Hey, thanks for reading! I appreciate it! Great review as well!
My art is fairly simple, but the nice thing is that it’s readable and understandable to look at.
I’ve done other visuals in black-and-white art, too. The cool thing about this VN in particular is that the characters’ clothing changes from scene to scene, which is something I haven’t done much before in my previous works. I’m really proud about that.
Although the art is original and has been created specifically for this VN, the music isn’t entirely unique to this visual novel either. The music I’ve made in GarageBand, and due to this being a game jam with a limited amount of time by the time I participated in the jam, I decided to reuse and recycle former musical pieces I’ve created for other visual novels I’ve made in the past. They may not mesh well together, but they convey the tone I was trying to go for in each scene.
As for the story as a whole, it’s meant to be bittersweet: bitter in the loss of connection but sweet in the finding of oneself. I tried to make for a sad but uplifting ending.
Furthermore, Vara doesn’t hate Leah. Rather, she hates her bigotry. Ironically, she put up with her friend’s attitude for so long, normalizing that kind of homophobia in their relationship. Yet, the second her parents vocalized their disapproval of her identity, that’s when her whole world and deepest love shattered.
It reinforces her fear of abandonment. Although she’s used to it, even choosing to be alone to protect herself from the hostility of others, that doesn’t make it any less painful when the ones she cares about pulls away from her when she needs them the most.
Thus, it’s a story about self-discovery and confronting one’s fears and learning to be true to oneself.
My only criticism is that the softer side in the relationship between Vara and Leah wasn’t shown, which can make Vara’s decision to become closer to Leah come across out of character or out of the blue.
Yet, Vara smiled at Leah when she saw her, and Vara never pushed her away. Not when she hugged her or got on her nerves.
Sure, she may have removed herself from the situation when she became too fed up with her, but she never ended the friendship or told her to leave.
So, that can suggest her care for Leah, despite all of the toxic flaws in their relationship. After all, this was made for the toxic yuri game jam. With that in mind, I think I accomplished the theme I was trying to present.
In the end, it’s a story about how different kinds of loves can go wrong and sour in many different ways from the toxic views and attitudes we hold inside of us all that shape how we treat others and even ourselves.