A Yume Nikki fangame that just released at the end of 2023. I discovered it while searching through tumblr to queue up my rpg maker blog, while looking through other ynfgs i found a singular post with a character i didn't reconigze. So I immediately looked up the game title and decided to download it based on the small amount of details ynfg.wiki gave on it.

There were a lot of beautiful maps, and there were some empty, but the former made up for those. I think my biggest criticism was the amount of deadends i seemingly encountered, but with the nature of these games, it can always be hard to tell, and they could be planting the seeds for future updates. Which I'll absolutely be looking forward to!

There's some interesting things to set it apart from YN, like the nexus having a conveyor belt and a computer to easily pick one. And also that it uses its own language, which adds to the dreamlike quality of it. I also love how the custom menu looks.

I've heard of this game for a while, but I never touched it until now! My younger sister recommending it to me felt like the final straw to check out the series lol

The game is pretty simple, but I think it had an interesting concept where the player plays the role of being the "rational" voice for the protagonist, mixed in with interalized ableism and self-deprecation. So it was really easy for me to see myself in the protagonist especially since I relate a lot to her disordered thought patterns.

The presentation is really simple but really effective at conveying a distorted reality. I think the most charming part to me, even though it's small are the text blips.

Played this immediately after the first game! But warning that the game delves deeper into ableism, including the use of the R slur.

What stands out the most is the huge upgrade in visuals while remaining close to the simple palette of the original. It was such a good surprise to see the animated cutscenes. Or the animated portraits for the protagonists.

There's a lot of charming aspects to using visual novels or point and clicks as a medium. The small bursts of music (listened to the ost prior to playing and i love it btw), pauses when the protagonist wants to lay in silence.

Overall, this and the first game were really neat experiences. And I'm glad to have finally gotten to them

Butterfly Soup is sapphic visual novel about Asian American teens who play baseball by Brianna Lei, and it's also free and takes a few hours! I got recommended to play it by a friend while looking for more visual novels to play. Though if anyone has been keeping an eye on my game tracker through updates, despite the short length it took me a while to get through this

Butterfly Soup isn't a bad visual novel, it just didn't appeal to me personally, I think I'm a little too old for it. But I think if I'd played it when I was younger, it would've resonated with me a lot stronger, as someone who is Asian Canadian and struggled a lot with my feelings of gender and sexuality and feeling seen in media. I think what hurt it the most for me was its humor (pointing at the yaoi paddle joke 😭), the constant comedic tone, and how incredibly on the nose everything felt (even if there's plenty of relatable points).

That being said the way the characters were written are very on point with how junior high/early high school kids act lol Especially in the time period this game took place in. And I thought the relationship between the leads Diya and Min was cute. I enjoyed having the sporadic point and click sections and I think the art looks great

I think it could still be worth checking out if you want to read a slice of life gay vn, maybe it'll appeal to you more!

I was made aware of this game through a friend on discord, and after a little bit of asking, I decided to buy it and play it. The title is pretty self-explanatory, but it's an RPG Maker game (that's actually an rpg) about sapphic furries who save the world from a strange mage. The game isn't very long, but some games ended up catching my attention before I could go and finish this. And honestly? I regret not playing more of it sooner. The game is short but I had stopped right before the game could hit me right in the spot I needed for the story.

Gameplay wise, this game is really well balanced. I loved the mechanic of star power to prevent you from spamming your most powerful attacks, and the spellbooks to give your party some different abilities. It's a game that I think is good enough for people who aren't familiar with turn based rpgs, while leaving a lot of room for people to optimize their strategies. I ended up forgoing the healing ones once I got better at managing my party turns.

Art and story wise, this is one of the most pretty RPG maker games I've seen (though there are some effects that could definitely cause eye strain). The characters are really endearing!! There was a character who I thought would be my least favorite in the party, but I ended up loving her the most. But I want more people to experience this game so I want to talk about it as little as possible ^_^

this game has been on my radar for months now, before it's release since last year when it released. But I finally decided to play it after watching the experience it put my friend through. After finally going through it, yeah it's a good game. It's a timelooping rpg about 5 heroes trying to take down the King, who is freezing the country in time. And if you're familiar with me personally, I love stories about time manipulation. They're a fun way to explore characters and have so many fun and painful twist and turns

I debated a while if i should make this a spoiler filled or spoiler free review. But I think if keeping it spoiler free is enough to encourage someone to play it, then i'm gonna contain myself lol

The gameplay uses rock, paper, scissors for it's weaknesses. But more interestingly and fun for me is the system it uses for skills. No magic points, but rather turn cooldowns. It was really fun managing them in order to get all out attacks set or to find the perfect rhythm to optimally fight bosses.

Now for the story. I will admit that the beginnings of the game is probably the weakest part for me. It was kind of frustrating for me to be spending most of the timeloops to look for keys simply because a main character overlooked something that I wanted to check. I think it made some interesting character moments for Siffrin, but I think it also made the game longer than needed. But the game is incredibly strong with how the protagonist handles the timeloops otherwise. I think all the characters are incredibly loveable, and it was fun to discover what their deal was as the game progressed. (Putting it out there that Odile is my favorite)

The art and character designs are really charming. I think the visuals of the enemies even when they don't have hands, are well done to keep it transparent what type they are. (Even if you can't, the game provides a scan ability which doesn't use a turn! Best scan ability ever.) The expressions of the characters are really cute and fun. I loved them so much