itch.io

I'm glad you loved it, thanks for sharing your game, and congrats on the release!!

Looool, less about you being critical than the game presenting religious celibacy as a possibility loooool, but I'm glad it was fine (that was the point I was really anxious about with the game, I was worried it could get misconstrued about me promoting some nasty homophobic things religious people do dxcvcxcvdc)

Hey L, thanks for your feedback and for sharing your thoughts!! I won't lie, I was really anxious about what you would think of this game, so I'm glad it is this positive loool; and yes, that is a complicated situation, and I think that, in the end, people try their best, follow their paths, and that's enough looool

And yes, it was a conscious choice: in the end, Romaine and Juliet's environment is rather accepting, the conflict is really internal, between faith and attraction (I just felt like the conflict being with a third-party was something that was represented more frequently in general loool); and I'm glad you could overall overcome the paranoia and the guilt you were feeling!

Hey! Thank you so much for this detailed feedback and for sharing your experience! I'm ENTHUSED you found it relatable, because I did notice media would tackle it in general as "queer religious but not so religious kid wants to be queer but the environment doesn't let them" which is a valid experience that we should shed light on, but at the same time, it neglects the one experience I wanted to tackle, without indeed shaming Romaine, no matter what choice she makes because... it's just hard dfvgfdfg

And interesting thoughts on the concept of love! It's an interesting perspective to oppose love in the common sense to a possible more theological meaning!

Thanks again for all these kinds words, and for sharing your thoughts. Best of luck on your journey too!

My pleasure!

Hey! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! And yes, admittedly, the only way I could think of making it more heart-breaking would be to have Romaine and Juliette rejected by your parents or something, but ultimately, I really wanted the conflict to be only between Romaine's orientation and her faith, without anything exterior, to paint an inner conflict. But I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the compliment on the art! I went wild on the colours, but I had fun drawing Juliette!

Haha, I'm French, and Thanksgiving isn't really something we celebrate, but thank you! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Oh, realised I forgot to reply, I'm so sorry!! I'm happy you enjoyed Sandra's route! (Forest is an amazing name by the way, I should definitely use it someday...)

And LMAOOO, that's part of the Doug charm ✨

Aaah, thank you so much for this lovely comment!! I'm glad you appreciated the game!

Hey Hiro, thanks for trying the game!! I'm glad you enjoyed the visuals, the story and the sadness!!

More seriously, this is quite a difficult conflict indeed, and I'm glad you shared your thoughts on the matter tackled here! The compromise isn't perfect, it can never be, but well, sometimes, you indeed just gotta try to find what "overall" works, although not in detail!

Thanks again for your feedback and your thoughts, I appreciate them!!

Hi! Thanks a lot for playing and for sharing your experience. I'm absolutely sorry about your parents, I really hope things can be better in the future - or at least, that their homophobia doesn't prevent you from being yourself!

Hi Taumi, thanks for sharing your thoughts! And it would have been really nice indeed for Romaine and Juliette, but that actually was the point of the game haha: it is complicated to conciliate the two, and most of the time, you can't. So, what is there to do? Try your best, no matter what your choice is!

I am glad you appreciated the art (and the leaves effect loool, it was a struggle to think of a way to make them noticeable without making them overbearing), and that was the idea: have everything look very sweet because, well, in any other context, it would have been a perfect romance scene: Juliet and Romaine love each other, they confess it... and yet, there is something blocking it.

And yes dfvgfdfvb it actually reminds me of a preacher in the train, who started his preach by saying: "The world is bad!! Celebrities turn out to be sexual offenders! There is global warming! An economic crisis!" and concluded his looong enumeration by saying: "But fortunately, there is JESUS", it was so unexpected for me that I burst out laughing dfvgdfg

Thanks for sharing your feedback Taumi, I appreciate it a lot!!

Hey Carrot, thanks for your feedback!

I do feel very conflicted too about the game, I won't lie haha, because, well, there is no perfectly happy ending in the end, and I don't think the conflict can be resolved; just trying your best to be happy and to limit the dooming feeling, whether it is guilt or regret.

And I'm happy you enjoyed the presentation! It was meant to be very very sweet, but only to contrast with the less idyllic situation Romaine is going through.

And yes, even I wanted to confront Romaine to what she could be missing on even if she didn't confess, it was in theme, unfortunately for her!

Thanks again for all these kind words, I was so unsure about releasing the game (I think I wasn't that anxious about a game ever since High School Lolita lol), so I'm glad it was a touching experience!

next step is to release a hug romaine simulator 😞😞

Hey Omega! Thanks for this lovely feedback on the game!

And you overall worded the difficulty of the game very well! For exemple, Islam or Judaism forbid the consumption of pork, but now, I'm sure most Muslims or Jews don't mind other people eating pork, so yeah, to each their rule as long as you don't force anyone! But now, when the problem is within you... it is more difficult, and I wanted to explore the inner conflict indeed, rather than everything exterior (societal expectations, family, "church" or anything similar).

And thank you for the art! I overall tried to get closer to my traditional art style for this game, and I'll admit I quite like the results in terms of colour too! Thanks for the kind words and for sharing your thoughts, Omega, they mean a lot, and they were very interesting to read!

Hey! Thank you so much for the kind words about the game, I'm happy you enjoyed it!!!

And I agree with you, I think most gay people I know from religious households tend to hide their relationship from their family. Admittedly, this game wanted to tackle the conflict not with the family (as it is more often portrayed), but an inner conflict between the characters and their faith, which you illustrated quite well with "even if the ultimate fate is a tragic ending, we still need love", and I'm happy you allowed Romaine to experience her love!

Thanks for trying the game and sharing your thoughts, this means a lot!

Neat, thanks for letting me know about the bug! I hope the game is worth the wait!

Hey! I managed to reproduce the bug, and it should now be fixed! Let me know if the fix doesn't work for you. Hope you enjoy the game!

Ok, your problem seems different to what I first thought; could it be possible to have a screenshot?

Hey! What platform are you playing on? Anyway, when you launch the game, you should automatically get to the main menu (after some loading if you're playing on the browser or android versions), which looks like this (if you're on Android, the "Help" and "Quit" options shouldn't be there)

Then, you just have to click on "Start" to start the game, and click anywhere on your screen, but on the icons at the top right corner in-game to play the game! If you successfully launch the game, this should be the first thing you see after the main menu:

I hope this helps!

Yes, that was a need too, to have a bit of representation of this conflict, since in general, it just looks like the character in question doesn't think much about their religion in the exploration of their queer identity, which is fine, but why the religious background then dfvfdcv. And thanks again, Chatter, I'm glad I could get it out of my mind loool

Hey Ebi, thanks a lot of trying this game! I'm glad you appreciated the art! And yes, that was the main conflict while writing it lol: I didn't want the game to be excessively optimistic, because I think it would be idealistic rather than realistic, but I also didn't want it to be all terrible and that's it. So hopeful is the right word, indeed!

Hey Chatter, thanks for the long feedback per usual!

Overall, what can I say but that I appreciate all your compliments, and that I'm very grateful you accepted to edit and beta the game!

You overall caught my artistic intention; I wanted everything to be excessively dreamlike, only to have them contrast with a bitter reality, with a fatality from which you can't escape: the eyes of God (dang, when I phrase it like that, I realise this is very VERY RACINE-like again, I can't escape the doom either fvgfdfg). And good catching on the name loool, I couldn't not go with a Romeo and Juliet reference here; and beyond the obvious "forbidden love" reference, it was also just to add to this dreamlike, fictional feel, contrasted with reality.

And thanks, I really enjoyed making the art for it (not so much the GUI, I gotta admit)! Overall, I wanted it to look closer to my traditional art style in terms of colouring, since I tend to go crazy with colour pencils loool, but yes, I wanted to keep the GUI as minimal as possible, so that the focus is on Juliet only!

Regarding the writing, you caught it all: there can't be a perfect resolution, and whatever the decision Romaine takes is, it isn't judged: in the end, all that matters is that she attempts to be happy on her own terms, whatever these are. But, whatever the decision is, there is a drawback, a conflict that will never cease to exist, since Romaine's very existence somehow is the conflict... which is kind of depressing to think about lol, and I hope the game is more optimistic than that looool

Once again, thanks for all your kind words and your support, they really mean the world!!!

Hi! Thank you so much, I'm glad you appreciated the story! Thanks for all these compliments, they are such a relief! 😭😭

Hi Ebi, thank you so much for your feedback, I'm glad you appreciated the game! I think the "late night" setting and the music participate in the cosy atmosphere it has! Thanks again for these kind words!

Hi!

Well, it depends on how present the fairy tale aspects are. If the park is fairy tale-themed, but the fact it is fairy tale-themed doesn't contribute to the story (i.e. the story would not change very much if it had another theme), I'd say it wouldn't be fairy tale enough. If the attractions/rides are a significant part of the story, then it absolutely fits (and the looking-glass type scenario would absolutely fit, as it would be a reference to Alice Through the Looking Glass).

Good luck with the game!

Thank you so much, I'm glad you appreciated the game!

Hey! Thanks for noticing it, the jam indeed runs for four months, I'll update it!

Absolutely, although I'd like to add the following precision: since the game was released before October 1st, you would need to have a significant writing update (at least one new scene) to submit it to OUAT.

Hey! I played the demo and I was very impressed by everything!

First, on a technical aspect, I really appreciated the dynamic use of the sprites, it really added a lot to the cinematography of it all! I also loved the use of silhouette sprites here, since it's working very well with the narrative (everyone keeping something from Demeter). I also thought the music was very well picked and, more importantly, very well used! It gave the scenes the weight they deserve, and when not the weight, the mood that fitted them. Really, I cannot emphasise enough good the music was used in this game!

The sprites also looked absolutely magnificent. I really loved the character designs here: it felt very unique and yet very "mythological Greek" too. I often see adaptations of mythological stories (especially in theatre) modernising the clothing despite the story not being set today; and while I think it can have some interest, it was good to see something that tried to be more faithful! The rendering of the sprites was also very great, and I loved their expressions! The CGs too were beautiful beyond measure, and flawlessly integrated into the flow of the game. Finally, the backgrounds were gorgeous, and I think I particularly loved the wheat and the flower fields!

The story is off to a great start! I did love how the relationship between Demeter and Persephone was portrayed (supportive), and how it helped characterising Demeter's character. The game implies she didn't plan on giving birth, but still loves her daughter with all her heart: and further events in game, that I won't spoil, outline the circmustances of this birth, and that the gods aren't that nice to each other.

I also appreciated a lot the mystery element of the game, it was quite unexpected! And yet, I really loved how faithful it was to mythology, even keeping the narcissus flower detail that proved to be fatal to Persephone. And while, unless some unexpected plot twists, we know the circumstances of Persephone's kidnapping, I still found it well-writtenn and engaging!

I also appreciated the bird episode at the start of the game. Maybe I'm reading too far into it, but a baby bird dying away from its family reminded me of Persephone... So I thought it was a great opening scene!

Overall, this was a great demo that has made me want for more (of course, when it is ready haha, games do take time!). Congrats to all the team!!

THE WAY THIS COMMENT IS TOO NICE TO BE TRUE THOUGH WHEN DID YOU GET A REDEMPTION ARC

Hi! After some playtesting, we decided to remove your submission for the following reasons:

• One of the backgrounds was an online stock image with the watermak, indicating it was collected without abiding to the creator's licensing (see rule 6);
• We failed to see the connection with mythology and thought the game was fairy tale-themed instead.

Now, if you can perhaps make clearer the connection between your game and mythology and replace the stolen background with one you have the license to use, then we could add it back.

I hope this helps!

Hey! Here is chimeriquement, the host of Once Upon A Time VN Jam, and today, I just wanted to share a bit about fairy tale writing.

Most of us, I think… don’t really write fairy tales, so we might be lost in how to do so. Well, this little note is here to bring some relevant elements to help you (or at least I hope)! Of course, remember that you don’t really have to follow it stricto sensu, or at all, or that you can play with these rules to make your own thing.

Okay, let’s get started!!!

In general, you can structure a fairy tale in five major steps, which are as follow

• initial situation
• twist
• episodes
• solution
• final situation

So, let’s define these different terms and see how they apply to writing a fairy tale!

The initial situation is quite the explicit expression: characters live their daily lives, as they’ve always known… But then, this initial situation gets twisted: you need to make it tremble, to disrupt it for the story to be necessary. So, we see here one of the major points of a fairy tale: the initial situation is broken and we want to bring it back. Then, trying to solve the problem brought by the twist, the characters live several episodes, at the end of which they find the solution to the twist. The final situation is the one the characters are in after having applied the solution (and often contains the morality).

For example, Snow White’s tale could be structured like this:

• initial situation: Snow White, due to her dead mother’s wish, is a beautiful young lady with skin white as snow, lips red as blood and hair dark as ebony. Her father, before his own death, then married a vain woman, only caring about her beauty, moreso she regularly asks her magic mirror who’s the fairest of all. The mirror has always told the Evil Queen she was the fairest.
• twist: One day, the mirror answers instead that Snow White is the fairest of all.
• episodes: The queen asks her huntsman to murder Snow-White, but the man can’t bring himself to do so. Snow-White finds a shelter in a cottage owned by dwarfs. The Queen, when she learns that Snow-White is still alive, decides to take the matter in her own hands: she first tries to make her suffocate with a corset, then tries to poison her with a toxic comb, and finally makes her take a bite of a poisoned apple. Snow-White falls into eternal sleep, her glass coffin guarded by her friends the dwarfs.
• solution: A prince passing by sees her and asks the dwarfs to take her to his castle. During the transportation, one of the carriers stumbles on a stump and Snow-White spits out the toxic apple bite, finally breaking free from her curse.
• final situation: She marries the prince, invites her step-mother to the wedding and forces her to dance in red-firing shoes and the evil queen dies.

Now, let’s do it with The Little Red Riding Hood:

• initial situation: A little girl is asked by her mother to deliver a basket full of treats to her grandmother.
• twist: The little girl meets a wolf in the woods and tells him where her grandmother lives.
• episodes: The wolf arrives at the granny’s house faster, using a scheme to distract the little red riding hood, eats the grandmother and disguises as her. The little girl arrives later, goes into the wolf’s bed, believing it is her grandmother, and gets eaten too.
• solution: A hunter passing by kills the wolf, freeing the little girl and her grandmother from the wolf’s stomach.
• final situation: They are all saved and the little girl has learnt not to be distracted by strangers.

And that’s it! Of course, such a structure is meant to be toyed or played with, but for those who haven’t given much thought about their project yet, I hope it can help!

Hope you live happily ever after!

Hi! Today, I wanted to share some pieces of advice since I saw a lot of the participants never joined any jam before. So, congrats on trying to make your first visual novel, and what an honour it is for us to host the jam which will welcome, we hope, the first games of so many flourishing talents! But I also hope these pieces of advice can also be good reminders for veteran devs!

So, this post will be structured as follows:

• Scope of work
• Solo dev or team?
• General Quality of Life advice for your visual novel
• Free online resources!

So, feel free to only consider the points that might be relevant to you! Let's get started:

Scope of work

As tempting as it is to release the game of your dreams and your magnum opus right on the spot, a first thing to realise is that it is not always possible to release a game in 3 months. This is even more true if it is your very first game, since you need to figure out a long of things more experienced devs don't have to! Also, remember that more experienced devs estimate better what work they can produce in a specific amount of time.

Does that mean you should give up on that very specific dream 200k-word project you've had? Well, I don't think so, but you can release a demo, a prototype, a v-slice, call it whatever you want, but basically, a glimpse of it! But of course, if you haven't figured out a project yet, I encourage you to try your hand at a shorter project: you'll get the satisfaction of having completed a full-game and it will teach you a lot of things to apply to bigger projects!

But now, what does a short project look like? Well, I know a lot of VN devs made their debut with the recent O2A2 VN Jam (a game jam about producing VNs less than 1000-words long!), so feel free to explore some entries (and to rate them 5 stars of course, support the devs!!!!!!!!!) to see how they used the restrictions to make meaningful narrative experiences! And if you want to play fairy tale-themed games to get some inspiration, I'll recommend checking last year’s entries for the jam!

Of course, for Once Upon A Time VN Jam, you are not expected to make your game with only one sprite, one background, one music track and in less than 1,000 words, but keep in mind that you don't want to overwork yourself and that fairy tales were short stories, since they are meant to be told rather than written: you can do something short which is in-theme!

Regarding the scope of work, other things are to take into consideration: the more sprites, the more work, the more CGs, the more work (admittedly, it's less work for the dev, but more for the artist), the more music tracks, the more work!

Now, if you lack ideas that could be executed in a short game, here is a non-exhaustive list of things you might consider:

• rewriting of an iconic fairy tale scene (Little Red Riding Hood reaching her grandma's house and meeting the wolf there, disguised as her good old granny)
• an epistolary game (for example, Cinderella writing a letter to her step-mother after having left to go live in the Prince's castle; it would also let you explore the NVL format, which we rarely see nowadays in VNs)
• two characters from different tales complaining about their fates (if you want to make it on the funnier side, give a listen to "Agony", from Into the Woods! If you're a real OG, here is the Brodaway version, and I cannot help but share this very... special but honestly hypnotising British one; or instead make something sadder, which is definitely possible, especially when I think of the representation of women in fairy tales)
• a game about some sort of meta-author in a kitchen trying to find the perfect recipe for a fairy tale, and all the ingredients are reference to other fairy tales
• a conflict between the Grimm brothers fighting over whom their tales belong to
• a game about a child (or a grown-up you do you) meeting the sandman because they fail to sleep
• a princess has been waiting for her knight in shining armor in a tower for years (you can make it on the funnier side, like this Shrek the musical song; or give instead your character a strong desire for freedom, like in this deleted Tangled song which happens to be my favourite song of all time)
• two young people meeting in a ballroom and falling in love with each other (or not; of course, we think Cinderella here, and I think "Ten Minutes Ago" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's version (I put you the 2013 version because I find it most romantic, but it wouldn't be me if I didn't put the Julie Andrews version too), but also "Shall We Dance" from The King and I, for a different mood and to give you a reference which isn't a fairy tale-like story for once)
• you play as Bluebeard's wife who just discovered the corpses of all your predecessors in his closet; he surprises you and you have to negociate for your life by pretending it was an accident (if you would like to make something more horrific or yandere-like)
• you are a storyteller telling fairy tales to children, pretending to have lived them, but a child starts questioning the veracity of your stories...

Of course, you can mix ideas, adapt them etc.; I don't pretend those are perfect or should be used as they are, but if it can be a framework, then I'll be happy! Some of these ideas could definitely be longer games, so if you’re interested in one of them, feel free to release a demo for this jam!

But now, if we're talking scope of work, something we have to talk about is also...

Solo dev or team?

So, of course, a good way to handle bigger-scope projects is to work as a team, rather than all alone. The main difficulty would be, first, to find teammates and then to direct the team.

To find teammates, there isn't any miracle; but in general, I think having a well-put document explaining what you want is a good thing to have. If you need an example or a template, here is the one I made for one of my visual novels, When The Wind Blew You Away. Voice Acting can be a bit different, and here is the document I wrote for another one of my games, The Daughters of the Sun. Feel free to share it on social media (twitter should be your best bet as there are a lot of different talents there, despite the platform being broken)! But don't forget to use the hashtag #OUATVNJam, I will make sure to retweet you!

You can also use other websites: CastingCallClub is primarily made for VA (so you should consider it if you intend to have voice acting in your game, despite the platform not being the most ergonomic in my opinion), but you can use it to recruit artists, writers and programmers too! You can also put an announce on the LemmaSoft forum (being able to create an account will require you to go to a discord server though).

Talking of Discord servers, maybe you can try finding VAs or artists in relevant Discord servers, although I've never experienced finding artists on an art Discord server myself.

One thing you can use is also the community tab of this game jam, in which you actually are if you're reading this! So don't hesitate!

Now, you could also work as a solo dev: it spares you the whole recruiting process or the struggles of finding people who will deliver your vision as expected, but it also puts more pressure on your own shoulders: you'll often need to take care of everything yourself (art, GUI, writing, code, music), so you should really think twice at the scope of your project to keep it manageable. Of course, there always are online resources, but we're going to list them later!

General Quality of Life advice

Now, there are just a few minor flaws I see in VNs, especially from newer devs. That's why I want to bring your attention to these issues.

First, and I'm talking to people like me, who are mostly writers, rather than artists and think: "Well, what matters most is the story!" because that's how we experience VNs... NO. No, the story is as equally important as the visuals. First, the visuals are what is going to attract players, but even so, visual novel-telling is different from novel-telling. If you really don't care about visuals and want your story to only be focused on text, perhaps consider exploring an interactive fiction format? And I see you guys coming: even in NVL format, visuals are important (as wonderfully illustrated by the fantastical VN On Mount Ségou is; I wholeheartedly recommend it).

Then, the main thing you want to keep in mind when designing your GUI is READIBILITY!!! For instance, this isn't acceptable:

So, make sure your menu items and your text is always readable!

Also, and here, I'm targetting Ren'Py devs: change the default font. Admittedly, Deja Vu Sans isn't that horrible of a font, but if your GUI gets very specific, you would like the font to match! For instance, I see so many games with very fancy and elegant GUI using it rather than opting for a serif font, and what a shame! Admittedly, it's a detail, but hey, quality of life is in the details!

The following advice is obvious, but I'll always remind it: puncutation isn't optional and, although a few typos here and there rarely bother (I mean, it would be hypocritical from me to mock typos), spelling mistakes being too frequent really is detrimental to the quality of your game. There are tools online to check your spelling (like Scribens), so feel free to use them if you know you have trouble with that!

Last advice: if you use a pre-made Ren'Py GUI, do not use their options.rpy file, keep your default one, or else, your save directory is going to be shared with all the games using the GUI. Another trick, if for some reason you really want to use their options.rpy file, is to open it, go to the line "define config.save_directory" (in general, it's line 146 of options.rpy), and to change the directory.

Online Resources

When you don't have the financial or material means to work with a team, online resources are god-sent, and there are a lot of them on itch! But itch now has one problem which didn't exist even one year ago... the website is now flooded with AI-generated content. So be careful! Now, you just have to go to the assets page and to search for what you want! For instance, use the visual novel tag for visual novel-specific assets (and you can use several tags for research, so you can combine visual novel + sprite or visual novel + background), so feel free to browse! Of course, you can find assets elsewhere, and CloudNovel is an excellent website to find sprites and backgrounds. And if we talk about backgrounds, how not to mention UncleMugen! Admittedly, his backgrounds are modern, but who knows what idea you have in your bright mind! In general, if you're not afraid of photo-editing, you can try to take a look at websites offering copyright-free pictures (Pexels, Pixabay, Freepik...).

Also, for music, I wholeheartedly recommend dova-syndrome! You'd like to explore more (pixabay also proposes music tracks), but dova-syndrome is a solid one. Feel free to consult the Free Music Archive, and have a thought for classical musics who are now in the public domain (Bach, Mozart and alike). For sound effects, pixabay is at it again, but Zapsplat is a very rich website!

And I guess that's it! Phew, I hope I didn't make it too stressful and that this post might be helpful instead! Also, if anyone wants to share some more free resources for devs to use, feel free to post them below! But let's all remember the main priority is to have fun! So just make a game that'll make you happy!

I've had the honour (and I insist on the word honour) of beta-testing Chattercap's new game, The Perfect Woman. And this has quickly become my favourite game from the creator. Without spoiling, I have to say this is one of the most unique horror experience I've had in seven years. Of course, during these seven years, I have played a lot of wonderfully crafted horror VNs, which manage to use horrific elements to convey deep themes and reflections about the characters involved in the story. But there is something disturbingly unique and special about the way the horror is presented in The Perfect Woman that really spoke to me. I'll detail more below, in a spoilers section, but for now, just these words: you should take the trigger warnings seriously.

Graphically, the game is absolutely immaculate. This is the first game from the creator without Live 2D-like animations, and I have to say that getting rid of them was the best choice. A bold one, considering these animations made the creator's games quite unique; but Chattercap being Chattercap, she didn't get rid of them for no reason. This game uses a plethora of perfectly-executed visual effects, plays around with its own colour schemes, and I won't give details to let the players discover the full scope of the work that's been made. And despite Chattecap's games being extremely polished, this one, in that regard, does surprisingly feel above the others. The GUI too was gorgeous and very well-implemented. It was also used in a very clever way to convey the narrative, but play the game. ;)

I also have to salute the voice acting: it was absolutely stellar, conveyed the different characters or impressions brillantly. The voice actors all did, without a single exception, an amazing job, and that's an understatement. In particular, the way the narration was handled (having three different voices) helped creating an impression of chorus, like we have in Greek tragedies.

Regarding the themes, the story is at the same time metaphorical and quite literal. I'll detail my thoughts more below, but I think the execution was flawless. The story narrates the attempts of a so-called Doctor to create the perfect woman. But what is a perfect woman? That is the question the game asks to explore the societal expectations put on women, and the ways women manage to navigate a patriarchal society.

That is it for the spoiler-free section. Go play the game if you can handle it, it will be time well-spent! For now, I will detail my thoughts more, but won't be shy on spoilers. Ready? Steady? Go!

************** SPOILERS **************

Now, it's going to be all over the place. First of all, I was wondering how the game was going to tackle Yumeko facing the Doctor's insane expectations. I was wondering if the game would narrate Yumeko managing to overcome the doctor thanks to the power of her convictions and finding a way to break the circle, or if the game would be less idealistic than that. The game had the brilliant idea to opt for the more realist solution. Even slightly contradicting the doctor results in him rebooting Yumeko and deleting the answer we picked. This made sense in the narrative: the Doctor wants to create the perfect woman, which can only happen after he deleted all the contradictions and all the things that go against his wishes.

So, let's suppose that we choose to rebel and refuse to oblige to the doctor's whims. First of all, we can see his goal: deny Yumeko any autonomy or personal thought. Something that struck me when I played was the make-up discussion. The doctor complains about women having the right to wear make-up to trick men into believing they're beautiful, whereas men have to wear their real face. The game offers you three options: 1) you can agree 2) you can say social expectations set by men are the reasons women have to wear make-up, but you agree with him on the fact this shouldn't be an expectation so that women gain time 3) you disagree with him by stating make-up can be self-expression. Obviously, he reboots you if you pick answer 3. But what about answer 2, in which you overall agree with him but nuance his point? Heck! he reboots you anyway! Why? Because he doesn't want Yumeko to be a person with her own views or opinions: he wants someone to glorify him, someone too impressed by him to even question him. After all, he's brilliant: why would you question someone brilliant?

Progressively, if you do so, the colours become darker, and the game becomes more horrific: every reboot is literal torture for Yumeko, and the imagery that accompanies her thoughts and her feelings is more and more disturbing. This slow descent into horror reminded me of the second act of Doki Doki Literature Club, which I found to be the best executed in the whole game. Obviously, the two experiences are very different, but seeing something we already know being corrupted on a meta-level (since there is narrative equivalent to restarting the game: the doctor rebooting Yumeko) was a similarity that I truly enjoyed in The Perfect Woman. The execution truly was stellar.

Then comes the climax of this route: Yumeko is nothing but the shadow of herself, barely having any expression if tears, forced to answer things that would please the doctor. What does happen then? What?

Everything becomes cuter than it has ever been. Everything is pink. Yumeko has a big smile on her face, with sparkling eyes. She says yes to everything the doctor says with enthusiasm. And yet, yet, yet, she has marks on her neck. This is a small detail but this was truly horrifying, and certainly one of the best horror experiences on my life. This single detail has haunted me. It is an amazingly clever way to encapsulate the whole game's theme: a woman who tries to rebel is a woman that gets violated, because society is violent towards those who try to change it. Yumeko has tried, but she lost.

The game, therefore, refuses the idealistic answer, although it is quite naïve: when overpowered by a man (as it is Yumeko's case), "girl power" is not enough, because you will be oppressed. You don't have much of a choice: you have to know how to survive first and then act when you're in position of doing so.

This is how the other endings are obtained: Yumeko tricks the doctor by only answering what he wants to hear. He is pleased and believes she is the perfect woman. Therefore, he puts her in an android. And now she got what she wanted: now she is real. What will she do?

Well, two possibilities: accept a life with the doctor and become his wife, or rebel. I'll talk about the latter first.

Rebelling, in a very chattercore twist, means killing the doctor. This fortunately is quite easy for Yumeko who is much stronger physically, considering she is an android with an exoskeleton. The game manages to tackle here another issue regarding the inequalities between men and women: most of the time, women can't fight the men who oppress and attack her, because those men are physically stronger. There is a risk of being attacked, assaulted, killed even, and perhaps, to even face worse things before death. It reminds me of what my sister told me when I asked her her opinion on the infamous bear or man debate: "At least the bear would just kill me." So Yumeko has the chance to overcome her abuser (since he literally tortured her as an AI) thanks to her physical strength.

The last ending was my favourite of the three. Yumeko tries to be the best wife for the doctor, but she doesn't have the aspirations he expects her to have. And even when she cries, and he asks her why, her only solution is to lie: she pretends she cries, because she feels lucky to have a husband like him. This was a very sad and tragic ending in my opinion, but that's what made it so good: Yumeko can't go anywhere, she doesn't know anything about the world. And once again, the game offers commentary on how some predatory men look for women who don't know their rights or the support they can get to abuse them. To lock them up in what they consider to be a guilded cage, but which is actually a coffin. Once again, a very important issue that the game tackles beautifully.

Finally, I really appreciated the appearance of the android: red lips, ebony hair, white skin in a white dress... She was literally Snow-White, an ideal representation of beauty in women. And yet, a woman so purely beautiful that her heart was pure too: and only her Prince Charming could save her from the jealousy of an older, not so pure women. This was a perfect representation of beauty standards, but also of the expectations of the doctor: he wants his partner to be ideally feminine: he wants her to be the type of woman who would be saved through true love's kiss, just because it would be proof that a man is loved.

Overall, this was a stellar game, and I will call it a masterpiece. Congrats on the game Chatter, it was an amazing experience!!

Hi! We do accept interactive fictions with no art/graphic assets!

I mean, are you on windows, on your phone, on a MacBook?

Thank you so much, your words mean so much, I'm glad you appreciated this game!!

Aaah, thanks for the kind words, I'm glad the game touched you! And on what platform are you playing?

I mean, I had to shout you out haha!

And thanks a lot, it still feels surreal! It has changed my summer plans, as I'm preparing for it, but you gotta reap what you saw. And I don't know if I'm VN royalty haha, as I really see me as a "basic dev", but that's really nice of you to say, thank you! And thank you for sharing your opinion for Happy :) so far!