itch.io

Ah, thank you so so much!! I’m glad the atmosphere and conclusion worked well for you. 😊

Thank you so much for playing, Sleepy Agents! I’m really glad you enjoyed the atmosphere, writing and presentation!

And yes, this was on O2A2 visual novel, so 1 background, 1 sprite (I had none), 1 music track, 1 sound effect, and 1000 words of writing tops. (You should consider joining in next year if you can, I feel like it’s a jam you would really enjoy!).

It’s definitely something I couldn’t have managed without such a tight constraint; I wouldn’t have been able to pack in so much tone, imagery and worldbuilding through the fairytale-like storytelling otherwise.

djdjkdhd, thank you for the shout-out, ahah, made me laugh.

And congrats on getting into that literature master’s degree!! You’re already literary VN royalty to me, I can’t imagine how happy it must make you to be able to study the subject in even more depth throughout the week!

Happy :) sounds very interesting, looking forward to it!

I read through this and kitten milk replacer almost back to back and I think it broke me a bit.
It was really intimate, atmospheric and immersive. Some of Sara’s (and Alex’s) compulsions ring far too familiar to be comfortable.

Thank you, I’ll be thinking about this story a lot.

OK, you didn’t lie, this was incredible and crushing in so many regards, I’m a complete utter wreck here….
Thank you for making this VN, your writing here was indeed just stellar, I’m floored.

You brought so much realism and nuance to both Chloé and Matthieu’s “relationship”. It felt very, very real and entirely believable all throughout, it’s incredible how well you pulled it off.

All the classic lit references elevated the story so much for me. So many layers to them! The fact that it starts as a very genuine bond regarding literature —it got off-track very fast, there were many flashing, orange, then red lights along the path, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t understand Chloé’s initial drive to connect with someone you admire through books. It hurts all the more to see the dark path it would take (not by her own fault, of course, Matthieu’s failure to stop at every additional step remains the most critical failure, Chloé was in such a vulnerable position to begin with).
Then the fact that Matthieu both romanticised some of these literary discussions, but at the end of the day, couldn’t do the adult thing and face what Lolita really said about him. So infuriating! He kept knowing what he was really doing while being unable, or unwilling to stop himself at each juncture. That was so sadly realistic, and such an honest portrayal of what abuse can be like.

You really, really nailed the staging and sound design too, from Matthieu’s emotional breakdown expressions, to the sense of horror/excitement/denial during the intimate scenes with Chloé. It was chilling, intense, incredibly immersive.

I’ve been reading some of your Waterlily on the Froth devlogs, and they were really interesting as well, especially the ones where you compare the setups of both stories, and the psychology of their respective characters, so thanks for them as well! Waterlily sounds like it will be such a special project again, can’t wait for it!
There’s lots more I’d love to say and have to think about, but yeah, thank you, I’ll be thinking about this story a lot.

(Also don’t feel like you have to respond quickly or at all if you’re doing O2A2 again this year lol, enjoy the game jam)

Hi Chim!!
I’ll reply since I’m typically the kind of follower who reads through itch updates but rarely interacts elsewhere (my twitter presence is too much of a mess for that ahah).

I just have to say: the breadth of your interests and favourite genres is just so impressive to me… You’re going to make me pick up my classic tragedies again just to be in the mood for your next work, but all you put out in other genres has such a ring to it too!

I’m very very slow to catch up on itch releases, so I still have to (and plan to) read the rest of the Daughters of the Sun trilogy beyond the original entry! Your latest Mythology VN jam entry sounds very much up my alley also.
Other than this, I read and loved The Day Being Ace Made Him Stronger; it was really powerful and such an interesting use of the chatsim format.
I have yet to read High School Lolita but I’ve been eyeing really think I’ll enjoy it too!

So, yeah, I guess I’m very slow in catching up on all you do, but I really appreciate roundups like this one of all you have going! It’s incredible you have such range in both mythology it all, please keep it up!!

Thank you (once again) for reading & commenting!
I can’t believe you read & commented on my 3 released VNs back to back ahaha, this is really appreciated!!

I’m glad you enjoyed the story & had fun deciphering it! It was also fun reading through your interpretation of the story and its themes!

I’ll only comment on the factual cultural inspirations behind On Mount Ségou, just in case you’re interested! (I would have loved to include in-game ending notes about them as I usually do, but for this specific game jam, it was not allowed, or it had to count towards the 1000 words limit).
The Mogho Naaba is specifically the traditional king of the Mossi Kingdoms, which are now in modern-day Burkina Faso, the Mossi still being the main people of Burkina Faso. There are still living Mogho Naaba (with obviously no major political power in this day and age), for instance in Ouahigouya in Yatenga, but also in the capital, Ouagadougou.
Ségou is a real town in modern-day Mali, but this is pure coincidence. In my case, the real inspiration behind Mount Ségou were rather the Sindou Peaks, way in the Southwest of Burkina Faso (which isn’t really a Mossi region).
You’re 100% right about all the underlying themes behind azurium; the idea & name come from The secret of Cerulean Sand anime series where it plays essentially the same role (an ore extracted by (neo?)-colonial forces to allow flying for their armed forces and society).

Thank you so so much for taking the time to read & comment on Sylvan Disappearance!
This comment is so detailed like your two other ones, aaaah. There’s so much in it!

I’m really glad you enjoyed the atmosphere, presentation, themes/symbols and (most of) the story!
I’m sorry about the True Epilogue in this story. I realise it can be disappointing (though I still think its inclusion was important to give a more grounded finale), but I definitely can’t expect any reader to foresee it. Sylvan Disappearance isn’t a very “fair” mystery, as you say, it was a first attempt at a larger VN, and it has its flaws!
I’m really glad you found so much value out of it in spite of these flaws!

As always, I prefer not to comment on specifics from your summary and analysis, but I really, really enjoyed reading them! Your interpretation of Célia is really poignant (and very on-point), it hurts anew to read about her journey through the more evocative/allegorical lens that you used!

Thank you again so much for reading & commenting, this was much appreciated!

Thank you so so much for taking the time to read this VN (and for reading my two other released VNs on top!! I’ll be replying to your other comments next!).
It always warms my heart to hear of people who read & enjoyed it so long after this release (well, 2017 is not that far from 2024 but it seems like an eternity in Internet years ahah).

It was really interesting to read through all of your thoughts (and criticisms), thank you so much!
It’s especially weird (in a good way) to read someone’s impressions & understanding of the entire story through a summary. I won’t confirm, comment or correct on anything too specific, but it really is fun to hear how you perceived the story in full on your end!
(I guess I’ll just say that on top of the theme of social class, race is the other underlying background of Lord D. that explains his unease. But the references are obtuse.)

“style and narrative of this story aren’t really suited to the visual novel format. (…) I hope that the absence of sprites wasn’t too unsettling!”
In my personal opinion, this is not a problem; after all, I am an avid reader.
And you should know that the first visual novels were like that. (see Otigirisu, 1992)
Your vn only has a strong text focus and that is quite valid.

You’re entirely right about this!! At the time of writing this VN, I used to feel like no one would really be interested in NVL-style novels, that take after sound novel presentation & history as you mention (Otogirisou, Kamaitachi no Yoru, etc and their more modern successors with varying degrees of faithfulness like Higurashi, Umineko, OG Tsukihime, 428 Shibuya Scramble, Tsukihime Remake).
But I definitely feel more confident about it nowadays (and I feel like more people are interesting in reading or writing VNs in this style ; like Misericorde, or some Domino Club VNs). I’m glad it was also effective for you too!

But is it really lovecraftian?
I have read Lovecraft myself. I can identify common elements, like a main character isolated from the world and educated in a library, and also the presence of extraordinary and unexplainable events. However, Lovecraft never wrote anything about France or explored a relationship between two friends, this isn’t bad however, this is what makes the story original.

Yes, you’re right! I struggle to think of a story by Lovecraft that isn’t initially set in the Northeastern United States. Even in stories which explore ancestral European heritage, the protagonist is always American, and returns to Europe on a journey (eg The Rats in the Walls).
But yeah, as you said, otherwise, Lovecraft suited what I wanted to do here.

Thank you again so much for taking the time to read & comment!

I see, thanks for elaborating on the icon, I’ll keep it in mind if I reuse a similar style in the future!
I’ve definitely been wondering whether I was still missing an image at least once or twice when playing a Ren’Py VN online on itch.io too, so I see where you’re coming from! I tend to disable “progressive downloading” on my own Ren’Py web exports for this reason, I prefer all assets to be 100% loaded when the game starts.

You can definitely think of several possibilities for the Nameless One’s command!
As in a lot of places in this story, I leave it all in the hands of your imagination, I hope the style and atmosphere convey just enough otherworldly violence by themselves for you to picture it (though I have my own preferences).

And likewise (even more so) for azurium ahah, I wouldn’t want to make it any more grounded than I did… but I’m glad it struck you, or at least evoked similarly gruesome fantasy/JRPG dark secrets!

Thanks for playing!! Glad you enjoyed the general presentation.

I really wanted it to be a kinetic novel (choiceless) from the start!
The early early plan was even more linear, since I wanted to have a more dialogue-driven story between Ellie and the Nameless One during the ascent on Mount Ségou, with a not-so-clear resolution (as in the true ending)…
but I realised I really really enjoyed the fairy-tale-like framing, that it came more naturally to me, and allowed me to pack in more style, more tone, more atmosphere. So I settled with a normal storytelling first, and then the “true” retelling! I really enjoy this kind of enforced reading order, and couldn’t really envision more choice than this!
(I think I may have considered turning the “true story” retelling into a choice that appears only the second read at the pivotal moment; but I feared people would miss the second read if the main menu didn’t change. I also found it more fitting to have to choose from the start whether you wanted to hear the truth or not. It’s less Ellie’s choice & more the player’s.)

I didn’t realise the document click-to-continue indicator could have been confusing, woops!
It’s completely lifted from the style of 2000s Japanese VNs made with the ONScripter engine, like Higurashi, Tsukihime (example screenshot) or Umineko (example screenshot), which I really love and wanted to emulate given how minimalist this VN is too!

Thank youu for commenting!

I’m glad it was enjoyable and that the music and the second read all made their effect hehe! 🤗

Thank you you so so much, I’m glad you took the time to read this VN even so long after its initial release, and that you found it enjoyable!

I never bother listing Umineko as an inspiration because I love it so much and it changed me so much that it is all over anything I ever touch ahaha…
But yes, the influence’s definitely there; I’m glad this aspect was also enjoyable since you loved Umineko yourself too!

Thank you so much, this is so kind of you!

I’m glad that the setting was intriguing, and that the writing style worked well also!

Said as much in another comment, but the mix between personal story/agency, and broader stakes at another scale is (again) all Le Guin… She was so so good at pulling from both sci-fi & fairy tales, bird’s eye anthropologist view & personal stories.

Thanks again so much!

Aaaaah, this is far, far too much and way too kind, reading this will just make me faint,,
But thank you so so much! I’m glad you enjoyed this VN as much!

I’m glad the music, NVL format and atmosphere worked well! Audio is definitely my personal favourite part of visual novels, it was fun to be able to use it effectively in a short piece like this!

Also happy to hear the tone of the story itself was good itself, wasn’t super sure it’d be super pleasant to reaed ahaha (it’s all very Le Guin themes, I just amped up the horror/mysticism).

Thank you so much again, it just means a lot to hear a short piece like this could be so affecting!

Everything in this was really lovely —the slightly animated portrait, the music and sound effect, the ooetic and whimsical writing, the story.

I’ve gotta restate again what SJ said in the comment before: the longing in this, the longing, such pain…

The contrast between the somewhat disillusioned, passionate but burdened MC, and Rosalia’s whimsy, light-heartedness was really good. I can see what drives her so much to Rosalia in spite of the ensuing pain, it was really compelling, and I’m glad she has her in life, even if not to the extent she’d like!

I loved this, the atmosphere was really good, and I didn’t expect the story to turn out the way it did from the premise!

I liked the lack of definitive answer too, it was unsettling and heightened a bit the stakes, the pain, and the ~mystery~!

Gaah, this was pretty incredible…

This was all so well staged! So so much angst and drama, and such a sense of timing with silence, music, fading the room and movements. It was so effective (and emotionnally affecting, too), felt such an amount of ache in such a short timeframe.

I still haven’t read Our Wonderland at all so I had minimal context apart from skimming through comments here, but I got pretty invested anyway. The banter was so good and lively too, I’m super super intrigued now, I’ll try the main game when I can!

(It took me forever to reach ending 2 as well, I’d first played days ago and couldn’t reach it at all ahah, but this time around, found it easier.)

Thank you very much!

I’m really glad the music and atmosphere worked well, I’d been meaning to use that specific music piece for so long in a story!

No worries for the delay, ahaha, it can be hard to keep up with comments or to even what to reply!

The variations were honestly so good and rewarding to chase already, can’t imagine how much work you all had to do to put it all together under Spooktober’s timeframe (and the brevity fit the fairy-tale theme/storytelling so well already!).
And yeah, the “mysterious start” was just perfect to me, I was honestly hooked so easily from the very start.

I wasn’t aware of Jester / King at all, thank you for the rec, I’ll look it up!

Aaah, thank you so so much, this means a lot!!

I’m glad the atmosphere was effective and that the NVL typographic effects worked well! (And yes, the obvious Higurashi/Umineko/ONScripter inspo in presentation & tricks ahah, Ryukishi07 has a handle on me forever…)

I’ve loved that BGM by Efiel for so long too (2012-2013 maybe), I’m so glad I was able to finally use it in a project where it suited everything!

Thank you so much, glad it was effective!

Aaah and I just remembered something else I wanted to add originally:
It’s super fun (and super inspirational too) to see the kind of VN writing you’re putting out after having explored more classical interactive fiction/Twine games!
It’s maybe a bit rarer to see this focus on brevity, raw & character-less writing in VNs than in Twine games, but you brought a lot of the usual VN staging tricks along and… the result is just really good, and inspiring also, so thank you again so much for making this.

Been a few days since I read it, but you packed so so much in that tiny moment, and it was so poignant all the way through… and just so painful.

Thank you so much for making this.

I never thought I’d see Racine in a VN someday… And it was so so good!!

The staging focused on the monologue, the voice acting, the slow text speed worked so well together, I’ve never seen a VN reproduce the feeling of theatre so well like this!

And that helplessness, the writing was so good… Now I’m just wishing I could read a full rendition of a classical tragedy you made, ahah.

Ah I see, this makes sense!
OK, thank you so much!!

Hello! I was wondering: is there a specific reason why Creative Commons resources with a Non-Commercial (-NC) clause were not recommended this year? Has there been trouble with them in the past? From the rules:

(this time we’re strongly suggesting that you avoid CC assets that include the Noncommercial or -NC license part!)

BY-NC might be the most common license on Flickr, which I tend to use for photographic backgrounds, but I always abide by the rules: crediting the original author clearly and with a link, and making a non-commercial work, always non-ambiguously (free now and forever, without any donations button, future paid version or anything like that).
If it’s really problematic, I’ll restrain myself to choose a photo licensed under BY alone, but that does restrict choices.

Thanks in advance!

Ahh, thank you so much for taking the time to write this comment!

I’m so glad you enjoyed the horror and audio atmosphere of this story, and that it was effective! Reading through it with only a candle lit in the room sounds so perfect, I should try that myself…

I’m so glad you enjoyed the post-game commentary too! I picked the habit from Ryukishi07’s Higurashi When They Cry (though they appear only after the later chapters I think), but also from ebi-hime, who’s been including author’s notes in I think all of her many releases (which you can find on itch.io), if you’re ever looking for more stories with that!

No problem, it really was a pleasure to read through!! Really looking to whatever you have planned next, for these side characters or for other stories!

Thank you for taking the time to write out these tips! I’ll keep them in mind if I end up playing this VN again, I’d love to reach some of the better endings!

This was such an oppressive read and so effective… It was really really disquieting and aesthetically so perfect (Sleepy Agents’ work was so perfect for this!). The liminal space chase sequence towards the end was honestly perfect and the final confrontation was really good.

And despite the very grim subject matter, I enjoyed how much heart and compassion there was in this; thank you for making this entry!!

I loooved this entry so so much! I really really love time loops and you made such a good one! It was so rewarding to piece the whole story together across multiple playthroughs by exploring the house & through dialogue options (I think I went back and got every possible hidden variation of text ahaha). And the way you fused it all together with the amnesia, the amulet, the goal of it all? Just genius.

I loved the fairy-tale horror/dark fantasy setting as well, the prose was so evocative and fairy-tale like (loved the unexplainable magic and the way it mystifies you, especially on a first playthrough), which was really complimented by the incredible OST, the UI, and also the partial voice acting, which was so fitting here!

Finally the story itself was so so good, I really enjoyed piecing it all together, both the web of relationships and the reason why it all fell apart. Thank you for making such a beautiful story!

This was so atmospheric and bittersweet, I loved it a good deal! I couldn’t tire of hearing the main theme, and the core tragedy was so moving, ty for making this VN!

Aaaaah, this was such a nice nice discovery among all the Spooktober entries I’ve played, thank you so much for making this VN!

I love historical settings steeped in local folklore, it’s always so moving to see someone make a story about a very specific place in time they care about with lots of realistic places, foods, past customs, hints at real-world history…
And the way you fused it all together across two time periods with with a certain supernatural device, a haunted house, a traditionalist family, and a beautiful tragedy… It was just too good!!

I really love how you staged everything together as well; the way you used ambient sounds and beautiful photographic backgrounds was very immersive and super endearing.

The story itself was so well told too, the way you described the pain of Pei-er not recognising her world any more and struggling to adjust was so touching. Enjoyed all the “worldbuilding” and the setting with the Wuyapo, the lost children, the soldiers…

Thank you so much, this VN was all I could ever ask for!

I loved your entry so much!

I agree with everything Carrot Patch Games said below: there was something really poignant about its simplicity and aesthetics, the cruelty of the fairy-tale atmosphere was great and def reminiscent of RPG Maker horror games/The Witch’s House in its twist! It was really touching, thank you for making it!

This is the scariest Spooktober entry I played yet… You did such a good job with the atmosphere, the sound design, the slow, slow timing and mounting dead. It felt like playing through a Ju-On movie with all these ominous interior shots as CGs and the jumpscare expectation at every turn.

The story was really well-done too (and pretty sad!!), the whole 2000s social media x teenage loneliness worked really well. Thank you for making it!

I loved this entry a lot! It’s so perfect aesthetically, the spin on the cursed media urban legend is so good, the sound design makes the whole thing so immersive and the story gets quite emotional in such a short length.
It reminded of Photopia because of the overall tone and of the somewhat disjointed storytelling.

Wuld you be able to include a walkthrough for all endings somewhere? I get the feeling that a lot of people (me included) only ever got one ending because it can be hard to backtrack and try new choices: since we can’t save, and since the skip function keeps skipping immediately after making a choice, it can be a bit daunting to do, even if the story is not that long overall.

The My Dinner with Andre x that one Community episode dialogue bits made me really laugh. (The whole sequence with the Crone did feel pretty heartfelt too!)

Alan’s snarky voice was really perfect for the narrator, and the whole aesthetic was so on point, please keep writing weird metatextual VNs forever!

This was a such an interesting VN adaptation of Lovecraft!

I’m always interested in VN literary adaptations, and you did such a good job by enriching the original story with investigative gameplay. It works really well with Lovecraft in general, but you really chose the perfect story for this —Randolph Carter is already so iconic because of its court trial framing, so adding investigation by a third-party on top is such a perfect fit.

I liked that most of the original text was still included through cassette tapes, almost like a full audiobook, and the VAs for Warren/Carter did such a good job with it, it was really impressive. The blending of both the investigation and the original story made for a really immersive experience, I could see this kind of formula reused for other Lovecraft/literary stories!

There were maybe a few points of blending between the original story & what you added that made me pause —like the style discrepancies between both, the cassette tapes anachronism, the implausible tapes found in the swamp all the way to the tomb, and the doubling down on Lovecraft’s orientalism with regard to the “book from India” (which was a single brief mention in the original). But obviously none of these have easy answers from the get-go, it wouldn’t be so easy to address them all.

Thank you for making this, I really enjoyed it!

This was fun! I always enjoy atmospheric historical settings —I really enjoyed the prose and the eerie backgrounds here.