That Bitter Taste [BxB, Romance/Horror, 16+ | YAOI JAM 2016]

[Avior]

THAT BITTER TASTE
Yaoi Jam 2016 Entry
Dev period: June 1st-Aug 7th, 2016

UPDATE: The game is complete! You can download it now on itch.io!

-- WARNING --
While this game does not contain any explicit sexual content, it does contain many mature themes, including graphic depictions of death, gore, and cannibalism. It is recommended for those over 16.

-- Plot --
Lane’s daily life as a mortician is busy; there’s always new “guests” to receive into the morgue, bodies to cremate and embalm, funerals to arrange, distraught family members to comfort... at the end of the day, he just wants to sit down with his television and a drink.

Unfortunately, things are never quite as easy as that. Lane is sick, and not in any particularly simple way; he has an otherwise unheard of condition, one that causes his body to be deficient in certain proteins only found in human flesh. To put it gently... his choice of profession was no coincidence.

His only hope is an old legend that he has held onto throughout his life: The one who loves you can save you, if only you can receive them. He doesn’t know where it came from, or what it means, but it may prove to be a greater burden than he can afford to bear...

-- Characters --

Lane - Protagonist
A man in his late twenties, Lane works as a mortician and is often misunderstood because of his excessively dry humor.


Parker – Love Interest #1
A friend of Lane’s; they met when they were both in college and have dated off and on since then. He's kind but has a weak constitution.


Thomas – Love Interest #2
He meets Lane at the bar one night. He's a little annoying, but endearing somehow. It seems he knows something he shouldn't...

-- Features --
-~25,000 words
-2 love interests
-10 total endings (four endings per love interest, plus two epilogue endings)

-- Links --
Twitter
Tumblr

-- Notes --
I was out of town for the first week of Yaoi Jam, but the ball is rolling now! I’ll be updating this thread periodically, but if you want more frequent updates, you can follow me on Twitter or Tumblr (links above)! Thanks for looking!

[BáiYù]

"You are what you eat so love what you eat - when you're surrounded by dead bodies all day, sometimes you need some life in ya..."

Can't wait to eat the booty like groceries, 10/10 game would play again and it isn't even done yet.

[MoonByte]

That plot sounds so intriguing o__o
My head instantly went with how the endings could vary depending on how he tries to interpret that legend (including dark endings of eating the lover).
Will definitely watch over this progress, sounds very interesting.

[Avior]

"You are what you eat so love what you eat - when you're surrounded by dead bodies all day, sometimes you need some life in ya..."
Can't wait to eat the booty like groceries, 10/10 game would play again and it isn't even done yet.

I'm planning a special joke for you for this, hopefully I'll have time to put it in the game. ;^)

That plot sounds so intriguing o__o
My head instantly went with how the endings could vary depending on how he tries to interpret that legend (including dark endings of eating the lover).
Will definitely watch over this progress, sounds very interesting.

Thank you so much! I've certainly got some dark ends planned, though I have no idea what the good ends are going to look like at this point. We'll see how it goes. ;D

[Avior]

Hey everyone! I completely forgot to update this thread during development. OTL

But, the game is complete now! You can download it on itch.io: https://avior.itch.io/that-bitter-taste

I hope you guys enjoy it! (OP has been edited to include link and more info/pictures).

[ilyilaice]

Really enjoyed this game. I was particularly amazed at how sweet the romance was and how witty the dialogue was despite the grim subject matter. I managed to achieve all the endings, but I didn't see the epilogues. I wonder if I've been inadvertently skipping them....

My favorite character was Parker. He seems to be the best friend/boyfriend a cannibal can ever hope to have. His face really reminds me of Cillian Murphy. I love Parker's and Lane's post-film/TV series dialogue. Their personalities really shone. I laughed and smiled a lot as I read.

On the other hand, Thomas didn't appeal to me at all. He's pushy and intrusive, bordering on stalkerish. The romance between them was bordering on unbelievable. It didn't seem as if Lane liked him platonically, let alone romantically. Well, maybe he appeals to people who prefer bad boy types, I don't know....

The music wasn't bad, but I wish there was more of it. There were some stretches of awkward silence.

The name "Lane" and "Luna" are rather similar. It was a bit hard to distinguish their names at certain points, especially since I tend to speed-read. And I kept expecting Luna to have a bigger role since her name is cool.

All in all, stellar game. Thanks for making it. Really glad I got to play it.

[Avior]

Really enjoyed this game. I was particularly amazed at how sweet the romance was and how witty the dialogue was despite the grim subject matter. I managed to achieve all the endings, but I didn't see the epilogues. I wonder if I've been inadvertently skipping them....

My favorite character was Parker. He seems to be the best friend/boyfriend a cannibal can ever hope to have. His face really reminds me of Cillian Murphy. I love Parker's and Lane's post-film/TV series dialogue. Their personalities really shone. I laughed and smiled a lot as I read.

On the other hand, Thomas didn't appeal to me at all. He's pushy and intrusive, bordering on stalkerish. The romance between them was bordering on unbelievable. It didn't seem as if Lane liked him platonically, let alone romantically. Well, maybe he appeals to people who prefer bad boy types, I don't know....

The music wasn't bad, but I wish there was more of it. There were some stretches of awkward silence.

The name "Lane" and "Luna" are rather similar. It was a bit hard to distinguish their names at certain points, especially since I tend to speed-read. And I kept expecting Luna to have a bigger role since her name is cool.

All in all, stellar game. Thanks for making it. Really glad I got to play it.

Hi there! Sorry for the late reply, I just saw this.

Thank you so much for leaving a comment, I'm glad you enjoyed the game overall! You can get the epilogues by starting the game over after getting all the bad ends; you should see a new option appear at the branch point.

Re:Thomas; that's probably the most common critique I've received about this game, and honestly I can't disagree with you. I meant for him to be a little pushy

since he shares some history with Lane and Lane doesn't remember it,

but in the end I think I overdid it and just made him very unlikeable. It's something I didn't catch before release since I was working right up to the last second of the jam, and I would still like to do a v2 of sorts and rework his route to (hopefully) improve him and his plotline. It's something I'll probably look at doing in April/May, after NaNoReNo ends!

I'm still getting the hang of music choices for my games (this one was particularly challenging, since it's not like people make romantic cannibal music, haha), so hopefully I'll get better with that as time goes on. And honestly I kind of picked Luna's name at random, so I didn't consider that it's too close to Lane's, whoops.

But thank you again for giving the game and try and leaving me your honest opinions! It's really helpful!