VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Once in a Lifetime [v1.0] [Caribdis]

This game is possibly the best this site has to offer and i can say it the best i have played. So many developers attempt to create memorable characters integrated in a well paced and well structured game many fail to do so but Caribdis is head and shoulders above the rest. I have often come across reviews where people claim they are attached to a fictional construct in adult games but this game has succeeded in making me feel genuine attraction to the girls in the game. I would die for Lauren.
And Then we have Mike. He is the Garrus to your Shepard, the Watson to your Holmes,the Lydia to your Dragonborn. He will carry your burdens and is the best Bro you can ask for. TBH i would play the game if it was just the Protagonist and Mike. #BrosB4Hoes
This game, although similar to other games in various aspects, knows what it has set out to achieve.
The horror? On point.
The humor? Tasteful.
Renders and Art? Personally i was skeptical in the beginning but i would not imagine the game in any other style. Its fresh and appropriate.
Storytelling? Toit. The choices matter. Although it is possible to reverse some decisions easily some not so much especially the ending. I thought I could save a certain someone but NOPE and it cost me my life. And i appreciate the game all the more for that. It is fun but also serious with what it has set out to achieve. You make a decision you live with it.

TLDR: It is a great game with good writing and humor. 10/10 would recommend.
I am looking forward to the Dev's next project. If i had money to spend i would pay you willingly. Keep up the good work.

It was amazing the story and the lewd all the same man, the horror was on point and so was the humor hahaha the moment when i saw that bad trip made me laugh so hard XD than i anticipated truly Amazing work, I do hope you can continue to create this stories and of course always in good health

This game/(novel ?) was my first one I played something of this kind, and man I am glad that I did, after playing this on early access I tried different kind of games and still this was my one of the best play.

great writing and great use of space and never ignoring the background with well placed jokes and/or hints . integrating memes for comic relief was perfect, i honestly i have never laughed so hard while horny

[Reviewed v1.0; Final version]

Great writing, great sex scenes, engaging storytelling, fleshed out characters, and humor that is actually funny. In a field over-saturated with garbage, Once in a Lifetime really stands out as a beacon of quality.

This is a game that all should aspire to emulate. Looking forward to any future work.

Hah ... Once again I am writing something about games) And I never learned English normally, forgive me in advance) There will not be many words (as it seems to me)
Thank you. Just thank you. After three games in a row with very tough decisions, very sad moments that hit right on the living, this game was just a salvation for me. I'm a big fan of happy harems. And this game made me very happy.
A very enjoyable game. Nice animations, not broken, the music at the end made me even shed a tear)
Once again, thank you very much. This game will remain in my files, as well as some others that somehow made me feel very pleasant.
I always try to be honest in my thoughts and words, but to be honest, I'm not sure that my thoughts written by me can somehow convey the spectrum of feelings that I experienced when I saw the ending to which I was going.
I don't think there is a word that I can accurately describe. Thank you ...

Take my 5 stars.

The animation at first I thought was sub-par, but it really improves later on! In terms of animation I've seen smoother, but hey, it gets the job done.

The story was solid. As an NTR-loving POS, I was a wee bit dismayed but nevertheless, still a 10/10 game.

Since everyone is rating then here is mine too. Just love all the characters especially stabby Mike. The facial expressions of MC always gets me. Looking forward to the other game the dev is working on!

This is type of story you can only experience “once in a lifetime” and it's super good it's one of the best harem games out there the author knows how to play with renders to create cool funny, emotional,sad scene's and also very skilled writer for me the main attraction of the vn was it's romance aspect second it's story and third it's h scenes which are waaay better done than any other honey select games on here you don't even need to read the reviews just play without thinking much it's that good after all you only get to play games like this “once in a lifetime”. Good luck to the dev for his next project.

The writing is great. There are no (or minimal/unnoticeable) bugs. It has some nice looking art This is some seriously captivating and wacktastic material we have here! I totally recommend this and anything else created by this dev, past or future. \m/ \m/

This Game is so fucking great... laughted tears all over the place.

Its well written, incredibly funny, but has touching lovestories too with good sex-scenes. The look is great and unique, btw i saw a lot of graphics out of other games and anime-series.

The Animations are decent and not annoying... they are adding a nice bonus.

But some flaws too. The soudn for example... really bad volume mix. Sometimes very loud, sometimes you can barley hear the sounds or music, or there are no sounds/music at all. Doesnt worked out well.

And there are not much reasons to replay the entire game. There are not exactly different paths. Near the end you have some choices that will have an impact to the endings, but thats about it. But nevermind, most of the games try to create many paths and got distracted or it grows over the head of the DEVs and nothing worked out in the end. So good you sticked to the plan... sometimes linear is much better when its done good as an average multipath game.

5 stars to you.

Honestly the best nsfw game i have ever played.
The scenes / gallery is so good, the story is cute and nice, the fact that your choices make a difference, just wow. Fell in love with some of the characters. 10/10 would play again.

This game has a great sense of humor and enjoyable character development. Your actions have a good level of permanent impact on future events and there is plenty of entertaining content. Recurring characters especially make this a worthwhile visual novel. The story ventures into serious and scary territory at times but overall maintains a level of not taking itself too seriously with many lighter moments scattered throughout. The main character is enjoyable and doesn't fall into typical annoying tropes as many games have a bad habit of doing.

The art is well done with attractive characters and well put together scenery. Given the limitations of Honey Select, the author makes good use of assets. Perhaps this game's greatest strength is the dev's use of gestures and expressions for the characters which, if you like these characters, can be very satisfying. The love scenes do not get very fetishy or over the top but instead feel sincere and empathetic towards each individual character. Personally it made a positive impact to me that the game focuses on romantic encounters between people that develop strong relationships rather than just random hookups like some writers create. The plot feels sincere and positive overall despite some darker overtones to the general theme.

If I had one critique for the author it may be that some elements feel a bit too convenient to facilitate the story. For example, the multiple love interests convince themselves/each other to accept a harem situation without even a suggestion from the MC. This works out nicely but perhaps leaves one's suspension of disbelief hanging slightly.

Overall this is an excellent game and provided hours of entertainment. Once in a Lifetime is both funny, scary, exciting and provocative. Caribdis should feel proud of this work and I am looking forward to their next creation.

Great story, and very humoress. Several paths to choose from and get different endings. Some of the best H Scenes. Sadly the main story is over.

Looking forward to the final scenes and the new game.

Once in a lifetime is a fun VN, with the right mix of comedy, sex and plot. I always quote GTA Vice City and say keep the cameras pointed at the poontang, and Caribdis does not fail at this. The story never gets too serious, but the comedy factor doesn't take over either. Definately putting this in my complete games folder to revisit for the gallery!

As I understand it, this is Cardibis's first game. The art is really good, and the girls are pretty enjoyable. Two things that I have a slight problem with. As a couple people have mentioned already, I felt the cult thing is not really necessary. They feel seperate to each other. And at the beginning it seems none of the girls take it seriously. I think you could've used another better reason to make the two women sexually frustrated instead, and still added a mystery element; the men have seperate families for example, or maybe that they were in love with each other.

My second gripe is that the dialogue didn't flow very smoothly. I understand this is your first game that you're working on, but try to remember to add more dialogue to make the flow of conversation better in future projects. Especially in the sex scenes; (although they were really hot) they ended after like one or two taps. Even just a couple moans and non-important dialogue could make it better.

The male model was also a bit weird (mostly the eyes), so I hope that will improve as well.

Overall a very solid game. I loved it, and I hope to play more of your games in the future Cardibis

Since everyone else and their second cousin is filling up my notifications bin with reviews for this game, I'll toss in my fifty cents.

From an objective narrative standpoint, I felt like I was reading two well-written stories that had almost nothing to do with each other, yet were being forced to work together. And I cite this critique in the most constructive way possible, so that the dev might consider my opinion moving onto future projects.

At its core, Once in a Lifetime is a story about a young man who is getting it on with his sexually frustrated (not) mother, curious (not) sisters, one of his classmates, and his sexually neglected teacher. All of this could have easily been done without the backdrop of mysterious cults and magic.

Each part of a story should be indispensable. This is why critics hate Jar Jar Binks and Olaf the Snowman - because you can rewrite the whole story without them and accomplish the same thing, if not also do it better. So while I was playing this game, it felt like the fantasy narrative was not as meaningful to your character's relationships with the girls as I would have liked.
Yes, both father and the fiance had probable cause to be absent, giving their significant other's probable cause to feel neglected, but the cause of their absence could have been fulfilled with anything, be it cheating with a side piece, a second job, gambling problems, or any other sort of second life instead of a fantasy about grimoirs and gods. As it presenty is, it feels superficial, almost like creating the connection was a second thought.

Fantasy in general has its own set of problem. I really do enjoy fantasy stories, but I also hate it whenever magic is used as plot armor, or to get the MC to cheat a victory. To Caribdis's credit, there was not a great deal of this, but it did exist.

Once in a Lifetime was also made in such a way where you really only ever have to play the game once in your lifetime. Sorry, I couldn't resist the joke. What I mean is, you can see almost all of the content in a single play-through, if you want to. There are inherent good and bad aspects to this sort of game design that simply are not the dev's fault. Some people like and dislike only having to play a game once, some people like and dislike having to play a game more than once. You simply cannot please everyone. I only bring this up for readers to keep it in mind.
There is a secret ending if you follow no girls' paths, but I don't know what that ending consists of (yet). But this ending from what I can tell is the only ending you'd have to play the game a second time to be able to see.

Ignoring the taboo kinks, the sex options in this game are very vanilla. Oral, vag, and very little anal. It was actually refreshing, in my opinion, and it made sense for this story and the relationships being developed. Lots of other games are filled to the brim with every weird-AF fetish that puts rule 34 to shame, especially the Japanese games. Brownie points for keeping it simple.

In summary: Once in a Lifetime's worst flaw is it wasn't nearly as compelling as I think it could have been. But Caribdis did so well in every other aspect that I cannot bring myself to knock off more than one star. I think everything else has already been said 200 times, at the very least, by all the previous reviewers. This game is definitely above the average, and I am curious to see what else Caribdis makes in the future.

I can't describe with words how much i love this game, starting from beautiful characters (Carla and Jasmine are the best for me) to interesting story with humor which isn't cringe and actually makes me laugh. Tribute to you Caribdis for making it, and i can't wait to play your next game.

Very good game. Plot, graphics, characters and lot's of humor. This is a one of the best game in this type around here.
Pretty long playtrough if you read all the story of course, no bugs for me . A huge 5 stars game period.

This game deserves accolades. If there were an annual awards program, this would sweep the show. The writing is excellent, with a unique blend of pseudo-action sequences, adventure, creepy-but-not-quite-scary horror, actually legitimately funny moments, and cute/sexy times. The story is a globe-trotting adventure with diverse set pieces, but still manages a cohesive whole. The overarching plot is relatively engaging, and the characters are exceedingly well written, even if they're frequently 2-dimensional.

If I had nits to pick, I think it would be the latter point. While the writing is great, the characters are a bit flat and fill their role/fetish. I get that it's a porn game and that the words "character development" are usually used to describe a character's chest size, but as I said I'm nitpicking here.

Caribdis has managed to write a fun adventure story that will tickle your brain in all the best ways. You'll need to actually pay attention, and to know some basic history/geography, but the writing is so well done that even if you get a few wrong it won't impact the story and may even add to the fun!

The animation is excellent, the desirables are very desirable, and even background characters get care and attention to a level that is uncommon in this genre.

Overall 5/5 and the honor of actually taking my time to review.