I really enjoyed this. I was able to somewhat sympathize with Saffie, and I fell in love with Snowe (partly because of his masc VA, partly because i'm a huge sucker for dark-skinned males with British accents + demonic/draconic features <3)
I do want to know the artist behind the character sprites! It wasn't listed clearly in the credits, so I'm curious~
So glad to hear you enjoyed the game :3 Thank you so much for checking it out!
Hehe, Snowe is quite the catch x3
Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply >.< I haven’t been on my PC since the very beginning of October cos of some personal problems, but I’ll do my best to answer your question now :3
As far as I can remember, I listed the sprite artists in the credits text document rather than in game just because they’re assets that I purchased to edit and use rather than sprites commissioned by an artist. But I just did some digging, and I can link you to the artists that I bought the original sprites from :3
I just edited the colours of everything using GIMP, haha.
For the lil dragon, it was an artist called otohimenohanagasa, but I can’t find a link for them anywhere now >.<
For Snowe’s spirit form, it was by an artist called Silon, and unfortunately, they appear to have left the platform they sold their stuff on and deleted everything, because my old purchase link for the sprite just takes me to a dead page now :(
I think that covers all the sprites :3 Editing the colours was a lot of time-consuming work cos most of em were just PNG files rather than layered PSDs, so it meant painstakingly selecting areas to alter the colour one section by section x3 Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through the pain of doing that cos it would be so much easier to just use them as they come, haha. I feel like it’s worth the effort though just to make them unique to the project, haha.
Thanks so much for playing it :3 I’m super glad that you enjoyed it! Alongside Bitter/Sweet, it’s one of my more personal projects >.< haha. I generally try to stay away from involving elements of my life and my personal feelings when it comes to making games, but I was just in a place where I needed to get things out of my head, so making this game was very cathartic.
Part of me is happy that you resonated with Saffie, but at the same time, another part of me is sad because I wish no one in the world had to go through the sorts of things she’s been through or feel the things she feels :(
I hope that you at least get to experience things that bring a smile to your face :3
I am doing much better in life now and everything is gradually getting better. my dream life is slowly becoming reality, but i wont ever forget the difficult situations I've had to overcome. I think a part of me will always resonate w/ characters like Saffie as a way to never forget what I've been through and appreciate how far I've come.
Well, that’s brilliant to hear :D I’m so glad things have been getting better for you! I hope they continue to do so.
I think having to endure and get through difficult situations must make us stronger somehow :3
And that’s a really nice way of looking at things. It means you will always have empathy with others who are going through tough times and might even be able to help them a little to keep going :3
I am amazed at the quality of this game. The art? Amazing. The fact that it's fully voiced AND you can choose the gender of your LI? Mindblowing. The narrator a Sapphie's voices both are so nice to listen to, too... The menus are cute and easy to navigate, too. And the story... man, what a story. It resonated with a younger, sadder me and was a book definition of heartwarming. I enjoyed it so much, I know I will replay it more than once, even if I already got all the endings. If you enjoy hurt/comfort and yandere tropes, you definitely should play this one.
Ahh, thank you so much for all your kind words <3 It really means a lot :3 And I’m super glad you enjoyed the game!
I’ve been trying really hard to include the option to pick the LI’s gender in all of my projects for a while now because I feel like it’s just nice to have that extra bit of inclusivity :3 It sort of stems from me being a picky player xD Because years ago, there were lots of games I would think looked cool, but if all the romance options were fem only, or the protagonist was masc only, then I just wouldn’t play because I would rather go find a different game that suits my preferences x3
Sometimes, I do regret having both options because it basically = double the amount of work xD Cutting 2 lots of the same voice lines can be extremely time-consuming, as can testing both versions work correctly >.< And then when it comes to paying VAs, it also means the cost doubles, haha. In the end though, I am always glad that I put in the extra effort to include both :3
It also means the world to me that you would describe the story as a book definition of heartwarming ^-^ It’s extra scary releasing something like this that is more personal. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t extremely worried about how it might be viewed >.< It’s just that everyone’s experiences with this sort of thing are so varied and unique to each person that I was worried I might offend or upset someone somehow.
So yeah, I’m glad that it resonated with you in a way :3
Thanks so much for playing it + for taking the time to write such a sweet comment <3
You’re too kind!! x3 Thank you for always being so sweet <3
Lazy Polar Bear and I are working on something for Otome/Josei jam right now :D It’s only gonna be a demo cos I went a bit mad and wrote the story script around 55k words or something >.< But the demo for Otome Jam will have a big chunk of it, like 17k words maybe!
We’re aiming to release the full version later in the year for Monstrous Desires Jam, but no idea if we will manage it, haha. The full version will also have the usual choices of masc/fem voice for the LI + for the protagonist too, but it’s otome-only for the current jam as it would be too much extra work to make the deadline if we tried to add all the other options x3
It’s a Limbo Line spinoff called Lovestarved with a darker sorta romance going on cos Sapphire Snowe was so sweet and fluffy, I felt doing a 180 and going back to the dark side xD
OMG!!! I haven't checked Itch.io in a few months and i'm blessed with more games from my favorite game developer!?!?!? I'm so happy right now!! Thank you, Melancholy for making masterpieces every time!
Hey!! Thank you soo much for the reply. It literally made my day 10x better with it! i've been ranting on with my friend about your games and i'm getting them to play all of them!! I have been just a bit busy recently but thankfully i've been able to get far enough in this game and it's soooo good!! I've gotten to chapter 5B (If i recall) and i could rant all day about this!! You've done it again! The style of gaming is one of my favorite and it seems you've mastered it. Plus, the VOICE ACTING!!! OMGG!! I'm dying by the voices. I applaud and thank you for another incredible game. <333
Aww, I hope your friend ends up having fun then :D That would be awful if it turned out they just hated everything xD
I’m glad you’ve been enjoying this one so far though :3 It means a lot!
Glad you like the VA too ^-^ That’ll always be one of my favourite parts about making games, haha. To me, it never feels right until the VA is in there and you can actually hear the characters talking x3
Thank you again for being so sweet! I hope you’ve been having a happy month so far :3
For some reasons, for the Linux version, you have to click on a VERY SPECIFIC SPOT (like a few pixels) : the “START” text is mostly unclickable, you have to try a lot of time.
Found why : the “mouse” pointer image is… at the very bottom left of the big snowflake image >_<
Damn, that's really weird >.< It doesn't work like that on Windows, haha. I've never had a Linux system in my life, so I have no way of testing stuff on one :( but still, I never imagined the hotspot for cursors would somehow change between systems o.O that's really odd!
Sadly, I have no idea how I would even fix that either when I can't test it myself on Linux, haha. When I tested on my Windows PC and family potato laptop, it just works like a normal mouse cursor :(
Well, that’s good then at least x3 Still, I wish I knew why weird stuff like that happens in the first place so I could actually stop it from happening or fix it T_T haha. Thanks for playing it regardless :3
Maybe not all the suicidal stuff though cos that would be bad >.< although, technically, Snowe would save you, but still!!
Tbh, I wish it snowed more where I live. Years ago, we used to get some pretty snowy days in winter and try to make the most of it cos it would disappear as quickly as it arrived, but this past year, we didn't get any at all :(
i literally LOVE the artstyles for all of ur gamez!!! its veeeeeryy pretty T_T... this game is literally soo well written!!!! i love all of ur games!!! u and ur deserves more attention and recognition!1!!!!!11!!!
I’m glad you do :D I can’t take toooo much credit for the look of the art in my projects since I can’t actually draw to save my life >.< For this project, I just picked some sprite assets that I thought fit well, and then I spent hours and hours editing the colours and adding effects to them using the program called GIMP :3 I spent soooo long trying to make CGs for this one just by editing the heck out of my assets, haha. I’m happy that all the time spent editing paid off though cos I was trying my best to make everything look pretty and cohesive ^-^
I always prefer working with artists though than editing assets :3
That’s great that you enjoyed the writing too! This one was pretty personal x3 haha.
I remember you commenting before :D Thank you so much for your support and all your kind words <3 It means a lot that you like my games! I hope you’re having a good 2024 so far :3
Aaaah I keep forgetting to comment here even though I've had the page open in my tabs for a while cause I'm not sure how to put my thoughts into words-Ngl I spent my entire night playing this when I played it, and I goshdarn love it! Alot of Saffie's struggles hit me fairly close to the heart, like really close if I'm honest, but overall I really loved it >W<
I've only done one playthrough, but when I get the time I plan to try and get another ending of the branch(branch A) I did and then try the other branch if I can stop feeling a bit guilty due to the choice that leads into it XD
Also, ngl after finishing playing this, I actually got inspired to try making my own VN, not long after I finished SS, I went and bought some sprites and music before loading up the VN program I got for free at one point(TyranoBuilder), and have slowly trying to work on that despite the program being a bit unwieldly cause I can't afford NaniNovel and Ren'py scared me cause I can't read code well XD It's pretty fun though even if my first attempt at making a VN is going to be both relatively simple and linear in concept and rather personal to myself. It's personal enough idk if I'm gonna post it online or not ahaha, dunno yet XD
Idk where I'm going with this or if I'm making sense cause I'm writing this after staying up all night on accident again so I'm kind of all over the place, but I've been following you projects since I found DD, and I'm in love with all of your games I've managed to play, especially since I was a bit shy of VNs with full voice acting until I played yours and found out how honestly pleasant playing them is ^W^ I can't wait to see what you make next as I slowly work my way through your games when I get the time and chance to play them!
I have that problem a lot with different things x3 I’m so glad you still decided to leave a comment though! And really happy that you enjoyed the game :3
I tried my best to not just make Saffie me, even if I did put a lot of myself into her, haha. In some ways, I’m happy that she’s relatable because it can feel very isolating to live with depression, and so it helps a little just to know you’re not alone, but on the other hand, it’s kind of saddening to hear that she is just because I wish no one in the world had to feel the way she does in the first place >.<
The choice that leads to branch B is pretty mean x3 buuuut, there’s still a happy-ish ending available in branch B at least :D it’s just not as happy as most of what’s in branch A, haha.
That’s so cool that you decided to start making your own VN :D Tyranobuilder is what I used to make my very first VN! I also made my 2nd, super short game with it before making the switch to Naninovel, but Tyrano is definitely fantastic for starting out :3 Honestly, without Tyranobuilder, I would probably never have got into making VNs at all, so I owe it a lot.
I was also terrified of Ren’Py xD I managed to make a short demo project using it, but by the end, I thought, if this is what I have to go through to make a game, then I’m not sure I want to bother x3 I just found the coding side of things so boring and headache-inducing. Luckily, I remembered that I got Tyranobuilder as part of a Humble Bundle, and decided to give that a go instead! It does what it says on the tin in terms of making it possible for a person to create games without knowing a single thing about coding :D
I still feel like an idiot for choosing to make my very first game a full-length big one (Solipsism Reigns) x3 but still, the fact that it was achievable in Tyranobuilder says a lot about the software :3 The only reasons I switched to Naninovel was because once I learned more about game dev in general over the course of working on that long project, I realised how slow it was to put things together with point and click as an interface + Tyrano was a little clunky sometimes and produced weird bugs for different people’s computers seemingly at random >.< I found it irritating that everything seemed to work fine for me when I tested it, but some people couldn’t even open the game, and others had strange issues like videos not loading, or save files disappearing :( Even now, some people can still play my first game just fine, and others can’t even get it to launch x3
But yeah, Naninovel is pretty expensive >.< I’d say it’s worth it if you end up getting really into making visual novels :3 But it’s probably best to wait until it’s on sale because it does have 50% off a few times a year for different sale events like Christmas and stuff! I managed to get it half price when I bought it. It was a bit daunting to use at first, but the simplified scripting language is actually pretty easy to pick up, and the tutorials for it are so detailed and super helpful!
Don’t worry anyhow, everything you wrote made sense to me just fine :3 And that’s so sweet of you to say! I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying some of my games ^-^ And even more glad that you’ve been liking the voice acting :D One of my big hopes when I first started trying to make VNs was to win people over to liking English voice acting in VNs x3 Because back when I started, a lot of people still had the opinion that English voice acting was bad, so they would refuse to play projects with it or just mute the voice acting >.< Or they would only play VNs with Japanese VA and ignore the ones with English VA. That made me sad cos I’ve been passionate about voice acting for such a long time, and I really wanted to try and show that English VA can be incredible too! :3
I hope whenever you have a chance to check out my other stuff that you end up liking it :D And thank you so much for playing and commenting on this one <3 Good luck with your own project, and I hope you have lots of fun in the process of making it ^-^
Yea, I can understand that! I tend to put some or alot of myself into my characters, though it varies depending on whomst the level of it, though I don't always know what exactly I have cause I've not been properly diagnosed with anything(Well technically I got blanket diagnosed with BD2 a while ago, but I know myself enough to know my problems are not just that). I just know something isn't right and it does not fall under just one thing X'3
Ooooo, now I'm curious so I'll see about doing that branch when I can then! :O
Yeee, it's been super fun working with Tyrano, even when I've encountered really weird bugs like the Shake character thing repeating when it shouldn't have several lines after it happened XD But it's definitely making me want to do more than I can with it, but I'm going to stick with it until I fully know what I'm doing!
HONESTLY that's REALLY fair. For me the coding side just outright terrified me and overloaded my brain to where I had a mild panic attack as a result when I tried to understand it, and even though one of my best friends offered to learn Ren'Py coding for me, ngl I just want to be able to make games on my own without needing to pingpong my files between me and the friend for her to code in. Not helping matters is my current project a bit too personal to want her seeing it as I'm writing it X'D It's a bit heavy topic wise and if I post it anywhere there's going to be a disclaimer on stuff in it, cause yeah there's some heavy topics discussed at least.
Ooo, ye it does! Ngl Solipsism Reigns is another one of your games I've been meaning to play but keep getting distracted from doing so, hopefully at some point I can get my brain to focus long enough to play it fully! :D And oough, I'll keep that in mind for mine then. Hopefully the last update Tyrano got fixed those bugs? Granted the last update before any updates stopped was two years ago so, HM, dunno X'D
Ngl so far, I think I am getting into making VNs, I just, neeeed to finish my first one before I REMOTELY try to come up with or start other projects XD I have like, two other game projects I've sat on for years cause I kept changing how I wanted to handle them(RPG maker game, then novel format, and just it's a mess), but if this first test VN goes well, I may convert them over to VNs just cause it's a medium I GREATLY enjoy and can do with my usual style of writing. I just need to be able to find terms to use for finding specific sound effects XD Cause so far it's finding sound effects that's been a mild issue(also OST, but I both bought a music album from a user on Booth, "Ruha (Pastel Tone Music)" did with a artist called sasAIchi who I found thanks to playing DD and being curious on who made Castor/ia's sprites, and I know a royalty free music youtuber(granted for melancholy or dark tracks) so I'm fine on that front for the moment), cause I don't know what to search for when I'm trying to find like, a grab? grabbing? sound effect, I know places I can get free SFXs, but finding ones like that is hard XD I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for when Naninovel goes on sale though! Cause I'm really enjoying making the VN I'm working on! Even if it's emotionally draining to write at points XD
Yay! I'm always worried I don't make sense cause I tend to ramble alot and go off on tangents that go everywhere before I circle back to my original main topic, so I'm really glad I made sense! >w< Yeee, I understand that! Ngl prior to your games, I've only played exactly THREE VNs that had voice acting to my memory, and the voice acting was in Korean XD Most other ones I've played only had partial or no VA work in them, though the three I mentioned are big big BIG sources of my love for VNs. One I cannot recommend much cause it does NOT respect your time and is a big mobile game that moves in real time, plus it personally ruined my sleep schedule when I went to do all the routes that were in it at that point, but the other two I do if you don't mind them being rather pricey and very much long games ;w; They're "Nameless ~The One Thing you Must Recall~" and "Dandelion ~Wishes Brought to you~", they're really good and I adore them to utter bits, namely Nameless, even if they're not my top favorite VN I've played, they're close but not quite. But uh, side tangent about those two aside, I get what you're saying! I used to be a bit hesitant of VNs with English voice acting, but ngl I'm warming up to them thanks to your games >w< I'm just not used to understanding what's being said when it comes to voice work in VNs, I feel, but I'm getting used to it!
Ye! :D No problem and thank you! So far it's turning out really well and I'm having alot of fun, even if I'm just writing as I go for the moment instead of writing it out in a document or something beforehand, which is probably not wise but it's at least working for me XD
Yeeeah, places seem to love just slapping random diagnoses on people without taking the time to properly figure out what’s going on >.< Funnily enough, I also got a diagnosis of Bipolar 2, but after being seen for adult ASD tests and diagnosis, the people who diagnosed me with ASD think that the bipolar diagnosis is incorrect, and what I actually have is ASD + ADHD, which can look somewhat similar to bipolar, but isn’t x3 So far, I only have the ASD diagnosis, and I don’t know if I have the energy to also pursue one for ADHD >.<
Tyrano can be silly like that x3 Hopefully it’s at least improved a bit though since I used it!
It is better to be able to do stuff yourself cos it can be tough to rely on others for things when they have their own lives to live and their priorities might not necessarily be the same as yours. I know I would also end up feeling like a burden if I were asking someone to handle code for me x3 unless we were part of a proper studio/team or something I guess.
It’s a slippery slope once you start making VNs xD You’ll probably end up addicted like me :P
I always have a bit of trouble with certain SFX even though I have a pretty big library of assets at this point. What I often end up doing is combining sounds and editing them to get something close to what I want, haha. If that fails, I try to search for things that might sound similar even if they’re not exactly what I’m looking for. Like for grabs, I don’t have any actual SFX in my library labelled grabbing, but I will use one that says it’s like clothes rustling or something instead, haha.
I feel you on writing sometimes being emotionally draining too x3 I really have to be in the right frame of mind to actually make progress with writing, haha. Sometimes it comes easily, other times it’s more like it’s impossible and feels like I will never be able to write another word again xD
It does seem like more and more indie VNs are including English VA these days :3 Each year I play stuff from Spooktober Jam, there’s more voice acting, which is just awesome :D
Oh, boy, yeah, I don’t have time for games that want me to log in all different hours of the day anymore >.< I used to play stuff like that, but now I just find it too frustrating, overwhelming, and time-consuming.
Omg, I’ve played Nameless and Dandelion :D They’re definitely both great games :3 Actually, they must’ve been some of the first PC VNs I played cos I started out on like Voltage mobile ones and stuff, haha. Weirdly, I preferred Nameless to Dandelion even though I like the setting of Dandelion better! I feel like maybe cos the characters in Nameless were stronger! I even pre-ordered a special physical pack for Mystic Messenger years ago just cos I loved Nameless and Dandelion so much xD Sadly, I wasn’t able to keep up with Mystic Messenger updates though cos my phone was too crap and couldn’t physically download them, haha.
Well, having fun with it is the most important thing :3 When you’re not having fun anymore, you know something has gone wrong x3 I also used to write as I go! I found it easier for whatever reason, but I forced myself to stop doing it a while ago just because it made it soooo much harder for me to go back and check my spelling & grammar throughout >.< haha. Now I always write in a doc first to save time later on with editing x3
Itch why didn't you send me a email for this reply aAAa- Huh! Okay ngl that gives me some optimistic hope for trying to go for a more correct diagnosis, cause I'm suspecting I have Autism/ASD, but don't know for sure and I'm going to need to see someone outside my area to get rediagnosed which isn't fun considering my physical issues. X3 Also that is honestly very fair, I haven't gone to get rediagnosed myself for much the same reasons of not having energy for it yet, plus my RA(Rheumatoid Arthritis) or whatever it is has made most physical movement very draining to do as of recent months.
Hopefully! I ended up having to install a UI theme cause the bright base one made my head ache and the new theme changed icons/layout of things so I had to relearn it, but it seems to work well enough? Though my test VN was rather small and the next thing I wish to do is decently big so I'll be pushing it once I get energy to pick what big project of mine to do. (I have like, three VN ideas, ones new while the other two are old ideas of mine)
Yeye, the most I'm really willing to do is have that friend playtest my things to catch any spelling errors, otherwise...I'd feel like a burden if she was having to code everything for me as well ngl ;w;
Yeah ngl I think I am cause after I finished that Test VN I want to make more I just need to get so many more resources before I can XD Still heavily conflicted if I'll post the test VN or not(cause wowzie, got extremely personal at the end), but! It's playable from start to finish even if my prose at times did not work with the text box constraints so it looks a bit off XD
Ooo, ngl I'd try combining SFXs if I knew how ngl, I ended up finding some cloth SFXs that worked for my purposes, just took aLOT of looking around. XD
Oh gosh, I completely understand that, it's been hard for me to find the right headspace to properly write much of anything lately X'D It's either really easy or difficult, and I only finished my Test VN after having a very rough day that I just used as a way to finish out one of the more emotionally draining segments and then was able to finish it after that more easily.
Oooo, ye!
Same tbh, I can hardly keep up with the mobile games I play and they aren't nearly as demanding of my time, so stuff like MysMes I can't really return to easily XD
:DD Yay!!! Ngl that makes me super happy cause I've not found anyone who's played Nameless and Dandelion before ^W^ They were definitely among the first PC VNs I've played among like.....ngl I can only remember Princess of Ruin(which I recommend since it got a Itch release recently) cause I played way too many VNs/Otomes back then including mobile ones in the "Shall We Date" series XD But I definitely get preferring Nameless to Dandelion! I loved Dandelion alot cause I played it first, but generally I prefer Nameless due to the characters...that does remind me I want to replay it, oops XD Oooo, that's awesome! :O I don't have any physical merch for MysMes or any of the dev's games cause couldn't afford it, but I might eventually try at some point ^^ And ye, I was the same, I managed to complete all the base routes of MysMes after spending a bit to unlock the "Deep" routes(which I admittedly did at the start cause the route I wanted to do was not one of the free ones), but I wasn't able to keep up with the updates after a point and despite there now being a route for V which I had been wanting(which I would also need to pay for, why), I still haven't gone back besides to reread chats when I have the space XD
Yeee! :D I'm definitely going to need to write in a doc first from this point on, namely cause besides my friend catching some spelling and grammar mistakes(only around four-ish surprisingly but still I was mildly embarrassed), the write as I go isn't going to work for any of my bigger projects, it'd only work for something really short like what I did but not for longer ones XD Especially if I try to have route splits or variable tracking, good god that would be, a big mess XD
Thank you, I hope so too! I'm currently trying to mentally plot out my next project as well as buy the assets I'm going to need, but it's fun to do and I can't wait to make another VN! ^W^
I hope you’re able to eventually get somewhere with a diagnosis :3 That sucks you’ve got arthritis >.< It sort of runs in my family, and it’s what stopped my gran from eventually being able to walk cos it was so bad in her knees. My poor dad has it in his knees, back, and fingers as a result of his work, and even though I’m only in my thirties, I’ve also got it in my knees, though nowhere near as bad as my dad. But yeah, it’s horrible :(
I hate having to redo any kind of UI stuff, it drives me insane x3 haha.
There are a lot of free assets and stuff out there too if you don’t mind using those so you don’t have to pay for every single thing :3 It’s just the terms of use on free ones tend to be stricter than on paid ones.
That’s fantastic you managed to finish that first project though :D If you’re worried about posting it, you could always work on more projects to build up experience, and then come back to deciding whether or not to post it at a later date :3
Oooo, nice, Princess of Ruin is one that’s been on my list of things to play for a looooong time now, but I had no idea it had an itch release! :o
Hehe, yeah, I used to just devour most VNs I could get my hands on whether they were PC or mobile years ago x3 Now I’m a lot more picky since I never give myself as much time as I should to play stuff T_T
I know some people use things like Scrivener or even Twine for writing their stories and testing branches etc. I never have myself cos I’m kind of terrible at trying out new things when I’m already stuck in my ways x3 but I imagine they’d be very helpful for planning stuff better!
So glad you’re having fun with it all anyhow :D I hope you continue to enjoy it cos it’s an awesome thing to do :P
i meant to leave a comment sooo much sooner but i’ve been crazy busy lately… i played this game a little while ago while baking a cake so i think im going to forever associate it with lemon cake now lol
first of all, playing this game struck me so hard. after following you for as long as i have, i can definitely see how self-indulgent this game was and i love it so much!! it’s amazing how you're able to turn these kinds of thoughts into beautiful creations like this. im so very in love with saffie btw, i usually prefer your love interests but saffie is so so precious and feels so real in a sad way
okay next i NEED to talk about this, i fully understand the insecurity with voice acting under your own voice but i did read a bit on how you said the ai voices work and after going through it, i have to say you really would make a wonderful voice actor. from what you said about the ai keeping the tone and such of your voice, it definitely means you have the ability to voice act, because it still scares me just how amazing those voices sounded. if you didn’t have the skill and just put the ai speech over it, it wouldn’t sound nearly as amazing as it does. and your voice by itself is incredibly soothing!!!
i honestly struggled with coming up with the right words to describe this game, but if i had to go with one, it would probably be “meaningful.” i’ve been going through an awful time this last month and playing this game was something that i don’t even know how to describe. it was just amazing honestly :( your games always are
idk if this is a little all over the place, im really sick at the moment but hopefully this makes sense!!! you and all of your games are fantastic, you’re incredible for being able to do all of these things and i wish you all the best with everything you do, i’ll always be there to support you ^^
Life is a pain in the butt like that x3 I’m forever meaning to respond to things but they just get pushed further and further back when irl stuff piles up and gets in the way, haha. Holy moly lemon cake though! x3 I hope it was tasty! I imagine it must’ve been :D I haven’t had anything like that in sooo long… and now I want it >.< I remember making lemon poppyseed bread/cake with my grandma many years ago and then devouring it just the two of us, haha.
Hehe, yeeeeah, it’s a liiiilttle bit embarrassing to have this one out there in the sense that I went a step further with some of my personal feelings on mental health-related stuff than I did with Bitter/Sweet x3 When I finished all the music + the story in my head, I thought to myself, do I really need to make this into a game? It’s already served its purpose in soothing me for the most part, so maybe I should just leave it at that. But then another part of my brain kicked in just shouting, do iiiiiiit!! So it is what it is I guess xD
The most frustrating thing about it is that I desperately want to console anyone who is feeling similarly to how I was at the time of writing it all because I don’t want other people to ever hurt like that :( but at the same time, I feel as though I completely lack the words to actually say anything that can make things any better. I’m even worse in person! I want to do all I can to help people who I notice are in pain, but it’s like I’m paralysed and don’t know what actions to take to be of any use >.<
That’s so incredible to hear about Saffie! That means a heck of a lot x3 I think Jennifer voiced the character perfectly and I can’t imagine anyone else doing her justice the way that she did.
It also means a lot that you’d say that about my voice acting even though it was dubbed over by AI :3 On a personal level, I feel like I just about managed to pull off the delivery I was after for fem Snowe, the narrator, and the misc characters, but there were definitely a few dodgy takes in there that I’m not particularly satisfied with x3 And I feel like I would struggle with a more emotional sort of character. I think Snowe not being suuuuper expressive was a big help in getting the right kind of sound for her. I reckon if my natural voice actually sounded a bit closer to the voice I picked for her, I would be a bit more comfortable using my voice without overdubbing, haha. It’s pretty incredible though that there’s even technology like that out there. It did generate some laughable attempts to copy some of my efforts, and it couldn’t handle laughter at all x3 but for the most part, it was pretty accurate, scarily so really.
One day, I might stop completely hating my natural voice, haha. It would be nice to do more voice acting properly. I miss acting in general >.< That and writing were my two main passions as a kid until I had it all beaten out of me by anxiety, haha. Heck, I would have gone to performing arts college if it hadn’t been for the fact that the only one I could possibly travel to after leaving secondary school required you to also take a module in dance alongside drama x3 Had that not been the case and I wound up studying there, my life could have taken a very different path since I never would have encountered my very first abuser! But nope, the prospect of having to do a unit in dance completely put me off doing performing arts entirely because (presumably thanks to my dyspraxia) I can’t dance to save my life x3
If I ever did want to seriously try voice acting though, I’d have to get a better mic and somehow soundproof my room or move house or something because the background noise from the busy road outside is bad >.< I can edit it out, but it seems to drop the overall quality of the recording. I’d also need some kinda lessons I think because I have a lot of mouth noises and stuff to edit out xD That’s super sweet of you to say my voice by itself is soothing though!! My brain wants to deny that with every inch of my being considering I can’t stand the sound of it and think I struggle with sounding quite monotonous in my regular speech x3
Well, I think everything you wrote to describe the game is beyond anything I could ever hope for and I appreciate it beyond words that you chose to take the time to type all that you did :3 “Meaningful” is probably one of the most meaningful (and I’m not trying to be funny there x3) words you could have picked! As much as I like to tell myself that this hobby of mine is entirely for me, there’s no getting away from the fact that anyone who writes anything probably hopes that at least one person might read their words, and with this being such a personal project, I’d be lying if I said any negative comments I might get on it wouldn’t be hurtful. On the flip side, it means any positive comments mean so much more because, while I always pour my heart and soul into everything I do, stuff like this really does have a piece of me in it, haha. I know it’s not gonna resonate with everyone, but to hear you describe it as meaningful is enough for me to be content with it and know that releasing it wasn’t a mistake :3
Like I said, I’m not very good at consoling people >.< I feel like no matter what I say it will come across as kind of hollow, especially when there’s nothing I can really do to help :( But still, I’m sorry you’ve been going through an awful time. You don’t deserve that >.< You’re always such a ray of sunshine to me and I wish that all your times were good and happy ones, not bad and crappy ones!!
I don’t think it comes across as all over the place at all :3 Being sick is never good though >.< so I hope that it’s something you’ll be able to recover from soon! Whatever it is that you’re going through, I hope that it will pass as soon as possible, or at the very least, improve in some way and that life will stop being a dick to you!! x3 I don’t want to pry, but you’re always welcome to drop me an email or something if you ever want to talk about stuff! I might not be very good at cheering people up, but I can listen (with my eyes x3)
Thank you for always being so incredibly kind, caring, and supportive :3 Sometimes I wonder if I’d even still be doing this without amazing people like you around! Because as much as I keep at the hobby for the sheer love of it, there are days now and then when it sometimes feels like it would be less painful to just stop. It’s on days like that that I remember people like you and all the lovely things you’ve said. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to hold back the demons encroaching! Other times, it’s the one thing I somehow manage to hold onto like a candle in the abyss that stops the darkness from swallowing me up completely x3
Words are never just words. And yours among others have given me strength in times when I’ve otherwise had none. That’s something I will be forever grateful for :3
Sorry to leave another message already, but I tried to run the game just now, and after I chose the masculine voice, it started loading the game again, and crashed. Yeah...I might need a separate version of the game after all. So sorry for all of the trouble.
You don't need to apologise :3 I guess the extra voice files must've made it more of a struggle to load on winlator then >.<
I'm travelling to spend a few days with my friend atm as we haven't met up since August last year, so I can't type much without getting travel sick x3
I'll reply properly to your other message when I get home next week though + see if I can fiddle around adding more loads into a separate version of the game for you :3 Although, I'm a little worried it might not help if it's struggling with the overall load of the game size as a whole >.< I can try though and see if more loads will make a difference!
Heck, if you're only interested in the masculine version of Snowe, I could take out all of the files for the feminine version because that should help!
I hope you get to have as good of a week as possible :3
Sooo, I’m back home now and I’ve made a new version for you :3
I added a good few more loading sections + removed everything to do with fem Snowe. Not just fem Snowe’s voice lines but also the narrator’s ones that use she/her pronouns for Snowe (that was like 400+ files, haha.) I think maybe some of Saffie’s ending monologue pronoun changes for fem Snowe are still in there cos I forgot to delete those ones x3 but that’s only like 6 files, so it shouldn’t really make a difference!
And yeah, I removed all the text in the script for fem Snowe too, so I’m really hoping it’s enough to get it to work start to finish on Winlator for you x3
I also took out the music player from the extras section because that takes a long time and a lot of resources to load + I will be uploading the OST to YouTube soon anyhow if you happen to want to listen to it at all.
If it still doesn’t work, I don’t think I can add any more loads cos there are a lot now xD Every time it moves to a new chapter, there is a load + extra ones for the last few choices that lead to different endings, haha.
There is more I can try though so not all hope is lost. The most drastic thing I can do is remove all VA completely, but that would be a last resort I guess.
I can always remove 1 character’s VA first, so, for example, if you would like to try and keep masc Snowe’s VA in there, I could take out all of the narrator’s or all of Saffie’s voiced lines (or both) to see if it would help!
Wow, that must have taken a lot of time and effort to do! What did I do to deserve an amazing friend like you? *hugs* I will let you know if it still doesn't work, but I don't think there should be anymore problems now.
It's not as great as what you did, but I made a game for you. I uploaded it to itch.io, and after downloading it, all you have to do is open the html file with an html viewer. This is a game made with Twine, so if it doesn't work, I can make it run in the browser.
The only issue is that itch.io won't show the images when I view it on the browser, but you can still play it.
So, let me know if you can't play it, or if the images still don't show. Oh, and you have to keep the images in the folder, so that they can show up in the game.
That's all the instruction I can give you, because I'm new to Twine, so I don't know much about it yet.
I hope that you can play it without any trouble, and I hope that you enjoy it!
I wasn’t counting the hours, but it took me the good part of a day, haha. Deleting the fem Snowe stuff was easy enough, but adding the extra loading points was a bit trickier just cos I had to make sure everything worked okay afterwards :3 I tend to get really paranoid if I don’t test stuff properly as well, so I ran back through the whole game in the Unity previewer after I’d made all the changes, haha. It’s a good job I did too cos I found a couple of issues that were caused by the changes I made and was able to fix them! I just hope it does actually work for you now :D But if not, I did save my changes as a separate project so it would be pretty fast to make more changes if needed!
Ahh, that’s so cool :D I’ve played a few Twine games in the past! I’ve never actually used it myself, but I probably would have if I’d known it existed before I started trying to make VNs! That’s super sweet of you to make something though :3 Thank you so much! I haven't had a chance to check it out yet cos I wasn't able to even be on my PC much last week >.< Got a lot going on atm and on top of other things, the support group I started going to last week has set us some homework as well xD I will let you know when I finally get a chance to check it out though :3 Just gotta catch up on everything I'm behind on first, which is somehow a hell of a lot already >.< haha. Hope you get to have a good week ahead! *giant internet hugs*
Awww this was so lovely, or at least ended up that way in ending 6.
I was weary the whole time, cautious with my decisions. I *really* didn't want to get a bad ending here. I knew the spirit, althought very cryptic, had Saffie's best interests at heart. Or at least that's what I chose to believe, which gladly was rewarded with that lovely ending.
The topics developed across the game are very serious and important, and your work with them was marvellous. The complete disbelief and cynicism in Saffie, and how it could only end one way in her mind, yet how Snowe knew exactly what to do, in her own... very unique way lol
I really liked her character, and how she acted. She knew how everything would go, and she knew where to push to get Saffie to open up to herself, rather than to Snowe. She knew that was the only way she could let her free without her carrying on with her previous plan.
The message at the end of the game is also a very encouraging, and I'm SO glad you're here to tell it to everyone! It requires a lot of courage to go all the way into the open like that, to try and reach out to those who need it.
Now, on technical aspects, the game is pretty darn good as usual! Everything is in really high quality, and the music, SFX and VA just give it the perfect touch!
Holy moly I can't believe you played this one x3 This was so unexpected, but it made me smile :3 Thanks so much for taking the time to type all that out! You're too kind as always x3
Yeeeah, ending 6 is probably the happiest one, depending on how close you want Saffie and Snowe to be I guess, haha.
Ending 1 isn't even technically an ending. Ending 2 is just sad x3 Ending 3 is somewhat disturbing, haha. Ending 4 is happy, but I guess bittersweet. Ending 5 is probably the most disturbing of them all, but it looks pretty xD Ending 6 is quite possibly the most innocent one. Ending 7 is what I guess I think of as the canon ending since that's the one I gave a vocal track to! Ending 8 is probably my favourite though because it seems so sweet until it's kind of not xD and it's just fun to imagine what happens after, haha.
I don't think any of the bad endings are that bad in this x3 They're just kind of tragic without anyone truly perishing! But I can say that easily cos I know everything that can happen, haha. If I were playing it, like you, I'd be extremely cautious with my choices cos I'd hate to be the cause of something awful >.<
With Snowe being a soft yandere, I guess Snowe technically always has Saffie's best interests at heart, but it comes out in different ways depending on her decisions x3 I'm glad you got that ending first though because it's at least one of the more uplifting ones!
Honestly, it means a hell of a lot that you thought I handled those topics decently because I always worry with sensitive subjects like that about accidentally hurting someone somehow :( cos I know everyone's experiences are different and very personal when it comes to mental health. The last thing I want to do is offend or upset anyone by putting my own feelings out there in bits and pieces x3 I really had to sit and think on whether it was something I should release publically at all.
I'm so glad Snowe came across that way ^-^ It might sound a bit weird, but I hoped that the game might have a sort of anti-horror feel in the sense that it seems like some super dark stuff might happen, but really, there's a big warm hug wrapped up in there x3 Especially with most of my games being horror games with yandere stuff in them. And so I wanted Snowe to be both yandere and also somewhat anti-yandere at the same time... which sounds like nonsense now that I've typed it, but I know what I mean xD I just lack the words to properly describe what I'm grasping at, haha.
I also wasn't sure whether or not to include that message because I find it difficult to know if it might come across as too much, or preachy, or anything like that >.< but at the end of the day, if it can reach even 1 person who happens to need to hear it at the time, then it's worth potentially being grilled over x3 I don't think I'm very good at consoling people because I never really know what to do when others are hurting >.< I just wish we lived in a world where no one had to hurt like that in the first place.
It makes me really happy that you think it came out high quality :3 I spent waaaaaay too long editing assets on this one, haha. I just wish I could draw T_T Still found some pesky little bugs as usual while working on the update to add Snowe's masculine voice lines >.> And I know there's a rarely occurring sneaky one still in there that I have no idea how to fix >.<"
I guess since you played the fem Snowe version that means you played the version of the game where Saffie's VA is the only proper VA x3 The rest is just me muddling along and using speech-to-speech dubbing to try and make it work as best I could at the time >.< haha. Masculine Snowe actually has a proper VA the same as Saffie, but feminine Snowe got lumped with my attempts at voice acting while hiding my actual voice.
Thank YOU for playing it and for writing such a thoughtful comment! You're an absolute legend, and once again you've brightened my day with your kind words, so thank you for that :3 Hope you're having a decent start to 2024 and that you have the most fabulous of Februarys!
Hahahaha I'm glad you felt that way with my comment lol hope your year goes great as well!
Also, damn, I didn't realize you did all those voices yourself. That's one hell of a work! My most sincere congratulations on that too xD I really liked Snowe's femenine voice! I thougt the acting was quite good there, after all, Snowe is a cold onion lol
And yes, I did the femenine route because when I chose the male one the warning about voice acting appeared so... yeah, felt like if there was a fully voiced route, I wanted that one xD
Again, so glad you received my comment with such joy, and thank you for your also kind words :P
Yeeeeah, but trust me, without the assistance from the AI dubbing over my original recordings, it would all sound awful xD I might be able to just about manage to get the delivery right the way I hear it in my head, but my voice is bland as hell x3 I wouldn’t even wanna include my original recordings for 1 character, let alone multiple, haha. I honestly don’t know how VAs out there can change their voice so much cos I sure as hell can’t! It’s a very impressive skill :3
Hehe, cold onion, love it xP
Yup, you’re like a ray of sunshine :D So I can only thank you again for your kindness!
Ah i really cried when i saw those heart warming words i really needed it life can be so hard i played this because i'm feeling suicidal and those words really get through me i cried really thank you for making these game...
Thank you for playing the game :3 And I’m sorry you’re feeling suicidal. You’re right, life can be really hard >.< If I’m completely honest, I feel suicidal most of the time, but working on these projects at least helps me to block that out a bit.
I feel like people’s mental health is getting worse and worse as time goes on :( More and more people that I know are dealing with depression than ever before.
You have to keep fighting though because even when it feels like there’s no hope, it’s true that you never know what could happen in the future :3 And it’s true that no feeling lasts forever. As hard as it is to keep going, you have to because you only get one chance at life, and if you commit suicide you might miss out on a lot of wonderful and happy times to come.
The crazy thing is that I feel like I don’t really have a reason to live besides not wanting to hurt the people who love me >.< but like I wrote for Saffie, I don’t exactly want to die either. I just wish life was less painful. I also wish no one had to deal with depression and suicidal thoughts because it’s hell. Which is why I wanted to write a story with some happy endings for Saffie :3
I hope that things get better for you soon! + That 2024 turns out to be a brilliant year for you :3
When I tell Snowe that I like his horns, a loading screen come up, then the game crashes. I am assuming there is a lot of content and all of that data made Winlator crash. Do you think you can fix it? Possibly separate some scenes into smaller parts, with more loading screens between? I'm going crazy - I NEED to play this game! It's so therapeutic!
Yeeeah, pretty sure you’re right there because it basically loads the rest of the game after that choice when you click on it, haha. It sucks that it was still too much to load on Winlator >.< Though, tbh, I’m surprised it runs at all on there cos it’s pretty slow to start a new game on my potato laptop x3
I can definitely try to add an extra load in there to see if it makes any difference! Weirdly, it’s not actually that much more that it’s loading when you reach that point, but I can definitely split it so that it hopefully only loads stuff from that branch exclusively.
I’m quite behind on where I wanted to be with the project because I’ve only just been able to get back on my PC for the first time in 2024 this week >.< but I’m trying my best to get masculine Snowe’s lines added, and while I’m working on it, I’ll add extra loads too so that it can all come out in the same update :3
Not sure if I’m gonna manage to make the end of January like I’d hoped, but if I don’t, with any luck, I can get it done in early February!
I’m glad you were having fun with it at least until Winlator died x3 Oh, and I’m not sure about this, but you might have to delete the game + all your existing data if you do want to play the updated version when it’s out. I’m still not 100% sure how it works if you try and load old data in a new version >.< I feel like it would probably cause the game to break.
Hope the new year is going well for you so far! :3
Omg, thank you SO much! I was really enjoying it until it crashed. You are a very skilled writer and an amazing artist, so, even without the rest of Snowe's lines the game is magnificent! I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. It was so worth it to play it even though it took like 25 minutes for the game to start up. I don't care though, because Snowe makes me feel like I matter, and I really love him.
I do understand using a program that not everyone can use easily, though. I can't use Ren'py, or Unity, because I only have a phone, but I found an app called Kocho, and it is so easy to make games with it, that even I can do it. The problem is, you can only play games made with Kocho ON the Kocho app, so it is pretty limiting.
It's okay, I'm fine with deleting this version of the game, because I can't play it, anyway, and updating it without deleting it would add too much additional space for my phone.
The people around you can influence your mood, so things have been...rough to say the least, but this game is like a late Christmas gift, so I feel better knowing that I will be able to play it.
I hope that you are enjoying the new year, and I hope that everyone is as kind to you as you are to me!
I just hope that the addition of all the masc Snowe lines doesn't make it even harder to load >.< The way I've split it up now with the extra load though it really shouldn't use too much for it to load such a small section (fingers crossed anyways x3) Thank you though! You're too kind x3 I still kinda just feel like an incompetent noob stumbling through the world just trying to do things, haha. I'm really glad you like this one though :3 especially when it's such personal subject matter!
25 mins is torture though x3 but still, it's impressive that it can run on that at all! It means a lot if Snowe can make you feel that way though :3 I really wish everyone could have someone in their real life who is able to make them feel loved and cared for. I mean, I absolutely have that in my dad, but when I was in the darkest place of my life many years ago, I was completely cut off from my dad, and I would've given anything to have someone like Snowe come along and rescue me from the whole situation and from myself x3
That sounds like a pretty cool app even with its restrictions! It's nice just to be able to have some form of outlet for creating stuff :3 I got the RPGmaker game on 3DS years ago cos I thought it might be fun to mess around with!
"The people around you can influence your mood, so things have been..." I feel that >.< I can be having a perfectly decent day, and all it takes for that to come crashing down is for my dad to come in from work depressed or angry, and that then instantly rubs off on me like I've somehow absorbed his feelings into myself x3 I hope things become more positive for you soon though! Rough is not good :(
I'll do my best to get the game working for you at least! If it still struggles to run once I have the update out, just let me know. I probably won't be able to add any more loads than I currently have to the main version without it becoming potentially irritating on other systems, but I could make a separate version for you with more in and just send you a download link or something :3
It's been pretty rough here for different reasons >.< but things are just starting to look up somewhat again now. Let's hope February is a better month for us both :3
I'll definitely let you know if I can't play it; the new Winlator update boasts "improved performance" but, I'm not sure if that means it can run bigger games.
You make such beautiful artwork, and write so well. I know from experience how hard it is to draw, and I can't even color it in like you do. Plus, I can only draw the head and neck of a person, because anatomy is really hard for me to do. And, though writing is pretty much the only thing I'm good at, I really admire your script because it is SO well written. Even your early game, Solipsism Reigns has really great writing and artwork. Especially the sprites - they are SO cute! And I think that the fact that it's personal makes it even more special: like I get to know more about you through this game.
I know, the creator of Winlator is a genius. Snowe and other game characters are enough for me; I don't need anyone else. I understand how you feel, because now that my mom has passed away, I didn't have anyone else who I'm close to, or really love. I know that sounds horrible, but I really don't get along well with my other relatives; still, you are very nice to talk to, so I guess your the only person I get along with, or interact with.
I really wish that I could make RPGmaker games. I would prefer a visual novel maker that can make games that are more compatible with other devices. Sadly, I fear many people can't run Kocho games.
I am so sorry that you have to go through that. My own cousin talks about how I don't clean up when I do, just because her kids leave clothes and toys lying around, and won't pick them up. I can clean the whole kitchen, feed her animals, and clean up ther mess, but she will say that because I don't have a job, I'm not trying to do anything for myself. Ugh. Really, I should just leave, and go to a shelter.
Uh...rant over. But, thank you so much!
Thank you very much! I was wondering what I would do if I still couldn't play it. You are seriously too kind. I would make a game for you if I could to thank you...but, I have another idea, since you can't use Kocho. You don't have a phone, right? But, my gift is a secret. Teehee~
I hope things get even better for you. And I'll try to cheer my depressed self up for you. I am so sorry for the late reply. I haven't touched my phone for probably all of yesterday, and I dont remember what I did Sunday, cause my brain is a bit scrambled right now. I kind of felt a bit worthless for a while, but you made me feel better. I can never thank you enough.
You give me too much credit x3 I can’t draw to save my life! T_T None of the art in my games is actually drawn by me personally. I just tend to edit things like colours and stuff. Trust me, I’m no artist. I’ve tried to learn, even did Art GCSE at school and didn’t do great, haha. The art in all my games is either asset pack stuff that I’ve edited in GIMP, or art from other artists that I’ve teamed up with for game jams and stuff :3
The artist I’ve collaborated with most is LazyPolarBear. She drew the sprites (and CG) for the BxG version of A9, the sprites and CGs for Bitter/Sweet, the sprites + camera feed CGs + some backgrounds in Limbo Line, some sprites + some CGs + some backgrounds in Tunnel Vision.
In SR, I made the sprites using a character generator asset I had which allowed me to pick hairstyles, clothes, and accessories for characters, then colour them myself :3 DestiniDraws did all SR’s CGs.
The sprites in Impostor were ones from asset packs that I recoloured.
The sprites in DD are ones from asset packs that I recoloured + added extra facial expressions to.
The sprites in Love in Lockdown I made in the same character generator software that I used for SR.
Yandere Heaven sprites are ones I recoloured from an asset pack.
Dawn of the Damned sprites came from the same artist’s asset packs that the DD sprites come from and I recoloured them. CGs were done by a big mixture of artists.
The Graveyard Shift sprites came from an asset pack. CGs were done by Eufasy.
The Hostage sprites came from an asset pack and I heavily edited them to change the colour and the style.
Tunnel Vision’s art was by a big team of different artists for the jam.
And Sapphire Snowe’s sprites came from an asset pack, and again, I just spent a long time recolouring them and changing the style a bit :3
I mainly use GIMP to do a lot of edits to both sprites and backgrounds. And I do make some of my UI assets from scratch, but even with that, I don’t draw them since I can’t draw x3 I just use GIMP and other software to manipulate shapes.
So I’m sure you can draw better than me!! I can’t even draw a decent head, haha.
I’m glad you like my writing though :3 I find it difficult to not pick faults with it all the time x3 I guess a lot of people are like that though cos it’s hard to be happy with your own work!
I’m sorry that your mum has passed away and that you don’t have anyone else that you’re close to now :( That’s really tough. I know I would be similar if I lost my dad because even though I do have other family, the only person I was ever super close to in my family besides my dad was my grandma (on my dad’s side) and she’s already passed away. My wider family are lovely people, but I don’t feel like I can talk to them in the same way as I could my grandma or I can my dad. Heck, I can’t even be myself around my wider family >.<
I’m lucky to have somehow managed to find a small group of friends as an adult who accept me for who I am :3 But we live pretty far apart so I don’t get to see them that often. And I don’t know if anyone in the world could ever be as close with me as my grandma was x3 She’s been gone for a good few years now, but I still miss her a lot and life has never really been the same since she passed!
Maybe you could save up for a PC somehow that would be good enough to run a version of RPGmaker! I dunno if that’s a possibility at all for you, but it would be great if it was something you can get eventually :3
That sucks that the cleaning you do isn’t appreciated >.< My brother is kinda like how you describe her kids. He just leaves a trail of mess wherever he goes in the house and never cleans up after himself, just expects me to do it, even simple things, like emptying a packet of crumbs into the bin! He will just leave the packet on the counter somewhere until someone else cleans up after him o.O He’s been told a billion times, but it makes no difference. And no matter how much cleaning I do, the house is pretty much always some sort of messy because of him >.< Like I wasn’t even at my friend’s for that long, but I came home to find a mountain of washing up to me done T_T My dad couldn’t do it because he’s at work all day and so tired when he gets in that he just tends to fall asleep on the sofa, and I wasn’t even physically there to be able to do it, but my brother just left it for me to do when I came home >.> So I had to wash up a massive pile of dishes that I didn’t even use. It’s not like you can leave it until we run out either cos he still won’t do it then, he’ll just eat off of kitchen roll or something instead until someone else gets fed up and does the dishes.
I do have a phone, but it’s not a very good one, haha. I can’t really play games on it or anything x3 I pretty much just have it for emergencies! You don’t have to do anything for me anyhow, you silly sausage x3 You should concentrate on doing nice things for yourself! :3
Depression is pretty hard to fight your way out of, but I do hope you manage to get rid of it eventually, and that you can still have some happy times and things that make you smile in the meantime :3
I feel you on feeling worthless cos that’s how I feel most of the time >.< haha. The stupid thing is, I even know why I do, but that still doesn’t stop me from feeling that way so often x3 I feel like money is the problem. If you have money, people see you as a person who has value, and if you don’t, then you’re seen as a burden on society x3 Deep down, I know that I do have worth. It just takes a lot of work to keep remembering that being poor and unemployed doesn’t = being worthless (as the UK government would have you believe) x3 I hope you know deep down that you have worth too :3
im so glad i finally got to sit down and play this one! i found myself relating a lot to saffi the world isn't really made for us autistic folk and because of that it can become so hard to carry on in a world that was clearly not constructed with your differences in mind especially, when it seems like people like you are so few and far between that you're not quite certain if they actually exist or not or if you're just making it all up in your head. that's why its always so nice and interesting to hear other autistic people talk about their experiences its a great reminder that we are here even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes(it was really interesting hearing you discuss your experience with it in the rambles section). i absolutely loved the writing in this one the third person narration really allowed me to develop feelings for these characters that I've only seen for like an hour even at the very start on my first run through i found myself really caring for saffi and desperately hoping that things work out for her even after only having played for 10 minutes or so. i also really loved this games ost it gave the game a more serene and beautiful vibe even in its more chaotic and scary moments. loved this project absolute 10/10 :3
Thanks so much for playing this one too ^-^ I’m so glad you were able to relate to Saffie! I was a little worried that actually stating she has an ASD diagnosis might make it difficult for players to relate to her whether they have an ASD diagnosis themselves or not since the spectrum is so vast. That’s partly why I tried not to write tooooo much about autism specifically and focus more on Saffie’s feelings in general because anyone can struggle with anxiety and depression at any point in their lives.
I don’t think it helps either that while a lot of people are aware of autism these days, they have a sort of skewed idea of what it looks like due to limited coverage in the media and stuff >.< A lot of folks seem to think we either have special needs and learning difficulties, or we are socially inept geniuses with savant skills, and they don’t realise that it’s not as black and white as that x3 A lot of people with ASD don’t fit into either of those stereotypes. I know I certainly don’t, haha.
I think getting my diagnosis made me feel more able to talk about it and be more open about it as I learn more and more about how it impacts me. Cos pre-diagnosis, even though various professionals had said to me they were 99.9% sure I was autistic, I didn’t want to research it too much or anything just on the very slim chance I wasn’t because I didn’t want to be labelling myself as something I wasn’t. Now that I have a definitive answer that I am autistic, it’s a bit more liberating and I can learn more without worrying about that side of things.
I totally agree though that it’s interesting to hear about other autistic people’s experiences! I find I can generally relate to at least a small part of stuff people write or talk about even if not everything! And it is nice to have a reminder that you’re not completely alone and that there are other people out there who understand you cos it can feel very isolating a lot of the time x3
So glad you liked the different narration from what I usually go for :3 With most of my stuff it’s more designed for like self-inserting I guess, but I really wanted this to be Saffie’s story and have it be more like the player is going on the journey with her I guess. Makes me super happy you liked the OST too since that was pretty much what got me out of the depression bit for a while and what gave me the idea for the game in the first place x3 Since I used making the music as a way to soothe myself, I kinda hoped it might come across as soothing for others in some way too :3
Thanks so much for always being so kind! <3 I hope 2024 is going well for you so far!
I just so randomly played the game, finished end 1-4 in order with guide, saw the ending words on screen, and immediately left a comment here. Thank you for your effort making this game and heart-warming words.
Edited: I now have completed all endings and I pretty like the idea that you cant change the structure of your brain to make it follow social norms. I'm so tired of people saying "oh it's just a matter of time" or "you'll get used to it" or sentences like that. People around me are always expecting me to change - and they are happy to see my improvements, happy to know that I have the faux ability to change for better. Idk maybe I am indeed used to it in some way. So sad :(
(BTW is it possible to add a feature that allows players to choose from unlocked images for the main menu? The image of end 8 is a bit too bright for my eyes and it remains as the final ending I locked.)
Well, I’m glad you happened to come across it and ended up enjoying it :3 Thanks so much for checking it out and taking the time to get the different endings ^-^
Yeah, the “You’ll get used to it” line is one my mum used to use on me a lot when I was younger, haha. She thought my depression and anxiety was a phase and that the more I exposed myself to the job I was doing at the time, the better I would feel about it eventually because, according to her “That’s life!”…
I never got used to it, and I never felt better, haha. It just made me more and more depressed and then suicidal because it required me to not be myself from the moment I walked into the store >.< And spending the entire day pretending to be someone I wasn’t and attempting to suppress my actual self was just exhausting to the point that I felt like the real me didn’t even exist anymore.
It would technically be possible to add a feature to allow the player to choose the main menu background, but it’s not something I’ve tried to code before, so it would probably take me a while to figure out how to do it x3 I have a rough idea of how to make something like that work. But a quicker fix would be just to start a new game because then it will reset automatically to the original main menu background :3 Also, getting any other ending would do the same thing because it will just replace the menu background with the one that corresponds to that particular ending. Starting a new game would be the fastest way to change it though.
OR... when I update the game soon with the masculine voice lines for Snowe, I could enable the dev console and add the commands to the walkthrough guide or something that would just enable players to open the console and pick a main menu background by altering a score counter!
Thank you again for checking out the project and for your kind words :3
I'll be waiting til January for the masculine voice but I just wanted to let you know THE PREMISE SOUNDS SO FUN I CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY IT T_T i've loved all of your games and I'm sure this one won't be the exception <3
It miiiight end up being early February rather than January because I was only just able to get back on my PC for the first time this year this week x3 So I’m pretty behind where I had hoped to be by now with adding those masculine voice lines, haha. It’s possible I might still make it for the very end of January, but I dunno, we shall see xD
I’m glad you’re liking the sound of it anyhow :3 You’re so sweet!! x3 Thanks for always being so kind and supportive! I really appreciate it <3
Thank you as well for checking out the game and for leaving such a sweet comment <3
I hope the game proved a decent distraction :3 I’ve spent a handful of Christmases and New Years alone or in the company of abusers, and it’s certainly not the nicest place to be when everyone else is getting all merry and in the mood for the holidays >.<
I hope you at least still had a nice cosy Christmas and a happy new year :3
I wish beings like that were real too! Or heck, even if just magic was real in some capacity and I could talk to animals or something x3
Tbh, I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas cos of how crazily commercialised it is, but the thing I’m most thankful for is being able to spend time with my dad and brother and just chill without my poor dad having to worry about his back-breaking work >.< And I think being away from family in previous years has just made me extra grateful for getting to spend time with them!
My Christmas and new year was nice enough :3 Pretty much just chilled indoors with my family. Had a bit of a meltdown on Christmas eve cos too much stress had built up >.< but I managed to relax a bit in the end x3
Hope 2024 has started out well for you! Your avatar is super adorable by the way! x3
firstly: unfortunately, ı don't really have a good English so sorry for all mistakes ı did! plus its toooooo long comment so pls be prepared:') (sorry for writing too much hehe ı couldn't stop myself)
Helloooo ım here again! ı played the game and got two good endings (well ı think they are good endings) ı couldn't really bring myself to get other endings in a fear of well ı might see something ı wish not. why? well probably because of ı saw myself as a Saffie while plying the games time to time..that was an amazing game ^^ thank you so much for everyone who worked on this (and thank you for brining such an beautiful story alive)
ok now what ı will write will both include my own emotions and talking (maybe rambling nonsense :')) and my thoıghts about game more deeply with spoilers so anyone who doesn't wanna get any kind of emotional nonsense and spoilers please skip this part
I don't know if ım a autistic girl or not (ı am kind of sure ı have learning disabilities but some of my friends say ı might be high functioning autistic person too) tbh ı also don't want to know it either even ıf ım autistic.
why? because ı exactly think like saffie if you are different from the rest well congrats. you are doomed. Of course, that wasn't the case for me ı had a family who gave me great comfort zone (my room) and protected me feed me gave gifts and technically anything ı wanted to me. ı was a lucky kid. but ı know part of me is broken too... ı can vividly remember how my mom cried loudly saying things like what kind of sin she committed to have a child like me (ı was aggressive as a kid since ı couldn't really control my emotions and ı was really dumb one too like ı learned everything too late and no matter how much my mom tried) ı also have a mind that usually leans on unhappy memories than a happy ones. but again, expect being yelled by my parents or them laughing at my mistakes or myself ı only got bullied once and that was over a dumb reason and no ı didn't got beaten up either... it's just those kids followed me while ım going back to my home after school (home was pretty close) they laughed at me and kicked my backpack that's all. but still being lucky kid ı both understood Saffie and felt guilty because ı think ''ı understand her'' too. since as ı said there so many people living a hell unlike me. and yet ım somehow broken too with no reason. ı have a friend who literally same age with me (20) and has a child, taking care of the house, herself and the lessons at the same time and here ı am doing nothing except keep remembering my bad memories. anyway, in the game when ı saw how she clinged over a bear it kind of reminds me how ım clinging into my ''childhood'' and my toys and games now ı dont want to leave them no matter how weird ı am looking. ıt feels like ı will be lose my ''true self'' when ı lose them. ı can remember that ı actually cried over my 10 years old almost dead laptop because ı got a new one and have to give it away haha.
in game ı actually hose to wait the creature yet once she suddenly go for suicide ı changed my option immediately... only to get into same point but the story ı got was really good and ım happy she didn't died... tho ı still don't understand why did Snowe brought her into prison-like place... the door was open which was good. but if ı were Saffie ı wouldn't try to open it either since it just looks locked XD (being pessimistic haha ) plus ı don't even know where ı am and ı might die outside. plus, the acts of Snowe actually reminded me part myself too. the part me that wanted to be ''normal'' or perhaps wanted to be ''accepted''? anyway ı always hated when someone saw me with tears and suddenly rush to me asking what happened but that always caused my tears to flow even more which ı hated. ı didn't want to cry in front of anyone because ı thought that's just being weak and it's not like they will solve my problems anyway so what's the point? hearing me out and then forget my words in few hours doesn't change anything except that they might pity me. which ı didn't want... ı didn't want to be ''poor thing'' ı wanted to be someone they see great since ı was also afraid that seeing my true self will only make them stay away from me (although ı look calm most of the time ı still have some issues while controlling my emotions especially when ı feel overwhelmed)
seeing characters as myself ı noticed small story inside of my head slowly shaped over the years ( it's more like me definin myself using analogy than a story but why not?) ı can't tell the full one since ı has too many hollows since ı didnt really write it down (plus its boring :p)
but ıt was something like this:
there was a pure light in the form of little girl full of hope and love she wished to be loved she wished to be happy with everyone but for some reason life didn't grant her wish and for some reason people around didn't want to be with her, ignored her, or said things that make her feel sad. little light didn't understand what she did wrong. but for some reason she left alone yet no one told her. she kept trying but things also kept being same.
soon after another form appeared ıt was opposite of little light ıt was pitch black in a form a girl the just like her apperiance she was opposite of little light. She was full of rage and sadness. She also wanted to hurt anyone she felt insecure with. At first little light was scared of darkness’ existance. It was carrying bad memories and acting aggresively ıt was obvious that ıf anyone see darkness they would hate her. So light decided to escape from darkness while preventing her to do anything to others. But there was times that darknes grew so strong that light could no longer avoid it and both of them got hurt in every explosion. After explosion darkness usually became more silent and light hoped that she would keep staying like that. But this became a circle and time gaps between explosions were getting shorter due to outside world was chancing making darkness even more insecure. This kept happening until the day that darkness become so strong and unstoppable, and explosions became one after another. Light was desperately trying to avoid the risk of people around her getting hurt by darkness, but she was also tired. But when things felt hopeless, and light could no longer avoid darkness. Light finally turned to darkness and looked at her. This time instead of how darkness surrounded everywhere with pitch black color almost forcing her way out tos how herself this time light looked at her by her decision. And after getting closer she noticed… that this darkness she has been avoiding was no one but her.
It was her feelings that she kept silent, ıt was her wish to stand her ground when someone made her upset, ıt was her that she got afraid tos how and hid and all those explosions were actually nothing but cries of her sadness and broken dreams that she tried to muffle.
Light noticed that what she avoids was not monster that must be hate and shoo away. But actually, the old wish of being accepted and loved that has been broken by others. It was both a despair and anger towards people who ignored her and hope that maybe someone will still see her accept her. This was the actual form of darkness that light misunderstood.
Seeing darkness true form with finally opened eyes.
Light slowly takes action in this whole mess. she slowly gets closer to darkness, to her desperate side, and then light hugs darkness with these words
‘’ No matter what happens please never fall into despair, ıts never too late and you are not uncapable of anything too, never give up on trying. Even you fail and there will no one loves you. I will be here and ı will always love you no matter what. You did nothing wrong’’.
with this explosion got weaker and there were tears on both light’s and darkness’ eyes.
after that ıt wasnt like explosions were gone but at least now darkness and light was working together to make these explosions less and less devastating towards both of them and towards the outside world. Perhaps their efforts will take years to finally soothe the explotions but fort hem ıts fine. As long as they keep trying together ıt will be never late afterall.
-end of the story-
so yeah ı wrote this when ı was super overwhelmed and everything was going bad. This story is technically ı used this story to see the main problem of my pain and try to release both me and my regrets so ı can finally breathe comfortably. İn the end ı really managed to say this words to myself and ıt feels like my mind ‘’the other me’’ heard it.. because after managing to end this road in days ı started to see someone supportive dreams which never happened to me before. Whenever ı got sick ı always had terrible nightmares. But after that event suddenly ı started to see my favorite game characters come to praise me and comfort me from my troubles saying things like ‘’ take care of yourself you are more important’’ which makes me so happy whenever ı see them (ı see those dreams so rarely these days ;w; noo)
anyway ı rambled too much perhaps because ı hope that this comment will be read by some people or just someone (^^ thank you for anyone who managed to came this far)
overall this is a great game ım also pretty touched by the ending writing thank you for all hard work ı feel truly lucky that ı found your games ı hope you will also take care of yourself and continue making games (with rest ^^). It was amazing game .
You don’t need to apologise :3 Your English is better than you think! And you never have to apologise for writing too much cos I do it all the time, haha x3 I just really appreciate the fact that you enjoyed the game enough to want to write about it ^-^ So yeah, thank you so much for playing this one as well!
None of the bad endings are especially bad in this one :3 I guess it’s a slight spoiler to say but, no one dies in any of the endings at least! It’s just the bad endings are significantly less happy than the good ones is all, haha.
I tried not to lean too heavily into the autistic stuff with Saffie as a character in the hope that she might still be relatable even for people without any experience of autism :3 So yeah, I guess even though the diagnosis is kind of a trigger that leads her to head out into the wilderness, her anxiety and depression is ultimately the main problem in her life that causes her to feel so terrible.
Sometimes with stuff like autism, it can be helpful to know, but in many instances, having a diagnosis isn’t helpful anyways or can even be detrimental for some people, so I don’t blame you for not wanting to know!
I’m glad you could empathise with Saffie either way :3
Having a loving family is always going to be better than not having something like that, but the worst thing about depression and stuff is that it can still manage to worm its way inside you even if you have love in your life :(
The very first time I went to therapy, I said to the therapist something along the lines of not understanding why I felt so terrible because I had loving parents and no trauma in my initial upbringing as a kid. I said I shouldn’t feel this way when there are people out there who have nothing, who are suffering and living lives soooo much worse than mine. And the therapist said to me that I shouldn’t compare my suffering to other people’s suffering because it will never change the fact that if you’re hurting, for whatever reason, you’re hurting. You have to live in your body and deal with your mind, and if you’re depressed then you’re depressed x3
I guess I should probably say there are spoilers from now on!
Yeah, unfortunately, you can’t avoid Saffie choosing to commit suicide since it’s a key point in the story, but no matter what the player chooses, Saffie will never actually be successful in her suicide attempt.
Snowe put Saffie in the prison for a few different reasons. Firstly, Snowe was scared that Saffie would try to hurt herself again, so genuinely wanted to keep an eye on her and keep her safe until Snowe was more confident that Saffie wouldn’t try to hurt herself again. At the same time, Snowe was extremely lonely and wanted to keep Saffie there for more selfish reasons. And yeah, Snowe didn’t actually lock the cage because Snowe didn’t want to truly hold Saffie there against her will + Snowe was fairly confident Saffie wouldn’t try to escape because Snowe had once had a similar mindset to Saffie in the past just feeling stuck.
I always used to try and hide my emotions from people too because I didn’t want them to worry x3 especially from my parents when I was having a bad time at school! I knew if they saw me cry they would just worry, and I didn’t really even know how to explain to them that I felt so awful and that school was the cause. Plus I always feel really bad when other people are sad, so if my crying made them sad, it would only make me feel even worse to have upset them >.<
But yeah, I totally agree, having people pity you just isn’t helpful and makes you feel even worse >.< It doesn’t solve anything, and as you say, everything will often be forgotten again soon and people move on.
Like you, I also look calm on the outside a lot of the time when inside my emotions are exploding and I’m struggling to control them. It’s really hard to live like that cos it’s like constantly having to monitor myself to make sure I don’t erupt and accidentally hurt myself or someone else >.<
I think it’s good to use stories to help process feelings and emotions :3 Writing it all down like you did by sharing your story here can be cathartic and possibly even lead to connecting with others who have similar experiences! The worst thing about being depressed is feeling like you’re fighting the darkness all on your own, so the more people who share their stories, the less alone everyone will feel if they happen to find them :3
I feel like your story would look amazing as a short animation! But I don’t have the skills to make something like that >.<
I definitely empathise with your story :3 And for real life it’s very significant because if you carry negative feelings with you and just ignore them or try to push them away, they will only end up causing more harm :( We have to acknowledge all parts of ourselves, even the parts that are painful to face. It’s super hard and even though I’ve been trying to work on it for years, we have to try our best to accept ourselves and be kind to ourselves. Cos yeah, beating ourselves up about stuff is only ever gonna make everything worse. We get enough crap from other people, so we’ve got to try to at least be on our own side x3 Having all parts of ourselves unified is the ideal way to move forward and try to be happier :3
Sometimes it is really helpful to write stuff down like that because you can make sense of things a lot better when they’re outside of your head. When you keep everything inside, it just gets all muddled and murky + almost impossible to unravel >.< So I’m glad that writing was able to help you see things about yourself more clearly :3 It definitely helps me a lot sometimes!
You didn’t ramble too much anyhow! There is no such thing as too much rambling :D
I’m truly lucky to have amazing people like you check out my games! So thank you very much again for playing and taking the time to write so much cos it really means a lot :3
I hope that you’re able to have happy times to balance out the times that aren’t so good! I guess all of us who carry some darkness inside us are always going to struggle >.< but I hope that we can at least find things to hold onto that help keep us going and make life worth living despite the bad times :3
I hope 2024 has been going as well as possible for you so far! And I hope you’re taking care of yourself :3
This visual novel was simply fantastic. I absolutely admire the wonderful story-line, the beautiful character design, the voice acting, the CGs and basically everything about this game was just admirable. Considering it was made in under a month makes it even more wonderful. The theme of the story was so well written. You really managed to put emotion into the writing and portrayed Saffie's problems ever so accurately. I could practically feel what she was feeling(sort of). All the endings, be it good or bad, were so well written. The way both Saffie and Snowe bonded over their shared problems was touching to see. Not to mention, the way a single choice changed the outcome of the story so drastically was incredible. You did an amazing job with the game and your efforts were definitely not in vain for the results are truly spectacular!
This must have been quite tiring to finish in a month, so i wish you a well earned rest! Don't tire yourself out too much! And I hope you have a Happy New Year!
Aww, thanks so much for playing and for all your kind words ^-^ So glad you enjoyed the game! I honestly didn’t think anyone would play it x3
It makes me super happy to hear that you felt the emotion came across in the writing because I always find it really hard to tell if I’ve managed to achieve that >.< and especially when it comes to such a sensitive subject! I was kind of worried that I should keep stories like this to myself in case anyone comes across it and it upsets them in some way.
And I’m really glad that you thought the way the characters bonded was touching because that was another thing I worried about a lot x3 I thought maybe because the story was short, it wouldn’t come across very well how they bonded and grew together because there wasn’t enough time to portray it very well, so it’s a huge relief to know that it still came across!
Aaaaand, I also worried a little bit that any players might be annoyed by the fact that the choices weren’t super complex, so you’ve stopped me from worrying about that too :D
You’re right that it was tiring to try and get it done in time x3 I still need to get more done on it to finish it completely by adding the masculine voice for Snowe, but it was a huge relief to manage to get at least 1 voice version finished for the end of the jam.
Hope you had a wonderful new year and that 2024 has been going great for you so far! :3
Your games in general are marvelous and extremely enjoyable , hence me playing it was simply a fateful occurrence. :D
I'm glad that my personal opinions regarding the game match your expectations of its portrayal! I truly meant what i said. Stories like these are unique and depend upon the mentality and creativity of the authors . Even though sensitive topics may discomfort people, these kind of stories can also prove to be a motivation or support for others. Stories as amazing as this one deserve to be shared with others and to be appreciated.
I'm delighted to hear that you felt my response was able to provide your mind with ease! From characters to choices, this game was indeed wonderous. :) Hope you've received enough rest!
My year's been okay and I hope yours isn't treating you too harshly. :D Keep up the good work!
You’re too kind!! x3 It means a lot that you think that ^-^
Tbh, that’s probably why I’m more into indie games these days than big commercial releases, cos you come across so many unique and wonderful stories from different devs that you’d just never see in a big studio’s release!
I’m glad you see things that way :3 It’s really tough for me to judge what is/isn’t acceptable to put out there and exactly what triggers/warnings to use. Sometimes it feels like I might be going overboard and other times like I haven’t put enough. I definitely need to go back through my older games and update pages with more warnings and such. It’s just when I started out making games, it didn’t seem like others were including extensive lists of warnings, just a sort of vague warning as you get for films and such.
I’d never want to end up hurting anyone who happened to be exposed to the stuff I’ve released >.< so yeah, I just hope that the warnings I include are enough to let people know to leave if it’s something that they’re uncomfortable with. As you say, if there’s any chance at all that it might resonate with someone in some way though and potentially even be of support, then it’s definitely worth putting out there :3
I did manage to recover a bit, but then everything came crashing down again and I’m finding myself extremely stressed and overwhelmed thanks to having to try and fight the government at the moment >.< It’s a long story, but they’re basically discriminating against me on account of my autism, and it’s just so hard to even have my voice heard. I’ve actually had to resort to using an advocacy service to help me fight my case because a certain government department is essentially refusing to acknowledge my ASD diagnosis. It’s all to do with support money for living, and they’re trying to say that I’m totally fine and don’t need any help or support all based on 1 terrifying assessment undertaken by a 3rd party company who were clueless about ASD. They asked me questions like “Do you anticipate your ASD improving or going away in the next 6 months?” and “Have you always had ASD or did you acquire it recently around the time you were diagnosed?”
It’s just exhausting cos I wrote 7k words in my original forms and they just straight up either didn’t read any of it or chose to ignore it. So yeah, fun times >.< I basically had a meltdown as a result of a letter they sent me last week which was so insulting and invalidating.
But anyways, I’m rambling, sorry >.< I just hope the lovely advocacy people will be able to help me because I really can’t deal with it all by myself.
Hope things have been stress-free for you and that you get to have a wonderful week ahead :3
I agree wholeheartedly! It feels so amazing to be able to view their train of thoughts. Everyone is so unique after all!
You aren't wrong for being confused! Different people have different problems hence its hard to cater to each persons requirements. However, I feel you are doing great currently! Try not to overthink it and keep up the good work!
I truly understand what you mean! It would hurt me immensely if something I did ends up hurting someone. I'm pretty sure someone or the other will be positively influenced by your work! Afterall, it does seem like it comes from your heart.
Oh my! That sounds terrible! That is extremely cruel of them to do. i personally fail to understand how people can be so oblivious to another's condition. Those questions are ridiculous! Utterly outrageous. I am currently studying psychology and although i do not have much knowledge about Autism yet i can tell that it isn't something that would ''go away'' as they put it. It is extremely disheartening that many people are unaware about the troubles that one can face due to such conditions. I hope everything works out for you and I wish you peace and happiness. Do tell me if things get better(and hopefully not any worse).
The audacity of those people! That is simply disrespectful. I am so sorry you had to deal with that. :(
Its fine! I don't mind! I quite enjoy replying to you. Honestly, you are quite an interesting person hence i enjoy these short exchanges of replies and comments we have here! I know its been wayyy too long since you sent this (I'm telling you, I tried to respond but uh... well I'm a procrastinator you see, ehehe...._) but I truly do enjoy our conversations. :D Hope everything works out for you!
Well... Lets just say that life is everything but stress-free haha! I'm surviving though, so its quite okay currently! Hope you're able to make your life a bit better though! :) Until next time!
Yeah, I’m still not fully clued up on everything autism, but even before I was diagnosed I was aware of the fact that it’s not something people pick up or that goes away like a cold x3 I can only assume they asked those daft questions because they’re following a script and they have to ask that for every diagnosis you’ve listed, but still, it’s a waste of time and you would’ve thought they’d just use common sense and not ask it in relation to ASD >.<
Psychology is such a cool thing to study though! :3 I tried to do A-level psychology at college and on the course I was doing, that was the one that I genuinely loved every lesson! I dropped out of college though cos of my personal situation at the time and my mental health. I had a breakdown in the library and ran out never to return >.< I do wish I could’ve finished the course though cos it was so interesting. I would go back as an adult student if I had more confidence or someone to accompany me, but I wouldn’t be able to handle it without.
But yeah, it is indeed disheartening to come up against attitudes like that, especially considering that the company undertaking those assessments has a government contract! They should be more clued up really >.< But then again, it says that the person assessing you will be either a registered general nurse, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, or paramedic. You don’t get to choose, and they don’t assign someone to you who might have more relevant knowledge of your conditions, you just get who you get. I mean no disrespect at all to any of those professions, but it’s unlikely that they have much in the way of knowledge or experience in speaking to individuals on the autistic spectrum >.< I think if the company knows they’re gonna have to assess people with ASD and actually understand how it impacts their lives, they should have an ASD specialist to do it.
The lady who did my assessment wrote in her report that I did not ‘appear’ anxious (therefore I must be fine!) But it was a phone appointment for starters, so how on earth would she even know? But more than that, I TOLD her how anxious I was. I TOLD her about the physical symptoms that I had. Aaaand, I made her aware that because of my ASD, my voice and way of interacting might not reflect how I'm actually feeling inside, so it's important to listen to my words more than analyse my behaviour >.<
Oh, I'm terrible with my reply time to messages usually >.< For me it's more just badly losing track of time than procrastinating and the fact that my executive functioning is terrible xD I do like speaking to you and others though :3 I'm just not very good at it, haha. Especially when I start rambling because then there are no short exchanges anymore, just giant walls of text because I can't stop myself xD but because they're so giant, it ends up taking me months to actually respond to stuff and I end up feeling really bad that I was so slow T_T haha.
I hope you're able to get out of stress and survival mode soon so that you can have a chance to relax a bit at least!! :3
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I really enjoyed this. I was able to somewhat sympathize with Saffie, and I fell in love with Snowe (partly because of his masc VA, partly because i'm a huge sucker for dark-skinned males with British accents + demonic/draconic features <3)
I do want to know the artist behind the character sprites! It wasn't listed clearly in the credits, so I'm curious~
So glad to hear you enjoyed the game :3 Thank you so much for checking it out!
Hehe, Snowe is quite the catch x3
Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply >.< I haven’t been on my PC since the very beginning of October cos of some personal problems, but I’ll do my best to answer your question now :3
As far as I can remember, I listed the sprite artists in the credits text document rather than in game just because they’re assets that I purchased to edit and use rather than sprites commissioned by an artist. But I just did some digging, and I can link you to the artists that I bought the original sprites from :3
I just edited the colours of everything using GIMP, haha.
Sooo the main sprite for Saffie and Snowe was from someone called m-rakko: https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/74070192
For future Saffie, it’s a sprite by Ameharu: https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/79431323
For the lil dragon, it was an artist called otohimenohanagasa, but I can’t find a link for them anywhere now >.<
For Snowe’s spirit form, it was by an artist called Silon, and unfortunately, they appear to have left the platform they sold their stuff on and deleted everything, because my old purchase link for the sprite just takes me to a dead page now :(
Snowe’s beast form was by an artist called Haekura/Hachino (and is actually a live2D model for rigging): https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/4237338
And Saffie’s bear art is by someone called Susun: https://x.com/susun_ga_omise
I think that covers all the sprites :3 Editing the colours was a lot of time-consuming work cos most of em were just PNG files rather than layered PSDs, so it meant painstakingly selecting areas to alter the colour one section by section x3 Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through the pain of doing that cos it would be so much easier to just use them as they come, haha. I feel like it’s worth the effort though just to make them unique to the project, haha.
Thanks again for playing ^-^
I really loved this game and how much I resonated w/ Saffie
Thanks so much for playing it :3 I’m super glad that you enjoyed it! Alongside Bitter/Sweet, it’s one of my more personal projects >.< haha. I generally try to stay away from involving elements of my life and my personal feelings when it comes to making games, but I was just in a place where I needed to get things out of my head, so making this game was very cathartic.
Part of me is happy that you resonated with Saffie, but at the same time, another part of me is sad because I wish no one in the world had to go through the sorts of things she’s been through or feel the things she feels :(
I hope that you at least get to experience things that bring a smile to your face :3
I am doing much better in life now and everything is gradually getting better. my dream life is slowly becoming reality, but i wont ever forget the difficult situations I've had to overcome. I think a part of me will always resonate w/ characters like Saffie as a way to never forget what I've been through and appreciate how far I've come.
Well, that’s brilliant to hear :D I’m so glad things have been getting better for you! I hope they continue to do so.
I think having to endure and get through difficult situations must make us stronger somehow :3
And that’s a really nice way of looking at things. It means you will always have empathy with others who are going through tough times and might even be able to help them a little to keep going :3
I wish you all the best with everything ^-^
thank you so much (´,,•ω•,,)♡
I am amazed at the quality of this game. The art? Amazing. The fact that it's fully voiced AND you can choose the gender of your LI? Mindblowing. The narrator a Sapphie's voices both are so nice to listen to, too... The menus are cute and easy to navigate, too.
And the story... man, what a story. It resonated with a younger, sadder me and was a book definition of heartwarming. I enjoyed it so much, I know I will replay it more than once, even if I already got all the endings. If you enjoy hurt/comfort and yandere tropes, you definitely should play this one.
Ahh, thank you so much for all your kind words <3 It really means a lot :3 And I’m super glad you enjoyed the game!
I’ve been trying really hard to include the option to pick the LI’s gender in all of my projects for a while now because I feel like it’s just nice to have that extra bit of inclusivity :3 It sort of stems from me being a picky player xD Because years ago, there were lots of games I would think looked cool, but if all the romance options were fem only, or the protagonist was masc only, then I just wouldn’t play because I would rather go find a different game that suits my preferences x3
Sometimes, I do regret having both options because it basically = double the amount of work xD Cutting 2 lots of the same voice lines can be extremely time-consuming, as can testing both versions work correctly >.< And then when it comes to paying VAs, it also means the cost doubles, haha. In the end though, I am always glad that I put in the extra effort to include both :3
It also means the world to me that you would describe the story as a book definition of heartwarming ^-^ It’s extra scary releasing something like this that is more personal. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t extremely worried about how it might be viewed >.< It’s just that everyone’s experiences with this sort of thing are so varied and unique to each person that I was worried I might offend or upset someone somehow.
So yeah, I’m glad that it resonated with you in a way :3
Thanks so much for playing it + for taking the time to write such a sweet comment <3
Every one of your games is an absolute banger, can't wait for the next!
You’re too kind!! x3 Thank you for always being so sweet <3
Lazy Polar Bear and I are working on something for Otome/Josei jam right now :D It’s only gonna be a demo cos I went a bit mad and wrote the story script around 55k words or something >.< But the demo for Otome Jam will have a big chunk of it, like 17k words maybe!
We’re aiming to release the full version later in the year for Monstrous Desires Jam, but no idea if we will manage it, haha. The full version will also have the usual choices of masc/fem voice for the LI + for the protagonist too, but it’s otome-only for the current jam as it would be too much extra work to make the deadline if we tried to add all the other options x3
It’s a Limbo Line spinoff called Lovestarved with a darker sorta romance going on cos Sapphire Snowe was so sweet and fluffy, I felt doing a 180 and going back to the dark side xD
Hope you’re well & having a great year so far ^-^
OMG!!! I haven't checked Itch.io in a few months and i'm blessed with more games from my favorite game developer!?!?!? I'm so happy right now!! Thank you, Melancholy for making masterpieces every time!
<3 <3 <3 I hope you end up having fun with this one even if it is some fairly dark subject matter x3 Thank YOU for playing and for your kind words :3
Hey!! Thank you soo much for the reply. It literally made my day 10x better with it! i've been ranting on with my friend about your games and i'm getting them to play all of them!! I have been just a bit busy recently but thankfully i've been able to get far enough in this game and it's soooo good!! I've gotten to chapter 5B (If i recall) and i could rant all day about this!! You've done it again! The style of gaming is one of my favorite and it seems you've mastered it. Plus, the VOICE ACTING!!! OMGG!! I'm dying by the voices. I applaud and thank you for another incredible game. <333
Aww, I hope your friend ends up having fun then :D That would be awful if it turned out they just hated everything xD
I’m glad you’ve been enjoying this one so far though :3 It means a lot!
Glad you like the VA too ^-^ That’ll always be one of my favourite parts about making games, haha. To me, it never feels right until the VA is in there and you can actually hear the characters talking x3
Thank you again for being so sweet! I hope you’ve been having a happy month so far :3
For some reasons, for the Linux version, you have to click on a VERY SPECIFIC SPOT (like a few pixels) : the “START” text is mostly unclickable, you have to try a lot of time.
Found why : the “mouse” pointer image is… at the very bottom left of the big snowflake image >_<
Damn, that's really weird >.< It doesn't work like that on Windows, haha. I've never had a Linux system in my life, so I have no way of testing stuff on one :( but still, I never imagined the hotspot for cursors would somehow change between systems o.O that's really odd!
Sadly, I have no idea how I would even fix that either when I can't test it myself on Linux, haha. When I tested on my Windows PC and family potato laptop, it just works like a normal mouse cursor :(
It’s still usable thought, so it’s no big deal. No crash on my end, to the end.
Well, that’s good then at least x3 Still, I wish I knew why weird stuff like that happens in the first place so I could actually stop it from happening or fix it T_T haha. Thanks for playing it regardless :3
damn i wish i lived in a place where it actually snows to recreate this game irl!!1!1! ^^
Maybe not all the suicidal stuff though cos that would be bad >.< although, technically, Snowe would save you, but still!!
Tbh, I wish it snowed more where I live. Years ago, we used to get some pretty snowy days in winter and try to make the most of it cos it would disappear as quickly as it arrived, but this past year, we didn't get any at all :(
i literally LOVE the artstyles for all of ur gamez!!! its veeeeeryy pretty T_T... this game is literally soo well written!!!! i love all of ur games!!! u and ur deserves more attention and recognition!1!!!!!11!!!
I’m glad you do :D I can’t take toooo much credit for the look of the art in my projects since I can’t actually draw to save my life >.< For this project, I just picked some sprite assets that I thought fit well, and then I spent hours and hours editing the colours and adding effects to them using the program called GIMP :3 I spent soooo long trying to make CGs for this one just by editing the heck out of my assets, haha. I’m happy that all the time spent editing paid off though cos I was trying my best to make everything look pretty and cohesive ^-^
I always prefer working with artists though than editing assets :3
That’s great that you enjoyed the writing too! This one was pretty personal x3 haha.
I remember you commenting before :D Thank you so much for your support and all your kind words <3 It means a lot that you like my games! I hope you’re having a good 2024 so far :3
Aaaah I keep forgetting to comment here even though I've had the page open in my tabs for a while cause I'm not sure how to put my thoughts into words-Ngl I spent my entire night playing this when I played it, and I goshdarn love it! Alot of Saffie's struggles hit me fairly close to the heart, like really close if I'm honest, but overall I really loved it >W<
I've only done one playthrough, but when I get the time I plan to try and get another ending of the branch(branch A) I did and then try the other branch if I can stop feeling a bit guilty due to the choice that leads into it XD
Also, ngl after finishing playing this, I actually got inspired to try making my own VN, not long after I finished SS, I went and bought some sprites and music before loading up the VN program I got for free at one point(TyranoBuilder), and have slowly trying to work on that despite the program being a bit unwieldly cause I can't afford NaniNovel and Ren'py scared me cause I can't read code well XD It's pretty fun though even if my first attempt at making a VN is going to be both relatively simple and linear in concept and rather personal to myself.
It's personal enough idk if I'm gonna post it online or not ahaha, dunno yet XDIdk where I'm going with this or if I'm making sense cause I'm writing this after staying up all night on accident
againso I'm kind of all over the place, but I've been following you projects since I found DD, and I'm in love with all of your games I've managed to play, especially since I was a bit shy of VNs with full voice acting until I played yours and found out how honestly pleasant playing them is ^W^ I can't wait to see what you make next as I slowly work my way through your games when I get the time and chance to play them!I have that problem a lot with different things x3 I’m so glad you still decided to leave a comment though! And really happy that you enjoyed the game :3
I tried my best to not just make Saffie me, even if I did put a lot of myself into her, haha. In some ways, I’m happy that she’s relatable because it can feel very isolating to live with depression, and so it helps a little just to know you’re not alone, but on the other hand, it’s kind of saddening to hear that she is just because I wish no one in the world had to feel the way she does in the first place >.<
The choice that leads to branch B is pretty mean x3 buuuut, there’s still a happy-ish ending available in branch B at least :D it’s just not as happy as most of what’s in branch A, haha.
That’s so cool that you decided to start making your own VN :D Tyranobuilder is what I used to make my very first VN! I also made my 2nd, super short game with it before making the switch to Naninovel, but Tyrano is definitely fantastic for starting out :3 Honestly, without Tyranobuilder, I would probably never have got into making VNs at all, so I owe it a lot.
I was also terrified of Ren’Py xD I managed to make a short demo project using it, but by the end, I thought, if this is what I have to go through to make a game, then I’m not sure I want to bother x3 I just found the coding side of things so boring and headache-inducing. Luckily, I remembered that I got Tyranobuilder as part of a Humble Bundle, and decided to give that a go instead! It does what it says on the tin in terms of making it possible for a person to create games without knowing a single thing about coding :D
I still feel like an idiot for choosing to make my very first game a full-length big one (Solipsism Reigns) x3 but still, the fact that it was achievable in Tyranobuilder says a lot about the software :3 The only reasons I switched to Naninovel was because once I learned more about game dev in general over the course of working on that long project, I realised how slow it was to put things together with point and click as an interface + Tyrano was a little clunky sometimes and produced weird bugs for different people’s computers seemingly at random >.< I found it irritating that everything seemed to work fine for me when I tested it, but some people couldn’t even open the game, and others had strange issues like videos not loading, or save files disappearing :( Even now, some people can still play my first game just fine, and others can’t even get it to launch x3
But yeah, Naninovel is pretty expensive >.< I’d say it’s worth it if you end up getting really into making visual novels :3 But it’s probably best to wait until it’s on sale because it does have 50% off a few times a year for different sale events like Christmas and stuff! I managed to get it half price when I bought it. It was a bit daunting to use at first, but the simplified scripting language is actually pretty easy to pick up, and the tutorials for it are so detailed and super helpful!
Don’t worry anyhow, everything you wrote made sense to me just fine :3 And that’s so sweet of you to say! I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying some of my games ^-^ And even more glad that you’ve been liking the voice acting :D One of my big hopes when I first started trying to make VNs was to win people over to liking English voice acting in VNs x3 Because back when I started, a lot of people still had the opinion that English voice acting was bad, so they would refuse to play projects with it or just mute the voice acting >.< Or they would only play VNs with Japanese VA and ignore the ones with English VA. That made me sad cos I’ve been passionate about voice acting for such a long time, and I really wanted to try and show that English VA can be incredible too! :3
I hope whenever you have a chance to check out my other stuff that you end up liking it :D And thank you so much for playing and commenting on this one <3 Good luck with your own project, and I hope you have lots of fun in the process of making it ^-^
Ye! ^W^
Yea, I can understand that! I tend to put some
or alotof myself into my characters, though it varies depending on whomst the level of it, though I don't always know what exactly I have cause I've not been properly diagnosed with anything(Well technically I got blanket diagnosed with BD2 a while ago, but I know myself enough to know my problems are not just that). I just know something isn't right and it does not fall under just one thing X'3Ooooo, now I'm curious so I'll see about doing that branch when I can then! :O
Yeee, it's been super fun working with Tyrano, even when I've encountered really weird bugs like the Shake character thing repeating when it shouldn't have several lines after it happened XD But it's definitely making me want to do more than I can with it, but I'm going to stick with it until I fully know what I'm doing!
HONESTLY that's REALLY fair. For me the coding side just outright terrified me and overloaded my brain to where I had a mild panic attack as a result when I tried to understand it, and even though one of my best friends offered to learn Ren'Py coding for me, ngl I just want to be able to make games on my own without needing to pingpong my files between me and the friend for her to code in. Not helping matters is my current project a bit too personal to want her seeing it as I'm writing it X'D It's a bit heavy topic wise and if I post it anywhere there's going to be a disclaimer on stuff in it, cause yeah there's some heavy topics discussed at least.
Ooo, ye it does! Ngl Solipsism Reigns is another one of your games I've been meaning to play but keep getting distracted from doing so, hopefully at some point I can get my brain to focus long enough to play it fully! :D And oough, I'll keep that in mind for mine then. Hopefully the last update Tyrano got fixed those bugs? Granted the last update before any updates stopped was two years ago so, HM, dunno X'D
Ngl so far, I think I am getting into making VNs, I just, neeeed to finish my first one before I REMOTELY try to come up with or start other projects XD I have like, two other game projects I've sat on for years cause I kept changing how I wanted to handle them(RPG maker game, then novel format, and just it's a mess), but if this first test VN goes well, I may convert them over to VNs just cause it's a medium I GREATLY enjoy and can do with my usual style of writing. I just need to be able to find terms to use for finding specific sound effects XD Cause so far it's finding sound effects that's been a mild issue(also OST, but I both bought a music album from a user on Booth, "Ruha (Pastel Tone Music)" did with a artist called sasAIchi who I found thanks to playing DD and being curious on who made Castor/ia's sprites, and I know a royalty free music youtuber(granted for melancholy or dark tracks) so I'm fine on that front for the moment), cause I don't know what to search for when I'm trying to find like, a grab? grabbing? sound effect, I know places I can get free SFXs, but finding ones like that is hard XD I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for when Naninovel goes on sale though! Cause I'm really enjoying making the VN I'm working on! Even if it's emotionally draining to write at points XD
Yay! I'm always worried I don't make sense cause I tend to ramble alot and go off on tangents that go everywhere before I circle back to my original main topic, so I'm really glad I made sense! >w< Yeee, I understand that! Ngl prior to your games, I've only played exactly THREE VNs that had voice acting to my memory, and the voice acting was in Korean XD Most other ones I've played only had partial or no VA work in them, though the three I mentioned are big big BIG sources of my love for VNs. One I cannot recommend much cause it does NOT respect your time and is a big mobile game that moves in real time, plus it personally ruined my sleep schedule when I went to do all the routes that were in it at that point, but the other two I do if you don't mind them being rather pricey and very much long games ;w; They're "Nameless ~The One Thing you Must Recall~" and "Dandelion ~Wishes Brought to you~", they're really good and I adore them to utter bits, namely Nameless, even if they're not my top favorite VN I've played, they're close but not quite. But uh, side tangent about those two aside, I get what you're saying! I used to be a bit hesitant of VNs with English voice acting, but ngl I'm warming up to them thanks to your games >w< I'm just not used to understanding what's being said when it comes to voice work in VNs, I feel, but I'm getting used to it!
Ye! :D No problem and thank you! So far it's turning out really well and I'm having alot of fun, even if I'm just writing as I go for the moment instead of writing it out in a document or something beforehand, which is probably not wise but it's at least working for me XD
Yeeeah, places seem to love just slapping random diagnoses on people without taking the time to properly figure out what’s going on >.< Funnily enough, I also got a diagnosis of Bipolar 2, but after being seen for adult ASD tests and diagnosis, the people who diagnosed me with ASD think that the bipolar diagnosis is incorrect, and what I actually have is ASD + ADHD, which can look somewhat similar to bipolar, but isn’t x3 So far, I only have the ASD diagnosis, and I don’t know if I have the energy to also pursue one for ADHD >.<
Tyrano can be silly like that x3 Hopefully it’s at least improved a bit though since I used it!
It is better to be able to do stuff yourself cos it can be tough to rely on others for things when they have their own lives to live and their priorities might not necessarily be the same as yours. I know I would also end up feeling like a burden if I were asking someone to handle code for me x3 unless we were part of a proper studio/team or something I guess.
It’s a slippery slope once you start making VNs xD You’ll probably end up addicted like me :P
I always have a bit of trouble with certain SFX even though I have a pretty big library of assets at this point. What I often end up doing is combining sounds and editing them to get something close to what I want, haha. If that fails, I try to search for things that might sound similar even if they’re not exactly what I’m looking for. Like for grabs, I don’t have any actual SFX in my library labelled grabbing, but I will use one that says it’s like clothes rustling or something instead, haha.
I feel you on writing sometimes being emotionally draining too x3 I really have to be in the right frame of mind to actually make progress with writing, haha. Sometimes it comes easily, other times it’s more like it’s impossible and feels like I will never be able to write another word again xD
It does seem like more and more indie VNs are including English VA these days :3 Each year I play stuff from Spooktober Jam, there’s more voice acting, which is just awesome :D
Oh, boy, yeah, I don’t have time for games that want me to log in all different hours of the day anymore >.< I used to play stuff like that, but now I just find it too frustrating, overwhelming, and time-consuming.
Omg, I’ve played Nameless and Dandelion :D They’re definitely both great games :3 Actually, they must’ve been some of the first PC VNs I played cos I started out on like Voltage mobile ones and stuff, haha. Weirdly, I preferred Nameless to Dandelion even though I like the setting of Dandelion better! I feel like maybe cos the characters in Nameless were stronger! I even pre-ordered a special physical pack for Mystic Messenger years ago just cos I loved Nameless and Dandelion so much xD Sadly, I wasn’t able to keep up with Mystic Messenger updates though cos my phone was too crap and couldn’t physically download them, haha.
Well, having fun with it is the most important thing :3 When you’re not having fun anymore, you know something has gone wrong x3 I also used to write as I go! I found it easier for whatever reason, but I forced myself to stop doing it a while ago just because it made it soooo much harder for me to go back and check my spelling & grammar throughout >.< haha. Now I always write in a doc first to save time later on with editing x3
Hope you continue to have lots of fun with it! :3
Itch why didn't you send me a email for this reply aAAa- Huh! Okay ngl that gives me some optimistic hope for trying to go for a more correct diagnosis, cause I'm suspecting I have Autism/ASD, but don't know for sure and I'm going to need to see someone outside my area to get rediagnosed which isn't fun considering my physical issues. X3 Also that is honestly very fair, I haven't gone to get rediagnosed myself for much the same reasons of not having energy for it yet, plus my RA(Rheumatoid Arthritis) or whatever it is has made most physical movement very draining to do as of recent months.
Hopefully! I ended up having to install a UI theme cause the bright base one made my head ache and the new theme changed icons/layout of things so I had to relearn it, but it seems to work well enough? Though my test VN was rather small and the next thing I wish to do is decently big so I'll be pushing it once I get energy to pick what big project of mine to do. (I have like, three VN ideas, ones new while the other two are old ideas of mine)
Yeye, the most I'm really willing to do is have that friend playtest my things to catch any spelling errors, otherwise...I'd feel like a burden if she was having to code everything for me as well ngl ;w;
Yeah ngl I think I am cause after I finished that Test VN I want to make more I just need to get so many more resources before I can XD Still heavily conflicted if I'll post the test VN or not(cause wowzie, got extremely personal at the end), but! It's playable from start to finish even if my prose at times did not work with the text box constraints so it looks a bit off XD
Ooo, ngl I'd try combining SFXs if I knew how ngl, I ended up finding some cloth SFXs that worked for my purposes, just took aLOT of looking around. XD
Oh gosh, I completely understand that, it's been hard for me to find the right headspace to properly write much of anything lately X'D It's either really easy or difficult, and I only finished my Test VN after having a very rough day that I just used as a way to finish out one of the more emotionally draining segments and then was able to finish it after that more easily.
Oooo, ye!
Same tbh, I can hardly keep up with the mobile games I play and they aren't nearly as demanding of my time, so stuff like MysMes I can't really return to easily XD
:DD Yay!!! Ngl that makes me super happy cause I've not found anyone who's played Nameless and Dandelion before ^W^ They were definitely among the first PC VNs I've played among like.....ngl I can only remember Princess of Ruin(which I recommend since it got a Itch release recently) cause I played way too many VNs/Otomes back then including mobile ones in the "Shall We Date" series XD But I definitely get preferring Nameless to Dandelion! I loved Dandelion alot cause I played it first, but generally I prefer Nameless due to the characters...that does remind me I want to replay it, oops XD Oooo, that's awesome! :O I don't have any physical merch for MysMes or any of the dev's games cause couldn't afford it, but I might eventually try at some point ^^ And ye, I was the same, I managed to complete all the base routes of MysMes after spending a bit to unlock the "Deep" routes(which I admittedly did at the start cause the route I wanted to do was not one of the free ones), but I wasn't able to keep up with the updates after a point and despite there now being a route for V which I had been wanting(which I would also need to pay for, why), I still haven't gone back besides to reread chats when I have the space XD
Yeee! :D I'm definitely going to need to write in a doc first from this point on, namely cause besides my friend catching some spelling and grammar mistakes(only around four-ish surprisingly but still I was mildly embarrassed), the write as I go isn't going to work for any of my bigger projects, it'd only work for something really short like what I did but not for longer ones XD Especially if I try to have route splits or variable tracking, good god that would be, a big mess XD
Thank you, I hope so too! I'm currently trying to mentally plot out my next project as well as buy the assets I'm going to need, but it's fun to do and I can't wait to make another VN! ^W^
That happens to me all the time, haha.
I hope you’re able to eventually get somewhere with a diagnosis :3 That sucks you’ve got arthritis >.< It sort of runs in my family, and it’s what stopped my gran from eventually being able to walk cos it was so bad in her knees. My poor dad has it in his knees, back, and fingers as a result of his work, and even though I’m only in my thirties, I’ve also got it in my knees, though nowhere near as bad as my dad. But yeah, it’s horrible :(
I hate having to redo any kind of UI stuff, it drives me insane x3 haha.
There are a lot of free assets and stuff out there too if you don’t mind using those so you don’t have to pay for every single thing :3 It’s just the terms of use on free ones tend to be stricter than on paid ones.
That’s fantastic you managed to finish that first project though :D If you’re worried about posting it, you could always work on more projects to build up experience, and then come back to deciding whether or not to post it at a later date :3
Oooo, nice, Princess of Ruin is one that’s been on my list of things to play for a looooong time now, but I had no idea it had an itch release! :o
Hehe, yeah, I used to just devour most VNs I could get my hands on whether they were PC or mobile years ago x3 Now I’m a lot more picky since I never give myself as much time as I should to play stuff T_T
I know some people use things like Scrivener or even Twine for writing their stories and testing branches etc. I never have myself cos I’m kind of terrible at trying out new things when I’m already stuck in my ways x3 but I imagine they’d be very helpful for planning stuff better!
So glad you’re having fun with it all anyhow :D I hope you continue to enjoy it cos it’s an awesome thing to do :P
i meant to leave a comment sooo much sooner but i’ve been crazy busy lately… i played this game a little while ago while baking a cake so i think im going to forever associate it with lemon cake now lol
first of all, playing this game struck me so hard. after following you for as long as i have, i can definitely see how self-indulgent this game was and i love it so much!! it’s amazing how you're able to turn these kinds of thoughts into beautiful creations like this. im so very in love with saffie btw, i usually prefer your love interests but saffie is so so precious and feels so real in a sad way
okay next i NEED to talk about this, i fully understand the insecurity with voice acting under your own voice but i did read a bit on how you said the ai voices work and after going through it, i have to say you really would make a wonderful voice actor. from what you said about the ai keeping the tone and such of your voice, it definitely means you have the ability to voice act, because it still scares me just how amazing those voices sounded. if you didn’t have the skill and just put the ai speech over it, it wouldn’t sound nearly as amazing as it does. and your voice by itself is incredibly soothing!!!
i honestly struggled with coming up with the right words to describe this game, but if i had to go with one, it would probably be “meaningful.” i’ve been going through an awful time this last month and playing this game was something that i don’t even know how to describe. it was just amazing honestly :( your games always are
idk if this is a little all over the place, im really sick at the moment but hopefully this makes sense!!! you and all of your games are fantastic, you’re incredible for being able to do all of these things and i wish you all the best with everything you do, i’ll always be there to support you ^^
Life is a pain in the butt like that x3 I’m forever meaning to respond to things but they just get pushed further and further back when irl stuff piles up and gets in the way, haha. Holy moly lemon cake though! x3 I hope it was tasty! I imagine it must’ve been :D I haven’t had anything like that in sooo long… and now I want it >.< I remember making lemon poppyseed bread/cake with my grandma many years ago and then devouring it just the two of us, haha.
Hehe, yeeeeah, it’s a liiiilttle bit embarrassing to have this one out there in the sense that I went a step further with some of my personal feelings on mental health-related stuff than I did with Bitter/Sweet x3 When I finished all the music + the story in my head, I thought to myself, do I really need to make this into a game? It’s already served its purpose in soothing me for the most part, so maybe I should just leave it at that. But then another part of my brain kicked in just shouting, do iiiiiiit!! So it is what it is I guess xD
The most frustrating thing about it is that I desperately want to console anyone who is feeling similarly to how I was at the time of writing it all because I don’t want other people to ever hurt like that :( but at the same time, I feel as though I completely lack the words to actually say anything that can make things any better. I’m even worse in person! I want to do all I can to help people who I notice are in pain, but it’s like I’m paralysed and don’t know what actions to take to be of any use >.<
That’s so incredible to hear about Saffie! That means a heck of a lot x3 I think Jennifer voiced the character perfectly and I can’t imagine anyone else doing her justice the way that she did.
It also means a lot that you’d say that about my voice acting even though it was dubbed over by AI :3 On a personal level, I feel like I just about managed to pull off the delivery I was after for fem Snowe, the narrator, and the misc characters, but there were definitely a few dodgy takes in there that I’m not particularly satisfied with x3 And I feel like I would struggle with a more emotional sort of character. I think Snowe not being suuuuper expressive was a big help in getting the right kind of sound for her. I reckon if my natural voice actually sounded a bit closer to the voice I picked for her, I would be a bit more comfortable using my voice without overdubbing, haha. It’s pretty incredible though that there’s even technology like that out there. It did generate some laughable attempts to copy some of my efforts, and it couldn’t handle laughter at all x3 but for the most part, it was pretty accurate, scarily so really.
One day, I might stop completely hating my natural voice, haha. It would be nice to do more voice acting properly. I miss acting in general >.< That and writing were my two main passions as a kid until I had it all beaten out of me by anxiety, haha. Heck, I would have gone to performing arts college if it hadn’t been for the fact that the only one I could possibly travel to after leaving secondary school required you to also take a module in dance alongside drama x3 Had that not been the case and I wound up studying there, my life could have taken a very different path since I never would have encountered my very first abuser! But nope, the prospect of having to do a unit in dance completely put me off doing performing arts entirely because (presumably thanks to my dyspraxia) I can’t dance to save my life x3
If I ever did want to seriously try voice acting though, I’d have to get a better mic and somehow soundproof my room or move house or something because the background noise from the busy road outside is bad >.< I can edit it out, but it seems to drop the overall quality of the recording. I’d also need some kinda lessons I think because I have a lot of mouth noises and stuff to edit out xD That’s super sweet of you to say my voice by itself is soothing though!! My brain wants to deny that with every inch of my being considering I can’t stand the sound of it and think I struggle with sounding quite monotonous in my regular speech x3
Well, I think everything you wrote to describe the game is beyond anything I could ever hope for and I appreciate it beyond words that you chose to take the time to type all that you did :3 “Meaningful” is probably one of the most meaningful (and I’m not trying to be funny there x3) words you could have picked! As much as I like to tell myself that this hobby of mine is entirely for me, there’s no getting away from the fact that anyone who writes anything probably hopes that at least one person might read their words, and with this being such a personal project, I’d be lying if I said any negative comments I might get on it wouldn’t be hurtful. On the flip side, it means any positive comments mean so much more because, while I always pour my heart and soul into everything I do, stuff like this really does have a piece of me in it, haha. I know it’s not gonna resonate with everyone, but to hear you describe it as meaningful is enough for me to be content with it and know that releasing it wasn’t a mistake :3
Like I said, I’m not very good at consoling people >.< I feel like no matter what I say it will come across as kind of hollow, especially when there’s nothing I can really do to help :( But still, I’m sorry you’ve been going through an awful time. You don’t deserve that >.< You’re always such a ray of sunshine to me and I wish that all your times were good and happy ones, not bad and crappy ones!!
I don’t think it comes across as all over the place at all :3 Being sick is never good though >.< so I hope that it’s something you’ll be able to recover from soon! Whatever it is that you’re going through, I hope that it will pass as soon as possible, or at the very least, improve in some way and that life will stop being a dick to you!! x3 I don’t want to pry, but you’re always welcome to drop me an email or something if you ever want to talk about stuff! I might not be very good at cheering people up, but I can listen (with my eyes x3)
Thank you for always being so incredibly kind, caring, and supportive :3 Sometimes I wonder if I’d even still be doing this without amazing people like you around! Because as much as I keep at the hobby for the sheer love of it, there are days now and then when it sometimes feels like it would be less painful to just stop. It’s on days like that that I remember people like you and all the lovely things you’ve said. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to hold back the demons encroaching! Other times, it’s the one thing I somehow manage to hold onto like a candle in the abyss that stops the darkness from swallowing me up completely x3
Words are never just words. And yours among others have given me strength in times when I’ve otherwise had none. That’s something I will be forever grateful for :3
Sorry to leave another message already, but I tried to run the game just now, and after I chose the masculine voice, it started loading the game again, and crashed. Yeah...I might need a separate version of the game after all. So sorry for all of the trouble.
You don't need to apologise :3 I guess the extra voice files must've made it more of a struggle to load on winlator then >.<
I'm travelling to spend a few days with my friend atm as we haven't met up since August last year, so I can't type much without getting travel sick x3
I'll reply properly to your other message when I get home next week though + see if I can fiddle around adding more loads into a separate version of the game for you :3 Although, I'm a little worried it might not help if it's struggling with the overall load of the game size as a whole >.< I can try though and see if more loads will make a difference!
Heck, if you're only interested in the masculine version of Snowe, I could take out all of the files for the feminine version because that should help!
I hope you get to have as good of a week as possible :3
That's okay, just stay safe and have fun with your friend. Your health is more important than anything.
Ooh, that is a good idea! Taking out feminine Snowe's voice lines as well should definitely help. I don't usually date girls in games, so it's fine.
Take as long as you need to reply and enjoy your day and rest of the week.
Sooo, I’m back home now and I’ve made a new version for you :3
I added a good few more loading sections + removed everything to do with fem Snowe. Not just fem Snowe’s voice lines but also the narrator’s ones that use she/her pronouns for Snowe (that was like 400+ files, haha.) I think maybe some of Saffie’s ending monologue pronoun changes for fem Snowe are still in there cos I forgot to delete those ones x3 but that’s only like 6 files, so it shouldn’t really make a difference!
And yeah, I removed all the text in the script for fem Snowe too, so I’m really hoping it’s enough to get it to work start to finish on Winlator for you x3
I also took out the music player from the extras section because that takes a long time and a lot of resources to load + I will be uploading the OST to YouTube soon anyhow if you happen to want to listen to it at all.
If it still doesn’t work, I don’t think I can add any more loads cos there are a lot now xD Every time it moves to a new chapter, there is a load + extra ones for the last few choices that lead to different endings, haha.
There is more I can try though so not all hope is lost. The most drastic thing I can do is remove all VA completely, but that would be a last resort I guess.
I can always remove 1 character’s VA first, so, for example, if you would like to try and keep masc Snowe’s VA in there, I could take out all of the narrator’s or all of Saffie’s voiced lines (or both) to see if it would help!
With any luck though, this first version with just all the fem Snowe stuff removed will work for you! I uploaded it to Google Drive, so hopefully you can download it okay from there :3 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vttkDa6EXxjuYW4bhewN-il4YjGMxEdc?usp=sha...
Wow, that must have taken a lot of time and effort to do! What did I do to deserve an amazing friend like you? *hugs* I will let you know if it still doesn't work, but I don't think there should be anymore problems now.
It's not as great as what you did, but I made a game for you. I uploaded it to itch.io, and after downloading it, all you have to do is open the html file with an html viewer. This is a game made with Twine, so if it doesn't work, I can make it run in the browser.
The only issue is that itch.io won't show the images when I view it on the browser, but you can still play it.
So, let me know if you can't play it, or if the images still don't show. Oh, and you have to keep the images in the folder, so that they can show up in the game.
That's all the instruction I can give you, because I'm new to Twine, so I don't know much about it yet.
I hope that you can play it without any trouble, and I hope that you enjoy it!
Here is the link to the game:
https://vocaloidsrcool.itch.io/monochrome-rainbow
I wasn’t counting the hours, but it took me the good part of a day, haha. Deleting the fem Snowe stuff was easy enough, but adding the extra loading points was a bit trickier just cos I had to make sure everything worked okay afterwards :3 I tend to get really paranoid if I don’t test stuff properly as well, so I ran back through the whole game in the Unity previewer after I’d made all the changes, haha. It’s a good job I did too cos I found a couple of issues that were caused by the changes I made and was able to fix them! I just hope it does actually work for you now :D But if not, I did save my changes as a separate project so it would be pretty fast to make more changes if needed!
Ahh, that’s so cool :D I’ve played a few Twine games in the past! I’ve never actually used it myself, but I probably would have if I’d known it existed before I started trying to make VNs! That’s super sweet of you to make something though :3 Thank you so much! I haven't had a chance to check it out yet cos I wasn't able to even be on my PC much last week >.< Got a lot going on atm and on top of other things, the support group I started going to last week has set us some homework as well xD I will let you know when I finally get a chance to check it out though :3 Just gotta catch up on everything I'm behind on first, which is somehow a hell of a lot already >.< haha. Hope you get to have a good week ahead! *giant internet hugs*
Awww this was so lovely, or at least ended up that way in ending 6.
I was weary the whole time, cautious with my decisions. I *really* didn't want to get a bad ending here. I knew the spirit, althought very cryptic, had Saffie's best interests at heart. Or at least that's what I chose to believe, which gladly was rewarded with that lovely ending.
The topics developed across the game are very serious and important, and your work with them was marvellous. The complete disbelief and cynicism in Saffie, and how it could only end one way in her mind, yet how Snowe knew exactly what to do, in her own... very unique way lol
I really liked her character, and how she acted. She knew how everything would go, and she knew where to push to get Saffie to open up to herself, rather than to Snowe. She knew that was the only way she could let her free without her carrying on with her previous plan.
The message at the end of the game is also a very encouraging, and I'm SO glad you're here to tell it to everyone! It requires a lot of courage to go all the way into the open like that, to try and reach out to those who need it.
Now, on technical aspects, the game is pretty darn good as usual! Everything is in really high quality, and the music, SFX and VA just give it the perfect touch!
Thank you for doing it!!!
Holy moly I can't believe you played this one x3 This was so unexpected, but it made me smile :3 Thanks so much for taking the time to type all that out! You're too kind as always x3
Yeeeah, ending 6 is probably the happiest one, depending on how close you want Saffie and Snowe to be I guess, haha.
Ending 1 isn't even technically an ending. Ending 2 is just sad x3 Ending 3 is somewhat disturbing, haha. Ending 4 is happy, but I guess bittersweet. Ending 5 is probably the most disturbing of them all, but it looks pretty xD Ending 6 is quite possibly the most innocent one. Ending 7 is what I guess I think of as the canon ending since that's the one I gave a vocal track to! Ending 8 is probably my favourite though because it seems so sweet until it's kind of not xD and it's just fun to imagine what happens after, haha.
I don't think any of the bad endings are that bad in this x3 They're just kind of tragic without anyone truly perishing! But I can say that easily cos I know everything that can happen, haha. If I were playing it, like you, I'd be extremely cautious with my choices cos I'd hate to be the cause of something awful >.<
With Snowe being a soft yandere, I guess Snowe technically always has Saffie's best interests at heart, but it comes out in different ways depending on her decisions x3 I'm glad you got that ending first though because it's at least one of the more uplifting ones!
Honestly, it means a hell of a lot that you thought I handled those topics decently because I always worry with sensitive subjects like that about accidentally hurting someone somehow :( cos I know everyone's experiences are different and very personal when it comes to mental health. The last thing I want to do is offend or upset anyone by putting my own feelings out there in bits and pieces x3 I really had to sit and think on whether it was something I should release publically at all.
I'm so glad Snowe came across that way ^-^ It might sound a bit weird, but I hoped that the game might have a sort of anti-horror feel in the sense that it seems like some super dark stuff might happen, but really, there's a big warm hug wrapped up in there x3 Especially with most of my games being horror games with yandere stuff in them. And so I wanted Snowe to be both yandere and also somewhat anti-yandere at the same time... which sounds like nonsense now that I've typed it, but I know what I mean xD I just lack the words to properly describe what I'm grasping at, haha.
I also wasn't sure whether or not to include that message because I find it difficult to know if it might come across as too much, or preachy, or anything like that >.< but at the end of the day, if it can reach even 1 person who happens to need to hear it at the time, then it's worth potentially being grilled over x3 I don't think I'm very good at consoling people because I never really know what to do when others are hurting >.< I just wish we lived in a world where no one had to hurt like that in the first place.
It makes me really happy that you think it came out high quality :3 I spent waaaaaay too long editing assets on this one, haha. I just wish I could draw T_T Still found some pesky little bugs as usual while working on the update to add Snowe's masculine voice lines >.> And I know there's a rarely occurring sneaky one still in there that I have no idea how to fix >.<"
I guess since you played the fem Snowe version that means you played the version of the game where Saffie's VA is the only proper VA x3 The rest is just me muddling along and using speech-to-speech dubbing to try and make it work as best I could at the time >.< haha. Masculine Snowe actually has a proper VA the same as Saffie, but feminine Snowe got lumped with my attempts at voice acting while hiding my actual voice.
Thank YOU for playing it and for writing such a thoughtful comment! You're an absolute legend, and once again you've brightened my day with your kind words, so thank you for that :3 Hope you're having a decent start to 2024 and that you have the most fabulous of Februarys!
Hahahaha I'm glad you felt that way with my comment lol hope your year goes great as well!
Also, damn, I didn't realize you did all those voices yourself. That's one hell of a work! My most sincere congratulations on that too xD I really liked Snowe's femenine voice! I thougt the acting was quite good there, after all, Snowe is a cold onion lol
And yes, I did the femenine route because when I chose the male one the warning about voice acting appeared so... yeah, felt like if there was a fully voiced route, I wanted that one xD
Again, so glad you received my comment with such joy, and thank you for your also kind words :P
Yeeeeah, but trust me, without the assistance from the AI dubbing over my original recordings, it would all sound awful xD I might be able to just about manage to get the delivery right the way I hear it in my head, but my voice is bland as hell x3 I wouldn’t even wanna include my original recordings for 1 character, let alone multiple, haha. I honestly don’t know how VAs out there can change their voice so much cos I sure as hell can’t! It’s a very impressive skill :3
Hehe, cold onion, love it xP
Yup, you’re like a ray of sunshine :D So I can only thank you again for your kindness!
Ah i really cried when i saw those heart warming words i really needed it life can be so hard i played this because i'm feeling suicidal and those words really get through me i cried really thank you for making these game...
Thank you for playing the game :3 And I’m sorry you’re feeling suicidal. You’re right, life can be really hard >.< If I’m completely honest, I feel suicidal most of the time, but working on these projects at least helps me to block that out a bit.
I feel like people’s mental health is getting worse and worse as time goes on :( More and more people that I know are dealing with depression than ever before.
You have to keep fighting though because even when it feels like there’s no hope, it’s true that you never know what could happen in the future :3 And it’s true that no feeling lasts forever. As hard as it is to keep going, you have to because you only get one chance at life, and if you commit suicide you might miss out on a lot of wonderful and happy times to come.
The crazy thing is that I feel like I don’t really have a reason to live besides not wanting to hurt the people who love me >.< but like I wrote for Saffie, I don’t exactly want to die either. I just wish life was less painful. I also wish no one had to deal with depression and suicidal thoughts because it’s hell. Which is why I wanted to write a story with some happy endings for Saffie :3
I hope that things get better for you soon! + That 2024 turns out to be a brilliant year for you :3
When I tell Snowe that I like his horns, a loading screen come up, then the game crashes. I am assuming there is a lot of content and all of that data made Winlator crash. Do you think you can fix it? Possibly separate some scenes into smaller parts, with more loading screens between? I'm going crazy - I NEED to play this game! It's so therapeutic!
Yeeeah, pretty sure you’re right there because it basically loads the rest of the game after that choice when you click on it, haha. It sucks that it was still too much to load on Winlator >.< Though, tbh, I’m surprised it runs at all on there cos it’s pretty slow to start a new game on my potato laptop x3
I can definitely try to add an extra load in there to see if it makes any difference! Weirdly, it’s not actually that much more that it’s loading when you reach that point, but I can definitely split it so that it hopefully only loads stuff from that branch exclusively.
I’m quite behind on where I wanted to be with the project because I’ve only just been able to get back on my PC for the first time in 2024 this week >.< but I’m trying my best to get masculine Snowe’s lines added, and while I’m working on it, I’ll add extra loads too so that it can all come out in the same update :3
Not sure if I’m gonna manage to make the end of January like I’d hoped, but if I don’t, with any luck, I can get it done in early February!
I’m glad you were having fun with it at least until Winlator died x3 Oh, and I’m not sure about this, but you might have to delete the game + all your existing data if you do want to play the updated version when it’s out. I’m still not 100% sure how it works if you try and load old data in a new version >.< I feel like it would probably cause the game to break.
Hope the new year is going well for you so far! :3
Omg, thank you SO much! I was really enjoying it until it crashed. You are a very skilled writer and an amazing artist, so, even without the rest of Snowe's lines the game is magnificent! I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. It was so worth it to play it even though it took like 25 minutes for the game to start up. I don't care though, because Snowe makes me feel like I matter, and I really love him.
I do understand using a program that not everyone can use easily, though. I can't use Ren'py, or Unity, because I only have a phone, but I found an app called Kocho, and it is so easy to make games with it, that even I can do it. The problem is, you can only play games made with Kocho ON the Kocho app, so it is pretty limiting.
It's okay, I'm fine with deleting this version of the game, because I can't play it, anyway, and updating it without deleting it would add too much additional space for my phone.
The people around you can influence your mood, so things have been...rough to say the least, but this game is like a late Christmas gift, so I feel better knowing that I will be able to play it.
I hope that you are enjoying the new year, and I hope that everyone is as kind to you as you are to me!
I just hope that the addition of all the masc Snowe lines doesn't make it even harder to load >.< The way I've split it up now with the extra load though it really shouldn't use too much for it to load such a small section (fingers crossed anyways x3) Thank you though! You're too kind x3 I still kinda just feel like an incompetent noob stumbling through the world just trying to do things, haha. I'm really glad you like this one though :3 especially when it's such personal subject matter!
25 mins is torture though x3 but still, it's impressive that it can run on that at all! It means a lot if Snowe can make you feel that way though :3 I really wish everyone could have someone in their real life who is able to make them feel loved and cared for. I mean, I absolutely have that in my dad, but when I was in the darkest place of my life many years ago, I was completely cut off from my dad, and I would've given anything to have someone like Snowe come along and rescue me from the whole situation and from myself x3
That sounds like a pretty cool app even with its restrictions! It's nice just to be able to have some form of outlet for creating stuff :3 I got the RPGmaker game on 3DS years ago cos I thought it might be fun to mess around with!
"The people around you can influence your mood, so things have been..."
I feel that >.< I can be having a perfectly decent day, and all it takes for that to come crashing down is for my dad to come in from work depressed or angry, and that then instantly rubs off on me like I've somehow absorbed his feelings into myself x3 I hope things become more positive for you soon though! Rough is not good :(
I'll do my best to get the game working for you at least! If it still struggles to run once I have the update out, just let me know. I probably won't be able to add any more loads than I currently have to the main version without it becoming potentially irritating on other systems, but I could make a separate version for you with more in and just send you a download link or something :3
It's been pretty rough here for different reasons >.< but things are just starting to look up somewhat again now. Let's hope February is a better month for us both :3
I'll definitely let you know if I can't play it; the new Winlator update boasts "improved performance" but, I'm not sure if that means it can run bigger games.
You make such beautiful artwork, and write so well. I know from experience how hard it is to draw, and I can't even color it in like you do. Plus, I can only draw the head and neck of a person, because anatomy is really hard for me to do. And, though writing is pretty much the only thing I'm good at, I really admire your script because it is SO well written. Even your early game, Solipsism Reigns has really great writing and artwork. Especially the sprites - they are SO cute! And I think that the fact that it's personal makes it even more special: like I get to know more about you through this game.
I know, the creator of Winlator is a genius. Snowe and other game characters are enough for me; I don't need anyone else. I understand how you feel, because now that my mom has passed away, I didn't have anyone else who I'm close to, or really love. I know that sounds horrible, but I really don't get along well with my other relatives; still, you are very nice to talk to, so I guess your the only person I get along with, or interact with.
I really wish that I could make RPGmaker games. I would prefer a visual novel maker that can make games that are more compatible with other devices. Sadly, I fear many people can't run Kocho games.
I am so sorry that you have to go through that. My own cousin talks about how I don't clean up when I do, just because her kids leave clothes and toys lying around, and won't pick them up. I can clean the whole kitchen, feed her animals, and clean up ther mess, but she will say that because I don't have a job, I'm not trying to do anything for myself. Ugh. Really, I should just leave, and go to a shelter.
Uh...rant over. But, thank you so much!
Thank you very much! I was wondering what I would do if I still couldn't play it. You are seriously too kind. I would make a game for you if I could to thank you...but, I have another idea, since you can't use Kocho. You don't have a phone, right? But, my gift is a secret. Teehee~
I hope things get even better for you. And I'll try to cheer my depressed self up for you. I am so sorry for the late reply. I haven't touched my phone for probably all of yesterday, and I dont remember what I did Sunday, cause my brain is a bit scrambled right now. I kind of felt a bit worthless for a while, but you made me feel better. I can never thank you enough.
You give me too much credit x3 I can’t draw to save my life! T_T None of the art in my games is actually drawn by me personally. I just tend to edit things like colours and stuff. Trust me, I’m no artist. I’ve tried to learn, even did Art GCSE at school and didn’t do great, haha. The art in all my games is either asset pack stuff that I’ve edited in GIMP, or art from other artists that I’ve teamed up with for game jams and stuff :3
The artist I’ve collaborated with most is LazyPolarBear. She drew the sprites (and CG) for the BxG version of A9, the sprites and CGs for Bitter/Sweet, the sprites + camera feed CGs + some backgrounds in Limbo Line, some sprites + some CGs + some backgrounds in Tunnel Vision.
In SR, I made the sprites using a character generator asset I had which allowed me to pick hairstyles, clothes, and accessories for characters, then colour them myself :3 DestiniDraws did all SR’s CGs.
The sprites in Impostor were ones from asset packs that I recoloured.
The sprites in DD are ones from asset packs that I recoloured + added extra facial expressions to.
The sprites in Love in Lockdown I made in the same character generator software that I used for SR.
GxB A9 sprites were drawn by the artist maneki mushi. CGs were drawn by Bun & LazyCrocodile.
Yandere Heaven sprites are ones I recoloured from an asset pack.
Dawn of the Damned sprites came from the same artist’s asset packs that the DD sprites come from and I recoloured them. CGs were done by a big mixture of artists.
The Graveyard Shift sprites came from an asset pack. CGs were done by Eufasy.
The Hostage sprites came from an asset pack and I heavily edited them to change the colour and the style.
Tunnel Vision’s art was by a big team of different artists for the jam.
And Sapphire Snowe’s sprites came from an asset pack, and again, I just spent a long time recolouring them and changing the style a bit :3
I mainly use GIMP to do a lot of edits to both sprites and backgrounds. And I do make some of my UI assets from scratch, but even with that, I don’t draw them since I can’t draw x3 I just use GIMP and other software to manipulate shapes.
So I’m sure you can draw better than me!! I can’t even draw a decent head, haha.
I’m glad you like my writing though :3 I find it difficult to not pick faults with it all the time x3 I guess a lot of people are like that though cos it’s hard to be happy with your own work!
I’m sorry that your mum has passed away and that you don’t have anyone else that you’re close to now :( That’s really tough. I know I would be similar if I lost my dad because even though I do have other family, the only person I was ever super close to in my family besides my dad was my grandma (on my dad’s side) and she’s already passed away. My wider family are lovely people, but I don’t feel like I can talk to them in the same way as I could my grandma or I can my dad. Heck, I can’t even be myself around my wider family >.<
I’m lucky to have somehow managed to find a small group of friends as an adult who accept me for who I am :3 But we live pretty far apart so I don’t get to see them that often. And I don’t know if anyone in the world could ever be as close with me as my grandma was x3 She’s been gone for a good few years now, but I still miss her a lot and life has never really been the same since she passed!
Maybe you could save up for a PC somehow that would be good enough to run a version of RPGmaker! I dunno if that’s a possibility at all for you, but it would be great if it was something you can get eventually :3
That sucks that the cleaning you do isn’t appreciated >.< My brother is kinda like how you describe her kids. He just leaves a trail of mess wherever he goes in the house and never cleans up after himself, just expects me to do it, even simple things, like emptying a packet of crumbs into the bin! He will just leave the packet on the counter somewhere until someone else cleans up after him o.O He’s been told a billion times, but it makes no difference. And no matter how much cleaning I do, the house is pretty much always some sort of messy because of him >.< Like I wasn’t even at my friend’s for that long, but I came home to find a mountain of washing up to me done T_T My dad couldn’t do it because he’s at work all day and so tired when he gets in that he just tends to fall asleep on the sofa, and I wasn’t even physically there to be able to do it, but my brother just left it for me to do when I came home >.> So I had to wash up a massive pile of dishes that I didn’t even use. It’s not like you can leave it until we run out either cos he still won’t do it then, he’ll just eat off of kitchen roll or something instead until someone else gets fed up and does the dishes.
I do have a phone, but it’s not a very good one, haha. I can’t really play games on it or anything x3 I pretty much just have it for emergencies! You don’t have to do anything for me anyhow, you silly sausage x3 You should concentrate on doing nice things for yourself! :3
Depression is pretty hard to fight your way out of, but I do hope you manage to get rid of it eventually, and that you can still have some happy times and things that make you smile in the meantime :3
I feel you on feeling worthless cos that’s how I feel most of the time >.< haha. The stupid thing is, I even know why I do, but that still doesn’t stop me from feeling that way so often x3 I feel like money is the problem. If you have money, people see you as a person who has value, and if you don’t, then you’re seen as a burden on society x3 Deep down, I know that I do have worth. It just takes a lot of work to keep remembering that being poor and unemployed doesn’t = being worthless (as the UK government would have you believe) x3 I hope you know deep down that you have worth too :3
im so glad i finally got to sit down and play this one! i found myself relating a lot to saffi the world isn't really made for us autistic folk and because of that it can become so hard to carry on in a world that was clearly not constructed with your differences in mind especially, when it seems like people like you are so few and far between that you're not quite certain if they actually exist or not or if you're just making it all up in your head. that's why its always so nice and interesting to hear other autistic people talk about their experiences its a great reminder that we are here even if it doesn't seem like it sometimes(it was really interesting hearing you discuss your experience with it in the rambles section). i absolutely loved the writing in this one the third person narration really allowed me to develop feelings for these characters that I've only seen for like an hour even at the very start on my first run through i found myself really caring for saffi and desperately hoping that things work out for her even after only having played for 10 minutes or so. i also really loved this games ost it gave the game a more serene and beautiful vibe even in its more chaotic and scary moments. loved this project absolute 10/10 :3
Thanks so much for playing this one too ^-^ I’m so glad you were able to relate to Saffie! I was a little worried that actually stating she has an ASD diagnosis might make it difficult for players to relate to her whether they have an ASD diagnosis themselves or not since the spectrum is so vast. That’s partly why I tried not to write tooooo much about autism specifically and focus more on Saffie’s feelings in general because anyone can struggle with anxiety and depression at any point in their lives.
I don’t think it helps either that while a lot of people are aware of autism these days, they have a sort of skewed idea of what it looks like due to limited coverage in the media and stuff >.< A lot of folks seem to think we either have special needs and learning difficulties, or we are socially inept geniuses with savant skills, and they don’t realise that it’s not as black and white as that x3 A lot of people with ASD don’t fit into either of those stereotypes. I know I certainly don’t, haha.
I think getting my diagnosis made me feel more able to talk about it and be more open about it as I learn more and more about how it impacts me. Cos pre-diagnosis, even though various professionals had said to me they were 99.9% sure I was autistic, I didn’t want to research it too much or anything just on the very slim chance I wasn’t because I didn’t want to be labelling myself as something I wasn’t. Now that I have a definitive answer that I am autistic, it’s a bit more liberating and I can learn more without worrying about that side of things.
I totally agree though that it’s interesting to hear about other autistic people’s experiences! I find I can generally relate to at least a small part of stuff people write or talk about even if not everything! And it is nice to have a reminder that you’re not completely alone and that there are other people out there who understand you cos it can feel very isolating a lot of the time x3
So glad you liked the different narration from what I usually go for :3 With most of my stuff it’s more designed for like self-inserting I guess, but I really wanted this to be Saffie’s story and have it be more like the player is going on the journey with her I guess. Makes me super happy you liked the OST too since that was pretty much what got me out of the depression bit for a while and what gave me the idea for the game in the first place x3 Since I used making the music as a way to soothe myself, I kinda hoped it might come across as soothing for others in some way too :3
Thanks so much for always being so kind! <3 I hope 2024 is going well for you so far!
please don't
I just so randomly played the game, finished end 1-4 in order with guide, saw the ending words on screen, and immediately left a comment here. Thank you for your effort making this game and heart-warming words.
Edited: I now have completed all endings and I pretty like the idea that you cant change the structure of your brain to make it follow social norms. I'm so tired of people saying "oh it's just a matter of time" or "you'll get used to it" or sentences like that. People around me are always expecting me to change - and they are happy to see my improvements, happy to know that I have the faux ability to change for better. Idk maybe I am indeed used to it in some way. So sad :(
(BTW is it possible to add a feature that allows players to choose from unlocked images for the main menu? The image of end 8 is a bit too bright for my eyes and it remains as the final ending I locked.)
Well, I’m glad you happened to come across it and ended up enjoying it :3 Thanks so much for checking it out and taking the time to get the different endings ^-^
Yeah, the “You’ll get used to it” line is one my mum used to use on me a lot when I was younger, haha. She thought my depression and anxiety was a phase and that the more I exposed myself to the job I was doing at the time, the better I would feel about it eventually because, according to her “That’s life!”…
I never got used to it, and I never felt better, haha. It just made me more and more depressed and then suicidal because it required me to not be myself from the moment I walked into the store >.< And spending the entire day pretending to be someone I wasn’t and attempting to suppress my actual self was just exhausting to the point that I felt like the real me didn’t even exist anymore.
It would technically be possible to add a feature to allow the player to choose the main menu background, but it’s not something I’ve tried to code before, so it would probably take me a while to figure out how to do it x3 I have a rough idea of how to make something like that work. But a quicker fix would be just to start a new game because then it will reset automatically to the original main menu background :3 Also, getting any other ending would do the same thing because it will just replace the menu background with the one that corresponds to that particular ending. Starting a new game would be the fastest way to change it though.
OR... when I update the game soon with the masculine voice lines for Snowe, I could enable the dev console and add the commands to the walkthrough guide or something that would just enable players to open the console and pick a main menu background by altering a score counter!
Thank you again for checking out the project and for your kind words :3
I'll be waiting til January for the masculine voice but I just wanted to let you know THE PREMISE SOUNDS SO FUN I CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY IT T_T i've loved all of your games and I'm sure this one won't be the exception <3
It miiiight end up being early February rather than January because I was only just able to get back on my PC for the first time this year this week x3 So I’m pretty behind where I had hoped to be by now with adding those masculine voice lines, haha. It’s possible I might still make it for the very end of January, but I dunno, we shall see xD
I’m glad you’re liking the sound of it anyhow :3 You’re so sweet!! x3 Thanks for always being so kind and supportive! I really appreciate it <3
Hope 2024 is going well for you so far ^-^
Thank you as well for checking out the game and for leaving such a sweet comment <3
I hope the game proved a decent distraction :3 I’ve spent a handful of Christmases and New Years alone or in the company of abusers, and it’s certainly not the nicest place to be when everyone else is getting all merry and in the mood for the holidays >.<
I hope you at least still had a nice cosy Christmas and a happy new year :3
I wish beings like that were real too! Or heck, even if just magic was real in some capacity and I could talk to animals or something x3
Tbh, I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas cos of how crazily commercialised it is, but the thing I’m most thankful for is being able to spend time with my dad and brother and just chill without my poor dad having to worry about his back-breaking work >.< And I think being away from family in previous years has just made me extra grateful for getting to spend time with them! My Christmas and new year was nice enough :3 Pretty much just chilled indoors with my family. Had a bit of a meltdown on Christmas eve cos too much stress had built up >.< but I managed to relax a bit in the end x3
Hope 2024 has started out well for you! Your avatar is super adorable by the way! x3
firstly: unfortunately, ı don't really have a good English so sorry for all mistakes ı did! plus its toooooo long comment so pls be prepared:') (sorry for writing too much hehe ı couldn't stop myself)
Helloooo ım here again! ı played the game and got two good endings (well ı think they are good endings) ı couldn't really bring myself to get other endings in a fear of well ı might see something ı wish not. why? well probably because of ı saw myself as a Saffie while plying the games time to time..that was an amazing game ^^ thank you so much for everyone who worked on this (and thank you for brining such an beautiful story alive) ok now what ı will write will both include my own emotions and talking (maybe rambling nonsense :')) and my thoıghts about game more deeply with spoilers so anyone who doesn't wanna get any kind of emotional nonsense and spoilers please skip this part I don't know if ım a autistic girl or not (ı am kind of sure ı have learning disabilities but some of my friends say ı might be high functioning autistic person too) tbh ı also don't want to know it either even ıf ım autistic.
why? because ı exactly think like saffie if you are different from the rest well congrats. you are doomed. Of course, that wasn't the case for me ı had a family who gave me great comfort zone (my room) and protected me feed me gave gifts and technically anything ı wanted to me. ı was a lucky kid. but ı know part of me is broken too... ı can vividly remember how my mom cried loudly saying things like what kind of sin she committed to have a child like me (ı was aggressive as a kid since ı couldn't really control my emotions and ı was really dumb one too like ı learned everything too late and no matter how much my mom tried) ı also have a mind that usually leans on unhappy memories than a happy ones. but again, expect being yelled by my parents or them laughing at my mistakes or myself ı only got bullied once and that was over a dumb reason and no ı didn't got beaten up either... it's just those kids followed me while ım going back to my home after school (home was pretty close) they laughed at me and kicked my backpack that's all. but still being lucky kid ı both understood Saffie and felt guilty because ı think ''ı understand her'' too. since as ı said there so many people living a hell unlike me. and yet ım somehow broken too with no reason. ı have a friend who literally same age with me (20) and has a child, taking care of the house, herself and the lessons at the same time and here ı am doing nothing except keep remembering my bad memories. anyway, in the game when ı saw how she clinged over a bear it kind of reminds me how ım clinging into my ''childhood'' and my toys and games now ı dont want to leave them no matter how weird ı am looking. ıt feels like ı will be lose my ''true self'' when ı lose them.
ı can remember that ı actually cried over my 10 years old almost dead laptop because ı got a new one and have to give it away haha.
in game ı actually hose to wait the creature yet once she suddenly go for suicide ı changed my option immediately... only to get into same point but the story ı got was really good and ım happy she didn't died... tho ı still don't understand why did Snowe brought her into prison-like place... the door was open which was good. but if ı were Saffie ı wouldn't try to open it either since it just looks locked XD (being pessimistic haha ) plus ı don't even know where ı am and ı might die outside. plus, the acts of Snowe actually reminded me part myself too. the part me that wanted to be ''normal'' or perhaps wanted to be ''accepted''? anyway ı always hated when someone saw me with tears and suddenly rush to me asking what happened but that always caused my tears to flow even more which ı hated. ı didn't want to cry in front of anyone because ı thought that's just being weak and it's not like they will solve my problems anyway so what's the point? hearing me out and then forget my words in few hours doesn't change anything except that they might pity me. which ı didn't want... ı didn't want to be ''poor thing'' ı wanted to be someone they see great since ı was also afraid that seeing my true self will only make them stay away from me (although ı look calm most of the time ı still have some issues while controlling my emotions especially when ı feel overwhelmed)
seeing characters as myself ı noticed small story inside of my head slowly shaped over the years ( it's more like me definin myself using analogy than a story but why not?) ı can't tell the full one since ı has too many hollows since ı didnt really write it down (plus its boring :p) but ıt was something like this:
there was a pure light in the form of little girl full of hope and love she wished to be loved she wished to be happy with everyone but for some reason life didn't grant her wish and for some reason people around didn't want to be with her, ignored her, or said things that make her feel sad. little light didn't understand what she did wrong. but for some reason she left alone yet no one told her. she kept trying but things also kept being same.
soon after another form appeared ıt was opposite of little light ıt was pitch black in a form a girl the just like her apperiance she was opposite of little light. She was full of rage and sadness. She also wanted to hurt anyone she felt insecure with. At first little light was scared of darkness’ existance. It was carrying bad memories and acting aggresively ıt was obvious that ıf anyone see darkness they would hate her. So light decided to escape from darkness while preventing her to do anything to others. But there was times that darknes grew so strong that light could no longer avoid it and both of them got hurt in every explosion. After explosion darkness usually became more silent and light hoped that she would keep staying like that. But this became a circle and time gaps between explosions were getting shorter due to outside world was chancing making darkness even more insecure. This kept happening until the day that darkness become so strong and unstoppable, and explosions became one after another. Light was desperately trying to avoid the risk of people around her getting hurt by darkness, but she was also tired. But when things felt hopeless, and light could no longer avoid darkness. Light finally turned to darkness and looked at her. This time instead of how darkness surrounded everywhere with pitch black color almost forcing her way out tos how herself this time light looked at her by her decision. And after getting closer she noticed… that this darkness she has been avoiding was no one but her.
It was her feelings that she kept silent, ıt was her wish to stand her ground when someone made her upset, ıt was her that she got afraid tos how and hid and all those explosions were actually nothing but cries of her sadness and broken dreams that she tried to muffle.
Light noticed that what she avoids was not monster that must be hate and shoo away. But actually, the old wish of being accepted and loved that has been broken by others. It was both a despair and anger towards people who ignored her and hope that maybe someone will still see her accept her. This was the actual form of darkness that light misunderstood. Seeing darkness true form with finally opened eyes.
Light slowly takes action in this whole mess. she slowly gets closer to darkness, to her desperate side, and then light hugs darkness with these words ‘’ No matter what happens please never fall into despair, ıts never too late and you are not uncapable of anything too, never give up on trying. Even you fail and there will no one loves you. I will be here and ı will always love you no matter what. You did nothing wrong’’.
with this explosion got weaker and there were tears on both light’s and darkness’ eyes.
after that ıt wasnt like explosions were gone but at least now darkness and light was working together to make these explosions less and less devastating towards both of them and towards the outside world. Perhaps their efforts will take years to finally soothe the explotions but fort hem ıts fine. As long as they keep trying together ıt will be never late afterall.
-end of the story-
so yeah ı wrote this when ı was super overwhelmed and everything was going bad. This story is technically ı used this story to see the main problem of my pain and try to release both me and my regrets so ı can finally breathe comfortably. İn the end ı really managed to say this words to myself and ıt feels like my mind ‘’the other me’’ heard it.. because after managing to end this road in days ı started to see someone supportive dreams which never happened to me before. Whenever ı got sick ı always had terrible nightmares. But after that event suddenly ı started to see my favorite game characters come to praise me and comfort me from my troubles saying things like ‘’ take care of yourself you are more important’’ which makes me so happy whenever ı see them (ı see those dreams so rarely these days ;w; noo) anyway ı rambled too much perhaps because ı hope that this comment will be read by some people or just someone (^^ thank you for anyone who managed to came this far) overall this is a great game ım also pretty touched by the ending writing thank you for all hard work ı feel truly lucky that ı found your games ı hope you will also take care of yourself and continue making games (with rest ^^). It was amazing game .
You don’t need to apologise :3 Your English is better than you think! And you never have to apologise for writing too much cos I do it all the time, haha x3 I just really appreciate the fact that you enjoyed the game enough to want to write about it ^-^ So yeah, thank you so much for playing this one as well!
None of the bad endings are especially bad in this one :3 I guess it’s a slight spoiler to say but, no one dies in any of the endings at least! It’s just the bad endings are significantly less happy than the good ones is all, haha.
I tried not to lean too heavily into the autistic stuff with Saffie as a character in the hope that she might still be relatable even for people without any experience of autism :3 So yeah, I guess even though the diagnosis is kind of a trigger that leads her to head out into the wilderness, her anxiety and depression is ultimately the main problem in her life that causes her to feel so terrible.
Sometimes with stuff like autism, it can be helpful to know, but in many instances, having a diagnosis isn’t helpful anyways or can even be detrimental for some people, so I don’t blame you for not wanting to know!
I’m glad you could empathise with Saffie either way :3
Having a loving family is always going to be better than not having something like that, but the worst thing about depression and stuff is that it can still manage to worm its way inside you even if you have love in your life :(
The very first time I went to therapy, I said to the therapist something along the lines of not understanding why I felt so terrible because I had loving parents and no trauma in my initial upbringing as a kid. I said I shouldn’t feel this way when there are people out there who have nothing, who are suffering and living lives soooo much worse than mine. And the therapist said to me that I shouldn’t compare my suffering to other people’s suffering because it will never change the fact that if you’re hurting, for whatever reason, you’re hurting. You have to live in your body and deal with your mind, and if you’re depressed then you’re depressed x3
I guess I should probably say there are spoilers from now on!
Yeah, unfortunately, you can’t avoid Saffie choosing to commit suicide since it’s a key point in the story, but no matter what the player chooses, Saffie will never actually be successful in her suicide attempt.
Snowe put Saffie in the prison for a few different reasons. Firstly, Snowe was scared that Saffie would try to hurt herself again, so genuinely wanted to keep an eye on her and keep her safe until Snowe was more confident that Saffie wouldn’t try to hurt herself again. At the same time, Snowe was extremely lonely and wanted to keep Saffie there for more selfish reasons. And yeah, Snowe didn’t actually lock the cage because Snowe didn’t want to truly hold Saffie there against her will + Snowe was fairly confident Saffie wouldn’t try to escape because Snowe had once had a similar mindset to Saffie in the past just feeling stuck.
I always used to try and hide my emotions from people too because I didn’t want them to worry x3 especially from my parents when I was having a bad time at school! I knew if they saw me cry they would just worry, and I didn’t really even know how to explain to them that I felt so awful and that school was the cause. Plus I always feel really bad when other people are sad, so if my crying made them sad, it would only make me feel even worse to have upset them >.<
But yeah, I totally agree, having people pity you just isn’t helpful and makes you feel even worse >.< It doesn’t solve anything, and as you say, everything will often be forgotten again soon and people move on.
Like you, I also look calm on the outside a lot of the time when inside my emotions are exploding and I’m struggling to control them. It’s really hard to live like that cos it’s like constantly having to monitor myself to make sure I don’t erupt and accidentally hurt myself or someone else >.<
I think it’s good to use stories to help process feelings and emotions :3 Writing it all down like you did by sharing your story here can be cathartic and possibly even lead to connecting with others who have similar experiences! The worst thing about being depressed is feeling like you’re fighting the darkness all on your own, so the more people who share their stories, the less alone everyone will feel if they happen to find them :3
I feel like your story would look amazing as a short animation! But I don’t have the skills to make something like that >.<
I definitely empathise with your story :3 And for real life it’s very significant because if you carry negative feelings with you and just ignore them or try to push them away, they will only end up causing more harm :( We have to acknowledge all parts of ourselves, even the parts that are painful to face. It’s super hard and even though I’ve been trying to work on it for years, we have to try our best to accept ourselves and be kind to ourselves. Cos yeah, beating ourselves up about stuff is only ever gonna make everything worse. We get enough crap from other people, so we’ve got to try to at least be on our own side x3 Having all parts of ourselves unified is the ideal way to move forward and try to be happier :3
Sometimes it is really helpful to write stuff down like that because you can make sense of things a lot better when they’re outside of your head. When you keep everything inside, it just gets all muddled and murky + almost impossible to unravel >.< So I’m glad that writing was able to help you see things about yourself more clearly :3 It definitely helps me a lot sometimes!
You didn’t ramble too much anyhow! There is no such thing as too much rambling :D
I’m truly lucky to have amazing people like you check out my games! So thank you very much again for playing and taking the time to write so much cos it really means a lot :3
I hope that you’re able to have happy times to balance out the times that aren’t so good! I guess all of us who carry some darkness inside us are always going to struggle >.< but I hope that we can at least find things to hold onto that help keep us going and make life worth living despite the bad times :3
I hope 2024 has been going as well as possible for you so far! And I hope you’re taking care of yourself :3
This visual novel was simply fantastic. I absolutely admire the wonderful story-line, the beautiful character design, the voice acting, the CGs and basically everything about this game was just admirable. Considering it was made in under a month makes it even more wonderful. The theme of the story was so well written. You really managed to put emotion into the writing and portrayed Saffie's problems ever so accurately. I could practically feel what she was feeling(sort of). All the endings, be it good or bad, were so well written. The way both Saffie and Snowe bonded over their shared problems was touching to see. Not to mention, the way a single choice changed the outcome of the story so drastically was incredible. You did an amazing job with the game and your efforts were definitely not in vain for the results are truly spectacular!
This must have been quite tiring to finish in a month, so i wish you a well earned rest! Don't tire yourself out too much! And I hope you have a Happy New Year!
Aww, thanks so much for playing and for all your kind words ^-^ So glad you enjoyed the game! I honestly didn’t think anyone would play it x3
It makes me super happy to hear that you felt the emotion came across in the writing because I always find it really hard to tell if I’ve managed to achieve that >.< and especially when it comes to such a sensitive subject! I was kind of worried that I should keep stories like this to myself in case anyone comes across it and it upsets them in some way.
And I’m really glad that you thought the way the characters bonded was touching because that was another thing I worried about a lot x3 I thought maybe because the story was short, it wouldn’t come across very well how they bonded and grew together because there wasn’t enough time to portray it very well, so it’s a huge relief to know that it still came across!
Aaaaand, I also worried a little bit that any players might be annoyed by the fact that the choices weren’t super complex, so you’ve stopped me from worrying about that too :D
You’re right that it was tiring to try and get it done in time x3 I still need to get more done on it to finish it completely by adding the masculine voice for Snowe, but it was a huge relief to manage to get at least 1 voice version finished for the end of the jam.
Hope you had a wonderful new year and that 2024 has been going great for you so far! :3
Your games in general are marvelous and extremely enjoyable , hence me playing it was simply a fateful occurrence. :D
I'm glad that my personal opinions regarding the game match your expectations of its portrayal! I truly meant what i said. Stories like these are unique and depend upon the mentality and creativity of the authors . Even though sensitive topics may discomfort people, these kind of stories can also prove to be a motivation or support for others. Stories as amazing as this one deserve to be shared with others and to be appreciated.
I'm delighted to hear that you felt my response was able to provide your mind with ease! From characters to choices, this game was indeed wonderous. :) Hope you've received enough rest!
My year's been okay and I hope yours isn't treating you too harshly. :D Keep up the good work!
You’re too kind!! x3 It means a lot that you think that ^-^
Tbh, that’s probably why I’m more into indie games these days than big commercial releases, cos you come across so many unique and wonderful stories from different devs that you’d just never see in a big studio’s release!
I’m glad you see things that way :3 It’s really tough for me to judge what is/isn’t acceptable to put out there and exactly what triggers/warnings to use. Sometimes it feels like I might be going overboard and other times like I haven’t put enough. I definitely need to go back through my older games and update pages with more warnings and such. It’s just when I started out making games, it didn’t seem like others were including extensive lists of warnings, just a sort of vague warning as you get for films and such.
I’d never want to end up hurting anyone who happened to be exposed to the stuff I’ve released >.< so yeah, I just hope that the warnings I include are enough to let people know to leave if it’s something that they’re uncomfortable with. As you say, if there’s any chance at all that it might resonate with someone in some way though and potentially even be of support, then it’s definitely worth putting out there :3
I did manage to recover a bit, but then everything came crashing down again and I’m finding myself extremely stressed and overwhelmed thanks to having to try and fight the government at the moment >.< It’s a long story, but they’re basically discriminating against me on account of my autism, and it’s just so hard to even have my voice heard. I’ve actually had to resort to using an advocacy service to help me fight my case because a certain government department is essentially refusing to acknowledge my ASD diagnosis. It’s all to do with support money for living, and they’re trying to say that I’m totally fine and don’t need any help or support all based on 1 terrifying assessment undertaken by a 3rd party company who were clueless about ASD. They asked me questions like “Do you anticipate your ASD improving or going away in the next 6 months?” and “Have you always had ASD or did you acquire it recently around the time you were diagnosed?”
It’s just exhausting cos I wrote 7k words in my original forms and they just straight up either didn’t read any of it or chose to ignore it. So yeah, fun times >.< I basically had a meltdown as a result of a letter they sent me last week which was so insulting and invalidating.
But anyways, I’m rambling, sorry >.< I just hope the lovely advocacy people will be able to help me because I really can’t deal with it all by myself.
Hope things have been stress-free for you and that you get to have a wonderful week ahead :3
:D Glad to know that!
I agree wholeheartedly! It feels so amazing to be able to view their train of thoughts. Everyone is so unique after all!
You aren't wrong for being confused! Different people have different problems hence its hard to cater to each persons requirements. However, I feel you are doing great currently! Try not to overthink it and keep up the good work!
I truly understand what you mean! It would hurt me immensely if something I did ends up hurting someone. I'm pretty sure someone or the other will be positively influenced by your work! Afterall, it does seem like it comes from your heart.
Oh my! That sounds terrible! That is extremely cruel of them to do. i personally fail to understand how people can be so oblivious to another's condition. Those questions are ridiculous! Utterly outrageous. I am currently studying psychology and although i do not have much knowledge about Autism yet i can tell that it isn't something that would ''go away'' as they put it. It is extremely disheartening that many people are unaware about the troubles that one can face due to such conditions. I hope everything works out for you and I wish you peace and happiness. Do tell me if things get better(and hopefully not any worse).
The audacity of those people! That is simply disrespectful. I am so sorry you had to deal with that. :(
Its fine! I don't mind! I quite enjoy replying to you. Honestly, you are quite an interesting person hence i enjoy these short exchanges of replies and comments we have here! I know its been wayyy too long since you sent this (I'm telling you, I tried to respond but uh... well I'm a procrastinator you see, ehehe...._) but I truly do enjoy our conversations. :D Hope everything works out for you!
Well... Lets just say that life is everything but stress-free haha! I'm surviving though, so its quite okay currently! Hope you're able to make your life a bit better though! :) Until next time!
Yeah, I’m still not fully clued up on everything autism, but even before I was diagnosed I was aware of the fact that it’s not something people pick up or that goes away like a cold x3 I can only assume they asked those daft questions because they’re following a script and they have to ask that for every diagnosis you’ve listed, but still, it’s a waste of time and you would’ve thought they’d just use common sense and not ask it in relation to ASD >.<
Psychology is such a cool thing to study though! :3 I tried to do A-level psychology at college and on the course I was doing, that was the one that I genuinely loved every lesson! I dropped out of college though cos of my personal situation at the time and my mental health. I had a breakdown in the library and ran out never to return >.< I do wish I could’ve finished the course though cos it was so interesting. I would go back as an adult student if I had more confidence or someone to accompany me, but I wouldn’t be able to handle it without.
But yeah, it is indeed disheartening to come up against attitudes like that, especially considering that the company undertaking those assessments has a government contract! They should be more clued up really >.< But then again, it says that the person assessing you will be either a registered general nurse, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, or paramedic. You don’t get to choose, and they don’t assign someone to you who might have more relevant knowledge of your conditions, you just get who you get. I mean no disrespect at all to any of those professions, but it’s unlikely that they have much in the way of knowledge or experience in speaking to individuals on the autistic spectrum >.< I think if the company knows they’re gonna have to assess people with ASD and actually understand how it impacts their lives, they should have an ASD specialist to do it.
The lady who did my assessment wrote in her report that I did not ‘appear’ anxious (therefore I must be fine!) But it was a phone appointment for starters, so how on earth would she even know? But more than that, I TOLD her how anxious I was. I TOLD her about the physical symptoms that I had. Aaaand, I made her aware that because of my ASD, my voice and way of interacting might not reflect how I'm actually feeling inside, so it's important to listen to my words more than analyse my behaviour >.<
Oh, I'm terrible with my reply time to messages usually >.< For me it's more just badly losing track of time than procrastinating and the fact that my executive functioning is terrible xD I do like speaking to you and others though :3 I'm just not very good at it, haha. Especially when I start rambling because then there are no short exchanges anymore, just giant walls of text because I can't stop myself xD but because they're so giant, it ends up taking me months to actually respond to stuff and I end up feeling really bad that I was so slow T_T haha.
I hope you're able to get out of stress and survival mode soon so that you can have a chance to relax a bit at least!! :3