Angela DeMille

Penlight - A visual novel where you hypnotize cute girls and feel bad about it

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itch.io

Hello, Tumblr!

This is something I’ve been working hard on since 2018, and I thought it would be a good time to share it with you fine folks on tumblr~

With the end of his high school career approaching, Kyou Koyama is a friendless and troubled young man. However, having recently taken on a new interest, he supposes he can salvage his relationships with his classmates using the power of suggestion. With the help of a modified penlight of his own design, he sets out the change his world, one class rep at a time...

Penlight is a visual novel set in a high-school with a heavy emphasis on hypnosis, mind control and basic morality. While still in development, the current release is fully playable from start to finish with over 400,000 words, 180 CGs and more than thirty possible endings. It should be noted that all characters featured in the game are in their senior year of high school and are over 18 years of age. Content warning: Occasional nudity, bad language, sexual themes, psychological horror, ethical ickyness This game is classed as NSFW on Patreon and itch.io although to be honest I do not expect the content to merit more than a PEGI 16/ ESRB M were it rated.  There are no sexually-explicit scenes, but as noted some nudity is present. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Penlight Public Release 0.1649.1: Nozomi Switch Path Continuation

Hello everyone!

This month's update continues my slow crawl towards finishing one of the Nozomi Switch story paths. This time we have one more scene for the second path (from the "Let's give you a trigger" choice). I think you'll find where it goes a little interesting? And I reckon there's an opportunity for some good CG art to come from it in next month's update!

I also had one new CG commissioned; a proper one this time! It appears on the Redemption "Spiral" path, where Kyou gives in to temptation and uses his penlight on Akiko, then confronts her later at a critical moment. I like it, if only because it's set somewhere other than Kyou's living room which we've been seeing way too much of again :p

Anyway, that's it for now! For next time, I'll either finally work through my creative block and write one of these Switch paths towards a proper conclusion or I'll change focus to one of the (actually very few!) other unwritten paths I feel a bit more confident about doing. Hope to see you then!

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What's New

WRITING: The second path of the Switch storyline has now been written up to near the end of day 5

ART: New CG added to the Redemption storyline's Spiral story path

Word count is now around 492,500

LOCALISATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

More and more narrations of the girls (and Akemi Atsuko-san) shmues'ing and Kyou feeling too awk and left out read to me the way high school went, with hard-won acquaintances often being the girls¹. I'll leave the part about Kyou seeming like a creep or the other archetypes of Quiet Kid on the table and I'll yield back to you to expand on this.

¹ We have since made our insta bio read "The boy best friend from high school, who by convention should be gay. Turns out she was!"

Oh no, no one in Penlight is written as trans, closeted or otherwise. I think if I had written Kyou as such I would've dropped a few more hints in the text, especially since as the protagonist we can read his internal monologues. He definitely would've had something more to think about in that scene where Risa teases him in the karaoke booth :D

Penlight Public Release 0.1648.1: Nozomi Switch Path Continuation & CG Gallery Update

Hello, everyone!

The CG Gallery gets another improvement in this month's release, with the addition of a new filter feature! Now, instead of navigating the over 230 entries you'll be able to include or exclude CGs featuring Penlight's cast members to help you find whatever you were looking for. Many thanks to Waldo for putting in the code for this!

As for the writing... yeah, still hitting a wall with the latest Switch storyline on Nozomi's route I'm sorry to say. The big scene I had planned for it is missing a key ingredient that I still haven't nailed down and it's seriously doing my head in now. So for a slight change of pace I eventually took a break on that and tried writing the other choice of the story; the one where Kyou jumps straight into their new arrangement instead of trying to talk it through. I've made some progress there and got an idea for where to take the story, but ran out of time before I could actually implement it so it's going to end on a bit of a tease until I can work on it some more.

Artwise I got a day version of Nozomi's generic CG so I could add to last month's illustrated scene, so that whole part is now CG art. It's not much, but we'll have something more substantial next month if I can get one of these big scenes written properly.

Anyway, that's all for this update! The Switch storyline has been an especially challenging one to write, but I'll keep at it~

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What's New

WRITING: The new Nozomi "Switch" story path script has now been written up to the start of day 7

WRITING: The second path of the Switch storyline has now been written up to the middle of day 5

ART: A short CG sequence was added to the "Truth cola" scene in Nozomi's Switch storyline

UI: New feature added to the CG gallery, allowing you to filter the CGs featuring selected characters (Thanks Waldo!)

Word count is now around 490,500

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

May I nab a script and adapt the induction for live irl use? (if you lay claim to the synthesis of even-odd and confusion) (I’ll trade a story of another confusion induction a friend of mine wrote…!)

Happy you liked it! Sayori's storylines tend to be the ones I'm most proud of, and that confusion induction is hands down my favourite of the ones I've written~

Penlight Public Release 0.1647.1: Nozomi Switch CG Addition

Hello, everyone!

Not a lot to say this month to be honest. This new update includes a new CG for the Nozomi's ongoing Switch storyline and a minor advancement on the script from last time, and that's about it? ^^;

I'm disappointed I couldn't get more done, but I'm not giving up on this storyline just yet. With any luck I'll have something more substantial to show off next time...

PS. The flowchart guide is once again the 0.1645.1 version as there's been no need to update it.

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Get this public release for free via my SubscribeStar, Patreon or Itch.io pages!

What's New

WRITING: The new Nozomi "Switch" story path script has now been written up to the start of day 7

CG: One new CG added, taking place during the Nozomi Switch storyline

Word count is now around 488,500

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Public Release 0.1646.1: Nozomi Switch Storyline Additions

Hello, everyone~

For this month, I spent my time writing the previously outlined scenes from Nozomi's Switch storyline into completed script. This means we now have two new fun scenes with Nozomi and Kyou amid their penlight-assisted shenanigans and we'll be seeing even more from them next time~

That long-awaited new CG is also implemented in the big scene we had last time too! I hope it was worth the wait, and with the new scenes done I should be able get at least one new illustration finished in time for the next release.

Please enjoy the release, and look forward to more from this storyline real soon!

PS. No new guide this month, as despite the additions it doesn't change anything on that front.

Download

Get this public release for free via my SubscribeStar, Patreon or Itch.io pages!

What's New

WRITING: The new Nozomi "Switch" story path has now been fully scripted up to day 6 for one of the choices

CG: One new CG added, taking place during the Nozomi Switch storyline

Word count is now around 488,000

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Public Release 0.1645.1: Nozomi Switch Storyline Additions

Hello, everyone!

This release sees me starting my work on the new Switch storyline in earnest! As a reminder, this is the story path that occurrs during Nozomi's route where Nozomi is given the penlight and once she's had some fun, the pair of them agree to take turns with it from then on.

What I have so far is a bit patchy, and I had to leave a spot unfinished mid-scene where I got blocked, but the script has been written up to a big new scene that was pretty fun to write and hopefully fun to read~

I had also hoped to include a CG for that scene, but regrettably my artist wasn't able to produce the work in time for this update, so that'll be next month ^^;

In addition, a number of improvements have been made to the CG gallery that was begun in last month's release. Almost all of the CGs are working with the new code now, and the numerous missing file errors in the Android version of the game should be fixed now so it should actually deliver on the promise of greater ease of use for mobile users!

And that's all I have to report this time. But with the groundwork laid, we should see a fair bit more development for this storyline real soon. See you then~

Download

Get this public release for free via my SubscribeStar, Patreon or Itch.io pages!

What's New

WRITING: The new Nozomi "Switch" story path has been (mostly) written up to day 6 for one of the choices

UI: One more fix to the CG Gallery

Word count is now around 485,500

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Penlight Public Release 0.1643.1: CG Gallery Update and Take Turns Teaser

Hello, everyone! Hope y'all had a good Christmas and New Year~

For this update I made some big bold decisions! First of all, and I think it's important to start with this, this release sees a big engine upgrade. Penlight is on Ren'Py 8 now, which I needed to run some new script. This has caused a few problems in this release for Android users as some CG images don't load correctly. I'm hoping to have these fixed by next month. The disruption should be worth it though, and I'll get into why in a bit.

First though, I want to talk about the "Take Turns" story path. Those who have been following Penlight over the years will know I'm talking about the part in Nozomi's route where Kyou hands the penlight to her, and after she's had her fun, proposes the two of them take turns using it on each other. Agreeing takes us on a new story route (which I'll probably dub the "switch" route) that I'd seriously thought about scrapping for a long time. It felt like too much of a challenge to take on, so maybe it's unwise of me to attempt it. But it's not like I had any stellar ideas for the other unwritten routes at this time so what the hell, let's take a crack at it :D

There isn't a whole lot there at the moment, just the bare foundations, but I'm going to build on it as my first project of 2026 so I hope you look forward to what comes of this!

New art news is pretty thin on the ground, as I didn't have any new scenes that really merited an illustration. Still, I did add some art assets to illustrate a part of Sayori's Doll story path that occurs on Sunday where she and Kyou are in her room for the first time. I'm banking on the new Switch story to give us some more opportunities for compelling artwork, so that's all the more motivation to move that story forward~

And finally, we come to the reason for that engine upgrade. See, my translator Waldo surprised me by cooking up some new script for Penlight's CG gallery! This adds some new functionality to the viewing experience that allows one to navigate back and forth between the images at will and back out of a CG set early. It's not fully implemented yet, but once it's finished (and bug-free) it should be a real QoL boost for mobile users in particular. You'll be able to tell which CGs have the new functionality by the way they pop when you cursor over them, so see what you think!

Oh and before I forget, I also did a bit of work to round off the work I was doing on Devotion last month. Anyway, please enjoy the new update, and check in with me next month where I'm hoping to have made some decent progress on the Switch path~

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What's New

WRITING: Updated the second thoughts ending for the Villainous Devotion storyline to include the choice where Kyou considers making Nozomi his girlfriend

WRITING: Wrote a short conclusion for the Villainous Devotion "second thoughts" sub-path

WRITING: First parts written for Nozomi's "Take Turns" (Switch) story path

ART: New CG art added for Sayori's Doll storyline on day 7

CODE: Updated Renpy version to 8.5.0

UI: Added a navigation feature to some of the CGs in the image gallery (thanks Waldo!)

Word count is now around 480,000

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Some typo and grammar corrections

Known Issues

Penlight Public Release 0.1642.1: 2.5 Short Story Path Additions

Hello, everyone!

I've been working on something of a grab-bag this time, with a bunch of smaller pieces of writing that closes off several short story paths that have been left hanging for many years.

Which ones? Well first, there's the one in Hiroko's Gullible storyline, where Kyou stops messing with Hiroko but commits to making sure she keeps her word. This one basically loops into the story path where he keeps pranking her with some minor script changes. The second is for the Redemption storyline, on the Spiral subpath where Kyou gives into temptation and uses the penlight on Akiko. The new ending occurs when Kyou decides to leave Akiko alone during the critical moment near the end.

Finally, there's an ending partially written for the Villainous Devotion storyline. This one is found when Kyou pursues Nozomi through manipulating her friends right up to the point of victory, intending to do the exact same thing to her only to change his mind at the last second. It's just missing an epilogue, which I'll get to in the next update.

Oh, and there's the new art too! We have some new illustrations for both the story paths written last month, starting with an extention to the CG sequence that was already made for Nozomi's Trance storyline (the "Become mindless for me" path). The other is on Sayori's Alter storyline, where Kyou has Sayori leave his house as herself only to change her back to her alter during an argument they have a little later.

If you're confused about where to find any of the new writing, please refer to the flowchart guide linked below where all the new stuff is marked in green.

It does feel good to close off a few more of these outstanding story paths~ Anyway, hope you all have a great holiday season, and I'll be back in the new year with more updates :)

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What's New

WRITING: Wrote the "Make sure she keeps her promise" choice that occurs during Hiroko's Gullible storyline to be a variant of a previously-written story path

WRITING: New ending written for the Redemption storyline: "Leave her alone"

WRITING: New scene written for the Villainous Devotion storyline, where Kyou is about to make Nozomi his minion but changes his mind at the last moment

ART: New CG added for the latest sub-path of Nozomi's Trance storyline ( "Become mindless for me")

ART: NEW CG added for the "Bring [Sayori's Alter] back" ending on Sayori's Alter storyline

Word count is now around 476,000

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Penlight Public Release 0.1641.1: New Endings For Nozomi Trance & Sayori Alter Routes

Hello, everyone~

For this update I decided to work on two short paths that occur towards the end of Nozomi's and Sayori's routes. Nozomi's one is on her Trance storyline, where in its climax Kyou asks her to "become mindless" as he attempts to make Nozomi's darkest fantasies a reality. But is that what she really wants?

Sayori's is on her Alter storyline, where Kyou triggers her alter during a heated argument after having resisted the temptation to do so earlier. If you're stuck on finding either of these new story paths, please refer to the flowchart guides in the downloads where the new content is marked in green.

One new CG set is also included in this update, and can be seen during Nozomi's new path mentioned above. I should mention it's one of the more explicit image sets seen in the game, so watch out if you're thinking of playing this in public or something.

And that concludes this round of updates! I'll be tackling another unwritten story path for next time, probably something more Hiroko-involved, but we'll see~

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Get this public release for free via my SubscribeStar, Patreon or Itch.io pages!

What's New

WRITING: Written the latest sub-path of Nozomi's Trance storyline ( "Become mindless for me") to completion

WRITING: Written a new ending for a path on Sayori's Alter storyline ("Bring [Sayori's Alter] back")

ART: New CG added for the latest sub-path of Nozomi's Trance storyline ( "Become mindless for me")

Word count is now around 474,000

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Penlight Public Release 0.1639.1: Hiroko Gullible Storyline - New Ending!

Hey, everyone!

This release completes the new path for Hiroko's Gullible storyline, and includes a new CG for the scene that follows on from where we left off last month. I hope you enjoy reading it~

For next time we'll be moving on to the next unwritten path, which I'm intending to be one of Nozomi or Sayori's remaining stories. See you then!

Download

Get this public release for free via my SubscribeStar, Patreon or Itch.io pages!

What's New

WRITING: The new path of Hiroko's Gullible storyline has been written to a conclusion

CG: Added one new CG set to the Gullible storyline

Word count is now around 471,000

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Penlight Public Release 0.1638.2: Hiroko Gullible Storyline Continuation

Hello, everyone!

I had a little rethink about the new Gullible story path I was working on this past month. See, I hadn't initially intended it to be much; just a little more dialogue and a somewhat short and snappy epilogue to wrap it up. I was more or less following the outline I wrote out for it a few years back, which I never really liked all that much in the first place, so maybe it's no surprise that I was struggling so much to get it done!

So with that said, here's the result from that little change in direction. There's a new scene to follow on from where we left off last time, with a very nice CG that I think readers will enjoy quite a bit~

PS. The flowchart guide download is the same as last month's. None of the additions I made required me to update it so it's still current.

Download

Get this public release for free via my SubscribeStar, Patreon or Itch.io pages!

What's New

WRITING: A few more scenes added to Hiroko's Gullible storyline, where Kyou puts an end to his pranks

CG: Added one CG to the latest scene of the Gullible storyline

FIX: Corrected an issue in the gallery that was causing one of the Copycat CGs to not display properly

Word count is now around 469,000

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Penlight Public Release 0.1636.1: Hiroko Gullible Storyline Update

Hello, everyone!

This month's update is pretty minor, delivering two new CGs to close out last month's completed Copycat storyline, and a short addition to Hiroko's Gullible story path that I'm not all that pleased with.

Just to remind everyone, this new part of the script can be found by starting Hiroko's route and picking the following options: Convince her she's ticklish, Don't help her, Find out how gullible she is, Stop for now, Put an end to my pranks.

So yeah, sorry for the lack of new stuff this time. For next month I'll be continuing to work on Gullible with an eye towards starting on another story path as well. See you next time~

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Get this public release for free via my SubscribeStar, Patreon or Itch.io pages!

What's New

WRITING: Some more additions made to Hiroko's Gullible storyline, where Kyou puts an end to his pranks

ART: New CG during Copycat's weekend scenes where Kyou uses the penlight

ART: New CG art that appears during Copycat's confrontation scene near the end of the story

FIX: Corrected an issue where ambient crowd noises were playing throughout the later scenes of the Reversal storyline

Word count is now around 465,500

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Penlight (Visual Novel) Fan Art: Akiko Phone Hypnosis

With the conclusion of Penlight's Copycat story, now's a good time to show off a couple more pieces of fan-commissioned art of Akiko! This time she gets into some hypnosis over the phone :o

Doa, a longtime Penlight fan and contributor, commissioned this one from korsor on DeviantArt (NSFW)!

Penlight Public Release 0.1635.1: Second Copycat Storyline Ending

Hi, everyone!

This month's update includes the second ending for the Copycat storyline, as well as CGs for both this and the first ending that debuted last month.

To reach the new ending you'll need to make a new choice that I've inserted into the weekend scenes, and then stay with Akiko in the later scene. If you're stuck please refer to the guide attached to the Patreon/Itch posts linked below, where all the new content is marked in green.

This update also includes a couple other additions and changes. First, a rework of a big scene in the Redemption storyline, along the path where Kyou reverts back to villainy and has Akiko in his room just before the epilogue. There's two versions of it, depending on whether Kyou went with "Robot" or Devoted" in his initial choice of villainy, with the Robot version getting the biggest change from before as it was rather undercooked in its initial version.

The second is a slight addition to Hiroko's Gullible storyline, where Kyou uses his arrangement with Hiroko to prank her only for him to later relent, giving Hiroko an opportunity to push back on his manipulations and maybe talk some sense into him. To see it, start Hiroko's route and pick the following options: Convince her she's ticklish, Don't help her, Find out how gullible she is, stop for now, put an end to my pranks.

So that's all for this month. For the August update I'll be trying to finish this Gullible path I started, and make a couple more CG additions for Copycat's second path. See you then~

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What's New

WRITING: Added a new choice during the weekend scenes of the Copycat storyline, which can lead to an additional scene

WRITING: Minor addition made to Hiroko's Gullible storyline, where Kyou puts an end to his pranks

WRITING: Rewrote the robot variant of the interview scene on the Redemption storyline path where Kyou falls back into his bad habits. It's a lot meaner now, and of similar length to the devoted version

ART: New CGs depicting both endings of the Copycat storyline

Word count is now around 465,000

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the existing Spanish script

Penlight Public Release 0.1633.1: Copycat Storyline Ending!

Hi, everyone!

This release sees the Copycat storyline come to a conclusion along one of its two decision paths, with a couple of CGs included which illustrate one of the most satisfying scenes I've ever written. All in all, this storyline has been rather fun to write, and it's been nice to give Akiko another starring role to complement the one she had in Redemption ^^

For next time I'm probably going to continue my focus on Copycat, with another CG or two, extending the script slightly and working on the second path so I can call this whole part of Penlight done. Please enjoy the new release, and I'll see you next time :)

Download

Get this public release for free via my SubscribeStar, Patreon or Itch.io pages!

What's New

WRITING: The Copycat storyline has been completely written for one decision path

WRITING: Some minor edits made to the Redemption storyline script, adding in Akiko's singing interest revealed in Copycat, plus a few tweaks to a later scene on the relapse path

ART: Two new CGs added to the Copycat storyline

Word count is now around 461,000

LOCALIZATION: Various edits and corrections to the Spanish script