A NaNoRenO 2022 entry by Synstoria, Ballads at Midnight sings of a dark and romantic tale involving a sarcastic bard who was exiled to an abandoned castle and a bored vampire living in the said castle. Updated with its last ending and more voiced lines among other features, the full version of Ballads at Midnight […]
Featuring six love interests, more than 30 side characters, and approximately an 80-hour long playtime, Reimei no Gakuen is easily one of the most ambitious indie otome Original English Language visual novels (OELVN) I’d come across to date. Developed by Raikon Kitsune, Reimei no Gakuen was successfully funded on Kickstarter in 2018 and released for PC (Windows, Linux, macOS) […]
Mothmen 1966 is the first entry in a planned series of “Pixel Pulps” from LCB Game Studio that pay homage to classic pulp horror and retro PC gaming. If you know and love pulp horror, Mothmen 1966 will be right up your alley. This tale of terror nails the style and feel while delivering a […]
One of my favorite things about reviewing is that it leads me to try games I wouldn’t otherwise have tried—or even heard of. Sometimes unusual and interesting games come from unexpected places, perhaps from developers unmoored from the conventions of the genre in which they are working. A List of People Who Went Missing in […]
Suhoshin is the debut visual novel from French studio No More 500. Set in Joseon-era Korea, Suhoshin sees a series of strange and brutal murders shatter the peace of a quiet village in the countryside. It’s up to protagonist Yuri (and you) to unveil the truth. Premise The story begins with Yuri riding back to […]
I Just Want to be Single!! is an upcoming comedic visual novel from Tsundere Studio. With the release date set as “When I’m no longer broke”, there doesn’t seem to be a planned release date, but a Kickstarter is planned. At the time of writing, a demo can be found on Steam with the opening […]
Suhoshin is the upcoming debut visual novel from studio No More 500. While the full game doesn’t have a release date yet beyond sometime this year, a demo consisting of the first few chapters of this mystery visual novel will be out soon. That’s what I’m taking a look at today, so without further ado, […]
Following The Last Act, Snowhaven Studios presents another Original English Language Visual Novel (OELVN), this time a horror story set on Halloween day. Released for PC on 12 October 2021, Not It: Spookiest Edition is an updated version of Not It, an entry by the same team for the month-long Spooktober Visual Novel Jam in 2019. Highlights of the […]
With visual novels becoming easier and easier to make these days, there are many creatives who put their stories out there through this format. As one might expect, this inevitably leads to the good ones being all the more difficult to find. While Perfect Gold is certainly no diamond in the rough, it does hold […]
2021 has been a great year for visual novels. We’ve had a ton of great ones released in English. Shiravune has made a big splash by dropping repeated surprise releases. We’ve seen some surprisingly good indie releases too. As we roll over into 2022, we’d like to take a look back. KuroKairin, Wes Playfair, and myself […]