Eishelin's musings

Third game on my Otome Jam 2022 entry play list was Mythic Meetup by Heartmoor Studios.

TL:DR

It might feel like a tribute to another popular indie otome game at first, but it has a lot more to offer. Featuring some very likable, yet believably flawed characters, cute visuals and nice representation.

Story/Writing

Do you also go around clicking random chatroom invite links are end up in the weirdest places in the middle of the night? No? Just me?

Well, that's what happens to the main character - she (pronouns selectable) - a regular, ordinary (well, maybe not super-ordinary) human ends up in a chatroom filled with mythical creatures. Shenanigans and heart-breaking backstories occur as a result.

Each of the chat participants have a distinct writing style, which definitely makes the game come alive.

The main character is mainly a self-insert, with some little backstory pieces scattered throughout the story and a bit of a snarky personality in the non-choice parts of the story. And choices there are a galore - thankfully the developers have provided handy guides on the right ones to pick to end up in the hearts of the eligible mythics.

There are quite a few choices to make and the developers have provided a nifty guide on the right ones to pick for a happy ending with

It's very enjoyable to see representations on the ace/demi spectrum, including flirty ones.

I really loved the fact that the characters were friends in real life as well and appeared together in video calls and in each other's rooms. It definitely gave

A thing that initially threw me off was the chapters being called days. My initial thought was that the plot of the game is happening over the course of several days, but they're more of a series of snippets of what's happening over the course of a longer period of time. I feel like calling them chapters or weeks would have been more friendly.

Another small issue that I noticed is that while you can select your pronouns, some of the scenes default to other characters referring to the main character as they/them instead, but it might be intentional.

Art

The art is definitely cute. Each of the characters have a different background for their room and they match the characters very well.

As the resident memologist, I enjoyed the meme pictures that were scattered through the chat.

I especially liked the programming of the videochat sprites - there are little wobbly effects happening with their arms, which make them seem more alike. Ditto for mirroring effects.

Similarly a great shoutout to the CG programming - I know that under jam limits we work with a very limited set of VN assets and the ending CGs were utilized to the fullest with their panning and other effects.

Music and Voice Acting

There is an original soundtrack and it matches both the scenes and characters very well, without being overpowering and distracting. Everything loops seamlessly, there are relevant sound effects scattered through the game. I also liked the music room which was added in.

All of the videochats are fully voiced and it has good sound mixing. My favorite was Vera Tan's rendition of BestieBB, but honestly - they're all good.

A nice feature that's very, very easy to miss - if you click on the side character's profile and click on the little speaker icon if it's there - it's gonna play a line from them from a few random lines. It was very cute and helped to put a voice behind some of the chat avatars.

GUI/Usability

There is a cute custom GUI and I generally liked using it, especially all of the little bits and bobs that you could click to go to different screens and such. It really made the game feel very immersive.

After some fine-tuning I found the right text speed for me for the autoplay and just watched the chat go on. A little thing that I felt was missing with the autoplay system was a hard pause at the end of the chapter. Once or twice I found myself scrambling to reload saves because the last message of the chapter was quite long and the day change happened before I got to read it.

I'm usually an avid history reader and there were some overflow issues there.

The font size is pretty good if playing on large-screen devices and the font is quite readable for the chat. Increasing the font-size would have been nice for playing on devices with smaller screens (like the Steam Deck) though. Reading white text on yellow for the videochats did get a bit straining on my eyes, but I work with code all day, so they're pretty sensitive come evening when I have time to play games.

Playthrough notes - here be slight spoilers

Second game on my Otome Jam 2022 entry play list was Adopt a Boyfriend by lunamakio.

TL:DR

Fun, fun, fun. Super-relatable main character, believable struggles with both life and relationships, positive attitude towards kinks, good sound direction, pleasant voice acting and a distinct art style really make this game shine.

Story/Writing

Don't you just hate it when you get drunk and mail-order an animal-folk boyfriend at 3AM? No? Just me?

Well, that's Riley's story - she (pronouns selectable) makes this one-time decision and due to a glitch in the system two eligible bachelors appear for her to choose from.

The story definitely starts out whimsical and a bit silly, but doesn't shy away from darker and angstier themes, which it handles in a very respectful way. Throughout the game, both Riley and the two love interests share their likes, dislikes, hopes and insecurities and they're very believable and relatable to the average reader.

I mean - who isn't sad that they don't have a shiny GTX 3080?

There are not a lot of choices, but they all feel impactful and the separate good/bad endings are quite long, so going through the bad ends too feels worth it.

There's a fair bit of romance and sexual tension, but it develops gradually.

I loved how the game not also didn't stray away from kinks, but also didn't portray them in the usual "I'm so damaged and/or ashamed" way. Instead the conversations come naturally and things just... Happen. Which I adored.

Art

The art fits the game well - it's right there in the middle between cutesy (bright colors, exaggerated expressions) and angsty (heavy lineart, darker accents), just like the game is. It also uses clever screen and sprite tinting for certain scenes, to make them blend in with the backgrounds better.

I also always appreciate when otome games give their LIs nipples.

Music and Voice Acting

There is an original soundtrack and it matches the scenes very well. I really appreciate how much it deepens the immersion in the game.

There's a lot of voice acting - what feels like 50%? Also a lot of the rest of the lines are covered by small expressions. I'd say both voice actors and voice director did an awesome job. The direction in more intimate scenes is definitely commendable.

All of the sounds are very well balanced and their volumes are customizable.

Game design and GUI

There's plenty use of animations to make the game feel more alive - blinking, moving around the screen, etc.

The GUI is highly customized and is definitely gorgeous. It's cutesy and responsive.

However, for me it impaired the playability a bit. The default text is quite small and the textbox has a texture reminiscent of optical illusions. As a result, I wasn't able to keep reading for long without my vision starting to blur. It was mitigated partially by using the inbuilt Ren'Py accessibility menu to change the font and increase the text size. I also wasn't able to turn off the text scrolling option and sometimes found myself clicking through to the next textbox.

In the end, it's nothing serious and I was able to finish the game, but these parts did make me struggle a bit.

Playthrough notes - here be slight spoilers

I'm on a little quest to at least attempt to play all of Otome Jam 2022 full-length entries and the first I chose was Teachers: With Love and Passion by Honey Bunny. They were one of the first to launch their game and it has been very well received.

TL:DR

It's an amazing game for a jam project. Even outside of the jam scope, it's a very, very good game. I will definitely replay a certain route in the future.

Story/Writing

Tale as old as time. Hanna (name changeable) has just finished her teacher studies and is starting out at a new school, which is filled with suspiciously hot and single teachers. She pursues her new career and has a choice to also pursue a love life.

Up for grabs for the latter are four very different bachelors, each with their own personality quirks and each harboring a dark secret... (it's not as bad as it sounds).

Hanna's emotions are very relatable, not only for teachers, but for every young professional starting out in their career - the impostor syndrome, the anxiety, the overachieving in the first weeks. We've all been there, and this game definitely makes the player feel validated in those feelings.

The game is a very solid, medium-length. It took me around 10 hours to play through it, while live-tweeting my reactions and chatting with friends on the side. There is a long common-route (~60% of a single play-through with some differences based on which character you're going for) and a relatively short character based route.

It's often said that if a piece of writing makes you hate their villain with a passion - it's good quality. This was extremely true for Teachers. Around 1/4 of my live tweets were about hating the villain character in this game.

The writing style is consistently engaging. I never found myself bored or skipping descriptions, which is an achievement.

I usually take screenshots of lines and scenes that I like and/or find very fun or funny and I took more than 300.

There are some small typos, but they're not jarring and I feel that I only noticed them, because I've been going through another game with a fine-tooth comb for more than a month.

Personally, I would have loved to hear more about Hanna and her story before this game. We know that she's 30 and this is her first teaching gig out of school, but it's never explained why - did she switch careers, did she travel the world before going to Uni for her degree, is she just from a country where it's customary to become a teacher after longer studies?

Art

The amount of custom-drawn things is mind-boggling. There are 12 distinct backgrounds, with multiple variations each, 12 full-size CGs (with variations) + some chibi ending CGs and 10 sprites with multiple expressions and outfits. I had a bit of an adjustment period to the artist's style (it is quite distinct), but when I got over it, I started noticing all the small details and was completely blown away. The rendering is amazing and on-par with big-budget titles.

The only nitpick I have with the art of the game is that all of the character sprites are close to the same height, even though their descriptions mention some characters being 15+ centimeters apart in height.

Music and Game Design

The game has a solid soundtrack, sourced from CC resources, and it fits the scenes quite well. The sound and music levels are perfectly balanced, everything is about the same apparent volume. At some parts of the game I noticed that the music isn't looping - I'd move to chat with friends on Discord and the song would end and I would play the next several scenes in silence. It's no big deal though, if you're playing the game in one-go.

There are some great accessibility options in there, the most prominent being the ability to enable audio cues for SFX's, which was quite useful for me after I turned off the music/sound when wanting to play a route with my own soundtrack. There's also plenty of alt-texts for players using self-voicing and it is very detailed.

The game also mentions how to bring up the default accessibility menu, which allows you to change text scales and fonts. For most part it works very well.

The phone/messaging system design is gorgeous. However, I encountered some usability issues during the scenes with the phone. First of all - there's no quick menu available there with all the options. Second - I often found myself not noticing the menu or understanding how to continue.

I was able to get most of the endings (except for Edgar's bad end with the CG) without a guide, so that's also a plus.

Playthrough notes - here be slight spoilers