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adored every moment of this game's presentation. the visuals are a perfect complement to the writing - wavy, hazy, atmospheric, but grounded in specificity. 

the sensory details sold the intensity of the sport, and the characters' anxieties over their bodies. the shaving plotline kept me especially on edge, and the restraint shown made it even more memorable. i was tense throughout, waiting as the pressure built and built, constantly certain something was about to pop. 

like many of my fellow narps in the comments, i appreciated the amount of context built into the story. i loved the swimdex as a method of both providing further context and extending the narrative!! very cool trick, i gotta steal that sometime >:)

as i read, i was often reminded of tillie walden's "spinning." there's this sequence where she talks about making her bedroom as cold as possible before sleeping at night, A/C on full blast, no blankets, just so her body doesn't have to re-adjust when she gets to the ice rink...  competitive sports institutions really fuck kids up, huh?

I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (i picked down!)

omfg this game just oozes with style. visually stunning. from the presentation alone, i knew i was in for a treat.

every aspect of this game's UI, CGs, screen effects, etc are in harmony. i love that the building complexity of the UI mirrors our protagonist's developing mind. it also kept me on my toes - at no point in this story did i have any idea what i would see or read next. it was awesome.

i was surprised by how often i laughed with the script! the first half is such campy, horrific fun, it really felt like a sister game to honeydew complex. the build-up to genuine horror was very deserved, and the ending had me cheering out loud. 

katurian was a consistent delight. when i got the first full-body cg of her outfit i was like girl, what the hell is that, i love you.

i'm going to remember this game for a very, very long time. you folks ought to be proud of yourselves. fantastic work!!!

"I don't want to be unsafe to love."

fucking phenomenal. required reading for anyone who has ever been in fandom.

i have been a sunny, and i have been an anita. this brought me back to anxious teenage skype chats in the 2010s, interrogating freshly-graduated friends if they're aware that the anime boys that they're calling sexy are actually still high schoolers. i remember the childish terror of finding a friend is Into something they Shouldn't Be Into, the sense of betrayal, the sickening feeling that you have to cut them off or risk contaminating yourself. christ alive, what a gut-punch. "sunny... um... it's been seven years" made me laugh out loud.

(spoilers)

it speaks to the quality of the writing that the abuse in this game is less extreme than most TYVNJ entries I've read - and yet - it's easily the most uncomfortable i've been playing any of these games so far. that wet fucking kiss sound effect. ugh. UGH!!!! as an ex girl with a waaaaay-too-friendly girl bestie i felt very seen.

i love that anita's realization of who sunny actually is happens completely offscreen. really smart, effective decision. *everything* in this title is incredibly well-edited and directed. i adored it!

also, rare extremely effective use of renpy bubbles W??!? crazy flex. 

i hope anita gets on testosterone.

a greenhouse for girls! \( n_n)/

played through most of this in one sitting, stopped only because it was 4 am, woke up and immediately played the rest. i was physically tense, balled up on my couch, for the entire playtime. 

when i was very very young, before i fully developed empathy - i think maybe 2nd grade? - i liked picking on a particular friend of mine. (i still remember the day i realized "wait, this is fucked up" and stopped, lol.) harmony's narration, the ownership she feels over caitlin, the obsession with getting ANY sort of a reaction out of her, brought all of those memories rushing back. it was so painful and real.

so many aspects of this title just WORKED. harmony's abuse incubating & "hatching" the same behavior in caitlin... the petscop-ass hypno sequence... the ASSETS, oh my god, so scribbly and tactile and yet so clearly drawn with skill & craft!! i particularly love the layered, bruised quality to the color; it makes the red pop so much more than a single pencil could.

(spoilers below)

i shouted out loud at the reveal that dorian gagged harmony with his FUCKING PACKER!!!!!!! AND THEN THE FFFFFUCKING. NICE BOAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE FUCKING TIGER POEM!!!!!!!!!!!!! JESUS CHRIST I WAS SCREAMING FROM MY FUCKING COUCH LMFAO. SO GODDAMN GOOD.

sincerely reminded me of The Plague, which was my favorite movie i've seen this year.

on a personal level, seeing so much of what *i* know *you* love poured into this just, made me emotional. i'm really, really glad you joined. 

easily a front-runner for my favorite title so far. i can't wait to see what you make next.

"She laughed at me and said 'I'd rather spend that time with you,' and I replied, annoyed, 'having the full count would help me remember what you were like in that exact moment."

ugh. UGH. y'all are good at this. 

this game brought me back to the intoxicating online friendships i had as a teenager - years of conversations & time & attention poured into shared interests, always talking around tension, resolving bitter blow-out fights by Going Back To Normal, never scratching the surface of meaningful connection. 

the narratives the girls impress upon one another felt so realistic and awful. the way yamos positions ys as the arbiter of her adulthood is particularly interesting.

your VNs are remarkably confident. they take full advantage of the medium's unique aspects, while also maintaining a literary & theatrical quality that is totally distinct among the games i've played. refreshingly unpoisoned by pop games writing. you guys fucking read books, is what i'm getting at, i guess, and i'm grateful for it.

also, some of the most tasteful and impactful use of {nw} i've seen yet. i gasped within the first ten minutes. 

It;s Snowin' Time...

SUCH an icky, dreadful, nauseating story, wrapped up in a beautiful crispy jittery package. i said "this feels awful" out loud like four times while i was playing this. i loved it.

daizy's comment about people with psychosis having strong internal narratives felt key to her character. there's the literal narration in her head, but also, her mantras about the kind(s) of girl she is, her insistence on explaining herself and her actions to the reader... it felt true to all the mentally ill trans people i know & love. 

(spoilers below)

daizy's relationship with anisia made me SICK!!!!!! daizy never even names her sexual abuse, because she loves anisia so much, feels she owes so much, that the thought never occurs to her that she could be exploited. and yet the tenderness and care anisia shows her is genuine. it feels soooo fucking real.

fantastic VN, will be thinking about this a long long time

hell of a movie!

my wife & i read this in one sitting. i couldn't tear myself away. strange, compelling, and arrestingly funny. the layers of fiction and mythmaking and dissociation complement each other beautifully. it was very rewarding to come back & read this page after finishing the story.

(spoilers) the final sequence was especially vivid - leslie waking and re-waking endlessly into a theatre full of ritas is an image i won't forget.

really, really beautiful presentation & delivery. this hit close to home. i wouldn't change a single word.

(edited with further thoughts from the jam chat server): hole* was so good. so fucking good. the legendary 10 minute VN!! i love short, impactful writing, so this just blew me out of the water. i've never read a piece of writing that took physical sexual dysfunction seriously, and in such a beautifully articulated manner. the writing, the visual presentation, it's all in harmony and it only could've been told this way through VN format... ugh what a good game

thank you so much for commenting!! wow, i didn't know jack about building distributions before i read this LOL, i really appreciate your reply. 

i have just uploaded the corrected zips! please let me know if you still have any issues.

hey, thanks for letting me know! unfortunately i don't know the first thing about linux, so i'm not sure how to test this bug. i'm going to upload a linux-only build later today, rather than the linux/win build that's currently up. please let me know if that works!

picked this out of your catalogue on a whim and absolutely adored it. wonderful work!!

i wish i could pin this comment

ohhh this comment made my day. i'm so honored ;_; thank you so much for telling me, i'm glad you all had fun!!!!

like many of the commenters here, i fell in love with this game by watching a popular youtuber play it. now, i've been thinking about it for two days straight. i'm eagerly waiting for my wife to have some free time, so we can play it together, and i can show her this story that has carved a permanent mark into my brain.

i was drawn in by the wonderful character art. then you hit us with the material realities of healthcare under american capitalism... lemme tell ya, as a disgruntled leftie office worker, in a field adjacent to healthcare, that shit had me hootin and a hollerin. when lee started talking in detail about how he gets paid i fully became two soyjacks pointing at the screen with excitement.

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i love the "red herrings." i love how they subvert the expectations of the rpgmaker horror scene, but also develop the characters. i love that you whether or not angel called the cops ultimately doesn't matter, even though i was so sure it would.

being cared for by a fucked up, moneyed niceboy who's unhealthily obsessed with you is such a lovely fantasy LOL. truly one for us tfag fujoshis in the crowd. i think lee should administer angel's testosterone.

i keep typing more things i like and then erasing it all, there's so much i could say but i can't put it eloquently.

what a fucking game. i'm going to think about it for a long, long time. i hope to see more work from you. thank you for making this and sharing it with us.

gorgeously composed and rendered - dark, freaky sex crafted with fine lines & a delicate hand. one of my favorite short works of vesta's. read it!!!!!!!!!!!

i play a LOT of timesink games. this is the only one i've ever bought twice - i just got a new laptop, and instead of moving my old files over, i want to support you again. thank you for hours of fun!!!!

this is incredibly helpful, wow!! thank you so much for getting back to me, especially on such an old comment of yours - you're the best <3

i had a big followup question here but i solved it so i edited it out lol. tysm!

hello! i know this is a total shot in the dark on a very old comment but i am right now stuck on this very issue - i can't figure out how to call the bleeps function within name_callback. is there any chance you have a bit of old code to share?