Pink (NaNoWinter2015...?) -2 Hour VN-

[VAPMichaelaLaws]

Pink. I like the color pink. It's simple, yet can be elegant or energetic. It can be whatever it wanted to be. I think if I was a color, I would be pink.

DOWNLOAD HERE (I promise, it's not what you think)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/5ucgz ... .0-all.zip

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Writer's Note:
I had to get this short story out of my system when I saw the theme for NaNoWinter 2015. I am very serious when I say this. I did not care what it took; I needed to just spit it out of my brain so I could work on something else. I'm sorry that it's short.
Now, you're probably looking at this and going "What the HELL is this about?"
Good.
Read it and find out.
I promise it's not what it looks like at first glance.
I apologize to anyone this offends or if this hits anyone too hard.
Also, there is no music nor are there no sprites, just like with My Lady.
-Michaela Laws

[Angie]

Surely gonna check this out! MyLady was a blast.

I think if you were to work on something really longer and such, you would make a masterpiece. But, for now, I'm gonna check out Pink!

[ebi-hime]

Aah... And now I have read the word 'pink' so much, it doesn't even feel like a real word anymore XD
And I just realised... I was almost entirely dressed in pink whilst reading this myself, haha XD What a coincidence o:

Anyway, onto the story...

I think I caught on that the whole thing was a metaphor for, um, 'assigned sex' (I guess?) and gender presentation pretty early on. It was fairly clear with the 'scandalous' scene where one girl(?) in the therapy class claims she wants to be blue, and everybody is shocked - so maybe it didn't need to be spelled out so clearly at the end? But having the main character say outright 'I want to be a boy' ensures that most people are going to understand the message, and makes the ending more powerful, where the narrator is... conditioned, I guess, into changing his mind?
(Using gendered pronouns to write about a story all on gender presentation is hard... Should I refer to the MC as male or female? Haha... I guess I'll go with male...)

The writing was pretty good - I liked the narrator's gradual understanding of his own identity, and then how the story loops back on itself at the end - it feels very cylical, and also... kind of depressing. Like, 'there is no hope for this person'. The ending especially was good.

Um, I think tenses got mixed together sometimes, though. For example, 'I am joined by two other girls, who were just as happy as I was'. I think that should be 'I am joined by two other girls, who are just as happy as I am' - if you want to have the whole story told in present tense.

And I feel the story could have used some music and SFX - but maybe it isn't necessary, given it's such a short project. The text is very powerful on its own anyway. And since it's a primarily text-based game, without sprites, maybe it would make more sense to format the text in an NVL box, and let it cover up more of the screen, then put it in a small textbox at the bottom.
But, again, since it's a short project, it's understandable you wouldn't want to mess around with things like this n_n;;

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot! Good job ^_^;;

[Haze]

Well, this was interesting. Here are my thoughts:

Overall, this wasn't bad. Like ebi-hime, I caught on to the metaphor of gender identity after the girl talked about liking blue. However, I feel like everything progressed a bit too quickly. The protag was talking about liking blue, and she went to the blue room, and the next thing I knew she was screaming "I want to be a boy!". There was definitely not enough buildup to that moment; it seemed like the story went from a subtle metaphor to an in-your-face-screaming-at-you message. Why not have her say "I want to be blue!" and then when people tell her she can't because she must be pink, she could scream "I don't like pink! I hate it!" or something, which also would have reference the "girls can't be blue" element of the story? Again, the story progress a little bit too quickly after going to the blue room. If it wasn't for that, I would've liked it more.

Of course, this is not to say I didn't like it at all. In fact, I think this is a pretty good short story, and not bad for being made in such a short time. The drink that tastes like peaches that the protag gets both before and after being "hospitalized"... does it force her to be more feminine? That's what I took away from those parts, and it really creeped me out, especially since she had been drinking it before being "hospitalized"! Also, using the same words at the beginning and the end was a great idea; it really made the story hit home.

Like ebi-hime, I think using NVL could have been a bit better, since there weren't any sprites, and that a couple of small sound effects, like a bell when the lady rings the bell in the story, could have made a huge difference. Unlike ebi-hime, though, I feel like the protag is a girl who wants to be male. Which one of us is right...? Or perhaps the protag's gender is open to interpretation?

One other thing: were you inspired by the song "Little Game" by Benny, perchance? (I would link it, but the link would show through the spoiler tag and, well, spoil people who what your game is about. Don't want to do that! XD)