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Ren'Py-Tom just recommended this in a video interview, so now I'll try it out... – I guess you'll get a lot of downloads currently because of that recommendation? ;)

Funny and short. Right thing for entertaining 30 minutes.

Trigger warning: don't be hungry when you play it! ;D

I can sympathize: https://thelastsecret.itch.io/sweet-science

Good to see some other visual novels with AI art already. Looks nice. Need to try out when I have time. :)

A beautiful visual novel that entails all what we love: quirky characters, hilarious slice of life, cool science fiction, nostalgic retro-vibes and cute romance with nerdy girls... (SFW, age: 12+)

Play mini-games about science*, solve the mystery of your involuntary time travel, and try to find the love of one of the very special girls of Silversee Castle, but: Are you smart enough for them?

• Includes an award-winning OST.
• Available in English and German. 
• "Story guide" included if you want to take it easy and just reach the good endings.

Play the game on PC/Mac/Linux or in the Web Browser of your computer, tablet or smart phone!

Winner of the Feedback Quest visual novel competition 2023.

    *Can be skipped if you prefer a brain-free experience... ;-)

Thank you!

Thank you! :)

Thank you for the sweet feedback! :)

Wow, that's fantastic. Please contact me on Twitter or by Email, then I can give you early access to the full game...

Thank you for your praise! :)

I think I have added some extras, accessible from the main menu. Others than that, there was quite a lot of bug fixing.

Thanks for the reply:

Yes, I mean the editor's note: if blackmailed, he would have taken out the article before printing, not added something to it. But that's a minor inconsistency and okay in such a wacky story. :D

I overlooked the introductory sections. Maybe make them a bit more visible?

I know why you use the side image, but making it smaller and maybe only cut out the head would work better. Otherwise it's too much like twins on screen... ;)

Making life harder for players (not being able to easily undo their choice) is understanadable, but I like to paper my players, in particular in a light-hearted story. I did not find a way to save their either, as I didn't know the right key, looks like. I guess I won't be the only one...

Thank you for your nice feedback! :)

Totally crazy story that might develop into quite some fun! Functional, but nice graphics, and adequate music.

The game just jumps into the middle of the story. Maybe a bit of foreshadowing in the intro would be nice. There's also a bit of a confusing story line with flashbacks and different persons as protagonist and decision makers. It's not as linear as most VNs, certainly interesting, but maybe needs to be made clearer to the player to follow along.

Some minor issues you might want to change:

- You use the same image next to the dialogue than on the main scene. That looks weird. I would either omit it or use only a small face of the person speaking, maybe a bit stylized.

- Save is not available at junctions where one needs it most.

- Player can't roll back beyond junctions.

- Not sure whether I like the speech bubbles. It seems like a clash of styles to me, but maybe that's just me.

- Story seems sometimes a bit contrived: why would, e.g., a newspaper print something and deny it immediately in the same article? Maybe if it were an online article that gets corrected while the player is reading it...?

In any case, a fun VN in progress! Looking forward to the end product. :)

As is mentioned at the language selection page, this happens when you run in it in the browser and your internet isn't fast enough. Just download the game on your computer once, and then the problem is gone. :)

I would agree that it is more an experimental experience than a game. Although, in the mathematical sense, of course it is a game... 

Little bug: when you sit down, it looks like the boulder is running over your body. (Ouch!) The person should be placed more to the front and in front of the boulder.

I didn't notice that the messages of other players can be heard before I read the reviews. Maybe a hint would be useful. Also, they are too distored to understand them. I also at  first didn't notice that the "pattern" in the foreground were other players. But later it clicked... :D

Yeah! :D

An interesting experimental piece. The artwork is special, but so far it's more an illustrated short poem with a rather abrupt ending than a full-fledged visual novel.

Maybe there's more to come...?

Performance in browser play was fine. I would recommend to add some introduction where the game play functions are explained. I was too lazy at first to read the instructions on the web page, so I missed out on the right click feature. :D

The amount of extras one gests after the (boring) first round is confusing. Simply too much at once, not well explained. Make this increase gradual, but cut the first round shorter.

Interesting concept of making a VN straight for mobile devices in portrait mode. The graphics were intriguing, but the whole experience is more like an illustrated short poem than an actual full visual novel. A poem can ask questions and leave you without an answer. So does this "experience".

Thanks for your feedback! The pixelation is caused by a slow internet when you play in the browser. If you download the whole game onto your computer or if you have a really fast internet, that problem disappears.

Thank you! :)

Thank you, Azrhyga! :)

Great, then just drop me a message at thelastsecret (at) gmx.ch with your email address., then I'll send you the link for the download. :)

You have as much time as you want and can play any branch you like. I would only request that you give feedback, in particular of all errors that you encounter, so that I can correct them...

Thank you so much for your feedback! :)

Would you like to try out more of the story? I'm still looking for test players, so just contact me and I'll give you access...

Thank you! :)

Well, it doesn't have to show the exact number, but it would be helpful if a failed attempt got more feedback. That could be a progress bar or something like that. Usually, puzzle games have that unless it is clear from the set-up how far you were falling short of the goal (like in Angry Birds).

Well, the graphics all look okay-ish, but not professional. In particular, the characters are a bit messy. I like the graphical effects of the wizard tunneling through walls, but the character design itself of all characters looks improvised. To a lesser extent that is also true to the level elements. Finally, the whole background, grid, text elements etc. could also be beautified. I am not good at such things either, but maybe you find a graphic specialist who can help with your project, because it's always a pity when a great idea for a puzzle game flops because it doesn't look pretty enough. (People will buy/download based on looks, mostly.)

Cool idea! I really like this, and I think it's pretty original and fresh. 

There are many things that can be improved, in particular the graphics and the information (e.g., how many steps are needed to clear the level, i.e. how close am I when I fail). The UI could also be improved: it's tedious to first erase a block and then build a new one. It should be possible to just replace one with a new element. I am sure, you're working on these things already.

This might become a real gem!

EDIT: I've cleared all levels of the demo. The difficulty ramps up quickly, as you have said, but, yes, it's a demo, so it's good that you demonstrate that levels can become difficult, too. ;)

Oh, so you like watching the stars...

... with Azuki... ;)

Oh, I see....... That's a problem, but it can be mostly solved with some trick. I'll write you by email.

Thank you for your offer to help!

I will have to think about it, but adding a new translation is a lot of work. I have in many cases programed Sweet Science assuming that there are only two languages. Also, adding any new language should only be attempted when the whole game is complete...

If you want to help improving the Russian (and/or Ukrainian) translation of TLS, however, that would be great and fairly easy to implement. In this case, please contact me on Twitter or with the contact form on my webpage. Then I can send you the necessary files by email. You don't have to know any coding for that, don't worry! It's quite nifty and the game files themselves will not be altered. (Otherwise the game would run in only one language.)

Hope you'll survive her perilous experiments... ;)

No, it's not going to be adult stuff. Age recommendation is around 12 years.

Thank you for your compliments and I'm happy that you liked the game! :)

I'm sorry, although I had TLS translated into Ukrainian and Russian, I do not plan to translate Sweet Science. I don't know anybody who would be willing to do the necessary edits of an automatic translation (understandably, since it is a huge work!), and an automatic translation, while being useful for some players, seemed to upset other players (my experience from TLS). 

Thanks for the upload! I'm happy to see my game here.

One suggestion: You've played the game in the browser with slow internet. In this case it's better to simply download the game first, then the graphic transitions are smooth and not as pixelated and the music also works without stops.

Have fun with "Sweet Science"! :)

Thank you very much for your response! So many points to answer and so little time... :) I try my best to pick the most important points:

- The co-op puzzles in TLS are missing in Sweet Science, because the story is not really coop... In TLS there were a few friends getting caught in an adventure, here are a few people that slowly become friends, therefore co-op puzzles wouldn't have fit as well. Also, there is no big action here. I got the feedback from TLS that the parts that players most liked where the non-action parts with lots of fun interaction between the characters, that was one reason why I focused on this aspect in Sweet Science.

- I like to promote things that I think might also be important to others. Go is definitely not known enough in the West, and I got feedback from some players of TLS that they encountered it for the first time in the game and were fascinated by it. Same with science topics. I think that in this way, a game can have more positive long-term impact on a player: when it makes them discover a new world outside the game itself.

- Thank you for the suggestions regarding the games you played, I'll take a look at them by myself. I have played some, e.g., Everlasting Summer which definitely had a big influence on Sweet Science. I have also played a bit of its successor ("Love, money, Rock 'n Roll") and was disappointed (similarly as you).

- For your missing endings: For Ben I have written down how to get a good ending in my guide on Steam. For Honghong you need to solve Go related questions well, solve the escape room well, be approachable and flirt well in the romantic scenes and in general be smart here and there (like remembering Li's phone number, the correct song line etc.) Then you should have romantic scenes with him on the date, in the forest and on the "sea". If you play as man in the rainbow mode, in both cases (Ben and Honghong) you will have interesting conversations with your mum, obviously... ;) So while the endings are the same, the story changes a bit between rainbow mode and non-rainbow mode, as well.

- Honghong's knowledge extension: he can basically access Wikipedia in his language (and a bit more), but that does not help him with translating words much. And mathematics is more than knowing things: It won't help you to remember Pythagoras (a^2+b^2=c^2) if you need to solve a math problem where this formula is used somewhere if you don't have a good ability to process information in a logical way. Learning by heart only helps you a bit when you need to solve math problems. It's usually not enough.

Finally, something entirely different: Since I've read that you are Ukrainian: I'm sorry that your country is suffering from this terrible war right now. I don't want to write too much about politics here in this forum, but I sincerely hope that a good peace for your country will end this war!

Hi Clavik!

Thank you very much for your detailed comments and thoughts. That was very interesting to read!

Your theory with the four temperaments is really original. I haven't thought about it like this, but indeed it fits to some extend. I think the characters will all gain more depth when you finish the game. I used more "stereotypical" characters than in TLS because I wanted the game to start a bit faster. In TLS the character introduction takes quite some time. (Ben is only introduced in Chapter 4!) I had the feeling that more impatient players stop playing the game because of that. That's why I wanted to "jump" into the action this time. For that purpose it's easier when players meet familiar character types they can understand faster. Later on more complexity is added, e.g., we learn why Marie is so shy, we learn about Peril Patti, we learn about the death of Sylvia's mother and the surprising backstory of Azuki (well, maybe less of a surprise if you had played TLS before...). I think at the end of the game you will feel that the characters have gained a lot of uniqueness.

For physics, i really didn't come up with good "educational" tasks, but the player gets involved into the project with Patti and will have to do some jobs (mini-games) for that, so I think, overall, it'll be a funny arc, and learning about physics happens in class, but only during the first days. (By the way: I guess without the science content I would have a few players more, but I don't have to make money with the game, so I'm okay with this as long as there are enough players who learn something new about the world through my games...)

Regarding Go: I am a Go player by myself (not too strong, just good kyu level) and I love it when more people play this beautiful game. That is the motivation to insert Go content into my games. And since I like science as well, I also inserted some of it into "Sweet Science". :)

Regarding the bugs that you've found: That was very valuable, and I have corrected most of them immediately. They should be fixed in the next update. The cat videos I will leave in, as it's not clear whether the player is just talking about how he thinks the future of internet videos will be. (And because it's funny, I think. ;)

Finally, just for curiosity and since you managed the translation issue, may I ask what is your native language?

Thanks again very much and all the best!

Thank you very much!

Have fun with the Go evening. :) It will differ a lot, depending on your route...

And keep me updated about your game!

Actually, I like the multiple fruit harvesting: it adds the task of finding the sweet spot to harvest most fruits with one click and thus makes it more interesting!