Just finished playing your game with Castoria. I just have to say I honestly loved it! I was highly impressed with the voice acting and how you did the sprites for the characters. The writing was really good. I also enjoyed how Castoria and the Protag both had interesting personalities. As others have said in the comments, the Protag not being in a blank state and a bit sassy was rather fun plus refreshing to see.
I played the full game and wasn't expecting that final scene at the end. But it turned out to be rather lovely with its resolution. I haven't played the Sinister "route" (would it be called a route?) yet, but the Sweet "route" has me wanting some more! I know you are a rather busy person, but do you have an estimate of when is the next release? If not that's okay! Just keep doing the great work you are doing here! You have definitely made a fan out of me! :D
P.S. Also looking forward, Solipsism Reigns BxG Version whenever it comes out.
Thanks so much for supporting the project and leaving a comment! It's much appreciated ^-^ Glad you enjoyed your time with Castoria even if there's not all that much content there yet!
I've become a little bit obsessed with having a crazy amount of expression changes for sprites in my VNs, haha. I think because I wish I could use Live2D but don't possess the skills, so instead, I try my best to use lots of expression changes and other forms of movement to make scenes look more animated.
I guess once the game is more complete, you could consider the sweet and sinister options to be routes, yeah :3 Cos the 'endings' from the current version are actually more like the end of Castor/ia's 1st episode going by my outline. So in a more completed version, it's more like you're sort of locked in to the sweet or sinister route at that point. Though, there will also be more that goes towards deciding which route you end up on eventually because there will be more choices to make.
My plan was to have an update out in time for Christmas this year that introduces the next character while also adding more content for Castor/ia since it will have been a full year since I released the first part for the jam. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to manage that after all >.< I'm still in the writing stage for the next part, and struggling to concentrate on it. I've got a lot going on in my personal life at the moment, and my routine has kinda gone out of the window :( I've had a lot of appointments to be up early for, which means lots of early nights to bed. The problem is, almost everything I've written has been done so during the night! I don't know why, but I can just focus a lot better on writing when I do it during the night, and I'm not getting the opportunity to do that at the moment >.<
It doesn't help that I haven't worked on the project in such a long time because I was working on a few other jam projects throughout the year. DD is my main focus now though :3 Even if I can't get the next part out in time for Christmas, it should at least end up being sometime in winter or early spring, even if it's 2022 rather than 2021.
And there certainly shouldn't be any more year-long gaps in between updates unless things go very wrong in my life! Haha.
The BxG version of SR is a looooong way off though >.<
Thank you so much for your kind words and your support :3
Sorry, for the very late reply! I didn't realize I got a response from you. Curse you spam! That aside, I did notice the expression changes you have in the game and it was very impressive. It is a lot of work but makes the characters more "real". Still good to hear that sweet and sinister will be their "own" routes.
I hope you have been getting better and life is treating you well. Looking forward to the next update no matter when it comes out. Take care of yourself and stay strong!
No worries! Most of my replies have been super duper late recently anyways because I'm just kinda overwhelmed at the moment and shutting down >.< haha.
Take care yourself and I hope you get to have some happy holidays and a wonderful new year ^-^
HI i dont have much constructive to say other than i really really love this project <3 ive replayed it more times than id like to admit....
the way the yandere sides of castor/ia reveal themselves and how the mc isnt just a blank piece of wood but has an actual backbone, especially the mean stuff they say to castor/ia! i know the art isnt yours but i adore how it looks, you picked perfectly! i wish you luck on your future projects and will be supporting you all the way <3
I really appreciate any and all comments on my projects, so thank you very much for playing what's there of the game so far and taking the time to comment :3 I'm so glad you've enjoyed it so far even though there's not much there yet.
I'm happy you like the MC cos they seem to be a bit like marmite xD People either love it or hate it, haha. I just wanted the story to have a protagonist with a bit more sass because they're gonna end up in a lot of dangerous situations, and I don't want them to be the type of MC that just rolls over and lets bad stuff happen to them cos I've played too many VNs with passive protagonists and it annoys me as a player x3 I do plan on adding more options in future updates though, so that the player has a bit more control over how MC reacts because I also understand how frustrating it is to have an MC act in a way that's really opposed to how you want them to.
I'm glad you like the sprites too cos even though I didn't draw them, I did spend a hell of a lot of time on the colours and creating additional expressions for them that didn't come as standard :3
I had hoped to get the next episode of DD out in time for Christmas, but I don't think that's going to happen because I planned for it to both introduce a new character and add to Castor/ia's content, and a lot of life stuff is going on with me right now so I haven't been able to be as productive as I would like >.<
Thanks for your interest in the project :3 The page isn't particularly tidy at the moment and some of the comments where I answered similar questions to this have been buried >.< haha. I'll have to try and organise the page better when I next update the game!
I'll give you the short(ish) answer, and then I'll also be somewhat lazy and give you the super long answer copy/pasted from something I wrote previously :3
So the short answer is that the game is nowhere near complete right now. What's available is more like a little taster episode for one of many characters :3 I made it during a jam that lasted 1 month, so there's not a huuuuge amount of content there yet. My plan is to have around 10 characters for the full version of the game, with about 3 episodes each. So you could call what's currently released Castor/ia's episode 1 I guess. I'm currently in the process of writing the next character's episode 1 + some additional content for Castor/ia.
The $2 is basically a donation to help fund the project because I have no funding outside of that to pay voice actors, and while I can continue developing the game without putting any money into it if the rest of it goes unvoiced, I feel like voice acting is an important part of the project since it was originally supposed to be an audio drama. I write the scripts in a way that suits voiced better than non-voiced.
Aaaand here's the extra long version if you want it xD
Right now, the project is in a place where I don't even know what an acceptable price would be to charge for the game once it's eventually finished because I don't have experience with releasing commercial games. I kind of never imagined I would ever have the funding available to me to make something to commercial standards. What I do know going by my outlines, drafts, and the like, is that there will be quite a large amount of content by the time the entire thing is finished. Definitely more than $2 worth of content by a long shot.
If you do decide to get Winter Wish, it's more like a donation towards funding the development of the project than a purchase, but I don't think there's any way for me to show it as such here on itch >.< Because WW is quite short and essentially acts as the introductory episode to one character of many.
The biggest challenge in DD's overall development is that it's a project which is pretty reliant on voice acting. Without the VA, it wouldn't have the same flavour I don't think. But VA isn't cheap. For example, after speaking to my friend Anthony (the voice director for Winter Wish) he informed me that to get Castor & Castoria's next episode fully voiced will cost around $800. And me being unemployed means that the only way I can afford to pay the VAs is through supporters donating funds towards the project.
Right now, I'm quite unsure what the best way to proceed is because it's going to cost a lot of money to get each episode for each set of characters voiced. Which means probably asking for some form of money per episode. At the same time, I don't want to piss anyone off who has already donated towards the project >.< because I really appreciate the support and I don't want anyone to feel like their money is being wasted or anything like that.
The other option, of course, is attempting to run a Kickstarter at some point! However, I'm not really sure if enough people would back it when it requires quite a bit of funding. My social anxiety also means I suck at social media and promotion, which isn't exactly a great start to a KS campaign >.< Especially not when the game isn't yet close to completion. So it's a tough situation really.
One of the main reasons I didn't keep working on DD after the jam is because I figured I would never be able to afford to expand it the way I'd like to in a million years because I don't have the money. So I kept it as a side project to work on and continued developing my main project (Clarity in Qualia.) Unfortunately, CiQ hit a brick wall in that I was hoping to run a KS for that in order to fund VA and a CG artist, but there was very little interest in the game when we posted character intro videos on YouTube and stuff. And it's a shame because that one is fully written and if I were to work on just that, I could have the game finished before the end of the year. But I don't know what to do with CiQ when it seems like there aren't many people interested in playing it. So now that I've finished the last couple of jams I wanted to participate in this year (otome jam + Spooktober VN jam) DD is my main project focus.
I'm so sorry for rambling anyhow >.<
What I will say though, is that I hope to always be able to offer free copies of my stuff to anyone who can't afford to support with money because I have been in that position all my life and I know how much it sucks.
TLDR
The $2 for DD Winter Wish is more like a donation towards funding the full game than an actual purchase.
I don't know what the full price of the game will be once it's eventually completed, but anyone who has helped with funding will get a discount off of the full game based on what they donated. And hopefully, some sort of extra goodies as well because I'd like to be able to give some kind of extra thank you to those who have supported the development of the game :3
Character intro episodes will likely be released episodically for now based on what I can afford to pay VAs for their work. But if it gets to the point that a Kickstarter might be viable to complete the entire project, I may attempt that. If successful, I'll then just be able to work on completing the remainder of the game in one chunk.
I will always try to offer free copies of my games for those who cannot afford to support with money for whatever reason.
(I realise that getting funding from various methods could potentially end up quite messy when it comes to issuing discounts and rewards in the end, but I'm not sure how else to deal with funding development right now. I'm willing to go over all donations from all sources manually in order to make sure no one is left out come the full release of the project.)
I'm not 100% sure what options itch.io offers because I have my account set for them to just handle all of that on my behalf because I wouldn't have a clue what to do >.< haha.
Well,that was a fun game.The story is pretty cool and the voice acting is marvelous,splendid.Im really impressed with your hardwork.
I reached both ending and both of them are satisfying.At first,i was hoping that there is more ending need to be discovered.Hahaha.and as the results,it only have 2 ending which is good actually.The safe version is kinda calming and heart melting,i must say XD.And the second is very intense.Hahahah.
Last but not least,thank you for making this masterpiece art.Cant wait to wait more from you.You've done me proud,dev!Keep up the good work!!
Oh yeah,one more thing,i let my friend play ur game and this his comment:
"Well I'm not going to comment on every part though XD, but the charac-err I mean Castoria is looking gud👉👉 ,ahaha. The voice actor are well done, full of emotion, very "menjiwai".
Glad you enjoyed it :3 I'm very excited to bring the rest of the game to life! I just wish I could clone myself to make it happen faster, haha. There certainly will be more endings eventually :D Where it cuts off at the moment will be like the end of episode 1 for Castor/ia, and they will probably have about 3 episodes.
Hehe, and I Googled menjiwai so I think I understand :D
I want to praise your wonderful work once again! You have created something interesting, and I am impressed with your abilities! You can see how much effort has been invested, and most importantly, it was worth it!
I got a happy ending, and it was nice. Even though the story is short, I felt its completeness. This is perhaps one of the most important factors for calming the mind after completing something.
The way you wrote the text and set up the emotions, ah, during the passage I physically felt good. And then, when I went to bed after reading the novel, moments from the novel still echoed in my head.
I liked the scenes of proximity (both intimate and not so intimate), I was able to catch the empathy of the heroine, and everything that was happening resonated in me. Oh yeah, it was funny when I was playing a game where I was playing a game where a character was saying I should sleep, not play with him. Incredibly high level of care! And such involvement. Awww.
I am delighted with how smoothly you have written everything, both from the point of view of code and from the point of view of graphical moments.
And I want to emphasize once again how great it is that you gave the opportunity to choose a character! I am glad that I can choose a girl or a guy depending on who my heart desires right now.
I like it, thank you for creating this novel. The work is really amazing, I hope that you will continue to enjoy your hobby! It was music for my soul, eyes and ears.
Aww, thank you so much for your kind words and support ^-^ It means a lot! Yeah, I was pretty torn because I wanted to include more, but it wasn't a very long game jam that I originally made it for, so I figured that even though I have a longer story to tell, I needed to try and make it feel like it was a complete story in itself for the purposes of the jam.
As I continue to develop the game, I hope to be able to keep the option to choose which version of each character you want to interact with, along with giving the player some pronoun options for MC as well :3
Woah,such a nice game.I love how the game turn from normal to horror.Remind me to ddlc lol.What a traumatizing game.Well,i try to buy this game,but the payment method is kinda hard because i dont have credit card :/.I really want to play it.Is there any other way to purchase it?If u have it,that would be great.So i read about the Free Community Copy.What does that means?U know,just to make sure so i dont misunderstood it.Anyway.If u read and reply this comment, thanks.You are very good at making this masterpiece,keep it up.I hope u make a similar game just like this in the future.It's so goddamn good.I wish u will be a successful developer and gain a lot of money from it.Sorry for my bad English,still learning it :/.Oh one one more thing,why don't u post it on steam?It just my idea :D(Greetings from Malaysia)
Right now, itch.io and ko-fi are the only ways to support me, well, and Patreon too but that's different with it being more like a subscription thing. I'd absolutely love to have this and my other projects on Steam someday :3 It's just a bit too expensive right now because the last time I checked, they charge $100 for each game you want to have on there >.< and since I never have much money + this project is nowhere near completed, I'm just not at a point yet where I can afford to put it on there, sadly.
You're welcome to have a key to download what there is of the game so far anyhow :3 Just let me know where the best place to send it is.
Thank you for your interest in the game and your kind words :3 I sure would love to be a successful dev someday, haha. My therapist even said that there's probably not much point in me trying to pursue anything else because my mental health puts me at such a big disadvantage when it comes to 'normal' jobs!
And no need to apologise for your English :D It's good! I can easily understand everything you typed :3
PS. Love the username :D My brother quotes that a lot, haha.
Hopefully u can sell ur game on steam someday :D.Lol ur brother is a memer too?XD.Thanks for liking my username lol.Btw for real?You're going to send a key?Bruh u are too kind,i wish i can repay ur kindness :).U can send it on my Email
pls dont ask why i have too much account,i use it for gaming :/
Anyway,thanks again for making a great game and make my day a lot of better.Recently i through a bad time :/.
last but not least,dont apologize how slow your reply is.I understand how busy you are right now,hahahaha.anywayThanks again :D.Stay safe!
Good day! While browsing the Internet in search of visual novels about yandere, I was brought to your abode. I saw how you edited the sprites, making them unique. It is also very impressive that you have called voice actors, and also the possibility of choosing the gender of our love interest! I admire and really want to support your creativity, but my electronic card is not supported. So I feel a little guilty in front of you, but I really want to play. So I would like to ask, are you still sharing the keys of your game? Even if not, thank you for taking the time to read the text! You have wonderful ideas and wonderful implementation, it's cool that creating wonderful things makes you feel better! With love, from me.
Hey hey! Yeah, I certainly have a soft spot for yandere types, haha. Unfortunately, you're not the first person who can't use their preferred payment method through it, which is a shame. I didn't even realise until recently that they didn't accept certain types of payments and stuff.
You're welcome to have a key anyhow :3 Just let me know where the best place to send it is!
Thanks for all your kind words and for your interest in the project :3
Thanks for the answer! Perhaps a good solution would be kiwi, despite the commission, this wallet is easier to get than the others required for payment. It may be worth considering other options. The work should be evaluated, because even if you create a project only on the strength of your love, it would be nice to get a monetary reward for it.
I really understand your passion for yandere, huh, it's really nice for me to find like-minded people, and even more so to communicate with content creators. I feel like I'm talking to a star, so I'm very happy~
You can give me your blessing
Once again, I am very grateful that you are ready to share your creation!
You not only love them (they love you too), but also find an outlet in them, your quiet place. It's wonderful when hobbies help to alleviate mental problems at least a little.
I sincerely hope that your therapist helps you, and that content creation also helps you!
Thanks you! I am immensely grateful that you gave me the love I am looking for! I'm going to give some of my love to the beautiful creations that you created!
I'm glad you enjoyed it :D And your wish will come true because it will be longer at some point :3 The game is still in early development ^-^ So not only will Castor and Castoria have longer stories (what is available now is just their episode 1) there will also be other characters in the future too! It's just going to take me a while to make it all since I have a lot of content planned and I'm working alone, haha.
Sorry my reply is so slow >.< I'm busy irl for most of October, so I haven't been on my PC that much recently >.< Anyways, you're welcome to have a key if you wanna let me know where the best place to send it is :3
Are you the artist of the character sprites or did you hire someone to make some custom ones for your game? If yes, then I think someone ripped your Castoria sprite (and did some edits to it) from your game and used it for their own game they are about to release on Steam:
Thanks so much for taking the time to let me know about that :3 I really appreciate it!
In this instance, that person hasn't done anything wrong because I'm not the original artist for the sprites. They come from an asset pack sold by a Japanese artist called sasAichi, and once you've purchased the pack, you're allowed to do whatever you like with the sprites.
What this person has done is just take the original sprite directly from the asset pack and use it without making any edits to the original version. Whereas I always like to edit any assets I've purchased where possible, just so that they don't end up looking exactly like other people's if they get used in other projects x3
I just used GIMP to edit all of the colours to something different and more fitting with my project :3
This is a little VS thing I made a while back when someone on Twitter asked me about the sprites and the artist who created them. It just shows the difference between my edits and the original unedited version. It's great that you picked up on that and took the time to comment though because if it were theft of some sort, I think any dev out there would really appreciate being alerted to it in order to try and do something about it. Thank you again :3
Thanks for letting me know that it was an asset pack, because you never know.
I haven't reported the game or the dev in case you are wondering. That's why I asked you in the first just to make sure and to let you know. It's just that art/asset theft isn't so uncommon amongst indie dev crowd. Saw this happen often enough when Steam Greenlight was a thing. So I'm always supper sceptical.
Anyway, thank you for the detailed answer. Hope you have a good day, dear dev.
Yeah, it's better to be safe. It would absolutely suck to find out someone else was profiting from your hard work >.< I'd be pretty devastated if it happened to me, so absolutely appreciate any heads up :3
That sucks that it's something that happened often with Steam Greenlight >.<
It's not quite the same thing, but I've occasionally come across commercial games on Steam where I recognise the sprite assets because they're ones I've downloaded myself, and realised, hang on a minute... the terms of use for those assets state that they're for personal/free use only, and commercial use is prohibited >.< I'm guessing the devs think that because the assets are from Japanese artists, they'll never find out, so they can do whatever they like.
The first time this happened, I contacted Steam about it, but they weren't interested in what I had to say, even though I provided direct links to the assets and their terms of use >.< So I just gave up!
Hi, sorry to bother you.(⌒_⌒;) I really want to play your game, but for some reason I can't buy it. I tried to buy it twice, but nothing happens after entering the card details. Do I have to wait, or does this system simply not support bank cards of my country? ((Greetings from Russia(￣ω￣)/) Is there any other way to purchase this visual novel? ଘ(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭✧
Hey hey! No worries :3 Thanks for checking out the game and for trying to support the project ^-^
Hmm, I'm not 100% sure how the payment system works on itch >.< I know that one or two people before have said that they've had problems with payment methods though! You're welcome to try on ko-fi instead: https://ko-fi.com/melancholymarionette
But either way, I can send you a download key if you let me know where the best place to send it would be :3
Thank you for responding. But it looks like Coffee is not an option: on it, the minimum donation amount exceeds what I can give ( ლ(¯ロ¯"ლ)
I am very grateful to you for your responsiveness, thank you for sharing your creativity even selflessly! I hope sooner or later I will be able to repay you
I would love to buy this game but where I lived don't use any currency that is avalable in itch.io.So are you going to upload this on Steam If yes, I will be sure to buy this game.If No then it's okay I understand.Well It looks like I am demanding or something ,But I am not😅
I would love to be able to put the game on Steam at some point for sure :3 But that's quite a long way off, unfortunately >.< Cos the game is nowhere near finished. The £100 fee for adding a game to Steam doesn't help! If not for that, I would have all my games on there, but I just can't afford that kinda money >.<
You're welcome to have a key for itch though if you wanna let me know where is best to send it to :3
Hey! Well, for DD specifically it's currently going nowhere just because I'm focusing 100% on Spooktober VN Jam x3 And for me personally, I'm exhausted xD I don't work very healthily when it comes to game jams, so I've been doing 15+ hour days this last week or two in an effort to try and get everything for the Spooktober Jam project finished in time for the October 1st deadline >.<
I was hoping to get a little more writing done for DD before the jam began in September, alongside releasing the BxG version of Apartment No.9 before the end of August. I managed to get A9 out, but I didn't get any solid writing done on DD. I managed to expand on some of the route outlines, but that was about it.
August was just a crappy month for me in general though because I got a new diagnosis of bipolar and was put on this new medication that had horrendous side effects for the first couple of weeks >.< I felt more physically ill than any time in my life where I've actually had a cold or food poisoning and stuff. My therapist did warn me it would be a rough ride xD She said she could start me on a half dose where the side effects would be a little less intense, but that it would take more time to get past them because of having to slowly move to the higher dose. She said if I was willing to put up with the higher dose right away, the worst of it should be gone within a month.
I was starting to get pretty worried that the side effects were gonna stop me from even trying to make something for Spooktober Jam, but thankfully, the worst of it did subside in time for me to start concepting with my friend!
Since the jam began at the start of September, that's all I've been working on. With how crappy my self-confidence is, it's not often that I'm able to feel genuinely proud of the stuff I've made, but with this project for Spooktober, I can honestly say I'm proud of it :3 I'm working with a small team of friends and I think it's probably going to be my coolest project yet in terms of how beautiful it looks with my friends' combined art + also with the features I've managed to include. It's the most complicated thing I've coded yet and I've learned a lot!
That'll be out for free this Friday, and then I'm going to slow down my work pace for October because I want to play the other games submitted to the jam, but when I am working, DD will be the primary focus :3
I just saw Manly's video, and it was great, The game is great, the voice acting, the story, the characters, overall this is a great game, This game should get more attention😀😁.
Sadly tho, cant afford to get the game, my family is having a hard time at work and i am just here sitting...Although this game is really great(sorry i always said "game")
Aww, I'm glad you think so ^-^ There's still a looooot of work to be done on it before it's complete, so what was in Manly's video is just a tiny snippet of what's to come :3
Sorry to hear about the situation with your family >.< I never have any money, so I know how much it sucks! You're welcome to have a key if you let me know the best place to send it to you :3
Finally watched the video on this game, and I absolutely fell in love with the characters (Castor/Castoria)! The writing was amazing! The neat little touches depending on what choice you made (bad or good); Like the tiddle on the I changing from a squiggle to a skull if you made a bad choice and their eyes going from clear to cloudy and vice versa depending on said choice! Sad I can't play this myself as I'm too late to the party, as usual lol, so I missed out on both the free price and the community give away. It's such a beautiful VN and I would love to play it for myself!
Sorry for my slow reply >.< I'm super busy at the moment working on a project for Spooktober VN Jam and the deadline for submission is very soon. I managed to miss your comment notification!
I'm glad you think it looks decent :3 You're welcome to have a key if you wanna let me know the best way to contact you!
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you with the key >.< I just dropped you a message on Twitter now! Like I said there, I was just super overwhelmed trying to finish up my Spooktober VN Jam game in time for the deadline x3 haha. You should have the key now though!
i bought this game around 2 months (or more) ago when i saw manly's video, and i only got around to finish it recently since i've been so busy :'(
this is gorgeous !! the voice acting, the art, and the story -- i loved every bit of it !! i actually played the full version so i went through the suggestive scene and the bloody scene, but that didn't make me love castor any less :') he's beautiful (both him and castoria) and i silently cried when the player said 'you're not my type' because castor is my type :'))
i'm getting sidetracked but i just wanted to say that i absolutely adore this game so much, it's amazing in every way <3
I know the feeling x3 My brother bought me the 2nd game in the Dark Pictures Anthology for my birthday back at the start of 2021 and despite being super eager to play it, I still haven't even taken it out of the plastic wrap because I've been so busy with other things >.< haha. I'm hoping to take a little bit of a break from my projects in October so I can actually play some stuff!
Thanks so much for supporting the game anyhow :3 I'm so glad you've enjoyed what there is of it so far!
Yeeeeah, I have a soft spot for Castor x3 Even when I know what he's capable of, Kevin's voice acting just makes me want to forgive him instantly and just pet him like a little puppy xD It's not his fault... he's just doing what he was made to do >.<
I really appreciate you taking the time to comment anyhow! I'm working on a project for Spooktober VN jam right now, but once that's over, I'll be focusing on getting the next episode of DD released :3
Hello! Found your game through Manly, and immediately bought myself a copy ^^ I absolutely adore this game so far, and the voice acting is wonderful!
I just wanted to ask if it's possible to download the character sprites/references, as I've been wanting to make fanarts to show my appreciation, but I can't see their full body Q_Q. I don't mind paying extra to show support for the game!
Hey hey! Thanks so much for the support and I'm glad to hear you enjoyed what there is of the game so far :3
I don't know if this will be much help, but I put this together to try and show the full body versions! Fanart would be so cool to see ^-^ They come out pretty small here, but you should be able to download them in full size.
Hello. I have a question. Is this game available on any other website other than itch.io? I ask because I had been intending to purchase it and then promptly realized that the site doesn't support Paysafe cards.
Hey there! Thanks for your question. Sadly, not at the moment. I'd love to have it on Steam, but that $100 fee to add a game there is a killer if you're a penniless dev like me >.< I'll get it on there at some point when it's closer to being completed, but while it's in development still I was just going to keep it here on itch since it's free to upload. Was there anywhere else in particular that you had in mind for it to be hosted? I can probably upload it elsewhere provided it's free to upload.
Sorry for the hassle >.< You're not the only one to run into a problem like that with itch's available payment methods :( And thank you for your interest in the game :3
I sadly, have no idea. I'd say Game Jolt, but it appears that it doesn't accept Paysafe cards either. Unfortunate. Hmm. What are your opinions on the Roblox site?
In any case, it appears I'll have to wait for the full release or just ask for a community copy. Either way I'm sure it'll be well worth the wait.
i was so late for community free copy and i watched video on channel ManlyBadass Hero, and i really liked this game. I like the story, characters, ambience and other things.
I wish you more succses in the future with this game! ^_^
I'm so glad you liked what you saw from Manly's playthrough :3 If not for the video, the game would still be largely unknown because it didn't have many views or downloads outside of the jam until Manly's video, haha.
You're welcome to have a key if you want one. Just let me know where is best to send it :3
Thank you for your kind words. They're much appreciated!
No problem :3 If you let me know your email address then I can send you the key. If you don't want to write it publically, you're welcome to DM it to me on Twitter if you like: @Marionette_Mask
and im sorry for late reply because i got some problems in my family and i got on COVID-19 test positive and its not big its small type and i would really like to play that game.
Hi, I came across your game from watching Manlybadasshero and just wanted to say that your writing is awesome * ^ * I've seen plenty of stories and how they depict and write the yandere character. But something about yours just feels more appealing. like, the way they act and speak, they feel more realistic. Actually made me fall for Castoria's character. Way more appealing than the usual "I want to kill you because I love you" cliche, at least for me anyway.
You definitely deserve more support and I look forward to any future projects written by you. I wish you all the best!
Aww, that's so sweet of you to say! Thank you so much :3 I don't really have confidence in anything I do, haha. But it means a lot to me to hear such kind words ^-^
I'm glad you enjoy the way I wrote her. Part of the reason I got into making VNs in the first place is because I'm a huge fan of yandere characters in general, and I just wanted to add more to the world, haha. My main goal was to add more English speaking male yandere characters because there don't seem to be that many of them in existence x3 but I enjoy making female counterparts too!
I'll be releasing the BxG version of my otome jam game, Apartment No.9 very soon + at the end of September, provided things go smoothly, I'll have another free game out for Spooktober jam. Once that's finished, I'll be spending more time working on the next episode of DD :3
Hi! I normally do not do this, but after reading what this VN is and has to offer has me EXCITED. I adore VN's with this type of storyline, where the player themselves is apart of it. I've been browsing for something new and that's how I came across this (I haven't seen MBH's play of it yet, glad I haven't though cause now I want to play it myself and be surprised!) I would greatly appreciate if I get could a free copy as I currently do not have the funds, but with what I've read so far, I certainly want to support this project! The artwork is lovely and the characters have already gotten my attention. If you cannot send a copy, that's alright! I'll definitely buy the game when I'm able and look forward to the story! Keep up the lovely work :)
Hey hey! Sorry for my slow reply >.< I was out walking for much of the weekend and I didn't get much chance to go on my PC.
I'm glad you like the look of it anyhow :3 You're welcome to have a key! Just let me know where is best to send it to you and I'll get one sent as fast as I can.
I've played through one of the endings, and I definitely enjoyed it! I'm going to make sure I get all the endings for the game. Thank you so much for allowing me to play the game, I truly appreciate it.
Hi, I sent an email about the community copies, and was wondering how long it would take for an answer. (I was just writing this because I didn't know if you saw it or not)
Hey! Sorry my reply is a bit slow >.< I've not been at my PC all day as I'm ill at the moment. Just read your email though and will send the key shortly :3
You're welcome to drop me an email to: melancholicmarionette@gmail.com I don't mind giving keys to anyone that can't afford to support with donations cos I know how much it sucks to not have money since that's the story of my life x3 This is more like a taster. The full game is still in development :3
I'm really glad that I stumbled upon this game, it's so well written and I just love Castoria! I'm really excited to see how the next episodes go too! Keep up the amazing work! I'm cheering you on!
I'm glad you think so :3 Thanks for the support! It's much appreciated. With any luck, I'll be able to manage to get another episode out before the end of the year.
That's great it comes across that way! I'm glad you think it does :3 I still have a fair bit of work to do on the UI, especially with making it adapt better to other resolutions because right now, it just refuses to do that and I don't really know why because I'm not very clued up on how to get the codey stuff behind it functioning the way I want it to >.< But I'll most likely be keeping the current look with a few additional tweaks here and there.
I'm not an artist so I find it super hard to design UI that I'm actually happy with x3 This one is probably the one I've put the most effort into so far though and it's growing on me!
I'm glad you think so :3 Right now I don't have any plans for subs just because I'm going through a lot of crappy personal stuff and I don't have much time and energy to spend on my projects in general, so any work I do get done will be towards making new content. However, at some point in the future, I would absolutely love to have the game available with subs in as many languages as possible :D
I'm glad you found it to be your cup of tea :D With any luck, I'll manage to get at least one more episode out before the end of this year (I'm hoping 2-3 more, but that might be pushing it!) I'm going through a pretty rough patch at the moment, so it's difficult to really put a timescale on things, but yeah, hopefully, it won't be too long before I can put something out :3 Thanks so much for your comment!
This game is amazing the art style is amazing and this game actually has very good voice acting which is very cool.This game clearly shows the amount of passion that went into this game. It even has nice Easter eggs like when Castoria's 'i' first had a diamond as a dot then when you progress you either get a skull or a spiral depending on your choice which is very cool. Please keep up with these amazing idea and I have no doubt this game will blow up in popularity so for me this game is a 5/5 as of right now. Keep up the good work
I'm glad you like it :3 The UI still needs a lot of work so it's probably gonna be several updates before I get the final look nailed down, but I'll get there in the end, haha. I just hope that as I eventually get each update out, it will manage to stay fun :D
Luckily this was cheap, because this just wasn't for me. A big thing was the ambiguousness of the descriptions. I don't enjoy playing as female characters, so lacking description kills part of the fun for me.
Thanks for your honesty and feedback :3 It helps with the game's future development.
I know what you mean because I can't get into games as much if the only option for me is to play as a male character. It just sorta kills the immersion. This small taster was made for a game jam though, so I didn't really have time to do much in terms of giving players pronoun choices and writing multiple versions of scenes. I figured the easiest way to go for maximum self-insertability within the jam timeframe was to leave MC without a specified gender and allow players to make MC whoever they wanted MC to be.
The game is still in development anyhow :3 I've not yet settled on whether to keep with things being ambiguous, or add pronoun choices and varying versions of certain scenes that do reference different genders.
Saw your game via YouTube's ManlyBadassHero. I'm buying the Full Version plus an extra 2 dollars, because Manly didn't risk showing the 'suggestive' parts on YouTube and for support in hopes you succeed with this project. I'd give more but i just don't make enough to give more sadly. I like what I saw so far, I'll be trying both male and female routes, looks great~<3
Edit: Okay I see why that part wasn't shown on YouTube, still for the sake of clarification, I sorta realized after the fact I may have implied something with how I worded this post, and I didn't mean anything suggestive by my wording. I simply wanted to see the whole thing, and now that I have, I gotta say, I can't wait to see where this goes!
More than willing to pay a couple dollars (or more) per update or however its done! Might even be willing to pay a couple dollars a month depending how I'm doing money wise if there is a thing for that! Let me know if there is anything like that? This looks promising~! <3
Ahh, yeah, I saw that in his vid, haha. It's really not all that suggestive, but I totally get why he wouldn't wanna risk it x3
Thank you very much for the support :3 Don't worry about it anyhow because any amount really helps me a lot in bringing the game to life! It might take a while since I'm working on it alone, but I'll get there in the end :D With any luck, by the time I eventually finish it completely, there should be a hell of a lot of content. And thanks to everyone's combined support so far, at least 1 more episode will get to be fully voiced, which is incredible. I never expected to receive that kind of support in a million years :3
So yeah, thank you very much for supporting the game and taking the time to leave a comment ^-^
I'm so glad that you enjoyed it :D Thanks so much for your support! I'm hoping to add much, much more content to DD for Castor & Castoria, but I also have plans to add quite a few more characters to the game as well :3
Provided I can get my game jam head on when the time comes, I'll be attempting to create something during September for Spooktober VN jam which will be a free release at the end of September!
I can't thank you enough for your kind words in comments and ratings/reviews :3 I got a really angry 1* review on Apartment No.9 today that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. As though the person writing it had neglected to read about the game on the page before playing it, and also somehow managed to miss the fact that I personally suffer with mental health problems. It's so easy for one person's negativity to sort of knock you back when you already have very little confidence in yourself, so it means the world to me when I read the lovely things that anyone has written. It helps to lift my spirits immensely. So again, thank you ^-^
Holy shit, the game seems incredibly polished and professional, especially with the voice acting in addition to other minor details, such as the skull/spiral appearing on the I in Castoria's name or her very accurate facial expressions.
That the game will be updated with some more content too is great news indeed - and I have no doubt I'll enjoy watching Lets Plays of this game on YouTube.
I'm sad I didn't find this sooner when it was released to get the free version. I would love to support this game, however, I have no money :/
That's awesome to hear that you think so :D It's the first thing I made when I switched to using Naninovel in Unity instead of Tyranobuilder, so I'm still sorta learning the ropes as I go. The UI still needs a lot of work overall, but it'll get there eventually, haha. Thanks to the support I've had so far, it looks like at least one more episode will be able to be fully voiced :3
You can still have a key for the game if you want to drop me an email to melancholicmarionette@gmail.com
I just can't refill the community copies anymore is all.
Thank you for the luck and kind words, I will certainly need it with all that I have planned for the game :3
Thanks so much for playing through all of those and supporting my projects :D And for taking the time to leave a comment too :3 Much appreciated! I'm really glad you had fun with them. I sure had a lot of fun making them, and yeah, that glitch scene took me quite a while to put together x3 Editing the audio from the voice actors alone took a few days, haha. It was super fun to create though!
I hope I can remake SR someday because there's a lot about it that I'm not too happy with (including large chunks of my early writing, haha) + content that I'd love to add in order to flesh out the game a bit more. I need to finish the BxG version before I remake the otome one though, haha. And work on DD too :3
I found this game from playthroughs on youtube and loved it so I had to buy it for myself! I have to ask simply out of curiosity though: Was this series inspired by Period Cube: Shackles of Amadeus or Dot Kareshi: We're 8bit Lovers? They're both otome games set in video game settings.
In Period Cube out of all the LIs there's an NPC that becomes sentient and turns out to be a yandere! With Dot Kareshi, all the LIs are NPCs turned sentient <3 I only ask this because of my love for those series and this game and I saw some similarities. I can't wait to support more of your work in the future!
Woo :D Well, thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment + for your support :3 It's very much appreciated!
The main inspiration for the game as a whole came from a mixture of my love for yandere characters in general + some Japanese drama CDs that I've listened to in the past where they have a white side and a black side to the CD. The white side contains the character speaking to you in sweet scenarios and is full of fluff, whereas the black side is where things tend to get a little bit psycho x3 I really wanted to try my hand at making my own series of characters who each have a white side and a black side, haha. Which is where the sweet & sinister bit comes from.
As for Castor & Castoria specifically, the biggest inspiration between them was the track that I use in Winter Wish when creepy shenanigans are about to happen, haha. I bought a music pack to use in my projects in general, and the moment I heard that track, it just sparked a character and story in my head. I decided to call the track “Glitch in the System” for the purpose of the game, but I'm not sure what the original Japanese name of the track translates to because the Japanese language pack on my PC broke at the time and just displayed nonsense characters >.< I'll have to go look at some point though!
However, I do love both Period Cube + Dot Kareshi! Heck, I'd go as far as to say that the Dot Kareshi series might be one of my favourite otome games of all time even though it's pretty casual in terms of story :D So, it's entirely possible that either or both of those games influenced me subconsciously, haha. I also did a 'gamer' route in my first game (Solipsism Reigns) and that route was inspired by stuff like .hack and SAO, so I wanted to expand on that a little, but instead of making it about an MMO to have it be about a visual novel :3
Thank you again for the support :3 I'm very excited to bring more of Castor & Castoria's story to life as well as introduce some of the other characters that I have planned for the future of DD ^-^
I'm glad you like the look of it :D I can send you a download key if you let me know where to contact you. Or you can just drop me a message: melancholicmarionette@gmail.com
It's more like a donation to help fund the rest of the project than a purchase because there's lots more content to come, but hiring voice actors and such is very expensive, so that's why it didn't stay free after the new year :3
I think I typed the name in right and managed to find you on twitter, but it shows as you having dms switched off x3 I'm still very new to how twitter works, haha. I guess I can just tweet it to you. Let me know if you got it okay cos I guess it's possible for anyone who happens to see the tweet to use the key if they want to, haha.
Hello, I am a Mac user and I've been experiencing problems with the game. It is not an opening problem, the game opens fine. Instead, the game seems to freeze completely before the title screen even comes up, leaving me with only a blank gray screen. The loading symbol does show up, but it's only there for a second before it disappears. I really don't know what issue the game or my computer is having, since this is honestly the first time this has ever happened. Usually the only problems I experience with Mac is the opening part, but it's opening fine so I'm just so confused. :(
I did take a look at your Mac helping post, but that mostly mentioned just opening the game and not a problem like this sooo....if there's anyone that can help, much appreciated!
Hey hey. Really sorry to hear that you're having that problem with the Mac version. If you have a look at the most recent comment on the thread about getting the game to open on Mac, it seems as though that person is having the same issue. I responded to them a little earlier with something to try, but I don't think it's going to work. Still, feel free to read through my reply there to the person with the username 'Catherine' because I've gone into more detail there.
Since both of you have managed to get the game to launch, it seems to be a problem with Naninovel rather than with Unity. Likely a Nani initialisation issue. I browsed the Nani support channel on Discord to see if any other devs have encountered this problem with Mac builds. I found a few people mentioning it. One was back in 2020, and another was in February this year. However, I could not see any solution posted >.< I have sent a private message to one of the devs who was asking about the issue and how to fix it to see if I can try and find out from them if they ever managed to fix the problem for their game. I have no idea if they will reply to me or not though.
I can also try asking in support myself to see if I get a response from the software dev or any other users who may have run into the issue.
I wish I had a Mac myself so that I could test stuff easier, but without one, it makes it really hard to try and fix any issues that arise with Mac. I don't understand why on earth Macs are so dodgy for getting stuff to run on them >.< It seems like any Mac build I make on Unity only has a 50/50 chance of working.
What version of MacOS are you using? Catherine said they're using Mojave 10.14.6. I just thought I'd ask because if I post in support, the software dev might need to know in order to try and help figure out what the problem is.
Anyways, if it looks like it's not going to be possible to fix, please don't hesitate to contact itch for a refund. If too many people are having this problem and no one can help me to figure out how to fix it, I might just have to scrap the Mac version entirely :(
Sorry for the trouble and I hope you have a good weekend despite this :3
Thank you so much for working so hard to get the problem solved! I'm happy to know it's not a problem with my computer at least. I'm probably not going to ask for a refund, just think of it as a donation for such a cool looking game. My MacOS is Big Sur 11.2.2
Funny name right? Anyways hope you have a good weekend too!
No worries :3 I would really love to get to the bottom of this cos as a dev, it's super frustrating to put so much hard work into a game only to find that some people can't actually play it because of technical problems >.< haha. I really thought that switching from Tyranobuilder to Naninovel would solve all the issues I was having in the past with getting Mac builds to work consistently, but it seems not T_T
Well, thank you very much for supporting the game :3 I really appreciate it a lot! And thanks for that info as well. I will make sure to include it when I make my support request. It is a pretty funny name, yeah x3
Also, I don't know if you saw my second reply to Catherine, but I'll ask you if you could try the same thing as well. Would you be able to download the DD music box for Mac and see if that has the same problem? I only ask this to both of you because it seems like this is a Naninovel problem, and the music box was made in the most recent version of Nani from 2021. Whereas DD Winter Wish was made in an older 2020 build of Nani. I was just wondering if maybe it's a problem with the older version of Nani that has since been fixed by the software dev.
If the same issue still happens with the music box though, then that's extra information I can add to my support request. That the version of Nani hasn't made a difference.
However, if by some miracle the music box does work, it means I can get Winter Wish working by updating the version of Nani that it's currently on! That may take a while though because I've heard that updating Nani to a new version can cause your custom UI to mess up so you have to make it all over again >.<
I've got to go help my dad with some stuff now so I'm not sure when I'll next be able to check back for any responses from you, but I will definitely be able to check sometime before the end of the day.
Hey! Sorry to ping you again with another reply >.< I just wanted to let you know in case you hadn't seen, that Catherine managed to get the game working on Mac. I'll copy/paste what was written so you can see if it works for you, but it's possible it might not because you two are using different versions of macOS I think. Fingers crossed though :3
Yes! It's working! I downloaded the black screen fix and the game opened fine and is running smoothly! I'm very excited, sorry for all the exclamation marks. And sorry again for the late response...I only have time on weekends >.<
Btw, I don't know what difference this makes but I now have the macos Catalina 10.15.7
Huzzah!! That is awesome news :D Phew! I'm so glad to hear that it worked in the end :3 No need to apologise anyhow x3 Thanks for letting me know!
Honestly, I have no idea if it makes any difference either, haha, but I will note it down for future reference because I'm sure there will be more struggles with mac in the future x3
I just finished Castor’s sweet route after getting free copy, thank you so much!
Castor is a sweetheart, I would love to see more of him... I’m still kinda scared to play sinister route though aha- I feel annoyed at the ‘MC’ sometimes for being mean but I feel called out too because sometimes there’s just that one character you don’t really like but gotta play to get all endings.. ahahahah please don’t became reality and kill me irl ^^”
On another note, gosh I feel genuinely scared of Castor like... especially the glitch scene, it was so creepy.... and my laptop turned off at that moment too so extra creepiness😳
Thank you so much for making this game, and your other games too that turns out I’ve played before hahah, you’re truly good at making yanderes. I’ll try my best to support you so that I can finally see the full game<3 Best of luck!
Awesome! I'm glad you had fun with it :D There's definitely more to come from Castor :3 More sweet, and more sinister, of course, haha. The sinister ending of this first episode isn't toooo bad, but it does kinda set up for the continuation of that path in his route, so things go even more downhill from there xD Neither ending is technically the final ending for his route though, just the sorta point at which you branch off in different directions with him. I figured that was a decent-ish place to leave it for the jam though with the deadline looming, haha. Otherwise, it would've likely cut off in a weird place if I tried to add more at the time.
Yeeeah, MC can be pretty abrasive x3 I did kinda want them to be a bit of a shit-stirrer for shenanigans purposes, but I do hope to add more conversation options as I expand the game in order to give better personality preferences and aligning responses when interacting with the characters. Now that you mention being called out though, I remember listening to a drama CD around the time I wrote this episode, and it was one that made me feel so called out I had to pause the audio and sit there with my face like this O.O It was regarding a completely different topic, but maybe it had a subconscious impact on my writing at the time, haha.
Oh, man, that's crazy that your laptop turned off during that glitch scene! If that were me I might have pooped myself T_T That is incredibly bad (or good, depending on how freaked out you like to be xD) timing!
Thank you so much for playing and taking the time to leave such a lovely comment :3 I'm glad you think so! I do love me some yandere goodness, haha. Thank you for your support <3 It means a lot ^-^
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Hello,
Just finished playing your game with Castoria. I just have to say I honestly loved it! I was highly impressed with the voice acting and how you did the sprites for the characters. The writing was really good. I also enjoyed how Castoria and the Protag both had interesting personalities. As others have said in the comments, the Protag not being in a blank state and a bit sassy was rather fun plus refreshing to see.
I played the full game and wasn't expecting that final scene at the end. But it turned out to be rather lovely with its resolution. I haven't played the Sinister "route" (would it be called a route?) yet, but the Sweet "route" has me wanting some more! I know you are a rather busy person, but do you have an estimate of when is the next release? If not that's okay! Just keep doing the great work you are doing here! You have definitely made a fan out of me! :D
P.S. Also looking forward, Solipsism Reigns BxG Version whenever it comes out.
Thanks so much for supporting the project and leaving a comment! It's much appreciated ^-^ Glad you enjoyed your time with Castoria even if there's not all that much content there yet!
I've become a little bit obsessed with having a crazy amount of expression changes for sprites in my VNs, haha. I think because I wish I could use Live2D but don't possess the skills, so instead, I try my best to use lots of expression changes and other forms of movement to make scenes look more animated.
I guess once the game is more complete, you could consider the sweet and sinister options to be routes, yeah :3 Cos the 'endings' from the current version are actually more like the end of Castor/ia's 1st episode going by my outline. So in a more completed version, it's more like you're sort of locked in to the sweet or sinister route at that point. Though, there will also be more that goes towards deciding which route you end up on eventually because there will be more choices to make.
My plan was to have an update out in time for Christmas this year that introduces the next character while also adding more content for Castor/ia since it will have been a full year since I released the first part for the jam. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to manage that after all >.< I'm still in the writing stage for the next part, and struggling to concentrate on it. I've got a lot going on in my personal life at the moment, and my routine has kinda gone out of the window :( I've had a lot of appointments to be up early for, which means lots of early nights to bed. The problem is, almost everything I've written has been done so during the night! I don't know why, but I can just focus a lot better on writing when I do it during the night, and I'm not getting the opportunity to do that at the moment >.<
It doesn't help that I haven't worked on the project in such a long time because I was working on a few other jam projects throughout the year. DD is my main focus now though :3 Even if I can't get the next part out in time for Christmas, it should at least end up being sometime in winter or early spring, even if it's 2022 rather than 2021.
And there certainly shouldn't be any more year-long gaps in between updates unless things go very wrong in my life! Haha.
The BxG version of SR is a looooong way off though >.<
Thank you so much for your kind words and your support :3
Sorry, for the very late reply! I didn't realize I got a response from you. Curse you spam! That aside, I did notice the expression changes you have in the game and it was very impressive. It is a lot of work but makes the characters more "real". Still good to hear that sweet and sinister will be their "own" routes.
I hope you have been getting better and life is treating you well. Looking forward to the next update no matter when it comes out. Take care of yourself and stay strong!
No worries! Most of my replies have been super duper late recently anyways because I'm just kinda overwhelmed at the moment and shutting down >.< haha.
Take care yourself and I hope you get to have some happy holidays and a wonderful new year ^-^
HI i dont have much constructive to say other than i really really love this project <3 ive replayed it more times than id like to admit....
the way the yandere sides of castor/ia reveal themselves and how the mc isnt just a blank piece of wood but has an actual backbone, especially the mean stuff they say to castor/ia! i know the art isnt yours but i adore how it looks, you picked perfectly! i wish you luck on your future projects and will be supporting you all the way <3
I really appreciate any and all comments on my projects, so thank you very much for playing what's there of the game so far and taking the time to comment :3 I'm so glad you've enjoyed it so far even though there's not much there yet.
I'm happy you like the MC cos they seem to be a bit like marmite xD People either love it or hate it, haha. I just wanted the story to have a protagonist with a bit more sass because they're gonna end up in a lot of dangerous situations, and I don't want them to be the type of MC that just rolls over and lets bad stuff happen to them cos I've played too many VNs with passive protagonists and it annoys me as a player x3 I do plan on adding more options in future updates though, so that the player has a bit more control over how MC reacts because I also understand how frustrating it is to have an MC act in a way that's really opposed to how you want them to.
I'm glad you like the sprites too cos even though I didn't draw them, I did spend a hell of a lot of time on the colours and creating additional expressions for them that didn't come as standard :3
I had hoped to get the next episode of DD out in time for Christmas, but I don't think that's going to happen because I planned for it to both introduce a new character and add to Castor/ia's content, and a lot of life stuff is going on with me right now so I haven't been able to be as productive as I would like >.<
Thank you so much for the support :3
Will there be a full version or is this the complete game?
Thanks for your interest in the project :3 The page isn't particularly tidy at the moment and some of the comments where I answered similar questions to this have been buried >.< haha. I'll have to try and organise the page better when I next update the game!
I'll give you the short(ish) answer, and then I'll also be somewhat lazy and give you the super long answer copy/pasted from something I wrote previously :3
So the short answer is that the game is nowhere near complete right now. What's available is more like a little taster episode for one of many characters :3 I made it during a jam that lasted 1 month, so there's not a huuuuge amount of content there yet. My plan is to have around 10 characters for the full version of the game, with about 3 episodes each. So you could call what's currently released Castor/ia's episode 1 I guess. I'm currently in the process of writing the next character's episode 1 + some additional content for Castor/ia.
The $2 is basically a donation to help fund the project because I have no funding outside of that to pay voice actors, and while I can continue developing the game without putting any money into it if the rest of it goes unvoiced, I feel like voice acting is an important part of the project since it was originally supposed to be an audio drama. I write the scripts in a way that suits voiced better than non-voiced.
Aaaand here's the extra long version if you want it xD
Right now, the project is in a place where I don't even know what an acceptable price would be to charge for the game once it's eventually finished because I don't have experience with releasing commercial games. I kind of never imagined I would ever have the funding available to me to make something to commercial standards. What I do know going by my outlines, drafts, and the like, is that there will be quite a large amount of content by the time the entire thing is finished. Definitely more than $2 worth of content by a long shot.
If you do decide to get Winter Wish, it's more like a donation towards funding the development of the project than a purchase, but I don't think there's any way for me to show it as such here on itch >.< Because WW is quite short and essentially acts as the introductory episode to one character of many.
The biggest challenge in DD's overall development is that it's a project which is pretty reliant on voice acting. Without the VA, it wouldn't have the same flavour I don't think. But VA isn't cheap. For example, after speaking to my friend Anthony (the voice director for Winter Wish) he informed me that to get Castor & Castoria's next episode fully voiced will cost around $800. And me being unemployed means that the only way I can afford to pay the VAs is through supporters donating funds towards the project.
Right now, I'm quite unsure what the best way to proceed is because it's going to cost a lot of money to get each episode for each set of characters voiced. Which means probably asking for some form of money per episode. At the same time, I don't want to piss anyone off who has already donated towards the project >.< because I really appreciate the support and I don't want anyone to feel like their money is being wasted or anything like that.
The other option, of course, is attempting to run a Kickstarter at some point! However, I'm not really sure if enough people would back it when it requires quite a bit of funding. My social anxiety also means I suck at social media and promotion, which isn't exactly a great start to a KS campaign >.< Especially not when the game isn't yet close to completion. So it's a tough situation really.
One of the main reasons I didn't keep working on DD after the jam is because I figured I would never be able to afford to expand it the way I'd like to in a million years because I don't have the money. So I kept it as a side project to work on and continued developing my main project (Clarity in Qualia.) Unfortunately, CiQ hit a brick wall in that I was hoping to run a KS for that in order to fund VA and a CG artist, but there was very little interest in the game when we posted character intro videos on YouTube and stuff. And it's a shame because that one is fully written and if I were to work on just that, I could have the game finished before the end of the year. But I don't know what to do with CiQ when it seems like there aren't many people interested in playing it. So now that I've finished the last couple of jams I wanted to participate in this year (otome jam + Spooktober VN jam) DD is my main project focus.
I'm so sorry for rambling anyhow >.<
What I will say though, is that I hope to always be able to offer free copies of my stuff to anyone who can't afford to support with money because I have been in that position all my life and I know how much it sucks.
TLDR
(I realise that getting funding from various methods could potentially end up quite messy when it comes to issuing discounts and rewards in the end, but I'm not sure how else to deal with funding development right now. I'm willing to go over all donations from all sources manually in order to make sure no one is left out come the full release of the project.)
Thank you for the reply, but may I also know if you happen to accept through gcash or any other services besides what is offered here?
I'm not 100% sure what options itch.io offers because I have my account set for them to just handle all of that on my behalf because I wouldn't have a clue what to do >.< haha.
I have a Ko-fi account and a Patreon as well if they're any help at all :3 The links are on my dev page here: https://melancholy-marionette.itch.io/
I don't think I've heard of gcash before but I can look into it :3 Sorry, I'm not very clued up on that sort of thing >.< haha.
Well,that was a fun game.The story is pretty cool and the voice acting is marvelous,splendid.Im really impressed with your hardwork.
I reached both ending and both of them are satisfying.At first,i was hoping that there is more ending need to be discovered.Hahaha.and as the results,it only have 2 ending which is good actually.The safe version is kinda calming and heart melting,i must say XD.And the second is very intense.Hahahah.
Last but not least,thank you for making this masterpiece art.Cant wait to wait more from you.You've done me proud,dev!Keep up the good work!!
Oh yeah,one more thing,i let my friend play ur game and this his comment:
"Well I'm not going to comment on every part though XD, but the charac-err I mean Castoria is looking gud👉👉 ,ahaha. The voice actor are well done, full of emotion, very "menjiwai".
Hope you can understand the last part :D
Thanks again!!
PS:Love ur character, especially Castoria lol.
Glad you enjoyed it :3 I'm very excited to bring the rest of the game to life! I just wish I could clone myself to make it happen faster, haha. There certainly will be more endings eventually :D Where it cuts off at the moment will be like the end of episode 1 for Castor/ia, and they will probably have about 3 episodes.
Hehe, and I Googled menjiwai so I think I understand :D
Thanks for all of your kind words :3
I want to praise your wonderful work once again! You have created something interesting, and I am impressed with your abilities! You can see how much effort has been invested, and most importantly, it was worth it!
I got a happy ending, and it was nice. Even though the story is short, I felt its completeness. This is perhaps one of the most important factors for calming the mind after completing something.
The way you wrote the text and set up the emotions, ah, during the passage I physically felt good. And then, when I went to bed after reading the novel, moments from the novel still echoed in my head.
I liked the scenes of proximity (both intimate and not so intimate), I was able to catch the empathy of the heroine, and everything that was happening resonated in me. Oh yeah, it was funny when I was playing a game where I was playing a game where a character was saying I should sleep, not play with him. Incredibly high level of care! And such involvement. Awww.
I am delighted with how smoothly you have written everything, both from the point of view of code and from the point of view of graphical moments.
And I want to emphasize once again how great it is that you gave the opportunity to choose a character! I am glad that I can choose a girl or a guy depending on who my heart desires right now.
I like it, thank you for creating this novel. The work is really amazing, I hope that you will continue to enjoy your hobby! It was music for my soul, eyes and ears.
Aww, thank you so much for your kind words and support ^-^ It means a lot! Yeah, I was pretty torn because I wanted to include more, but it wasn't a very long game jam that I originally made it for, so I figured that even though I have a longer story to tell, I needed to try and make it feel like it was a complete story in itself for the purposes of the jam.
As I continue to develop the game, I hope to be able to keep the option to choose which version of each character you want to interact with, along with giving the player some pronoun options for MC as well :3
It makes me happy that you enjoyed it so much <3
Woah,such a nice game.I love how the game turn from normal to horror.Remind me to ddlc lol.What a traumatizing game.Well,i try to buy this game,but the payment method is kinda hard because i dont have credit card :/.I really want to play it.Is there any other way to purchase it?If u have it,that would be great.So i read about the Free Community Copy.What does that means?U know,just to make sure so i dont misunderstood it.Anyway.If u read and reply this comment, thanks.You are very good at making this masterpiece,keep it up.I hope u make a similar game just like this in the future.It's so goddamn good.I wish u will be a successful developer and gain a lot of money from it.Sorry for my bad English,still learning it :/.Oh one one more thing,why don't u post it on steam?It just my idea :D(Greetings from Malaysia)
Right now, itch.io and ko-fi are the only ways to support me, well, and Patreon too but that's different with it being more like a subscription thing. I'd absolutely love to have this and my other projects on Steam someday :3 It's just a bit too expensive right now because the last time I checked, they charge $100 for each game you want to have on there >.< and since I never have much money + this project is nowhere near completed, I'm just not at a point yet where I can afford to put it on there, sadly.
You're welcome to have a key to download what there is of the game so far anyhow :3 Just let me know where the best place to send it is.
Thank you for your interest in the game and your kind words :3 I sure would love to be a successful dev someday, haha. My therapist even said that there's probably not much point in me trying to pursue anything else because my mental health puts me at such a big disadvantage when it comes to 'normal' jobs!
And no need to apologise for your English :D It's good! I can easily understand everything you typed :3
PS. Love the username :D My brother quotes that a lot, haha.
Hopefully u can sell ur game on steam someday :D.Lol ur brother is a memer too?XD.Thanks for liking my username lol.Btw for real?You're going to send a key?Bruh u are too kind,i wish i can repay ur kindness :).U can send it on my Email
pls dont ask why i have too much account,i use it for gaming :/
Anyway,thanks again for making a great game and make my day a lot of better.Recently i through a bad time :/.
last but not least,dont apologize how slow your reply is.I understand how busy you are right now,hahahaha.anywayThanks again :D.Stay safe!
Well, our whole family wind up using a lot of movie quotes in our daily lives, haha.
I just sent the key to the first address that you listed :3 So feel free to delete your emails now by editing your comment if you like!
That sucks you've not had such a good time recently :( I hope that better times are ahead for you and that you're okay.
You stay safe too and have a happy week :3
Thanks mate!
Good day! While browsing the Internet in search of visual novels about yandere, I was brought to your abode. I saw how you edited the sprites, making them unique. It is also very impressive that you have called voice actors, and also the possibility of choosing the gender of our love interest! I admire and really want to support your creativity, but my electronic card is not supported. So I feel a little guilty in front of you, but I really want to play. So I would like to ask, are you still sharing the keys of your game? Even if not, thank you for taking the time to read the text! You have wonderful ideas and wonderful implementation, it's cool that creating wonderful things makes you feel better! With love, from me.
Hey hey! Yeah, I certainly have a soft spot for yandere types, haha. Unfortunately, you're not the first person who can't use their preferred payment method through it, which is a shame. I didn't even realise until recently that they didn't accept certain types of payments and stuff.
You're welcome to have a key anyhow :3 Just let me know where the best place to send it is!
Thanks for all your kind words and for your interest in the project :3
Thanks for the answer! Perhaps a good solution would be kiwi, despite the commission, this wallet is easier to get than the others required for payment. It may be worth considering other options. The work should be evaluated, because even if you create a project only on the strength of your love, it would be nice to get a monetary reward for it.
I really understand your passion for yandere, huh, it's really nice for me to find like-minded people, and even more so to communicate with content creators. I feel like I'm talking to a star, so I'm very happy~
You can give me your blessing
Once again, I am very grateful that you are ready to share your creation!
I'll have to look into that then :3
Hehe, yeah, I'm pretty much just a crazy lady who likes crazy characters :D
I just sent the key, so feel free to edit your comment to remove your email :3
You not only love them (they love you too), but also find an outlet in them, your quiet place. It's wonderful when hobbies help to alleviate mental problems at least a little.
I sincerely hope that your therapist helps you, and that content creation also helps you!
Thanks you! I am immensely grateful that you gave me the love I am looking for! I'm going to give some of my love to the beautiful creations that you created!
That was really fun! wish it was longer, Castor was scary but I dug it lol, hope you make similar games like this in the future!
I'm glad you enjoyed it :D And your wish will come true because it will be longer at some point :3 The game is still in early development ^-^ So not only will Castor and Castoria have longer stories (what is available now is just their episode 1) there will also be other characters in the future too! It's just going to take me a while to make it all since I have a lot of content planned and I'm working alone, haha.
Thanks so much for the support :3
shoot i cant afford it :(
I wish had a dollars money
This is actually a good VN :((
Sorry my reply is so slow >.< I'm busy irl for most of October, so I haven't been on my PC that much recently >.< Anyways, you're welcome to have a key if you wanna let me know where the best place to send it is :3
Heya!
Are you the artist of the character sprites or did you hire someone to make some custom ones for your game? If yes, then I think someone ripped your Castoria sprite (and did some edits to it) from your game and used it for their own game they are about to release on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1712900/Other_peoples_fiancee_became_my_woman...
Thanks so much for taking the time to let me know about that :3 I really appreciate it!
In this instance, that person hasn't done anything wrong because I'm not the original artist for the sprites. They come from an asset pack sold by a Japanese artist called sasAichi, and once you've purchased the pack, you're allowed to do whatever you like with the sprites.
What this person has done is just take the original sprite directly from the asset pack and use it without making any edits to the original version. Whereas I always like to edit any assets I've purchased where possible, just so that they don't end up looking exactly like other people's if they get used in other projects x3
I just used GIMP to edit all of the colours to something different and more fitting with my project :3
This is a little VS thing I made a while back when someone on Twitter asked me about the sprites and the artist who created them. It just shows the difference between my edits and the original unedited version. It's great that you picked up on that and took the time to comment though because if it were theft of some sort, I think any dev out there would really appreciate being alerted to it in order to try and do something about it. Thank you again :3
Thanks for letting me know that it was an asset pack, because you never know.
I haven't reported the game or the dev in case you are wondering. That's why I asked you in the first just to make sure and to let you know. It's just that art/asset theft isn't so uncommon amongst indie dev crowd. Saw this happen often enough when Steam Greenlight was a thing. So I'm always supper sceptical.
Anyway, thank you for the detailed answer. Hope you have a good day, dear dev.
Yeah, it's better to be safe. It would absolutely suck to find out someone else was profiting from your hard work >.< I'd be pretty devastated if it happened to me, so absolutely appreciate any heads up :3
That sucks that it's something that happened often with Steam Greenlight >.<
It's not quite the same thing, but I've occasionally come across commercial games on Steam where I recognise the sprite assets because they're ones I've downloaded myself, and realised, hang on a minute... the terms of use for those assets state that they're for personal/free use only, and commercial use is prohibited >.< I'm guessing the devs think that because the assets are from Japanese artists, they'll never find out, so they can do whatever they like.
The first time this happened, I contacted Steam about it, but they weren't interested in what I had to say, even though I provided direct links to the assets and their terms of use >.< So I just gave up!
Hope you have a brilliant day too :3
Hi, sorry to bother you.(⌒_⌒;) I really want to play your game, but for some reason I can't buy it. I tried to buy it twice, but nothing happens after entering the card details. Do I have to wait, or does this system simply not support bank cards of my country? ((Greetings from Russia(￣ω￣)/) Is there any other way to purchase this visual novel? ଘ(੭ˊ꒳ˋ)੭✧
Hey hey! No worries :3 Thanks for checking out the game and for trying to support the project ^-^
Hmm, I'm not 100% sure how the payment system works on itch >.< I know that one or two people before have said that they've had problems with payment methods though! You're welcome to try on ko-fi instead: https://ko-fi.com/melancholymarionette
But either way, I can send you a download key if you let me know where the best place to send it would be :3
Hope you are having a good day!
ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ
Thank you for responding. But it looks likeCoffeeis not an option: on it, the minimum donation amount exceeds what I can give ( ლ(¯ロ¯"ლ)I am very grateful to you for your responsiveness, thank you for sharing your creativity even selflessly! I hope sooner or later I will be able to repay you
( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡
ヽ(>∀<☆)ノ
__φ(．．) My mail: olga20151977@gmail.com
Sorry about my super slow reply >.< I just sent the key now :3
I would love to buy this game but where I lived don't use any currency that is avalable in itch.io.So are you going to upload this on Steam If yes, I will be sure to buy this game.If No then it's okay I understand.Well It looks like I am demanding or something ,But I am not😅
I would love to be able to put the game on Steam at some point for sure :3 But that's quite a long way off, unfortunately >.< Cos the game is nowhere near finished. The £100 fee for adding a game to Steam doesn't help! If not for that, I would have all my games on there, but I just can't afford that kinda money >.<
You're welcome to have a key for itch though if you wanna let me know where is best to send it to :3
It's Okay I understand:3 Just don't over work yourself stay safe ;)
hows it going?
Hey! Well, for DD specifically it's currently going nowhere just because I'm focusing 100% on Spooktober VN Jam x3 And for me personally, I'm exhausted xD I don't work very healthily when it comes to game jams, so I've been doing 15+ hour days this last week or two in an effort to try and get everything for the Spooktober Jam project finished in time for the October 1st deadline >.<
I was hoping to get a little more writing done for DD before the jam began in September, alongside releasing the BxG version of Apartment No.9 before the end of August. I managed to get A9 out, but I didn't get any solid writing done on DD. I managed to expand on some of the route outlines, but that was about it.
August was just a crappy month for me in general though because I got a new diagnosis of bipolar and was put on this new medication that had horrendous side effects for the first couple of weeks >.< I felt more physically ill than any time in my life where I've actually had a cold or food poisoning and stuff. My therapist did warn me it would be a rough ride xD She said she could start me on a half dose where the side effects would be a little less intense, but that it would take more time to get past them because of having to slowly move to the higher dose. She said if I was willing to put up with the higher dose right away, the worst of it should be gone within a month.
I was starting to get pretty worried that the side effects were gonna stop me from even trying to make something for Spooktober Jam, but thankfully, the worst of it did subside in time for me to start concepting with my friend!
Since the jam began at the start of September, that's all I've been working on. With how crappy my self-confidence is, it's not often that I'm able to feel genuinely proud of the stuff I've made, but with this project for Spooktober, I can honestly say I'm proud of it :3 I'm working with a small team of friends and I think it's probably going to be my coolest project yet in terms of how beautiful it looks with my friends' combined art + also with the features I've managed to include. It's the most complicated thing I've coded yet and I've learned a lot!
That'll be out for free this Friday, and then I'm going to slow down my work pace for October because I want to play the other games submitted to the jam, but when I am working, DD will be the primary focus :3
I just saw Manly's video, and it was great, The game is great, the voice acting, the story, the characters, overall this is a great game, This game should get more attention😀😁.
Sadly tho, cant afford to get the game, my family is having a hard time at work and i am just here sitting...Although this game is really great(sorry i always said "game")
Aww, I'm glad you think so ^-^ There's still a looooot of work to be done on it before it's complete, so what was in Manly's video is just a tiny snippet of what's to come :3
Sorry to hear about the situation with your family >.< I never have any money, so I know how much it sucks! You're welcome to have a key if you let me know the best place to send it to you :3
Hey again, Sorry for the Late Reply.
I had some problems on life, i had dengue recently.
You can sent it on my gmail😊
dxmatter0@gmail.com
Thank you so much in Advance i cant wait to play this😁
Again sorry for the late reply
No worries! I hope you're okay now :3 I've just sent the key to your email so feel free to edit the comment to remove your address if you want!
Have an awesome week :3
Finally watched the video on this game, and I absolutely fell in love with the characters (Castor/Castoria)! The writing was amazing! The neat little touches depending on what choice you made (bad or good); Like the tiddle on the I changing from a squiggle to a skull if you made a bad choice and their eyes going from clear to cloudy and vice versa depending on said choice! Sad I can't play this myself as I'm too late to the party, as usual lol, so I missed out on both the free price and the community give away. It's such a beautiful VN and I would love to play it for myself!
Sorry for my slow reply >.< I'm super busy at the moment working on a project for Spooktober VN Jam and the deadline for submission is very soon. I managed to miss your comment notification!
I'm glad you think it looks decent :3 You're welcome to have a key if you wanna let me know the best way to contact you!
You can contact me on my Twitter! @TheRealVoidPelt
Thank you! *hugs* :3
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you with the key >.< I just dropped you a message on Twitter now! Like I said there, I was just super overwhelmed trying to finish up my Spooktober VN Jam game in time for the deadline x3 haha. You should have the key now though!
No no it’s ok! Don’t worry! Like I said, I understand deadlines and all that! I’ve been under plenty myself, and I get overwhelmed all the time!
i bought this game around 2 months (or more) ago when i saw manly's video, and i only got around to finish it recently since i've been so busy :'(
this is gorgeous !! the voice acting, the art, and the story -- i loved every bit of it !! i actually played the full version so i went through the suggestive scene and the bloody scene, but that didn't make me love castor any less :') he's beautiful (both him and castoria) and i silently cried when the player said 'you're not my type' because castor is my type :'))
i'm getting sidetracked but i just wanted to say that i absolutely adore this game so much, it's amazing in every way <3
I know the feeling x3 My brother bought me the 2nd game in the Dark Pictures Anthology for my birthday back at the start of 2021 and despite being super eager to play it, I still haven't even taken it out of the plastic wrap because I've been so busy with other things >.< haha. I'm hoping to take a little bit of a break from my projects in October so I can actually play some stuff!
Thanks so much for supporting the game anyhow :3 I'm so glad you've enjoyed what there is of it so far!
Yeeeeah, I have a soft spot for Castor x3 Even when I know what he's capable of, Kevin's voice acting just makes me want to forgive him instantly and just pet him like a little puppy xD It's not his fault... he's just doing what he was made to do >.<
I really appreciate you taking the time to comment anyhow! I'm working on a project for Spooktober VN jam right now, but once that's over, I'll be focusing on getting the next episode of DD released :3
Must protecc Castor/ia's smiles.
Yaaaarp :3
Hey just bought 2 of your games good luck and keep going, much support from Australia
Aww, thank you so much ^-^ I really appreciate the support!
Hello! Found your game through Manly, and immediately bought myself a copy ^^ I absolutely adore this game so far, and the voice acting is wonderful!
I just wanted to ask if it's possible to download the character sprites/references, as I've been wanting to make fanarts to show my appreciation, but I can't see their full body Q_Q. I don't mind paying extra to show support for the game!
Hey hey! Thanks so much for the support and I'm glad to hear you enjoyed what there is of the game so far :3
I don't know if this will be much help, but I put this together to try and show the full body versions! Fanart would be so cool to see ^-^ They come out pretty small here, but you should be able to download them in full size.
Thank you again!
Hello. I have a question. Is this game available on any other website other than itch.io?
I ask because I had been intending to purchase it and then promptly realized that the site doesn't support Paysafe cards.
Hey there! Thanks for your question. Sadly, not at the moment. I'd love to have it on Steam, but that $100 fee to add a game there is a killer if you're a penniless dev like me >.< I'll get it on there at some point when it's closer to being completed, but while it's in development still I was just going to keep it here on itch since it's free to upload. Was there anywhere else in particular that you had in mind for it to be hosted? I can probably upload it elsewhere provided it's free to upload.
Sorry for the hassle >.< You're not the only one to run into a problem like that with itch's available payment methods :( And thank you for your interest in the game :3
I sadly, have no idea. I'd say Game Jolt, but it appears that it doesn't accept Paysafe cards either. Unfortunate.
Hmm. What are your opinions on the Roblox site?
In any case, it appears I'll have to wait for the full release or just ask for a community copy.
Either way I'm sure it'll be well worth the wait.
You're welcome to have a community copy. Just let me know where to send it :3
Hello dear devs
i was so late for community free copy and i watched video on channel ManlyBadass Hero, and i really liked this game. I like the story, characters, ambience and other things.
I wish you more succses in the future with this game! ^_^
Hey hey!
I'm so glad you liked what you saw from Manly's playthrough :3 If not for the video, the game would still be largely unknown because it didn't have many views or downloads outside of the jam until Manly's video, haha.
You're welcome to have a key if you want one. Just let me know where is best to send it :3
Thank you for your kind words. They're much appreciated!
Thanks for the answer
If you want send it on my email key and i treally want it and i will let you know about the key and about hte game when i finish my playtrough.
^_^
No problem :3 If you let me know your email address then I can send you the key. If you don't want to write it publically, you're welcome to DM it to me on Twitter if you like: @Marionette_Mask
My email is: kljajicbosko95ds@gmail.com
and im sorry for late reply because i got some problems in my family and i got on COVID-19 test positive and its not big its small type and i would really like to play that game.
Again sorry in advance ^_^
No worries :3 I hope you didn't get too ill from it and that you get better soon!
I've just sent the key to you :3
Hi, I came across your game from watching Manlybadasshero and just wanted to say that your writing is awesome * ^ *
I've seen plenty of stories and how they depict and write the yandere character. But something about yours just feels more appealing. like, the way they act and speak, they feel more realistic. Actually made me fall for Castoria's character. Way more appealing than the usual "I want to kill you because I love you" cliche, at least for me anyway.
You definitely deserve more support and I look forward to any future projects written by you. I wish you all the best!
Aww, that's so sweet of you to say! Thank you so much :3 I don't really have confidence in anything I do, haha. But it means a lot to me to hear such kind words ^-^
I'm glad you enjoy the way I wrote her. Part of the reason I got into making VNs in the first place is because I'm a huge fan of yandere characters in general, and I just wanted to add more to the world, haha. My main goal was to add more English speaking male yandere characters because there don't seem to be that many of them in existence x3 but I enjoy making female counterparts too!
I'll be releasing the BxG version of my otome jam game, Apartment No.9 very soon + at the end of September, provided things go smoothly, I'll have another free game out for Spooktober jam. Once that's finished, I'll be spending more time working on the next episode of DD :3
Thank you for your kind words and support ^-^
Hi! I normally do not do this, but after reading what this VN is and has to offer has me EXCITED. I adore VN's with this type of storyline, where the player themselves is apart of it. I've been browsing for something new and that's how I came across this (I haven't seen MBH's play of it yet, glad I haven't though cause now I want to play it myself and be surprised!)
I would greatly appreciate if I get could a free copy as I currently do not have the funds, but with what I've read so far, I certainly want to support this project! The artwork is lovely and the characters have already gotten my attention. If you cannot send a copy, that's alright! I'll definitely buy the game when I'm able and look forward to the story! Keep up the lovely work :)
Hey hey! Sorry for my slow reply >.< I was out walking for much of the weekend and I didn't get much chance to go on my PC.
I'm glad you like the look of it anyhow :3 You're welcome to have a key! Just let me know where is best to send it to you and I'll get one sent as fast as I can.
Thanks for all the kind words ^-^
No worries! And thank you so much! I truly appreciate it!
you can send it to my email:
RoyaleTeaStrnge@Gmail.com
Sent :3
I've played through one of the endings, and I definitely enjoyed it! I'm going to make sure I get all the endings for the game.
Thank you so much for allowing me to play the game, I truly appreciate it.
I'm glad you enjoyed it :3 Thanks for playing and commenting :D
Hi, I sent an email about the community copies, and was wondering how long it would take for an answer. (I was just writing this because I didn't know if you saw it or not)
Hey! Sorry my reply is a bit slow >.< I've not been at my PC all day as I'm ill at the moment. Just read your email though and will send the key shortly :3
I just found this gem, and dang, I'm too late for the free copies :(
You're welcome to drop me an email to: melancholicmarionette@gmail.com
I don't mind giving keys to anyone that can't afford to support with donations cos I know how much it sucks to not have money since that's the story of my life x3 This is more like a taster. The full game is still in development :3
Thanks :)))
Sent :3
I'm really glad that I stumbled upon this game, it's so well written and I just love Castoria! I'm really excited to see how the next episodes go too! Keep up the amazing work! I'm cheering you on!
I'm glad you think so :3 Thanks for the support! It's much appreciated. With any luck, I'll be able to manage to get another episode out before the end of the year.
i love the ui sm tbh it looks so clean and proffesional! this whole game looks professional!
That's great it comes across that way! I'm glad you think it does :3 I still have a fair bit of work to do on the UI, especially with making it adapt better to other resolutions because right now, it just refuses to do that and I don't really know why because I'm not very clued up on how to get the codey stuff behind it functioning the way I want it to >.< But I'll most likely be keeping the current look with a few additional tweaks here and there.
I'm not an artist so I find it super hard to design UI that I'm actually happy with x3 This one is probably the one I've put the most effort into so far though and it's growing on me!
Thats so amazing! make sure you take care of urself, and im looking forward to the finished product. <3
this game seems very cool, do you have any plans for spanish sub? it would be really cool
I'm glad you think so :3 Right now I don't have any plans for subs just because I'm going through a lot of crappy personal stuff and I don't have much time and energy to spend on my projects in general, so any work I do get done will be towards making new content. However, at some point in the future, I would absolutely love to have the game available with subs in as many languages as possible :D
Now this. This is what I like. Hopefully theres more to the story soon!
I'm glad you found it to be your cup of tea :D With any luck, I'll manage to get at least one more episode out before the end of this year (I'm hoping 2-3 more, but that might be pushing it!) I'm going through a pretty rough patch at the moment, so it's difficult to really put a timescale on things, but yeah, hopefully, it won't be too long before I can put something out :3 Thanks so much for your comment!
Wish I could get this but I don't really have any money to spend right now :(
You're welcome to drop me an email and I'll send you a key if you want :3 melancholicmarionette@gmail.com
Thanks! I will probably do that soon.
I got your email and sent a reply :3
I saw! Thanks for the game, It's realy great!
This game is amazing the art style is amazing and this game actually has very good voice acting which is very cool.This game clearly shows the amount of passion that went into this game. It even has nice Easter eggs like when Castoria's 'i' first had a diamond as a dot then when you progress you either get a skull or a spiral depending on your choice which is very cool. Please keep up with these amazing idea and I have no doubt this game will blow up in popularity so for me this game is a 5/5 as of right now. Keep up the good work
I'm glad you like it :3 The UI still needs a lot of work so it's probably gonna be several updates before I get the final look nailed down, but I'll get there in the end, haha. I just hope that as I eventually get each update out, it will manage to stay fun :D
Thank you for your awesomeness :3
Luckily this was cheap, because this just wasn't for me. A big thing was the ambiguousness of the descriptions. I don't enjoy playing as female characters, so lacking description kills part of the fun for me.
Thanks for your honesty and feedback :3 It helps with the game's future development.
I know what you mean because I can't get into games as much if the only option for me is to play as a male character. It just sorta kills the immersion. This small taster was made for a game jam though, so I didn't really have time to do much in terms of giving players pronoun choices and writing multiple versions of scenes. I figured the easiest way to go for maximum self-insertability within the jam timeframe was to leave MC without a specified gender and allow players to make MC whoever they wanted MC to be.
The game is still in development anyhow :3 I've not yet settled on whether to keep with things being ambiguous, or add pronoun choices and varying versions of certain scenes that do reference different genders.
Saw your game via YouTube's ManlyBadassHero. I'm buying the Full Version plus an extra 2 dollars, because Manly didn't risk showing the 'suggestive' parts on YouTube and for support in hopes you succeed with this project. I'd give more but i just don't make enough to give more sadly. I like what I saw so far, I'll be trying both male and female routes, looks great~<3
Edit: Okay I see why that part wasn't shown on YouTube, still for the sake of clarification, I sorta realized after the fact I may have implied something with how I worded this post, and I didn't mean anything suggestive by my wording. I simply wanted to see the whole thing, and now that I have, I gotta say, I can't wait to see where this goes!
More than willing to pay a couple dollars (or more) per update or however its done! Might even be willing to pay a couple dollars a month depending how I'm doing money wise if there is a thing for that! Let me know if there is anything like that? This looks promising~! <3
Ahh, yeah, I saw that in his vid, haha. It's really not all that suggestive, but I totally get why he wouldn't wanna risk it x3
Thank you very much for the support :3 Don't worry about it anyhow because any amount really helps me a lot in bringing the game to life! It might take a while since I'm working on it alone, but I'll get there in the end :D With any luck, by the time I eventually finish it completely, there should be a hell of a lot of content. And thanks to everyone's combined support so far, at least 1 more episode will get to be fully voiced, which is incredible. I never expected to receive that kind of support in a million years :3
So yeah, thank you very much for supporting the game and taking the time to leave a comment ^-^
I just bought this and omg I love it so much!! I can't wait to see what other ideas you have for other games in the future.
I'm so glad that you enjoyed it :D Thanks so much for your support! I'm hoping to add much, much more content to DD for Castor & Castoria, but I also have plans to add quite a few more characters to the game as well :3
Provided I can get my game jam head on when the time comes, I'll be attempting to create something during September for Spooktober VN jam which will be a free release at the end of September!
I can't thank you enough for your kind words in comments and ratings/reviews :3 I got a really angry 1* review on Apartment No.9 today that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. As though the person writing it had neglected to read about the game on the page before playing it, and also somehow managed to miss the fact that I personally suffer with mental health problems. It's so easy for one person's negativity to sort of knock you back when you already have very little confidence in yourself, so it means the world to me when I read the lovely things that anyone has written. It helps to lift my spirits immensely. So again, thank you ^-^
Holy shit, the game seems incredibly polished and professional, especially with the voice acting in addition to other minor details, such as the skull/spiral appearing on the I in Castoria's name or her very accurate facial expressions.
That the game will be updated with some more content too is great news indeed - and I have no doubt I'll enjoy watching Lets Plays of this game on YouTube.
I'm sad I didn't find this sooner when it was released to get the free version. I would love to support this game, however, I have no money :/
That aside, best of luck mate.
That's awesome to hear that you think so :D It's the first thing I made when I switched to using Naninovel in Unity instead of Tyranobuilder, so I'm still sorta learning the ropes as I go. The UI still needs a lot of work overall, but it'll get there eventually, haha. Thanks to the support I've had so far, it looks like at least one more episode will be able to be fully voiced :3
You can still have a key for the game if you want to drop me an email to melancholicmarionette@gmail.com I just can't refill the community copies anymore is all.
Thank you for the luck and kind words, I will certainly need it with all that I have planned for the game :3
I bought this game after playing through your other ones (Solipsism Reigns and Imposter was awesome btw!!) and it was super enjoyable to play!
The glitch scene scared the heck out of me though, not going to lie, aha.
Thanks so much for playing through all of those and supporting my projects :D And for taking the time to leave a comment too :3 Much appreciated! I'm really glad you had fun with them. I sure had a lot of fun making them, and yeah, that glitch scene took me quite a while to put together x3 Editing the audio from the voice actors alone took a few days, haha. It was super fun to create though!
I hope I can remake SR someday because there's a lot about it that I'm not too happy with (including large chunks of my early writing, haha) + content that I'd love to add in order to flesh out the game a bit more. I need to finish the BxG version before I remake the otome one though, haha. And work on DD too :3
I found this game from playthroughs on youtube and loved it so I had to buy it for myself! I have to ask simply out of curiosity though: Was this series inspired by Period Cube: Shackles of Amadeus or Dot Kareshi: We're 8bit Lovers? They're both otome games set in video game settings.
In Period Cube out of all the LIs there's an NPC that becomes sentient and turns out to be a yandere! With Dot Kareshi, all the LIs are NPCs turned sentient <3 I only ask this because of my love for those series and this game and I saw some similarities. I can't wait to support more of your work in the future!
Woo :D Well, thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment + for your support :3 It's very much appreciated!
The main inspiration for the game as a whole came from a mixture of my love for yandere characters in general + some Japanese drama CDs that I've listened to in the past where they have a white side and a black side to the CD. The white side contains the character speaking to you in sweet scenarios and is full of fluff, whereas the black side is where things tend to get a little bit psycho x3 I really wanted to try my hand at making my own series of characters who each have a white side and a black side, haha. Which is where the sweet & sinister bit comes from.
As for Castor & Castoria specifically, the biggest inspiration between them was the track that I use in Winter Wish when creepy shenanigans are about to happen, haha. I bought a music pack to use in my projects in general, and the moment I heard that track, it just sparked a character and story in my head. I decided to call the track “Glitch in the System” for the purpose of the game, but I'm not sure what the original Japanese name of the track translates to because the Japanese language pack on my PC broke at the time and just displayed nonsense characters >.< I'll have to go look at some point though!
However, I do love both Period Cube + Dot Kareshi! Heck, I'd go as far as to say that the Dot Kareshi series might be one of my favourite otome games of all time even though it's pretty casual in terms of story :D So, it's entirely possible that either or both of those games influenced me subconsciously, haha. I also did a 'gamer' route in my first game (Solipsism Reigns) and that route was inspired by stuff like .hack and SAO, so I wanted to expand on that a little, but instead of making it about an MMO to have it be about a visual novel :3
Thank you again for the support :3 I'm very excited to bring more of Castor & Castoria's story to life as well as introduce some of the other characters that I have planned for the future of DD ^-^
PS. I love your username :D
I'm in love with everything in this game.... I wish I had found this game sooner to get the free version（；へ：）
I'm glad you like the look of it :D I can send you a download key if you let me know where to contact you. Or you can just drop me a message: melancholicmarionette@gmail.com
It's more like a donation to help fund the rest of the project than a purchase because there's lots more content to come, but hiring voice actors and such is very expensive, so that's why it didn't stay free after the new year :3
tysm! you can contact me on my twitter! @lirriesl
wish i could help with the donation, hope i can soon ꉂ(ˊᗜˋ*)♡
I think I typed the name in right and managed to find you on twitter, but it shows as you having dms switched off x3 I'm still very new to how twitter works, haha. I guess I can just tweet it to you. Let me know if you got it okay cos I guess it's possible for anyone who happens to see the tweet to use the key if they want to, haha.
Hello, I am a Mac user and I've been experiencing problems with the game. It is not an opening problem, the game opens fine. Instead, the game seems to freeze completely before the title screen even comes up, leaving me with only a blank gray screen. The loading symbol does show up, but it's only there for a second before it disappears. I really don't know what issue the game or my computer is having, since this is honestly the first time this has ever happened. Usually the only problems I experience with Mac is the opening part, but it's opening fine so I'm just so confused. :(
I did take a look at your Mac helping post, but that mostly mentioned just opening the game and not a problem like this sooo....if there's anyone that can help, much appreciated!
Hey hey. Really sorry to hear that you're having that problem with the Mac version. If you have a look at the most recent comment on the thread about getting the game to open on Mac, it seems as though that person is having the same issue. I responded to them a little earlier with something to try, but I don't think it's going to work. Still, feel free to read through my reply there to the person with the username 'Catherine' because I've gone into more detail there.
Since both of you have managed to get the game to launch, it seems to be a problem with Naninovel rather than with Unity. Likely a Nani initialisation issue. I browsed the Nani support channel on Discord to see if any other devs have encountered this problem with Mac builds. I found a few people mentioning it. One was back in 2020, and another was in February this year. However, I could not see any solution posted >.< I have sent a private message to one of the devs who was asking about the issue and how to fix it to see if I can try and find out from them if they ever managed to fix the problem for their game. I have no idea if they will reply to me or not though.
I can also try asking in support myself to see if I get a response from the software dev or any other users who may have run into the issue.
I wish I had a Mac myself so that I could test stuff easier, but without one, it makes it really hard to try and fix any issues that arise with Mac. I don't understand why on earth Macs are so dodgy for getting stuff to run on them >.< It seems like any Mac build I make on Unity only has a 50/50 chance of working.
What version of MacOS are you using? Catherine said they're using Mojave 10.14.6. I just thought I'd ask because if I post in support, the software dev might need to know in order to try and help figure out what the problem is.
Anyways, if it looks like it's not going to be possible to fix, please don't hesitate to contact itch for a refund. If too many people are having this problem and no one can help me to figure out how to fix it, I might just have to scrap the Mac version entirely :(
Sorry for the trouble and I hope you have a good weekend despite this :3
Thank you so much for working so hard to get the problem solved! I'm happy to know it's not a problem with my computer at least. I'm probably not going to ask for a refund, just think of it as a donation for such a cool looking game. My MacOS is Big Sur 11.2.2
Funny name right? Anyways hope you have a good weekend too!
No worries :3 I would really love to get to the bottom of this cos as a dev, it's super frustrating to put so much hard work into a game only to find that some people can't actually play it because of technical problems >.< haha. I really thought that switching from Tyranobuilder to Naninovel would solve all the issues I was having in the past with getting Mac builds to work consistently, but it seems not T_T
Well, thank you very much for supporting the game :3 I really appreciate it a lot! And thanks for that info as well. I will make sure to include it when I make my support request. It is a pretty funny name, yeah x3
Also, I don't know if you saw my second reply to Catherine, but I'll ask you if you could try the same thing as well. Would you be able to download the DD music box for Mac and see if that has the same problem? I only ask this to both of you because it seems like this is a Naninovel problem, and the music box was made in the most recent version of Nani from 2021. Whereas DD Winter Wish was made in an older 2020 build of Nani. I was just wondering if maybe it's a problem with the older version of Nani that has since been fixed by the software dev.
If the same issue still happens with the music box though, then that's extra information I can add to my support request. That the version of Nani hasn't made a difference.
However, if by some miracle the music box does work, it means I can get Winter Wish working by updating the version of Nani that it's currently on! That may take a while though because I've heard that updating Nani to a new version can cause your custom UI to mess up so you have to make it all over again >.<
I've got to go help my dad with some stuff now so I'm not sure when I'll next be able to check back for any responses from you, but I will definitely be able to check sometime before the end of the day.
Thanks again :3
Hey! Sorry to ping you again with another reply >.< I just wanted to let you know in case you hadn't seen, that Catherine managed to get the game working on Mac. I'll copy/paste what was written so you can see if it works for you, but it's possible it might not because you two are using different versions of macOS I think. Fingers crossed though :3
This is what Catherine said:
“So what I did was, I downloaded the Possible Black Screen Fix (Mac) file, did the 'Open Anyways' step, then executed the commands on https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/408752/the-message-you-do-not-have-per...".
I did this too for the normal file previously and it hadn't worked, so I had low expectations, but strangely this time it worked!”
Yes! It's working! I downloaded the black screen fix and the game opened fine and is running smoothly! I'm very excited, sorry for all the exclamation marks. And sorry again for the late response...I only have time on weekends >.<
Btw, I don't know what difference this makes but I now have the macos Catalina 10.15.7
Huzzah!! That is awesome news :D Phew! I'm so glad to hear that it worked in the end :3 No need to apologise anyhow x3 Thanks for letting me know!
Honestly, I have no idea if it makes any difference either, haha, but I will note it down for future reference because I'm sure there will be more struggles with mac in the future x3
I hope you have a super weekend anyhow :3
I just finished Castor’s sweet route after getting free copy, thank you so much!
Castor is a sweetheart, I would love to see more of him... I’m still kinda scared to play sinister route though aha- I feel annoyed at the ‘MC’ sometimes for being mean but I feel called out too because sometimes there’s just that one character you don’t really like but gotta play to get all endings.. ahahahah please don’t became reality and kill me irl ^^”
On another note, gosh I feel genuinely scared of Castor like... especially the glitch scene, it was so creepy.... and my laptop turned off at that moment too so extra creepiness😳
Thank you so much for making this game, and your other games too that turns out I’ve played before hahah, you’re truly good at making yanderes. I’ll try my best to support you so that I can finally see the full game<3 Best of luck!
Awesome! I'm glad you had fun with it :D There's definitely more to come from Castor :3 More sweet, and more sinister, of course, haha. The sinister ending of this first episode isn't toooo bad, but it does kinda set up for the continuation of that path in his route, so things go even more downhill from there xD Neither ending is technically the final ending for his route though, just the sorta point at which you branch off in different directions with him. I figured that was a decent-ish place to leave it for the jam though with the deadline looming, haha. Otherwise, it would've likely cut off in a weird place if I tried to add more at the time.
Yeeeah, MC can be pretty abrasive x3 I did kinda want them to be a bit of a shit-stirrer for shenanigans purposes, but I do hope to add more conversation options as I expand the game in order to give better personality preferences and aligning responses when interacting with the characters. Now that you mention being called out though, I remember listening to a drama CD around the time I wrote this episode, and it was one that made me feel so called out I had to pause the audio and sit there with my face like this O.O It was regarding a completely different topic, but maybe it had a subconscious impact on my writing at the time, haha.
Oh, man, that's crazy that your laptop turned off during that glitch scene! If that were me I might have pooped myself T_T That is incredibly bad (or good, depending on how freaked out you like to be xD) timing!
Thank you so much for playing and taking the time to leave such a lovely comment :3 I'm glad you think so! I do love me some yandere goodness, haha. Thank you for your support <3 It means a lot ^-^