start getting a bit much. But I'm keeping my eye on this because I firmly believe in this game's potential, just based on the strength of its fundamentals. If it sticks to its main theme of self-improvement and getting the best out of life that you can, this game can potentially be an all-time great. For now, 4/5.

Great art, no sex.
The developer doesn't realize that the story they are building up + the quest system are boring, shitty, and outdated cliches of a bygone era. I wish they would stop focusing on a story that can only be described as mundane and focus on actually creating sexual content that doesn't involve pouring milk onto an inflamed vag.

PLEASE NOTE: I'm coming back to edit this post just to add in this warnjng. The review I wrote was for a version of the game as it was over a year ago. I have no idea how much the game has changed since I wrote it (have not played the game since the review was made) but I am leaving it AS IS since it is still my honest opinion of the version I played. Good luck to the devs, hope the game has improved since my last time here. Loved you art, just not the game play.....


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Rating ver. 1.12.1

Seriously mixed feelings about this one.

Love the art. Top notch stuff there. 5/5
Great characters. 4/5
Funny writing. 4/5
Decent enough story telling. 4/5

That grind though. Oh man. Negative 1000.

Normally I love sandbox games. They're easily my favorite genre. That said everything in "Another Chance" is tied to doing endless laps around the map in order to find, collect, craft, and deliver quest items just to get a couple paragraphs of story progression and/or the occasional short lewd scene.
Basically it's just tons and tons of legwork for minuscule payoffs.

The sad thing is I really could see this actually being a great game if some different design choices had ben made.
And who knows, maybe someday it will be.
There's definitely a LOT of talent on display here with the art and the writing.

But before this game has any chance to become great the dev(s?) would need to start cutting out a ton of the excessive fetch-quest padding and start spending more time focusing on the parts they're doing best: storylines and art.

I really wish I could rate this higher because so much of it is awesome. But videogames are supposed to be about having fun. And right now in it's current state this game just wasn't any fun at all.

Version Played: 1.12.1

I'm guessing the art is going to be the primary element to draw people's attention to this game, and I reckon that they will be very happy with what's here as said art is absolutely fantastic. However, what will keep them here is the writing. While the game contains a substantial amount of laugh out loud snark, there are some moments as you progress in the girls' stories that are genuinely moving and special and those are all due to the quality of the writing. All is not perfect however: while there is a substantial amount of playtime, there is very little smut at this stage and the gameplay systems are quaint if I'm being charitable, annoying if I'm not.

Positives:
+ Beautiful girls
+ High quality writing that can hit multiple ends of the spectrum
+ BUSH!

Negatives:
- Gameplay systems aren't really that fun (to the game's credit, if you turn on hints, you should be able to perform the next task to advance without too much trouble)
- Barely any sexual scenes at this stage
- Your "roommates" are clearly meant to be your family. I get that Patreon etc have regulations, but either do a better job of writing around it (or hey, just remove it. not every game needs incest) or at least have the decency to provide a patch.

The only thing really holding this game back at this point is the dearth of content and cumbersome game systems. The former will hopefully be mitigated as development continues, but that latter might be a bit harder to refine. Honestly, I don't think the latter is a dealbreaker by any stretch, but, for the former, if you're not willing to commit to watching the game develop and just want to quick click for a wank, you might want to bookmark this one and come back in a few updates. For my part, this game is in the higher tiers of my watch list and, once the game gets a bit more content, I will happily be chucking the devs some money via itch.io.

Like This? Try: Love & Sex: Second Base, Dandy Boy Adventures, Fantasy Valley, The Big Beyond
Note to Devs: This is a really fantastic project and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next! (Also, the nurse should totally have bush. Just sayin'.)

It's you're average 2D Renpy game with decent graphics.
So : Takes hours to finish with a guide, a lot of teasing, and few sex scenes.
The in-game guide is one of the best I've ever seen, but even then you're taking too much time to get one picture where you'll be happy to see a little of skin.
So 2/5, it's like so many games of this kind. If you're searching a 2D game, just download a translated Japanese VN.
It's good as a game nevertheless, the interface is good and all, it's just not fun to spend hours without being truly rewarded.