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Website | Tumblr | Twitter | Discord | Itch | Lemmasoft | VNDB Download the full game on itch.io: https://pinlin.itch.io/darknights ♦ Game info ♦ Commercial or free? Free Release date? 31 October 2019 Screensize: 1280 x 720 Genre: Mystery, fantasy, romance, horror, psychological Rate: 16+ for violence, blood and suggestive themes There are 3 different type endings per route. Romantic End | Normal End | Death End ♦ Features ♦ ♦ 4 routes, each with a unique storyline ♦ 16 possible endings, 4 per storyline ♦ At least 10 hours playtime - 60,000 - 70,000 words per storyline. Total 270,608 words ♦ 8+ side characters, vary per route. ♦ 60 CG art/20+ cut scenes ♦ 60 Original background art ♦ 40 Original soundtracks ♦ 29 Achievements ♦ Opening video ♦ Bonus material ♦ Story ♦ The protagonist is student who has no goals in life. She lives in a calm village and grows bored of the environment. Despite her potentials, she doesn’t work to develop them. Suddenly disappearances occur in the village. At the same time the protagonist meets new faces. It is suspected that a new resident is possibly involved in the events. The protagonist chooses one to investigate. From there the plot separates in four different story lines. Along the story she realizes what is important to her and discovers new things about her environment. The story is told through moving sprites, original background art, unique illustrations and original soundtracks. Despite the title, Dark Night’s world is vibrant with visuals. The story appears to be slice of life, but it quickly gets down to its true color. ♦ Main characters ♦ Miyoko (can be changed): The heroine (you) in this story. A strong, badass and intelligent daredevil. Junoru: Just like his appearance, he is a real gentle man. He always speaks in a polite manner and is kind to the heroine. On the other hand his expression always carries a little bit of sadness. He is often absent-minded, which makes the heroine wonder what he is thinking about. Kurato: A strange guy who suddenly appear in front of the heroine's house. After a few incidents and misunderstandings, he is labeled as a stalker. Despite his cheerful personality, the heroine suspect his true intentions are different. Sachiro: He is a little shy around new people, but keeps his friendly attitude. He is often seen alone during night. Somehow he disappears exactly when the murders occur. He may not look harmful, but what is hidden behind this innocent face? Zeikun: Blunt and straight forward character. He prefers to be alone and often chases others away. Despite his cold attitude, he saves the heroine on the verge of death. Since he avoids questions, the heroine thinks he is hiding something. ♦ Art ♦ ♦ Questions for you ♦ Which route was did you and play and which did you enjoy the most? Share your thoughts of: - Writing/story - Visuals - Music/sound - Game mechanics - Characters/overall experience ♦ Solo project ♦ Story, sprite art, bg art, cg art, GUI and programming are done by myself. I worked with a few composers to create original soundtracks and sound effects. This game will NOT have voice acting. It may change my mind depending on how much support this project gets.

This is... Massive, for a solo project. Looks interesting too. And free? Seems more like something that should be paid $15 for. ^^ Can't really pick up a VN of this size right now, but this makes me super-curious, I'll definitely give it a try at some point.

Hence the development took 6 years, haha. It's my first project, so I'd like to offer it for free. I hope for more people to enjoy my work. During those 6 years, I had to work a lot on my skills. I never drew background arts, published any writing and I was kind of new to digital art. Don't get me started on programming... Even so, thanks to my passion and support of a lot of people, I managed to complete this. I believe this is a medium-length VN (for one route without testing all choices). Nowadays I see a lot of short VNs with 1-2 hours length, so mine may look long? Anyway, I hope to hear from you again if you try!

After a long time, I've finally finished reading Fragment's Note 2, the rare mobile-only Japanese VN that actually is a pure visual novel and not some kind of gacha crap. This series is such a weird one that I can never truly make my mind about: it's got a lot of lazy writing, obnoxious pseudo-psychology and the first part got unbearably bloated and repetitive after the main plot got resolved, basically adding a few full hours of dumb drama and pointless fluff after it simply should've ended. I liked the main story in it and at least some of the characters, but then literally skipped through an hour-worth of content in each route to not get bored to death. The second game has fewer issues with pacing, but is separated into two, basically standalone routes: in Japan they were two different apps, but got merged together for the English release. And these routes are definitely NOT equal. The first one, which the game suggests you to start with, focuses on Shizuku, protagonist's younger step-sister who shares with him the trauma of losing her original family in a plane crash. In the end, they see taking care of each other as the main motivation to keep living and this leads to various unpleasant consequences – including deeply disturbed incest romance. Still, all that wouldn't be so bad, if the girl had any kind of personality, or even visible traits beyond being traumatized and a brocon. The romance feels just as bland as she is and the whole route is pretty much pointless trash. It has some reveals that the second scenario only vaguely explains, but it's really neither necessary to understand everything nor worthwhile to read. The second route, on the other hand, Yukitsuki's, focuses on the antagonist of the first game as the love interest. She's not a very deep character by any means, but has a bit of personality and context to her (at this point she's something of a reformed villain, burdened by her previous misdeeds). Her story connects the new characters and major plot points to the events of the first game, giving both the new cast and herself proper closure and tying neatly all the loose ends. It builds proper romance instead of the poorly-conceived loli incest plot. If you ever decide to read FN2, go straight to this part, especially because the core structure of the story is essentially the same and many fragments are literally repeated word-for-word between the two routes. The imouto route can just burn in hell. Assuming Shizuku's route doesn't exist, 6,5/10

Thanks for your suggestions, I'll look into them

Unfortunately, risk of disappointment--or even project implosion--is part of the crowdfunding experience. Never back more than you're willing to see disappear with nothing to show for it. Don't back companies you don't trust. Don't back with any expectation of timelines being met or delays being properly communicated. Companies have no obligation to refund your money if you aren't satisfied. If you have concerns about any of the above, you shouldn't be pledging in the first place. That said, clearly Sol Press is in pretty dire straits if a few thousand dollars is more important to them than their company's reputation. It sounds like their main concern right now is stopping the bleeding rather than long-term health.