Platform: Windows (also on Mac/Linux/Android)
Release: 2020
I wasn't initially interested in Our Life: Beginnings & Always because I heard about it through otome circles and it's an indie game with a single love interest, which to me screams "railroad" and what if I don't like the guy?
But calling Our Life an otome might be pigeonholing it (and notably the developer refrains from using the term). For one thing, you don't have to be a girl. You get to choose your protagonist's pronouns at the start of the game. For another, having a romance is not required and you can go through the game completely platonic. Our Life is really a game following the life of your protagonist and that of their neighbor, Cove Holden, as they grow from children to adults.
Instead of making a number of choices that culminates in a romance, the player remains in control of their protagonist's feelings and in turn Cove's (whose level of interest will mirror the player's), so the game is only as touchy as you like it to be. The base story takes place over ten years, following the protagonist and Cove from eight to eighteen, and focuses on three summers of their lives.
The player can set the tone for their relationship with Cove at the start of each segment of the game, so it's possible to have love at first sight, or to have a more distant relationship that eventually warms up. My own playthrough ended with them being very close friends, and I'd like to think with romance potential, but not quite crossing that line. This wasn't entirely intentional, but I think it played out nicely enough.
There is a surprisingly long tutorial at the start of the game that is worth reading just because the level of control the player has is unusual, and the player can make adjustments to how they feel about Cove between game segments to show the progression of their relationship.
Despite reading that, I didn't realize the player was intended to change things to reflect how they felt about Cove, so I spent the first two arcs of the story as nervously indifferent because I thought that's what the game was setting it to and my in-game choices pointed to that. (In-game choices do matter and the game will remember a fair number of them from your choice in beverage to how you react to Cove on the day you meet. It's just they won't change your attitude after a timeskip.)
After I figured it out though, I like the system. Because the game crosses over so many years, it's not unexpected that the protagonist's feelings towards Cove might change over time and we're simply not there to witness it. Allowing the player to adjust their feelings lets things change over the years we don't get to see. So even though my protagonist wasn't friends with Cove when they were younger, they eventually become close friends in high school, which is believable as people change over time and circumstances might have placed them a lot closer to each other than when their parents were trying to set up playdates with them.
The choices the player comes across during the game are also widely varied. There are some that likely don't mean anything (what you put on your crepe), others that the game will remember (any dietary restrictions), and some that don't appear to affect the story but simply allow the player to express the kind of person they are (whether or not they accept or offer help). Many times there's also the option to say nothing at all if you want to be the awkward person at a loss for words. Our Life is extremely accommodating so you can self-insert to a large degree without feeling out of character.
One thing I'd really like to mention is that Our Life is incredibly LGBTQIA friendly. The players' parents are two women, referred to as Mom and Mommy/Ma (she changes to Ma after Mommy feels a little too kiddy for their daughters) and the player is free to choose their sexuality and gender identity. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the player also has the option to be trans and deal with gender dysphoria as a teenager, and it's left up to them whether they want to share their sexuality and identity with Cove, regardless of what the player eventually settles on.
Cove himself changes based on his experiences throughout the game (influenced by the player's choices), which likely resulted in the header image I chose for this post. I was really surprised to see him come out as demisexual, which I've rarely seen used in real life or fiction, but it felt completely in character.
Though there isn't really a main plot to speak of, being a series of vignettes that happen over the years, the writing feels pretty realistic for characters no matter which age bracket they happen to be in. Cove at eight feels different from Cove at eighteen, and yet there are parts of his core personality that carry through so you can see that he's still the same person, just grown up.
Because of the lack of a central plot this isn't the sort of game I'd normally play, but it was a pleasant enough ride. If you're in need of something wholesome, where people will ultimately stick together during their troubles, Our Life easily scratches that itch. My only real quibble is that the trailer advertises four summers and fifteen years, but the base game is three summers and ten years. The Step 4 that moves the player and Cove to 23-year-olds will be DLC and probably will not release until the middle of the 2021, based on the developer's comments on Steam.
The base game itself is free though, so one can hardly argue the price! There are also paid DLC packs to add optional additional scenes to the first and second summers (and eventually the third summer as well) for those who would like to support the game further.
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