Our Life: Beginnings & Always
The Next Our Life Game 🍂
the GameA nostalgic visual novel where you design your own character and grow from childhood to adulthood with the lonely boy next door. Create an experience that’s all your own in this near-fully customizable, choice-heavy story.
Our Life: Beginnings & Always is a feel-good simulation, as well as a “feel-better” one, where painful emotions such as sadness, anger, stress, and worry can all be expressed, then met with reassurance, understanding, and support.
It’s a wholesome experience that faces large steppingstones of life, while having a focus on familiar everyday moments. With notable amounts of customization for even tiny details, you can enjoy pleasures as simple as having a preferred type of drink and a neighbor who cares enough to remember what it is.
- 4 different periods of life to experience: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and fully grown
- Name, appearance, personality, and pronoun (he, she, or they) customization for your character
- Change your character’s details however you like as you grow, including transitioning to new pronouns
- Shape your personality, feelings, and preferences, then see them reflected in the story as characters remember who you are
- 1 love interest, Cove Holden, whose personality, interests, and appearance will develop in a custom way over the years based on his experiences with you
- Decide for yourself how quickly or slowly the relationship with Cove develops by setting a unique dynamic; from love at first sight to last minute confessions to always being friends and more
- A welcoming, sentimental story that can easily be enjoyed over and over using new main character qualities or different connection types with Cove
- Font style and size customization. Hit the “A” key to open a screen that has text appearance options
- 397,000 words, 16-24 hours of content in total
Jamie Last (changeable name) has spent the last couple weeks on a summertime high. At eight-years-old, nothing is better than what feels like endless days of school-less adventures, especially when you live walking distance from the beach. While coming home under a scorching sunset one fine evening, Jamie is approached by a stranger. The man is looking for a kid who can do him a favor, and he’s even offering to pay for it. He wants Jamie to please be friends with his only child. The person is Mr. Holden, Jamie’s new neighbor, as well as the father of the odd, and oddly named boy, Cove. Whether Jamie wants to play along or not, Cove isn’t going anywhere. He’s present in Jamie’s life for far longer than they ever would’ve guessed.
And then the long days of vacation finally come to an end. Summer may not be able to last forever, but Jamie can take comfort in knowing it will come back again someday…
Game Discussion
Steam User 69
This game fundamentally changed my life.
in all my years of playing dating simulators, i have never once found a game that made me feel so supported, loved, and cherished like this game. Its honestly incredible how someone could write a fictional character who feels so human. Cove utterly stole my heart the moment I saw him, and as I played for the first time, seeing him grow and learn things about himself was inspiring to me, as a younger player.
When I first played the game, I didn't have many friends, and sought comfort in the fictional, and I'll be honest, I still do. But this game, no joke, saved me. in my darkest moments, in my lowest of mental health lows, when I was on the edge of giving up everything, I could look back at this game and say I felt like Cove, Liz, Derek, Baxter, all of them, were my friends, my loved ones, fictional characters that had transcended the realm of a story and had become something more to me.
Now, I am older, have much more experience with both life and dating simulators, and have never found a game to top this one on my charts. its still, by and large and far, my number 1. if you are going to pick up a Dating sim, go with this one. it will blow any and all expectations out of the water and really show you the boundaries of a story and how well written and complex characters can truly be.
on another note, I love the amount of rep in the game. Having two moms, a panromantic demi-sexual autistic lead, multiple trans and gay characters, and free options for skin tones, hair textures, and pronouns, its all so amazing to see in a game, especially one this personal and down to earth.
I have been giving GB Patch studios my money for going on 2 years now, I have bought plushies, DLC's, and more. if you are going to give an indie, diverse, incredible company your support and funding, let it be this one.
all in all, please, with all my heart, i beg you to play this game. start to finish, front to back. maybe it will save your life like it did for me.
Edit: UM THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH??? I honestly didnt think my little sob story in the reviews would be seen but thank you all so so so SOOO much for the community awards!! Peace and love to all of yall, hope you have the best of days <3
Steam User 40
Best game ever for sad girls who have no friends. This game comforted me when I was sad and friendless in 2021, and it's still comforting now in 2025 as I am still friendless, only momentarily though :)
Steam User 30
This game is highly praised by most of the people who played it, and I think there are many nice things to it. Before all it's super inclusive, you never see your character but you can personalize it a lot.. during the game you have tons and tons of chances to specify what your character likes or dislikes, their preferences and their evolution (even sexuality can evolve
and your character can even transition). This is all very good, especially for a free (base)game like this one. Well, the free version has a shorter story, because not having the DLC's means skipping parts of the story, but it's basically all made by tiny little related chunks so you can follow it without any issue through the base game. The tone is light-hearted and it's basically a feel good story where nice people evolve and grow through time. And this is the big weak point: the story is very simple and basically.. nothing interesting really happens. I wasn't expecting anything weird, but some chunks of story are so basic it feels like listening to your cousin's beach holidays, the cousin you never really cared about. The evolution of the cast is cute and keeps you engaged but the story is very, very, thin. Worth a play if you look for a simple and inclusive escape from the ugliness of your life.
Steam User 31
the only thing that hurts is that cove isn't real
everything else is perfect, re-playing it at least two times a year just to feel the warmth of a home that's never been mine
Steam User 30
I love this game so much that it's not even funny, I genuinely wish that my parents were this loving and understanding. I feel like this game gives me so much comfort, it's so sweet and it takes you slowly through the storyline. It's almost healing in some sort of way.
The contrast between the people in this game and the ones you encounter in real life is nonetheless harsh and cruel. Coming from a person with a difficult childhood, playing this game is definitely something else.
Besides this contrast, I just love Cove ( the main love interest ), he's sweet and every little thing feels so genuine. I also like the other love interests, yet they don't even come close to Cove.
I recommend this game from the bottom of my soul, cause me personally I feel seen and understood, and playing this game after a long tiring day will definitely boost your mood.
I feel like this game can be a huge safe place for a lot of people with a not so happy past, so therefore it's just really great, even though I can't put in words how validated and happy I feel while playing this.
Steam User 25
i have played this game FAR too many times to count. yet, i continue to come back and fall in love with Cove Holden over and over again.
Steam User 20
i have like no fkin friends and the ones i do have arent the greatest. i have like two or three good ones and i feel constantly lonely and i keep returning to this game cause it casts a nice little illusion for a few hours
:/ the dlc is worth it