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
- Our Life ORCA Merch Available Now! 🐬✨57 days ago
- Our Life Ocean Hoodie Available Now!Nov 21, 2025
- Our Life: Limited Time Cove Pin Set!Mar 03, 2025
- 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
Comments
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Dont buy the game on steam, GB doesnt let you prove ownership and give you access to APKs, but here you get both versions. Very lame move GB. especially to those who support on patreon, should be easier to get access to the mobile version if i own it on steam.
This is one of, if not, the greatest visual novel I have ever played <3
Just replayed the game after a few years and I truly didn't think I'd be so attached to Cove Holden again, but I was so wrong. I purchased all the DLC for this playthrough too and it was worth it. Thank you again for the excellent game!!
summer means replaying the ultimate summer game!!
It turned out to be an interesting story...I want to erase my memory and go through it again!
Jogo maravilhoso, adorei cada segundo. Uma das melhores e mais longas visual novels que já joguei. Todos os personagens são muito cativantes e a história é incrível e muito bem escrita :)
ALDOXITO? JJSJSKA
This was genuinely one of the most heart warming games I have ever played and it has to be my favorite RPG I have ever played. Cove is such a sweet character and every memory made was so beautiful, I could not stop smiling at every scene. Thank you so much for this game <3
Meu deus, simplesmente perfeito 😭
Hiii, So im on MacBook Neo and im having a reoccurring issue.... Every time I launch the app it shows the loading screen for around 2 seconds before it just dissapears but the background music works. Like the game is running but it isn't visible. ive been trying to fix it but I cant find a way. :(
Hello! Sorry you here you're having issues. Hopefully I can help. Are you able to see the game's title screen at all, or is it on the initial loading screen where it fails?
I need more of this, maybe a fifth dlc
preeeeeettyyyyyyy pleaseeeeeee!
unfortunately (but understandably) there wont be any more dlcs for our life: beginning & always but u can always check out gb patch's other games, such as our life: now and forever which is similar and imo super amazing <3
This is my FAVORITE game in the world!!! I played it some time ago and recently I tried the dlcs and they were PERFECT ♥. I love Cove so much, I never get tired of him
I KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO MAKE ME CRY! Wonderfull project! <3
Hi! How do I download the DLCs into the actual game? I used Steam before, but it won't let me play OLBA on there anymore. I own all the DLCs and I know they're connected to the game, but I don't know how to download them. Can someone help me please?
Yes, I can help! If you still have access to the Steam version, you want to navigate to the game's directory and find a folder labeled "game". This can be reached by right clicking on the game in your Steam library, going to "Manage", and then "Browse local files". That will take you to the main folder. Inside of the "game" folder, you should see the DLCs as .rpa files, like "dlc.step_1.rpa". Take all of those files from the Steam version, and put them in the "game" folder of the itch.io version, and it should work. If you need any more help, just let me know, and thank you for playing!
Hi! are this DLC'S compatible with the Steam game or they can't be mixed?
They are compatible! You can put the .rpa files downloaded here from itch.io into the "game" folder of the Steam version, and they will still work. This includes mixing and matching from the two different versions; it's all the same files. Thanks for playing!
Awesome, thank you!
The entire time while playing this game, I did not stop smiling :) thank you making such an amazing game <3
this is a masterpiece
this game bro fuhhh such a masterpiece i will never get over it
This is just my personal opinion after one full playthrough. It's a wonderfully made piece of art. I really wanted to love this game, I really do. I can feel the soul and effort put into making it; it's exceptionally well done, and the level of player customization incorporated into all aspects of the game really makes it special. But therein is the issue for me, because the player decides so much of the game, it feels like the game itself, storywise or 'character'-wise, doesn't really have a backbone. It doesn't feel like a compelling story, because instead of saying "hey, here's our story that we wrote and you can add your own perspective to it", this game feels more like "here's a pretty much blank canvas and you can draw wherever you want on it". Maybe that's the charm of the game as well, and I can surely feel the appeal, so maybe it's more of a personal preference. The story is confusing at times. The way the characters act from step 3 onwards feels a bit off for their age, given they're recent high school graduates, and even for the parents. The lack of common sense makes the moments in this chapter feel very forced. Overall, I did enjoy it a lot, though!
Yeah, it's not so much a story, more of a simulator? It worked out very well in the end, but it's hard to find a balance like this. Love this game btw, an all time favourite for sure ♥
Edit: " The way the characters act from step 3 onwards feels a bit off for their age..." Can you elaborate on this? I'm genuinely interested!
//The only 2 things I can think of to improve it would be:
1. Changing the lower quality illustrations, they kinda threw me while playing and
2. When you take Cove to the flower field, there's a line in the end that suggests you're together now; it felt like it was originally another option to become a couple and was forgotten there or something. I remember it gave me a loose end feeling//
Hey there, thanks for sharing! I think you nailed it, it did feel like a simulator, not a novel to me and I think that's what bothered me. There's still that charm to it though, you do feel like you've known this guy your whole life.
What I said about part 3 specifically refers to the section about Terri (y) and Miranda having a fallout. As someone around that same age right now (recent highschool grads), I feel like no one around me would have that much trouble articulating and communicating with each other as they did, but again, personal experiences always vary. That section alone aged the group down to like middle school kids' arguments. For me, it really put me off the immersion. It just feels disappointing to see that interaction, since I expected more emotional maturity from their characters.
Also for step 3 the parents farmer's market trip moment was very strange. Again with the not communicating to each other as grown ass adults basically.
This did get better moving towards step 4 when Cove and the MC started talking about their futures and life together, which does match up with what they'd be feeling at that stage in their life. Another thing I noticed after finishing the game is that the extra characters do feel like they're just thrown in there and I don't really feel attached or interested in any of them. I know there's the option to interact with them more and kinda bring them along into the next steps moving forward like with Shiloh, Jeremy and Baxter, but I honestly didn't miss them at all. Not much value added not much value taken away for me. They're just there.
Cove and the MC do come to the flower field a lot! Several times in step 3 and 4 each I believe. I'm not sure which section you're referring to though, I might have missed it since I had the affection level to Love since step 3 and set them up to be already dating when starting step 3 and already engaged starting step 4. I do wish I went for a more slow-burn type playthrough since just having it maxed out did make it more boring for me, but I might revisit it in the future : )
Hey,
thanks for answering, I kinda' agree! These moments would fit Stage 2 better
Why I "kinda" agree:
maaan, I've seen weirder XD I always have to remind myself of my real life experiences with people, which were literally stranger than fiction. I often thought to myself, if I read what just happened or what someone said in a book, I'd go "My god, that's so unrealistic, who would do that?". Yet there it was... Most adults are pretty immature as well, but in select aspects of their life, so ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
I felt the same about the side characters! I never managed to get to like any of them, apart from Miranda and Terri maybe. I didn't even care enough to play the other romance routes through, I think because they're much more shallow than Cove's and not even near as fun. It's sort of like, just being around somebody a lot doesn't make you friends, if that makes sense?
Flower field: oh, no no, I didn't mean Poppy Hill behind our house; it's the big-ass flower field out of town where we can take Cove as a surprise in Stage 3, as a "surprise back" after the aquarium, play or ice-skating outings.
Oooh, I love slow burns too, the more tension, the better ♥ Cove's route is quite replayable imo, there's so many choices and I had fun with the dynamics :v
I agree with you - I was thrown off my immersion during the argument story as well. Maybe it's my perspective now as an adult, but I didn't see any reason to be so worked up about it. I think overall the kids were treated maybe too much like children for a lot of the story, but it's also kind of a nice family dynamic to have such present parents.
I'm from android and when I try to download the game it says "app not installed" :(
Sorry you're having trouble! Hopefully we can help. Sometimes devices have security features that prevent executables like our game from downloading. Is that something you can check?
i dont know where to look
Usually it's found in the "Settings" menu, the little cogwheel. Not sure for your device specifically, but you're looking for something like "Security and privacy". From there, you want to see something about installing apps, like "Install Unknown Apps", and give permission to our game. Hopefully that helps!
I've already gave the permission, in fact I've downloaded other games, but this issue it appears for this game and other games too
(sorry for bad english, it's not my first language)
When do you see the first error message? Does the game download from itch.io, and then not appear? Or does the download just not work at all? It might be an issue with the web browser itself instead.
This genuinely one of the awesomest visual novels, LIKE TS SO WELL MADEE AND DETAILED LIKE HOLYYY MOLY THE WORK PUT INTO THIS IS ABSOLUTE CINEMA ♥️♥️‼️‼️‼️
for my 4th replay im planning on buying all of the dlc's and was wondering if anyone can tell me how they work (this will be my first time) can they be used in the same playthrough? how do i set them up from itch? 7-7 im a lil confused
Absolutely! Are you playing windows, mac, or android?
im playing on a windows computer!
Okay! I know GB replied but..
What I did was extract the files from the dlc, locate the 'rpa' file, copy that, locate the 'game' file in the base game and paste that into there :) then bam! you have access to the extra content!
okay awesome thank you!
If you buy the DLCs from itch.io, they will work on all platforms, and the Android versions are also included! They come in the form of rpa files that simply need to be added to the "game" folder for the game's directory folder. If you need help finding that, let us know. Thank you for playing!
thank you! ill look up how to do that and report back any issues <3
We hope you enjoy the DLCs!
Heres a phone wallpaper someone commissioned me and if you look closely you can see Coves name in there.
Bro ts is so fun to play
I'm trying to load the voice version (free) but it always crashes on my phone
Sorry to hear that! When does the crash happen? And is this an Android device?
Yeah it's an Android device the other button works but the continue button and the new file button
OK. If you can access the CONFIG menu, click on that and look for the "Animations", option. Turn off animations and see if that helps; some devices don't like when those are on.
Hello, I bought the wedding DLC (unfortunately twice), downloaded, and input the dlc into game but it seems to show as ‘Not installed’. Step 1-3 dlc works perfectly well as installed except the wedding dlc (All in a same method). I’ve reinstalling the game and getting out of the game. The wedding DLC (unlike the step 1-3 dlc) automatically gives me the rpa file without needing the zip file, should it be normal? Although, I am using a device that isn’t an android.
Yes, if you downloaded the Wedding DLC off of itch.io, it should come directly as the rpa file. What kind of device are you playing on? Hopefully we can help fix this for you!
The device I’m using is between IPadOS and/or IPhone IOS.
I would love to show you how I’ve done to give you a better visual experience, but I can’t access to post photos.
1.) I used an Ren’Py app for me to be able to access the game. I went into Mod Management, chose the option called, “Import Compatibility Mod” and clicked a rpa file. It did well for Step 1-3 DLC.
2.) I clicked a DLC wedding rpa file and it shows exactly what the notification gave me, “Compatibility Mod Import Completed; Imported dlc_wedding.rpa.” It said ‘Import Completed’, as it did say the same for the rest of Step 1-3 DLC.
3.) As I went into the game, clicked the DLC info, it showed me that the, “Cove Wedding DLC: Not Installed” while the Step 1-3 DLC is ‘Installed’.
Thank you for that detailed explanation, that is helpful. Unfortunately, Our Life: Beginnings & Always is not natively supported on IOS devices, like what you're describing. If you have some additional program that helps it work, that's great. However, if there's an issue on an IOS device, there isn't really anything we can do to help, since the game is not made to work on that platform. We're sorry about that! The DLC files do work on Mac devices, as well Steam, if that helps at all. If you'd like to refund the Wedding DLC, you can contact itch.io's support page and request that, and we'll approve it when they message us. Either way, thank you so much for playing!
I see, but thank you for your time of reading this and responding. I absolutely love this game regardless, really! 🫶
Hello! Just a good Samaritan here. I wanted to help my fellow MacBook users who are having trouble downloading this game. (This is probably more relevant to users with the latest MacBooks, but I'd be happy if it helps anyone else too!)
For reference, I'm using a MacBook Neo, but I'll assume the settings are generally the same across devices.
The issue I encountered:
First, open System Settings! (I think it's just called Settings on some devices.)
Then, locate Privacy & Security. In my case, it already showed me the app that had been blocked by Apple's security settings because it was from a third-party source.
Next, click "Open Anyway." You'll be asked to enter your password afterward.
Once that's done, you should be able to launch and play the game! <3
Hope it helps!!! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡
Thank you so much for sharing and helping others! We really appreciate you!
I have a question, is this in Spanish?
Unfortunately not, and we probably won't ever be able to add any translations to the game. But we appreciate you being here!
Hi, I just downloaded the game on Android but every time I try to start a new file the game just crashes
Sorry to hear that! Is there some kind of error message you get when this happens? Another thing that sometimes causes this is your device's in-built security features, which flags executables like our game as "dangerous". You can go into your security settings and give it permission to open. Hopefully we can get this solved for you.
I get no error message it just closes, and i don't see any problem with it in security settings
Are you able to get into the "CONFIG" menu before it crashes? If so, go into there and turn off animations before attempting to start a new game. Sometimes devices have issues with those.
Unfortunately still crashes, could it be not compatible with my device or something?
Darn. Yes, sometimes devices just aren't compatible, though this is uncommon. Thank you for your patience. Hopefully you can find some other way to play.
This game made me wanting more. I am an f2p player but I'm willing to spend or support this game someday if I had the money. The effort and love put in this game is undeniable ♡♡
I have a question, would there be anymore dlcs for the game?
probably not? since there's not really much more to add on.
There will not. Beginnings & Always is fully complete, but we're so grateful you're here with us in Sunset Bird!
I see, thank you for making a amazing game! If it's okay to ask, can people make mods/add ons for the game? I know some game creators don't like it or make it possible for it.
Hello! Yes, we do allow people to make mods or add-ons, so long as they make it clear that they are not official content, and they cannot be sold for money at all. So long as those conditions are met, it's totally fine. Thank you so much for following!
Thank you so much for the reply as well GBPatch! :D
oky, im not the type of person who leaves comments (honestly idk how to give a compliment without sounding crazy LOL)
BUT this game holds a special place in my heart, Cove captivated me in an indescribable way, like, SERIOUSLY HOW CAN A CHARACTER BE SO SWEET AND ADORABLE??!! ugh, i love him so much its hurtss ;((
cof cof, anyway, when I finished the story, i was crying like a little child who had their candy stolen, it was so beautiful and at the same time so painful to have to say goodbye to him, but he lives in my little heart and i will never forget him
without a doubt, it was worth the time (and money) spent here, the DLCs are beautiful (the NSFW stuff too hihi), and if i could, i'd erase my memory just to play it again
Hi , I loved the game and wanted to buy the DLC, but the purchase never works for me. I don't know if it's an itch.io problem, but it's frustrating :(
How did you do it? Through Paypal or card?
I just verified my account and added my card to this page. It's really simple, actually. 😭
Hello! We are sorry you're having trouble. We just wanted to check, were you able to get it resolved OK? Based on your reply, it seems like maybe you did, but we wanted to make sure, in case there was something else we could do to help. Thanks so much for following!
I've already solved the problem, thankss
Great! Thanks so much for playing.
Please do a translation in Spanish 🥹
Unfortunately, we won't be able to have any translations made for the game; it's simply too big and complicated for that. We hope that isn't too disappointing, and really appreciate your support! Have a lovely day.
lurve lurve lurve lurve lurve :3
I don't know if I ever posted a comment on this, so just in case I'm doing it now. I have played OLBA since 2023 and I have replayed it countless of times. I have all the Cove's DLCs and I'm still thinking about buying the other LI's DLCs too. Let me say that this game made me really nostalgic and truly helped me during hard times, that's maybe why I have always liked it the best and still come to it to this day. I'm greatly grateful for this game and now also OLNF, both of these are dearly to me and I'm just thrilled to play them every single time. Thank you so much, GB Patch <3