hi im bea. im gonna talk about stuff i've read lately that i've enjoyed. im not going to give full summaries, but i will be pointing out a few things i liked about each work. mostly spoiler-free. that is to say there's more to each of these games than what hit for me. so be careful (: (but also genuinely lol. read all the content warnings and make your own choices) and if any of them sound interesting i hope you might try them yourself. anyways~
this was my first love game (check out their web site here) game and i'm excited to try more in the future. i had this one in my library i think since it came out in 2023 basically. happy i finally gave it a try and really wish i gave it a look sooner! i loved it a lot.
"love and dehumanization" is about. well. as the title says. to be a little more descriptive: it talks about things like "how is degradation and such with a partner different from self-harm or from just regular-style harm?" and honestly so much more. lots of thoughts on bdsm and being in a bad spot mentally. a lot about love. about being accepted and finding acceptance for yourself. the story starts in a dark place but the ending is so hopeful and just. wonderful. it's stuck with me. it's inspiring, really.
so the text is great. i love the story. i love the characters as well. melody and aria are great. i love "the witch" and the cool knight lady. the art is very nice very charming. i'm such a big fan of the way the sound effects are used. they're so adorable at times it puts a big smile on my face. cute little barking dog sound effect. soo good i love it. oh! and the setting is really neat as well. fantasy mmorpg world where you die and it's like dang back to the inn for you. and exploring the effects of that in a fun and interesting way.
so anyways it's free. it's a couple hours or so long to read. it's broken up into chapters (with individual content warnings that you can turn off or get a more spoilery description of the content in question if you prefer. very cool to have!) so you could do a quick chapter here and there like i did. all that to say if it sounds like something you might be interested in there's not really anything to lose for trying. i know i'm glad i gave it a try (:
so if you've read my thoughts on "slime feet" (here if you haven't and would like to~) you know i have experience with long distance relationships and the feelings that accompany them. the topic is a lot for me. for that reason, when i first heard about "spring gothic" i knew i had to read it as soon as possible. i knew before reading a single word or knowing anything about chun and nica that i would find parts of myself in their story. i knew they would get me. i went in not necessarily expecting to, but ready to sob like i did reading "slime feet".
i haven't read any of prof. lily's other work so this was again my first time reading something from this team. i really should give their other works a look. have heard good things about "31st march, midnight" so i'd like to give that a go some time. looking forward to seeing more from prof. lily because i really enjoyed "spring gothic"
to maybe actually talk about the game a bit: it's about long distance relationships and meeting for the first time. it's about expectations. it's about communication and what it means to know another person. it's about two people feeling differently about things they experience together. for me it really. really digs deep into the ldr stuff. very thorough. all of it is there for me. traveling thousands of miles to see someone you've never met in person before. staying in a hotel room together alone. the way it feels like. even though you've spoken to them so much and spent so much time together, that it can feel like meeting for the first time. the hope and the fear. finding that you both have different expectations for your relationship. ...not to be exhaustive. just. a lot. it's a lot. genuinely if you've been in a long distance relationship ever in your life, you will find something that hits for you. almost certainly.
other things i enjoyed! the music by speedy (listen here) really good. the photos used as backgrounds are great. really lets you feel like you're in those places. should i ever visit someone in london i'll definitely take a look lol. many memorable places that i never knew about before since i've hardly set foot outside of heathrow airport and paddington station. the art for the characters and all their expressions are also very well done. also appreciate the call-outs to real places, authors, books, etc., real-life events. feels like they fit well with the story and the backgrounds and everything. i also really, really really love the presentation of "spring gothic". getting to view the story from each girl's perspective is amazing. and they did a good job i feel not making the second route through the same events feel repetitive. they really experience things so differently that it felt fresh and didn't drag even slightly.
again this one is also free and will take up at most a couple hours of your time. for me it was so worth it to take the time to read it. hope you will give it a try if you've not already.
cutting to the chase and saying that this one fucked me up. i had at least one uncomfortable dream while reading it. i loved it.
"pinfeather" is a horror vn. i don't have a lot of experience with those. the closest i've read would be like 闇の声 (yami no koe) one and two but imo those are more like. eroge with horror themes than horror games, if that makes sense. "pinfeather" is a different beast. it's captivating. nauseating. oppressive. pretty funny. grotesque. suffocating. body horror and horror (regular-style) abound. it's human. i've seen some of myself in it. the characters are well-written. the pacing of the story is intense. i enjoy the way the perspective shifts between ten years ago and current day so you're learning how it got this bad in the first place in between the present situation getting worse every day.
the thing that struck me immediately as i started "pinfeather" is the sound effects / foley work. just the weight you feel while reading. things like the tick of a clock. tick. tock. again and again. the bisky post that introduced me to the game (linked here) describes pinfeather as "the worst pressure cooker of all time." which i agree with. and so much of the sound work made me think of this post. a clock ticking. a file dragging back and forth. so many others. it's slow. agonizing. and things only get worse as it goes on. the sounds that repeated again and again will continue to live in my head forever. if you play it you will see exactly what i mean. i'm not going into detail one because it's disgusting and two because you can experience it yourself (: i'm being kind and leaving that available for you to enjoy.
also the character art and backgrounds are really good. i love the way the characters are rendered with like, a color. feb is like a red pink. non is blueish? pale? another character is red. it's a neat way to present them. and i love all the shots that have a mirror so you see both characters as they're facing each other. the camera in a lot of scenes has you right there in non's eyes. it's cool.
also there's a scene near the end that i'm really normal about and could totally stop thinking about if i wanted to. so if "pinfeather" sounds like something you're interested in maybe check it out and see (: but genuinely it's fucked up in various ways so don't feel bad if it isn't for you. i'm just happy to share a thing i liked
i didn't really realize when i set out to write this that the three works i covered were all by authors i've not read before. and i found each of them very impressive! going to be watching for new releases from all of them going forward. i've been learning recently that you can just read a short vn. especially when it's free. you can just read it. you can just try it. all it takes is being able to set the time aside. an hour or two at most total. if you bounce off for literally any reason it's fine i'm not going to judge you. but if you try more and more you'll probably find something that you really connect with.
i've been really enjoying getting more into vns this year. like ones outside of the huge ones everyone knows like umineko or fata morgana (ok maybe it's not like an everyone thing but you get the point). and there's a lot of vns it turns out that aren't 100+ hours to read! wow! i really like having access to so many high quality vns made by all these different people. being able to experience just for an hour or two these stories and these feelings. it's something really special. so i think. if you don't read vns. even if the stuff i write about here isn't your taste (swear i'm not judging) i hope you'll take a look and find something that means a lot to you. although i can't know who reads this. the entity observing this probably reads wayy more than i do lol. but if you aren't!!! you could!!! it's fun i promise there's something for you. and if there really isn't then you could make it (: put your own thoughts and experiences into a short visual novel. set it free and find others who relate to you. beautiful thing. not strictly a vn-only thing but it's what i write about today so it's visual novel today.
thank you for reading i hope at least half of it made sense and at least a third of that half was meaningful in any way (: and if not i enjoyed writing it all anyways so i win either way (:
- bea