Ren'Py - My Early Life [Ep.26.01] [CeLaVie Group]

I am writing this review after playing up to episode 8. Believe me I want to play the rest of it but I simply cannot. It's not because of slow burn, I like it. It's not because of grind which you can bypass with mods. No, this game DOES NOT WORK starting with ep7. There are too many bugs and that is with me using a bugfix mod. It got so bad I had to ask the modder for help and then had to use multiple console commands. Then it got worse in ep8 with half of the events bugged.

So why 3 stars instead of 1? Because what I played up to ep7 was very enjoyable. If you are a fan of home of incest, slow corruption, voyeurism etc. there is a lot to like here. Out of 3 main girls, two of them have great models. The other one looks like a loli, a midget, or a 40 yo in different scenes. Don't expect graphical consistency.

I played the dev's other games and this has the best graphics by far, sadly it is also the only one where I experienced bugs. He has the vision of a genius like Tarantino(minus foot fetish), but the coding ability of a blind capybara.

I still encourage you to try the game.

Another reason not to trust ratings. The game is good. Not great, but decent. Perfectly balanced, not too fast and not too slow. Good graphics and a non-schizophrenic plot. It's sad that games like this are hard to find.

I don't know why I keep coming back to this game, The slow burn is frustrating, but I think it accurately portrays the situation a grandpa would be in with a girl 1/3 hos age. The girl (and the hints give very little help; but I guess that a grandpa (even a player) wouldn't really have much of a clue about what's really going on in the girl's head. The graphics and animations are better than average on this site, so it's a nice surprise when the old fart makes progress.

It is definetively a slow burn, but the reward pays off in the end.

Some bugs and annoyances in earlier episodes so URM52 is recomended.

Some of the game mechanics early on might be annoying and the developer got rid of them in latter episodes (-26).

Well worth a playthrough and a replay or two.

I want more games like this. It is not a fap game, but very good story with a slow progress. But the girls are very nice, the step by step teasing is nice. If you only want to fap asap, stay away. It is a teasing game. You will have to do a lot of things to go forward.

It is a slow burn game and you need to withstand really slow pace and repetition in 90% of scenes since they unfold bit by bit. This drives some players mad and its definately not the game for quick fap.

+ Renders are in nice quality
+ Dev has good amount of clothing/accessories for the models
+ Animations are getting better
+ Ambient feel is nice in scenes
+ The tease and build up in story is nice when the story flows smoothly

+/- slow pace

- Animations (cant skip, looping via reverse is unnatural)
- Player actions are quite limited
- Balance between grind and reward isn't always there
- All other male characters seems to be bad guys in every game (harem tag?)
- Hint system is there but it doesn't always point you in the right places making progress quite tedious (usally happens when you are close to the end of the chapter and missing the last few scenes)
- Reuse of renders --> causes the grind/repetition feel that many player hates

I really like the slow pace, hard to earn rewards. The grind is not a boring grind, there is usually some small reward between each repetition and it makes sense in the story. I like the female models and the overall gameplay.

I am currently at aboutchapter 8 or 9 I cant remember and about 9 hours into the game. And I have basically only a single gripe that I dont really understand why it is in the game.

Why are there 3 female characters, where one is a mom character. She has the personality, and the role, and the actions,and the lifestyle, of a mom character but for some unknown reason its not a mom milf model. Thisgame would be so much better with an older woman in that third girl role (Anybody who plays this knows which character is the mom character.) I even renamed it to mom, just because it makes more sense than the current characters name. Then it breaks when the game keeps calling her sis. But still.

This would've been a near perfect game, even getting around the concerns about implicit incest with having that sister a milf.

There's grind and there's whatever this is supposed to be. I actually usually like a slow burn, but the amount of "hunt the small difference in this event that happens after 10th repeat" is insane.

On top of that, progress is 2 step back then slooowly 3 step forward during the chapter. Repeat for each chapter.

Add to this events that doesn't seem to work, hard locking you (and good luck figuring out if you're hard locked or just need to see same event you've seen 10 times 5 more times to progress)

Playing this feels like the Dev hate you

I'm only giving it two stars because it has good renders. Unfortunately to get to those renders you will have to slog through some of the worst "gameplay" to have ever been created.

No amount of ranting about how you have to have patience will excuse this "gameplay." How is it bad you say? You will have to repeat the same sequence over and over again with only some slight change. Some changes so slight that you will struggle to know what was different. What makes this even worse is that you cannot use CTRL to speed through the parts you have already seen. Yes, you read that correctly, you have to click through the repeat sequence every... single... time. That is the game play loop. Don't worry though, once you've completed a sequence the appropriate number of times you'll be given... yet another sequence to complete. GAMEPLAY!

This "game" needs to be completely reworked before given that title, otherwise it's just busywork for the sake of extending play time. Utter garbage.

Consistant dev, both on updates and updates(once a month).
Interesting to play almost each episode. No story, but who cares(was in S2 actually), when game has nice detailed events.

S1: 4 girls, noice, S2: the previous ones + 4 new

For 3 season:
Short version:
By 23ep - Leveling fixed less dressesDead ends feel very nice now

"Long":
I actually liked 19-20 dead ends, but would felt MUCH better if it didnt need a confirmation from a 21:00 web call. Coz you have to molest and harass Thea(and after a call she will agree to your move) So it was both unnatural/was breaking the immersion(esp. in 21) and mega hard to figure out, even with the guide system. It would be nice if you would need to find her these bad reactions, and go try different ones where she will allow you(i re-roll back the bad ones usually) Like it actually was in 23(especially in the shower, in the end of 22 at pool)

And above that was unexplained dress "bar", (+ where you have to peep that she changed the dress) which also felt nice in 23(but with much less dresses after 20(alas)(after 20 you're in charge of changing her dinner dress only)

I would bring back dress choosing for 3 events(for future girls) (but without requirement to peep and consult via web calls + for previous used dresses, something like turning into grey, for less confusing)

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