Hey everyone!

I wanted to share my first visual novel project with you all - **Life is Vanilla**. It's a coming-of-age comedy VN that I've been developing in Ren'Py, and it's a bit of a passion project for me. I never had a Reddit account, so this one is also my first :D 

If I should not be posting here, please apologies, I saw some posts kind of self-promoting that I thought it maybe is okay?

# The Story Behind the Story

The game is heavily inspired by my own experiences when I was younger - specifically losing my virginity in college and all the awkward, hilarious, and surprisingly wholesome moments that came with it. A lot of the scenarios in the game actually happened to me.

The name "Life is Vanilla" is kind of a joke - because the story is much closer to reality than most adult VNs out there. Not everyone's college experience involves crazy scenarios or... well, let's just say not everyone is P Diddy level crazy. Sometimes vanilla is exactly what life gives you, and there's charm in that.

# Gameplay & Choices

While the main storyline follows what happened to me, I've created different choice branches so players can explore what THEY would do in the same situations. It's interesting seeing how people approach the same scenarios differently.

# Current Development Status

* **Current Version:** 0.6 (available now)
* **In Development:** 0.7
* **Roadmap:**
   * v0.8 will conclude the main storyline
   * v1.0 will include optimization, new video renders, and additional choice branches (the current version is slightly linear, and I want to expand the player agency)

# Technical Stuff

This is my first game, so there's definitely been a learning curve! The early renders have noticeably lower quality compared to the current ones - you'll see the improvement as you play through. I'm using **Virt-a-Mate** for the renders, which doesn't quite have the hyperrealistic graphics you'd get from DAZ 3D, but it has its own aesthetic that I think works for the tone of the story.

# What's Next

Once Life is Vanilla is complete and polished, I'll be moving on to my next project - still using Virt-a-Mate but with much more dynamic gameplay. After that, I'm planning to finally make the jump to DAZ 3D for my third project. I've already got a good chunk of that story written, but I'm taking time to properly learn DAZ so the quality is solid from day one.

# Feedback Welcome!

I'm completely open to feedback - whether it's about the story, the UI, the pacing, technical issues, whatever. This is a learning experience for me, and I genuinely want to improve.

If this sounds interesting to you, you can [**download Life is Vanilla on itch.io**](https://livproductions.itch.io/life-is-vanilla) \- it's free to play!

If you end up enjoying it and want to support the development, I also have a [**Patreon**](https://www.patreon.com/LiVProductions) where you can get early access to new versions and help fund future projects.

Thanks for reading, and I hope some of you give it a shot! Happy to answer any questions in the comments.

[Dev] My first adult VN is based on my actual college experience (and why it's called "Vanilla")