It's great enough and picking up steam to the point of making people curious about the original! Glad you're enjoying it lol
ZeroAnonymity
Recent community posts
Finished the rest of the original and epilogue routes.
I'm thoroughly bummed out, but in a way that feels true to life for the others. Doki, Popcorn, and Koey's routes utterly slew me. Koey's especially hit home far more than I thought it ever could.
Everyone involved with this project and Mammal Squad should be proud of these projects. All of these characters feel fully realized in my head, like they're real people that are living their lives, and that's an absurdly incredible feat to pull off. Even the MC, someone thoroughly flawed but usually well meaning. I'm so happy we get to see these characters get fleshed out even more through Mammal Squad; you've made a diehard fan of me for this series.
I've only done one epilogue thus far, having popped over to it after finishing her original route. Miya's.
I adore how it points out a good chunk of the main character's thought process in the original route, and that it honestly depicted a lot of the difficulties dating someone with her condition and living situation when you, yourself are just an idiot college kid, but I wish that it could have ended some other way. Even if it was still a painful one.
Edit: Only just now saw all of the other comments about her route lol
I'll add that of all the routes in the game, Miyah's version of the MC and how it deconstructs his personality is some of the best character writing I've ever seen, and that's not hyperbole.
Sitting in his perspective, having his shallowness thrust in your face, feeling the gears turn in his head as he thrusts himself into something that will make everything worse but just lets him FEEL ANYTHING for a moment. Being cowardly over wanting to leave, being bitter about feeling like a hostage, thus he forces the decision for himself, making it impossible for him not to go through with it. It's all so, so very well done.
I had a lot of the same thoughts as Asya growing up, and I came up with a lot of the rationalizations she had to deal with those thoughts. So as she got more and more unhinged in her thinking, it felt like watching myself spiraling.
As a result, though, the ending made me cry so, so hard.
It's painful, but to me it was a good kind of pain. The writing, the themes, and the ultimate message it seems to have... It made me feel seen and spoken to.
I got it on a whim over on Steam and I've been thoroughly enjoying it. It hits a feeling that just doesn't come up much in games. True, honest to God melancholy. I'm excited to see the rest of the game.
Oh, you're also absolutely INCREDIBLE for lifting Triple Triad and putting it into the game!! If I'd known that sooner I'd have hopped onto it faster. I just wanna know how to activate the special rules.
This was a concise, truly stellar story that left me desperate for more. Literally. The end of the fourth chapter had me so uneasy, so unsure of where it would go from there, and yet it just... ended. Which isn't an issue at all, it fit the pacing of the game and the story up to that point, but that unease was just left to dissipate with no resolution to it as strong as I hoped for.
I only write that out to ask whether there are plans for an expanded version of the story or a sequel? I'd understand if not, or not for a long time, but I want to support your works in the future and would love to keep track of its release!
I've wanted to say something about it for ages but just never knew where would be best. This series has been wonderfully executed. It's doing something you can't really do for mainstream art, being very brutally honest with the reader with her experiences. Down to her not even having a name. It's really affected me and I want to thank Ponporio, the guest artists for these and previous nightmares, and Carpenter for all they've done to bring it to life.
The game itself does a great job of executing the PT like repetition, using everything it can to characterize her and give insight into her situation. Even keeping her demons away becomes routine through the execution, locking the beast away before it bites but always being dangerous if you forget about it just once. The final phone call in particular is beautiful, and sequestering it as something you can only hear in a replay is an incredible way to show that despite the kindness in it, the thoughts of it are buried deep inside her.
I look forward to the rest of the chapters, and I'll keep an eye out for more games by Carpenter Blue for sure.
I saw just a snippet of the game's opening on Youtube and sought this out from that. This is genuinely stellar work. The artstyle, the atmosphere, the creeping dread as things get worse...
I want to see more of this setting. I want to learn what happened with the other residents, how things progressed after the Catastrophe beyond the snippets of info in that pdf. I'm genuinely fascinated with this world and I hope you'll make more.