This has been sitting in IBIS Paint for. many months because I started colouring and could not figure out how to 😭😭 I am still not happy with the colouring and I rushed it a lot but I will take it as a learning lesson and experiment with more yan characters (my laundry list of victims after spending so long on this)
AHUASHSGSUDHYSH GOD IM SO OBSESSED W/ THIS LOSER (affectionate). I just finished playing Symptoms of Deceit and Thaumo + Nalis are consuming my brain so here’s a sketch of my fav mimic octopus guy <3
Lots of love to @symptomsofdeceit for making such a fun game, I’m so excited for the next update!!
TL;DR: We've all encountered fake people. You know, those people who pretend to be something or someone they aren't. But what makes Thaumo's situation so different...? Why can't he just be himself? Oh, because he's psycho. Right. Okay, fair point.
Game Link: https://strawberrysquid0.itch.io/symptoms-of-deceit
Notable Features: Two Yandere LIs, Self-Insert, Custom Pronouns, (slight) UI Customization, (minor) Backstory choice, Multiple Endings
Spiciness: 2.5/5 -- Gets a little suggestive at one point...but not enough, and you're damn right I'm anticipating that in the future
LI Red Flags: 3/5 -- Gaslighting, murder, stalking, nonconsensual stuff (two pretty light instances), your typical yandere stuff, ya know?
Wanna know more? Well, let's get into it!
You know when you've been out of the flow of doing something for so long, and you lowkey forget how to do the thing...? Not gonna lie, kind've going through that right now lmao. Like, when I tell y'all that, when I went off of memory, I could not for the life of me figure out why that little intro before the actual intro part did not flow right, and I totally skipped over the features, spiciness, and red flags. Lmaoooo I need to get back on my shit. Not to mention, I really like doing these and want to get back in the swing of things
ANYWAYS. This isn't about that; this is about this. This game that is. That's what I meant by "this", in case that wasn't clear...my bad...okay, anyways, getting back on track lmao
I honestly don't have much for the intro because, as typical, it's more suited for the review portion, but let me just say...it's pretty damned promising, and I have a temporary spiked interest in mimic octopuses...octopi?....octopuses; it'll make sense later, I swear, but let me just say this.
MIMIC OCTOPI...octopuses?...ARE SO DAMNED COOL? Like, it's quite literally what it sounds like. It mimics the behaviors of other marine animals, and damn do they mimic a lot of those things! They can mimic jellyfish, sea snakes, crabs, flatfish, shrimp, sealions, gah damned seaweed, fucking sea sponges-- like apparently it is a lot, and they are damned cool, man. I love these things. We stan the thaumoctopus mimicus -- lmao just remember that long, scientifically correct word; that was literally intentional, not just a random name drop.
But enough of that, because you know what has my interest more? This game, and I am excited to tell you about it. So, as per the usual, I will tell you as much about the game as possible without ruining the game itself, and trust me, you're gonna wanna play...but this also may be a bit hard to make spoiler friendly. We're gonna thug it out, and make it work, though!
So, enough yappin'. Let's get into it.
So boom.
It's the end of the day, and we're trying to kill the last bit of time that we have left before we go home. If you work yourself, then you know that I'm talking about that weird ass "It's too late to start working on something (nor do I want to) but I still have like a smooth 8 minutes before I clock out". That being said, we do the only logical thing and scroll on social media for a bit. We're in the middle of reading a post/news article, when this pops up:
I'll explain the article somewhat later, but just stick with me for a second and focus on the notif. We look up and--
Well hello, handsome! Ain't no way we're just working with someone this fine. His name is Nalis, by the by, and I'm gonna get back on track now lol.
So, we exchange a little bit of small talk before one of our other co-workers come up and pretty much yanks him away for some more work. Now, the thing about this is, the co-worker was acting pretty out of character. Like, she was just in a pretty ill mood...but then her personality totally flipped when she was talking to us, and Nalis just shoots us this look like "...the hell is going on with her?". But it's like whatever, because Nalis and her are part of the epidemiology team at our work, and we just figured that the stress was just starting to get to her due to the building cases.
Anyways, with our interaction with Nalis cut short, we clock out and head on home. While walking into the building, though, we run into this adorable, blushing mess of a man
Remember that long ass scientifically correct word I gave you? Thaumoctopus mimicus? Everyone, this is Thaumo. Thaumo, this is everyone. See? Told you it'd matter later lol.
Anyways, as expected, we get locked into some small talk, and Thaumo takes the plunge and asks for our number under the guise of "neighbors looking out for each other". ...Yeah, no, naur, that's all right.
We make it quick, shut him down, text the bae friendo, and go in for the night. The next day rolls around, we mess with Nalis for a bit, and...something quite curious happens.
Remember our co-worker that was acting weird yesterday? Well, she comes in, and we check in with her about yesterday, and she just--
Wha--? The fuck you mean, you didn't see him...?
Now, this wouldn't be an issue if she was scatterbrained or something, but she isn't in the slightest. Even when she's tired, she has a damned solid memory and would've definitely remembered something like that, so her simply forgetting is not likely or even probable. Something is very clearly off, but we're not entirely sure of why yet and before we can question it more, she leaves to go to her sector of the building.
Some hours of doing work later, it's around lunch time. We didn't bring our lunch today, so we sit for a moment to figure out what we're gonna do, but Nalis comes around the corner just in time. We make eye contact, but he doesn't really say much, and he looks...different somehow. We brush it off though and ask what he's doing about lunch and if it's cool if we can join him and...
Oof...okay, maybe not.
Despite this though, he fixes his face and tells us it's cool and invites us to go to the vending machine with him. Even still though, he's acting really weird. Like, he's being kind've withdrawn, he's being lowkey insulting, he's spewing all this weird shit about ethics and death, and his whole vibe is just extremely off. It's so bad that we don't even feel comfortable let alone safe with him being around us. I think he lowkey picks up on it though because then he's all "Just pretend that this conversation didn't happen", and it's just, lol what?
But bump it, we bail. We leave him in there, and thankfully, he gave us an exit to do so.
More time goes by, and the phone starts blowing up about some new hire. Well, let me rephrase that. Not a new hire, but someone that's pretty much going to be making sure that we're using the money that their company is giving us to good use and, wouldn't you know it--
That very individual is Thaumo, and he's going to be hanging out with us throughout this whole ordeal. Granted, this isn't entirely bad because the things that Nalis and his team do are extremely confidential, and we're quite literally left out of everything, so it's lowkey nice knowing someone else isn't going to have the full picture about what's going on either. Speaking of Nalis...
The asshole popped up at our desk a few hours later. Of course, we're not as happy to be around him, and he's trying to pry about why. This lowkey pisses us off because he's taking that whole "This conversation didn't happen" shit too literal, and it's like, bro, be fucking for real right now; this shit is not cool. Like, don't gaslight me and act like you weren't acting like a complete donkey during lunch.
"Didn't see us at lunch"? "No time for a full..."? Ayo, what the fuck man? First our coworker, now Nalis? What the fuck is going on with this???
Nalis helps us come to the conclusion that we had likely fell asleep and just had a super vivid dream. We don't fully believe this, but we literally don't have any other form of proof that would suggest otherwise. Either way, we calm down, Nalis reassures us, and we part ways with us going home and him back down to the lab.
That day ends and the next one begins in which Nalis makes a new group chat with Thaumo in it and without the boss, and Nalis is like "Arcade?". We decline, though, and so does Thaumo. We spend our lunch break with Nalis more comfortably this time, and the rest of the day proceeds like normal: uneventful. Well, that is until we're about to head home and receive this text:
Now, for some context, SWSS is Sea Star Wasting Syndrome. Remember that article that I mentioned in the beginning? The one with the body? That's what we were reading about, and it's pretty deadly. As I promised, I'll explain a bit more.
The world that we live in, people (can?) have animal associations, and those associations can be either strong or weak -- most people's are weak. That being said, naturally, the people who are suffering from SWSS have associations with sea stars, which is why Nalis was like "even though you aren't susceptible" because that's not our animal association. This also explains the animal contact photos/pfps, if you were wondering about that at one point, as well.
Anyways, we just think about how much SWSS sucks, and we proceed to clock out and take an alternative route home. Well, that kind've goes left because on this route home we still run into trouble. Admittedly, it was by our own nosiness, but it was trouble nonetheless.
To make a long story short...nah, I'm just fuckin' with ya lol. I ain't gonna tell ya.
To be real with you? I literally can't tell you because it'll be, what I feel, is a major spoiler, and there's no way for me to finesse it and tell you what happened without it completely spoiling it...even though I'm pretty certain you can read between the lines and see what's going on.
Just in case you didn't catch on and want a little more insight, I'll tell you this much: Remember that we live in a world where people have animal associations, meaning certain qualities, appearances, and abilities can be adopted; Thaumo has a strong association with his animal...
Again, I'm pretty sure you can read between the lines, but even still, you think you might know what's going on just off that, but you honestly have no clue, because also remember...
There's two yanderes this time, and I didn't even tell you Nalis' animal association.
I'm telling you -- it's not as clear of a picture as you may be thinking.
Okay, so admitedly, this review is LONG over due, because I played this months ago and just never finished the review for it, but I am so excited for this game to be completed!
The story itself is so interesting, and the fact that-- ah, I can't tell you but damn it, just, if you could still figure it out without me saying it or you could read between the lines, I'm just really geeked about this, and I want to see how everything pans out.
Like, I know that the content warning included gaslighting, but I didn't know that it meant like IRL! Like, I was -- oh my fu -- I can't really tell you that either! This is actually frustrating, not gonna lie lol.
Like I've mentioned, I am fairly confident that you can tell what's going on based on what I gave you despite me not explicitly saying it and doing my damndest to tip toe around it...but just know that that whole "gaslighting" content warning is applying IRL for me right now. Like, I have so many questions, and I demand that this game be finished so that I can get them answered!
The other wild part about this game, though, is that, if you actually go back and read it after getting some more information, there's actually allusions as to what's going on in certain scenarios! It literally made me go "Ohhhh now that part makes more sense! ... Yo, that's crazy". Like, it's honestly pretty well done as far being just discreetly enough to have you kind've gloss over it, but you can definitely pick up on it if you pay attention to it, especially if you go to replay it for the other endings.
Now, let's talk about the pacing. Pretty solid and well done, in my opinion! There were definitely some parts that were definitely more "storytelling based", but it didn't drag on for long, and the storytelling bits made sense and were necessary. Admittedly, it had somewhat rushed transitions to certain parts, but I still thought it flowed pretty damned well in all honesty. Then again, that's what happens when you have an interesting storyline, and people are more interested in the story itself versus the "You wake up the next day, and head to work after getting ready" transition.
Then again, I honestly prefer it to be that versus "You wake up. You go to the bathroom to brush your teeth. You look at your teeth. Ick. You get over the ick. You walk out. You go to the kitchen. You open the fridge. You reach it. You grab the mi--" Like oh my Gods, bro, I get it. Please get on with it. It's like, I get it because it's necessary, but like get to the point. That just kills the momentum to me, or if there wasn't any momentum to start with, it just makes the story/transition drag for longer than it needs to. Speaking of making things longer than needed and getting on with it...
If it's not obvious at this point, I definitely recommend this game. I recommend it so much that I will be providing you the link right here, right now, multiple times in a row. So just...ya know...click on any of those and download it to your computer, brah. All jokes and silliness aside, you'd be seriously missing out if you don't, because the story is there, and I find it super interesting. Also! If you'd like to, give the dev that ever encouraging and desperate "DROP ANOTHER UPDATE, AND MY LIFE IS YOURS~! Also, really love your game! You're doing really well! BUT PLEASE LET ME BANG NALIS AND THAUMO!". Also, also! I didn't see anything that indicated that they were open to monetary support, but if you find it, I'm sure they'd really appreciate the donation.
That all being said, that is finally all from me, and I will let you go about your day now! Big preesh for getting this far. Huge reminder! Please drink water, don't be dumb, and hope to see you around~!
