VN - Ren'Py - Completed - One Lie [v1.0] [Wooden Donkeys]

Hoo boy. Or should i say HAHAHA and also a slightly less chunk of HEHE. Now for a lot of people 1 star might seem a bit too harsh, but from a perspective of a person who read hundreds of VN's and books, this was an absolutely miserable experience with botched narrative (or lack thereof), tremendously inconsistent mood that did not build up properly, intrusive useless narrator and overall this "work", besides being a disgrace to the art, is completely immature and childish. But let's do it in order.

Game starts with insanely manufactured drama of Julie lying to MC's girlfriend that he cheated on her. Despite them being closer than family since early childhood, no one tries to talk and listen to the situation that could be easily fixed by talking. Except not even 30 minutes in they do exactly that and fix everything by talking and it stops being an issue and is never remembered again.

I smelled something very wrong at the very start when both characters started doing "remember how he did this for her, and this, and this, and this", and then "remember how she did this and this and this for you" and i'm like... no? No i don't, how about you show me this and let me maybe pick some options in those would be flashbacks. But i'm sorry, that would be an actual effort, making 3d models for kids, i suppose. I suppose guys having shaved heads for half of the game also happened so rendering hair or making it wouldn't be an issue either.

After this whole nonsense setup we go into college, so we are led to believe the rest of the game will happen there except it doesn't and at least on Julie/Anh route it turns into Alex randomly being killed without an option to do anything about it and we go into short and outstandingly pointless cohabitation phase which add exactly nothing to the narrative.

Occasionally during this entire mishmash of abysmal pacing and horribly written dialogues narrator pops up to spout something extremely asinine and preachy that also make very little sense. So i figured i will ignore this until narrator started breaking fourth wall and "joking" and put the bit with hot teacher being hot and putting some AI abomination there instead (don't have an option not to see it).

Just so you understand, when dialogues are not about girls being very horny and cumming so hard, they are beyond primitive, lack any narrative composition, coherence, consistency and links to previous parts. Scenes are spliced in a tremendously simplistic manner, some scenes connected so poorly i had to rollback and see if i just blinked and missed entire chapter, but no, it is indeed spliced in a less refined manner than a Frankenstein's monster.

As someone who loves visual novels, i can very confidently say this is reasonably close to the absolute possible bottom and it's actively harming the scene. For someone this travesty can be their first experience, and after this they might very well never touch another one again. A disgrace.

Just finished the latest update and damn, this one’s a hidden gem. 5/5 no question.
The renders are gorgeous (Julie’s freckles and Anh’s shy-cute vibes are straight fire), lighting’s clean and the lewds hit hard without feeling forced. Yeah the story starts with some high-school level drama and moves pretty quick into relationship/harem territory, but honestly? The romance feels genuine, the girls actually care about MC and each other, and the emotional payoff when everything clicks is chef’s kiss. People complain about pacing or “rushed” corruption but for me it kept the momentum perfect - no 50 updates of blue-balling. Choices matter more than you’d think too, different paths feel fresh.
Ignore the haters whining about minor stuff, this VN has heart, hot FMCs and some of the coziest (and steamiest) college romance out there. Play it, you won’t regret.

The novel is cute. Would I've seen it 2 years ago, would have gotten 4 stars. But in the meantime the being at college, before college, after college storyline is nothing special any longer. The three female characters, Julie, Alex and Anh when doing the harem path are really nice with the MC, but there was nothing, which did stand out. Therefore my 3 star rating.

This visual novel honestly surprised me in a good way. The romance hits really well, the pacing is tight, and the story pretty much gets straight to the point, which makes it really fun to read. Sure, the graphics and music aren’t as flashy as some other VNs out there, but the writing totally makes up for it. The plot is actually good, and since it’s an adult VN, the spicy scenes are written really well too.

Big respect to the developer, thanks for putting so much heart into this project. I really hope future updates keep pushing the story even further, because this VN definitely has potential to become something even better.

I want to start by saying I appreciate all the hard work the dev has put into this AVN. We are short on devs who stick with it. Creating these AVNS is hard, especially if you are doing it alone and we need to support devs like this as they can only get better.

If I am being honest, as much as I would like to give this 4 stars, I just can't. There is nothing really that grabs a hold of you in this story and the "One Lie" seems to get resolved early on. Plus, the storytelling is just a little off. For example, the MC and Julie both go to college and they both get understanding roommates who try to help them. These are freshmen we are talking about and within days the entire group of friends is suddenly wrapped up in the drama between these two. There are no parties, no dorm room get togethers, nothing. Just dealing with the drama.

Then we have the renders. The dev is using older generation models, which is fine, but the renders all seem to be done with standard or ghost lighting as everything is kind of flat. Some of the poses are awkward and the scene blocking could use some work. Also, what is up with the roommates faces. Both have huge lips and their faces seem to be too long.

My biggest problem, however, is the MC can only chose between 2 LIs. Anj and Julie. If the MC blows of Anj, he is forced back into a releationship with Julie. If he goes with Anj, then he can skip Julie. It's one or the other.

The irony is I have a tendency to complain when there are too many LIs but in this one, I am complaining there are too few. Frankly, there is nothing interesting about either of the LIs. Julie is just an immature little girl, basically and Anj is just meh.

This leads me to the writing, it's just kind of meh as well. There is nothing wrong with it, but all the characters sound the same and the dialogue is kind of stilted some of the transitions are awkward.

Despite all of this, at it's core there is a solid little AVN hiding in there and I am invested enough to at least see where the story goes, but at this point, I really can't rate it more than average. At the very least, if you prefer an AVN with a story, it is worth a download to check it out. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

Man.... this one is a real snoozer. First, the pros:
- Lots of lewd scenes.
- Visuals aren't too bad (thus the extra star)
- the ability to reject kinks/LIs (for the most part).

That's the good stuff. Now... the not so good.
STORY: this is just... it's a very dull, pointless story. The summary makes it sound like some huge, consequential betrayal that comes between the MC and the primary LI's friendship. Nope. It's just stupid high school drama . That's it. The MC then carries a grudge that makes him seem like a total, complete psychopath for *years* afterward.

Then, they go to the same college, and the girl stalks MC. Then she has her friends try to convince him to 'forgive' her (again - for something that stupid? blech). There's some random LI you meet that then becomes the primary LI if you reject the girl from the past (as i did), but she is also extremely dull and has no interesting story.

This is the sort of story that makes your average Saved By The Bell episode look like freaking Shakespeare. No drama. No conflict. Nothing remotely interesting.

The worst part? The dev could have asked ChatGPT to write a college love drama and it would have been miles ahead in quality than this was. Idk why people complain about AI when this is the sort of thing humans are coming up with.

Well, good Lord, when your whole story revolves around a total DICK -- how can one get behind that? Even if the character speaks any human words, he still looks like a pouty, neanderthal boy who dropped his ice cream cone. 3 stars because I appreciate any VN attempt, and support all devs. But really -- Do over!

Review based on version 0.11.0
Excellent harem fantasy story...
The other routes are great, too, but the harem one is just...excellent.

The story is simple, gets a bit heavy, but overall, good. Not too long, doesn't drag on, and not too short.

The female characters are "normal", not over done or "perfect".

Obviously missing a few tags, harem, pregnancy most notable.

Certainly not going to be to everyone's liking, but worth giving it a try if the tags and overview catch your interest.

This game does not feature a very complicated story (until now) rather keeps it simple which I liked a lot. I played all of the different paths and they were excellent in their own way. The trauma depicted via the characters was intriguing. Hoping the story will keep piquing my interest.

I liked that the MC's male friend got a girl who is definitely not a Love Interest. It was refreshing for me.

As for the renders and sex scenes, they A-class for a VN, not disappointing at all. But, there is a downside that the girls were jumping onto the MC at the first go, its a bit of cliche but its a fantasy game and who I am to Complain.

All to gather I like this game a lot and I hope we will be able to see how it ends.

I say this game is more like a 3.5 than a 3 but I feel it's closer to a 3 than a 4. But im still giving it a 4 despite some issues I have cause when this game is good , it's really good.

Note I only played 1 path

• Not alot of grammar / spelling error but I do notice a few here and there
• Not a big deal for me but might be for others. there are times the narrator can be a bit annoying and have some pointless dialogue or break the 4th wall but it isn’t that often
• If you want to play a path where you don’t forgive Julie you have to wait till a later update
• Only played 1 path / save but I did ctrl skip and peak a bit at others as I do want to replay this at a later date again and I was not expecting some entirely different scenes based on my choices. Which is a huge plus

Choices for what leads to what path is not made clear and I ended up on a path i was not expecting.

This bit is of my own doing because of my choices I made as a player but also cause it wasn't made clear to me. Here is what I mean by some choices not being made clear to what path they lead to.

Would have liked the option to ask Anh out on a date or not and not have it forced if I was on her path if I asked Julie out. Especially since when she came to visit the MC in the dorm I didn’t kiss her and took things slow and my MC was only ever friendly towards her with my choices and nothing more.

On that same note I had no idea some of my choices were leading to a harem path that wasn't made clear to me. My mind set was to spend time with Anh to get to know her as I had no idea on how long in the story it would take to forgive Julie. So because of that it would have been nice to have 1 final out of the throuple before the lewd scene, because it felt like the throuple came out of nowhere to me. So I decided just to keep going and play the throuple path. Then out of nowhere the throuple path became a harem path not even sure what choice brought this on. Because I did a speed run and didn’t let Julie kiss Alex back and still got on the harem path somehow.

But during my speed run of a solo Anh path to test out the choices the throuple path becomes clear there as it happens much later in the game. So if the earlier choices were made more clear to me it wouldn’t have been a big deal but it annoyed me but I didn’t want to restart as I plan to replay this game on steam in the future as I still very much like it.


This story is what makes this game hard to rate for me. The story starts off good for a bit. Then when the lewds come in, I start to lose interest personally since im not playing these games for lewds as I treat lewds as something nice to look at than something expected. The issue for me is it feels like it goes too heavy into the lewds at times and not enough character or story development.

Now why I say this is hard to rate while what I just mentioned is issue for me the character development and story is good when it does comes in. We get dropped with a major bomb of some good character development at the end. It's just I wish there was a bit more in the middle. As this aspect of the game is very good at the start and end.

TL;DR: The idea is definitely interesting, so at the start I liked this game. I hoped it would be a nice story: intriguing, veritable, romantic and dramatic. But soon the game started to feel just poorly made.

(PS. Unskippable credits and ads at the game start is a bad idea too).

Models are outdated, not the highest quality. (Julie is kinda cute though). Eventually I got the impression that I was looking at toys.

Characters are cardboard and unnatural:

• MC is a moron who was described as a kind and understanding person. In reality he is blind to obvious, totally self-focused and not understanding even his long term best friend.
• Anh is an extremely shy person... Is she?.. After a kiss she becomes shameless like a slut.

Game logic is the worst part. Choices are counter-intuitive. For example, to get close with Anh, MC must always choose "Sorry" (though actually there's not much reason to say that, especially the second time). It's hard to immerse in a character whose choices of words are so unnatural. And if you got Anh to like MC, you wouldn't be able to agree to talk with Julie. Your only allowed answer would be "No". Why? Fuck if I know...

To reach the harem path, you have to meander through narrow trail of obscure choices with unapparent consequences, instead of having any freedom to shape your way (or to just behave naturally).

When MC gets close with a girl, it becomes like a shallow porn. Any hope for an interesting, veritable story with good writing goes away.

Conclusion:

The story seems solid and veritable at the beginning, but soon becomes shallow and sloppy. It's like wearing clothes that don't fit.

As of v0.8 i cant really give it any more then 2 stars since it truely is below average.

Story had some potential but its rushed, you get together with your old friend extreemly fast and even if your turning down the Asian girl she still comes along to fuck MC even though they barely know one another, again it all just feels rushed with no romance build up or anything, not sure why it has a romance tag when there is close to nothing.

Also it claims to be animated but barely anything is, i think i saw one short sex scene that was animated and a door opening thats about it, if this is going to be a real game at some point that issue needs a big change.

Music well there is a few second in the start then it goes silent.

I will revisit this one later on and change my review if it does become a real game at some point.

I'm really enjoying this one. Has some nice warm moments compared to most of the more recently released games that are Corruption and NTR based. It has a little of everything. It has some humor, nice looking renders, cute LIs and of course that sweet lewd content.

Review as of v0.8. Amazing game overall! Love the writing, the girls look incredible, and the story is extremely gripping. Played through every path currently available and thoroughly enjoyed them all. I laughed, cried, and enjoyed some very squeeshy butts.

Not much here to criticize, but I'll try.

The story does feel a bit rushed at times, but I prefer a slightly rushed story that makes updates feel worthwhile versus a lot of meaningless or empty-feeling updates.

There were some continuity gaps between the different routes, such as MC having knowledge of certain characters' pasts on routes where he did not/should not have learned them. It is possible that he learned about them during time jumps, but exposition should have been given in those cases.

Keep up the good work, and I can't wait for the next release!

I enjoyed playing this game this. I played through twice, first time for Ahn and then for Julie. While I did feel there was somewhat of a mechanical aspect to the dialogue I didn't feel compelled to skip any.
I will likely return to this title at some point. Definitely worth a play through.

(Writing this review at game version 0.7) This is one that is so bad its good the story is pretty much like a typical porn video would be goes from i hate you to i like you to lets fuck in like 5 minutes but a lot of it is pretty funny there is a decent amount of humor which is the story's saving grace. Overall i would say its worth the play.
Story: 3/10
Grammar: 7/10
Renders: 7/10
Animations: 5/10

I really regret not discovering this wonderful game sooner,

A very good story,with beautiful renders,and fantastic touching and very good humor in between(with a beautiful cameo of Vidal as a doctor).

Mike and Julia,
two beautiful childhood friends,who have known each other since childhood,who were always there for each other,
through all the good times and the bad.
but she made made a terrible ,but oh so,understandable mistake,because she loves him so terrible beautifully jealousy,
the terrible pain she feels when she sees him with another.

and he loves her too,but can't or won't yet see this,
and stammeringly leaves,
not yet willing to forgiving this divine,endearing,freckled,redhead.
but she really doesn't want to lose him,
and she travels after her great love.

In the hope that he will finally forgive her,
because they are the the two most important persons in each other's life,
they really can't live without each other,
this is true love for eternity.

Vollezar,
I really hope things get better with your situation.
this game is a beautiful diamond,
but take care of yourself first,that's the most important thing in life,
everything else can wait.
you are a fantastic artist,and i really wish you all the best.

English:............8/10
User Interface:.....3/10
User Experience:....7/10
Art:................6/10
Dialogue:...........5/10
Story:..............3/10
Opinion:............4/10................
Avg:..............5.14/10 [2.57/5]


My extremely valid review of the game (above) before it was unabandoned. As I see, the OP says ".9 only has changes to the harem end." So I'm already right in my assumptions. Any and every issue I have with the story is going to lazily be listed below because apparently my views are less valid than other people's. I for some reason am wrong. My opinion, imagine that. First thing you get, right away, is a credits scroll that stops you from getting to the game. Wow. Just what I want, to NOT play the game I started. Then a 'huge thanks' to BadMustard, a dev that makes subpar VNs and subpar coding advice. Cool. My hopes are high rereading this already. The art also starts out completely rough. Carol has blacked out eyes and the stiffest posing you've ever seen. And look at that. THE ENTIRE PREMISE OF THE STORY, the MAIN ISSUE I have is still the same. MC gets dumped because Julie lied and said MC was sleeping with her because the gf tormented her daily. And instead of MC noticing or doing ANYTHING to help his ONLY friend his entire fucked up life, what does he do? Disowns her, runs away, and never wants to speak to her again. No questioning it, no getting answers. While I UNDERSTAND him being mad and wanting time apart, he was literally beaten for this girl. But as soon as he can't have easy sex with his girlfriend, he gets pissy. What a knob. Right after you learn about what Julie did, you learn about the lengths MC went to for her, but he just suddenly cuts it off because he's hotheaded and stupid. You have no control over this and it is a poor experience.

Then the Robbie scene. "I didn't want to correct my mistake of taking away her tattoos and will never go back to update visuals because that takes actual effort." Thumbs up. And again everyone just says "You guys have always been together, why are you bing an idiot" MC just grumbles it all away to sleep with Robbie. Where her boob miraclously starts to float, by the way. And it's over as soon as he inserts, which I found funny. When MC cuts to the new school with Ahn, she immediately knows how tortured he is and they have a semi-cute scene flirting. But it still felt a little forced and rushed. So rushed that she sits down, he calls her cute, then leaves right away. The dialogue is also painfully stiff. Minimal contractions and poor sentence flow. And again, Ahn and Jane sit down with MC, and he gets up and leaves. Why do they think he's charming? They sit down "Hi." He says "Bye" and leaves. I'm swooning already... Most everyone has the blacked out sclera in their eyes too, it's kinda creepy. I also think Jake seems to change nationalities at least three times. Then the Alex-Julie scene. "Hey my new roommate is crying and upset, lemme kiss and try to finger her." Really? I like a little bit of the characters in this, but this one event seemed stupid and out of place. I will say, her reflection on this event is one of the few redeeming parts of the bland writing in this. And MOST of the dialogue in this is all just rehashing the thing that happened at the beginning of the story. And if I'm not mistaken, it leads up to ANOTHER big recap of the story. Why? We know what happened, it's the hook for this VN. By, what? Day 3 at college, MC and Ahn say they have stong feelings for each other but MC is also still in love with Julie. But that's okay, Ahn's asian harems exist for her.

Alex also spills the beans to MC about Julie's love for him, saying "She was scared it would drive you apart" But MC says "That would never do that" But look at the situation they are currently in? Driven apart because they won't have a conversation. It's like the writer didn't read what their own story is about. Julie and Alex's romance is pretty crap as well, birthed by sexual assault and gestated mid sentence like an afterthought. "Yeah I am pretty hungry. You know, you have a nice butt." That is VERBATIM. Suddenly they like each other? Why? You're also just flat out not allowed to not forgive Julie. Why include the options? You were forced to tell her no early on, now you don't get to have player choice at the LITERAL MOST IMPORTANT CHOICE. And right after this, nothing matters. They talked out their differences. Ahn and Julie make out and like each other too. MC also like Alex, and they all lived happily ever after. Ahn and Julie have known each other for about 10 minutes. Then they jump straight to sex, it's completely rushed, unnatural and the game should have ended after the sex scene as there's nowhere for anything to go. The sex/dirty talk is also painfully stiff. Just like Julie's claw machine legs as she mounts MC's dick, it's kinda funny actually. The only thing of not after chapter three is Alex joins the group with her semi-ham-fisted childhood trauma story and MC being so magical even gay girls want him. Wow. Julie and Carol recap the ENTIRE game up to that point as well. Because YOU the READER must have goldfish brain and not know what happened the last hour or two. Then you see the victory lap of the four of them being in a relationship. Ahn is nonexistent through most of it and MC ends up in a coma for however long being a valiant hero. Woohoo.

The English seems written by someone that speaks it, or at least someone that speaks English has something to do with the writing. The UI/UX is dead default, so lazy. The Art gets better, but the beginning is not great and it only gets a little better until the very end when the dev finally understands lighting. The Dialogue is not great, they just constantly talk about what started the whole mess. Sure, a couple of the jokes and humor land, but it's still boring. The story is Julie lies out of love and MC is an idiot for the first half out of stubbornness. Then you "have fun" reading every character share their version of that same exact story. Because you the reader just didn't understand. So I have a negative opinion, at least they finished another ending, I guess.

I'm just so tired of VNs where the MC is acting like a spoiled brat.
So, you have a life-long friend, someone who is just as important to you as a sibling would be, if not more. Then she screws up one time (and tbh it was just a cat fight between girls, not even serious, I mean if the girlfriend broke up with him over that, she's exactly the bitch she appears to be) and that moronic MC completely denounces her and runs away.

So, while the premise of best friends who in reality love each other and one screws up and then tries to re-forge their relationship can be fine (though, let's be honest, it has been done before), it starts off with something that I find unbelievable or rather if someone reacted like this in real life I would just think he is an idiot and an immature brat.

Sadly, it doesn't stop there. It just continues on this path with characters making ridiculous decisions and acting like no one with a braincell would in real life.

I don't mind the threesomes with both girls being involved, on the contrary, I am always up for some lesbian action between LIs, but it all just happens too fast, in absolutely unbelievable ways.

I know this is the first VN for this team, and I applaud them for making the effort and creating something.
They are obviously still learning and so the game might improve significantly later on, but as it is now I didn't like playing it.
It was a chore to play through, and that was due to the motivations for the characters actions aren't working for the most part.
Understand it isn't that the reactions aren't possible, but they are not motivated in a believable way or just happen way too fast.
You don't go from never having romantically kissed to an instant threesome and some lesbian tomfoolery.
You don't end it with your bestie because of one fuck-up.

Maybe I'll give this another try in a year or so, depending on how many updates there are then and if it has improved, I will change my review accordingly.

Just started playing and lost interest pretty quickly once Julie and Anh decided to share MC and then kiss after their first interaction with each other even though MC hasn't even gone on a date with Julie yet and Anh was only one date followed by proceeding to fuck in a group. Both of the females are virgins but immediately become sluts. One of the weirdest parts during this is Julie still hasn't kissed MC but makes out with Ahn, takes a finger up the butt and rides MC like a pro. Thought this wasnt suppose to be a fuck fest and be based more on relationship building and story. Best of luck Dev but seems like you started a story then said screw it here's a fuck fest.