I went into "3 Days to Live" with an expectation of what I lived myself for a few years.
Go to a furry con, meet all your friends there and then be miserable back at home. Well, that's an abridged form of what I expected at least.
It delivers a lot.
From the wonderfully drawn sprites, huge artworks and customized UI as well as music the production value of the entire thing is insane. Fun character designs that could at least be a little more colorful to really show the design disparity of Furry characters (we only got the real rainbow huskies as descriptions, most other character designs are very grounded).
The writing style is nice enough, it fits a guy's casual inner monologue but it felt a little lacking, espescially when the roommate only communicated in memes (who just kinda, disappeared I suppose?)
Which brings me to my critiques.
Again, I enjoy the idea, most of us are, at the end of the day, single daydreaming cartoon animals and I REALLY liked the stylistic "I see everyone as their fursona" part of the story, and while that is a fun narrative aspect I think it takes away from furry cons their true diversity. I love seeing people from all backgrounds gather in one place and just let loose for a week .(European furry cons usually last from Wednesday to Sunday, with a longer stay into Monday for most and an early arrival at tuesday, so this aspect of an anime-con length furry con was already alienating to me).
Which also leads me to something else that slightly bothers me, the extreme America centrism of the work. I feel like scraping some of the overtly preachy Hammer dialogue for the sake of maybe some talks with characters from different countries and their experiences of Furry cons would have been fun. I get that 3 Days to Live tried to minimize new character art and designs and keep it at a certain amount of encounters, but despite it advertising a fun time at a furry con, it felt like it delivered "experiences with strangers that share the same space as me". Hell, Hammer's encounter didn't even play at the con?
I get that the Pulse shooting was a horrendous event that needs to remembered but was that really worth taking so much space in a VN that advertised itself with being about Furry con experiences? Further, it felt like preaching to the choir. The majority of readers are probably also horribly online (guilty) and know that these events happened and need to be remembered, it just felt like a video essay virtue signaling at me on things I am already aware of.
This ALSO cut into the final encounter(s)? The friend-breakup went incredibly quick and the fantasy with the horse felt like a cop-out to just have one more extremely short lived CG. I feel like actually seeing a human Swift at the end fading into his Fursona as he finds a chance with new people might have been a better choice. Which also brings to me the part where the other roommate just faded into the aether I suppose. No emotional help with the roommate situation, not a single peep about their feelings in the whole debacle, plus hows the payment gonna happen if there's tension in the friend group. Weird stuff that's not gotten adressed in the slightest despite things like expensive con food, bottom diet etc. at least being aknowledged.
As a finishing thought, the VN made me feel things, I felt like I was in Swift's shoes before, obviously and people with enough empathy might see themselves there as well.
But that's kinda it. It felt like a cliffnotes version of a Furry con, it felt like a bunch of statements instead of an exploration.
Its a fun idea, perhaps inhibited by ambition, a desire to REALLY stand out, Is that necessary? I feel like simpler CGs and sprites could have easily made way for a more satisfying closing act before the epilogue.
Two extra points I didn't know where to fit in:
The borderless textboxes in the CGs don't feel good, I get they exist for the sake of giving a view ON the CGs but they are hard to read. Just encourage looking at them in the Gallery next time.
Second: Swift was very nicely animated but him just kinda hovering in the bottom left corner really didn't give a good eye on dimensions? He's into bigger guys but in the CGs he looked plenty big already. He should have just had a sprite on screen.
Third: The titular novembuck had like, maybe 3 scenes they appeared in, bit of a shame.
Fourth and this one is really just my own little annoyed pet peeve: Did we really have to squeeze AMICUS MENTIONED POINTING WOJACK FACE in here? It felt too forced.