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

This game could easy be a 3 or 4 star game. The music is nice and the characters are cute.
The fact that all characters have different personalities does not weight up the horrible grind at all.
Packing such a grind into a game which basicially has only 5 locations doesn't make ANY sense.
Also the nice music gets boring once you have to endure it over hours, because you don't make much progress rather than going through all scenes over and over again, just to either raise stats or to try to find the next trigger.

If you are into senseless clicking, i recommend to play cookie-clicker, as that will be much more satisfying and rewarding rather than this so-called "game".

V0-26
First ever review, I've played good games and bad games, yet this is the first game that I've stopped playing because it flat out made me uncomfortable. This is a game where you either love to death and rate is 10/10, or instantly uninstall within the first 15 minutes to 1 hour of playing.... and both reactions are 100% understandable.

The writing is good and the characters all seem to be realistic. There's tons of mystery shrouded in the game and it's characters that entice the player to want more.

That's pretty much the main driving point. Personally for me, it goes downhill from here.

Ignoring the mild static jumpscare at the intro, the first sign that the game is going to be unsettling is the MC's eyes. This sounds minor, and while I have to heavily admire the creator for a memorable design.... it just felt uncomfortable to look at.

I've played for about 3 hours, and the first "sex" scene (10 minutes in) Furthermore, the "second" sex scene
Then, there's the jump scares. I get this is a game that tries to imitate Doki Doki Literature Club, but combining porn games with jump scares is a horrendous take. Now, some of the fanbase might really like the idea of the unsettling atmosphere the game sets, and claim that this "isn't a porn game, but a story game with minor porn elements". If that's the case, just NIX the porn and create a strong/uncomfortable story. Don't have the player try to bust a nut, then suddenly have a black & white smiley face stare them down. It's possible to write a strong game with dark/unsettling themes without the porn.

The only reason I won't rate this a 1/5 is because I was genuinely curious about the story and characters. I probably would have played this game without the porn or jumpscares, just to get to help out/learn about the characters and the setting.

I understand my playtime (roughly 4 hours) is extremely short compared to other reviews, yet as I scroll through the other reviews, I find myself understanding the 5/5's, yet resonating with the 2/5's or 1/5's MUCH more. This isn't a sandbox, and you instead click through multiple "hangout" options to meet with girls at level increments of 5. In short... a way to artificially extend playtime. Apparently there are also locked paths/forced progression/stalemates the more you go along, but I haven't reached that stage 4 hours in....so be warned if you choose to keep playing.

To sum it all up: I genuinely liked the personalities (a bit 1 note as they are) of the different girls, and wanted to know much more about them all. The delinquent, the studious chick, the girl who hates you/seems to know much more than she lets on, etc. However, I can't get past the jumpscares and the uncomfortable setting that the game forces upon the player...which is a shame. Truly.

If you want to keep playing regardless, go off. However, if the first "sex" scene makes you uncomfortable upon the first frame... I HEAVILY recommend you stop playing, as the majority of the game will attempt to follow that atmosphere.

This game is one that you will likely either be completely enamored with, or pretty quickly repulsed by. You will probably either find it insightful and captivating, or obnoxiously pretentious and grindy. That said, it is best to go in to it with an understanding of what the game is. It is not a porn game. It is a denpa game with porn elements. Despite the protagonist being an incorrigible lust demon, the actual h-scenes take a backseat to the numerous story threads, character arcs, mysterious worldbuilding, and completely unhinged and often 4th wall breaking ramblings that make this game what it is: an uncomfortably beautiful car crash of hope and suffering that is hard to look away from.

If you stick with it, the game will stick with you throughout the day as you theorize about what the fuck is actually going on within it, and you will probably experience very genuine feelings of disgust, guilt, remorse, and deep sympathy about the events that take place and the characters that those events affect. This is not a game to play if you're not in the best mental state, unless of course watching someone else's world fall apart somehow makes you feel better about the cracking state of your own. If you allow yourself to become immersed in it, this game will affect you deeply.

The art style is aesthetically pleasing, the actual h-scenes are decent enough, the writing is mostly fantastic if not a little too verbose, and the characters are all well developed and feel real even despite a strong adherence to many common anime/manga tropes. The world is interesting and disturbing, and the mystery behind everything is a joy to slowly uncover.

I would suggest that if you give this game a chance, you download a pre-rework version of Chapter 1, play that all the way through, and then transfer over to the updated versions. The original release of Chapter 1 has far better pacing regarding the horror elements of the story and maintains a creeping rise in tension as you, the reader, realize that something is not quite right with the world. The rework, though being a nice graphical upgrade, loses that element of suspense and instead just hits you over the head with the more disturbing elements of the game. It is best to experience the game in its original form.

That being said, you should definitely utilize the guide mod that is available for the game. It is the creator's intention to make the game a bit unforgiving with its' puzzles and its refusal to hold your hand, but that does put a lot of people off of it. Without the mod, you will likely have to consult the wiki many times to figure out what to do next, and you will definitely spend many in game days grinding affection and lust points. All of that is fine to an extent, but it can become a bit much and ruin the pacing of the story. My advice: use the guide mod, edit in the affection points, grind the lust points, and look up the answers for the puzzles that show up later in the game because they are definitely pretty annoying.

Probably one of the best original games out here, if not the best. But it is absolutely not H game. Skip it if you are just here for a quick fap. I mean cute girls is here, sure. And sex is there, alright. But at some point you realize it is not the point of the game at all. You realize you care about characters. Maybe even horror aspect or the mysteries. But the real highlight is characters, and the captivating writing style, author really has a way with words (and ideas). Outside of some top tier japanese novels, this one is probably most well written novel out here (definetely at least in top 3). Real gem, but not for everyone. You'll either start to hate game quite early and drop it, or will fall in love with it and stay for a long ride. And what a journey this is, oh boy!

These are my impressions based on 0.18.0 i played like a year ago, which i haven't finished even. Downloaded current version and started all over (and loving it yet again). Decided to rate a thread for as thanks for the wonderful experience, as this is the least i could do since i'm too poor to support with actual money. But if any game on this site deserves it - its this one.

Incredibly off-putting Doki Doki Literature Club wannabe game in which the dev spends infinitely more time pretentiously jerking himself off than you will. A lot of work clearly went into this whole thing, but it won't take more than fifteen minutes to find out whether or not you're part of the incredibly specific niche audience that will enjoy this kind of experience - and the odds are not in your favor.

This game is a gigantic grind; grind so that you can experience a lack-luster story and an occasional brutalistic kafkaesque dream sequence that will make you uncomfortable.

Sure, some people really love these esoteric horror elements , but within the context & gameplay of this game; it really feels out of place. Combine that with the constant grind it really feels like a slog.

A shame too, because clearly the writer of this game can write, it just feels like they decided they'd have infinite dialog without much actually happening.

While this game might seem very lackluster or boring gameplay wise, it makes up for it big time story-wise. It has very distinct characters with intricate backstories. each time you feel like you start knowing one of the characters, you get blindsided by another bit of their past, as you keep getting more and more surprised by their deep backstories and many personal problems. The start of the game lures you into a false sense of security, much like the show Bojack Horseman does, by making everything feel very surface level and generic, however, the story in this game goes very very deep. Be prepared.

I'm a coomer, I thought I only played coom games to coom.

This actually endeared me, I care about the characters, I care about Sensei, I want to read more of it, I'm engrossed, I don't even coom at the H-scenes, and there's quite some of it.

Give it a chance, give it a read.

I highly recommend using the guide mod, it streamlines the experience as a big QoL.

Not my cup of tea, the story goes from being pretty good and emotional to terrible, I understand that some people might enjoy this game but I have many problems with it, first one is:

"RPG system" this game isn't RPG, but it allows you to move around by clicking points of interest, while this might sound fun it isn't at all, you will spend most of your game searching where should you go, if this game wants to be an interesting story, they should choose the"all-out VN gameplay" with maybe some choices sparkled in.

The story is trying to play on emotions, imitating other depressing eroges or even non-eroge games like previously mentioned Doki doki literature club. The reason why I think it might not be a cup of my tea is that I didn't enjoy Doki doki literature club that much either, I would still give it 3 stars tho. This game is just even worse.

One few things saving it from 1 star (trash rating) are some well-done scenes. While horror visual novels are quite common, some jumpscares were well done and made me even squeeze my private part. I don't like the 3D art style in eroges, but this one wasn't so bad, and some sex scenes were surprisingly well done.

If you loved Doki doki literature club, you will love this eroge as well, but I did not enjoy it.

I'd like to begin by saying words don't do this game justice, so whatever I say from here on out is my attempt at describing this game. When I first started the game, similar to most other games, I came for a quick rub n dunk but sheesh. Let's start with the characters, in no other game have I ever met such unique and well written characters, deep and complex. Plot is amazing, one can theorize many things, with the creative setting of the game and events. The choices we make actually matter, for better or worse. Some decisions are guilty pleasures but end of the day, the consequences of your actions hurt lol. The philosophical points made in the game, the inner monologue, it's all so- My only regret is not starting this game earlier, and playing before it finished. Recent update recommended us to restart the game, no problem, I've been looking for an excuse to do so anyways lol. Much love Selebus.

"Let me show you this review so you can see how much I hate you"

I tried this game recently but dropped it after the first scene in the game is a forced "niece breeding minigame" where her head rolls off, and her vagina swallows you whole this is of done while her vaginal blood floods (games words not mine) the room with blood.

After having multiple people tell me that it does get better I can confirm that for me it did not. I should have looked at more of the reviews because every one of them that does not give the game a perfect rating and claim its literally the best game ever all mention the same thing: Grindy, Underwhelming, and pretentious/faux deep. That quote that starts the review? Its the same line the game gives you before showing you the forced sex scene. That alone should act as a litmus test for the majority of players.

If you have to lie about your age when starting a game the chances that you will like this go way up.

Update as of v0.35.0

This is one game with depth in the writing that is really good. The only bad thing is trying to remember everything that has happened and making sense of the entire story. I consider myself smart, but I still have to pay close attention to every dialogue that is said and still don't get the full picture like some players.

Each character has layers of depths to them and change as the game progresses. Everyone gets time for development and you can easily see how they all change over time with very few exceptions. The lone really being Sensei who hasn't changed much ever since the beginning which is weird since he is the MC.

The only two things that I really don't like are the annoying puzzles that truly serve no purpose and how involved the Gods/Higher Beings get later on. You could take the puzzles out and nothing would change about the story. As for the Gods, that's my personal preference as I don't believe they're needed to tell an amazing story. Dev seems to use them as antagonists in the game from my understanding.

Then again, maybe I'm not smart enough to grasp everything that the game is trying to convey. None the less, the story, characters, graphics, music, sex, and visuals are all top tier. Just go in preparing to hate some characters, love some characters, get disturbed, or even getting lost and confused about a lot of things. Still an amazing visual novel game and likely one of the best on this site that isn't a parody.

I'd like to say something like "Praise be 5/5" in this review, but that would defeat the purpose of writing one in the first place, so I'll refrain. To begin with, I find the quality of the game, the events, the characters, the art, etc. brutal. and it's ironic because despite the fact that the game already has a lot of content, I still have the same doubts as when it started, I feel stuck and for some strange reason I don't dislike it, only the sensations that this game provokes in me makes me feel satisfied. The characters mostly base their personality on classic anime stereotypes, which however are put in interesting situations that make you want to know more about them, as for the mc he is something special, frankly at first I hated him, really, that man I should visit a psychologist, his constant monologues about any random stupidity and his way of seeing life are disconcerting at first, I literally couldn't feel further from the character, of course, with time I got used to it and today I could say that it's He is the most interesting character. Now, as much as I would like to say that everything is perfect, what a pity it gives me, no, it is not, and on that we go with the next point and it is the gameplay, if it is a sandbox, one of the annoying ones I have to say , I had to load my game many times because certain events that I had to do at the indicated times or with certain statistics escaped me, otherwise I could not see them again at that save point, It is also worth mentioning that every time you reach a certain amount of events with a character, these are blocked since you have to do all the events of the other characters to be able to advance, I had to have the guide in hand many times, but leaving Apart from these disadvantages, I consider that its history , art and characters are enough for 5 stars: Since the end of the game is not even close, I recommend using cheats to increase stats and/or change certain events at your convenience, this doesn't mess up your save file at the moment.

I really don't know about this one. First off I don't understand why this has a VN tag at all. In the end this is a KN with more steps.

The game is designed as a sandbox but the only thing it's used for is grinding points with the girls until you have enough to se the next completely railroaded event for them. I call them girls and not LI's because they aren't even close to that in this game. A fact the MC annoyingly reminds himself and by extension the player about. It's just click, click, click reading the exact same lines of dialogue or the same lewd scene until you see the next actual event with no player input.

I read that 0.24 was supposed to add QOL improvements but I see no difference from the last time I played it over a year ago. There is a loose guide that is supposed to help the player I guess but it's about as useless as not having one at all. The free roam for lack of a better word is still awful as it's ever been, not that it maters in the end because again it's only used for grinding points and nothing else.

The writing is fine and all but much of it feels hollow to because of the God awful mc and his stereotypical mopey emo inner monologue he constantly recites to himself. Every single time you as the player feel like you are making a connection the the girls and actually progressing the MC rants away again and says "Oh well I don't care about anything or anyone anyway. Dirp Dirp.". It's so repetitive and tiring that I'm constantly thinking "Yeah, I get it. Your a shmuck, just shut the fuck up already.". 0.24 also supposedly remade old scenes and added more in but the changes if seen so far have been odd. Animations removed for reworked scene containing still images instead. And I'm almost positive there have even been player choices removed in favor of just more scripted linear responses, because that wasn't already an issue I guess.

It also seems like I'm not smart enough to understand the deepness of this game. Every time there is another tangent about some existential existence for the hundredth time I'm just thinking "Am I playing an H-game or am I back in my first year phycology class?" To me it seems like someone is trying to build a world and theory around something they don't fully understand. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting it and not following the direction the dev is trying to go with it. Some of that content comes from Happy events that just seem like cheap B movie horror scenes to me. Some of which were remade to be incredibly long, like very long. After they happen everything just jolts back to normal with the MC not remembering or not caring about anything supernatural that just happened. But that's the point, I think? Also some of the triggers and events for those events are pretty ridiculous. It's been brought up before so I think most people already know about that but there are still people who praise poor decision so what do I know. The one thing I don't see how people can defend is the absolute necessity for audio ques. For one of them you "need" to hear something and if you don't you are stuck there forever unless you look it up online. That's just a middle finger to the hearing impaired players who may want to try this out. It all comes back to... poor dev choices we'll say.

TLDR: If your here to watch random scenes with school girls and don't care about anything else then you will likely have a good time. If you are looking for an actual "game" that lets you do anything at all on your own then then like myself you will be disappointed.

Game version 0.24.0

The game is just one bland grind for scenes.
The overall quality is not even worth the time you spend into that.

I tried this game at version 0.1 and I tried it again at version 0.24 - it is still the same, lame gamestyle, where you have to farm/ grind different places on different times of the day to trigger events with the girls.

Sometimes, one of the quests introduce you more to the main plot, while others just befriend you more with the girl you are with.

I couldn't really find the overall goal of this game, though. Nail all the girls? Sure. But beyond that? Nothing. It's more like these trainer games (which I hate the most), where you grind endlessly for mediocre and short lewd animations.

Pass.

This game is still my all-time favorite VN. The amount of love and passion put into this game shines so bright to me. You get hooked on every single character and their stories. I have been playing games for over 30 years and I have re-played this one (on purpose) more than 10 times easy. 10/10 Story, 10/10 Character Design, 10/10 HOPE.
PRAISE BE!!

The good: There are some cute characters and some H scenes are well done textually. I like that deflowerings are bloody and painful for once.

The bad: Everything else.

• Renders are underwhelming, especially regarding variety and camera position in H scenes.
• Frequent 4th wall breaks that are not funny and only break immersion.
• Brainless psychobabble that's supposed to be creepy I guess? The worst part is, that the dev (and the fanboys) seem to think this is actually deep, thoughtful stuff. Fitting the current age of infantilism I guess.
• Endless grind for the sake of grind. I started my adult VN journey with Big Brother. BB was a lot more rewarding than this.
• Locking paths deep into the game for things you did at the start, without giving you any clue.
• Can't advance with characters you like without advancing others as well.

This is a hard review to do.

Right off the bat though, I'm going to say I did not enjoy any of the sexual content. If you do, this is not a criticism against you.

This is clearly a game that parodies harem games and does commentary on them while also being a Harem game. For better or for worse, it's extremely uncomfortable because the MC is a skeevy dude.

The game feels like a KN most of the time. As a result, the criticsms of harem games (and really, adult games in general) are railroaded. It's not completely cynical by any means, but it can be very in your face about it.

Yet, the girls are actually pretty cool and fun to learn about. They all have their issues you help them out with, and god damn... did I not want to have sex with any of them. They're kids, and you are clearly an adult. That's the shtick.

In between all that is a pretty cool horror element that adds another layer on top of everything. Just to ensure a extra bit of uncomfortable feelings.

The option to not engage in sexual activities would benefit this game, IMO. Given how some scenes are quite explicit and erotic, it's almost hypocritical. Not quite there because it's aware of this. Explore alternative routes would give people the chance to experience/explore the other side of that criticism with some empathy.

I wouldn't bother saying any of this, if the game didn't take the suffering moments so seriously. The progression of character stories lead to serious suffering. The forced sexual encounters can affect other characters in seriously negative ways. The consequences of the MC's actions are very real, but the choice of actions are not.

Moving on, the god damn sandbox is tedious however. It's a lot of clicking with a bland UI, and lots and lots of waiting. I don't know if that's part of the joke, but it definitely makes this game feel SUPER long. Especially when some events are completely filler. This game is also pretty huge, so the beginning is extraordinarily obnoxious given how much content there is.

If these issues were ironed out, I'd give this game a 4/5 just because the writing is quite good, even if I don't think it's going about it the right way.

Overall, this isn't a game for everyone. I can't knock anyone for liking it. It's certainly one of kind.

very interesting game, the game has the depth for a visual novel that suits my own preferences, the jump scares are fun, has a lot of interactions with different characters, the music themes is very catchy and enjoyable... not a fan of puzzles but it piques my interest and solving it is grindy but fun....

Be warned. This game is HUGE. theres well over 1,000,000 words in it, and it is constantly being updated. There is a wiki that you pretty much have to use after chapter 2 starts as you have to go through each update one by one, but you will have no idea the order that the updates released in, and subsequently, which character you need to work on. but that aside, this story will leave you with your jaw on the floor in shock, restless in bed unable to go to sleep because of the events that have happened in this game. It is a story unlike any other I have played. What makes LIL work so well is not just its overarching story that has MatPat level of theory crafting behind it, but also the most incredible character interactions I've read in a VN. The MC is the main character, but he's not the only character to the girls. They all interact with each other as well to make this seem not like a world that revolves around the player, but a world that the player takes part of. I can not sing this game enough praise for its unique story. Once the early game reworks are done, its going to be incredible. that's all I can say.

PS, gamepass>patreon.