NaNoRenO 2020 Highlights, Pt 3: Romance VNs (Non-otome Edition)

Hello there and welcome to the third and final part of my NaNoRenO 2020 highlights! While in the first two posts I focused, respectively, on otome and horror VNs, this last batch of recommendations will be about other romance stories submitted to the event. I have to admit upfront that this is likely the least exciting list of the three, with no game standing out to me in a similar way as Enamoured Risks did among otome entries or Eislyn's Apocalypse did among horror ones. However, there's still a bunch of solid and interesting titles in this category, my favourite being probably Café in the Clouds, with its lovely visuals and memorable dreamworld sequences. Also, the jam has something to offer for fans of all typical romantic configurations, with BxG, BL and Yuri couples strongly represented.

                 As always, all the games I'm writing about are completely free to download, and clicking their titles below will get you straight to their Itch.io pages. Also, I've skipped projects that were submitted to the event but proved low quality or did not offer a complete experience (meaning I exclude all demos and prototypes by default). So, please join me as I wrap up this insane, months-long project of thoroughly covering the biggest NaNoRenO in history – hopefully, you'll find something interesting among my recommendations.

Love Rewind: A Magical Time Travel Romance (BxG/BxB)

Love Rewind is a short romance story with one male and one female love interest, themed around regret and desire to change the past. Yuki, the protagonist and young mage-in-training, loses everything in a futile attempt at saving his terminally ill mother. Broken by this failure and the destroyed relationship with his fiancée Quinn, he isolates himself from the world – an empty, depressing existence that would likely last for the rest of his life if not for the appearance of a spirit, taking form of a cat. This powerful creature forces on him an opportunity to relive and change the events that led him to ruin, and regain the love he lost – or maybe forge a different path altogether…

                  This VN, while a bit rushed and lacking the proper buildup particularly for the BxB arc (Quinn’s route at least have the background of protagonist’s relationship from the original timeline), has a few things going for it. Yuki is a decent protagonist, whose desperation and pain are easy to emphasize with, and the core story has all the satisfaction inherent to plots where you avert a looming disaster. The love interests simply don’t have enough time to develop as characters and truly shine, but they work well enough as incentives for the protagonist to not repeat his past mistakes. The end result is not a great romance VN, but a nice short story in its own right – and one that looks and sounds very solid for a game jam entry.

Final Rating: Recommended

Weekend Fever (BxG)

Weekend Fever is a minimalistic, but emotional story about a writer struggling with burnout, unable to create stories or even find the passion for the line of work switched to after his endeavours as an author died down. While on a short business trip to his hometown, his mind filled with a mix of nostalgia and discouragement from his current circumstances, he meets a stranger – a woman who inexplicably rekindles his passion for writing…

                While the core plot of this VN might not sound very inspired, its value lies in the atmosphere it creates and psychological depth of the main character. Passages of his unfinished book are mixed with rather excellent descriptions of his emotional distress and obsessive drive to create that shows up immediately after he finds inspiration. The visuals and sound are simple, but the colour pallet and distortion effects used in backgrounds create a surreal effect, adding to the slightly detached, nostalgic feel of the narrative. The romance is basic, but full of emotional impact thanks to the fact how connected it is to protagonist’s struggles – all this makes for a satisfying short story, worth experiencing regardless of whether you’re looking for romantic content.

Final Rating: Recommended

Flour Hour (BxB)

Flour Hour is a well-though-out BL romance story weighted down by one massive issue – its prose. The English script is not only full of errors and awkward phrasing typical for non-native writers, but also uses Japanese honorifics in a particularly pointless way, making the whole thing feel like a poor fan translation. Which is a shame, because the underlying story has quite a lot of merit. The main intrigue features Yuki, an owner of a bakery created in place of his grandmother’s flower shop, being approached by a lawyer with claims of massive debt his business owns to a powerful corporation. The desperate struggle to save the titular Flour Hour coincides with a reappearance of Souma, a former boyfriend Yuki never really got over, and increasingly suspicious behaviour from his sole employee, Izumi.

                Flour Hour’s drama and intrigue prove surprisingly in-depth when you get further into the story. While some developments are pretty silly and the choice system maybe a bit too unforgiving, the characters offered more nuance and development than I expected. Souma was probably the most interesting in this regard, as his abrasive and borderline-abusive behaviour becomes much easier to understand when he finally opens to Yuki about his feelings and his experiences after they broke up. At the same time, the story is simply hard to get into with the clunky writing, strangely-stylized visuals and poor-quality CGs. If you can look past those issues, however, the VN might be worth reading not just from the perspective of BL fans – to me, its core plot and the way romance was handled felt very universal.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

Demon Kiss (BxB)

Demon Kiss is quite likely the best-looking and most polished game on today's list, featuring a really cute BxB romantic plot between a socially-anxious computer technician, Felix, and Trisetar, a demon noble that accidentally kidnaps him to hell. Shocked by the human's strange attitude and non-fearful reaction to his presence, the demon gradually lowers his defences as the two are stuck together for a few months (time necessary to recreate the spell for travelling to the human world).

                Despite the pleasing art and generally fun, lighthearted storyline the game is not without some issues, the main being its pacing. There is an overarching plot connected to Trisetar's initial appearance in the human world, but it's basic at best and generally stays in the background of the developing romantic tension... Which also doesn't develop as much as it probably should. With no bad endings or really tense moments, the story has a pleasant flow to it, but fails to get the reader engaged other than on a very superficial level. As the result, I would only truly recommend reading this one to dedicated BL fans – while the humour and the final plot twist are fun enough even for an average reader, the main focus is the fluffy BxB love story that should mostly satisfy people who are explicitly after that kind of content.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

At First Sight (BxB)

At First Sight is an unusual story utilizing a very interesting concept – in a world where everyone has a destined soulmate with whom they spend their whole life, the protagonist, Grimes, approaches his forties without finding one. When Dreams – a rare form of premonition happening to the Unsouled and hinting at the identity of their future partner or the circumstances they’ll meet under – start appearing to him every night, he’s more terrified of the uncertainty of following the visions and possible disappointment than he is encouraged. And when he finally decides to act on his premonitions, what he finds is detached from his expectations way more than he ever feared…

                At First Sight is technically a BL game and gay romance is present in it in some ways, but above all, it’s a story putting various romance clichés on their head. Grimes is an unpleasant and frustrated person, and in the world where everyone receives a happy ending by default, he ends up with something that even in the best possible interpretation can hardly be called a love story. His reactions are often nasty, even beyond what is justified by his depressing position, making his a relatively unlikeable protagonist. However, the way the game explores the idea of soulmates, and the strange situations and tensions it creates in its world is genuinely interesting – for that element alone At First Sight might be worth investing around 30 minutes necessary to complete it.

Final Rating: Recommended

Kill the prince!? (BxB)

Kill the Prince!? is a tiny story about a thief hired to assassinate a prince kidnapped by a rival kingdom and forced to marry their princess. Cute and very humouristic, the game gradually reveals the connection between the protagonist and his target, while also delivering amusing dialogue, a cast of exaggerated characters and silly puzzles centered around switching disguises.

                The game’s art is in decent part composed of simple lineart or rough sketches and the whole experience is very brief (20-25 minutes to fully read through), but it has enough charm and wit to justify its existence. The love story in it is also lovely to the point where even someone like me, who usually struggles to get into BL games, genuinely enjoyed it. If you’re looking for a short, fun distraction rather than a deep story, this one is definitely worth it.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

Café in The Clouds (GxG)

Café in the Clouds is a short yuri VN with point-and-click adventure game elements. It tells a story of two women running a very unusual café in a modern-fantasy setting. Outside of simply serving food and coffee, they possess magical powers that enable them to enter their client’s dreams and help them deal with nightmares, or even deep-rooted problems disturbing their nightly rest. The game’s plot focuses mostly on one such case – a client that visits the café (or rather passes out at the entrance) to ask for help with their severe insomnia.

                The romantic elements in this VN come in the form of relationship between the owners of the café, Remerie and Somnia. The interactions and banter between them are very cute and a near-constant feature of the brief story, accentuated by pleasant, pastel-painting-style visuals. Other than that, the player has to deal with a few simple puzzles (and a single unnecessarily cryptic one at the very end) to navigate the client’s dream and find a way to clear out the issues preventing them from resting at nights. The game also teases a larger story, connected to the couple’s mentor and original owner of the café – a story I would be quite interested in reading, considering what a genuinely nice experience Café in the Clouds proved to be.

Final Rating: Highly Recommended

Tender Feelings Like Water (GxG)

Tender Feelings Like Water is a short, supernatural love story about a water spirit that gains a sense of self and after long years, maybe centuries of loneliness falls in love with an unsuspecting human girl. Disguising themselves as another woman, the spirit starts interacting with the mysterious "girl in red", wary to not reveal their true identity – not just due to possibility of scaring her away, but also because the river, the personification of which they are, took away a lot from both the girl and her village in general...

              As simple as this VN was (also when it comes to the visuals and the soundtrack, which are both not unpleasant, but basic), I couldn't help but enjoy its nostalgic storytelling and emotional conclusions (there are two endings, similar to each other, but different in subtle and meaningful ways). It's a yuri romance in a very loose understanding of the term, but should satisfy most fans of the genre with its climate and interesting dynamic between the main characters – and maybe other readers too, if they adjust their expectations properly.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

In Peaceful Days (GxG)

In Peaceful Days is a Fire Emblem: Three Houses fan fiction VN expanding on the Empire route and Edelgard romance (with female Byleth). It focuses on a rare day off, when both the protagonist and the Empress have some time to spend together, away from political intrigues and military conflicts. Byleth sets to prepare a perfect evening, interacting with other characters from the source game and visiting important locations within Garreg Mach.

                A short, cute piece of (non-sexual) fanservice, this VN has enough visual polish and humour to satisfy the fans of the original, but even for someone like me, who never played Three Houses and only did short research to know the context of the story, it was pretty fun to read.  It also has the advantage over many projects of this kind that it's not going outside of the canon with its main pairing and character interactions, but elaborates on one of the possible endings of Three Houses in a believable way. Recommended primarily for Byleth/Edelgard fans, but not necessarily just for them.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

Honourable Mention:

Full Service Shop (GxG/Non-Binary)

Full Service Shop is less a romance story and more a lesbian/non-binary erotic game using its sci-fi setting to create a number of really interesting, softcore scenarios for the player to go through. It features a nameable protagonist in the late 21st century, where advanced cybernetic implants are widely available. This includes the ability to enhance or replace one’s genitals and our main character is on their way to such a procedure, choosing a small, peculiar workshop – the titular Full Service Shop. There they’ll be able to not only choose their new implant (which changes how the scenes play out in minor ways) but also one of the four technicians who will not only install the new implant but give them a thorough “test drive”.

                As trashy as this premise might sound, it’s handled in a quite interesting way, with each technician offering a unique backstory and sex scene, the latter ranging from short and vanilla to complex and kinky. Visuals are tame, majority of the time stopping at partial nudity, so most of the work is done by the genuinely high-quality writing. The stories revealed in the conversations with the technicians and the erotic content itself utilize the futuristic setting, for example by discussing digitalizing the human mind and spicing things up by manipulation of neural implants, providing the much-needed variety when compared to your typical erotic VN. The one complaint I have about the game is arguably a major one – with average visuals and choices that don’t add too much to the experience (apart from initial choices of implant and technician, they mostly can just cut the scenes short), to the point the whole package would work just as well, or maybe even better as a short story. Still, if you’re looking for an unusual, wholesome erotic VN to read, this issue hardly makes it less of a valid choice.

Final Rating: Recommended

And this is all for today's list and, by extension, my coverage of the NaNoRenO 2020. The non-otome romances that showed up this year mostly failed to truly impress me, but games like Cafe in the Cloud still managed to provide fun experiences while a few other proved memorable by escaping the usual tropes and story structures. There are also a few slice-of-life titles that I might add to this post as further honourable mentions – the enormousness of this year's event makes my work of covering it constantly feel incomplete, but for the most part, it's done. I hope you enjoyed what I provided here and will consider giving a chance to VNs I've recommended – I'll do my best to repeat this process next year with NaNoRenO 2021 and this fall with Yuri Game Jam 2020. But for now, thank you very much for your time and I hope to see you again!

NaNoRenO 2020 Highlights, Pt 2: Horror (Updated)

Hello and welcome to the second part of my NaNoRenO 2020 coverage, where I’ll be going through the most noteworthy games submitted to the most recent edition of the biggest EVN game jam. While in the first part I focused on otome and other GxB romantic VNs, this time I’ll tackle the niche that, in my opinion, contained some of the best projects in the whole event – horror. Once more, I’ll be focusing on complete projects, rather than many demos and prototypes that get submitted to NaNoRenO – and thanks to the extended deadline devs worked with this year, that’s still a lot of interesting content.

                One game from the previous post, Dream Dilemma, also fits into this week’s theme besides featuring GxB romance – however, it was a rather unremarkable, simplistic game and most of those I’ll be writing about today are anything but that. So, please join me in this quick overview of NaNoRenO 2020 horror VNs – and as always, whenever one of them catches your attention, clicking its title in the list will get you straight to its Itch.io games. Of course, all the titles I’m covering are completely free to play. Let’s have some scary (and slightly messed up) fun!

Divilethion

Divilethion is far from your typical scary VN, tilting more to the side of grotesque horror-comedy, with visuals and writing style that contrast heavily with the grim essence of its story – and do so in a brilliant, at times hilarious way. The game follows Lynn, a young high priest in an isolated village “protected” by a monstrous god named Divilethion. While the entity is the only guarantee of survival for the community surrounded by monster-infested swamps and regularly plagues by disasters, the price for its “miracles” is steep – every time, a villager has to be sacrificed and his heart fed to Devilethion. Lynn, cynical and disturbingly diligent about his duties, is soon put to the greatest test yet by the apparently bored deity, asked to sacrifice one thing he might not be willing to give up…

                As serious as this story setup might sound, what sets its tone as primarily a dark comedy is Lynn’s warped perception of the reality around him and the grotesque enthusiasm Divilethion requires from his worshippers. This combined with an unrelenting writing style, never shying away from harsh language and disturbing story developments, creates a striking experience that will likely keep you engaged all the way through, to either a relatively-positive or deeply unsettling conclusion. While overall the game is relatively short, it’s just so full of personality and meaningful story developments it’s hard to not be satisfied with it. I deeply recommend checking it out – very few hour-long VNs left me with such a strong impression.

Final Rating: Highly Recommended

My Bunny

My Bunny is well-stylized horror VN about a troubled girl accompanied by a sinister imaginary-friend character in the form of an anthropomorphic bunny. Isolated and bullied in school, with hints on traumatic past on top of it, the protagonist is fighting desperately to improve her life against all odds, while her every failure results in the stronger presence of the bunny, always whispering depreciating and violent thoughts. A chance meeting with a local graffiti artists finally offers her some respite and hope for the future, but a tragedy so long in the making is not easily averted…

                A solid premise and presentation of My Bunny is sadly at least partially wasted due to a rushed and poorly written ending – while I understand what the devs were going for, the behaviour of certain characters and options offered to the player at the end of the game are underwhelming. The bunny himself is also strangely underutilized, not influencing the plot as much as you would expect and rarely receiving genuinely interesting dialogue. Ultimately, while not bad, My Bunny is another one of those NaNoRenO VNs that leave you pondering its lost potential at least as much as its actual story – which is a shame, but maybe shows the possibility for its authors to produce something truly memorable in the future.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

Eislyn’s Apocalypse

Eislyn’s Apocalypse is arguably the most narratively-involved and complex games in this year’s NaNoRenO, and my personal highlight of the event. While similar stories of a secret conflict between cosmic beings over the future of humanity, along with the quasi-Lovecraftian stylistics have been done in VNs countless times, this one is noteworthy for its uncompromising approach to horror – confronting the reader with disturbing, genuinely apocalyptic scenarios, unavoidable outside of the unlockable true ending. Each of the four bad routes shows something crucial about the game’s world and characters, giving context and emotional buildup for a deeply satisfying “real” conclusion. This structure by itself, of course, is also not new, but it’s a while since I’ve seen it done in a game jam project in such a deliberate and effective way.

                What is it exactly about, though? The VN follows a few protagonists, often switching perspectives, although the central character is always Adrianne – a strange young girl with an inexplicable connection to the monsters lurking the dark corners of the once-idyllic city of Memora. While the whole intrigue starts with an investigation to a series of murders, performed by a private detective recruited by concerned citizens, it escalates rapidly in every route, reaching often truly epic proportions. All the major characters, whether supernatural or average people, will be involved in an ancient battle between good and evil – and one in which the balance of power is definitely skewed in favour of the evil, while its corrupting influence makes the distinction between friend or foe less than clear. Outside of very average visuals and a pretty limited set of CGs, there’s little to complain about here – characters are compelling, the world-building fascinating and the plot emotionally involving with constantly-rising stakes. I won't write anything more to avoid spoilers, but if you wanted to read just one VN from this year’s NaNoRenO, this one would be a good choice.

Final Rating: Highly Recommended

#Influenced

Once more touching on the recurrent NaNoRenO theme of great ideas with half-assed execution, #Influenced is a short horror story about an aspiring social media influencer frustrated with her lack of progress. After meeting with a trending Instagram model that recently moved to her area, the protagonist is given the contact to the girl's mysterious manager – one that can deliver near-miraculous results, but every time asks his client to sacrifice something... Honestly, I find this topic extremely compelling, as not only those looking for fame and money on the web, but even small creators such as myself are often exposed to similar pressures – the drive to find recognition and reach an audience, with techniques most effective in this regard not always being in line with personal integrity and self-respect. I still remember the grossed out feeling when the owner of a site I wrote an article for showed me a search-engine-optimized version of my work, and that's hardly the biggest compromise one can make to get traction as an internet personality or creator...

                However, there are few things in #influenced that prevented the cathartic feeling I was hoping to get from it. The first is the protagonist herself, as I think she is unnecessarily shallow and envious of other people's success. It would be a lot more interesting to see someone more sympathetic and hard-working fall into the same traps, as the social media sphere in its current, oversaturated state is not exactly fair or easy to break through even with good ideas and genuine effort. The second and most damning issue is the pacing – then the game starts being truly unsettling and tense, it doesn't build up the atmosphere and properly represent protagonist's descent into madness, but simply rushes to the conclusion in a rather unsatisfying fashion. That part left me deeply disappointed, as even the slightly preachy feel of the story didn't prevent it from becoming genuinely interesting at certain points. So, while I don't necessarily discourage giving this one a chance, set your expectation appropriately low if you decide to read it.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

Epistle in a Bottle

No NaNoRenO since Digital: A Love Story can be complete without an OS-simulation-style VN, and Epistle in a Bottle fills this obligation in a pretty standard, retro-stylized fashion. The protagonist is an office worker handling communication in what seems to be the early 90s. Handling company email and distributing information between his co-workers, he starts his day doing mundane tasks, until a strange, unsigned message launches a chain of increasingly disturbing events.

                While this game does not always do a great job when it goes to building a narrative, I can't help but appreciate the feel it has and the way it approaches the user interface – you switch between your computer, the telephone and physical messages that end on your desk in a pretty immersive way. As you control the main line of communication between your company's boss and various parts of the office, you have a central role in both the mundane workflow the game starts with and the emergencies that soon follow. Eventually, things get way too over-the-top and the game sadly lacks genuine ways of influencing the plot, which kind of goes against its highly-interactive storytelling formula and various ways in which it could accommodate player choice. Still, for me, it was a fun little experience and if the aforementioned interface gimmicks are something up you alley, it should be the same for you.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

Honourable Mentions:

Spellbroken

Spellbroken is more a supernatural thriller than a straight-up horror story, but it’s something that should be satisfying to fans of the genre due to its themes and effective writing. The game is set in a modern fantasy world where the society was deeply transformed by the appearance of witches – women born with powerful magic abilities, often hard to control and extremely destructive. The protagonist is a handler – a member of a militarized formation dedicated to subduing witches. Working under the Church, the de-facto ruling organisation of her city-state, she’s convinced that she’s performing grim, but necessary work for the good of her people. However, her next mission into the wilderness will shake that conviction in several different ways…

                Like this developer’s first project, Package Chat, Spellbroken is above all an excellent piece of mature writing, full of uncompromisingly-crafted characters and minimalistic, but effective worldbuilding. Without excess exposition, it manages to construct a complex and original fantasy setting, along with some compelling axes of conflict for the main story and a few arguably brilliant twists. The crude personalities and motivations of Collie’s handler companions sometimes balance dangerously on the line of becoming caricatures, but for the most part, they’re refreshing in their naturalism. The art, while simple, is nicely stylized and enhances the isolating, desolate feeling of the “Wild”, where the vast majority of the story happens. On top of all this, Spellbroken offers some yuri romantic elements, which were a bonus for me, but they were also pretty minor and I recommend checking it out to everyone regardless whether or not they care about w/w romance plots – it’s just that good of a (short) story.

Final Rating: Highly Recommended

Limbokin

The last game on today's list is also not "true" horror, but something the visuals and narrative choices of which should appeal to many fans of the genre. Limbokin is an interesting short VN telling a story of a boy who dies with a lingering regret and ends up in purgatory. There, with help of another “limbokin”, as the inhabitants of this realm refer to themselves, he sets to connect to the living world for the last time and reconcile with his beloved older sister, an argument with whom let to him his untimely death.

           While utilizing horror-like, creepy imagery and a somewhat disturbing premise, Limbokin is above all a bittersweet slice of life tale, including some really wholesome and uplifting moments. Despite having just an hour of content (with three paths/endings), the game explores in an interesting way the relationship between the protagonist and his sister – an older teenager struggling with her identity and first serious love. On top of that, it briefly touches on the backstories of other inhabitants of the purgatory and offers a particularly amusing twist for Rafa, the girl that acts as protagonist’s guide in the world of the dead. The end effect is quite unorthodox and compelling – with the strong presence of LGBT+ themes, it reminds of the more original, high-quality Yuri Game Jam VNs. And if that sounds like something that you might enjoy, you should definitely check this one out.

Final Rating: Recommended

And this is it when it goes to horror VNs in this year's NaNoRenO – there are a few ones which I purposefully skipped on listing, mostly due to them being too simplistic or low quality, although there are two I still owe a shoutout. The first one is Sleepy Agent's Unfamiliar Work, which kind of overwhelmed me with its abstract visuals and confusing storytelling, to the point I'm not sure what to make of it – still, it's definitely very different and I encourage anyone curious about it to try it out and maker their own mind. The second one, the Saya no Uta fan game by Arcane City, I didn't touch, as I simply haven't read the original game yet and thus wouldn't be able to assess it properly. I'm still pretty convinced though that the three games I did cover and most strongly recommend in this post are among the very best projects in this year's NaNoRenO. Also, in the cases of Divilethion and Spellbroken, they come from authors with highly developed styles, who I'm pretty sure will deliver more of such excellent stories in the future – apart from checking out their current work, I strongly suggest following their future endeavours.

                For the time being, I'll be taking a short break from NaNoRenO coverage, while I tackle the latest slice-of-life VN by ebi-hime: nothing & nowhere. However, you can expect at least one more post in a few weeks, where I'll be focusing on non-otome romantic stories. I hope you've enjoyed this overview so far – for me, NaNoRenO is a celebration of the creativity within the EVN scene and it's hard to overstate its value, both as a training ground and promotional space for devs, and a gathering place for the fans of the genre. Sharing the message about the exceptional games that show in it every year and engaging with their authors is deeply satisfying to me and even if a fraction of that enjoyment passes onto you guys, it makes all this work worth it. Thank you for reading and, hopefully, see you next time around!

NaNoRenO 2020 Highlights, Pt 1: Otome/GxB Romance

Check out the second part of the overview, NaNoRenO 2020 horror VNs, here!

NaNoRenO, the Ren’Py visual novel jam, is for many years now the biggest community event for EVNs, always bringing dozens of upstart developers, amateurs and veterans of the visual novel scene to share their work, ranging from demos and prototypes to complete (and often substantial) games. Since I’ve started the blog I’m always looking forwards to the opportunity to go through the projects submitted to the jam and present to you my personal highlights – games that are worth checking out not only from the perspective of a VN-obsessed weirdo such as myself, but also the average reader.

                What set this year’s NaNoRenO apart from the usual routine were, quite predictably, the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic. However, while one could expect them to interfere with the development cycles and result in fewer games, the organizers’ decision to extend the traditional one-month deadline by two weeks resulted in more projects than usual getting submitted (105 to last year’s 89 and 2018’s 73). This included dozens of complete games that I was interested in, clearly signalizing a need to change the formula in which I shared my impressions – listing them in one place, even when after relatively rigorous filtering, would be both unwieldy for the readers and tedious to work on. Thus, I’ve decided to split my coverage by genres, starting with the niche that proved very compelling this time around – otome and other GxB romance VNs. So, please join me while I go through six games in this formula that showed up in NaNoRenO 2020 – and if you find any of them interesting, clicking the titles will bring you straight to their Itch.io pages. As always, all NaNoRenO releases are fully free-to-play, so the only thing they’ll demand is a few hours of your time. Let’s get this started!

Criminally Overdue

Criminally Overdue is the newest project by Elowan, the author of Alloys over Flowers, one of my personal favourites from last year’s NaNoRenO. This time, instead of being a period drama, the game tells an unusual story in a modern setting: the protagonist is a librarian who after hours helps police in tracking down and arresting drug dealers – a part of a personal vendetta of sorts for the death of her mother, who passed away from an overdose after years of addiction. During one of her investigations, she targets a local university student, which leads her to listening in on the girl’s conversation with a teacher who accidentally learned about her involvement with drugs. Hearing the girl’s motivation for drug dealing and teacher’s attempt to steer her on a better path causes the protagonist to doubt her actions, something she didn’t feel for years and as the teacher in question becomes a frequent patron in her library, she has to reevaluate her choices and think about a path forward – either overcoming her obsession with drug dealers or doubling down on the crusade against them.

                Criminally Overdue stands out with its conflicted, bitter protagonist and moral quandaries connected to her fight with drug dealers, and although I can’t say I find it as compelling as Alloys over Flowers, particularly the path where the heroine steps away from her unhealthy “hobby” has a lot going for it. The game’s love interest, the young university teacher I’ve mentioned earlier, is a believable catalyst for the protagonist’s change and a pretty cool character in his own right – caring and eloquent, but also somewhat shy and occasionally awkward. The scenario where their romance blooms is genuinely cute and heartwarming. I just wished the alternative conclusion was at least a bit less of a bad end – Elowan’s previous game made a good job of making alternative endings interesting, while here I kind of wished for the whole experience to be kinetic and focus even more on the protagonist's transformation and her troubled path to romance. At least for the “right” path, though, this VN is definitely worth checking out, also because it looks and sounds very solid for a game jam project.

Final Rating: Recommended

Enamored Risks

Enamored Risks by Crystal Game Works, the studio of NaNoRenO and Yuri Game Jam veteran Mikomi Kisomi, is one of the most traditional otome games I’m writing about today. Despite being very by-the-numbers, however, it’s possibly my favourite VN so far from this developer and the easiest one on this list to recommend. It follows the story of a nursing student living a dull life filled by schoolwork and constantly being pestered about her academic performance by her controlling parents. One day, she gets fascinated by a blog exploring urban ruins and abandoned buildings in her city and soon after discovers that one of her university friends is involved in it. This kicks off a story of friendship and romance with three possible love interests, two male and one female one, all of them with their own themes/problems to overcome and really good chemistry with the protagonist.

                Trying to explain the appeal of Enamored Risks is a bit tricky, as describing its story details will ultimately sound mundane, with the theme of urban exploration being the only unusual element. What truly makes it work is the solid design of the love interests and the writing (which is, to be brutally honest, significantly above what I’ve seen in other game jam projects by Mikomi). By the end of it, I was deeply fond of each of the main characters and the romantic conclusions of each route were appropriately satisfying. My only criticism is connected to the CG art, which wasn’t always by the same artist as the excellent character sprites and whenever that happened, the contrast in quality was impossible to miss. Still, it could hardly ruin the overall impression – sometimes simply getting the basics right to this degree is enough for a compelling experience. And with 3-4 hours of content, it’s an excellent way to fill one or two evenings – if you’re a fan of otome, yuri (the GxG route is arguably the best one in the game) or romance stories in general, you’ll likely enjoy this one a lot.

Final Rating: Highly Recommended

Dream Dilemma!

Dream Dilemma is less of a romance game and more of a short horror story, although the main pairing between the female protagonist and her “destined” soulmate, who shows up in her dreams since her childhood, is central to the plot. Sadly, what is a rather excellent concept is brought down rather significantly by rushed execution. The protagonist’s recurring dream, always featuring the same person who seems to age alongside her and interact with her (although without the ability to speak with each other or otherwise exchange complex information), is disturbed by the appearance of a nefarious being that introduces himself as Phebetor. Our lead, being on the demon’s mercy, has to solve his three riddles to avoid death (or, possibly worse than that, endless torment), and learn the truth about the boy that accompanied her in her sleep nearly every night.

                The promising setup, mixing some very modern VN horror tricks with themes from Greek mythology is not completely wasted here, but simply does not receive the buildup and genuine tension it needed to be truly effective. Especially the connection between the protagonist and the boy she sees in her dreams just screamed for more elaboration and romantic tension, which would make their eventual meeting in the real world more meaningful to the reader. Still, the framework of the story is rather solid and with how short the game is, it doesn’t cost much to check it out and reach all the possible endings – just don’t expect anything more than a quick distraction.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

The Punniest Pun Messter

The Punniest Pun Messter is the most amateurish of the games on this list, with very simple visuals and absurd writing, but it’s not necessarily without its charm… And not without quite a lot of content, as it offers a script of over 80k words and three fully-fledged routes. This story of a female protagonist who’s been cursed by the mysterious “Jester” to constantly spew puns, and her similarly quirky high school friends, do not shy away from some painfully dry humour and old internet memes. However, it also involves wild plot twists and general silliness that you might associate with amateur projects made purely for fun – and if you approach it with an appropriate attitude, a lot of that enjoyment will be preserved in the reading experience.

                Obviously, the production quality is not the selling point here and while the crude sprites and simple photographic backgrounds could be seen part of the semi-parodistic formula, the choice of stock music is arguably abysmal and I highly recommend bringing your own soundtrack if you want to read this one. Also, to be completely clear, despite its meme’y nature, the game is highly inoffensive and generally kind-spirited. It’s also not completely random or self-indulgent – there is a genuine story in there, buried under the mountain of dad-jokes and purposefully-awkward references to internet folklore. While I won’t recommend everyone to check it out, if you’re looking for some silly entertainment, it’s not as bad of a choice as the crooked character designs could suggest and I imagine that in the future, if they have such ambition, this VN's author could create something genuinely interesting.

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

Red-Handed Robin

Including Red-Handed Robin on this list goes against my usual policy of only covering finished projects, as for the time being only the first half of it is available, but it’s a game that is already shaping up quite well and a full version of which I’m heavily anticipating. This story of Robin, a con-woman involved in the murder of a wealthy jeweller (with a passion for imprisoning and murdering his lovers) is plenty-twisted, but also does a pretty great job of referencing and subverting classic themes from detective stories. While trying to flee the country on a luxury train, along with the aforementioned jeweller’s servant (who helped her escape captivity and kill him), Robin meets her childhood friend – a former servant in her house that vanished suddenly, but now is revealed to be a police investigator. This provokes a battle of wits – and affection – that will decide whether, and in what way, Robin might get away with her crimes and how she will reconcile with the troubled history of her family.

                While I can’t say for sure how compelling the resolution of the story is going to be, particularly with the first chapter being rather short and apparently containing most of the choices important for the plot’s resolution, the setup that is already here is genuinely brilliant. The fun dialogue and moral ambiguity of the central characters, combined with the complex relationships they share have tons of potential and even if this won’t be used to the fullest, it’s very likely to offer a fun and satisfying experience. While I don’t necessarily recommend to read this game in its incomplete state, I will suggest checking it out as soon as the complete story is released – particularly because it looks and sounds just as good as it reads.

Final Rating: Recommended

Dear Devere

Katy133’s Dear Devere is not a traditional VN, but more of an epistolary novel, telling a supernatural love story through letters exchanged between a lonely young woman and a mysterious Mr Devere, all in a small town in the WW2-era Britain. While it’s a short game, and maybe a tiny bit rushed when it goes to romance, it offers some very nice artistic qualities. Most letters are elaborately (and beautifully) illustrated, making the game’s mode of storytelling surprisingly compelling in its visuals. Also, the letters between the protagonist and Devere are fully voice acted, giving the experience additional personality and relaxed pacing (the latter being, in a way, quite appropriate for a story told through correspondence). Another interesting touch is the perspective from which we learn the story – that of a police detective investigating the protagonist’s fate.

                If I had to summarize Dear Devere with one word, it would be “charming” – it’s a lovely little experience that is more about style and composition than it is about the plot, but isn’t truly devoid of substance either. With how short it is, there are really few reasons to not give it a try and appreciate all the amusing details and unique illustrations it includes – and if you also get charmed by its slightly mystical romance, all the better.

Final Rating: Recommended

Since When Did I Have a Combat Butler?!

SWDIHaCB?! is a project unusually ambitious for a game jam and while it has a fair share of problems which make me hesitant to truly recommend reading it, it’s also not without interesting elements. The main one worth mentioning is the voice acting – the game is fully voiced, which with over 16k words in its script (and very little silent narration) means a lot of spoken dialogue. The voicework itself, while quite obviously amateur, is far from being the worst I’ve heard in an EVN – maybe not good enough for me to consider it a clear net-positive for the experience, but I’m pretty picky in this regard and there’s also a non-voiced version available. The plot itself, as unpolished and confusing it can be at times, has some pretty imaginative elements – ultimately, there was a bit more depth than I expected beneath the silly premise of a magical combat butler suddenly appearing in the average high school girl’s life.

                When it goes to execution of the story and the production quality, things become slightly harder to defend, pretty much placing the whole game in the same category as The Punniest Pun Messter – an amusing mess. The main sin of SWDIHaCB?!'s authors was trying to do way too many things at once, with none of the many characters and story threads getting enough development and the romance lacking buildup. The CG art has a very peculiar style, very different from the simple, but decent sprites, effectively murdering the impact of the few romantic moments that actually show up in the VN. Combined with the non-professional VA, all this creates a feel of a game in which nothing really works as well as it should – and while it’s not truly bad, I only suggest checking it out to those looking for a particularly silly/whimsical experience.  

Final Rating: Cautiously Recommended

So, that’s it for today’s summary – I hope you enjoyed it and will consider giving some (or all) of these games a chance. While only a few projects in this year’s event truly impressed or surprised me, there are many which are simply very solid and enjoyable, making them deeply attractive offerings as freeware games. Enamored Risks proved to be the highlight among otome ones just through the virtue of keeping things simple and executing the standard romance formula is a very consistent and effective fashion. Someone who reviews pieces of media by the hundreds, like I do, often feels the need to demand innovation and fresh takes on the classic story templates, but simply creating relatable characters and heartwarming romance will never lose its value, and Mikomi’s team really succeeded in this regard. If you’re looking for something different, games like Dear Devere and Red-Handed Robin offer interesting spins on either the mode of storytelling or the usual tropes of VNs.

                As always, there’s a lot of enjoyment to find among NaNoRenO entries – and when it comes to my coverage of it, it’s just the beginning. I hope you’ll be willing to join me in two weeks for the second part of my highlights, this time themed around horror. Thank you for your time!

EVN Chronicles' NaNoRenO 2019 Highlights, part 2

Welcome to the second and final part of EVN Chronicles’ NaNoRenO 2019 coverage (if you missed the first part, you can find it here), where I’m going through my highly subjective picks from this year’s submissions to the biggest annual visual novel game jam. While I don’t think any of the games listed this time could seriously threaten the position of Mnemonic Devices as my personal “winner” of the event, there are at least two worth giving closer attention to – Monochrome Blues, which is another excellent story tackling the topics of grief and depression (even though it adds a much more questionable sci-fi subplot to the mix) and Cooked With Love, which stood out with excellent sense of humour and compelling mix of comedy and smart SoL content. Of course, every VN featured here gets my genuine recommendation and I think they’re all worth the humble amounts of time they require to fully read through – especially considering that, once more, they’re all absolutely free and clicking the titles on the list will lead you straight to DRM-free downloads on itch.io. So, let’s find out what else NaNoRenO participants have prepared for us!

RE:BURN

OS-simulation games, where you interact with a story through an imitation of a computer interface, have a pretty rich history in NaNoRenO, with Christine Love’s Digital: A Love Story being probably the best-known example. While RE:BURN is not the most innovative or intricate iteration of this formula, it tells an intriguing, short story using UI of an e-mail client and an online communicator, and the mechanics of deleting or replying to messages instead of typical dialogue choices. The protagonist, a female student who took up a job as an editor in her college’s scientific journal, is tasked with clearing out old emails from the paper's official account. As the messages slowly synchronise, she starts uncovering more and more strange correspondence and even starts receiving popup messages from someone claiming to be her predecessor at the editorial job, giving her borderline-incomprehensible warnings – and whether she listens to them might have some serious and unpredictable consequences.

                RE:BURN’s intrigue is not particularly deep or memorable, but where the game truly shines is in its inclusion of various writing styles, unique to every character in the story and creating a sense of danger and urgency despite the rather static manner in which you interact with it. I would love to see more interactivity or some Easter eggs hidden within its Windows-like interface, but even as it is now, it’s definitely worth your attention for its brief, 30-40 minute runtime.

 
Rating: Recommended
 

Monochrome Blues

While at first Monochrome Blues looks like a simple story about artist’s block and finding inspiration, it features many twists and surprising elements that leads it into a direction that is pretty much impossible to fully anticipate. Although I have some issues with how the plot developed later on, the overall experience of playing through it and reaching the true ending was excellent, especially due to its more down-to-Earth and emotional story elements. Maja, the burned-out storybook author starting a new job in a preschool after months of deep depression is interesting and likeable, while the descriptions of her grief, lack of inspiration and struggle with simply keeping up with everyday life are believable and compelling. The five four children she takes care of are similarly charismatic, with their drawing sessions and conversations with Maja being among the clear highlights of the game. With a pleasant artstyle and overall solid writing, it’s a small treat that everyone should seriously enjoy… At least if you can forgive some over-the-top twists, that will seriously challenge your suspension of disbelief.

 
Rating: Highly Recommended
 

Cooked with Love

Cooked with Love is a somewhat ironic VN about a messy college student (you can choose their gender and name) trying to prepare an ad-hoc dinner for their crush, after their wallet, along with the money for their date, mysteriously vanishes. The first part of the game consists mostly of a mini-game, where the protagonist tries to combine the underwhelming selection of ingredients they were able to find in their house (which they share with two other students), without a real clue what they’re doing, as they have no experience in cooking whatsoever. Then, they have to decide whether to go on with the date, or rather cancel it altogether and share the miserable results of their work with their roommate, Brooks. This creates two brief routes, with multiple possible outcomes depending on your “cooking” and dialogue options you choose.

                While relatively short and simple, the game charms with its humour and witty dialogue – the overall silliness of the story is coupled with characters that are exaggerated, but ultimately likeable and relatable in some ways, to a rather compelling effect. I've had quite a lot of fun exploring different, desperate "dishes" you can prepare with ingredients such as old instant noodles and an egg salad stolen from your roommate, and the dialogue they provoke after being presented to protagonist's date. The "right" dish & dialogue combination that will lead you to optimal results are sometimes quite hard to find, but it only takes a bit of patience to crack the "puzzle" by trial and error. The visuals are stylish, making for a really nice overall package – definitely one of the best games in the event and one you shouldn't miss out on.

 
Rating: Highly Recommended
 

Robot Daycare

Robot Daycare is a short (about 1,5h of reading) story primarily about friendship and dealing with loss, but adds a very interesting twist in form of an AI observing the three main characters’ crumbling relationship and learning either the best or the worst of human nature, depending on player’s choices. The AI – a robot created as a college project by the said group of friends shortly after their roommate committed suicide, might witness them either coming to terms with the tragedy they went through and reconcile after a period of denial and shifting blame, or tear each other apart with accusations and hateful outbursts. The former scenario will lead you to a heartwarming and SoL-focus good route, while the latter will quickly devolve into a full-on horror story.

                This seamless fusion of genres is Robot Daycare’s most unusual feature and one of the main things that make it worthwhile, but the general quality of the writing and the game’s visual aesthetic are not bad either (although the art is simple and somewhat cartoonish, and the default resolution of the game is quite low, making it run in a rather tiny window). While I didn’t enjoy some of the overly-optimistic developments in the good route, the drama the game portrayed and its both positive and negative consequences were quite compelling to read through. The same can be said about an AI trying to comprehend human emotion and going haywire is a few different ways because of that – this might not be the best implementation of that idea that I’ve seen, but still one definitely worth experiencing.

 
Rating: Recommended
 

A Hero and a Garden

Npckc is an author that uses simple art and stories to tackle the issues of otherness, prejudice and discrimination. A Hero and a Garden is one of the larger and more interesting attempts on their part, subverting the traditional trope of a knight rescuing a  kidnapped princess from an evil witch. Our protagonist, who tried to be a hero like the ones from the medieval epics, ends up in humiliating captivity, cursed by the witch to help restore the monster village he destroyed during his misguided rescue attempt. While he tends to magic plants growing incredibly potent “berries” (this introduces a simple, clicker gameplay mechanic), he interacts with inhabitants of the village, the princess and eventually the witch herself, learning that nothing is as simple as he thought (while we learn the surprising nuances and tragic elements of his own backstory).

                While the message of tolerance is just as present here as in other npckc’s games, A Hero and a Garden makes an especially interesting commentary on how social expectations and roles we are assigned to by others shapes our lives and perspectives. Its simplicity makes it the kind of game I would love to see presented to children and talked about in classes, but even for an adult reader it’s a nice, casual experience, with enough thought-provoking and creative elements to be worth investing an hour or so into.

 
Rating: Recommended

And this concludes my NaNoRenO coverage for this year. Last time, due to RL issues, I didn’t get to wriote about the event at all and it was a really fun experience to go through all those wildly different, creative games that often stay heavily underappreciated just because of how crowded and relatively niche the jam is. I hope my highlights convinced at least some of you to give these VNs a chance. I’d also like to give shout out to two games that narrowly didn’t make it to the list: Mikomi Kisomi’s Alice in Stardom, which offers a fun, but slightly shallow story about chasing your dreams against all odds and HitOrMissy’s Fetch Quest, which won me over with its humour and fun approach to “fantasy” storytelling, but disappointed with its lack of sound and music.

                So, thank you all for going with me on the journey through this year’s NaNoRenO VNs! I hope I’ll be able to repeat this after the next edition of the jam and be sure to look out for my Yuri Game Jam summary later this year – that event is something I’ll never skip on, as long as my blog is active. Have a great weekend everyone!