Characters:
Naomi - the "girl with a monotonous voice" speaks to people as if she was using a headset and working in a call center. Firmly believing in the existence of paranormal phenomena, she created a school club dedicated to the study of Parapsychology. As the club record was refused by the student council (because Parapsychology is not considered an art or a science), she simply removed the prefix of the word, renaming her club as Psychology Club.
Masaru - Bad boy and leader of a trio known as "The Ugly, the Bad and the Worst." He hates school and has an obsession in life: to threaten, humiliate and harm the best student in school, to try to take advantage of his intelligence when dealing with tests and homeworks.
Isamu - "The little crawling worm with no hint of self-respect" is a young man full of contradictions, beginning with his own appearance: he hates it when someone says that he "looks like a girl." He claims to be heterosexual, but he is so shy that he never had a girlfriend or even a simple friendship with a girl. In fact, he simply has no friends at all at school (at least until the day he meets a mysterious girl which, apparently, was able to read his mind). He is a highly intelligent guy, and this has the side effect that, while he is praised by teachers and presented by them as an "exemplary student", he is seen by his colleagues as a snobbish person, which arouses feelings of dislike, envy and hatred. Isamu does not believe in the supernatural. He defines Science as "light" and Superstition as "darkness." He believes that every phenomenon has a logical explanation, and that the "light" must always prevail.
Reiko - A girl somewhat mysterious. Like Isamu, she has no friends at school. People avoid her because she is reputed to "attract bad luck." Reiko not only believe in the supernatural, she also believes she lives in a haunted house along with her mother, who suffered a stroke and never could walk or speak again. Reiko does not know, but she is one of the "objects of study" of the club created by Naomi. Reiko has a tragic past, in which a mysterious event traumatized her and changed the way she interacts with people. For some reason, from a certain point of her life, she began to avoid starting relationship with other persons, especially with men. However, for another mysterious reason, she became interested in Isamu when their paths accidentally crossed. Like Isamu, Reiko has a contradictory personality. Despite being frightened by the strange phenomena that surround her, her only pastime is to read horror stories, especially the comics created by the japanese master Junji Ito.
Yoko - A girl of a strong personality who, despite living in a society of rigid morality, has no problems assuming her homosexuality. Like Masaru, she is in school only because the law requires it. And she also learns that a good way to improve her grades (and thus get rid of mandatory studies) is to try to harass Isamu to take advantage of his intelligence.
Hanako - This is the name of two characters that affect the whole story, although they doesn't appear directly. The first is a legendary ghost that haunts girl's toilets in schools (a popular urban legend in Japan: Toire No Hanako or "Hanako of the Toilet"). The second is a deceased person, linked to the past of Reiko. This person is the ghost which supposedly accompanies Reiko, and that apparently haunts the house where she lives.
The plot:
The location is Sapporo City, Hokkaido. The plot revolves around the natural conflict between the characters and their convictions. Naomi, who believes that the paranormal can be investigated using scientific methods, acts as a bridge between the worlds of Isamu (who is obsessed with a scientific worldview) and Reiko (whose life is strongly influenced by her superstitious view of all the things around her). Thus, the narrative is mainly about the way the relationship between Isamu and Reiko develops and how these two characters affect each other. After all, their personalities are opposite or complementary? This story could have as well been titled "Light and Shadow." The sub-title "A Story about Fear" refers to a series of secondary themes which are presented: what is fear? What are its origins and what is it for? Is it possible to live without fear of anything? How is fear used as an instrument of domination by people and institutions? Of course the narrative doesn't attempt to answer all these questions, but it simply tries to make people think a little about them.
The narrative form:
Toire No Hanako is a kinetik novel. One important thing to notice is that I am not using any sprites in the narrative. Detailed backgrounds with studied "camera angles" are used to show the scenes according to the point of view of a particular character, or to move us viewers "outside of the scene", putting ourselves in the role of a "witness" of the events. This way, the narrative form departs from the traditional connection between VN and the techniques of anime and video games, and gets closer to the narrative techniques of comic books (not manga in this case, but gekiga).
Or, if you prefer, the narrative form is similar to a movie storyboard.
Feedback:
At the end of this post you will find links to the complete story (as I want it to be a fully multilanguage VN, I will wait for the upcoming release of Ren'Py 6.15 to compile the "official" version 1.0. But the VN is fully functional, as it is, and can be read in English or in Portuguese, except the title screens and credits, that are currently in English, only). If you are interested in playing it, I am very interested in any feedback.
– Language: it is always a great challenge to write a long narrative without being a native speaker of the language used. I have taken care to remove nearly all grammatical/typographical errors, but the writing style in the English version may seem strange, sometimes.
Removed the download links, as this game has been moved to the Demos and Beta Testing section.
Good luck getting it all done.
