Ren'Py - Lessons in Love [v0.43.0] [Selebus]

I had this game dld a little while ago, and finally got around to playing it.

I'm going to try to condense my thoughts on this game as much as possible.

To start, this game is not a bad game. This game is clearly something with the potential of 5 stars. But it fails to meet that potential for a few reasons.

1. The grind feels atrocious and the girls seem way too unchanging
2. walkthrough-itis in sandbox
3. political commentary.

The graphics, scenes, etc are beautiful, and it does create an eery atmosphere. If you've played doki doki you'll get the cutesie anime horror. This is what the game does correctly. There's a serious looming feeling of how spooky this game is and the writing is normally good when it's focused on the girls and eroticism. It was also fun googling the hex values to see what was being said.

The game fails when you need a walkthrough in this type of sandbox. The rinse and repeat element is an attempt to streamline sandbox elements... but feels tedious. I held ctrl key 95% of the entire game because I was going through a mountain of text I've seen a dozen times before. It doesn't feel like my decisions are meaningful, of all things, it makes my decisions feel meaningless.

The only purpose of the sandbox feels like it's to slow me down without offering me a reward.

There are different routes for girls, and you might not realize you've stumbled into a bad route until it's too late. If there was a clear indicator that I'd be punished for pursuing one girl over another at a specific time I'd get why I'd lose my chance at the standard route per girl. If you don't have an earlier save, then you'll either need to grind your way back from the beginning or you'll need to just accept being in that "bad" route.

A lot of girls have literally just one thing about them that makes up their entire identity. One girl is a punk. One girl is a lesbian. One girl is very in love with you. One girl is a student council president. One girl is your niece who wants to have incest babies with you. One girl knows what's going on but doesn't like you. Very little changes about these characters, they're never developed, their flaws and identity don't improve or change.

On political commentary, the game feels like the eroticism is 'interrupted' quite often for the author to discuss his feelings on religion or how our desires are kinda depraved. I'm not here because I want to think about how much the main character dislikes "lower case t's." Adding this kinda stuff is a bit avant-garde. In a way it's creative since I don't get athiest commentary in porn games very often, but in another it's just leaving me asking, "who cares what your thoughts on God are? Can you stop talking to me about God and bring the sexy ladies in?"

I feel like if you're watching tv, then mormons knock at your door to talk to you about how he loves Jesus and you spend 5 minutes trying to politely decline him? That's kinda what I felt from his religious fixation in this game, except it's an athiest who wants to talk to you about how much he doesn't like Jesus.

TLDR;
This game is something you should check out, but be wary of its downsides. Either approach it from a casual careless perspective knowing you might risk being on less perfect routes with some of the girls or go in with a walkthrough at your side and keep the occasional save.

Might be one of the best game I've ever played.

A Doki Doki Literature Club-inspired, Horror VN that both parodies the harem genre, and also does said genre better than 99.9% other games that try.

It somehow feels both brand new and nostalgic all at once.

The cast is large and feel of cute uwu-anime girls. Some aware of the MCs situation, others, totally unware. (Their implied ages are kinda sus and that made me feel uncomfortable, though. I must admit.)

The horror elements are done well, with some genuine disturbing imagery, music and great sudden changes of tone.

The lewd content is aplenty and done well enough, though the animations won't be anything you've never seen before. But, this VN is more than a hentai game.

So much content here in general, so you'll be playing for literal hours. Only small complaint is that you'll get a bit lost at times without a guide.

Virtually a perfect game. I love me some meta shit, and this is so meta.

5*

This game is fantastic. The writing is stellar and the story captivates you from the very beginning. All the characters are interesting and fully fleshed out, the humor is top-notch, the situations the players get in are incredible.

Finally, there's so much content in this game. I've been playing for months and I'm still not done with it all. Do yourself a favor and play it.

I can't stop thinking about this game. That's what it really boils down to. It's got me by the balls and I'm 100% invested.

From a pure gameplay perspective, the fundamental gameplay loop isn't very engaging, just unadorned dating sim stuff. But the writing is so good. I care so much about what happens to these characters and want to unravel the mysteries of what is going on, and that is enough to give this a full-throated recommendation (to anyone who can deal with the inherent squickiness of the premise).

The only game that makes me think on here and spend time trying to understand the workings of the world. I have gone back to replay from the beginning a couple of times, and new things have been made evident each time I have done so. I am looking forward to the rewrite as although the beginning seemed great at the time, in comparison to the later releases it just doesn't feel as polished.

Also the work ethic on this is absolutely insane incredibly dedicated to the releases which makes me feel good about the long lasting potential of the game.

What can i say... when i think about this game i've been reading for more than a year now, it brings me a lot of emotions. It's very difficult for me to find the right words to describe it, there is so much i wanna say. The characters developments, the unique philosophy of the protagonist, the artworks, musics, and above all...the writing and the valors the author shares with us through it. To me all of this is a masterpiece and this visual novel means a lot to me. Every month i'm like, bro what's next ? I am addicted to this story like i've never been before for any litterature work. To all the people who hesitate : just give it a shot. I don't wanna go into the details here, to me there is just too much to say, i don't know. Just try.

One of the few (almost) perfect games here. Not too much drama, but also not only happy days. A huge bit of fantasy/religion and a lot of story makes it by far more interesting than a boring sex VN. And in my case, i never really liked VN which are too linear. Thats why i love the sandbox side of Lessons in Love too.

I really loved the story initially, but over time its short-comings are beginning to wear on me.

It's a VN that can set a beautiful scene now and then and it really shines then, but it also doesn't respect its readers time. At all. The 'game' part is frustratingly obstructionist. It does nothing but try to delay your progress. The characters are refreshingly alive at first, but they never grow or develop over time. Almost all of them are static and one dimensional. And boy... it is wordy. For the past 2 years, the girls essentially talk about nothing but their singular defining "thing". The game feels like a love child of Groundhog Day and "War and Peace".

It probably makes financial sense to drag this out endlessly, but if I don't play for a year, I know I will be right where I am today in terms of character progression.

It is a shame, because the few instances where the characters are allowed to grow are truly great. There is just too little of that.

It's not so much that this is a 3/5 game, more like it's a 5/5 story with 1/5 gameplay. The sandbox element is staggeringly bad and serves no good purpose. Imagine reading a nice book, except that at the end of every couple pages you are forced to go on a scavenger hunt with little to no direction, just to read the next couple pages. This game does NOT respect your time, and is only worth playing if, like me, you like the girls/plot, and if, like me, you have no life and so wasted time doesn't mean much.

Some other notes:

- The puzzles, particularly the first one in between chapters, is kind of ridiculously hard. I literally looked the answer up, and I STILL don't know how I was supposed to solve it.

- The sound design is excellent during events, with a nice selection of music being paired up to the right moments. But, just to hammer home how awful the sandbox portion of the game is, while you aren't in an event there is nothing but some background effects like cars driving; and, far worse is that EVERY MORNING your niece knocks on you door. BONK BONK BONK. You will hear this hundreds of times during the game. Truly awful.

- The UI in general is hideous, Sickly pink on white and, in the first chapter of the game, the background is this strange dim lit hazy pink setting that is equally gross. That part at least is fixed in chapter 2, with a much more pleasant and well-lit background image, but the pink/white buttons are permanent.

This game demands your time but damn does it reward you for it. Each character has a unique personality and chemistry with both the MC and various other characters.

The Horror genre mix is done brilliantly and it adds so much to the tension of many scenes when you begin to piece together the ramifications of what is going on.

If anything the early game is not quite as good before Selebus went full time but Sel's planning to fix that early 2022. Even then the early game is still better written than almost anything else on here and the 80% of the game that comes after is most certainly the best.

The truly remarkable thing about Lessons in Love is how at every turn it manages to be more than the sum of its parts. Looking at the tags, it really is what it advertises, but it's also so much more. I was not expecting to get attached to the characters or the world in the way that I have, nor was I really even expecting this type of game was something that COULD attach me. That's not why I'm here, and yet, it happened. The characters feel real in a way I don't often see in fully produced high budget media, let alone a porn game. The story is funny, inspiring, heartbreaking, horrifying, and mostly, beautiful. I can't recommend enough downloading the game and really giving it a fair shake.

There is a lot to like in this If you can get past the excessive writing and and if you don't mind b grade psychological horror

all the girls have good models and the sex scenes are fun, the game also does a pretty good job of removing some of the larger issues with sandbox games if you spread your time evenly between the girls there is not a whole lot of down time between events. the one downside to this is the fact that currently there are 32 characters to interact with and 35 planned but they all feel shallow and samey, i have never related more to people saying "quantity over quality"

the writing leaves a lot to be desired, there is a happy medium between writing 70k words and rambling, writing 20k words and being meaningful, and writing 1k words and being gibberish. This game usually falls into the first part. As for the "horror aspect" any story that references "good is dead" in the first major experience of its physiological horror should give you a fair indication of how that story is going to unfold.

Version: 0.19
Do you like games when you play as a nice guy, help every character, you're super dumb/smart, the worst problem of your waifu is 'what will I eat today' and litteraly every single character, which has sprite, jump on MC to ride on his banana? Then this game is not for you... well, probably :v

MC
Some people have problem with this guy cause he's a douch/asshole/terrible person and so on... Yes, he is. That's pretty much truth and that's part of plot. And, currently, it works excellent in this story. For me, he feels like more normal person than 3/4 of MCs in other games. Egoistic, self-centered bastard having good moments from time to time

Other characters
There are only girls. Ok, to be fair, there 'are' male 'characters' but they are only mentioned in story, so don't have hopes in seeing them. This is game about girls, their lives and problems... Yes, these characters have problems, just like real people! Some are small, some are hecking huge. Some are pretty understandable, some are... weird... On the other hand, every of them have different personality. At first I was like "Hey, most of them are pretty similar to each other, I can even guess personality cause these are pretty generic." I was corrected shortly. What you see at first is just a smoke screen. With every hour/minute/second you will discover how wrong you are...

Story
Honey. It so sweet that my eyes got diabetes. Is it that nice? Well... define nice :v It is extremely well built, huge (over 1million words, holy heck) and gives you emotional rollercoaster for nearly entire time. You will be happy/sad/angry/scared- basically you will feel every single possible emotion you can feel. There are beautiful moments. There are disturbing moments. There are dumb moments. There are funny moments. There are just cursed moments. Selebus is your therapist and at the same time... not... But! Remember! This is a happy game

H-scenes
To be fair, there are a lot of them. Like... A LOT! More than in most of h-games I ever played. But there's even more story, so much of it, that you will wait pretty long before seeing any of them (most of time). And why's that? Cause these are part of story - I know, shocking. So if you looking just for 'fun-material' then... that's not a game for you.

Puzzles/Riddles... you get it!
Yes, these are in game. Yes, these are part of gameplay. Yes, these are part of story. Yes, these are mandatory. Yes, you need to make through them. So, if you want to play this game then take it into account. I didn't like it at first, but got to love them later.
And don't cheat... It's lame...

Advantages
-> story
-> characters
-> updates (most of time once per around 2 weeks and 30-40k words... sooooooo bigggg)
-> interface (nice, clean and easy to use/learn)

Disadvantages
-> ?
-> you can have some problems if you focus on 1 or 2 girls - you need to progress all of them to advance story (but there's wiki, so you can see what you're lacking)

Neutral (can be disadvantage)
-> riddles
-> you will invest at least several dozen hours to catch up to current development

Additional
Download newest version from itchio... Support Sel at least in this way... Pretty please...

Honestly without the "Doki Doki" aspect of this game I would be giving it a big fat 1 star because the MC is so detestable amazing and caring. I'm a huge fans of games with a good story where you end up wanting to protect and care for the other character(s) so it's actually pretty hard great to play as the MC and I'll probably turn my rating into a 2 star if there isn't an eventual redemption arc play this game through endless cycles!

But that said, at this point I'm finding the variety of girls, the weirdness totally normal-ness and the general humour around VN cliches to be enjoyable enough that I'm willing to deal with the strangeness to see the exquisite beauty.

Oh and also.. Clocks are amazing.. I wish I had a room full of them!

Tons of content and constantly getting more. The cast is full of likable characters and they're well written and I find myself feeling for them a lot during certain moments even if they're not one of my favorites. The story is.... bizarre, no other way to describe it. It goes from cute and quirky to disturbing and creepy frequently (intentionally), I can't wait for each new update on it. Probably the first VN that I have been waiting to see what happens next on it.

Liked it at first, but those happy events are getting annoying.

Why is every person in this game broken inside? Why can't there be at least one normal person.

Guides are unclear or sometimes outdated. When the dev is asked a question he just responds with "learn to read", nice community management...

As someone who looks for the lengthy bad reviews to get a dissenting opinion on popular games, I hope this review will give others who read it a moment of pause.

There is a very good chance this game is not for you. It is a game about a gaslighting rapist manipulating girls into sex under false pretenses perfectly normal teacher and the love stories between his students. There is plot around why this is happening. It might even be an interesting plot. I’ll be honest; I couldn’t stomach enough of this game to really get to the meat of the story. I played it for two or three hours and there appears to be a lot of content, but it was just too rapey sweet for my taste.

It is possible that I simply have too low a tolerance for rape love porn, fake though it may be. If you believe that is so, have at it, I cannot stop you. Just be aware that this game is dark happy and not particularly good for fapping.

This is the most philosophically interesting game I've played - not just erotic game, but game in general. I've loved the discussion of the nature of self in The Talos Principle, the socio-political turn of discussion from the NPC's in Heat Signature, and the raw allegories of This War of Mine and Papers, Please...

Lessons in Love blows them away. In turns crass and coy, puerile and mature, trivial and profound, I've never had a game so thoroughly make me despise and empathize with a protagonist at once. And even though I thought I was playing this for the sex scenes - which are great, don't get me wrong - this is one of the only erotic titles where I've thought during such a scene: "Okay whatever, I want to get back to the mythos and narrative."

Strikingly, every character in the story feels like a real character, with their own motivations and relationships with the other 30+ women who form the cast. I care about them and want the best for them, even as I work through my avatar to manipulate them into loving him, or at least needing him.

I wasn't looking for this story, but by GodHOPE, I'm glad I found it. Give it a try.

I played this game without reading the thread/looking at the tags, so it took me a bit to realize what it was. I'm honestly still not sure what it is. This is a weird game, man.

But it's a good game, and it's well done. The dialogue is absolutely fantastic--- early game at least it's hilarious. Mid-lategame it starts getting more grindy and weird than funny. But it's still quality overall. There are a lot of other reviews, so I'm not going to get too in-depth. Mostly just wanted to leave a rating for the good experience.

And whoever writes Kaori's dialogue is either a literary genius, a psychopath, or has crippling autism. Maybe all of the above.

Easily my favourite game on here, I eagerly look forward to each update, each of which has a very generous amount of content for how quickly they come out.

The characters are interesting and varied, as are your relationships with them and the twists and turns they take. Some characters open up to you right away (if not sooner) while others are still not interested, which I personally think is great, rather than everyone throwing themselves at you as in most games like this.

One of the most important things to me is that the writing is GOOD, not just passable, not littered with mistakes and text that doesn't make sense, it's prose that wouldn't feel out of place in a good book. The writing supports a story that is certainly confusing, but also very interesting.

There's a real range of emotions here, some parts feel like a punch in the gut, some are disturbing, others are happy, sweet or funny, I don't feel like many games get such a good range and do it well, so that alone is worthy of praise.

Lessons in Love is well worth your time and support, and I'm very glad for Selebus's constant efforts and hard work in creating it and giving us high effort content.

Praise Be, Maya is a nerd.