Sorry my reply is so slow >.< I'm just really busy at the moment :( 

I have now uploaded the Mac version to the same place which you can find here :3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mI09a6RIIrnMlECfjhMGM_ApTEuIWpHs/view?usp=shari...

Sadly, the game doesn't have any translations at the moment and is only available in English :( I'm hoping to work with translators at some point in the future to include different language translations in some of my games, but it will probably take a lot of time to complete them. Especially since I need to learn how to actually implement them as well >.<

There is also the problem that some of my project files will be broken when updating the games depending on how old they are :( But I will try to include other languages eventually :3

Sorry again I have been so slow to get back to you >.< I hope the new link for the Mac version works + that you get to have a great weekend :3

Also really glad that you enjoyed the game :3 Thanks so much for playing it and leaving such a sweet comment!

I’m actually working on a project atm where I’ve made an OST with sort of similar vibes to this one, haha + the project is quite dark, atmospheric, and ofc, includes yandere romance again x3 haha.

Hoping to release a demo/part 01 for the otome version for otome jam at the end of June! But will be making a full version that includes more options for choosing the MC’s gender & masc or fem romance the same as in The Hostage ^-^

If you happen to like the voice actors in this project, they both also play a main character in one of my other projects called Tunnel Vision :D 

Hope you are having a great month so far :3

Thanks for checking out the game! I’m glad you enjoyed the OST ^-^ It was a lot of fun to make!

I’m guessing you might be the same person who posted on the tracks on YouTube, but I will still answer in both places just in case it isn’t, haha. 

I would love to have this OST and all my other OSTs on Spotify :3 Sadly, like with adding games to Steam, it costs money to put music on Spotify T_T

However, I am looking at potentially getting an FLCloud subscription sometime later in the year, and as part of that subscription, you get free distribution on platforms like Spotify! The only catch is that if your subscription ends, the tracks will immediately be removed >.< So I’d kind of be stuck subscribing forever, haha. 

But yeah, hopefully, sometime later in 2024, I will try to get all of my music on Spotify :3

In the meantime, the tracks can either be streamed on YouTube, or downloaded from the game pages for a $5 donation (or downloaded from the supporter page for anyone who donates on Ko-fi or Patreon) :3

I'm probably not going to be able to help much, but I'll repost the other comment I put on the guide to the same question >.<should have the It can be a bit clunky though >.< If it won’t work, you might have to reload an older save or something :( 

Sadly, the engine I used to make this years ago was a bit dodgy, which is why I switched to something else after x3

Thanks for checking out the game btw! :3

This is the copy/paste comment:

I’m not really sure if I can help because it all worked when I tested it years ago, and I saw some people play through it on YouTube and complete the puzzle >.<

Unfortunately, I can’t even take a look at the files cos this project is so old I don’t use the same engine anymore + I lost the original project files years ago :( 

I do hope to completely remake it from scratch in the engine I use now though at some point :3 With any luck, that will make it less clunky! Cos the engine I originally used to make it was kinda buggy >.< That’s why I switched to something else after I finished Impostor, haha. 

Thank you for checking out the game though :3 And sorry I can’t be of more help >.<

(edit: also, this probably still isn't of much help... but if you do happen to press 1 wrong button during the puzzle, anything you press after that will be automatic failure pretty much >.<

So, for example, you press 'K' first, it will buzz for wrong, you then try to press 'I', but that will still be wrong because it's already looking for the 'M' at that point rather than the 'I'. If that makes any sense.

Basically, you have to get every single one right in the right order. If you click 1 wrong, you would need to reload from a point before the puzzle began and start again or it will always end as failed >.<)

<3 I can’t take much credit for sprite designs because the sprites in this are purchased assets that I painstakingly recoloured just to make them more unique cos I know it’s almost impossible to find asset pack sprites that aren’t in other games, haha. It would have been nicer to commission an artist, but the full game will need so many sprites that it would be unaffordable to get that many drawn up without a looooot more funding x3

But yeah, it’s always amused me that most sprite assets I own have a naked option, but regardless of the gender, they have no nipples xD I have some r18 sprites where they actually do have nips, haha, but I don’t really make r18 games so they’re not especially helpful x3

Thanks so much for checking out the demo :3

Thanks so much for your kind words :3 So glad you ended up liking this one! It was a strange experience because I made this during a moment of madness where I decided to make 2 different games for 1 game jam xD So I worked on this and The Graveyard Shift in the same month with 2 different teams of artists, haha. I still don’t really know how we made the jam deadline on time, but I won’t ever be doing something so crazy again x3

It means a lot that you decided to play this and some of my other stuff after checking out Darling Duality cos a lot of people who play DD only seem to play that and then don’t check out my other stuff for whatever reason, haha.

:D Hope you end up having fun!! Hehe x3 Well, I'm team Takaaki cos Sakae/Saeka is just too much for me xD At least Takaaki/Tomomi is kinda sweet in a way, haha.

Thanks for checking out the game! I’m glad you still got some enjoyment from it even if the yandere stuff isn’t your cup of tea x3

Almost all of my projects have a yandere of some sort in, even if it’s a platonic yandere rather than a romantic one, haha. One of the main reasons I got into game dev in the first place was to add more male yandere characters to the world cos I noticed there were loads of females ones around, but as a player, I was struggling to find male yandere content after playing everything available at the time, so decided to just start making stuff!

I only ended up making female yandere characters as well because I wanted to give players more options to choose x3 haha.

This is probably the worst game I’ve ever released, unfortunately >.< I had only just switched to Naninovel, so I was still learning how to use it, which means there are a number of bugs in the game :( and it was made in a big rush too for a jam deadline, so it didn’t really turn out how I hoped x3 I almost deleted all the project files cos I felt like it wasn’t worth releasing >.<

But a few people have played it and said they had fun, so I guess it was worth releasing it in the end :3 One day, I will get around to updating it to add better voice acting and fix the little bugs!

Thanks for playing! Hope you’re having a good month so far :3

Ahh, well, I’m glad you had fun with this one even though it’s far from finished x3 I hope you end up enjoying my other stuff if/when you check it out :D 

That’s good to know about therapy with the diagnosis! Unfortunately, I’m currently back in limbo with no support whatsoever, and not even on a waiting list because, apparently, the waiting list is so long that there was a waiting list to get on the waiting list, but they’ve had to close it xD 

I’ve been told there is a scheme where I can apply to join a waiting list for therapy in a different area instead but to do that, I have to go through my GP, and I currently don’t have one cos ours left and the surgery hasn’t been able to find a replacement almost a year later >.<

But yeah, hopefully, someday I can actually get some help cos I’m hopeless and pretty lost without it x3

Thank you so much for all your kind words <3 I hope you’re having a marvellous May so far!!

Someone else said they had this problem recently and it was caused by some sort of issue with the itch.io servers that they were trying to download from >.<

For them, I uploaded the file to Google Drive instead and they were able to download it from there successfully :3

I don’t know if it will help you, but if you want to try it, this is a link for the direct download from Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u0WSypwd8tkZww7rVcAZwCAnQE86SxFV/view?usp=shari...
(this is for the windows version - if you need the mac one instead, just lemme know :3)

I hope it helps! Thanks for your interest in the game :3

No worries at all :3 Thank you for all your kind words <3 Hope you have been having a wonderful May so far ^-^

Sorry I’m so slow >.< I’m suuuuuper behind on all my replies atm, and my PC died towards the end of April, so that hasn’t helped, haha. Now I’m working on something for otome jam, so I’m absorbed in that, but because I still don’t have a new PC up and running properly, I’m trying to do everything atm on the family potato laptop which is awful xD

I’m actually not sure what Shiro’s mbti would be! I’d have to go back through all the types and read up on everything again cos I don’t remember most of the info off of the top of my head x3

I know when I did mine yearsago, it said I was INFP-T, haha.

If I had to guess off the top of my head without researching more, I would guess Shiro would possibly be INFJ or ISFJ, but I couldn’t say for sure >.<

I’m not really sure if I can help because it all worked when I tested it years ago, and I saw some people play through it on YouTube and complete the puzzle >.<

Unfortunately, I can’t even take a look at the files cos this project is so old I don’t use the same engine anymore + I lost the original project files years ago :( 

I do hope to completely remake it from scratch in the engine I use now though at some point :3 With any luck, that will make it less clunky! Cos the engine I originally used to make it was kinda buggy >.< That’s why I switched to something else after I finished Impostor, haha. 

Thank you for checking out the game though :3 And sorry I can’t be of more help >.<

PS. Love your username! Geese are the best :D

(edit: also, this probably still isn't of much help... but if you do happen to press 1 wrong button during the puzzle, anything you press after that will be automatic failure pretty much >.<

So, for example, you press 'K' first, it will buzz for wrong, you then try to press 'I', but that will still be wrong because it's already looking for the 'M' at that point rather than the 'I'. If that makes any sense.

Basically, you have to get every single one right in the right order. If you click 1 wrong, you would need to reload from a point before the puzzle began and start again or it will always end as failed >.<)

You don’t need to apologise :3 I’m currently waaaaay behind on everything as usual x3

I don’t think it sounded unclear or messy at all :3 It was just really sweet, sincere, and heartfelt! It would sound unclear and messy if I tried to speak my honest thoughts, and no amount of editing out pauses for my brain freezing would be able to save me xD

Yeah, I keep trying to tell my pops he needs more sleep too cos he tends to go to bed at midnight, but then has to get up around 5am for work >.< I get his reasoning for not going to bed earlier (his free time doesn’t begin until around 7pm, so he doesn’t wanna go to bed at like 10/11 and only a few hours to himself each day), but yeah, I mean, he’s clearly crazy tired cos he’s grouchy a lot of the time :( and he winds up falling asleep seconds after eating dinner in the evenings, so his body must be screaming at him for more sleep.

Hope you have fun whenever you do play! :3 Me & Lazy Polar Bear are cooking up something for this year’s otome/josei jam, but we decided to try and only get a demo/part 01 done for the jam so as not to overwork ourselves like we usually do x3

We wanted to have a chill jam for once, but things haven’t exactly been going to plan so far cos she’s got a lot of stress going on with various things and my PC died xD Hopefully, we will still manage to submit to the jam, but it seems we will never manage to have a stress-free jam >.< haha.

Hope you’re having a marvellous May so far!! ^-^

Thanks so much for checking it out :D I still really need to get around to remaking this in the engine I use nowadays so it’s less clunky, haha. The problem is, I lost the original files, so it will have to be done from scratch >.< haha.

You don’t need to apologise x3 I am pretty much always slow to respond to things these days >.< haha. No matter how hard I try to keep on top of messages, whether it’s comments here or conversations with friends, I fail miserable :( haha.

I’m glad there weren’t any other messed up lines though at least! That’s a relief to hear :3

*High five* or team Takaaki/Tomomi :D 

Yeah, they’re not very well matched those text boxes x3 I should have just made a recolour of the pink ones or something, but for some reason, I used one for the inner thoughts of MC that was from a different set >.< haha. It’s still a custom one, but it’s not a very attractive custom one xD Still, anything is better than the default Naninovel UI! I don’t know much about other engines cos I’ve only used Tyranobuilder & Naninovel (Tyrano had some nice themes at least for UI), but Nani’s is horrifically basic/plain, haha.

Anyways, I really appreciate you checking out some of my stuff :3 Thanks so much for that & your kind words ^-^ Hope May is going great for you!

Hurray :D I wish it never happened in the first place though, haha. I swear it doesn’t matter what engine I try to use, random weird stuff always happens that technically shouldn’t happen, and I never know why T_T

So glad you had fun with the other characters too :D With any luck, you might end up liking my other stuff then, haha. Thanks for all your kind words and have a happy rest of May ^-^

You’re so kind ^-^

I guess a lot of creators maybe don’t check their comments and stuff or don’t have time to dedicate to replying to stuff >.< Even if people keep telling me I should also do that to save time, I will keep trying my best to reply to things even if it takes me a while, haha.

Hope you get to have a great year yourself!! <3

Yeah, it will eventually be on Mac :3 A lot has changed since this ancient demo, but it’s still in development :D All of the art is getting a complete overhaul, and I’ll be making it in Naninovel rather than the engine I originally made the old demo in.

I hope to be working on it again later this year :3

I can imagine it must be! Most languages I've tried to learn alone seem fine at first, and then they very quickly get quite complicated xD It would be nice to have proper lessons :3

So glad you had fun with the game though :3 I'm working on a project with a friend for a jam this year, but we're only trying to finish a demo version of it in time for the jam. We're hoping to have the full game out towards the end of the year or early next year :D 

That's awesome you liked the title screen too :3 It was a lot of fun to make, haha. Thank you for all your kind words ^-^

I kind of get it in the sense that these are small-scale things and a lot of the VN-making community is against AI-generated stuff in general because of the impact on artists and such, but at the same time, I also know a handful of people who would love to get into making VNs but can’t because they can’t draw + also can’t afford to purchase assets. Sure, there’s free stuff available for people to use, but it often comes with hefty terms of use, and seeing the same sprites in 10+ games isn’t exactly great for players >.<

So I can see both sides I guess. For competitions, even indie ones, I don’t think it should be allowed because I feel like judges would be inundated with AI-generated entries which would make it difficult to actually play everything submitted. But even in non-competitive jams, I suppose the hosts want to prevent their jams from being flooded with low-quality entries that may have been made entirely with AI. Cos I know a lot of jam hosts already have to kick out tonnes of irrelevant or rule-breaking entries from their jams as it is, haha.  AI has probably just made that side of things even worse >.<

“I despise any and all use of AI by multi-billion multi-national corporations that seek to replace workers with AI for profit.”

Totally agree on that! And yet it seems to be escalating :( 

"However, I personally have no issues with indies and freeware projects using AI so long as they are upfront about it and disclose it properly."

And I agree with that too! Though I can understand why jam hosts would ask folks not to since they can make their own rules. I’d be curious to know if it’s a trend across all kinds of game jams or just in the VN-making arena! I was hoping to join 1 jam that starts fairly soon, and they also have the same rule, no AI-generated stuff, which is fine by me cos I wasn’t planning to use anything like that anyway, but it does seem to have become the norm in VN-related jams as far as I can see.

It doesn’t surprise me that there are big issues like that in the US too, but it still sucks :( I don’t get why it’s so hard for an elected government to actually function well and look after its people! It just seems like wherever you live, the folks in government are corrupt >.< Sure, maybe not all of them, but enough for it to be a problem.

There is a big issue in the news here at the moment about how the gov is now targeting unpaid carers in fraud cases! People who are essentially saving the gov millions by caring for their loved ones. And because a benefit payment happened to be mistakenly overpaid by a couple of quid, they’ve suddenly started going after people for thousands of £££, even though the overpayment errors are the fault of the gov departments in charge o.O They say the people in receipt of the benefits are responsible for reporting errors… why?! Most people wouldn’t even be aware if an error had occurred, let alone know how to report it.

One of the cases that was most disgusting was one where they were chasing a 90-year-old woman with severe dementia for £3000 of her savings just cos some overpayments were made in error over the years >.> And yet multiple serving MPs openly commit fraud and nothing happens to them.

It’s like everything is designed to protect the rich and help them get richer. Which is awful in itself, but to then put out propaganda that the country’s economy is in a mess because of disabled people and poor people… it just makes me sick to my stomach >.<

In other news, the current minister for policing made a right tit of himself on Question Time last night during a debate about sending people to Rwanda who are coming over on boat crossings seeking asylum. An audience member asked a question about it not being safe because of skirmishes and stuff, and the minister sat there and asked if Rwanda and Congo were different countries o.O
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68903573
(the link is just to an article about it on BBC news with a video clip, but I was watching it live with my family, and we were all laughing at how ludicrous it was! Tbh though, the guy was talking nonsense for the entire duration of the show like most Tory MPs >.>)

I hope you're well anyhow :3 I'm just struggling as usual, haha. Burned out and overwhelmed trying to deal with general life stuff while being harassed by the gov about my claim.

Thank you so much for playing the game and taking the time to leave a comment! ^-^

I guess I should say everything else under spoilers, haha.

Soooo…

SPOILERS below!!!

But yeah, I can confirm that your theory is a fairly accurate one :D I’m so glad you spotted the hint of the pills on the menu screen because I know that some people have missed that x3 Maybe I should have made it more obvious >.<

I just thought it would be fun to reveal certain things in more subtle ways for this project because I didn’t really want to straight-up say that X is the truth or Y is right and Z is wrong.

Cos sometimes it’s just nicer to leave things to people’s imaginations so they can do what you’ve done here and come up with cool theories ^-^

The one thing I will say is that I had it in mind that Blythe is, in essence, an antidepressant medication, but beyond that, I’d prefer to leave everything else up to speculation x3 Just because it’s partly inspired by my own experiences with taking antidepressants, but I didn’t want that to be too rigid because I know everyone’s experiences with them are different.

I feel like with this particular project, it’s much more fun to be subjective :D 

Random fact: The mention of AI was also a nod to the fact that in the original idea for the story, Blythe was going to be written as an AI from the beginning without really hiding anything, but I ended up scrapping that to go with something with a bit more mystery, hehe. I still wanted to reference it in some way though :3

Thank you again for checking out the game <3

That sucks :( Why can’t life just let us both feel good for a decent amount of time for once, haha. 

Honestly, I’m not even sure how to describe how I am at the moment >.< It’s like, I’m burned out in general, but still want to work on project stuff really badly. I think the problem is just evil depression trying to throttle me again :( I know people say you shouldn’t watch the news and stuff cos it can make you even worse when you’re in a bad place, but I keep seeing things or hearing things involuntarily and it’s just the state of the UK but also the world in general makes me want to give up. I just really don’t want to be here, but I feel like I don’t have a choice in the matter. 

I know it maybe sounds like a bit of a pathetic thing to say but why is it so hard just to exist? >.<

And then I feel guilty for feeling like I do cos I have good things and good people in my life! I wish that that could stop me from feeling so depressed but at the same time, I know that’s not how it works :( It just sucks though. I feel like I should be happy and it’s not like I’m incapable of feeling happiness, but it’s like no matter what happens, I am stuck with a stupid brain that would always rather not exist.

Not having save states is pretty bad >.< I know when I’ve taken part in competitive game jams, the judges have said that if a game doesn’t have the ability to save, they are automatically disqualifying it because it’s unacceptable in games with branching paths and choices to not be able to save x3

Yeah, and yet some people just vote blindly. I will never understand that. Just don’t vote at all if you’re not going to look up what a person or party stands for o.O

It’s kind of funny because the impression that the US seems to give off to the UK is that everything is great and the US is the best and most powerful country in the world x3 but then many people in the UK seem to think that the US is crazy, haha.

I have no idea what impression the UK gives off to other countries, but if anyone sees us as anything other than pathetic, they have been fed lies xD We’re a crappy little island with a failing economy where half or more of the population is in ill health. Homelessness is outrageously high for a supposedly developed country, and so is poverty. 

I think when it comes to medication, or at least with the thyroid stuff that you can get in the US but not here, it all comes down to money, like most things, sadly :( It’s a more expensive drug, so we don’t buy it. We buy the cheap one that’s only half as effective and tell people to take that and get on with life x3

Hurray for clean clothes! I love the feeling of stuff that’s fresh and clean, especially bedsheets and pyjamas x3 Now I need to do washing but can’t cos my brother has hogged the machine for the past week >.<

Unfortunately, if you did try to chase pervert guests or get them back in some way, even if you tried to explain it to your attraction manager, they wouldn’t care :( at least not where I was. They’d probably tell you off if anything for abandoning your post >.< We did have a code word we were supposed to shout if an incident like that happened with a guest, but the system was pointless cos half the time it was too loud for anyone to hear you shout, and aside from that, the guest would already be long gone by then! :( 

I honestly don’t know how they were able to keep workers there xD I was close to quitting myself, but I stuck it out for the parts of it that were fun, and for the friend I had made there cos I didn’t wanna leave her. Plus I knew it wasn’t for more than a month, so that helped! But yeah, it definitely wasn’t a job people did for the money, haha. Everyone there just did it for the love of scaring I think x3 And plenty of people did quit partway through! I don’t blame em at all.

I think they actually struggle to hire enough actors each year cos they advertise A LOT and always have vacancies even once the season has started, haha.

Yeah, it’s not nice to be forced to do anything really, but if it’s something you’re absolutely terrified of, it’s even worse >.< I mean, I can understand why people do it sometimes because, in the right situation, it can be good to face your fears because you can end up better off for it :3 But that’s not always the case, and with something like forcing people to go on rides or through scare attractions, it’s just mean >.< If a person doesn’t like stuff like that, they’re probably not gonna magically start enjoying it just cos they’ve been exposed to it more :( 

Ahh, that’s fair enough! For me, I will always pick being too cold over being too hot, haha. I hate both x3 it’s just I can tolerate being cold easier than hot I think. 

As for what the boss was thinking by not having a backup person for that room… I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing they were just being tight and trying to save money >.< They probably care more about the money they make than the experience that guests have, sadly. At least, that was the vibes I got from management. And I don’t mean like the lower management cos most of them were lovely and really seemed enthusiastic. I mean more like the higher management who rarely showed their faces around the place >.< And the guy right at the top definitely seemed like a total dick from the one time I met him x3 I don’t think he’s head of the company anymore though.

Actually, and this is probably gonna seem pretty weird, but I don’t like ASMR xD I find it extremely uncomfortable to listen to and it makes me want to smash things, haha. I know that probably sounds crazy considering I purposefully include ASMR-like elements in most of my projects x3 but I do that because I’m a big sound design nerd and I find implementing stuff like that a lot of fun! It’s interesting how different audio techniques can add tension and stuff to scenes, but when it comes to having to test out those moments myself… I hate it T_T haha.

Maybe it’s partly because I haven’t heard an asmr-tist (is that a word? I don’t know x3) that doesn’t make me cringe yet… like, everything I’ve tried to listen to in the past has been the sort of scenario I would expect to love, but then the dialogue has just been really bad >.< too cheesy or too much, or just not particularly natural? I don’t really know how to describe it but it’s always made me want to turn it off and never come back x3 I can tolerate it more if it’s in other languages, but if it’s bad dialogue in English, I can’t stand it.

I don’t think that’s the only thing though. I’ve never really liked people being close to my face or whispering to me in general, especially in my ears xD It gives me the kind of shivers that I’m sure are pleasant to many people, but to me, they’re horrible, haha. Like being tickled with audio x3 (I also hate being tickled xD)

Yeah, I’m not a fan of characters who want a prize instead of a lover x3 You can’t interact with them properly if they only see you as an object!

I guess Takaaki does get a little angry with MC at times, but he always ultimately blames himself or Sakae for it rather than actually blaming MC at least :3 And he never hurts MC in anger, more just kinda gives them lectures, haha. And the one time he really loses his shit, he’s more super upset than angry and sees it all as being his own fault because he didn’t do a good enough job of protecting MC from Sakae.

I do think Takaaki is fairly close to my personal preference of yandere too :3

I would love to visit Finland! I don’t even have a valid passport though, so I won’t be going anywhere T_T haha.

Holy moly, that sounds like torture only eating walnuts for 2 days o.O I think I would probably end up passing out if I tried something like that >.< Dieting does suck, which is why I’ve tried my best to compromise and sort of make it so that while I’m on a permanent diet in the sense that I constantly have to monitor my calorie intake and stuff, I’m not eating 100% healthy things all of the time or completely starving myself because if I did that, I’d just be completely miserable x3

I feel like it’s best to try and get a balance where you’re eating a mixture of healthy stuff purely because it’s good for you, healthy stuff that you eat cos you actually like it, and unhealthy stuff that you know is bad, but makes you happy cos it’s tasty and just make sure to have it in moderation, haha.

Like, we eat frozen pizza every Sunday! That’s not healthy, but we purposefully eat healthier meals Monday-Thursday to try and offset it, and we never have pizza more than once a week. Friday-Sunday we allow ourselves to have junk food (though I personally still have to keep an eye on the calories whereas my dad and brother just go wild x3)

And I even eat a bit of chocolate most days, but make sure to know exactly how much I’m having and never exceed 200kcal of chocolate in a single day. Usually try to keep it to more like 150kcal. I’d love to have more xD but the main thing is, by having a little bit and having it often, it means I don’t crave it, so I never lose control and binge on it. Cos if I were to cut it out, I would definitely end up getting bad cravings and end up binge-eating it eventually, and that would be bad, haha.

I’ve tried all kinds of diets in the past, and all of them were awful x3 One I tried had me eating only celery for lunch every day and I hated it so much T_T What I do now isn’t exactly perfect, but it’s better than following set diets from books or online at least.

Speaking of Nutrigrain bars, I used to have that sort of thing as my breakfast, haha. Now my breakfast is usually a small pot of yoghurt + a protein bar since I lack protein in my diet :3 And even though it’s not the world’s healthiest breakfast, it’s always under 300kcal and I actually like the taste of it, so it works for me!

I did try diet shakes and stuff in the past, but I really hate having liquid as a meal, haha. It always feels like I haven’t had anything if I haven’t chewed it somehow >.< Lunch is always hard cos again, I try to have no more than 300kcal for lunch same as with breakfast, so I have something like a healthy soup and then add flax seeds + veggies! Not very exciting, but then lunch is the most boring meal of the day anyways imo x3 

My evening meal is probably the only ‘proper’ meal I eat each day which will be more like 500-800kcal!

And I never snack between meals. Always just breakfast, lunch, dinner, then a tiny amount of chocolate + a coffee sometime after dinner, haha.

Oh, boy, cleaning up pee just shouldn’t be your job >.< I remember I went into an accessible toilet once after 2 kids from the same family had just been in there and there was pee EVERYWHERE! It took me a good 10 minutes to clean up after them before I could even use the toilet myself because it was all over the floor, toilet, and walls somehow o.O It’s kind of a good job I went in there after them because if someone who was physically disabled needed to use it, they would have struggled to clean it all up.

The problem is, it was the only toilet that the cafe had, so everyone was going in there. Why on earth they didn’t invest in at least a separate unisex toilet to keep the accessible one for people who need it I do not know >.<

And the dog jumping on the table too o.O Jeez. They really need to train the dog >.< That’s insane trying to live with a pet that has no house training. Surely that must stress everyone out! 

I love green tea :3 But put cinnamon in any tea and I’m sold xD Lemon and ginger I’m actually not so much a fan of! The ginger part, yes, the lemon part, no x3 I once went to a tea house with my friend and her boyfriend, and we ordered a tiramisu-flavoured tea. They brought some honey + a lemon wedge to squeeze, and I put my lemon wedge in the bin right away. My friend’s boyfriend looked at me with a pretend scowl and said “How dare you!” xD

Lemon is a weird flavour for me in general! I like lemon cheesecake, and I like lemongrass in stuff like a thai curry (didn’t used to, couldn’t stand it years ago but love it now x3), but just lemon in tea or lemon zest or juice in dressings or added in cooking I find horrible, haha.

Yeah, I do find some herbal blends can help my stomach! Ginger and turmeric tea seems to work really well if I have bloating x3 

I definitely think most teas are relaxing :3 Coffee used to wake me up a long time ago, now it’s like I’m immune to it x3 I think I probably have a caffeine addiction tbh cos if I don’t have a coffee in the morning I feel kinda weird >.< I really like the taste of strong coffee though, so it’s too hard to give it up!

Tbh I still don’t know what the answer to avoiding or recovering from burnout is >.< I’ve been working on stuff slowly because I feel like I want to and I know I would be extra depressed if I didn’t, but at the same time, slowing down doesn’t feel like it’s helping with burn out at all :( Like I’m resting but I don’t feel rested kinda thing, if that makes any sense!

I have a bad feeling I’m just gonna keep feeling worse as the weather gets warmer and warmer because every year, I have a huge slump during the summer where it feels like I can’t do anything at all >.< Maybe this year will be different, but I doubt it.

I bought some cheap herbs to look after cos doing gardening stuff sometimes takes my mind off of things when I can’t physically go out for walks. So now I have some baby herbs to try and keep alive x3

But yeah, I dunno. I still feel really overwhelmed with everything >.< It just feels like it’s impossible to ever catch up on the stuff I’m behind on, and even if I could, I’d never manage to stay on top of it. I guess all you can do is take things day by day.

Aromatherapy does help a bit! And I have this thing called an acupuncture massage ring that I can roll up and down my fingers which helps a tiny bit as well. Sometimes taking a concentrated passionflower tablet can help before going to do something that’s really upping my anxiety, but not always. It’s like there’s too much anxiety there for even an entire toolkit to counter cos if I try to go places on my own, I feel like I need to get back inside as quickly as possible >.< The biggest help is having someone actually with me to go out, but of course, that;s no help in social situations because people can’t speak for me :( 

It really does sound like hell though for you to have to live with people who are not only not supportive in any way, but actively make your life worse :( I wish you didn’t have to live like that. It reminds me a bit of when I used to live with abusive people, and it always felt like I needed to escape but there was no way out. 

You have every right to complain though even if you did decide to live with them because it sounds like they’re contributing a lot to making your life miserable when they could be doing things to help instead :( It’s not nice to have to fall back on family or friends only to find that they make your life hell >.<

I’ve heard a lot of Unity devs are switching to Godot! I probably would too if I had the willpower to learn how to use a different engine, but since Nani only works with Unity as far as I know, I think it would be too difficult and time-consuming for me to switch :( I can imagine I would be the same as you and get quickly overwhelmed! Once I’m stuck in my ways with something I’ve learned how to use, I really struggle to change to something else even if it’s for the better in the long run!

You don’t need to make me anything anyhow, you silly sausage x3 You already do so much just by chatting with me!

Hehe, yeah x3 I will never say no to chocolate gifts! I bought some used trousers for £1 online recently, and the seller sent 2 little chocolate eggs in the package with the trousers and that pretty much made my day, haha. I thought it was super sweet, but my brother said the person was probably trying to poison people o.o I ate them anyways and I didn’t die yet xD

I don’t even know where most of April has gone tbh >.< Can’t believe it’s almost May already! And now I am being harassed again by the gov about my PIP claim, which just pretty much destroyed me the past few days. They’re repeatedly trying to phone me even though I’ve requested contact in writing cos of my anxiety and not being able to process auditory information properly. It even says that on my voicemail if anyone tries to call me! But aside from that, they have that info from me in writing. I don’t understand why they are so set on making calls :( I know it’s not a big deal for many people to just pick up the phone, but for me, it feels the same as if someone broke into my house >.< 

They didn’t even bother to say what it is they actually want or need to speak to me about, just that they will keep calling. I wish they would just leave me alone.

Anyways, I hope that you at least get to have a good last few days of April!!

Actually, I have a project with a much more submissive yandere LI, but I don’t know if it would be your cup of tea because MC is also quite submissive too >.< It’s this one here.

But yeah, I know what you mean! I personally used to hate submissive yanderes, but they’ve grown on me over the years :D Almost to the point that I prefer them, but only if they aren’t complete pushovers and retain the ability to be manipulative x3

All but one of my projects features at least one yandere LI, but admittedly, most of them fall on the more dominant side due to my personal preferences, haha.

When Darling Duality is eventually finished, there will be a lot more in the way of choices that shape both the personality of the player character & the LIs :3 It’s just a long way off of completion T_T

Glad to hear that you still enjoyed playing the demo even if it wasn’t an exact fit for your tastes :3 The good news though is that in the finished version of the game, there technically will be the option to play with a submissive version of Castor :D It’s just you will kind of have to tame him first x3

Other characters will start out more submissive than Castor/ia though! 

I guess it probably doesn’t come across much in the demo, but if you go down the start of the sweet path rather than the sinister one, you can just about see how Castor/ia could end up becoming more submissive based on your choices. It’s just there’s a looooot that isn’t implemented yet as the game is still in the very early stages of development, and sadly, the demo doesn’t do the greatest job of accurately representing my vision for the finished project >.< haha.

Thanks so much for playing and taking the time to comment! ^-^

The good news is, it absolutely is still in development :3

The bad news is, it’s not actively in development because I’m trying to finish a different big project that I started before this one x3 

After I released my first ever game which took me like 3 years or something to make cos it was quite a long one, I started something else almost right away (CiQ) but that’s been on hold for far too long while I’ve worked on other things >.<

Once CiQ is finished, Darling Duality will become my next priority long-term project to work on though :3

I don’t anticipate being able to work on Darling Duality at any point in the remainder of this year though because my schedule for 2024 is already packed. It looks something like this: 

• Completing a brand new short-ish game (probably around 40-50k words) for a game jam that’s running this year (most likely it will be part 01 release for the jam around 1st July with part 02 coming probably later in the year)

• Working towards finishing CiQ since I started it long before beginning DD (writing for CiQ was finished years ago, but the game never got past the demo stage for a whole bunch of reasons >.< and all the art and stuff is now getting a complete overhaul) I had hoped to possibly release CiQ by the end of this year, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, so I might have to push it back to like summer 2025 or something!

So yeah, I’m not likely to have the chance to work on Darling Duality until possibly Autumn 2025 maybe >.< Which is a long way off, and then development to completion will probably take another 1-3 years T_T It’s really hard to tell tbh cos I never know what crap life is gonna throw at me that slows down progress, haha.

The main thing though is that it will be finished eventually one day :3 

I’ve created this problem by being too enthusiastic and making more than 1 long-term project at once xD I’ve finished plenty of projects at this point, but tackling the longer ones is harder with how much time they eat up >.<

I’ve learned my lesson though and won’t be starting any more long-term projects until CiQ and DD are completed :3 And I’m cutting down how many game jams I participate in too so that I can spend more time focusing on long-term stuff, haha.

Sorry for the giant ramble anyhow xD Hope you’re having an awesome April :3

And ahh, that’s actually an intentional thing as you suspected :3 Basically, the LIs all get to use the standard hearts UI stuff for the text box and mini-menu, and then MC has 2 versions of a different UI for text and mini-menu. One with more colour for dialogue, and as you say, one that’s more faded for thoughts/anything non-dialogue.

Sadly, it doesn’t look very aesthetically pleasing in this particular project >.< I could do with finding something better for MC tbh! But I do it in many of my projects specifically to distinguish MC’s dialogue from MC’s thoughts because I don’t like using speech marks punctuation in VNs x3 To me, it looks horrible on-screen and annoys me, haha. So I try to show the difference between speaking and thinking with a slight (or more obvious in other projects) change in the UI appearance instead :3

Like I said, I don’t think it looks that great here >.< But in stuff like Tunnel Vision, it works a lot better (and every character has their own unique text box UI to further distinguish who’s speaking :3)

I’m kind of a fan of adaptive UI in general, so the more I learn as I make new projects, the more I try to implement stuff like that :D But yeah, it just looks a bit naff in this one, haha. I think I need to give the UI in this more love in general at some point x3

Ahh, man, that sucks so much x3 Thank you for pointing it out though! And thank you as well for checking out the project <3

I’ll make a note of it so I can fix it the next time I update the game (probably for the next volume I guess!)

I know why that’s happened, haha. Basically, when I updated the project files to the latest version of Naninovel so I could work on volume 02, so much had changed that it broke every single voice line in volume 01 xD

My choice was to either change the code and put the sprite expression changes in different places within the lines of dialogue OR chop up all of the voice lines into little segments so that they played correctly again in time with the expression changes.

I chose to cut up the voice audio cos it seemed like the faster option + allowed for more control of where to change the sprite’s expressions, and I thought I had managed to successfully catch everything and get it working perfectly again, but I guess not T_T haha.

At least you only found 1 wrong line though I guess! I swear it’s just impossible to catch everything testing by myself >.<

But yeah, I really appreciate you letting me know cos I can’t fix stuff if I don’t know it’s broken :D 

Anyways, so glad you’ve had fun with the game :3 If I had the time, I would love to make fandub VNs of soooo many Japanese drama CD series xD Heck, I’d even take requests as long as suggestions were of content I would personally also be interested in and available for me to purchase somehow!

But if I did that, I’d never have time for any of my original projects >.< There’s never enough time in the world to do all the things, haha.

Plus I’m reliant on my friend or other fans to translate because I only know extremely basic Japanese myself! I definitely couldn’t make an accurate translation on my own. I only need a rough translation to go off of in order to make an English localisation though :3

Thanks for playing and taking the time to flag this up!

And no worries, haha. I’m not very good at making it easy to find my stuff x3 I should probably put a link on the main game page or something!

I had a lot of fun making the music :D I’m hoping to make an OST with similar vibes for a different game jam project this year :3

Hi hi! You don’t need to apologise :3 Your English is far better than my Spanish because I have never been taught any Spanish at all T_T When I was at school, we only had 1 option for learning a foreign language (French) and the teacher didn’t turn up most of the time! x3

I have tried to learn other languages using apps, but I never seem to get very far until it makes you pay to keep going, and then I have to stop >.<

Anyways, I’m so glad you had fun with the game :D It was a bit experimental since the jam was such a short one with many limitations, but that was part of the fun :3

It makes me really happy that you enjoyed the OST too :3

Thanks so much for playing and for leaving such a lovely comment!

I should probably have put this on the FAQ x3 I’ll try to update it with this answer when I get a chance, haha.

The TLDR answer is: I hope so! But it won’t be any time soon, sadly >.<

The longer answer is, I would honestly love to release Android versions of all of my projects :3 The problem is, the couple of times that I tested it on small projects, the builds succeeded, but they didn’t run >.< I just got a blank screen in the test environment :( 

I have literally no idea what I did wrong cos I followed all the steps of a guide multiple times, but I still haven’t been able to get any Android builds to work. What doesn’t help is that my PC is pretty old and can’t really handle the load of Android Studio + Unity >.< But more than that, I’m just not a very techy person, so I think I might need help from another dev who has more idea how to do that sort of thing, haha. Cos I would also love to get my games on Switch, and my brother keeps saying I should try to have some on Xbox too, but I can’t get anything other than PC builds to work T_T

For this particular project, there will be even more problems because the final version of it will be pretty big, and I’m guessing I will have to tweak A LOT of things with the UI and stuff to get it to display decently on a phone >.< And this project itself is nowhere near completion for PC release and probably won’t be for at least another couple of years cos I’ve got other projects that are a priority to finish before this one :( 

But yeah, I do hope to in the future! :3

So glad you enjoyed it :D And that’s so cool that you found this after checking out The Graveyard Shift! That’s one of the least played of all my projects, so it’s a big surprise to hear you came across that one first x3

I’m glad you decided to play it though and check out some of my other stuff too ^-^ As you can probably tell, I ended up getting kind of obsessed with making VNs, haha.

Thanks for all your kind words <3

Thank you for playing ^-^ 

Everything that happens is the same as what happens in the Japanese version :D Aside from 1 or 2 extra dialogue lines here and there to help scenes make more sense in English :3

I’m not sure I understand what you mean >.< The protagonist/MC of this game doesn’t have a gender, they are never seen on-screen, and the player can select pronouns from either he/him, she/her, or they/them :D

So you are playing as whatever you imagine you are playing as, and you can romance guys or girls no matter what pronouns you pick ^-^

Hehe x3

So glad you ended up liking the new volume! ^-^ Thanks for always being so sweet <3 It really means a lot :3

Well, that’s fine cos I still love you platonically too :D You’re such a sweetheart! Haha, well, ya never know as far as step-siblings are concerned x3 I can’t even trace most of my family tree! 

Tomomi’s eyes are just amazing x3 as soon as I saw the sprite I was like, uhm, YES! Usually, I wouldn’t have any strong feelings when it comes to fem sprites, but somehow the volume 02 girls are indeed ridiculously hot, haha. Both of em definitely have better facial expressions than the guys this time! It took me sooooo long to finally settle on which ones to use though >.<

Hope you are having an awesome April so far :3

That’s so nice to hear! I’m really glad you’ve been having fun with it so far :3

But man, that’s annoying that that happened with the blurriness cos I thought I had finally managed to fix that from happening, haha.

Basically, it seems to happen if the text is being clicked through fast and the game doesn’t have a chance to despawn the blur effect, BUT, it technically shouldn’t happen because the code tells the game not to proceed until the blur has been despawned >.< Like, it shouldn’t physically allow a player to continue until the blur is completely gone x3 

It happened in a few different places, and when I was testing, it seemed like it was finally fixed, but I guess not T_T I don’t really know what else I can do to make it stop >.< 

Thankfully, it should be fixable in-game by either loading up a different save, starting a new game, or restarting the game itself!

Still, it sucks that it happens at all because it’s not supposed to x3 I am not a proper coder, so when I’ve written code that says the blur should be gone, I don’t understand why it doesn’t get rid of it 100% of the time T_T haha.

Anyways, I’m glad you still had fun despite that x3 Hope you enjoy the other characters if you end up playing with them too :D

Thanks so much for playing ^-^

You’re so sweet ^-^ Thank you for all your kind words :3

That seems to be the curse of the internet, haha. Anything you upload will be judged, and there is always someone out there waiting to hate on your projects x3 I’m just glad that there are plenty of nice people out there as well to help cancel out negativity :D 

Tbh, itch doesn’t really help devs on that side of things because they allow anyone with an account to leave bad ratings on games even if they haven’t played them >.<

I’m glad you had fun with it though at least :3 

I always try to reply to everything if I can cos I really appreciate it when anyone takes the time to say something nice <3 People keep telling me I should stop replying to stuff cos it takes too much time, but I feel like I physically can’t stop xD It would just feel wrong to only read stuff and not reply at all >.<

Hope you are having a happy month so far :3

Aww, I hope your friend ends up having fun then :D That would be awful if it turned out they just hated everything xD

I’m glad you’ve been enjoying this one so far though :3 It means a lot! 

Glad you like the VA too ^-^ That’ll always be one of my favourite parts about making games, haha. To me, it never feels right until the VA is in there and you can actually hear the characters talking x3

Thank you again for being so sweet! I hope you’ve been having a happy month so far :3

I would give you a high five for autism but I’m still struggling to accept it as something to celebrate, haha. It feels more like a curse to me T_T

Hehe, long hair is pretty x3 Ukyo from Amnesia was one of my first VN loves, haha. 

Thank you again for playing & for your kind words ^-^