Ren'Py - Life's Payback [v1.3] [Vinkawa]

Yes, I love repeating the same sex scene 3-5 times to progress! Yes, this is actually a great progression system, balls to the wall clever game design! Yes, I want my lewd games to be a glorified Kokaitsu scene viewer! Yes, I do enjoy the same Kokaitsu animations I have seen dozens of times in different games, even with close to zero writing to set them up! Yes, endgame skipping days is my hobby, I love clicking the same button! Yes, to add to all of those amazing features above, the game is fairly short, no danger of getting bored!

Are you that person? Good news, there are plenty of subpar HS/Kokaitsu games out there, download away. Otherwise, move along.

(Important: Thread just got review banned because dev was getting people to make fake positive reviews, so be very skeptical of some positive reviews you might find.)

I have no idea how this game has such high reviews. (edit: well now I do lol)

The game is too repetitive, click the same place at the same time of day to advance with the girl's event, and repeat over and over seeing exactly the same scene until you have enough points for the next one.

There's no "corruption" because the game has no writing, the scenes and the story make no sense and there's 0 effort into making it interesting.

When I say it has no writing I mean it, characters are 1 dimensional and make no sense, the MC will go to a girl and find the dumbest reason to blackmail them and "you have to suck my dick because bla bla bla" and they'll agree, and that's your "corruption", this also leads to no girl really being likeable because there's nothing to enjoy when a girl is on the screen, no interesting dialogues between characters or something to warm up to them, girls are just there to be raped by the MC and have a cute design, nothing else, don't expect interesting characters.

Did I mention it's also grindy? And when the grind consists of clicking the same event 5 times with no changes to it whatsoever to progress, it makes you wonder why that system is even there in the same place? Edit: Supposedly it got updated and it "removed" the grind from the game. I'm not in the slightest interested into re-trying this game, so I won't check how true that is, but i'll point it out.

The animations are the only ok part of this game, story is not interesting, MC has no depth at all nor character development and the girls are lifeless.

For some reason there's no Gallery which would really help the game considering the animations are the only thing decent about it.

Game is amazing. 0 bugs, great sex scenes, good looking characters.

While the writing isn't great, it checks out.

If you like corruption games, play it, trust me, you will love it.
If not, get out of here, you will hate it .

Great Animations and splendid character Models with fluid animations. Story was nothing to write home about but solid enough to not impede the overall gameplay. Sandbox works well enough, instructions to progress storylines worked well.

The story is simple yet very good at setting the mood of the game and setting up the scenes. The scenes themselves are amazing, they're well animated (way better than most other koikatsu games) and put you in pretty hot scenarios. There's a good spread of different characters. Only thing i would add (outside of more Lucie scenes) are random scene encounters that pop up throughout the game without having to actively engage with characters for them to start, it would just add more spice to the game.

v0.7
TLDR: Good animations and plenty of scenes make this worth a try IF you are into nonconsentual sex/rape.

Positives:
+ A healthy harem of hot chicks for the MC to violate.
+ There's a reasonable variety of sex positions and animations.
+ Careful attention was clearly paid to girl expressions which are highly enjoyable.
+ I share the developer's blatant love of absurdly stacked girls, although the game would benefit from some smaller/slimmer girls for the sake of variety.
+ Unreservedly evil MC who does not prentend, even to himself, to be a "Nice Guy".
+ The writing/plot is "Dick In A Box" porn level. It serves to (barely) coherently string together the images appearing on screen and no more. No angsty teen novels to fast forward through in this game.

Criticism:
- The girl's verbal and physical reactions to getting violated are underwhelming and could use elaboration. Generally the girl being raped expresses a little discomfort or mild surprise. This would be immensely improved with dialogue like: Threats, begging, barganing to stop, denial, trying to call for help, or even some attempt at fighting back. The girls seem to fall victim to Dick Contact Paralysis. Only the scene where Elise forces Mathilde to kneel struck me as a girl having a vaguely reasonable reaction to the events unfolding.
- The money grind is light early game, but quickly becomes tedious with the $1K and $2K requirements later. This adds nothing to the game but pointless delay. Smacking the "Work" button is what we do in real life, not why we come to a porn game.
- Giving the player the option to replay a scene is good. Forcing the player to repeat the exact same scene to build "influence" and progress is boring stalling. Either make the third, fourth, and fifth time fucking a girl a bit different or make them optional.
- When Anna is bent over the table in the kitchen her interaction area is mostly at the bottom of the screen which tends to inadvertently pull up the navigation when moused over.

Conclusion: This game is the equivalent of going to eat at Cinnabon, but you have to walk three miles to get there. The sweet sticky delicious payoff is not hard to find it just takes a bit of marching. And if anyone saw you they'd think you are disgusting for enjoying that shit.

I've been seeing this game pop up every few weeks now and the cute girls and bouncing hypnotic ass in the previews finally managed to lure me in. The girls and animations look pretty great, don't they?

Unfortunately, they're basically the only thing Life's Payback has going for it. It's a sandbox game that consists of constant, relentless repetition of events just to unlock the next scene. Then you repeat that scene or a previous one to unlock the next scene. You might occasionally need a giant stack of cash, acquired by clicking the work button, to buy a peripheral in order to progress. There's no time crunch, just grind until you unlock everything. Spicy.

So gameplay is borked, how about story? Each of the girls has a "corruption" arc consisting of the thinnest veneer of blackmail eventually collapsing in to straight up forceful rape. Each story is generally nonsensical, has a one-dimensional girl who experiences no growth or change and doesn't particularly add anything to the main character's life. None of the girls even try to do anything about the fact that they're getting blackmailed and raped on the regular. It's pretty pathetic.

I feel a little betrayed by the massive amount of rape in the game honestly. I suppose I was anticipating a little bit of blackmail and light non-con to kick start each girl's corruption arc before, ya know, actual corruption taking place and the girl getting down with the business. Instead there's a little bit of blackmail and light non-con to kick start each girl's corruption arc before the main character face fucks or anally plows each girl under false pretenses while she politely asks him to stop. Or bawls, depends on the girl. I'm aware that the game has the rape tag, but it just felt like false advertising given the generally happy-go-lucky vibe of the sample images, music, and artwork. So as a word of warning for potential players checking the reviews: this game is very rapey player beware.

Overall, I regret playing Life's Payback. Progression is tedious, the stories are worthless, the characters are thin, and my idea of corruption includes dub-con at most as opposed to violent rape. As much as I liked the art, I won't be coming back.

Review for v0.7

Normally I don't go for games like this (revenge/corruption) since I lean more into the sunshine and rainbows side of things, but the previews caught my interest and I said why not. The reason I rate this three stars though isn't because of those preferences, but rather that the game is just kinda... boring.

It's a very porn focused game for sure, and there's little in the way of compelling writing or story. But even the basic setup that exists to guide you into everything just isn't grasping to me. The overview sets up the expectation that this is going to be the MC getting revenge for being treated so awfully by everyone. Thing is, he really hasn't had anything happen to him that justifies his path of revenge. There's things that I can get making him disgruntled, like his mom being an alcoholic and shitty parent that the MC now has to provide for, but... that's it?

What actually became apparent is that the MC is just a shitty person. There's like no redeeming qualities about him. One of the girls whole issue with him starts because he's a pervert who keeps staring at her ass in the gym, and his issues with the others really aren't any better. He's a blackmailer and forces himself on most of the cast, which I guess I understand is kind of the idea of the game, but even so there could have been actual compelling reasons for revenge.

The game plays as a repetitive sandbox. Most events are short ones you repeat to build corruption points that progresses you to the next lewd scene. Plus the usual money and working out grind. Is it difficult? No. But it's also like 90% of the game, which towards the end made it feel like a slog. There's not enough (or hardly any) longer events that would build up the characters, so all the girls end up falling a bit flat.

Now the lewd scenes themselves are not bad sure. I'm a fan of the models and the animations are on the nicer side. But what is missing from them is angles. Most scenes only have a single one. An inclusion of sound effects would help too I think. This is also personal preference, but the dialogue is pretty much just the MC degrading them and again not really my thing. Though kinda dumb to complain about considering I knew that's what the game would be coming into it.

It's just too simple for me, even ignoring that these types of games normally aren't my jam. I'd probably return only to grab a full save. Playing through the game normally just doesn't feel very satisfyingly.

Version Reviewed: v0.6

Overview: Show the world who's boss.

Story: You're a guy who goes to school but has a huge chip on his shoulder because his mom was a drunk and his sister was a jerk to him. This is the pretext he uses to justify being an out of control sex predator. Every girl you find is just your next victim. This includes your mom and sister of course, but also your teacher, her daughter, a gamer classmate, a random catgirl, another classmate who gets annoyed at you for staring at her ass in the gym, and a nun. Generally you try to blackmail them, although all of the women are so weak willed that this doesn't take much effort. Other times you just flat out rape them, but they don't seem to mind too much. The only one that really resents the constant harassment is your Teacher's daughter, so you have to tie her up before you rape her.

Gameplay: This is a sandbox, but the progression system is easy to follow and the amount of clicking is pretty manageable so as far as sandbox games go it's alright. Your control key will get a workout however. The stat targets are usually only like 3 or 4 steps at a time so they go reasonably quick. There is also a money grind but that's pretty manageable too. One thing I like is that it doesn't have a bunch of bullshit padding like "wait three days" for the next event. There's also no ever decreasing stats to maintain or any other such busywork.

Conclusion: Despite the MC being completely irredeemable I thought this game was well constructed enough to merit a full 5 stars. The story elements are extremely bare bones, but the fappability factor is very high and although it starts a bit slow the game ramps up quickly. I also like that you can do multiple actions in one time period and there's rarely any times when you don't have something worth doing. I completely finished all of the current content and never had to skip days or even really time periods. Sure the night time slot is mostly useless, but that's par for the course for sandbox games. I really appreciate a game with a good amount of porn that doesn't waste too much of my time.

Pretty ok game. The girls look good and the writing is serviceable. Graphically, it's pretty average. There are animations so that's a plus. However, the gameplay is absolutely atrocious. This is one of those grindy sandbox games where you need to keep doing the same events over and over and over to generate enough points to unlock the next scene which has you grind even more points over and over again to unlock the next and etc etc. This is extremely boring and repetitive and needs a major overhaul. Even worse, you need to grind money as well so you do the same thing over and over and over each day to get enough money to buy something from the store that let's you proceed to the next event and so on. This is so boring and it's a real damn shame because everything else is set up to be a pretty nice game. Fix the grindy sandbox aspect and the game would be way, way better.

If you're into male domination corruption type stuff this is an obvious play. This game is really hot. Good scenes, lots of them already, and even seems like it might have room for a character arc with our psychopath MC at some point.

[v 0.6]

Great game, really enjoyed playing it. It fits my kink about male domination and corruption. Definitely will keep an eye for new updates.

Pros:
+ MC always act like true predator and takes what he wants.
+ Short dialogs. Explain everything in just a few sentences.
+ Groping scenes. Wow! So many games are missing them.
+ Hot animated sex scenes, with emotions on girl's faces.
+ Family dinner and visiting your teacher's home is GOLD! Surprisingly, scenes like these, where multiple characters are interacting in a unique degrading way are rare in corruption games.
+ That "purr" sound catgirl makes when sleeping with MC.

Cons:
- HUGE tits. I know, they are shown on screenshots, so I cant complain about them. But they are twice bigger than what I consider sexy.
- Mouth animation in bj scenes. It stretches like a worm and looks super unnatural.
- Grind. I have to repeat same action 4 times or more to get a new scene. Its fine when I repeat a sex scene, but something like playing a videogame or teaching could have more variation in text.

This barebones grindy corruption sandbox sticks to a very simple formula. The corruption stuff and kinks/lewds are fine, possibly even good. Some of the later stuff is nice quality. I played on android and some of the loops that might have been good have big stuttering issues. The UI is kind of a pain, and it lacks basic options like to hide the UI or reduce text box opacity. There is no attempt at a story, simply a premise to establish the MC's blackmail/leverage, which essentially comes down to "the MC is really smart." The characters likewise don't really have any personality or anything to them.

I'd give this a 4 stars if the UI was improved up, map navigation was less annoying, and the technical issues with certain loops were cleaned up. Sometimes no story is better than a bad story that gets in the way, but as it is there's not much reason to care about the corruption aspect or the characters or anything. A mindless game like this can only be so good.

Really missing a forced/rape tag.

LIs are a combination of hot, beautiful, and cute, they all look great, and duplicate appearances are not used
The animations are smooth, the angle of the animations is excellent, the intensity of the animations is good
But
The story is very boring and cliché, we have seen this story thousands of times, no creativity is seen
The facial expressions are very few, making the LIs appear soulless
The number of dialogues is few and we don't see anything special and attractive in the dialogues, even the dirty dialogue is not well created and we don't have any teasing
LIs almost do not talk during sex, this has made the scenes boring
Sex scenes end quickly. To create tense scenes, longer scenes are usually needed
There is no sexual or emotional tension because none of them resist. MC is a god
Sandbox did not increase the attractiveness of the game, on the contrary, it made the game boring
And maybe one or two more that I forgot

Overall, it might be good for a quick fap, but it's not a tense, exciting experience

best thing about this is the frequent updates. the animations aren't bad too. Male domination content is always a plus and this game has a strong focus on it. Not much of a story to speak of but that means scenes are more frequent. The designs of the girls are varying and there's ahegao so the game is just good fun. If I wasn't a lazy broke ass I'd donate.

The game isn't a game is it just porn, wouldn't be a problem if the porn was good but it isn't and if it didn't try to mask itself as a game. The animations are custom but i don't think all are made by the person because quality varies a lot, some are worse then koikatsu’s default ones. I don't even know what updates this game can have because there is no story, only things to add are more scenes and that is it. Giving 2 stars because some of the still images are good quality. (Also why the main menu of the game has a loud laugh?)

Really sexy looking 3d art.
Cute girls.
The game is really not pretending it is anything but porn, as it jumps right into it.
I laughed a few times from the jokes.
Expect blackmail, whether that is good or bad is up to you.

An interesting take on a revenge-like plot game.

Reviewing as of v0.8.4

Pros:

• A good range of girls to choose from, some girls have more scenes than others but I'm sure that'll change as updates go along.
• Different sizes, ranging from big-tittied milfs to flat students
• Plot is definitely an interesting take on revenge
• Around 2 hours to complete
• The day and night cycle has been improved from earlier builds which is appreciated
• The grind from earlier builds have mostly been removed. Still somewhat of a grind for some but way more managable now

Cons:

• Skip a lot of time to get to a certain part of the day for one scene then rinse and repeat
• Seems way too easy to corrupt people right now, which there was a tiny bit more of a slow burn for some characters
• Your stats don't really seem to matter except for a couple of scenes
• The map is kind of clunky and annoying to navigate sometimes

Conclusion:

I recommend this game 100%. There's definitely a lot of potential here and I can't wait to see how the game develops. I've played since around v0.4.6 and there's been a great amount of improvements so I'll be keeping my eye on future updates.

amazing game.

-Dev is listening to feed back, when it's actually constructive and not just vitriolic.
-the body models are varied but all fit with each other
-the expression's are *chefs kiss*. the sister character in particular has the best "fucked stupid" face I've seen
-the grind is balanced. focusing a character gets you to the next stage pretty fast to be frank, but is still a satisfying effort

if I had any gripe, since I try to at least include something critical in any discussion for the sake of balance it would be the removal of the school blowjob from the spoiled student but it's honestly so minor I still give this 5/5

Life's Payback strikes an impressive balance between simplicity and depth, offering a refreshing experience in the genre. Each character in the game is well-developed, avoiding the pitfalls of being overly simplistic or bland. This careful character development creates a perfect medium that keeps players engaged and invested in the story.

The visuals are very good, with the creator successfully adding extra style to the 3D modeled world. The physics of body movements and the execution of expressions are particularly noteworthy, adding a layer of realism and immersion to the game. The animation quality enhances the overall experience, making every scene visually appealing and engaging.

Scenes in the game are well-crafted, utilizing good camera angles and dialogue to maintain engagement. The scenes are immersive and keep the player's attention throughout, ensuring a satisfying experience from start to finish.

There is a nice variety of female characters. This includes a decent number of characters without overwhelming the player, which is a common issue in similar games. Each character model received adequate attention, preventing any from feeling underdeveloped or neglected.

The UI is user-friendly and informative. It provides just enough functionality to get the job done efficiently, allowing players to understand it early on.

The game features a progression system with each girl, requiring players to unlock scenes by earning points. Initially, this felt repetitive and somewhat tedious. However, with the latest update, the grind has been reduced, and the pacing feels much better, making for a far more more enjoyable experience.

Despite being in its early stages, Life's Payback already offers a substantial amount of content and shows tremendous potential. The balance of character development, visual appeal, scene execution, and a user-friendly interface makes it a standout in its genre. The recent updates addressing the progression system further enhance the gameplay experience. For these reasons and it's potential, I believe Life's Payback deserves a high rating.