A Life Lived

A real-photo, stat-driven RPG puzzle sandbox sits underneath the sex here, and the game is upfront about not being an easy ride. You have to build your character up over time before content opens, so this isn't a visual novel and it isn't a string of scenes you just click through. It's still an early build, and while the grind-to-reward balance is being worked on, expect more repetition than the finished version is supposed to have.

The story opens on a freezing night outside a hospital, where a cloaked woman leaves a swaddled baby at the staff entrance, kisses it, and bolts the second she hears the door. Two nurses stepping out for a smoke find the package and rush it inside just before it starts crying. Upstairs, a woman named Tara is giving birth with her husband Johnny at her side, and their daughter Gina arrives healthy. A young nurse lingers a little too close to Johnny afterward, and disappears with him into an office for "paperwork" that leaves him visibly winded twenty minutes later.

Over the next few days, while Tara recovers, she learns about the abandoned baby boy and can't shake the pull to take him in. She talks Johnny into starting the adoption. Ten years pass, the boy doesn't fit well with his adopted family, and he's shipped off to boarding school, which ends up shutting down over money troubles, forcing him back into the family home he barely knows.

That's the point where control passes to you. What this kid's life becomes from here, who he grows into, and how he handles the house he's just been dropped back into, is left entirely open. There's a save-export option if you want to keep progress outside the browser, and the devs suggest zooming out on your browser to get the layout to fit properly.