Published: 31 Aug 2024
Last updated: 1 Sep 2024
- Developed by: MAHOUMAIDEN
- Published by: nikita kryukov
- Released on: 2022
- Genres: Visual Novel, Psychological Horror
- Rating: 3.5/5
- Originally written: 7th July 2024
A lonely, unhappy, melancholic quote-on-quote Dating Simulator - with stereotypical cardboard characters given self-awareness about the absurd structure of a visual novel and its tropes, and suffer existential emotional crises as a result. The presentation is simple, BnW and low-fi in its own charming way, but adds to either the parody or melancholy at appropriate times - and there are some genuine interesting ideas for a supposed parody of a simple VN e.g. auto-scrolling text at various points, wildly varying line scrolling and using achievements as a delivery of extra additional text - all to give simple text a sense of being said and expressed quite vividly and with wildly different authorial and emotional intent.
It is a little rough around the edges, and what its trying to do can feel a little like a living contradiction - given it makes fun of VN’s and all their transparent tricks in order to manipulate readers into empathy, and run thats gamut quickly without hesitation, and yet has similarly little hesitation running that same playbook later on, perhaps that was the point.
The ice cream looks delicious.
“You don’t deserve to be loved for simply existing.”
