itch.io

what an excellent, beautiful, and haunting game oh my god!!! i thought i was so smart and i thought i could win, because i know orpheus and i know eurydice and i thought i’d be better because i had the will to succeed and hold on. instead, i was met with the shifting, transient nature of love that endures and yet goes through its own metamorphosis. each time orpheus doubted it was for a good, meaningful, and oftentimes poignant reason. to kill her, to prove her? to show you love her? i loved the exploration of all the different reasons you could turn, and how fitting that at the final throes of the game all the reasons turn to love. love makes orpheus turn around! love binds them together!! ugh you’ve reminded me of why i love their myth so much.

my first ending was to follow through and go on alone and what a treat it was. then i went right back to the end and turned around at the last moment, if only to have a happy ending – and now this game is an exploration of grief too?! you really have done it all…. this game is just so excellent and honestly it will be THE orpheus eurydice game for me going forward. i’m so glad i played!! the minimalism was just the cherry on top to keep everything focused on the lovely narrative <333 we should (or shouldn’t who knows ehe) do something together in the future bc i would kill for the chance to pick your brain apart and send you to the writing mines you’ve just got so much to give to the world…

I LOVE UUUU YOU ARE THE BEST!! you’re correct i love comments and i love critique and i love yapping so this is like the best present ever YAYY!!! thank you so much for taking the time to write not just one, but FOUR comments. i feel like not many people gaf too much about this game (sad) so you have made my day!

the bad ending is, well. quite bad. which is hopefully incentive to get the good ending! and i am SO in love with our artist’s designs too like long haired cari…. ooooh….

and thank you so much for all the feedback!!! let me go over them all

• okay yes absolutely will do more gore/horror buildup! i promiseeee it’s because we had to do this in a month i will revise and fix it up!
• yesss so spoilers! i envisioned it as cari’s evil yandere side being more influenced by the devil (lol) but i def want to work on his evil side and give a little spice to his personality
• and AHHHH true!! i love the idea of the sadly retreating/i’m nothing to you…” and i absolutely want to add more scenes too that lead up to the ending! he’s 100% asian mom coded he can barely apologize and he gets mad at u unreasonably sometimes…
• LOLLL i guess izar wasn’t subtle at all! i think i wrote him to be like a black swan but dove also works too if i messed up somewhere? like you are NOT subtle bro. and YAYYY i was worried no one would get that the voice in mc’s head (every single case of italics that aren’t for emphasis, actually) is literally just izar popping in. get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head….
• thank you thank you!!! i am super happy you enjoyed and hope you enjoy the other games too :D no joke you have made me SO HAPPY i fear this game has been flopmaxxing failcoring in my mind so you make me very glad we stuck through and made it anyways >_<

WAHHHH THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!!! frogdust my HERO!!!!!

oh my gosh, thank you so much!!! such high praise is very much appreciated <3 and honestlyyy i wrote izar in a way where i wanted him too you’re not alone. no matter how bad he gets there’s just something about that sort of golden retriever (plus a certain something else) personality >_< very very happy we could scratch that itch (haha itch like the website) for you!

THANK YOU SMMMM i’m super happy to hear that!!! i feel like vns are so high commitment high reward haha it’s hard to find the time to just sit down and read but i feel like good vns really make it worth ur time. oh my goshhh nooo … maeve will come save u!!! in her eventual route!!

and you SHOULD brag, i think i tried minesweeper like 6x and i couldn’t do it so i gave up and accepted my fate… but you? you did it first try… amazing. ILY IYUUUUUUU THANK U SO MUCH!!

how could you beat me to it!!! you beat me!!!! but ahhhh thank you so muchhh >_< i’m really happy to hear the only other eurydice orpheus enjoyer on itch.io likes mine hehe i just love the myth and i’m really excited to see how u do it! :D

if the itch.io GOAT cd-rrom says so, it must be true. THANK YOU!!

thank you so much!! super happy to hear you enjoyed, and thanks for being our first submission page comment :D minesweeper i gave up on from the start, it’s not my fate to understand the rules LOL. but i’m happy to hear the twist was well received & i’m so happy again to hear from you!

wahh, that would be awesome (if you do decide to post)!!! we’re totally fine with people posting/making content about the game, it helps give us more exposure too. but no pressure obviously; i’m just happy that you had fun playing :D

i can’t lie, this was AMAZING. the soundtrack was hauntingly beautiful, the artwork was just incredibly gorgeous, and the prose was so well-crafted and elegant that it truly elevated the experience so much! i loved how animated it was, how alive everything felt, the storybook aesthetics and the understated story that this contains. i only regret that it doesn’t work on macbooks and i had to play it in browser; i can only begin to imagine how amazing the downloaded version is. it was such a lovely experience to play through, short and sweet and utterly unforgettable. it’s incredible to have finished this in a month!

i’ve been looking forward to playing this…!! what a delightful fairy-tale setting, and oh my gosh the interactiveness??? THE programmer of all time! michaela plays such a sweet, exuberant role to swanhilde’s calm demeanor, and i honestly think being eaten up and devoured a-la hansel and gretel is the most fitting ending we could get. the atmosphere was indeed so cozy up until then, but alas…let’s just say we’re getting fed on this hexenhaus :P

the art, the graphics, the bicker-banter back and forth! i love the vaporwave aesthetic matched with the casual supernatural elements. the peek into this world through the room exploration part was my favorite, and i really adored getting to know the charming nox across this game. the way it looks just tickles a really nice part of my brain :D

as a certified fujosister, i sat giggling to myself as i put these two together… and then, as a certified yumejo, i broke them apart. i love both endings! obviously it’s great when they’re together and happy, but the writing for the bad ending was really great as well. i have such a soft spot for suijin and hachiman’s respective blush sprites, they’re too cute!! and overall i just love this little world i was pulled into – you could say i’m divinely devoted to it!

i wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but wow, this game is so stylistic! i love the 90s anime artstyle of the sprites, and the way the ui/ux is framed, and how the sprites move too. it feels very unique for a visual novel, and it really kept me engaged! there’s definitely a lot of lore and background to this universe that i’m excited to see more of in the future, and the metaphorical interpolation of the mermaid/siren and the sailor? poetic cinema.

wow, i don’t think i expected that at ending at all – but i loved it! davis was just the right mix of sweet and playful for me, and i was very >_< over his teasings at the beginning. there’s something so magical about kissing on a ferris wheel, and when i moved his hair because i thought it’d be more romantic that way – imagine my shock! the rejection endings are just too sad for me so i’m happy to say i stuck with true, romantic, reciprocated love, as we ought to :D

wow, the blinking!! such a small thing to add and yet it just makes callisto feel so alive… i really loved this retelling and spin on sleeping beauty! i always felt like there wasn’t much going on in that fairy tale haha so this is a very welcome alternative. i would’ve loved to learn more about the main character’s phantom thief job, that just sounds so interesting! but i’m happy that they’re right back with callisto in the end where they belong :D and i refuse to acknowledge the endings where they are not happy together :P

i was really excited to play this game, and i finally got to!! my immediate knee jerk reaction was that i HAD to date this mysterious, ghoulish siren… his design reminds me a little of sebastian from pressure haha. the poignancy of the scriptwriting, the detail of the prose, and the unfurling of the plot were all just so amazing to sit through and experience alongside the lovely soundtrack!! a kiss by the siren’s cradle is honestly a masterclass in atmosphere, and i really felt like i was deep under the sea with blackbeard too. super enjoyed my experience!

i don’t know if deep, poignant conversation between vampires is what i was expected, but it’s what i got and i have to say – i felt deeply moved by a situation i never knew about, but remained haunted by the narrative for. love and loss is different for immortal beings like vampires! my favorite line had to be “love is an action too” because honestly, it really is. sometimes the act of loving someone is enough, and i feel like we rarely acknowledge that.

magical girl romance?? count me IN. i was sat, locked, loaded, and played through this in one setting because i just had to see what was going to happen and i wasn’t disappointed. manager x magical girl is a pairing i could never conceive of but it just works so well! charon is honestly such an ideal partner i loveeee her…. devoted, selfless, and so kind <3 i’m really excited to see more of this world and these characters!!

this was such a fun game to play through!! i really loved the small detail of piers’s voice being set to the highest by raven in the discord call HAHA. so smitten! and i personally didn’t have the HEART to go any route other than the kiss route and romance route, which i think is the true route anyhow. the fact that we got not one, but two kisses?! and not to mention the fiery, passionate description of piers getting sooo into the roleplay i was quite tickled pink, one could say. overall it was just too fun to step into raven’s shoes and his giant, raging crush – from fiction to real life. if i were to roll a d20 for this game’s persuasion check, well, it’d be a critical success :P

yay, thank you so much!! super happy you enjoyed (for the most part) :D

sorry it took a hot second, but i made a guide here which i’ll just link here for easy access and update the game page to show. hope it helps!!

oh my gosh i didn’t realize the intricacies of my mind were, in fact, not intricate and more annoying haha. i’ll make & submit a guide as soon as i can!

and thank you very much, happy to hear you like the game despite my confusing choice requirements! i will get that fixed asap :)

and thank you so much for all the kind words!!! it looks like i’ll need to get started soon on maeve’s route haha >_< but super happy you enjoyed cari’s!

oh my gosh, thank you so much!! super happy to hear you enjoyed the sound design hehe our programmer lemonink was just so fantastic with the ui AND the sounds :D and i have nothing but praises to sing about our artist rae, i think the atmosphere manages to be so successful thanks to them!

also very grateful to hear you liked cari and maeve! i wanted them both to come off as very successful but have their own little cute sides :P and the endings are, well, certainly something hehe ^_^ thank you again for playing our humble entry!! looking forward to playing yours too <3

first things first, i’m really grateful to my friend lemonink for introducing this jam to me and introducing me to all the lovely entries from previous jams – so many people that were once mythical figures i had only heard of i got to “meet” this jam and even have them play my game, what an honor! a keen eye will notice we elected to work on our own, and i will say i for sure learned a lot. it was my first time having to use ren’py, my first time solo deving a project (i’m a writer. i write. i do NOT code), and my first time having to puzzle everything mostly on my own like a big girl. i learned a lot, but i think i’m never doing this again LOL. the first thing i’m doing is crawling to the nearest person i can find on hands and knees and begging to collaborate on the next project. lemonink, i want you back….!

and not to drag on my thank you speech too long but i really am so grateful to lemonink for helping me get into game dev in the first place. i envision many more nights huddled together in the dorm lounge until you inevitably leave me in spring 2026, but until then we’ll keep on working hard together!

okay, onto the actual post mortem. first, let’s get all my excuses out of the way. it’s really not so bad tbh but the day of the jam i had to pack to fly back to my hometown & hobble through the mess that is LAX and the commute to it. luckily the jam coincided with my winter break, and unluckily my mom did not like to see my very serious game dev all-nighters. and yes, i did indeed have jury duty – i submitted the game while waiting to get my name called for the juror room HAHA. i’m also currently typing this from my vacay in hawaii – aloha everyone! forgive my tardiness & lack of service 🙈

but in that regard, i feel like my weaknesses are clear to see even with these minuscule excuses. michael smith had a very detailed post mortem i delightfully and joyously read through & i definitely can agree the theme wasn’t the easiest for me to navigate. that alongside having to now figure out the gui, the code, and ren’py meant i spent literal hours complaining to my friends about how i should just quit and not submit and never join a game jam again. i think my gui is a bit, well, unserviceable compared to everyone else’s polished games. i think i couldn’t really encapsulate the theme well enough just because it was, as my friend said, more of an aesop life lesson than a theme (second chances and you are expendable, in another life we’ll meet again!). and honestly, i just thought my game was boring … >_< well, i’m glad i stuck through! i got to play so many lovely entries, made a whole bluesky account, and ended up getting so many kind comments when a week ago i was determined to delete ren’py and withdraw from the jam. and i sound like a broken record, but i really am so stunned and shocked to have placed so high, especially in areas i was worried about and found weak. it means so much to me that the people who played my game rated it the way they did, and i will eternally be grateful that i ended up having such a wonderful experience for my first solo jam!

velox turbo 2 was a good chance for me to branch out, as a coddled princess who often has someone else at hand to do all the parts i don’t like doing :P i hope to be back in the future for a new jam, and i hope to find ways to mitigate the things i’m weaker at, like with visuals and sound. imagine us, you and me (katherine) together during sunset and we’re at the beach in waikiki, and i’m aglow in the light with my arms clasped behind my back like an anime girl, and i say, “it was fun, wasn’t it?” and you say, “it was.” that’s my velox experience! it was a pleasure to have it alongside everyone else, and i hope to see you all again in the future! 😊

thank you so much!! careful you don’t accidentally fall into another world… >_<

WAHHH THANK YOUU [crying like a little baby with a propeller hat and comically oversized lollipop] i too am a huge sucker for narratives and tropes, and my obsession w isekai that still hasn’t gone anywhere…. the font changes was a last minute addition i was worried would come off as too cheesy or lame, so it’s a relief to hear that it ended up being such a good part of the experience!!! and i’ll admit, i had a rough time trying to make the endings clearly adhere to my vision, especially in a way that aligned with the theme, so i still think they could be better but…your words are reassuring and give me just a bit of the ego boost i needed. i’m excited to keep making games in the future and i hope our paths will cross then…!! :D

I LOVE U!!!! your comment MADE MY WHOLE DAY!!! i’m super happy to hear that the worlds didn’t drag too much or feel kinda silly, bc i was worried people would get bored and stop since it’s kind of a lot…. yayy!!! i love unfurling details step by step & though i wish i had more time to make it even more engaging and witty – four days is four days! thank u again for taking the time to comment on both the jam page AND the game page, you’re the best <3

thank you so much!!! the snake is AWESOME and i have lemonink of if:then fame to thank :D the sfx came after hours of scouring zapsplat for the right sound, so yay yay yay im glad you enjoyed! for the peace ending, try selecting the choices that are more hardworking, the sort of choices where someone would sit you down and go you should take a break fr. i hope that helps!!! and thank u again for taking the time to leave a comment >_<

thank you so much the amazing goated superior intellectual savant michael smith for nominating my game as fav implementation of choice and consequence… i always believe visual novels should put enough weight behind their choices because that’s the only gameplay there is, so it makes me happy when it works out for the player! many thanks for the kind words :D

thank u so so much!!! and for what it’s worth i’m glad it was able to hang around in your mind for that long >_< i was worried it wouldn’t be compelling enough, or not interesting enough, so it means a lot to me you’re even considering playing the other two endings! and the final ending screen of “the end” was the first thing i came up with and honestly still my favorite thing in the entire game. glad you liked it too!! :D

thank you so much, i’m very grateful for your comment and support! yes, the choices each are meant to lean into an archetype – my intention was for each to represent what the character THINKS they need to be happy. so secure love from someone is one, changing their nature to become a “good person” is the other, and the last one was basically taking a break from work and settling down!

this is honestly on me for not making it more clear, and i’m sorry for that! basically, my intention was for each route to sort of shed more light on how the player is being pressured and pushed into thinking what they want/what will make them happy is one of the three things i mentioned. so you’re right; in the peace ending, meaning would’ve been a better fit and in the hero ending, the mc doesn’t actually do anything heroic and just.

for the love ending, i think the better choice would’ve been to actually develop and grow close with someone who will prioritize YOU and unconditionally love you not because you asked for it, but because you like each other. and in a way, miran and val have that but never with the mc – so to me, it’s kind of like just rewriting their relationship without having any of the groundwork that makes it genuine. it’s not really true, just like with the hero ending.

i hope that’s a lot better at conveying what i was thinking going into writing this! sorry again for any confusion or mishandling in my plot >_<

thank you so much!! any writer, of course, wants to hear people think their writing is good…me included! i’m really glad that i could get a good baseline just for the writing from you :D and it def was kind of a struggle to write that much over 4 days so i’m happy to hear that it was noticed and appreciated by you! i feel like three endings was necessary to really kind of play with the themes i was tossing around :P which did mean more work for me but hey we’re here now! i hope more people feel up to unlocking the endings and trying diff choices to get the most bang for my buck haha

and i’m glad the ticking worked!! i wanted to give it kind of a liminal, empty feeling – but also to tie back into the last ending when it clicks that you’ve been running out of time this whole time. and thank u so much! i feel like ren’py sucked the soul out of me, so your words really mean a lot to me & the frustration i had to go through to get everything to work as intended >_<

i’m very glad also that aion’s unhappiness and dissatisfaction was really able to get through and cut deep. the endless loop and slog of having everything change but you alone, and wondering what it is you’re doing wrong and what it takes to be happy – so if everyone says it’s this, then i’ll do that, but why am i still not happy? silly aion…happiness is in the eye of the beholder! [badum tsst]

as the author/game dev i control the characters, and so i will split miran and val apart in divorce court and give him to you. he’s yours. [passes him into your hands]

this game is absolutely polished to perfection!! the palette, the ui, and the plot ties together perfectly and seamlessly into a game that absolutely speaks to the theme and was really interesting to play. i’ll admit, there were a couple repeated runs and checking the itch.io page, but once we got over missing the mistress scene in the first loop everything else fell into place. timeloops are always peak media, and i loved the slow losing of the senses and the way the narrative changes around that – the red of the ui makes the green of the new ending just that much more striking, now that blood no longer needs to be spilled.

i loved unraveling the plot and watching it unfold, and the stat raising was a nice interlude between the visual novel segments. days of saturn is incredibly put together and such a wonderful experience! if this is what you can do in four days, the gaming community is set for the next decade >_<

thank you so so much! i’m glad to hear it managed to keep a goos atmosphere and the progression of the plot worked out. that means a lot to me :D

i really liked the way you used the theme here, using different perspectives that build upon and add to one another and yet differ depending on what’s happened in the prior worlds/locations. that thoughts, the world, and even the events change depending on who becomes the pov character, even moreso when we take on the new perspective towards the end. brilliant incorporation of the theme! also loved the sprites, especially matt’s – dating sim when?! i don’t know much about art, but i think it’s very impressive to have three sets with such varying expressions!

i think your writing is so solid too, and it sets off to achieve exactly what it needs to. descriptive in the right parts and vague in others, all pulling together in a macabre yet touching storyline. i loved the beginning fading into black and the good ending fading into white! the contrast makes winning all the more sweeter, when it succeeds. amazing entry!

thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful, and altogether delightful comment – i spent a solid 10 seconds with my hand over my mouth, i was so stunned and grateful >_< i really am so happy that you enjoyed my game and took the time to write something so lovely about it, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!

i’m so glad that my time spent trawling the depths of zapsplat was well worth it – i for sure wanted the sound to do exactly as it needed and nothing else, but i was worried it might not be as noticeable without actual music since that’s usually what i pay attention to. and i’m also happy to hear the lack of character sprites didn’t impede the storytelling! i do wish i was able to draw them, but in the absence of my ability to do so i’m so happy that at least the words could still carry through.

i’m also really happy that the sort of restrictive unhappiness was able to be properly conveyed! i think it’s honestly such a hard balance especially in gameplay, because like you mention, sometimes it just comes off as bad writing or the author not really incorporating what players want to see. but that’s the point, right? the player character here is basically shoehorned into everything – and i’m sure we all have had points in life where it feels like we’re just clicking through and nothing we do has any impact. when you’re told “you can make out of life what you want” but there really is no way to do so at the moment. i don’t think i was able to do it the way i wanted to ultimately, but i really wanted players to kind of take away the main issue too, that it’s hard to find that kind of fulfillment and joy in life if you’re not living life for yourself too. i hope everyone, us included, ends up NOT like this mc – i hope we can find ways to make our lives so much more worth living for!

and yay! i was worried the worldbuilding would feel out of left field, so happy to know it made for good interlude/intermissions between the worlds :P and yes, i intentionally wanted players to see the choices being locked out! sort of to add to that same feeling of missing your chance when you see it initially – and then when you go and experience the other endings too, to realize that there really was no difference anyways. omfg that sounds very pessimistic looking back on it now but well i hope the takeaway is a good one!

thank you again for playing my game and leaving a comment :D i really appreciate the time and effort!!

there’s a lot of really good lines in this game, but my favorite is (just like how bez says below) “good liars never stop”. i’m sure not many people can personally relate to a life spent changing your identity and yet never finding fulfillment and genuine love from others – but under your prose, it becomes a natural flow of life and almost feels like second nature. you can’t stop if you’re too good at becoming someone new, and how addictive it must feel escaping from the burdens of your old identity. the title is deliciously ironic to me; angela’s life is all about picking up and leaving and being caught in various ways each time, and yet it makes sense that you’ll never catch her leaving behind this game/practice/habit/lifestyle if she’s so adept at it.

regardless, i think you have a really beautiful writing style. i’ve always had a soft spot for that vague kind of narration that is, in a way, directed towards the reader and you’ll never catch me leaving pulls it off so well. i’m excited to read and play more works from you in the future!!

this game gave me such an “alice in wonderland” vibe with the way the librarian was lowkey talking circles around the protagonist! and what an interesting concept too, a place that holds only things of unimportance – and how the “librarian” uses that in his wordplay. the writing has a very dreamlike, surreal sense to it, and i think the 3D background and movement really helps play into that.

amazing work in four days, especially with the detail in the backgrounds! it was a pleasure having my ass verbally handed to me ^_^