Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.54.0] [Selebus]

[Moonflare]

My two main concerns are this: Is there jump scares, and a lot of them all things considered?
And: What type of cheating is there? Mc being cheated on and girl being hurt, mc being cheated on and the girl isn't hurt, or the mc is the one doing the cheating?
The only thing I don't do well with is lots of unpredictable jump scares and the girl being hurt in cheating scenarios. I've had a certain braveheart academy do that but it was obviously avoidable. I learned my lesson after that.

Okay so, I've watched people play DDLC before, that was obviously not what people expected. Any similarities there?
Then there is Scorn which is... very fucked up, but I barely reacted to anything I saw, like, at all. Iron stomach? Perhaps.
It's the jump scares that get me.
I've been around, seen things.

Honestly, I think if existential horror is more in the text format, I should be completely fine. The implication that this is a long game is great for me, but I question if it's worth it if my initial two questions don't yield favorable responses.

Oh shit, one more thing! Do beloved characters suddenly die unexpectedly???

Now I'll actually be helpful instead of falling into my guilty pleasure of random obscure quotes.

1. There are no actual jumpscares (in the sense of something suddenly screaming at you and jumping at your face). There are some flashing images, but most of the time you have a warning for them, and since the focus of the game is its narrative in text form, you know it's coming 99% of the time.

2. There is cheating in many shape and forms, but none that hurt the mc. The mc enjoys the thought of girls he's seeing to be seeing other girls at the same time - not that it happens a lot mind you, but it does happen (sometimes in a forced way) - although all of them that get into a relationship with the mc have him as their number 1. There is no other man involved in cheating either, the only exception is within mc's past and during very psychodelic hallucinations, that might even be about the mc himself fucking the girls and he's just seeing himself as another person.

That being said, girls do get hurt in the course of the game. There are various degrees of sexual assault/blackmail/possession and so forth. Again, not by any dude, mostly because of supernatural events, and a few times due to other girls.

Finally, there is an ongoing theme of "maybe none of this is happening" from the start, that makes it difficult to ascertain to which degree someone can even get hurt, or how much of anything is real. So take that as you will. I'll say that at the very least none of these scenes have been there just for shock value nor a fetish. They all serve a logical purpose within their own arcs.

Edit: 3. Death is very debatable in this game for reasons that you'll naturally pick up during the story. You won't have to worry about anyone leaving you for good.

 

[DeanNoriko]

My two main concerns are this: Is there jump scares, and a lot of them all things considered?
And: What type of cheating is there? Mc being cheated on and girl being hurt, mc being cheated on and the girl isn't hurt, or the mc is the one doing the cheating?
The only thing I don't do well with is lots of unpredictable jump scares and the girl being hurt in cheating scenarios. I've had a certain braveheart academy do that but it was obviously avoidable. I learned my lesson after that.

Okay so, I've watched people play DDLC before, that was obviously not what people expected. Any similarities there?
Then there is Scorn which is... very fucked up, but I barely reacted to anything I saw, like, at all. Iron stomach? Perhaps.
It's the jump scares that get me.
I've been around, seen things.

Honestly, I think if existential horror is more in the text format, I should be completely fine. The implication that this is a long game is great for me, but I question if it's worth it if my initial two questions don't yield favorable responses.

Oh shit, one more thing! Do beloved characters suddenly die unexpectedly???

I'll address your questions and concerns, but in your own best interest (without trying to be too pushy) I would recommend to just go for it afterwards, the more detailed questions you will ask, the more will you rob yourself of the enjoyment of finding out the story by yourself.

Is there jump scares, and a lot of them all things considered?

In my opinion that depends on what you consider jump scares. There are recurring audio cues, a static sound, that indicates that some fuckery is going on. There might be some flashy images suddenly popping up seemingly out of nowhere.
But I wouldn't say that the horror element in this game is focused on getting actively scared like in a standard horror slasher. It's mostly psychological and existential horror. With occasional gory scenes. Think of "trying to face your inner demons and feeling powerless to do anything against them as you slowly slip away".
The comparison with DDLC is fair. Think of it being similar to that game, but much further expanded plot wise and the horror aspect much more subtle and not as central to the identity of the game. Essentially this game is still a slice of life story, just with trauma and weird dreams, gods, etc. thrown in.

What type of cheating is there?

The MC is not getting cheated on. Actually scratch that, there has been this weird discussion going on, mainly in the reviews for some reason, about NTR. I guess there might be one or at most two scenes that could be interpreted that way, but this is far from an NTR game, the MC is not in danger of being cheated on.
At one point in time you have the choice to initiate in a sexual relationship with a married person (whose partner is not shown in the game at any point so far) but this is avoidable. And the relationships you may choose to pursue with certain girls might appear exclusive to some of them. So some girls might get hurt to some extent. Honestly, I would be kinda surprised if that ended up to be the thing that bothered you the most about this game lol.
In general though, if NTR is one of your concerns, there are canonically (basically) no other male characters in the game - it is explained at the very beginning of the game why.

Do beloved characters suddenly die unexpectedly???

There might be cock murder at some point in this game. That is all that I am willing to say.
But in all seriousness, the girls you see in the menu's character screen from the beginning of the game still exist and are all alive up to this date.

 

[VoidExile]

In my opinion that depends on what you consider jump scares.

The most important part is the warning. If I'm left covering the screen and still jumping, that's on me. If I don't cover the screen and something causes me to jump, that's not fine. I tend to watch people play horror games by first letting the jump scare happen and then watching it when I know when to expect it. It's the suddenness of it that gets me.

There might be cock murder at some point in this game. That is all that I am willing to say.
But in all seriousness, the girls you see in the menu's character screen from the beginning of the game still exist and are alive up to this date.

Well that sounds lovely... worse than death. Also, you failed to make that sound reassuring. I really DON'T care if one thing here or there is spoiled. I would rather read a story about a soon to be corpse of a character

The cheating part is concluded, I'm very comfortable with those kinds of cheating
So far I have my reservations but I still want to play it. I still am very curious about numerous things and there seem to be some conflicting information here on the jump scare factor and no conclusive answer on character deaths. I just want to avoid forming a connection to a character I don't know if they will die or not, that's all.

 

[shmurfer]

Yes "
My two main concerns are this: Is there jump scares, and a lot of them all things considered?
And: What type of cheating is there? Mc being cheated on and girl being hurt, mc being cheated on and the girl isn't hurt, or the mc is the one doing the cheating?
The only thing I don't do well with is lots of unpredictable jump scares and the girl being hurt in cheating scenarios. I've had a certain braveheart academy do that but it was obviously avoidable. I learned my lesson after that.
Oh shit, one more thing! Do beloved characters suddenly die unexpectedly???"
As quoted from my comment above.
Those are things I don't handle well, but I am otherwise pretty resilient

You'll be fine honestly. The specifics are spoilery, every point you brought up nearly happens in the game but I couldn't point to a specific moment where the game wanted you to be jumpscared / be cheated on / have a beloved character die. None of those points are a focus like it's a fetish. "People suffer" is probably the only 'fetish' you could accuse the game of trying to push. Everything else is a Smorgasbord that happens occasionally to tick of a checklist of "Yeah the game has this" rather than "This is a [fetish] game"

An example is a couple of months ago, a sleep molestation scene was added. A few months before that, an anal scene was added. In between those scenes, a ton of trauma happened, a bunch of hope happened. A bunch of stories were continued, some stories were left to fester in a annoying way.

 

[VoidExile]

The specifics are spoilery,

Really don't care, better safe than sorry.

be cheated on

If female on female, then that's fine. Male on female is only fine if they appear happy.

a sleep molestation scene was added.

Oh, how lovely...

 

[barglenarglezous]

Longest visual novel... so that will probably take me several weeks to play, or... months?
Existential horror, has horror tag... I don't like horror but generally things that aren't considered jumpscare but more unsettling rather than sudden I can easily handle... which side does this belong tho?
Not sure what you mean by a sub version there. Guessing you explain that in the next sentence.
Hmm... Sort of like, pretty much any game with porn out there like uhhhh GTA? But I mean, judging you for considering it a porn game? How bad can it be... (gonna regret asking, aren't I?)

Subversion (one word) or the base verb (to subvert) means to take the conventions of a genre and go against them, twist them, or turn them on their side. This game is a subversion of the harem genre of eroge. Another possible word to describe it would be "deconstruction," though they're not the same thing, this game is a bit of both.

It takes a lot of the common and popular tropes of eroge -- harem, schoolgirls, an unrealistically large penis, etc -- and twists them. Sometimes it does this by removing the fantastical elements of the genre and injecting a dose of reality, sometimes it does it by making everything appear one way, only to pull the rug out from under you.

And to better explain what I mean by "game with porn, rather than a porn game," the sex scenes are a thing that happens, but they're not the purpose of the game. The game is a slow burn, and very story-heavy, and sex happens when it's appropriate, and there's quite a bit of it due to its length, but if you're looking for a quick fap this isn't the game. This is an attempt at eroge as art, rather than eroge as simple entertainment -- which yes, sounds pretentious, but here we are.

And if you're one to project yourself into the MC, this probably isn't the game for you. Or at the very least, do so at your own peril. The MC is a terrible person in just about every respect.

 

[TBone9]

I was sure Sana was a member before chapter 3, she plays that dumbass orc barbarian... i forget what it was called but it's a very orky name.

Edit: Gorgutz Throatsplitter or something.

Zaghul the one-armed orc XD

Missed it by that much.

 

[barglenarglezous]

Really don't care, better safe than sorry.

If female on female, then that's fine. Male on female is only fine if they appear happy.

Oh, how lovely...

MC is literally the only man ever shown on screen with a face. There are other men in the story, but they're all off-screen and not having sex with any of the 35 girls that have been flagged as love interests. Some of the women are having sex with each other in various contexts.

As for the horror -- most of it is philosophical in nature. There are a few moments that might classify as a jump scare, but it's not something horrific, it's just unexpected (and loud) bursts of static. The intent is to make you uncomfortable, not to make you scream.

 

[shmurfer]

Finishing my post from earlier now that I don't have to worry about scaring off a new player, let's keep them around.

I just want to avoid forming a connection to a character I don't know if they will die or not, that's all.

Meta spoiler that's going to come up if you stick around. Every girl that you can get affection / lust points with is going to have a purity route near the end of the game. This is supposed to be a 1 on 1 romance route with them and the MC. So it's impossible for any of them to be dead by the end of the story...

But this doesn't mean they won't suffer before then. I don't remember the whole flowchart, but we are in the harem route right now, then it's going to be dark route, then it's the purity routes, and then the true ending.

This game must be quite something to have 471 pages of comments and 11.5gb of data to download... What am I getting myself into...?

almost 9gb of that is images. There's at least 30,000 in the images folder. Moonflare (And I, though I'm probably not gonna make it) were spending this month replaying the game and they budgeted the whole month for it.

This one was such a weak ass plot point. I do believe this is basically over and the resolution was really underwhelming. Damon Lindelof level of anticlimactic writing.

It's not over yet. Meta reading the situation, Karin's first Ch4 event basically talks about how Karin is a perfect cinnamon roll and nothing is wrong. The worst thing about her life is her sister doesn't like her.

AKA Sel has nothing to work with. So Paredolia forces Sensei to almost SA her so now she has some trauma, the few events she's had now show she isn't over it, doesn't forgive Sensei (as of 0.45's ending you still can't talk to her willingly, karinbetter = false) and technically, now the reason Sensei attacked her is gone so there's room to work with story wise. I think he's still gonna cook.

 

[barglenarglezous]

I just want to avoid forming a connection to a character I don't know if they will die or not, that's all.

Spoiler

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I mean that quite literally. Death is fleeting.

 

[Moonflare]

Moonflare (And I, though I'm probably not gonna make it) were spending this month replaying the game and they budgeted the whole month for it.

yeah, I'm super late because my aging body thought the weekend was the best time to get a flu powerful enough to put me in bed for most of it (and that's when I'd have the most time for playing). Still unable to play for as long as I'd like too. As soon as I'm feeling better I'll try to double my efforts to catch up.

I'm currently on the first beach trip though. Given that chapter 4 is a lot shorter than the rest, I might still make it to the current update by January if I organize myself right.

Also, reminder that Kaori had the hots for Akira since the start:

Spoiler: forgot the name of the event

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Edit: Oh, also Rin's boobs cause why not.

Spoiler: also forgot

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[fdsasdf_p]

Edit: Gorgutz Throatsplitter or something.

Zagull Throat Spear.

Also, I always thought "Throat Spear" was kinda...lewd. Closet freak kinda lewd. Unless this is an orc thing and I am just a dirty boi.

 

[barglenarglezous]

Zagull Throat Spear.

Also, I always thought "Throat Spear" was kinda...lewd. Closet freak kinda lewd. Unless this is an orc thing and I am just a dirty boi.

It really does sound like another way of saying "face fuck"

 

[DeSkel15]

Given the name of the event, I wonder who will be coming in to do the animal control, Sensei sure as fuck won't do anything.
Also is Kirin just gonna forgive him for nearly SAing her sister, like what?

I mean...it is Kirin:

Spoiler

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Kirin was probably more jealous of Karin getting attention from Sensei, and Sensei almost getting to fuck Karin (since Kirin wants to fuck her), than upset about her sister getting creeped on.

yeah, I'm super late because my aging body thought the weekend was the best time to get a flu powerful enough to put me in bed for most of it (and that's when I'd have the most time for playing). Still unable to play for as long as I'd like too. As soon as I'm feeling better I'll try to double my efforts to catch up.

I'm currently on the first beach trip though. Given that chapter 4 is a lot shorter than the rest, I might still make it to the current update by January if I organize myself right.

Also, reminder that Kaori had the hots for Akira since the start:

Spoiler: forgot the name of the event

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It's Rin's Chapter 1 'Good Day, Humans' Event:

Spoiler

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It's one of those phrases that gets repeated:

Spoiler

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Edit: For boobs -> try 'Boundaries'.

 

[shmurfer]

I'm currently on the first beach trip though. Given that chapter 4 is a lot shorter than the rest, I might still make it to the current update by January if I organize myself right.

I've been having to replay the game a bit making sure the events unfold the way I want, and I don't have all the free time I'd want. Everyone but Maya has had all their events done. I just need to do the =D event, then start doing Maya's and I think events will just unfold without them being confusing / route blocking now.

Edit: Oh, also Rin's boobs cause why not.

Spoiler: also forgot

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Does she have a second changing nudity event? I was going through the code for the happy events and I stumbled over another scene where Rin is changing on her bed or something but I can't find find references to it in code.

 

[Moonflare]

Does she have a second changing nudity event? I was going through the code for the happy events and I stumbled over another scene where Rin is changing on her bed or something but I can't find find references to it in code.

She shows Akira her boobs during a depression event.

Spoiler: ?

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The only other notable event with her on her bedroom I think would be her kissing him after the failed Otoha date if on good homie, or Rika in a towel (but Rin's dressed for that one).

 

[barglenarglezous]

Does she have a second changing nudity event? I was going through the code for the happy events and I stumbled over another scene where Rin is changing on her bed or something but I can't find find references to it in code.

IIRC, the original version of that scene had Rin on her bed when you walked in, and it was one of the scenes changed during the rework of Chapter 1's first half.

 

[VoidExile]

I... don't think I can do my normal reaction post to this. Is anyone actually interested in reading what could be a 100k characters unprofessional raw reaction spoiler to everything that happens? Because judging by the fact I've reached 60k before and this is supposedly longer and apparently very story rich and reaction worthy, this could reach 100k easily, unless that part about it being much longer than any other visual novels or avns was an overstatement. Like I find myself wanting to comment about lots of what Ami says and well... Reactions keep me going but is also a huge waste of time. Ehh...

 

[Moonflare]

I... don't think I can do my normal reaction post to this. Is anyone actually interested in reading what could be a 100k characters unprofessional raw reaction spoiler to everything that happens? Because judging by the fact I've reached 60k before and this is supposedly longer and apparently very story rich and reaction worthy, this could reach 100k easily, unless that part about it being much longer than any other visual novels or avns was an overstatement. Like I find myself wanting to comment about lots of what Ami says and well... Reactions keep me going but is also a huge waste of time. Ehh...

If you're asking if we'd be interested in reading someone posting their first reactions to the game here, it is actually something quite common in this thread. I can't say for sure if we'd all be interested on it in the long run, but we surely wouldn't mind it. Just be aware that if you expect us to comment on it, especially given that it's your first time playing it, you should include either the name of the event or more or less where you are in the game - so that we know what not to say yet.

 

[VoidExile]

If you're asking if we'd be interested in reading someone posting their first reactions to the game here, it is actually something quite common in this thread. I can't say for sure if we'd all be interested on it in the long run, but we surely wouldn't mind it. Just be aware that if you expect us to comment on it, especially given that it's your first time playing it, you should include either the name of the event or more or less where you are in the game - so that we know what not to say yet.

Oh no, I don't mean like, make a separate comment for every little thing here, I mean make one giant spoiler when I played through up to the current version, everything written live in the text document to be copypasted here. You can look at my profile's comment history and you will understand. So I mean, if you are interested in reading what could quite possibly be 10k words or 100k characters or more, then I could do that, the problem is I've wanted to comment about almost everything so far. I'm not quite sure I would be willing to be specific about where I am. Honestly I feel like there's just gonna be so much text I'm better of biting the bullet and just post something when I reach the end. There are up and down's for each alternative.