VN - Ren'Py - One Day at a Time [Ch. 17c] [Zoey Raven]

One of the best games in this site. Don't sleep on this.

It's so hard to find a good balance when writing about recovery, and drugs. And I always thought that Hollywood and other media usually handles that pretty poorly.

But, in this game, that part of story is done with so much care and quality, it's insane. If you're looking for a great game to play, give this one a try.

One Day at a Time is a unique and wonderful VN experience. First of all, this game excels in both its story and especially character growth, and to vicariously experience, in game form, what it is like to have a different life. Lots of games try to do this, but what makes One Day at a Time unique among nearly all VNs here, in that that life has many challenges, along with its positive aspects.

You play as a heroin addict, with your girlfriend, Lydia, who is also an addict. While Lydia and the MC's addiction is mostly in the background for at least part of their day, every day they have to figure out where they are going to get their next fix. This gets more and more difficult as time goes on due to various reasons.

Several more characters from your past enter the picture. There is Mary, your long time childhood friend that you reconnect with, who is also an addict, though not as deep into the lifestyle as Lydia and the MC. Audrey, your bookish friend from high school, who is clean and hopes the MC can turn his life around, and Barb, an ex-girlfriend who used to be deep in the drug-life with the MC, but has turned her life around and gotten clean. There is also a sexy nurse that helps you get some pills from time to time, and a hot waitress/gas station attendant who both have difficulties in their life they are trying to navigate.

One Day at a Time does focus heavily on drug addiction, and to a lesser extent alcohol addiction, with another character. However, it is not the depressing experience it could have been. There is much love and enjoyment between all the characters each day, despite their addiction, and, while I don't want to give away too much of the plot, there is real positive character growth for all the characters.

Some parts of the game are difficult to watch, but that just deepens the experience as a player. The interaction between the MC and Lydia is so much fun to see. Their dialog, while loving, is filled with snarky comments, but it is expressed with so much humor and affection, that it brings a smile to my face to see it. Lydia has to be one of the all-time great LIs I've seen. She is very cute, of course, but her personality is really a lot of fun. Despite her exterior attitude, you know that she would go to hell and back for the MC.

Once I started the game, whenever I wasn't playing it, as I went about my day, I was thinking in my mind what was happening with Lydia, Mary, Audrey, and the rest. It really touched me, and I am not ashamed to admit I teared up a few times throughout the game.

Each of the main characters is written to seem like a completely real person, with their own unique and memorable personality, more than practically any VN I've played here. The dev really has a gift with dialog.

One Day at a Time has meant a lot to me playing it, I really love it. It is a more full and emotionally deep experience than practically any other of the top rated VNs here. Lots of other VNs have great renders, and sexy themes, but very, very, few have anywhere near the depth of story and characters that you see here. One Day at a Time is really something special.

Hi, I am an addict too - I find this game completely accurate and can relate to it 100%. Saying that the game is not just an insight into the addiction sphere it is an insight into life for us too how we view things how our mental state is and is a very correct portrayal of phycological elements too. It really shows a glimpse into the world in which we live and have lived. The game has so much background to it not just thoughts, addiction, humor and sex - but helps people who are going through what we have at the moment to see another side of the coin so to speak - it also shows that we are not alone that we are all similar yet also a unique reason why we become or are addicts and why we either find sobriety or havent yet. Thank you so much for something real and fun but also educational, inspiring and heart wrenching Zoey!

I've passed over this one a lot I think. Mostly because there is nothing sexy about addiction or drugs. And unfortunately I was right. As someone who's been on the receiving end of the addiction spectrum, I just can't find any sexual gratification out of this on lol. Sorry to say it so harsh, Dev, but it's true. That being said "Wait a minute he gave it 4 stars, what the hell?" I know. It's not a bad game. At least it doesn't feel like some Russian, flipped asset garbage about screwing your sister. It's almost well written. And the scenes aren't bad. So for the people leaning on the CTRL button or haven't had any real interaction with addiction, they'll like this game.

When I say ALMOST well written, I mean the "every other line is a movie quote" not the sudden breaks into what addiction actually does. Not only is it toward movies, but self referential to yourself Dev, I see you, you cheeky bastard. Either way, the amount is a lil insufferable. So you know, slow the pace a lil.

And as for the drug talk. While I do appreciate the light this brings to the life, I don't really know that this is the right forum or medium to bring this to. At least to someone like me. What I will say is I'm proud of you Dev, if you ever read this, for being clean. Its a tough thing and keep on keepin on. And if you want to actually shed light on this if you cut out the sex or even most of it, and put this game out there with a more serious tone, I think it would get a decent bit of traction. Then again, we're all degen perverts out here so I understand if you don't.

TL;DR I'm one of the unfortunate men whose brain controls their dick so due to my own personal experiences don't think it's the best premise for a sex game. But, with any other subject matter, I would find the jarring tonal shift over one line of dialog between funny and serious hilarious. So you might like it.

I started this game for the wrong reasons I guess, but after a lot of didascalic writing about addiction I came to the forum to learn more about it. I think it's more than a game and it has all my simpathy, so I don't want to sound harsh and won't criticize game design choices but I'll stick to the technical feedback.

Writing could improve, the dialogues feel clunky and they often drag for too long. Posing is bad, it always feels mechanic and rushed, I get that it must be difficult to learn how to use daz, but one can also show care in little details maybe, like not having characters wake up already with make up on...
The pace of the game also feels off, a lot is happening in a too condensed time frame for that to happen.

Anyway, kudos for the project.

For what this is, it's entertaining. It's not supposed to be a hard-core realistic look at junkies and how they live. I believe it's shooting for some very mild realism along with some witty dialogue and a large chunk of good old fantasy harem. It's an interesting premise that could be depressing, but we can make some light appear at the end of the tunnel rather quickly, steering towards hope.

The characters are entertaining, but wordy. I'd say... whoever's writing... keep going with your impulses and maybe hack off 10% of the dialogue, because sometimes it's a bit like a Will Ferrell joke... funny at first but then he goes on with it until it's beaten to death.

I have some constructive criticism for the sex scenes... I know not all game designers are top animators and that's fine... just pull back. I don't need a wide variety of this or that... just pull the camera back from the genitals a bit and let us see the characters being close to one another. That means I wanna see their faces... give us some cuddles... some foreplay. I like the inner dialogues of both parties and while it's not perfect either, it's still better than how the animations are composed.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents for now, game is worth spending some time on. Get to know it, it's pretty good. Looking forward to seeing how every character gets out of their shell and into the harem. ;-)

To describe this game, it's very simple. Just:

WOW!

Not the best renders or animations, but the story, characters so damn well done and different to most of the other games arround.

It is a great game and i feel poor for everyone who don´t try this. Maybe it´s not yours, but it is a "must try" in my opinion.

This is courageous. It is not exactly pleasant to be up close to the misty, depressing life of drug addicts. But the rascals here have a lot of humour and clearly come through as nice persons caught up in a series of irresponsible decisions. So sympathy stays with the MC.

What can I say? This is so effing awesome that it's hard to describe. I just love it and it's absolutely in my Top3*-list. It has everything, a story that's so good, humor that makes me laugh so I cry and then some romantic stuff that also makes me cry. I'm a sentimental sucker, I can only plead guilty to that. (HSP is a trait I have!)

The sex is also good even if I stop when the lewd scenes starts. Well I stop just to listen to the music that comes when most sex scenes starts. I do love that one. In most (nearly all) games I turn off music because it gets boring after some time. Here I can just sit and listen to it time and time again. And as I said, the music for sex scenes is a fantastic piece. (I think air guitar is overrated, I play air drums instead, more sophisticated!)

I also like that I can choose where I wanna go, so I try to stay Sober, no Corruptian but being a little Dominant. Well, just being me except the addiction part.

*I've played a lot of game, just now I have 83 folders with differnt games. Then I've also deleted some, those I didn't like and the completed ones as I don't play a game twice. Well, I can restart after an update but that's all. So when I say Top3, it really means something as I've tried over 100 games..

Personal POV
1. Story itself : Very well written, I like it very much.
2. Awesome characters.
3. Serious tone is appreciated.
4. Character Impact around story is played very well.
5. Lewd scenes are good.
6. graphics and animations are good.
7. Best part : Not a daily soap(Something different).
8. Renders : Loved it !

I enjoyed my time while playing this game. Really appreciated dev
for sharing his work with us.
Thank you !

One of the best games in this site. Honestly, I follow it for the story and play it in short increments. It deals very realistically with the issues drug bring.
It is dark at times but I hope (since its a game) that at least most of the characters would get out the other end of the game without a major loss.

The girls are all pretty in an earthly way too, which obviously helps.

Review on Ch. 7c

I'm pretty conflicted on this one.

Story (5/5)

My relatively high 3-star rating is basically due to the fact that I think this is a really important story for people to get into and that it is generally well told. I really like how the story goes out of its way to humanize drug addicts, they are not portrayed as just useless leeches on society whose own fault it is that they are on drugs, as is so often the case, but we really get into the mind of addicts; why trying out some drugs can seem harmless at first and why it can be so incredibly hard to quit. The tone of the story generally sounds very realistic, from the terminology around drugs to the physiological reactions both to the drugs and their withdrawal to the day-to-day life of drug addicts. So just props all around for writing such an empathetic and real story about drug addiction and the people suffering from it.

Writing (2/5)

For all the laurels this game deserves for its story in general, I think the writing can become pretty clumsy, inefficient and even annoying at times. Many conversations just drag on and on, you have tons of situations where characters say they need to go now or that they are in a rush or something, but saying goodbye takes like 20 more lines of dialogue. That just creates this weird break in tension where it seems that characters always have as much time as the dev wants them to have.
I'm also not a big fan of how characters are frequently citing pretty obscure movie quotes out of the blue, and it can seem very out of character for drug addicts who admit to not getting an education and spending all their time, money and effort on getting drugs, to suddenly discuss who their favourite Russian author is like they're some stuffy intellectuals. I get that this is again to humanize these people; to show that just because they use, they are not stupid people and have many interests just like the rest of us. But considering the circumstances, it still seems odd and out of place to me.
Most of all, by having basically every character be some sort of cinephile, I just notice that all of them are written by the same person.

I also generally dislike the never-ending banter between people, especially the MC and his girlfriend, Lydia. It's played off as a joke and as cute and endearing but it can get really long-winded and just drag the dialogue progression down so much.

And that ties in to another problem in the writing style, and that is the pacing of the game and the story. Because the story plays out in a day-by-day fashion that necessarily leads to some problems with the pacing, like so far, only 2 weeks in-game have passed but in comparison to that, the story has already progressed quite a bit, like the MC is in a loving relationship already with almost all of the characters despite only beginning the relationship with them like 2 weeks ago. The push towards sobriety, despite a lot of textual hemming and hawing, also seems kind of abrupt towards the end of the current game.

There were also a fair bit of typical grammar mistakes (confusion about who's/whose, it's/its, they're/their/there, and so on) and some spelling mistakes, so maybe go over the text with a fine-tooth comb again.

Sexual content (2/5)

All in all, I find the approach to the sexual content here pretty disappointing.
Most glaringly, for a supposed adult VN, I feel like the sex scenes are way too few and far between. I respect that the dev tends not to contrive sex scenes just for the sake of a sex scene but wants them to flow naturally from the context of the storyline which is in line with the realistic approach to this VN. But still, it often seems like the MC and other characters are deliberately avoiding sex even when there seem to be plenty opportunities, even if it were just for a quickie or a blowjob or something. Maybe the point is that drug use interferes with your libido, but still, there definitely could be a bit more on that front, even in a story-first, sex-second VN like this.

Furthermore, I don't really like that all of the women have pretty boring, standard skinny body types. Yeah, maybe one of the girls is a bit more petite, or one girl has slightly bigger boobs but they all fall into that fairly boring category of skinny and hot; and they are hot, they are attractive, but they are also all pretty much the same. That's also not helped by the fact that, except for one fairly minor character introduced towards the end of this build, all of the girls are white (which is especially weird and unrealistic considering the setting of the streets and hoods of San Francisco which should actually realistically be majority non-white) and the one other character of colour in here, Jose the drug dealer, is just a walking stereotype with a very awkwardly written accent.

The sex scenes are all in all extremely vanilla, I mean even the tag "anal sex" should be removed because as of this update, there isn't one anal scene. That's not to imply that every single woman should be into anal and that I demand anal scenes with all of them, that would actually break the realistic vibe the game is going for, but don't tag the game with it if you don't deliver. Other than that, most of the sex is just all very straightforward and boring, the most adventurous thing is an MFF threesome that's actually fairly early in the game and since then we haven't had another one of these (although more are certainly on the way in future updates).

I would just maybe have wished for more interesting sex scenes outside of the very safe, very non-offensive hetero sex although I get that that is to some degree personal preference.

The harem situation also seems a bit off in this game that tries to go so hard for realism. While a three-way relationship between the MC, Lydia and Mary doesn't seem too far off-base, relationships like that obviously exist in real life, and I'm fine with it here, and you could also imagine someone like Lydia being fine with the MC sleeping around outside of that relationship. But when you consider characters like innocent Audrey or down-to-earth Barb, it's sort of hard to suspend your disbelief that they would all be fine with this arrangement.

Visuals/Sound Design (3/5)

Other than that, the graphics in this game are... fine. They're just fine. Nothing too astounding for your typical DAZ works, but it's fine. Many of the characters wear the same thing every day and many of the environments seem very empty, where it just breaks the immersion a bit and you notice that this is the case because it would be a lot more work to fill up the environments but again, it's fine, it's nothing major. The animations in the sex scenes look a bit awkward at times, sometimes it looks like joints are bending in a way they shouldn't and stuff like that. They just seem a bit on the underdeveloped side of things.
The music throughout is pretty good although annoyingly repetitive.

Conclusion

All in all, even though I maybe tore the game apart a bit in this review I was still hooked to the story. The choices you made were maybe not quite impactful enough in my opinion (especially the Barb Sub/Dom route, as of yet, it doesn't make any difference whatsoever in her storyline which route you choose) but in general, I like the linear storytelling, I'm actually not a big fan of huge branching structures and the Audrey Love/Corruption choices or the Junkie/Sober choices do matter and affect some scenes later on. But like I said in the beginning, the most important thing about this game is its humanizing and realistic portrayal of drug addicts and their journey, giving us different characters who are at different points along their recovery, and making them all seem very realistic. Just because I liked that aspect of the game so much, I almost upped my rating to 4 stars just because of that. But in my opinion, it's just not quite there, so 3 stars it is with an endorsement saying that 3 stars in this case doesn't mean bad, it's just where I'm at at this point.

This is a review after just completing first run through of Chapter 7c.

I must say this is one of my favourites to date, the story itself is just enlightening and the characters i guess you can understand how they feel from the narrative.

Its not just another game full of sex, although there is a fair amount with some very good looking female characters, the only thing i thought to myself was if i was like the MC having all these women who are all happy between each other for the MC to do whatever then why would he want to give that up lol.

On a serious note though it must be right shit if an addict has to go through all this to get clean and stay clean, certainly takes some strength of character to win.

So thank you Dev's not just for the game (which has plenty of humour, great women, serious parts and overall keep you interested) the storyline is great and if its from personal experience then all respect you you.

Let's start by saying this is a tough story to get through and I, personally, could not do it. I am the son of an alcoholic and brother to a drug addict... So this story was just too much for me.

Having said that, the author is very brave for providing insights into this life. It is well written and the renders are pretty good. While I would imaging it is kind of therapeutic, I would imagine it is also hard to write.

If you are ready for some heady and heavy topics, you will not be disappointed.

This may be the most well-written game I have ever come across. The characters all seem real, and I care about all of them. The Elsaverse games by Tlearo and Mortze used to be the games in which I was most invested in the characters, but this one trumps them easily. The writing just comes across as honest and from the heart.

I say this as someone who is privileged enough to have never been nor had anyone I was close to affected by addiction: Thank you. I appreciate you sharing, not necessarily your exact experience, but a realistic one. Congrats on your 13 years!

ps: I have been a big fan of your guides for a while as well, please keep doing what you are doing here!

Here's what I think after playing One Day at a Time chapter 6c.



First, the story elicits different emotions from the player as it is depressing, interesting, fun, romantic, erotic and inspirational. The graphics and animations are great and I love the POV angles during sex scenes. I also liked the personal stories of each character which established their personalities more. Lastly, the story is presented at a nice pace which is great. All in all, it is a great game, although the story doesn't show the worst side of some addicts who are murderers and rapists, it still provides information on how to deal and help those that are not in that level yet.

One of the best games on here. Realistic rather than cliche about what life is like for heroin addicts that haven't reached the prostitution or homeless level and who are almost ready for recovery. I know as I worked in a treatment facility. It's also not a slow burn - plenty of sex scenes, but not an orgy fest as some do. Very good renders as you can see from the images.

I'll have to admit. When I first encountered this game I was very skeptical since I'm not into drugs/alcohol/smoking, so a game about junkies didn't seem like something I would like. On a whim some time later I decided to try the game anyway. And I'm very glad I did.

This game is probably the most inspirational AVN I've played. To see how the characters care about each other through hardships and face difficult choices together is truly great. In addition it gives great perspective on the lives of those who get stuck in addiction. I find all of the discussion between the characters on how they view getting sober really interesting. And also seeing it from different perspectives -- the junkies, the sober, trying but failing to get sober, etc.

In addition to that some really nice romance and lewd scenes as well.

Truly a gem of a game!

The game forbids you from using the women in this story in the way that the majority of society perceives them, even though they seem trashy.

Instead it's written as sort of Junkie the love story both junkies have gorgeous looks and maintain a tidy apartment. It is also difficult to believe that two addicts who are abusing drugs could ever form a healthy relationship, but we are left to assume that they are genuinely in love and have not encountered any circumstances in which they have betrayed one another in order to obtain drugs.

Instead, it presents itself as a steady, healthy romantic relationship in spite of their peculiar circumstances, which seems more like a ruse to make you feel good about the characters than a true, accurate depiction of life as a junkie. Yes, it is different, but not to my taste. It could be argued that it would be more realistic and entertaining if the MC was simply using the women and selling them for drugs. In simpler terms, it is written as Amanda Bynes is the love story at the moment. Or Lindsay Lohan the lovestory. Sure I'd like to screw either of them but they are hot messes, and so are most drug users. The addiction controls them; they are not in control of the addiction.

While there are some positive aspects such as well-executed graphics, minimal spelling errors, and excellent story presentation, However, I find it difficult to connect with the story because I have personal experience with someone close who used heroin. Hard drugs are repugnant. Junkies (not casuals) who use hard drugs on a regular basis are physically disgusting not beautiful people living in well kept apartments. It fails miserably to demonstrate the average junkie experience and instead chooses to glorify it

. The strongest point of this game are dialogues and characters. the insight into junkie life is really great and detailed,and dialogues are brilliant and well written. You have to appreciate all the pop culture references and as a rock fan myself I loved all the talks about musicians and what not. Zoey went s bit quentin tarantino on us (and i don't mean the foot fetish),but instead of appearing directly,the characters mention him a lot which I find to be a nice touch. I probably enjoy the characters the most,everyone is well made,with their own fears and desires. My favorite one is Samantha,she is so amazingly done I can't praise it enough.Almost every game attempts to include the "bad bitch trope'' characters,but fail miserably,making them a one dimensional slutty and mean bitch,or making her drop the bad bitch persona as soon as mc says a few nice words,or give us a totally cliche reason that explains why she is the way she is, robbing that character of being interesting in my eyes,and explanation like "she bad cuz daddy left" is one of those things i really don't like. Samantha is one of the best characters,because she is not one dimensional,she wants to get better,she is smart,intelligent and funny.
So to summarize,Dialogues,the details of the scenery and junkie life, characters and humor are top notch, the only flaw this game has that I could think of is that sex scenes could be better and longer,but I didn't really play it for that so not much of a flaw there. Maybe another thing is that the details are so great,that sometimes the talk about drugs could get tiresome and I sometimes got bored reading about the ways they planned to get high. But again,that only happened like 2 or 3 times and the detailed way of portraying things is what makes this game stand out,so not much complaining from me on that front.