itch.io

I tried the whole building a twitter following once, for future marketing, managed to stick with it for about two months, haven't touched it now in a couple of years xD Anything marketing related makes my head hurt, I suppose there is the otome subreddit, which is somewhere to start, do Steam and Kickstarter not have marketing help?

I managed to get through quite a few of the ticket ones, but waiting was a massive pain, I think I played one pay-per-route game, and I remember really liking it, but I can't remember the name and it disappeared years ago :( Haven't played the Moonlight one, but googling Miyabi I can understand why you'd pick it up, love a good kitsune :3 The first full game VN I bought was Amnesia (which I still need to finish, I'm terrible for playing one route and then leaving), I was so hesitant cause it was like, £40 or something, and I had all these free ones I could play, but like you said, the quality was so much better and ultimately, they do work out cheaper than the pay-per-route, or the ticket ones if you do spend money, cause both of those really add up fast and you don't even notice until oops, money's all gone! I keep hearing about Mystic Messenger, I really need to play that, Nameless is also on my list but I've been distracted by Rune Factory 5 and Genshin recently >>

I've been on holiday the past week and haven't even made a dent in my backlog ;-; I've got so many games and tv shows and anime and books to get through, but it's never going to happen xD

Nothing wrong with pantsing! Don't let the planners fool you, this is definitely the cooler way to live >:3 As long as you can patch everything together and go, 'ah yes, totally my plan all along' is all good!

Ooh, haven't seen Inside No.9 but I see that it's black comedy, so it shall go on my list of things to watch, especially if it's got fun twists in it. Ghost Stories sounds good to, I enjoy stuff that suddenly makes sense/ seems different on a rwatch. I'm currently working my way through the Expanse, which is setting up lots of questions and mysteries, so I'm curious to see if those will pay off. I remember the book Runemarks had a really good twist, cause I was so sure I had it all figured out, only for them to reveal more, I was so impressed at the time xD Danganronpa does the same thing, gives you enough to figure out 'the twist' only to reveal more twists.

Yeah, sinister MC goes a bit extreme, but it is a freaky situation and I like an MC that's got some fight in them. Still, I very much look forward to seeing the new content and the personality system, I will definitely be playing around with it! Personality systems are fun, difficult to implement, but they really do make such a big difference. Sounds like you've written it well, with good variation but not so much that you'll get completely swamped.

Ah, piling more work onto an already big pile of work, classic writer move :3 I'm excited for new characters as well! I'm super curious but I'll resist the urge to ask questions and just wait patiently instead x3 And that feeling of nearly finished but actually got a bajillion things left to do is the worst! Still, it'll be worth the wait :) Also, I'm noticing that we're starting to take up a big chunk of the comment section with these replies, is that ok?

Marketing is such a nightmare, and there's so many platforms to market on and trying to keep up to date with it all is overwhelming, so can definitely understand the struggle! Good luck with it!

Yes, there never used to be much variety with VNs, I played quite a few of those mobile ones, but waiting for the story tickets to recharge was such a pain, and they were a bit too pricey to spend on, so it's great to have so much choice nowadays. I've got a few Japanese ones on my to play list, and a bunch of routes I still need to finish xD Been nosing around indie titles as well, so my list is also growing, haha!

Nah, I think that line was great, it shocked me, but in a good way! Kuro's voice in yandere mode did honestly spook me a few times (again, in a good way), also nearly always the 'about to die' sign xD It would be really weird if someone else voiced Kuro, bit like the whole swapping from subs to dubs in anime, or the other way around, I'd personally be fine with new lines being unvoiced, would also be a little weird, but less weird than a new voice.

You can never escape the pantsing way! >:3 I'm the same though, will write a lovely outline that makes perfect sense, and then a character will decide that, actually, they don't want to do that, and that what they do want to do requires a complete rewrite. I've resigned myself to it now and just patch the holes afterwards, not sure that's the best way of doing things though ^^;

The first thing I ever wrote is an absolute mess of plot holes and awkward writing, I don't think I would've guessed that this was your first project or that you were on a time limit, it's turned out so well!

Oh, for sure, a lot of reveals are either easily guessed, a let down or just don't make sense. The best reveals are the ones were you look back on the story and go, 'oh yeah', but it is hard to find those. I mostly hang out in fantasy, so there isn't always a reveal, but whenever there's a really good one, I'm guaranteed to remember it for a long time, there's some stuff were I don't really remember the story, but I do remember that it had a good reveal xD

I gave into temptation x3 I played both routes, and am looking forward to replaying both when the updates come out. I'll probably wait for the update to drop a review, but in short, I loved both routes and your writing is brilliant. Balancing a good amount of choices is difficult, very easy for it to get out of hand and become overwhelming, I think (from comments on choice games, rather than VNs admittedly), that people usually prefer a small amount of impactful choices over a large amount of choices that are more or less the same. Whatever you end up doing though, I look forward to it! :D

It's been recommended a couple of times on yandere threads there, plus a few of your other games, I actually ended up with this, DD and Yandere Heaven all open as potential games to play before I even realised they were all by the same person xD

Oh, there's definitely a sub superiority thing when it comes to anime stuff, personally, if it's an anime I watched as kid, I'll usually watch it in English, cause I'm used to the voices and the anime was usually cheesy anyway (digimon, yu-gi-oh, etc). Nowadays, I suppose it's a mix of either feeling the voices don't fit the characters, or that there isn't a dub/the dub is way behind the sub, or just that sub tends to be my default now. In terms of VN, I've only really played otome (dangranronpa being an exception, I did actually play that in English, thinking about it, and I enjoyed the VA's there) and it's hard to find otome games voiced in English.

I definitely agree that things have more impact in English though, even when I recognise some Japanese words, it doesn't hit as hard. This game did emphasise that I've got to say, some of the stuff Kuro said! (Looking rather pointedly at mage Kuro here, did not expect the insult he dropped and it hit!)  It's good to see you supporting English VAs though, it would be nice to see English VAs and dubs in things supported more.

And for sure Tim is Kuro! He did a great job, let him know that if/when you do remake this (and I'll definitely be back to replay if you do), he'd better be back as Kuro too, otherwise 100% I'll be complaining! ;D

Spoilers

I honestly still really liked the student one, I think starting on the detective route did set things up and help me understand stuff better, but I don't think I would've been put off if I'd played student first.

Ah, yeah, the pantsing way of writing, it's fun but you do inevitably end up with some plot holes. Still, I do think the story is solid, I didn't spot anything that was story/immersion breaking. Like I said, was a bit confused with mage Kuro, but when it didn't crop up in any other route I figured it was probably something like that, (and he did come across as one of the more unstable Kuro's.)

Yes, I'm a big fan of how stuff was revealed! Enough for it to be very intriguing, but not so much to figure out more than the basics of what was happening. I feel like it's hard to find reveals that aren't either a bit of a let down or really obvious, so I'm always super excited and happy when I find a reveal that's done well, (which I think this definitely was).

Ooh, I did wonder if that character would crop up in some of your other stuff! How fun, I'm definitely curious about them so that's more games added to my list to play! As for DD, I'm trying to convince myself to wait but I probably won't xD I don't mind replaying stuff, especially good stuff, so I'll likely end up playing before and then replaying after the update.

Nothing wrong with a bit of rambling :3 And thank you for making such an awesome game!

Well that was one crazy ride. I'll admit I wasn't really expecting much from this, I stumbled my way here from otomegames on reddit, having just played Nightshade and coming to the realisation that I actually do like yanderes (despite my previous opinion that I didn't), I saw this recommended on a few threads and thought why not. I was, however, sceptical, the sprites looked a bit dated and I usually watch/play anime stuff with Japanese VA (English always feels too dramatic to me), so colour me surprised when I realised I loved it all. The sprites are adorable and the VA's are brilliant (Kuro's does get a special mention, but I enjoyed the others as well), and that's not even mentioning the story yet! I also really like the opening song, enough that I've found and listened to it many times on youtube. Anyone who might be browsing reviews, on the fence about whether or not to play this, I highly recommend doing so.

Spoilers

I started on the detective route, because I didn't really intend on playing more than one route and I liked detective Kuro's design best, I also managed to dodge almost all the bad ends and was confused why Kuro had been rated 'high' on yandere-ness (I revised that opinion once I did get them). The ending got me, I was confused and curious and just had to know what was going on, cue using all my free time to play the other routes.

Overall I think gamer Kuro is my favourite, I liked that he could interact with more than just the big bad, and it felt like he developed the most out of all the Kuro's, (that one bad end though, I was not prepared, having come from soft fox Kuro, I was expecting the same level of low yandere-ness, not something that could rival mage Kuro). ??? route Kuro is a close second though, even with the stuff he keeps in his pockets. Honourable mentions to student Kuro, who spooked me even before we'd reached a bad ending, and mage Kuro, who got nudged out of second place (although, I never quite understood the seeming split personality he had). I did enjoy princess and detective Kuro, but not quite as much as the others.

The ??? did a good job of wrapping things up and answering almost all of my questions, whilst also throwing out some new, interesting revelations. I'll also say here that all the routes in general did a great job at hinting and dropping information whilst not being super obvious about what was going on. The story itself was interesting and sad and strong throughout, I thoroughly enjoyed myself playing it. (The heck was with that bit after though? That seriously spooked me, and I was playing in the middle of the day! Brilliantly done, good wall breaking).

Now I just need to decide if I can wait a few months for the update to play Darling Duality.