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Unbelievable game and a stellar debut. 

There's a lot of ways visual novels can take advantage of of the medium to make something more than the sums of their parts. I appreciate that this one reached far back to the minimal stylings of the "sound novel," leaving the music and visuals to set a base level of atmosphere–in this case a damp, dark, oppressive one–and letting the writing take the lead, trusting in the reader to flesh out a sensory model of the vivid world inside.

The prose carries itself with the dim, slimy confidence of hard-boiled detective fiction and the story gave me the kind of thrills I've only gotten from the best episodes of the X-Files: those moments where the veil is at its thinnest and the only thing scarier than supernatural violence is the insidious banality of the state which can hardly contain it, let alone wield it.

The cultural elements brought much to the story that I'm still thinking back to. I've been considering differences in policing in the US vs Japan, forced confessions and hostage justice, the new left and student movements of the 60s, Di's mom's Americanisms in Japan compared to her Japaneseness in America... and how all of that fed into the paranoia at the story's core (and there too was personal joy in seeing such rare complexity in a mixed/haafu character). 

Among the very best I've read. Can't wait to see what this group does next. 

Never felt so heard in my life. This is exactly what this jam should be about. Great shot of the lowers 

Very fun story and the author's love for movies is clear. I came out with a new appreciation and interest in pink films. There's an inherent distrust fomented in characters who are themselves actors and this game plays with the idea in an interesting way. I liked this game a lot. Looking forward to your next work. 

Also there were a few moments where I was really like "wow, you can do some interesting things in Renpy."

Really unique look, I've never seen anyone use these kinds of motion graphics in a VN before. 

you are the most irish visual novel EVER!

insanely visceral and i found both of the sisters to be charming in their own twisted ways. i'm glad they both got to be with mrs. o leary and it was all good ^-^

setup and atmosphere here are killer and i loved how fran was characterized... i feel like extremely hotheaded characters are pretty rare in this space? the alt future (?) setting was interesting and i liked how sparse you kept the details, just enough to make the plot beats make sense.

medfet stuff was very hot :) all of the characters were too, i think the sprite work was fantastic

and, reading your postmortem, wow! with the music! another feather in your atmospheric cap because you nailed it for these characters, this setting, this mysterious and dangerous world...

this felt like it could have been from some episode of the x files i missed... very much looking forward to your next work, i loved this a lot 

i think this is the first tyvnj game to make me laugh out loud at multiple scenes. seriously funny and uhh–woah–woah–HEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING!! SARAH WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

okay. should have expected that from the toxic yuri game. anyways, i thought this was really insightful look at fan culture and the somewhat ironic isolation people can work themselves into by participating in fan communities... but everyone else is already talking about that, because you did an incredible job, and i'll leave that to them. the thing i wanted to praise that i haven't seen mentioned was the dynamic between graye and sarah as they sought to understand each other's worlds. sarah could never understand why her campus, home life, and education was so impressive to graye, while graye couldn't grasp why the advanced people of the future would find such value in an (exaggerated) version of their life, to the point where they found fanfiction to be self-illuminating.... i loved these scenes, and even amongst the other high points of your writing they stood out to me as an immense showing of empathy and a total triumph.

the ending was amazing, too. 0-2 for sarah, who can't handle her manga on the page or in real life. sorry, allie :(

P.S. i know you said this wasn't inspired by the Master & Commander series (and infinity sailor seems a far cry from it anyways) but the whole time i was reading this i was confronting the fact that i do genuinely have comfort characters and they're Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin LOL i would probably pee myself if either of them showed up in my room

instant classic. the 1-2-3 combo of unconventional narrative device, chess puzzles, and butterflies fairies could have fooled me into believing this was pulled from some unknown corner of the nabokov archives, and what a stellar execution of the visuals and music to match. 

katurian is just incredible ("to make me look scaaaaary!") and algie was the perfect intermediary to bring my actual reactions into the story (the scene where she first sees panz felt like it was pulled straight from the lizard part of my brain at the exact moment i experienced it). 

Baseball is: a game, a shield, clothes, the past, the fast color red, a fucked hand, nothing.

Beautiful writing by someone who knows that baseball is all of the above, as well as what baseball is not: the future, a fix for things, an apple-producing mechanism, pointless.

That is, this is a work which engages fully with the breadth of baseball the game, which can also be: a mindset, a memory, the sum of history, a transformation of regret into rage. 

When I was a kid, I remember feeling humbled by the idea that sports were a mechanism for adults to sort out their problems in a civilized way. Sports were war for the type of person who had grown past the need for war. Therapy for people who can deal with their problems alone. This is a nice thought, and it still is, but it starts to fall apart when you take a closer look at the players and see them struggle. Not just with their game, but with everything, and then that internal conflict comes out in their game. And at that point it becomes clear that baseball is just real life. Or maybe it's the other way around?

All to say I think Robin perfectly encapsulates baseball's inherent, devastating contradiction: that our most comprehensive metaphor for the suffering of conditioning is a meaningless game for children.

Another laser beam strike by KILLJILL. 

Beautiful illustration work. The seesawing manner in which Ensilumi and Aurinko court empathy from one another was interesting to watch unfold with each new reveal compounding the frustration between the two. Nicely done!! 

great job, the art is so clean and nice. i enjoyed seeing these characters change as they grew up with much suggested but left to the reader's imagination. the elements of medical trauma were well done. 

Another testament to the power of a huge team where everyone does their role at a high level. I enjoyed seeing (and hearing) every contributor's touch in this game. The combination of sci-fi and gothic themes was of particular interest and I think it was handled with a lot of skill. Good job to everyone involved!

Everything I love about Kyou games but done in the "sound novel" format this time. It works really well–one thing I think you've always amazed me with is the rapidity in which your worlds are established, and when everything but the words and music (another of your great talents) is removed, the resulting story is speedy and exhilarating. Looking forward to more. 

PS: OoOoOo, the pocket dimension of infinite coins is scaAaAary

really well done, doubly so as your first vn. i found your style to be distinct and well-formed–that is, i feel like i could recognize anything else you do out in the wild now. i am a sucker for evil teacher groomer stories so we were already off to a good start, but as the narrative weaved in and out of dreams and reality and the space in between, i felt comfortable enough to trust your skill as a storyteller to take me where you wanted me to go. 

looking forward to seeing what you do next.

I became a cow and maybe I should have inferred from the title that I would not have a choice in being a shortstack cow. 

i want to kill the claude cat but i would feel SO bad if i killed the claude cat....

everything is so well done here but i wanted to particularly note the exposition via screenshots which was so efficient and visceral that a 20-year gap in the story was rendered kinetic and believable. 

Takes place (mostly) in Boston amidst the 1994 MLB Players Association strike and the AIDS crisis. https://kazehai.itch.io/2-4-94

went in for the sports, stayed for the sports, ended up completely obliterated by the spiritual desolation of the suburbs

this one GETS IT... the writing–on sports and love and gender and the suburbs–is flawless, the characters are beautifully realized, the visual work is stunning and the music fits everything just right. 

i also just found it immensely relatable, being exactly the same age as the girls (in 2011) and having grown up in a similar place/situation. had me holding back tears at so many points. the ending scene genuinely crushed me. this is maybe my favorite visual novel ever 

Looking forward to the full version of this one. The setup for the two main characters is neatly done and despite its briefness the exposition is delivered so efficiently that I had a solid feeling for the world here, a kind of alt-history noir thing which is really up my alley. 

UI looks great and the character art is excellent as well–Fio is very cool. 

god this was SO awesome. everything i love about games and competition all taken to its most unhinged, inhuman extreme. such an indulgent work that's proud to show its heart on its sleeve to great effect 

i wanna read this soooo bad can you please export a mac build? will come back to edit this review!!

Eris is such an nasty combo of evil woman in STEM and evil girlboss CEO lol. The rather abrupt ending here works well and is extremely cathartic. This is a solidly put together game, lots of polish and also 251 is cute. Right to repair forever! Good job to this whole team!!! 

sublime. 

athleticism and competition are two of the greatest vehicles of self expression but are rarely examined in spaces like this. rather we tend to see the flip side of things in media meant for the majority: articles on the abhorrent and loud anti-trans push in sports at every level, endless clinical reports on harassment and abuse in the locker rooms, even feel-good stories about people who are "different" but manage to compete. all things that need to be written about, maybe, but rarely are they handled on a personal level and doubly rare by those who despite it all understand the heart of an athlete. 

but i wonder why it's so rare? i often think about "all stories are trans stories" in the sense that all stories are about transformation and the sometimes hilarious implications that that idea can lead to. but really there's something about sports with the inherent physical transformation that comes with activity, the manual transformations that participants enact on themselves in order to participate, the undesired transformation of assimilation that might be required to fit into ones team that makes sports a powerful medium for this kind of story.

stunning work by all involved, no other words needed to praise the technical excellence on display here 

seconding this one: 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

People really get attached to their homes, don't they? What a unique look to this game and the music suits the mood very well. I thought the writing was mysterious in an intriguing way and I enjoyed feeling both sorry for and frustrated by Insider at different times. Great job to this team and I hope to see more from everyone involved 

congrats on your first game! i would really nice to know where naua is buying t shirts 

So much to do here with the strange relationships in the world of academia: the structural relationship between funders and their recipients, the transactional relationship between fields of research and their subjects, the imbalanced personal relationship between individual researchers and their assistants. The converging and diverging narrative into a representation (representation?) of Dodger's work is such an awesome way to tell this story and the commentary on "outsider art" is surely appreciated for those of us spending our precious hours making and reading micro-indie toxic yuri visual novels on itch dot com. 

Wonderful work, loved it a lot

"And so? What are the implications of this for the field?" <- a line that will prompt fear, loathing, or an eye roll depending on the status of your manuscript. reviewers and editors LOVE hitting you with this one 

obviously i love a Subtle flavor of toxic yuri that burns hot and deep in the core and this is certainly one where you might actually miss it if you blink. It's very funny and ironic that underneath the macabre "together forever even in death" bittersweet story, there's this sharp and raw substructure of misdirection and resentment and ultimately revenge. Awesome to see a brand new team come together like this. The quality of the writing, art, and music is all top notch and fits together so well. Cannot wait to see what all of you do next whether as a team or in solo work

a photography game!! be still my beating heart. the perils of a show opening and the fascinating characters who end up there, whether you want them to or not... i really liked this one.

awesome. there are so many types of white racism but one i've really been thinking about recently is this orientalist conception of asia (all of asia, from the middle east to the pacific islands) as a fantasy place populated by different kinds of aliens. like aliens from outer space. sometimes, to white people, it's cool and trendy to want to be an alien, and sometimes, 

Painful. I love stories about research and the research world–maybe one of the most "progressive" spaces despite the "pragmatism." Wonderful short game.

Your glossy and cute style really shines here, both on its own merit and in contrast with the scenario, which made me want to rip my own hair out. I loved watching the two characters tear each other down by indulging in their lowest, darkest, most destructive fantasy. So incredibly well executed on every front 

Multiple times while reading this I thought to myself "I could not in a million years expected that it would go this way" and then it just kept happening. This one absolutely blew my mind 

You are the shortest visual novel EVER!!

hehehee yayyy yayyyy hehe were all making honeydew together hehe ^-^

SO good and so gut-wrenching. Deirdre's sensory perceptiveness was my favorite element of it all. The contrast between her constant, vivid descriptions of the senses and her total emotional blockade was brutal, especially as that split came to define her and Kenzie's relationship. The way they couldn't reconcile the combination of their physical/emotional connections - despite them being clear and strong when separate - played nice with the story's other components: self-identification (and projection), growing up (and not), small town social politics (and what it's like to operate outside them), love and gender (and fear and the act of inhabiting oneself)...

Really well done, thanks for sharing (flutter flutter).

It was such a tender experience to build the doll while the room came together. Every element of this game was so intricate and shiny and elegant without being superfluous... Really looking forward to anything this team cooks up next. Go make some dolls!!

One of the appeals of doll characters is that despite their shape they are decidedly non-human. Often they are contrasted with human characters and one bridges the gap to become the other. With this story, I enjoyed seeing an edge case: a doll who lags behinds its peers in growing to fit a human world, one who struggles with the idea of transformation in a way that mirrors our own reality. Great work!

I was about halfway through reading this when it suddenly clicked that it wasn't just a spot-on stylistic parody but also an actual TTRPG that you can actually play. Looks SO good, the text is extremely funny, and I'm really looking forward to playing it with you soon!! And finally, the sequel to Azone is here: Bzone, of course. 

Like when the light hits a window and it becomes a mirror