itch.io

Thank you for making this game! I really enjoyed it. Apart from the pretty art that everyone already pointed out, I also think this game has a very unique mechanism and great writing.

SPOILERS BELOW

Having two paths of storytelling determined by the combination of the first two choices still leading to the shared endings was a cool idea. For my first two playthroughs, I changed these two initial choices and still went down the poisoning path both times, so I totally didn't expect to discover a different side of the story in another playthrough. It was a really pleasant surprise that the characters can spend their day out and show us more about how the previous master died, which added to Cyrus' character depth. It's interesting how the choice to swap the ring replacement still got included in different narratives - dirty ring after gardening vs taking ring off during cloth fitting. It's also cool that some choices can directly lead to missing out a large portion of storytelling (if you don't give Mikael the antidote, the entire day will pass with him bedridden + if you refuse to go out with him, the day will just be skipped until he comes back.) While it's straightforward to get all 4 endings, it was very interesting to find out about these mechanisms and try to see all possible dialogues. The dialogue also shows minor changes depending on earlier events, like Mikael saying he doesn't care about other stuff, only how Cyrus felt, would have the variation that says no matter what his sister says about Cyrus included if the letter from his sister was received during the day. This kind of minor details really shows the attention that you put into making the game.

The writing was great. I really like both characters and didn't find any typos either. To be honest, I expected a lot more toxicity knowing that the theme was toxic love. In my opinion, toxic love was only present in the bad end. Other than that, I think Mikael liked to flirt with Cyrus but wouldn't really cross the line. In one of the neutral endings, Mikael showed that his way of loving meant prioritising Cyrus' happiness, even if it meant letting Cyrus go would hurt himself deeply. This, along with the dining table dialogue "Do you really believe that I am despicable enough to force you?" convince me that Mikael might at most be an ignorant aristocrat, but he's really not a toxic love interest (apart from the bad ending which his personality differed of course.)

At first, I wanted to help Cyrus kill Mikael because Cyrus seemed to really want to kill him. But from the first meeting, I started to find Mikael adorable and it made me very hesitant to do anything mean to him. My stance quickly went from "Let's poison the porridge because vampires might be more sensitive to the scent of blood" to "I'm definitely giving him the antidote. Do I really have to torture him with the catalyst later to get the bad ending??" I got the good ending for my first playthrough which was really sweet, and this made it even harder to go back and be mean to Mikael. But as a completionist, I had to do it anyways. During my attempts to see all the dialogues, I often found myself trying to kill him, but always felt too soft-hearted and backed out whenever such an option was available. Particularly, the scene when Cyrus reprimanded Henri, causing the fire, it was very difficult to ignore when Mikael was so vulnerable and asked for help. This scene felt the hardest to come back and collect the dialogue because Mikael was really pitiful and sad when Cyrus ignored him.

And finally, I want to mention that the art and music are very nice too. CG arts, character sprites and the little bats are all really cute. The lone blue wounded bat for the bad ending was adorable and pitiful, while the two loving bats in the good ending and the game page are super cute! Thanks a lot for your effort in making such an enjoyable game.

Thank you so much for your time and effort in making this amazing game! It's so hard to find such a BL game with a dark, unsettling vibe, very pretty art and great writing. The game tackled the concept of toxic love (or perhaps dependency) in a really interesting way. It was perfectly my cup of tea and I absolutely recommend it to anyone who like BL a bit dark. We really need more games like this.

It's hard to believe that this was your first solo project, and done under the time constraint of a game jam too. Congratulations on finishing such a great project. I really appreciate the high quality. I already rated the game 5 stars, filled out your feedback form and will be looking forward to your future projects.

Since the google form didn't have a section that allows general feedback, here are some of my opinions:

SPOILERS BELOW!!!

- My favorite thing in this game was the writing. I really enjoyed learning more about them through the choices players can make in the truth or dare game. It's also nice to see their past near the different endings. Their characterization was well done even though the game was very short. Otogi seemed self-aware of his own problems, although he believed that it was impossible to fix. This was a nice change from a typical yandere whose only thoughts were on keeping their love interest by their side and rarely have any time to think about their own personality. Kyu himself was a host who was fed up with his own lifestyle too, which made some of the endings which he decided to give up on his own accord very reasonable and some of my favourite endings actually.

- The art was very pretty. Some of my favourites were Kyu to the left of the text box, and the Otogi art shown after the player avoids the question and struggle. The game icon of incomplete number 6 was also quite cool.

- I didn't hear much variety for the music (maybe I didn't pay enough attention) but I really liked what I heard. It suited the game's vibe really well.

- Smooth programming without running into any bugs. I don't always expect that for a game just recently released.

- I super appreciate your attention to detail. I will usually find at least a typo or two in free indie games, but I didn't find any in yours despite the time constraint in production. More than that, there were a lot of small variations in dialogue depending on prior choices the player made, like whether they drank the alcohol earlier etc. They really show that the dev put their care into the process.

- The scene when they explored the room and Otogi startled at the water sound was a nice foreshadowing. It already made me assume that Otogi died from drowning.

- Just a random thought. After I chose to leave here together and they approached the balcony, I honestly thought that's how Otogi would make Kyu leave this place with him lol

- I found 6 endings with ease but spent majority of the time hunting for the last one. You can probably guess that it's the one where you have to repeat the loop until 8th time. Honestly, that's way too many for my taste. I already guessed this method earlier but gave up only after 3 times. Later when I still had no idea for the last ending, I tried again and gave up after my 6th repetition with the thought that there was no way a dev would make it this tedious if this method really was right. Perhaps it was intentional to get players stuck 7 times because the game's name is associated with number 7. If that's the case, I don't think it was obvious enough, but if that's not the case, I think at most 3 times would be more intuitive for players.

- I like how the mechanism of the game allows players to iterate through the different choices and learn different stories from the dialogue. They also result in small variations in storytelling later. However, only choices made late game actually impact the story as far as I'm aware of. (Correct me if I'm wrong but the dare choice that made Kyu drink alcohol earlier seems to restrict his ability to reject Otogi later. I think that's the only impactful earlier choice.) I just think earlier choices have the potential to be leveraged too, especially the choice to ask Otogi about his student ID or not, which didn't influence any endings afaik.

- This is minor, but I was confused at the mention of Saionji during the game. I only realised it was about Kyuu when it showed up in the credit.

- Sometimes there were blank text boxes I found a bit awkward. It made me intuitively wait for text to show up before realising that nothing would show up and moving on to get the new text.

Overall, I really loved the game and please feel free to take or ignore any of my suggestions. This game is already very great as it is! I really hope you make more games like this in the future :D