itch.io

A huge huge favourite of mine from the Spooktober 2022 VN jam. A heartfelt, supernatural tale of tragedy set in Hong Kong across two time periods, with plenty of local folklore, painful callbacks to real history, and an immersive experience all around.

Genuinely in awe of how good this VN is. It's bar none the most crushing story I've ever read in an indie VN (I think only _Sweetest Monster_ and its sequel _Sweetest Monster Refrain_ could compare in any way), and it's handled with such care & psychological nuance it floors me. I just love everything about it —from the intimate presentation, the literary references, the feeling of inevitable escalation (that was, in fact, absolutely evitable). 

If you can handle its themes, please do try it, I promise you won't regret it!

See my Steam review for more details, but the second act of Because We're Here follows up brilliantly on all the threads sketched in act I. It's often bitterly funny, tragic all the way, and has fantastic worldbuilding and politics. Highly recommended to fans of historical settings!

A slow, atmospheric writing style, hints of horror, urbex themes, the end of summertime, a cute yuri romance, a soundtrack inspired by The Cure… What else is there to ask? One of my favourite ebi-hime VNs!

Surreal, sadly relatable/familiar; a kind of emotional headshot, through very indirect means.

Please heed the content warnings before playing this one.

It is extremely worth the read if you can stomach it! It has links with both Sweetest Monster and Lily of the Valley, and sort of serves as a conclusion to both, which makes for a very engaging albeit dark trilogy. The subject matter is obviously very very grim but it's all treated with such care and psychological depth that I found myself really engaged with it.

Like with Lily, it's not an uplifting story per se, but by the end, I still felt somehow, satisfied to have seen it through the end?

I recommend reading the author's notes at the end as well, they're a perfect send-off!

Still one of my favourite EVNs ever! It features gender-bent Romantic poets in the present day, in sapphic relationships. It is very melancholic, has mellow, unresolved angst—it's really great and aesthetically perfect.

I read through this and kitten milk replacer almost back to back and I think it broke me a bit. It was really intimate, atmospheric and immersive. Some of Sara’s (and Alex’s) compulsions ring far too familiar to be comfortable. I think I'm sadly the same kind of girl as she is at the core.

Thank you, I’ll be thinking about this story a lot.

Soundless is still my fav horror EVN. It's a love letter to denpa eroge, complete with a 640x480 window resolution, photographic backgrounds, and disquieting sound effects.

It has very unsettling religious horror, great sound design, and a very moving storyline altogether, RIP my heart. Please read it if you enjoy horror!

SHINRAI had me completely hooked for a few days, and I immensely enjoyed it!

It has a well-rounded mystery with a large cast of equally fleshed out characters. The investigative gameplay is fun, and so is the setting.

Above all, it's evident that much love has been poured into the story. It can get very sad at times, though to me, it also felt… very nostalgic? Perhaps it is because of the Halloween setting —of which I'm always fond— or of the OST. I couldn't say for sure, but SHINRAI was a very genuine, fresh mystery, with lots of angst and warm and fuzzy feelings at the same time! I hope more people try it out!

I can't resist anything Wonderland- and horror-themed. This was a really fun read!

This is such an incredible VN. It is far, far too prescient about our current tech dystopia.  

 It'll pull at your heartstrings if you've loved computers as toys for a long time but been surprised by the iron grip they got onto our lives nowadays.

It has phenomenal voice acting, handles explicit political themes in a contemporary setting way I rarely see, and it's such a gem all around.

A short & super effective RPG Maker/visual novel horror game! The premise is really fun, the OST is super good, the house is so interesting to explore, and Magnolia is a fascinating main character!

I think this is one of the moving time loops I've ever seen in VNs altogether.

This is such a beautiful fairy-tale horror story (one of my favourite subgenres), and it's aesthetically so cohesive, from the design of the time loop across multiple playthroughs, to the OST, to the actual story to be pieced together.

The most special, dreamlike, travel diary x mystery x yuri x slice-of-life VN. It can be confusing, I recommend not binging through it past the prologue, and just going with the flow, taking in scenes as they come.

I love aquariums so much. The presentation here is so special, the (very slight!) horror effective and the writing lovely. It's just so very endearing!

Probably the scariest 2022 Spooktober VN jam entry I've played, it felt like a visual-novelization of a Ju-On movie.

If you like VNs played through fictional social media/computer interfaces (Digital: A Love Story, Analogue: A Hate Story, Emily is Away, Blooming Panic, A Normal Lost Phone…), don't miss this one! It is really scary, feels very nostalgic, and plays beautifully off 2000s teenage loneliness and urban legends!

My favourite horror Twine game, actually my favourite Twine game altogether, and a huge creative inspiration as well. Really glad to see it on itch.io, please give it a try!

I really liked this take on the "bartender simulator" subgenre of visual novels. The voice acting really makes it come alive, and the concept just works so, so well. The pandemic subtext and the influences which got into it (Kore-Eda's excellent After Life) are really interesting to read about!

Lucky Me, Lucky You is among my favourite smaller VNs by ebi-hime, if not among my favourite EVNs altogether! 

It's a “story without a point” to some extent, yet it's not pure slice-of-life either.

In short, LMLY is a story of urban everyday life, loneliness, and disappointment. With its focus on a meaningless situations, it's often bleak, but is still absolutely imbued with a lot of care and humour. Its eccentric main characters differ from the usual ebi-hime protagonists in a lot of ways, but are just as iconic and adorable. I found the presentation very fitting too: the minimalist photographic backgrounds in black & white put against colourful character sprites, the choice of lowkey relaxing electronic music… It all made for a very memorable experience. 

I highly recommend this VN if you're looking for a short, somewhat bleak but also very endearing story about living in a big, uncaring world, and still finding joy in it!

Maybe the shortest meta-textual VN I ever read, with a really unique atmosphere and fun literary tidbits here and there!

A very beautiful Gothic horror VN! It's directly adapted from Le Fanu's Carmilla, which I had never read. The original text has been largely preserved, but the VN has a really beautiful presentation, and provides contextual notes on the themes and history of Gothic novels. Highly recommended, whether you read the original story or not!

Another favourite horror Twine of mine.

I hope the sound effects aren't broken on itch.io, last time I reread they didn't seem to work, and yet they did so much for this work!

A very interesting rendition of a fairy tale. It's short and very expressive, there's a certain truth underneath that it conveys in a really beautiful and moving way.

Go read it if you haven't yet! It's unbelievably cute and relatable! Also extremely funny! (Noelle's my absolute fav.)

If you haven't read Cupid yet, you should absolutely do so! It is a Gothic historical VN. Yup, exactly as advertised, there's a mystery, a manor, blood, and of course romance. It's beautiful.