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thesilentspy

2
Posts
A member registered Sep 11, 2018

Recent community posts

*Spoiler Warning Ahead*

I just played this game recently with a friend on a whim and absolutely loved it. Starting from the beginning, the visual and audio elements of the game are wonderful. The art itself is very nice (both the character sprites and the backgrounds) and when combined with sound effects and music it gives this nice, undercurrent of dread that permeates the game even before shit truly hits the fan.

Now, as for characters, I like how there is a large range of behaviors in Haven. You have Eve, the overachiever who seems to revel in petty victories and paperwork. Grace, the fully indoctrinated follower who truly believes what she's doing is best. Cerise, the traditional bully archetype (although not so traditional in terms of art depiction. Gotta say, this is the first buff mean girl I've seen in fiction. The fact that she could both ostracize and also beat the shit out of you made her oddly memorable in terms of bully characters. Truly the worst of both worlds to deal with). Maria, the one who never lifts a finger but is fully aware and complicit in the system (and very fitting that her character death starts by her refusing to look at Magda - ignoring the problem until it goes away until her dying breath). 

And of course, there's Nils and Magda.

 Magda is very much your sweet girl-next-door trying hard to be good and probably would succeed had she been in any other setting. Alas, being in a cult, "good" is more of an obscure, ever-shifting goalpost designed to keep people in line than it actually relates to any actual sense of true morality, so of course she fails. She is a very easy character to like, and you do truly get attached to her and sympathize with what she goes through, which makes her breakdown and descent all the more compelling to witness. 

As for Nils, I enjoyed them throughly. Even from the beginning, you immediately want to know more about them.  If this were a play, they would have an amazing stage presence. I like the parallel between them both winding up in their current situations by feeling compelled to go beyond what they're "allowed" to (Nils by choosing to help out humanity despite multiple warnings against it, and Magda by her choosing to sneak out to satiate her own personal curiosity.) I also like the contrast of their personalities, the sugary-sweet (well, mostly) Magda with the bitter and caustic Nils. Watching them interact together is a little like if Carrie White had met Venom, and I mean that in the best possible way. 

My only real complaint is that I wish we got to see more of them together. From what Nils said about this being their "last resort", I imagine they had a different plan in mind originally. It would have been nice to see more visits/more interactions together before their final merging. 

But all together, it's a great game. You did a good job, especially for your first game! I would love to see what you make in the future. 

Just wanted to leave a comment to say I really liked this! Everyone is obviously a little OOC, but in a way that feels lighthearted and pokes fun at fandom memes and perceptions. I also love the sweet, serious moments mixed in there too, you actually want to get together with her various love interests, something some actual dating sims don't accomplish. The artwork is also very nice and pleasing to look at. I also loved some of the humor and references (particularly WKTD, it's so rare I see other fans of that). Overall, for a game that was probably made on a low budget and mostly passion, it's very high quality. Nice job. 

P.S. How many "routes"/endings are there? I know that there are three main "routes" of the game and polyamory is allowed  to a degree (being that you could romance the three and none of time slots overlap with each other), but are there others? For example, could you decide to romance Lucio or wind up with none of the love interests and get a different ending? Or does that just give you a shorter party scene? Just curious about some of the options of the game.