Karm Reviews: Race of Life
By Underground Studio
Release Date: Jan 9, 2025
Development Status: In Development (Act 1)
Act 2 Drops in 2027
Description from Dev: Race of Life is an adult visual novel. You play as Jake Miller, a divorced Professor who has taken up teaching after his past mistakes cost him his lucrative job and his marriage. When tragedy strikes, Jake must use every ounce of skill, smarts and ruthlessness to save the one he loves the most.
Tags: Racing, Romance, BDSM, Redemption, Cheating, Cuck Queen, Public, Car Sex, Threesomes, Excellent Story
Karm Reviews
|
Karm Reviews |
Race of Life wastes absolutely no time hooking you into its world. From the beginning, there’s a strong sense of urgency driving everything forward, and the game does a great job of making your choices feel meaningful as you decide what kind of man the MC becomes and how he treats the people around him. The writing has a very specific energy to it that instantly reminded me of The Fast and the Furious. The dialogue can absolutely be cheesy and repetitive at times, but honestly, it works for the vibe the game is going for. Between the cinematography, the over-the-top racing culture, and the way characters interact, the game fully embraces that street racing movie atmosphere. It knows exactly what kind of story it wants to tell.
I also really liked the way the story unfolds and introduces its cast naturally. Characters don’t just randomly appear for fanservice or exposition dumps, they’re integrated into the MC’s journey in ways that make them feel important to the overall plot. Even Cooper, who can be obnoxious as hell at times, works really well as the loyal best friend character who constantly has the MC’s back. One writing quirk that did start getting on my nerves after a while, though, was the constant:
“Insert Name Here?”
“Yeah?”
“Thing I want to say…”
It happens… a lot. Once you notice it, you can’t stop noticing it.
From a technical standpoint, though, the game is impressively polished. I didn’t run into bugs, typos, lag, or any major gameplay issues, which is honestly kind of shocking considering how many animations and moving parts the game has. The amount of visual polish packed into this thing is genuinely impressive. One of my grievances is that I’m not a huge fan of how autoplay is implemented, but that’s more of a personal annoyance than a major issue. Same thing with the texting rollback system, if you rewind during a texting conversation, having to replay the entire exchange gets frustrating pretty quickly. As someone that makes my own walkthrough guides with stat tracking, this gets in the way a lot.
One of my biggest issues overall is the lack of visible stat tracking. I KNOW there are hidden point systems and relationship requirements affecting scenes and character routes, but because there’s no visible feedback, it can feel like you’re making choices blindly. Sometimes choices affect characters who weren’t even present in the scene, and without the in-game walkthrough, I genuinely wouldn’t know why certain outcomes changed. Personally, I love being able to track relationship progress and point systems in AVNs, so the lack of that here was a negative for me.
That said, the walkthrough PDF the developer offers is actually excellent. It explains choices in detail without outright spoiling things, helps with trophies, and gives players a better understanding of how the systems work behind the scenes.
Gameplay-wise, Race of Life is mostly a straightforward AVN, but the extra mechanics help it stand out. The phone feature is solid, and Kris’ car app is a cool addition that helps immerse you further into the racing side of the game. The character bios and story summary systems are also well done, though again, I really wish they included relationship stats or point tracking.
The racing mini-game is where the game truly shines mechanically. It looks incredible, feels smooth, and is genuinely engaging every single time it appears. The mini-games overall strike a perfect balance: they’re fun and interactive without becoming frustratingly difficult. You still need to pay attention and actually try, but the game never crosses the line into punishing the player unfairly. I HATE when AVNs throw in brutally hard mini-games and then lock important scenes behind them. If I wanted that kind of suffering, I’d go replay a Souls game.
Visually, this game is stunning. Everything looks polished as hell. The women are gorgeous, and it’s obvious the developer spent an insane amount of time crafting the character models. The level of detail is honestly kind of ridiculous, realistic skin textures, tiny facial hairs, reflections in the eyes, detailed lighting on both characters and environments, it all combines to make the world feel far more alive than most AVNs on the market.
And the racing sequences? Absolutely crisp. The cinematography during those moments is one of the game’s biggest strengths. The audio is a little less memorable. The music gets the job done, but there weren’t many tracks that really stuck with me afterward. There also aren’t sex scene moans or vocal SFX, though the game does use environmental and action sound effects throughout pretty effectively.
The MC himself is another strong point. I like that the game lets you shape his personality through your decisions instead of forcing him into one rigid archetype. His overall story arc is very well told, and while I do think he gets away with WAY too much if you play him as a serial cheater, at least the game allows him to show some remorse for his actions. Maybe future content in Act 2 will make those choices hit harder.
What I really appreciate is how the game slowly opens up over time. Early on, the routes don’t feel wildly different, but once the story gains momentum, the branching paths become much more impactful. Dialogue options, scenes, relationships, and even gameplay moments start opening and closing depending on your decisions, which gives the game a ton of replay value.
The romance options are another major strength. The main five women are all genuinely strong choices with unique personalities, backstories, and relationships to the MC. The supporting women are also attractive and surprisingly well-written. The game does a great job of making each relationship feel distinct instead of blending everyone together into the same archetype.
The sex scenes themselves are extremely well done. The animations are varied, the scenes are genuinely hot, and even the sexting content is handled better than most AVNs manage. I also love that certain scenes only unlock if you’ve earned enough points with characters, because it reinforces the idea that your choices actually matter throughout the game.
Most importantly, nearly every major character feels important to the plot in some capacity. The game gives you control over how involved you become with different people, but very few characters feel pointless or disposable.
Overall, Race of Life is one of the best AVNs on the market right now. It combines strong storytelling, meaningful choices, gorgeous visuals, fun gameplay systems, and excellent replay value into a package that’s incredibly easy to get invested in. Between the engaging racing mechanics, the branching relationships, and the emotional stakes driving the story, this is absolutely a game worth checking out.
Karm's Score
|
Karm's Score |
The Storyline: 10/10
The Gameplay: 9/10
The Uniqueness: 10/10
The Visuals: 10/10
The Characters: 10/10
The Choices: 10/10
The Sounds: 8/10
The Writing: 9/10
The Quality: 10/10
The Steaminess: 10/10
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
TOTAL: 96/100
TIER: S-Tier
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Race of Life: Available on the Official Website, Patreon, Steam, itch.io
