Fiction Factory Games is a studio that established themselves with their two Arcade Spirits Visual Novel Adventure games. They have a penchant for witty, reference-laden dialogue and narratives that criticize societal flaws like gig economies, a reliance on social media and living paycheck to paycheck. In Penny Larceny, the conceit of the world is that there are superheroes and supervillains, but fundamentally everyone is still subservient to finding a way to pay for their life problems. (Medical bills, rent, problems induced by superpowers...) There's even a not-Twitch streamer superhero who is every bit as obnoxious as you'd expect. The world is fleshed out, fantastic, and yet all too real.

The game uses Ren'py to great effect to tell you the story of the titular Penny Larceny, a burglar and thief who is trying to get by in a four-color superhero world. Her assets are her cyber cat Gibson and you, the player. With multiple routes and three supervillains you can form a romance or platonic friendship with, there's a lot of really charming and fun content to read.

The art design is effective, using different profile pictures and poking fun at the need for reused backgrounds. The music is fantastic, with the credits song being a very catchy electroswing piece. If nothing else, the music itself is worth listening to.

As the game has multiple routes, it does expect the player to go through it several times. Thankfully, Ren'py does have the ever useful Fast-forward feature, and while it is fun to see how different heists go under different supervillains, individual runs thankfully do not take very long to read the different text. (And the game even offers to let you completely skip heists you've already completed at no penalty, so the game very clearly respects its players' time.)

There are references to Arcade Spirits, which was a delightful touch for me, as I am a fan of their other games. I feel that Fiction Factory is not shying away from letting their stories be linked, but still independent narratives. They don't even take place in the same universe, and yet there's a familiarity you'll have if you've played Arcade Spirits.

Overall, this is a really fun experience that lets you feel for the cast and tie in a fantastic world with all too real real-world concerns. The game does not shy away from being as queer as possible, with your lead being femme but having whatever pronouns and gender the player would like, and your romantic options being male, female and non-binary. If you enjoy Visual Novels, timeline goofiness, and a scathing criticism of capitalist society through the lens of a queer supervillain, you can get a very engaging 8 or so hours from Penny Larceny. I really enjoy Fiction Factory's games and hope they have future successes, because they have a fantastic feel for making characters loveable. (or fun to hate) I'm looking forward to their next title, having thoroughly enjoyed Penny Larceny.