Circus Reviews - A Little Lily Princess

So here's A Little Lily Princess, an adaptation of the novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Maybe it's Adaptation Week or something over here, since I just did The Armoire the other day. Eh, who knows.

A Little Lily Princess follows young Sara Crewe, who has spent her whole life being raised in wealth by her beloved father in India but must now leave for England in order to be educated at boarding school. She is introduced to an eclectic group of students—snobby Lavinia, dreamer Jessie, kind but slow Ermengarde, spoiled Lottie—along with her own personal maid, Mariette, and things go very well for her at first. She makes friends, tells stories, and even from her high position goes out of her way to help the less fortunate, like scullery maid Becky. But what happens when a princess loses everything she held dear to her?

The game's main emphasis is on its storytelling, but there is a basic stat-raising mechanic involved that helps determine your character route. Each week, you can choose activities for Sara to perform, and at the end of the week the events you chose give you various stats, which you can then spend on extra events with the girl of your choice. It's nothing challenging, and even if you have bad luck with the events and don't get the stats you want for a week or two, it's almost impossible to actually miss out on an event. Which is good, since it clears the way for the aforementioned storytelling to take center stage. The text adapted directly from the novel and the text that Hanako has added for the character routes are nearly indistinguishable. The styles match up perfectly, and even though I have read the original novel before, there were times when I couldn't tell what had been added. At the same time, there were also times when I could clearly pick out novel passages and fondly remember them. It's a very high quality read all the way through.

The characters are mostly interesting enough, although there are a couple in particular I can't stand...Lavinia and Lottie, try as they might, never managed to endear themselves to me, even in their character routes. I fully admit this to be personal preference, as I found no real problems with their routes but just couldn't bring myself to enjoy either of them. Ermengarde and Mariette have better routes, with Becky and Jessie taking center stage as my personal favorites. I sympathize with Jessie's feelings for Sara clashing with her parents' expectations of an eventual arranged marriage, and with poor Becky's life in general, and it made their routes extremely enjoyable for me.

As for the much touted yuri, the only route that I would call definitively romantic is Jessie's. There are a couple of more familial routes and a couple that seem like friendship to me but could end up going either way. Personally, I think it works. There could have been more romance, sure, but romance isn't what the original book was about; family and friendship played stronger parts, and they remain important themes here. Also, adding in extra romance probably would have made things...uncomfortable, let's say, considering that most of our characters are schoolchildren.

The music is quite charming! (And worth the wait that I endured due to my laptop deciding that some sounds should not be played.) The art is lovely as well. There are segments wherein the girls are depicted in the same chibi forms that you see when choosing your extra events, and you wouldn't think that a chibi style would work with this sort of game, but it's used sparingly enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome.

All in all, I feel comfortable recommending this game to a lot of people. Fans of the original novel will probably enjoy it the most, since you'll be able to pick out your favorite passages, but I don't feel like you necessarily need to know the source material to enjoy this, either. As mentioned above, despite this being called a yuri title there isn't a lot of it, at least not in a romantic sense, and so if you're looking for that you might try something else. But there's a lot to enjoy here, for fans of Victorian literature and the power of friendship and cute girls.

A Little Lily Princess is available on Steam or directly from the developer.

Final verdict: A Little Lily Princess is a cute and friendly game that will appeal to many with its strong writing, lovely art, and retention of the original novel's best themes.

A Little Lily Princess is written and developed by Hanako Games. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated in any way for this review. I was a participant in the game's alpha testing on a volunteer basis.

Yumi-chan: Script edits and guidebook

Just a brief update on the current status of Yumi-chan.

Been editing the script per advice of beta readers, and I wound up reworking a bigger chunk than I'd intended. Also started on the guidebook! It is probably laughably bad to someone who actually knows things about graphic design, but what can you do. It will include an interview with the artist Chiikaboom, lots of shiny pictures, and more!

I plan to purchase A Little Lily Princess and cover it as my next game review. Was planning to do the beta, but money has been really tight the past couple weeks. It's looking up now though! I had the privilege to participate in the alpha testing (I think that's the proper term) of A Little Lily Princess a while back and am interested to see how the game has progressed.

I've also been taking steps to get my poetry collection, fractured starlight, ready for publication. It will be the next project that comes out after Yumi-chan. It could not be more different than Yumi-chan. It will be commercial, but not very pricey. I'll probably do a little preview of it on Patreon once the time gets closer.

So, look forward to all of these things!

Circus Reviews - Black Closet

This review was written about an earlier version of the game; newer features have since been added and are not mentioned in this review.

This review has been edited since its original posting.

I've been talking about this game for a good while, and now it's finally out of beta! Black Closet, by Hanako Games, has officially been released, which means it's now time for my review.

Our protagonist is Elsa Jackson, a senior at St. Claudine's Academy who has been elected president of the Student Council. Her job is to solve mysteries and keep scandals from ruining the school's reputation, with the help of her council members/minions: popular and flirty Althea, stubborn and opinionated Thaïs, friendly new girl Mallory, hypercompetent assistant Vonne, and quiet and antisocial Rowan. Your goal is to keep your fellow students in line, while trying to find the traitor within your own ranks and still keep your grades up long enough to get into a good college.

Gameplay, shown above, involves assigning your minions to tasks such as searching a crime scene or interrogating a witness. Your minions will match their skills against the stats of whatever they're going up against. Succeeding gains you valuable evidence, while failure may lose you council karma or school reputation, both of which you need to keep above zero to avoid a game over. As previously mentioned, there is a traitor in your ranks as well, randomly generated at the start of each game, and she will deliberately sabotage your missions until you can find out who she is and successfully win her loyalty to the point where she turns back to your side. Also, your advisor, Miss Talmage, will occasionally assign you cases that are so important she will expel you if you don't solve them successfully.

Right off the bat, I have to say it: this game is hard. Your cases are on a time limit, and your karma and reputation meters can take severe hits if you fail to solve your mysteries in time. Restoring council karma isn't too difficult, but restoring school reputation can usually only be done on certain types of cases (though you do get some outside of that, like a friendly meter boost at the New Year). It's possible to get a string of just the wrong types of cases and end up running your reputation dangerously low. There are also some plot-based cases that can be rather tricky; one in particular largely depends on the Random Number God smiling down on you and granting you a successful search. Luckily there is an option to pass off the plot cases to Miss Talmage if you get truly stuck (and you'd better exercise that option, because failing a plot case is a game over). Players who have played Hanako's previous title Long Live the Queen may be used to such a large difficulty curve, but others may have a tough time at first.

Your fellow minions are well-characterized, all of them having a lot more to them than it would first appear. Thaïs is easy to write off as a brat, but she's also got a talent for fashion design that rivals her talent for intimidating her fellow students. Mallory seems like a typical ingenue, but isn't quite as innocent as she seems (although she still gets adorably embarrassed at some of the more flirty comments from, say, Althea). Vonne masks her feelings about your previously ended friendship with her by being a standout, courteous sidekick. You get the opportunity to spend time with your minions on the weekends during the first semester, which is how you build their loyalty (a meter that determines how many actions they can perform for you in a row before having to take a break) and discover who the traitor is; it's also how you choose the girl you're going to romance. Or befriend: Mallory and Thaïs have more friendship-based paths since they're minors, and Rowan has a path in which you basically turn her into your personal slave (I like Rowan too much to do it, so no further details there).

The artwork is a pretty big departure from previous Hanako Games titles, but not at all bad. The CGs, in particular, have a kind of watercolor feel to them that looks really nice. I'd maybe say that a few of the sprites look a bit off...Rowan has a tendency to look strangely offended a lot of the time, although that could just be her admittedly rather antisocial personality. And Mallory maybe looks confused a lot. But that one suits her.

The soundtrack is enjoyable enough, but most of the tracks are short, and you may get tired of the constant looping. Still, I have a few favorite pieces of ear candy; the one that plays when a traitor is confessing her terrible sins to you stands out. And without wishing to spoil anything, the track for the final boss fight (yes there is a final boss in this game) is called "Attack of the Vampires", which in context absolutely cracks me up.

Once I got past the somewhat brutal learning curve, I quite enjoyed Black Closet. It's a very different game; I can't say I've really played another one like it. It's part mystery game, part puzzle solving, part romance. The characters are fun; the story is interesting; the gameplay is unique and well thought out. You may have a hard time getting the hang of things at first, but persevere; this game is definitely worth a playthrough.

Black Closet is available on Steam or directly from the developer.

Final verdict: The difficulty curve is possibly high enough to put some players off, but Black Closet combines unique and engaging gameplay with compelling characters and story to make an enjoyable game.

Black Closet is written and developed by Hanako Games and Spiky Caterpillar, and illustrated by Bramasta Aji, x-ren-x, Roman Hodek, and sarana. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated in any way.

Circus Rambles - On shots and thoughts

Drinking and contemplating tonight.

This time I'm gonna split my ramble up into somewhat cohesive sections, JUST BECAUSE.

Content Creators I Support Due to Their Awesomeness: An Explanation

Those few readers I have may have noticed my sidebar called "Content Creators I Support Due to Their Awesomeness". This is meant to list content creators that I love dearly and wish to support in any way possible. This is NOT meant to be saying that only these content creators are good and all the others suck. And some of it is VERY personal:

• You may not know this since the branding isn't on the blog yet, but Black Rabbit Illustrations, the first one on the list, has been helping me create my real website and also designed the graphics that I use on Tumblr and various Internet forums. And also, she and I are blood related! (If you happen to read this I LOVE YOU AND STUFF AND BUY ME A BUS TICKET SO I CAN COME SEE YOU EVEN THOUGH WE ARE POOR.)
• PushingUpRoses and Chiikaboom have both publicly talked about their struggles with mental disorders, and I have multiple, so I sympathize a lot and I think they're both very brave for talking about this; I know the whole thing can be really hard. I support both of them via Patreon and plan to buy as many prints from Chiikaboom as I can afford.
• TotalBiscuit and his wife, Genna Bain, are popular enough that you've probably at least heard of them. TotalBiscuit has been dealing with cancer for quite a while, and just recently had what is supposed to be his last cancer-related surgery. Trying to keep producing content at a pace that, for me, would probably be murderous, while also dealing with illness and chemotherapy and all that shit? That deserves major props.

So if I've added a creator to that sidebar, it is probably because they really deserve it, at least in my eyes, and I encourage you to at least take a look.

Writing Is Hard As Shit

Writing consistently on one project at a time is hard. I have lots of other ideas for commercial projects that I want to make in the future, but I am also firmly committed to proving my worth by getting a few free projects out first. However, The Prince and the Wolf is slow going at the moment, and I don't have any other ideas for free projects besides The Tower. It's all really hard and I'm not used to it yet. But I'm bound and determined and really trying; please believe that.

Upcoming Reviews

Black Closet is expected to launch soon, and I will be doing a review around launch day and promoting it as much as I can, because this is a good game.

I'd also like to play Always Sometimes Monsters, which I picked up on sale for $2.99. But then, I have multiple games I've been meaning to play.

Pizza Is Delicious

......but I've eaten too much of it today.

Good night.

I'm off to muse some and maybe get a few more lines written. I hope.

Circus Rambles - On writing, and a lesbian detective game

Working on The Prince and the Wolf tonight. It is HARD to write this much, honestly. But I've gotten some progress in tonight, and I'm proud of that.

Also, I finally beat Black Closet. God that game is difficult. Amazing design, and many props to Hanako and Spiky. But that. game. is. so. hard. I think I've got more of the hang of it now, so maybe now trying to go through the alternate paths won't take me quite as long as the first playthrough(s) did.

Supposedly the game is close to a demo launch, which will hopefully be closely followed by an exit from beta, and then I can write up my official review. In the meantime, I actually have a draft of a review for The Royal Trap that I need to finish up........Hrm, I guess I need to start on that tonight too.

WRITING IS HARD GUYS.

But I'm having fun with it and I'm getting closer to my first finished game with every letter I type. And that's kind of awesome. :)

Welp, back to the old grind.

Circus Rambles - On things I am doing currently

Purchased the beta for Black Closet! For those who haven't heard, it is about solving mysteries at an all-girls' school as the head of the student council, with the helps of your minions. The review will not be coming until the game has officially launched, but if you want to participate in the beta, you can purchase it for a discounted price on the Hanako Games forums.

First impressions are very good. The game is pretty damn hard; I feel like I really suck at it. And I probably do, considering I haven't beaten it due to game overs. But it's enjoyable and a lot of work clearly went into it. I couldn't code that shit, I'll tell you that much.

What else am I doing? Listening to bad pop music and pondering the happenstances of life. I should maybe be doing more productive things, like writing a review or finding a game to write a review on...Hrm.

For a ramble, I don't have much to say, it would seem. Oh well. Day off tomorrow; maybe I can get some work done.

Circus Reviews - Long Live the Queen

Long Live the Queen is not a new game. It's been out since 2012, and while it's not a household title or anything, I'll gather that a fair number of you have heard of it. But what is new is content - specifically, the recent content patch that added new plotlines, new character faces, new choices, and other fun things. So in honor of the new content, I'm here to take a retro-esque look at Long Live the Queen: a sweet and cheerful-looking princess game in which you try really hard not to get stabbed, shot, blinded, poisoned, or forced into a marriage you don't want.

For those of you who actually haven't heard of the game, I'll give you a brief summary. You play as fourteen-year-old Elodie, Crown Princess of Nova. You are pulled from boarding school after your mother's sudden death, and have a mere forty weeks to prepare for the coronation that will take place on your fifteenth birthday. But forty weeks is a short time to learn everything you need to know to be a ruler, and nothing slows down for you in the meantime. You're responsible for judging criminals, adjusting taxes, commanding the military, and more. You're required to arrange a marriage for yourself, since the throne needs an heir and the crown needs a good political alliance. There are deadly plots going on all around you, and a lot of nobles who may treat you politely, but have their own agendas to fill. Trying to survive your weekly classes is one thing; trying to survive your own assassination is another entirely.

Gameplay is based on skill checks and decision making. You raise your skills via weekly classes, and how well you do is affected by your mood, which you can change through story events or weekend activities. During the story, skill checks are raised against your skills, and whether you pass or fail determines what happens next. Failing a skill check can mean insulting a noble you don't want to upset...or it could mean your untimely demise. You also have choices to make that guide the story, but often times all the choices aren't available to you unless you pass skill checks to unlock extra options. Save for some unlockable outfits that will boost all skills in a subgroup, your weekly classes are the only way to raise your skills, and there's no possible way to be up to par in every skill, which means you have to pick and choose your skills very carefully from day one.

This makes the game very much a trial-and-error experience, one that almost requires a walkthrough if you want to get anywhere on subsequent playthroughs. Random events pop out of the woodwork, like bandits on your way to a birthday party or a very angry noble who wants your head. Skills that you never thought to train will leave you failing a skill check that kills you. The sheer amount of information about the secrets and plots of the nobles around you is overwhelming, and it will take you many runs through the game to learn everything. On one hand, this gives the game a great deal of replayability that doesn't feel like 100% completion grinding. On the other hand, I would almost say that this is a game that requires a walkthrough; without one, you're going to have a rather tough time, and I can see where that would be really frustrating to some players.

The gameplay mechanics themselves mostly work well, although the design of the bedroom menu that you spend a good deal of time on is a bit questionable. There are separate screens for your skills, your mood, and your classes for the week, and sometimes it gets a bit cumbersome to switch between the three, which you'll be doing a lot in order to determine the best classes to pick. There's also another screen for your outfits, and this may be nitpicky, but the indicator for a new outfit that was added with the latest patch just doesn't fit. It looks ridiculously out of place with the art around it, like a sticker that was just kind of slapped on. I recall reading that the indicator was put in to make it more obvious that you had a new outfit, but honestly, it feels like it could have been implemented better.

Character development varies slightly, since different characters will receive different amounts of screen time depending on the route you take, but the game as a whole handles its characters well, especially the leads. One might wonder why a crown princess less than a year away from the age of majority starts out with zero skills in everything, including things she would be expected to know simply for being nobility, but as far as age-appropriate behavior goes Elodie is pretty spot on. And the occasional absentmindedness of Joslyn, her father, might raise some eyebrows, but then you might recall that he just lost his wife (and it's implied that he never fully recovers from this) and is having to deal with his daughter growing up a lot earlier than he expected. Most of the nobles share a dastardly, "I am plotting your downfall" air about them, while the characters closer to Elodie's age, like her cousin and her classmates from boarding school, are more friendly and innocent about the world.

The story is complex; as mentioned previously, it will take several playthroughs to get to everything. Every noble seems to be hiding something, and every family has secrets. You may wind up gaining knowledge of a noble's secrets and then carrying them over to a playthrough where Elodie isn't in a position to do anything about it. And, of course, you have to be careful with what you do with your knowledge...Most people don't like being accused of something, and they may decide to retaliate.

Which brings us to deaths! There are a grand total of eleven deaths, each with its own cute little chibi art rendering. They don't necessarily match with the rest of the art style, but they do add well to the general tone of sweet, sugary despair. And that's not including the non-lethal ways to end your game, such as being dethroned or being forced to flee the country. And that's also not including all the depressing variants your endings can have, such as the outcome of your marriage, whether your father remarries, whether any wars have depleted your army, how the commoners feel about you...The list goes on. There are lots of ways to end your game, and as best I can tell, it's not possible to have a completely happy ending.

It is, however, possible to avoid drowning at sea. Maybe.

The best description I've heard for this game is "Princess Maker meets Game of Thrones". It presents a cheery front at first, but the facade falls away pretty quickly to reveal the starkness of the world your character is preparing to rule. You have a long way to go to be the queen, and an infinity of choices to make on the way. Will you be a kind-hearted ruler? A cruel dictator? Who will you align with, and who will you alienate? And most importantly...can you even live up to your own game's title?

Long Live the Queen is available on Steam or directly from the developer.

Final verdict: A few design flaws and an occasionally frustrating difficulty level don't deter from an absorbing story and intriguing characters; this is an extremely well done entry into the raising sim genre, with plenty of visual novel touches to make it even more interesting.

Long Live the Queen is written and developed by Hanako Games and Spiky Caterpillar, and illustrated by Izumi K. Rukawa, Miles V., Sveva, DesignFera, Jeff Haas, Melkor, Hetiru, and Obsidian Dawn. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated in any way for this review.

Circus Reviews - Sword Daughter

In 2014, Georgina Bensley of Hanako Games announced the start of a new sub-brand of games, Hanabira. These games are produced by Hanako Games but written by someone else. The first of these games is Sword Daughter, a visual novel adaptation of a Choose Your Own Adventure style book written by Rhondi Vilott and published in 1984.

Our protagonist is Tyrna, a young redhead with a fiery temper and an affinity for battle. She trains daily to maintain her skill at swordsmanship and, along with her father and a group of caravaners, is on her way to the Warrior Games to prove her worth. But trouble strikes them on the road - a band of orcs attacks, killing Tyrna's father and kidnapping the caravaners. Tyrna herself barely manages to survive the encounter safely, and is found afterwards by Gavin, an elvin Ranger. He insists that Tyrna isn't safe and should go back home, but Tyrna is consumed by a desire to avenge her father and save the caravaners.

From here, you must choose what Tyrna will do. There are a myriad of choices to make, all of which branch the story off in some way. Having that much power to choose your path is nice, although sometimes the choices tend to lead in unexpected directions, and sometimes different choices will end up having consequences that don't make a lot of sense. For example, at one point you are attacked by a pack of wild dogs and are given a choice between charging them and slipping away before they notice you. You are told that charging the dogs could be dangerous. But fighting back against the dogs works and allows you to continue the game. Trying to slip away from the dogs results in them noticing you anyway, and even though the fight goes roughly the same for the most part, you somehow end up getting thrown from your horse and the game ends with you too injured to continue on your quest.

But the world you're given to explore is quite interesting, despite how easy getting kicked out of it can be; I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more. The art is beautifully done, especially the background art for areas in the mountains, and the sprites look quite nice. There is a noticeable tendency to reuse certain CGs, and some of the repeated ones don't match with all the scenes they're in. It makes me think budget issues, but to be fair, Hanako Games has other, bigger stuff in development right now, and I wouldn't blame them for putting more of their budget towards those bigger projects. (Like the awesome-looking Black Closet!)

The game itself is very short; I got 100% completion in roughly three hours. (I am an extremely fast reader, though.) There are a total of twenty-two endings, and to make finding them easier, the game includes a section map that allows you to reload from any scene in the game and marks any choices you haven't explored. This is a really nice touch that made going back to find new scenes and dialogue options a lot less tedious than it might have been otherwise.

As for the characters, there aren't a whole lot of them outside of Tyrna and Gavin. Tyrna is interesting enough; a girl who wields a sword in this kind of fantasy world is a sharp contrast, though the game doesn't touch on it much. Her glaring flaw is her tendency to ramble on about how she thinks she's falling in love with Gavin...even though she's only known him for a few hours. This coming from a girl who insisted to her father that she was solely focused on swordplay. I guess Gavin is just that pretty. Or maybe it's just that he too says he loves Tyrna and keeps trying to take her home. Again, these two have only known each other for a few hours. But hey, there are all kinds of love...

All in all, we have a good little game here. The writing and art are enough to keep you engaged in the world, and there are plenty of story paths to explore. I might have liked to see a longer storyline, or a little less talk about the sudden wonders of true love. But still, Sword Daughter was an enjoyable experience, and I look forward to seeing what else Hanabira ends up producing.

Sword Daughter is available on Steam or directly from the developer.

Final verdict: Despite some missteps in character personalities and an overall feeling of wanting more from the story, Sword Daughter is an enjoyable experience, and the art and world design in particular do a lot to make the game fun.

Sword Daughter is written by Rhondi Vilott, illustrated by Kim Sokol and Iacocca Khen, and developed by Hanako Games. The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated in any way for this review.