#bf4f

[byfurries4furries]

9:22 (Thriller Sci-Fi Mystery Visual Novel)

Imagine you wake up late one day for class only to find out it's canceled because the campus is closed down. Along the way, you meet a shady guy who shows you a secret underground tunnel that leads into the campus with random newspaper front pages framed along the way. When you surface, you're caught by one of the school's faculty who takes you to the event the campus is shut down for, a rally for a local politician. Except when you get there, the politician seems to be missing and the event has to be canceled. Later that night, you pick up snacks at a nearby gas station and the cashier is surprised to see you there because the last time he saw you was earlier that day when he identified your body as a murder victim found in a nearby park. There's a mystery going on here and something that's becoming clearer is that all of the people you met that day seem much more familiar with you than you are with them.

9:22 is one of those high concept mundane setting sci-fi stories. Like Steins Gate. There's a lot to love about it. The sketchy but extremely expressive artstyle. The really clever and well thought-out character writing. The moments of pushing the boundaries of what its limited engine can do. The fact it's a gay furry VN that's not romance-focused, so the cast being mostly queer is incidental. All of it makes 9:22 an entertaining read. You may need to pay close attention to the techy explanations of stuff, but it's definitely worth it.

9:22 is also one of the few FVNs that's actually finished. It's not like a first part of a wider series like Remember the Flowers or Lyre. It's a purely self-contained story, albeit one that doesn't neatly answer every question but doesn't leave room for a continuation.

I wish I could say more, but this is really just a good game to go into blind. But also it's just hard to describe how good it is. It just sort of is good. Is it as good as an Echo Project VN? Probably not. But it's good in its own way. At the very least, it'll give you a lot to think about.

PS: At the time of writing this, itch.io is currently purging queer and sexually explicit games from its platform in very underhanded ways to comply with new standards from payment processors. Please call and email Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal to put pressure on them to rescind these policies and if you live in the US, do the same to the congresspeople of whatever district you live in and tell them you support the passing of the Fair Access to Banking Act, which would prevent payment processors from denying service for companies that allow sexual content on their platforms as well as for a myriad of other situations. If you want to contribute financially to a creator on Itch, do so through their Patreon for now. Unfortunately, Cockhole doesn't seem to have a Patreon, so I guess just wait this out to contribute to him financially

Links

Itch.io

[byfurries4furries]

The Smoke Room (Horror Western Visual Novel)

So I talked about Arches and Echo, so I might as well talk about their prequel, the Smoke Room. Unlike the other games in the Echo series, aside from the side games, the Smoke Room is primarily made by writers who aren't Howly, who wrote most of Echo and all of Arches and Adastra. In this case, the main writer is GeorgeSquares. Howly did write the prologue and Redd, who's one of the main writers for another VN called Glory Hounds, wrote part of one of the routes, which was eventually partially rewritten by George anyways. There's also more artists working on it than there was for Echo.

In the Smoke Room, you play as Samuel Ayers, a gay prostitute in 1915 in Echo in furry Utah and/or Arizona. Sam falls in love with one of his clients, Jack. Together, the two hatch a scheme to use some hidden away gold in the mines in order to leave Echo and start a new life somewhere else. Jack is, however, tricking Sam and tries to kill Sam in the secluded part of the mine where he pretended there was gold. Sam miraculously survives the murder attempt and ends up killing Jack in self defense. Unfortunately, he's a gay prostitute in 1915, so he knows better than to try and report what Jack did to him and especially the killing. However, several weeks later, somebody drags Jack's body into town and the mine workers riot over the news. When the riot happens, Sam is stuck in the brothel with three potential clients and another on the way, one of which is a miner who saw him the day of Jack's killing and another of whom is the sheriff of the town.

The four clients are:

William Adler: The coyote sheriff who plays by his own rules, specifically the rules that allow him to plow Sam's ass

Nikolai Krol: The badger miner who's a big softie and great cuddler. However, he saw Sam the day of the murder

Clifford Tibbits: The chipper and naïve stoat who's on an anthropology trip to study the nearby furry Navajo

Murdoch Byrnes: The witty fox who happens to be the town's only photographer

The Smoke Room excels in a lot of respects. Its protagonist is very interesting, the branching narrative is very divergent, it's surprisingly historically accurate, and the supporting cast is very filled out. Let's go over each of those. Unlike many VN protagonists, there's practically no attempt to make Sam even resemble a player-insert. He's a prostitute who's simultaneously ashamed of his job and proud of how good he is at it. Even when he's off the clock, he's a very service-minded person with those he cares about and although he's pretty lost and out of his element with most other work, he's very confident and sure of himself when he's providing sexual services. But this also applies to his ability to be a good romantic partner as well. He also knows how to be patient and caring even when he's allowed to take the lead as he's very respectful of other's boundaries when it comes to sex. Unlike most dating sim protagonists, it takes no suspension of disbelief to see why he'd be able to romance so many characters. He's genuinely a great romantic prospect for any of his clients and if he were an option as a love interest himself, he'd probably be quite popular.

The branching narrative is another positive. Every route is extremely different with very few overlapping events. This makes sense as unlike with Echo, the main characters aren't a real friend group yet. Nik sometimes plays poker with Will, Murdoch sometimes does crime scene photography for Will, and Cliff doesn't know anyone at the beginning of the game. The only reason they came together at all is they happened to be trying to book Sam around the same time. Now, depending on the route, they can become closer. Will's route especially works for this, because it's the only route where Sam isn't trying to avoid Will, who's basically the connecting thread for everyone else. However, each route goes in its own direction and has basically its own side cast. Nik's side cast involves his fellow mining union members and his bosses/supervisors as they clash over labor disputes while Nik tries to help find enough gold to get Sam out of Echo. Cliff's side cast involves the expedition crew he acquired and furry Navajo members he meets along the way in his journey to investigate the troubling conditions of the nearby reservation. Murdoch's family as well as his childhood friend make up his side cast along with a star student at the school Murdoch's sisters work at who blackmails Sam into helping her solve the mystery of her classmate's disappearance. And Will's route follows him investigating the mysterious death of Huxley, an abusive drunk with a wife who might have killed him, but the details just don't seem to line up, and that's on top of Will's ex-wife and son moving to Echo without warning. So you can be sure that you won't see any route repeating itself too often.

The historical accuracy is the last point I want to go over, because it does go to a lot of lengths most westerns won't even mention. For example, as was actually the case in the Wild West, brothels are not considered dirty or debased. In fact, the brothel Sam works at, the Saguaro Hip, doubles as a saloon and it's considered an upstanding place for upper middle class families to socialize. Also homosexuality is not THAT frowned upon. It was sorta treated the way marijuana was and still is in some areas. It's illegal for sure and being too brazen about it can get you arrested or beat up depending on the company, but keeping it private would more or less be doable under certain circumstances and letting it slip occasionally isn't the end of the world. Also, it wasn't uncommon for working class guys to be brazen and open about it when not around decent folk, especially in the West. A lot of care was taken to try to accurately depict queerness before WWII.

A positive I want to mention compared to other Echoverse games is that there's no solid expectations of paranormal stuff. The hysteria in Echo is not common knowledge in this era. Murdoch is the only one in the main cast who's lived there long enough to at least know for certain that there's a uniquely high amount of paranormal stuff going on, but even if he does know about the hysteria, it's clear that it's not common knowledge to residents or outsiders, unlike in Echo where there's at least one well known case of it or in Arches where the town is actually famous across the country for at least two cases of it, one of which happened less than a decade ago. And because the routes diverge so much and there's no clear timeline, there's no frame of reference for when it might be coming. The only clear indication is in Nik's route, but you would only know of that if you played the prologue of Echo AND connected the clues set up by the inaccurate summary of the events of the Smoke Room within the prologue of Echo. Otherwise, all bets are off and there's no telling when it will happen, which is further helped by the fact that unlike Echo, the Smoke Room doesn't keep explicit track of days and isn't afraid to do timeskips that throw off the chronology of events.

Although the Smoke Room is not really that close to complete (it's suspected with pretty good evidence that it's barely halfway done), I do highly recommend it. It is however the first VN I've recommended that really isn't close to a satisfying pausing point for any of the routes. If you have a high tolerance for incomplete visual novels, I'd say it's definitely worth the cost, even though it's free. If not, just check out other games in this series like Echo and Arches. Until next time, keep on yiffing.

Links

itch.io

[byfurries4furries]

Remember the Flowers (Sci-Fi Visual Novel)

So most visual novels I've talked about on this blog have been from Echo Project, a development studio that is famous in the furry visual novel scene for making some of the most acclaimed VNs in the furry fandom and for actually completing some of them. Remember the Flowers isn't made by them though. Its creator, primary writer, and artist are all Jericho. The only connection it has to Echo Project is that its music is done by Anthemics, who's a regular OST composer for Echo Project games like Arches, Khemia, Interea, and a few tracks on the Smoke Room. Because of that, the soundtrack to this VN is really stellar, as most of Anthemics' work is.

Now I will warn you that it is really hard to not spoil this game as the story contains two really major twists that precede some of the best parts of the entire game. I will try though. With that out of the way, the game starts with the protagonist having a nightmare before waking up in the middle of class. He's a college student who's sort of coasting by on his journey to become a doctor. After correcting his teacher on his lesson after he was caught napping in class, he soon gets dismissed and makes some plans for a date with his boyfriend before taking a nap in his dorm room. When he wakes up, he's in the middle of a dark alley with long white hair, a bloody headwound, medical scrubs, and the inability to remember basic details about himself. Fortunately, he's found by Cooper, whose job it is to find humans like the protagonist and take them to a safe haven called Resoom where he can get help once he's safe. It's only now that you find out this world the protagonist is waking up in is a futuristic scifi dystopian world, unlike the more or less regular modern setting the story started in, but with some characters who are anthropomorphic characters, because furry.

Now before I threaten to spoil the game, let's go over some positives. The biggest one I have is the serialization. One problem a lot of unfinished visual novels have is that they have a hard time finding a place to pause the story before the next update. Arches does this pretty well while 9:22 does this really poorly. Remember the Flowers, thankfully, not only has chapters that begin and end in pretty good places but it also has groups of chapters called "Arcs". Each Arc could be a visual novel in its own right and it makes RtF feel like a compilation of a VN series rather than one long VN. This is especially good because it can have fairly sporadic and infrequent release schedule at times. However, the structure makes it so you can just read to the end of the last completed arc and be satisfied with waiting until the next arc is completed. Each arc is bookended by a major twist or a major character revelation that sets the new status quo of the next arc. The first arc is definitely the weakest one, as the only major character besides the protagonist is Cooper and it provides a lot more mysteries than answers. However, the second one is my favorite, but the third and so far last completed one is really a great contender if not for the fact there's not a lot to do except hang out, but the character exploration is really fantastically done.

Now for other positives, the protagonist, Cyrus, is probably the most well-written human protagonist in a furry VN. Human protagonists have a very terrible reputation in furry VNs for being extremely bland player-insert characters whose self-identity is so non-existent that you usually get to pick their names. It's such a negative stereotype in fact that Furry VN databases usually include "Human Protagonist" as a tag to filter out. Even Adastra falls into this trap to an extent. But Cyrus is not a bland character. For a few things, he's asexual and has a pre-established boyfriend, childhood friends, and his own career path and interests. Although he still has about as much personality as Marco in Adastra at the beginning of the game, as the plot progresses and he finds out more about himself and the world around him, he slowly has more and more personality and development to his character and the fact he sorta fills the role of a player-insert early on makes the dramatic beats hit that much harder, because then the progression to what he's like later on makes so much more sense, because you can't help but imagine that if you were in his place, you would probably end up the exact same way. This is exemplified in the text. In the first arc, he's just wide-eyed and curious. In the second, he's maintaining a much more critical outlook, trying to assess everyone he meets and every piece of information he gets carefully. In the third, he's robotic and describes everything very matter-of-factly. He feels like he's talking in the third-person for how bluntly he describes everything. But he does start to get back in touch with his humanity as the arc goes on. However, in the fourth arc, while he's almost back to his old self, there's a distinct lack of self-regard or care for his own well-being. And each step from the beginning of the game to the last update feels natural.

Now I did make it clear that the first arc has some problems. It's unfortunately very slow and not a lot happens. Most of it is used for some broader establishing information, but the actual plot is boringly simple. Cyrus goes home with Cooper and spends a day or two at his house, he then goes with Cooper to get some supplies, and they hop on a train to the pickup spot. Until the arc-ending twist, that's most of what happens. And because Cooper and Cyrus are the only major characters of that arc, there's not a lot of dynamic to play off of and because Cooper is very secretive, there's also not a lot of information to find out. In the second arc, you get introduced to 4 major characters, 3 of which have their own dynamics with each other who are also a lot less stingy with information and a lot more open about their backgrounds and who they are. And any information they do withold, they make sure to explain why they are witholding it and that in itself can give you something to mull over, or it can inform their characters, such as Axel who withholds the absolute minimum information he's been commanded to, Ring who is very stingy with what he reveals and rarely reveals basic information except on accident, and Rose who barely conceals any information if she can manage to remember it. Also, they do reveal most of what they are witholding anyways by the end of the arc. So by contrast, the 2nd and 3rd arcs are very entertaining and well-paced even if it does get a little slice-of-life-ish by the third arc. I wouldn't recommend skipping the first arc though. It still has its moments and there's a lot of important information in it you can't miss.

I'd say Remember the Flowers is definitely a great visual novel even in its unfinished state, especially since it's more like a game series anyways. I highly recommend it and I would do that even for first time players. If you want your first furry visual novel to not feel like a dating sim, then RtF is a really good choice. I would recommend it over Adastra only to people who really don't need visual novels to be completed to like them. With that said, until next time, keep on yiffing

Links

itch.io

[byfurries4furries]

Shelter (Fantasy Visual Novel)

Shelter, made by Rausmutt, is a complicated game. It doesn't neatly fit into any particular genre. It's a dramatic fantasy scifi action porn comedy, if I were to label it, which, as you can tell, isn't an easy task. There's a lot to like about this game and a lot of disparate elements that come together to form a tight cohesive whole, but one that's not too tight for a knot.

Shelter is about a human named Luke who helps run a shelter where canine adventurers can stay and relax at. A holiday called Skies Ablaze is coming up and for various reasons, Luke spends it alone every time, but he finally finds a way to celebrate it with his closest friends. He plans to spend that night with them, but until then, he needs to pick someone to spend the rest of the day with.

Now... I could make an entire essay about what makes Shelter so good. I'd say it's probably the first furry visual novel not mostly or entirely written by Howly, who wrote Adastra, Arches, and most of Echo, that has felt this thematically and tonally rich. But unlike a lot of games in this genre, it does not try to mimic Howly, but still manages to tap into his strengths. There's strong messages about racism, exoticism, the meaning of freedom, the harms of hero worship, the difficulties of fighting hierarchies both in practice and concept, self-care vs altruism, and the fear of mortality. There's also hints at autism allegories and anarchist principles that may be unintentional, but are so well integrated into the setting and story that they feel like natural extensions of the more prominent themes.

But this isn't to say Shelter is entirely serious. It's also an extremely silly and horny game, full of dog puns and meta humor. That fact is obvious if you play the first hour or so, especially if you manage to get a bad ending. And to that end, it's really effective. It's very funny and charming and silly. And that in itself is integrated into the more serious elements. Rune is by far the silliest and horniest of the route characters, but he got that way because he fought and sacrificed A LOT to have the freedom to be that way, and you can see that from the beginning as he's the most physically scarred character in the main cast. His hedonism and goofiness is his way of enjoying the freedom he fought for.

But if there's one thing that stands out about Shelter, it's its gameplay. I know it's weird to praise a visual novel with mostly dialogue choices, quick-time events, and one somewhat confusing minigame for its gameplay, but most furry visual novels often only have dialogue choices as opportunities for interactivity and even some really good ones like Arches and Remember the Flowers don't even have that. I'm not criticizing those games for doing that though, as focusing on story and even abandoning dialogue choices has many of its own advantages, but the fact Shelter branches as much as it does really makes it stand out a lot, especially since it's still so tightly written. Because of that, I rarely use any save slots at all. I certainly save sometimes out of a nagging feeling I should, but even then, I rarely load up a saved state ever. There's so many branching paths of events to do. A lot of side quests and unlockables and hidden scenes. My favorite thing to do is boot up the game from the beginning and do slightly different dialogue choices until I get to the part I left off at in my last session. I have nearly completed everything available in the last update (v33) and I only very recently got through enough branching dialogue to safely keep a save file of the moment right before the route split. It's truly fun to have a visual novel open ended enough that I can have unlockables and completionist challenges to do. It's really a fun game on top of being a great story, especially since diverging branches are written around each other later. There are a handful of continuity mistakes, but given how complicated that is to keep track of for a story of this nature, it's impressive there aren't way more. And that's all without sacrificing the story or the core themes. In fact, I believe those act as the anchor for the game's narrative.

Overall, Shelter is an amazing game. If it weren't for how extremely NSFW this game is, I would give it my highest recommendation. In fact, I will, at least for anyone who's 18+ and isn't squeamish about gay sex and descriptions of gore. It might be my new favorite game, at least depending on how it ends up. It's currently unfinished, but it is possible to get to Burry's and Rune's good endings and Max's route is shaping up to be my favorite one with some surprising themes of mutual aid, capitalist realism (or maybe more broadly hierarchal realism), and the meaning of justice. Both of the multi-route side quests have unfinished best endings, and there are a few more unfinished branching dialogue choices. But you can go 30 hours without running out of stuff to do as it is and it might be more if you're not like me and don't skip action and sex scenes because you just can't get yourself to enjoy them when they're written out in most media, mostly due to issues with visualization skills and not really due to any fault of the authors. And with that rant about oddly specific personal stuff out of the way, keep on yiffing.

Links

Itch.io

Side Tangent: This game is so shockingly gay that the biggest twist that shook me the most is the singular instance of a feminine pronoun. There's no female characters and although even tamer characters still tend to talk about sex a lot, straight sex doesn't get mentioned at all and neither do any females, with the sole exception of this reveal. Or at least there were no other incidents that stood out. But it's safe to say Shelter fails the Bechdel test hard, so much so that it's a mystery if there are even any women in its world at all.

[byfurries4furries]

Where the Demon Lurks (Supernatural Action Visual Novel)

So I've talked a lot about visual novels. As you may be able to tell, there's been a recent trend of thematically and emotionally intense furry visual novels in unconventional genres like horror, sci-fi, and fantasy (Well I haven't talked about any fantasy ones yet, but they are out there). And this bucks against the previous trend of most furry visual novels being slice of life dating sims. That isn't to say they're automatically bad, but they're typically not that enticing beyond aesthetics. Where the Demon Lurks doesn't fit either trend.

This game is much more in line with shonen anime and light novels. It takes a lot from the Devil is a Part Timer and borrows plenty from Mob Psycho 100, Naruto, Blue Exorcist, Black Butler, Sailor Moon, and even more unusual influences like Saiki K. It's not really common for even non-furry visual novels to stylistically be like this (at least for the ones that become popular in the West or are made by Western writers).  It's very unique in that way.

But what is it about? Well you play as Kobu, the son of the last demon king who's inheriting his father's position after he died. Kobu, however, really hates this job. He at first tries to implement his own ideas, which constantly fail, because his assistant Vendrake flat out refuses to assist in implementing any of them because he is only really concerned with getting Kobu to basically do what his father did. Eventually, after years of this, he suspends Vendrake and contemplates quitting himself. Before he can make the decision though, Vendrake carries out a coup and drains Kobu of most of his magic, leaving him with only enough to open up one last portal to the mortal realm and put on his mortal disguise. There he builds a new life as a convenience store clerk along with his manager/new best friend, King. However, after a few years, Vendrake tracks him down and sends an assassin after him. In the scuffle though, King manages to get shot with the killing blow. Since harming mortals is EXTREMELY not allowed, the assassin is automatically returned to hell before he can finish off Kobu. King is fortunately still alive, but he's also transported to hell where the protocol is simply to immediately wipe his memory of hell and return him. Vendrake however exploits a loophole to hold him hostage so Kobu can come down to try to save him. He's going to need some help though. Fortunately, in the past few days, he's met some guys who might be able to figure out how to return him. There's Morris, the exorcist, Lucien, an angel sent by God to help Kobu take the throne back, and Toast, a very dumb ghost who somehow escaped hell.

Now there's a lot to love about this game. For one, it's pretty fun in the way a good shonen often can be and while it's not devoid of drama or emotion, it's certainly refreshing to see a furry VN that's funny and quirky more often than emotionally intense. There's also this amateurish charm to it. It's something I've always loved about Echo, but Where the Demon Lurks has a unique form of that charm. There's a sense that the developer, Bokedaidu, really loves what they're doing and are more concerned with making a fun story than making a very tightly written masterpiece. It's not trying to be the next Echo, Adastra, or Remember the Flowers. It's just trying to be entertaining. I can really admire that, especially as it fills a niche that most might not even notice was missing.

I would say if you don't want something as intense as the new crop of dramatic furry visual novels, but still want a story with higher stakes than "will the cute boy I like accept my love confession at the local festival?", then Where the Demon Lurks is perfect for you. However, if you do just want a slice-of-life smutty school romance, but with characters you can be sure are unique and likable enough that they could carry a higher stakes story if given the chance, then the spinoff, Kibbleton University, might be better for you. I will warn you that neither is very close to completion. Each route has barely even started and updates are pretty rare. Still, if you want a furry VN that stands out, Where the Demon Lurks might be for you. Until next time, keep on yiffing.

Links

Itch.io (Where the Demon Lurks)

Itch.io (Kibbleton University)

[byfurries4furries]

Echo (Horror Visual Novel)

I'm sure most gaming nerds have heard of Doki Doki Literature Club. It's a horror-styled satire of dating sims. The problem is that its dating sim and horror sides sorta don't work together, even though each side works on its own. They're too disjointed and the horror really only works if you're not expecting it. The horror isn't incorporated into the world or the characters. If anything, it detracts from the characters and de-immerses you by making the characters feel less real.

Echo is very different. It does not bury its lead at all. The first few lines already hint at its horror edge before you even get an idea of even the basic elements of the premise, and while it's clear they will be important later on, those hints at the horror don't immediately affect anything for a long time. The horror is also incorporated into the world better, as Echo's horror primarily works by taking characters you get attached to and makes you worry about what will happen to them. It's also a better satire as the subversions of tropes are used to inform characters. Rather than presenting normal tropey characters and then adding on a ton of disturbing stuff with very little buildup, Echo ops to take some common dating sim tropes and interrogate what a person who fits those tropes would be like on a deeper level. I wish I could be more specific and give examples, but many of them are spoilers.

But really we should know, what is Echo about? Well, Chase is a journalism student who's planning a trip to his hometown of Echo, picking up his childhood friends who have since moved away, Jenna and TJ, to visit his childhood friends who still live there, Leo, Flynn, and Carl, for a little reunion. He's also going there to do a project about the town, in particular on a mysterious supernatural hysteria that happened over a hundred years prior, which definitely won't return during the game, I promise. At first, they hang out a few days. They eat some sandwiches, go to an amusement park, etc. Leo confesses that he still has feelings for Chase, revealing they used to date in the first place, and wants some closure to the messy breakup they had when Chase left for college. Later on, Chase suggests going to Lake Emma, the local lake, for some footage. But Leo says Flynn would have a lot of major problems with that, so they settle on a stream that's near the lake. However, Flynn is nonetheless pissed and when Chase comes back from getting his footage, you find out why. You see, there was a 7th member of their friend group, Sydney, who died in a mysterious drowning incident at the lake. Flynn seems to be the one who was closest to him, and TJ was the only one who witnessed the incident, but he refuses to say what happened. Eventually, the confrontation escalates to the point that Leo violently hits Flynn, which causes TJ to run and hide, Jenna to scold Leo over resorting to violence as he storms off, and Flynn to just bail. And this is the moment you pick your route. Fortunately, Flynn gives you an overview of each character besides himself, particularly their problems. Leo is obsessed with Chase, Jenna thinks she's better than everyone else, Carl is a spoiled fat kid mooching off his rich parents, and TJ is definitely hiding something about Sydney's death.

Now this does unfortunately bring us to some issues with Echo. The most relevant one here is route order. This game was built primarily one route at a time and some of the routes have major reveals that can affect how a player will perceive other routes. The common consensus for the ideal route order is:

Carl > Leo > Jenna > TJ > Flynn

However, when the route selection screen pops up, they're in the reverse order, with TJ and Flynn at the top even though they're intended as the two last routes of the game.

There's also a lot of jank as well. Echo had a very long and turbulent development due to technical issues, art overhauls, issues with proofreading, and growing pains with just learning to write for VNs. This was the first VN of the main writer, Howly, and he left the project to another pretty inexperienced VN writer, McSkinny, midway through, who only wrote a few side stories and a side game of Echo, Route 65.

Still, despite that, I highly recommend it. Although there's some jank to wade through, the underlying appeal is strong. The characters are written fantastically and even in the worst routes, they can make it all worth it. Carl is a great example as his route is really bad compared to the others, but that's because it was the first one written. And despite that, Howly's strength at character writing still shines through and the horror is still really effective, even if it is campier and less psychological. Carl is also really well written and his arc as well as the themes of his route are really well done. He's the most realistically written character and his romance with Chase is probably the closest it gets to real, sincere chemistry with any of the love interests. I could still easily recommend his route on its own and there are still 4 other routes better than it.

That said, if you're not sure if you wanna play 5 entire routes of this game, then please play TJ's route. It's the most gut wrenching and masterfully written route of the game. It was actually so emotionally intense that its ending, on top of overwork, caused its writer to suffer an emotional breakdown so intense that he left the project for his own health. If you want to see a truly masterful deconstruction of the toxic nature of dating sims, TJ's route is one of the best.

Regardless, even though the game is janky, it is still important for helping to start the rise of more dramatic furry visual novels that's still ongoing, which I think makes it worth trying out. And on top of that, there's still a lot to love despite its jank. It's why I consider it my favorite game of all time even though I know there are plenty of technically better video games and even other furry VNs, because it has this amateurish charm and drive to it. It was a huge creative risk to make and even when it did finally wrap up, it was such an achievement, especially since only a small handful of the VNs created in its wake have ever accomplished that, one of which was made by the same creator. I plan on talking about more of those projects too as they are very numerous. Until then, keep on yiffing (I wish I had a sign-off catchphrase)

Link

Itch.io

[byfurries4furries]

Arches (Horror Visual Novel)

Here's an elevator pitch. What if you had a gay couple where one guy, Devon, is a paranormal investigator and the other guy, Cameron, has psychosis, but Devon thinks it might actually be psychic powers? It sounds like a really terrible horror movie. The twist though is that unlike most horror media, Cameron is kind of the main and most prominent point of view character, so the story is told in massive part from his perspective and deals heavily with the ramifications of its own premise.

Cameron is a very rich character and far more than just "the psychic". He's a former drug addict and had a mom who was similarly addicted to drugs. Both suffered from psychosis that caused hallucinations, but his mother's caused her to believe that arches were gates to either heaven or hell and if she went under the right one, she'd be able to go to heaven, thus she became obsessed with the shape. She died from drowning in a lake next to a bridge with an archway below it. Cameron pushed himself to quit drugs then as he blames his addiction for leading him away from protecting her. Soon though, he entered a relationship with a horribly abusive boyfriend. He eventually broke up with him and tried to pursue music, but labels felt like a guy with his unique vocal style just didn't have a place in modern music, so he pushed himself, blaming his anti-psychotics for ruining his creative process. Since then, he's felt useless, stuck at a soul-crushing call center job. But when he finds out his psychosis might actually be psychic powers, it gives him hope that he might be able to do something useful.

Devon is not as rich of a character, but he's very three-dimensional still. He had a comparatively much healthier upbringing, but he lost his aunt at a young age and that got him interested in the paranormal not just as a hobby, but as a way to figure out what happened after she died. He's considerably much better off financially too and could support his boyfriend fully if he needed to. He however struggles to listen to Cameron and in fact learns about most of his past during the events of the game, despite having dated him for years. Learning about it though makes him far more hesitant and scared to utilize his partner's powers in fear that he's in far too fragile of a mental space for something this serious. So in a way, by the time of the events of the story, the roles have switched in their typical dynamic and it's bringing up a lot of problems that had been bubbling under the surface.

This is the greatest strength of the game. Writers are typically REALLY bad at writing relationships. They almost always focus on the buildup to the relationship or decades after the fact where the characters are so used to each other that even they can't fathom each other apart. However, Cameron and Devon are in the throws of a relationship just long enough that they could propose to each other, but plausibly short enough that their biggest commitment is simply moving in together. And everything is messy, but it's not the fun kinda messy where they're on-again-off-again. They really want to be with each other and work through their issues. It's incredibly well-done, especially for a gay male relationship. And this is just the very tip of the iceberg. I didn't even need to sell you on the supernatural stuff, the part where they get kidnapped, or the extent and nature of Cameron's powers. The relationship between Cameron and Devon is the heart of the whole thing and if I can sell you on that, I don't even need to think about spoiling much else. Also, this is a sequel to another game called Echo, which I highly recommend and I did recommend before I basically rebooted this blog. You don't need to play Echo though. You can enjoy it just fine on its own. Echo however provides additional context for a character named Brian who doesn't really become a large presence until at least halfway into Arches. I'll talk more about Echo some other time though.

Links

Itch.io

[byfurries4furries]

Furry Music Omnibus 1

So I'm going to recommend multiple musical artists, mostly because it's hard to talk about a musical artist for very long and because it's easy to listen to multiple artists in a relatively short amount of time. I'll do... let's go with 3.

Anthemics (Chill/Lo-Fi/Alt Rock)

Anthemics is a musician whose most known for his work on several furry visual novels, particularly ones by Echo Project, a studio who've become highly acclaimed in the fandom for multiple amazing VNs like Echo, Adastra, the Smoke Room, and Arches, all of which I've covered at some point. He's made music specifically for Arches and Khemia, an unfinished sequel to Adastra, but he's also contributed a few tracks to the Smoke Room, Interea, and Glory Hounds. He's also made a lot of music for furry VNs by other studios like Remember the Flowers. His music is best described as like Shoegaze music in the vain of bands like M83 or the Depreciation Guild with strong elements of chill electronica. Furry VNs usually only have public domain music dominating their soundtracks, but Anthemics is one of the few artists making original music for them and he's extremely good at what he does. I highly recommend "Aquatic" from the Khemia soundtrack if you want somewhere to start.

Links

Spotify

Bandcamp

Youtube

Ken Ashcorp (Alt Rock)

Ken Ashcorp is a furry who to many is most famous for his brony party song "20 Percent Cooler". Normally I would exclude artists or works within the My Little Pony fandom as there are already more than enough avenues for creators in that fandom to get the attention they deserve, but fortunately for Ken, he only ever made one brony song and is largely absent from the brony music scene and has been for much, much longer than he's ever had any presence within it. Anyways, his style is more like pop punk but mostly in a more dance-heavy vain, but it's sometimes more like indie folk or acoustic pop. It's really good and I highly recommend most of his work if you like nerdy punk-ish music about video games and anime. I especially recommend his song "Hunter"

Links

Spotify

Bandcamp

Tenkitsune (Happy Hardcore)

Tenkitsune is an amazing artist with a really great ability to make his music sound as bright and bubbly and happy as possible. You'd have to be in a massively sour mood not to smile a little bit when you hear it. I think it should be a crime that he hasn't made any game soundtrack, because his music has the perfect vibe for a Kirby or Yoshi fangame or at least a level in that same vain. I especially recommend his whole album Little Fox Adventure, because it's some of his best work and it perfectly encapsulates the vibe of a bright and happy retro-style platformer

Links

Spotify

Bandcamp