Solipsism Reigns (free, dark fantasy, romance, yandere, fully voiced) [GxB/Otome]

[8Laelia8]

Choose your heroine. Choose your fate...

Become a Student, Mage, Clan Leader, Detective, or Gamer as you discover more about your true destiny.

Travel through various dimensions to seek the truth about yourself and the worlds around you. Your only constant will be your yandere spirit companion, Kuro.

Your guardian spirit, Kuro, takes many forms...

The two of you have been inexplicably tied together for as long as you can remember. His appearance is determined by which route you choose.
Despite being your loyal guardian, certain things tend to press Kuro's buttons, causing him to lose control. As the story unfolds, you will discover that Kuro is not a complete monster, and he has valid reasons for his actions.

Solipsism Reigns (GxB/otome version) is a dark fantasy love story with a nameable protagonist. It's completely free to download on Windows and Mac, and I will endeavour to publish a browser version as well if possible. While the game may seem awfully dark at times, this genuinely is a love story.

It contains roughly 175000 words. Estimated playtime when viewing all content and listening to all voice lines is around 22 hours. The game is fully voiced in English. I've also worked with someone who has created CG art specifically for the GxB version of the game, so it now has a gallery feature to unlock CGs.

You can download the game here: https://melancholy-marionette.itch.io/solipsism-reigns

The Routes:

Screenshots:














Opening Video:

https://youtu.be/Ahl_qAtH198

My partner and I made an original opening theme for the game, this is the accompanying video. I know it's turned out more like a music video than an opening video... I know nothing about video editing x3

Feel free to ask me anything, and I'll try my best to answer :3 Thank you very much for taking the time to look, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

(Thank you to Wudgeous for giving me some ideas on how to redesign the page and synopsis!)

[trepiechick]

Um, how do you start the actual game? I try to start it and a window pops up that says nw.js I can't do anything else with it. Am I missing any necessary software?

[Wudgeous]

Hi! I've only played one route of the GxB version so far, and I was really surprised by the quality and love you've put into the project, considering it's a totally free game. The voice acting is really good as well.

I downloaded it in the first place because I can tell (from what you've written here, in devlogs, and in the comment replies on your itch page) that you really care for the project, and have invested a lot of time into it.

I hope you're not too discouraged by what I'm about to say, or by the lack of responses, but I think this release page you've written doesn't represent the game in a way that does it justice... When I first read this post, I was really confused and couldn't tell what the game was about.
Also, the sprite art of Kuro looks very feminine, so I couldn't tell which character was which. I thought the art of Kuro was supposed to be the "princess," for example, and that the screencaps were showing two girls talking to each other... I thought this was a Yuri game, so it took me several times of re-reading the synopsis to try to even believe this was supposed to be a GxB.

I just feel that if the game were presented more clearly, more people might give it a chance. I've tried rearranging from info and rewriting a synopsis page for you below:

SOLIPSISM REIGNS


Choose your heroine. Choose your fate.




Become a Student, Mage, Clan Leader, Detective, or Gamer as you discover more about your true destiny.


Travel through various dimensions to seek the truth about yourself and the worlds around you. Your only constant will be your yandere spirit companion, KURO...



The two of you have been inexplicably tied together for as long as you can remember. His appearance is determined by which route you choose.
Despite being your loyal guardian, certain things tend to press Kuro's buttons, causing him to lose control. As the story unfolds, you will discover that Kuro is not a complete monster, and he has valid reasons for his actions.



Solipsism Reigns (GxB/otome version) is a dark fantasy love story with a nameable protagonist. It's completely free to download on Windows and Mac, and I will endeavour to publish on Android as well if possible. While the game may seem awfully dark at times, this is genuinely is a love story.

It contains roughly 175000 words. Estimated playtime when viewing all content and listening to all voice lines is around 22 hours.

[8Laelia8]

Um, how do you start the actual game? I try to start it and a window pops up that says nw.js I can't do anything else with it. Am I missing any necessary software?

Firstly, I'm so sorry for my slow reply! I had no idea that anyone had even commented on this thread >.< I didn't get any alerts for some reason, and I only know about it now because it's been pointed out to me by somebody else!

Anyways, sorry to hear you're having the nw.js issue >.< Did you download the mac version? I hear that problem is more common on mac. It's a Tyrano issue and there's not a whole lot about it when I look for support online, but I did find one thread on the Steam support forums regarding it, with a couple of possible fixes to try out. I included the link in this troubleshooting guide I made:

https://melancholy-marionette.itch.io/s ... tial-fixes

Thanks for checking out the game, and I hope you're managing to stay safe! :3

[8Laelia8]

Hi! I've only played one route of the GxB version so far, and I was really surprised by the quality and love you've put into the project, considering it's a totally free game. The voice acting is really good as well.

I downloaded it in the first place because I can tell (from what you've written here, in devlogs, and in the comment replies on your itch page) that you really care for the project, and have invested a lot of time into it.

I hope you're not too discouraged by what I'm about to say, or by the lack of responses...

Hey hey! I'm really sorry for my snail speed reply I had no idea there were even any replies here, otherwise, I would've gotten back to you sooner! Someone kindly pointed it out to me as they figured I probably hadn't realised, haha.

Anyways, thanks so much for checking out the game, and for your advice :3 I'm glad that you could see the love that went into the project, haha. It's pretty much my baby xD There were many times I thought about giving up when it was so much work to do, but I knew I'd get there in the end if I just kept going :3 Pretty much everyone I know thinks I'm insane for not charging for it >.< I really wish I had attempted a Kickstarter or something, but because I lack online presence + totally suck at selling myself when I have pretty much 0 confidence, means a campaign would probably fail, haha.

I'm not discouraged by what you said at all In fact, I pretty much just straight up agree with you! Thank you so much for taking the time to rearrange the look of the page as an example. I do think it's much better and clearer the way you've presented it :3

The page and general description is something I really struggled with. I'm still not happy with the way it currently is. My main problem is, like you say, I have no idea how to really describe the game to people to do it justice >.< I worry that I will say too much, or accidentally spoil things.

I'm not sure what I can do to make the layout of the game page closer to your example, because I'm not great at that sorta thing and I can only use itch.io's page editor in the most basic way, haha. But I do love your version, so I'd like to be able to make the page similar to how you've made it here.

I also completely agree that the art for the various versions of Kuro appears feminine. It's one of the things that really bugs me about the project, but I had no choice in the matter haha. It's because of the sheer amount of sprites required when the story is told across so many different worlds. I don't have the money to pay an artist, and I'm not a great artist myself. Free materials aren't enough to cover the number of sprites I required either. So in the end, my only option was to purchase a sprite making software that allowed me to piece together my own unique sprites from thousands of parts, the problem with that though was, the creator was only designed to make female sprites >.<" I couldn't find anything that would allow me to make all the sprites I needed, both male, and female, so I had to try and make the different versions of Kuro look as masculine as possible, despite them technically being made from female parts T_T haha. So yeah, it wasn't a design choice, it was because it was my only choice x3

Again though, thank you so much for making that. I don't know when I'll get the time, but I definitely want to try and edit the page to use your example! I really appreciate that you took the time to point out + made the effort to show me a way to fix the issue/improve things :3 Thanks again, stay safe!