itch.io

a really fascinating poetics on and about the nature of the stage, the performance of acting, and the false reality inherent to cinema and theatre. involving thoughts about the plasticness of hollywood and the plasticity/flexibility of an ambiguous reality

so fucking good, a deep study about the sociology of an underappreciated character archetype who is just a guy that is a loser, but it defines what it Means to be a loser and also how to stop being one (stop trying to adhere to the standards of a society that will never accept you as you are and despises you for your failure to conform)

How would you like to be credited in a credits page? "Modified GUI Package from WNINGNINGW?"

this is an absolute fucking stunner of an rpg, it's brilliant, immersive, visceral, and flesh-meltingly GOOD

this game was really sexy!! and just a really good balance of sex in this ordinary and like, humble but not any less sexy way, like a neon study in working class queer black relationships / situationships and navigating desire through those spaces

the dark gut pinch fire of desire and affection in its own twisted perv way and the self awareness above it all was really great, this queer nonbinary dykeish shame and wanting

extremely tender, gentle, delicate, and pretty, the visual design and composition was stellar and gorgeous, and the writing was a really good reflection of the aesthetic/visual art design and illustrations where you knew everything was going to be okay no matter how bad it got, and orchid would be loved and believed and taken care of. what a lovely game!

you did an incredible job with ur first game, delivering a brave truth about mania in the form of what really did end up feeling like a very long uber ride where a witch spoke to you at length about the mysterious and magical inner works of her mind. it's a behemoth in word count, but what a feat to accomplish so much in such a small jam window! it was a really ambitious project, but you succeeded! i hope people continue to treat you kindly.

you did a fucking stellar job of UI design, itch page presentation, subtle expression changes, and demystifying intrusive thoughts where the most horrifying thing? the most horrifying thing to me personally is the realism of the imagined scenario where es confesses his most graphic and unwanted and extremely terrifying intrusive thoughts And someone rejects him as a "psycho" just as he degrades himself. bc he is self aware, after all. painfully.

but creating a game like this that exposes the truth of intrusive thoughts, namely their extremely unwanted and violently terrifying nature, in such depth and degree of detail, particularly the social paralytic and a paranoia as well, was just another one of the Incredible Fucking Things about this game. you did amazing.

i think you did an extremely good job demystifying and destigmatizing intrusive thoughts, which are poorly understood and most people DO regard them precisely as es fears: a psychopath.

but you know at the end of the day he is the one most scared of all. the one most scared of es? It's Es.

a fucking masterpiece of a menhera vn, it depicts the severest self-loathing in the aftermath of death (and the abandonment it causes) and the ugly triumph of the worst things you can think about yourself. also, it's set in a shounen backdrop. ie the best kind. IT'S ALSO EXTREMELY FUNNY!!!!!

oh, sorry I'm just seeing this, that may be an issue with the web version... when I go back and check it, I'll upload a proper build - that should run faster!

ありがとうございます! 🙇 

do I know you from Online? (mastodon?) how did you find out about this little zine? :0 I'm always surprised when ppl mention they bookmarked my work for later or smth. 

I'm so glad you could see the nuance in the JP/EN, it is always a humbling treat for me to have people recognize it. 

EDIT: oh! I see you tried to read it earlier, I'm glad you finally could. 

thanks for letting me know! I'll check that bug out

ah, sorry, I just enabled scrollbars!! it is hosted on https://temporal.ju.mp so i used to check it there without double checking here, try it again (I tried mobile just now and it worked) 

this is a really raw / harsh tartare of the breakdown of how bigots really think, i think of my games if you haven't played any but want to, this one would be good to start with https://swanchime.itch.io/imasara which is about severe internalized homophobia and also extreme homosexual desire, but the quote i'm looking for is in this game https://swanchime.itch.io/crane-tail that reminds me of the way you rendered the binary btw "peer and fuckable object" as "a 'girl' is nothing but a fuck sock" specifically in regards to like, the complexities of the intersection of trauma and transgender identity on any axis where the binary of "girl / man" doesn't have anything to do with genitals and has to do with predation and sexual objectification instead. 

that's how i interpreted / what resonated with me especially in the peer / fuckable object binary. if ur not a peer ("man") you are a fuckable object ("girl") which like, is far more complex than just genitalia.

thank you so so much for recommending it to me!

thanks for playing!!! 

thanks for the advice!! 

thank you so much! yeah, this is a tie-in to other games, I wonder if I had more time if I could have solidified it to be more independent of my other work, but the general ambiguity as to if they're the same character or different is very thematically appropriate! 

oh, sorry for the extremely late reply but thanks for playing!! I assumed more ppl were familiar with APK than not but I should remember to put a disclaimer next time and recommend bluestacks. 

thank you so much!!! 

oh very cool!!!!! thank u so much

your execution of all the twine macros is really incredible, you made fine work of the UI/UX, and your translations are stunning. i'm impressed at the depth of knowledge and intimacy in your translation, i once wrote a song called "translation is the intimacy between two souls," and i feel like you really understood the soul of the russian writer in all is myriad facets and by allowing the text to breathe through multiple translations (many variants possible on the translation, mixing and matching elements) it was fascinating to see how beautiful and lovely the poem is no matter what but also how deep and emotive and preciously felt every single word was.

and how the nuance / dimension of translation of a single word can change the entire line. really really honored to be able to play this game and witness your translation, i thought the gameplay was really imaginative as well, so lush, like a cold candlelit night with a glass of mulled wine.

as a translator (for JP), i felt from this game that you really intimately understand TRANSLATION as a precept and am so overjoyed / joyous about it.

the format of this zine is so cool! how did you do it? the mystique and the long vast ages of decay and oceanic wonder were really amazing, as well as the intimacy of the handwritten text

a vibrant, textural, and excellent piece of ghostwork with the aroma of chicken rice while walking the veil between life and death. also incorporating buddhist practice as daily ritual was fabulous. I really enjoyed in particular how much was left to implication regarding the nature of the gui, which is a specifically chinese concept I have a fascination with after reading about the guigu guzhu from word of honor and recognizing the the 鬼 as オニ in jp. I think you did a spectacular work translating and conveying the nuances of culture here. 

(at the same time, if you read closely, when the father says his hard work raising money for her liver transplant is wasted when he sees her (gui) at his stall, as well as the buddhist incense ritual, confirms her death, in my reading.) 

I think the silent but perseverant familial love in this was really touching. 

as an addict i'm always compelled / hungry for more representations of addiction, and i thought that the monster being MC's grandfather's monster and their father's monster after him really struck bone. that wasn't precisely the case with my family, but intergenerational trauma is the name of the game. 

i don't know if you're also equally hungry for more representations of addiction, but i talk about mine in this game: https://swanchime.itch.io/moon-pool-wish-maker

it's also cloaked in symbolism and metaphor. but the mention of the white powder...you will know it, i think.

i share not to self-promo lol but just...to offer solidarity, in the case that the addiction comes from home, because as an addict the worst thing i think is to be alone and to feel alone. and this game made me feel a little less alone, because things like addiction can be so horrifying and monstrous the only thing you Can do is write about them in metaphor.

thank you for making this game.

this game made me feel a lot of things, but mostly it made me feel understood and seen and vindicated. it made me feel "right," in the sense of...a lot of people that have never been thru the psychiatric shitstem don't understand how horrifying it is, it is basically a prison for crazy people, is what they don't want to say.

in any medical situation (i have various chronic illnesses / disability), if you don't have an advocate, you are seen by the medical professionals and the hospitals as "an unwanted" and "an invalid" in the worst way if not, in psychiatry, "a number" (i got assigned A Number when i was there), and there's no avoiding the similarity to prison cell mate numbers. 

it's so extremely dehumanizing to be "a patient" in any context, but psychiatric is the worst betrayal to anyone that doesn't know the reality of "getting a suicidal person 'Help'" which really just means "calling the police on you" and it's just. 

i feel so so seen and understood and RELIEVED that someone else knows the Extreme Nightmarish Horror of the psychiatric system. because anyone that hasn't, those are the people that'll call 911 on you. those are the people, even well-intentioned, that think "help" means actual competent and compassionate medical attention and care that is of course deeply humanizing. instead of being dehumanized into a number under psychiatric imprisonment, made worse if you are "a person that would not be missed," i.e. a person with no family/friends/visitors/advocates.

so thank you. for making this.

the glitching screen surrealism was extremely good and extremely like the feeling of the particular grief about a suicide, and I still walk thru my house and glitch thru it sometimes thinking about my ex's suicide, so. I really felt this game, thank you for making it

hey bro it's OB, i deleted my entire internet presence a little while ago but am trying to hook back up with my bros now, but ur website doesn't work and twitter shat the bed, if you see this can you friend request inviolet.sacrosanct on disco? i was inspired to make a bitsy game in the light of your incredible bitsys & ur stunning & extremely inspiring work

thank you so much, that means a lot to me. i'm really truly glad you honored this story, the story means a lot to me.

i always meant to write up a walkthrough for this one, but i never got around to it. i really appreciate you being so thoughtful about such an important work to me. i've been having a hard time of it, so it means a lot.

if you ever want to discuss more about what went into this game, or any of my other games (or any of Your projects/games), please do not hesitate to hit me up on discord @ inviolet.sacrosanct.

i'm glad byron met notus

this was a really tender and wonderful abstraction that was full of trans hope that is derived from the depths of despair and i am so glad for you that you were able to discover it and truly rejoice in yourself. the full page sequences with text drawn in ms paint and the slight shakey lines from drawing with a mouse and the pencil tool in ms paint REALLY capture the vibe i was going for with this jam as the host, and the necessary abstraction of sequence and thoughtfulness of imagery are really wonderful, thank you so much for submitting!!!

this looks amazing!!!!! i'm sooo excited to rread it thank you so muhc for submitting!!! (trans artist 4 trans artists)

aww, no problem, I hope you find some time soon! any ideas for story or characters rolling around? 

good luck everyone!! how is it going so far? 

i played this game and it's really incredible...it's so painful but deeply poignant and the slowness of it all, the grueling pauses, it really makes a beautiful landing when the acid rain comes down. the melancholy, the bitterness, the monstrosity, it's a really gorgeous game, i'm really interested in talking to you about your pixel art animations / what engine you did this in! i'm really inspired to do a cinematic game with similar pixel art / progression mechanics. it's a really fascinating piece as a form of interactive fiction. my email is pancreas[@]pancreas[.]gay if you want to talk about it. i also make a lot of games, so we could share mutual devlogs if you'd like.

this game is so cool!!!! conceptually it's a really clean concept and the execution is top notch, i really appreciate all the little structural details and the vividness of the world you created

this game is so so so so gorgeous!!!!! I ALSO LOVE NIGHT ON THE GALACTIC RAILROAD!!!! can i ask how you managed to do the looping background animation?