After Shadows
I don’t understand it. It has some “game sessions”, so is it some kind of rogue-like game?.. Doesn’t seem to be a metroidvania at all…
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Atmospheric Games.
Letters - a written adventure
Handwritten nostalgia
Journey back to the 90s and move through beautifully hand-drawn letters, as you follow the life of Sarah. Learn more about her friends, nerdy obsessions or why she has the most annoying sister ever.
Then go digital as Sarah grows older. Revel in the nostalgic pixel world of the early 2000s internet while navigating all the drama, anxiety and joys of teenagehood.
Shape your future
Watch Sarah grow up and make decisions that will change how her life will turn out as an adult (no pressure). Take revenge on your sister, play video games all day or fall in love. It’s all up to you.
Don’t like the outcome? Just go ahead and rewrite her story. (See? we told you, no pressure.)
Power of words
In a world made from paper and computers, words matter. So use them to change drawings that block your way, help friendly characters and interact with Sarah’s friends.
Finding the right words is hard sometimes. Especially for shy people like Sarah. So help her by breaking them apart and creating new ones for her to use instead.
Playfully wholesome
Letters is a cozy, often funny, sometimes sad game about friendship, growing up and finding your way in life. Explore Sarah’s colorful world and use the power of words to change her life!
Or… just stack cats or something.
FEATURES
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innovative word-based riddle mechanic, you’ve never seen before
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relatable coming of age story, inspired by real-life
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branching storyline where you can discover new possibilities with every playthrough
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beautifully hand-drawn visuals & pixel art evolving with Sarah’s age
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comfy, playful & casual game that focuses on narration and having fun with words
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good for practicing English skills in a fun way
QUICK FACTS
language: English
playtime: approx. 3 hours (1 playthrough)
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Choices Matter Games.
Kriophobia
The Cold is Just the Beginning
A science expedition was sent to Zhokhov Island to study recent occurrences of magnetic anomalies in the region. Amongst them was Anna, a young geophysicist, along with her mentor and a small military crew. As her group investigates the cause of the anomalies on the island, a sequence of disastrous events unroll trapping them in an unknown underground military complex, under the extreme cold of the Russian climate. Now, Anna desperately tries to survive and find a way out, but something down there disturbingly draws her deeper, and that unknown haunting place bizarrely welcomes her more and more…
Kriophobia is a survival horror in third person, inspired by the old-school games of the same genre. Immerse yourself in a Cold and Inhuman World of Mad Obsession, Extremist Patriotism and Disturbing Relationships, presented with a Unique Art-Style that mixes comics and painting.
FEATURES
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Immersive psychological horror storyline that explores a twisted and abandoned world
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Hidden Past Secrets to be found, inspired by real events from Russia’s Darkest Times
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Cold, Obscure and Terrifying scenarios to be Explored
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Evasive Combat centered on fleeing and hiding from gruesome abominations.
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Survival with Limited Resources against Freezing Temperatures in a hostile place
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Dark Visual Style that blends Comics and Painting in a unique way
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Fully Illustrated Game World displayed with modern Static Cameras
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An Exclusive Russian-Inspired soundtrack
Read More: Best Hand-drawn Survival Horror Games.
OMNIA
Embark on the world of your subconscious in an adventure aimed at tracing clues of emotions and characteristics that can help decipher your behavior.
The Omnia universe gives you an adventure through the world of consciousness where the player will have to make decisions and carry out activities based on their feelings. During the adventure, you’ll have to collect keys to unlock the next stages by defeating the opponents that appear along the way in the quest to find the key that opens the door to your mind.
Clocker
Great puzzle design.
Great character design.
Great background sound.
The story are really smooth and catches people’s hearts immediately but meanwhile it is pretty sad atmosphere around.
Most puzzles need a lot of work to solve but not too hard so people get stuck for ever.
Strong Recommend
If you get stuck check out my walkthrough video
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
Don’t pay full price for such a short game.
Ending was predictable and very unsatisfying without an alternative.
Doesn’t save properly and hint system is tedious.
Overall very disappointing compared to the unique gameplay concept.
– Real player with 4.4 hrs in game
Creepslore
Welcome to the world of CREEPSLORE, where text shown in all caps means someone is SHOUTING!
Take part in a surreal, interactive arthouse adventure inspired by older Adventure Games mixed with Choose Your Own Adventure books and RPGs. Supported by it’s massive list of (112+!) characters, heartfelt story, and uniquely weird art style, Creepslore is here to make you laugh, cry, and question it’s creators' sanity and overall well being.
The game takes place sometime during the 1970’s, and is told from the point of view of a sarcastic character who gets suckered into an adventure after arriving on a monster filled island. Realizing there’s no way back, he now has to deal with a bunch of intoxicated creatures with idiosyncratic tendencies (ergo: they’re also stupid) who think humans are the de-facto best gourmet food option.
What this game offers:
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surreal & tongue in cheek humor
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a story with 5 completely different scenarios (no forced repeats of dialogues to unlock ‘extra’ content!)
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18 explorable locations, ranging from cities to swamps
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more than 110 individual characters
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pre-rendered backgrounds created in Quake
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even MORE NUMBERS to grab your attention
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text, text and some more text
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a sad fish
What this game DOESN’T offer:
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saving the world
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cute anime girls
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fan-service
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a happy fish
PS: if you’ve ever wondered why the Giant Spider in Skyrim carries coins, and where the hell it puts them, we’ll, let’s just say we have the answer to that.
Bioid
Bioid is an exploration adventure and puzzle game from two dreamers.
Owl-like’s Space Library features oddities from across civilizations and the crossroads of worlds. Just open the book, and unknown creatures burst forth or drag you into the book. Worlds collide in the Library! Offering you the opportunity to become a mediator between various funny and paradoxical creatures.
The White Bioid Reef stands out among dimensions. It’s a conglomerate of shape-shifters with powers of telekinesis and gravity control. Open tunnels in the bioplasm and travel through white labyrinths to meet higher-intelligence creatures. Fight the parasitic thorns and world devourers.
Have fun exploring while listening to great ambient music.
Change the World
For whatever reason, this visual novel just did not jive with me. Mostly because it’s incredibly depressing getting a bad ending 3x in a row and getting punished for trying to do something. If the author intended for this, then spot on; however, it came at the cost of enjoyability. Though I guess already aligning with Farien’s outlook didn’t help either.
! Want the good ending? Literally don’t do anything anyone asks and then just be nice to the one human in the story.
The art is rather low key and despite claiming 20 music tracks, it felt too often that I was just reading in silence. Farien is also rather a douchebag. For someone with practically nothing left to lose, he sure as hell didn’t prepare well enough in his 3 years to be ready. Took about 2 hours to read everything. The skip function seemed to be broken as it kept skipping unread text when it shouldn’t have… but I somehow had autosaves when I first started, so maybe they just came with the download by default? Made re-reading a bit tedious.
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
The world building was really immersive and intriguing. The extensive backstory and exploration of the various alien races were really fascinating as well. The paths were really fun to explore, and the true ending was satisfying. I really loved the story
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
Ice Cream Truck
Your name is Max, an ordinary ice cream truck driver. You wake up from nightmares every once in a while. That particular day your head was feeling heavy because of the dream from the night before, and maybe that is why you entered a road that you had never been on.
Your journey begins at an amusement park, where you followed Mia after having met her in the deep woods. Well, it’s because you lost Mia’s favorite balloon by mistake. The journey which originally began in order to chase the fleeting balloon continues on through several villages.
Max and Mia chase their balloon to wander different universes never seen before. That is, of course, all while selling ice cream! Will they be able to retrieve Mia’s balloon in the end?
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Never-before-seen Universes: you can visit many interesting villages such as a village full of flowers, a village in Christmas season all year round, a desert made of sugar, and an underwater palace.
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Just Like Never-Before-Seen Customers: you will encounter many different kinds of customers, who might be animals or even ones that are difficult to identify as a certain animal…
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Omnibus Plot: a new exciting episode awaits you in each new village!
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Emotion-flavor Ice Cream: happiness flavor, sadness flavor, anger flavor… even confession flavor! Transform your customer’s emotions with ice cream.
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Ice Cream Combinations!: you can combine ice cream to whip up new flavors and new emotions.
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Surreal Graphics: illustration-like graphics in any scene
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Multiple Endings, Choices Matter: alternative choices can be made to change the next destination or ending
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The ice cream truck can race on with its bells ringing. Oh, customers will definitely chase after the truck.
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Balloons that Keep Flying
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A Variety of Costumes
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Futuristic Ice Cream Toppings: fish, ramen, poisonous mushroom, potato chip, Kimchi topping are available!
Sonata Theory
If you enjoy narrative experiences, you’ll enjoy this game. What I like best about it is how it expands on its visual novel core. There is some environment exploration, some light puzzle-solving, and branching endings based on how you play. Game scenarios tend to have multiple solutions, and it is fun to try to find them all. Visually it is bright and colorful with good audio. Plus, it is essentially a one-hour experience (and less with each subsequent play-through), so you don’t have to commit a lot of time to enjoy this (free) game. Note: I was the faculty advisor for this project.
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
The music was great, the level was beautiful, the character design was unique, and the story was fairly good. Menus had a few issues, quest items didn’t disappear which made it a bit confusing, the relationship portion didn’t seem effect gameplay, and the dialog boxes could use a redesign. Overall I actually enjoyed the game music and level design were major Pluses.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game