Serment – Contract with a Devil Review (RPG/Visual Novel Hybrid Game)

EVN releases often come apparently out of nowhere, with games either flying under the radar during their entire development process or simply being forgotten due to delays and inconsistent promotional efforts on the part of their authors. This lack of proper buildup can easily spell a commercial disaster for such titles, especially considering today’s overcrowded indie market and the Steam storefront so full of shovelware that browsing recent releases stopped having any functional meaning. Thankfully, at least some of these games can still break out of total obscurity thanks to their particular merits, or even having the help of someone with a particularly big megaphone (which, in the realities of the VN market, means one of the very few established publishers interested in Japanese-styled games).

             One of the recent titles that apparently got away with its extremely-prolonged development and a long period of obscurity is Serment – Contract with a Devil. This lighthearted, yuri themed dungeon crawler by Nkt Studio was released on Steam by Sekai Project in early February 2019, nearly three years since the reveal of the first demo and after significant changes to the game, including a drastic visual makeover. Thanks to its beautiful promotional art, appealing premise and the developers quickly responding to players’ feedback, it managed to gather a decent amount of attention and positive response. But what exactly this “dungeon crawler/visual novel hybrid” has to offer?

The class choice makes a significant difference, both narratively and when it goes to playstyle, but the repetitive dungeon crawling makes it hard to justify multiple playthroughs

Serment in its base premise seems to be rather openly inspired by Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale, another anime-style indie game that received a lot of praise from both players and reviewers a few years ago (it's even directly referenced in Serment’s story). Recettear is a fantasy item shop manager combined with a dungeon crawler, in which the protagonist is forced to run a business in order to pay off her inherited debt, in progressively bigger and harder-to-match quotas. It’s a very tense game, in which you will most likely fail repeatedly until you get a very good grasp on the mechanics and truly optimize your playstyle. Serment starts with a simpler plot and mechanics, with the protagonist being an adventurer who died during one of her quests and was resurrected in the demon world by Lucifer – a particularly cute and friendly “devil”, who requests a repayment in gold for her services, paid in six, progressively bigger instalments. To fulfil the contract, our lead is forced to use her skills by exploring the local dungeon and doing quests for demon world’s surprisingly non-threatening inhabitants – all within a time limit, with payments at the end of every week and every action, be it travelling, interacting with other characters or fighting monsters, consuming precious time.

             That was, at least, the initial setup, as reacting to players' complaints, developers quickly relaxed the pressure from recurrent payments, increasing gold earned in the dungeon and reducing the time required for various activities, as the highly-limited resources got in the way of exploring the game’s world and story. This was especially important for some side-events and quests, which can pretty much only be uncovered by trial-and-error, visiting various locations and dungeon floors at certain points of the story or with the right team composition. When every wasted hour threatens you with a game-over, casual exploration is not something you can do effectively. Apart from these side activities, which are identical in every playthrough, the game has a short main story for every one of the four playable characters, which progresses automatically after every payment to Lucifer and includes a pre-determined romance subplot. This structure leaves pretty much no place for the player agency in directing the game’s core story, but is consistent with the notion that every player class (the warrior, mage, ninja and freelancer) is not just a set of skills, but a proper character with unique personality and backstory. Their love interests are the ones that fit their characters the most, rather than ones of the player’s choosing.

               What has to be said clearly at this point, however, is that both the core storylines and the optional interactions are neither particularly long nor very deep, adding to maybe four hours of story content in total. Everything is extremely cute and lighthearted, with little to no drama, dark story elements or fanservice, which people would expect from more “mature” anime RPGs. This translates even to the stylistics of the dungeon and monsters that inhabit it, with very few enemies that could be in any way described as “threatening” (which doesn’t mean they can’t wreck you if you’re careless or advance through the floors too quickly). A few fanservice CGs and end-game bonus costumes add a little bit of spiciness the experience, but nowhere close to what you’ll find in even censored versions of genuine “hRPGs” such as Sakura Dungeon – Serment’s aim is definitely to be lovely and relaxing, rather than sexy, and it does a reasonably good job at it.

The game offers some light fanservice, but most of the time stays firmly on the “safe & cute” side of yuri romance

When it goes to RPG mechanics, Serment is a good compromise between simplicity and customisation. There are six teammates that you can recruit throughout the game (with up to three characters actively taking part in combat), all with their own specialisations and unique perks, which along with the significantly-varied player classes allows for many fully-viable playstyles. There’s also a limited gear system, with the characters being able to equip a single weapon, armour and amulet at any given time, but most items offer unique bonuses and skills, along with significant stat trade-offs, giving a lot of space for meaningful changes to characters’ effectiveness and their roles within the team. The main barrier for switching between team compositions and tactics freely is the cist of stat upgrades, which cost gold and are separate for every character – this not only limits you by having to put away funds for weekly payments and other events, but punishes you heavily for splitting the investment beyond the characters you use the most. There are also risk-reward mechanics that reward you for summoning as few companions as possible, as the fewer you take with you, the bigger will be your reward for the fights (while every loss or retreat will cost you significant amounts of gold). Additionally, the game utilizes a weapon mastery mechanic, that unlocks powerful bonuses after any character fights with a specific item equipped for a certain number of fights, which means that switching it for anything else will often be a significant, even if temporary downgrade. I actually find those inclusions very appropriate, as they add to the overall challenge and encourage putting yourself as a disadvantage, even without struggling to meet the weekly quotas for gold.

             The dungeon itself, in which you’ll be spending most of your playthrough, is disappointingly short, with only 8 floors (the last one being a bonus boss stage with no random encounters), but decently designed and fun to explore. Most floors include fairly complex environmental puzzles, with gates and switches that force you to explore and experiment to reach all the treasures and quest objectives, which were satisfying to solve for the first time (although losing most of their charm during playthroughs, as there’s no randomisation or proper new game+ involved). Interestingly enough, all the bosses you encounter are optional, as your main enemy is not within the dungeon – it’s time, during which you must both pay out the current portion of your dept and progress enough to earn even more money during the next cycle, while beating a boss simply means receiving an additional reward. It’s an unusual approach, but one which goes in harmony with the “VN” aspect of the game, which centres around the adventure and interactions with other characters, rather than any kind of external threat or mystery. Also, when you finish the game once, you are given an option to start a new playthrough with 1 million gold, letting you ignore the dungeon completely and explore class-specific stories and the side activities, fishing and cooking, which are slightly too inefficient to really be attractive during the timed portions of the game (to be fair, the game also opens up after you finish the last payment to Lucifer, letting you explore the missed content freely on a “normal” playthrough).

Everything in Serment, including combat, is excessively cute, which will either charm you or threaten to give you diabetes, depending on your preferences

As I mentioned before, something the game absolutely excels at is the presentation, and especially the character art. The designs of the girls are all-around lovely (this also includes all four of the playable characters) and the CGs, while not very numerous, are a joy to look at. This admittedly creates a bit of a “Winged Cloud effect” – that is, if Serment was stripped of its great aesthetic there would be relatively little left to enjoy in it – but it’s not something I’d be willing to criticize too heavily. The only thing I actually found lacking was the design of the dungeon, which didn’t offer any changing themes or interesting gimmicks that I enjoyed heavily in Sakura Dungeon for example. Music was also only decent and once more, Sakura Dungeon proved to me how much a really good soundtrack can do to enhance the climate in this kind of VN/RPG hybrid.

             In the end, Serment is a very competently-made and thoroughly pleasant game, which I find difficult to seriously criticize despite how much is left me wanting more – the only omission I was genuinely “angry” about was the lack of CG gallery, pretty much a criminal omission in a game this gorgeous. Thankfully, there’s a good chance that this particular feature, along with the additional story and endgame content will arrive around April this year in a major, free update promised by the developers. If they’re able to deliver on this, Serment might become of the best non-Japanese games in this formula, but even now, it’s something I can quite easily recommend to fans of yuri and easy-going, fluffy anime games. Sometimes, deep storytelling is really not the most important thing.

Final Score: 3/5

Pros:
+ Lovely character art
+ Overall high-quality visual design
+ Solid RPG gameplay mechanics
+ Mostly well-designed dungeon floors and puzzles

Cons:
- Ultimately short and shallow story
- Low numbers of dungeon floors
- Dull endgame content
- No CG gallery


VNDB Page
Buy Serment – Contract with a Devil on Steam

EVN Developer Spotlight: Reine Works (interview)

This interview was originally published on Fuwanovel Forums on March 16th 2018.

 

For the last few months, I’ve published reviews and top lists, presenting worthwhile or interesting OELVNs that usually have little presence on Fuwa and don’t get discussed as much as they deserve. From the very beginning, however, my goal was to focus not only on the games themselves, but also the people behind them – the independent creators and small studios that make the core of the Western VN market. Today, I present you with the first “Developer Spotlight” post, where I’ll be talking to Jackie M., the founder of Reine Works, authors of multiple yuri and otome VNs and the studio behind the recently-published otome title Seven Districts of Sin: The Tail The Makes the Fox, about the game’s somewhat-turbulent release and the realities of today’s OELVN market. Be sure to check out my review of the game first, where I also touch on its unusual appearance on Steam.

 

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Plk Lesiak: Hello and thank you for agreeing to this interview! Let’s start with your latest VN. It’s pretty rare for me to be the first person to rate a game on VNDB, especially four months after its release. What happened to The Tail Makes the Fox that it went so much below the radar of the VN community?

 

Jackie M.: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there are nearly as many users on VNDB who rate otome games, as compared to anything that could be construed as aimed at men. I took a quick look at some other developers' titles out of curiosity, and it seems that female-aimed titles in general tend to have very few votes. Funnily enough, I can confirm that we do get sales referrals from VNDB. We've had a few of them.

 

PL: For a few months, your VN was only available on Itch.io, a platform usually associated with free games. Regardless of other plans, what was your experience of trying to sell your title there?

 

JM: Itch.io isn't really a storefront where a developer can make a profit unless the game in question is very low budget, nor should they particularly expect to, what with the smaller userbase. From when pre-orders opened before release till today, itch.io sales have only amounted to roughly 1/4 of the game's development cost.
 

That said, we do like it, because it isn't subject to a lot of the restrictions that similar shops are, and transferring earned funds out is also much quicker than anywhere else that I'm aware of. We just wouldn't recommend that anyone only ever sell their games there.

Blossoms Bloom Brightest

 

PL:  Steam, to which your game made it only recently, is a pretty inclusive platform nowadays. Why the 4-month gap between The Tail Makes the Fox showing up on Itch.io and its Steam release?

 

JM: I could do a huge write-up on this, but to keep things short, we didn't previously have a publishing deal for Steam beforehand. Such agreements do take some time to sort out.
 

In fact, we never actually heard back from the first publisher that we contacted, even though they said they'd review the game and get back to us, all the way back in October. We waited for them for a while and then reviewed our other options and decided to contact another publisher, rather than wait any longer for them.

 

PL: What’s your experience with Steam as a marketplace for VN? Even within the OELVN niche, it feels pretty saturated lately.

 

JM: If you're asking for my general opinion on releases by anyone/everyone, then yes, I agree. In February alone, I noticed that around 5? Other new otome games popped up within days of The Tail Makes the Fox releasing.
 

Since this is only our first full commercial title on Steam, I unfortunately can't comment on general sales trends. We've been told by other developers that all game sales have decreased dramatically from when there was Greenlight, though.

 

PL: Let’s talk about the game itself. One of the ways in which it stands out from most OELVNs is the voice acting. Few western studios decide to risk such an investment – what was your rationale behind including full voiceover and how much it affected the development process when compared to your “silent” titles?

 

JM: Honestly, we're a small studio, and we like to make games we personally enjoy. Voice acting is just one of those things for us. It's that extra something that brings stories to life. In the past, we'd experimented with partial voicing (to mixed reception), and we knew we definitely wanted to try full voicing at least once, too.
 

As for how it affected development – it made it longer overall in an annoying way [laughter]. I do a lot of the development footwork myself, so I was also the one who had to cut the hours-worth of voice reels into individual clips, master them, and then edit them if necessary. I didn't get much sleep in the weeks leading up to release. There was also the trouble of having to recast one role literal days before release.
 

I don't think I'd recommend it to the faint of heart. And if/when we do it again, it'll only be for short titles.

The Seven Districts of Sin: The Tail Makes the Fox

 

PL: Still, one thing that was clear from your posts about the continuation of The Tail Makes the Fox is that it will be significantly larger in scale. Will it follow the same formula, when it goes to voice-acting and the variety of art assets?

 

JM: For the most part, yes. We actually had the artwork for Episode 1 finished well before release, so we don't expect that to be an issue this time, either. As I've mentioned elsewhere, however, we're considering releasing an unvoiced edition first to ensure that we can get everything done in time.

 

PL: Have you ever considered cancelling the further episodes, considering the rather slow momentum of the first game?

 

JM: No. If I may be so blunt, that would be a dick move on our part. It seems to happen a lot with OELVN developers, I've noticed, but we don't plan to end up in that group. Heck, we've had Episode 2 in development since November.

 

PL: About the general ideas behind your work. While otomege are a huge part of the OELVN market, they are also pretty distinct from their Japanese sources, ex. in how they present female characters. What are your thoughts on JP otome VNs and you would name any of them as inspiration for your own projects?

 

JM: Yes, definitely. I personally enjoy JP otome games a lot. As long as the translation isn't Engrish, I'll buy it, even if the premise isn't my cup of tea. They aren't exactly the kinds of games you go into expecting strong female leads or anything, but I do generally find their ways of storytelling very interesting.
 

We actually didn't have a specific inspiration for The Tail Makes the Fox. Gaki, one of the characters in the game, is the embodiment of Ashe’s (the game's writer) and my hatred for the "flirt" archetype of love interest in Japanese otome games, though. We shoved all that hatred into him and decided to... Majorly play up those traits, as anyone who's played the game or demo will have noticed.
 

Reflections ~Dreams and Reality~ and The Wilting Amaranth are both based on Western fairy tales, and Blossoms Bloom Brightest is loosely based on a more Star Trek-like idea I had for a larger title. Our upcoming larger otome title, Mizari Loves Company, is sort of meant to be a Western take on JP-style otome games, but it's not actually based on anything specific. It actually started as a parody idea, similar to The Tail Makes the Fox.

 

PL: On your Itch.io profile, you write that you create games “aimed at women of all orientations” – yuri games, and otome with a high number of yuri routes are pretty commonly enjoyed by men. Do you know what kind of audience your games usually reach?

 

JM: If you mean our general audience, then it's pretty even in terms of gender, based on the information available to us. The games with male love interests always have more sales from women than men, though.

Reflections ~Dream and Reality~

 

PL: Do you think there’re any fundamental differences between Japanese yuri romances, targeted towards a male audience and the games you make for the Yuri Game Jam or yuri routes in your otome titles?

 

JM: For sure. The big one seems to be that Japanese yuri titles are very focused on the girls being young and overly pure and such (ex., SonoHana and even Kindred Spirits to an extent), as well as the popular titles almost strictly using moe-style artwork. This also applies to yuri-themed manga and anime, in my experience, so it seems to be a very cultural thing, perhaps similar to how JP otome game protagonists are often very submissive.
 

As a Western WLW myself, I can honestly say that those sorts of yuri titles don't appeal to me. I'd like to see actual adults with adult relationships interact, all depicted in a more mature bishoujo style. Even better if they're formatted similar to otome and bishoujo games, with proper character routes. Perfect if they're set anywhere that isn't a school.
 

So, yeah, we're just trying to make games that appeal to our own sensibilities as Westerners. I personally think that's a pretty huge difference in itself.
 

Relevant tangent: Funnily enough, though, I've been accused of both being a man and pandering to dudes because we generally don't write our female characters as chaste or innocent.

 

PL: Can you say which titles these comments were connected to? Your games seem very tame in comparison to ecchi OELVNs popular on the western market, or even some Yuri Game Jam entries.

 

JM: The comments I mentioned were all referencing Blossoms Bloom Brightest and yes, the game itself is very tame and contains no sexual content or nudity. And it's always men who make these assumptions. I'm not really sure what that says about men's views of real life WLW, but there you go.

 

PL: Thank you for your time!

 

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I hope you've enjoyed the review! Please feel encouraged to check out Reine Works' page on Itch.io. Also, all feedback on the interview itself or the kind of questions you would like to see in the future will be hugely appreciated. Have a great week everyone!

Heart of the Woods Review (Yuri Visual Novel)

Studio Élan, a company founded by Josh Kaplan, one of the authors of the highly-appreciated yuri VN Highway Blossoms (check out my review of it here), gathered an unusually large and enthusiastic following since its formation in early 2018. Engaging high-profile artists for their projects, utilizing Kaplan’s renown within the VN community and brilliantly spreading its message through social media, the relatively small team managed to become of the most high-profile actors on the EVN scene before releasing even a single title (not counting demos and prologues, which, of course, also had a large role of building the studio’s profile). With follower counts and Patreon support that could make many veterans of the scene jealous, the company spent the last year working on two interesting and well-marketed projects, both of them gorgeously-looking yuri VNs, while seemingly only getting more and more attention.

                Considering the hype building up at insane rates, it was that much more crucial for Studio Élan’s debut title, Heart of the Woods, to deliver a compelling and memorable experience. While few people could doubt its stunning aesthetic – the demo and plenty of promotional material made that part perfectly clear – it was still a question whether it could create characters and story able to at least rival those of Highway Blossoms, to which the new game would be inevitably compared. Thankfully, I can quite confidently say that the full release, which showed up on Steam mid-February 2019, was pretty much everything fans could hope for – and maybe even more than that.

The game impresses with its visual quality and aesthetic from the very first moments and delivers more eye candy at pretty much every opportunity

 

I usually leave the discussion of visuals for the end on the review, but here it’s pretty much impossible to not address it right away. The visual aspect of Heart of the Woods is amazing and features a very consistent, detailed stylisation on a level that I genuinely haven’t seen in EVNs, apart maybe from Dicesuki’s otome games. The VN used art by three different authors (not counting the numerous background and UI artists), but all the assets fit the “modern fairytale” climate superbly, stay faithful to the character designs and, maybe most importantly, are simply a joy to look at. The sprites just ooze personality and even though they’re not as expressive or varied as I’ve seen in some other EVNs (most of the girls could probably use a few extra poses and sets of clothing), their level of detail and aesthetic qualities compensate for that quite well. The CGs are not extremely numerous (there’s around 20 for the 6-8 hours-long experience, including the H-scene ones), but similarly impressive in their quality and the game utilizes interesting visual tricks which should feel familiar to those that played Highway Blossoms. Even the small details in the UI and transition screens underline just how much thought and effort was put into the visual side of the experience and the end effect is nothing short of fantastic. The atmospheric soundtrack complements the art extremely well, giving the game a very consistent and compelling climate.

                The story side of the experience, in my opinion, doesn’t fall far behind the visuals and utilizes a very interesting mix of modern-setting drama and fantasy. The beginning, featuring Tara and Maddie, two friends who run a YouTube show about paranormal phenomena, riding a train to a remote location to which they were invited by a fan, is pretty tense and down-to-Earth. After Maddie decided to quit the show and return to school after years of helping the charismatic, but irresponsible Tara in her internet-celebrity career, things are extremely tense between them and the introduction of Morgan, their strange and apparently mythomaniac host, only makes things worse. These opening moments establish the characters as believable and flawed individuals, dealing with relatable, every-day problems and while the game gradually introduces more and more fantastical developments (including the addition of the fourth main character, the ghost of the forest – Abigail), it never forgets about its cast being more or less regular people, struggling to cope with the unusual circumstances they found themselves in. They all grow significantly during the story, which is shown especially well thanks to the frequent switches in perspective, but also never lose their relatable qualities. While Maddie, at least initially, serves the role of the primary protagonist (later on the scales tip slightly to the side of Morgan, who also makes all the choices that affect the story), all of the girls are occasionally given a leading role and thanks to that we can learn about their thoughts and the events happening while members of the group are separated from each other. All of this adds quite a lot of variety and depth to the overall narrative and differentiate HotW from most stories of this kind.

The genuinely-interesting mystery elements and surprising plot twists make Heart of the Woods a more dynamic and refreshing experience than your standard, SoL-focused yuri VNs

 

While the writing for the game is generally very solid (I only have minor gripes with how certain crucial plot developments were dealt with later on and how the pacing got slightly weaker after the first half of the story), what is especially worth complementing is its prose. Heart of the Woods reads better than the vast majority of EVNs and reminded me how rare titles with real literary qualities are within the genre. The writing is not overly fancy in its language and structure, but extremely polished, have a very good flow to it and greatly articulates the different personalities of each heroine. The plot itself managed to positively surprise me a few times, with some pretty bold and dark twists saving the game from ever becoming overly-schematic. The final chapters maybe didn’t fully live up to the awesome build-up of the first three, but they still kept me engaged enough to never let me feel truly disappointed.

                The excellent quality of the writing also extends to what some could expect to be the “main point” of the game, that is the yuri romance. As the plot here is mostly linear, the couples are pre-determined and your choices (there are four in the whole game) only determine the ending you’ll get. The romantic arcs are compelling and emerge in a rather “organic” way throughout the story, while never overshadowing the supernatural thriller that is at the core of it. The game never forgets about the life-and-death threat looming in the background, balancing between the slice-of-life moments and moving the plot forward in a consistent manner. The chemistry between the girls is also very well-done, with them gradually opening to each other and finding a connection through their shared hardships. Admittedly, all of this culminates in a rather cheesy “love conquers all” message and an extremely optimistic true ending, but for this reason I also very much enjoyed the two, alternative “bad” endings – those are not really fully negative, but rather bittersweet and are a bit more in line with the general tone of the story and the nature of the threat the girls faced.

Heart of the Woods’ romance is heavily-intertwined with other aspects of its story and develops rather organically throughout the plot, without ever dominating the narrative

 

The h-scenes (featuring exclusively Maddie and Abigail), which were probably also anticipated by many fans considering the game’s beautiful art, are in many ways similar to those from Highway Blossoms – relatively vanilla and showing up in places where it makes sense, without disturbing the story. They also offer a little bit of character development for Abigail, probably to the point I would recommend reading them even to people that normally skip on hentai, especially as they’re not long or explicit enough to get really uncomfortable. On the other hand, their absence is practically invisible in the “clean” version of the game and while the scenes themselves were definitely nice-looking and well-written, they’re in no way a necessary part of the experience.

                In summary, I think Heart of the Woods is a fantastic debut by Studio Élan and an appropriate choice for the first 5/5 rating on my blog. It’s not a perfect game by any means (even to the degree that creating one is reasonably possible), but one that had a very high bar set out for it and still managed to surpass expectations in a spectacular manner. While Highway Blossoms was, at its core, a very conventional romance story, this VN managed to surprise and charm me in ways that I honestly did not anticipate. It should be able to satisfy not only yuri fans, but everyone interested in experiencing an interesting and emotional story, and I see it as a new standard by which all other EVN should be judged. It shows that the Western scene is by no means bound to mediocrity and iterative, forgettable titles as many VN fans make it out to be, while still being an indie and relatively low-budget title, just like every other commercial EVN. So, if you like visual novels at all and you’re not particularly averse to any of Heart of the Wood’s main themes, give it a chance – it’s really worth it.

Final Score: 5/5

Pros:
+ Beautiful visual design
+ Interesting, well-developed characters
+ A well-paced, engaging main intrigue
+ Compelling romance that doesn’t overwhelm the “core” story
+ Superb prose
+ Great soundtrack
 
Cons:
- Gets cheesy by the end
- Some plot developments are a bit too convenient


VNDB Page
Buy Heart of the Woods on Steam or Itch.io

My Little Pony Fan Visual Novels, Part 2

Welcome again to my short series on the My Little Pony fan visual novels! In the last part (if you missed it, check it out here!), we’ve looked at six games of vastly variable quality, climate and state of completion, and this trend will definitely continue today. Also, this post will include a (un)healthy portion of fandom cringe, although mostly connected to embarrassing fan fiction tropes, common in the creative output of many online communities, rather than the sheer fact the stories are about ponies. On the other hand, today's list features one of the very few, if not the only MLP VN project that could be seriously interesting to people that are not avid fans of the show – the still-in-development Starswirl Academy, with its impressive (humanized) reimagining of the Friendship is Magic setting and characters. So, let's get this party started! *the Party Cannon rolls in*

Starswirl Academy (demo)

Most people agree that, apart from the randomness of internet memes, some of the main sources of Friendship is Magic’s success are its memorable leading characters – the six ponies that fuel the show with their memorable visual designs and vivid personalities. The people from Rosin Entertainment made a pretty obvious conclusion that this general characterisation, if transferred into a humanized, semi-realistic setting, would make a great basis for a moege, and started turning that idea into a reality. Thus, Starswirl Academy was born – an MLP fan game that, while still borrowing a lot from its source material, for an unassuming reader could easily pass as a normal, lighthearted romance VN. And, most importantly, quite a lovely and enjoyable one at that.

            Unlike many other “human versions” of MLP, including the official Equestria Girls, Rosin’s project is a total reimagining of Friendship is Magic's fictional world, including details like normal, human names for all of the characters and a modern-day, boarding school setting that makes logical sense. Game’s reinterpretations of the Mane 6 are cute and well-designed (with Twilight as an Asian over-achiever and protagonist’s childhood friend is my personal favourite), both catching the appeal points of their original versions and adjusting them to the context of a "normal" romance story. The dialogue is genuinely fun and while the game seems to focus exclusively on SoL content, it does so in a way that made me seriously excited for the full release. Even the protagonist (named Tom Stone – those familiar with the show should easily catch the reference), while rather average, it not a faceless hunk of meat, with especially his teasing of Tai (the already mentioned, humanized version of Twilight) being extremely fun to read.

            Of course, this wouldn’t be an MLP VN without its own development problems, although the team behind this game made a wise decision to not give any kind of timeline or dump frequent updates, but rather working on it at their own pace, with an explicitly stated “when it’s done” approach. For this reason, it’s rather hard to predict anything, although a 2019 release does not seem completely out of question – and if it happens, it quite likely be the one My Little Pony visual novel that I’ll be able to recommend even to those that normally would want nothing to do with the whole franchise. If they don't also hate moege, that is…

Final rating: Highly Recommended

My Little Dashie: The Visual Novel

My Little Dashie is one of the most famous MLP fanfics, in which a depressed, lonely brony, living in pauperised industrial neighbourhood finds a box with filly Rainbow Dash, so young she’s unable to speak. Deciding to take care of the pony before any harm comes her way, he ends up becoming her surrogate father in this foreign world. Over the years, he guides her through crucial developmental moments and creates a parent/child bond, while anticipating that whatever magic brought her to Earth will one day come back to reclaim her. It’s a tear-jerker in pure form, combined with the questionable wish-fulfilment of self-insert fan fiction, but executed well enough to gain a widespread appreciation from the community (and regardless of what you might be imagining, the brony fan-writing sphere is neither small, nor is its work of particularly low-quality).

            It’s shouldn’t come as a surprise that it was this MLP fic that became one of the very few pieces of fan literature to receive a visual novel adaptation. Produced by Daily Oat Studios and released in early 2015 after a long development, My Little Dashie: The Visual Novel is a faithful, although slightly simplified adaptation of the source story, presented through an hour-long chain of CGs and narration, with very little dialogue and no interactivity – very much an “illustrated book with music” kind of VN. With relatively simple, but pleasing visuals and music, all this makes it possibly the most enjoyable way of experiencing the My Little Dashie story. However, if you would expect anything beyond a direct adaptation, you’ll be sorely disappointed, Also, the story itself definitely caters to the brony sensibilities, to the point where it would probably be pretty hard to digest for anyone at least not familiar with the show and the fan culture around it. It has no romance plot, so it’s not anywhere as creepy as the numerous Human x Pony shipping or porn stories, but will work best for those that, at least at times, would genuinely like to have a pastel-coloured, cartoon horse in their life.

Final rating: Recommended

My Sexy Anthro: Fluttertime! & My Sexy Anthro 2: RainbowRound!

Newgrounds has a long tradition of flash hentai games and animations parodying various pieces of media, and MLP is no exception to that trend. My Sexy Anthro “series” is a bit of a peculiar example, as it doesn't have much in common with its source material, outside of names and general characteristics of the girls. With as little as the game does when it goes to story (the first one pretty much only includes a minor introduction before the h-scene, with only the second going a bit more into “proper VN” territories), the scenario presented seems to have a bit more in common with Nekopara than MLP, with the hypersexualized “anthros” living among humans and an average-guy protagonist who just happens to catch the attention of a whole harem of those busty, horny creatures. The visuals and dialogues are also distinctly porny, so while designs and personalities of the heroines hold some resemblance to their Friendship is Magic sources, every piece of characterisation is dedicated to making them into walking sex dolls.

            Interestingly enough, the anthropomorphic designs are definitely inspired by furry artwork, but look rather distinct and a bit more on the “human” side of things. The h-scenes are of similar quality as in other flash games of this kind, that is not bad, but relatively low on detail and far below professionally-made nukige that you can easily find on the market nowadays. Because of all this, I really don’t see much of any kind of appeal in these games, as they only very superficially cater to either of its potential audiences (that is, either bronies or furries) and aren’t particularly attractive by themselves. Still, if you’re looking really hard for some highly-interactive MLP fap material, My Sexy Anthro is probably among the better option available to you (for whatever that's worth).

Final rating: Not Recommended

My Little Sweet Heart: The Story of Double Diamond

One of the notable organizers of the Thai MLP fandom, Parnkung, is also among the most persistent brony game developers, for many years now working on his series of pony dating VNs. While his most ambitious project, My Little Sweet Heart: Story of the Mane 6, is still being produced, in late 2015 he released the Story of Double Diamond – a romance tale with a human, female protagonist, featuring the titular Double Diamond, a mascot of sorts of the Thai brony community, as the main love interest. All these elements are placed in the setting of season 5 opening episodes – the village of brainwashed ponies, fixated on “equality” brought through nullifying their cutie marks and led by manipulative Starlight Glimmer.

            With partial (Thai) voice acting and a fairly substantial story, Parnkung’s VN is arguably one of the more ambitious brony fan games in general, but falls into some typical pitfalls of MLP fan fiction. Above all, the Pony x Human romance is immediately weird and the protagonist falling at first sight for a pastel-coloured, talking horse feels unbelievably awkward. It truly is an unholy union of the most embarrassing otome tropes and ponies, with cringe-worthy scenes of the MC getting bashful or disbelieving in her attraction to a non-human. While the game develops the main intrigue quite nicely and even gives a proper justification to the protagonist’s creepy, zoosexual urges, it definitely requires a bit of tolerance and patience to get into. And if you can get past the steep entry barrier, you’re rewarded with a decently-produced and competently-written piece of romance, that can obviously be enhanced heavily by reader’s knowledge of the show, but could possibly even stand on its own.

Final rating: Recommended

I Can’t Believe These Ponies Are So Terrible!

With how easy basic VNs are to put together, the EVN scene always spawned its fair share of plain troll games. ICBTPAST is definitely in this category, being a sequel to a similarly obnoxious collection of ugly doodles, copyrighted music, ear-exploding sounds effects etc. There are a few, minor fun things here, which include the premise (the protagonist goes around insulting every character he meets in creative ways, and composing those insults is the main “gameplay mechanic” offered to the player, at times giving some slightly amusing results) and some fandom-specific jokes (like the horrible “princess” OC that plays a crucial role in the story), but generally, we can only be glad that this project was dropped after the first episode and will most likely never be finished. For once, the curse of MLP VNs did something good for humanity.

Final rating: Not Recommended

Pony Waifu Sim (Alpha 3.0)

One of the newest MLP VN projects is a full-blown, erotic dating sim that promises to feature a vast number of romance options, unique character arcs for all of them and explicit Human/Pony sex scenes. All that within a parodistic, but surprisingly faithful adaptation of the FiM setting (basically, everything outside of the everpresent sexual humour feels quite "right"). The art and dialogue, wherever they’re complete and not placeholders, are actually among the better ones I’ve seen in the MLP fan games, making this a surprisingly promising trial, which actually made me want to see more, despite how creeped out I am by the erotic content it might offer later down the line.

            The main problem is, that while the Alpha version launched with quite a lot of fanfare last September, even half a year later, there’s actually very little content in the available build, with only Mane 6 having any meaningful interactions and one story scene for each pony, outside of the short prologue. Of course, if the production quality and humour I’ve seen in finished parts of the trial are indicative of what’s to come, it should be worth waiting for. That is, if it ever gets finished – while the decent Patreon support for the team behind it makes this more likely than with many fully-noncommercial projects, there's still a very long way before this game gets even close to being complete. Only time will tell...

Final Rating: Not (Yet) Recommended

And that’s it for now every… Body! What these two posts presented to you is pretty much a complete list of MLP visual novel fan projects, the only exceptions being ones that were never released in English, like the Russian fan games Equestria Flower Day & Hearth's Warming Day. With the last season of Friendship is Magic cartoon coming and the fandom itself shrinking rapidly, I wouldn’t expect many new ones showing up, but if the already-in-development games such as Starswirl Academy and the second My Little Sweet Heart title come to fruition, they might be something worth taking a separate, more detailed look at. For now, I free you all from this den of overly-colourful weirdness and for the foreseeable future, go back to my usual EVN routine. Thanks for following me on this little, bizarre adventure and see you next Friday!

Eldritch Academy Review (Yuri Visual Novel)

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of the game by the developer. All opinions presented are solely my own.

One of the interesting differences between yuri in Japanese and Western VNs is that while in Japan it’s mostly limited to a very specific niches, with either nukige or fluffy high-school romance dominating the genre (meaningful exceptions can literally be counted on two hands), among EVNs the theme is prevalent enough to frequently find its place in all kinds of stories. Eldritch Academy, a low-budget project by a single developer using the label Jackkel Dragon and the topic of today’s review, is among dozens of examples of this trend, mixing tame yuri romance with horror and chuunige elements – while it uses many tropes typical for Japanese media, they're all set in a configuration you would be unlikely to actually find in any of them.

                Released in early January 2019, the game promised a fairly impressive amount of content (over 10 hours of reading) and a tense thriller story, starring a group of high school students put against a supernatural threat none of them even suspect to exist. Directly referencing magical girl stories and various other types of otaku media, while also being set in a Japanese all-ages school, it’s definitely one of those distinctly “weeb” projects, but one that avoids pointless fanservice or forced sexual content and dedicates itself to telling a compelling story, with mystery and romance subplots being of more or less equal significance. Does it manage, however, with it’s obviously limited resources, to make this concept actually enjoyable to read?

The unlikable protagonist makes the game relatively hard to get into, even if her attitude changes along the way

The introduction to Eldritch Academy’s story is not overall bad, but quickly reveals one of my major issues with the game. At the very beginning the protagonist, Yue Ishikami, while trying to find an excuse to not sit during the launch break with a pair of her classmates who recently became a couple (and irritates her with their flirting), begrudgingly asks Cho, a tomboyish girl she apparently dislikes a bit less, to eat together. This way, she gets introduced to Cho’s small group of friends, including timid and disturbingly-stoic Kasumi and an unbearable flirt and glutton named Akomi. Later that day, a strange incident happens, in which one of the girls in the school gets heavily injured. Unable to contain her curiosity, Yue sneaks out to investigate, soon followed by the whole group – this leads to them finding magical stones, to which they refer as petals and being forced to fight the ancient evil that lurks within the school, for both their own and other students’ sake (while also forming strong bonds thanks to their shared, life-and-death struggle).

                 The general premise is nothing unusual, at least at surface level, but stands out through its focus on horror and the growing toll the progressively more hopeless fight takes on the girls. New plot developments frequently reinforce the urgency and danger of the situation, with little chance for outside help or any kind of relief from the constant onslaught of monsters (which come out only at night, but don’t release the heroines from keeping the facade of being proper students) and various side-effects of this supernatural predicament. And while it sounds cool in theory, there are some glaring issues with this setup. The first, already suggested problem is Yue herself, who is not just asocial and standoffish, but an all-around jerk who on multiple occasions astonished me with her insensitivity. This theoretically gives her a lot potential for growth, but details like her apparent total lack of sympathy for the girl that nearly got killed by the monster at the beginning of the story and her obviously-distraught girlfriend is not something I can easily look past. Even after the wounded girl’s return from the hospital, she treats her like a pest and is similarly dismissive towards the main heroines most of the time. The argument that she “cares deep inside, but have trouble expressing it” doesn’t help her from being one of the most unlikeable and alienating leads I’ve seen in VNs and I find it unbelievable that anyone would be able to put up with her, unless forced to do so like the three other “chosen” girls fighting the monsters.

The horror elements of the game are not utterly unenjoyable, but only rarely manage to create proper tension or disturb the reader, at least outside of the bad endings

The second major issue is the repetitive nature of the story, especially in the context the repeated playthroughs. Every night, the girls venture into the abandoned portion of the school, hunting for monsters before they can break through and hurt other students, while also looking for clues that would lead them to the source of the whole phenomena. Considering the limited visual resources, there is relatively little flair to the fights and while their exact details vary depending on which girl you pair up with, the sequence in which the monsters show up and the general outline of the story are identical every time. These scenes get pretty old even during the first playthrough, but when aiming for new heroine arcs they’re pretty much completely skippable, making much of the 130k+ word script into essentially just brain-melting mush, that you’d never want to read through in detail, but at best quickly scan through to notice most important differences in girls reaction's and fighting styles.

                There are also major issues with the game’s tone. While it goes into fairly disturbing and tense territories in the last act, when the girls are learning more about the meaning behind their situation and are progressively more and more on edge because of it, it definitely underplays the initial shock and danger of what’s happening. The first explicitly life-threatening incident comes very late into the story, making it very hard to care about the fights and giving space for some overly-fluffy slice-of-life moments. Those, by the way, consist mostly of the romance-related events, in which the protagonist decides to spend time with one of the heroines, usually initially not enjoying herself very much, only to warm up to them over time (as it's often the case in VNs, the overall timeline of the story is too short to make this change really believable, but its also not the most egregious example I've seen). The girls, for an unclear reason, are all otakus and the romantic arcs are closely related to their hobbies, which they bring the protagonist into – this is not a major issue, but the lack of thematic variety feels a bit lazy and adds another layer of repetitiveness when replaying the game.

The romance plots have some genuine charm to them, although they are rushed and shallow in typical VN fashion, and recycle very similar themes through all three routes

To be perfectly clear, the main intrigue of the game isn’t bad and there are some interesting touches that show the genuine care and effort that went into crafting its story, like the bonus side-chapters for both all of the main characters and  some supporting ones, unlocked by reaching specific endings. Those provide epilogues for all the romance arcs, supplement some missing pieces of the game’s mystery plot or simply expand the setting in ways that aren’t really necessary, but which give it some additional depth and make it feel more alive. The end effect is slightly brought down by the minimalistic production values, especially the lack of action scene related CGs and very average character designs, but the art is at least competent enough to never feel completely amateurish or unappealing. The game uses royalty-free music for all of its soundtrack, which is something I don’t really mind in this kind of productions and for the most part, it works well enough.

                In summary, is Eldritch Academy something I recommend buying? I’m a bit on the line in this regard, as while “on paper” it offers a lot of content and includes themes that I very much like, the execution is still deeply flawed, maybe not to the point of making it unenjoyable, but definitely discouraging a careful, 100% readthrough. It’s also a bit pricey, going for $12 on Itch.io – once more, a price that sounds reasonable considering the size of the VN, but I'd typically argue that games with this level of production quality should be slightly cheaper and I’d be more comfortable suggesting to buy it when on sale. However, for fans of yuri romance and horror themes, it’s a decent-enough value proposition at least to consider picking it up – and if you do, you should have a reasonably good time with it.

Final Score: 2,5/5

Pros:
+ Interesting mix of themes and character archetypes
+ Decently-written main intrigue
+ Enjoyable bonus content

Cons:
- Visuals are average at best
- Repetitive routes and mostly dull combat sequences
- Off-putting protagonist


VNDB Page
Buy Eldritch Academy on Itch.io

My Little Pony Fan Visual Novels, Part 1

While probably few people following my VN-related writing know that, for quite a long time I had a peculiar relationship with the brony fandom. Being brought into the community by my RL friend, a popular fan-artist working under the pseudonym Pony-Berserker, I’ve written a few dozens of My Little Pony comic scripts and, more importantly, based my master’s thesis on researching the fandom – more specifically, exploring the bizarre world of MLP fan erotica. While my current involvement with Bronies is minor at best, I’ve decided to commemorate both my previous and current hobbies by reviewing the humble catalogue of My Little Pony visual novels – in this post, and the one two weeks from now, I will go through pretty much all VN-style fan games made by bronies that are currently available in English, which is just around a dozen titles, including large demos and trials. So, if you have the courage, please join me in this bizarre adventure through the world of shipping, bad fanfiction and, maybe, some genuinely interesting, imaginative VN project within the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic universe!

Welcome to Ponyville (demo)

The MLP visual novel scene seems to be a hell of demos, dropped projects and never-ending development limbos. Some of the most notable games in this niche suffered from perpetual delays or straight-up died halfway through the production cycle, and Welcome to Ponyville might be the best-known among the latter. After releasing a substantial demo in mid-2012, the team behind quickly started becoming more and more silent, and after two years with no meaningful updates, the chances of the project being finished were clearly gone. The already available first episode, however, is still quite an interesting piece of content that is arguably worth experiencing on its own. Telling the story of a pony arriving to Ponyville to settle within the town (you can choose the protagonist’s gender and the breed of pony they represent), it showcases some of the most notable achievements of the brony fandom: art that very closely resembles that of the show, both in style and quality, and full voice acting that faithfully mimics the original voice cast of Friendship is Magic.

            The 1,5h-long demo is mostly composed of casual, amusing SoL scenes in which the protagonist organizes his stay in Ponyville and takes odd jobs, while meeting the Mane 6 (brony term for the 6 main characters of the show: Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Fluttershy), along with various other inhabitants of the town. At the same time, the game introduces Silent Hill-like, disturbing dream sequences, suggesting there’s something sinister hiding underneath the fluffy surface… While we’ll never know in which direction this project would go exactly and I would normally not recommend wasting time on approaching unfinished games, Welcome to Ponyville shows the creativity of the MLP fandom at its finest and give a taste of what we could’ve got if more of its energy went into projects of this kind.

 

Final Rating: Recommended
 

Part Time Job

Part Time Job is a pretty well-known horror game, very much in the same spirit as famous “shock fics” such as Cupcakes or Sweet Apple Massacre. Sadly, I think it has more in common in the latter rather than the former – for those not familiar with MLP fan fiction, the story of Cupcakes used the well-established tropes and parts of the setting, twisting the inherent unpredictability and borderline-insanity of Pinkie Pie into a homicidal obsession. What made it fun to read (obviously, if you enjoy this kind of macabre) was exactly the way it played on actual MLP lore, twisting it, but not completely ignoring the most important elements of the setting. Sweet Apple Massacre, on the other hand, made Big Mac, one of the most gentle and loyal characters in the show, into a psychopathic murderer, which was simply completely disconnected from the original character and for that reason, not particularly interesting. The game we’re talking about now suffers from a similar problem, not really getting what makes this kind of transformation or parody work.

            Part Time Job features an original character, a failed artist named Pastel Sketch, looking for a job after going broke due to no one buying her work. After going through a few heavily-foreshadowing offers, she decides to answer the one about becoming an aid at a local hospital. To her surprise, the hospital turns out to be a mental institution, run by none other than Fluttershy, and soon after she accepts for the job various disturbing things start to happen. To not spoil too much, while the game plays on most obvious characteristics of the MLP cast and well-known parts of the brony fanon, it’s all pretty shallow and inconsistent. With Mane 6 treating each other like strangers, villain’s behaviour and motivations making no sense, Part Time Job’s main entertainment value lies in its over-the-top silliness and grotesque moments. Those are good enough to make the 1-hour time investment reasonable (that’s how much you need to pretty much 100% the game), but not to actually make it good. With production quality and writing being similarly basic, it’s somewhat worth it for the fans, but just barely. Although, I guess considering how few MLP VNs there are, beggars can’t be choosers…

 

Final Rating: (Cautiously) Recommended
 

My Little Investigations (demo)

My Little Investigations is one of a few Ace Attorney-inspired MLP fan projects, but definitely the most technically impressive and ambitious one. Following closely the formula of Miles Edgeworth Investigations games, the demo offers one impressively-crafted case, well-embedded in show’s lore and aesthetic. What surprised me the most though was the quality of voice-acting – the fans mimicking voices of both the main cast and the supporting characters were for the most part brilliant, to the point it would be very easy to convince me that I’m looking at an official product licensed by Hasbro (only some jokes and dialogue lines breaking the illusion, not because of their low quality, but by referencing the MLP fanon in a way no official release ever would). The general quality of the gameplay, animation and writing don’t fall far behind, making for a genuinely impressive package.

            Of course, we are talking about an MLP fan game, so it won’t surprise anyone that the game will quite likely forever stay at its introductory chapter, with the team behind it going silent over a year ago. If it gets finished, however, it has all the necessary elements to become a genuinely great game, that would be worth looking at not only for the hardcore fans of the show, while the first case, even though in large parts a tutorial level, is still quite a compelling piece of content. Whether we'll ever ger more, only time will tell…

 
Final Rating: Highly Recommended
 

The Difference Between Us

Shipping is undeniably one of the primary pastimes for bronies and this, above all, involves fans making pairings between the members of the main cast (which are, quite obviously, all females/mares). Of the MLP fanfiction archives, you’ll find pretty much an unlimited mass of work involving such scenarios, pretty much in all possible configurations and levels of explicity. And while I was never that much of a fan of the practice itself (and especially making pairing out of friends from the canon felt pretty dull), many MLP pairings, if they’re not taken into the uncomfortable, R34 territories, have a bit of a similar charm that I enjoy in more traditional yuri – they can be extremely cute and heartwarming.

            The Difference Between Us, a short slice of life VN involving a relationship between Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, have all of those qualities, coupled with surprisingly solid writing and a lot of variety in choices and endings. It’s visually crude and falls victim to some of the issues typical of shipping fan fiction (if the pair the story focuses on is a couple, everyone’s a couple – why limit yourself to just one ship when you can sail an armada?), but still manages to tell a lovely, mild romantic story, while mostly staying true to the original characters and never going into truly creepy territories. It’s the kind of VN which allows the reader to forget about the inherent weirdness of the MLP setting and immerse themselves fully in the pleasant narrative. While definitely not for those that find lesbian horse romance a bit too extreme of a concept, it’s a small and rather charming experience that I can quite confidently recommend.

 
Final Rating: Recommended
 

Hyperforce All-Stars, Vol. 1

How could this list be truly complete without some bizarre piece of self-insert, crossover fanfiction VN? While it might not be the Sonic’s Ultimate Harem or any other, similar masterpiece, J5’s debut in visual novels combines well-known anime characters (alongside his own anime-style OCs) with MLP – a mix that really makes my disgusting, brony/weeb-hybrid heart grow fonder. Putting my edgy commentary aside for a moment, the actual content of this VN (based on an extremely-obscure webtoon by the same name) is not as universally horrible as I’ve expected, having a few borderline funny moments and amusing interpretations of the “borrowed” characters. The production quality is, however, quite abysmal, both in visuals and writing (I guess president Trump doesn’t have a monopoly on random capitalizations and alternative grammar). Also, the aforementioned aspects of self-insert power fantasy, coupled with the weird romantic plot, are pretty uncomfortable to watch.

            So if you ever felt like playing a humanized version of Sonic the Hedgehog who’s close friends with Pinkie Pie and gets caught in a love triangle between Haruhi Suzumiya and author’s anime OC, I guess this game got you covered. It’s probably also worth mentioning that this is one of two VNs I’ve found that featured fully-humanized versions of MLP ponies, although sadly, this time it’s a very minor bonus at best...

 
Final Rating: Not Recommended
 

Pony Amnesia: Love and Mysteries (demo)

Making a dating game in which you can romance various character from the source medium is one of the more obvious ways to approach fan-fiction VN and Pony Amnesia is maybe the most straightforward attempt by brony creators at doing just that. A pony protagonist without memories, only with slight hints at originally being a human, is dumped by the outskirts of Ponyville and soon starts interacting with the Mane 6. With an upcoming festival, he gets many occasions to mingle with the residents (including mild flirting), earns favours by helping them out, and settles in, while more clues about his lost identity arrive over time. All this is portrayed with slightly off-looking, but serviceable art and decent writing, and a promise of romance routes not only for the main characters from the show, but also supporting ones such as Trixie or Big Mac. Also, the full version means to include a protagonist gender choice, which, in the case you play as a female, would make it mostly a yuri VN (and that always makes my heart grow fonder).

            That’s, at least, what was promised over five years ago, at the time of demo’s release. In the meantime, the project went through multiple deaths and revivals, but seems to be alive and steadily progressing for the past year or so. While the curse of MLP visual novel development never truly relents, there’s a decent chance that we’ll see the final version of this game in 2019 – and while there’s little reason to think it’ll be a masterpiece, it might be a fairly satisfying SoL/mystery VN for the fans of the show and the demo is interesting enough to be worth taking a look at – that is, if the self-insert romantic stories with ponies don’t freak you out.

 
Final Rating: Recommended

The world of MLP VNs is not only a mess of long-forgot and unfinished projects, but it’s also surprisingly poorly documented and archived. While doing research for this post, it took me quite a lot of time and help from others to both catalogue everything I'm writing about, and to get my hand on copies of some of these games. The final result was, however, much more varied and interesting than I actually expected and I'd consider at least some of the titles I'ver written about today as pleasant surprises. Two weeks from now, I’ll have another six reviews for you all and despite what I believed earlier, it seems there are still notable MLP VN projects being worked on, with a decent chance of at least two coming out this year. While the brony fandom itself is definitely losing steam (especially now, since the announcement of the end of Friendship is Magic TV show), the creativity that once brought me into it is still not completely gone and maybe, one day, I’ll be able to make a meaningful follow-up to this series. For now, I hope you enjoyed this little trip into the bizarre world of pony fan fiction and that I’ll see you again in two weeks, on the second half of my coverage. Have a lovely weekend everyone!