Secretary of Death - Synopsis

‘… the meaning of life is death.’

‘Everything is simple. You are just making things complicated to give it more meaning.’

Story: Is there a meaning to everything? Can love last forever and never die? Can happiness be anything more than just temporary? Do our lives even matter at all? Well... of course not.

Relationship type: BxG

Length: 25-40 minutes

Positives: Very interesting subject, investigation of life, love and death, lots of ‘death’ jokes, very small download (2.9 Meg, about 8 Meg once installed).

Unusual Features: Relationship with a female personification of death, 1 main path with several dead (literally ;) ) ends coming from it, relatively minimalist game.

Download Secretary of Death here.

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Secretary of Death - Review

‘… the meaning of life is death.’

‘Everything is simple. You are just making things complicated to give it more meaning.’

Secretary of Death is not so much a game focused around a particular emotion, but is more an examination of some ideas surrounding life, death and love. The story is roughly in two parts, the first (more light-hearted part) being before the other deaths while the second more philosophical part comes after that (although mainly near the end of the game) – although clearly there is a large degree of crossover between the main theme for each part. Although there are some death jokes and many romantic scenes in the second half of the story, what stood out the most for me were the discussions between Aleksandra and Hiroaki.

While it could be suggested that these jokes are unnecessary and do not fit with the main theme of this VN, for me they really show how a relationship between Hiroaki and a death can develop. They also prepare the reader for the later discussions of death, through their light-hearted but never trivial nature. From my part, I would have preferred a few less ‘love’ scenes and some more investigation of the philosophical part of the story, as that was the more unusual and intriguing aspect of the story for me. I don’t mean to detract too much from the romantic scenes – I guess you could describe them as being funny, touching and (in a good way) full of clichés.

The real substance of Secretary of Death for me is in the second half, in particular with the philosophical discussions. I think the two quotes prefacing this review explain why certain emotions are the focus of some other ATP games. The age-old question of the meaning of life is presented by Aleksandra in a somewhat cold, impersonal and almost nihilistic – but no matter what you believe, to a certain extent it’s undeniably true. Hiroaki’s response is much more ‘human’, and I guess it reminds me [completely off topic reference] of the consideration of life as being like a bridge, with the current step on it being the only important choice. The final view presented Aleksandra and Hiroaki agree on, is that from a distance nothing matters, but to each other we matter a lot. The view arising from this (which can apply to other ATP games), is the need to matter to someone else, expressed through romantic love. (At least, this is my interpretation of Secretary of Death.)

Perhaps this view could be applied to most Visual Novel’s – by considering the nature of endings. Usually, the endings referred to as ‘best’, ‘good’ or ‘true’ often revolve around forming a successful relationship, while ‘bad’ endings generally have the protagonist remaining unattached. As such, arguably meaning can be said to arrive from ‘winning’ a game. Just a passing thought…

In some ways Secretary of Death is very much like a minimalist game, with the absence of music, the blurred backgrounds (processed photographs) and the somewhat rudimentary character art. I can’t quite remember my exact feeling when I first played this but it’s one VN’s I’ve replayed quite a few times since then - behind Gakuen Redux, this is my favourite of the ATP games. For me, I guess to a certain extent this game answered (or at least gave me a lot to ponder over) questions that I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and I think this has a lot to do with my high appraisal of Secretary of Death. So apologies if this review is somewhat biased :P.

Secretary of Death makes very effective use of the 'double vision' script, which was first used in Gakuen Redux. I think this is also the first game to use the customised slider icons in the options menu.

To paraphrase a comment mikey sent me about this game; Secretary of Death explains a lot about the other ATP games, because there is a kind of common nature present in most, if not all of them. Some of the ideas dealt with, such as loneliness, and the ‘dream-girl’ idea stem directly from the ideas expressed in this game (which I will discuss in future reviews).

While Secretary of Death (as mikey has mentioned), is not a game for everyone, if you are interested in the other ATP games or examining ideas about love and death, this VN is definitely worth playing. While there is an ‘amateurish’ feel to this game, it shouldn’t detract from the overall experience.

Review by Ignosco

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Lucy's Revenge - Synopsis

Synopsis:

Story: So, Eileen has been getting all the spotlight, all the fame and all the credit for Ren'Py, has she? Well, it's time to turn things around...

Relationship Type: BxG

Length: 10 minutes

Positives: Excellent art and use of Ren’Py features, very funny, full script can be viewed with Ren’Py.

Unusual Features: Completed within 1 week (!), the most ecchi game in the community at the time of its release, one of the few comedy/parody games in the Archives, (essentially) a linear Visual Novel.

Some background information: The Ren’Py demos up to the 6^th version have featured Eileen almost exclusively, as she describes introduces the viewer to Ren’Py. Lucy’s appearance in the original was only on the ‘Make a Choice’ screen in the Ren’Py demo, used to demonstrate Imagemaps. She ended up being dropped from the 5.6.3 demo.

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Lucy's Revenge - Review

Review:

Potential spoilers below:



(The Ren’Py demos up to the 6th version have featured Eileen almost exclusively, as she describes introduces the viewer to Ren’Py. Lucy’s appearance in the original was only on the ‘Make a Choice’ screen in the Ren’Py demo, used to demonstrate Imagemaps. She ended up being dropped from the 5.6.3 demo.)

Lucy’s Revenge is parody at its best. When I first played this, I had never seen Lucy in the Ren’Py demo, and after I’d downloaded an earlier version of Ren’Py, I was impressed by how mugenjohncel developed such an ‘interesting’ character out of the one ‘Make a Choice’ screen. Many on the jokes are tied into particular features in Ren’Py, but even without knowing about these, the humour is still apparent.

Aside from the wacky and somewhat perverse humour the other element that really stands out is the art. For a game produced in a week, there are a lot of high quality CG’s, sprites, as well as several animations. The ‘grabbing’ one in particular is very well done.

It’s definitely worth downloading if you’re interested in seeing what can be done art-wise with Ren’Py. As all of the script and images are accessible from the game directory, Lucy’s Revenge is almost like another Ren’Py tutorial, featuring several of the more advanced features in action.

Mugenjohncel’s upcoming VN, My Dear Teacher – Mr. K (there’s a demo available on the Lemmasoft forum in the Works in Progress section) will have Lucy (and maybe Eileen?) in it - so if you enjoyed Lucy’s Revenge it’s definitely a game to look forward to.

Review by Ignosco

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Embraced by Green - Synopsis

"... that weakness, it felt like death."

"And my mind, it can't paint Yumiko's picture for myself anymore."

Story: Working as researchers for the Yukiyama City institute, you and your colleague Yumiko are out in the botanical garden one morning. It's nine o'clock and everything is quiet and peaceful.

Relationship type: BxG

Length: 20-30 minutes for 1 playthrough.

Positives: Very strong atmosphere created throughout the game, highly original story, very well done good ending.

Unusual features: Completely linear gameplay (the choices do not affect the dialogue shown, only the ending), requires a different approach to most VN’s to reach the good ending and without this it could prove very frustrating. However these features are all essential parts of the overall game – even if you might prefer a different design in VN’s, it is definitely worth playing Embraced by Green.

Download Embraced by Green here.

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Embraced by Green - Review

"... that weakness, it felt like death."

"And my mind, it can't paint Yumiko's picture for myself anymore."
WARNING: Potential spoilers ahead

Like most ATP games, the game’s story is largely driven by one emotion – for Embraced by Green, it seems to be an aspect of loneliness, examined through the relationship between Etsuya and Yumiko. This is juxtaposed with the setting of the story; being trapped within a garden while on a scientific field trip and trying to escape from it with Yumiko – the ‘science’ side of the story. Each question asked by the game contributes a point towards one of these areas if answered correctly. The questions focus on the two themes of the game separately (both have to have enough correct answers to get the good ending), and if you get the bad ending, the game tells you on which theme(s) you have made mistakes (mikey mentioned on the Embraced by Green thread that you are allowed around 2-3 bad choices for each theme).

Normally the choices in a Ren’ai game revolve around pursuing a particular character, eg deciding who you will talk to and what you will talk to them about, and to a certain extent the player does not need to consider the personality of the protagonist, and can focus only on the ‘winnable’ character. However in Embraced by Green, the choices are almost all based on Etsuya’s inner thoughts or thoughts leading to action, and to find the good ending the choices have to be made according to Etsuya’s personality, (particularly his approach to science). This gameplay mechanic, where you have to become the protagonist to succeed is rather unique, and because the game requires this non-standard approach, it can easily become frustrating if you come into it with the wrong intentions.

There is a variable tracker integrated into the game (see the Embraced by Green thread in the Lemmasoft forums) which lets you see which choices give you points – if you get stuck trying to reach the good ending, this will help you.

The good ending is definitely worth seeing – it explains the mystery of the garden, and through that it validates the choices you have made. You also get to see the start of the relationship between Etsuya and Yumiko (there’s also an easter egg reference for one of the previous ATP games).

Aside from the storyline, the other really strong feature of the game is the overall atmosphere created. The music, the highly effective backgrounds (heavily processed photographs), the effects in Ren’Py and Yumiko’s art all combine to draw the player into the game – the feeling of being trapped in the garden.

Overall, while I prefer some of the other ATP projects VN’s above this one, this is still a very good game, and it is worth playing both for the storyline, the overall mood, and the good ending. The experience is something that would be virtually impossible to replicate in a print form and the gameplay mechanics of Embraced by Green, are completely new compared to any other Lemmasoft VN
Review by Ignosco

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