Ren'Py - Lessons in Love [v0.41.0] [Selebus]

Firstly, while it's my favorite game on the site, there are cons worth mentioning. As I'm sure other reviews talked about, this VN is very...very long. Almost exhaustingly so. It doesn't make it bad but if you're a completionist just be sure to take plenty of breaks. Don't make the mistake I made and try to beat it in a week. You won't. Aside from that there are a lot of very jarring scenes, which are put in intentionally to be offputting. I personally don't mind them, but some might. And finally, there are impassible blocks in the game designed specifically to force you to look up resolutions and come back to the thread. I think it's an interesting way to spark community engagement, but I wish the puzzles were at least solvable.
Positives: If you're willing to read all the text (this game is literally longer than the bible) There are some really great characters who each have important elements that reoccur and sometimes resolve in satisfying ways. It pulls at the heartstrings which is not something I expect from eroge. Would recommend.

This review should be almost entirely spoiler free.
TL;DR great story and characters but the porn sucks.

Pros:
This game is loooong.
The characters are good and somewhat diverse. While almost every (dateable) character fits some kind of stereotype they are still nice and varied.
The characters are all pretty likeable in their own way (at least for me). Except the MC. More on that later.
The story is pretty interesting.

Neutral:
The writing feels kinda pretentious sometimes if that makes sense. I didn't mind though.
Seriously, the game is super freaking long. Like about three times as long as LotR last time I checked. Might be too much for some people.
The story might not be everyone´s cup of tea. Check the tags.
It takes hours to get to the action. I didn't mind, but don't play this for the porn probably (it sucks anyway, see cons).
In general everything takes very long to get going. The story and character development could have probably been edited down by 50% and still be very coherent. I enjoyed the slow pace though. YMMV.
This game is hyped a lot on this site. So if you play it with very high expectations you might be disappointed. Not saying the game is bad, but it also probably isn't a perfect 5/7 GOTY for most folks. Just temper your expectations

Cons:
The MC is a massive fucking prick. It's probably supposed to be that way and without spoiling anything it fits the game pretty well I think. But it's still annoying to me. Might not be a problem for most people.
The porn is meh. It's standard honey select fare or whatever devs use to get this anime look. It looks very mediocre honestly. Also every sex scene is tinged with desperation (on the girls side) and feels super creepy. Which is probably the correct way to write a sex scene in a game in which almost every dateable character is of, at best, questionable age. But it still put me off personally. Which honestly might be the point. You never know with this game.


I thought about giving this 4 stars but honestly it IS a standout game on this site.

This is legitimately one of my favorite games ever. Yes it's a VN but man, I got so involved in the story I think I actually god a bit addicted to it in an unhealthy way lol.
Thanks Selebus for this game.

Terrible Event Loop and Loop again No walkthrough i'm stuck at RESET EVENT Loop and Loop and Loop annoying me and i'm read a comment just go to Shrine and pray Yeah i'm pray PRAY more than 100 times now but nothing happen It Just 0.5.0 Event Content But i'm not even in 0.28.0 Content I'm going to drop this game again because of this
i can't pass it Start Over 10 times Still same
I HATE THIS LOOP WORLD IS BROKEN LIKE MY MIND gonna take a break

This is one of the best and probably the best written VN on this site. Beware that this is a VN first and an eroge second. There is no constant arousal and also about as much emotionally disturbing content as that. If you are willing to tolerate a lot of text then this can be heartily recommended though. Only problem for me is that you need to use a guide mod or the wiki to find events and push the story forward, which is annoying and unnecessary.

Lessons in Love is not going to live up to the hype if you've been around the block for a while.

It's supposed to be this "philosophical" game that asks us - people who play porn games - questions that the game developer and its fans think we never thought to ask ourselves, such as "damn is incest kinda fucked up?" or "damn is abusing our position of power to get some pussy fucked up?" or even - THE HORROR - "Is taking advantage emotionally vulnerable women to get some pussy fucked up?".

Unfortunately for the developer, these questions are fairly entry level if you've played over even 10 non-indie, japanese visual novels. One hour of euphoria has more fucked up content and makes me question how down I'm willing to go than the 40 hours I sunk into this.

The fourth wall breaks are random, don't come with any worthwhile long-term effects apart from one scene in the middle of the game, the sandbox is woefully slow and painfully boring as most sandboxes are, none of the characters feel decently fleshed out enough because there's just so fucking many, and the scenes that directly address the reader to say "hey are these things fucked up?" are short, quickly end, and don't really become a theme throughout the game, making it feel as if the game is scared of coming into these things too strongly.

The end result is just that: a game that fails to be philosophically or morally intriguing and interesting because it is scared to lean heavily into these things AND the themes are also fairly soft to begin with, while ALSO being a game that fails to be good to fap to because of the woeful sandbox and sheer amount of characters. Therefore, there is nothing to say about LiL other than it is painfully average.

However! LiL is a good intro into the denpa-style genre or these more self-reflective visual novels, of which we can include several known games ranging from Subahibi to Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo to Koi. If you've never played this, holy shit, LiL must feel stellar.

But if you've been around the block and played any number of these types of VNs with fourthwall breaks or denpa/ethical questions, LiL is painfully, painfully average.

Why am I on day 47 and I still haven't seen one piece of action literally on like over a month worth of lines and lines and paragraphs and more paragraphs about how much they like Vanilla Icecream or whatever other subject that I honestly did not look for when I search for 'loli' games bruv.... What are these reviews of 4.5 stars for a game longer than the Holy Bible my god....

Do not recommend it unless you like to spend hours and hours reading meaningless 'dates' that lead to nothing even after almost 2 months into game-time. Sex scenes after almost reaching 'end-game' aren't even that great; 2 outta 5 stars is overrating this tbh

This is not a game. This is a visual novel. This is not porn; it is an artistic creation that contains porn. If you are looking for a quick fap, especially if you were drawn to the game because of a transgressive tag (rape, incest, cheating, school setting, loli, virgin)... THEN CONGRATULATIONS, you are the target audience! I strongly encourage you to play this game!

This game can make all of your fantasies a reality! Isn't that wonderful!? You get to rape people! You get to fuck a vulnerable family member you are supposed to keep safe! You get to create a harem by lying to the people who trust you! You can prey upon women desperate for attention because the men they love are off dying in a war! Isn't that what you came here to do?

Oh, and the game is FREE! It's updated regularly and currently is the longest visual novel ever created! SO MUCH CONTENT!

Aren't you happy!? How can you not be happy?! You're getting everything you want. All you have to do is click a box! All you have to do is agree to be an abuser keep playing.

And get this! In this universe, for reasons I won't reveal, it might not even be possible for you to be accountable! Remember, it's just a game. Just something you do so you can get off. These are just images on a screen—lines of dialogue and narration. Nothing is real!

If you enjoy playing the game, you can donate to the artist and join the discord--filled with other people like you! Don't you want to meet other people who like to play games with the tags you searched for? Why not tell your friends about this game so that they can learn more about your hobbies?

I love this game. The themes it explores are worth exploring. If you give this game one star, I suggest you take a long look in the mirror. Why would anyone like us, the people who found this game, deserve to feel comfortable? We all have darkness in us. Did you think playing a game like this would give you an outlet for that darkness? Were you looking to explore that darkness in a comfortable and reassuring setting?

The people who don't like this game are the target audience and the people who could most benefit from playing it. The questions it asks us are questions worth asking. It's not the game's fault when the player can't answer those questions.

TLDR: If you read the other reviews and think you'll hate it. Play it. It was made just for you.

Edit to add: the most ringing endorsement is just above my post. There is a 3-star review complaining about LiL being inferior to Subahibi and Totono. They are two of the greatest visual novels of all time. Each required dozens of people to make. The fact that it's drawing those types of comparisons says a lot about the game and the person making it. Oh, and for the record, I've played both, and I liked LiL better than Totono and more accessible than Subahibi. I have no problem dying on this hill.

It started like an excellent game but by time, it's lost it's chops. Still great work and it motivated me to start and work over my own vn. Selebus's doing an outstanding job with it and I hope he is OK. But since the last two or three updates, I think he should start to wrap the story up. It is going out of nowhere and some gimmicks of the game are starting to be annoying. That's my take.

The story is not bad, but the MC like in most of the VNs here, is dumb as fuck, he is a guy that aparently died and now is in a teacher's body, obviously he has no idea of teaching so his way to save himself and don't let the girls know that he doesn't know what he is doing, tell to the girls that he won't teach them anymore, that is a new system he is trying, that they should study by themself, and we know that the MC is not going to grade them or do anything, is pretty stupid and makes no sense, at least give a better excuse. Why no one knows that he is not teaching? Looks like the school is a ghost building because looks like there is not principal or other teachers that would complain or take actions against the MC.
The MC is lusting over all the girls and he doesn't hide it, a girl tell him that he just want to fuck other girl and his response is "yes, I want to fuck her" or he stay in silent, that is the same that say yes, really?? What kind of stupid and virgin guy does that?
Your decisions means shit, the game and the developer lie saying that your decisions have an impact and that is not true, you have to grind love and lust points talking to the girls and most of the times there aren't decisions, you just gain a point for read all the text, the game is almost 100% kinetic, there is nothing to do, like I said, you have to grind a lot because only in weekends you can expend time with most of the girls and see an event, to do the dorm event you have to have a good relationship with both girls that live in that room, so more grind. I have no problem with games that are slow paced but I hate games that are grindy like this one, those are different things. Pretty dissapointed.

Great text! But the game is not for a quick pass with the key held down. For a full understanding of what is happening, you need to read carefully. The pictures serve only for easy illustration of the text.

The bad: Terrible pacing. The horror (if you want to call it that) existential bs is a huge turn-off. It's just thrown in your face and feels completely out of place. LOTS of reading with NOTHING happening. Pointless grind for stats when story progress is linear and vast majority of choices don't matter. "There is always something to do in Lessons in Love." No there isn't. No matter how efficiently you grind stats there will be several days in game of no events and just grinding (unless the grind is counted as "something to do").
It does have good renders. I also like several of the character interactions outside of the main story with exception to the ones with the stupid "horror" shift forcing the mc out of it because I need edgy edgelord bs thrown in my face again.

This is a review of version 26part3

Pros:
+ Awesome strories of girls, that can make you laugh, feel sad or uncomfortable
+ If it clicks with you this game will make you care about them and interested what happens next
+ Great variety of girls, of different shapes and sizes
+ Interesting MC that is relatable (at least for me). He's a deeply flawed man but it's a deeply flawed world we live in. And he has some redeeming qualities
+ Graphics is nice
+ Main story idea
+ Frequent and steady stream of updates

Cons:
- Main story execution is a bit convoluted and too pretentious for me
- Vanilla gameplay - for the love of god, if you're not a masochist play this game with a guide mod or you will be pulling your hair out after one hour with this game.
- H scenes are a bit below average compared to most games here
- Nodoka

Overall:
Overall, I think that if for you a good story in a game is more important than just H scenes I think you should try it. You may hate it but chances are you will enjoy the ride like the rest of us. I would rate it 9/10.

Updated for 0.29

TLDR; Game is weird and that's good. Unless you don't like weird, then it's bad. Game isn't just about sex, but relationships. So while there is plenty of sex, there's also a lot of romance. And manipulation. This game will make you feel something. Good, bad, horny, disgusted. I can't promise what it is, but I can promise you'll feel. Read on for more details!

Personally, I think this is the best game on the site. The writing is intelligent and well-done, the lore is complex enough to encourage theory-crafting, the characters are all unique, there's variation in body types, and it accomplishes an incredible feat by making characters both anime-ish and realistic at the same time by making them flawed. There are characters with depression, trauma, ASPD, PTSD, grief, emotional baggage...

If you're looking for a game just to fap to, this is not the one. When I played this game for the first time, I dropped it pretty quickly. I wasn't in the right mind-space to play it. But after revisiting it, I've played it through completely twice (which it has at least 40 hours of gameplay to it right now, btw).

This game is art and you can't convince me otherwise. The subject matter is horrifying, it's aware it's horrifying, and that's largely the point. The game itself asks you to stop playing it on multiple occasions, calling the player out for continuing and making the choices that they do. And those choices matter in this game, btw. They have long-lasting consequences that change the story in both small and large ways.

Still not sold? The game consistently updates every month with hours of new content. And the dev? Constantly active, providing timelines for releases months in advance, and actually sticking to them. This is his job and he very clearly treats it like one.

As much as I'm fanboying in this review, there's negatives to it too. First off, trigger warning for suicide, body dysmorphia, childhood sexual abuse, rape, blood, gore, disturbing images, and psychological horror. Also something that can be frustrating is that while choices have consequences, they can also lock you out of certain paths and content. A choice made in chapter 1 can lock you out of things in chapter 3, 30+ hours of gameplay later. Sometimes being a good person comes at the cost of getting what you want, like sex scenes. And sometimes being a bad person can push someone away, costing you things you may enjoy like a romantic scene. It is possible to play in such a way that you can view all content in a single playthrough, but without following a guide or paying close attention to the wiki, it's unlikely you'll do so on accident.

The game also doesn't offer in-game hints on how to progress, though it does have a link to the wiki. Without the wiki, it would take you forever to figure out how to progress.

This negative may also be a positive, depending on the type of person you are, but in-game puzzles are not skippable and the wiki does not offer solutions to them. The game leaves small hints to puzzle solutions, but you have to really be looking for them to find them. Solutions to puzzles may require you to review past events in the archive. They may be what you thought were throw-away lines or hidden in the backgrounds of scenes. Or in the audio. The game demands your full attention and if you want to continue being a horrible person by playing it, you'll need to put forth the effort. Some people legit keep notes!

Finally, this game requires a bit of grinding. It's really not much, but it exists. You can cheat, but you run the risk of having your save file flagged for doing so. Being flagged as a cheater can change some scenes and dialogue. There's also no telling how it may effect things by the game's end.

And that's everything! Hopefully that answers any and all questions you may have and will help you figure out if you want to play. If you enjoy it, be sure to throw the dev some cash. He's certainly earned it.

This game is pretty thoroughly reviewed, so I just want to voice that I don't find the writing good.

I played this game specifically for how good everyone said the story and writing is. Part one will trick you into thinking that something might happen, but it quickly goes nowhere. I stopped playing about halfway into part 2. It's 'edgelord deep' at best, imo.

If you thought the TV show Lost was well written and you were satisfied by how it ended, this game might be for you.

Pros:
1. The writing.
This is not only the best written H game I've ever played, it's one of the best written things I've seen in general, including books, movies, tv shows, etc. The characters feel incredibly human, they're super witty, and the game overall feels super believable. The depictions of most mental illnesses are incredibly well done. The fact that the writing is so good really makes me wish the rest of the game weren't so fucking dogshit.

Cons:
1. The characters are all first year high schoolers. Pretty fucked up.
2. The story is just not enjoyable. You play as an self-proclaimed asshole who goes around hurting and traumatizing all these girls. Half the H scenes have the girls crying.
3. On that note, if you're into the game for H scenes, don't bother. It's hours between each, and they just aren't good.
4. There is so much fucking grinding in this game, it's exhausting as fuck. 90% of it is filler, and it does not give you hints about where to go or what to do so you can either look it up or spend an hour of your life trying fucking everything until something gives you a new event. Idk how braindead the dev has to be to design a game this way.
5. The puzzles are absolutely retarded. It scatters clues in throughout hours of gameplay and it expects you to remember everything and write down a bunch of random details to use later on. The puzzles aren't even good either. If you look up the answers on this site you'll find condescending posts by the dev shaming people for not wanting to participate in his garbage half-rate puzzles.
6. There is potentially NTR in this game. The main character has amnesia, but there is a scene where the main? love interest is raped by a shadowy figure while the MC watches. I say "potentially" because the nature of this scene hasn't been revealed yet. The game implies this is a memory of something that happened in the past. Also, if NTR does not have to include just males, there is a bunch of unavoidable content where love interests get sexual with other girls.
7. It's pretty boring at times, especially at the beginning. Which is a major problem since its so long.
8. While the depiction of most mental disorders is super good, the depiction of bipolar is wildly over the top and the depiction of brain damage/anomia is laughably bad.
9. Nodaka.
10. The art. I mean its as good as Koikatsu can pump out, but that's not a high bar.
11. There are lots of scenes in the game where the dev breaks the fourth wall and starts relaying messages directly to the player. And every single one of these involve him being a narcissistic condescending elitist cunt. Which I guess is to be expected of someone who made a game like this.
12. I just struggle to see the point of this game. The H scenes suck. It's not at all romantic. The story is long and drawn out and boring a lot of the time. What am I playing this for? To grind for hours so I can watch girls get hurt and cry?

In conclusion, I really wanted to like this game. The writing alone kept me playing for a lot longer than I expected it would. But despite it being so well written, it just does literally everything else so incredibly poorly that I cannot keep playing.

This one's hard to judge. It's basically a very polarizing Doki Doki Literature Club with a lot of added grind, written by someone with considerable writing talent; the latter point is something I don't say lightly.

When it's about characters, their problems, the ways they cope, and the fact that the MC is a fairly shitty person, the writing is often good, and sometimes even great. Most of the meta humor is also above average. Especially considering the large number of characters, they feel distinct and most of them qualify as at least interesting. On the other hand, when it's trying for random creepiness with OMG HEXIDECIMAL! FLICKERING! STUFF IS SCRIBBLED OUT!, it comes off as overly pretentious and not anywhere near as clever as it thinks it is.

It also does not hold your hand, at all. You'd best pay attention to the random musings and be willing to experiment if you're not using a guide: this one is LONG, and it has no interest in telling you what to do. If you don't like figuring stuff out for yourself, either grab a guide or steer clear.

I'm still giving it a 5 for what it represents as much as anything else. I did enjoy it, and again, the author actually shows more writing ability than a lot of the other stories and games you'll find here. They're very clearly designing the exact game that they want, and that's absolutely going to put people off. Nonetheless, I think the story shows what these games are capable of, and I think that deserves praise.

If you're not prepared for a very slow burn with a lot of grind and no hand-holding, go far, far away from this one. But if those things don't scare you, there's a lot to like here.

(Disclameir: not a native speaker, sorry for any grammar errors, feel free to point them out and teach me on why they are wrong, if you feel like it)
To start of, the game isn't perfect, far from it, its a flawed game, and even so, it is one of, if not my favorite 18+ game.

i will sort this review in 6 points:''gameplay'', the wold kumoni(lore and stuff), the characters(desing, renders etc), actual porn and sexual content, my final thoughts and TLDR

Gameplay:

It's horrible, it's so bad that this game went from 5/5 to a almost 3,5, if you don't already love the game or have a hell ton of patience, trying to find new events will make you mad beyond any sense of reason, sometimes you have to go to the most random place at the most random time AND have a certain amount of affenction for no fucking reason, some times i even wonder if this game was made with the intention of using a guide, and there is 2 part that you will 99% NEED a guide (end of both chapters if am not wrong) if the game explained even a tiny bit better like some hint or even a confirmation that you can do certain event it would make the game so much better, and besides that, the actual game is really harsh, like, if you make a single mistake you can lose an entire scene or even whole paths without any sort of warning, selebus really should have used the rework to better the actual ''game'' side of the game.

The wold Kumo-mi:

if you can some how ignore the actual bad game desing, you are greeted with an actual amazing story, sometimes a bit tone deaf but amazing, you must be wondering why did a give this game 4/5 after such a rant about the actual game, and the reason is that the characters, the world, dialogue is just amazing, yeah, it isn't for everyone, the absurd amount of monologues and fourth wall breaking can get a bit annoying and the jokes might fall flat if you just doesn't have that kind o sense of humor, but if you can just ignore the fourth wall or even get used to it, if you have that sense of humor, you will love almost every single event, this is the first porn gam to actually make me laught almost every 10 minutes in every single update, and even being beyond gooffy, it can become serious and even in some rare moment make me feel for certain characters, if you are the type of person to get attached easily, you are going for an amazing ride, trust me.
without much spoilers, all that i can say about the lore is: some stuff is really on your face, other are left for you to find your own answer, and even so, i just can't get enough of it, the mysteries, the goffynes, everything about just clicks for me, and even if don't like stuff like the monologuing, i wouldn't change a single thing about it,besides the ami dream on the start of the game after the rework, remove that scene, its the most tone deaf free spoooooooky scene for no reason, it make no sense to be that early on the game, it seems like it was made for those replaying and not just starting the game

The characters:

This might change over time, since the actual characters desings change along side the chapters, but, i think this game nailed on them, well, most of them, characters like chapter 3 rin, or chapter 2 ami, just look amazing, most character are based on certain tropes, but with a twist, like maya is the tsudere, but she knows more than it seems, and i think that this choice is amazing, you can almost always know what a character is about with no more than 2 to 3 lines of dialogues and how they look, but they aren't stuck to theirs stereotypes, so it easy to get suprised, well,it was, with time you just expect characters to just have sad story, so you can just look at them and say ''cool, another characters, let's see just what sad thing she has to offer''
but some times its just someone is normal, or just depraved, like the mc.
and while im on it, i will just say it, sensei render seems weird... not bad, just inconsistent, like, his body is of an adult, but his face doesn't seem like it, along side that, his personality is the what most ppl hate and love about this game: ''oh im sad, quirky, outright a piece of shit and think that im smarter than any one else'' and like most things, if you just can't stand him, you won't be able to enjoy the game.



The porn:

I did not say it until now but, this game doesn't have that much sex as it has dialogue and cockblocking, like, this game is 2 years old (and counting) and there are characters that have been here since release with no sex scenes what most game have of 18+ in like half a year to a year, lil doesn't have in 2.
and that is not a bad thing! but not for every one, you game is more about dialogue and it's story than sex appeal, the start of the game is the slowest point in terms of sex, you will have to wait up to 1/2/3 hours to even get a single scene (deleted scenes/ami weird shit doesn't count) but with time it gets more frequent, but don't get used to it, sex scenes are the most affected to selebus bad desing choices, since you can lose some of for even to get enough lust in time( with no prior warning lol)

My final thoughts:

This took longer than i thought, so let's wrap it up , the game is flawed, it's not for everyone and that okay! those who don't like it will not like no matter how much they try, and those who like it will also keep on liking them, until selebus bad game desing make them stop. most of the flaws come from the actual gameplay, and i know it may be too much to ask for it when the worst part of a game is the ''gameplay'', but give it a try, you might enjoy it, you might hate it, it fully depends on what make a good game for you, i fucking love it, and some the shity sandbox won't stop me, also, if you are starting now, just use the mod that give you a guide, it will make your experience much better, if you are like me playing updates as soon as they release, i wish us good luck, well praise be or some cringy reference (please let's tone down on them...)
(selebus did nodoka dirty, i actually liked her before the bathroom incident selebus do a redemption arc for her, i won't forget, but i will try to forgive, also, fuck kirin and niki nakayama best girl, and i will die on this hill, fight me)
Tldr:


Amazing lore and characters only held back by shitty game desing

Just a waste of time if you are not eager to read tons of debatably interesting "character development" without plot, only to watch some weird semi-horror porn. And the last part comes only after ~10 hours of reading. Maybe. I wish somebody would give my hours I spent on this back.

And please - don't do favor to this game, mentioning Doki Doki. Dan Salvato with all his respect have made free and short visual novel without porn. While this parody is probably eternal author's masturbation on himself, rather than a proper story "with porn elements". And I say nothing about crappiest "sandbox" game design.

If you're looking for a quick fap, dont bother.

If you're looking for a compelling and interesting narrative, surprisingly good humor and lots of mystery, backed up by a varied and interesting cast of characters, this is it.