VN - Ren'Py - Race of Life [Act 1 v1.04.5] [Underground Studio]

Race of life is an AVN that hooks you in with an interesting premise and before the end of chapter 1 will sync you in with an effective yet basic plot element of the main characters child being injured. The game holds enough interest to keep on playing future updates, but there are some points that stick out.

First point is the love interests. I want to say I know this will be changed in the future, but if you dump Veronica you can basically get every love scene in the game without having to cheat, and chase your main LI. This really goes to make Veronica's story feel shafted in game for the players. Not only is she shoved upon the players as an already existing romance, we are told that we either break up, cheat on her, or stay loyal and see only a fraction of the scenes. I don't dislike Veronica, but the way the game is set up it feels like she is doomed to fail.

Finally I want to point out the dialogue. Two points stick out to me, Allison (who I love most) and the car parts. Speaking on Allison I only went the best/redemption route, and I understand Allison would repeatedly hammer in her distrust of the MC due to their past... But at a certain point it felt like 1/3 the dialogue or more was MC saying "for lily". It felt like the dialogue went into circles and the same repeated lines. Some dialogue that wont immediately loop back to the MC swearing by lily would help.

And the dialogue for the cars, honestly needs to match how the physics dialogue is held. The story holds enough science talk to make you think the characters now what they are speaking about without losing interest. The car parts however, go on and on about car dialogue to the point where I found myself skipping dialogue because I dont know the car jargon and they just dont stop. I get its a car game, but its also a racing game and you can do more racing and less car build dialogue in the game.

Great story, great renders, great character development. Top tier.

Your decisions & how they affect LI's seems quite layered – or at least, the dev did well creating that illusion. Rather than simple black & white outcomes; ie, option a: love path, option b: no more love path.

Instead, there are certain moments where you must prioritize one LI over another – as is life.

In other games, I try to maximize relationships for the sake of see more content, but this game did such a good job with the characters, I actually felt like – this woman's a nag, I can't put up with her shit anymore.

The racing scenes / mini-game is the cherry on top. It's a nice change in pace, and builds up the suspense nicely.

Can't wait to see where things go next.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Top quality vn

The plot, the writings are all solid and interesting. Characters have their problems but it captures your attention, not like in Leap of Faith where it was banal and mostly irritates you cause you can't do anything.
Here you can make choices even in the middle of your playthrough and it matters.

Renders and art blow my mind. Some textures of environment looks poor but overall the visual is gorgeous. Not just pics are cool but how all scenes was constructed, animations, scene transitions i've seen not a lot in other novels.

Sound is well-chosen. It emphasizes scenes and doesn't annoy.

QTE mechanics makes good impression.

Overall it's very cool vn. Waiting for the second season.

The story of the game is beautiful and interesting, the characters are very well-crafted and extremely beautiful [especially Jasmine] there is not a single thing I can say that is bad. Finally Jasmine you drive me crazy and love u

[Act 1 v1.02]

Ok, so this is a relly nice game. Visuals are amazing, the characters look really really good, among the better visuals out there.
Story is nice, took me a little while to get me going in the beginning, but by the end of the first episode I was hooked. Just completed the first 3 episodes and I'm really excited to see this developed.


Just believe me, this has the potential to be one of the best out there. 5/5

Review for Act 1 v1.02

Race of Life certainly isn't one of the worst visual novels I've played, especially compared to other games I've given a similar rating, but after pushing myself to about halfway through episode two I finally decided the game just hasn't hooked me.

I am by and large a harem gamer and I'd say 90% of the lewd games I've played fall in that genre somewhere, but I've been surprised before by games that "make you choose" so to speak. With this one seemingly having a pretty good rep I figured I'd give it a shot. Truthfully though I think it helped me contextualize why I have a hard time getting into these sort of dating sim games more than anything else.

Race of Life follows a divorced dad who's daughter ends up in a tragic accident. His solution to raise the money for her hospital care is illegal street racing. The game is at it's best imo when it focuses on the racing. Well, no shit given the title right? Thing is, I wouldn't call this a game about street racing. Rather, it feels like your pretty typical dating sim melodrama hopping around between love interests or hanging out with your best bud Cooper (who I legitimately think is probably the best character in the game), where racing is only the background theme as a solution to the bigger issue: your daughter being in a coma and you needing a way to pay for it.

My main problem with Race of Life is the characters I think. A pretty obvious statement that the love interests are one of the most important parts of an AVN. There are five main ones in this game. Usually I struggle because I end up liking all the love interests, but this a rare game that makes it an easy choice for the wrong reasons. Two of them, Maggie and Natalya, could be removed from the game entirely and VERY little would change (in what I played anyway). They just don't mix with the plot well and feel very boring the few times they do show up. So that leaves me with three other choices.

Allison, the mother of your child, the MC cheated on and that's how they ended up divorced. The MC's reasoning? Their marriage was struggling anyway. Let me tell you, I feel very little sympathy for the MC. The game just does not explore his deeper feelings on anything. It's like he doesn't have critical thinking, which is weird for someone presented as super intelligent. I feel like it almost expects you to forgive him when he shows how he cares for his daughter, but it's almost like a copout for him. "I know you hate me because I cheated on you and broke up our family but we MUST focus on our daughter because I NEED to be a good father." And sure he should care about that, but it would feel much more genuine if all these thoughts came outside of the moments with Allison being justifiably mad at you. I'm not choosing her purely out of spite for the MC because I don't think he deserves a second chance with her.

Then there is Veronica. An attractive, confident, and intelligent English professor who is literally like the perfect supportive GF. Her character is actually so close to being what would have been my choice, but I ended up disliking how her story was being handled more and more as time went on. I genuinely could not tell you why she wants to be involved with the MC so much, because by and large the MC treats her like a casual side piece while she very clearly wants to live a life with him. Makes you feel bad for her honestly. The game tells you that you guys have been a thing for a bit now, but much like Allison it fails to really showcase that and go deeper on it. You have a few casual hookups, she tries to get involved more with the MC's life even wanting to meet his daughter, but he never lets her in. Finally he takes her to a charity event where she confesses her love for him, where you can tell her you love her back, but I feel like it would make zero sense based on everything I've seen. How would the MC love her when the most he does is hit it, leave, and tell her "haha maybe next time I won't keep leading you on and actually stay the night with you for once." I also felt it was really out of character of her to pick a fight with one of the college girls the MC is helping, but I digress.

The last love interest, Jasmine, actually feels like the canon love interest of the game. The other aspect of the game is the MC being a physics professor trying to make a technological breakthrough on a battery he's developing on the side. She's the only girl involved with both the racing and professor sides of the game. It's crazy how natural she fits into everything in comparison to everyone else. Even still, it feels like the MC never pays her enough attention for feelings to develop like they do.

Which is really the issue with the game as a whole. This game feels like it's built around the love interests first and everything else second, instead of all the love interests fitting nicely into what could have been a cooler racing story. Because it's dividing up its time with five love interests, suddenly none of the connections with them feel deep enough when they do move to a more advanced stage in the relationship. Then when it focuses on love interests who so far have very little to do with racing or your daughter, it feels completely out of place. Cooper, the bro character, literally feels more important than any of the girls because he's the one there for you the most going through the game. Fuck it, give me the bromance route honestly and the ending of the game could be us kicking back and drinking a beer with him.

TLDR - I've sort of reached a point with AVNs where I'm just not going to sit down and play through them unless they really capture me, and this one didn't. Yes the animations are pretty good, some of the characters are hot, and the actual racing parts aren't bad. But I think the MC kinda sucks and the writing doesn't explore things deep enough to invest me in it. Not an awful game by any means, but I'm not sure I'd find myself coming back to this.

I would say its a great looking game with alot of potential story wise and also with the LI. I look forward to see how it develops.

I think the writing needs to be improved. Its a chore to read and the characters honestly is not that interesting. Im just here for the lewds scenes atm and they are good

I really like this visual novel, the renders and amimations are amazing, and the models are hot. But they arent that interesting imo.

My problem with this is the writing, the writer obviously is good but sometimes he makes the text too much of a chore to read, its alot of uninteresting conversations or dialogue.

If they could improve on these I would rate it as 5 star. Its one of my favorites but I cant say its on that top tier with the highest rated games on this site. Where the dialogue is just right amount.

Good game, likable characters and a very interesting storyline... lots of detail around cars and hot chicks which almost all the guys dig!! Developer is doing an amazing job with this game and it is surely one of the best rated VN I've come across in recent years!

Simple yet realistic and heartfelt story line, good graphics and multiple choices, with respective consequences, mini games are challenging but not annoying and fits to the story. One of the few internal mini games that are actually fun and fits to the story lines.Every Character that comes into the story seem to be interesting, unique and well designed.

Wish the best for the development team to keep up the good work.

Exceptional game so far.

The models are gorgeous and have delightfully reasonable proportions. A lot of work clearly went into developing their unique looks.

The same effort went into differentiating them in both what they say and how they say it. The writing is really solid, especially the way the dialogue flows.

The central story elements are pretty well imagined. I could nit-pick, but I'd only bother to do so because the writing is so good in the first place.

I hope as the game continues, the amount of forking between love interests is kept small. I don't really like needing to play a game through several times to see all the scenes because I favored one girl more than another. At least it's in Ren'Py, so I can skip ahead fast and the game will stop where something changed, which makes it less bad. But I hope that going forward, the game is structured in a way that a de-forking mod will work.

Because I'm definitely looking forward to more of this interesting story and these sexy ladies.

a unbelievable VN with great characters, plot which leaves you wanting more and more content!

the unique character design, slowish burn story and sex scenes are truly the best ive seen

do not walk, RUN to play this , you will not regret. 11/10

Review of "Race of Life" (As of Episode 3.2)

An Engaging and Intelligent Narrative

"Race of Life" has an interesting story that effectively captures your attention from the very beginning with a compelling initial incident. Without revealing any spoilers, the narrative maintains your emotional engagement throughout the unfolding events.

One of the elements I genuinely enjoy is the unique twist of incorporating a college background with the theme of racing. This blend offers a refreshing take on a well-known setting. The characters are intelligent, which significantly enhances the story for me. Both the love interests (LI) and the protagonist character (PC) exhibit high levels of intelligence.

In contrast to many other visual novels that follow the school life trope, which often feels overdone, "Race of Life" presents a pleasant change by focusing on intellectual and engaging discussions rather than stereotypical fraternity parties and shallow characters. These discussions align perfectly with what the PC is striving to achieve academically and personally.

Even though I may not be intelligent enough to fully grasp every detail, the general gist is sufficient to appreciate the research and thought put into these topics. While the conversations might not be as intricate as they would be in real life, the text addresses these subjects adequately without being overly complex for the average reader.

Other aspects of the story are still forming. There seems to be quite a few things going on, so we'll see how this all comes together, and whether it ends up working well, or degrades from what I feel are the strong points of the AVN. The LIs themselves seem varied, and mesh well with the PC. I am also curious to see if there ends up being meaningful consequences due to the various relationships. I'm willing to say there is already one major turning point in the story of LI. It is weirdly nice to see normal human relationship "drama." Too many AVNs try to have a harem root. While it is nice for anyone to fantasize and escape, it gets old quickly.

The way I put value into the story is if it has me reading the dialogue or has me skipping to the next decision. I'm happy to say this one kept me reading. Not only do the story’s LI get time, but the PCs friends get their time too. The dynamic feels genuine and is a nice break from the rest.

Visuals
Onto the visuals. This AVN has particularly good visuals, and the LIs have their time to shine. Backgrounds seem to be well thought out, and don't feel out of place. It seems we are at the point where care is taken not only with the characters, but with what’s around them too. This does a lot for telling the story, and making it feel as if you’re a silent observer, rather than staring at a computer screen.

Overall, I'm hooked on the story, excited to see where these relationships go, and curious about where this all culminates. I would be willing to replay for different routes. In my opinion, that says a lot, as I usually find one LI that works best with the PC and stick to it. So, any AVN that can make me replay for different LIs is already a win in my book.

In summary, "Race of Life" stands out with its thoughtful narrative, intelligent characters, refreshing take on a college setting, and impressive visuals, making it a captivating and enjoyable experience.

Ep. 3-1
Undoubtedly a perfect score is the onlypoint worthy of this title. Not because it is flawless, but because the creator has clearly put a great deal of effort into bringing it to life.

The models are designed in a wide range, yet they are all beautiful and unique. The animations are smooth and flawless. The story is engaging and hooks the audience. The novel lacks nothing in terms of sexual content, and I eagerly await its future updates.

As for its flaws, I can point to the overly long and excessively technical dialogues about cars and batteries. There's also the occasional jerk-like behavior of the protagonist or the jokes he shares with his best friend, which sometimes fall flat and, at other times, are so oblivious that they fail to recognize that not every moment is appropriate for joking. like when your daughter is in coma
Nevertheless These issues aren’t significant enough
to make me lower the score of the novel

My knowledge about cars is little and I'm not interested in it in real life but this game made me search on various cars, which is the best, which is cooler, which manufacturer produce the quality cars, I get curious whenever the MC talks about car with his pal, betting on race car which I don't have any clue which is good, this game even tho its not all the time racing it hooks me into it.

The plot of the story is continuing to a good phase. The story is nice, very new to this kind of genre. The grammar is good too and very easy to digest for a non-native english speaker like me.


Characters -
MC is good looking, matured type hardworking man. Its a fresh of breath to see that kind of design in MC's role.

LI's on the other hand. All of them is good looking, Underground Studios didn't put unrealistic body or those over aesthetic Instagram body. You want a voluptuous hot latina with good size of bazoongas? This game got it, oh you want a sexy slender ginger with quirky personality? Already done, oh you want gorgeous blondes? Easy-peasy. You won't get disappoint in Race of Life, you got plenty of choices and routes.

The emotional scene is done really well. I love the humor, the back and fort of characters, and the sarcasm. The renders is top notch. Lastly, the sex scenes, when it comes to Daz3D they're the best on AVN world, Underground Studio did a really good job on animating those hot scenes, good job to them.

Last note: I highly recommend this game, this game content is large enough to give you insight whether you'll like it or not. So give it a try.

I think this is the first game i post a review that i have some kind of issue with ( i only review those i really like). Don't get me wrong, it's still 5 star because the positives outweigh by a lot the negatives.

Positives:
- Cooper is the coolest, a true great friend. I like this type of dynamic, like Derek from BaDIK.
- Jasmine is probably the GOAT AVN girl. I mean it. Her design is perfect, and her personality and interactions with the MC are really well written. I'm a sucker for the "bad girl " archetype when i play these games, i confess, but i'd play a game with only her as a character, and i don't normally like games focused on only one girl.
- The game is BEAUTIFUL, the renders are top notch and the racing animations are jaw dropping when you compare it to other games.

Negatives:
- I don't know anything about cars and very little about science. Sometimes the dialogue is HEAVY for me. It gets too technical and it doesn't interest me.
- I can understand the Veronica hate in here. She is lowkey unbearable. I think it's made that way so you breakup with her and explore the other girls paths, but it's still kinda painful
- There are a lot of things happening at the same time with high stakes. I don't know if it will all come together but it's kinda "too ambitious" for a coherent story.
- The MC is a little bit of a dick, his story with Allie keeps getting me uncomfortable. I kinda like the "real world problem" dynamic, but i dislike this part.

5 stars anyway, great game

This game has very good renders, very good and smooth animations, a good UI, is bug-free, spelling and grammar mistakes-free. The models used are generally good-looking. The game looks good.


However, that doesn't really matter when the writing (the most important thing in a VN) is this bad, especially the dialogues.
The dialogues are mostly dull, and sometimes, horrendously bad.

- This game does not know how to write realistic and interesting characters. The doctor from the hospital is the most egregious example of how terrible this game is at that. They wanted to make him unlikable, but really? Real people don't talk like that
- The jokes aren't funny. Literal poop joke right of the bat. They all fall flat. And there's a lot of them, even in "serious" moments.
- Too much melodrama that the writers love to stretch out.
- No subtlety when it comes to certain plot points. The game will just hammer them to you repeatably.
- It feels like the game is desperate to sound smart.
There's a litany of uselessly long technical explanations delivered unskillfully through dialogues. This just bore the audience. There are not even there for exposition purposes, but rather there as an overt effort to sound smart.
- Despite the good animations, the lewd scenes are dull. Why? No eroticism. That's what happens when the build-up with the LIs is poor and the dialogues lack any spice.

Top tier, nuff said...

I found this game from watching the AVN Community awards, and pulled it up due to it's awards and many nominations. They were all well deserved in my opinion.

It is rare when an AVN is able to really make me feel the emotional highs and lows of a story. Usually the story is simply used as a tool to facilitate the lewds. And while this game does have it's fair share of lewd scenes, they are better used to help support the story.

I was enjoying this game, clicking around, and having fun until the first time we race when my jaw literally dropped. I can honestly say I've never seen an animation of that quality in an AVN before, let alone in a non-sex context, let alone as part of a mini-game that I actively enjoyed playing.

I've also caught myself day-dreaming about Jasmine more than once when I'm not playing the game, especially as I got to the later stages of Act 1. Overall, I've really enjoyed how each of the women has their own personalities, and also the stereotypes that you expect to see in every VN being met, and at times subverted.

Oh, and when 'Christian Steiner' showed up, I started laughing out loud and had to show my wife, who is also a big fan of F1 who has been watching it almost as long as I have. And that throwaway line about 'not caring who Stroll's dad is' was just cherry on top. Not sure if gramps being called Hamilton is intentional, but really enjoyed all the references to F1.

I also like that there are choices that matter such as who you choose to take to an event, or who you spend time with, and I've liberally used the save/load feature to see every path. Oh, and this is possibly one of the very few games that have actively made me want to be monogamous - that's how good some of the writing is.

Definitely looking forward to continuing to play this game as further acts get released, but HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

P.S: The game does have some downsides such as some jokes not landing, or some of the racing detail getting a bit in the way at times, but it's not hard to skip past if it really is that boring (and I only remember having to do that once).

PLAY. THIS. GAME.

I wanted to give this game a worse rating for like the entire first half because there are a lot of decisions that I dislike. But ultimately it is a quality AVN that in my opinion belongs among the best ones. Let me explain.

This game starts you with a lot of baggage. You are not only divorced with an ex-wife still in picture, you also have a daughter AND a new girlfriend. I mean I don’t need every AVN to start with a completely clean slate and I understand it’s how the devs decided to set up the story but I felt very forced in some of the situations and it was a little difficult for me to relate. The worst part of this is Veronica, the new girlfriend. She is very needy and very possessive of you, but you just started a new AVN, you want to look around, you want to get to know the characters and not have one of the relationships already decided for you. I broke up with her the first opportunity I got and naturally missed like… 8 scenes she has, so that’s stupid. You either have to get railroaded into a relationship you might not care about or miss a lot of content. Would be so much better if the game started not with the relationship fully formed but with you meeting her after the divorce. Give me some agency god dammit!

Another problem that ended up actually being one of the best things about the game is how complex the story tries to be. Like it’s a lot. You are a physics professor, there’s a family drama with ex-wife and daughter, you’re raising capital and there’s a lot of business and science talk and there’s also racing cars and shitload of car lingo. It’s like 3 stories mixed together with each of them getting A LOT of attention, which may feel almost overwhelming at first. Especially if you’re not into cars or batteries. But I have to give respect where it’s due. It actually all falls in place and makes sense and it kinda made me even interested in racing cars and tuning, something I never cared about at all, because it’s just well written.

And then there’s the positive. There’s a lot of hot and awesome girls, lot of amazing scenes and the quality of renders gets pretty fucking high, especially later on. Animations are nothing too groundbreaking but the models are hot, so it looks good. The story is pretty cool and I’m invested. It seems like there’s a lot of options to decide which girls and which combination of girls you can pursue and there’s even one scene at the end of the currently released version where you can take almost any combination of girls to an EXPO and it honestly blows my mind a little how much work had to go into that. So yeah, despite some problems this is a very high quality AVN, especially if you’re looking for a more mature story, don’t mind some baggage and railroading in the beginning and enjoy beautiful renders.