itch.io

Thank you for sharing! The sprites are really well done, and I love the text box and almost oil slick color of it and the main menu! Also love how atmospheric it is, and particularly enjoyed the line "just one new experience of the day," showing just how suppressed Anne is.

What a sweet demo! Spoilers below but some thoughts:

I love love love second person in narratives, and especially the switch around of second and first person, so this was such a fun game for me! I think it also especially works for a game like this where a lot of the interactions and choices are forced to continue the story, to really let the player step into the role of the user.

I like how desperate Lacey feels, and the vague background about Valarie is so sad. Despite its brevity, I can start to see the direction this game is going in, and Lacey especially feels like a very real character with real struggles. I hope she can learn to love her new program friend <3 Her evaluation of Descartes really gives you a glimpse into her mindset and her reality.

I also really like the nods to different anachronisms, showing how knowledgeable Lacey is, and how even despite knowing this, she runs this sketchy program on her computer LOL

Eldritchsaxes did a really great job with the music! Again, despite its brevity, all of the music was really appropriate, and I found myself tapping my foot/nodding along to some of it! The credits/later game music also was intriguing, it sounds very sad and contemplative. I'm curious where Brighter Day is headed!

Thank you for sharing this demo, and I hope to see more in the future!

Okay WOW so much to say on your new game, sheep!!!! I did play version 1.1 for reference, but I'm not a tyvnj2 judge so I do what I want LOL ANYWAY!!! There will be spoilers in this comment, so readers who aren't sheep, be warned!

I love your ui as usual, you really have such an eye for user interfaces! The backgrounds and composition were all soooo cool!

Your sprite artwork has improved so much since MIDNIGHT, it was really delightful to see your use of shading, especially on Rosa, she's so pretty! And I love Rosa, I love how she is a hurt person who's lashing out and trying to do harm on others as a way to cope with harm done by herself. I love that she's a computer geek, and that it's both a point of pride and love for her, and also a point of pain. I think you really nailed those complex feelings!

As for other characters, god I HATED Cereza, what an awful person. I really liked how you used her as a symbol, how her rot slowly infects Rosa, and also the city, and the virus, too. I loved the lines you included about that virus girl not knowing where she fits along a binary because she wants to be Cereza, but Cereza, despite being a horrible, awful, abuser, was also a person in her own right with her own oppression, and how again, people who are hurt, and people in power, will continue those cycles of abuse (PLUS - dare I say, the cycle of US interventionism interfering with St. Eligio, leaving the country in a worse off place than before, which then invites in more US interventionism? Very well-utilized setting for the psychodrama happening!!!)

The gameplay was really intriguing, too! I am... notoriously bad at strategy games, so uh. take that with a grain of salt, but once I captured enough nodes, it was kind of fun to just wait for the dice to fall! Speaking of the gameplay, I really enjoyed how the options during the Infect sequences were "Penetrate," "Bypass," and "Exploit," with "Penetrate" and "Exploit" really sticking out as not only a computer firewall issue, but precisely what Cereza had been doing to Rosa. Also I loved the usage of different names for the different node firewalls, I thought it really gave a lot of character to the city and world!

Your worldbuilding is always so great, and I had a fun time despite only getting the bad end (a subahibi end sky reference, perhaps...?)! I'll be back to play the Longinus Syndrome ending someday, and for sure the true end when you've got the game in a state you will be proud of, but you should be really, really proud of what you've accomplished for this jam! Thank you for sharing this vn!

(Also last small thing, but god, assembly programming JUMP scare - pun unintended)

YAY thank you so much for playing!!! I am happy you liked the game, and the paper dolls especially gave me so much grief, so I'm glad they worked and stuck out to you!

OUGHHH WHERE TO BEGIN WITH THIS ONE!!! (sorry this review will contain some minor spoilers)

The composition, the prose, the styling, the ambiance, the chibi sprites, all of it was so, so well done! Everything came together so well, the way that the men really did feel chilling, the way that Louisa is trapped not only by social convention to marry a man, but also by the social convention of being a younger woman, and a lady at that. I loved the way the networks were drawn out, and the way the color coding was done, from the stars to the way purple is half red, while Louisa is red and the whole manor is blue to show how out of place she is (also with the Strigas being blue). I loved the tri-panel, and the letter segments, and those few cgs where characters broke OUT of the panels (I know I keep harping on composition, but WOW)

One line in particular stuck out to me, the one where it says the sound of the door opening sounds like dice clattering on a table - I just found that line so effective to show what a gamble Louisa was taking.

Lady Striga and the Queen are both so compelling to me, powerful women in their own rights who have been held down by societal standards, and older women who have built up networks - putting them both in direct contrast with Louisa.

The brothers... I like Winston a lot, but I despised Randolph. Their bickering was very funny to me, though! How embarrassing for them... I really like how Louisa even mentions that she could have made friends with Winston if he wasn't so intent on marrying her, because despite his qualities, he is still forcing a marriage on her that she doesn't want, and that she lacks the agency to reject.

And she's so, so young to be going through all this... 18 and ambitious is so hard. It almost makes me a bit uncomfortable with how the Queen is toying with her, but I also support monster fucker rights, and I imagine that discomfort is intentional because of just how powerful and beyond human the Queen is.

Overall, I think it's a surprisingly sweet story! I loved all of the character interactions and the prose and the art so much, my gosh, what a wonderful piece! Thank you for sharing!

THANK YOU I'm so glad you liked it and that some of my special techniques came through well hehe! ALSO YEAH I have so much venom in my heart for the 72cm max waist

Ohhh the audio design and ui were all really compelling! I loved the ways the different text boxes moved, the glitching effect, the idea of self harming but also truly how "manufactured people can only give manufactured consent" and that applies not only to Era (regarding her emotions and life), but also to Clarice, who is forced into working and how there's no way to consent to that. Really punchy and cool and tight writing for such a short vn, thank you for sharing!

OH WOW!!! The tension between Swallow and Kagamitsuki, the history they have (and Kagamin's history with Youko), the graphics, the prose, the music, everything was absolutely stunning! The animations and presentation are gorgeous, and it reminded me a lot of imperial court dramas (like the 10,000 years may the emperor reign comment). I also really love the twists and the push and pull between Swallow and Kagamitsuki, how the one defines love, and the other defines service, how enmity and kindness are used in kind, just overall really really well done! Thank you for sharing!

Wow, what an incredible game! The writing is so tight, for such a short game to have so many reveals, and such solid pacing! Ivy and Dahlia's opposite attractions to each other, or to each other's "false" selves is so compelling, as well. And the music! It sets the scene so perfectly! (Side note that I love that Dahlia makes physical music cassettes, she's so cool) Also just love the way Dahlia's face blindness plays into setting the pace, the "I'm smiling" bits are so unreliable once you've played the whole game. Thank you for making and sharing "Ride Home"!

Wow, wow, WOW!!! What a cool game - I was hooked right from the opening sequence.

The writing is so strong, especially with Nikko's and Lev's voices, and the limited cast and world was surprisingly expansive for both how short the game is and how little we're shown of this world. The art and CGs are breathtaking, and I particularly liked the moving sprites! Really gives life to the static and dim background, too. I love how colorful the characters are, and the sound design was really good! Nikko's development over time, and the tastes and different sensory inputs... OH! and the BrideCo diagnostic background, all just stunning!

I loved the exploration of fighting and loving and the way the two blurred, as well as the exploration of the rule of robots that can't hurt human/what makes a robot vs a human. Thank you for sharing this game!

What a sweet game! The art and music and dreamy feeling of the prose all add such a lovely depth to the game, and I love how it's up to the player to choose the items they want to keep, however they want to interpret the items! I also really love the old Nintendo DS feeling of the UI, it's so charming and nostalgic! Thank you for creating and sharing such a cute and lovely game~!

Still not familiar with itch's layout, so I apologize for essentially copying my review, but this was a wonderful read! I loved the arc of the MC and the way heat and temperature are used - I could really feel the stickiness in the first few scenes. And additionally, I loved the line about how Matt broke the immersion of Hotaru by speaking, and the way the protagonist looks at herself as Hotaru, how you can really feel her wonder at her own beauty. Just a really interesting read overall, and the layout was exceptionally well done and super interesting! Thank you for sharing!

Thank you for writing this! I read this zine last night and have been ruminating on it all day today! What you said about writing characters and real people with love and interrogating the intention of writing Black characters really stuck with me, and I think it made me come to realize a lot of the issues I have with some modern works and the way marginalized characters are sanitized. Thank you again for the interesting read!

THANK YOU!!! That scene was one of my favorites to write because of how "storybook" it felt! Thank you so much for reading/playing and for your lovely comment wahhhh!!!!

the dragon mythos and the yearning for a different life were so poignant! The music is also extremely fitting! Thank you for sharing this fairy tale!

What a beautiful game! Both poignant and visually stunning! The horror elements are creepy, and tied in really well to a deeply personal story that felt both hopeful and uncomfortable because of how personal it was. The sound design was also excellent, and I loved the botany and details of local fauna! So well-produced that I'm in awe at the fact the version I played was the jam version! Cannot wait to see more from CicadaQueen and other members of WSIO's team!