Sorry it’s taken me ages to see this and reply >.< I’ve not been in a great headspace lately so I’ve been avoiding my PC altogether since the start of October. Seeing this made me smile though! I can’t believe you decided to replay it x3 That just shocks me cos it’s still one that gets hardly any downloads in general, haha.

I also wish there was more of the architect character x3 Not just here, but in my other projects too! Sadly though, the VA playing the character is someone who has disappeared from my life :( I wish that weren’t the case, but he’s just moved on to bigger and better things. More power to him cos he’s such a talented person and deserves success :3 But it, unfortunately for me, means he doesn’t have the time to dedicate to someone who can’t afford to pay him much when others can properly compensate him for his time and talents >.<

I can’t lie, I’ve agonised over what to do about it because I would still really love to have a consistent figure that appears across various projects. My main concern is finding a VA who I can rely on to record for the character over the course of several years, and that’s a big ask for anyone x3

Thank you anyhow for taking the time to come back to the game and to leave such a sweet comment! You’ve always been so supportive and I appreciate it more than I have the words to describe <3 I hope that you’re well and that the end of the year has been going smoothly for you!

Aww, well, I’m super glad to hear it :D Thanks so much for checking out this one too <3

I do love writing fourth-wall-breaking stuff, hehe x3 I haven’t done it in every single one of my games, but it’s in a few of em! I think the only ones with Anathema references are this one, SR, and very vaguely in Limbo Line.

I plan to include more Anathema stuff in the future though :3 It’s just it might not involve the exact same character speaking to Anathema because that character is on hiatus and will potentially be replaced with a relative x3

That’s so cool! I hope you do end up making your own visual novel :D It’s sooo much fun! The only thing is, you might end up addicted to it like me xD

So glad you had fun with it!! It always means a heck of a lot when anyone says they’ve enjoyed this project cos it doesn’t get many downloads x3  So yeah, I really appreciate you checking it out, and thank you so much again for the kofi too!! <3 

Hope your week is going great!

Aww, cute bunny! ^-^ I approve!

Hehe, adding that extra route almost killed me during the jam cos I wasn't sure I'd make the deadline by doing it x3 but I really, really wanted to try and show things from a different perspective! To be honest, I kind of forgot how dark this project was since it's been a while since I worked on it >.< I hope it wasn't too horrific anyways! I think I may actually have cried myself while testing it once the voice acting was in. It's always the voice acting that gives me a gut punch, haha. It happened again just the other day actually while I was working on my Yandere Jam project for this year! I was testing and I heard some of the lines voiced for the first time alongside the music and everything, and I just sat there like someone had slapped me in the face, then a few tears emerged x3 Really wasn't expecting it when I already know what's going to happen, but it's just the delivery of the lines from the VA was so strong that it properly got me, haha.

If there had been more time during the jam, I would've liked to have added some extra scenes like after-story stuff & possibly pre-story stuff too, but I used all the time there was up making the version that's here. I suppose I could have come back to it after to update it with more content! I did kinda feel like I needed to move on from that world though once the jam was over just because it was beginning to feel like I lived in that apartment with those guys x3 It wasn't the worst feeling in the world, but it did make me kinda disconnect from reality >.< Sadly, this is also one of my least-played games :(

I really appreciate you giving it a chance and checking it out though :3

I'm guessing you're probably referring to Anathema, it's pretty difficult to catch it when it's only spoken and the voice is quite heavy with the effects x3 especially if you don't already know about the character. Yeah, it's basically a sort of adaptation of an episode from an anthology show that I'm a big fan of, so it's got the whole story of that episode in it + my own original tweaks and additions to the story to turn it into an otome with choices, story branches, and different endings :3

As for Solipsism Reigns, it was my first-ever game, which you can find here :3 In that game, there are a lot more references to Anathema. The inclusion of the character known as the Architect addressing Anathema in this project was supposed to be a sort of easter egg for people who had played Solipsism already :3 It probably just comes across as quite confusing though to anyone who hasn't played Solipsism first >.< haha. But Anathema is basically the player :3

<3

Thanks so much for playing it <3 Tbh, I kinda forgot that ending even existed x3 my memory is so awful T_T

So glad you enjoyed it ^-^ especially since this is one of my least-played projects! It's always nice to see it get some love <3 Thanks so much for checking it out :3

I'm really glad you decided to stick with it :3 And I'm even more glad that you ended up playing through it despite your initial feelings about the art and MC! Thanks so much for taking the time to play the game and leave a comment ^-^

That's generally how I go into everything myself xD It certainly leads to lots of pleasant surprises, haha. 

I'm so glad you ended up enjoying playing though :3 And it makes me super happy to hear that all the hard work and love that went into the project shines through ^-^ And yeah, everyone who worked with me on this project for the jam worked suuuuper hard, haha. So I hope they see your comment too! 

It also makes me overjoyed to hear your thoughts on the soundtrack because this was my first attempt at making an original soundtrack for one of my projects, and while I had an absolute blast with it, I have no training or knowledge when it comes to music xD so I had no real way of knowing if it fit beyond my own feelings on it, haha. 

Thanks so much for playing + taking the time to write such a lovely comment <3

Hehe x3 Well, ??? just wanted to remind everyone that they're still out there. Ya never know when that sneaky bugger is gonna pop up and cause some trouble >.<

Thanks so much for playing through it and taking the time to drop a comment as well :3 Much appreciated :D I'm glad you enjoyed it <3

I had a lot of fun making the game! It was a brilliant jam to be a part of in general ^-^

Hehe, yeah x3  

Hey hey! Thanks for playing through the game :3 I'm glad you enjoyed it :D 

If that is an English expression, I haven't heard it before, but I still get what you mean :3 that's actually a pretty cool way of putting it, haha. And you don't need to apologise at all x3 My eyes aren't bleeding, haha. 

To answer your question, I guess I should put it under a spoiler.

SPOILER

Okay, so, that voice is a character from my very first game, Solipsism Reigns, but the character has his own story which will slowly unfold across some of the games that I release over time :3 You get to hear much more from him in Solipsism Reigns. His appearance in Apartment No.9 is pretty brief in comparison. While he technically doesn't have a name yet, I always referred to him as 'The Architect' when writing scripts, and some people have affectionately given him the nickname, Archie :3

Hey hey! Thanks for checking out the game :3 I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with crashing :(

I've not had any crash reports before and didn't experience any myself while testing, so I'm not sure what could be causing that to happen >.< Since it's occurring when you make certain choices, it could be that your system is somehow struggling to load the next scene. Is it an older or slower computer? Also, which system are you playing on?

Does it happen each time you pick certain choices if you save and try multiple times? Or is it more random?

You could try deleting your save data and starting over in case something is corrupted, but I'm not sure if that would help at all. You'd have to start again from the beginning but you could use the force skip option to skip all text and get back to the point you were at fairly quickly. I don't know exactly where your save folder would be located in order to properly delete all the data, but on my windows PC it's located under
C: > Users > MyUsername > AppData > LocalLow > Melancholy Marionette 
You then delete the save data from the Apartment No.9 Folder.
(AppData folder might be hidden by default, so to access it, you need to enable hidden folders to be viewed by going to Control Panel > Appearance and Personalisation > Folder/File Explorer Options > Click the 'view' tab > Tick the box 'Show hidden files, folders and drives' > Click apply and ok. You probably don't want this on all the time, so once you've located and deleted the save data, it's probably best to go back into those options and untick the box to hide the hidden folders again.)

The only way for sure I'd be able to find out what's causing the crashing though is if I were to send you a development build, for you to play that to the point where the crashing happens, and for you to send me your player/error logs so I can see what sort of errors it's throwing up as it crashes. We can do that if you want to, but there's still no guarantee I'd be able to fix it for you even if I could identify the cause >.< Let me know if you want me to send you a development build though, and where to send it, and I'll get it to you and tell you how to generate report logs :3

Sorry you've had such trouble with it :( It would be great if wiping the save data and starting over happened to fix it, but it might not >.< Good luck though! And thanks again for playing the game :3

Thanks so much for playing and taking the time to comment! It all means a lot to me :3 Especially so coming from you cos I've been a lurker on the otome dev discord for a while (anxiety is too bad to join in most of the time, haha), and whenever yourself and the others talk about your projects and post art stuff I always just sit and think how talented you all are! Plus you blew me away with Yrsa Major! As I think I said in the comment I left, I didn't ever think I'd care all that much for an older love interest, but your story melted my heart :D

Were the UI issues just to do with starting Doyle's route? Or was it something else as well as that? >.< If it's something else, I can try to fix it, but if it's to do with getting the buttons working normally for starting his route + accessing the extras section, I still don't understand Nani and Unity well enough to know the correct way of doing it T_T haha. I did ask in support and someone answered, but their answer didn't make much sense to me because I don't really get much in the way of coding x3 hence why I got Nani in the first place really. And I didn't wanna ask for further explanation cos I was too embarrassed >.<

I'm really glad you enjoyed it overall though :3 And I'm happy Doyle's route had the desired effect because, as I said in a few other comments, I was kinda worried it might seem a bit boring or something to go through the same story again just to get different outcomes, even if it is from a different pov. I just really wanted to have a sort of new game+ type feature and I didn't know how else to implement something like that within the jam's timeframe.

Thanks again for all your kind words and best of luck with your projects ^-^

That's awesome that you'd already seen Inside No.9 beforehand! I haven't come across anyone else who has seen it yet, haha. And I don't know without going back through all of them again if that one is my absolute favourite episode, but it's definitely up there in my top 5! It's been a while since I watched the old episodes.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the differences because I wanted to stay true to the original plot of the episode but also change things here and there + add my own stuff and, of course, with it being for otome jam, attempt to make it romantic in some way. I was really worried about ruining the original story though since it's a fantastic story as it is and doesn't need any of the stuff I added xD

It makes me happy to hear you enjoyed Doyle's perspective too :3 That was another one of my worries, that it might end up seeming a little boring going through the story again with a different pov, but I really wanted to add a new game+ type deal with additional endings. That was the only way I could do that within the jam timeframe.

SPOILERS

Yeah, I like to think Aku and Leah get their happy ending together too :3 If there had been more time in the jam, I wanted to do like a prequel story that was just basically a fluffy scene from when Aku was alive, but there wasn't time in the end >.<

I'm so glad you think so :3

Yeah, I love me some dark stuff, haha. Don't get me wrong, I also love healthy doses of fluffiness too! But the dark stuff is my main passion x3

And I'm happy to hear you enjoyed playing through Doyle's version of events. It was something I was very unsure about by the time I finished it because I couldn't for the life of me tell if it was dull or not >.< and there wasn't time to get feedback on it before the jam deadline was up. I just really wanted to include some form of new game+ content where you could see new and extended endings, but a PoV route was the only way I could envision managing to do that within the jam's timeframe since it wouldn't mean rewriting every single thing from scratch. Plus it's something I've always wanted to try my hand at (writing from the perspective of the yandere, that is.)

I was sort of worried that I may have made Doyle too unlikeable in the end, considering he's technically supposed to be an LI, haha. But he is what he is I suppose. You saying he felt real is probably the best outcome I could have hoped for because I wanted these characters to come across more sorta human/realistic/flawed in nature than the ones in my other VNs. One darn day I will actually get my ass round to playing DDLC!

And yeah, that's correct about the unknown entity :3 It's sort of an ongoing experiment situation that I have various future plans for, haha.

The cast did a truly fantastic job of bringing the characters to life, and I simply can't thank them enough for lending their epic talents to the project :3 It sure wouldn't be the same without them, so I'm glad you enjoyed their performances!

I would love to be able to answer your question regarding Doyle's backstory and how he became homeless (and you're totally right in saying 'chose to be homeless' there because it was absolutely his decision, though, one born of various unfortunate circumstances) but my brain is too full of fog right now to give a proper cohesive answer and I don't want to end up rambling on and making little sense >.< I'm going through a pretty nasty depressive episode right now, so I'm finding it difficult to properly concentrate on anything (which is also why my reply to your amazing comment is also somewhat slower than I usually would be to respond >.<) I'll try to remember to come back and add it when my head (hopefully) clears though!

It also means a hell of a lot that you enjoyed the soundtrack because I spent heck knows how many hours trying to make it, haha. I just figured that since it was a longer jam than what I'm used to making stuff for, I would attempt it and see what happened! It was all one giant experiment and I had a lot of fun, but at the same time, it kept getting to the point where I was concerned I'd have a soundtrack and no game because I kept getting far too carried away trying to make new tracks xD And then I got it in my head that Doyle should have a separate soundtrack to Leah so that they each had a distinguishing sorta sound, which was just crazy when there was so little time left in the jam, but I couldn't get the darn idea outta my head so I just tried my best >.<

I'd love to try and make another original soundtrack for Spooktober VN jam, but with it being only a month-long jam, I don't think it would be doable on top of writing and putting everything together. And if I don't manage to snap out of this depression patch, I won't be able to do anything at all :(

Oh, and I'm genuinely amazed that you liked the vocal version of Apartment No.9! But that's brilliant that you did :3 You have Aku's voice actor, rongvoice, to thank for that because I was fully ready to give up on the idea of having a version with vocals and scrap my vocals because I hated them. He gave me a lot of encouragement with that, enough to push me past embarrassment and just go for it, haha.

I think I have to agree with you that Letting Go version where Doyle actually respects her wishes to be left alone is probably the ending above all others that I would personally like to have seen be the 'true' ending for Leah in the sense that it's likely to be the best one for her health overall. I'm glad you enjoyed that version of the After Life ending as well because I really felt as though poor Doyle deserved some form of redemption ending after everything he'd put Leah through x3 I didn't want him to come across as a completely twisted monster, haha. And you've taught me something new today because I had to Google orange and blue morality :D That was an interesting read!

I hope it didn't end up haunting you in your sleep anyhow x3 and thank you so much for taking the time to play through it all and then come here to write up such a lovely review! Reading your thoughts was fun and certainly managed to put a smile on my face despite being in the grip of stupid depression :3 I hope you end up enjoying my other stuff whenever you get round to it! I feel like A9 is probably my most polished project so far with it being the most recent one, but with any luck, you'll find the others entertaining too! Thank you again and have an awesome week ^-^

Hehe, aww :3 That made me smile! And now I am imagining Aku reenacting the commercial and Leah telling him to stop being silly x3 
I wish my drawing skills weren't so terrible, otherwise, I would totally sketch that and put it right here! Or the reverse version, where Leah falls, and as soon as she says the line, Aku just yoinks her up for kisses and cuddles ^-^

Thanks so much for playing :3

Haha, brain explosions for the win! x3 Though, also kinda messy >.< 

I'm so glad you liked the OST as well because that took me hours upon hours to make :D I probably spent as long on that as I did on the writing! Maybe even longer. It was lots of fun to make though, even if I did go a bit crazy with the number of tracks in the end xD

I certainly owe everyone a lot who helped out with the game, without their contributions, it just wouldn't be the same :3

I'm glad you think so anyhow! And your support means so much <3

I'm glad you think so :3 This was my first time getting to team up with artists for a jam! I loved it so much :D I can't draw to save my life, so I'm usually stuck using stock sprites or character generators. It was wonderful to get to work with such talented artists. I hope it's not a disappointment when you come to play it, haha.

I loved what I played of Aria at the Funeraria so far :3 It's such an interesting setting for a story and I'll definitely be back to see what happens with all the choices I didn't pick the first time around when I have more time! I need to check out your other games too when I get a chance because they all look fantastic. I just don't seem to get much time to play stuff these days because when I try to, my brain moans at me >.< telling me I should be working not playing!

Likewise for Sinless! It absolutely plays as though it was made with lots of love :3 

I didn't get to see you and the Sinless team in action, but I imagine you were all working your asses off, and the end result is brilliant! You should all be very proud of your work ^-^

Being part of a team this time around was so much fun that I'm not sure I ever want to go solo for a jam again, haha.

Thanks for all your kind words and support throughout! It means a lot <3

Hey hey! Aww, that's awesome :D I'm so glad you ended up liking this one too! Thanks for playing through it and taking the time to let me know your thoughts on this one. I really poured everything I had into it this past month or so trying to get it all finished in time for the end of the jam, haha. It was certainly pretty exhausting with all the super late nights, but I had heaps of fun working on it + it was my first jam where I got to team up with artists :3

I mean, I can't take 100% credit for the general story idea because, as I mentioned, it is based on an Inside No.9 episode script. It's one of my favourite episodes, and I was so worried that I would wind up ruining the story that inspired me by creating my own version when I've changed so many things here and there + added stuff to it >.< So I'm happy to hear that I didn't. The script that inspired me is brilliant as it is, but it's certainly not even remotely otome, haha.

I had a lot of fun rewriting stuff from Doyle's point of view, haha. That's something I've not really done much of before and wanted to experiment with :3 I was a little concerned players might find it dull to go through the story again, even if it is from another character's viewpoint. I really wanted to have a new game+ type thing though where the endings could be expanded upon, and that was the only way I could think of doing it that would work within the jam timeframe.

That's incredibly interesting that you wound up preferring Doyle! I honestly imagined that most people would kinda hate him x3 In fact, I was afraid that with it being an otome game, people may dislike him so much that they wouldn't want to pursue a romance with him, haha. He sure does have a lot of flaws, but I tried not to make him a complete monster :3

SPOILERS

I'm really glad that you were able to understand Doyle's motives. That's something that always worries me in the back of my mind when I'm writing yandere-esque characters because I don't want them to be monsters >.< I like there to be some sort of justification for their behaviour, and the opportunity to potentially redeem themselves, haha.

Yeah, it's kind of a shame for Leah really that both relationships are toxic for her >.< But yeah, dysfunctional relationships in fiction are fun, haha. As you no doubt already know, I have a gigantic soft spot for characters who are a little messed up x3

I'm just about to post up a walkthrough, so if you happen to end up requiring help to get all of the endings, that should cover everything :3

Thank you again for your kind words and your time :D Much appreciated ^-^  

I'm so glad you loved it :3 It was certainly a labour of love making it, haha. Thank you so much for playing + taking the time to comment <3 It's much appreciated. I'm just about to head off to bed now because it's super late (technically early as it's almost 5am xD) where I am, but I will definitely be sure to create a walkthrough sometime tomorrow when I get a chance! I should be able to get one posted up by the end of the day.

Aku certainly is a sweetie :3 Doyle, not so much, haha. Well, I guess Doyle can be, but still not as sweet as Aku x3

Spoilers

Hehe, you could make Doyle change his name to Kyle by deed poll, then he'd be stuck as a Kyle for life! As for the word game, cat would certainly be a cuter answer for beating him :D Technically there are two words that would be correct, but I only included one of them: 'checkmate'. Just because I wanted Leah's victory to be extra sweet by winning with a word like that, haha.