Poor Es. As someone who's struggled at length in the past with intrusive thoughts, I was very moved watching him fight so desperately against them (as well as against the guilt and shame that so very often go hand-in-hand with them). I wanted very badly to reach through the screen and grab him by the shoulders, saying, "YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS!!!"
And that's something I feel this VN communicates very well: It doesn't matter how insistent or gruesome your intrusive thoughts may be; they do not define you or make you who you are, nor does having them automatically mean you're some kind of dangerous monster.
Take that together with all of the other strong points here—the visual presentation, the atmosphere, the simple yet effective world-building and character development—and you end up with quite the powerful VN~
Very natural poetic prose! Especially appreciative of the storytelling, in particular the thoughtfulness put into each character's reaction to unfolding events. Intrusive thoughts are definitely not easy to talk about in any capacity, but it's an important conversation to have and I'm glad you were able to do so with such tact.
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.
Es!!!! Oh, I love him. This was such a wonderful game, all the time spent inside Es' mind so familiar and sad at the same time. That feeling of a million things going on inside your head and gesticulating none of them outwards, especially the more graphic intrusive thoughts, and how they'd be even scarier during an apocalypse scenario.
The relationship between these two felt real and raw and very painful, I love how you wrote them. How those 12 days felt like an eternity and like nothing at all because they barely know each other. And even then, I'd love to see them together for a lot longer :D The writing, prose and dialogue, were exceptional.
I liked the apocalypse too, you could've gone with something more vague or unexplained but you really went into detail and came up with a horrifying and yet very interesting end of the world, I love the idea of the falling stars and what they do to people.
Also I'd be remissed not to mention the sex scene, which was very very good!! Great job with this VN :D
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Poor Es. As someone who's struggled at length in the past with intrusive thoughts, I was very moved watching him fight so desperately against them (as well as against the guilt and shame that so very often go hand-in-hand with them). I wanted very badly to reach through the screen and grab him by the shoulders, saying, "YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS!!!"
And that's something I feel this VN communicates very well: It doesn't matter how insistent or gruesome your intrusive thoughts may be; they do not define you or make you who you are, nor does having them automatically mean you're some kind of dangerous monster.
Take that together with all of the other strong points here—the visual presentation, the atmosphere, the simple yet effective world-building and character development—and you end up with quite the powerful VN~
Stellar work (pun intended)!
Very natural poetic prose! Especially appreciative of the storytelling, in particular the thoughtfulness put into each character's reaction to unfolding events. Intrusive thoughts are definitely not easy to talk about in any capacity, but it's an important conversation to have and I'm glad you were able to do so with such tact.
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.
Es!!!! Oh, I love him. This was such a wonderful game, all the time spent inside Es' mind so familiar and sad at the same time. That feeling of a million things going on inside your head and gesticulating none of them outwards, especially the more graphic intrusive thoughts, and how they'd be even scarier during an apocalypse scenario.
The relationship between these two felt real and raw and very painful, I love how you wrote them. How those 12 days felt like an eternity and like nothing at all because they barely know each other. And even then, I'd love to see them together for a lot longer :D The writing, prose and dialogue, were exceptional.
I liked the apocalypse too, you could've gone with something more vague or unexplained but you really went into detail and came up with a horrifying and yet very interesting end of the world, I love the idea of the falling stars and what they do to people.
Also I'd be remissed not to mention the sex scene, which was very very good!! Great job with this VN :D