Aww, that’s so incredibly adorable ^-^ Made me smile the second I saw it! Which means even more right now cos I’ve been going through some really crappy times.

Thanks so much for taking the time to create & share it <3 <3 <3 (there are not enough hearts in the world, so just imagine it's like x100000000000000000 haha)

I hope you’re doing well :3

I’m glad you decided to check it out & that you had fun with it ^-^ Thanks so much for playing! And also thanks for sharing that awesome art!! It’s beautiful <3

I guess I should also say...

SPOILERS below x3

Tbh, I also felt really bad for them xD And at the same time, I also feel bad for players that I didn’t give them an option of a happier ending x3 It makes me feel kinda evil, haha.

Then again, it was supposed to be a pretty bleak story of despair, sooooo *insert evil laughter here* :P 

But yeah, to me, that particular pairing was my OG couple, even if they weren’t technically the OGs, haha.

I’m happy you ended up liking dollmaker Kuro the best because he was also my favourite Kuro :D I’m not usually into characters who look or act more childlike, but the more I wrote for him, the more heart kinda just bled for the poor fella because he’s so innocent and his love is so pure, bless him!

Your drawing is so sweet & gorgeous! Absolutely love it ^-^

Glad you like the theme song too! I was rewatching Spirited Away the other day & it suddenly hit me how similar SR’s opening instrumental part is to Haku’s theme x3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdSHC4l0qAk

I only wrote the lyrics & performed the female vocals on that, so it wasn’t my fault, haha. My friend wrote the music itself & did male vocals. And now I am wondering if it is a coincidence or if he somehow had Spirited Away’s soundtrack in his head influencing him subconsciously xD

Thank you so much for taking the time to type up such a lovely comment & for playing the game anyhow! I wish the best to you too & hope you are also able to stay safe + well :3

That’s so cool :D I was able to watch it through the link you posted, but I don’t have an account on tiktok, so I can’t like it on there T_T

is it the mage route or detective route? i'm pretty sure on the mage route kuro's hair is long

Yup, Kuro is male :3 And no worries at all! I know the sprites are a little odd in this, haha. I like androgynous-looking characters anyhow, but because this was my first-ever game, I didn’t have much choice but to use what I could find >.< 

Basically, I couldn’t find a single sprite set from any artist that contained enough sprites to cover all the different worlds I hoped to portray in the project (my own dumb fault for trying to make such a long story for my first game >.<), but I did come across a sprite generator with a looooot of customisation options, enough to cover what I needed. I pretty much had no choice but to use it, haha.

I made every character sprite using the generator. It was cool because it had a wide range of hair pieces to combine to create different hairstyles, and also a decent number of clothing options, but it was lacking in the style of the eyes + the body models >.<

All the ones at the top of the page where it says “Choose your heroine. Choose your fate…” Then some pictures of heads with the captions of: “The Student, The Mage, The Princess, The Detective, The Gamer, and ???” are headshots of the heroine/MC/protagonist.

All the headshots below where it says “Your guardian spirit, Kuro, takes many forms…” are headshots of the different versions of Kuro from the different world routes in the same order as the headshots for MC are listed :3

So blue-haired Kuro = student route Kuro, green = mage route, yellow = clan princess route, magenta = detective route, purple = gamer route, and ??? = the hidden route.

Despite the fairly feminine appearance of Kuro, the voice acting actually matches the sprites really well :3

But yeah, Kuro is definitely a guy, but he does have long hair in a couple of the world routes, haha. Longest hair = mage route Kuro cos it’s down past his butt! x3

The most masculine-looking one is actually in the hidden route, haha.

I do hope to remake this someday since it was my first game and I have a lot more knowledge + use a different engine now, but it’s not a priority. Just something that would be really nice to eventually do when I’ve finished some of the projects I’ve currently got on the go.

Thanks for your interest in the game :3

<3 <3 <3 Thanks so much for checking it out & leaving such a kind comment ^-^ With this being my first-ever project and it looking a little dated now, I always imagine if anyone comes across it, they probably pass it up x3 So yeah, it means a lot that you gave it a chance and stuck with it :D 

Glad you liked the freaky stuff too, haha. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm a sucker for that sort of thing, hehe.

If you do end up checking out more of my stuff, I hope you end up enjoying it just as much (or even more! x3)

Thanks again :3

Sorry I’m so slow >.< I’m suuuuuper behind on all my replies atm, and my PC died towards the end of April, so that hasn’t helped, haha. Now I’m working on something for otome jam, so I’m absorbed in that, but because I still don’t have a new PC up and running properly, I’m trying to do everything atm on the family potato laptop which is awful xD

I’m actually not sure what Shiro’s mbti would be! I’d have to go back through all the types and read up on everything again cos I don’t remember most of the info off of the top of my head x3

I know when I did mine yearsago, it said I was INFP-T, haha.

If I had to guess off the top of my head without researching more, I would guess Shiro would possibly be INFJ or ISFJ, but I couldn’t say for sure >.<

Firstly, I have to say that I’m loving your profile pic on here x3 ducks are the best!!! I swear I would be a happier person if I had some pet ducks, haha.

But anyways, thanks so much for playing this and taking the time to leave such a lovely comment too ^-^

That’s really interesting to know that it worked on Windows 11 :o That means it’s not specifically a Windows version problem that has prevented some folks from playing then >.< I dunno for the life of me why it won’t work for some people and is totally fine for others though :( Games made with Tyrano just seem to be strange like that >.<

So glad you ended up enjoying it :3 It feels so long ago now since I started and finished it, haha. Back then, I had pretty much consumed all the yandere content that was available to me at the time and decided I wanted to try and make my own x3 Fast forward to the present and there’s been an explosion of yandere stuff, especially in indie games! Now I’m spoiled for choice and have a huge backlog of yandere games to play xD I can’t believe how much has changed in that time, haha. 

SPOILERS

I’m so glad you gave the whole game a chance cos I remember waaay back when I first released it, someone played the student route and gave up cos they said Kuro wasn’t a yandere, just a psycho, and that really hurt because if that person had kept playing, they would have learned so much more about the character and why the different iterations are the way they are >.< They even had a go at me saying I was wrong to tag the game with the yandere tag T_T

It just really stung because the whole point of this game was to show both the crazy and the loving side of a yandere character in different shades since I had come across many yanderes in games as a player where it was all crazy/psycho behaviour and seemingly no actual love or reason for behaving that way >.< For me to enjoy a yandere, I need there to be a reason for the creepy/crazy side of the behaviour, so I made it my mission and worked backwards on the story, starting with the hidden route stuff, and trying to show the consequences of it in the other routes.

So yeah, it sucked that that person didn’t give it enough of a chance to see that Kuro isn’t just a psycho >.<

Yeeeah, the voice is a character called The Architect (or Archie x3) and pops up in a few other places (next biggest appearance is in Apartment No.9), but they’re kinda on hiatus now, haha. It’s okay though cos they have a relation who will be making an appearance at some point x3

Thank you again for playing and I hope 2024 is going great for you so far! <3

It’s definitely taken me a while to reply, and I’m still gonna apologise for that even though you said to take as long as I need, so yeah, I’m sorry about that x3

I pretty much just got overwhelmed and too stressed in the buildup to Christmas with family meetings and other stuff, and I kind of went into shut down mode like an overloaded computer and just crashed xD It’s taken all this time to FINALLY start feeling like I can face doing things again >.<

But damn, that's amazing that you'd want to keep coming back to it! I have a few games that I started a loooong time ago and still haven't managed to finish yet even though I want to... like Mass Effect Andromeda, haha.

I hope you do get to 100% it one day though :D And I hope that 2024 has started out amazingly for you :3

xD

Sorry my reply is so slow >.< I’ve just been mega-focused on this year’s spooktober VN jam! Hoping to release the project later today :3

Hmm, tbh, it’s so long since I made it that I couldn’t say for sure xD Especially since I don’t know what’s allowed and what isn’t on different streaming platforms >.<

It doesn’t have any sexual content in it, I know that much! But there is some gory/bloody imagery! I’m glad you like it anyhow :3

Nice version of the rhyme there :D Hope you have fun puppeteering!! :3

Hey hey! Glad you're enjoying the voice acting :3 The game wouldn't be the same without all the amazing people who helped bring the characters to life with their voices :D

I might be wrong here, but as far as I remember, I included a credits text document with all the download folders, so there should be a file in there somewhere that's just called 'Credits.txt' and inside that there are the full game credits with links to social media and stuff for all the voice actors :3 (well, for those who wanted links including anyhow - not everyone wanted to have links in there.)

I hope you end up enjoying the game! Thanks for checking it out ^-^

Aww, that's so sweet that you'd want to revisit it ^-^ Thanks so much for all your kind words <3

Thanks so much ^-^ That's super sweet of you to say <3 The giant no-confidence part of myself wants to shake my head in denial and declare it impossible for anyone to put any of my games in their favourites x3 but I really appreciate that anyone would consider them that way :3 Still hope I will eventually get to remake this one someday, but I don't know when I'm supposed to find the time to do it x3

Thank you very much for all your kind words :3

Aww, well, that's super sweet of you ^-^ And it means a lot that you'd even want to replay it!! If you ever end up playing everything, you'll have to let me know which one winds up being your favourite :3 it's always intriguing to know what sorta stuff different people prefer, haha. Like, Limbo Line is my personal favourite, though, I grew extremely fond of Bitter/Sweet, but some people I've spoken to who have played a few of my games said they liked X game a lot, but then they tried another one of my games and they just couldn't get into it, haha.

I'll always have a soft spot for this project though with it being my very first :3 I can't believe it's gonna be 3 years old this summer o.o I dunno where the time has gone! Honestly don't know what I was thinking trying to make something this long as a first game >.< And I've never managed to make anything of the same length since, although, while it's been on hold for what seems like forever, the writing for CiQ was finished aaaages ago, and I reckon it is probably similar in length to SR, just had a heck of a lot of problems turning it into a game T_T

I'm glad the ??? route was interesting enough to keep you engaged :3 I did worry a little that it might drag a bit or something, or be too weird, I dunno, haha. The whole ??? route was my initial idea for the game though, but then I thought, I can't just do that on its own, there needs to be stuff before it for it to have any sort of impact >.< So I had to try and work backwards from there x3

Funnily enough, my dad said the same thing when I first released the game about it being free xD He still says that now every time I release stuff. It usually goes along the lines of "You're mad! You work yourself half to death and you're not even getting paid for it!!" hehe. He means it in an affectionate way, of course! But at the same time, it does make him sad that I can't make a living from it with all the hours I put in x3

Anyways, I will hush my rambling and just say thank you so much for playing in general and your kind words! Hope you get to have an awesome rest of your April :3

Sorry my reply is quite slow >.< my arm is still broken, so I'm not able to stay on top of stuff very well atm :(

I'm hoping you might have been able to get it to work by now, but I'm guessing probably not because if it was asking you to install something, then it's already gone wrong because you shouldn't have to install anything to play >.< It should just work when you click the. exe file T_T

I know a few people had the same issue in the past though! Not just with my game, but games by other devs made with the Tyranobuilder engine. It's one of the reasons why I decided to stop using the engine and start making stuff with a different engine entirely.

I have no idea what causes this for some people :( and back when someone first brought it up, I tried to find a fix, and made a post with some stuff in, which you can find here :3

I have no idea if any of it works though! And no one ever did get back to me when I queried the engine devs about it. Another reason I stopped using Tyrano >.<

Maybe something will work for you, but I don't hold out much hope :(

xD I can definitely believe that, haha. Because this was my first-ever game and it's a few years old now, when I look back on it, there's a lot I would change about the writing, especially in the Student route! Cos I pretty much despise that one x3 I would ramble on about the various reasons why I wanted to include all the varying degrees of yandere in the routes, but I don't want to accidentally spoil anything, haha.

I really appreciate you hanging in there and sticking with it though :D Trust me, there is a reason for it all in the end, haha. All I can say without being too spoilery is that everything will make sense when you unlock the ??? route. Don't worry about all the blood, death, and suffering along the way x3 Getting through all those bad ends is the key :3

Thanks so much for taking the time to play it <3 

The GxB/otome version (this version) with a female protagonist and male yandere is completed and released :3 It was the first game I ever made :D And ever since then, I have continued to include both male and female yandere characters in almost all of my games ^-^

The BxG version of this project where the protagonist is male and the love interest is a female yandere is still in development, but very casually, so it won't be ready any time soon x3 but it is happening and will have different sprite art and stuff. 

I also hope to remake the released otome version one day with new routes and new sprite art, but that's a loooong way off cos it's my longest game, so it would take ages to completely remake it in the engine I use now >.<

It's 'Anathema' :3 That's funny though xD and, funnily enough, I have eczema, haha. Got it real bad on my hands T_T got ill before Christmas and am still ill now, and having a stupid eczema flare up on both hands really isn't helping things :( that's why I'm so slow to reply, haha.

Sorry it's taken me ages to get back to you >.< I was ill before and during Christmas, and still am now somehow (much better though now, thankfully!) I've not been on my PC, I tried and failed to catch up on stuff on my phone, it's just kinda old and laggy, so it's not the easiest thing to type on x3

Anyways, thanks so much for playing! Glad you enjoyed it :3 I'll do my best to answer your questions ^-^

1) Firstly, it's been a long time, but as far as I can remember, there shouldn't be any major differences between the large and small versions other than the download size. And possibly the little videos and some of the art being of slightly lower quality from being compressed much more in the small version. The larger version should technically be the better one with the higher-quality assets in.

Aaaaand

SPOILERS

2) Cody is actually me x3 I very rarely use my name in stuff because I hate it xD And the main reason I hate it is cos it largely seems to be a male name, but I'm female >.< haha. Annoyingly, there seems to be an alternate (more feminine I guess) spelling of the name that tends to be given to girls (Codie) but nope, my mum went and spelled it the dude way >.> My dad hated it, haha. He wanted to call me Anya! But my mum won. Apparently, she got the name from a female character in an Australian soap that she loved! But in all my life, I've never met another girl called Cody where it was spelled the masculine way like that, only ever dudes and people's male dogs xD

Had the game been made more recently, I have no doubt I would've just used 'Melancholy' or some other shortened version of my dev name instead, but as far as I can remember, I didn't even have a dev name at the time I wrote all of this since it was my first game x3 

3) It's really tough to answer your third question with it being so long since I made the game. I think the extras is unclickable until you've completed the game and gotten the main ending, and I know that I put in like a false title screen for the first time you start up the game after having seen that scene with the Architect, but once you've clicked one of the options and discovered that it's a fake title screen, a genuine title screen should replace it where everything works as it should. So if that's not the case, I guess you must've come across some weird sort of bug >.< There are some parts that are intentional for messing with UI and such, but all saves should be accessible when on the not fake version of the title screen. 

I'm trying to remember how it was set but I don't know if I'm getting the order right >.< I think once you've seen the scene you mentioned with the Architect, the game is supposed to give you a point in the background that tells the game you've finished it, and that should then persist once the game fake crashes and you restart it. So maybe something went wrong with that somehow and it didn't save the global point to tell the game you've completed it. I don't know why it would do that though because it worked okay when I tested it years ago >.<

It does sound like something has gone wrong though if you can't access the extras. I know some people were having issues with saves because they were reloading older saves when they encountered bad ends, and you don't need to do that, in fact, it's the opposite, you're supposed to be collecting the bad ends, so if you hit one and reload to pick different choices, you'll never be able to unlock all the stuff you need to unlock to get the hidden route since to start that, you need to have X amount of bad ends registered, and to register them, you need to let them play out and just be sent back to whatever world you were in before you hit the bad end x3 But I wouldn't have thought that would be what was causing any issues in your game since you've already seen the Archi stuff! 

But yeah, as far as I can remember, you had to unlock everything else and complete the game to unlock extras, but save files shouldn't be getting wiped :(

I wish I could get to the bottom of it and fix it for you somehow, but I don't even have the files anymore >.< it was all on my old laptop that died and I lost everything on it, same goes for Impostor. I have odd files here and there on a USB and portable hard drive from where I made a couple of backups, but not the complete lot to be able to actually work on it. I also don't have Tyranobuilder on any of my systems anymore cos I switched to making stuff with Naninovel in Unity >.< so there's nothing I can do :( 

I hope to remake SR in Nani someday now that I have a lot more experience cos there's a lot I'd like to change. I could certainly make it more polished + tweak the writing I'm not happy with (especially student route) + add some new content like a new route or 2 + new sprite art :3 That won't happen any time soon though, and even when I do start working on it, it'll likely take a long, long time to finish >.<

4) As far as I can remember, Anathema was the only name-related easter egg, but it's not the only one of my games that it gets a mention, same goes for Archie ;3 which brings me to your last question! 

5) Solipsism Reigns is my first ever game and the first of my projects that Archie appears in, but the character can also be encountered in the GxB/Otome version of Apartment No.9 (though it's much briefer than in SR, so probably not really worth searching for unless the game also interests you!) And then there are some extremely vague references in Limbo Line as well without Archie actually being there. 

It's a character I hoped to include more in my projects than I've been able to >.< the problem is that my projects are often made for/during game jams with tight time limits, so the voice actor who plays the character isn't always available within the timeframe of development. It worked out for A9, but hasn't since :( I do hope that I can include Archie more though because the character has a whole story of their own in my head! So yeah, there's a whole lot more to discover about him, it just might be quite awkward to get it all out there x3

I hope you got to have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year yourself! ^-^ With any luck, I won't be ill for much longer because it's getting silly now, haha. I'm really happy you enjoyed the game anyhow! Thank you so much for taking the time to play it and leave a comment <3 

And I agree about Dollmaker :P somehow he grew on me so much by the time I finished writing x3 like he worked his way into my heart, haha. 

Nothing should have changed on this since it was released cos I haven't uploaded any new builds or updated it at all :o Pretty much all of my projects have stayed the same as they were when they were first uploaded aside from Darling Duality, which recently got a small update and a complete overhaul of the UI and choices :3

But yeah, nothing should have changed with SR because I've not touched it. Unless you happened to have played the reeeeally old demo version that I put out years ago before the full release of the game. Cos that was super rough and probably did have quite different UI and stuff x3

It works fine on Windows for me on both my PC and our family potato laptop >.< Could it possibly be a compatibility issue? I only ask because this is my oldest game, made in an engine I no longer use, and someone recently commented on one of my other old games made in the same engine saying that it didn't work for them on Windows 11 until they went into properties and ran the compatibility shooter, so you could try that I guess. If that doesn't work, I'd need a lot more information about what's happening to try and get to the bottom of why it won't run for you, and even then, I still likely wouldn't be able to fix it because, as I said, I don't use that engine anymore :(