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 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 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 23
This game makes me yearn for a childhood I never got to experience. Genuinely one of the best visual novel/dating sims I have ever played and it has become one of my all-time favourite games. From the lens of a queer, trans individual, the customisation and opportunities for diversity are so welcoming. (Specifically, this game allows you to play as a trans character with customisation within that such as pronouns, clothing choice regardless of gender identity, the choice of HRT or being pre/post-op, and more.)
The story and characters are written beautifully. Simulating growing up alongside the characters from child to adult made for a very immersive story and made the characters, Cove Holden especially, very easy to grow attached to. His family and the MC's family were also very likeable and provide so much warmth and realism to the story.
The game is free and can be enjoyed without DLC, yet I was so hooked after my first playthrough that I bought every DLC. With this there is plenty of replay content and I come back to this game several times a year.
This game has provided myself and friends with a place to explore our identities in a comforting and supportive environment, something I value deeply. I cannot recommend this game enough <3
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
Steam User 27
Played this game for the first time some years ago. It helped me explore my own identity. I didn't realize I felt so strongly about certain things until I played the game and was able to detach myself from the fake performance I was forcing myself to live. Highly recommend, especially for anyone looking to learn more about themselves.
Steam User 18
This was recommended to me by my adult daughter and Im glad I took a chance to play it. I can only say 2 possibly negative things about it: 1- No one's parents are that understanding. I had to cringe at their reactions to the MC & friend's shenanigans. I kinda wanted em to cuss them out. 2- Cove's voice is squeaky to me. I get sounding like that as a child but as an adult, it was hard to "feel" romantically for him. Now Baxter's voice... Whew. Yum.
But this game is so sweet. It reminds me of a time of innocence long past. It reminded me of when I fell in love for the first (and only) time. Who doesnt dream of that forever love that grew over time to be something truly magical? I was lucky enough to have that love and while he has passed away, this game resonated with me; bringing back all the memories of a time when love was new and exciting. The feelings of nostalgia had me glued to my seat playing this almost all the way through in the first sitting. And then, the characters were so intriguing that I bought all the storyline DLCs and will be joining the Patreon for extra content.
Overall, this is a truly beautiful game- the characters, the locale, the storyline, the lessons of trust, compassion, and understanding - all make the emotional rollercoaster well worth it <3