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(1 edit) (+2)

The most outstanding issue is probably the writing being in need of another proofreading pass and, in general, not feeling like a perfectly natural fit for the medium. Besides all the missing periods, basically every textbox is exactly one sentence long, which makes the pacing feel relentless – you really want to use longer and shorter lines as appropriate to set a rhythm just as books would use paragraphs of varying length. I appreciate the custom touches in the UI, but coloring dialogue differently for each character instead of using name labels is a pretty annoying choice that also hurts accessibility.

As for the story itself... I can't say I had a bad time on the whole, but I think the soap operatic antics and all the wild twists left me more baffled than emotionally engaged. Both endings feature over-the-top plot beats that it would be hard to buy into regardless but that especially suffer from lack of setup in the form of subtle characterization to emotionally ground the characters. Being a bit coy about the extent of the protagonist's obsession and true intentions makes for a shocking surprise, but it also means that the reader gets very little time to settle into what's actually going on by the time it becomes relevant. Also, I feel like a lot of the dialogue in particular betrays the author being quite young, which harms the believability of a story about aging and living with grief – in contrast, though, the instant messages do come off as realistic.

The art feels like the game's strongest suit: the sketchy style is good to look at and conveys a distance that makes the story a bit easier to read as purposefully exaggerated, and I like that there's a consistent color scheme across the sprites and the photo backgrounds. Strong cyans and reds are used in a thoughtful way, too. Congrats for releasing your first VN!

TYSM for the review (sorry if I'm late)!!!I agree about the writing needing a lot of work and I genuinely haven't thought about the accessibility I'll be sure to fix that. I'm glad you enjoyed the art!

Sorry If I ask this this late and if you don't remember I don't want you to reread through my story but could you elaborate on what hurts the believability of the story being about aging and living with grief? Is it something more subtle or is it big? I'm genuinely curious and I'm planning to rewrite the VN so I wouldn't want to do the same mistake twice.

Once again thank you for reading my first VN!

(+1)

Hey! By that I was mostly referring to how the characters, Henry especially, talk about some things in a way that makes it feel like they don't have a lot of life experience (the conversation about hobbies, for example). There are big and small things in the voices as well – some word choices, like how often he says "stuff", and some individual lines that don't feel like the most prototypical old man talk to me. More subtly, I think there's a disconnect with how Henry's emotional state is depicted: he's prone to outbursts and yelling, obviously not respecting Nick's authority in this situation, but simultaneously timid and apologetic, using the word "sorry" a lot ("Sorry but how will tea help my son's case?"). On the whole, this behavior reads as somewhat youthful to me. I would guess you were trying to set up some of the wild drama that takes place later, but I think there's still room to make the characters come off as older and more experienced in line with what's said about them.

OOO I think I get it now, thank you so much!