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You are The best comedy visual novel creator on itch.io, pls keep making more like this.

It was so good. I'll forever remember this visual novel.

I remember playing this game back when I was in middle school and loving it, I'm college now. It was the first visual novel I ever played, so it makes me quite nostalgic, I think I'll play it again, since it once meant so much to me.  So thanks to the people who created it for the memories!

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I'm sorry but I couldn't do it. Everything screams r/im14andthisisdeep. Writing style is like me when I was 14 and trying to be fancy and deep and pretentious. I suppose they're children so it's no wonder but it's too much. The breakup scene in the beginning omg.. "Even knowing the suffering that awaits me" god sounds like an incel, not saying they are as I can't finish the game so I wouldnt know. Nobody speaks like this. It's like a weeb trying to be super deep or the emo kid thinking they're super special and nobody else understands!! It's painful to read. The opening block of text is so pretentious without actually saying anything. It's just reiterating what people learn eventually but angsty teen style. Then everything else is also sprinkle with pretentiousness. I got the heebie-jeebies lol. Brought back too many memories 😂

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Story

One Thousands Lies is a high school coming-of-age story focused on 6 students during their last year before graduation. The story focuses on their interactions in the present while alluding to some traumatic past events that have had a hand in shaping their path to where they are now. To the point of the title, the tale is a study in how all of us, whether subconsciously or not, try to influence the narrative surrounding our lives and choices, both for others and for ourselves — even if our attempts are sometimes nothing more than an exercise in deception and misdirection.

Through the everyday adventures of the main character and his orbit of friends, we start to get a sense of the shape of critical events that have shaped their view of the world, their place in it, and their relationships to each other. The "peeling of the onion" proceeds slowly, and most of the critical reveals occur in the epilogue, "One Hidden Truth", which is only available to play through once the main body of the novel has been completed. This is intentional; the story takes great pains to emphasize that for every truth that is core to our being, there are a thousand stories, explanations, justifications and deceptions that we weave around ourselves to protect ourselves and others from the thorny facets of our existence that we are reticent about or ashamed to confront.

At times the story grows burdensome under the weight of its own introspective and philosophical meanderings, but the emotional impact of the story is worth the frequently rambling journey.

Characters

The 6 main characters of the story are all very well developed. Diniz is perhaps the most opaque in terms of character development, but that is in a way simply intrinsic to his personality. Each character has their own quirks, and when they're not busy waxing philosophical, their interactions are hilarious and, at times, stirring.

My main objection to the heavy philosophical musings is that they are conveyed via high school students. It's rare to find young adults that age who analyze life, the universe and everything in such intricate detail. Consequently, the internal musings of the main character stretch the limit of plausibility, and when deep analysis of humanity starts to spill out into the dialogue between characters, it downright undermines the immersion. Yes, the story is trying to weave a set of concepts in preparation for the big reveal at the end; but in the absence of other, older characters who can serve as a platform for such observations, there remains little choice but to deliver the concepts through the most unlikely of demographics.

Interestingly, one of my favorite characters — for situational comedy — isn't a leading characters and doesn't even have a visual representation: the substitute teacher. I laughed every time the substitute teacher became haplessly involved in yet another prank, and of course the twist toward the end had me in stitches. (No spoilers.)

Graphics

The backdrops to this visual novel are very impressionist, which serves well to keep attention focused on the characters themselves. Each character is beautifully portrayed, with many different poses to convey the right mood at each point in the conversations. A few select scenes feature full in-scene character placement to further bring the characters to life during key moments in the story, and these are beautifully done as well.

The main character is not represented graphically; use your imagination. Most side characters (of which there are few) also do not have a graphical representation.

Sound and Music

The music appears to be largely composed of free-to-use or public domain content. The songs are diverse and well selected to support the storytelling; some reinforce the quirky relationships of the characters, and others do a good job of underscoring the more poignant moments of the story. A music player available from the main menu lets the reader play any of the tracks they have heard so far in the story and also doubles as a place to give attribution.

Sound effects are used judiciously but are well done and do help bring parts of the story to life more.

Gameplay and Controls

This is a kinetic visual novel. There are no choices to be made; you are simply reading a story with visuals. Interface is standard Ren'Py. The on-screen interface is intuitive enough for mouse usage, but the game does not have any sort of help screen for the keyboard interface (always appreciated since the game engine doesn't come with an out-of-the-box help screen).

Interestingly, the "Skip" function is enabled, which for a visual novel without any interactive elements, causes it to speed forward all the way to the end of the novel. Also, a recurring gripe I have with Ren'Py is that "Skip" is mapped to the Tab key, and it also reacts on key-up when using Alt+Tab to switch back into Ren'Py from another application — thereby triggering a Skip when it wasn't desired.

Conclusion

This is a beautifully portrayed story with fun, engaging characters. It suffers only from a top-heavy encumbrance of introspective ruminations and philosophical dialogue, which probably could have been more smartly presented by relying on the reader's ability to discern the author's perspective through more subtle conveyances. The result is a number of awkward speed bumps in the storytelling; but otherwise the shenanigans are fun and entertaining, the emotional moments are appropriately poignant, and the final reveals are especially impactful.

Definitely worth a read!

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Like a gateway drug into visual novels.
I first read this on recommendation from a dude in the forums(those still exist) of a manga reading website, and I fell in love once I got around to playing it. Now, 2 years later, I'm revisiting it and its still just as good as I remember.
It does have some of the trappings of anime, the art style being the most obvious, but I still think it would stand on its own for someone not familiar with anime, its got a good amount of romance, but the philosophical and melancholic scenes are where it really shines.

But hey, I'm just a random guy on the internet, the game is literally free, at least download it.

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Am I really gonna comment when the release was like 5 years ago? Sure! Why not?

HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD





   


I really wanted to say that this vn is bad but I can't, the reason why I say that it's bad is because the story feels like it's made for critics or is made to be deep and with pretty big amounts of exposition.

The thing about this story is that its not made to please the viewer at all, especially the main character, basically everything bad that happens is his fault he is in the wrong pretty much all the time, in hindsight this guy pretty much stalked Luce sent the mails to himself so he could spark conflict and speak to her and broke into her apartment, and in the one hidden truth epilogue she was fine with it (to be fair it is teased that that didn't happen yet and its just a story), my man stabbed himself and cut ties with his friends to justify the fact that he wasn't blamed more for stopping the work on the building, his friends don't help much either Ziva just stood there not taking serious action even tho he was going out with him and Diniz did the same and Ausse being comic relief most of the time, also the fact that Claire wasn't real was kinda expected but still felt like bs on an emotional level and given the fact that he was acknowledged by Ausse at some point as being real. The fact that this is a kinetic novel also makes things worse because you cant control what girl you end up with, which also makes it less enjoyable (I actually liked Ziva more than I should have and would have liked an ending for her)

Now erase all I said above.

This vn was actually very good, feelings can't be controlled, sadness and depression can't be controlled, this game shows a very realistic scenario a human mind could work, sometimes people just self destruct and see the world however the want to see it and other people cant change their mind, people just get crushed under the weight of their own burden, cant take things back and shut themselves from other's out of guilt.           I actually think the heroines are top tier, all very well written and cute, I cant help but root for all of them, all have good points and are way more realistic than the average vn heroine that is 95% fluff. There are also some funny moments like the speech Ausse gives at the school festival, the bit at the beginning and some nice references. Also the twists in the story are insane you actually cant really predict a lot of things that are gonna happen, especially in the epilogue I would not have imagined in a thousand years that he would stab himself. 

I feel like this is at least 8.5/10 if I'm being critical but I'm gonna go with 10/10 because things with way less effort get a 10 and it's made by an english developer.

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If you wondering if you should try this, the answer is yes* with an asterisk. In hindsight I should have probably focused on my studies more.

Okay. Where do I start, my taking 3 months to finish this because I just never wanted it to end or confronting the emptiest dark wholesome lie that is left within me after waiting so long only to be met with That end. 

My One truth. In true Ciaran fashion I choose to run away from both those options.

Instead.My thoughts posed as questions and vice versa that will contain spoilers:


Ciaran cut his friends off? not much explanation as to why besides some psychological word Olympics (English literature student here) I understood the words and that they may have been lies in an of itself but maybe just like Ziva I am annoying and over psychoanalyse everything because it just doesn't add up to me.

Am I just missing the point? Is that the charm? Missing the point?

I may seem accusatory so I'll explain myself. Ciaran is a stoic man of his word and chronic gambler, is that the lie? Because throughout the story his traits seem to be of someone who would see tough things as too much effort and yet wouldn't avoid them for the sake of his friends. The same dude who knew Ausse enough to know that he wasn't lying about being a virgin. Obviously I don't know him so I might be wrong, I guess, I just feel kind of betrayed because Ciaran seemed to be a chaotic good or lawful neutral person when it really made a difference and yet at the end his character just makes a decision that is full 180° at graduation.

More questions that are more direct, straightforward and easier to answer posed as, well, questions:

1.Ciaran loves Claire? 

2.Ciaran broke up with Ziva?

2.2.CIARAN AND ZIVA WERE DATING?

3.The animals in the wolf story reflect his friends?

4.Ciaran is actually schizophrenic which would explain the Bald Bastard being everywhere and working as everything on top of being able to serve dishes so fast and grenades that blow up with a bang releasing was it airsoft bullets? Comedic relief? I understand.?

5.I'm just butthurt because I thought Ziva was reallly good to Ciaran, but got broken up with for fucking legal loli Claire?


All in all I really liked this visual novel, I put in 17 hours making sure I read the text properly. I could of forgotten things too since I played it over a span of 3 months, so forgive me if I said something wrong or stupid.


You got no time to be reading this long crap but if you did please do let me know if I'm wrong or if you just are of a different opinion.

Except with regards to best girl, it's obviously Bald Bastard  Ziva. I'm not wrong on that.

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Have you read One Hidden Truth? It's an extra chapter that explains some of your questions. Click it on the main menu.

I don't really try a lot of human visual novels, But this particular one caught not just mine, But also my best friends attention too. we will be trying this out so thank you for making this wonderful game ^^

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-Made a Video.

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and i have finished the game again! i'd probably want to change the summary of this game from "a bunch of normal students making an impression of kokichi oma on each other with a bit of romance as well" to "five insane students and a sleepy nerd discuss psychology while annoying each other". because really, everyone but diniz is insane or crazy in some way or another.

i still love the game, and i'm still obsessed with it and may not stop recommending it to everyone who makes eye contact with me in the internet. glad i somehow came across this, this is one of the three games that hooked me into visual novels, so of course i love it

also, i am still in the warpath against ciaran as he declared that anyone who picks bulbasaur as their starter pokémon is his public enemy no 1.

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Why the fuck would you make the option to download for free?! this was soooooooo fucking good (just finished it) holy mother fucking Christ was this good! Are you a god? A demon? a master of story writing? ALL?! fuck you how fucking dare you make such a good fucking visual novel! no seriously how could you fucking do this? nothing will beat it! FUCK YOU! 

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it so much. Hope it gets beaten by my new novel Lotus Reverie (coming soon) though! :)

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I have the website bookmarked, definitely will buy!

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