VN - Ren'Py - Race of Life [Act 1 v1.02] [Underground Studio]

I would say its a great looking game with alot of potential story wise and also with the LI. I look forward to see how it develops.

I think the writing needs to be improved. Its a chore to read and the characters honestly is not that interesting. Im just here for the lewds scenes atm and they are good

I really like this visual novel, the renders and amimations are amazing, and the models are hot. But they arent that interesting imo.

My problem with this is the writing, the writer obviously is good but sometimes he makes the text too much of a chore to read, its alot of uninteresting conversations or dialogue.

If they could improve on these I would rate it as 5 star. Its one of my favorites but I cant say its on that top tier with the highest rated games on this site. Where the dialogue is just right amount.

Good game, likable characters and a very interesting storyline... lots of detail around cars and hot chicks which almost all the guys dig!! Developer is doing an amazing job with this game and it is surely one of the best rated VN I've come across in recent years!

Simple yet realistic and heartfelt story line, good graphics and multiple choices, with respective consequences, mini games are challenging but not annoying and fits to the story. One of the few internal mini games that are actually fun and fits to the story lines.Every Character that comes into the story seem to be interesting, unique and well designed.

Wish the best for the development team to keep up the good work.

Exceptional game so far.

The models are gorgeous and have delightfully reasonable proportions. A lot of work clearly went into developing their unique looks.

The same effort went into differentiating them in both what they say and how they say it. The writing is really solid, especially the way the dialogue flows.

The central story elements are pretty well imagined. I could nit-pick, but I'd only bother to do so because the writing is so good in the first place.

I hope as the game continues, the amount of forking between love interests is kept small. I don't really like needing to play a game through several times to see all the scenes because I favored one girl more than another. At least it's in Ren'Py, so I can skip ahead fast and the game will stop where something changed, which makes it less bad. But I hope that going forward, the game is structured in a way that a de-forking mod will work.

Because I'm definitely looking forward to more of this interesting story and these sexy ladies.

a unbelievable VN with great characters, plot which leaves you wanting more and more content!

the unique character design, slowish burn story and sex scenes are truly the best ive seen

do not walk, RUN to play this , you will not regret. 11/10

Review of "Race of Life" (As of Episode 3.2)

An Engaging and Intelligent Narrative

"Race of Life" has an interesting story that effectively captures your attention from the very beginning with a compelling initial incident. Without revealing any spoilers, the narrative maintains your emotional engagement throughout the unfolding events.

One of the elements I genuinely enjoy is the unique twist of incorporating a college background with the theme of racing. This blend offers a refreshing take on a well-known setting. The characters are intelligent, which significantly enhances the story for me. Both the love interests (LI) and the protagonist character (PC) exhibit high levels of intelligence.

In contrast to many other visual novels that follow the school life trope, which often feels overdone, "Race of Life" presents a pleasant change by focusing on intellectual and engaging discussions rather than stereotypical fraternity parties and shallow characters. These discussions align perfectly with what the PC is striving to achieve academically and personally.

Even though I may not be intelligent enough to fully grasp every detail, the general gist is sufficient to appreciate the research and thought put into these topics. While the conversations might not be as intricate as they would be in real life, the text addresses these subjects adequately without being overly complex for the average reader.

Other aspects of the story are still forming. There seems to be quite a few things going on, so we'll see how this all comes together, and whether it ends up working well, or degrades from what I feel are the strong points of the AVN. The LIs themselves seem varied, and mesh well with the PC. I am also curious to see if there ends up being meaningful consequences due to the various relationships. I'm willing to say there is already one major turning point in the story of LI. It is weirdly nice to see normal human relationship "drama." Too many AVNs try to have a harem root. While it is nice for anyone to fantasize and escape, it gets old quickly.

The way I put value into the story is if it has me reading the dialogue or has me skipping to the next decision. I'm happy to say this one kept me reading. Not only do the story’s LI get time, but the PCs friends get their time too. The dynamic feels genuine and is a nice break from the rest.

Visuals
Onto the visuals. This AVN has particularly good visuals, and the LIs have their time to shine. Backgrounds seem to be well thought out, and don't feel out of place. It seems we are at the point where care is taken not only with the characters, but with what’s around them too. This does a lot for telling the story, and making it feel as if you’re a silent observer, rather than staring at a computer screen.

Overall, I'm hooked on the story, excited to see where these relationships go, and curious about where this all culminates. I would be willing to replay for different routes. In my opinion, that says a lot, as I usually find one LI that works best with the PC and stick to it. So, any AVN that can make me replay for different LIs is already a win in my book.

In summary, "Race of Life" stands out with its thoughtful narrative, intelligent characters, refreshing take on a college setting, and impressive visuals, making it a captivating and enjoyable experience.

Ep. 3-1
Undoubtedly a perfect score is the onlypoint worthy of this title. Not because it is flawless, but because the creator has clearly put a great deal of effort into bringing it to life.

The models are designed in a wide range, yet they are all beautiful and unique. The animations are smooth and flawless. The story is engaging and hooks the audience. The novel lacks nothing in terms of sexual content, and I eagerly await its future updates.

As for its flaws, I can point to the overly long and excessively technical dialogues about cars and batteries. There's also the occasional jerk-like behavior of the protagonist or the jokes he shares with his best friend, which sometimes fall flat and, at other times, are so oblivious that they fail to recognize that not every moment is appropriate for joking. like when your daughter is in coma
Nevertheless These issues aren’t significant enough
to make me lower the score of the novel

My knowledge about cars is little and I'm not interested in it in real life but this game made me search on various cars, which is the best, which is cooler, which manufacturer produce the quality cars, I get curious whenever the MC talks about car with his pal, betting on race car which I don't have any clue which is good, this game even tho its not all the time racing it hooks me into it.

The plot of the story is continuing to a good phase. The story is nice, very new to this kind of genre. The grammar is good too and very easy to digest for a non-native english speaker like me.


Characters -
MC is good looking, matured type hardworking man. Its a fresh of breath to see that kind of design in MC's role.

LI's on the other hand. All of them is good looking, Underground Studios didn't put unrealistic body or those over aesthetic Instagram body. You want a voluptuous hot latina with good size of bazoongas? This game got it, oh you want a sexy slender ginger with quirky personality? Already done, oh you want gorgeous blondes? Easy-peasy. You won't get disappoint in Race of Life, you got plenty of choices and routes.

The emotional scene is done really well. I love the humor, the back and fort of characters, and the sarcasm. The renders is top notch. Lastly, the sex scenes, when it comes to Daz3D they're the best on AVN world, Underground Studio did a really good job on animating those hot scenes, good job to them.

Last note: I highly recommend this game, this game content is large enough to give you insight whether you'll like it or not. So give it a try.

I think this is the first game i post a review that i have some kind of issue with ( i only review those i really like). Don't get me wrong, it's still 5 star because the positives outweigh by a lot the negatives.

Positives:
- Cooper is the coolest, a true great friend. I like this type of dynamic, like Derek from BaDIK.
- Jasmine is probably the GOAT AVN girl. I mean it. Her design is perfect, and her personality and interactions with the MC are really well written. I'm a sucker for the "bad girl " archetype when i play these games, i confess, but i'd play a game with only her as a character, and i don't normally like games focused on only one girl.
- The game is BEAUTIFUL, the renders are top notch and the racing animations are jaw dropping when you compare it to other games.

Negatives:
- I don't know anything about cars and very little about science. Sometimes the dialogue is HEAVY for me. It gets too technical and it doesn't interest me.
- I can understand the Veronica hate in here. She is lowkey unbearable. I think it's made that way so you breakup with her and explore the other girls paths, but it's still kinda painful
- There are a lot of things happening at the same time with high stakes. I don't know if it will all come together but it's kinda "too ambitious" for a coherent story.
- The MC is a little bit of a dick, his story with Allie keeps getting me uncomfortable. I kinda like the "real world problem" dynamic, but i dislike this part.

5 stars anyway, great game

This game has very good renders, very good and smooth animations, a good UI, is bug-free, spelling and grammar mistakes-free. The models used are generally good-looking. The game looks good.


However, that doesn't really matter when the writing (the most important thing in a VN) is this bad, especially the dialogues.
The dialogues are mostly dull, and sometimes, horrendously bad.

- This game does not know how to write realistic and interesting characters. The doctor from the hospital is the most egregious example of how terrible this game is at that. They wanted to make him unlikable, but really? Real people don't talk like that
- The jokes aren't funny. Literal poop joke right of the bat. They all fall flat. And there's a lot of them, even in "serious" moments.
- Too much melodrama that the writers love to stretch out.
- No subtlety when it comes to certain plot points. The game will just hammer them to you repeatably.
- It feels like the game is desperate to sound smart.
There's a litany of uselessly long technical explanations delivered unskillfully through dialogues. This just bore the audience. There are not even there for exposition purposes, but rather there as an overt effort to sound smart.
- Despite the good animations, the lewd scenes are dull. Why? No eroticism. That's what happens when the build-up with the LIs is poor and the dialogues lack any spice.

Top tier, nuff said...

I found this game from watching the AVN Community awards, and pulled it up due to it's awards and many nominations. They were all well deserved in my opinion.

It is rare when an AVN is able to really make me feel the emotional highs and lows of a story. Usually the story is simply used as a tool to facilitate the lewds. And while this game does have it's fair share of lewd scenes, they are better used to help support the story.

I was enjoying this game, clicking around, and having fun until the first time we race when my jaw literally dropped. I can honestly say I've never seen an animation of that quality in an AVN before, let alone in a non-sex context, let alone as part of a mini-game that I actively enjoyed playing.

I've also caught myself day-dreaming about Jasmine more than once when I'm not playing the game, especially as I got to the later stages of Act 1. Overall, I've really enjoyed how each of the women has their own personalities, and also the stereotypes that you expect to see in every VN being met, and at times subverted.

Oh, and when 'Christian Steiner' showed up, I started laughing out loud and had to show my wife, who is also a big fan of F1 who has been watching it almost as long as I have. And that throwaway line about 'not caring who Stroll's dad is' was just cherry on top. Not sure if gramps being called Hamilton is intentional, but really enjoyed all the references to F1.

I also like that there are choices that matter such as who you choose to take to an event, or who you spend time with, and I've liberally used the save/load feature to see every path. Oh, and this is possibly one of the very few games that have actively made me want to be monogamous - that's how good some of the writing is.

Definitely looking forward to continuing to play this game as further acts get released, but HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

P.S: The game does have some downsides such as some jokes not landing, or some of the racing detail getting a bit in the way at times, but it's not hard to skip past if it really is that boring (and I only remember having to do that once).

PLAY. THIS. GAME.

I wanted to give this game a worse rating for like the entire first half because there are a lot of decisions that I dislike. But ultimately it is a quality AVN that in my opinion belongs among the best ones. Let me explain.

This game starts you with a lot of baggage. You are not only divorced with an ex-wife still in picture, you also have a daughter AND a new girlfriend. I mean I don’t need every AVN to start with a completely clean slate and I understand it’s how the devs decided to set up the story but I felt very forced in some of the situations and it was a little difficult for me to relate. The worst part of this is Veronica, the new girlfriend. She is very needy and very possessive of you, but you just started a new AVN, you want to look around, you want to get to know the characters and not have one of the relationships already decided for you. I broke up with her the first opportunity I got and naturally missed like… 8 scenes she has, so that’s stupid. You either have to get railroaded into a relationship you might not care about or miss a lot of content. Would be so much better if the game started not with the relationship fully formed but with you meeting her after the divorce. Give me some agency god dammit!

Another problem that ended up actually being one of the best things about the game is how complex the story tries to be. Like it’s a lot. You are a physics professor, there’s a family drama with ex-wife and daughter, you’re raising capital and there’s a lot of business and science talk and there’s also racing cars and shitload of car lingo. It’s like 3 stories mixed together with each of them getting A LOT of attention, which may feel almost overwhelming at first. Especially if you’re not into cars or batteries. But I have to give respect where it’s due. It actually all falls in place and makes sense and it kinda made me even interested in racing cars and tuning, something I never cared about at all, because it’s just well written.

And then there’s the positive. There’s a lot of hot and awesome girls, lot of amazing scenes and the quality of renders gets pretty fucking high, especially later on. Animations are nothing too groundbreaking but the models are hot, so it looks good. The story is pretty cool and I’m invested. It seems like there’s a lot of options to decide which girls and which combination of girls you can pursue and there’s even one scene at the end of the currently released version where you can take almost any combination of girls to an EXPO and it honestly blows my mind a little how much work had to go into that. So yeah, despite some problems this is a very high quality AVN, especially if you’re looking for a more mature story, don’t mind some baggage and railroading in the beginning and enjoy beautiful renders.

Im sure its a fun game but bro.. unless I'm at a body shop/working on cars & bikes myself during free time I do not want to read 2/3 of the fucking dialogue back n forth about modifications lol

- Hes talking to Coop like 4-5 times in EP1-2 about mods for so many frames/renders its ridiculous.
- Takes a second out of his project to debate between him and Jasmine 2-3 times, again about mods.

I do not care, its a story not a fuckin car convention. It goes on & on & on.
You wanna know why people like the OG fast n furious movies? Because they didn't talk about parts for 30 fuckin minutes.

You could literally just have 3 seconds of dialogue of "Got an idea" and it would save the reader like 10-20 mins ffs.

Its ridiculous how much the convos are like this constant.. cool we can tune the car swell but I really doubt a game outside of car simulator needs details that much especially one being porn based.

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My only other gripe is on how unreal it feels .. it throws like 40 cliche situations at you and just to give the illusion all these horrible things are happening at the same time lol

Its creating drama for no reason at all also. Like the dude watched a bunch of soap opera films and thinks its real.
- The random clingy GF I'm suppose to care about.
- The random german chick who is about interesting as a fly.
- The hoe students who for whatever reason like him.
- The neighbor who dumps drama after talking to this guy like twice.

These girls are red flags galore.. bail and get someone who isn't psychotic MC.

The end result was me simply not giving a fuck tbh.

this game is truly a gem.
the story is real and believable, the girls are breathtaking, varied and with a remarkable descriptive and character depth.
the mini games are enjoyable and not limiting.
i recommend everyone to try it to fall victim to its charm!

Really like the slow burn with Allie, and the rest of the girls are hot. Plot is interesting, but the dialogue is a little much. At times cringy. But overall a great game, really well done, great renders too ......................................................................................

Replayed this three times, Not a big fan of MC model but female models are 11/10. Racing scenes with gear changing is also more fun then i taught, But the real plot with daughter sometimes feels like put aside or like a side story. Hey I am not complaining, Its a porn game after all not a novel or movie. So for what it is 5 stars is less, i would give it 6 stars if i could.

A great AVN, up there with some of my favourites, girls are hot as hell, and the writing is not half bad despite it being only a few chapters long at the time of this review. If you've played BADIK or Summer Heat and liked either one you'll enjoy this.

That's first game, where I just said "Go away bitch, I have to get my wife back" to almost every love interest.
Alisson is such a great woman. Of course not only her

For a cons
- sometimes this all technical stuff can be boring, but I appreciate author for all this knowledge
- for some reason we sometimes can't decide what we feel as a MC. From the beginning I decided that I want to get Alli back, but when somebody ask MC about it it's "Meh, I just do it for Lily" - I don't!