itch.io

my little guy is a witch with a laptop in front of a fish tank and she has been there for months now. no matter how much i unlock she will always be a little witch with a laptop in front of an aquarium. lovely :]

i don't even. i don't know where to start on this. i started and stopped the first two scenes probably about five times just trying to get into it and then i got into it and oh my god. i'm so like. lost. trying to figure out how to navigate this. how to navigate how i feel relating to this. how to navigate how you even write something like this.

: spoilers ahead, be warned :

there were so many points where i just had to stop and stare. and just. holy shit what am i reading. holy shit what does this mean. holy shit what is happening. holy shit holy shit oh my god oh my god. and i'm like. so confused?? on what it all means, and i think that's perfect. i think that's absolutely perfect because it means i get to go back in four or five times to read it again and again to get all the meaning. each individual person and their morphing, each moment where the scenery changes, the scenes that play out multiple times but with different endings, i'm just so. lost. on it all. and like for most things i would be like "ah well mid" but this is like. genuinely holy shit. oh my god. AND THE ART IS SO GOOD i had to stop a few times to just look at the photobashing and the way the backgrounds moved together and the ever so slight differences in the MC. i want to know more. i NEED to know more. i gotta know all of the backstory i gotta analyze this until i've memorized and comprehended every single word i gotta. stop thinking about this like it's some kind of narrative, from point A to point B. this is more like... yume nikki kinda? which fits with the whole dreams thing. but it's not designed to be a point A to point B thing. it's just designed to exist. like schumann's kinderszenen, i suppose.

absolutely wonderful job. just wonderful. just so wonderful.

i'm about to spew some bullshit so please correct everything i say wrong LMAO

first off. wow. wow wow wow this is probably the vn i was able to most connect with in a weird fucked up way. took me almost two hours just because i had to keep stopping to go "OH MY GOD WAIT AND IT'S" or "wait so it's written like this because" just like. i don't even know how to describe this other than to just copy paste all the notes i took. 

wonderful use of music. wonderful use of art. the girls were so pretty i love them. wonderful themes of asian disapora and chosen names being pronounced wrong and the links between everything and it's just. masterful. everything about this was created so masterfully. so beautifully weaved in and out. so so so so beautiful.

OK SPOILERS AHEAD BE AWARE this is literally just a copy paste of every thought i had during the game. please feel free to ignore it as it is VERY lengthy.

ctc is SO CUTE OH MY GOODNESSSSS

i've never been so engaged from the first few lines

this is really really really well done. LOVE the atmosphere not only from the dialogue but from the visuals AND REFERENCES OF VISUALS, the ambience, the music from the earphones no longer in the ears. love this

CHARACTERS ARE SO CUTEESJDHGJKDFGK

FISH orgy

oohhghghgh piano girl i love you i gotta know what happened

PEAK CHOPIN NOCTURNE ACTUALLY LIKE THE BEST ONE i played this my third semester at community college it's SO nice

NOOOOOOO IT'S NOT BEETHOVEN IT'S CHOPIN IT'S CHOPIN

OH MY GOD VIETNAMESE!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EEEEEHEHEHEHE I LOVE THEM

also i just adore the journal entry format of this it's so good

oh theres a sea monster there isn't there. oh there's a big sea monster getting foreshadowed huh.

ohhhhhhh the metaphorssssssss oh this one is so good

urgghhh headcanon aroace or just depressed ourgh i get you tay i get you

HOLY SHIT SECOND PEAK CHOPIN NOCTURNE I DROPPED THIS ONE BEFORE THE END BUT IT'S SO GOODDDDDDDD i think both are from the same opus? op. 9, same as the one everyone knows. i wonder if i can predict the next piece. i need to learn more poulenc.

THE BACKGROUNDSSSSSSSSSSSS ughhhh my dad used to own an aquarium and we'd often go to this fish shop aquarium type like this so it feels so much like being in first person for this. nostalgic. i need to go back. maybe this is my sign.

cum cloud

OUGHGHHH THE PARALLLS THE METAPHORS OGHH MY CLOWNFISH GIRL

NOOOOOO OH THE CATALYST FOR THE STORY HAPPENING and it's a month later oughh ohj boy this has perfect intentions for the story

oughhhhhhh the 3 a's autistic aro and asexual i love you tay

angela :(((( girl i love you

AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOGAAA HUMINA HUMINA jokes aside i LOVEEE these designs i love them so much

PISS MENTIONED how did it get on the sheets i must know. frankly if it's like a pissplay thing why WOULD you get it on the sheets, especially if you're trapped. seems like a b ad idea.

TWO VIETNAMESE OH MY GOODNESS i love vietnam!!!!!!!! :vietnam flag:

auhghh diaspora i'm slowly understanding this word more and more

ohhhh and this is why we didn't get her name either, just her last name

tay has a very nihilistic view of the world shaped by the way she grew up, it reminds me a bit of 2-4 '94 by kazehai and ppilotco if you've played that

ohhhh i think im starting to get it slowly? i'm a little slow on these things all considered but i see it as like, when you come out as trans you're often treated less as a person, less human, even if it's more aligned with who you are. tay is the type to realize this and play STRONG defense as a safety mechanism, and it's based in reality. it is really fucking scary to be trans!! especially when there's nobody else to support you!!! she's sorta grown up knowing that. so it's less about her being like "i know" and more like "it's not true based on the way i've grown." i think? please correct me if i'm wrong i absolutely want to hear the interpretation going into this

oh i didn't even think of race, yeah that's absolutely a huge aspect to this too. not only is it a connection to yourself, it's a connection to your family. there's nobody else quite like you in terms of heritage. it lives inside you yes, but when you cut out the people who are like you, that's a whole aspect of yourself you just. lose. it's so difficult. god damn.

i can't get over the excellence and brilliance of the language too like. just taking a second to look into the way things are written. wow. is tay the carcass? is that how she interprets the situation?

loss of memory. oh my god. tay the name not only as a loss of ethnicity ("easier" name so people can pronounce it), it's also a loss of everything she was. i don't know where angela stands on this. whether she's doing this to intentionally hurt her (tay? thanh? i don't know which to use anymore. i worry one is her deadname. i worry that's what this story is all about anyways) or in, as she mentions often, naivete. "maybe i really am just tay after all"

i wanna keep playing but im so stumped at the self-aggrandising masturabtory word vomit bit. i want to understand this in the way an english masters would study a piece of literature. but alas i will come back later

oh my god

angela?????? girl what are you saying i'm starting to get tay (?>>)'s position on this now better

auughhhh fuck oh myy god

and the music clarity

oo hk,my gdo oh my gdo i have to reread all of this like three times now to understand it

so tay doesn't want a cab home because she's just been seen as like. just been seen? observed? she's been stalked by this girl for a yearish now over just a party. and there's this confusing mix of "this girl who i've talked to ONCE knows so much about me?? what the fuck????" and "this girl who i've just talked to at a party was intrigued enough by me to want to know me. she wants me. she wants me." and the following scene is just this horrible mix of hatred for both of them, and love and adornment for being seen, and just wanting the moment to pass, and not wanting to think, and understanding that she loves her and she loves her and this is probably the only thing she'll ever get and oh my goddddd. i'm sure i got most of this wrong i am very bad at understanding meaning but that's what i got out of this.

also holy shit the backgrounds are so good i love the slow panning and zoom and the slugs(?)

aah but then what do the slugs mean? what ddes the annihilation mean? it's this mix of her own hatred for herself and her lack of ethnicity and connection in that sense, and lack of autonomy for being trans, fitting into the mold again, the hole to fill? this is so like. 30 minutes to an hour my ass i'm gonna study this for days to come i gotta read this multiple times

there's so much i just can't understand right now but oh my god it's so pretty and so clearly like. i can tell there's SO MUCH here

PRETTY ARTTTTT and also i think like half of the games with sex sounds has used this same bed squeak. me included.

oh my god. oh im startnig to get all the symbiosis and parasites and aromantic and becoming one. oh my god.

"i am whaever she needs" not only in the context of angela, but in the context of being trans, and in the context of being not in Vietnam and losing that culture, and in being what her family (just her dad now, jesus oh my god) wants because it's the only ties she has left. oh my godddddd

"my brain does not process the target as me"

oh my god and they're one and these are all reflections not only on angela, but also on herself because she is one

actually this is making me think of how similar pain and pleasure are, two sides of the same coin. is this why sex has so much play regarding death? loss of senses, pain, choking.

also the poulenc playing throughout this is just haunting. so haunting.

oh my god and the drooling is like the cotton mouth of the fish in the beginning.

this is recminiscent of how i was in my last relatinoship (WITHOUT THE VERY TOXIC BITS, JUST LIKE THE SERVING A PURPOSE ASPECT) and i turned out plural. so this is very much like. oh i get it.

just checked the f2. what do you MEAN i still have a third of the vn to go holy shit.

PISS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh my god the art

"this place must be hell"

oh my god i completely forgot about the whole monster thing. oh my god oh my god.

the claustrophobic fel of te ui and the 4:3 aspect ratio oh my god as im typing this the music is getting louder oh my god

angler fish angela fish angela's fish

oh my god the angler fish is angela (angela fish) and the smaller one is thanh

oh my god

no wait the angler fish is something else. and giving up joy was symbolic of changing the relationship. if joy is thanh, then it's thanh giving up her self of self for... gas? or in the relationship, normality maybe.

or maybe it's just death. things are looking that way rn.

WHAT.

my body has collapsed in on itself at this point oh my god

THE FULL NOCTURNE SET OH MY GOD I DID PREDICT IT!!!!!!!!

oh god and the final embrace is symbolic of so much more. it's an acceptance.

is the water a metaphor (?) for dissociation?

oh my god?????????????????????????????????????????????????????

YAYYYYYYYY THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i hope to keep destroying you far into the future o7

came for the piss. stayed for the story. WOW this is really good. same thing as with everyone else, excited for the new version to come out so i can see this story to its conclusion!!

oh my god im like actually crying this genuinely means so much. to have someone look at what you made and just. fdfgkfjbgkdjbfkgdkfg

thank you. thank you. thank you. i need to make a postmortem (kinda did with the afterword) but this is a VERY close story to me. maybe not an autobiography (i have never been on an oil rig, believe it or not) but very much. i needed to write this to answer the questions celestine figures out in the end. i'm glad that you got through it. i'm glad that it killed you because the best part is getting through it in the end. i'm glad you enjoyed it :] thank you for playing i love you

hopefully this is low enough to SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER block, but i was going to have the ending leave with celestine's jump. but it didn't feel right, she needed something more than that. i needed something more to that. also i spent like a solid three days on JUST sounds and music implementation, so i'm really glad you liked that too!!!!!!

this is so sick it's so cool i love it hashtag moth plushie moment

<3

???????????? WHAT

10/10 too many notes to consolidate into something coherent

i cried.

autumn leaves is really pretty and you sang it very well.

this story resonated with me in an odd way. i'm not sure how to describe it. spoilers ahead!

there was so much 'AAAAH NO WEAIT WAIT WAIT STOP'. and i love alice and also jess and like. i think i get plurality more, which is funny to say because you helped me figure out i'm plural but yk. i'm not sure how it resonated with me because i both related to it so heavily and so nothing at all. i completely understood and i didn't understand at all and as i type this i'm wondering if that is also a plurality thing idk much to discover. overall this was wonderful, difficult to read yet easy to keep clicking. difficult to relate to yet easy to completely understand and cry to. it was wonderful. it was wonderful

stumbled upon this after playing "made for this" and holy shit???? this is really really good the use of repetition and playing with the textbox and everything is just SO creative. genuinely like one of the coolest stories i've ever read simply because of how it's presented, and it pushes the story forward so well through this use of repeating the text multiple times, cycling through text, reading the same description multiple times. it felt like a dialogue between the narrator, what they wanted to say, and the player, and what they wanted to say. all of which is to say that this was incredible for being only 431 words. felt like thousands. felt like fifty. felt like i need to loop this again another eight times.

MAHJONG!!!!!! i really liked it! for a first time dev this was absolutely wonderful. the characters felt nice and the overall story arc made sense.

spoilers from here on out :3

the ending confused me a little bit, and it was hard to follow along with the two different storylines (of both robin and mikoto, and mikoto and the seer stuff), but overall i really did love this one! also the sex was really hot, not my exact cup of tea but something i'd willingly drink for SURE.absolutely keep writing!!!! this was awesome and i want to see what else you come up with!! such a fun game hehe :3

short read but packed with a beautiful story. the ending shocked me BAD and yet was entirely what i was expecting. the characters are SO cute too. but man. that ending. 

SPOILERSSSSS

it makes absolute sense why annette turned into an Id. it makes absolute sense why the other two would look for each other that way. but oh my god. each of them are just looking for a replacement for the fact that they just killed their WIFE and? girl toy? i'm not entirely sure what annette is to lily. the worst part is that yeah i have experienced this kinda too like obviously not turning into a magical girl monster, but poor communication leading to what feels like absolute death.

wonderful little game. just absolutely wonderful

mine is about an oil rig and how scary things are BECAUSE they're real so i think this fits :D https://gayvie.itch.io/because-you-are-alive

all of my characters are trans actually :D hashtag trans fem https://gayvie.itch.io/because-you-are-alive

thank you!!!! that means so much to me :]] once i get confident enough there will be illustrations in like a 2.0 edition and then everything will come to life >:3

damnnnnnnnnnnnnnn this one was GOOD. not heavy but definitely not weak. INCREDIBLE build up. LOVED the way the story built up. ONLY little thing i want to mention is that the {w} or {cps} or whatever triggers irritated me EVER so slightly, but not nearly enough to take me away from the game. gonna go get throw looped now

i'm not sure how i made it through. this was horrible in the best way possible. i don't think i breathed the entire last section. i'm still not breathing. i don't know whether to compliment or hate this writing. either way it was fucking EFFECTIVE. incredible work, if that's even the right words. oh my god. oh my god.

spoilers! be aware

the whole thing felt so... soft? it was horribly fucked but it felt so soft and comforting and loving even if it was horrible and really difficult to read. i like. i get it. i get it. i cried multiple times. it was really incredible, the way you were able to move everything together in a way that worked so cohesively yet still, even when you knew exactly what was coming, killed you. i love that not a lot was ever fully explained. i love that you were able to come to your own thoughts about a lot of it, especially from a narrator like indi. ALSO the music was incredible!!!! genuinely wonderful. all of this was so wonderful

yeah just give the burnt out audhd girl with mommy issues the visual novel about the robot girl yeah thanks

all jokes aside, this was absolutely wonderful. +1 on what twilight silence was saying, you managed to put SO much into this within the confines. i cried multiple times. 

(spoilers from here)

i had to get every single ending. i read all the side stories. i cried at a few of the side stories. i'm glad the "good" ending was the mom one that made me cry really hard. i'm gonna steal so many elements from this it was so good. absolutely absolutely absolutely wonderful

<3

:]]]]]]]]]]]]]] trust i was also crying so hard as i was writing it and the first like 8 times i went through that scene. i'm glad it meant so much to you!!!!

posted this in the fluxer but i'll post it here too

i have no way to describe this vn other than something that needs to be studied in literature classes across the world. the way everything is written so precisely, yet so emotionally, is incredible. each and every words has a secondary meaning, most of which went over my head, most of which i will have to reread twice, three times to get half the meaning of. each metaphor and entendre, each moment of the story building and building and concluding in a way that was most definitely predictable if you understood all the secondary meanings (that you absolutely could not understand on the first pass, or maybe that's just me), each little moment of music and dialogue and character sprite and diamond and scribble is just. i don't have words to describe this. i constantly had to go through and look through the .rpy files just to see what was being done, and how i could try to emulate it too. i am not a baseball fan and i almost put the game down before i started it, and then i started it and i still can't put the game down and i am still not a baseball fan but oh my god. oh my god. there is an art to writing in the way this was written. an art unlike the words on the screen (which somehow managed to amaze me with each line) (though, the art of the words on the screen was immaculate. i clearly am not utilizing the windows to anything close to their fullest potential). everything that was done here, was done beautifully, perfectly, precisely, in a way that i will strive to emulate in years to come

god damn. this is REALLY good. the way everything moved back and forth between scenes. the scenes themselves. the way everything was portrayed through the screen and just. i don't even have the words for it. just.... wow. wow. this is one im definitely gonna have to return to. everything is portrayed so masterfully. it's beautiful and horrifying and just.

there were multiple times where i genuinely was like breathing heavy pearls clenched "OH MY GOD STOP STOP STOP STOP" and. god damn. god. damn.

DAMN. it was so good all throughout. genuinely such a beautiful little game. spoilers ahead

=--------------------------=

throughout the whole thing there was this like "oh i KNOW it's fake reality but it's so happy so maybe it'll be okay!" and it was okay for a while and that journey was so beautiful to go on, but the way it just SNAPS right back to reality, and the last few lines, were just. DAMN. that was insane. that was so good. also the music was AWESOME hashtag chopin hashtag music

holy fuck????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

10/10 no notes

:(((((((( you are so kind this genuinely means so much to me. thank you so much

i cried. this was something i went into thinking "this is probably not my thing" and oh my god. it's so beautiful. everything about this was so beautiful and i get it. i relate to both of them in their own ways. there's something so horribly heart wrenching about the knowledge you CAN'T go back, even if you want to. i think that's what made this hit so hard. absolutely wonderful. absolutely horribly toxically wonderful.

i would have loved to play this more but i got softlocked in the first minigame section and there's no savepoints :(((((( i'm sorry it looked like a really fun game and the story was very interesting

holy fuck????????????????????????????????????????????????? this was INCREDIBLE everything about the graphics the music the way everything built up it was just SO GOOD this is a HUGE standout for me :D the ui was incredible and told the story well and the MUSIC fit every scene so perfectly with that moment of like "oh fuck oh this is getting real" AAGDKFJHDKFG IT'S SO GOOD!!!!!!!

this was sick >:3 loved playing it loved beta reading it loved the way it was presented through the media loved ALL of it

slight spoilers for the game :3

this was sick >:3 i remember beta reading just the text but seeing it come to life was AWESOME. i really loved the SPOILERS

two different fonts for whatever happened to ingrid in the past and ptsd and all that. it was short it was sweet it got through the best parts without overstaying its welcome >:3

you are so kind :((((( thank you so much this means so so so much

horrifyingly beautiful. one of the greatest things i have played i think. the way you write physical touch makes me feel starved. maybe i am the boy girl doll. the text changing colors was such a beautiful touch too. i didn't get it at all, and i could not have understood it more. what a beautiful little game.

damn. gorgeous.