itch.io

Thanks so much! I'm really glad to hear people are enjoying the game. 😄

Keeping the graphics to a small window in the corner was a pretty important part of the game's setup for me. I did use a couple of tricks to make the Deer God feel 'out of place' compared to the other graphics, but I tried to limit this to things like it using a colour palette and transitional effects that were beyond the capabilities of PCs of the era compared to the graphics used elsewhere.

I must admit, though, I'm kind of surprised that people having trouble with the safe code is such a consistent report; enough so that I was actually terrified I'd accidentally uploaded the game with a major bug that broke the solution or something lmao. The first person who playtested it seemed to figure out the puzzle pretty easy, and since he was someone I'd considered a pretty good baseline for 'regular joe who doesn't play a huge amount of adventure games' I was actually worried I'd made it *too easy* at first... oops!

I'm also kind of surprised to hear that you haven't seen the "test SFX" option in a Ren'Py game before. I can sort of get it with the very basic first-time developers, but adding it into the menu is actually remarkably simple so I'd be surprised if more of the 'high-level'/experienced Ren'Py devs aren't doing it already; I'm pretty sure it's as easy as un-commenting a line of code in the default options.rpy file and then changing the default file pathway to whichever sound effect you want to use? Either way, glad to hear it was a positive for you.

Your point about the ritual's purpose being told upfront is actually not too far off my own thoughts during development tbh, and if I'd had a bit more time to tweak the game's writing/story it's probably something I would've amended, although I will point out that the narration's text during the 'secret' ending in no way reflects the author's own viewpoint regarding the attractiveness of skullheaded beings. ;v (as someone who's been a fan of the Mahou Tsukai No Yome manga since before it even got an official translation I feel like I probably gave myself away on that front with the Elias namedrop lmao)

Lastly, to answer the puzzle queries you had: **SPOILERS**

• The axe & shovel are essentially there as red herrings and can be safely ignored (the axe did originally have uses, albeit ones that would've put you further onto the 'bad' ending routes, but those were ultimately cut (hah!) due to time constraints)
• The totem placements are a bit trickier, and possibly even a little unfair in the game's current state (it was originally planned that the player would also have to find & place the third totem the same way as the others but there wasn't enough time to properly implement that so it comes pre-placed instead), but the idea is that the book telling you to place the totem 'before' you is meant to hint that it goes in the centre while the final totem goes to the right through the process of elimination
• The forest maze thing is... actually a pretty awkward oversight on my part, and one I'm shocked to hear no-one else has raised yet. There's no real trick to it other than that I accidentally placed the two things to avoid at the South & East exits instead of the North & East exits as intended; my bad!

Thanks so much for the positive review!

I'll admit, I have more than a few tweaks i'd like to make before I'd even consider selling the game on Steam, but it's still flattering to hear such high praise for the game!

Glad you were able to find & enjoy the game's "true" ending, too. 😋 Given the target audience for the game jam (and the personality of the OC I based the protagonist on) it felt fitting to add something like that as a 'reward' of sorts for those willing to go out of their way to reach it.

Navigation was probably the one thing I've received the most consistent criticism about, so it's reassuring to hear that there were still those who had a positive experience with it. Same with the writing; I haven't heard anyone say they didn't like it yet, but I'll admit I was a little concerned that the fact I focussed moreso on the gameplay & aesthetics during the game jam period would make it weaker by comparison, so thanks for giving me feedback on that as well!

Thanks for taking the time to drop a review! Glad to hear you liked the game's atmosphere, it was actually pretty fun to use the natural "darkness" of old computer setups to help build the vibe of wandering through dark places.

Navigation being confusing is an understandable criticism tbh. I originally made the game with the intent that the player would sketch out their own maps & notes as they went along, but if this hadn't been a game jam project then I think I'd probably try to implement some kind of auto-map system into the game if I could since getting lost seems to be a recurring feedback issue.

A very interesting experiment!

Unfortunately, being perfectly honest, the experience was hampered pretty badly for me by the noise used for writing text on the screen hurting my ears pretty bad even on my lowest possible volume setting. I'm not sure if it's perhaps an inadvertent consequence of playing directly via the page rather than the ROM version of the game, but the lack of any other sound other than that forced me to mute it a couple ways in and I can't help but feel like that caused me to miss some of the more important scares as a result.

I'm a big fan of the story's ending twist, however. It wrapped things up in a way that nicely changes the vibe of the story. It's funny that purkka mentioned creepypasta, because it reminded me a lot of the ending to the old Smiledog.jpg story.

Overall, I definitely feel like this one could've been a lot better with some polish, but frankly just the fact that it exists feels impressive enough.

Creating a text parser would be a fun challenge, but after only just barely getting the game done with 'normal' Ren'Py options it'd probably have killed me to create the entire game with a compatible verbs/nouns system going on. 😅

So I was right on the money about Lee suffering from gender dysphoria!
I spent my playthrough wondering a lot about that (her reaction to what Hartland said after Noah's introduction felt very... telling to me), but I wasn't sure if I was just leaping to conclusions or not. I can understand not being able to fully explore it given the limited time, but nice work making it still possible for the audience to figure out via context clues/etc!

And with regards to the nameplates, I can only think of one place where I noticed them being incorrect so thankfully that didn't seem to be too prevalent an issue. If anything, I'd say it might be worth adjusting the colours on a few of them as some of the names don't show up against the black background in the History log (either that, or perhaps finding a way to adjust the background to be a similarly visible colour as the nameplates are).

Also, I didn't even realise until your reply here that you were one of the people who commented on my VN's page... glad we both ended up enjoying eachother's work. 😄

Also, one last thing but:

##SPOILER DISCUSSION##

I'm not sure how intentional it was, but I can't believe I only just now realised that the parasite implanted in Carter would be a tapeworm... as in a VHS tape. If that was intentional then bravo on that one. 

#SPOILERS#

You almost had it! You were on the right track, but you might have missed something. Try checking the Study again and see if you can figure it out!

Thanks for checking it out, even if it wasn't your type of thing! It means a lot that you still gave it the time of day.

The game was designed so that the player would be able to take notes & map things out on their own using pen & paper, but in hindsight I might have to include something in the opening scrawl to make it a bit clearer since I can definitely understand how some people might find the directions confusing to navigate otherwise.

Glad you thought it was spooky 🦌💀

Hope you had a good time playing! It was tougher than I thought it'd be to get the game's aesthetic implemented, but I'm overall pretty glad with how it turned out.

Thanks for playing!

For what it's worth, the safe puzzle is easily the most "involved" in the whole game, on account of the fact that it requires you to either take notes or memorise hints from different areas of the game and figure out how to use them to figure out the safe's code. Don't feel too bad if you couldn't figure it out, I'd probably get stuck too if I hadn't written the thing.

Even if you weren't able to reach the end, I'm glad to hear you were able to have fun. Maybe someday if I get around to doing updates on the game, I'll include the actual solutions within the in-game hints system for people who get too stuck to continue all the way.

It's hard for me to even know where to start with this one, but wow.

There's so much of this that really speaks to me, and not just as someone who's gay living in the UK. The way you handled the theme of toxic masculinity as an underlying force throughout the novel that claims to help men but only really serves to hurt & punish them while making them to lash out at those around them was impeccable, and the ending was a perfect mix of never feeling predictable while still staying true to the story that had come before it.

I'm actually quite a fan of the art style, personally. It took some getting used to but you did an excellent job conveying emotions with nothing but the photorealistic eyes, and despite the somewhat off-kilter look the characters manage to remain recognisable regardless. Hell, even if I didn't like the designs, the writing alone would be enough for me to stay attached to them; the main cast do a great job in their roles, and even when they're not acting particularly 'likeable' it's always in a way that improves the story and makes me want to read more rather than less.

Overall, I definitely think it was the right call to make Hartland the main POV over Carter; while I'm sure a window into Carter's thought process throughout the story would've been fascinating in its own right, I feel like Hartland would've felt a little bland without us being able to see his thoughts throughout, not to mention that him being an 'outsider' to the area itself helps add an extra layer to the borderline cultish vibe of scenes like the one after the gym workout that fits what the story is going for perfectly.

Overall, if I have any real criticisms it'd be that there's a couple typos here & there and it feels as though Lee gets shafted from the story somewhat after building up what feels like it's going to be an arc during the first half, but I can understand that both of these things are most likely the result of the game jam limitations than anything else.

While I'm a bit exhausted after the whole thing turned out to be a lot longer than I expected (......if you'll excuse the phrasing) I'm definitely glad I picked this one out as one of my first Novembuck projects to try.

(!Spoilers below!)

Before I start my thoughts I just want to preface by saying that, given how autobiographical the story is clearly intended to be, I genuinely hope it doesn't come across as a personal attack to say that I did not like the protagonist one bit.
Granted I'll admit that in part it's because I have a naturally low tolerance for FVN protagonists whose main vibe is "Quirky Relatable™️ bottom with unspecified anxiety/depression issues that squirts his pants if a man so much as looks at him with bedroom eyes", but throughout the VN I mostly just felt myself getting annoyed by how shallow he felt to me. The most "human" (if you'll forgive the phrasing) we ever really see him was the scene where he talks about getting into the furry fandom through VR Chat during the pandemic, which was an actually nice moment but also pretty much the only time I was genuinely interested in anything he had to say.
Which is not a great thing to feel about the central protagonist of a work to begin with, but even worse coming off the heels of something like Since November where every character (including the protagonist, who while being presented as mostly low-key nonetheless acted as a good springboard for OTHER characters, unlike the protagonist of this game) felt so much more like actually realised people.

Trying to put my full thoughts into why I didn't like this VN is a bit hard considering my criticisms cover pretty much everything about the story as a whole, so let me just stick to a couple main points starting with the end - for one thing, I don't believe that the ending felt earned at all.
Throughout the story we constantly have this idea built up that the protagonist feels as though furry conventions are the only place where he can be "him", and yet nothing in the story actually reflects this in practice; hell, the story barely seems interested in the 'furry convention' aspect at all outside of a few token scenes that feel more like reading the author's travel blog than a story that actually wanted to say something meaningful or interesting about furry spaces.
In contrast, the "real meat" of the story - the protagonists epic quest to finally score - is just one miserable experience after another that only leaves him utterly drained and depressed before the con even finishes, and yet somehow we're expected to believe that the prospect of attending another convention with a guy they talked to for a few hours on a stranded plane is enough to make the protagonist excited again? Especially considering that not only was the mere idea of being in a social situation where he'd be stuck with one guy he kind-of knows and the strangers that make up their friend group enough to make the protagonist freak out earlier in the story, but he'd already had such a terrible experience this time with a group of people he did know & presumably liked (although I frankly can't imagine for a second why).
It feels as though the final part is meant to be a ray of hope within an otherwise miserable ending... but since the narrative just expects us to take for granted that furry conventions are a wonderful queer haven from the drudgery and bigotry of "normal" life, without ever actually showing us anything truly positive about the furry con experience that resonates with the protagonist, it frankly just fell completely flat to me outside of being happy to see Fossy* again.
(*my GOAT**!)
(**fossa)

Another big criticism I have of the story would definitely have to be the protagonist's main """"friends"""""; most of the minor characters of the story at least serve their narrative purpose well enough (I want to give props for having the protagonist's encounter with Diesel play directly into why he initially goes along with Hammer's protest, and especially how it was presented visually; I liked that!) but much like my feelings on the protagonist I couldn't stand either of the supposed friends that the protagonist went to the con with, albeit for different reasons.
For starters, Blake is just... insufferable. Which was kind of a shock to me considering they're a character archetype I usually enjoy, but in this story they came across as a huge asshole who ditches their socially-awkward friend at a rave after agreeing to go to together - which, considering who the protagonist ended up passing out with, could have ended up HORRIBLY if Diesel had decided to get violent or... otherwise - something they don't show the slightest concern for when they hear about it the next morning. (Like, I'm assuming that the protagonist didn't leave out the fact that his main introduction to Diesel came right after falling unconscious, and considering what we learn about the guy's true personality does Blake just... not give a shit that them choosing to neglect their friend put him in an extremely vulnerable position with someone like that who was much physically stronger??) And that's not even getting into Blake's only real character trait being constantly bragging about how much sex they're having mere seconds after the same friend has just finished telling them about his own sex life being in the pits. I understand that it's entirely possible to have a friend whose main method of interaction is gentle bullying, but when coupled with the fact that Blake is nowhere to be seen in the aftermath of the Osgood scene - the one moment where Blake by all rights SHOULD be present in the story, if only to give a proper rebuttal to Osgood's perspective if not establish that they genuinely do care about the protagonist's well-being at the end of the - we're basically just left with the impression of them as nothing more than a self-centred flighty jackass who doesn't care about their so-called friends and came to the con exclusively just to get laid on hookup apps.
And as for Osgood himself, I'd say I like him slightly more than Blake (if only because at least he actually has a reason to be in the story at all instead of just disappearing towards the end with no payoff) but I feel like the story kind of shafts him compared to everyone else. Like, why is Osgood suddenly so obsessed with the protagonist, to the extent of begging him to come live with him so Osgood can be his sugar daddy, when by the protagonist's own admission they're mostly a third wheel in he & Blake's "friendship"? I can't help but feel that considering the emphasis placed on Osgood embodying basically everything about the stifling sex-negative assimilationist "real" world that the protagonist is trying to escape from, he should've had the most emphasis placed on his relationship with the protagonist rather than the least.

All things considered, the fact that nothing in the story really seems to be approaching any kind of positive themes or observations about furry conventions and culture besides occasionally dipping into "gee golly it sure is nice that there's a lot of openly queer people here! :) hey look at that Amicus dildo-" then if it wasn't for the fact that Osgood is pretty firmly portrayed as a sad little Pick-Me weirdo (and if I didn't already know the author's existing viewpoints on the subject) I'd be half tempted to believe that the narrative actually expected me to agree with him and that the point of the story really was just meant to be something like "furry conventions are awful places filled with lonely gays who only care about hookups and are incapable of forming any real social connection with anyone else" because that's pretty much the only thing the story ever gets to be about.
I hope this doesn't come across as me hating the story for shallow reasons like being "too much about sex" or NOT being another Since November, because as much as I'm criticising the overemphasis on the cast's sex lives and comparing it negatively to Since November, it's only due to the fact that unlike the latter nothing in the story really feels like it means anything. It feels like the game wants to be about the intertwining of the furry fandom with gay culture, but despite scenes like the Pulse Nightclub crossing protest clearly being written from a place of genuine emotion and feeling it never felt any of it actually came together to form anything substantial or thought-provoking. And frankly the disappointingly shallow main trio soured me on the cast as a whole too much to really say that I actually liked any of them either (except Fossy, natch).
I really, really, want to have SOMETHING good to say about this VN that doesn't come across as damning it with faint praise like "I genuinely liked a couple moments of it here and there" or "my favourite character was the guy who had about  4 lines total", because I can tell that if nothing else it was at least made with genuine passion about a subject that the author truly cares about, but in the end it kind of just felt like nothing more than just A Bunch Of Stuff That Happened rather than actually being a story that was about anything.

Much like it's protagonist, it's just a hole sir.

Really enjoyed my time with this one. It's short, but I think that works in its favour by letting the game say everything it wants to without stretching things out unnecessarily, and I appreciate the way that it leaves certain things unsaid so the player can read between the lines. The scene with the coach already got mentioned by someone else, but I definitely agree that it's a good example of what works best about this VN: we learn not only that Ken isn't just blowing hot air about the coach being less of a jerk than he acts, but also get an idea of *why* he acts the way he does at the same time.

If I have any major criticisms, it's that as much as I appreciate the VN not over-explaining certain things I do feel like the "bad" endings feel somewhat lackluster as a result of being under-explained. I'm guessing the idea is that the other rat embodies Eddie's personal insecurities in some ways (they seem to have mental health issues going on so I think it's a hallucination?) but it all feels just a little TOO abrupt. In some ways this works (the sudden-ness of it gives them a nice contrast to the much more "lingering" feel of the 3rd ending) but unfortunately I could also see it leaving people feeling a little confused and not necessarily in a way that feels good or intentional.

Also, if I have one suggestion: this is one project that I think would've benefited from using the 'NVL' mode over the default 'ADV' dialogue mode for Ren'Py, partly because it gives the writing (the key part of the VN imo) a bit more space to breathe but also because during the scene with the rat in the coffee ending the default text box covers that part of the image, while using NVL mode would've put the text in the right position to draw the reader's eye towards it instead.

Overall I think you should be proud of what you've made here! I hope you go on to make more projects like this, with a bit more experience I think you have the potential make something great in future.

As someone who had never played a Touhou game before in my life I can't speak to how "accurate" the game is or what the two harder difficulties are like, but what I can say is that if it's indicative of how a canon Touhou game feels to play then I certainly wouldn't say no to trying one for myself in future.

My only real suggestions/criticisms are things I'd already brought up in DMs; that a couple of accessability options for the main menu background/text would be nice, the visual effects used for the 2nd boss' spellcards lag the game slightly on my PC, and the English script could probably do with a once-over from a native speaker to catch the odd typo or odd wording, but outside of those extremely minor gripes it was an excellent first-time experience of the Bullet Hell genre for me.

Keep up the great work!

I really love this track list, but I think there might be an issue with the files within the .ogg zip file collection?

The tracks work fine if I download the .flac or .mp3 versions, but for some reason the files within the .ogg collection keep giving me an error saying that they're corrupted whenever I try to open one.

would recommend adding some of the "intro" that appears when you start the game into the itch.io page description, especially the content warnings for this & future updates (since not everyone is gonna want to download a game about incest, so prior warning would be really helpful)

Thank you so, so much for the kind words! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you, but it's genuinely really wonderful to hear somebody say they enjoyed this little project that I made on-and-off over the course of a year or two.

I might've already mentioned it in the dev room at the end of the game, but I feel like a big part of the game's vibe being the way it was probably had to do with the fact that that I'm a big fan of comedy which comes from inherently absurd situations being portrayed entirely straight, and while I was fairly limited for the most part by my decision to work as much within the default RPG Maker MV assets as possible I think that philosophy was actually really helpful when it came to giving locations their own unique feel despite that restriction (as well helping to maintain the same balance you mentioned).

For a game that I only made as a way to try out the MV engine for the first time after a friend gifted it to me and was pretty much just making up as I went along for the most part (something that's probably especially noticable during the early parts of the game, with even the name itself being something I just pulled in reference to the acronym used for the Runtime Package that you had to download to play games made in older versions of RPG Maker) I have to admit that even I came to get attached to the strange little world I'd created and the cast I'd written for it.

I'm also really glad to hear the AP System was a success for you; by the time I'd come to grasp how to properly use plugins to make the RPG Maker battle system feel enjoyable to play it was far too late for me to implement much of it into RTP, so the AP system & having level-ups be connected with items gained through sidequests rather than XP was something of a compromise in that regard. I wanted to try and make battles feel more involved than just "attack enemy til dead without dying" and I like to think that, in combination with a couple plugins I was able to squeeze in during development, the AP system helped me pull that off and make players feel like fights required proper management of party members & resources to beat.

(also as a P.S. - by "Pardean Town" did you mean Praegen, the final town? that's the only one I can think of beginning with the letter P but I could be wrong... glad to hear you liked those two either way, Salisbury Town was honestly really fun to implement so I'm glad to hear you liked it! :D
if I had to pick a favourite of my own it'd probably be Solford, but that's mainly because it felt like the most visually accomplished to me personally, and I was especially happy with how the maps I made for it came out even compared to the other areas in the game because of that)

If by the difficulty-based "True Ending" you mean the part of the description where it mentions this game following from an alleged "True Ending" of the first Echo, then that's just a joke; the original "Echo" visual novel that this game was based off of doesn't have any kind of "True Ending" to speak of so there isn't anything to worry about there. It's basically just a gag about how this fangame doesn't follow on from any of the "canon" events of Echo without having to break kayfabe.

The second part is definitely a glitch though; I thought I'd caught all of those before I uploaded but it looks like there was one I missed!

I decided it was best not to list it as "In Development" as I don't expect for the project to continue any further and I didn't want to give a false impression that it would