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i must tell you. yesterday i had a little too much caffeine, and it made me stay up a little bit at night, and someone had just streamed parfum and i had watched it, so i was feeling very anxious and critical of my own work. just like, “oh my god, i spent so much time on this thing, what if everyone notices all the tiny flaws i notice in it?” this is a pretty normal thing that artists/ solo devs/ general creatives go through, but it was my first time feeling like this in a while, because i am normally much kinder to myself than that, and it scared me!

but then i woke up to this comment and ohhhhhhh my god. thank you!! i was able to let out such a deep breath. it was like “you stupid idiot, people love this thing!!!”

parfum nostalgique has thankfully gotten a lot of compliments, but i rarely get people who actually take the time to tell me specific parts they like. when you make a project all by yourself (for the most part! couldn’t have done this without my wonderful voice actors) and you have to look at every little part of it for entirely too long, the whole thing starts to feel like it’s boring, and you just gotta kinda tell yourself “okay, i’m gonna trust that it’s just gonna be good to everyone else,” and forge ahead. so thank you!!!!!! most creators usually get a “this game is really pretty” or a “that was really good” or something, and while that rocks, god it means so much when someone expresses that they like the specific small things. now whenever i come across the parts you liked, i know i will smile and be like “:) someone really liked that part.”

also, whenever anyone really notices donna i’m like YESSSSS! because she sincerely has become so dear to me. writing her character was like wrestling a gator sometimes because i didn’t want to write someone who was straight up just always wrong or evil all the time. i wanted to write like… someone’s weird messed up mom who genuinely believes she’s correct and has conviction about it. i also wanted her to make val look a little bad. val was looking a little too hot after act 1, and i needed to remind everyone that he’s just an old divorcee. an old man eatin’ tiramisu from a can. ALSO also, i’m glad you could see relevance to themes in your life in this thing. i hear this a lot from people and it’s my favorite thing. i know when something connects with me on that level, i’m more likely to enjoy it and see it through to the end, so i tried to make a game like that. it’s great when something’s just a cool story, but i wanted conversations between characters to feel like conversations i’d had with people/ conversations that have been had…somewhere! before! it’s something i’m glad i was able to execute.

while parfum tends to be different from a lot of visual novels, i hope it encourages you to check out other ones, because oh my god. there is so much love in these things. they’re not very profitable but take a ton of work and skill to make, which means a lot of people making them are doing it just because they sincerely love the craft. absolutely lovely crowd of people. there’s such a huge range of visual novels to play that i don’t even seek them out, i just end up playing them because i stumble upon them just from how cool they look. i hope you enjoy many more!

anyway, thank you for taking the time to leave this lovely comment, i’m so glad you loved it and i will remember it whenever i need a boost :) may you be reincarnated as a lotus flower or some other peaceful creature that dwells in a place where the stars are especially beautiful at night.