Looking Up at the Earth [Short,Sad][Free]

[JonFawkes]

Looking Up at the Earth is a short visual novel made by myself and my friend Kris Chuback. A short, bittersweet tale about two souls living on the moon, and how their own shyness kept them apart until the end.

Linear novel, no branches, about 4,000 words.

Download from itch.io (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Made in a month along the same guidelines as NaNoRenO. We spent November making it because I was going to be extremely occupied in March, but I still wanted to try this. This was my first visual novel and I had a lot of fun and learned a lot.

Hope you enjoy, I look forward to any feedback.

[Kokoro Hane]

Hello there!

I just wanted to tell you that I just played your visual novel and loved it. It's really good for a first project. Honestly though, I would call this a Kinetic novel rather than linear, as linear VNs tend to have choices but they don't branch--just have one ending, whilst Kinetic has no choices--like this one. But enough with small technical nitpicks, here is my review!

So we don't spoil anyone....

This made me cry. Legitimately, I cried. It really was a bittersweet story. The optimistic way it began was cute, especially when Leonard met Pat, it was a cute scene. And then he got all sour when we fast forward a year later. At first, I thought he became an asshole overtime simply as the fun of being on the moon wore off, and I felt bad for how he treated Pat. Then when the reveal of their dire situation came to be, the story got so much more intense. It was really sad how at the end they felt like they wasted all that time, and only got together in their final moments. It also sucked nobody sent help to the Moon Colony, considering.

It was heartstopping as they looked up at the Earth, and you hear everything power down and the screen goes black as the end approaches. But I loved the final line "at least we're not alone". Bittersweet it was, but that was just so beautiful and warm.

Overall, I really loved this story. I also loved the maid bot, Lucy--her personality was fun! Artwork was pleasing to look at and I enjoyed that the sprites had multiple poses. The backgrounds were also very pleasing to look at. The chosen music fit the atmosphere well. I did spot a couple typos and near the end, a line Leo said had Pat's variable, but aside from that, this was a lovely piece that I thoroughly enjoyed and it was an amazing first VN. I hope to see more from you in the future ^^

[JonFawkes]

Thank you for your thoughtful review! It was a great learning experience, I had a lot of fun making it, and I hope to try something more ambitious soon