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In Destino Indomable, a choice-driven visual novel made using Unity, the player takes on the role of the newest actress in a Latino telenovela, or, for English speakers, a soap opera. If you're a soaps addict, you've probably already decided to get this, and I don't think you'll be disappointed... but if not, then maybe you're thinking “oh heck, no thanks!” – and that's where I suggest shelving that thought a moment: I have never voluntarily watched a soap in my adult life either, my entire history being as a youngster when my mother had them on the TV.

Upon loading, we're presented with a title page which is a full screen version of the game's Steam banner, which is very colourful and welcoming. This is accompanied by a lively backing tune which sits perfectly in keeping with the telenovela's origins.
The title menu is clear and friendly, and settings include full-screen/windowed, graphics resolution, text speed and various font sizes, plus full audio control.
There is also a CG gallery with a huge 94 pictures to be found, and the credits screen presents an animated galloping horse in front of a pseudo-3D scenic backdrop. Although close inspection gives a mechanical-gallop feeling to this animation, all of the above nonetheless contributes to a very strong initial experience and left me enthused about what was to come.

The game proper is in a more traditional VN style, and the story begins with a scene which – if you pay attention – will go on to make a whole lot more sense as you progress. Following this, and the very attractive episode-opening sequence, we cut to the director gathering the cast and the new actress – the player – who is immediately expected to name her character. Being of Spanish origin here would help, as you have to provide two names. Whether that is a first name and surname, or two christian names, I had to guess. A little guidance for non-Latinos here would be helpful, but ultimately doesn't matter.
This is then built upon with strong character appearance customisation. There are an amazing 20 hairstyles, complete with colour variations, to choose from for your MC, along with 9 outfits, 12 accessories and eye shape options. With that done, we're straight into shooting the episode, and there are five overall.

You may wonder how player options function within the confines of a scripted soap opera. It's suggested that the scripting is incomplete, and the actors fill in the blanks by improvising, giving them ultimate control over where the story in each episode goes. As this includes the MC, it allows for player choices to influence direction, and it works within the scripted framework really rather well. Being a soap opera, and moreso, I suspect, as a Latino one; the characters can be outlandishly unrealistic, display thoroughly unbelievable behaviour, and create ludicrous plot developments whilst never feeling out of place: just like you'd experience if watching a “real” one on the TV! Do bear this in mind if playing the game and finding some moments nonsensically extreme – it simply serves to capture the feel of your favourite TV soap, and does so successfully.

Each episode of the novela is followed by a review show called Que Lata, where a gossip host discusses the episode and sometimes conducts a cast interview which he then promptly twists into a tabloid-style sensationalist headline.

Graphically, the game is great, with rich colour usage, attractive sprites and complementary backdrops which have just enough detail to avoid becoming the main visual focus; and regular, quality, smooth animations. All non-MC sprites have multiple expressions, too.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3436373835

The tunes accompanying the story are upbeat and eminently listenable, with just the one little hiccup in the end-of-episode tension-ramping piece which is on a very short loop, and you can clearly tell where it cycles around. A very minor glitch in an otherwise big audio success.

I am avoiding story detail in this review so that you can enjoy it spoiler-free, but be prepared for it to feel utterly chaotic with every far-fetched soap-opera plotline imaginable getting a good airing, and connections between almost any pairing of the cast members going much deeper than you expect. If you're old enough to remember the Bobby Ewing shower scene from the US soap “Dallas” … yeah, that had nothing on this.

The English quality is very good, though to retain the flavour of a Latin American telenovela, a low percentage of lines remain in Spanish, with certain Spanish words also used regularly within the English language captions. As an English-only speaker, I can assure you that this does not leave you wondering what's going on. Everything is fully understandable as it is.

I didn't like the design decision for the MC once in-story. After all of that great work with appearance options, she then appears as a mini-sprite with no expression variation. Next to the full size sprites for all other characters, this left me feeling like she was comparatively unimportant, which is not a great place to be for the central actress.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3436373144

When progressing the story, the telenovela episode intro and closing credits sequence will play through at the beginning and end of every episode, as will the animated intro to the gossip show Que Lata. These are very attractively done and well worth watching, but you will not want to wait for them repeatedly. They can be skipped by pressing the BACKSPACE key on your keyboard, or the B key on a gamepad. This is not mentioned in-game but will make a big difference to your enjoyment.
Thanks to Javier at Jandusoft for confirming this.

At time of playing, ahead of release, I did find some things which will hopefully be addressed to improve end-user enjoyment:
There is no backstep function and it appears that there is no history log either. However, towards the end of a play through, I was presented with a pictureless screen which gave a full options list at the bottom as opposed to just four commands usually visible. This included a history log, which I selected, and it worked. So it looks like there is one which should be available either by or shortly after full release. Fingers crossed that this is nothing more than a tiny tweak to the coding.

When typing in the player character name (and that of the pet dog), you can enter these exclusively in capital letters, which then gets carried into the narrative, with the result that every reference to the MC and her pet appears entirely in BLOCK CAPITALS, and are the only names to do so. That's something which could be remedied easily.

If you're not a Spanish native speaker, then it's possible that not immediately understanding some repeated words will be an annoyance. It would improve experience if some words were clickable, and led to a translation. This isn't a huge pain, and not narrative-breaking, but adding this feature would help.

Despite some imperfections along the way, Destino Indomable benefits from high production values and a solid storyline which despite appearing to be beyond all logic, ultimately turns out to be pretty tight. I had a couple of laughs along the way, loved and hated the same character in different runs, and had a good time working my way through it. At £10.99 the price feels spot on for fair value; and whether you're a fan of soap operas or not, this one is worth a look.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Jandusoft for providing a free review copy for this game.

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In Comfort & Warmth, we follow a day in the life of the nameable-female-lead, an overworked and underappreciated staff writer also in the early days of a romantic relationship.

Playing as (insert your chosen name here, I went with “Bethany”, because, why not? I'll be referring to her by this name from hereon) we're taken straight into the latter stages of another stressful working day with more demand than time, and the inevitability of working over for no additional returns. If this sounds like everything you don't want in your free-time-fiction, then you'll be pleased to know that this start is merely setting up the reason for what follows.

As mentioned, Bethany is in the early stages of a relationship, and her boyfriend Leon happens to live closer to her workplace than she does, and conveniently, works from home, and is therefore prepared for her arrival; which gives her the opportunity to go straight to his place after work for the chance to de-stress. As a girl with a damned good eye for talent, it has to be said that Leon is seriously top-drawer merchandise. Not only is he a quality cook, but he's extremely caring, and takes “buff” to new levels. You just would. Trust me on this!

Once there, the game takes us through scenes of the couple's quality time together, offering up a few response options along the way, which reward us with some variation to the narrative, all of which proves to be an entertaining read. As the overall play time of the game is less than a couple of hours, I'm not going to spoiler the scenes which take place, only to say that they revolve around gentle, heartwarming romantic moments.

I found the soundtrack to be very appealing and well matched, and unusually for me, kept it high enough to let it remain to the fore throughout. There is an option for volume of effects too, though I have to concede that I didn't notice an awful lot of them. Perhaps that was due to my immersion in the text.

Visually, the game is lovely. Characters mentioned in the text appear as standard in situ within the backdrops as opposed to mere fixed poses placed in front of them; effectively making every scene into a CG. These also update as the story progresses, pay attention to the dinner scene for a good example of this. Here's the sort of thing you can look forward to:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3428104309

Those who read many of my reviews will possibly think “not again!” when I mention that the in-story player functions are accessed via the Ren'py standard tiny text word list at the bottom of the screen. At least you can see them here, and they change colour when the pointer is over them, but they remain less than ideal, not the friendliest of controls if your sight isn't great. I do wish visual novel developers would pay more attention to this, especially when the rest of their game is so well polished.

That said, the UI does facilitate all of the usual controls that you want to see here, including a history log, skip and backstep, along with save and quick save. It's worth noting that if you want to load a previous save from within the story, you'll need to click save and then change to load from the menu screen, so care is required to avoid accidentally overwriting the position you want to recover.

Further settings include text speed, skip options, full screen or windowed (though you have to double-click the game toolbar for full-screen-windowed), screenshot ability, assistive self-voicing and the accessibility menu for things like text size, font style and line spacing. All of which add up to everything you could wish from a game of this size and price.

Once you have played the story through to conclusion, there is a “bonus gallery” with several development pictures, showing how the visuals initially took shape, along with (following an additional click on each) a brief description about them. This is well worth looking at. It's a bit of a shame that a regular gallery wasn't also added, allowing the player to review all of the “CG backdrops” experienced during gameplay.

As you have probably seen on the game's store page, there are intimate scenes in this story, and they can be completely bypassed or limited dependent upon your choice from in-story options. It should be borne in mind that if you take the initial decision to skip out on the sex scenes, then the story will advance directly beyond them – there is no alternative activity narrative, and this will reduce the run through time of the game to somewhere around only 30 minutes.

Of course, if you're on this page, then you're probably interested in the full content, and the story doesn't skip out on detail, yet manages to dance carefully between enough information to be, erm, exciting, and providing too much detail. It's a nicely crafted balance with the use of some well thought out analogies in order to avoid the pitfall of cringe.

Visually, during these scenes, Bethany is displayed fully naked as Leon gets to work starting her motor and getting her all revved up. We do not, however, get to see his “driver” in “pole position”, which I'm sure some of you will take as a blessing. The text does the job for you, with the accompanying visuals providing plenty of support as they are.

Comfort & Warmth offers the best part of two hours pleasurable reading time, with enough options to have you playing through more than once. With an aspirationally pretty, but not unrealistic, MC, I found it very easy to immerse myself as the lead and just let the story wash over me. It helps, of course, that this game's husbando leaves the likes of merely “dreamy” in the shade, but the true star of the show is the writing.

Being realistic about the price of the game and the playing time provided, I feel that the content quality offsets the limited duration sufficiently to make this a very fair deal at full price. If you have no concerns about graphically and narratively explicit intercourse content and just want a feel-good story to carry you through the evening, you've found your answer in this one.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank CubiGames for providing a free review copy for this game.

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To the devs: I look forward to a possible sequel, “The vacation & proposal”! Bethany would say YES! I guarantee it 😍

Somehow, back in the day, I sincerely doubt that our parents would have accepted this as fair reasoning; nonetheless, it wins my award for best line in the script!

After The Inferno is a very spicy visual novel with a series of integral animated intercourse scenes doubtless attracting a certain market sector who would not be interested in the story alone. A story which, it has to be said, provides a good deal of depth and longevity.
Please note if you are a typical hetero male considering this game for the sex visuals and nothing else, then this is not the review for you. Thanks for dropping in. Goodbye.

Devran (changeable name) is the good-hearted leader of a successful mercenary group, and has accepted a contract from the Kingdom of Saterra to help defend them against the expansionist Isenian Empire. Shortly, he receives a messenger from the Empire with a much higher offer to fight for them instead, and with a much greater probability of success. However, he believes that an old friend of whom he is very fond may be trapped in the city facing invasion. With some of his crew deciding to take the riches on offer and desert him, he is faced with tough decisions and overwhelming odds.

As we head towards the inevitable invasion and defence of the city of Calseth, Devran meets and forms friendships with a series of female characters, all of whom play important roles in events – not being there solely to act as romance options or sexual conquests.
Taking the right choices as each girl's individual story plays out sequentially within the main tale will reap its own rewards when their presence and skills are most needed; however, choosing to go down routes contrary to Devran's intrinsic nature may lead to a less satisfying conclusion..

For a debut game from the developer Classy Lemon, there is a lot to be impressed about in this release. The graphic quality is excellent in its own right, and way above the average standard of the visual novel genre.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413569810

The story is a slow-burner, it will require a willingness to let it develop in order to become fully immersed. If you're the type to give up quickly because you want all the action on page 1, then this is not the game for you. This story takes the time to build properly and flesh out characters we can believe in and have sympathy toward, albeit with too many single-word or ellipsis-only captions requiring more clicking than reward.

Even with the in-game volume settings fully up, I found whatever supporting music present to be incredibly quiet, so much so that it was hard to form an opinion as it never succeeded in catching my attention. There is also some voice acting present during the many cutscenes, curiously this was louder and seemed fine.

All of the usual expected Ren'py standard in-play features are present, although the basic word command list at the bottom of the screen clearly missed out on attention. Not only is it tiny, but the words are also in black, so for most of the time, you cannot see them at all unless you have the mouse pointer directly on top of them. That was a pretty careless oversight, and the actual text doesn't fare much better. While the screenshot below doesn't demonstrate the point due to the coloured backdrop, in many cases, the background is very light or white, rendering reading the narrative challenging at best. There is no visible text box to make the words stand out. Anybody with sight difficulties will be effectively excluded from reading this story without assistance.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3413571452

The game features plenty of save slots, of which you will probably want several; and also a codex featuring additional information on locations you have visited, religions of the area, characters you have interacted with, and other lore; in addition to galleries of the cutscenes you found, and of course...

Honestly, believe me or don't, it doesn't matter; when I first came across this game, it was the number of reviews which highlighted the strength of the story above all else which encouraged me to look at it. I quite like historically based tales, and this tells an interesting one. So if you are curious about where the story goes and can deal with playing as a male character with the narrative being told from his viewpoint, but do not wish to have the sex scenes, note that every single one of them is optional. You do not have to play any of them through in order to progress the story. Credit to the developer for considering this in a game where the story itself is good enough to garner interest.

If you do want to experience the intimate moments in their full glory however, you have the freedom to choose Devran's partners without penalty. Perhaps predictably, the visuals do have a bias towards showing off the female form, giving a clear indication that it was the developer's intention/expectation that the audience would be predominantly male; but at the same time, they do not go so far as to simply objectify the women as convenient lust objects. It is usually the MC being pleasured, but there are occasions where the role is reversed. The scenes did not leave me feeling that I had just endured several moments of simple male-gaze porn.

That said, I had believed that medical enhancement of the male member wasn't available back in the time of this story – apparently I have been misinformed! There are plenty of moments to “enjoy” his arousal, and while not too excessive, he is unusually well blessed in the downstairs department. However, for an active mercenary soldier, Devran has a striking lack of muscular definition elsewhere, which is somewhat disappointing from a female perspective. Perhaps this is why the camera doesn't focus on him much during intimate moments. At least he has a very handsome face.

I had expected, for a free game, the experience to be very brief. There is a battle quite early on, which I was anticipating bringing the story to an end. How wrong I was, and without giving too much away, the clue is in the game's title. My expected hour-or-so play through became closer to 16 hours, a huge surprise – and this is without re-playing, or reviewing the animated scenes etc (which to be fair is more likely to be the preserve of the male players); and that amount of game time can be attributed to the depth of the story.

There are a couple of additional negatives: some of the gameplay involves an overhead isometric view of the city and you have to click on a building to visit. Cressa's house isn't easy to spot initially. Devran keeps a journal which usually states where to go, but this basically serves as a needless delay to story continuation.

The other thing is a very minor graphical choice with the eyes on the female characters, most especially Cressa, whose are red. Considering the real life appearance of the rest of the character sprites, the eyes look oversized and cartoon-like, which detracts quite heavily from their overall effect. If you can cope with them on Cressa though, the rest won't feel too bad.

Outside of these points, and especially considering that this game is free, it's a very, very easy one to recommend. I have seen the dev's follow-up release store page, Projekt Passion, which appears to be more firmly aimed at the male player, so you may not see a review of that from this writer, but I would certainly be open to a more female-centric game from Classy Lemon. This is an impressive start.

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As visual novels go, the setting for Dates & Wires certainly scores well on the originality front. Our (fully nameable) MC begins the game landing at the arrivals gate of the fictional former Soviet republic of Stradania, having had it recommended as a good location to “get away from it all” following an unhealthy break-up.

Whilst there is an easily taken inference that the protagonist is female, and that's how I was happy to take it on and play from this perspective; it is worth noting that at no point does the game make any gender references in respect of this at all, nor offer a visualisation of the character; leaving it open for the player to decide the sex of their lead. The narrative is, happily, also written in first person, so it's just as easy to self-insert, if that is your preference.

As I played the game as a female character, any gender references made below will reflect this.
Having cleared customs – which is achieved merely by entering your preferred character name, our MC has two days in which to explore the, um, dubious delights of Stradania, to let go of her immediate past and unleash any pent up frustrations by way of a no-strings-fling if a suitable partner should happen along.

She follows a recommendation to visit a nightclub called “The Icebox” as the hotspot of the area, and it is from here that the story is based. She gets to meet a selection of, frankly, weird freaks – none of whom any girl with a fully functioning brain would want to touch in a million years - and a seemingly “normal”, down to earth bartender.

First meetings with any of the patrons ought to be enough to put her off from wanting to see any of them again, yet each of them opens up just enough personal intrigue to pull the reader in to sufficient curiosity to do so anyway. Alternatively, she has the freedom to decide against doing so, and spend the time with the bartender instead – only, don't expect that to be quite as predictable as you might expect, either!

If you're brave enough to take a punt on spending the second and final day of the trip with one of the characters met on day one, the story really steps up a level and rewards you for your persistence. We discover that all of the hook-up options have more depth to them than is first apparent, and ultimately it's hard to dislike any of them, irrespective of first impressions. One of the day-one guys is not available as a romance interest, but his girlfriend is. More on that later.

Graphically the game presents its dystopian, ex-Soviet, cyberpunk setting very efficiently, with most sprites sporting a cybernetic add-on of one kind or another in a graphic style which feels entirely the game's own. Not a copy-paste anime boy in sight, and hallelujah to that!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3411507757

There are also 18 CGs to be found (called “souvenirs” and viewable from a separate menu).
Aurally, the game provides 14 different tracks which again, suit the setting; but don't expect these to be jolly dance tunes, oh no.. you might even find one or two of them have you grimacing somewhat. Bad? No. Just appropriate, and these are also available to listen to individually from their own front menu option.

The UI meets typical player expectations with all necessary functions, and although accessible via the bog-standard-word-list, at least this is slightly larger than average so you have a fair chance of being able to see the command you want and clicking on it accurately at the first attempt.

I had been wavering a little as to whether this game would appeal to me or not, with the dilapidated location choice and a cast of characters who, in real life, would see me cross the road to pass them on the far side. However, sticking with the story beyond day one provides a set of fully engaging individual stories and brings both life and warmth to each of the available romantic options – and you are not obliged to get romantic with them if you don't want to.

Naturally (ahem), with no consequences to face for doing so, I went into “full tramp mode” to see how far the MC would be allowed to go with each character, and while one of the guys is just too much of a gentleman to slip into such levels of debauchery, another unexpected one is more than willing to go farther than you might expect. There is nothing explicit in the visuals nor text, but it's made very clear that certain levels of intimacy are achieved.

As mentioned earlier, it is the girlfriend of one of the guys met earlier who is also a second day option. As a hetero female, I don't usually enjoy finding a girl/girl route in my otomes, but this is more of a dating sim than an otome, and there is no doubt in my mind that her story in this game is the most entertaining of all of them. So if you're like me and would normally either bypass or rush through the same sex “friendship” route, and this game interests you, then I recommend changing your approach and giving this one your full attention. Great fun.

Apparently this product is based upon a web comic which has been around for a while. I have never set eyes on a web comic in my life, so this review is based entirely upon the game as a standalone product, and I am pleased to say that it surprised me. The cast are nicely fleshed out and surprisingly easy to warm to, the more time you get to spend with them. Each story is entertaining, with none of them disappointing.

I've read it said that the game is “short”. Certainly it's not a very long novel, but I feel that a suggestion of short implies that you'll get 1 to 2 hours of gameplay, and there is plenty more than that to be found. It's worth saving at option times, then going back and seeing the alternative results, and searching out those elusive achievements should keep you busy for a good handful of hours.

Overall, whether you're a fan of the related web comic or have never heard of it, Dates & Wires holds up very well in its own right, and offers good entertainment at a fair price. For something a little different to your standard VN dating fare, this is a perfectly viable option.

The Butterfly Effects & Otome Lovers wish to thank Team Cryo for providing a free review copy for this game.

When Otome Lovers encounters The Butterfly Effects, it's a blend of enchanting love stories and the magical ripples of fate! If you enjoyed the review, please follow us.

Boyfriend For Hire is an animated narrative game with visual novel elements in that you click to move on the story and have the occasional decision to make which alters things slightly, but ultimately doesn't make any difference to the ending.

The game features six “chapters”, which, once seen, can be replayed sequentially or individually in any order you care to try. Taking a leisurely, relaxed approach to progressing the game, each chapter will last up to, but not beyond, 10 minutes, giving the player a maximum of one hour's entertainment.

At the beginning of chapter 1, we join the MC, provisionally named Amy although you have the freedom to change this; being approached by the “cool girl” at her school, and also her frenemy, Christie, who wishes to play one-upmanship by pointing out that she has a new boyfriend who possesses all of the attributes any sensible girl could wish for. Amy's friend defends her, stating that she also has a boyfriend; only for Christie to then challenge her to show him off at their upcoming club night.

This leads us into the discovery of the boyfriend for hire service, and after receiving pressure from her own mother to prioritise dating over her education (with mothers like this, no wonder society is going to pot), Amy decides to gamble on the service.

The brief story that follows is light and fluffy, and for the most part, I felt entertained as it unfurled; sporting a smirk every so often as teenage familiarities revealed themselves.

- Amy has a choice of clothing every so often, and her sprite is seen in the chosen outfit for the remainder of the scene.
- The supporting musical accompaniment is jolly and fun initially, although it does become repetitive quite quickly. The game just about carries it off due its own brevity.
- The story, at least what is there, is lighthearted and aspects of it ring true to life of a teenager of dating age.
- The static sprites look story appropriate and quite pleasant, certainly representing the character ages accurately. And the hired boyfriend is, well.. attractive.

- Although the sprites look perfectly respectable when in position, they walk on and off screen, and the walking animations are, putting this nicely, fine for a cartoon made to entertain infants. For the rest of us, they are stiff and awkward, and I started to feel a bit embarrassed about playing a character who moves like that.
- The text is available only in English, which makes the standard all the more disconcerting. No caption is unreadable, but the error count, notably in respect of English tense, is way too high for a story of this length.
- The user settings total a home button (back to the chapter select menu), and a sounds option. That's it. You don't get a save, although, in fairness, it would be absurd to need one when you can select the chapter and you're going to max out at 10 minutes on any one of them.
- The “ending”. I'll discuss this in a moment.
- The price.

On first run through this game I was amused sufficiently to feel that I could ignore the language slips and dodgy animations for the cheap price of £2.57 and give it a “gentle” thumbs up (in other words, “get it if lighthearted and no drama suits your tastes”), but then I reached the last caption of chapter 6, and that immediately turned my view to a cannot recommend.
The problem is that the story doesn't finish, it just stops. Imagine reading a novelette, that it has built up to the conclusion, you're looking forward to seeing how it ends.. a character makes a statement that leads the reader right into the finale, and the next words are “THE END”.
There, I just spoilered it for you. Sorry about that. Maybe.

The absence of a conclusion is a total mood killer, as unsatisfying as it could possibly get.
I also wish to point out my playing time, at 89 minutes, will look high and possibly have you questioning the max 1 hour statement I made initially. This is because I originally played through two months before writing this review, and chose to quickly rerun the whole thing to refresh my memory of it. Bear this average playing time in mind, because here comes the real kicker:

Two weeks before Christmas, they hiked the price! In the UK, the full price is now £12.79, the original full price (which is also above fair value) was £4.29. So, presumably because the game is not selling and the publisher wants a return on their efforts, they've imposed an increase of almost 300%!

I see on SteamDB that the highest number of concurrent players since release is one. I am not surprised. An absence of polishing before release, followed by an act of greed, has completely killed what could have been a cosy little one-evening narrative game.

Let it stay dead. Your money is better spent elsewhere.

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Secrets In Green is a very short but equally engaging visual novel about a Victorian-era young lady, Alma, with a perceived history of mental problems, as seen from the highly patriarchal society of the time. Whether she actually has a mental imbalance, or is merely a misunderstood, independent woman who does not willingly meekly submit to the whims of those who expect nothing more than a passive, subservient girl to be ordered around is one for your own conscience to conclude.

Despite the brevity of the story (I finished in 80 minutes, with a little of that time idling), or perhaps due to it, the writing is sharp and succinct, ensuring that the reader is fully immersed from the opening caption right through to the end. Alma is sent to her uncle's cottage in the countryside to convalesce in a peaceful environment as a last-ditch attempt by her father to “cure” her of her “wild episodes.”

With a love of nature and the cottage having a large garden, she slips easily into tending that and appears to be making progress, until she finds an attractively leaved plant at the rear border fence. Upon inspecting this, she finds a word written upon one of the leaves – a word clearly not written by any pen. Alma believes that the plant is trying to communicate with her, a theory compounded when she writes on a leaf and subsequently finds a response on her next visit.

Alma mentions this to a “companion” despatched by her father. A companion who, in reality, is more of a custodian. This, of course, leads to a belief that her mental instability is becoming worse.

But we, as the player, know that she hasn't imagined this. In which case, what is the true source of the mysterious wording upon the plant's leaves? There are just a couple of choices in the game, but they are very important ones, and will ultimately lead to either of two bad endings, or one good one.
With plenty of save slots available, it's easy to save at an options point, and find all endings in one comfortably-sized playing session.

The game does well in bringing to life the era which it portrays, with echoes of fake mental illness being attributed to someone – notably a woman, and therefore, in this time, a second class citizen – who does not fit the accepted, and expected, norms of the time. The bad endings in the game are appropriate to the nature of the story, though one may be apportioned a trigger warning for those of a particularly sensitive nature.

The good end, on the other hand, delivers on the store page promise of female empowerment with its emotionally satisfying conclusion – so much so that I was brought right to the edge of a happy tear or two upon reaching it. I do love it when a story can do that to me.

+ Well written and entertaining narrative.
+ Good graphics and respectable score.
+ Impactful choices, no superfluous ones there solely to give the impression of player agency.
+ Very satisfying good ending, especially for its primary target audience (I mean us, ladies!)
+ All of the essential basic VN functions are available, including skip, back-up and escape to menu.

+/- Some limited voice acting, mostly exclamations.

- The in-game menu is the standard tiny text word list along the bottom.
- The more advanced VN features like assisted voicing and a CG gallery are not included.
- There is window or full screen option, but not a windowed-full-screen, you have to manipulate that manually.
- A personal negative here: the “companion” character sprite dips on screen each time she speaks in a new scene. I found this distracting and unnecessary.
- Although the game is very much in the budget price range, it still felt a little “Wow, have I really done already?”. It's difficult to suggest what more content could have been added, but do be prepared for your entertainment to be concluded within one hour-long playing session, or thereabouts.

The negative points above are solely for awareness purposes, they do not notably impair player experience. I found the story captivating and Alma an easily supportable lead. Despite the short reading time, I have no difficulty in giving this game a fully committed thumbs up.

I wish to thank my wonderful friend for gifting me Secrets In Green, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing it through.

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Arts & Hearts Academy is a fun visual novel created by Vera Florentine and relates the story of a young college student taking part in a competition to win a place at a prestigious, expensive art and architecture academy.

If that doesn't sound appealing to you right off the bat, let me quickly confirm that I have never been into art and architecture before, either. Trust me that your personal absence of interest in these subjects will have no bearing on your enjoyment of the game.

The MC, named “Miss Bell”, is given a forename by the player, and we learn that she has been chosen for the team representing her college due to an apparent clerical error, which immediately puts her ill at ease after boarding a train and meeting her two new teammates.. both of whom are eligible bachelors, and not without attractive qualities. Well, how about that!

As the story progresses, an extra dimension is thrown in by way of an unresolved murder case dating back to 2005, and Miss Bell's interest in solving the case. (During gameplay, she is referred to by the forename that the player gives her, there is no laborious “Miss Bell” repetition to deal with).

There are 3 potential love interest routes to follow, two of whom we meet on the train and are our heroine's teammates, and one who represents the opposing college team. Each of these routes weaves in and out of the main storyline, meaning that you will encounter unique and common passages throughout the game. There is a skip feature, which is fast, so nipping through the common sections after first play through is painless. You will be dealing with three threads throughout: the contest, the investigation, and a potential romance; and all three flow seamlessly together.

The narrative occasionally provides educational content about both art and architecture, and successfully does so in a way that makes it entertaining and informative, without ever veering into too much information territory and becoming boring as a result. Thumbs up for crafting a nice balance. It is worth paying attention when the MC is being educated, as the knowledge gleaned will be useful when faced with a team knockout quiz late on!

- Obviously the graphics in the game stand out, as has been mentioned in a number of other reviews. So, let's kick a certain elephant out of the room immediately. Yes, AI has been used to assist in the creation of the visual splendour which awaits us. I know that many people will baulk instantaneously at the mere mention of AI, but in a case like this where we have a single developer creating a game, and keeping that assistance down to providing extra polish to enhance the user experience (which it certainly does); I cannot easily see any cause for alarm. It's pretty obvious where it has been used, it does not dominate, but it does provide greater user satisfaction from the end results therein.
- The story, based in 2021, features flashbacks to 2005, and some of the characters appear in both years. The ageing of these characters between time periods is fantastic, subtle facial shading and hairstyles really bringing into focus the intervening years. I loved that.
- Character sprites also have subtle expression changes, and appear within the backing scenes on occasion. I find that this always brings a greater feeling of reality to proceedings.
- The translation from Russian isn't perfect, but it's very good, probably about 98% accurate. Slips and incorrect word usage is very slight, (and for anyone who has read many of my reviews, you'll know that I'm pretty fussy about English standards in VNs) and is not enough to affect enjoyment at all. There are zero problem captions in terms of understanding.
- Achievements are sensible and well placed. You won't pick up a load simply by reading through, but all of them can be found via carefully considered choices. Player options are also regular without being excessive, appear when you'd most expect them, and have impact.
- A personal fave in any game: clothing choice! The MC has her own “wardrobe” with her at the academy, and at various points you can get to select from two or three options, what she will wear for the scene following. All of the outfits look good (discreetly letting her impossibly narrow waist in two of the outfits slide xD) and then show in all of her appearances until she next changes. Huge plus for this!
- Player interaction is not restricted solely to making choices. The investigation part of the game provides simple point-and-click moments when magnifying glass icons appear on the screen to alllow close-up inspections of items.
- Later on, there is a very enjoyable sliding-block type puzzle where you have to correctly position 12 pieces of a picture together. If you're not a sliding-block fan, don't worry – neither am I. Any two of the pieces can be exchanged at any time, irrespective of position – and they don't all start upright, so you can rotate them, too. This is a nicely gauged diversion from the reading, and is not frustrating in the slightest.

It would be easy to forego this section, such has been the enjoyment level of playing through this game. So I am including the following mainly to keep those happy who are unable to be so without having something to moan about.
- There is no CG gallery. Honestly, if I hadn't been playing this specifically with a curator review in mind, I may not have noticed. Yes, it would be nice to be able to review some of the lovely pictures afterwards, but in this instance, it doesn't feel overly important to the whole package.
- The in-play functions available is just the Ren'py standard word list across the bottom of the screen. These words are in small text, people with any visual impairment may have difficulty seeing them. I don't, but did find it hard to tell at times whether the skip was available or not, as the command word merged with the backdrop beneath it.

I wasn't expecting a non-Christmas themed visual novel to drop for review so close to Christmas, and especially not one as thoroughly enjoyable as this. It didn't escape my attention that Vera Florentine is credited with just about everything in the creation of this game, from coding to writing to audio and translation. This is an astonishing achievement by one seriously talented individual.

Having read other reviews before playing the game, I noticed that Theo was not faring too well in the likes department, so I did his route first, using the logic that I'd get the “worst” one out of the way. Sure enough, I didn't warm to the character – you'd be hard pressed to find a girl in her right mind who would want a guy like that – but his dubious personality in no way diminished the enjoyment of his route. And it gets better after that.

Overall I had about eight hours with the game (a small amount of time I had it in the background, chatting on discord) and thoroughly enjoyed ALL of it.

If you're one of those VN fans who usually resorts to the supposed “safe” option of the latest big-name release, comfortable in the knowledge that you're getting another expensive rehash of previously told stories featuring standard tropes and copy/paste character sprites with accompanying dodgy translation; then this is the ideal opportunity to remedy that particular malaise, open your mind and support an indie developer who puts their heart and soul into producing something original and rewarding.

This is excellent. Buy it.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Vera Florentine for providing a free review copy of this game.

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Loop is a short visual novel from first-time developers Gulbrandr Studio and tells a brief story of a character named Deirdre (pronounced Deer-dree for those struggling) who enters a mystical forest in search of her missing husband. The story appears to be based upon an Irish legend, but one, I suspect, that will be totally unfamiliar to all readers barring the most fervent followers of Irish mythology.

When I first became aware of this offering, I was drawn in by the Irish setting – totally under-represented within the visual novel genre – and the beauty of the backdrop visuals, which are very clearly the high point of the package.

The story itself suffers from, presumably, sticking too closely to the legend upon which it is based. As we progress, Deirdre runs into assorted magical inhabitants of the forest and engages in conversation with them, while attempting to locate her husband; but none of these conversations really lead to anything of additional interest nor do a great job of developing those characters, leaving the reader with the impression that each of them is a mere convenience to carry the narrative. Certainly there is a little more to “The Lady Of The Well” and “The Roadbuilder”, but not enough to elicit any feelings from the reader.

- Quite comfortably, the graphics carry the product. Backdrops are beautiful, detailed and eyecatching. Character sprites have a brighter palette, and are also sufficiently detailed to hold interest. I note that another reviewer has pointed out a differential in styles between sprites and backdrops negatively, and this, for me, demonstrates such opinions are very subjective. I much prefer the cast graphics to stand out in front of the backdrops to blending in with them – unless, of course, they are being shown as part of an interactive background shot.
- The musical accompaniment is fitting for the story environment. I found the first tune to be a little repetitive, but was glad that I left the sound up, as those following are better. I'm fairly sure that I distinguished four different pieces playing throughout, and they're nicely composed.

My first run through of this game lasted about half an hour. I didn't rush, others are likely to finish more quickly than this, although 20 minutes is a probable minimum. I found the time spent to be a fairly pleasant distraction, enough to hold my attention but not enough to leave me really intrigued about the very sudden endings, what might have become of the protagonist afterwards.

Since that initial run (and a subsequent second one which was extremely burdensome due to the paucity of user interface options), the developers quickly added a skip function which adds a degree of player accessibility to try out alternatives for a different ending. By the time I re-ran post-skip-update, I had already seen such a high percentage of the total text available, it was difficult to ascertain whether this function is actually a skip-read-text feature or a simple fast forward. I suspect that it's the latter, but as text speed is fixed to average-reading-speed, it's very easy to stop it before a caption is completed and thereby prevent any accidental missing of unread text.

Unfortunately, due to the very sudden conclusions of all endings, the effort involved to replay for a different end renders that time commitment unrewarding. Ultimately, the developer's decision to create this product using Unity instead of Ren'py was a misguided one. The result is a very pretty front end which severely lacks user features – in sum total, you get a choice of two fonts (although the Celtic one looks nice and suits well), a “skip” which takes as long to move forward as is required to print out each caption at the preset speed, and a gallery of 5 screenshots representing each found ending. As others have mentioned, there isn't even a save option – although, it is worth noting that for the time it takes for a single run, and that only the final choice seems to make any discernible difference – this option not being present does not have much of an impact.

Overall, nice looking visual novel which should provide 20-30 minutes of comfortable reading experience, but unlikely to entertain at all beyond that first time through. The question for you, dear reader, becomes: is that enough for you to justify the full price? I believe that it will not be, and below I will suggest some pointers for the devs in the hope that they can either expand on what is present already, else look to put their undeniable ability towards producing a future game with a deeper level of content and user friendliness than is on display here.

Overall, despite being obliged to give the game a “not recommended”, I would like to encourage some pretty clear development talent to stick at it and act upon the comments below. It's obvious that the creators do have the skills to produce a high quality visual novel; but at this stage, that potential has not yet been reached.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Gulbrandr Studio for providing a free review copy for this game.

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- For this story, it feels like there is a presumption that the mythology that it is based upon will be familiar, which throws the reader into a situation of not understanding who any of the characters either met or referenced are, or what their relevance is to the protagonist's mission. The Roadbuilder, for example – why? What does he have to do with anything? And Sid – I can run off and marry him, but who is he? Just some rando who appeared without explanation?

This could have been mitigated by expanding the story beyond the legend. Introduce us to Deirdre and her husband from a time before where your story starts. Let us understand what led to him leaving her. This could include mentions of the forest and characters within, which in turn would not make their sudden appearances feel totally “cold”.

- The conclusions also desperately need fleshing out. The absence of any epilogues leave the reader with a strong feeling of “Eh? Wait, is that it? I don't get it.”

- A visual novel can often stand or fall by the ease of interaction and user friendliness experienced by the player. This game's biggest shortcoming is the UI, or lack of it. Many of the smaller VNs don't have some of the more advanced features; but at a minimum, it is a fair expectation to find the following included:
- A save and load facility, with several save slots.
- A proper skip-read-text function, which also incorporates a simple fast-forward option for the achievement hunters.
- A text speed option, which should also include instantaneous.
- A backstep/rollback function.
- A full screen or windowed mode option.
- A text history log.
- A font option for the dyslexic and those with sight difficulties.

Edit update 4 Nov 2024: the unattainable achievement issue i originally highlighted has been fixed. Also, the developers have improved the skip feature so that it now runs much more quickly, which will make repeat runs far less taxing - although this might also raise a need to be more careful if you don't want to miss any unseen text.

Saint Ceri is set in a fictional (presumably) Welsh setting where we are placed as MC Ceridwen, a former land labourer who has been chosen by her god Tristin for sainthood, taken by the church to be canonized, and now finds herself persistently buried in religious duties bestowed upon her by a self-serving clergy; giving blessings to the poor for money, in order to unintentionally fund their greedy, lazy lifestyle.

As an Englishwoman, I love that the story is given a Welsh setting, including the names. This is SO refreshing in a visual novel, and for those who have come across the Welsh language in passing and are immediately apprehensive at the prospect – don't panic! It's merely 3 character names affected, (along with the base location which you can read as seen, even though a native would either be amused or appalled, but, hey, reading in the privacy of your own space, right?) of which the MC's is the most difficult – and even that is shortened to Ceri which can be pronounced “Kerry”.

The actual story of Saint Ceri is pretty straightforward: ordinary woman put into extraordinary situation. Ceri is revered as a holy icon by the public and used by the clergy for their convenience. As a long-since widowed former serf, her unmarried status is anomalous to the beliefs of the elder priests who view an unmarried woman – especially one of her position – as sacrilegious, and are keen to marry her off to someone “suitable” as quickly as possible, preferably before the spring festival to be held in a mere two weeks' time.

Their choice is the disciplined, obedient, repressed and innocent junior priest Kyros (there you go Welsh worriers, there's a Greek named fella, too!) who is very fond of Ceri on the quiet, but does not have the guts to openly tell her as much. Joining Kyros as potential love interests are her paladin protector Bryn, a more outgoing, confident individual who is utterly devoted in his duties to Ceri.. and maybe not only his duties; and the supposedly debauched Duchess Eira, another widow who is areligious and distinctly broad minded.

Strictly following the basic story, Ceri's job is to bring hope to the masses through her blessings from their Goddess; and her ultimate aim to change the way the clergy does not work into one that works for the greater good – but have no doubts that this is an adult otome aimed directly at a feminine audience largely starved of female gaze, spicy visual novels. The underlying story is merely a support for the player's real aim – to develop a relationship with one, two, or all three of the available love interests, and to reap the pay-off of a graphic and textually detailed intimacy scene or two along the way.

Backdrop styles seem to differ. Some, like the opening church scene and Eira's garden (below) boast exceptional detail and brilliant use of lighting, whilst others are simpler and give the impression of having been hand created using brush strokes; although they are still perfectly functional.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3300389991

Sprites are large and front-facing. They have different expressions and animated eyes, including blinking – although this could do with being made more intermittent, it does feel a little like everybody has something in their eyes that they desperately need to blink out. The guys look positively cherubic – perhaps too young in the face; yet all characters look better in CGs when they are drawn at non-straight-ahead angles.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3300390138

The supporting music is subdued and quite easy to forget that it's even there, so it certainly doesn't act as a distraction; and though it is not an interest-gaining feature in its own right, it does somehow fit the old world religious setting of the church quite well.

The U/I acts as a reminder that the game has been developed using Unity, as some regular Ren'py features aren't present. The text box, though slightly opaque, cannot be hidden and does restrict the view of what's behind it.
There is no backstep, although the log is excellent and does open at the bottom with the most recent caption, as it should be.
The quick access menu sits at the far right of the screen, half on and half hanging over the edge of the text bar. The text for this is in yellow, as are some of the background details, so sometimes it can be hard to read the command you're looking for. Hopefully the dev will jump on this and either move that menu a few characters to the left, or extend the text bar right across the screen. Either action would resolve this issue.
The basic settings menu, although not in the quick access one, can be accessed directly from the log, and therefore does not require exiting to the main menu from story mode. However, when saving the game at the end of a session, your settings for text speed and sound volume are not remembered, so you will need to reset these on each new visit, even when continuing a run.
The SKIP button is not highlighted in the quick access menu when at some previously-read text, and clicking on it when before some unread text does not move the story on, you have to click in the main area or press the spacebar in this situation.
There is a gallery for all general story CGs, plus additional ones for both SFW and NSFW modes. I did notice an oddity here – for the “intimate” galleries, page 1 remains empty until you visit page 2 and then click back to page 1, at which point any found ones will appear.

These quirks and shortfalls within the U/I, whilst noticeable, are all quite small things and can probably be resolved by the dev without too much trouble. They are not experience-destroying, and should not be considered as deal breakers.

Let's be honest here girls, Saint Ceri is not a visual novel that you are going to play for the base story, despite it being a respectable premise and holding up as a tale in its own right. Although there is a SFW mode, which can be switched on or off at will at any point in the game, the intimacy scenes which your progress will lead you to in the majority of runs, play through in an identical text fashion, with only the visuals being carefully toned down.

There is nothing extreme and no weird fetishes contained within, but details are not glossed over when the MC and however many love interests involved are getting intimate. Among the many possibilities for Ceri are an assortment of polyamorous sexual engagements along with straightforward one-to-one unions, and it's worth noting that ALL of these focus on the pleasure for the MC.

I'm not going to avoid the obvious question here: yes, the above does mean that every single intimate conclusion to the story is stimulating for the reader. They are described well enough without resorting to excessive detail in either text or visuals (though in the NSFW version, you can expect to see genitals being caressed) that player arousal is a highly probable result.

So if you've been looking for a rather hot and spicy true otome to scratch a certain itch without it giving you another itch that you definitely don't want, Saint Ceri might just be the game that should be on your wishlist.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Maneki-Mushi for providing a free review copy for this game.

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*It should be noted that at time of typing this review, one day before release, there were still a small number of low importance typos and graphic glitches, which may have been resolved by the time you read this.

Anchored Hearts, at its core, is a visual novel, but solely in terms of playing time, it may qualify primarily as a top-down simple strategy battle-at-sea shooter.

Let's look at the game as a visual novel in the first instance. We take on the role of pirate Nova (changeable) Ramos, female captain of the ship “Lady Vengeance”; who finds herself thrown in jail, accused of sinking a number of Republic ships, having been widely seen as the last person to have been aboard all of the lost vessels; and who therefore stands as number one suspect for a grievous act which has broken a 300 year truce between the Arcomare Alliance (the aforementioned republic of four states) and the pirates of Libertown.

To begin, she needs to escape jail (done by progressing the story talking with other people). Whenever someone is available for conversation, their portrait appears with a large exclamation mark alongside it. Clicking on the portrait begins an exchange and also presents that character's full sprite, as seen below:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3298551146

Upon reaching Libertown, the story kicks into gear properly, with Miss Ramos having to prove her innocence by undertaking a thorough investigation in order to establish the real culprit. She is aided/hindered by a number of others, two of whom also have the chance to become romantic interests – her first mate, and perhaps surprisingly, a high-ranking official from one of the republic states.

In between each visual novel section of the game, our MC must set sail for clues, and this brings us to the overhead “shooting” section. In this, two ships line up side by side, and we must take the opposing vessel out of action before our own hull becomes too damaged to continue. Should our heroine be defeated, she will be carted off back to jail, forcibly conceding any gained loot to the jailer in the process.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3298550757

These sections are not complicated, and there is a thorough tutorial on handling them to get started – but an understanding alone will not see you make a successful escape at first time of asking. Each sailing has several clashes to deal with before safety, and damage taken from one battle is carried forward to the next, so you will probably suffer defeat by the final hurdle - at least until you have started to acquire pirate boons (through reputation) or ship improvements bought with looted coin.

There is a menu option to give you easier ship battles, and I'd highly recommend that you set this to begin with, and take it off once you have gotten the hang of it if you want the later battles to be more engaging. Note though, that even if you manage to win your way right through at an initial attempt, you will find yourself back in jail as there are some important story-setting conversations to be had in the cells before you win your freedom!

I struggled quite badly with these battles to begin with, but once I hit upon a reliable winning strategy they became, for want of a less corny expression, “plain sailing”.

Back in the novel sections, there are regular 3-choice options provided (sometimes these also appear in one of the on-deck stages). These mostly provide colour/narrative variation, though there are occasions where your selection will make a bigger difference, initially in the sequence that the story plays out, and later, in deciding which of the love interests you wish to pursue.

Menu options include full screen/windowed (although I found the windowed option made the viewing area slightly bigger than my laptop screen and I couldn't find a way to reduce it, so had to settle for full); text speed/auto, and volume controls for both overall levels and individually for music, effects, and UI.

The supporting music is fine, not especially piratey, but jolly enough and doesn't detract from the overall, which is good enough. Appropriate effects include ambient town life, cannons firing and swords clashing, although I would have liked the latter to be a little louder.

Character sprites look nice. In keeping with the backdrops, fine details have been dispensed with, so they're quite simplistic at a glance, yet also both bright and busy enough to grab and hold your attention. There are also a couple of very nice kissing CGs to be found. You'll have to play the game yourself if you want to reveal those!

The UI is also very stripped down. There are buttons for step back, step forward, and autoplay. And that's it. The text can be reversed or forwarded very quickly with a slide on the trackpad, or, presumably, a mouse wheel. Be warned that the fast forward is exactly that. It is not a “skip” button in the familiar sense. I advise not forwarding on during your first play.

The game remembers where you've got to at all times. There is NO manual save facility. You end a session at any point, and when you return, select the continue button. I know reading such a revelation can often be an instant off-put, and I'd be among the first to think “no thanks” as a rule when I discover this from a review – but hold on. The truth is that, the way the game plays out, you will not NEED a saved game … until you want to select your love interest, which is near the conclusion.

I found the story to be more in-depth than I expected and this ensured I had a longer first play through than anticipated. Certainly the ultimately-repetitive nature of the ship battles contributed to this, and there is no escaping that, although they are not a long-drawn-out grind and do through the earlier stages provide a break from reading; they also become somewhat monotonous after you've been through 50+ virtually identical battles just to progress the story a little more.

However, despite eventually developing a “not again!” attitude to another run of shoot-and-wait, my enjoyment of the narrative, development of the lead characters, and curiosity over who the guilty party was, remained undiminished until the end; which in itself was well thought out and entirely satisfactory.

Although presented as part of the main story, romance scenes could be viewed as epilogues, and as such, they are fully fleshed out and leave a contented feeling for the reader.

My only real gripe about the whole experience, ultimately does revolve around that absence of a save option. The final decision upon who you want to romance comes very late, and if you want to see both romantic endings – unless the developer responds to this review with information to the contrary – then you are going to have to play RIGHT THROUGH twice.

My first run – including the early ship battle struggles – lasted 10.6 hours, and then, using the fast forward option as much as possible, my second one added a further 3.7 hours, which felt like a lot of effort for what is effectively an alternative epilogue. (I know this doesn't equal the total hours played – the extra bit was nipping back for review purposes).

Overall though, this was a fun experience. For me personally, a pirate visual novel with a female captain – big cheer! Whether pirates are your thing or not though shouldn't really impact your decision to look at this game – it's a well crafted story with supportable characters and some variation in gameplay, so if you like visual novels that are not solely restricted to reading and making choices, then this is certainly a worthy option for your consideration.

Otome Lovers wishes to thank Studio Witchstar for providing a free review copy for this game.

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