itch.io

This will always be one of my favorite VNs. I've played every love interest's route through more than once, but Lacey and Ernol are my favorites.

The fact that she used suicide as "shock horror" is one of the things people are bothered by.

"Disturbing imagery" also doesn't prepare people for the character you're romancing in game to very suddenly and visually hang himself with no prior buildup or warning, or for your character to murder him out of the blue.

Don't apologize, everything came through fine! 🧡

I feel like this kind of misses the mark on some of the problems people have with this game, though and would like to add some of my own thoughts.

- Suicide was very (unnecessarily even) graphic and sudden, with a full on CG of Zilas hanging himself, and was a complete mood shift within perhaps a minute of gameplay, maybe less. For writing, building up to moments like this and treating it with care is very important, especially given the potential to be upsetting or triggering to others.

I also think the absurdity over what got him cancelled or criticized really doesn't help build up to this sudden suicidal depression. If it was that easy to cancel someone, no one I watch would still be streaming. Even if it was written to make more sense, it was still quite a leap to me, especially considering he had so much support and understanding from the main character, at least how I played them. I genuinely wish I'd had someone have my back like that in the past. Would've made a world of difference

- I get that the cat, Ryuk, appears to be at fault in one of the endings, but it only confused the overarching narrative even more for me. Other than feeling very out of place and shoehorned in, the use of someone else's character and IP in an otherwise original story is a really strange decision.

- Three endings are mentioned in the description, but the only two endings for Zilas are the murder and suicide ending. There are no good endings for people wanting to tough it out and save him or "Help him achieve his dreams!" as the game blurb advertises under the really cute thumbnail of Zilas. He dies. That's it.

- One of the most repeated criticisms I've seen is the fact that Jenny chose to write in something as delicate as suicide into her game within such a short timeframe. It really needed more time, care and research. Otherwise, it would've been better to leave it out.

- There were initially no in-game content warnings. They were only added nearly two months after the release of the game.

- The request at the end for 5000 ratings is completely unreasonable and comes across as incredibly exploitative of Jenny toward her fanbase.

Many are making alt accounts to post false ratings to try and hit this goal and some of those have gotten banned. For anyone reading this: itch.io will ban all of your accounts and IP ban you if they catch you doing this.

I'd agree if she hadn't asked for such a high number of ratings. Her other game ERROR143 only has 2,370 ratings at the time of this comment. There's currently no Otome game on itch.io with 5000 ratings, including games like Our Life: Beginnings & Always or Blooming Panic, games which honestly blow this one well out of the water. It just comes across as a scammy way to boost her way to the top.

Her request is also hurting her fans. Many are making alt accounts to post false ratings and some of those have gotten banned. For anyone reading this: itch.io will ban all of your accounts and IP ban you if they catch you doing this.

Reading it made me feel sick too and it wasn't even directed at me. I'm sorry they were so harsh. I can only imagine they're going through something right now and decided to take it out on you because... yeah, that was a lot.

Please don't take it to heart, you really didn't deserve such a nasty comment. I hope you have a great day and the days to come only get better for you. 🧡

This was so good! Firstly, the artwork is gorgeous. I love Grim's design and the character creator was such a pleasant surprise. The writing is also fantastic: I found the back and forth between Grim and the MC genuinely funny, and their mutual teasing is just adorable. Even became super obsessed interested in listening in on the neighbors. And you can have a pettttt!

Will definitely be buying the DLC soon and have high hopes for the kickstarter!

Thanks to all involved for such a great game! 🧡

What an awful take. :( There are many games made by people who have actually gone through such experiences, and I've never seen them get hate.

If anyone is looking for one, I highly recommend: i won't finish this game

ETA: Now that I have a moment to sift through some past games, I'd also personally recommend The Longest Walk and Winter in June for other short experiences about the same topics (depression/suicide) and Adventures With Anxiety! for anyone struggling with or curious about anxiety disorders. All hit close to home for me.

Take care of yourselves and please make sure you're in a good headspace if you decide to read/play. 🧡

Seconding this! I love when I get to go into the stats screen and read little blurbs about what the other characters are thinking/feeling. Better than worrying about min-maxing points imo, and lets you focus more on choices that make sense for your character.  (I have a bad habit of reloading when number goes down.)

I haven't personally played it and don't plan to, but the content warnings for this game are as follows:

Suicide, homicide, flashing lights, jump scares, animal gore.

From reading comments, the suicide especially isn't handled well, and there are no good endings.

Thanks for this comment, glad I scrolled down yesterday before giving the game a shot. I didn't even think to look at the content warnings with how cute the art and screenshots looked, but even then, you can never tell how well or poorly a writer is going to tackle sensitive subjects. As someone who's suffered from chronic depression and suicidal ideation for over a decade, playing this one to the end would've likely been like a kick to the teeth.

Plus, holding back a "good" ending in exchange for a ridiculous number of reviews from their player base seems extremely exploitative on the dev's part. Just to get their game to the top of the ratings lists, not on merit but through guilt-tripping their fans for Zilas' terrible ending(s). Absolutely disgusting. 

(For reference, Our Life: Beginnings & Always currently has 4,908 reviews and is currently the most rated Otome game on Itchio. I don't think this dev wanting 5k reviews was a random number pull.)

Just throwing in my two cents, but I really enjoy how the romances have been introduced so far and personally disagree that the flirts were "too much too soon" for Oliver. While we've just gotten introduced to the characters as readers, the MC has clearly been working with him for some time. They at least know him well enough that they've (potentially) given Oliver a nickname and taken to teasing him, so it didn't feel out of place to me that feelings/attraction have already started to develop.

I was actually trying to go down a purely Ezra/Elle route my first playthrough and read all of the scenes available with them. When the cig rolling scene happened, however, I was immediately compelled to stop and restart and go through all of Ollie's instead, like 'oh my, hellooo.'  I'm a sucker for Ollie flirty/sexy/romance scenes-and you write them so well! More, please! :)

Also, I'm not usually that interested in the "best-friend" RO in games, but Ezra/Elle is perfection. Every scene between them and the MC makes it clear how much history they have between them-so warm and natural (the added romantic tension is just hnnng!) Can't wait to flirt with see more of the other two!

Thanks so much for sharing this game-your writing style is *chef's kiss* and I'm looking forward to future updates! Sorry for the long-winded gushing, this game has just ticked all of my boxes. :)

P.S. The "boo boo kisses" bit had me crying.