QSP - Girl Life [v0.9.6.1] [community project]

TL: DR: The very best as well as the worst of the sandbox games. Lots of content of wildly variable quality none of which ultimately goes anywhere.

The Good:
Girl Life features a relatively well crafted sandbox system in an engine which probably wasn't meant to accomodate such a thing.
That's quite impressive to begin with.
There's a significant amount of content, a pretty large cast of often well developed characters many of which have unique content attached to them or even can be pursued as love interests.
Personally, I also really dig the 'russia theme' of it all, unrealistic and imperfect as the implementation may be, considering the circumstances and genre, I think it's very impressive, and in parts you really get a feeling of 'being' in russia, experiencing some tiny bits of what life in that country ought to be.
From what I understand, this has its roots in the initially russian version of the game that was first developed like 20 years ago by a russian guy, but for the longest time, it's been pretty well maintained. Recently, the decision was made to move away from this a bit, but we'll have to see where things go in the future.
There are many subsystems, for (obviously) sexual stuff, but also for social interactions, sports, music, fighting, drugs etc., with (especially for the sex stuff) a huge statistical component, it's impressive.

The Bad:
Like your typical real-porn game, the 'art' is all over the place, most characters you see in the videos depicting the action look nowhere near the characters they are supposed to be. Oftentimes, there's an attempt to at least have matching hair colors, but even that is not always maintained (everything goes out of the window, of course, if you decide to dye your hair). Of course, that's what is to be expected in a real-porn game, but I can't say it's a positive for me anyway.
Then there's the content ... like I wrote above, the amount is siginificant, but it's been developed over many years at this point, by developers with different interests and skill levels, and it really shows. There's some commendable effort to keep thing at least somehow 'canon', with people acting 'in character' and stuff, and it often works, but the differences in quality are still huge. This also lead to a frankenstein monster of a codebase, where systems were jury-rigged together with duct-tape and often are prone to failure. For the most part, the game still works (somehow), but this is to a large part to a large amount of workarounds and creative solutions in the codebase.
Why should you be interested in the codebase, you ask? Well, let's get to that. As of the time I'm writing this, I'd say large parts of the game are basically unplayable unless you are willing and able to open the sourcecode and double check things there. Many storylines have pretty obscure triggers at various points, and many storylines just end (have no more new content) at a random, unannounced point in the plot, and how else would you be able to discern between these two scenarios?
I reckon you could join the Discord and ask there, but you'd have to do a ton of asking. Last time I played years ago, there was a wiki, but it was taken down at some point due to the sexual content of the game, and the current wiki is more like a placeholder and lacks 95% of the information you might need.
There IS an ingame 'quest journal', but it covers only I'd say 30-50% of the game's quests, and even with the ones covered it's not always really clear what you have to do next. Things are really, REALLY rocky in this part.
The unfinished storylines are a huge negative. Some of the plots are still actively developed, others have been abandoned and it's unclear whether they'll ever continue.
It's a jarring experience as a player, and I wasn't kidding in the TL: DR, ALL of the storylines are unfinished. Some at least tell you so (in the quest journal, for example), some reach an 'equilibrium', i.e. you go steady with someone, but then there's basically no new content in most cases.
Many things in the game are also 'dynamic', for example the school days, and they are extremely thin on content and thus extremely repetetive.
Finally, in the 'Good' section I mentioned the sandbox system in an engine not meant for it, this also is a pretty huge negative. Sandbox games are infamous for their 'grind', but Girl Life takes it to a whole other level. Every day takes SO many clicks to get through, you have to experience it to believe it.

Conclusion:
If you're willing to weather the negatives, Girl Life is definitely worth trying, worth experiencing, but (as of now) you should be able to check the code or, hopefully at some later point in time, willing to play 'by the wiki' and prepared to run into a lot of content that is likely never going to get finished.
And, just to reiterate that, you have to be able to tolerate the inconsitencies of a real-porn game, that's a given.

Dude, I've wasted waaay too many hours on this game.

Sooo much stories to uncover.
Sooo much stuff to do.
Sooo many people to meet.
Quite amazing.

Just one thing, though;
Once you're almost played through it once, there's not much replay value.
Since it literally takes you to play through a couple of years in a girls life, to see all the content, it's not as interesting and quite grindy, to do it all over again.
And most stories don't have a different ending, but are rather a one-time-experience.

Still a great masterpiece of work!

A game that even after a long time still has a very passion community creating it, and each version gets better and better, especially with the various quailty of life updates.

Community projects always get really messy at the end of the day, but girl life controls it pretty well. Of course there are the usual problems such as inconsistent writing, but overall it's really amazing that this project been handle. I mean, this project has to have been in development for like 10 years?

I simply came so many times on this game and imagining myself the PC and we are facing a lot of choices that shape our world. Stunning and well picked pics and emotional depth make it immersive. 11/10.
simply a master piece

This is probably the game that best combines expansive sandbox with engaging story-telling.

As a life-simulator, you're never out of something to do, some goal to chase, and you can see your life change dynamically as your stats change.

The pacing should be a standard for this kind of game. Actions take a realistic amount of time and you can walk around doing different things along the day without running out of time to do what you want.

There's a multitude of characters with interesting arcs, woven carefully enough to not feel like "normal" interactions ignore your history in dealing with those characters, in specific arcs.

There are specific arcs that completely change the course of your game, such as being publicly defiled and having your reputation ruined - but they're avoidable and (albeit with a lot of effort) can be reversed. Which means the game isn't woven in a way that always forces you to follow paths; most of the time you have leeway to deal with situations in whichever way the general game mechanics provide you with. Taking the example of having your school girl reputation ruined, it's possible to either embrace being an outcast slut, or strive to slowly get your standing back, and this doesn't require specific events that don't serve other purposes - all you need to do is play the game and do the things that allow your reputation to improve, while avoiding those that do the opposite.

This makes for the best gaming experience a life sim game can offer, and brings me back to the beginning: the balancing of scheduled and random events, and dynamic story telling.

Graphics are real porn images and videos, which I consider a bonus. I generally hesitate to play a text-only game, but this one would work even if it had no visuals. But it does, and some scenes are actually quite sexy, adding some visual familiarity to characters and repeatable scenes. The dynamic body display is clever.

A great thing about a truly open world, open ended game is that development can go on indefinitely, while the game already doesn't feel incomplete. I hope development keeps going in the same enthusiastic pace and along the same guidelines. I'd add that, since there is ongoing development, some story arcs are indeed not complete, and you can feel it when you stop getting new events. Recent development, however, seems to have adopted a method of leaving each character's arc in a state where you have a repeatable set of actions available with a character once you reach a point in your relationship with them. The game really works best if you adopt a daily routine and roleplay, so, for example, visiting your girl/boyfriend to chat and maybe some more, is an adequate "status quo" until more content is added to that character's arc. You can follow multiple characters' arcs in a single playthrough, although some may stop dating you if they realise you're seeing others, which isn't extraordinary.

Overall, I consider this the gold standard of qsp games, and don't see any reason to not give it five golden stars.

Still one of the OG greats, still adding new content. For anyone complaining about it being grindy, just cheat at the start or use the character creator to reduce inhibition to zero, you can access sleeping around almost immediately, or go to the school dances, get drunk, make out with boys and accept people propositioning you - it's not that hard to get lewd content. If you want to play it straight, it's perfectly fine too - you can play a virgin run. The content is crazy, so many stories - i've been playing on and off for about 150 hours in total, and i'm still discovering new content (in the latest releases). It's actually pretty impressive. There's a crappy magic combat system, if you're bored you can play it with magic, with gender swap, or you can play it realistically. Nearly everything is customizable through the cheat menu as well, which is there for QoL stuff, so use it.
There were some awesome mods too, especially Whore's life, but looks like it's not that compatible with the current releases and it hasn't been updated in ages. But that added a LOT of content.

I really enjoy games like this, and if it's something you're into there's a lot here to enjoy. And I mean a lot, this probably has the most content of any game on the site.

The problem really lies with accessing the content. It's just so grindy. I know the grind is kind of the point since it's essentially a gender swap sim, but it's way grindier than any other game I've ever played like this. The actual content is very sparse and requires you to do hyper specific things to the point where the juice is just not worth the squeeze and I can't fully recommend the game.

I really want to like it, and honestly if you don't mind the tedium of the grind and exploration it could be your favorite game, but I just think it's too much.

I have probably spent well over 200-300h on this game at this point, trying out various routes and activities.

I quite enjoy the game, needless to say and a lot of reviews have done a good job covering the upsides of this game, so i am not going to cover those.
Instead i will allow myself, once more, to be the Negative Nancy here:

THIS GAME IS A MESS

It is a community project, so the writing, the game mechanics, UI, visuals, integration and interaction between events and states is ALL OVER the place. This title is well overdue for a major refactoring (not gonna happen for quite obvious reasons, i know).
The quest-log/diary is inconsistent as fuck. Some plot-lines are not tracked at all, others are not present at all.
It has been a hot minute since i touched the game, so i may not remember all of the issues i noticed, but rest assured, there are many.

Nevertheless, this project has the most content out of all the "life sims" out there. No contest. So don't let my lamentations dissuade you from giving it a try!

"But The Itch, sir" i hear you say: "it is a community project, you can join the community and do all those things yourself, you handsome devil, you!"
"No, i am too lazy, entitled, and unwilling to learn, fuck off!" i respond.
And yes, i recognize that the game is completely free, but hey, i want to see it improve regardless!

And while honestly, objectively, given the ratio of jank/gold this game has i probably should not give it 5/5. Fuck objectivity, i am starting a new playtrough!

If you want to play as a girl in a sandbox game, this is the best choice for you.

I only mention disadvantages because I really can't find another female-protagonist game like this:

1. You need to be used to the QSP engine. It will be very annoying when you firstly play a QSP game compared to Renpy, HTML, RPGM, or others.

2. This game is very grindy, like real daily life. Drink, eat, sleep, go to school, get ready for the period, etc. So don't hesitate to cheat to improve your looks, skills, somethings else before you quitting. Or you can disable some daily routines, like eating or drinking, even sleeping.

3. Some people may hate the game at first, because they don't know what to do and get frustrated due to some many options. But you can give it a second or third chance. Like I said, this is literally the best sandbox game in terms of female protagonist.

4. It's hard to be a prude in this game. You can try to be a good girl, but this is a porn game after all, and there are too many random events. It's more likely a "slutty girl life" than a "GIRL life"

5. Apply the biological intelligence to getting used to the changing avatars or images from various real pornographies. Imagination can make the game much more interesting.

pretty dope if you want to play as a girl, lots of different options and a very good UI that allows you to tailor the experience to fit your needs, it is translated from Russian so yes its got its flaws, but its easily the best adult game on qsp

Gameplay:
Massive exploration sandbox RPG. NOT A VISUAL NOVEL.
Probably one of the most elaborate QSP game around. It's a daily routine where you need to do tasks (eating, sleeping, sim-life) and choose to increase stats (relationships, skills) through various activities. You also have to chose a faction which will set your starting stats, and has effect on some routes. Then you explore the world and there are many of stories around.

Story:
The main story is that you will follow and act on the life of a schoolgirl through a very long time. Many stories are around, from small events to more complex chain of events that may take months to unravel. You have to chose what to focus on, and depending on stats, things may happen or not. The aim is to feel quite realistic, beware of what you do to avoid getting pregnant or have disease or become an outcast.
One thing a bit special is that the setting is in a russian town (the game was originally developed in russia). So, you have this specific russian atmosphere present, which is quite interesting.

Graphics/Animation:
A lot of pictures taken from pron movies, and a few short movie clips. But you'll have to use your imagination, because it's not consistent as there are pictures from different people to represent a character. The game is mostly driven by the text.

Sound/Music
A few music and some environment sounds, but it's quite anecdotal.

Overall impression:
This game may look confusing and boring at a first glance. It takes quite some time to develop some stories, sometimes you don't really know if it's a dead end or if something will happen (quest log is helpful, yet don't cover everything). It's like a sim-life game. The challenge to find a relation that will lead to some lewd actions is quite addicting.

I give 5 stars, which may seems overrated. On my first play, 2 years ago, I was very hooked up to the game. My second play (from scratch) was more difficult, but I ended up being hooked up again. It seems like there is always something new to find.

Love the tags. Love FeMCs. Love FeMC corruption life-sims.

Man I hated trying to play this. The engine completely ruined it for me. Imagine Ren'Py but with all the clunkiness, lag, and jank of RPGM. The UI of QSP is so UGLY and difficult to configure and use. I could never get it to not feel like 2000's era Russian malware.

Unless you're completely enchanted with the admittedly novel and inspiring crowd-made origin of the game, it feels like a total and complete chore to get it to a remotely playable state. And even when you do, the content is middling at best. Like others have said, wide, but not deep. +1 for the attempt.

Not as good as I would like it to be. Two points, however I will give it three. Firstly for the attempt and ongoing development, and secondly because there is nothing better than GL on QSP anyway.
I need to do simple monotonous actions to get a scene consisting of a picture (there is often no picture) and three or sometimes one line of text. These scenes are, like, wow, they're primitive, they're flat and boring. They're not exciting. It's like they're unfinished, and they're really unfinished because the game grows in breadth but not in depth. Hopefully that will change someday.
The team definitely needs someone to tidy up the text in the scenes, I'm not expecting Alexandre Dumas level, but something better than the current text is needed. It would also be nice to replace some of the pictures with better ones, because these have been moving from QSP game to QSP game for over eight years now and they are clearly outdated.

It is about time I rated this game, it is one of the first games I played here and the one I have played the most.

To say that it has a lot of content would be an understatement. You play as Sveta, a 17 year old girl. From that point, you can customize everything about her, from her physical characteristics to her personality. You have a lot of different origins to start from and while these make it easier to go in one path or another, all choices are still available to you.

The game tries to simulate life for this girl and there are a lot of mundane, every day activities you will need to do, from eating, showering, brushing your hair or teeth... to going to school, studying, working ...etc.

You are presented, nearly everywhere you go, with choices on how to behave, and these will ultimately decide what kind of content you will experience, for example, close the door to the bathroom while showering? you won't be peeped on, leave it unlatched? ok, then your brother and step father will spy on you. Once they spy on you, how do you react? yell at them? ignore them? invite them in?

The same kind of choices are present on nearly everything, some times doing certain choices (or avoiding them) will require "willpower" , a stat that increases or decreases based on your previous choices as well (the more submissive you become, the lower willpower you will have, so the harder it will be to avoid certain bad things happening).

The game can be daunting, but the systems within work really well and the feeling of being this 17 year old girl is really well achieved. You can roleplay and immerse yourself in the character thanks to the amount of content, the good quality of writing and the hundreds of pictures and gifs that represent very accurately the actions being described in the text.

Some people complain that they can't find content, I guess that due to its amount, it can be daunting if you act in a very conventional way, however this is a game that rewards exploration and daring. Do not just take a shower after gym class, but stay to take a longer shower... do not just dance at the party, but go talk to other characters and drink a little with them.... go to the deeper part of the park.... explore the city, its characters, give in to temptation or focus on your studies, you have content in all paths and you can see wholesome stories, orgies, and much, much darker stuff.

It is all within your control in this game. It is not even finished and it is already an easy 5/5

the game is amazing, wish there was more evilness to it but eh maybe in the future right i love the game overall has lots of content by far then any other game, plus the community is very active which is good as well

Good bones but not much else, content is very mile wide and inch deep. I admire its a community project but that also means its lacks focus. There will be content that you're just not interested in and other content that you are, will be shallow. Played from High school to first 3 months in Uni and felt I'd seen what interests me. Hopefully game will develop more and I will come back to it.

A bit too grindy. While the concept is good, the fact that is a community project also means it lacks some direction and consistency. I wish it was more game focused then simulation focused. The cheat menu makes it bearable for returning players, though it should be expanded and many secret "game checks" are untold, unknown or broken by new updates.

The very existence of this totally voluntary community-based XXX game project, along with the consistency of development, already made this game a miracle, and worth 5 stars alone.

AND that was not to mention that it is in fact THE most content-rich and kink-rich open-world real-life simulation adult game throughout the cyberspace.

How did I forget to review this on here.. So I've been playing this game off of tfgames for... geez... more years then I think just about any other game. Its like.. the benchmark of open-world XXX games far as I'm concerned. And, since its been continuously developed by incredible volunteers for years, I can't imagine how any other game will ever quite have a chance of catching up to the sheer amount of content and polish. Is it perfect, like we might expect for a AAA game made for a million dollars? No. Is it absolutely incredible? Absolutely. Just... play it, there's nothing for me to say that isn't in the tags. Its incredible and, at this point, pretty much part of the history and benchmarks of this genre.

It's an absolute tidal wave of content, it's not necessarily all GOOD, but there's just a ton of it.
Go anywhere, do anything.
Sex with whoever or whatever, amass a giant collection of sex toys, go be a bug chaser in an alley somewhere, whatever you want.

Sounds nice and all, but the game's jank as hell, and there's just so much content that a lot of individual things were left behind or underdeveloped.