Java - Newlife [v0.8.7] [Splendid Ostrich]

It takes a year to get half of what other games update in a month. The writing is very bad, the writer assumed there is only one proper way to dance and that's ballroom dancing with dips and turns...in a night club of sweaty club bangers; It's like the writing feels out of place even in the game he made.

This game is... alright, I guess? I don't even know. It's one of the most 6/10 games out there. I'd say check it out, but don't expect much.

The potential this game has is incredible. For a life sim, it's really simple, but in a good way. There's a minimal amount of stats you need to track on a regular basis, the sex system is actually a system and not just a wall of text, there is some customization like clothing and apartment stuff, and there's barely any unnecessary grind. Time to enjoy NSFW stuff with minimal effort that still immerses you into the game, right?

Well, no, because there's barely any content here. This is version 0.7.2 of a 4 year old game. A text-only game, that doesn't require days or weeks of making assets. A game that is supported by several hundred people on Patreon. I was so shocked by the quality of writing and the amount of scenes to the point where I'm starting to think that this is a money laundering project or something.

I really wish the dev would pick up the pace or hire a writer. This game is a nice experience, but it's barely an experience. If you have an hour to waste, this is a decent choice. If you want something you can explore for several days, this isn't it.

This is a 3-star game, because serious drawbacks offset serious good qualities. The writing is good, format is good, and what exists of content is good. Now the bad: committed relationships are among the most boring things that I have ever seen in a game. NPC's are not spontaneous enough. Dates have far too little variance.

At first this was not a big problem to me. Later, It became so annoying that I closed down the program in frustration after my partner asked me on a date at the start of the week. There is now a mostly poorly functional option where you can skip through sex (which feels routine too), but there needs to be a skip function for dates too.

I have played this game quite a few times over the years, I hoped it will develop to be at least half as good as Cursed game - which was one of the best games of this type i have ever played, but it died - sadly i was dissapointed.
Good:
The engine looks good, navigation and UI is intuitive and easy to use, clothing/shop/etc. works good.
Bad:
There is pitifully few events and nothing is finished or developed enough to satisfy, it applies to everything: jobs, dates, clubs, entertainment, everything else.
The worst part about this whole game is it's sex system, there is no sex event like in almost every other game, instead when it comes to sex it's an interactive minigame which is really good and a lot of fun... for first 3-5 times, then it's just plain and boring "same shit".

As this game is in development for around 6 years (i think) and it's pretty much the same now as it was 5 years ago, there is just no hope it will get anywhere and where it is now it's no good.
Don't waste your time, play something else instead.

The first versions of this game came out when "Hongfire" (some of the elderly will remember) was the place to be but already showing its age.

SplendidOstrich presented his game an piqued quite a lot of interest, mine included.
And I was amazed: what he called one of the first versions had a functional sex and dress-up system, some items to buy for the apartment, a few places to go during the week, a rudimentary job, and a few random events.
Pretty fantastic for an early alpha.

Whenever I play this game now, I get nostalgic, cause it's pretty much in the same state.
Minor improvements on all of the above, a meager handful of new events, and tons of loose ends all around (including the job, which feels just as incomplete as it did back then) are a pretty devestating summary of several years' worth of development time, most of which saw the dev pretty handsomely supported on Patreon and even with some fans contributing minor events or event chains (which you may find to make up 90% of noteworthy content in updates).

The level of detail, reactiveness of the engine, and sheer potential of Newlife are brilliant.
But at this point, it has become blatantly obvious that its developer is looking at this project as a money-printing machine and only puts in the absolute bare minimum of effort, most of it with supposed work under the hood and is stretched out over an entire month or more.
Considering that, last I checked (not sure if it's still visible now), his Patreon income was in the medium 4-figures and would justify, if not demand a 40-hour week of dedication, I cannot in good conscience give this game a recommendation, for the simple reason that somebody might misunderstand this to believe they should support the developer.

Give it a try, the game is worth a first look, but keep in mind that somebody with no business ethics whatsoever is behind it.

[Rev @ v0.6.1b]

I feel this game has become meta-commentary on relationships as a whole. It was fun in the beginning when there was genuine passion in the development, but it's now degraded to one partner stringing the other along with the bare minimum effort to keep the status quo.

No art to judge, so no plus or minus in that category.

Writing is fine; no real overarching plot to speak of, the circumstance has been done many times, but the scenarios / voice / characters are handled well enough.

Nothing in the porn squicked me thanks to a useful whitelist/blacklist, and quite a few are right up my alley.

I feel that the event triggers / flagging system either needs overhauled or error-checked as it's wildly inconsistent even for a randomizer.

TLDR: Worth checking out every six months or so, when all the tiny incremental updates have fused to form one normal-sized update.

This was one of my first ventures into the world of text-based games and it opened my eyes to a whole different realm of possibilities. When reviewing Newlife, one should not forget the fact that it's one of the best adult text-based games out there, and there are not many of them that cater both to the niche male-to-female transformation genre and a life-simulation gameplay that throws you into different (sufficiently erotic) situations every day. The freedom to design your own character—bodily and mental traits—is the strongest aspect of the game. And while many have pointed out that the game is in a deadlock (which it's true). As a frequent follower I routinely find it disappointing that every new update I've seen doesn't really offer anything substantially novel. Still I cannot discard the immersive experience that this enduring work offers, the unique space it occupies, and the impact it has, which I suspect on games like Female Agent.

This game is honestly pretty awful compared to what it could be. The only thing that text based games really have over more visual ones is the rate at which they can add content, and yet this game has quite possibly the slowest content release I’ve seen from this site.

As far as the actual content itself goes, it starts out fine. Things are pretty well described within the game world, and it’s exciting to see what might happen next. This feeling lasts for maybe 2 hours, after which point you realize that all the sex scenes play out the same way, text gets recycled, and the most extreme thing that’ll happen in the game is the player character getting spanked. I can understand their needing to be some amount of asset reuse in a game like this, but it’s pretty egregious.

All in all, NewLife isn’t objectively terrible, but when you look at the state of the game compared to its potential, it’s pretty abysmal.

I loved the game

This game had potential 3 years ago, but the author refuses to make logical or even simple adjustments and losing himself in tiny details. It's polished though.

For example the UI:
- colours from excel '05 (no changeable colour themes)
- resolution from '05 (scaling manually looks horrible)
- buttons from '05
- no (custom) avatar picture
- 0 graphics

Or the gameplay:
Why playing 200 days if there is no option to throw away money!
- no option to buy a new flat (simply lock the house party to 6 people and unlock 12 with the next flat. BAM! Useful content created)
- limited options to buy furniture or even a car. They don't even need to have stats, just add RPG placeholders
- no option to change the job or gym or dance group (simply re-roll existing characters)
- sparsely baby impacts (e.g. as a money sink hole: buy a new flat -> buy new furniture -> paying babysitter -> fucking babysitter, searching a rich friends or partner / fucking the ugly boss for more money. Or just add flat costs for a baby!)
- missing customisation content like changing hairstyles, makeup to enhance plain girls, piercings, tattoos
- no other details for kinks like big hips, puffy nipples and labia, pubic hair, big areola, wearing butt plugs and so on
- no pets (watching TV with cats on legs and drinking tea, going out with the dog to meet people or even bestiality. And to burn money)
- no other sports, e.g. like swimming
- no women in the gym (just to make friends)
- no vacations with content (even simple ones like in The Sims, coming back with +4 cooking skill)
- no need to buy other clothes when being pregnant
- limited hobbies for roleplaying. Like learning languages, charmless women would get +5 in jobs.
- mediocre impact of character traits, for example sleazy couples could upload vids and becoming amateur pornstars
- being in sexshops and not buying toys

The logical changes with a fresh vibe in over 3 years:
+ house party (but the house party doesn't cost anything, cooking skill doesn't matter) and the bar.
+ friends with mixed genders
+ random char generation
+ starting as female

2 ratings
- Missing its huge potential it's 2,5/5 stars. People pay (way?) over 4k $ every month, now go hire a young developer!
+ If you didn't play the game yet it's 4/5 stars, the main downside for you guys might be the loveless UI.

I really enjoy the game. It does seem to be rushed with setting the number of weeks it can last. I understand the benefit of that for some but I was a little taken off when my first game ended and I wasn't done yet.

If you like text based games that have a decent bit of content to explore, this one is pretty great. The problems come into play with the developer, who is rather inconsistent with updates and when they do finally update the game, they've added a couple of inconsequential things, defending themselves with the "Java is hard" excuse. It hasn't stopped them from taking their patreon money every month, though. TL;DR: A good, unfinished game whose creator seems to be milking the development.

I like reading. So, personally, I am looking for something like this. Keep up the good work. There is a lot of space for improvement
Though I don't know why I spent about 6 hours just for 52 weeks in this game, maybe I need a faster reading speed. Hahaha!

This is my first time leaving a review on a game here but I have to say. This game is amazing. I am not one for text based games but this one keeps dragging me back in. There is a lot of content that just keeps coming.

I recommend giving this a try even if you don't enjoy text based games usually.

I'll start off by saying this: a lot of people don't distinguish between the developer and the product.

While Newlife has a rather slow development cycle and a lot of unrealised potential, it's still one of the best (if not the best) text based 18+ game out there. What it lacks in storyline it makes up in replay value with clever use of rogue like elements and RNG.

Despite its shortcomings, what is already made is ground-breaking for the genre. Criticise the dev if you must, but judge the game on it's own merit. We need more like this.