VN - Ren'Py - University of Problems [v1.5.5 Extended] [DreamNow]

University of Problems is a game containing top level adult scenes which are unlocked by being a dishonest shitbird. The MC comes off as relatively likeable in most scenes except for the ones where one love interest is in danger of learning about a different love interest, at which point his inner monologue fills me with guilt and remorse as he tries to juggle numerous romances. To make matters worse, several of the love interests are damaged, with the MC healing their broken hearts and confessing his love… right before moving on to his next love interest and repeating the process. Despite all this, I still consider this a five-star game given the quality of everything involved. You simply have to be okay with either a dozen different playthroughs, or with unlocking everything while playing as the biggest douchebag to ever live.



Where University of Problems really shines is in the adult content. Few other games have truly nailed all of the stages of a romance, with a diverse array of dialogue, animations, and renders through the beginning, middle, and end of the adult encounters. You’ll never see a scene begin with a blow job. You may not realize how important the “intro and outro” portions are until you find the missing in other games. A blow job is sexy, but the moment a woman slowly positions herself between your legs and begins to tug at your shorts can be even sexier still, as can the post-sex cuddling. So many games miss these vital moments, but UoP does not.



UoP contains an excellent soundtrack that changes depending on the scene. The tunes are memorable and quite catchy.



The story is well-written and believable, for the most part. You’re attending college and… well, romancing everyone you meet. In the latest version (1.4.5) you have several threesome paths that are nearing fruition and more than half a dozen relationships going on, assuming you’re like most players and are trying to unlock the most content possible in one playthrough. However, as I illustrated in the opening, this is a double-edged sword where, if you’re like me, you’ll end up feeling guiltier and guiltier as the story progresses as the various love interests get closer and closer to finding out what a piece of shit the MC is. I suspect the author either never intended for this to be a harem game or is struggling to make it work believably.



However, this could simply be a “me” issue. I have a couple other gripes, such as a recent domination scene that I couldn’t opt out of (previous instances gave you the option to avoid them), but overall, the game is quite entertaining, with a diversity of scintillating, well rendered and well animated adult content that has been working quite well for two or more years that I’ve been following this title.



I recommend the game to any fans of the college shenanigans line of Adult Visual Novel. Just be prepared for the possibility that the author will make you feel like a piece of shit if you attempt to unlock everything in one playthrough. Some hopefully useful criticism for the author: Add, either in future content or to previous content, a way to end relationships peacefully if a harem is not in the making, and to clearly outline the choices that will lead to unpleasantly breaking one of these sweet girl’s hearts so they can be easily avoided. I am quite worried about both Sara and Roxy should they find out about each other without some setup making it okay. Even if it makes no sense, for me it’s preferable over seeing them cry. Perhaps a big neon sign saying, “Your previous choices are about to break so-and-so’s heart! Turn back now and fix it, or feel the wrath!”

Visually, the game is well-crafted, with detailed graphics that bring the university campus to life. The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, allowing players to focus on the strategic aspects of gameplay without feeling overwhelmed.

This game is a disaster. The writing is abysmal, trying desperately to make you care about characters who are shallow and uninteresting. Instead of focusing on their looks, it forces you to endure their insipid personalities. The so-called "open world" segments are a joke, barely offering any variety and certainly no depth.

As for the script, it's a mess of melodrama and contrived mysteries, trying too hard to be serious and failing miserably. And don't even get me started on the secondary characters – they're forgettable at best, and cringeworthy at worst.

I dread to think how the game will handle multiple romance paths and harems. The thought of it being remotely realistic is laughable. It would be absurd to think characters like Sara or Rachel would ever entertain the idea, while the whole concept might marginally suit characters like Ashley or Natalie. But honestly, who cares? This game is a train wreck from start to finish.

HOWEVER... if you love MILF content, this is a 3*. i feel i am being very generous by giving this a 2* especially with the tone of 5* reviews it already has!!!

A good amount of content and solid but albeit average renders/scenes. All the tools for another good college focused AVN.

What takes stars from this is the writing. The story is straightforward which is fine. The issue is that it has clearly either been translated or written by a non-native English speaker. Whilst it is much better than other similar cases I've seen it still has the problem of every character just seeming off. The main offenders are overly formal dialogue and things no person would ever actually say or think in the chosen wording.

Worth the time if you're out of college games as it will keep you occupied. If you aren't specifcally looking for that then I'd probably not recommend strongly.

A very promising game with good looking characters and interesting personalities. The story is where it misses a little bit for me personally as it can go from being somewhat interesting to mildly boring in the span of a few minutes. It's not a bad story by any means but its definitely not the main hook of this game for me.

The sheer amount of scenes and content that the developer provides for this game should not be overlooked. Like I said it is very promising and already has a bunch of content out for anyone into the "school-setting" genre and its definitely worth checking out.

Wonderfully rendered, wonderfully written, LI's all have different and interesting personalities, and the animation is Superb!! Did I mention butt play? In spades, I love it. Only small quibble I'd have is that several of the women seem strangely related, in that the facial resemblances are a bit too close. But all in all, one of the best , IMHO. Thank you, dev!

Typical college setting with soyboy beta male MC. Same types of choices and same events and character quirks as every other VN in this style. This would normally make the game pretty generic and averaged, but here it does some stuff that makes it lose points and it becomes kinda bad. First off, I HATE games that have you dick around in a phone and this one is no exception. Having to constantly keep up on a bunch of text messages for like 12 different people is a pain in the ass, not to mention the phone UI is clunky. Another thing that really sucks are the "roam" sections. Having to navigate around clicking on people and fishing for events going up and down stairs and checking doors is just annoying, pointless busy work. It serves absolutely zero purpose except to waste your god damn time. Finally, the last but probably biggest nail in this games coffin is how it treats routes. If you don't have a walkthrough good luck. Points are all over the place, routes open and close and extend and shorten, it's a complete and total mess. Some choices let you get back on to certain routes, other choices just destroy a route completely. Some choices have no affect on other choices later, some have major choices in dialogue, it's honestly a disaster. It also has the typical fraternity drama with the rapey preying on naive girls drama trope. This means that not only are you fighting with the choices and dialogue system, but you also have to contend with making sure that your choices don't end up screwing over one of the girls you're after. Again, it serves no other purpose than to waste your time and screw you over. Overall, I think the game is really poor, bad even. The only reason it gets a 2 and not a 1 is because the girls look ok and the renders are fine.

Wide range of L.I.s in this game which makes up for an interesting game so far. Interested in seeing where it goes from here. The only thing that I am worried about is the ending. With this many ladies and no harem tag how is the dev going wrap a bow on this?

Story 2/5
Its very vanilla and i found it a bit boring really, MC starts in school meets alot of girls and flirts with everyone, its not a fuckfest game so thats a plus but it is very very kinetic, like the teacher at the start of the game, your forced to sign up for her class since MC wants to fuck her and your forced to give her a foot massage no matter if you got 0 points with her and MCs thoughts are so cringy to read when you as the player couldent care less about her, same thing for every single girl in game, it just makes for a really stupid story when MC thinks "hope i get another chance with her" and then you pick the choice "hey i wont be seeing you anymore" 2 seconds later, which is why that kind of thought process shouldent be there at all.

And even though MC is a huge pervert, when a girl wants to do stuff he either backs out??? or ask 50 times if shes sure she wants to to something....its a total fail for MCs character, either make him a pervert or dont, anything else is just to stupid.

The laughing in this game is so bad, its Hee-Hee or Hee-Hee-Hee? looks more like someone stuttering the word He then a laugh and its there constantly, never been annoyed by laughing in a game but guess theres a first for that to, Mod can change it to Tee-Hee which is a little better but when MC uses that it makes him look/sound like a girl so i dunno, everyone seems to be high on drugs 24/7 since they laugh constantly....

And as for the plot its barely a plot and very boring, get some boss dude trown out of college, not much to it and it just meh.

The phone text system is a bit annoying you send a msg to someone then you have to exit phone to click once to then get a reply where you again have to open phone click msg read and exit phone again, that could have been made alot better.

Also wasent really a fan of how the progress with girls are, if you dont go with Carol it will be a slowburn with no fun and if you do you might end up cheating on her once you finaly get to know other girls, theres just to big a leap between starting and learning something with LIs and not being a harem game makes it even worse when you have to blindly pick a girl or dump her before even meeting other LIs or learning anything about her.

And when you are on a LIs path you cant turn her down after you picked to go for her, not even after you learn the LI is a lesbian who has no interrest in MC but wants a relationship with another girl, MC will just keep going for her without having a choice to dump her, atleast give the player an option when you learn something new, this is an awfull way to run paths for LIs when you have to go for them before learning anything about them and then when you do you never get the chance to dump them.

And MC is an idiot constantly thinking how to win a lesbian girl over so he can fuck her.....he acts like he has no clue why shes not into him while knowing shes a lesbian i mean hes brainless..its annoying.

Im a one playthrough kind of player and this game makes it impossible to do it that way when you have so few choices.



MC is as so many games the standard horney pevert with the mindset of a 12 year old, constantly thinking how hot ANY girl he meets is, it gets really annoying reading about it if you as the player dont find the LI hot in any way, it also has the side effect that you cant truely enjoy the game if your the type that likes to put yourself in the shoes of MC when playing.
MC also acts like hes never seen a girl before so when he sees one or one talks to him he goes of to lala land unable to focus or think.....so yes brainless, and it goes without saying he gets boners from close to nothing.

I really wish devs would stop this idiotic thought process and let the players them selfs think what they want when they see a LI since peoples tastes are diffrent where one sees hot another sees ugly.

Girls 2/5
They look ok, i dideent really find them all that hot but that comes down to personal taste, theres an ok diversity in builds, no smols though and i dident really like that most feel like whores or dumb bimbos due to lack of info given to the player.

Animations 4/5
Well it starts out with pure shit where its just picture to picture stuff, but it will have some very nice animations later in game, proberly some of the best ive seen with movements and quality.

Music 3/5
Decent background music.

Choices 2/5
I like that you can pick who to be with, but as for the story its mostly if not all kinetic and LIs paths are poorly made so you have to accept them or dump them before learning who they are.

I tried playing it for the story which is most importen for me, im more into that then the porn side, not that i dont enjoy that as well, but the main story in this one is barely even there so nothing to come for really.

Cant give this more then 2 stars, to me it was just to boing, bad path system for LIs almost forcing you to restart once you learn stuff and i dont like that at all, LIs was a bit meh same for their stories and the laughing drove me nuts as well so yeah it just wasent for me.
Also there still LIs like Ashley you still cant have sex with, i mean 3½ year old game thats a bit to much of a slow burn.

2.5 star game


The plot is ridiculous. A couple of characters are well written, all of the rest have no personality or purpose other than wanting to fuck the MC every time they are in a scene. The game is not that polished and there is a lack of direction for where its going, for instance the age of one of the characters is mentioned a couple of times and it changes each time. There is a good amount of content relative to how long its been in development which is why I am rounding up to 3 stars instead of 2.

love this games love every girl the renders animations story and music are all top notch this is the finest quality game I've played to be honest I've never been bored playing this most of these games you just skip the dialog because its just a sea of text to get the good bit the way mc interacts with these girls and the relationship dynamics is really well done and interesting unlike a lot of games on here which just get everything wrong that's the thing about UOP its gets everything right it gets the player invested into the story and relationships he has with these lovely ladies i think this is a near perfect game

College slice of life kind of game. The sex/animations are one of the best. Some are kinkier, others are wholesome.

The story is hit or miss. it's not mind blowing, but it's not garbage. The LIs are cute and realistically proportioned, which is a plus for me.

If the story bores you, it's worth unlocking the gallery just for the sex scene. Specially Roxy's.

Review of version '1.3.5 Christmas Extended' on 2024/01/02.

TL;DR: This game is almost perfect, but the flaws it has are big, and are caused by its writing.

UI:
UoP's UI is very polished and customized.
The player has access to a phone and notebook system. The phone is similar to what we know from other games, it's used for sending messages and keeping up-to-date with events and people through social media. The message system works nicely, though replies are often sparse. The social media app is nice to get a little backstory on what's happening. I'm hesitant to comment on anything because you never know what the MC will say, and there's no way to not comment, once you press the button.
The notebook is automatically kept by the game, and lets the player review the story of the MC or any main character he meets. It also provides access to the gallery while in-game.

Adult:
The game has a large amount of erotic- and sex scenes, as well as unlockable lewds and alternative scenes/scenarios (at least in the Extended edition). Other than sexual content, there aren't any other adult themes present.

Visual:
UoP shines in its visual aspect. As the game progresses, renders get more detailed, but that isn't to imply that they were lacking in the early game. As far as animations go, these are the best animations I've seen in any game so far. Body positions make sense and add to the intimate atmosphere. Movements are nicely timed and cause bodies to react.
There's a high level of attention to detail in these animations, muscles will react, people are breathing, kissing, opening and closing their eyes, and moving their hands in addition to the movement of the naughty bits.

Novel:
This is where the game falls apart for me. The writing is relatively sloppy, and it doesn't seem like the writer had the story entirely worked out. The basketball plot goes nowhere, and (in)action of the MC rarely leads to bad outcomes. That is to say, it's possible to close an LI's path, and you won't hear from them again. You won't usually be confronted with bad outcomes if the MC doesn't help an LI.
The framing of different relationships is badly done as well. Until day 21, I believed that Carol expected an exclusive relationship. She eventually clarifies this, in a roundabout way, that she got overexcited and didn't expect the MC to commit yet. Of course, at this point, I had already closed the path of most other LIs.
Love Interests are generally very shallow, and act as dolls for the MC to maneuver or manipulate. They're rarely more than the trope/archetype they represent, having activities but no personality outside what the story/MC needs them to be.

If it wasn't for this, I could've easily given this game a 5/5 rating. It would be a contender with the most popular college game on here.
If this game's visual qualities were on-par with most games, it would've been a 1 or 2/5 at most.

Sound:
The game features music, sound effects and background noise. Though I noticed an absence of sound effects towards the later part of the game. The music choice is good. The tracks are non-intrusive and non-vocal, which is how I think it should be.
The UI also features a "what song is playing"-button, which is a nice touch.

Five stars. This game is one of the prime gems on this site.
If you sleep on it, you WILL regret it.

The scenes are hot. The renders are stunningly beautiful. The cast is interesting and has serious character-developments as you get to know them.

The work put into this game is insanely great.

Where to go with this one. It feels like somewhere between a 3 and a 4, which is also why I feel that the 5 star system should be 4 or 10 stars. Girls are ok if a little too slim for my liking and not a lot of variation when it comes to body. It’s clearly going for Harem but doesn’t commit to it. The femdom scene is supposedly optional, except it’s not if you like Carol. Which is sort of like giving you an option between no health insurance and health insurance ie not really optional. The MC looks too generic and like a twig could break him. The story kind of saves the VN since it hasn’t devolved to repetitive “I love you” and actually moves forward, which we see too often on this site.

This game should be a harem game. Using the cell phone cheat and unlocking all the routes, this game was perfect. You'd finish a date with one girl and move on to another; the game was packed with content, and the story made sense. Now, following only one route, the game feels empty. The MC can't cheat, even though it's almost necessary to cheat to advance in the investigations, to protect his girl. The amount of story content that the MC misses by not cheating, the porn studio, the office with kim, and so on, everything was part of the story. How many saves do I have to start to get some parts of the story, when before I could get everything in just one save? I really liked the girls in this game, but I was forced to abandon it.

It's quite complicated to rate this game, I'm hesitating between 3 and 4.
I really like the renders, and some of the characters are interesting (especially Roxy). In the beginning, you have a lot of choices (I think), messages to send and read regularly, but after a while it becomes just reading. I wouldn't have minded if the story was interesting, but you can find this kind of story in lots of other games.

I recommend you give it a try anyway

4 stars out of a good heart since it's a fun game being played without much commitment as almost all VNs should. Points I feel like I should mention:

- The LI's have somewhat different personalities which is worth mentioning nowadays. Nothing spectacular tho. It's just there.
- Story needs work and depth. I feel it's a harem VN but unintentionally for lack of cohesion.
- Aside from occasional and little pubic hair (sadly), all of them look the same below the necks.
- Given the dev's chosen style, good renders and animations.
- MC is... dull.
- Roxy is the reason I'll come back to it.

That's the only explanation to meet girls that instantly are craving to fuck with you because yes... Or have so helpful reliable and convenient male characters.

Also only explanation for the girls to have the same expressionless and copy pasted faces. Or the same body type.

And the only explanation for the cringy MC self talking and overthinking...

But leaving that aside it's a neat game worth giving a try!

+ music
+ renders
+ Roxy

- extra scenes should be part of the main story
- mc is a whining pathetic scared wimp and total sub for some girls
- sex scenes are boring, lot of them are only tease and nothing more. MC also doesn't know how to be assertive, not to mention take the initiative, he behave really pathetic in most of them
- when we finally get some action then he talks to much, just shut up and fuck the girl already
- tee-hee, hee-hee shh shh. and other similar shit.. who write this crap? teenager?
- mc compliment girls too much, most of the time he looks like a horny simp
- poor writing, characters and conversations are really boring

Most boring avn i ever played - literally.. I can't even finish this game because there is nothing to keep me to continue