fairy chess.

so incredibly tasteful and different and literary while staying indulgent and campy!!

SPOILERS

the prose completely blew me away, it carried me through the chess sequence on vibes alone, though I’m sure I’d enjoy it even more if I knew chess better. the way the bond between Panz and Algie developed in parallel with Algie’s awareness of reality is beautiful, I loved how play and interpersonal connection are presented as something so intertwined and growth-inducing and simply satisfying. I think it represents the game’s balance of indulgence and intelligence very well. Katurian seeks this indulgence-intelligence too but in the opposite way, a chessboard mirror way.

it was all so cinematic and dynamic and unpredictable and fun. fun the way seeing your first movie is fun when you’re a child. the soundtrack choice is perfect and creates a very unique and immersive atmosphere along with all the collages and inventive (and very aesthetically pleasing) UI. the ending………… it felt absolute, a total declaration, a victory of bringing your mind back from the forced dumbness, an innocence lost, an agency gained. so gorgeous, the text appearing, the composition, the art, the sound. it felt like seeing someone eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and then saying a huge fuck you to god and taking revenge on them by making them go through all the mortal suffering. it also felt more “fairy” than any other modern piece of fairy-related art I’ve seen in a while.

also…. all the powerplay was, indeed, hot 😭

thank you for such a great game!

I’m not sure what to even say except the infantilizing dynamic is so fascinating, the way the game introduces itself through a collage of materials on fairy is clever, and the chess variant(?) is an interesting way to tell the story. Great art and writing. I really loved it.

love love LOVE the art. both of their character designs are just so neat... and i love baby fairy's dialogue. really a baby who's trying to understand this big unknowable giant! i dont know much about chess so the chess sequence went a little over my head but thats on me for not being a chesshead. very enjoyable experience, thank you!!!!!!!

I really enjoyed this work.

SPOILERS

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The earlier parts of the game are darkly hilarious (I love the dynamic between Katurian and our fairy protag), and the presentation is top-notch. Gonna be taking notes from this one for my own reference, especially that ending, wow. (And also... a happy ending for a VN in this jam?! That did throw me for a loop, in a good way.)

Since you asked for honest critique, I think the one thing that made me feel less connected to the visual novel was the chess scene. I'm sure chessheads would get a kick out of it, but for me (someone who isn't), I couldn't really navigate what was going on, the significance of the moves being played, et cetera, et cetera. That said, the presentation of that segment was my favorite in the game (seeing the characters emotions through the board was awesome), and I loved watching the two fairies work together... Really good stuff. 

Anyways. Me when I approach my cats:

Absolutely delightful! Really, my only complaint is that there wasn't more!

there are times where im enjoying a game so much i wish it were in 500 other mediums to consume it all over again and then i remember to be grateful to consume it once. and that definitely happened to me during this read. i ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. i am not sure if i am supposed to want to be this womans little baby fairy after this, but i do love that big lady (baddie alert!!), and i kind of would like to be her fairy! really love all the thoughtful details on how big of a size difference there is between these two. and god. THAT CHESS GAME. THAT WAS AMAZING. honestly all of this was amazing. i loved every bit of it. one of my favorite things i think ive ever played. soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo soooooooooooooooooo soooooooooooooo good 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000/10

omfg this game just oozes with style. visually stunning. from the presentation alone, i knew i was in for a treat.

every aspect of this game's UI, CGs, screen effects, etc are in harmony. i love that the building complexity of the UI mirrors our protagonist's developing mind. it also kept me on my toes - at no point in this story did i have any idea what i would see or read next. it was awesome.

i was surprised by how often i laughed with the script! the first half is such campy, horrific fun, it really felt like a sister game to honeydew complex. the build-up to genuine horror was very deserved, and the ending had me cheering out loud. 

katurian was a consistent delight. when i got the first full-body cg of her outfit i was like girl, what the hell is that, i love you.

i'm going to remember this game for a very, very long time. you folks ought to be proud of yourselves. fantastic work!!!

god i just want to cry. everything about this -- presentation, story, sound, is so potent. i felt like i was playing pretend in my grandmother's garden, in the gauzy timelessness of childhood, and then slowly, forcibly, growing up. 

the fairy's physical helplessness felt so perfectly emphasized, too small and clumsy to escape, even with wings. it's so easy for a person to kill a bug. it felt like it would be just as easy for Katurian to fulfill her promise to squeeze the fairy "until she popped".  as a reader i was never not aware of the fairy's complete vulnerability. 

i really, really loved the end, because (evil reasons), but also because it felt so unexpected yet still so completely earned. the visuals sell it just as much as the prose. fuck the rules, there are other ways to win.

I FREAKING LOVE LOBOTOMY FAIRY CHESS YURI!!!! 

I'm genuinely super impressed by this, I played with my partner and we both gasped multiple times throughout. The writing was so raw (positive) and the visuals were executed in such a unique and thematically perfect way. Also the fairy's expressions and booboo eyes were so endearing kyaa love her ><

Holy COW. This is such an original story, told in an incredibly polished, cinematic, and gripping way. 

Every single scene is so full of cool visuals (the paper in the beginning... the photobashing...the beginning comic-like scenes...the chess sequence...the ENDING...) and the music and sfx did a really good job pulling me into the story. Also I love the designs of all the fairies and katurian's scary face

Lastly, I REALLY like the prose. It felt rich and poetic and rewarding to untangle 

I have never read a story like this and I am so glad it exists :^) 

another ebicon banger. 

presentationally as remarkable and effective as always. the power dynamic was fascinating, and it really put me behind the wings of the protagonist. the chess game as a metaphor for this sort of lop-sided relationship -- limited knowledge, only finding out through mistakes and memorization, trauma and pain, addicted to the game, win or lose, like navigating a minefield -- works superbly well, I thought.

perhaps a tad overwrought at times? particularly considering the pov of a newborn fairy. in its more straightforward moment was when i felt the most connected.

would love to see a continuation or expansion, as the ending felt a tad sudden! but that's me being a greedy little thing. overall, how cool, how thrilling, it is to see things like this. 

a great short ero/gore/horror story wrapped up in some incredible presentation. very "cinematography" forward for a gamejam VN, to the point that it made me rethink some of my preconceived notions of what renpy is capable of doing. some of those visuals (that opening! that final screen! the framing on the just-limited-enough sprites!) will stick with me for a while.

the writing did err on opaque at times; it felt like some of the conversations between the baby fairy and panz could have been filled in a little more. the ending, for as much as i liked it, did come and go in a hurry and left me with a "...aw, it's over already?" feeling. but, i suppose i'd much rather that my intelligence be respected to "figure it out" or "fill in the blanks" than to read something overexplained. maybe i'm just no smarter than a fairy...

i could read a lot more of it, is what i'm saying! a great experience.

haunting and beautiful, will be thinking about this for days to come