#recommended novel

[misstycloud]

Yandere visual novel games recommendations

These are all free to download from itch.io on computer. I’m not sure if any of these could work on any other device but most probably not. All of these games aren’t finished either and it’s the demo you play. Still, you have content to play and it doesn’t end after 5 minutes, I promise.

14 Days With You- by cutiesai

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION:

"14 Days With You" is an upcoming romantic horror visual novel centred around Ren, a mysterious individual who seems more than obsessed with you — and is willing to do anything he can to have you.

Prescription:LOVE - by Livingslime

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION:

"You wake up in a hospital with no memory of how you got there. A kind and attentive doctor assures you that you will be under his care, patiently nursing you back to health. No one seems to know what caused your condition. "

The Kid at the Back - by Fantasia | TealCat

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION:

"There's this guy, pretty tall guy, often times people don't even realize he's there but he is. Usually sits at the back, wears nothing but black. His eyes however, were bright, red as the autumn leaves, and they for sure aren't leaving your eyes once you lock with his."

Heart Cage - by rice love coffee

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION:

You are a detective who has just moved to a new town. You are involved in a serial killer case, and three mysterious residents (Or more?!) are approaching you!

Don't trust anyone! But... can you?

[arimiadev]

phoenix wright: ace attorney trilogy is on sale for less than $10 this week. that's 3 games for basically $3.30 each. each of those games are 20+ hours long.

become a visual novel player. do it.

[giantkillerjack]

Me: hm, I want something to put on the TV as background noise... Huh. Looks like YouTube is recommending something called The Last Unicorn. That's perfect, it's probably some old shitty animation that has aged poorly! I can watch it ironically!

Me, 2 hours later as the credits roll: *crying, cheering, buying the book, composing the songs*

Me, 2 weeks later: So I have compiled all of the quotes from the book that I think could make good tattoos, and also, HOW HAVE I NEVER LEARNED ABOUT HOW THE LAST UNICORN FUCKING SLAPS??? This gay-ass little fairytale fed my soul! Watered my crops! Transed my gender! Can't believe I heard of this story from youtube recommendations, of all places!!

[maleyanderecafe]

R18 Visual Novels/Games + Mobile Games Masterlist

R18 Indie Visual Novels

My Dear Hatchet Man

14 Days With You

Particles of Reality

Dachabo! Digi-Pet-Sim!

The Gaydere

Restart Heart

See Thru: Need A Friend?

You and Him

Don't Trust Him

Boyfriend EXE

Don't Look

Glass Mind

Colored Gaze

Forcefully Yours

Ai-yo Kogane san!

Hopeless Romantic

Duality

Broken Colors

Cannibal Sweetheart

Honey Hotline

A Cry for Help

The Snake's Taken a Spouse

Mine

10:16

Worthy Lover

Favor

Mad Room No. 3

Bad End Cinderella

First Time

Close to Obsession

Rotten Dinner

Metanoia

The Kid in the Back

Get to Know: Coffee Date

A Double Sided Mirror

Idolatry

Symptoms of Deceit

Apple for a Teacher: A Yandere Love Story

Flower Letters

Courtin' Cowboys

Watching the Watcher

Coffee Meet

Mobile Games

Dangerous Fellows

My Psycho Boyfriends

Yandere Boyfriend Leo

Yandere Classmate Aiden

Yandere Richman June

Yandere Stepbrother Dean

Killing Kiss

In Search of Haru

My Puppy Fiance

[ramuneda5149]

Lord of the Mysteries is very good for mental health and brains. There's no war in Ba Sing Se.

[sergle]

I like a lot of horror podcasts, but what about horror novels? does anypony have book recommendations for me that you really enjoyed / that were super scary

[dyinggirldied]

Making a meme about these two recent favorites of mine

[artificial-condition]

Me watching tv: it’s what murderbot would have wanted

[marlynnofmany]

It’s back!

If you missed it the first time around, the “human are weird” anthology is back for a second printing. (There’s even a new story included: “Black Box” by Dara Brophy.)

Here’s the blurb:

In science fiction, humans are usually boring compared to other races: small, weak, with no claws or tentacles, and no special abilities to speak of. But what if we were the impressive ones, the unsettling ones, the ones talked about by all the other aliens? What if we're weird?

If you’d like a collection of excellent stories about humans inspiring awe, fear, and utter confusion, it’s available everywhere books are sold!

[azu1as]

once again thinking about sqq unintenionally becoming a harem master in the eyes of can qiong and civilians.

it starts off with him saving one of binghe's future wives because ! she was one of the more interesting wives !! with powers that ariplane retconned in later chapters for no reason !!!!!!

"What a sweet girl," Shen Qingqiu murmurs as he opened the thank you package delivered to him because she wanted to thank the immortal master for saving her from a beast that in PIDW had traumatized her into becoming a recluse.

Shen Qingqiu hums as he touches the new hand-painted fan. Sweat begins beading on his neck at the murderous glare his white lotus Binghe was directing at the object in his hands.

This master is sorry, Binghe, but this fan is too precious to throw!

Shen Qingqiu clears his throat, "It would be good if she sends more gifts," to her future husband Binghe, of course.

That way, his sweet bun realizes that this was nothing more but a gift to her father-in-law. Aiya, why is the glare even worse?

a week later, sqq saves another wife by complete coincidence on a trip down to the village. she insists on joining him back to cang qiong and sqq gives in because of how persistent she was.

binghe breaks the plate of snacks he was holding when he bumps into them.

sqq: oh shit binghe's jealous. quick gotta send her his way and make them spend more time together

and then the lady just asks him about sqq and whether he's married single looking for someone.

and it keeps happening. sqq isn't sure either why he's meeting all these future wives. maybe the system wanted him to give his future approval? the system was being a bitch and seemed to enjoy his confusion over the way events had been continuously unfolding.

but then one of binghe's sly wives—a scammer who airplane contradictorily describes as pure-hearted at her core—comes up to him one day and tells him, "I have your baby."

And she shamelessly does it in front of the whole cang qiong delegation.

Shen Qingqiu doesn't know where or who the shrill keening sound was coming from.

[thekawaiifruitworld]

Okay, so that one little sketch was so much fun that I had to expand it a bit... :D

[ambigirl]

○ therapy

○ self care

● Kim Dokja talking to his baby girl (he's a girl's dad canon)

[no-where-new-hero]

I am actually going to talk about what I call images, or symbols. It seems to me that in our present great drive—fiction-wise—toward the spare, clean, direct kind of story, we are somehow leaving behind the most useful tools of the writer, the small devices that separate fiction from reporting, the work of the imagination from the everyday account. Of these the far most important, and the most neglected, is the use of symbols; I am using the word loosely, because it has altogether different meanings elsewhere, and yet I hardly know what other word to use ... There must be at least one basic image, or set of images, for each character in a story, a fundamental symbol the writer keeps always in mind; as these images grow the character grows, and the accumulation of material and information about the image slowly makes up the character in the story. Various things belong to a character—a manner of speaking, a manner of moving, a particular emphasis, a group of small physical things—and each of these must take on, like a perfume, the essence of the character they belong to. Just as a tune or a scent can evoke for most of us an entire scene, so the basic image of the character must evoke that entire character and his place in the story. As a result of this, of course, the characters themselves grow apart in the writer’s mind, become entirely separate people, and by the end of a book or a story the writer can no more mistake one for another than he can mistake a can of beans for a pearl necklace.

--Shirley Jackson, "Garlic in Fiction"

[mirrorgrets]

grabbing you by the collar. hey. hey. you're an orv fan right? you like found family-isms and insane dynamics right? hey you should read return of the mount hua sect. aren't you a reader? don't you want to be like kim dokja or something? come on you want to read this soooo badly. i'm biting you as i say all of this btw.

[arimiadev]

spooky indie visual novels you've never heard of for spooky season

since it's October I thought I'd put together a list of spooky indie visual novels (horror, Halloween, creepy, dark comedy, anything in the spirit of the season goes) that you've probably never heard of but can play right now on itchio!

model employee

Model Employee is a corporate horror visual novel. Just discharged from the hospital and massively in debt for their life-saving cybernetics, the player-character must adapt to the “extreme” work-life balance of a Tethys Team Member- but they have help. Penny, the artificial personality that controls all security, waste disposal, and employee surveillance in the facility, specializes in reinforcing an especially cutthroat variety  of workplace culture- and she’s taken an interest in you.  If you want to get ahead in your career, you gotta be willing to take some risks.

model employee is such a tightly structured visual novel for being made in just one month for a game jam, making full use of everything while surprising you at every corner. every part of this game was so well planned and thought out- dystopian corporate satire isn’t my cup of tea (we’re living it) but the way they present everything in this game makes it feel so much more intense.

beary the hatchet

It’s Halloween 199X, and you killed someone during your morning shift. Honestly it’s inconvenient. This job was imperfect, sure, but you got to wear a mask with no questions asked and the pay was livable. But now you’ll have to keep the body in the backrooms till your shift is done. Bummer. “You’re… the absolutely WICKED and AWESOME Bearwater Grizzly Killer, aren’t you?!” …and now enters the dreaded true crime fan.

beary the hatchet is such a uniquely lovely game to look at, even if the subject matter is grim. I love the color palette and tones in this, I love the 2.5D graphics, I love how expressive all of the designs are. it’s a game oozing with style.

WE KNOW THE DEVIL

Anyone can kill the devil; that’s why they always make teens the vampire slayers, the magical girls. But some kids can’t even get that right; and that’s why meangirl Neptune, tomboy Jupiter, and shy shy Venus have to endure one more week of summer camp and each other, singing boring songs about jesus, doing busywork for adults, and hoping god’s radio can’t hear them. Before they can leave the summer scouts, they’ve got to spend twelve hours in the loneliest cabin in the woods and wait for the devil to come and live through the night–or not. You know.

it’s a visceral experience, something that feels foreign and familiar at the same time. I love the direction for it, the sketchy monochrome sprites against the colored photos- parts when there aren’t any characters on screen feel that much more real, like you’re watching found footage because of how tense everything is.

disconnect

Late at night, a phone call from a friend keeps disconnecting from you… On and off, on and off, constantly… …What would you do if you realized your friend wasn’t who you thought they were? And how would you react when the truth was finally revealed? (“̷̢̑W̸̨̊o̸̫͊u̷̱͝ḽ̸͛d̴͉̐ ̵̚ͅy̵̜̽o̸̥͗u̷̮̎ ̷̜̏s��̤̄t̸̥͐i̴̻̕l̸̰͝l̸͉̓ ̷͕́ȁ̸̩c̸̡̓t̵̜̊ ̵͓̈t̶̙̄h̶̦͂e̸̩͠ ̸̩̅s̶̘̏a̷̪͛m̵̮͒e̴͖͑ ̸̭́w̷̨̚á̴̱y̵̯̑?̶͎̌"̷͈̆) Find out what happened to our scaredy-cat protagonist, Indie－a famous horror storyteller on the H-T-M (Horror, Tales, and Mystery) forum. What would she do when she unintentionally uncovered a mystery hidden deep within her own home?

I love the style of disconnect and the unorthodox way of getting to the truth of the matter. I’m not normally one to play furry VNs, but the designs are adorable and I love the presentation of the game, it has a lot of animation in it. there’s also one moment not too far in on this screen that made me scream…

curse of the juniper tree

Curse of the Juniper tree is a tale of two siblings, a cursed tree and an isolated village. It is a short kinetic visual novel featuring 2d exploration. Walk around the snowy village and talk to its inhabitants! Story is loosely based off the fairytale called The Juniper Tree by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm’s Fairy Tales in 1812.

this is a lovely and short story about two siblings living in a frozen land together. it’s a very atmospheric story with so many beautiful blues and detailed character designs. the controls were a bit hard to figure out at times but it’s worth your time.

reaplaced

Grea Perrim is a reaper of souls, and it’s her duty to bring the deceased to the other side. But in the world of reapers, death isn’t any kind of equalizer. The value of a soul is directly tied to the peculiarity of its death. Grea’s supernatural senses bring her to a Halloween house party with three costumed guests. She soon finds the most valuable kind of soul: the victim of a locked-room murder. In order to reap the soul, Grea must unravel the identity of its killer and explain its death in full. Is this the work of a human? A witch? Or something else entirely…?

reaplaced is a fun little whodunnit set on Halloween about a grim reaper out on the hunt who finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery. it’s much more indepth than I was expecting and the soundtrack is wonderful—there’s a lot of small touches to it that make it great.

Silver Thread

An exorcist that doubts the existence of ghost might sound contradictory but to Alicia Wilkershire, this is the right way to get closer to the truth. Her latest job sounded like another run-of-the-mill case and she greeted her client with her usual pessimism but is it, really?

Silver Thread is a spooky and short RPGM game about a skeptical exorcist trying to help a guy with his problems. the style is lovely and if you also like this kind of style, the developer has several other RPGM games like this!

Elevator Hitch

Elevator Hitchis a short 2.5D surreal horror/escape room visual novel with point-and-click and puzzle elements following the story of two co-workers suddenly finding themselves stuck together in a "Perfectly Normal" 70s office elevator.  They must explore each liminal-looking floor and find a way to get off the elevator to their actual destinations.

like a few others on this list, Elevator Hitch was made in just a month for the Spooktober Visual Novel Jam and was my favorite game from the year it came out (2022). it's more of an adventure style game than pure visual novel, so expect puzzles and a lot of bad ends! this developer also has a lot of other similar style adventure visual novels.

The Case of the Serialized Killer

When a popular illustrator is found dead, disgraced demonologist Harold Ludicael is hired to summon her ghost. Ghosts are the one thing he can't summon, but with sharp insight, perhaps he can solve the mystery, and resurrect the most important thing: His career.

this visual novel is an absolute feast on the eyes as all of the art is done by traditionally painted watercolor artworks! the characters are all unique and the world feels very lived in. if you like murder mysteries then check it out.

Stillwater

"𝕊𝕖𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘𝕤 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕒𝕥 𝕒 𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕖…" A woman arrives with a mysterious letter in hand addressed to her grandfather. Etched in crimson is a foreboding message, a warning—a promise made from a time forgotten. Private Investigator Hugo Laurent and his assistants must solve this bizarre case before an old family's curse befalls them all.

Stillwater is a lovely looking game - I love everything about the art direction for it. it's not overly scary but very atmospheric with several endings to find.

Who is the Red Queen?

Alice falls down the rabbit hole into a Wonderland not quite right. Meeting an eclectic collection of people, animals, and some things in between, she sets out on an adventure in this odd new place to find the missing Red Queen. Or, more specifically, to find the pieces of the dismembered queen whose body has been strewn across the land.

a familiar but new take on Alice in Wonderland, now with a lot more yuri. like a lot of the VNs I've recommended, this was originally made in just 1 month. this one in particular has a lot of dead ends, mention of gore & dismemberment, and other content warnings.

okay now that you've made it this far I'm going to promote my gay horror / Halloween visual novels

Asphodelium

Hazel is an ex-adventurer who's settled down with some of his previous guildmates after the adventure of a lifetime—taking down a doomsday cult that tried to end the world, but at the cost of killing their former guild leader who turned against them. Despite their adventure still haunting him months later, he's tried to move on. —That is until a man with the same face as their guild leader approaches him. This is a story about cults and killing and killing cults. And being in love.

Asphodelium is a melancholic dark boys love visual novel that I made solo in about 3 months. it's entirely in NVL mode (I love you NVL) and around 3 hours long and my personal favorite game I've made so far.

Dahlia

a vampire has snuck into your room while you were sleeping. the only question is - are you next on her menu? Dahlia is a very short sapphic visual novel made in under 36 hours for the Velox Formido game jam, a jam for shortform visual novels. survive being trapped with a lovely little vampire, or don't.

also NVL mode because I love NVL mode. this is a short and sweet vampire visual novel I made solo in a weekend for a game jam that has several different endings.

Witch You Want

With a rather sparkly magical paper, you find a job listing for a local witch needing an assistant with making potions before the town festival that weekend. You sign up, unsure exactly what to expect...... A pompous and questionably excellent witch runs a local apothecary in town but finds that if she wants to make enough potions before the festival that weekend to sell (and keep her ongoing potion shop afloat) she'll need some assistance. After a dubious help wanted ad, she gains you as an assistant. Will the two of you see through to the festival? Will you be able to make a single potion? Will this girlfailure capture your heart?!

this is my latest visual novel that released just a few days ago! I directed & programmed this short cutesy game for a game jam at our studio. it's pretty fluffy romcom with a potion minigame in it. please help our girlfailure make potions, she needs all the help she can get.

[pinkyjulien]

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