I've been a big fan of all this dev's games. They've gotten fairly similar now with the models and playstyle but I just love it. This slow corruption process of cute girls is just the kind of grind I can enjoy.
Especially now that you can slip episodes when there's some buggy last bits you can't get.
I want to like this game. I wanted to support this game...I am happy to support quality games and devs who clearly are going to go the distance and truly care about their games and making them the best they can be.
That's why I usually wait until a game has reached at least a version 3-4 before deciding to support it. I played this game back during Chapter 2 and loved it even despite the bugs which I was sure would be fixed in later versions. But the models were good and unique, the writing/humor was good even if not always perfect English, and I thought the grind level was just the right amount. There was noticeable progression in both dialogue and image content between each time you visited a scene and the amount of repeats seemed reasonable. Plus the dev was active in the thread answering questions and such which made it seem like they cared. Awesome. I forgot to bookmark it though so I missed a couple releases and so when I saw Chapter 6 decided to do a full new playthough.
Playing this game this time... I can't help but worry think the devs don't actually do a single complete playtest of their own game or to even enlist someone else to do it before releasing a new chapter...
The game is on version 6 and there is STILL a freaking dead end choice in the first Chapter that the has not been fixed. I mean how dam hard would it be to either delete the dead end choices or put in a scene/couple lines of code that at the very least loop back to getting to make one of the other choices until the player chooses the exposing in the shower method to move the game forward? Has any attempt been made to fix the 6:30AM not getting marked complete in the first two chapters? Has the dev looked into why the event for buying Eve's bikini in Chapter 3 doesn't always trigger despite finishing the conversation tree with her? Because again none of these fairly game breaking issues has been fixed yet months later. Fine you know I was still willing to give some benefit of the doubt. I don't know a ton about Renpy, maybe there is a reason the Dev really doesn't know how to fix these or didn't want to break saves and force everyone to start over? Of course there were also things like Bob saying the phrase "I'm not your sister" which was pointed out here also wasn't fixed in Chapter 1 which was also somewhat disappointing. Still not a total dealbreaker for me though.
Then I liked Chapter 3 (besides having to use the console for the bikini bug), and then came Chapter 4 which it was slightly annoying that the Lina shower plot was playing out a second time word for word as an event with no further progress Ch2 but otherwise no really major complaints. Had I downloaded the game when this version came out I probably actually would have still supported.
Then came Chapter 5...and it seems like this is really where quality control was pretty much completely flushed over just getting the update out as it was all just an mess. Where to start...
The scene with the grocery girl photo shoot is missing the Camera and the whole photoshoot mechanic which pretty much every other photo shoot scene has. The whole point of this highly plot important scene is to be taking pictures of her so the omission of the interactive photo element as the MC is taking pics is quite disorienting.
When the MC is later editing the photos of grocery girl at the beach instead it shows pictures of Eve. At first I thought maybe this was because the dev accidentally inserted the photos in the wrong scene, that he meant to put them in the scene where the MC is editing the Eve photos later in the episode....except they aren't even photos of Eve's photoshoot they are random pictures of Eve topless in the pool with the MC from a previous chapter. I then checked the image folder expecting to find potential before and after lighter/darker duller/vibrant versions of the same grocery girl picture or Eve's photo shoot pictures to fit the scene assuming wrong image numbers were maybe typed in the script, but no such images seem to exist so I honestly have no idea what the intention was here. Ugh.
The Kitchen scene with Lynn washing dishes is a complete disaster. There are not one but THREE lines that are said by the wrong character...
Code:
m "It's just work and life, you know. I've got a lot on my mind today."
li "Thanks, %(m)s. I appreciate it. For now, I think I just need a few moments to myself."
m "Bob, can't you see I'm stressed and not in the mood for your games right now?"
All three lines should be said by Lynn...
The dev even corrected this in Episode 6, but seemingly couldn't be bothered to fix it Chapter 5 the SIXTEEN times that this scene plays out. (The only other wrong narrators I noticed before was in the pre-story "The winner is %(li)s" is spoken by the Lawyer instead of Eve...which I completely missed that the lawyer wasn't there the first few times I played it so I get how this hadn't been caught, and in Chapter 3 the line "What the fuck are you doing? - GET OUT" in Lina's room is accidentally said by Lynn. Given that the only time she says it is if you take a picture of her when she is naked changing under certain circumstances it's much more understandable that this could have been missed in a playtest since angering her means lowering mood and increasing your grind.)
This kitchen scene has other issues though. The line "Bob, can't you see I'm stressed and not in the mood for your games right now?" has the word Bob hardcoded instead of substituted with the player name variable %(m)s. (This was also NOT fixed in Chapter 6). The result is apparently a "ValueError: unsupported format character" error crash can happen (This may only happen if the player chooses to use the built in name changer to rename Bob?) that was easily fixed by putting in the %(m)s for "Bob" in the script file.
(I don't know enough about renpy to figure out why it's causing an error in this particular scene. Maybe the absurd quantity of 16 duplicate scenes with this line plays a factor as the error mentions something about a lot of previous lines duplicated? There are two other lines with hardcoded "Bob" both also in Chapter 5 that don't cause an crash though again should have been fixed to use the name variable instead of Bob.
ly "Bob, this is stunning! You have impeccable taste."
ly "Bob, you're sweet, but we have a math problem to solve, remember?"
One other minor gripe is how Lynn's line "It's just work and life, you know. I've got a lot on my mind today." doesn't fit the story... She complains about work? WHAT WORK? I mean not only do we stalk her the entire day to see that she never works but it's a pretty major plot point that she doesn't have a job which is why she needs the MC to buy her things, and she is willing to do the photo shoots to earn money and feel like she is contributing money to the house hold? Plus Eve even told her two younger sisters that they needed to focus on school and could not get jobs... Was this originally an Eve scene that was instead given to Lynn? (Again I may not have thought about this crap if the game didn't make me read the same lines SIXTEEN TIMES).
Eve's pool scenes are an editing mess. They start off fine with her laying under the shade and telling the MC that she's laying under the shade and it's too hot, but as the scenes progress in the grind the exact same dialogues occurs only now she is sitting on a stone in the middle of the sun with her legs in the pool yet still claims to be laying under the shade because it's too hot, only to then teleport mid conversation to be actually laying back under the shade, before then teleporting to be in the pool with the MC sitting beside her as happened in Ch4...
All throughout the dialogue there are lines which it's amazing they weren't caught and fixed if someone cared a little.
The scene in the bathroom where the MC is convincing the girls to let him post their pictures on the internet contains this line
"It's 100% secure! I've checked with a test site (more or less...)
Which would be fine if a single % in script wasn't a renpy protected character which causes the game to spit out <renpy> code in the middle of the sentence in game. This seems like it should have been impossible to miss with a single playthrough? It's easily fixed by instead using %% in the script or if you didn't know that use the word "percent" instead of the symbol.
I've play plenty of ENGRISH games. I understand that some devs don't speak English as a first language so rely on things like Google Translator which doesn't always give them the right words or phrases... I'm assuming that's how you end up with things like this from an earlier chapter:
"I'm just sneezing, what are you photographing?" (Grocery girl had a couple more similar lines)
I'd guess that the words sneezing things is a bad translation of words trying to say that she is just being nosey. That's fine...although ideally something an English playtester would fix.
What really seems lazy though is when there are words that aren't even close that go uncaught...ie
"Look what I bought! Do yo like this floating mateless?" when he buys the floating MATTRESS.
my favorite though is from when Lynn finally gets her laptop..
ly "Bvadrr"
That's not even close to being an English word??? Did her brain just break? Was she electrocuted?
Honestly for the most part I don't mind grind. I played the original Big Brother, and games like CureMyAddiction, WaterWorld, etc which were total grind fests and mostly loved them. Long conversations trees, having to solve puzzles visiting different places at different times. I'm fine with all of that. (Although I do certainly prefer a good hint/walk-through be an option) Especially in the first chapters of this game as I previously mentioned I had no issues with the grind. It followed a steady noticeable chain of progression. It had a rhythm. Something like scene, rejection, bribe/plea, rejection, bribe/plea, scene. You could tell you were making progress on each visit both from the dialogue and the pictures. I'll also add that I also didn't have a major problem with the shifting attitudes towards nakedness and the MC, I mean beyond the obviousness need for it for story purposes the "sisters" are all hormonal teen/twenty-something girls...and girls at that age can certainly change their minds about things quickly and often IRL.
Then again in came Chapter 5....
I do think it is lame as hell when the exact same scene plays out in multiple timeslots without overlapping progression and you consider it two separate events. That's not content... or remotely enjoyable grind. If anything its an immersion breaker when you are going back in progression bouncing between the scene in the morning/afternoon and the scene in the afternoon/evening... I can't be alone in preferring to go back to less "events" like the first chapters than having more when they are the exact same events almost word for word (I think the morning version of the Lynn kitchen scene in Ch5 did have an added "Good Morning" line compared to the after dinner version...whoopie) running simultaneously. A little effort in making the various grind scenes dialogue occasionally different would also not be the worst thing ever. I mean take Lina posing in her swan costume in Ch4-5 at some point she loses not only the top but her underwear as well in the pictures, and then there is increasing level of touching, but the dialogue does not change one line to acknowledge any change to the status quo. Lynn lying on her bed in her bedroom has the excact same dialogue (which means the same level of reaction) when the MC puts his hand on her leg and when he tries to actually put his finger in her pussy...which is a pretty significant line to suddenly cross with her. Would it be really asking too much to put in a little more effort to spice things up a tiny bit with a couple extra words here and there when the scene calls for it instead of mailing it in like this?
At least those last scenes I mentioned had a noticeable visual progression. The Lynn bathroom scene where she is wearing a towel in front of the mirror had a difference so subtle you could barely tell anything changed until the last variation when her tits fell out. The Lynn kitchen scene had a similar issue of just dragging on and on and on and on with barely a change after the first 2 versions. I mean it went from hug to kiss and then I guess the kiss got like one frame longer each time and it went from hot to tedious as it dragged on and on (and again the forced double repetition did not help this scene feel less tedious).
I started Chapter 6...but after that same DAM KITCHEN SCENE WITH LYNN WITH THE SAME DAM CODE ERROR happened right at the beginning I just quit. I then had to get all this off my chest. At some point in a few days I will give it a try see if it's any better than Ch5, maybe that chapter was an aberration for some reason? Fingers crossed.
If more effort is placed into later chapters and ideally fixing some of the more basic fixable issues I outlined above I would still be happy to support in the future as I do think at the core there is what I consider a good game here.
Heck for all the complaining I just did about Ch5 there was still good stuff about it too like the progression with Eve, and the dual bathroom scene with Lina/Lynn. And I liked how the blanket scene was handled, where the clue was given on how to trigger the scene and then the reminders were given afterwards on how to keep progressing.
Wasted far too many hours grinding nothing at all. Everyone is stuck everywhere in the progression rather than progressing. No replays for what little you might unlock.
If your game requires a walkthrough and cheating (which I did not use,) then you are not a game developer. Give it up and go find something you're actually good at.
My Early Life is My Coding Failure.
I think it gets more flak than it deserves. The girls look great, the "plot" progresses nicely, and I have no troubles clicking through everything without reading. I'm excited to see how this one plays out.
Bad dialogues
Bad story
Retarded grind mechanics, click 30 times a week on a button in top screen or you lose.
Retarded walkthrough/playback
Hell even close screen buttons are made gray out, are barely visible and are located in the different part of screen for different windows. I genuiney think, the author is a sadist who takes joy in suffering of players.
Characters which feel like dumb npcs with the only goal in mind to blueball player.
Corruption that is not real corruption, just being cuck with sluts.
A repeat 10000 times to get one new picture kind of game play.
I find playing this game interesting with good progression. The Story line between all the different games released are all tied in. It's will be interesting to see how bob ties into all the games released. The graphics and girls are great, leaving you wanting to push further into the game.
where you have several good selection options ... like apply sunlotion ...shoulder massage... you take some risc ... like a only 50% chance you are successful.
more resistance from some of the girls.
the should have different character traits!
let them wear some sexy dresses and underwear... would be nicer do undress them as you wish... or as the let you...
I like the art work. The storyline is bland.
This is a terrible grind, one of the worst I have encountered for a game.
The amount of times you have to click to just observe events is ridiculous, move the event menu to the bookmarks heading so it's a single click.
This is not a game that you can just closely read and know what to do. You might have to go through weeks just to trigger an event if ever. The lack of direction and well written dialogue quickly make this game boring.
This game is even worse than the once before it, in my last review I said the devs learn nothing new and and don't listen to the critic.
This time though it feels like the devs even forget basic stuff and did things people don't like on purpose.
This game is even more tedious than the once before and in my opinion the CG got worse. Avoid it.
Very nice renders (some scenes are best i see), moderate dificulty, little grind, slowly corruption of girls and photo shooting. Its not for simple people like only VN novel. If you read text not problem with game. If you using unsen text + ctrl = problem. Many people hated it but everytime wait for update Simple try it and make your opinion. Its a game, not VN.
After EP.3 with small look at EP.4
PS: If you played tief version dont cry about bugs.... wait for release public version which catch all bugs...
PPS: money and study hours have silution only use brain (activate console)
UPDATE after ep.7
add animations, arousal system, better hint system + up one star = promising trend
subjective - missing continue swan line with Lin
missing in hint system counting of sub events 1/4,2/4 etc.
4,5 stars for now
I dont mind sandbox or grinds but i do have my limits, and this one goes way past that, its not that its hard in any way but it just takes forever and you get absolutly nowhere, 4 chapters done and you havent even kissed all the girls once yet.....considering the grind vs rewards its just not worth playing, it will proberly take 10 chapters for MC to fuck someone, if that will even happen.
You can skip chapters which is nice if you get stuck which i was already in chapter 1, had to enter a girls room at 9 and 9:30 if i remember correct and i tried that for a hole week and she was just sleeping and nothing happened.
Game also has alot errors, money vanishing in chapter 4 for no apprent reason, inventory is bugged i never could open it without getting the grey error screen.
The story isent that much fun, mostly just vanilla and all you do is take pictures and sell them or upload them to your website, the girls has some small issues like work problem and boyfriend issues but its all a bit boring, you will also get tierd of the constant "your not my brother/sibling" comment, you will hear that a million times.
To give you an idea of how fast progress is, if you visit a girl on the toilet, she stays on it, she gets up and hide pussy, gets up hides move leg one step to the side, gets up hides move other leg one sted, gets up you shows a little pussy, and so on each of those moves are per day, so one leg move 1 day next leg 1 day...you get the picture right.
Same thing goes for storylines, you have to see the same scenes the same text a million times over multiple days to just add a few words each day, it just gets to boring in the long run, and add 15 hours to study each week which you just do on monday to get it over and done with, it just adds up and becomes to much wasted time for no rewards.
The in-game guide help a little but it dosent really tell you want to do, it might say go to a girls room at 9:00 and when you do nothing happens and you have no clue what you need to do to get it to trigger, its a bit annoying when you only have 4 missing steps and none of the does anything, making you stuck and forced to use skip episode button.
If game was made so you atleast got faster progress with one girl or even with some side girls to keep it fun and interesting it might not feel so bad, but without any lewd stuff doing so much grinding it just gets to boring.
The only thing game got going is the nice looking LIs with good builds and would love to see the creator start making real AVNS without sandbox with the same kind of girls since they are nice in all the creators games, and it could be a game worth suppoting maybe someday it will happen but dont have my hopes up.
The game itself is very attractive to the player on the inside. When all the lines of behavior are already outlined and progress is already visible and the further development of events is clear. This is when the girls are no longer ashamed, and the bob is already accepted by them as a man. But all this nullifies the process itself and its features of the game, which in previous versions only annoyed, but in this game they simply do not allow you to enjoy the game. In my opinion, the balance of the game between money, slow progress and temptation is just wrong. Scripts should make it more interesting, instead, they are such that in most cases the player is unable to complete the quests, leads to the completion of the game in only 20 quests out of 90. This is manifested in the fact that the hero must not only win the favor of girls, but also take care of money, which the game requires much more than it provides opportunities to earn. This is an imbalance, a failure, a shortcoming, and a significant one at that! When you don't have enough $150 to rent a house, it's one thing, but when the main character manages to go into minus $100, it's completely absurd! It's a shame, because exactly 3-4 episodes are the most attractive and seductive, when the process of seduction is in the middle. In addition, the author has closed the possibility of adding money by editing saved games. It was generally unethical and rude.
God I wish this dev would learn something along the way!
After years of producing games with great models in unbearable grindfests, it seemed like he might have picked up a clue with MBFD2 where you could actually progress through the game in finite time - so much so that I supported him at one of the highest tiers for quite a while (that ended once I'd played through several hours on this clunker).
Rather than continue MBFD2, though, he chose to suspend development of a game that was working to start this one and let all of his worst instincts come back to the fore. Once you get past the intro it's all grind, all the time, and when you do chance upon a new event that sparks a ray of hope that maybe you've opened up something new you get ... barely anything noticeable in advancing the story.
I'm fine with a slow burn, but there's barely a hint of warmth in this mess, and no matter how slow you like your burn, this is slower than that. He's gone back to a hint system that's been shown to be nearly worthless, demonstrating that MBFD2 was the exception, not a sign of newfound awareness that people want games to progress.
I'm giving him an extra star because the artwork is quite good, though these models aren't anywhere near his best (that would be MBFD2, again). Maybe in a year I'll come back and, if someone's written up a walkthrough, give this another spin.
Life's too short to spend it wading through crap like this.
Every new CeLaVie game has better graphics and models. I love the new premise of the game and I really like the evolution of the game's gameplay.
I may overrate the game but
I remain attentive to the evolution of the story and I hope that the game loses interest (in other games the end is worse than the beginning).
Nice models (not as good as in MBFD), dumb plot, some grinding. Instead of starting new game I'd rather would like to continue playing MBFD 2, which just started to be interesting, but well... Let's see how it will be going.
It's difficult to find a good slow burn game but this one checks all the boxes for me. Personal preference plays a large part in everyone's enjoyment. I think that the tag system will benefit games like this so people will be able to filter out more things they don't like.
I play games for the chase and the "game" aspect of it. Some people like VNs that are linier and they don't have to think much. To each their own, but raking a game negatively just because it doesn't fit their preference never made sense to me.
Corrupting to the point of casual nudity/sex is a main aspect of this developer. That combined with the sandbox means you can be a part of the process. You can earn it. That is why I will play an adult game vs watch an adult video. You are more a part of the experience.
If you are not interested in putting work into a game like this then that's fine. I wouldn't even bother downloading it. The "I hate sandboxes" people on this site are overly vocal and need to stay away from these games. They are not built for them.
To be fair, one negative aspect of this developer is the 7 tiers of patron support. I don't begrudge anyone making money off of their work. I use this site to find games I can support. But as someone who has supported many developers this makes it difficult to find an entry point. By the time it gets to a reasonable $10 the game has been out for almost a month. It doesn't feel worth the investment. it's not a big issue. This may just work better with his supporters.
I love this game, I have played all CeLaVie games and i think this one has a lot of potential. Yes, you need to repeat a lot of thiks a lot of times, but it's like thinks works. Models are very good.
I hope never stop creating games like this.
Terrible gameplay, no logic, empty rounds over and over again. Another game where the developer's idea should be guessed. Help is minimal. Enjoyment while playing is also minimal. As an our forum member said, if you are not in the right place at the right time and the Earth-Moon position is not lucky, you have no chance of getting ahead in the game. I would seriously like to know what is the purpose of the game creator? Of course, he don't like such reviews , but this is not the first brain fucking game of this developer. So, He is right, we need to find another game.
- 1 body type for the girls : check
- 1 facial type for the girls (even those that aren't sisters): check
- in fact, except for hair colour and length and skin tone all girls look very identical : check
- very bright renders as in unrealistic because shadows don't seem to be a thing : check
- all girls looking barely in their teens : check
- wack a mole grind : check
- the girls threaten you as a pervert UNLESS you do the particular action deemed appropriate by the developer at the particular time in the particular place : check
It must be a CeLaVie production : check
Prediction after a dozen and a half updates the girls will be gagging to have sex with you in about every place even full fledged orgies BUT until that time you'll have to spend hours if not days in real time trying to reveal some under boob or being able to hug them. And if you dare to kiss them on the cheek at the 'incorrect' time your progress of the last 20 play days will be undone. That's how it was in every of their previous games.
In short, a hard no from me.
I don't mind a grind but at least give us a story that is more believable with characters that are likeable and don't look and act like carbon copies of each other.
If you like heba girls, grind, renders which show a lack of inspiration, grind, lack of imagination, grind, being milked by a developer that keeps making the same game over and over again but calling it prequels to stories that he never actually finishes, this will be for you.
The rest of us are better of watching paint dry.
Many people hated it but everytime wait for update 