31st March, Midnight.

I really love the ways Amy is isolated intertwine. Being queer, being Asian, and being a VN Dev all fold into one neat package ontop of only ever seeing Amy at the end. Her broad life experience, even if not the details, are both eternally relatable, but also she's cut off from us. Extremely well done.

this broke my heart so much, i loved it… shout out to tokyo necro though

Gritting my teeth going from lightly crushing on a character to hating her guts, very nice job. RIP Notomys...

This game features gorgeous UI, plenty of suitably meta moments (with visual novels being a huge theme through the game, and mentions of GameJams), and plenty, PLENTY of Feelings to go around, playing this was painful but so cathartic. That final sequence, fromJulie pitching the idea to Amy completing it, really was just brutal gutpunch after brutal gutpunch.

The irony and bitter reality in a game studio mostly filled with cishets making an LGBT+ game, then walking around laughing about how stupid their audience is, was also not lost on me, especially with Julie saying that the game was "made for people like Amy" when recommending it to her trans friend (likely while knowing all of this).

I also love the seeming Hatoful Boyfriend shoutout with the inclusion of what appears to be a parody VN dating sim about dating an animal, which is, in actuality, a greatly moving piece of art. (If anyone was put off by its parody-like nature, go check out Hatoful Boyfriend! It's a great VN with some surprising darkness to it.)

This game was an absolutely stunning experience, especially for this studio's (from what I can tell?) first fully completed game!! You lot have all definitely made a fan out of me, and I look forward to whatever you do next!

this game is great! fantastic writing, and beautiful ui and everything else.

it really brought back memories from the earliest parts of my game industry career, back when i was still optimistic about things and my soul had not yet been crushed (i'm doing fine now, i don't work for a studio anymore). it perfectly nails the vibes at those places, especially the bizarre attitudes that a lot of the people there have towards visual novels, right down to the hatoful boyfriend-esque example.

i hope amy gets to make games by herself one day, outside of a studio/industry environment ;_;

The ending. :(

absolutely phenomenal. incredibly scathing commentary on both a frustrating trend as well as the perception of "visual novels" as nothing more than silly joke dating sims as assigned by people who don't have anything more than a surface level understanding of them (i appreciate the seeming hatoful boyfriend shoutout here, i felt that especially got the soul of this across).

left a continually sinking feeling in my chest as this all-encompassing betrayal and frustration and murdering of expectations came to a gradual head. this one really hit in some tender spots and it made me want to yell and punch something by the end.

thank you for making this, long live visual novel

oof.

beautiful and painful. this really hit a nerve with me (in a good way) - both as a vn developer/enjoyer and as someone who's struggling to find full-time work.

i loved seeing the little homages to tokyo necro and hatoful boyfriend (i think that's what 8rats was a play on?)... was not expecting that. it really made the lack of understanding from amy's coworkers (esp julie) all the more painful.

there's other stuff i could say too (the biting commentary on amy's cishet coworkers making a fire emblem-like with "better" queer rep used as a marketing ploy, the deep shame amy felt from her family when she couldn't find any work in her industry, et cetera...)

but i guess i'll just leave it with "thank you for making this". i'm not exactly like amy, but a lot of her experiences here really make me feel seen.

This is a very solid piece of writing, and good commentary on what's become a bit of an unfortunate trend. The nods and homages here show a true love of the medium, which makes the aforementioned commentary land even more solidly. Strong recommend.

Working with people who don't care to understand is the worst. Capitalism is the worst.

Really well written. The last line is a real killer. I hope we all live to see a day where we don't have to sell our souls anymore.