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Review
In my experience, Chinese language visual novels are often puzzle-less electronic picture books. Many stories offer few and trivial choices. As a language learner, I prefer IF to have at least some game elements to focus my attention and motivate me to keep reading. Monochrome Impact is unique in a couple of ways. The characters are not glamorized/sexualized humanoids. The puzzles are very easy except for the endgame. But at least they do not allow the reader to simply click to the end without reading and understanding. (I actually tried and got stuck briefly, after accidentally losing my progress in the middle.) The vocabulary is quite simple; only occasional words exceed HSK level 2 or 3.
However, I took off a point for interactivity because I still felt there were too many times the game could have released control and let me make some moves. For example, it automatically moved me to a couple of locations and used inventory items when it should have let me do that.
A word about the development and publishing system, Bassavg. The first Chinese language IF community to discover the English language community is at Qiaobooks.com. Bassavg.com is probably the second. Bassavg stories are very similar to Ren’Py in appearance. Unlike Ren'Py stories, Bassavg's html output allow bookmark tools and plugins such as Mandarinspot that assist language learners. Almost all games are browser playable without needing to download.
