Ren'Py - Lessons in Love [v0.55.0] [Selebus]

I pretty much just downloaded this with a bunch of other random crap during a three day goon sesh and ended up forgetting the goon and playing it for 60 hours straight lol

Despite having a lot of sex scenes and a bit of explicit fan service this is not a porn game, it's more just a VN with a lot of sexual content (some of which is disturbing) and themes. The word count as it stands now (0.48) is coming on 3 million - by the end of this year playing this to completion will be the equivalent of reading every book in the ASOIAF series and then going back to Game of Thrones and re-reading the entire series again. If what you're looking for here is a quick wank, you are looking at the wrong game.

LiL is very well written - though arguably with an overly-wordy tendency to wax philosophical - with its biggest strength being the characters you interact with, all of whom are both well written and consistent with a ton of scenes. Honestly I can't think of any VN or even manga with as many endearing and interesting characters. As others have mentioned it follows a (sort of) groundhog day trope and has a lot of existentialism so those aspects might be a turn-off. Worth mentioning again that there's some disturbing themes, with the MC being an (initially) unapologetic predator.

I'm on my fourth playthrough now and have several hundred hours into LiL. Also worth noting that the author is extremely consistent - he maintains a pre-planned schedule and pushes out 60-80K+ word updates 9-10 months a year.


All in all what I really want to say here is that LiL is a unique experience that I'd recommend anybody at least trying. It's an interesting story with challenging themes that it tackles in a challenging way, and it's extremely well written compared to most VN's - filled with poetry and so much foreshadowing that your second playthrough is almost as good as the first for all the extra little things you pick up on. This is the kind of product that, if you get into it, will fill you with dread as you approach the end because you know you'll never get to play it for the first time again.

For those wanting a quick answer as to whether or not they should play this game, the following key points should be noted.

• The game story uses the rather common "Groundhog Day" trope.
• The writing seems to make use of the The Story That Never Was trope.

Basically, if you don't want to see those two writing tropes... the game isn't for you. Now, if you'd like more detailed analysis of the game, continue reading.

LiL is one of those games that, honestly, I very much want to like... quite a bit in fact. It's got a rather extensive cast of characters, which to date, all seem romance open characters in one form or another. Some are present just for sex, while others help push the story along... well... eventually.

That's where the first problem that LiL runs into, which as a player, you're going to start dealing with. Specifically, to get various story events to take place (above and beyond the character events) you're going to find yourself repeating multiple little events in this kind of grind fest. All with the intention of getting an affection stat up high enough that you reach an arbitrary range before an event will trigger. Furthermore, it's not uncommon to have to grind multiple characters over the span of several in game days (or weeks) to reach the needed required affection range.

At the start of the game, when you're only really worrying about one or two characters, this isn't too big a deal. However as the game progresses, and you start having more and more interactions with other characters... well you can quite easily get into situations where you're 'hanging out' (no that's not a code word for sex) with the same character again... and again... and again... for days on end.

A walkthrough, or some kind of hint mod, is a must have with the game... and even then it's not perfect. Expect to use cheats... a lot. Trust me on that.

However, while the grind fest that the game is can be frustrating, the question remains, "Is the writing worth it?" Specifically, is it something that makes you want to go through and deal with that headache?

Short answer... maybe.

The writing is relatively decent, for the most part, and has come quite a long way from when the game first released. Having said that, there are issues with it. Not huge, glaring issues that make you go 'was that even English?' but there are going to be times that you find yourself going back through things to try to make sense of what you just read. One point you'll quickly be introduced to, is the main plot point of the game, where you learn you're stuck in a Groundhog Day kind of loop, where everything simply resets and you start over. You retain the memories of the previous loop, but much of the characters around you, don't. When Groundhog Day is well written, it's a great story to see play out. Even when it's badly written, it can still be interesting. Sadly, this game falls somewhere in the middle. There are real good plot points and story lines, and real BAD ones. They even out to make the game have somewhat 'meh' writing. Expect to be confused. That's all I can say there.

Things get worse as the game progresses, as you will start finding that there's something you the MC need to do to try to end the loop... but as with any good "Groundhog Day" story, what you need to do... isn't clear. This is often called the "story that never was" trope, where you have to do... well, something, to prevent the loop from even happening in the first place. However, since so much of the game story is a mystery, and seems to even change with every major update (at least it feels that way writing wise), good luck in figuring things out.

Story I rate a 2 out of 5 stars.

So what about the code itself? Is the game well built and generally bug free? Honestly, yeah. The code is relatively simple, but it works, and it tends to work quite well. There's been bugs in the past, but the developer seems to have figured out how to prevent those, and has progressed to a point where the game is relatively stable. To the point that as a player you generally don't have to worry about some new update changing everything and breaking your past saves, forcing you to have to run through everything... again. Sure, it's still a grind fest, but at least it works well enough that you aren't going to have to return here from time to time to look for an update that fixes some bug, or you don't need to worry about having to start over from the beginning. Even if that technically is the main theme of the game. (pun intended).

Code and writing gets a 5 out of 5 stars.

Conclusion:

Is the game even worth it? Well, yeah. It's not a great game, but by the same token, it's not a bad game either. If you don't mind the grind fest that it is, you can have some fun with it. If you want to skip all that, there's a handful of cheats which can get you past that, and at least one 'hint' or walkthrough that you can use to figure out what to focus on. The writing is generally decent, the game is stable. Overall, the game is average. A good play, with some replayability, but not something you're going to go out of your way to return to.

"This visual novel is an absolute gem! The story is captivating, with well-developed characters and unexpected twists. The artwork and soundtrack are stunning, creating an immersive experience. Highly recommended!"

This game is really hard to describe to someone but it has honestly change my outlook and judgement of games as a whole with just how well written this game is. Do not play this game if your looking for a quick wank because this is definitely not the one to be playing if so. I have fallen in love with these characters as a whole and genuinely feel for each and every character as they go though some pretty horrible stuff. 11/10 and a must read if you are looking for something for the long run because this is one heck of a long visual novel and its not even half way done yet.

A masterpiece of psychological horror. If you just want porn, it may not be your cup of tea. But if you're interested in a great story with well-written characters and a perfect mix of comedy and tragedy, this one is perfect.

This game is annoyingly good. like seriously, The game will have you doing mental gymnastics to remember "random" parts of dialogue. The sandbox is tedious. The grind to continue forward even more so. And the dialogue comes off as a little too preachy at times even with certain themes.

But the story in my opinion makes it worth it. The characters feel alive. Your actions carry genuine consequences. And the writing when it wants to, can make you want to either take a break because of how awful you feel, or keep you glued to the screen curious for more. Multiple times I was either laughing at the funny banter or mentally cursing myself for being curious enough to keep playing.

If you're curious enough to play be ready to spend at least 40+ hours getting to the parts everyone praises. But I do hope you stick it out because it really is worth it. And remember, Don't forget to smile!


TLDR: game good!

This visual novel has a horrible identity crisis. As a standalone game, it's got a lot going for it. The writer obviously has a natural talent with words, the overall idea behind the plot of the game (isekai where you've taken over a high school teacher's body in a world where the school year keeps looping and getting progressively weirder) is really intriguing, and most of the horror elements are legitimately creepy and unsettling.

However, the process of advancing through the game is a chore unlike any other I've had to do in any game I've ever played. GOOD FUCKING LUCK getting through chapters in Lessons in Love without an external guide. Everything needed to get through the story feels completely arbitrary, and I haven't even referenced the time loop segments that require you to solve absurdly obtuse puzzles to advance.

Which leads me to my main issue. This would be fairly interesting as a plain ol' indie game. A bit pretentious, with some spotty writing, but the effort and vision are clearly there. But what is any of this doing in a porn game? It makes fun of the genre while being a part of the genre. It constantly ridicules the player for what it itself is. "Time to do sex on your niece" it playfully slaps into a choice for you to select, when it is the game that is pandering to the niece-fucking demographic in the first place.

There's a lot to this game; I'll give it that. But maaaaaybe half of it is good, and even that's a stretch. For every heartfelt conversation the game has, it has another scene where no one involved comes out of it even remotely likeable. For every joke that lands, there's a horribly-timed, tasteless joke about rape. For every well-written character dealing with real, relatable problems (Rin, Futaba), there's a character that I just can't even imagine what happened writing their scenes (most of the second floor). I feel like I would be more willing to let most of this slide if the non-sexy stuff was profound or thought-provoking, but they're not. It's just a bunch of protentious fluff that constantly degrades you for attempting to enjoy it.

A lot of work obviously went into making this game, and I can recognize it for being of objectively higher quality than 98% of the stuff on this website, but that doesn't automatically make this a good game.

Erased my previous lengthy review to bring it down concisely.

This is like if a Westerner made a shitty isekai and was too obsessed with DDLC but didn't understand why that game was popular.

This game is all shock value. There is content, but it's buried under layers of pretentious narration, terrible grinding mechanics, and lackluster horror elements.

(Not to Mention Unvoidable ((without warning)) noncon and NTR)

2.5 Good Art

Lessons in love is a pretty good horror visual novel. It has a pretty interesting story and has some well-written characters that stand on their own, but it's also marketed to pornsick gooners. I dislike how long it drags sometimes but its there more so as set up like in Higurashi or something.

Keep in mind though, that I consider myself someone who enjoys reading. I regularly seek out new books to read, and I also enjoy writing to some degree. This VN has surprassed 3 million words iirc? It is up to you if to determine if you'll enjoy that.

It's worth a play imo. I would recommend downloading the walkthrough mod just so you don't have to click around looking for scenes.

In regards to the puzzles, you will not finish the puzzles in any reasonable amount of time, and they are not gratifying to complete. Treat them like time filler, use the walkthrough mod.

I've been holding off rating games. I have been following this game since day one, with it's ups and very very lows. The latest update is a return to the original plan. H-scenes and TONS of weird and degenerate dialogue.

And when I have to say "thats a sentence I would never think myself", I can't help but rate it 5/5

Pretentious word salad with poor art, hard to relate personalities on the LIs, weird AF MC, infinitely repetitive "where do I go next?" clicking... overall just a terrible experience.

A frustrating waste of time. Hard pass.

This a top tier VN disguised as a porn game, if you came here for a quick fap this is not the game for you, however I can guarantee that this will be an amazing experience for you, the writing and the characters are top notch.

It should be said before anything else that this game hits differently if you suffer from depression, and even more so if psychosis is one of your symptoms. I am not sure someone with those issues should play this unless they have figured out how to deal with it, at least as far as it can be dealt with. I am not a psychologist, Iam saying this because I have these issues myself and I can't imagine how much this game would have fucked me up 20 years ago. That said, I can't even begin to describe how much I enjoy this game. There are like... a BUNCH of warnings one should have before playing, though. First the age of most of the girls, and the inability to avoid h content with most of those girls. Second this is a LONG game, I can't imagine playing this as if it's porn. Third is the darker content, the game can be depressing at times.
All of that said, I kinda feel like it NEEDS to be set in a highschool, I just wish the main character were around their age. That said, even if you aren't into that, as long as it's something you are willing to tolerate you might love the game. It's honestly better in a lot of ways than the non-h slice of life games that I play. Not having any restrictions on sexual content makes it kind of interesting in that you can experience a lot of different "coming of age" type of content. It's not a thing that I ever knew would be interesting, but it turns out to be just as interesting as other slice of life type stuff. The game has mystery, friendship, drama, and plenty of H. The development of many of the relationships has a surprising amount of build up that allows room for teasing as well as progression and will-they-won't moments. The writing is shockingly good and the humor in my opinion is also fantastic. The graphics are perfectly fine as long as you are used to anime-style stuff. This review is less objective than I usually try for because the content of this game is rather quirky and I think that has more to do with whether or not you'll like the game than the graphics. The writing is I think objectively fantastic, though, whether or not you enjoy the topics and characters.

I have two reviews for this game: one is a 5 star and one is a 0 star.

This game is 5 stars if you:

• are willing to invest 100+ hours into a story and willing to waste dozens of hours on pointless grinding
• are not playing to bust a nut (you simply won't be satisfied if that's what you're after)
• are willing to tolerate the things listed below in the 0 star review

This game is better described as a work of literature than as a porn game. It's quite pretentious at times but the good parts more than make up for that. If you want more details, read any other 5* review

Below is the 0 star review, I originally wrote it as a joke but honestly all of the "criticisms" are legit:

I wish I could give this game a negative rating because it genuinely fails in every possible way at making my pp hard!!!! it's honestly kinda impressive... the author has conceived of completely novel techniques to make my pp soft in the context of h games... a true pioneer in the field of anti-erotic erotica

• the gameplay is so mind-numbingly boring and designed to waste your time... it kills my boner every time
• the ntr is so disgusting... it kills my boner every time
• the weird fixation on maggots and termites and birds vomiting into each others' mouths and one's teeth melting into one's own mouth until one suffocates to death, yadayadayada... is utterly off-putting... it kills my boner every time
• the part where the girls have real life feelings???!?!?! sir, respectfully, what the f** is this *****? im here for the pussy not for the moral dillemma?? it kills my boner every god-damn time!!!! :mad
• the mc is a total depresso espresso!! like seriously, how hard is it to fuck the pussy without wanting to commit sudoku?? kills my boner ***every*** time!!!!

in conclusion, lessons in love is a game.

Ok, this is my first review ever on this site, so here we go, I'll try to be spoiler free... I just finished all the content avialable. Also, English is not my main language, so, apologies if there is any issue on my writing

1) This game is incredible, but I clearly understand that not everyone would be involved on the topics it touch. There are some scenes that are really crude, or they make you feel like shitties person ever...

2) this is not the classical eroge or sex-game, yes, there are a lot of sex scenes, but it is much more than that, I would play the story even without the whole Harem theme

3) Talking about the story, the story it is awesome, it makes you question practically life itself sometime, Selebus has a way of writing some things that I do not really share, but I can count the with the fingers of one hand.

4) The puzzles are the only thing I do not really like on the game, I used the guide mode and the Puzzle guide on the extras section that provide the solution for the most complicated puzzles... and boy you going to need it, the answers sometimes are really vague or arbitrary...

5) IMPORTANT: Watch out epileptics! there are TOO MANY flashing scenes (not pun intended, literally flashes on the screen)

6) Selebus writes TOO much, sometimes there are a lot of text, if you like to read, great, if not, well guides are your best friend.

7) The wiki is pretty good also, I do not encourage anyone to skip content, but sometimes it is possible that the character is not relevant to you, then you just can read the summary of the scene on the wiki.

8) The characters feels really alive, they have interests, persoanlities and hopes, I've played a LOT of games from this site, and I feel like there is not game where the characters makes me fall in love with them like on this one.

9) The constant updates and the lenght of the game, this is the only game that it is not completed that I'm currently playing, if you are like me and you are waiting for the game to be completed, please do not, Selebus releases content every month and it is a lot of content each time, it is worthy to play it even not finished

I could keep writing but it would take me forever, this game is awesome, it broke for me almost every other game, I've never enjoyed any other game from the site like Lessons in Love.

Thank you Selebus.

Warning: this game needs an NTR tag

I'm talking straight classic NTR scenes in the past couple updates. As in love interests getting raped by other characters, but halfway through end up enjoying themselves, cummings their brains out, and talking about how much better the rapist is than the MC.

These scenes come out of the blue, like 100 hours into the game, after you have already grown attached to the characters and didn't think anything like this would ever happen.

For context, this game has 4 chapters, and for the first 3, nothing like this has ever happened. There are 35 girls in the game, and a handful of them were introduced as bisexual and interested in/dating another girl. But all of the characters who were in love with the MC were routinely, clearly, only interested in him. Several of them would tell him repeatedly that they will only ever be interested in him don't want to be with anyone else. Then chapter 4 happens and most of the love interests start sleeping with other people. Girls who were super loyal to the MC one chapter ago are suddenly going to orgies or having sex with their friends. This culminates in two classic NTR scenes in the two last updates.

Other than that obvious deal breaker, the pros and cons of this game have been pretty well laid out by the other reviews here. Great character writing. Shit everything else.

Rating this game is hard as hell: on one hand we have the good things: the game is huge, with tons of different characters and shockingly this is actually... Very well written ? I often find myself quite entertained by the back and forth between the characters, sometimes because they are hilarious and sometimes because they are traumatic. And on the other hand we have the bad things: this game has some of the worst game design choices i have ever seen. First, you basically NEED to play the game with a mod that gives you the hints for the events, sometimes you need to choose to do a specific thing on a specific day with a specific characters, there are dozens of options creating hundreds of variables, and sometimes only one of those will result in an event. "Ok, so i've downloaded the hint mode, now it's all good, right ?" Nope. The so called "happy events". Ok, listen, they were fine at first, they really were, they made the plot interesting and made you wonder what the hell was going on, but after a while, they get annoying, they are always the same gibberish and sometimes they force you to complete unreasonable stuff, or else you are stuck there: sometimes you have to input a code that was shown once an hour ago and if you didn't write it down for some reason you need to go check f95 for the answer, sometimes you need to answer a dozen of specific, open ended questions, and i have no idea how anyone would ever be able to figure it out on their own. The final thing is that sometimes your choices don't matter at all, sometimes you are forced to choose between the game making you feel miserable for what you chose or missing who knows how many porn scenes in a porn game, like "oh, so you chose this girl as the winner because you will get an H scene ? Let me show you the other girl crying in the bathroom because she worked so hard for a contest that she deserved to win, but you cheated to get the H scene". It's just... Annoying

I wanted to like this game, but the narration seems to want to shoot itself in the head by being so obnoxiously pretentious the whole way through.

Despite how annoyingly judgmental the narration insists on being, you really don't get to actually make many meaningful or fun choices on your own. It's borderline railroading, and I see that despite that some people enjoy the story for what it is, but I think the game should have just been a novel instead of making a lewd game. Because, as a lewd game, this game kind of sucks.

To me, it just feels like the game was influenced by watching a few too many episodes of monogatari.

Some of the characters are cute, almost in spite of the writing itself, but it gets ruined by the overall intent of the game being misaligned from what you would want from a game like this. The MC is also a total twat, and the narration itself insisting on trying to be "deep" instead of letting you have fun and make choices in your interactions with the characters. This is way more of a VN than it is a "sandbox".

To put it another way, a lot of these characters would be really enjoyable if they were in a different game, that wasn't trying to spite the player the entire time. I don't want to give examples because that would dip into spoiler territory.

There's a point in the game where it's heavily implied that you're now free to make your own choices and play the game, but then you're further rail-roaded for a good while longer before you're actually able to make "choices" because the game just can't help itself but be pretentious and controlling.

The character designs are decent, the writing itself could have been good (for a porn game) if the writer could get over himself, but the final product is kind of a stinker because it fails to accomplish anything it sets out to be. I'm not spooked, I'm not horny, I'm not blown away by a "deep and complex" narrative about any of these characters. I'm just kind of annoyed, disappointed, like my time has been wasted by someone who thinks more nonsensical bullshit = better.

There's also sort of an accessibility issue. The game says that audio is necessary for progression, but this game is almost entirely text-based with pictures of anime girls. It feels like the audio thing is only there to, again, be kind of pretentious. It's an issue for anyone who either cannot use audio for the game or cannot hear the audio due to a disability or something. The suggested solution for this by the dev was just to look up spoilers, which I don't think is a solution at all.


Story - 2.5/5: It tries too hard and comes off as pretentious and honestly entirely misplaced.

Character Renders - 3.5/5: They're made with Koikatsu (which I like), but there's not enough busty characters (which I dislike). The MC looks pretty bad though, which is a shame.

Playability - 2/5: It tries to be a sandbox dating sim, but it's too rail roading and you're just selection locations from a list and that's just not an enjoyable way to play a game. It almost should have just been a VN. Would have been a little higher, but there's a purposefully added accessibility issue just for pretentiousness.

Grammar - 4.5: The content of the writing is pretentious and annoying, but the quality of the writing isn't bad. Maybe the dev should try and write an original story on a site like FictionPress or RoyalRoad, as that might be a better place for it than a pornographic video game.

Amount of Content - 3: There's a lot of word salad in this game, but not a lot of meat in terms of what people are actually playing these games for. I'd rate it lower, but the sheer amount of words is kind of impressive for something that claims to not be a VN.

One of the most exciting and interesting h-games I've ever played. The game is not very strong technically, but in other aspects it is incredible:

1. Complex multi-layered plot and very rich lore
2. Amazing world-building - laws of the world, contradictions and paradoxes
3. Very memorable characters with lively personalities
4. Complex psychological and moral topics
5. Black humour and fun jokes.
6. Custom and unusual H-scenes

I supported this one for about a couple years back in the Patreon days. It was good then and going at a decent pace. Then it seemed to just stop going anywhere. The story got stale, the characters got stale, and the whole thing got boring. I played an update before, must've been about a year back, that I thought would get things back on track (involving an important character's obsession), but it ended up being resolved really cleanly. I was expecting (and hoping) for it to descend to a climax from there but it didn't- it was business as usual.

If there's a good game here, it stopped being that around two million words ago. I'm consistently shocked by the amount of people who have competing readings and theories about this text- it certainly lends itself to that, but how has this kept anyone's rapt attention this long? The writing is essentially a stream-of-consciousness rant at this point. It's cool that people are still enjoying it- it's just completely lost all of its magic for me, which is a shame because this was one of my favorites in the early days.