"Venus: Improbable Dream" is a single player, story-driven, choice based visual novel in the slice of life/romance genre. With Japanese anime art style and an expansive soundtrack, it's a slow-burning, emotional story that tells the tale of two people coming together and reaching for their dreams, through the power of music. Player decisions along the way will affect the outcome of the game, and with four possible endings and lots of route-exclusive dialogue and scenes to find, the game has a lot of replayability. With a February 2021 release date, its aim is to portray the struggles of mental health in vivid detail, and take the player on a transformative journey towards a more positive future, giving hope and encouragement to those with mental health issues!
Premise: Akane Kakeru is not your average 17 year old. Thanks to a disfigurement he gained at birth, he spends his days struggling with social anxiety and wishing to be invisible. Everything changes for him when he's placed into the after-school music club, in an attempt to coax him out of his shell. It's here that he meets Fujiwara Haruka, a disabled girl with a shy disposition, and a gift for music. As the two of them begin to connect, Kakeru starts to remember what it's like to yearn for friends, to be confident in himself, and most importantly, to have a dream. Whether he's able to truly face his inner fears once and for all, and achieve something he never thought possible, is up to the player!
The game's Itch.io page is below, where you can find a free demo that's approximately 5 hours long:
https://borealisgames.itch.io/venus-improbable-dream-free-demo