Our Life: Beginnings & Always
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android
A 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.
| Price: | Free-to-Play, with optional paid DLCs |
| DLCs: | The first batch of DLCs are $3.99USD each with three available, a fourth DLC that is $2.99USD released in 2022 |
| Rating: | 16 , for swearing, crude humor, and suggestive content during adult-aged portions of the game |
- 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
Plus, an optional feature of having a preset name for the main character that the love interest says out loud through voice lines. Download the free DLC to add that to your game build!
The main story of Our Life from beginning to end will always be free, but if you'd like to support our group and get new scenes you can purchase optional DLCs!
And if you want even more Our Life content, you can consider joining our Patreon! There's sneak peeks for future game expansions, extra update posts, bonus art, a private backer-only Discord, and so on.
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…
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Development log
- Cove Step 1 Plushie Now Available for Limited Time!Nov 24, 2023
- Our Life: Beginnings & Always - The Last Major UpdateJun 23, 2023
- Our Life: 2023 GoalsJan 01, 2023
- Our Life 1.6.1Oct 06, 2022
- Our Life Version 1.5.4May 22, 2022
- Cove Plushie Now Available (Limited Time Only)!Apr 29, 2022
- Cove Plushie Coming Soon! GiveawayApr 22, 2022
- Our Life Build 1.5.3Apr 01, 2022
Comments
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Okay Usually i am More Punny Or Light-hearted in my Comments but i will Talk Seriously here.....not the bad type tho
GB from the Depths of my Soul..i wanna say how thankful i am that i found you ..i'll be honest i avoided downloading your games before (i am just that lazy) I started by downloading Your Second Our Life Game and I fell in love ...the mood ,the words, the aesthetic, the Dress up i felt like a kid entering a candy store for the first time ...but honestly i shrugged it off as a nice dream (naturally it wasn't complete) ...then after a bit of push and pull i decided to download this game because it only felt right......now normally i am not a person to cry or tear up over games unless it was really sad or i had to make a horrible choice...but i cried playing this because it gave me some flashes from my childhood ...i changed over the years i got colder even .... Just remembering my Dad And our Old Car and My Old Life really did a toll on me so i neglected most of my Memories...GB i am Honored...no i am Joyful i got to find you Out of millions and Billions of Internet users and me and My younger self really hope you Have A great Night wherever you are....now if you don't mind me i got your Other post sections to Joke Around...have a nice day
I just finished it and I loved it sm!!!!
Aww I finally finished step 3 after deciding to put it on hold for a while (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝) Can't wait to have mine and coves wedding~ Thank you for Our Life GBPatch!! I hold this game close to my heart hehe <3
Great work , Keep it up!
i love this game so much
i love this game with passion, ever so often i come back to it and fall in love all over again. i cant recommend it enough!<33
oh actually-- now that I realize it... Baxter seems to be the type to work at chick-fill-a for some reason.
thats my head cannon LMAO
It may sound a bit cheesy or dramatic but this game kinda changed my life. I had been real down in my thoughts before i played this because I'm not even 18 yet but am approaching it and i still didn't understand a lot about my life as a whole or life in general for that matter so when I got to see what some life can be it made me think for a while back on my entire life and it's helped me realize a lot of things in my life and build on them now though I'm still learning about life stuff, but anyways thanks... it's kinda weird to be this open in a comment section on a visual novel but I just felt I needed to say this somewhere cause I don't really have any friends. also sorry for my absolute awful punctuation I'm reeeally dumb.
i've been playing this game ever since it got released and i love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really loved my first playthrough and wanted to come back for the dlc, so i bought the step 2 one but I really can't seem to find the "game folder" and am having a lot of trouble trying to add it to my game
Glad you liked the game! What system are you using? Windows, Mac, Linux, or Android?
thank you for making such an amazing visual novel, this has truly made me so happy and i will forever love this game <3
Hiya!! I'm noticing some audio issues when I play this game (specifically, the soundtrack makes a crackling sound randomly? It doesn't seem to happen with any specific trigger, so I'm not sure what's causing it) Is there any way for me to fix this, or is it an issue with Ren'Py/the audio itself? :0
(Also, I love this game and NF- I played Our Life I think, two years ago, but never got to finish Step 4, so I'm replaying it now ^u^ )
EDIT: Oh actually, it might just be one track? (The one that plays at the start of the Runaway Moment! :0 )
I want to ask, I bought all the games from Steam, but I want to play from my mobile phone. How can I play with DIC?Sorry, my English is not very good. I hope you can understand what I mean.
I'm sorry, Steam doesn't support Android and buying content on Steam can't get you keys here on Itch.io.
Well, I can only play on the computer. Thank you very much for your reply.
helloo i had download the ddlc on my ancient computer, how can i transfer them on my new computer? ( sorry for my mistakes my english is bad...)
You can download the files again by going to your "owned games library" section on Itch and choosing to download the DLCs again.
Question, why doesn't this site have games in Portuguese or translation...? Please translate sometime 😭❤️
maybe you can try to use
VNtranslator app
I wont be the first to say this but I loved this game so much. Usually, I am not a fan of slice of life stories but the characters were so endearing it kept me hooked all the way to the end. Thank for making such wonderful game and I will be sure to download the demo for your upcoming game
Ok now I have almost all the DLCS LOOOOOOVE this game, just Derek's to go and thats it. Thanks for developing such an amazing game. Just wish I'd found it sooner.
how can I install it? On apple. I downloaded it but can’t seem the install the actual app
I'm sorry, it is a third party app not verified by Apple so it doesn't install by default. You'll have to search to see how to play third party apps on your specific apple device. It depends based on your model/version.
started with the demo for OLN&F which brought me to this, I'm so glad I played this. I love however after all the years the choices you make still matter and how perts connect in the future. made me really wish I was that kid growing up in sunset bird with cove and the gang. great job everyone, can't wait for OLN&F to come out!!!
Yall how do I get the download to succeed because it keeps saying 'forbidden' in android,I even turned pop ups on and safe browsing off but it doesn't download😭😭😭
Please help 🤧
I'm sorry, you might have to change your settings to allow downloads not from the Google Playstore. You can try to search online for your specific device and see if there's guides for that.
At first I didn't have any high expectations, but soon I grew ADDICTED to the story and setting.
I would play one act a day and explore all the different outcomes of that day then pick the one I liked most, and I ENJOYED PLAYING LIKE THAT!! Characters are RICH in personality and appeal! I'm going to be honest I didn't really like Cove at first, but by the end of the game, I hurried to buy the wedding DLC.
When first playing in Sunset Bird I honestly wanted to leave, go to the city or explore outside the town , but as I played more and more I began growing almost nostalgic for Sunset Bird. It's crazy!!! This game is truly AMAAZZINGGG and I'd do anything to play it for the first time again!
Me too...i first tought...."eer..another generic itcho game" but then....with every "episode" i became more and more addicted to it...
this is just the best game i've ever played in my whole life, for sure I'll be keeping it in my heart. I had a lot of fun playing it and Cove is the sweetest boi. Thanks for the lovely game, we can really see that you guys put a lot effort in this <3 (sry if my review got a bit confusing, english is definitely not my first language, but i tried my best to say how much i loved to play this game! TT)
oh no i can't play this game cause he has the same name as me
oh noo😂. what a beautiful name though
played this a long time ago but I keep coming back to ittt
planning to go for like all the dlcs 😭😭
do it! its so worth it!!
Its soooooo beautifully written
I am literally crying
hi, im having a hard time with the android safe files just cant seem to copy them anywhere, not even on Pc! just want to know if anyone else having this problem /:
I'm sorry, I don't believe it's possible to move Android save files to a PC. It only works on Android.
My intention is not to move a save file to a PC to for the intent of playing it there, I merely want to back it up, but I can't seem to find a way how to: not with an Android file explorer or moving the file to a PC, I tested it and it also happens on N&F
The game engine we use, Renpy, may not be compatible with the Android file explorer. The compiled Android builds aren't really workable with the PC even if you're just trying to backup files. I'm sorry I don't know a solution to this.
So, coming from now and forever I thought nothing could top it off, god bless gb patch for proving me wrong, everything is so different yet familiar to n&f that I'm loving every second of it.
I'm personally going through what you could say after "in between" of step 2 but before "Step 3" and... just finished in game step three, got into the third "and then summer ended" and... yeah, ending highschool is tough... I'm goin through something similar I made my mc go through (having a panic attack at the Chinese restaurant and running away hurting cove) And, I really don't wanna do that IRL... well all in all, what I mean to say is: B&A is a masterpiece, shame I can't pay the dlc's 😭
Holy yappatron
Bro I'm the same guy why the down votes 😭😭😭
I would like to marry Cove, please
The urges to wear ankle bracelets are very,VERY, strong after playing this game. OH MY GOD!!
What a nice story.
Love it!
I haven't played the game yet and it looks nice and has a nice story. But my question is this in Spanish?
this game is only in english
I am obsessed. Everything about this is amazing, and I love how customizable and personalized the experience becomes, with callbacks to previous choices and preferences. I don't usually cry or feel extreme emotions from the games I play but this masterpiece got me on multiple occasions. Been thinking about it nonstop several weeks after I stopped playing lol. Excellent work on this to everyone involved!
Hi I would like to chat with you
Hello, I have a question!
I am playing “Our Life: Beginnings & Always” on Steam and have purchased all the DLCs. I would like to know if I subscribe to Patreon to get the NSFW content, can I use it directly in the Steam game? Or is it not a patch but additional content?
It's additional content rather than a patch. You'd download a separate game build and either fill out information about your playthrough or load in a save file to have your character's info in the bonus moment. You can play it through Steam.
Got it, I understand!
Thanks a lot for getting back to me!
I, too, have a question. Please help
Cried over this game multiple times and I'm just in Step 3. The characters, the dialogue, the art, the callbacks to the past, god... It's too good. I love it so much. I love my in-game family so much. I love Cove so much.
brb gonna cry again
Girl ur so real for that im crying too
Please dont cry. May you tell me your pronouns so we can chat?
I don't know if anyone else has had a problem since it's android but each time I to start a playthrough the game crashes, unfortunately I have no idea why it does as all I get is that there is a bug from what the unhelpful pop-up says
Saying there's a bug is a default android reply when an app doesn't work, but I don't think there is a bug that makes it unplayable. You might need more space to run the game or to change your settings to launch games that aren't from the google playstore!
I think about this game so often. It's literally what got me into visual novels, it's just so well written. Props to the creators, they did such a great job.
Do you think about pronouns often? let's chat
I've never written a comment on games before but the creators of this game LITERALLY ATE SO HARD OMG. All the little details and callbacks and sweet moments and how real everything is ugh I can't even get into everything bc it would take forever. Such such smart decisions when making this game-- ex. having mc be adopted makes so much sense bc ur character most likely isn't gonna look like ur family's -- keeps the immersion ykyk. And all the customization and choices!! I like so much that the characters and stuff can change depending on you and your choices. I was reading about how Cove changes with how you treat him and I'm honestly just amazed at how thought out and complicated everything is. Also having two moms and a nontoxic divorce and friends that come and go jsdfladjfalikjdfa;lsdfj I'll probably find even more good things to say about this when I play it a few more times, but I'm not even joking I played this game for almost two days straight LOL. The little memories thing is also such a good idea and great for adding free aspects and paid aspects. This is the most impressive visual novel i have ever seen; I cannot believe I waited this long to play it. If the creators of this game are reading this please know that this was such a cute and ingenious game and you did such an amazing job with this !!! <33 Time to go play more of these games (some of them are in the same universe too???? SLAY FR)
Woooah thats a lot of writing. Any chance you put your pronouns in that paragraph? Let's talk!
To be honest, when I first played Baxter's dlc, I couldn't understand the guy at all. Why did he feel the need to dump me as soon as he left? He acted like it was a fling even though there were clearly emotional connection between him and my mc. But then I realised this guy is just like me. Building sets of relationships based on reason. And if there's no longer one, I'd just leave. My high school friends were only high school friends. I never made the effort to reconnect with them after I graduated. It was the same for university. The only reason I became friends with them is because of circumstances (I had classes with them, I had projects with them). I only knew them on shallow levels. The only difference between me and Baxter is that he realised what kind of person he was and kept making similar decisions to further rationalise his social relationships. Whereas I never even realised I was the closed type and keep wondering why I never have any lasting friends. I'm used to keeping my distance from people because deep down I have this hidden feeling of "unworthiness" to keep hanging around people due to crippling self-asteem and lack of confidence. Like, who am I to butt in when I'm not close friends with them? (Even though everyone starts somewhere). And it sort of felt weird for me because why did I not understand Baxter the first time even though we're the same type of people?
There are some things you keep finding yourself coming back to time after time-- and this bundle of joy is one of them for me. Never has a game roped me in as much as this one has, as I've recently completed my third playthrough in 2.5 years.
Remembering the small details of your own life at the same life stages MC, Cove and friends go through make you feel a fuzzy type of way that's hard to put in words. Perhaps it's because their timeline matches my own, in an instant, the memories of my own childhood summers, silly teenage years, and the fear of the unknown adult world rush back every time I visit the Sunset Bird world again. It's a mix of nostalgia and bittersweetness, enveloped into the beautiful story of two individuals as we watch not only their relationship, but themselves grow from innocent youth to wonderful adults.
Cove is one of, if not the greatest love interests in the VN universe. His admiration, care, and love for MC through the years is a heartwarming journey to play through. I hope you all can find someone that makes you feel like this, no matter what stage of life you're in.
Time and aging, despite being unknown and scary, can also be a beautiful journey and there is so much love in this world we have, or have yet to be discovered. Our Life: Beginnings & Always is a true encapsulation of unconditional love that remains no matter how many summers pass. Whether it's platonic love, family love, or romantic love-- this game serves as a reminder that love is simply just the most wonderful thing.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for this gem.