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(1 edit) (+1)

I'm glad that my answers made sense! Cos I know I tend to ramble on a lot x3 haha. 




SPOILERS



What you said about S**** screaming for MC before she was cloned is pretty spot on :D I mean, I didn't state it for certain in the game, so it's open to interpretation. It could be as you said, or it could just be that it's not technically S****, more like just part of the MC's subconscious memory fragments of him. Like her own memory telling her, you've forgotten something/someone important and you need to remember what it is. I don't mind it being either of those :3

As for why Kuro is called Kuro, you're pretty much right again with one of the things you said :3 Isaac was fine experimenting on OG MC and all her clones because she doesn't really mean anything much to him (kinda just a tool to use), whereas with S**** being his son, S**** means a lot more to Isaac, and he would prefer to sorta disassociate the Kuro's from his son. 

That's the story reason anyhow. 

Then there's the totally separate reason of just thinking of the general theme of black & white, light & darkness sorta thing. The Kuro's are all like twisted shadow versions of S****, but I couldn't just call the characters Black and White, cos that would sound a bit odd. So I decided to call them that in Japanese instead... it's terribly nerdy, I know >.< haha.


Yeah, poor S**** ended up becoming pretty twisted over time having to watch all of that going on, the poor guy :(


SR and Kuro are like my baby, haha, so it means so much whenever anyone says they really enjoyed playing it :3 I have suffered with anxiety and depression for most of my life, which has resulted in me having pretty crappy self-confidence, which then causes me to think negatively about anything I do. For example, there were many times (and there still are now) that my brain says what I'm doing sucks or isn't good enough >.< So when I hear positive comments, it really helps me to fight back against that negative part of me and help me believe in myself a little more! So thank you :3


I first heard the word Solipsism when I was playing Mass Effect 2. Thane mentioned it in a line and I just thought, wtf is that? I went to look it up immediately, ended up spending ages reading about it cos it was so fascinating, haha. I'll be honest, even now, I still find the concept a little difficult to wrap my head around >.< I wanted to be able to include it somehow though, even if I don't fully understand it!


If you take the true end as being 'reality', then I guess it would probably be a happy ending for everyone, including the clones :3 It's very open to interpretation what happened to them all, but I don't think that OG MC would have let anything bad happen to them. I like to think that they just let them freely live their own lives :D

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I have another question haha



SPOILER







This is probably alteasy ibvious but I'm also not really sure but is MC's canon name Anathema? Or us that name actually for the player? If that is so, does the og!MC have a canon name?


Alsoooo with your confirmation, yeaahh S****'s comment about Kuro having a black heart makes sense. I don't think that Shiro meant that line for dollmaker Kuro but to all the Kuros probably because of how they treated her in the bad ends. Alsoooo since they all came from S****, was the first Kuro before he was put in a simulation and experienced bad ends, not a yandere but slowly became one over the routes or was he tweaked to be a yandere from the very beginning thus them being a shadow if S**** from the very beginning. 

In the Princess route, when Kuro disappeared, they took him out of the simulation right? How did he know that that particular scenario was nearing it's end? Was he getting instructions from Raine? 


Also in terms of bad ends, my favourite ones happened to be in the mage route where the player did not find another way and just straight up knocked on the door. It's because Kuro said that she can do better next time. That actually clued me in somehow that he knows the MC can timetravel. Sooo does he retain those memories too? Of every bad end and then becomes happy when the player chooses the better choice? My other favourite is when the MC surrendered to the villain in the detective route and Kuro says that he can't live without her, and how when she rejected life, she rejected him. It was actually the voice acting in those parts that made it my favourite, but also, because it made me think of a hypothesis. Kuro just wants to save the MC by all means. But if she made a bad choice it's game over. Kuro wants to set things right (to save her or for her to love only him), but the only way to set things right is for the MC to have a bad end, thus letting her fix her mistake. But with Kuro's feelings, he sometimes goes overboard.

I can understand now though why there are so many bad ends. Out of all the VNs I've played, this ine of those which have the most hahaha. I guess I'm actually thankful that the CGs aren't as detailed as those in commercial VNs so atleast I don't have to actually see the bad ends jn a much more graphic manner. I've played many otome games in the past so I'm used to bad ends, but I don't really like violence or gore but it's fine for me in some cases IF they make sense in the overall plot of the story. Sooo I guess I just speed read the bad endings when they became a bit more graphic but as they are integral to the plot, I was able to bear with them albeit just speed reading a lot in some of them. (Oh yeah, kudos to the sound design, because that really added alot to the immersion) Oh yeah, there was this one bad end in the detective route that also really stood out to me, the one where the MC was trapped in the cell for so long. She enjoyed snow because it was cold. I think that it was her subconsciously remembering Kuro and how she missed him, cuz Kuro is icy to the touch hahaha. Actually that might actually be my favourite now that I think about it. It was moments like that that affirmed of their love for each other that pulled me in, be it in a bad end or in the lovely soft moments, those moments were the star of the game for me. 

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SPOILERS






Alsooo now that I remember, I also enjoyed the different details on the similarities and differences between the Kuros, like all of them are cold to the touch, but the way they give power is different, like Detective route Kuro has to slit his palm and hold hands with the MC to transfer power, sooo it made them unique in their own. As if each route was a whole other life of its own, even if it was only just a simulation. 


Another thing, I also liked that Kuro was kind and considerate in some times, like when he was makimg breakfast for the MC also that he tended to blush a lot and was even almost crying in soft moments. That kind of vulnerability and openness also sold me on how real the character felt, and how real their love was soooo yeah I really really love how you wrote the characters and their interactions. 


I really like reading your explanations by the way hahaha and I'm happy that you explain them well too. 


Now that I think about it, Kuro is actually similar to another otome game character that I also loved, Ukyo from Amnesia. They are both kind, loving, and protective of the MC. And it was the bad ends that drove them to their yandere side, or split personality in Ukyo's case. But they still try their best to save the MC. That just made me love Kuro more hahaha. 

SPOILERS










Oh yeah, I also forgot to say this but I also really loved this little bit at the end of everything where if you open the game again after finishibg the true route and listening to the creepy voice's monologue, the music changes and the creepy voice acknowledges you, and everytime you open the game, the music is always the sad music box/piano??? Idk I just found that so cool how it feels like the game has really ended. 


Also, I love the use of music in certain times, like a specific music will play whenever Shiro is presented (the music when Shiro and 339 meet which is my fave out of all the tracks btw.) And how the music at the start, the title music is also used when 339 finally meets og!MC. That was surreal too, like it gave the feeling of realities merging, the fantasy meeting the reality or something like that haha. That music was awesome too, I like how it was just so eerie in a cool way with all these voices digital or not. 

Alas I have another thing I forgot to say hahaha



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I am actually really relieved that Anathema is actually the player rather than the MC. Cuz if Anathema was the MC, I would have feared for what the creepy voice would have done to Kuro/Shiro. That amd it also makes sense why the creepy voice is also there at the very end and after the final route. Cuz itbwas the player he was addressing.

Okaaayyyy so I actually habe another question hahaha.





SPOILERS







Soooo in the true end, I'm confused. Were the aliens who attacked them all gone and that the remaining threat was the faulty experiment of S****'s dad? Sooooo was the MC and S**** able to defeat the threat and save mankind? Is mankind safe now? If they are, will their new focus now be on rehabilitating the Earth?

I'm gonna attempt to answer all in one comment this time, so get ready for a gigantic wall of text xD You'll have to let me know if I miss anything, but I'll do my best :3



SPOILERS 




I never actually gave the MC a canon name (probably cos I'm the kind of player who likes to self-insert, or make a character up to roleplay as) so yeah, she doesn't really have one x3 I probably should have given her one though really! There's a tiny variation in the creepy guy's lines at the end if you name the MC Anathema though :D


Yeah, S**** was pretty much referring to all of the Kuro's as a whole cos he just hates them, even though it's not even their fault that they are the way they are :( With the first Kuro's, I didn't mention anything within the game, but I like to think they just started out fairly normally, without making too many personality changes, but then (as you said) the Kuro would become more and more messed up over time with all the cruel things happening.

 They definitely would have had some Kuro's though which they would have altered right from the moment of waking them up cos they were doing all kinds of tests down there, and would have wanted to cover as many things as possible. Also, with any of the Kuro's, if they're not seeing the sorta results and reactions that they're looking for, they would either tweak them to see if anything different happens when they change parts of his personality, or they will just terminate if they think a unit is a lost cause (apart from Dollmaker, who they just sorta abandoned instead >.<)


Yeah, you're right that when Kuro disappears at the end of the princess route it was because they pulled him from the simulation :3 The main thing that would have lead him to realise the scenario was close to ending was the defeat of Kai. Cos in each scenario there is a big challenge that the pair are tasked to overcome, and the scenario only ends in success if they manage to be victorious. Usually, they will keep running the scenario when things go wrong (like the bad ends), they will only retire a pair of clones if they are just hopeless. Even then, they will just attempt to run the same scenario with a different pair. So since Kuro has more general awareness of how they run stuff, he knew that the big bad of the scenario had been defeated and it would all be over soon for them in that world :(


With the bad end about knocking on the door, there was that and a few others where I was worried that maybe it would give too much away too soon by having Kuro hint at things with lines like that, haha. But the reason he tells MC she can do better next time is because he knows that the folks in the lab will just patch MC up and they'll go again. Pretty much all the bad ends in the initial 5 routes are simulation fails, and so Raine just oversees everything and attempts to guide/comfort the MC after she dies or makes a wrong move, then prepares her to be reinserted into the scenario to try again. Kuro knows that that's what's happening, and it's almost like his world is on pause while he's waiting for it all to continue. Kuro knows that MC will likely make it to the end of a scenario victoriously eventually, because Raine is essentially pushing her forward all the time towards the end (cos they do want the pairings to succeed, but each simulation is like a new test of their abilities.) The Kuro's generally know that when MC dies in the middle of a scenario/simulation, she's technically gonna survive, but watching her go through all the horrible stuff properly messes him up >.< Hence why he's sometimes the cause of the bad ends x3


Yeah, Tim's voice acting was awesome throughout, but in the scene you mentioned, that whole speech in that bad end was just delivered so brilliantly! That and some of his other lines actually make me cry a little when I listen to em cos he has so much emotion in his acting :3


You're right that Kuro just wants to save the MC by any means possible. He hates seeing her suffer, and hates himself even more for losing it sometimes :( He just knows from the few feelings he has leftover/passed on from S**** that him and MC are supposed to be together, he loves her with all of his heart, and he just wishes that they could be free to love each other in a place where neither of them have to hurt. Instead, he knows there's pretty much no way out for them, so all he can do is make the best of a bad situation and try to have some form of a relationship with her inside the simulations.


Also, if there weren't that many bad ends, I think that maybe it wouldn't come across as well as to how much they have suffered on their journey. To be honest, I would have liked to have made even more routes, which would have lead to even more bad endings, haha. Like I wanted there to be a whole route for the Idol and the Cadet scenarios, but I was too short on time with having Tim able to continue voicing Kuro since he was moving to Japan for a new job. It's probably a good thing that I didn't make the game any longer than it already is though, cos it took years to make >.< and I feel like I probably should have made something much smaller for a first project xD


I'm a huge lover of bad ends in any kind of game, but they seem to be in visual novels more than anything else :D I don't really mind what happens in them, but like you, I only like them if they make sense as part of the story, ones that are just jammed in without any real reason just get on my nerves >.< haha.


Yeah, that bad end in the detective route where the MC is trapped is one of the more emotional ones of the route I think :3 Like you say, the snow reminded her of Kuro, even though she was losing all of her memories, because of it being icy like him.


I'm super thankful that there are so many free resources available to use online for projects like this, cos it wouldn't have been the same without all the soundtrack and SFX, and almost all of the music and SFX I used was free stuff that people have just created and then given to the world to use :3


Funnily enough, I can't even remember why I decided to make Kuro icy cold to the touch in the first place! It just sorta ended up sticking after I wrote it for the first one, haha. I think it was possibly because when I first wrote the student route many years ago, I didn't know for sure what I was going to do with the overall story, and I think maybe I was actually originally going to have Kuro as a real spirit or something. Instead, I ended up making a lot of big changes in my head to what I wanted the whole story to be, so Kuro ended up being referred to as a spirit in a lot of the simulations, even though he wasn't really one in reality.


The detective route Kuro's way of giving power was my favourite :D It's my favourite route in general, aside from the hidden one! I'm glad that it made it feel like each route was a whole life of its own, cos that's how I wanted it to come across :3 


Writing character interactions is my absolute most favourite thing to write <3 I remember waaaaay back when I was in school, I loved English class, especially when we got to do fiction writing. The teacher would always have a go at me for my stories though, saying that I wrote too much dialogue and not enough of anything else xD That I should spend more time explaining what the characters are doing rather than what they're saying, haha. That used to annoy me, cos when I read books as a kid, the dialogue bits were always my favourite x3 When I first discovered VNs and saw that they contained more dialogue and character interaction than a typical physical book, I was in heaven immediately x3

 It makes me super happy that you love the way the characters were written and their interactions <3


That's good if you like reading my explanations :D I worry that I ramble on way too much when I'm trying to explain anything, and that most people will get bored and wish I would shut up x3 hehe.


I'm kinda glad that you think Kuro and Ukyo are similar, as Kuro was actually slightly inspired by Ukyo! :3 Amnesia was the first non-mobile VN I played many years ago, and I liked it a lot! Ukyo's story broke my heart, but I really loved it. With Kuro and SR, I sort of wanted to capture a more intense version of the sort of pain that Ukyo went through in Amnesia. I just loved Ukyo's story so much and wished there was more of it!


I'm happy to hear you like that feature after finishing the game where the music on the title screen permanently changes :3 That tune is pretty much the creepy guy's theme. It took me a few days of headaches to get it all working properly, haha. At one point, I thought I was gonna have to give up, cos there were a few bugs that I just couldn't figure out how to fix, but I got there in the end!


In regards to music, I really enjoy giving specific characters, or moments their own sorta theme, haha. That piece that you're talking about is called Unwritten Return, and the description of the piece on the site I got it from suits S**** very well :D This is the description:


"Dreamy and edgy; Not a combination you often find, and yet - here it is. The ambiguous and slippery nature of the piece are a wonderful thing. Perfect for scoring a character where the audience is unsure of them. Could be good? Could be evil? WE DON'T KNOW!"


If you want to listen to it any time, this is the website it came from here.

That's the place I used for most of the soundtrack! I spent weeks combing through the huge database of amazing tracks there, picking out all the ones I thought would fit well with SR :3


As for the title music being used in the hidden route too, I really wanted to do that because I absolutely love it when games have a main theme or title theme that is used during important moments of the story later on :D I haven't seen it in that many games, but every time I come across it I just love it so much! So I had to do it myself, haha. If you ever want to listen to that piece, it's this one.

To answer your last question, the creatures that pretty much destroyed the surface world were all actually spawned from the faulty experiment that Isaac released. I know I didn't really go into much detail about that in the game (again cos I was worried people might get bored if I included too much lore/backstory >.<) But yeah, the experiment that Isaac set loose to test went rogue, and they were unable to recapture it, so it just went completely outta control and spawned a tonne of thralls which it used to destroy most of the earth's surface. Really it was just doing what it was designed for as well, because it was an experimental bioweapon for human warfare. When humanity decided to retreat underground though, it decided that it couldn't be bothered to pursue them, instead choosing to live in relative peace after it successfully cleared out the surface of the world. Killing the creature would have killed off any remaining minor creatures that might still have been around, cos the creature which was the sorta last boss, was in control of all the other creatures, kinda like a hivemind type thing going on (like how when you fight the guardian outside the tower where the big creature is sleeping, that guardian has very little will of it's own, it's more just a puppet for the big creature.)


So yeah, like you say, by defeating the main creature, S**** and MC pretty much saved mankind... which technically means that Isaac actually succeeded in his quest to create a powerful enough weapon to save the world, even though it was his fault in the first place >.<" At least he fixed his mistake I guess! Though I'm pretty sure he could have found a much less cruel way of defeating the creature xD 

But yeah, humanity should be safe from that particular threat, and it falls to all the survivors underground to begin the process of starting again like you say :3 I wonder if S**** and MC would take charge of rehabilitation, or if they would decide that they've been through enough and just want a quiet life, leaving others to work on that while they have a well-deserved break, haha.


I hope I managed to answer alright anyhow :3 Feel free to let me know if I missed anything! Thanks for all of your questions + have an awesome daaaay :D

WOW! Thank you so much for this hahaha. As I'm coping with finishing the game, I could only really ask for more about it to satiate my curiosity sooo yeaaaaah the HUGE wall of text was really like giving me cake with extra chocolate in it haha.

Annnddd ummm haha, I actually have more questions again. 


SPOILERS


Soooo are many Kuros and MCs tested at the same time or are they tested one by one and if it fails then they move on to wakinh the next one? 

So just to confirm, the higher the number, the more routes tge Kuros remember right? Like if Kuro and tge MC suceed in a route, that pair will be used in another route and if they are consistently successful they are most often used in more scenarios, thus they get to retain more of their memories. Can one of the Kuros remember multiple routes or is his memory wiped after every route. I'm really curios as to the extent of the memory wiping in Kuro haha. Cuz I'm also confused as to to the extent of what he meant when he was in the training room with 26. Like when he was with that MC what was it that he explained over and over? Their situation or the routes? I'm also curious about that particular Kuro...if we were to  assume that He IS the Kuro of the 5 routes, will he still have memory of all those 5 routes or will they have been wiped from him? 

Btw, 26 is actually my favourite number. So I have an attachment to 26 hahaha, quite surprised that was her number, and to me it felt like she was really the MC of the 5 routes. 

Alsooo when they are in the simulation, can MC and Kuro feel things? Like can they taste food, can they really feel Kuro's icy touch, can they feel sensations like pain or the butterflies in their stomachs when they kiss? Ooorrrrr is it only an illusion of sensation like when someone is dreaming? 

Alsooooo thank you for the links to the music. I was sure that I had other favourites as well, like the one in the detective route where the MC confides in Kuro so I'm happy ro fins them in the links (I mihhy find even more gems in there haha).

I find it interesting that most of the bad ends can be easily avoided if only the MC listend to Kuro hahaha, very competent spirit guide indeed haha.

SPOILERS




Alsoooooo when the creepy voice ma de me choose an ending at the end and blood got splattered in that ending...WHAT DID HE DOOO!?!?!?!?! I chose the CG where 339 and 13 travel outside the research facility..ssooooo if  we were to treat that ending as a separate timeline, did the creepy voice kill the 339 and 13 of that time? 


I wonder what would happen though if I play the game all over again and arrive at the end again, will the creepy voice say the same things? Hahaha 

Hey hey! I just wanted to drop you a quick message to let you know that I've read your most recent comments, I just haven't had a chance to reply yet cos I've been having an unusually busy weekend, haha. I will make sure to get back to you as soon as I can though :3 I hope you've been having an awesome weekend!