Perhaps the most depressing of the Novembears, Since November follows a borderline superficial brand of nihilism that is more annoying and embarrassing than moving. While seeing these portrayals of different reactions to the situation is interesting and engaging, this cast of 20-somethings act too much like parody of that demographic, weakening a lot of the impact. That said the build up to the reveal is fantastic and the art (even much of the unfinished parts) works excellently with a solid script. This project misery lit lacking in its melancholic beauty or insightful misery, but it is still well-made enough to move and enrapture readers for its duration.

Primarily, I think Since November bites off more than it can chew with a 4-route (!) structure spread over what is ultimately not a whole lot of words. In its hurry, the prose has to do a lot of blunt explaining about who everyone is and what they're feeling, and all the dramatic turns and moments when characters suddenly start to yell feel too abrupt even when excused with "the world is ending so everyone is losing their minds". The device of the apocalypse happening just as the narrative reaches whatever point it's been building towards comes off as kind of a convenience. While I get that it's the theme, I feel not allowing the reader to linger in the mood for just a bit longer robs the finales of their impact – and always concluding on the most appropriate beat doesn't convey the unforgiving, brutal nature of it all.

There's a sense of hollowness to the VN in general. The schematic nature of the endings only really makes it apparent how little there is to the characters beyond standing in for their respective ways to think about the world. As for the calamity itself, it's sketched so vaguely that you get the sense of the characters discussing the concept of the apocalypse, not living through one. So much of the imagery falls flat – going outside is hyped as this big thing, but when they do that, there's... basically nothing interesting? It feels like the main characters are the only people alive (aside from a single NPC inexplicably in need of food despite the world appearing to consist of lootable malls and grocery stores), but if I'm not missing something, I don't believe how that came to be is alluded to? The story is just not material or textured enough to convey the horrors it's gesturing towards; society seems to have fallen apart in the precise way that would allow this specific scenario to happen. I guess I maybe think the outside section was a mistake, and the VN should have committed fully to being set in an abstract dreamscape if its worldbuilding ambition ended there.

On a more technical level, the writing is solid enough, though there are a lot of editorial nitpicks you could make. Comma usage is sometimes messy ("I’m fighting for my life, here on this stolen couch."), and the same goes for tense ("Huffing, the goat is shaking the controller around as if he expects it to do something.") and pronouns ("Beside him was a stack of unsold Blu-ray’s. The shadows made him menacing." repeats "him" twice when the referent is already a little unclear by that point). The descriptions can also get pretty repetitive; I get that "the glow [of the television]" is pointing to a certain 2024 movie, but there's no need to repeat it like 6 times.

Now that I mention it, I kind of feel like the game is in danger of drowning in its referentiality at times. There's a lot of listing pop culture detritus, namedropping philosophers, and reiterating social media discourse, but little of it feels consequential besides successfully characterizing a couple of the characters as feeling pretty online. It also makes the references to other furry visual novels feel even more tacky and jarring – all the other stuff is situating the story in a specific real-world context, so it suddenly being suggested that FVNs exist as mass media in this setting just took me out. The central John Green quote is also just kind of... deeply weird in its context?

While a lot of the art is super good, I feel like you can see echoes of the narrative issues in the writing. The combination of not using sprites, how stylized everything is, and the colors and the lighting being so stark in general makes getting a good look at the characters a rare treat. It's a visual medium – I guess some of how distant the cast feels comes down to the limited visual language the game is operating with. Every time there was a straightforward background, I wished it had some sprites to go with it to give the reader an easier time orienting themselves into what the characters are feeling and saying.

Since November: less than the sum of it parts. There are too many conversations that circle around grand statements concerning all of human existence and too little dramatization of the story presently happening with these characters, the thing that would give the game emotional resonance. Trying to cover so much ground is a bold move, but I think it forces the storytelling of the finished product into a mode that's too utilitarian and mechanical for its own good.

There is undoubtedly a lot of talent on display here, but I must admit the overall package left me pretty unsatisfied.

Starting with the presentation, the art is pleasant to look at and I actually quite like that a lot of the assets are currently unfinished. Considering the art gets sketchier and sketchier the more we get away from the mall, it creates a sense of the world unraveling as we move away from the protagonist's comfort zone.

However, while having a VN with lots of CGs and no sprites can definitely work, I believe the prose it currently is doesn't complement that choice very well. Narration is often scarce in VNs because we can see the characters emoting and doing stuff on the screen. Here, however, the characters are pretty static since they only appear in CGs, so I think the story should have been written a bit more like a traditional book. As it stands now, it almost feels like reading a chat log: a bit sterile.

The overall rhythm and pacing of the story are also slightly off, it doesn't feel like pauses and block breaks are always used at appropriate times. Take this one block of text as a random example: "I'm on my feet, I think. I don't remember. I need air. The air isn't working?" Breaking this into 2-3 different blocks would make the whole passage feel much more frantic and impactful.

The writing is otherwise serviceable, but it does have a tendency to be a bit abstract ("when the fist comes it's cataclysmic") and surprisingly detached, considering the subject matter ("I'm feeling a lot of shit that I've never felt before"). I can't say I've ever felt like I got inside the protagonist's head during my reading.

A final note on the presentation: while the music was nice when it was there, it was surprisingly sparse. Most surprisingly, the most tense scenes were often the ones without any music.

As far as the story goes, I must first of all give credit to Since November for tackling a challenging topic that feels pretty personal to the author. I like the story's premise in theory more than I liked the execution though. The story is very cerebral, with characters preaching their philosophies and opinions, rather than those emerging naturally from the narrative. The story doesn't really give the characters much to react to (except for the premise of the story itself), so for the most part this ends up feeling like the characters explaining their opinions to the player. Not very engaging.

Some of the thoughts being committed to the page are also very off topic and they don't feel really relevant to the theme of the story. A lot of opinions on movies are presented, for example, and I can't help but feel like this is not be the story they are super relevant to.

The biggest problem for me, though, is that this story deals with the one thing every human on Earth has to deal with (our own mortality) and ultimately it didn't feel like it had much to add to the reflection each one of us has undoubtedly done about the topic. The story has a bunch of characters reacting in different ways, but it does nothing more than state those different perspectives. Some people would do A, some others would do B, so what? I think any one of those routes could be developed into interesting stories: yes, give a me a romance doomed to last just a day, give me a character's emotional journey as he seeks and experiences assisted suicide, etc. But the story just states these premises and then it's immediately over.

I also found Val's route very confusing and perplexing. It reads to me like a parody of romance stories, what with the overdramatic character talking about "his wolf" and the over-the-top CGs, but I'm not sure if that was the intended tone... If it was, I question what this parody has to do with the rest of the story.

I realize I'm coming across as pretty harsh in my review, so it's worth noting that plenty of people had a much different response to the story than I did. I hope I at least managed to explain why the story didn't work for me, but that doesn't mean it won't work for you.

10/10

Having it be multiroute was very blursed because I couldn’t figure out when I should cry so I didn’t.

5/5
It's bold, loud, and tasteful. The team knew what they wanted and made the most out of it within a month. One could argue some routes got more care than others, but everything is just well put together nicely.

Definitely worth a read, and I'll be looking forward to your next project!