itch.io

That monster is wayyyyy too judgy for a guy who literally eats people. Just eat some cow meat, dumbass.

(I'm joking, sorta. It was an interesting plot, but it was hard to take the monster seriously as a "judge" when at the end of the day Bell was making the same choice he did- kill a bunch of people to preserve the life of one, except Bell was doing it for her sister and the monster was doing it for himself. I suppose that adds a bit to the tragedy, but I wanted pretty badly to at least try fighting back against him instead of just surrendering one of the two people.)

....how many downloads and plays are we at RN? asking for a friend

Why play a dating sim where a hot guy falls in love with you, when instead, you can play a VN where a hot guy is your ex boyfriend who emotionally manipulates you and makes you feel awful?

Jokes aside, this is a really creative way to reinterpret romance games- the goal of a romance VN is to win a guy's affection, so Kathy's desire to find a way to mend things easily mirrors onto the player. And although they don't have shared history with Benny as she does, the streamlined narrative centering on him easily draws them to think about him as much as our protagonist does. Seeing Kathy and Benny argue gains a strange emotional catharsis, and somehow we're still left wanting his affection...

Either way, I feel really bad for Kate... lost her family, doesn't seem to have any close friends, and gets stuck trying to get emotional intimacy by transactionally keeping her tenants and ex boyfriend around. Even Lewis tries to flirt with her to cheapen the rent...

Fascinated by the idea of having so little faith in yourself that, in a hookup app, your opening move to get someone to hook up with you is to offer them $60. Like why.

Really creative idea! I'm impressed how much you managed to say about these characters with just button presses and a few lines of Irene's narration. The parts left open ended make me curious to see if you decide to continue this.

It worked today! Thanks for the response, game was very fun. Would hate puppies again.

I'm very, very impressed! Gorgeous graphics that bring you into the game's world and leave you invested, an engaging, sensitive story, challenging and interesting gameplay that immerses the player in the story's themes, with the novelty of freedoms and the new forms, followed by them becoming routine.... and you said this was made in two weeks? Kudos, my man. 

I couldn't help but wish there were more, even though the game didn't feel like it needed any more time to tell its story- I simply liked it enough to not wish for it to end. The irony was not lost on me, given the fact that this is a game about coming to peace with impermanence, humility, and the suffering that comes from greed.

Honestly, it was pretty strange to see the monk stay a young man no matter how long he waited for whole damn trees to grow.... but it was nowhere near as strange as the rest of the concept already was, so it honestly wasn't a problem. Although the waiting was interesting, its smaller role and simple mechanics helped keep the game focused on where it truly shined.

A creative, funny premise with a hilariously over the top execution, adorably sweet interactions between the main characters, a great aesthetic with the text boxes, colors, and art, and a hot boy to stare at to boot. What's not to love?

(Also, I really like how they come to the conclusion transylvanian bf turned into a vampire right after he mentions his lack of a reflection, but when they're thinking of ways to test the hypothesis they think exclusively about things that physically hurt vampires, instead of "let's stand in front of the same mirror" or something. They're like little kids putting their hand on a burning stove to see what happens.)

I made multiple saves in order to try achieving multiple endings, got the reunion ending on my first try, and wound up fully uninterested in getting any of the others besides devotion; Ais is too sweet for me to intentionally antagonize her. 

It's really sad that, after a first visit of you simply existing near her without causing either of you problems, she proceeds to actively make plans for an outing she thinks would be safe and enjoyable for both of you, protect you if you slip up on self-preservation that should be rather basic, give you advice and even speak to you cordially... and yet, she still considers you the one who offered her unprompted kindness.  I also find it really interesting how measuredly she picks her words, and how that translates into discomfort and even fear when caught off-guard; it's criminal how few stories featuring fae delve into the lack of autonomy, privacy, safety and trust that being unable to lie would cause.

The idea for the game seems very fun, but I couldn't actually play it. It just displayed an error message-

"While running game code: File "renpy/common/00start.rpy", line 275, in script
python:
File "renpy/common/00start.rpy", line 275, in script
python:
File "renpy/common/00start.rpy", line 1621, in <module>
Exception: Could not set video mode.
The game exited unexpectedly.
More information may be available in the browser console or contained in the log."

If it matters, I'm running the game in-browser, on firefox, on windows 10. 

Downloading the renpy log didn't seem to yield any useful information, and although maybe someone who knows how to read code could see something there, I don't want to make this wall of text bigger than it already is.

Also like. Veering into spoiler territory but for some actual plot/character analysis.

I really like that Angelica's being possessed by her own guardian angel. After falling, her angel likely comes specifically after her, because a human without an angelic protector would logically be a far easier target.

And we don't know how much of what Forcas says is lies- or whether he ever lies at all, he's meant to be testing Angelica's blind obedience faith, not lying to her. But he mentions that he was already assigned to a human in the church, and that he'd be reassigned to Angie if she listened to him... what happens to his initial human then? 

Is this, at least in part, why Forcas wasn't supposed to be helping? He's just trading one human for another, picking favorites instead of following his duty and being a steadfast protector. And yet, his "picking favorites" is based on a sense of morality and empathy: he doesn't want to ignore a helpless innocent while protecting one of the fundamentalist cultists who's hurting them.

All in all, I really like how Forcas is constantly compared negatively to the divine, and even takes his name from demonology- and yet, when push comes to shove, he's truly caring and merciful while the heavens are cold and detached, only not rebelling outright because he'd lose his position to help if he did.

Forcas, on his way to try to convince you to trust him while saying "don't start assuming I'm evil just yet", describing himself as a "suspicious angel reeking of old man energy" and occasionally trying to seem menacing in order to scare you into obeying:

Condemning Bok-su's actions not because she shouldn't have ruined Da-jeong's life, or because she shouldn't have been willing to sink to the depths of any crime, risking life in prison or death itself, all in name of a revenge that could never hope to fulfill her-

But because my man Myeong-hoon seemed like a bona fide sweetie pie!!! Go kill someone ELSE Bok-su!!!! You big stupid poopoo head!!!!!

I really like the way you executed the scares. I expected failing situation 1 would have me suddenly jumpscared without warning, but it didn't. Instead you get a text box prompting you to realize what'll happen and not proceeding until you click through- it gave me a chance to ready myself while still being eerie and foreboding.

The twist was also very fun, although I have to say I was also a little disappointed to see the original gameplay loop set in situation 1 change. It was creative and fun, and I would gladly play a puzzle/horror game based on that sort of premise.

I love how saying you have hay fever isn't an option, but eating a rose is. Those things have thorns.... But for a guy this cute, let's be honest, I'd do the same.

I was very positively surprised by how much I loved this game. The baffling premise and lack of initial explaination left me afraid this would only be a loose bag of non-sequiturs, but instead I found a story whose wild premise catches the player's attention to draw them into a world with very human tales, only highlit by the strangeness of the setting and jokes.

The Workie and Stranger draw more obvious and tangible parallels to real life, but the more fantastic and diegetic reasonings of the others are both fun to read and make the world feel more genuine, building nicely into the theme of people from different walks of life meeting by chance. I cracked up at the stranger, at a loss for words, trying to express themself with a meme, only for nobody to know what they were talking about.

It's rare to see a writer so aptly capture such different backgrounds, lived experiences, and perspectives without flanderizing or demonizing any of them, and even rarer to see it done with a central queer character in a straight crowd. I can't help admitting I'm biased to them, if only because they're who I relate to most.

It feels a bit silly to talk so seriously about the game after that ending, but I loved that part too. It was funny and ironic without being disingenuous about the strange earnestness before, and I found myself laughing at the gambler with a tinge of melancholy for my beloved stranger.

TL;DR- dunno what to say, it's weird and silly and I really liked it.

As someone who doesn't know a single thing about baseball, I now do not want to learn anything unless it's like this for real.

Found myself surprisingly kind of loving this. The premise is refreshing in its refusal to justify being silly and ridiculous, the art is adorable, and the endings are funny. I hope you guys do decide to someday come back to this and add more endings.

Short, but never rushed or poorly fleshed out. Elegant choice mechanics whose juxtaposition creates lifelike nuance; an interesting spin on a common plot, and, lastly, beautiful prose- all resulting in a captivating game.

It's not rare for even monsters and inhuman threats to have some sort of value system and integrity of their own, making them more than a thoughtless obstacle for the protagonist, and I enjoyed the idea of the siren that manipulates and kills, yet only consumes prey that surrenders to her seduction of its own volition, rather than hunting ruthlessly, and is willing to engage in honest discussion and admission of her nature- but my favorite part is probably the love/lust passage upon choosing lust: the genuine smile and freely given parting kiss seem to not make sense unless read as an act of actual goodwill. 

Even with her candidly admitting that parting ways unharmed is the best that can happen, and tangibly witnessing death in the other endings, it can be hard to shake the hope that where mutual goodwill and cordiality can be found, there can be coexistence; having apparent redeeming qualities only makes the monster more dangerously misleading, and it seems ironically rather unintentional by her.

(Of course, it's possible that I'm being a sucker, and she does this on purpose to make victims struggle less and give herself a less frightening reputation- but even then, it's interesting how this is achieved by genuine integrity, especially given that she doesn't seem to at all resent humans or revel in their pain, only feed on them.)

well you can't just say that and not tell us what the other ones are. Go on, share it with the class.

Honestly, the one thing that genuinely bothered me was that the dialogue's "glitch" effect made it wayyy too hard to understand what my guy was saying. It got hard to play the games without hearing the rules, and even to get scared when I just didn't hear the dialogue that should unnerve me. Some subtitles or less glitched filtering would have been really nice.

Besides that, I really liked the name and the design for our little buddy, the perfect mix of "genuinely something kids could play with" and "oh, something's wrong here". The gameplay in the first game was great, at the same time providing a fun challenge and characterizing our little buddy as controlling, untrustworty, and willing to cheat to make things go his way. For the same reason, I really liked the last game with the questions, and the "choices" between "yes" and "yes". Genuinely fun to play, interesting characterization.

That said- although it's just a personal opinion, and maybe the dialogue I couldn't hear helped with that- I found the "scary images" in the middle two games and some jumpscares to be a little gratuitous and out of nowhere. "The character in the game is real and wants out" is fun, but it seemed bland for that to just lead to spamming creepy pictures. The ending was still good, but I felt like it could have been more interesting to lean into the "do what I say" aspect with more questions in the last game, slowly going from "questions" to "just outright commands" and leading to the climax like that- maybe he forces you to help him escape the game, or maybe he tries to force you into something and attacks you when you disobey. Again, just my two cents.

Overall, very fun game, and usually I'm not even that into analog horror.

Felt so sad that there wasn't a win condition where Melony actually just survives :(

Still a really good game though, simple yet elegant mechanics that are made far more interesting by the creative story and adorable art. I'd read a full comic or cartoon based on this little slime's story.

Same thing happened to me on two runs in a row, and I can't seem to get any other kind of ending. The most I managed to progress with Remie was getting her to say that she's rusty with people but was willing to try, then trying to interact with her just gives me her in her room fidgeting and a "what's she doing?" from the narrator. I spent like fifteen minutes managing rats and having Karina give me the silent treatment while I waited on Remie but no go.

The only CG I managed to find was getting buried immediately if you scream at Karina at the start, which I'm assuming is also what happens if the rats bite you to death or you piss Karina off too much in other ways?

Either way, I'd love an endings guide of some sort. I like the characters but I am very confused.

I'm not sure I'm encountering a bug, but my game won't progress in any way past "WAIT..." hovering on top of the screen. It doesn't scroll down like "END" did, either. 

I was expecting for the "wait" text to either scroll down so I could do something, or to mean that there was something I could still do on that black screen, but nothing seems to happen. It's otherwise a fine place to end the game, but the text seems to outright affirm that there's still things to do without giving me any chance to do anything.

chipmunks.

"I don't miss her" is a lie but "I love you" also is. Well played; you really got the most depression-mileage out of every single word in this little story.

I still can't help but feel like, maybe, they're better with each other than without (even though they definitely shouldn't be dating)- when you're depressed, sometimes you just need someone to commiserate with, rather than practical but unwanted advice. It must be hell never getting to lie for privacy on a sensitive subject, or tell a white lie not to hurt someone's feelings, so it must also be really nice to find someone who understands that problem.

those aren't squirrels,that's just the LSD he took and he knows it.

Hope someone manages to kill the prince one of these days. Nice story.

I'd say doing this with your shareholders seems like an unsustainable business model, but I guess I'm not an expert on the subject.

GOTY 2023

The ending's unhinged in the best way possible, 11/10.

....If the pond scum really can talk, and the father isn't just hallucinating. What could capture a child's fancy more than a magic lake? One that never seemed too concerned about the murders of innocent people. One that seemed almost eager to swallow more and more bodies....

This is both adorable and hilarious. Loved it.

Plot twist of the century, 11/10. Shame about those poor bunnies though, plus Carter moving away. Hope Benjamin goes to therapy soon.

Christ, this was stressful in the very best way possible. I hope we get the girls' full story soon. I couldn't help but fear that what Sam ran into at the end wasn't Mel, given the verse about the beast's shameful lies...

With all the horror games you made, I expected a Doki Doki Literature Club style twist. I played all the way through nervously waiting for some jumpscare or something then it never came. I considered playing again while "cheating" to see if horror elements came then, but was both too cowardly and too impatient with the relatively long timer between numbers to do so. 10/10 experience.

the true horror here is how much the game will make you cry. Meowmie...

Nice little game. I do wish it had some sound, and the falling rocks were hard to avoid, but the story was pretty good. The font was surprisingly readable backwards, albeit still a bit of a headache.