Ren'Py - Another Chance [v1.58] [TimeWizardStudios]

Imagine you go to a five-star restaurant. You take one look at the menu, and you know they've got to have the juiciest steak in town. So you ask the nice waitress for one of their pristine steaks. She leaves and then quickly returns to inform you that the chef says in order to actually eat the steak, first you need to go do the dishes, clean the tables, change the lightbulbs, chase the wild ostrich out of the kitchen, and lick the shoes of every customer there; then, and ONLY then, will the chef give you a single bite of steak. Oh, and you have to pay for all of this in advance, by the way.

That is Another Chance.

It's quite ironic how Another Chance's plot kind of revolves around the concept of time, because this entire game is a gigantic waste of it.

What's that? You want to just skip all the bullshit and talk to the LI's and progress their routes? Nah, screw that. Why don't you go chase a beaver around for another five minutes? Isn't that way more fun?

This game should be the primary example as to why (most) adult games with sandbox simply don't work. You spend more time fucking around hiding in vents, growing plants, and sending letters in cardboard boxes than actually spending valuable time with the girls or getting to see sex scenes. It's for this very reason that the game has been in development for so long. It's a mile wide and an inch deep.

And don't even get me started on the branching paths. The game does have an in-game walkthrough for quests, but the game tells you jack shit about what quest affects another and what order you should progress them in, what secrets you need to find in the sandbox, or which choices actually matter in the grand scheme of things. Playing this game without a walkthrough is a death sentence, and you WILL have to play through the game multiple times to unlock everything; which, again, wouldn't be so bad if the gameplay wasn't so mind-numbingly boring.

The only reason Another Chance doesn't get a one-star is because the art is fantastic and the writing itself is pretty solid (ignoring all the lazy time-wasting bullshit, of course). I wouldn't recommend playing this until someone makes a walkthrough mod that actually tells you everything you need to know, but even then, still be prepared for a lot of time-wasting bullshit.

Buggy. get soft locked a lot. I didn't enjoy my time. the quest can be a bit confusing without pointer and there is an ingame guide for that. but it's a mess. you don't know which quests is which by the end and the game can end up bugged out.. in my case, the guide only leads to buggy mess.

Good characters, a lot of variety, very enjoyable and good for playing if you are looking for something different. I am looking foward for more content to be released , and I am hoping the devs will keep the good work they are doing with this game. Hope you guys aso enjoy the game as much as I enoyed it.

I'm really mixed for words right now.

I really enjoyed the first season, the art style is nice, all the girls are unique, and aren't boring like a few other games I've seen. I really enjoyed the ability to flirt with all the girls, it made it feel like I could build a harem.
The downsides I had with the first season, was how specific the choices you had to make were, in order to unlock the good content. This lead me to replaying the first season. So. Many. Freaking. Times! To this day, I still don't know how to get Maxine's number, As for Lindsey I'm guessing I have to choose her route instead of Maxine's, and instead of Siding wit Isabel, Kate's number is in Kate's route, which sucks ass.

After playing for hours on end, I had finally done it, I made what I believed to be the best choices to get all the girls...and then season 2 comes in.
Like hurricane Katrina, it came in like a bitch, and left a pile of shit in my mouth.
So, season 2, there's more sex scenes from what I see, but Lo, and behold I can't see a lot of them because of the choices in season 1, and now I'm also being forced/pushed to choose a character, and let go of another. At this point, I felt like I was playing just to get it over with. The time it takes for these events/quests are too long. Wait a fucking week in game to receive something is insane. I was tempted to just stop playing halfway through MrsL quest, and just go to bed.

In conclusion:
Season 1 = really good.
Negatives: Takes waaay too long for a game where you need to replay over, and over to discover everything. Making sex event condition strict was annoying as hell. Wish there was a way to get everything.
Season 2 = okay.
Negatives: Less freedom, plus all the negatives from season 1, near impossible to fix mistakes without restarting the whole game.
Last opinion: Not sure if I want to just drop it like that, but I may just wait until the season's completely finished to see if anything changes.

I LIVE for Kate's story line. One of the best femdom stories I've played so far. Love her character, her bullying, her confidence and the way she treats MC. Don't let her become too nice. I would love her to have an option to cuck MC and get more into the extreme side of domination.

Stories like these have me addicted to lewd gaming.

PLEASE more of Kate!!

This game is all over the place, gameplay loop is for the most part boring. You go to a woman, she tells you what to do and get. You get the thing, you proceed. Least some mini-games could be there but not even that.
The stories and characters are too, all over the place. They try to come off as super deep and complex but are extremely shallow. They're more like caricatures of characters.
Then the game tries to get more serious but most of the game is essentially just comedy, so its really out of place.
The way the character talks is extremely stupid, some of the quests are extremely stupid almost childish. It feels completely chaotic and makes little sense.
The H-scenes are also king of meh at best, the artstyle on its own feels a bit too tame and boring. I mean maybe if you're female you might like this. But otherwise stay away its boring.

We need some more Kate content, currently instead of Kate dominating you, paradoxically you have to go around demanding she doms you like some kind of power bottom and instead of the route being mainly about MC and Kate, the devs for some god forsaken reason started introducing Isabelle into the Kate path, pretty sure the point of choosing the path was to choose who MC will romance (or get romanced by I guess). Although the scenes Kate is in are really fucking hot so I guess the route is good.

Positives: Beautiful 2D art that's mostly consistent. Sex scenes look great and are loosely animated, overall setting is aesthetically rich to the eyes, even the backgrounds are detailed to the bone.

Body proportions are great and varied from another.

Kate is the standout character from the cast, regardless of how people feel about her it's clear why she has more focus in the game compared to other characters.

Negatives: the game is unfortunately, structurally terrible. I also think Kate's route has been handled in a bizarre way. Let's talk about the first point.

There is far too much "you need to do x to unlock y" to the extent it becomes grating and is a common complaint among other players.

Selecting a specific character and wanting to explore their specific route is highly tedious and convoluted, because of how much you need to sidetrack yourself with other characters to return to their route.

Now Kate. This includes spoilers. Kate's Route: I'm left confused at what the writer was trying to do with her character in the end.

They made her get way too sexually focused on Isabella while the relationship between you as the player and Kate gets completely lost and muddy to the degree that the overarching message conveyed is toothless.

You having to demand Kate to dominate you and saying "it should have been me, not her!" is a off-putting dynamic where the sub is having to take expressed control of making Kate dominate him, instead of her. It's very weird and I'm not a fan of it.

Instead of seeing Kate get with the player, we watch Kate fawn and fall in love with Isabella. Sorry, but things that don't involve the player are uninteresting and defeats the point of pursuing her route.

Additionally, the scene where Kate fucks Isabella with a strap-on while wearing the mask on was a turn off. The mask is ugly and distorts the quality of the scene.

Extra: the gallery is quite inconvenient. You have to scroll down repeatedly to get access to scenes you want, which does get laborious.

I think it would be a lot better if it was horizontally designed where you can click to go the next page than having to use a phone to mimic that experience.

Overall: this is a strange one. The art in the game is brilliant and there are wonderful personalities. I'm a fan of the atmosphere and mood of Another Chance.

But the game needs a structural revamp so you're not swamped with dealing with other characters when you're exploring a specific character's route.

And lastly I'm not a fan of how Kate was handled, who is the one of the most important characters in the series.

This could have easily been a 4 or a 5 star.

The art is really good and characters looks cool and interesting.

BUT

All the good things that the game can offer are killed by the grind. And above all, by how convoluted are the solutions to progress through character events,. Making it almost mandatory to use the walkthrough with this game.

It is not fun, it's a chore.

And it's a shame. The game has a good potential.

I enjoyed this game since the dawn of time. and it was one of few unique games on here. It has unique plot nice stories diversity of characters. And even some heart break. I like that game a lot really.

Definitely one of the most grindiest game I've ever played along with Academy34 and Innocent witches. Good art though! I hope they just reduce the amount of grinding and nerf the energy drain, that way this game would definitely become one of the best game in this platform.

I have mixed feeling from this game like a Lot of it, This is A GAME and a very good one it was pretty fun and interesting to play trying to solve the puzzles and that then THAT SCENE just make my willy just stay off all the rest of the playtrough (DEAR GOD I WA SLIKE :O when that shit happened) Still very lovely charchters with an very fun story ond not even boring juuuust in some part when you get stuck and dont know how to continue but you had an option to make it on automatic(Dont do it its just for pussies) still kinda a sahme it not has moreanimated scenes and i hope they add more in the future.
Very good game and Confused wank? (Sorry for my bad english)

One of the best games on f95zone. The only thing missing is more sexy scenes. Like looking down a girls shirt etc.

The animations, character designs and writing are all some of the best in adult games. I've played a lot of these games and this ranks among the best.

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. It's 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 and interesting plot/characters but the game itself 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.