Ren'Py - My Early Life [Ep.22.02] [CeLaVie Group]

First of all, this game is interesting because it's quite long and the female characters are pretty. The MC is a benevolent manipulator, shall we say, and the humor is present!
Many complain about the excessive grindiness of the game; this isn't entirely fair because we're warned about this from the start.
However, the problem stems from a few errors and bugs, and to play relatively smoothly, it's advisable to use cheat mode, which has a debugging option when you notice that the game is no longer progressing through the event series. BUT YOU HAVE TO BE PATIENT
because that's the point of the game.
The story is fun and evolves well; the "grind problem" improves significantly after the second season.
On the other hand, episode 19 leaves me extremely frustrated because after so much time, we find ourselves with a different MC (Uncle Bob) and different protagonists. It's disturbing, and I dare to hope that this is just an interlude in the original story because after all this time, we want to see the MC and his sisters and their conquests again.
We can also dream of a possible pregnancy; that would be excellent news, as well as a refocusing on the sisters.

I'm giving it a 3/5 because Episode 19 is an unpleasant surprise, and the usability of Chapter 19 is less good than previous versions, in my opinion. Otherwise, the rating would have been a 4, since I very rarely give a 5 before a game is finished or fully developed.
On the other hand, the girls are superb, and the sisters are each magnificent in their own way.

This game is terrible. It is a grind hell and even, if you put hours into one game you can get bankrupt and than this game is over and you start over. This was the biggest wast of time I have ever played. I have played a lots of grindy games and I usually like them, but this game is terrible.
Also you cannot manipulate save games for money. They get flagged as corrupt and you also have to start over.
The grind and the loseing hours of gameplay for nothing makes this game unplayable. I only came to episode 8.
I don't know what the dev smoked, but this game is not fun. The dev should pay me for the wasted time.

It was a decent game up until episode 18, then all of a sudden, Episode 19+ now playing as Bob's grandpa as MC, and sexual stuff with a girl because the young MC wants his grandpa to be happy?

The game is very grindy in early updates, with repeating the same thing over and over to progress to new scenes.

Halfway through the game gets better because not as grindy
I was enjoying the story between Episodes 12-18, and now I'm just going to stop playing

Why did the dev change MC all sudden to horny, man child old man?
wasted all this time playing it just for a change in MC

This game is beyond just being a ridiculous grind, hell, it takes 45 seconds just to get to the starting screen of the game because of ridiculous unskippable load messages that occur EVERY time you load into the game.

Wonderful game. With very good graphics, engaging and not boring.observations. There should be fewer repetitive scenes.For example, just dresses are boring. You should make it so that, for example, the girl gets angry, or goes out to a bonfire in the evening.There are also 4 episodes missing sex scenes and no scenes even with LIN.There is a lot you can do when creating a game script like this.and it doesn't necessarily have to end with sex scenes.This game has great potential.

The exagerated grind made me stop playing after 30 minutes. I checked on the potential rewards looking at the images folder and I decided without any hesitation to delete the game folder. Model are good but the game... Good Luck.

was roller coaster ride of grind , to much grind in my opinion for very little reward , get to chapter 18 thinking 19 will be better only to find new game with more grind and playing creepy old bastard, don't have the energy to continue!

PROS
+ Character models looks good.

CONS
- The game is grindy AF, and even tho nothing can justfy this much grind it would be better if at least the grind is rewarding enough, which is not.
- Sex scenes are not animated.
- Hints are all over the place, and not clean at all.
- Most scenes are pointless.
- Story, and characters are poorly-written.

VERDICT
Not worth wasting time on it.

this game is a huge grind fest. It seem there are a lot of hidden triggers that are extremely frustrating to figure out. I do not recommend this game for the feint of heart. I couldnt make it past a single episode without skipping t least 2 events.

Excellent models and renders and the dev has improved things chapter by chapter.

It's a sandbox and yes it has grind but I don't think it's quite as bad as people make out. Those who have played other CLV games will know what to expect.

The feature that I think make most people complain about the grind is the way the girls demand all your money for anything - but this is only the first chapters, the dev soon listened to feedback on that issue

Writing is good quality, no real engrish and an effort is made to have an overarching plot with individual details per girl - that's already plenty of content

Played the game a bit but i had to skip a few chapters. There's so many problem with the game:
Awfull grind,
hints are all over the place to get to the next step,
And to top it all, there's no scene replay available...

This is why 90% of the time sandbox game are just not worth the time. And this game is not the exeption.

First time reviewing in this site, just to say that this is the most unsatisfying grindy game ever.

After all that grinding and you dont get a single quality animation, the mods are making this a lil bearable but it's still so grindy.

The appearance of the model are good. I like it, but its not worth a grind, I quit at episode 9

The story isn't that special.
I think the animations are very good.
I think the different personalities are well done.
The change in mood is also very interesting.
I don't like the system for making money and the repair costs, especially at the beginning.
I think the individual focus on women is good, but a bit too fast.
Except for the sisters, the supporting characters come much too quickly.
There is no system where you have to constantly take care of someone and I don't think jealousy is a good thing either.
Jealousy would still be exciting in content.
Overlapping events at the same time sometimes make it difficult and the plot has a clear line but is not always obvious.
If there was still the possibility to play a woman and make it purely lesbian it would be almost perfect.
But there is also no option to continue playing when all chapters have been completed so that you can just have a little fun without having to concentrate on the tasks.

Renders are good. Girls were great, but I have the impression that each new girl is uglier than the previous one. Especially when you compare to previous games of these devs.

Animations are simple, basic, and by current standards not sufficient to be called satisfactory.

Gameplay is grindy af, but thanks to the built-in walkthrough, it is acceptable.

The strongest point (or maybe the only one) of the games this group were beautiful girls. However, instead of getting better with each game, each update, it's getting worse...

This game is okay.

The story is nothing special for an adultgame. It serves it's purpose, and that is okay!
The visuals are great. I like the quality and artstyle.

The only issue i have is the sandbox.
I do like sandbox games. But this games doesnt offer a good sandbox experience.

Sandbox games should show me the struggle to earn ressources and train traits/stats to hit milestone. With milestones I can continue the progress with love interests.

This sandbox game doesnt offer that much. you just pass time, select the locations, and progress can be achieved. sometimes you need a bathsuit, or a dress. for that money is needed, and money is earned very easy.

In general, the sandbox is more of an annoyance, and could be dropped for a linear novel experience. Or, that would be great, the creator invest more mechanics into sandbox.

I really love the models in this game. I also like that he is consistent with updates and seems to report what going on often to his paid supporters. I like how in this game there is a hint system in place making it MUCH smoother to progress than his previous games which here unplayable without a mod.

Where I think the game could improve:
1.Would be nice to increase the animation quality.
2. Maybe add sounds to the good scenes.
3.music
4. Gallery in the menu screen.
5. Opening the game still takes to long. I am not expert but I dont think it be to hard to combine the opening screens to cut the time in half to get to the main menu.

First I want to clarify that I enjoy playing grindy games if they have something that pays off, I know what I can expect when an entittled dev puts a warning message, but I also expect that with that entittlement also comes some show of talent, or something to show for.

This game is not grindy cause most of the scenes are pointless, dont achieve nothing, dont give you points, dont progress character development, dont give any visual candy, so you dont achieve a single thing, most of the scenes are filler, the characters will not remember that they kissed passionatele in the kitchen once, cause in the next scene one of them is gonna scream at you for putting your hand in her shoulder, which happens cause the expert in grindy games still can't make a game withhout an absolute broken logic, or maybe he doesnt want to.
There are even recycled events from one chapter to the next that dont progress any further. I dont know if I whould call this ill intentioned or lazy as fuck, but that is not the definition of grindy.

The girls are all 40 year old nuns, they are absolutely passive/curious trope until the dev decides they are not anymore. They react to the same types of stimulation in the same ways (cause the limit is established by the episode) they prety much react to invasions of privacy the same way, and there is even a pool of words and expressions they use, and I could write down, but I dont think the developer cares about criticism.

The most funny is the use of "We are siblings" or "We are not siblings" as attack or defense, that is the only human trait the characters have.

Visually the game is predictable, cause lets be honest, all the girls look pretty much the same, the same type of body, the same size and type and color of nipples, the same small butt, the same flat belly, the same pussy, so there are not much you can enjoy after seeing the same thing 200 times.
And this happens cause "Photography" for the first 8 or 10 hours of the game is a core element, and the most visual candy you will get will be pinups, and of course later in their rooms they wont remember that they were posing topless and will shout at you cause they were showing a nipple slightly.

If you add something in every episode that puts this slugfest to a halt for 1/3rd of the episode, you get something that even I cant take. Anyway TLDR:


The BAD
Playing this game is diminishing returns for 20 hours
Repetitive and pointless filler events.
Predictable in every step of the way scene design.
Characters are flat and look the same.
Main characters are walking memes.
Short low effort scenes with very predictable outcomes.
The conective tissue is very thin and weak.


The GOOD
Visually pleasing.
I like the stats screen
Pinups are decent (But dont expect sports illustrated or playboy)

Grindy games are fine, but having to repeat the same action over and over again and taking away the skip option? Absolutely braindead design decisions. Until that is fixed, this game doesn't deserve more than 1 star.

Models are ok, story is serviceable, the gameplay systems could work if everything else wasn't so grindy, the hint guide is unwieldy and scenes often take too long to progress or alternatively you can quickly reach progress in some scenes, but in others the exact same thing needs another 5 attempts.

- nightmarishly slow story development
- each new episode means that most scenes have to be repeated from scratch before something new can appear. It's as if everything is happening in a time loop and our ‘sisters’ have forgotten what they agreed to in the previous episode.

As of Part Two, Episode 15:

Okay, so let me start off this review by saying: If you are not into a grind, this game is NOT for you. One of the things I respect about this dev is they are very honest about this up front. So if you play it and get mad, you were warned in advance. That being said:

Artwork/Animations - 5/5

The girls are absolutely lovely and the scenes and animations are too-notch. I have no complaints here. The dev put a lot of work into it, and you can tell.

Storyline/Dialogue - 5/5

I thought of putting this at 4/5, because (and I could be wrong), I don't think the dev's first language is English. How some of the dialogue and words come out make me think this. However, the reason I am giving this 5 stars is because most devs whose language is not English don't put work into making their dialogue make sense; this dev does. So A for effort here. And the story is actually good.

Gameplay/UI - 5/5

Okay, so I struggled with this one. Like I mentioned, the game is grindy, and it is very difficult to navigate if you don't pay attention to the dialogue. And the in-game hint system is far from perfect; it is missing tips to activate some scenes, and I don't think it's by design. Good news is, as you play, you kind of get a feel for the game, and can start working without it IF you're patient (took me until episode 6 xD). So why am I giving this 5 stars? Because I like the fact that this is such a slow corrupt game. You really have to earn what you get. And once you get there, it's worth it. If you make it to the later episodes, you'll see why. I didn't think I'd find this game addicting, but I did.

To recap: Again, if slow corrupt games with some grind isn't your ticket, this game isn't for you. If you're into a game that rewards the patient, this is for you. Do I think some areas like the hint system need improvement? Yes. But overall, this is a great game that more than makes up for its shortcomings.

Final score: 5/5

Radical Dreamer