Moonrise

I received a review copy of this game.

This is a visceral and fun werewolf game where you, a medical resident, become turned into a werewolf by a teen girl werewolf looking for family.

The game has restrictions on gender; you can use she/her or they/them pronouns, and you can choose to be cis or trans, but not male (either cis or trans). This allows the story to explore themes related to the treatment and marginalization of queer women, including by straight/cis women (represented here by an evil vampire overlord).

There is a focus on found family, and many choices are between conforming to society or being wild and free. The first 4 or 5 chapters are dedicated to setting stats while the latter chapters only test stats, which was explicitly announced (I liked that feature). I did have trouble figuring out which choices affected which stats in the early chapters.

Despite its shorter length (50K words) I was really pleased with how many consequential choices there were in the game. Each chapter had a few choices that felt like they could really influence the future (trying a bit of a replay, some did [like skipping whole scenes] while others had cool flavor then went back to normal).

The only thing that threw me off was the ending section. First we find what feels like an insert from a different piece of fiction by the author (an Isekai-d OP character without a lot of connection to the rest of the world and who is 'cooler' than the protagonist). The very very end was also kind of confusing; there was one page about (Spoiler - click to show)another version of us from a mirror, which I couldn't tell if it was literally our AU self or if there was another werewolf who was like us.

Overall, though, if you want to play as a woman eviscerating sheep or if you like werewolf media then this game is for you.