'Of Love and You' Complete

[Applegate]

"Do you love me?"

An innocuous question asked from friend to friend, and its response is a resounding, "No." Rather than sink into despair, the narrator grins and bears with it.

'Of Love and You' is a story that is about love, and simultaneously it is not about love. It is about love, as the story focuses on the relationship between the narrator and his best friend, Dewi. A relation that, the narrator claims, is entirely based on a platonic and mutual liking of each other. A relation that, viewed from outside, may be construed as a very close and loving bond.

Simultaneously, it is not of love - love in prose tends to be explosive and full of passion. Love isn't a word, it's an experience which you actively enjoy. 'Of Love and You' has no explosive and passionate love to be enjoyed, and it does not in fact even include any professions of love. Indeed, it only talks about the impossibility of love between people who aren't family.

Yet it is a love story.

The story is about 6,400 words in length, providing a reasonable reading time - its length exceeds that of my previous work 'Nice Day', and I hope it manages to meet or exceed the enjoyment people had from reading my previous work. 'Of Love and' was released as a three instalments series here before; if you have read those and liked them, please consider giving 'Of Love and You' a read, as it compiles the three instalments and adds a conclusion to the story, as well as a new scene between parts two and three.

'Of Love and You' can be downloaded from my web site here for Windows and a combined Windows/Mac/Linux distribution. It is licensed under Creative Commons, the details of which can be read here or in the licence.txt file included in the distributions.

Credits
Artwork: lordcloudx
Backgrounds: Flickr photographers, refer to in-game notes for names
Music: Marc Conrad Tabula (http://marc.mctabula.com/)

[Celestine]

Is this a remake of your first one?

[Applegate]

'Of Love and' was released as a three instalments series here before; if you have read those and liked them, please consider giving 'Of Love and You' a read, as it compiles the three instalments and adds a conclusion to the story, as well as a new scene between parts two and three.

I... suppose you could say so, in a way!

[marc]

I just played through and enjoyed it thoroughly. Dewi is indeed a tough nut to crack, but I see where she is coming from. Thank you so much for letting me be part of this project. It was a pleasure to compose for it.

- Marc

[Applegate]

Thank you so much for letting me be part of this project. It was a pleasure to compose for it.

I'd moreso thank you for wanting to be part of it, hahaha! Similarly I am glad you enjoyed it in the end - I would feel right bad if the composer was let down by the final product.

[Celestine]

Cool I'm going to re-read it then.

I'm so glad you put a conclusion to this story though. Now I can know what really happened to them.

[Applegate]

I'm so glad you put a conclusion to this story though. Now I can know what really happened to them.

D: I... hope the ending won't be too disappointing, then! Someone actually remarked the ending disappointed them as

it was not a 'happy' ending by virtue of lacking confessions of love, and I really am interested in how people experience the ending to this.

In other news, someone added 'Of Love and You' to the Visual Novel database, and I'd be very obliged if those who have an account there and have read this would leave some kind of vote there so I know generally how well received this was. There's probably some kind of taboo on asking, but I am curious.

[CheeryMoya]

So I never played any of the previous games and just downloaded this directly. Certainly something different, but that's not a bad thing in this case.

You already know about how I feel about the narration and dialogue. Think of it as lemonade and chocolate milk; they're good on their own, but together they don't mix well at all. Narration alone would have been good, dialogue alone would have been good, but the two together are clunky. Like water and oil, there was little to no meshing with clear distinctions that ruined the flow of the KN. There were some lines of narration that managed to augment the dialogue, but they were far and few.
As for the story, there really was no plot XD This is pretty much the epitome of slice of life. Some people can find it boring, while others will find it genuinely interesting in terms of the interactions that go on between the characters. I fall into the latter, and I'm enamored by Dewi's multi-layered personality.

She's leading on our nameless protag and egging him on to do something, and if he even tries she'll just sock him in the arm >_> She just has too much fun breaking hearts, and something about that makes people like the nameless hero go back to her all the time. Masochism, here we go! The ending didn't feel like much of an ending, but it kinda looped back to the beginning with all the bubble blowing and whatnot. Everything went in a full circle, and while nothing really happened, I don't think the protag or Dewi felt like their time was wasted.

It certainly didn't feel like a waste of time reading it for me :3

The art was okay, but the NVL mode covered up Dewi's sprite :C A lot of times you would say something like "Dewi crossed her arms" when her sprite shows her putting a hand on her hip instead >_> A minor detail, but still a disparity. Meanwhile, the music was very nice and, even after looping several times, it never got annoying for me.

Overall an interesting read, something to pick up when you're in the mood to really think about the meaning of the word "love." In other words, me gusta c:

[Applegate]

So I never played any of the previous games and just downloaded this directly.

This is really just a collection of the previous ones; not having read them may be more beneficial since you won't have to read parts you've already read, even if there are a few changes here and there.

I'd appreciate if you could further explain in what way the narration and the dialogue didn't "mix well"; if it went right at some parts, then hopefully it'll be easy to make the distinction.

There was no plot indeed, an oversight I realised afterwards and slap myself over for not "fixing" that. The idea of the full-circle is that

the question asked initially, of whether Dewi loves him, is answered. I feel that the answer is clearer by the end than by the start, and in my hastiness of writing had forgotten that that alone does not make for a plot. The lack of conflict resolution is, I am aware, a major weakness.

I had to make do with the tools I had, and the sprites drawn didn't account for the crossing of one's arms, though I considered it an important part of her character.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, and doubly glad you decided to tell me about it and what you felt were the improvable parts of the story/game? How does one refer to VNs? In any case, thanks!

[CheeryMoya]

I'd appreciate if you could further explain in what way the narration and the dialogue didn't "mix well"; if it went right at some parts, then hopefully it'll be easy to make the distinction.

Ach, you ask for too much! I shall explain, dear sir.

You see, the narration and dialogue just echos each other, saying the same things in the same line of text. Redundancy isn't so nice when it's prevalent through the whole piece. It's like when Dewi punches our narrator and he complains about it every single time. Yes, I know your arm is sore. Now stop wailing about it or I'll make your other arm match. Then there are times when the narrator describes how the punch was. It was playful? I didn't know that before, but now I do. The difference is that a description of the action was something useful to the reader, while hammering in the detail of "Dewi's punch makes me cry" continuously doesn't make me have any new revelations about anything.