itch.io

Thank you for leaving such a nice comment, TheHolyDyntan! Don't worry about sharing your thoughts, I love reading about theories from other people, especially when they contain so much details.

Not to mention that a few days ago I just told someone how I got a DevLog draft that remains unfinished, but this is the perfect timing to share some of my old thoughts regarding the inspirations. I think that would give better idea about the lore. At the same time I don't want to enforce specific interpretations, when this is a standalone short story that is more reliant on the player to fill in the gaps.

- You weren't completely wrong about 'Ghost'. While it is indeed about ghosting, I also wanted to add some ambiguity to the ending title. Evelyn isn't a literal ghost, but I envisioned her to be a metaphorical spectre for taking on Eva's appearance who is important in Suzanne's memory, so she's haunting her and also vanishes as easily. For that reason the story does allude her to have a ghostly quality (before you posted this comment, I had actually made a Halloween art of Evelyn that can be found on my social media, and that she probably should dress up as a ghost). I took inspiration from "Silent Hill 2" where you have James who receives a letter from his late wife Mary and then he meets Maria in the town Silent Hill who looks like Mary who died from a disease, but she has a different dress style, so who is Maria really? (I won't say much more about that game, because I always end up spoiling too much) However what I can say about my own VN is that I wanted to go for a direction where the actual reveal is surprisingly mundane slice-of-life and the spookier parts are only to mislead.

- I would say that 'Elope' probably is canon that if I made a sequel, which I have no plans for though. I would continue from this point because the other endings don't really lead anywhere. Back then while writing I didn't necessarily saw 'Elope' as the true ending, but that has more to do with my pet peeves and wondering if the romance plotline went too fast. To justify it that it's not that quick, I like to think that they already formed a close bond from previous text conversations, and Evelyn might not trust Suzanne completely yet however she feels obliged to keep her safe. I'm perhaps one of these unusual VN players who don't always see the romantic ending as the best ending. However while playtesting my own game, I had the suspicion that 'Elope'-line would have the highest probability to be the last ending the player encounters, so I caved in to make them get closer to each other because it somehow felt right as a final. I should note that conceptually it wasn't originally labelled as a romance story. Yes, they're lesbians on a date... but they don't have to end up together, so I thought.

- It's not elaborated on what the flower is because there wasn't a lot of space in O2A2 VN Jam so I just kept it vague. I won't lie that I wasn't thinking about battle shounens like "Hunter x Hunter" and "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure", because I'm a sucker for the genre and ESP as power system in general: in particular the videogame "The World Ends With you" (TWEWY) which I also drew inspiration from. So I pictured the lily to be something that physically doesn't exist, but it also isn't visible to other espers, so it's only within Suzanne's mind as a representation of her power.

Since I wanted to write a story in a style that is majorly tailored for a queer female audience (or anyone that enjoys that genre) - I was in the josei mood even though the jam wasn't up - I would feature slightly different story beat than what's appealing in shounen with the life-or-death struggles/stakes where combatants may try to kill each other. To reflect that, the espers in 'Faceless Date' only meet up to get more information out from each other, and leave if it gets too dangerous, no blood drawn. Suzanne doesn't know this, she only wants to impress her date even though she does find Evelyn a bit odd. 😂 Evelyn initially wants to know if Suzanne is the dangerous type of esper and sets up the date, but at the same time she's also quite attached to Suzanne or definitely feels sorry for her, so she's forcing herself to act detached in some of the endings.

I also don't know how Evelyn's powers work exactly, but you are correct that she couldn't show photos of herself because her real appearance doesn't resemble Eva, and with the long distance she can't channel Suzanne's energy. I had a tragic element planned for Evelyn that she can't pick her own appearance (unfortunate characters who get powers that are detrimental have always intrigued me), so it is Suzanne broadcasting on Evelyn when she is close to her.

Evelyn is extra tuned towards perceiving the flow of ESP energy, but she cannot see what information is stored in people's thoughts. When Suzanne is mindreading, unbeknownst to her, some of other espers can tell she's sucking in the thoughts of people around them. I think it makes most sense that Suzanne's lily is not visible to Evelyn, because Evelyn would definitely stop Suzanne from overexerting herself. I totally haven't fleshed out the details of the other espers, so it's a bit difficult to write about it. Evelyn might be from a group with more espers in it? Although I can also see myself change this detail if I redo the lore for a hypothetical sequel. What's true though is that she has her powers for far longer than Suzanne.

The 'broadcasters' are the scary espers who have control over destructive telekinesis, pyrokinesis and the such. Both Suzanne and Evelyn are the typical support type protagonists and would be horribly matched if they ever cross paths with them. Although I rather not think about it, I prefer to let Suzanne and Evelyn have a peaceful life than turn it into some horror story. 😭

- The only little bit of information you get about Eva is if you picked "A bizarro coincidence". Eva was Suzanne's first girlfriend in high school and Eva broke up with Suzanne. They went apart soon after that and right now Eva is living a normal life somewhere else. The car accident should occur later. Suzanne's attachment to Eva is meant to be disproportionate, somewhat petty even. I wanted to write it as an aspect of oneself might find extremely unflattering and do not want to admit to it, yet at the same time it's difficult to let some feelings go that are insignificant if you look at it rationally. I wanted Eva to be a tie in to show what person Suzanne is and why she would develop mindreading abilities, granted it happens magically, but say you're not picking your superpowers by choice but it magically forms based on your personality? It's left up to the player to interpret if the powers are a negative side of said perosn or just a neutral facet of them. Evelyn is not judging Suzanne for this. She also has her own insecurities that are not revealed in the story.