REVIEW: Acting Lessons

What kind of new life are you going to build for yourself? Will you finally find your happiness and love or more pain?

Released: Steam
Type: Single-player
Genre: Visual Novel
Developer: Dr PinkCake
Publisher: Dr PinkCake
Release date: 10 Dec, 2018

The Premise

Could an ordinary guy that moves to a new town find a lot of new excitement in his life? To move on from problems of the past? And perhaps to even find love? This is exactly what the initial premise is. The main character, Jonas (or whatever name we decide to give him), from whose point of view we witness the story, has a lot of new people and events about to enter his life. Some good, some even amazing, and also some which could leave him with mental scars for life.

Story

The story revolves around our character starting a new life for himself. However, on day 1, fate brings him closer together with a kind young woman, Megan. As the shop where she works gets robbed and Jonas gets knocked out and hospitalised, Megan and Jonas try to support each other after this event. After Megan gets fired from her job and is unable to pay her rent, she moves in to temporarily stay with Jonas, and this is when we have a chance to develop our relations with her (whether romantic or just friendly), while at the same time helping her to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. As we get closer to her world, we get to know her friends too and are sucked into an interesting set of events.

In addition to Megan and her friends, we also have our own best friend, Liam, who is a fun-loving outgoing guy, but who also has some of his own issues. There is a great chemistry that we build with him too, especially how he often is the one to say something funny.

As we go through day by day, making friends, building romance, or possibly simply just engaging in sexual acts, more serious events start to develop and we have to start making some tough choices. And this is what this game does really well. It does an excellent job at developing each character’s personality and backstory and also showing how they all interact with each other. We get to learn about the pains and problems everyone has as we get to know them deeper. It also does really well at keeping the pace just right and builds climaxes at really fitting times.

Some of the events in the last quarter of the game do change the feel of the story quite drastically. At first they might even seem like they come out of left field, but the game does an excellent job at tying everything together and making it feel meaningful and memorable. Just be warned that it’s not a relaxing game with silly fun, even though it certainly starts out that way. It deals with some serious and emotional issues that almost all of us would be able to relate to in some way. Because of this, its emotional impact could be too much for some, but this is exactly why this game is so good.

Gameplay

This is a visual novel, so story is the focus here. The only aspects of gameplay are the choices that we make. Some are small and might only change a bit of dialogue, while others are very big and impactful. Moreover, our choices also govern how we develop relations with each female character, whether they end up becoming a meaningful romantic choice, a friend, or just someone we have some fun with for a little while.

In that sense, the choices and consequences are executed really well, and it is possible to have multiple playthroughs and end up with drastically different outcomes.

Presentation

The game is presented in a form of numerous still images with stunning-looking 3D character models that had clearly a lot of love put into them. The way the images were set up are great and the scene flows very smoothly. It gets so immersive that we don’t really feel that we’re simply looking at still images. It feels like we’re right there, engaging in romantic talk with a gorgeous lady, or enjoying a good time with our friend, or getting pulled into an intensely emotional scene.

The music tracks that play in each scene are also very suitable and fit the emotion of the scene. Most of them have a relaxing pop or acoustic feel, but the more intense ones also kick in during appropriate scenes. The game even managed to include Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in one of the scenes where it fits really well.

There’s no voice acting, but it’s not needed for a game like this. Most of the dialogue is quite simple anyway and isn’t hard to read. Oftentimes the game shows us a lot more through the facial expressions of the characters than the dialogue itself, which makes it all feel so much more believable.

During some scenes we get to see short, loopable videos too. These usually happen sex scenes and highly romantic moments. The sex scenes do get quite detailed and show a lot, which is what makes this an 18+ game. Although I am personally not a big fan of explicitly detailed sex scenes, their presence did not ruin the experience, because they really are not the focus of the game. Majority of the game is about building relationships and making important choices in the story.

Verdict

This is an excellent game that will take you by surprise. Most of us are likely to pick it up just to try out some romance building with pretty girls, but it’s so much more than that. It takes you on an emotional rollercoaster, with the high highs and the low lows, and it makes you care for the characters as though they were real people in your life. It’s been a few days now since I finished it, and I still can’t get the story events out of my mind. I think it’s going to stick with me forever as a fine example of a well-crafted story and believable characters. It’s no wonder to me why it got the ‘Overwhelmingly positive’ reviews on Steam. I think it really deserves that.

Written by
White Shadow
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13 comments
  • It’s the best game I have ever played. If you are looking for an interesting, exiting and romantic story, download it. I recommend to play it once a day because if you play it all the day it will seem very short. Also, the graphics are the best. It surprised me. It’s a pity when the story ends. Thanks for the developer for creating this wonderful game

    • Yes, its story is really well executed and knows how to deliver effective impacts. Agreed also regarding playing it over a few days rather than all in one day. I find that when I do this with games with good stories, it enhances the experience, because then it keeps me intrigued and I have something to look forward to before the next play session comes (I find this works really well with good TV shows too).

  • I´ve played the game about the last four days and I am not the emotional guy, but I have choosen a path where I was really emotional catched…
    The building of relationships during the game was so amazing. I sometimes felt like a hammer hits my head as the story unfolded… It´s romantic, hard, I was sad, happy and angry sometimes just following the story… The graphics are beautiful and the seem alive…
    I´ve played a lot of these kind of games in the last weeks but this is truly the best…

    • Definitely. The dev sure knows how to get us attached to the characters and miss them when the game ends. The latter parts of the game were especially quite emotional.

  • I’m not at a low point in my life but why do they ask? Also the game is amazing btw.

    • Hi. Oh, the tagline in the beginning was just a summary of the game’s synopsis (the main character was having a major change in his life).
      Agreed. The game is excellent.

  • I started with DrPinkCakes’ newer work, and since that is still in EA and in progress, I’ve been looking for another game. His other work has captured me, and made me feel highs and lows, angry, sad, happy. Honestly the story in that game is also excellent and I just want to keep playing. After reading your review of is other game here, I’m definitely going to be giving this one a try. Thanks for writing this review.

    • Thanks for the kind comment. Ah, was it ‘Being a DIK’ that you played? I keep meaning to check it out (one day I definitely will!). I’ve thoroughly enjoyed ‘Acting Lessons’. It really knows how to hit a wide range of emotions.

  • Game is hot garbage and the story is borderline nonsensical, a masterlass in how not to manage tone and how to deliver a twist. Likable characters ruined by the desire to put the TWIST above all else. Leah is still the most laughably absurd villain I have ever seen, the lead up was garbage, the twist was garbage the descient into soap operatics post episode 4 was garbage.

    Liam still a great best friend character, and the actual pacing and use of movie like jump cuts works very well in the early half, character introductions are great and the chemistry between Megan and Melissa is also top notch. Shame it had to get ruined by the dumbest plot twist in ero game history, and two final chapters that have zero choice or consequence to them. Even in gameplay the game fails in that regard.

    • Thanks for the comment, Pepe. I can see why you disliked the last couple of chapters. There are some players who didn’t like the direction the game took in them as it changed the tone quite dramatically. I personally liked the more serious tone as it introduced some stakes and a sense of conflict and provided more of an impact on the player (and seems quite a lot of other players also enjoyed it).

  • At first I just download it because I was horny bt when I was playing it I just realized how good the game was, then I stopped what I was doing and I only wanted to make good choices, but the game tells you: “life is not perfect” what a game I loved it!

    • Yes, I think most players come in to this game either for the adult content or the relationship-building with pretty girls, but then we get surprised by how deep the characters really are and how much we start to care for them.

  • I largely agree with the review, but the game has some pacing issues and it took a while before I was really invested in any character apart from Liam. I understand that the dev(s) didn’t want to bloat the game and had limited time, but there are games in the same genre that do a better job of setting up the characters before things ramp up.

    Unfortunately I belong to the group of players who didn’t like the ending. The plot completely unravels after THAT event, which felt like an artificial and contrived way to force a choice. The big reveal doesn’t work because there’s virtually no foreshadowing and the tone shift, despite some dramatic situations beforehand, is way too jarring. The story became comedic rather than tragic for me, I just didn’t buy it. It might have worked better if the “event” didn’t happen and it had only affected Liam’s plot, because the chemo effects were the true mystery here.

    Overall it’s a solid game, but I don’t think I can recommend it to anyone without a warning.

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