Name: Death and Pastel Colors

Developer: Its-Sweater-time

Story: As near as I can tell: You play an emo kid with mom issues. A unicorn broke into the house. You leave the way the unicorn broke in and end up at a waifu's house. Her mom is a psychiatrist with a magic altar. I'm sorry! That's the best I can do without there being more!



Writing: This game is all over the place. There's no clear direction. There's no motivation for the protagonist, and this is why it's so hard to get to the next part. You have no idea what you're supposed to be doing or why you're doing it. Go to the previous section and look at my description of the story. This game doesn't explain anything, either through the text or visually. It's eclectic meandering through which you wander aimlessly. The protagonist explains that he's cursed. Why? How? How does it affect the main character? How is it relevant to the game? You don't know! The game doesn't say.

There are interesting characters here, but you aren't doing anything interesting with them. The encounter with the mother is bizarre, and not in a way that helps the game. Not creepy bizarre; head-scratching bizarre. Kaiyu is interesting: she's the only one that has any real development. The game tries to create an atmosphere of danger but doesn't really succeed.



Gameplay: Very little. You basically search until you find your way to the next part. There are a couple of door codes. One, you're given no clear way to figure to out. The second, you have understand the solution to some maths problem regarding how many calories are needed to boil water. There's no real clear direction in the game, and I wouldn't have made it out of the first room if I hadn't looked in the project file and seen where the events led. You reach a point where you have to search through a maze. If you're not careful, you'll run into a deadly spectre...who only appears at one point and is really easy to avoid. This game really doesn't have a whole lot going for it, and it's only working moderately as a point-click adventure.

Graphics: The art is very nice. The drawing of the mother is rough because I think it's supposed to be a kid's drawing, but the rest is very nice. It's an anime style, which is a very simple style, but it's very nicely done. Also, there's one character design that's stand out above the rest.



This character design rocks. I would play a whole game about Save Girl(boy? Androgynous characters, amirite?). This is the save...girl/boy butler, that's x/er job and s/he has zero f***s to give. Transgendered is fine too. S/he's awesome! Best part of the game, hands down. (Okay, I'm getting a little slap-happy here, but I do really like this character. S/he is just perfectly quirky and so unexpected.)

The mapping desperately needs help. This game suffers significantly from big map syndrome, and it is very nearly every map. The maps are large and empty with distant islands of furniture here and there. Definitely need smaller maps. The maze is fine. Mazes don't work in RPG Maker games if you can see the whole thing. Add some more obstacles and some more hazards and the maze will be just fine.

Music: Not significantly intrusive, but some of it doesn't really feel like it fits the atmosphere of the game.

Conclusion: As it is, the game is a mess. The story has no focus. It's all over the place. It really wasn't ready as a demo, but it's good that the dev released it, because s/he can get an idea of the issues with the game early in development. The game really needs to figure out what it wants to be and the story needs to figure out what it wants to say. The game has potential. It has a neat, stylish look, it has eye-catching characters, but the story just does nothing and the gameplay is barely conceived. I don't rate demos, but if this game were released as it is, I'd give it a one point five.