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I did thoroughly enjoyed this one! It's an exercise, but the set up is inspired. The opening throws you into this apocalyptic world. There's the terror of a world forever encased in ice and the corporate sci-fi GM which is arguably worse. It's seasonal depression hitting the cn community too. The prose is easy to follow and silly at times. It's trippy and meta which is always a plus. Congrats to the author for completion because it's a short fantastic work!!! On to some crits, which there are a few:

Spoiler warning / 剧透:

Like DFW's Octet, this story is structured like a thematically disjointed pop quiz, the philosophical and moral implications of our protagonist's dilemma is intentionally obfuscated, and then the author coming to apologize for it and calling to its intentionality. It works to a certain extent in Octet, because the pop quiz themselves are set up to be comically complex and neurotic, but in this vn it sort of comes off as a bit jumbled. Judging by how roundabout it is to find the hidden ending I suspect the author intended the primary experience to be about the 3 choices themselves... which by design is the vn's biggest fault. Save a kid? Save an engineer to save yourself? Save someone who doesn't want to be saved? The choice presents itself as a moral dilemma while lacking a thematic center, and this faulty premise takes center stage, but it's called out upon by the author to prove an entirely different premise (and only in a few sentences!) that life's permeance is extended in stories? I hope there is not a second hidden HIDDEN ending to call out on this thematic disconnect of the thematic disconnect. I think the intended argument is that the apocalypse is a stand in for inevitable death, and the three choices are about how we should live instead of who we should kill. This is a fantastic concept, and I wished our protag's internal monologue calls attention to this slightly more, so that there isn't any confusion when it ends. 

A fantastic quiet adventure in the flavor of Treasure Planet and Polar Express.

CGs will pop up once every 20 lines or so, making this read like an animatic. There's a strong sense of color, contrast, framing and texture, featuring the same eye candy brush as that Blaidd comic. When there's a candle, the room and the sprites will be draped in orange, and the outside world is a consistent melancholic purple. It's hella moody. Not to mention the prop design, papers piling and aged books and the worst doctor's handwriting documents will decorate every BG. It's a case of an artist leading a vn that could be felt in every frame. There are some play with the transitions too, like the zoom out followed by the sudden shift to snow in the opening, so clever. 

There is some take with the narrative style, the protagonist is a total loot goblin, always rpg-style rummaging over our npc's house, this gets funny at times. The story itself is a literal call to adventure fantasy that's been done to bits, and quite a slow one too, but I never once felt impatient with it. No avant-garde character cooking or modern story structures here, and it doesn't need one. A comic creator is exploring this new medium, and it is a joy to experience. 

Spoilers section ---

The jam theme is extremely prevalent, the premise of an ever flying ship literally powered by the dead is pretty on the nose for the message of dealing with loss. The climax, featuring the first ray of morning sun is as predictable as it is satisfying.

The lion brothers are HOT. Everyone in this vn is hot. Please please please make more stuff!

It is mostly linear, there is one choice.

这边中文母语所以能自由对话，然后再次感谢回复！！！原来是这样被找到的

第一个VN读完！
有点短但挺可爱的。有点tech demo的感觉，个人希望各别角色能深入一些，但能在前七天完成不容易啊，加油！

A great bad time.

Overall this desperately needs an editorial pass to reshuffle some scenes so the momentary ambiguity of the world building doesn't get in the way of what really shines in the story, which is our protagonist's headspace and mal's relationship to him. 

Carrioff has fantastic line work but I feel the hastily plastered on grey multiply layer makes the read a bit too fast. Make our eyes work for it! I'm all for the piss stained parchment aesthetic and I feel the previous game's art direction works slightly better than this one by omitting the mattes. 

The bat needs to do things to me

您好！首先Thank you so much! 没料到国内也有来读这vn的，十分感谢留言。元星的版本我也读过，但翻译和原意差的有点多，有点可惜。以后我可能打算自己翻或者找一些专业的localization做转化。

这游戏主要灵感来源于徐冰（文字写生那段直接用到cg里）。但如果对他陌生也完全不会影响阅读。

这里有些好奇shaungyue是从哪里找到这vn的？

pink singlehandedly pioneering the genre of mirror-yap and making it so damn engrossing

I enjoyed Purkka's previous works, but unfortunately this one is a hard miss. The one piece I've seen from HSS is Right Now, Wrong Then, which I thoroughly enjoyed., and Purkka was not lying when they said this piece is inspired by their films. I don't think the renpy shenanigans calling attention to itself is a fair substitute for HSS's appeal, and the translated inspiration becomes a detriment as it just reads kinda silly

Would love an android build

Would love an android build!

Thank you.

Genre hopping reader here! I'm definitely one of the described folks who has sci-fi on their rare read list, and gave this a try despite so.

But I ended up loving this! It does have certain genre conventions that take some getting used to, but the relationships between the main cast more than makes up for it. The ocean deep world building and intrigue is something that I don't find anywhere else in the genres I read, and it's giving me inspiration for my own writing too.

And on prose, as an ESL reader, a few prose flourish sections are challenging, but a welcomed one, and not so dense that's inaccessible. I love it when VN devs break out of the Best-Seller grammar conventions. The opening section is beautiful.

A beautiful thing. At some point I'm torn between wanting to see the prince struggle with his decision a bit more for more drama, but that might ruin the tight mood that the prose and minimalistic visuals had set itself up to. Overall I loved this piece.

That was awesome! From the stylish opening to the satisfying end(s), this vn successfully translates the eerie vibe of modern gothic films. Like Danji I was hooked from start to finish. The only criticism is that I had hoped our protagonist's writing side is less of a wink-nudge and instead played a more prominent role in the narrative. Other than that, this piece completely blew me away. Excellent use of sound, cg, everything. Can't wait to see what you'll make next! 

Thank you so much! It was written as a standalone piece but I realized the idea is impossible to explore in short form. I keep getting tons of ideas while writing but I had no place to put them, so it steadily bloomed into something much bigger in the back of my mind.

Got a little hiccup but it should be out by tomorrow latest!

画风挺有趣的，收藏了

AH this means the world coming from you!!! Thank you so much for checking out our game. Big fan of your work as well.

Thanks for the catch! It's fixed.

That was SUPER cute, love auntie's design, she's  just so ridiculously well animated and a great concept in general. Thanks for the story!

This is a clever little montage of vignettes that sketch the development of a relationship. I think the prose is the highlight of this piece. The writing is minimalistic, but the writer clearly understands the appeal of good cadence in a conversation. I would be thoroughly entertained just listening to this author write about random stuff in the park. The whole thing is surprisingly easy to follow. The non-linearity starts out strong, but the ends leave me questioning if the out-of-orderness of the latter half really served the narrative.  The jam theme is pretty subtle in this one, more so on a metaphorical level than anything visually, which is fine. 

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this.

The ending is intentional, though a misspelling prevented Bat's pov sprite appearing on the bottom left. It should be fixed in the final.

There're a few gems of mundane conversations sprinkled throughout the day that really makes this VN shine. The pacing is quite slow but the vast amount of charming sprite work makes up for it.  Good job team!

Also wanted to point out how efficient this game was with its visuals. Great stuff. 

Thank you so much for the insight as always iegs! You have no idea how useful they are! Will be taking this into consideration for the final edits.