日本語のサポートをお願いしたい。

I saw it on an ad in a mongolian basket weaving forum.

Updated review after major update 1

Finally, I can play Deluge again!^^ This previous review version contains feedback, and I realize I didn't explain what's in Deluge very well. I'll concentrate on the latter now that the game has been updated. I played this free VN because it enticed me with its unsettling place, tragic fate, and Lovecraftian undertones. Yes, I'm curious about how the cute girls here will meet their miserable ends lead me to a story that will surprise and frighten me.

Deluge follows the protagonist, Abe, as he relocates to Abbotsford, a small agricultural town with a low cost of living, following the loss of his father's job, to begin a new life that is more in line with his financial circumstances. He attempted to continue his education while also looking for a part-time job and getting to know the city where he lived. He'll also meet the locals, including three girls who will later guide Abe on the branch of the story route (don't worry, the developer has provided the guide from the start).

I was embarrassed because, at first, I assumed this would be some harem visual novel with a hint of mystery, especially with the score reports that appear after interacting in each chapter. However, the romance tag is not used in this VN (my fault, lol), and Abe's relationship with the others is platonic. Deluge, on the other hand, emphasizes the mystery, which I found intriguing from the start. And, for players who prefer to play blindly, the scoring system is still useful for tracking the story's progression.

So, this is a mystery. Yep, Deluge tells an "interesting" story about Abbotsford (and some of its pretty weird residents). Players will gradually uncover the history of this city, where there will be loads of complicated things about political intrigue and the local church, with a Lovecraftian spice thrown in for good measure. This is the most important and exciting aspect of this VN, but it's also a hit and miss point. Some people might enjoy it if they view it as a mystery genre that puts aside slice of life writing. On the other hand, Deluge takes the student's perspective of living in a small town, so ignoring that aspect can give it an unnatural feel. Not to mention that the complexity is presented in info dumps that are repetitive and tedious at times. So, what's unfortunate about Deluge is the story's stiff writing and presentation.

Let's get to the characters now. Ina is the first girl to meet Abe, a schoolmate who may be able to help or even give Abe trouble by hiring him as a paperboy. Ina is the school newspaper club's chief editor. She is very enthusiastic about her job and strives to provide high-quality journalism content in the papers. Her efforts have paid off, as locals rely on this newspaper for information. Abe, who was in charge of delivering newspapers, then met Mei. She is looking for her brother, who has long "disappeared," and talking about him always brings up a mysterious episode that makes Abe uncomfortable around her. Mei can't read because she has a learning disability, and she frequently takes Abe around town and asks for his assistance if she sees something she needs to read. Rika usually appears the day after Abe spends time with Mei. She is his other schoolmate and very helpful in keeping him informed about Mei as the two girls are friends. Rika is a pastor's daughter from Abbotsford, and she is a complete package: popular, talented, and pretty. However, she gives off an odd vibe and my gut feeling about her is correct (you should be more interested in playing it now that you know this, hehe).

Despite my criticism of the writing, the characters in Deluge are compelling. Abe's alignments with each character reveal a different aspect of the town's mystery. And Deluge would be even more exciting if it were executed well. I would still recommend it because it manages to develop an engaging mystery, and it's also free. So, if the description on the store page piques your interest, all you have to do is download it.

Full Game Release Review:
The route stories were fairly entertaining for how they play out, but lacked depth. I was expecting more prevalent psychological themes, but there are not really any that are explored beyond brief character thoughts.
A little too much of a blank slate MC we follow that seems to just be dragged along until it's convenient for him to progress the story. The VN also leans heavily towards one sided discussions that the MC rarely participates in.
There are a few inconsistencies. A minor example being the MC wakes up to his phone ringing, Ina(one of the girls) picks it up and answers it. After the call she puts away her phone... wait what? There are a few logical/flow issues throughout the VN with the more annoying ones having to do with what is being discussed.

Early Access Review:
Needs more character writing. Every conversation is about or leads into a long essay about the mysterious past of the island. It felt like a bit too much world building being shoved down the reader's throat. Not giving enough time to develop why the MC(Abe) or the ones talking about it care or should care about it.
Kinda feels like the writers were going a little too into the lovecraftian style of writing. Which can be good, but it is not the best when it comes to conversational writing between characters. This is because a good portion of lovecraft's work usually comes in the form of descriptive perspective writing.

i'll admit i'm not very far into the novel yet but i've already got a few... nagging issues so far.

the first thing that has been bothering me since i started reading is that the author really should've put the thesaurus down. it makes the main character's internal dialogue sound extremely unnatural.

there are also points where these words are even used incorrectly, such as rika running her fingers through her "flaxen" hair when she isn't anywhere near blonde. then there are other generalized contradictions, like a side character saying that the paper is free but ina saying that they have paying subscribers.

it's also kind of bizarre that they seem to be in an anglosphere country and, given the main character's financial situation, that they're in a public school but have uniforms (uniforms that seem japanese uniform inspired at that) and i'm a little confused why all of the girls seem to have japanese first names but surnames befitting to the location that the novel is set in... but it could be that some of these issues that i'm seeing will be explained when i get further into the novel.

unfortunately, the only exceptional thing about this novel that i can see at the time of writing this review is the art – which i'll admit is gorgeous! that in itself is something that can be considered quite incredible for a free visual novel.

with all of that said, i'll try to keep playing it and if i feel that the game improves then i'll update my review accordingly.

edit:

after playing into chapter three, i've come to the conclusion that i don't think i'll be able to bring myself to finish this visual novel.

it's just... the inconsistencies and the unnatural dialogue don't improve, there are even points where the dialogue boxes don't indicate who is speaking and...

from what i can tell, there's no reason for this to be set in a school setting. none of the characters act or sound like teenagers and they spend almost no time in the school itself. the only time that classes are brought up are as an excuse to explain whatever a character is searching for.

i've also realized just how bizarre it is that ina is running a "school" newspaper that has nothing to do with the school at all, how bizarre it is that she has a whole office in the school for her newspaper business when she is the only member on staff and how bizarre it is that the school allows her to write on the subjects that she does.

not to mention how weird it is that ina somehow has subscribers throughout the village, up to 2000 of them, but... it's supposed to be a school newspaper.

Visual novels like Deluge are why I am so hard on games in this genre that are free. It has excellent production values from the menu to the models to the music that I am not afraid to point out other free visual novels that are bad as obviously you can still have standards and be free of cost. The only issue I had with the models are the noses looked weird. Other than that the rest of the art has a great style and colour palette. The music worked with the scenes really well and the sound effects were top notch. The story and characters were great up until the end. I didn’t hate the endings but I did feel unsatisfied by them. I just felt like there were a lot of unanswered questions as well as depending on which character you followed the stories branched off into extremely different paths that felt like they weren’t part of the same world. The journey leading up to them was fantastic though as I felt like the buildup of tension was great as was the lore. The characters were all interesting in their own way and I didn’t hesitate to play each ending to see where it went which I don’t usually do.

I played Deluge on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any bugs. I did however notice at least four spelling and grammar issues. The game also lacked certain features I have come to expect to be standard on visual novels such as the ability to skip text and to go back to the previous line. You can manually save whenever you want and there are fifty four save slots. Alt-Tab didn’t work.

Game Engine: Ren’Py 7.4.11.2266
Graphics API: OpenGL
Disk Space Used: 1.4 GB
Game Version Played: 1.0

GPU Usage: 0-85 %
VRAM Usage: 938-1724 MB
CPU Usage: 4-15 %
RAM Usage: 3.0-4.0 GB

Despite my lukewarm feeling on the endings I still recommend Deluge as everything else is of a very high quality and maybe somebody else has different feelings on the ends. I finished my first play through in two hours and forty eight minutes and finished the rest of the endings in a total of three hours and fifty nine minutes.

My Score: 8/10

My System:

Intel i7-6700 | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | XFX RX 590 8GB Fat Boy | Mesa 22.3.6 | Garuda | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 6.1.12-zen1-1-zen

This game had so much potential. The art is beautiful, the story is solid and does a great job of slowly building up tension, and the characters are three-dimensional and enjoyable (even if I had less than no interest in romancing any of them).

Unfortunately, the writing is just absolutely wretched. Every character speaks in the kind of faux-intellectual tone you see on Internet forums -- full of big words, a lot of them incorrectly used, and syntax that doesn't match the character speaking. The attempts to be poetic are even worse, to the point of near-incomprehensibility. There are also frequent grammar mistakes (particularly with apostrophes).

The script is badly in need of an editor to trim the fat, cut out the pretentiousness, and allow the characters and story to breathe. As it is, reading it was so exhausting that it stopped being worth it after the first two and a half hours or so.

I wish Steam allowed you to leave neutral reviews. This VN has so much going for it, but the prose is so stilted and unnatural. But, since I can't be neutral, I guess I have to be negative.

⠀

I wanted to like this novel but couldn't. On a larger scale, it has a great plot and some nicely done occultic themes. But there are huge problems with the refinement, or rather lack thereof.

My main complaint is that the main character doesn't talk much and has no impact on the storyline. He is just being dragged along it like a useless sack of potatoes.

The choices are mostly "be nice" v "be a сunt". While they do impact the final outcome, they don't matter before that: if you are being mean to one of the girls, she's going to brush that off and treat you as her best friend the next day.

The characters are a different topic: everyone in this novel lacks any reasoning for their goals, whatever those goals are. Their whole personality is nothing but a Wikipedia page for made-up history or politics, written in an out-of-place poetic style.

The story also has a cornucopia of inconsistencies. Has Ina watched a lockpicking video and got lucky once? She's going to act like a seasoned thief in Rika's route. Does her paper have paying subscribers at first? In her route, she will say that she wholely depends on financing from the school.

But what baffled me the most is the epilogue: it's a forced happy end in every route, even when there are no predispositions. Why would two characters get along if, just a week ago, while one of them was being mauled to near death by a hound, the other one just watched and then said "I wish I were that dog"?

amazing experience.