Penlight - A Quick Review
Download Penlight (Pay what you like) from Itch.io here
My detailed Penlight route reviews: Nozomi Routes - Sayori (Part 1 - Doll) - Sayori (Part 2 - Alter)
Turq's reviews: Hiroko Robot - Hiroko Tickling - Nozomi Zo
So I have spent the past week going through every route I possibly could of Penlight.
On Sleepyhead's Discord we ran a session of it on stream and a group of us were watching as two characters shyly open up about their hypnokink and the chat was alive with nostalgia over our own awkward starts into this kink and it was evident that the game knew our experiences well.
If you want my tl;dr review it is this: Penlight is a story written with love for hypnokink as a whole and a wariness of the toxic elements of the culture that it intends to subvert at every turn. It's a game about ethics, responsibility, trust and exploration from the perspective of someone who very clearly understands the ins and outs of this kink.
Download it for free on Itch. Support the Patreon. Play the game and enjoy it.
Penlight is a visual novel coded in Ren'py, a platform I have some experience with from my brief time as a member of a game developer circle.
The basic storyline is that you play Kyou Koyama, an 18 year old student about to take his college entrance exams. His entire secondary school career he has had his eyes on a classmate, Nozomi Akemi and after witnessing her volunteer for a stage hypnosis session during the prior year's cultural festival he has gone all in on learning hypnosis and has developed a tool that will help him win the affections of his crush...
So far this sounds like any old H-Game with a protagonist getting his hands on a brainwashing device, ready to go on a rampage... that's intentional. The tropes are set to make this seem like one of those games.
But have some faith and patience.
See, Kyou is viewed by the school as a creeper. He's been friendless for 3 years of his secondary school life and has spent much of that time longing for Nozomi's attention. He's not quite subtle about this, either.
Some routes have Kyou in a very self-defeating and angry state of mind where he feels victimized by the world and hated on. I admit it's not fun to have a perspective character being a shithead but I suppose that incentivizes the audience to improve him as soon as possible...
Part of Kyou's resentment comes from the fact that the hostility he faces is not all in his head. Just mostly.
Nozomi has two close friends, Hiroko the spunky tennis star who will routinely tell Kyou to go fuck himself and Sayori the smartest girl in class who harbors her own resentment for Kyou's devil-may-care approach to life. They both work overtime running interference for Nozomi to ensure her stalker will not get an opportunity to approach.
But Kyou is eventually given some time alone with Nozomi during an after school cleaning session and the game's thesis statement is made clear with the very first option in the game:
From here the game will branch off into a number of branching stories where Kyou and his classmates discover that he actually does possess a brainwashing device, even as he attempts to utilize mundane hypnosis skills. Anyone who looks at the penlight is helpless to resist and it will rewrite their brains to comply with the suggestions.
In my view the Penlight represents years and years of toxic approaches in a relationship with hypnosis all condensed down into a week. My thread on ethical personality play was entirely inspired by playing the Personality Play route and despite the lack of malice, Kyou makes severe mistakes which reflect mistakes that I have experienced in my life.
The penlight is simply a narrative device that takes years of conditioning and condenses the consequences, regrets and repercussions into a single week.
Fantastic storytelling for fables on how important safety and consent are.
At time of writing there are over 180 CG images, 33 endings with 14 unique routes. More being added every month via Patreon.
The themes of the game explore communication in exploring kink, trust within hypnosis play and safety. The terminology is really good and the understanding of how real life hypnokink is mostly good, spare for a few moments like "thousands" of people tuning in to a hypnosis livestream. Even our biggest and best content creators and streamers cap at 400 or so viewers.
Phrases like "hypnotee" and "hidden observer" which are used entirely within hypnosis circles get thrown around accurately and organically and many routes involve characters describing real world applications from hypnotherapy, anesthetic aid during surgery and even the ins and outs of how a stage hypnosis routine is performed behind the scenes and in-front of an audience.
Angela DeMille knows her stuff.
Nozomi Akemi also knows her stuff.
I'll go into spoilers and my more in-depth thoughts in the coming weeks/months but I wanted to at least break down the core three paths that you can pick and why they appeal.
Nozomi: In this route a repressed woman on the aroace spectrum meets someone who shares her kink and dives in too fast and too deep into her hobby. The route explores compartmentalizing kink and personal life, internalized shame for having sexual interests, "the slope" of chasing new peaks of a thrilling kink and losing regard to safeties and themes of "using" people for access to kink.
Sayori: In this route Kyou offers to help an overworked classmate with her sleep schedule. Regardless of your branching choices (Personality Play route or Doll Play route) it begins with a lack of security. Sayori starts the route feeling unsafe and afraid and your choices will lead to either damage being mitigated or becoming more than can be handled. Consequences, respect and honoring someone's wishes are all explored to their full.
Hiroko: In this route Kyou and his nemesis, Nozomi's best friend, craft an uneasy alliance where they explore hypnosis as a tool for focus in sport. Trust is at the core of this route with the two intensely disliking one another and constantly attempting to even their power dynamics via prank based hostility. This route is about crafting rapport, about belief in one another (which can even be hijacked for a "Gullible" route) and can lead to a beautiful friendship.
The game is amazing and I highly recommend you check it out.
...anyway. I'm gonna write about each route in a little more detail sometime in the future. I have so much to say about all the different little things like the consistencies between routes, the dramatic ironies of knowing things to be true in some routes and experiencing things that build upon that in others, the specific warnings and cautions at play and of course answer the question "who is best girl?"
But for now I just wanted people to have my whole-hearted recommendation.
Go download Penlight. It's hosted on Itch.io and is being updated monthly.