Reviews by manonamora

A cosplaying fan of a yandere anime strikes up a conversation with you at a con, remarking your resemblance to a major character of that anime - the “girlfriend” of the one she is cosplaying. It doesn’t take long to realise she is a certain kind of crazy… the obsessive kind.

Hoping to get away to find your own girlfriend, you are left with two choices: agree to take a picture with her to calm her down, or try to run away. Only one is the safest thing to do.

Though it is short, and not really my thing (I am not an yandere fan at all), the entry does manage to hit all the trope of the yandere character, making you wish you never have to deal with someone like that in real life. It is somewhat a good reminder not to let yourself be consumed by what you consume…

This short VN starts with a bang… or more accurately, poison. Realising what your lover may have done, you go onto confront him, and maybe get the antidote to avoid your demise.

You have multiple options to confront the man, some with violence, some pleading with his heart, and one asking Why. The truth lies in the lies, and life sometimes lies in death. Your survival is never really into question, but your feelings are another deal…

I wasn’t left completely satisfied with this entry. With the limited amount of words, it is hard to have a concise story pulling punches. In my case, it didn’t. Maybe because the outcome change little, or maybe because most is left unexplained. But maybe you’re not supposed to feel satisfied. Life usually isn’t…

The visuals however were lovely, and so was the addition of sound.

You were kidnapped by a stranger, for a reason unknown to you. And you are currently strapped to a chair, while the stranger essentially tortures you. You are given a choice, to hopefully gain some information about who that stranger is or why you’ve been brought here.

This visual novel is quite short, and lets you skip the part you’ve already read during replay, so it is quite easy to wrap it up in about 10min or so. And while there are hints to how you got there, I don’t believe there are enough pieces to solve the puzzle altogether. The writing focuses more on visceral description of the violence, making it quite gratuitous at the end.

I was honestly left quite repulsed (so the writing did what it aimed to do!)

Setting the stage at the Highchester estate, where a widow, the Lady of the house, trains her only daughter, Chelle, to take on the helms, a change of plans disrupts the life of three women. The arrival of Ara, requested by the Lady, enacts change in the relationship between mother and daughter, as well as subordinate and estate owner. The game lets you explore the perspective of those three women after this change. I recommend you leave The Lady for last.

With very little words, the entry depicts a sad tableau, painting pained faces and hurt feelings, the urge of having affairs in order forced by hidden secrets, and the expectations from one’s stations surpassing love and affections. But it also shares emergent feelings and an hopeful look on the future, as well as hinted breaks of class rules. It is impressive to depict much in such a tight package, and depict in a very touching way.

I was honestly wondering if Chelle and Ara would pull an Eugénie Danglars before the end…

Seeing the news, it sometimes feels like the world is a shitty place, and things keep getting worse. It’s not hard to drown in negative headlines and feel bombarded by tragic events left and right. And no matter what we do or say, things don’t seem to change.

And, even with positive things happening around us, negative thoughts will often linger, sticking for a while, until the sheer size of it all overwhelm us. This is what this entry manages to evoke with the visual of the bitsy engine, with the thought bubbles sticking around, piling onto one another, until it fills up the screen.

While I did somewhat expected it to happen, since the same thing happens to me, it was still distressing to have these feelings visualised before your eyes. The entry is devoid of any meaningless words and descriptions, only leaving the pure unaltered thoughts on the screen. The Good. The Bad. And the Ugly.

This short entries flips through a photo album, with the narrator commenting on the different pictures and how much has changed since the pictures were taken. Until you reach a turning point, looking at a picture from when you were still a sweet little girl - or so your mother like to remind you. What you do with this picture will determine the ending of the game.

The entry is full of nostalgia and melancholy. Sadness is present throughout the recollection of the past, even after your choice - though one is a bit more hopeful. Even with its short format, the story manages to give a snapshot of a distant relationship between a mother and their child, and the gender norms that may have cause that distance.

It is beautiful, in its pain.

TLN is a kinetic piece, a sort of small sequel to the Shadow Realm, another game from this author. The story follows NBQ, a side character from that other game, still in the Shadow Realm, going through the item that Anthony, the main character of that other game, has left behind. One of those items is a notebook, within which NBQ discovers a shocking piece of information.

There is not much more to this entry, which took the only one option to click on path of the SingleChoice rule. Elements of the story seem to require knowledge of the previous game to be fully understood, and the prose made things a bit confusing as well...

The illustrations were cute, though.

Do not get fooled by the pastel pink palette, and the child-like font. This game is much darker than it looks, and it is not afraid to show it. And it does it good.

If the title wasn’t enough of a hint, the game is a retelling of one of the darker versions of Cinderella, but with a twist. It is one of her step-sister who bagged the Prince, living the not-so-fairytale life. The step-mother’s trick, of sawing her daughter’s heels off was not discovered, and fooled the desperate romantic man. And through the step-daughter eyes, the story starts.

The game depicts this less than perfect life, with a woman who doesn’t feel like she belongs, in pain as a consequence of her mother’s action; and a husband who does not love her. Yet, she is forced to pull through, and perform the duties of her title, no matter the pain. The descriptions are gruesome and explicit, the feelings are raw and quite depressing. And it is done good.

I quite liked the author’s take on the single choice for the entry: with two cycling macros, giving 12 different options, each diving further into the Step-sister’s mind, her relationship and the titles that come with them, her regrets and shame, and her wishes. It is pretty grim all throughout.

I really, really appreciated the way the author coded the return to the choice, without having to read through the whole start of the game or remembering the last option seen. It made it so much easier to play all endings!

Waking up in a strange land can be perturbing. Realising your body does not look right, feels all kind of wrong. Finding yourself in the presence of a stranger by your bedside, terrifying. So what do you do? What can you do?

This short game gives you three choices, branching the story towards three different ends. Funnily, these choice kind of represent the Freeze, Fight, Flight behaviour we have when faced with a stressful situation.

The writing balanced quite well the more horrory/odd elements of the character, especially compared to the human they are facing. There was an interesting focus on how bodies should look like, the transformation of bodies, and how the character’s body felt wrong - adding to the uneasiness of the situation.

Visual wise, the game uses the basic UI of Ink, putting focus on the text. Still, it made some interesting styling choices, with the honeycomb link.

This entry is a retelling of a popular European folk story, where a card game is being played at a pub, when a stranger comes in and asks to join. Promising all your heart could desire if you beat him, but if you lose… he would take something from you too. Will you take on the challenge or fold?

The entry is very short, only a few passages before the eventual choice, and its visual is bare, putting the focus on the text. I really liked the depiction of the group of friend playing cards at the pub before the stranger’s entrance, giving a false sense of normalcy - a sticking opposition with the description of the stranger.

The choice itself feels both quite consequential and not very surprising, considering the heavy hints the game provides ahead of time. Both option will give quite different and expected endings. I think I preferred the “playing” option more than the other one - mainly because I’m still not sure what price will be paid…

It was a neat piece of folklore.