That Bitter Taste
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Lane's daily life as a mortician is busy; there's always new "guests" to receive into the morgue, bodies to cremate and embalm, funerals to arrange, distraught family members to comfort… at the end of the day, he just wants to sit down with his television and a drink.
Unfortunately, things are never quite as easy as that. Lane is sick, and not in any particularly simple way; he has an otherwise unheard of condition, one that causes his body to be deficient in certain proteins only found in human flesh. To put it gently… his choice of profession was no coincidence.
His only hope is an old legend that he has held onto throughout his life: The one who loves you can save you, if only you can receive them. He doesn't know where it came from, or what it means, but it may prove to be a greater burden than he can afford to bear…
That Bitter Taste is a short, gay dating sim about an unfortunate cannibal. It was created for Yaoi Jam 2016.
Game Features:
- ~25,000 words
- Male main character (Lane) with two male romanceable leads (Parker and Thomas)
- 10 total endings (4 per love interest, plus two epilogues)
Please note: This game features content which might not be suitable for all players, including explicit depictions of death, gore, and cannibalism. Player discretion is advised.
Bonus Items
Pay at least $3 for this game and you will receive the "That Bitter Taste Development Journal", a 39 page book featuring all the art from the game and 6,000 words of commentary about making it!
Version 2.0 Changelog:
- Thomas' route has been overhauled!
- Fixed various typos
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Steam Artwork Set Now Available!Sep 27, 2021
- That Bitter Taste Development Journal Now Available!Mar 28, 2021
- That Bitter Taste Version 2.0!Aug 08, 2017
Comments
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Cried twice playing this. I love it so much, amazing job
Insanely great game for a jam. Well done.
Hello!! im really enjoying the game so far, got to the (SPOILERS////// restaurant scene, and the game gave me an image loading error.) is there any way to skip this? clicking ignore does nothing and no other button has allowed me to progress the story
Hi there! Glad you're enjoying it so far!!
I'm not sure what's causing the image loading error, but I will take a look at it later today/tomorrow and see if I can get a patch out! Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
Hi again! Trying to replicate the bug and not having any success. Could you tell me exactly which scene it is (lunch or dinner, which restaurant) and the last line you see before it throws the error?
Interesting art style
Thank you! I hope it works well with the game's style.
I may or may not play, I don't know because the TW are really hard to take. But if I play, I'm going to update this comment for sure because the game looks promising. 😊
ITS SO GOOD OMG PLAY IT
Thank you so much! :')
yww :D
I hope you will give it a try but obviously don't if you think it will be upsetting! I don't think there's anything super horrific (and all in text, so you can skim if need be) but I'm also not particularly sensitive to such things (as is probably obvious from the fact I made this game haha). Thanks for taking a look! :)
This game has been on my "to play" list since it came out and I could have sworn I put it there two years ago at most but apparently it was first released four years ago? Wild. I'm actually glad that I waited so long to play it though, because I was recently diagnosed with Celiac disease and Lane's difficulties with eating actually resonated really heavily with me. I don't have the same moral issues, of course, but simultaneously not wanting to think about eating and thinking all the time about where and when I'm getting my next meal, about the absolute ordeal that it can be to prepare a meal, and having no choice in the matter of the diet that I need in order to survive and stay healthy - I felt all of that with Lane and it really made me connect with him as a character.
I also really enjoyed both Thomas and Parker's routes. I liked all of the character relationships and the dialogue felt super natural. Parker's dialogue especially might legitimately be the best and most realistic "we've known each other for forever" dialogue I've ever seen in anything ever.
Really great job on this, I hope I get the chance to check out your other games soon (hopefully sooner than four years from now).
i played this game years ago on my old laptop and loved it so much. it still crosses my mind every once in a while and it's always bothered me that i couldn't remember what it was called, so tonight i decided to search for it again. after over an hour of searching various terms on google and digging through my history to no avail, i finally found it here and i'm beyond psyched to play it again. you've created a really unique piece of art that still affects me somehow and i just thought you deserved to know that.
I'm sorry it took me forever to actually reply to this but I can't describe how much it means to me that you still remember my little game after so long! I'm glad you like it enough to come back and play it again. This comment has made me feel better a bunch of times already, so thanks so much for taking the time to play my game and leave such a nice note!
ive gotten five endings so far - to what was left, a new chapter, as it always was, quick friends (or was it fast friends?? i forgot lol) , the first page, & uncertain happiness... would it be possible for you to make some sort of small guide? i cant figure out how to get the last two. if not ill just keep trying everything.
Hi there! I'd be happy to make a simple guide but it might take me a bit since it's been awhile since I made the game--I don't remember off the top of my head how to get each ending myself haha. But I'll do my best to make one soon and upload it on this page so keep an eye out! Thanks for playing!
Oh, thank you!! also. i really really like the art in this game. the painterly art style is really captivating and weird and new for me to see in a visual novel so thank you for the inspiration :D
I honestly can't say I ever expected to play a gay cannibal game but here I am and I have to say that the game was great. The strange concept was what attracted me to the game initially, and I was a little worried I might find the game too weird, but Lane's character was actually very laid back and sensible (so not at all like a creepy psycho I was expecting) which was a good choice. The art style fit so well with the tone and the dialogue felt very natural. The endings were a bit too similar throughout, but it was still fun to go through and find each one. I also noticed that Thomas isn't getting much love in the comments haha. Personally I found Thomas to be extremely likable (I always like the cocky types that seem to know more than they let on) and Parker I just couldn't get into, not that he was a mistake on your part, just my personal preference. So I hope the lack of Thomas-love (sorry weird phrasing) hasn't gotten to you. Great and interesting game!
Hi, so I was intrigued by this game for quite awhile since it so strongly reminded me about hannigram (Hannibal/Will) pairing and Will Graham in general xD Yeah, perks of being a fangirl – seeing your fav Tv-series/OTPs everywhere. Anyway, I decided to play it yesterday and well. It's quite interesting thing. The music was nice (though I felt the lack of it in some places), atmosphere, idea. I like that dialogues are framed by those torn arms... Yeah, I'm a weird person I know who just love horror stuff)) I ended up with "Fast Friends" ending and it was predictable but logical ending, though I'm not really a big fan of Thomas. The guy was pretty much a stalker and I don't really like people with such "i'm sexy and i know it" personality (I'm not saying that you wrote him bad, it's just my preferences). Buuuuut I'm really looking forward to exploring more endings with Parker, because I haven't met the guy yet, but I think he's going to be interesting enough. Also I just love the ringtone Lane put on his friend xD So thanks for making the game ^^ Though I have one question about Lane's reasons for cannibalism. You mention it was just because of some "human special protein", but won't be proteins denaturated at high temperature i.e. while cooking? So all Lane's "medical" reasons are preeeeetty non-existing xD Ps by the way I also made a 4-part letsplay on your game, and already uploaded the first part. I hope it's okay if I post it here ^^ And once again thanks for the game, I had not such a bad time playing it ^^
Hi, thanks for the comment! (And thanks for your Let's Play, it's totally fine to post the link and I'll be sure to take a look later!)
I have to say, I have seen Hannibal, but I didn't really think about it in regards to this game until you said that! But now that you mention it, I can see some similarities, haha. (Although if Lane is similar to Will, I don't think there's any character particularly similar to Hannibal in it...)
I'm glad you're overall enjoying the game so far! I hope you enjoy Parker's ends since you don't like Thomas as much (which is understandable).
As for the "human proteins," you're right that they would denature somewhat upon being cooked. There is actually more of a story behind Lane's cannibalism that should give you a more satisfying answer (check those epilogues), but I don't want to spoil it for you! (Although, I did try to make the game realistic, but it is still largely pseudoscience because it's fiction, so I would urge you not to take it too seriously, haha.)
Hey and you're really really welcome ^_^ ps I'm just beginning to explore this «lets playing word» and self-advertisement is still kind of weird for me :)
It's called subconsciousness x'D Well I'm still pretty okay with only Will xD
Oh, I think I will))
Nah, it's just me being once again smart little sh*t xD And being happy to find that not all the knowledges I got at uni vanished xD Also how the hell do you have epilogues, you got them after main «love-interest» ending or if you don't end up with anyone? о_О just curious)))
Just wanted to let you know that I played the Parker storyline and got too endings one more awesome than the other (Beautiful ending and NEW CHAPTER). And especially the last one is so akjghghg like I HAVE NO WORDS how good it is, how amazing of a boyfriend is Parker, how sweet is their story! Like SUPER BIG THANK YOU for this game. If I could I would give you 5 stars one more time!!! ^^
I totally get you, I'm pretty new to the indie dev scene too so self-promotion is still a little weird, haha. Hopefully it gets easier with time!
They say it's impossible to make anything 100% original in the world, and I can't say I disagree! People are just influenced by things and have things stored in the subconscious, so all you can do is try your best to make something interesting and unique.
And honestly, fun fact: part of my desire to go through with the idea for this game was so I could use all of my weird knowledge about cannibalism and related topics, haha. I'm a master of collecting weird information so I've gotta use it somewhere, right? So I totally get you there too, it's nice to have a chance to use that info!
I'm glad you had fun with Parker's route! Thank you so much for giving his route a try even though you didn't like Thomas' much! (And if you haven't found them yet, you can get the epilogues by restarting the game after getting all the bad ends. There will be a new option at the point where the game branches into their two routes!)
Let's hope so))
Haha yeah, also as they say it's not the idea that makes things like books/movies/gamed good, it's the way you tell the story, how you present everything))
Haha, well it's a good way to use it. And it reminded me about that time when I was doing some online course on criminalistic topic and one of the girl was like "I honestly think that if someone saw my browser history I'd be put away in prison for a long time, because no-one would ever believe me that I was searching all that for my work as a writer" xD
OH yeah!! It was really nice experience and thanks for information. I'll try to use it in future ^_^
I had just found this site about 4 hours ago and this is the second game I've played. I think it was really beautiful and interesting, definitely something I'd play over and over again. I got the Beautiful Ending I think so I can't wait to get the others.
Hi, and welcome to itch.io! I'm honored that my game is one of the first you've played from here. I hope you enjoyed the other ends as well! (And I hope you find many more fun games to play on here; there's tons!)
I really enjoyed this game. Good balance of tension and sweetness throughout, and obviously the premise is going to make it something unique! It feels like you really used your time constraints for the jam well and the story is just as big as it needs to be, if you know what I mean.
Thanks for leaving a comment, and sorry for the really late reply! I'm glad that the game had the right balance for you.
i have to say this is the first gay cannibal game i have ever come across so far . this kinda made my day i cant wait to play this
I'm glad you're excited to play! I hope you enjoy it. (And let me know if you come across any other gay cannibal games haha)
This game is AMAZINGLY written! The dialogue feels so real and natural, and it smoothly avoids being cutesy or turning into a quip-trading verbal tennis match. The art style is also excellent, and I love how expressive the characters are. I've only played through once so far (poor Parker </3), but I'll definitely be coming back to it again and again!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you're enjoying the game so far, and I hope you'll enjoy the other routes/ends as well!
[Possible spoilers ahead]
I find cannibalism pretty squicky, so I didn't expect to enjoy this, but the fact that Lane's a cannibal out of necessity and not, like, a necrophiliac serial killer made the subject matter easier to handle. I like the sort of magical realism of how Lane's condition and the prophecy are explained, but I think the endings were too abrupt, and also too similar between the two heroes. Given Parker's history with Lane, it would have been interesting if he made his reveal earlier. But I do like the atmosphere, and the art style is a good fit.
Thanks for commenting! I'm glad you gave the game a try even though the cannibalism part was gross for you. I thought it would be fun to do a cannibal character who was less of an antagonist (so not a serial killer, as you said).
The abruptness and similarities of the endings were things I was definitely worried about when I was writing. In trying to keep the game short (and within the three in-game days) to be able to finish everything by the deadline, it ended up that way. I'll definitely keep it in mind for the future, thank you for your honest opinions!