VN - Ren'Py - One Lie [v0.9.1] [Wooden Donkeys]

I say this game is more like a 3.5 than a 3 but I feel it's closer to a 3 than a 4. But im still giving it a 4 despite some issues I have cause when this game is good , it's really good.

Note I only played 1 path

• Not alot of grammar / spelling error but I do notice a few here and there
• Not a big deal for me but might be for others. there are times the narrator can be a bit annoying and have some pointless dialogue or break the 4th wall but it isn’t that often
• If you want to play a path where you don’t forgive Julie you have to wait till a later update
• Only played 1 path / save but I did ctrl skip and peak a bit at others as I do want to replay this at a later date again and I was not expecting some entirely different scenes based on my choices. Which is a huge plus

Choices for what leads to what path is not made clear and I ended up on a path i was not expecting.

This bit is of my own doing because of my choices I made as a player but also cause it wasn't made clear to me. Here is what I mean by some choices not being made clear to what path they lead to.

Would have liked the option to ask Anh out on a date or not and not have it forced if I was on her path if I asked Julie out. Especially since when she came to visit the MC in the dorm I didn’t kiss her and took things slow and my MC was only ever friendly towards her with my choices and nothing more.

On that same note I had no idea some of my choices were leading to a harem path that wasn't made clear to me. My mind set was to spend time with Anh to get to know her as I had no idea on how long in the story it would take to forgive Julie. So because of that it would have been nice to have 1 final out of the throuple before the lewd scene, because it felt like the throuple came out of nowhere to me. So I decided just to keep going and play the throuple path. Then out of nowhere the throuple path became a harem path not even sure what choice brought this on. Because I did a speed run and didn’t let Julie kiss Alex back and still got on the harem path somehow.

But during my speed run of a solo Anh path to test out the choices the throuple path becomes clear there as it happens much later in the game. So if the earlier choices were made more clear to me it wouldn’t have been a big deal but it annoyed me but I didn’t want to restart as I plan to replay this game on steam in the future as I still very much like it.


This story is what makes this game hard to rate for me. The story starts off good for a bit. Then when the lewds come in, I start to lose interest personally since im not playing these games for lewds as I treat lewds as something nice to look at than something expected. The issue for me is it feels like it goes too heavy into the lewds at times and not enough character or story development.

Now why I say this is hard to rate while what I just mentioned is issue for me the character development and story is good when it does comes in. We get dropped with a major bomb of some good character development at the end. It's just I wish there was a bit more in the middle. As this aspect of the game is very good at the start and end.

TL;DR: The idea is definitely interesting, so at the start I liked this game. I hoped it would be a nice story: intriguing, veritable, romantic and dramatic. But soon the game started to feel just poorly made.

(PS. Unskippable credits and ads at the game start is a bad idea too).

Models are outdated, not the highest quality. (Julie is kinda cute though). Eventually I got the impression that I was looking at toys.

Characters are cardboard and unnatural:

• MC is a moron who was described as a kind and understanding person. In reality he is blind to obvious, totally self-focused and not understanding even his long term best friend.
• Anh is an extremely shy person... Is she?.. After a kiss she becomes shameless like a slut.

Game logic is the worst part. Choices are counter-intuitive. For example, to get close with Anh, MC must always choose "Sorry" (though actually there's not much reason to say that, especially the second time). It's hard to immerse in a character whose choices of words are so unnatural. And if you got Anh to like MC, you wouldn't be able to agree to talk with Julie. Your only allowed answer would be "No". Why? Fuck if I know...

To reach the harem path, you have to meander through narrow trail of obscure choices with unapparent consequences, instead of having any freedom to shape your way (or to just behave naturally).

When MC gets close with a girl, it becomes like a shallow porn. Any hope for an interesting, veritable story with good writing goes away.

Conclusion:

The story seems solid and veritable at the beginning, but soon becomes shallow and sloppy. It's like wearing clothes that don't fit.

As of v0.8 i cant really give it any more then 2 stars since it truely is below average.

Story had some potential but its rushed, you get together with your old friend extreemly fast and even if your turning down the Asian girl she still comes along to fuck MC even though they barely know one another, again it all just feels rushed with no romance build up or anything, not sure why it has a romance tag when there is close to nothing.

Also it claims to be animated but barely anything is, i think i saw one short sex scene that was animated and a door opening thats about it, if this is going to be a real game at some point that issue needs a big change.

Music well there is a few second in the start then it goes silent.

I will revisit this one later on and change my review if it does become a real game at some point.

I'm really enjoying this one. Has some nice warm moments compared to most of the more recently released games that are Corruption and NTR based. It has a little of everything. It has some humor, nice looking renders, cute LIs and of course that sweet lewd content.

Review as of v0.8. Amazing game overall! Love the writing, the girls look incredible, and the story is extremely gripping. Played through every path currently available and thoroughly enjoyed them all. I laughed, cried, and enjoyed some very squeeshy butts.

Not much here to criticize, but I'll try.

The story does feel a bit rushed at times, but I prefer a slightly rushed story that makes updates feel worthwhile versus a lot of meaningless or empty-feeling updates.

There were some continuity gaps between the different routes, such as MC having knowledge of certain characters' pasts on routes where he did not/should not have learned them. It is possible that he learned about them during time jumps, but exposition should have been given in those cases.

Keep up the good work, and I can't wait for the next release!

I enjoyed playing this game this. I played through twice, first time for Ahn and then for Julie. While I did feel there was somewhat of a mechanical aspect to the dialogue I didn't feel compelled to skip any.
I will likely return to this title at some point. Definitely worth a play through.

(Writing this review at game version 0.7) This is one that is so bad its good the story is pretty much like a typical porn video would be goes from i hate you to i like you to lets fuck in like 5 minutes but a lot of it is pretty funny there is a decent amount of humor which is the story's saving grace. Overall i would say its worth the play.
Story: 3/10
Grammar: 7/10
Renders: 7/10
Animations: 5/10

I really regret not discovering this wonderful game sooner,

A very good story,with beautiful renders,and fantastic touching and very good humor in between(with a beautiful cameo of Vidal as a doctor).

Mike and Julia,
two beautiful childhood friends,who have known each other since childhood,who were always there for each other,
through all the good times and the bad.
but she made made a terrible ,but oh so,understandable mistake,because she loves him so terrible beautifully jealousy,
the terrible pain she feels when she sees him with another.

and he loves her too,but can't or won't yet see this,
and stammeringly leaves,
not yet willing to forgiving this divine,endearing,freckled,redhead.
but she really doesn't want to lose him,
and she travels after her great love.

In the hope that he will finally forgive her,
because they are the the two most important persons in each other's life,
they really can't live without each other,
this is true love for eternity.

Vollezar,
I really hope things get better with your situation.
this game is a beautiful diamond,
but take care of yourself first,that's the most important thing in life,
everything else can wait.
you are a fantastic artist,and i really wish you all the best.

English:............8/10
User Interface:.....3/10
User Experience:....7/10
Art:................6/10
Dialogue:...........5/10
Story:..............3/10
Opinion:............4/10................
Avg:..............5.14/10 [2.57/5]


My extremely valid review of the game (above) before it was unabandoned. As I see, the OP says ".9 only has changes to the harem end." So I'm already right in my assumptions. Any and every issue I have with the story is going to lazily be listed below because apparently my views are less valid than other people's. I for some reason am wrong. My opinion, imagine that. First thing you get, right away, is a credits scroll that stops you from getting to the game. Wow. Just what I want, to NOT play the game I started. Then a 'huge thanks' to BadMustard, a dev that makes subpar VNs and subpar coding advice. Cool. My hopes are high rereading this already. The art also starts out completely rough. Carol has blacked out eyes and the stiffest posing you've ever seen. And look at that. THE ENTIRE PREMISE OF THE STORY, the MAIN ISSUE I have is still the same. MC gets dumped because Julie lied and said MC was sleeping with her because the gf tormented her daily. And instead of MC noticing or doing ANYTHING to help his ONLY friend his entire fucked up life, what does he do? Disowns her, runs away, and never wants to speak to her again. No questioning it, no getting answers. While I UNDERSTAND him being mad and wanting time apart, he was literally beaten for this girl. But as soon as he can't have easy sex with his girlfriend, he gets pissy. What a knob. Right after you learn about what Julie did, you learn about the lengths MC went to for her, but he just suddenly cuts it off because he's hotheaded and stupid. You have no control over this and it is a poor experience.

Then the Robbie scene. "I didn't want to correct my mistake of taking away her tattoos and will never go back to update visuals because that takes actual effort." Thumbs up. And again everyone just says "You guys have always been together, why are you bing an idiot" MC just grumbles it all away to sleep with Robbie. Where her boob miraclously starts to float, by the way. And it's over as soon as he inserts, which I found funny. When MC cuts to the new school with Ahn, she immediately knows how tortured he is and they have a semi-cute scene flirting. But it still felt a little forced and rushed. So rushed that she sits down, he calls her cute, then leaves right away. The dialogue is also painfully stiff. Minimal contractions and poor sentence flow. And again, Ahn and Jane sit down with MC, and he gets up and leaves. Why do they think he's charming? They sit down "Hi." He says "Bye" and leaves. I'm swooning already... Most everyone has the blacked out sclera in their eyes too, it's kinda creepy. I also think Jake seems to change nationalities at least three times. Then the Alex-Julie scene. "Hey my new roommate is crying and upset, lemme kiss and try to finger her." Really? I like a little bit of the characters in this, but this one event seemed stupid and out of place. I will say, her reflection on this event is one of the few redeeming parts of the bland writing in this. And MOST of the dialogue in this is all just rehashing the thing that happened at the beginning of the story. And if I'm not mistaken, it leads up to ANOTHER big recap of the story. Why? We know what happened, it's the hook for this VN. By, what? Day 3 at college, MC and Ahn say they have stong feelings for each other but MC is also still in love with Julie. But that's okay, Ahn's asian harems exist for her.

Alex also spills the beans to MC about Julie's love for him, saying "She was scared it would drive you apart" But MC says "That would never do that" But look at the situation they are currently in? Driven apart because they won't have a conversation. It's like the writer didn't read what their own story is about. Julie and Alex's romance is pretty crap as well, birthed by sexual assault and gestated mid sentence like an afterthought. "Yeah I am pretty hungry. You know, you have a nice butt." That is VERBATIM. Suddenly they like each other? Why? You're also just flat out not allowed to not forgive Julie. Why include the options? You were forced to tell her no early on, now you don't get to have player choice at the LITERAL MOST IMPORTANT CHOICE. And right after this, nothing matters. They talked out their differences. Ahn and Julie make out and like each other too. MC also like Alex, and they all lived happily ever after. Ahn and Julie have known each other for about 10 minutes. Then they jump straight to sex, it's completely rushed, unnatural and the game should have ended after the sex scene as there's nowhere for anything to go. The sex/dirty talk is also painfully stiff. Just like Julie's claw machine legs as she mounts MC's dick, it's kinda funny actually. The only thing of not after chapter three is Alex joins the group with her semi-ham-fisted childhood trauma story and MC being so magical even gay girls want him. Wow. Julie and Carol recap the ENTIRE game up to that point as well. Because YOU the READER must have goldfish brain and not know what happened the last hour or two. Then you see the victory lap of the four of them being in a relationship. Ahn is nonexistent through most of it and MC ends up in a coma for however long being a valiant hero. Woohoo.

The English seems written by someone that speaks it, or at least someone that speaks English has something to do with the writing. The UI/UX is dead default, so lazy. The Art gets better, but the beginning is not great and it only gets a little better until the very end when the dev finally understands lighting. The Dialogue is not great, they just constantly talk about what started the whole mess. Sure, a couple of the jokes and humor land, but it's still boring. The story is Julie lies out of love and MC is an idiot for the first half out of stubbornness. Then you "have fun" reading every character share their version of that same exact story. Because you the reader just didn't understand. So I have a negative opinion, at least they finished another ending, I guess.

I'm just so tired of VNs where the MC is acting like a spoiled brat.
So, you have a life-long friend, someone who is just as important to you as a sibling would be, if not more. Then she screws up one time (and tbh it was just a cat fight between girls, not even serious, I mean if the girlfriend broke up with him over that, she's exactly the bitch she appears to be) and that moronic MC completely denounces her and runs away.

So, while the premise of best friends who in reality love each other and one screws up and then tries to re-forge their relationship can be fine (though, let's be honest, it has been done before), it starts off with something that I find unbelievable or rather if someone reacted like this in real life I would just think he is an idiot and an immature brat.

Sadly, it doesn't stop there. It just continues on this path with characters making ridiculous decisions and acting like no one with a braincell would in real life.

I don't mind the threesomes with both girls being involved, on the contrary, I am always up for some lesbian action between LIs, but it all just happens too fast, in absolutely unbelievable ways.

I know this is the first VN for this team, and I applaud them for making the effort and creating something.
They are obviously still learning and so the game might improve significantly later on, but as it is now I didn't like playing it.
It was a chore to play through, and that was due to the motivations for the characters actions aren't working for the most part.
Understand it isn't that the reactions aren't possible, but they are not motivated in a believable way or just happen way too fast.
You don't go from never having romantically kissed to an instant threesome and some lesbian tomfoolery.
You don't end it with your bestie because of one fuck-up.

Maybe I'll give this another try in a year or so, depending on how many updates there are then and if it has improved, I will change my review accordingly.

Just started playing and lost interest pretty quickly once Julie and Anh decided to share MC and then kiss after their first interaction with each other even though MC hasn't even gone on a date with Julie yet and Anh was only one date followed by proceeding to fuck in a group. Both of the females are virgins but immediately become sluts. One of the weirdest parts during this is Julie still hasn't kissed MC but makes out with Ahn, takes a finger up the butt and rides MC like a pro. Thought this wasnt suppose to be a fuck fest and be based more on relationship building and story. Best of luck Dev but seems like you started a story then said screw it here's a fuck fest.

Interesting start with a childhood friend betraying MC. But it could have been better with some more storylines and cgs with ex-girlfriend to start with. Cause it is difficult to follow with a few sentences from main heroin.

The childhood friend who seems to be the main heroin is not sexy on the other hand there are a few pretty ones around MC. I hope developer add more contents for them in the future.

overall great writing and graphics.
Look forward to playing next version already.

It's a good game, but it's rough and it really could do with a polish.

The game feels like the Devs first attempt. Now, that's not criticism because as a first game it's actually damn good, but there's a few bits which are kind of weird.

The premise is interesting, two best friends are joined at the hip. One loves the other, whilst they're clueless. There's an incident, words were said (the lie of the title) and there's a "break up". You start the game a few weeks after the event.

That's fine, the dev should get plaudits for actually trying to give the plot some thought. All too often devs throw it under the bus so they can focus on the sexy time scenes.

As mentioned it feels rough. There's a very early sex scene which kind of feels weird, it doesn't marry up with the story at all which kind of felt like the Dev baiting the hook to get people interested but truth be told I don't think the story needs it. It's sufficiently interesting that it could have done without it. However, before the scene starts there's a straight up disclaimer stating the dev couldn't get the tattoos or something on the model to work so they're not there..... that's....... weird. I've played a lot of games and I've never had to be warned going into a scene that something doesn't work. I initially thought this was a 0.1 version released yesterday but it's been out a year and it's still throwing a warning? Very odd. If something doesn't work then either fix it, or go back and remove the tattoos from the model in the earlier scenes.

Secondly, some of the character models are a bit odd. Nothing major, but it seems everyone goes to bed one night and then wakes up with different hair. It changed one of the models so much I thought they'd straight up replaced her. Again like before if you wanted to change the hair styles why not go back and redo the previous chapters? Maybe it was a poll and the change won out, I'm not sure but it seems everyone has some change from the slight (MC goes bald for some reason, female friends hair goes straight and the parting changes) to the extreme (other female lead straight up looks like a different character.

None of this detracts from the game, it's interesting. There's rough bits that could do with some love; the dialogue at times feels a bit wooden and as I mentioned there's decisions the Dev has made which suggest he's learning as he goes, but none of that takes away from the fact it's a game worth keeping an eye on, it's certainly got the potential to blossom.

Really enjoying this VN . The LI are all likeable and interesting. The Dev's give the players a lot of choices with path choices and kinks. Nice to see other characters in the game who are friends with the MC /LI's , but are neither a point of drama or just a set piece since they have their own relationships in the background. Now that the drama of the MC and Julie is over, curious to see if Alex's past comes back to haunt the group.

I enjoyed this. I played through twice, first time for Ahn and then for Julie. While I did feel there was somewhat of a mechanical aspect to the dialogue I didn't feel compelled to skip any.
I will likely return to this title at some point. Definitely worth a play through.

So there is a scene when Alex and the MC are sitting under the tree. I got the same dialogue twice before it continued. That is where I stopped to write this review.

This story is pretty good. A bit different than what is usually out there. It has anger, and humor. Saying that, there are some serious issues that need to be polished up. Especially with the models.
Alex- she needs her face smoothed out. She looks like she has a second jaw line from the side, and her nose is weird
Julie- Couldn't really pin point anything to serious with her
Anh- In the coffee shop it looked like her tits were sliding off her body.

Writing seems pretty good. The story pulls you in and is good. The plot is different. Can't really remember if I've come across anything like it here before, but I could have just forgotten about it. LOL

Renders are good. They aren't 5 star yet. I figure as the dev(s) get better at their craft they will improve a lot.

The reason I'm giving 3 stars is because of the models that I listed above. Yes it is a bit harsh because I said that everything else was good, but if the models are looking like worn out sneakers it drops the rating down.( my opinion only). This doesn't take away from the work that the dev(s) are doing. Polishing the models up should fix this.

On another note, I do recommend this VN.
Engaging story
Some emotional rides
Sprinkled in humor
Models are decent, but need some attention to detail.
I wish Wooden Donkeys the best of luck with the continuation of this VN.

Average vn, and I'm being way too generous here because i liked the premise. (2.5 at most)
>Dialogues and interactions are childish.
>Couple of choices which mattered to some extent. Mostly kinetic linear novel.
>You as a male protagonist going to choose the sexual preference of female counterpart (whether she should involve in some lesbian action or not) and i absolutely hate that. More so in her case.
>Animations aren't there.
>npc around them acts unbelievable most of the times.
>general idea behind the story is good but the execution is bad.
>mc behaves way to confused even for the guy in his situation.

As of v 0.4.1
This AVN has a solid base for the story and has some heart in it, meaning that you can feel the tension. The graphics are solid and the models are well done overall.

I feel like this is a game that has a chance to be really solid despite some early hiccups, which have been resolved for the most part.

This is for v0.4.1 Pretty damn good so far. The models and graphics arent the best but far from the worst ive seen in an AVN. The writing is decent...it's not top tier but it also isnt close to as bad as it gets on this site. On the plus side its in 100% understandable english and not engrish. The misunderstanding/lie/cause of the drama was dealt with in a timely manner which made me happy. It looks like 2 love interests and both are pretty and not bad as characters so all in all its like a 4/5 which is not bad at all considering graphics and writing. Keep up the good work man. Looking forward to the next chapter

Not sure why this has lower than a 4 star rating. It's a good story. Drama from the start. There are too many AVN's that start out with no story. Sure it doesn't have any the tags that people go wild for, but I can't spend time on ones that don't have at least some semblance of a story.