Ren'Py - Lessons in Love [v0.48.0] [Selebus]

After finishing one chapter(20ish hours) I can now give a decent review. This game is fine, it's like a poorly made creepypasta mixed with a good dating sim with little to no porn. The main story is fine, but the individual stories of the girls are what's actually interesting and make you grow attached, with some being funny, some serious and some dramatic to help make the narrative not become stale.
There is a metric fuckload of grinding of repeatable events to get you to required affection levels to hang out with a girl. These events are almost always not pornogrpahic in nature(which I think is good), but feel like they could have happened without reaching an arbitrary relationship or lust point. The girls are variations of generic tropes but with a piece of trauma that they withhold forever until it gets out(oh no).
The true difference to other games are mainly the MC and the setting. The MC is a piece of shit, but mainly by his own self view, he is actually not that bad once you reflect on his actions and understand his intentions but him constantly moaning about how much of a pos he is gets annoying quickly. He(almost the rin thing is still strange) never forces the girls to do anything they aren't asking for; which while still would be inherently bad as a 30ish teacher he's not a 30ish teacher he's a random spirit(or god most likely based on context clues) that has no memories other than when convenient(he can recite poetry just fine lmao). He just is a jumbled mess that makes the game very annoying and pretentious along with the next part.
The other difference is that the setting is creepy pasta-vile, with jungi-ito type events happening in smile events. I did all of them and got bored more than scared, think body horror but where no one has any emotion or cares in the world. But these extend into normal events whenever something “not happy” happens, things break the world or whatever else. These subject of the events are usually focused on arbitrary(albratross or bugs of clocks) or other things that probably don't matter but they really try to convince you they do. These things are the main essence of the plot and its dramatic tension, i.e. when things go wrong the world could break. Like a girl traumatised by loud noises can break for a second due to lightning, etc. The issue is that it is established many many times that everything is designed to be “happy” and that it's the purpose, which means the meta commentary is that happiness is not the destined purpose of the world and the game and in that case wtf is the point of playing it? I’m not gonna be playing a porn game for the drama i'll tell ya lmao.
Finally the pornographic content is subpar at best, at the end of ch1 there is little worth cumming over, most of the girls are lolis which i'm ambivalent over but god there isn't much sex appeal to work with making the adult moms scenes much better.Overall though even if you like a girl you at most get 2-3 sex animations(and about 4 sentences of dialogue) and that's it for 20 hours.
Overall I think this game would do better as a regular ln, as a porn game it's quite bad. The stories with the girls are by far the best part, but I don't see myself continuing due to the arbitrary grind and the setting of the game pushing the games narrative into treating the girls into tools to use against either the mc/player whatever for arbitrary shock value or pretentious monologues about self or happiness(which gave insane chunni vibes btw).

What else can i say about this game that hasn't been said? idk but here we go:
It's incredibly well written, even if sometimes it can be a bit pretentious and/or too nonsensical, almost as if you are in a very long fever dream. i wouldn't say this is everyone's cup of tea, especially if all that you're looking for is something to jerk off to. you'd be better of playing this as a normal VN with adult themes and i assure you there would be no regret. The time traveling theme is great, and the characters are even better developed, Especially Maya, Niki and Yumi.
One of the only downsides i'd say this game has is the amount of "puzzles" you find in it. i almost went insane going around in older saves to figure out the answers through my first time playing. DO NOT DO IT!!!, just look them up online and have fun (or not) in this incredible VN.
Also use the auto VN mod or the Hint mod to help progression.

PRAISE BE!

** EDIT: It's Day 54, and I'm not laughing anymore. Not a damn thing has happened. This game is a completely worthless piece of shit. Don't waste your time. **


With the hilarious way MC woke up the first morning (Day 2), I thought this was going to be a six star game. Maybe seven. It's not.

The Good:

I laugh out loud sometimes. It's certainly not a non-stop riot, but it is one of the funnier games I've played. If not for that this would be a one star game.

The renders are actually quite good as well, provided you're into Koikatsu.

The Bad:

I feel like I've been playing forever (Day 47), and there hasn't been anything close to a sex scene or nude scene. You have one breakthrough kiss with a girl, then revert to a no-kissing relationship for no reason. I don't recall any animations, either, though I'm told they are poor when they eventually show up. I'm perfectly fine with slow burn stories, but this is not a slow burn story.

On day one, there are two cute teen girls who are completely obsessed with you: getting you in bed, marrying you, etc. It's literally the only thing in life they care about. You? Well, you are completely obsessed with fucking all cute teen girls. It's literally the only thing you care about. You interact with these girls nearly every day, and you know what happens? Absolutely fucking nothing. You are literally the most incompetent human being in the history of the universe. Somehow you manage to fuck this up, but there are no wacky hijinks preventing you from getting laid. You simply do nothing. You keep lusting after these girls who keep begging you to fuck them, and you do absolutely nothing whatsoever.

There are another six cute teen girls that take a couple days to warm up to you before deciding they want to fuck you like you want to fuck them. What happens with them? Absolutely fucking nothing.

I hope you like tsunderes, because this game has two at outset and probably more on the way. They completely hate your guts and you have no idea why. One of them is tolerable. One is a genuine drag every time she appears.

This game also has very long and tiresome scenes with unexplained weird shit. I'm down with weird shit, but you've got to connect it to the story somehow. Mystery is fine, but mystery requires leaving clues. It's just extended tiresome unexplained weird shit with no clues.

I should probably note I am using the VN mod, which cuts down greatly on wasted time and energy. Without it, this would be a two star game at best.

Was once a 5 now a 3 maybe lower find the game to just be very frustrating nowadays trying to figure out what to do. Even just the character events are pain to figure out some of the time. Needs an option for hints or something.

I pretty much just downloaded this with a bunch of other random crap during a three day goon sesh and ended up forgetting the goon and playing it for 60 hours straight lol

Despite having a lot of sex scenes I wouldn't call this a porn game, it's more just a VN with a lot of sexual content. It's very well written - though arguably overly wordy with a tendency to wax philosophical - with its biggest strength being the characters you interact with, all of whom are both well written and consistent with a ton of scenes. Honestly I can't think of any VN or even manga with as many endearing and interesting characters. As others have mentioned it follows a (sort of) groundhog day trope and has a lot of existentialism so those aspects might be a turn-off. Worth mentioning there's some disturbing themes, with the MC being an (initially) unapologetic predator.

Personally I love this game, to the point that even two or so weeks after beating it I'm still thinking about it, which is genuinely annoying because it probably won't be finished for fucking ages. If you're cool with the themes and the format I'd say this is definitely something you should give a go, though not if what you're looking for is a wank.

The only real con I can point to with LiL is the event/progression triggering - whilst it's not hard to figure out how to trigger events early on it becomes frustrating as you progress since there's a lot of characters and each has multiple potential ways to trigger an event, with many events being locked behind a different character's event and some story events being locked behind many other events. There's also a handful of puzzles with some incredibly obscure solutions. It's fine to feel your way through initially but I wouldn't recommend trying to brute-force your way through, if/when you hit a snag and can't figure out how to progress just check the next story event on the wiki and see what things you need to have done and how to do them. There's even a non-spoilery progression mod so you can easily see what you need to do next when you're stuck.

For those wanting a quick answer as to whether or not they should play this game, the following key points should be noted.

• The game story uses the rather common "Groundhog Day" trope.
• The writing seems to make use of the The Story That Never Was trope.

Basically, if you don't want to see those two writing tropes... the game isn't for you. Now, if you'd like more detailed analysis of the game, continue reading.

LiL is one of those games that, honestly, I very much want to like... quite a bit in fact. It's got a rather extensive cast of characters, which to date, all seem romance open characters in one form or another. Some are present just for sex, while others help push the story along... well... eventually.

That's where the first problem that LiL runs into, which as a player, you're going to start dealing with. Specifically, to get various story events to take place (above and beyond the character events) you're going to find yourself repeating multiple little events in this kind of grind fest. All with the intention of getting an affection stat up high enough that you reach an arbitrary range before an event will trigger. Furthermore, it's not uncommon to have to grind multiple characters over the span of several in game days (or weeks) to reach the needed required affection range.

At the start of the game, when you're only really worrying about one or two characters, this isn't too big a deal. However as the game progresses, and you start having more and more interactions with other characters... well you can quite easily get into situations where you're 'hanging out' (no that's not a code word for sex) with the same character again... and again... and again... for days on end.

A walkthrough, or some kind of hint mod, is a must have with the game... and even then it's not perfect. Expect to use cheats... a lot. Trust me on that.

However, while the grind fest that the game is can be frustrating, the question remains, "Is the writing worth it?" Specifically, is it something that makes you want to go through and deal with that headache?

Short answer... maybe.

The writing is relatively decent, for the most part, and has come quite a long way from when the game first released. Having said that, there are issues with it. Not huge, glaring issues that make you go 'was that even English?' but there are going to be times that you find yourself going back through things to try to make sense of what you just read. One point you'll quickly be introduced to, is the main plot point of the game, where you learn you're stuck in a Groundhog Day kind of loop, where everything simply resets and you start over. You retain the memories of the previous loop, but much of the characters around you, don't. When Groundhog Day is well written, it's a great story to see play out. Even when it's badly written, it can still be interesting. Sadly, this game falls somewhere in the middle. There are real good plot points and story lines, and real BAD ones. They even out to make the game have somewhat 'meh' writing. Expect to be confused. That's all I can say there.

Things get worse as the game progresses, as you will start finding that there's something you the MC need to do to try to end the loop... but as with any good "Groundhog Day" story, what you need to do... isn't clear. This is often called the "story that never was" trope, where you have to do... well, something, to prevent the loop from even happening in the first place. However, since so much of the game story is a mystery, and seems to even change with every major update (at least it feels that way writing wise), good luck in figuring things out.

Story I rate a 2 out of 5 stars.

So what about the code itself? Is the game well built and generally bug free? Honestly, yeah. The code is relatively simple, but it works, and it tends to work quite well. There's been bugs in the past, but the developer seems to have figured out how to prevent those, and has progressed to a point where the game is relatively stable. To the point that as a player you generally don't have to worry about some new update changing everything and breaking your past saves, forcing you to have to run through everything... again. Sure, it's still a grind fest, but at least it works well enough that you aren't going to have to return here from time to time to look for an update that fixes some bug, or you don't need to worry about having to start over from the beginning. Even if that technically is the main theme of the game. (pun intended).

Code and writing gets a 5 out of 5 stars.

The last metric I rate by is update schedule. Does the developer update the game with enough regularity that you aren't waiting for the game for an inordinate amount of time. Sadly, LiL's update schedule is... bad. Very bad. Much like other large games (Innocent Witches is a good example), the update schedule for LIL is such that you can expect to wait months before you see an update. Yes, the updates do contain some level of progression of the story, and are decently large; but that's really no excuse. Given the amount of what DOES come out with each update, it would be more reasonable for the developer to break those major updates down somewhat and have a more regular update schedule. However, they've chosen not to do that. I can't say why they've taken this path, but be warned, you may not hear much from the developer for some time before your next update comes out.

I rate Update schedule 1 of 5 stars.

Conclusion:

Is the game even worth it? Well, yeah. It's not a great game, but by the same token, it's not a bad game either. If you don't mind the grind fest that it is, you can have some fun with it. If you want to skip all that, there's a handful of cheats which can get you past that, and at least one 'hint' or walkthrough that you can use to figure out what to focus on. The writing is generally decent, the game is stable, and while the update schedule isn't the best, at the very least it's not as bad as it could be. Overall, the game is average. A good play, with some replayability, but not something you're going to go out of your way to return to.

"This visual novel is an absolute gem! The story is captivating, with well-developed characters and unexpected twists. The artwork and soundtrack are stunning, creating an immersive experience. Highly recommended!"

This game is really hard to describe to someone but it has honestly change my outlook and judgement of games as a whole with just how well written this game is. Do not play this game if your looking for a quick wank because this is definitely not the one to be playing if so. I have fallen in love with these characters as a whole and genuinely feel for each and every character as they go though some pretty horrible stuff. 11/10 and a must read if you are looking for something for the long run because this is one heck of a long visual novel and its not even half way done yet.

A masterpiece of psychological horror. If you just want porn, it may not be your cup of tea. But if you're interested in a great story with well-written characters and a perfect mix of comedy and tragedy, this one is perfect.

This game is annoyingly good. like seriously, The game will have you doing mental gymnastics to remember "random" parts of dialogue. The sandbox is tedious. The grind to continue forward even more so. And the dialogue comes off as a little too preachy at times even with certain themes.

But the story in my opinion makes it worth it. The characters feel alive. Your actions carry genuine consequences. And the writing when it wants to, can make you want to either take a break because of how awful you feel, or keep you glued to the screen curious for more. Multiple times I was either laughing at the funny banter or mentally cursing myself for being curious enough to keep playing.

If you're curious enough to play be ready to spend at least 40+ hours getting to the parts everyone praises. But I do hope you stick it out because it really is worth it. And remember, Don't forget to smile!


TLDR: game good!

This visual novel has a horrible identity crisis. As a standalone game, it's got a lot going for it. The writer obviously has a natural talent with words, the overall idea behind the plot of the game (isekai where you've taken over a high school teacher's body in a world where the school year keeps looping and getting progressively weirder) is really intriguing, and most of the horror elements are legitimately creepy and unsettling.

However, the process of advancing through the game is a chore unlike any other I've had to do in any game I've ever played. GOOD FUCKING LUCK getting through chapters in Lessons in Love without an external guide. Everything needed to get through the story feels completely arbitrary, and I haven't even referenced the time loop segments that require you to solve absurdly obtuse puzzles to advance.

Which leads me to my main issue. This would be fairly interesting as a plain ol' indie game. A bit pretentious, with some spotty writing, but the effort and vision are clearly there. But what is any of this doing in a porn game? It makes fun of the genre while being a part of the genre. It constantly ridicules the player for what it itself is. "Time to do sex on your niece" it playfully slaps into a choice for you to select, when it is the game that is pandering to the niece-fucking demographic in the first place.

There's a lot to this game; I'll give it that. But maaaaaybe half of it is good, and even that's a stretch. For every heartfelt conversation the game has, it has another scene where no one involved comes out of it even remotely likeable. For every joke that lands, there's a horribly-timed, tasteless joke about rape. For every well-written character dealing with real, relatable problems (Rin, Futaba), there's a character that I just can't even imagine what happened writing their scenes (most of the second floor). I feel like I would be more willing to let most of this slide if the non-sexy stuff was profound or thought-provoking, but they're not. It's just a bunch of protentious fluff that constantly degrades you for attempting to enjoy it.

A lot of work obviously went into making this game, and I can recognize it for being of objectively higher quality than 98% of the stuff on this website, but that doesn't automatically make this a good game.

Erased my previous lengthy review to bring it down concisely.

This is like if a Westerner made a shitty isekai and was too obsessed with DDLC but didn't understand why that game was popular.

This game is all shock value. There is content, but it's buried under layers of pretentious narration, terrible grinding mechanics, and lackluster horror elements.

(Not to Mention Unvoidable ((without warning)) noncon and NTR)

2.5 Good Art

Lessons in love is a pretty good visual novel. It has a pretty interesting story and has some well-written characters. I dislike how long it drags sometimes but its there more so as set up like in Higurashi or something.

It's worth a play imo. I would recommend downloading the walkthrough mod just so you don't have to click around looking for scenes.

I've been holding off rating games. I have been following this game since day one, with it's ups and very very lows. The latest update is a return to the original plan. H-scenes and TONS of weird and degenerate dialogue.

And when I have to say "thats a sentence I would never think myself", I can't help but rate it 5/5

Pretentious word salad with poor art, hard to relate personalities on the LIs, weird AF MC, infinitely repetitive "where do I go next?" clicking... overall just a terrible experience.

A frustrating waste of time. Hard pass.

This a top tier VN disguised as a porn game, if you came here for a quick fap this is not the game for you, however I can guarantee that this will be an amazing experience for you, the writing and the characters are top notch.

I can't even begin to describe how much I enjoy this game. There are like... a BUNCH of warnings one should have before playing, though. First the age of most of the girls, and the inability to avoid h content with most of those girls. Second this is a LONG game, I can't imagine playing this as if it's porn. Third is the darker content, the game can be depressing at times.
All of that said, I kinda feel like it NEEDS to be set in a highschool, I just wish the main character were around their age. That said, even if you aren't into that, as long as it's something you are willing to tolerate you might love the game. It's honestly better in a lot of ways than the non-h slice of life games that I play. Not having any restrictions on sexual content makes it kind of interesting in that you can experience a lot of different "coming of age" type of content. It's not a thing that I ever knew would be interesting, but it turns out to be just as interesting as other slice of life type stuff. The game has mystery, friendship, drama, and plenty of H. The development of many of the relationships has a surprising amount of build up that allows room for teasing as well as progression and will-they-won't moments. The writing is shockingly good and the humor in my opinion is also fantastic. The graphics are perfectly fine as long as you are used to anime-style stuff. This review is less objective than I usually try for because the content of this game is rather quirky and I think that has more to do with whether or not you'll like the game than the graphics. The writing is I think objectively fantastic, though, whether or not you enjoy the topics and characters.

I have two reviews for this game: one is a 5 star and one is a 0 star.

This game is 5 stars if you:

• are willing to invest 100+ hours into a story and willing to waste dozens of hours on pointless grinding
• are not playing to bust a nut (you simply won't be satisfied if that's what you're after)
• are willing to tolerate the things listed below in the 0 star review

This game is better described as a work of literature than as a porn game. It's quite pretentious at times but the good parts more than make up for that. If you want more details, read any other 5* review

Below is the 0 star review, I originally wrote it as a joke but honestly all of the "criticisms" are legit:

I wish I could give this game a negative rating because it genuinely fails in every possible way at making my pp hard!!!! it's honestly kinda impressive... the author has conceived of completely novel techniques to make my pp soft in the context of h games... a true pioneer in the field of anti-erotic erotica

• the gameplay is so mind-numbingly boring and designed to waste your time... it kills my boner every time
• the ntr is so disgusting... it kills my boner every time
• the weird fixation on maggots and termites and birds vomiting into each others' mouths and one's teeth melting into one's own mouth until one suffocates to death, yadayadayada... is utterly off-putting... it kills my boner every time
• the part where the girls have real life feelings???!?!?! sir, respectfully, what the f** is this *****? im here for the pussy not for the moral dillemma?? it kills my boner every god-damn time!!!! :mad
• the mc is a total depresso espresso!! like seriously, how hard is it to fuck the pussy without wanting to commit sudoku?? kills my boner ***every*** time!!!!

in conclusion, lessons in love is a game.

Ok, this is my first review ever on this site, so here we go, I'll try to be spoiler free... I just finished all the content avialable. Also, English is not my main language, so, apologies if there is any issue on my writing

1) This game is incredible, but I clearly understand that not everyone would be involved on the topics it touch. There are some scenes that are really crude, or they make you feel like shitties person ever...

2) this is not the classical eroge or sex-game, yes, there are a lot of sex scenes, but it is much more than that, I would play the story even without the whole Harem theme

3) Talking about the story, the story it is awesome, it makes you question practically life itself sometime, Selebus has a way of writing some things that I do not really share, but I can count the with the fingers of one hand.

4) The puzzles are the only thing I do not really like on the game, I used the guide mode and the Puzzle guide on the extras section that provide the solution for the most complicated puzzles... and boy you going to need it, the answers sometimes are really vague or arbitrary...

5) IMPORTANT: Watch out epileptics! there are TOO MANY flashing scenes (not pun intended, literally flashes on the screen)

6) Selebus writes TOO much, sometimes there are a lot of text, if you like to read, great, if not, well guides are your best friend.

7) The wiki is pretty good also, I do not encourage anyone to skip content, but sometimes it is possible that the character is not relevant to you, then you just can read the summary of the scene on the wiki.

8) The characters feels really alive, they have interests, persoanlities and hopes, I've played a LOT of games from this site, and I feel like there is not game where the characters makes me fall in love with them like on this one.

9) The constant updates and the lenght of the game, this is the only game that it is not completed that I'm currently playing, if you are like me and you are waiting for the game to be completed, please do not, Selebus releases content every month and it is a lot of content each time, it is worthy to play it even not finished

I could keep writing but it would take me forever, this game is awesome, it broke for me almost every other game, I've never enjoyed any other game from the site like Lessons in Love.

Thank you Selebus.

Warning: this game needs an NTR tag

I'm talking straight classic NTR scenes in the past couple updates. As in love interests getting raped by other characters, but halfway through end up enjoying themselves, cummings their brains out, and talking about how much better the rapist is than the MC.

These scenes come out of the blue, like 100 hours into the game, after you have already grown attached to the characters and didn't think anything like this would ever happen.

For context, this game has 4 chapters, and for the first 3, nothing like this has ever happened. There are 35 girls in the game, and a handful of them were introduced as bisexual and interested in/dating another girl. But all of the characters who were in love with the MC were routinely, clearly, only interested in him. Several of them would tell him repeatedly that they will only ever be interested in him don't want to be with anyone else. Then chapter 4 happens and most of the love interests start sleeping with other people. Girls who were super loyal to the MC one chapter ago are suddenly going to orgies or having sex with their friends. This culminates in two classic NTR scenes in the two last updates.

Other than that obvious deal breaker, the pros and cons of this game have been pretty well laid out by the other reviews here. Great character writing. Shit everything else.