Ren'Py - Another Chance [v1.51] [TimeWizardStudios]

Review for Another Chance v1.37:

Overall: 2.5/5 - The game is decent, but the releasing of coherent updates has been extremely poor. It really appears that the developer didn't have a good plan for incremental releases and it's just been a complete mess. 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 just to figure out what to play. The changelog indicates that a lot of changes, including new scenes, are going into old chapters so a lot of replay is needed to see it. The current game content is fine for someone playing for the first time, but playing individual updates is never going to actually be fun. I expect this will be a solid 4/5 game when it's complete, but when playing individual updates, the game is not deserving of that rating. I'm going to wait for a [completed] tag before I try it again.

Story: 2/5 - It's mostly OK, but it's trying to integrate a bunch of cliché WTFs concepts like tentacle porn, possession/mind control, paranoid psycho, super-hacker, reincarnation, 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 not enough to 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 for 2D animated games, 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. It's most useful when starting a new game vs. playing individual updates because updates are very linear. On the downside, some player choices seem to have a profound (and usually negative) effect on relationships that are impossible to know in advance. I don't have the patience to create saves and try things over and over. The sandbox UI is a bit tedious: too many clicks for some things, some hotspots are too small and hard to select, UI transitions and animations are just too slow.

Content: 1/5 - It's not so much the quantity or quality of the content, it's the content delivery. The developer is consistently making changes to content that was previously released and expecting players to go back and replay the old+changed+new content to see it. That's just bad practice. I'm not saying it should never happen, it just shouldn't happen on nearly every update. What a mess.

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 then... you still hit the same bug. It's another reason that playing updates as they are released isn't 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.

I was completely blown away by this one. At first, I had my doubts. Even though I found the art style beautiful, I thought that it might be just another game that looks gorgeous at first glance, but turns repetitive and can't really deliver... wow was I wrong.

The story is pretty compelling and even though I have only played it once so far, it seems like some choices do matter on the branching and that there are different items that can change the outcome of many quests with other characters being persuaded by your coolness, your strength, intelligence, your relationship with them or maybe even blackmailing if you carry a certain thing related to that.

The build up for the love interest's is excellent, and there are some top tier lewd scenes ( ).

One of the biggest surprises was how interesting every LI can be, and how different between each other, however the most amazing thing was how enojyable the gameplay can be. It can be grinding and a lot of clicking, but you have a lot of fun. First two days playing I spent many hours and it felt like minutes.

I extremely recommend this one, and I hope to see more from the devs

The game is unplayable or simply too frustrating to play. Even if the game has the "Español" language, the translation is sooo bad, it is even harder to understand.
But there ia not the problem. The BIG issue is about the bugged quest. All the quests have a simple pattern, do A and B on so on. But when a new step appears, the game tells you with a ! icon, and that is the problem: you must save a lot and in different slots because a random bug can trigger and fuck your save, making an option impossible to reach. For example, with Ms L i had a quest that ends with her in swimswit. If you have a bad luck, the game will not activate the trigger to appear the ! icon for her, and that quest will be unfinishable (if the word exists). So i spent a lot of hours for nothing.

Story 2/5
Its very vanilla and at most time i found it more boring then fun, main storyline is pretty decent atleast but there is sooo many other side quests where maybe 2 of em is fun, there is a ton of quests/paths to figure them all out would take multiple playthroughs which would be ok if story held up.

On a side note i saw some talk about the kissing feets, its not a forced scene if you give her the keys you dont have to go to the party and experince that.

MC got to annoying hes so damn submissive and has 0 backbone and there is so much reading of MCs thoughts, he proberly talks more with him self then with other people and with girls hes like a 12 year old which gets very cringy and it really gets bad doing sex scenes.
Also its not a harem game so hearing how MC finds every girl hot gets a bit annoying when you already picked who to go for, same for questlines that leads to boobjobs or such, it simply shouldent happen in a none harem game without having the option to say no.


For the virgin fans just forget it, the scenes are shitty no real deflowering, no blood no nothing girl says ouch which is the only thing that sets it a part from a normal sex scene.

3/5
Girls are ok, personaly i am not that big a fan of this character type but still they are ok.

2/5
Animations cant really be called animations, its mostly picture to picture stuff so not really worth being called a animated game, but for picture to picture stuff its pretty decent, there are a few animated things but its not that good either.

Music 3/5
Just standard background stuff nothing special.

3/5
Sandbox is ok if you remember to click the fast mode so you dont have to click a million times, but most quests are boring since its just collecting shit.
As for quests they dont seem to be tied together so i do belive you can skip LIs you dont want anything to do with which is nice since quest can lead to some kind of sexual thing like boob job with the mother so if you dont want that just skip the questline with her.
One annoying part is your inventory gets filled up with shit you have no use for since it dosent remove quest items once your done with them.

Content 2/5
Considering game is 4 years old and has only just gotten to season 2 means it will be a very very long wait before this ever gets finished if ever.

Excellent writing, very good art, and compelling characters. The quests can become a bit tangled and tedious at times, but the dialogue more than makes up for it. The walkthrough is terrible but ultimately that doesn't matter much. The gallery needs to be redone so that scenes are easier to access, but again that is a problem for the future.

All in all this is worth checking out.

Oh, and it manages to incorporate femdom in a fluid way. You can be humiliated if you want, or if you just want some light switching that's also viable. Furthermore you can avoid it altogether if you prefer. That's how it should be.

The game is a very cool one, with some mysteries, great antagonist and wide variety of lewdness and kinks.
The drawing style is nice. And the writing is smart and funny.

But there are the fact that almost all hottest scenes include Kate somehow and the good guys lack hardcore stuff, so that seems unfair. Another unfair thing is that the punishment Kate receives, should you chose to act against her, is hugely disproportional to the abuse that she has given. And it definitely must be otherwise. So quite a few scenes of that nature are expected.

And last - one of the hottest girls not only in the VN but on the site - ms. L - is not getting nowhere near enough scenes. I wouldn't mind a game with only her in it, to be honest. Hopefully, the dev will fix that and unwind all her kinks to the fullest extent.

This VN had many good things going for it. Nice art, funny dialogue and hot characters ( esp the Homeroom teacher). But then as I went further, my interest started to drop.
First things first, one major drawback is the endless inner monologue the MC has. He goes on and on whenever he sees a girl, instead of actually talking to her. No wonder he is/was a loser.
Now the summary is that MC is a loser, lost everything in his life, but then gets taken back in time to relive his high school days. So obviously you as a player think that this time MC will act more confidant, be smart and turn around his life.
And it does show the same at the start at least. In one scene MC stands up to this cheerleader bully and it makes you think that as the game progresses, there will be more of this where MC will have a spine.
But nooooooo! That was just fake bravado to impress some girl. As soon as he is alone he goes back to his loser ways. And by loser ways i mean that the first chance he gets, he goes straight into simping for the cheerleader and doing her bidding.
Idiot even sneaks into a party hosted by the bully, locked up in a box and ends up licking and kissing feet . Comes back home and thinks to himself that what an awesome party.
After that scene, i closed the game and shift+delete. I have no patience or time to play simp/loser simulators. It was pretty clear by now that MC will continue to simp for the cheerleader and will keep on obeying her till his spine is so flexible that he can blow himself.

i really had high hopes when i started playing this, but then another game which fell victim to Devs who for whatever reason love to create loser simulator VN's

Ok, I just finished playing the game, at least till the current version (v.1.34) and it's good but suffers the same problems a lot of other sandbox games have. Let's start:

1. Story
The story is nothing new, MC is a loser in his late 20s, his family disowned him, he's working a shitty 9 to 5 job and is reminisced about old times. After some events, he wakes up the next morning and got Another Chance at life. What makes the story different is that you feel the consequences of our meddling with the timeline from the very start. Weird artifacts, certain people behave differently, some objects are in different places, and mystical creatures hiding in the vents. Some scenes even have a pretty creepy outcome if you make the wrong (or right ?) decisions. All in all the game took an already existing concept and polished it up, so thumbs up for that

2. Characters
The characters look gorgeous, you get a lot of different "flavors" body and personality wise, which I always appreciate, the overall 2d style is very pleasant and something else than the usual Daz models (which I also like, if done right). Even tho some characters felt a bit too cliché, I think it adds some kind of character to the game, like an old teen sex comedy movie from the late 90s.

3. Gameplay
Now we get to my biggest problems with this game, the overall sandbox part.
Listen, I personally enjoy a good sandbox game, but It's so hard to get it right without making it repetitive, feel empty or cause some kind of quest breakage, which happened to me. When I started playing this game, I just roamed around, collected some stuff, and played some quests, but noticed pretty fast that the side quest are not bound to the progress of the main quest, which meant that you would unlock stuff way before getting to that part in the main quest. For example, I got the scene where you get the nurse to crawl through the vents hours before I even got the blackmail picture, so a lot of options were grayed out in my play-trough. I had sex with Isabelle and then in the main story, the MC talks about how Isabelle would never look at him this way and how he's out of her league, which was confusing as hell. Maybe it would be better if you can't continue certain side quests until you got further in the main quest, which is already implemented in some quests, which confused me a lot. The other part is that you have to rely on the quest button a lot, because otherwise you would roam around and instead of making some progress, you would only start more side quests in your search for answers or items.
That's the overall reason why sandbox games are so incredibly hard to get right

Last Words
even tho I had a lot of annoyances while playing the game, I still think it has a lot of potential
I'm gonna check out the game when it's finished, and maybe the quest problems are polished out by then. I only wish the best to the dev/devs


TDU.

I do not know what everyone is snortingto give this game 5-stars, because I simply don't find anything that worth of. The game is stalling with boring fetch quests and walls of text doing menial shit events that somehow develop the relationship you have with someone. The game is linear, not much of a "sandbox" as the tag suggests.

The artstyle is amateur at best, with severe lack of perspective in every scene. Scenes themselves have characters pose in statue-like forms barely conveying any energy or movement but rather read that energy through text, the whole point of a visual novel is to use the best of both aspects writing and visuals. Moving on the the characters themselves, we have different flavours of the exact same dish, but with different haircut and hair/eye colour, with extra seasoning the clothes, boring interpretations of characters.

The music will make you blow your brains out after a while so I suggest puting something you'd listen to while performing the most menial tasks imaginable by a game that doesn't respect your time.

Absolutely excellent.
Game is extremely polished compared to the vast majority of releases.

I do agree with other reviews that there is too much grind and the quest system is unnecessary complex, it gets so complex that even the ingame help pointing you to the exact places to click is unhelpful at times.

Regardless of the issues, the girls, story, and scenes are all top tier and worth the playthrough. It doesn't take too long to get to scenes if you use the ingame guide. Recommend saving often though as some choices will softlock out of content.

I'd rate the soft and hardlocking with no prior warning or ways to avoid as the only real issue with the game. Expect to be constantly save scumming and rolling back.

The strength of the rest of the game still warrants 5 stars, but if the devs could clean up the progression system and reduce grind this would easily be top 10 from the entire catalogue on the site. Too often you are locked out of scenes due to simply doing quests out of order, with no indication that you need a prior quest completed (nurse is the worst for this, and also the best character for me).

[V1.33]
An engaging story with lovable characters that left me invested to its future development. Ero content CGs are great, but they are not common.

Story:
The premise is similar to an anime titled Re:Life. Loser NEET failure wakes up and restarts his life at his last year of high school and proceeds to do better. Not an entirely new idea, but it's executed well. The writing is great. Witty, funny, and can be serious when it needs to. It actually surprised me when I first tried the game. Perfect in my book, but I don't really read a lot, so I'm not a very good judge. Progression is a tiny bit slow, but I guess that's a consequence of putting this many heroines in a game. Overall, excellent especially for an erogame.

Gameplay:
Lacking for a game you play for fun, but great for a game you read. It's more of a visual novel with some point and click elements. I like it though. It keeps me engaged and it is a good way to feel more immersed in the world. It also has some cute mini-games. Nothing special or fun, but it's a nice touch still. There's also a quest guide that holds your hand to the answers if you don't want to think like me. There are also some nice mini events that could come from the item interactions, so the inventory system isn't useless. The choices when it comes to the story also matter a lot which is always good and makes it more immersing. The stat system feels a bit tedious at the moment, but the love and lust stats for the girls are nice because you can feel the effects of how you treat the girls better. Overall, great mechanics for a visual novel.

Characters:
Amazing. Maybe it's because I fall in love easily, but I had a hard time picking a favorite girl all throughout my gameplay. Even with the amount of heroines it has, it managed to write and define them well. Each of them has a different approach to being romanced, and their personalities are lovable and diverse. I think that even if you're picky, you'll find a girl you like. You want to romance your sister that you have cute sibling banter with? What about a sadist? A masochist? A sporty girl? Your mother? They're all here. Some more than others because some of the girls are less important than others as of now.

One problem I have is how many the heroines are though. I love them, but I feel like focusing on one girl is impossible as of now because there just isn't enough screentime and content for each of the girls individually. Overall, girls cute and nice (except Kate).

Art/Ero content:
Great and unique. If you like how the girls look in the cover, then you'll probably be like it more in-game. The CGs are nicely done, and the characters have several cute expressive sprites. The ones with their tongue out are especially cute. The character designs are great! Expressive, down to what underwear they have. The designs are good enough that it makes me like the character I hate a little bit. The game also offers x-ray anytime anywhere in-game if you want to keep yourself horny. It works with the CGs too! Kinks in the game are not plentiful, but it's not why I stayed and played this game anyway. In short, very good.

Extras
-Bugs. The game has some bugs where an exception is raised, but you can just click ignore, so it's not game-breaking. Still a bit annoying though.
-Sound design. I mostly played muted, but I heard nothing specially good or bad when I left it on.


It's nice to see passionate devs creating a wonderful project. Can't wait to see where this game goes in the future.

One of my favorite game so far... And I've played a lot ! Engaging story, deep characters, and so much content ! Ok I've read a lot of reviews pointing the lack of H scenes, and that you have to grind to get them. Wow guys ! I don't know how is your life running, but from my side, I don't have sex with a girl 5 mins after meeting her ! If that's your case, lucky you !

This is really a great game, on the artistic side first, graphically speaking this is something you will not see elsewhere, unique genre and I really dig in it. Then, each character has its own background but the creators manage to make all this world fluent. Well done !

Definately a 5/5 and waiting for the next update ! Was so glad that our Lindsey is still alive...

Last but not least... For those complaining that they don't know what to do and need a walkthrough... Wow are you serious ? No you will not get all achievements in one row, this is where the replayability stands ! If you're an asshole and like bitches like Kate, then it will turn the game in a different way that if you chose to stand on Isabelle side. You don't like that ? Many harem games are available here, just go grab one but please don't blame the authors for that, it's just your problem....

I think people are being a bit too harsh on this game.
Yes, scenes can take a long time to find and be slightly unclear as to how to turn them sexual. But all of them are available to replay, and you can open command console to input cheats so that balances it out for me. There is also a HINT system in the game that basically walk you through the quests.
I can very easily see this becoming a 5 star game. The sexual content is a little anemic, as to be expected from an in-development project. And .
I quite like this quaint little game, and I especially appreciate that some of the characters have more realistic proportions than women in these types of games tend to have. I look forward to raising my score to a 5 when it reaches completion.

- all the content is behind some sort easily missable interactions that you don't know about and con't comeback to
- what content there is is RARE: 1 scene in 5 hours is my stat
- it's just grind grind grind: go there talk that
- don't waste your time

This is one of the best games I played. Though the way they did my fav char is def pissing me off. I sure do hope they make a way to save her as I did literally everything I could to do so. Currently I have a love hate relationship with this game. Keep the best girl around and let me save her.

Amazing.

Not for everyone, but nothing ever is... almost all the negative reviews aren't about the game at all. Instead, they are about people's personal preferences. Like complaining that a shooter isn't a city builder, or that a puzzle game isn't an RPG. The world would be a boring place if every game was exactly the same.

In any event, this is a fantastic puzzle game. The writing is brilliant, clean, and clever. Every single interactive item has flavor text. The in game clues are fantastic, as they are often word games. The sort of clues where when you finally figure something out you go "Ah, of course! Well played."

Yes, I have been stumped many times, which is a good thing. I appreciate the complication. Every scene has multiple conversation options, with all of them having something to offer. Constantly shedding more light on the story and characters.

It is a rarity to see a game so well written, and so polished. I am not sure if I have ever seen a single typo or misused word (misused on accident). The references are often very clever, and I am sure lots of them go way over people's heads (mine included at times).

All the characters are interesting. The situations are fun.

If you don't want to play a puzzle game then go play something you do want to play, and leave this fantastic puzzle to those of us that do enjoy a well written and clever game. And, yes, it is a game. You have to actual play it, unlike the standard visual novel that are a dime a dozen.

I played an earlier version a few years ago, and thought it was quite ambitious. I came back to revisit it this week, and I am so glad I did. It is clearly moving forward well and maintaing an extremely high quality.

So few games are this well constructed. Bravo.

I have to say this game is one of the worst I've ever played. It's been out how long and there's barely any "adult" stuff. Let alone the h-scenes that are in the game are way too short. Talk about a boring blue-balling grindfest. Plus on top of all the crazy women in the story, you have a MC that at times is completely spineless wimp. Seems like the whole game is a bait and switch from the screenshots that are shown, but never see them in the game. Do the love and lust levels have to be at 100 before anything good actually happens? I played this game a couple of years ago and never could get into it. I understand if the dev wants a slow burn building up the relationships of all the LI's, but this game moves slower than a glacier. Plus all the filler mini games just to get more people to play the game. To be honest, at this point the dev just needs to finish the game at it's current spot, or just completely abandon it. It will take a miracle to make it an actual playable game.

sorry, can't back this game for one reason only - the bait and switch. basically you fell in love with one of the girls and wanna bang her so you grind the hell out of her story line (which is pretty long and twisted and more than often absurd with choices locking you out of various endings), which i'll call the bait, only to finally get into that girl's pants and realize the naked girl in the lewd scenes (which are far in between because of the absurd grind) has nothing to do with the girl you were grinding for, which i'll call the switch. it's a RTX ON / RTX OFF kinda situation. The girls in the story, clothed, are sexy and their tease make your imagination go wild, true RTX ON situation, and when you get to the action part and take their clothes off, it's a RTX OFF situation, a low poly, low res wannabe sketch of the girl you were rooting for. maybe there's a graphic designer for the story and another low skilled graphic designer for lewd scenes, or worse yet, there's 2 graphic designer and they both work on story art while the coder/dev said f*** it, i'm gonna save some money and draw the lewd scene girls myself and yeah, that's how we got in this situation.
tl;dr: grindy game, great sexy and varied characters, good teasing, kinda crazy story and setup, insane grind, terrible letdown when after the long grind you get a naked low res stick man version of the formerly clothed girl.

Fantastic. Loved the picture, volume, and especially the story.
Characters are charming, too.
It would be better if there's movement or voice.
Looking forward to check some new updates.
Thanks for the maker of this game!