As long as you don't mind reading (all the narrative in this game apart from images is reading) and spending a minute or two figuring out how the skills system works you're going to have probably a decent 2-3 hours at least of solid entertainment out of this game.

The 2-3 hours promised makes it worth it, considering it's gameplay is quite unique at least in the western game market.

I gave it a thumbs up for the 3 hours, but after that it's likely going to become a bit shallow.

First i will throw out my complaints about the game.

The soundtrack that so many praise i actually hated. The game does not have an original title track, it has a piano version of the national anthem of England instead, this irritated me partially because it wasn't original, and partially because i thought it just wasn't well played and didn't fit the atmosphere of the menu at all.

Next up when you reach the "Elodie's Room" screen where you will spend most of the game (usually thinking about what to do next) you get a 20 second piano music on loop, it's not so bad, but when you've heard it for the 3rd time (and yes, that takes only 1 minute to happen) you will most likely get tired of it and gradually start to hate it if you don't do something about it. My solution to this was to actually just mute my sound whenever i was on this screen until i stopped caring and was able to ignore it.

Now the above soundtrack issue may or may not be a big deal to you, depends on how important the soundtrack is to you, but for me it was a huge deal and i almost dropped the game because of this stupid 20 second piano music loop. As with anything that's bad, if you withtake enough of it, you'll eventually stop caring and stop noticing it, like the sounds of your refrigerator.

My second big complaint is that the story is for the most part linear, it makes sense that the start is always the same (have to start somewhere right?) but if i had been designing and/or coding this game, i would've at least tried to generate the story procedurally rather than just having a branching story which branches in the background depending on your actions. I.e. i would have wanted it to be slightly less hardcoded/linear. Once you've played through it once, you've got a good general idea of what is going to happen throughout the entire story for your second playthrough.

My third complaint which perhaps breaks the game the most out of these three is how some skills have little or no effect. For example horseriding i hear only comes up once in the game, and i remember the only time i ever needed dog training skill was when i got poisoned by chocolate. (How on earth would being good at training dogs help me spot that the chocolate was poisonous? i don't know, but i died because i didn't have it.)

My experience with Hanako Games is that they make games with great potential, but always manage to release a half-assed product somehow, they get some great ideas! seriously! but they never really "complete" them they don't seem to think everything through to the end, it's like they don't do any gameplay balancing. However for an indie developer maybe that is important since they after all do need to release the game at some point. Half-assed beats non-existent.

Now for the compliments.

For a visual novel the narrative and dialogue are short and very much straight to the point, this game doesn't waste your time and that's why it only gives 2-3 hours instead of 4-6, which is actually a blessing, not a curse (when it comes to visual novels, shorter is better unless the story just has so damn many events. If you're a programmer maybe you'll understand why shorter is better.)

So yeah, this game really does not waste your time by making you do meaningless things, no "pointless" action or meaningless scenes.

The gameplay is very fresh for the western gaming market, i'd like to see more games like this. An RPG where you raise your stats in order to prevent your own death, and hopefully win the game not worrying about leveling up. This game allows you to do all the fun parts of RPGs skipping the boring parts, or that's my opinion. Of course, the political parts of it do add a lot to the game where you have to make decisions and rule your kingdom, or the nobility of the kingdom anyways.

The game somehow manages to make characters good with only a few sentences of dialogue from each,

It's cheap, and well worth exactly it's price of no more or less than 10$.

There are tons of different ways to die, three ways to be a lesbian and probably as many ways to be straight as there are to die.

Like i said, if you don't mind the reading part and playing as a 14 year old princess, then you're in for a treat, this game is a must have for any gamer who actually thinks he'd like it. But the rule of thumb is, don't expect much. The game is very flawed, but at the same time really good, it's the different than usual style of gameplay that you willl want to savour here above all else. Enjoy it for what it is and not what you wish it was!

But if you really want to play what you wish this game was rather than what it is, go download Ren'Py and build your own game with this style of gameplay, i'm not gonna say it's easy, but it most definitely is not hard. If yuo want to try that, then i wish you luck.

Either way, have fun with this game! It has my stamp of approval.

As long as you don't mind reading (all the narrative in this game apart from images is reading) and spending a minute or two figuring out how the skills system works you're going to have probably a decent 2-3 hours at least of solid entertainment out of this game. The 2-3 hours promised makes it worth it, considering it's gameplay is quite unique at least in the western game market. I gave it a thumbs up for the 3 hours, but after that it's likely going to become a bit shallow. First i will throw out my complaints about the game. The soundtrack that so many praise i actually hated. The game does not have an original title track, it has a piano version of the national anthem of England instead, this irritated me partially because it wasn't original, and partially because i thought it just wasn't well played and didn't fit the atmosphere of the menu at all. Next up when you reach the "Elodie's Room" screen where you will spend most of the game (usually thinking about what to do next) you get a 20 second piano music on loop, it's not so bad, but when you've heard it for the 3rd time (and yes, that takes only 1 minute to happen) you will most likely get tired of it and gradually start to hate it if you don't do something about it. My solution to this was to actually just mute my sound whenever i was on this screen until i stopped caring and was able to ignore it. Now the above soundtrack issue may or may not be a big deal to you, depends on how important the soundtrack is to you, but for me it was a huge deal and i almost dropped the game because of this stupid 20 second piano music loop. As with anything that's bad, if you withtake enough of it, you'll eventually stop caring and stop noticing it, like the sounds of your refrigerator. My second big complaint is that the story is for the most part linear, it makes sense that the start is always the same (have to start somewhere right?) but if i had been designing and/or coding this game, i would've at least tried to generate the story procedurally rather than just having a branching story which branches in the background depending on your actions. I.e. i would have wanted it to be slightly less hardcoded/linear. Once you've played through it once, you've got a good general idea of what is going to happen throughout the entire story for your second playthrough. My third complaint which perhaps breaks the game the most out of these three is how some skills have little or no effect. For example horseriding i hear only comes up once in the game, and i remember the only time i ever needed dog training skill was when i got poisoned by chocolate. (How on earth would being good at training dogs help me spot that the chocolate was poisonous? i don't know, but i died because i didn't have it.) My experience with Hanako Games is that they make games with great potential, but always manage to release a half-assed product somehow, they get some great ideas! seriously! but they never really "complete" them they don't seem to think everything through to the end, it's like they don't do any gameplay balancing. However for an indie developer maybe that is important since they after all do need to release the game at some point. Half-assed beats non-existent. Now for the compliments. For a visual novel the narrative and dialogue are short and very much straight to the point, this game doesn't waste your time and that's why it only gives 2-3 hours instead of 4-6, which is actually a blessing, not a curse (when it comes to visual novels, shorter is better unless the story just has so damn many events. If you're a programmer maybe you'll understand why shorter is better.) So yeah, this game really does not waste your time by making you do meaningless things, no "pointless" action or meaningless scenes. The gameplay is very fresh for the western gaming market, i'd like to see more games like this. An RPG where you raise your stats in order to prevent your own death, and hopefully win the game not worrying about leveling up. This game allows you to do all the fun parts of RPGs skipping the boring parts, or that's my opinion. Of course, the political parts of it do add a lot to the game where you have to make decisions and rule your kingdom, or the nobility of the kingdom anyways. The game somehow manages to make characters good with only a few sentences of dialogue from each, It's cheap, and well worth exactly it's price of no more or less than 10$. There are tons of different ways to die, three ways to be a lesbian and probably as many ways to be straight as there are to die. Like i said, if you don't mind the reading part and playing as a 14 year old princess, then you're in for a treat, this game is a must have for any gamer who actually thinks he'd like it. But the rule of thumb is, don't expect much. The game is very flawed, but at the same time really good, it's the different than usual style of gameplay that you willl want to savour here above all else. Enjoy it for what it is and not what you wish it was! But if you really want to play what you wish this game was rather than what it is, go download Ren'Py and build your own game with this style of gameplay, i'm not gonna say it's easy, but it most definitely is not hard. If yuo want to try that, then i wish you luck. Either way, have fun with this game! It has my stamp of approval.