Rituals in the Dark
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Six months ago, Aspen Draper’s elderly neighbour, Mrs Leigh, died from a heart attack. Aspen was the last person to see Mrs Leigh alive, and she was the first person to find the old woman’s body.
After this unfortunate discovery, Aspen becomes something of a celebrity in her dreary seaside home town, Scarborough. She’s bombarded with intrusive questions about Mrs Leigh’s death every day, and her friends are insatiably curious about the incident. Despite Aspen’s best efforts, she’s unable to move on from the past, even as time passes.
The winter months segue into the summer, but Mrs Leigh’s home remains unsold. Eventually, the house is boarded up, and rumours begin to spread that it’s haunted by her restless ghost. Then, during a sleepover with her friends Pippa and Lakhi, Aspen is made to confront her fears all over again. Pippa dares Aspen to break into Mrs Leigh’s home to search for this elusive ghost, and Aspen is too weak-willed and anxious to refuse.
Under the cover of the night, Aspen returns to Mrs Leigh’s home - but she doesn’t find eerie spectres awaiting her arrival. Instead, she meets a strange girl called Althea, who seems to know more about Aspen than any stranger ought. Aspen soon finds herself enchanted by the beautiful Althea, and she resolves to discover who (or, indeed, what) she really is.
- 50k words of text
- Around 3-4 hours of reading
- A kinetic storyline with no choices/branches
- Detailed backgrounds and CGs
- 1080p display
- An original soundtrack inspired by The Cure
- A haunting, eerie atmosphere
- A sweet lesbian romance story suitable for all ages
- It’s the only visual novel set in Scarborough!!! (probably)
Writing/coding: ebi-hime
Character art: sinsystem, Renmiou
BG art: Ruderoo
GUI: sitraxis
Music: hope
German translation: marantana
Chinese translation: Yuri Atelier
Spanish translation: Hector Esquivel
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $6.99 USD. Your purchase comes with a Steam key. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Spanish (Latin American) translation added20 days ago
- Rituals available in the Palestinian Relief BundleApr 21, 2024
Comments
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If I could, I would give this a sixth star, because it's the only visual novel I've read that mentions Wotsits.
Thank you so much! I'm glad you appreciate all of the British-ishms haha
im really really mad not saying at who because spoilers but, the last plot twist was very unexpected- i thought abt it before but wow. The art plus the story writing and music very so beatiful, im glad ive got to play this. Def would recommend. I love yuri!
I am absolutely in LOVE with the art, the writing is beatiful too
I will give rest of my feedback as soon as im done playing👽goodness gracious
how do i turn on auto..
bit of playing around but i found it
I got this vn in the Palestinian Relief Bundle, and I loved it! I know you said the characters weren't technically the focus, but I still loved all of them, even the more minor ones that didn't have sprites like Mrs. Leigh. The atmosphere and art were incredible too, and honestly I found myself bobbing my head to a lot of the songs, too. Also, while there was a lot of good foreshadowing given to some of the twists (so I saw them coming (pos)), that last one hit me like a damn truck.
You always do good stuff ebi-hime :3
Ah thank you so much! That's very kind of you!
It's been a while since I wrote Rituals, but I remember putting more focus on the descriptive passages (mostly all of the dust in Mrs Leigh's old home) than I did the developing relationship between the two leads. This story was more a vehicle for me to write lovingly about decay, but I'm glad you still enjoyed the relationship presented here!
I really like the OST of this VN in particular too, I had a very particular sound I wanted and I think the composer nailed it. It's really pretty!
I adore the visuals in this!
The art is very pretty! The artist did a really good job! <3
Excellent atmosphere, along with quality art, writing, and of course music. The ending was both sweet and surprising, serving as a clever second twist on an expected first one. So yeah, great stuff as always!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Deeep huuge bow to you, Ebi-hime-sama, for this beautifull piece.
I had enormous pleasure reading it.
Besides english isnt my native language, and recently for some particular reasons i had a large share of reading gruesome engRish texts, and after this your RitD was like a breath af fresh mountain air after a ride at the bottom of an overstuffed dump-truck (i bet, you didnt expect mentioning dumptrucks in a praising comment hehe:-D).
Seriously, thank you for your (as always) astonishing, atmospheric and soul-filled work.
Oh, and give my best regards to Mr Darksin for his amazing artwork (really, what a cuties :3)
Ah thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it!
I spent a lot of time editing and rewriting the dialogue so it would all flow naturally, I'm glad it paid off! >_<
Dont know about the others, but for uneducated non-native me it definitely paid off.
And btw if you dont mind clarify some thing that haunts me in the nights - whats the story with "outside.png", "outside2" and warp-connected houses? :-D
Aspen and Mrs Leigh's homes are described as semi-detached in the story, but the background artist didn't draw it correctly (he drew them as two separate houses), and I didn't notice the mistake when I first received the BG.
While coding the story 2 years later, I finally noticed the mistake in the BG. However, since the BGs were done so long ago, I didn't want to bother the artist about it, so I decided to edit it myself. The edit isn't done very smoothly, but I figured it wouldn't be too noticeable in-game because sprites are always layered on top of this BG.
I forgot to delete the first outside.png image, so it's still in the BG folder, but it never gets used in the story because it doesn't match the text. outside2.png is the more 'accurate' version.
Well, here, if you still need it
https://icedrive.net/0/92gKU22bKK
Its also some photoshop-scribbles, but maaaybe you'll find it a liiiitle more seamless😁
Oh, this looks a lot better than the very jank version I made! Thank you very much, that was kind of you!
If you don't mind, I'll replace the bg in the current build with this much improved version. I appreciate it a lot! >_<
Absolutely stunning! I haven't had the pleasure to finish it YET but I will for sure devore it when I get a chance. I love the characters and setup. Uuuhg I can't wait to see what happens!
I did buy the steam version because achievements but figured here could use a review too lol. I also made a video
😚
Thank you! I'm glad you like it so far! I tried to put a lot of emphasis on the general ~atmosphere~
(maybe at the expense of the plot and the characters hahaha), so I hope it pays off!*Sees Ebi has a new relaese*buys without hesitation*is not disapointed*
A nice story about growing up and relationships, with a slightly spooky atmosphere. Nice twist at the end. Now I want to know what happens with them after!
Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it! >_<
I'm sure they'll have a relatively happy relationship, even if one party has a bit of a sadistic streak haha ;;
Awesome artsytle!
The art is by:
https://twitter.com/_SinSystem_
https://twitter.com/renmiou
I think they did a great job!
I'd love to know who did the music too?
The music is by
https://twitter.com/horupe_