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Detailed review Pre-Preword: This game directly got me into coming out to my mum as nonbinary, which means this will have always left an impression on my life, so thanks!

Detailed review Preword: With how I like to play customisable protag VNs, being always just being myself, this is in no way my usual cup of tea and I'd usually steer clear of anything with a romance focus. But as the demo is free and I found this through an even more romance focused VN (straight up ad in A Date with Death, which I also only played because I was trying something new and it was free "Friendly Neighbours in your area" indeed, I literally only found this because the advert was too darn funny), I wanted to give this a fair shot. For a bit of context about myself, I'm aroace and while I like seeing characters get all romantic style, given that I was playing myself, I really wanted nothing to do with that system. I'll probably throw in an OC at some point and explore a bit more of the crush system!

Actual detailed review:

Before making this comment, I left a 5 star review which I think is shorter than this comment is already, I'm going to try and break this review down into chunks so it makes sense and I'm not just rambling from topic to topic!

Choices

A big part of this game is the choice focused system of how you interact with the world, most choices are made up of a range of emotional responses, split into verbal and non-verbal which some texting options in the step 2 preview. Now I am someone that wants to push choice systems to the edge, I played the Stanley Parable when it was still a Half Life 2 mod and it ingrained itself on my mind, so far, the only games to really make me feel like my choices mean a darn are Slay the Princess, Scarlet Hollow, Disco Elysium, and this game. This blows almost everything out of the water!

I played as a very quiet but still active person and the game accounted for that! Past the intro, if my character auto acted, it would be non-verbal, and because of that, the times that my character did talk, it felt more impactful from my PoV. I think the only time my character actually had a full convo was in the park with Qiu in the step 2 memory.

Again, I need to play though with different choices, a different way of looking at things but I feel like based on what I've seen, I won't be disappointed!

Characters

Qiu and Tamarack are fantastic characters, they feel so... alive, and darn it I was fully invested in what was going on. I'll get into it later but these two had me breaking down into tears twice and I am usually a very tough nut to crack! I think it's because they're like the same age as me but it digs at my memories, the feeling that you're gonna take on the world together but things getting distant later on, I'll admit, the step 2 preview diner scene made me into a wreck and I don't know if I want to cheer with a 10/10 or scream.

Qiu's friends are fun and I enjoyed their antics, though looking at the other Our Life game and I'll probably end up playing that too soon! But having "the boys" all come back in the step 2 preview memory was amazing, felt great seeing the boys come back!

I liked the step 2 preview characters but didn't really have enough of them to form a real opinion yet

The mum is nice but not the most reliable, not in a bad way, she's a grounding presence in the mess of life and motherly and all that

Setting

Small rural town where everyone seems to know everyone, good setting and a great backdrop to have some but not too many reoccurring characters around. As I've said already, given that step 2 is in 2014, I'm around the age of the characters so while I'm not American, this still brought up some memories for me, really pulled me back a bit.

The Autumn focus is lovely, the oranges of the leaves really give a warm homely feeling, the previous game was Summer so I hope the set is completed at some point :P

Art

Smashed it out of the darn park, this is beautiful, the backdrops, the character sprites, the little chibi icons, the CGs, the UI. If I didn't look at the options menu, I'd be questioning what engine this was made on, it's straight up fantastic!

I don't think I have more comments than that so I'll just reiterate that this is an amazing looking game!

My Experience

I'll detail how I played to give context! I started as a boy, quiet but making a good and quick friendship with both leads, despite being very quiet, my character was very active, always participating in whatever was going on, mostly quietly being in the conversation and playing around while keeping to the rules. For the step 2 preview, they came out as agender at the start of the step to everyone but otherwise keeping a similar personality to step 1 and continuing to be good friends with both leads. I'll just go through the heavy hitting scenes for me

So as the pre-preword says, this game caused me to come out to my mum, I'm agender myself and I just wanted to see how the whole changing pronouns would work in this game, so I do the scene of coming out to my mum- tears flooded down my face before my head could even figure out why, within 2 days I used a letter to come out. So if the devs read this long, chunky review, thank you for that, I don't think that was the intended outcome of the scene but it pushed me to do something I need to get done.

The step 2 preview scene at the diner was heartbreaking, I remember my character trying to gesture for everyone to go together and I'm just like in tears because I know it wasn't going to work and it didn't of course, and I'm just like remembering distance growing between friends when I was younger

The step 2 preview memory, Qiu straight disappearing, I remember being online a ton when I was 14 and I ended up encountering a lot of people that needed help, needed a push up, and I was in no way equipped for this at that age. I don't know if it counts as breaking my own character but I believe I chose 3 vocal choices in a row in that scene, I really wanted to help them, darn it I'm crying thinking about it

And to end this segment on a high, Qiu casually going "We're on the same level of hell!" with sparkles if you come out to them as nonbinary caught me so off guard and was probably some of the hardest I've laughed at a VN

Conclusion

10/10, if the release keeps this up, it might straight up topple the duo of VNs that are my joint 3rd faves. And as this has made a sizable change in my life directly, I have to put it as my third fav game of all time, the only ones that get up that list are literally life changing

I'm so excited!!! Can't wait for the new demo ^-^

So excited!!! Can't believe the remaster has gotten to the point where I jumped on already! Can't wait to see it all in action!!!!!!

Not personally my kind of game but I had a good time playing it, the lovely peeps that came in were nice and I had a cozy time ^-^

This was really fun, the gameplay and visuals were great!

However, I sadly had some visual issues, mainly a black box on the bottom left that stopped me from seeing the reflection on the left side of my screen so I couldn't play all the levels as I started having to go through blind

But I really enjoyed what I did play!

Wowee this is amazing! The game plays well, the music is good, the visuals are amazing, totally stunning! 0-0

This is a very strange game, not in a bad way though

Gonna be honest the loneliness was rather anxiety inducing after a few minutes but the game works well, makes me think of Gmod for some reason

Only problem I have is that the mouse sensitivity was rather high for me so I was getting confused what way I was going >.<

That was a great little twin stick shooter game,managed to last 6 minutes before the bears overwhelmed me!

I played through a few levels and I assume that when the game didn't go to the next level, that was it. It was fun what I played but figuring out what to do at first wasn't the best

For controls, the mouse wheel rotates the mirrors, the arrow going towards the mirror is the input and the arrows going away from the mirror is the output, putting light to any side outside of the input will result in the light being absorbed!

On a technical note, when I tried to load the exe download in the itch app, nothing happened, launching it outside of the app brought up a box complaining that UnityPlayer.dll was missing, the zip version worked fine

This is a lovely lil' game with a lovely lil' snow gremlin

Fun little game, let me... reflect on my life or something, I dunno

Great little game to have fun in, reminds me of old flash games I used to play!

A lovely time, great art, music and writing. Easily on the better side of fishing games I've played!

CONGRATS, I said "Fuck the what?!" Out loud when I saw the notification!!!!!! 0-0

Poor Poe Poe, she's really just put through a spin in this darn story, and I understand being in a situation that is slowly going to crumble apart with a deadline, even if the situation itself is bad.

But like the other comment says, this feels like a sprint through the events rather than a jog, a jog through the story and a jog through what's going through Poe Poe's mind.

In short, 8/10, there's something here but it needed some more of the story to make it shine

Note: You haven't marked the PC and Mac downloads for each platform so the Itch app refuses to download the game, downloading through the browser works fine

Wasn't sure what to expect coming into this one but I'm surprised in a good way!

I really felt for the characters, the moment Birdy's jacket went off, I think my heart hurt, and Faith just wanted what's best.

Short but sweet, a real 9/10, I hope they got a happily ever after

NOTE: The downloads have not been marked for platforms so the itch app refuses to download the game, works fine downloading through a browser

Quick heads up, the builds aren't marked as being for a platform so the itch app will refuse to download the game, I'm sadly not a dev on itch so I don't know how to fix it >.< Browser download works fine though

I'll wait for the sprite fix before jumping in ^-^

This VN is different in a good way, good backgrounds, great way of slowly peeling away at layers of information, the characters and overall art style are great.

Let got a real bad lot though, feel so bad for them ;-;

Played through to seeing all of the endings, figuring that out was fun and THANK YOU for putting a skip for one part after having done it already!

This was great and I'm not ashamed to say that a 18 year old me would have eaten this up like ambrosia, though still a good treat to the older and (probably not to be honest) wiser current me.

Camellia's struggles with a need for love/affection and anxiety is something the me of the past would relate to, and while I'm much better with it now, some of it still rings true today. Seeing her blow up on Anna was heart breaking and it had to stop and just put my head in my hands because I could see myself doing the same thing if I had been given the chance.

Jane... I love a good obsessive, and she is great, walls up high and hard to know what she's thinking, but there's enough shining coming from her to figure out if she likes the date or not which I think is nice going back for alt endings and actually knowing a bit more about her.

Anna, they're cool, best bud, really there and really 100% called the "It was always you" ending after like the first scene with her. Don't have a ton of words but she was great the whole time.

This is shockingly fleshed out for the jam, I had to basically do 2 whole playthroughs with plenty of saves to get all the endings, no idea how you had the time for that and all of the ending CGs!

In short: 10/10 wow that was some good stuff, hope you make more VNs in the future, great characters, great story, I'm going to try and forget my past anxiety a little bit after this reopened that mental wound!

I don't actually know if I got any words for this one, not in like a bad way

This feels like some 2008 ultra edgy flash game, the story and writing are consistent, the art works well. Like it's good, I feel it does what it sets out to do but I don't have any words to communicate my feelings further, that might be a defense mechanism, I don't think I took the content warnings seriously enough but I can only blame myself for that >.<

In short: 8/10, I don't know but those content warnings aren't light!

Well you're not wrong with what the story's about XD

This was a different experience than I've gone through so far but I think it knows what what it is and sticks hard to it. 

Gonna be honest this is so far out my usual thing that I don't know if I got words for what I just went through, no complaints though, this was good, curious what it'll be like with sprites and CG

In short: The description doesn't lie 9/10

This is kinda outside of things that I've experienced and people I know so I don't feel I can relate to things as hard as the other commenters but I enjoyed the VN, the characters, the art, and the story.

Out of what I've played so far in the jam, I'd call this an oddball pick but that is not saying that it's bad in the slightest and I doubt this will be the only one.

Might have to take a look at what else you've made, see how it stacks up :P

In short: 9/10, it looks like it's really hit the mark for a lot of people and I enjoyed it with my not completely relating and understanding brain

First of all, I may have squealed and clapped my hands to no one seeing the art so... I think I like the game :P

As an aroace person myself, I did kinda get that from Jinx, being more pulled in by being in Avery's spotlight rather than anything romantic. It will take me time to process relating exclusively toxic gay VN protags but that's more of a me problem! 

And thanks for rambling about love stories, it helps give more context to the work, was a touch worried I was thinking completely off the mark!

This is great, really felt for the characters and really felt their struggles throughout the story

A real 10/10 toxic yuri VN, hope to see more from you in the future!!!

Despite this being toxic for a toxic yuri jam, I really enjoyed the characters before Avery started getting really stalker like which caught me off guard because I went into games in the jam with the mindset that this will get messed up in some way

Even by the end, I very much enjoyed everything about it, it was a real treat to the brain and senses. Jinx ended up being...... weirdly relatable, not wanting anyone to see that side without the mask on.

I'll 100% put this in the set of VNs I unexpectedly found in a random set and will probably never get out of my head

In short: 5/5 this is amazing

Played this through and I can't say I fully understand it, it was a good VN to go through regardless. The writing, visuals, and music were great, a real treat to go through