itch.io

2nd person perspective is always a fun treat to read as was this, very well done!

By auto-progress yes, I mean like with the need scene!

Happy to have provided feedback!! I'm glad yoj feel motivated for your next project :>

Interesting little game, quite enjoyed it. Touches upon it's dynamic very well, and being a gameboy game is pretty fun. Thank you for sharing!

Sweet and small, I liked all the branching paths! I enjoy your style of writing, everything was described and written in a pretty nice way, and this was a very good little slize of their lives, great job! I hope to see you write more in the future, as this was quite lovely. Thank you for sharing!

Perfectly succinct, short and very sweet. Very fitting name lol, I liked the art and the descriptions throughout were quite beautifully written, great job! thank you for sharing!

I really enjoyed this! I love the way you write thought processes and also there was a lot of teeth descriptions which I think is just a personal thing I really appreciate. And I like a story that appreciates greasy women.

I really enjoyed the dynamic between these 2 and I just really liked the story overall, an exploration of how these things change you and seeing the difference betwen Cassiel from the start and the end, lovely work! Generally also enjoyed the framing of how it was told, very incredible little piece! I loved this! thank you! 

A little doodle of Cassiel :>

GIMP GAME GIMP GAME!!!

Very delightful story, incredibly paced and writtten, just a HUGE treat to read an experience. I adore the art style too, what a striking visual style! Adored this game, very excellent stuff. Thank you for sharing!

gimp game gimp game gimp game gimp game gimp game

In love with the visual style of this and all the characters! I'd be interested to see more!

A very interesting piece here! Very incredible for a first public piece too, well done for creating and sharing it! I played in response to a call for feedback, so now I must deliver... muhaha...

I really liked the writing style, it's very unique but still very readable and stays so until the end, it helps that the font happens to be a similar one to the one on my terminal I think. 

The usage of text effects and colours throughout was handled decently well and I felt it complemented the writing nicely, though this might just be a personal thing but I dislike when text auto-progresses, as someone who reads on high cps speeds it makes it very easy to miss what was being said, though that might just be personal preference.

I really enjoyed the writing and how viscerally some things were describe, a very powerful pen indeed! It conveys feeling in a very interesting and direct way, and I really enjoyed it! I found the letter flicking to flashbacks to be a particularly standout scene,  very beautifully written and well handled, a very standout moment in an already standout piece (though I found the water transition to be a bit inconvenient in its frequency) And I generally enjoyed the pacing of the story up until it's conclusion! I found the ending to be a little abrupt, perhaps a few more lines to give the reader some time to dwell would be nice, but beyond that I found the story to be communicated and paced very effectively.

A small technical issue I ran into was that sometimes while text was running along it would jolt up a little in the nvl box? I can't tell if this is intentional or a quirk of some of the text effects, but I felt it was worth mentioning. This got more prevelant towards the end.

Great job! Thank you for sharing! Hope to see you create more in the future!

six years!!! I'm glad you finally got it down I really loved it :D

I think for me it was just a bit abrupt narratively, I just wasn't really expecting for it to just kinda end and I felt there wasn't much build up to it and it felt a little anti-climactic, like it kinda just felt like Ingrid kinda just let Clara do it, and I think maybe that's part of the idea but it still felt a bit loose to me, though I like the ending overall I just felt it was a bit sudden to me, and I really enjoyed project mariana in general!  

I have editted this comment from my original as I've given this work some more thought and no longer agree with my original sentiment.

I think this tackles an interesting idea and even tries to comment on some grand concepts, which is commendable! However I think this falls into some trappings that are worth discussing and commenting on.

It seems to me that a key point in this story is that oni women aren't considered real women by human society, which could be a metaphor for a few things like transness, but I think fits more in-line with a commentary on women who are outside of a eurocentric/white standard of femininity and thus not really being considered "real women" by those within it, given the game's premise and lack of other information I feel this interpretation makes a bit more sense but I suppose it could work in a variety of ways.

I think this becomes an issue when this metaphor gets mixed with the fact that the oni presented in this story do in fact have a desire to kill and eat their human peers, making them directly dangerous to those around them, which does end up perpetuating the stereotypes that these marginalized groups of people are dangerous. I understand this is supposed to be toxic yuri but we have to be mindful to not perpetuate bigotted stereotypes.

I also think it's generally a shame how these metaphors tend to avoid the subject matter directly by avoiding representing minorities and making them as a nebulous other species, continuing to perpetuate the ideas that these groups are "others" and not really "human," a general trend in media that is dissappointing to see each time, especially in a case like this where the oni women are directly harmful to the people around them which further worsens the issue.

If none of this was intended, then I question why so much emphasis was put on the fact that it's an all-male army and oni women aren't considered "real women" at all, and why there's emphasis placed on the lack of "real women" in this army. If this was not intentional, then perhaps there are other biases and beliefs you may hold that must also be tackled, or proofreaders should be considered to catch out potential trappings like this one. If there was no emphasis on the lack of women in the army and that oni women aren't considered "real women" for example, this is just an evil yuri about evil oni women, but this was not the case, so whether intentionally or not, I think it is worth addressing.

I want to be clear: I do not believe that any of this was done with malicious intent, and I do not wish to demoralize you from tackling more difficult subject matter. I believe this came from a good place, but I have concerns over how it was handled and I hope you can take this with grace and understand how this could potentially be read to be perpetuating negative stereotypes, and consider this for your future work and potentially challenge the subsconscious beliefs that have led one to writing these themes in this way. I would love to see more writing from you in the future while learning from this and doing better! Well done on mustering the courage to release anything at all, and I hope this could have been helpful to pointing out a potential issues with these tropes and to encourage trying to be aware of things like this when attempting to tackle more difficult subject matters such as the one you have touched upon here. 

godDAMN!!!! This was AWESOME!! The worldbuilding is handled really well, and it's a pretty interesting setting that's explored very nicely. The overall concept is really a treat I really enjoyed it and how it was handled. Delightfully awful! What a treat! Felt the ending was a bit abrupt, but this was incredible overall! Thank you! Genuinley very very excellent.  It'd be nice if you could add an estimation of the game's length to the Itch page though! 

I like the art style too, it's very lovely. I recommend pairing this with Nikolai Kapustin's piano music if anyone's thinking of playing.

This was pretty fun, pretty fun to read a little bit of cynicism for a bit, even in its in unfinished state. Thank you for sharing!

Well I managed to intuit that, alas, who knows! Thanks for sharing your vn again

a Disco Elysium fangame wasn't on my bingo sheet for this jam's entries but it's pretty cool that it exists. The art is very lovely and the writing gets the humor of de down pretty consistently I quite enjoyed it.

Surprisingly abrasive, but handled well enough and I think it brings up some interesting ideas, a terrifying masculinity that demands you must, should, do this, and I am fond of trans Harry as an idea, though the direction overall ended up not really being my thing unfortunately. I haven't read WARHOUND though so I'm probably missing out on quite a bit of context lol. Thank you for sharing! 

Congrats on your first vn! I enjoyed the presentation here, the art is very cute and I think the music was pretty well composed (if a bit short)

The writing was generally alright and I think it has a real standout scene. I played in response to a call for writing feedback, so for comment lurkers I'll be divulging into spoilers, beware!

The scene where Nova takes over Ashley's body was excellent! Losing one's control over themself and being pilotted by an AI in this manner is an incredibly interesting concept and I thought it was a really goddamn good idea, very well done! It conveys the horror quite nicely alongside just being a really incredible concept.

However, I generally felt the story lacked focus. It introduces a lot of ideas but doesn't really evolve them much, and I wish it spent some more time focussing on one idea such as the above and fully developing it rather than lightly touching on many ideas. The LLMs, roller derby, arranged marriage etc. were all mentioned  but I feel there wasn't enough commentary or usage of the subjects (in some cases as the roller derby stuff feeling like it kinda disappeared after a point) to justify their inclusion.

I didn't really like the deus ex's of both endings, they felt a little too absurd and I feel the rest of the story didn't build up enough to earn the absurdity of them.
The humour was pretty funny sometimes (the eyes emoji was really funny thank you I giggled very  much) but other times I felt it got in the way of pacing (I think the Throngle and devil/angel bits went on a bit too long) though I admit humour is harder to judge as its a matter of personal taste.

I did enjoy the little bits of Nova's perspective we did get! the little sheep scenes, I really enjoyed how they were presented and what they communicated, though I wish we had a little more of them as it feels like Nova develops a bit too much too fast, but I enjoyed those scenes regardless.

I also really liked the opening scene - it's a very strong opening scene that introduces the world well and I thought it was a very fun and gripping idea.  I do feel that it paints the doctor to be a much more important character than she ended up being, though.

Overall, I think this brought up some very interesting and compelling ideas, and had some moments of incredibly compelling writing, but felt a bit too spread out and could've benefitted from being cut down into a more focussed and pointed story.

A fun experience overall! Thank you very much for sharing! Excited to see what you guys get up to next :>

I enjoy a piece that likes to meander sometimes, and this one does that in a very beautiful way. Guess you could say this was. Heh. Dreamy.

The audio was also very well done, wonderful piece!

Very very very very well done, incredible little experience! The presentation is great, and the story is really good. Great atmosphere and overall great experience, really quite enjoyed this one. What excellent work! Delightfully harrowing and succinct.

Removing all the settings was a bit cheeky though :P

This was a very solid start! A pretty intriguing concept and I like the idea of what was put down, very nice work so far! Very cute presentation, and a decent idea so far. Thank you for sharing!

If I have one criticism it is that the desktop doesn't quite match the time period (modern Firefox logo, VScode and Firealpaca both being released post 2010, and Clippy despite having office 2007) but I could also seeing this be an intentional mismatch with the time period given a full release so perhaps it is just a problem of the demo not giving me the full picture, but a very fun idea so far! 

Glad I got my signature vaguely Eastern European esoterica vibe down, thank you!

Drawn to this one as a mecha enthusiast and especially these more vile "mechsploitation" scenarios, having spent much time considering and thinking about it myself. I quite enjoy how this handled all of it and touched upon some aspects of its world and mechs in a very beautifully written way, a really great exploration of its themes and tantalisingly written. Excellent work! Short and very very sweet.

A phenomenal experience! In love with concept and direction of this, it's all presented very very well. There's a lot of charm to the traditional art and I think a lot of the designs were really cute and creative at times. Excellently written and developed, very well handled for a longer slower piece, this was incredible! Thank you! Seals :)

:D thank you very much!! I'm glad you had a good time with it and enjoyed the audio and my silly shitposts, tysm!

I reccommend pairing this with George Enescu's Sonata in F# minor to fill in the lack of music. Elevates the experience.

Incredibly stellar presentation! The art is incredible, and the way many scenes were communicated visually was astounding, impeccable work! I appreciate the ambitious concept too, very well done for taking such a leap! I feel at times some things could be developed further, and are moved on from too quickly, but this was a great read overall! Thank you for sharing!

This was on Linux, Kaschei wasn't running, and fwiw my browser is Firefox-based

What an incredible experience. The way this was presented and how everything was touched upon was immaculate, this was INCREDIBLY good. Adored the ending, and almost every scene in this game, and how it mixes things together. hell yess!!!!!! incredible!!!!

Spoilers ahead for comment lurkers but I did experience 1 issue while playing,

After I got to the web page titled "secret" (the one after the second twinstory segment) The link on the page didn't work for me and just lead to a page it couldn't connect to. I'd already been snooping around the files (sorry!) so I inferred what it was supposed to "download" but I thought I would mention this anyway 

I've been slowly whittling away at these for a while now and just like wowie. This is a really good picross game, AND it's ufo 50! what a treat, thank you greatly!

cute little reading experience! Big fan of your art style. Refer to the comment 2 below this one

YES!!!! This was EXCELLENT! Big fan of how viscerally and detailed many of the scenes here were written, I found them VERY enjoyable!! Also some very lovely afterthoughts. Thank you for sharing! ! ! !

Loved the way this used sea-life, excellent work

wow! wow! wow!!! This was delightful from start to finish! I adore the usage of the paper cutouts, and I liked how the tone shifts, each scene was written incredibly well!! The acoustic covers and music choices were incredible!!! I am taken aback!! wowie zowie

Lovely little piece, delightful presentation, good job !

Very well executed, the layout changes added a lot to the experience and the visuals and audio were beautifully made and chosen, lovely work! 

Very lovely work! Very interesting scenario and I quite enjoyed the writing and how everything unfolded throughout. Excellent, excellent, excellent!

Lovely little experience, I enjoy the presentation of the screen and text and the way names are handled, and the writing of the relationship between Elysande and Aldith was very nice to read!

This was very lovely! I love the playing around with the formatting and placement of the textboxes, very nice!

yes, yes, yes!! I adore robotgirls and this was an excellent little visual novel!! I love the art style and Vi's design (I like the cardigan sprite a lot that was adorable) and I really enjoyed the experience of going through the endings up to the final one! Very well done!

Awesome title awesome vn, cute art !

the Steakhouse Strangler