Otome Games

Lord of the Wings: Demo

It's a Dungeons and Dragons inspired (I think the characters are basically living in a dnd world), romcom featuring a cartoon art style very similar to Total Drama Island. It's heavy on the comedy. If you're a fan of tabletop RPG's I'd definitely recommend checking this one out. If you've never played dungeons and dragons though, you'll likely miss a lot of the jokes. It's fully voiced, and has a good bit of MC customization options.

Thorn for the Villain: Demo

Date the villain/ Isekai.
My fave was Vin because the other guy Edel, scares me too much at first brush. He is also definitely appropriately nicknamed the Bad End Butler and murders MC several times in the demo. I laughed a lot during this game because there are a lot of absurd things you can choose to say and you can be mean to Edel the Murderer. The MC has a thought bubble that plays gifs of her internal emotional state because she has to keep a straight face and it really helps add to immersion. I gave them support on Ichio and am looking forward to it's full release.

The Villainess Just Wants To Eat: Demo

Another Isekai, it's hard to tell if this will be good or not. There is nothing wrong with what is there, there is just not enough there for me to tell if it's going to be good. Very short demo, less than 20 minutes, that gives you a sense of the art and partial voice acting. I found the built in definitions to be a bit too in one's face, I think they should be removed or put somewhere else.

How Not to Become a Queen: Demo

​This was great. Sometimes intrigue of the court feels tedious but the author hit the right balance and made MC's intelligence shine through with every choice. I like the art and even the background music is pleasant.

Duskbound
A complete VN about 45mins in length. Features a Yandere vampire and a girl who are trapped in a city that's forever at dusk. The story starts with her realizing developing a crush on him because he's the only real feeling person in their city. I had fun. You play through 5 endings, some are good and some are bad, and then you unlock the true ending, which is the most satisfying one.

Long Since the Eschaton

Oh this was so sweet. Just under two hours, voice acting is solid. I related to the frequent alarm the main character, an ex medical student, had about activities in a post apocalyptic world. The artwork for laying side by side and the non spicy affection was appreciated and Gabe was downright gorgeous. Demisexual representation was lovely. I also liked that there was more to the bad ends then just, "yer dead."

Villainess Idolized by Everyone:

25 minutes from start to finish. It was unique and the art was pretty. I'm surprised it didn't want to be more, with the premise. I've only ever played one other VN where the player is the voice inside MC's head. it's not actually a romance either because MC is already sort of with everyone? It was just okay.

Daughter of a Scoundrel

I couldn't get past the introduction/common route. "He ended the phone call and I entered a flashback I couldn't stop." Then MC being a 17 year old throwing a tantrum over her daddy not being at her birthday party in that flashback and I was like... No. It just doesn't bode well for the rest of the writing, I'm unlikely to vibe with this MC. Maybe someone with more patience than me can get past that, it seems the people who do get to the end are happy with what's there.

Silhouette

MC transmigrates into an RPG Otome where the main plot is surrounded by tragedy and countless deaths. Since she's a side character, she figures the safest bet would be to romance and marry one of the NPCs that are guaranteed to survive until the end. Except she and everyone else that are an NPC are just a silhouette, so she doesn't know what the two guy options even look like. The concept of falling in love with a silhouette was creative once I realized there really was art for the guys and it wasn't just a way to save on sprite costs. It was short, like an hour per route. I really liked Derrick. I was grinning the whole time.

Spoilers

I wasn't willing to see what I thought was the bad end by saying she wanted to return to the real world until I finished Jack's happy ending. And then it turns out our love can Isekai our chosen man to us. ❤️

Nuts: I thought the trigger warnings were for if you picked that guy to romance, so I picked the guy that had no trigger warnings, Ackerman. But the main narrative itself has the trigger? content and I'm not into horror. The premise is that an event occurred that made nuts, owls, and squirrels into human hybrids for the last ?decade? And they're having a dating show between Nut Hybrid humans.

Spoilers
The Squirrel man literally eats the contestants you reject and you get told this via off screen video with like red blinking screen and cracking noises. But then MC monologues about how they'll get out of this and tell everyone to get it to stop. So I persevered through to pick Ackerman, watched a really weird really dark scene between the Peanut and the Squirrel before he went to his death... and it doesn't payoff that Hazel and Ackerman come back to cancel the show. It just ends. They were cute together but it just

Heart Cage: Demo

I think it's originally a different language because the english writing is awkward in that sort of way. I was amused to realize the english voice acting stayed true to the grammatical errors to boot.

3 LIs, all guys, and all mentally insane. I think one is a loving yandere who looks undead and another a violent yandere and the 3rd, Enox, was the only one that I was actually interested in but he's weird too. Possibly they are all supposed to be some version of yandere. The protagonist is a hot chick detective with the skills of a small child playing at detective. I can't tell for sure, this is just a theory, but I think her semi adoptive father has sold her to a weird town that possibly has a cult that wants her for some sort of sex dungeon cult thing. If it ever gets finished, I may read the reviews and see what people say. But as of right now, I'm going to forget about this NSFW craziness.

Intertwine

I'm such a fan of the soulmate trope.

I started bawling when he said he'd pick her every time. "Always." I loved that instead of a sprite there was a hand, I loved the thread, I love his meta memory, I loved that the background music had whispers that made you kind listen hard for it, as hard as you try to remember a memory. It contributed to the story and so often the music is a pleasant nothing burger. Good voice actor for the handsome guy, and I liked how the CGs were done.

Also, the music is amazing, and I've been listening to Faefield Productions on Youtube ever since.

Pearlglow cafe: Sweet Crumb Kisses: It's a complete Otome game that runs around 2-3 hours to complete everything. I really liked it. The world is an effortless light fantasy, where the main character being a witch is remarkable but not too out of the ordinary. Plus, the food that the MC makes for her cafe sounds delicious.

Karamu

Less than an hour. I liked the voice acting. The UI is clean and I played it on my phone. Not usually into yandere at all. Your first and 2nd playthrough give you a clue that something isn't right but I am very bad at clues so I was confused. Once I understood what was going on by the end? I liked it a lot. I don't mind morally grey people ending up with morally grey people. It's kind of fascinating what gets justified. She isn't prey so it's all good again for me. 😆

A Romantic Murder: Demo A murder mystery set in a mansion in the 1930's, but with romance. It's heavily inspired by Agatha Christie novels with a bit of ace attorney and daganronpa. I really enjoyed the demo. The Dev is also doing a really in-depth Jam retrospective which I found quite an interesting read.

Light spoilers:
I really enjoyed that your investigation is going more smoothly because no one is taking you seriously as a lady detective, it's a nice way to deal with the sexism of the time without making the game too dreary. I'm also ready to die for (with? by?) Adrian because I love a man who reads, and out of all the characters he seems to have the least motivation and access to be the murderer

more major spoilers:
I only played one route and apparently in the other route some one else dies. In the route I played Crispian is murdered. The author said in her retrospective (part 2) that she tried to balance Crispian being attractive enough to be related James with making it clear that he wasn't a romantic interest. I must have low standards because if he wasn't an asshole, he's pretty

Candied Hearts: Demo

MC get's isekaied into a candy themed gacha game. The art style is very cute, or should I say sweet. This is a decent length demo, the plot is fairly basic but I'm still looking forward to the full game because of the unique art style.

Let's Misbehave: Demo

This demo has the misfortune of coming out at the same time as another otome set in the 1920's, Speakeasy, and honestly it's not as good. I love the premise; the MC, Gilda, is a recent divorcee on good terms with her ex, who likes to have a good time and has a large alimony. This makes her a very attractive partner to the many pretty men she encounters. My problem with the game is in the execution; there are just a bunch of details that don't quite add up.

1. The text makes it sound like they're near New York City (I think it's set in New Jersey like the Great Gatsby is), but the background art and the accents of some of the voice actors scream that they're in New Orleans. The showgirl, Elsie, especially has a sort of southern girl doing a Transatlantic accent, which is exactly what I'd expect a showgirl in New Orleans at the time to have, but it's be pretty odd for someone in New York.
2. The character sprite for Gilda makes her look like she's in her 40's but apparently she's 24? Someone else brought this up in the comments of the game's page and the dev said that for the full game they'll be changing all of the character sprites because the artist who did them for the jam isn't available going forward. I think they should just run with it. Make Gilda be canonically 40 and her suitors be in their 30's. It's already implied that that the men pursuing may be gold diggers, this can just add to that. It'd be really nice to see an MC who's not in her 20's.
3. The murder at the end of the demo comes out of left field; there's no build up that conflict in this game is going to be centered around murder. In contrast, given that Gilda spends most of her time either in "high society" or at the speakeasy, I'd expect the conflict in the game to focus around a scandal involving either one or something related to her divorce. Once again this demo has the misfortune of being compared to another period murder mystery, A Romantic Murder

As for things I like. I really like the UI design and the music slaps. I think this game has a lot of potential, but it's currently a little bit disappointing.

Potion Panik: Demo

I am here for the this premise. You're a talented alchemist running a potions shop. When your lying bastard of an ex-boyfriend shows up in your shop a year after you've broken up, to "apologize", you quickly grab what you thought was a calming potion so that you can deal with him. Unfortunately, it wasn't a calming potion, it's a love potion! and the only known cure for a love potion is to fall in love for realsys. The two routes will be either your best friend or your ex himself. The potential for drama and angst is just "chef's kiss" top notch.