i am so insane about this game y’all don’t even know…! the art, music, story, everything is just amazing. i cried like so many times for both editions,, i just finished the expanded edition and somehow they made the best even better
i will say that there are just a few errors with the name input. i saw the default name vyn when i put in a different name in 2 places, but one of them i can’t explain without spoilers and i don’t know how to hide spoilers on here ;( the other time is when you’re reading the grimoire and the mc’s entry was signed v.f.n. for vyn
but overall fantastic job and i will be checking out the next in the series :DD
This extended edition is ruining my brain! I love this game and cried so hard on the old version. I cannot for the life of my figure out how to complete this new edition. Still love it but my brain is mush.
Where did you get stuck? I’ll assume it is the new ‘step’ that I added, and it has to do with Hermit. By default you ask eel for help, but perhaps that’s not the only thing you can do.
AHHH! I'm bawling my eyes out again! I love this story so much. I get so emotional with the way that it shows us the price for our obsession but having the courage to keep living and being strong enough to love.
The extended edition's endings make it feel so complete.
It's been a while since the first time playing this game but reading through it is still as lovely as ever, especially with the new and freshened up artwork. 💀 I'm playing on hard mode for now since saving doesn't work on mac but I'm sure it'll be revised soon
I found a few possible fixes, can you give these a try?
1. Try to launch the game directly from the shortcut or the app file, and not from the itch app.
2. Make sure you have access privileges to the drive/folder the game is installed on. (for example, if playing on a guest account, you may not have the necessary permission to write to the folder)
3. Make sure you're not running the game in sandbox mode
If none of these work, or aren't applicable to your situation, then I'll dig more into it tomorrow. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. :)
Sorry when you say the download app, you don't mean the itch.io app, right? Because I've read reports that sometimes the save error happens only when launching the game through the itch app.
I'm also trying to find out a way to fix the game from our end. Can you download this version and see if it works for you?
I know this game is getting an expanded edition, so I was wondering if you’d recommend playing the current version before and then the expanded? I’ve had it for a while but haven’t gotten around to playing so I’m wondering if I should just wait it out lol
I played this game back in March 2021 and I remember I was SOOO impressed by it (art, story, design, sound effects....) that I decided to pause the recording and continue playing it with my friends... which never happened. The game is now complete -- yaaaay!!! So I'll try to go back to it some day!
Hi, I just wanted to ask if you get a Steam key with purchase? I can only play on Mac, but there isn't a Mac version on Steam as of now, which is my usual gaming platform. I understand if not. Art and story looks great!
I'm playing this right now on Steam and ABSOLUTELY adore it. It's so, so much fun and it's such an underrated gem, oh my gosh. I'll definitely be checking out the other games you've published and keeping my EYE on you in the future. If everything you make is as well done as this, customer for life, right here, the gameplay is so good, the story (I have so much more to find!!!), the art, the music... waghhhh.
My ONLY complaint is that you can't rebind keys. :( (Or if you can, I haven't figured out how...) I don't have a mouse wheel, but want to see my achievements!!! It's sad!! Think about that for the future ig? But gosh, it's so good. What a game.
Hi! I'm absolutely in love with this game and I just have to let everyone involved in making this know that all the time I spent while playing this game was an absolute delight for me. ♥
And I've never seen a game that matches my taste this much before! It's just so beautiful with its art, story, characters, and everything... I'm so thankful that this game exist.
When I first started playing the game I didn't even hesitate for a second to recommend it to my friends, you all deserve all the praises in the world for making a gorgeous game like this!
I will do my best to support you in your other works as well!
Ze and I are so happy to hear you enjoyed our story, it always warms our hearts. ^^ If you want you can join us on our Discord to chat about the game and see what we are doing (I’m currently redrawing lots of Ilar’s faces for the expanded ed.)
Glad you liked it! If you got only the hug it means you didn’t see the true ending. You should give it a few more playthroughs and try different things. ^^ If you need a guide you can find it here.
Finished this game on Steam, absolutely loved it. The art style drew me in and the story, atmosphere, lore and mysteries kept me playing until the end (and then some). Special mention to Ilar's design, I can't get over it, haha.
I love this game. It is brilliant. I have never played a vn with this amount of choices that all affect the story in some ways! I expected to be overwhelmed but the thrill of finding new endings and secrets made me keep going. And then I saw I had been playing for nearly 4 hours....
Also, the ART? the art is incredible! it is gorgeous and intricate <3 the world also drew me in even if this is mostly about ilar and vyn. the magic(k), the lucassi, the Waters, the gods...it is such a cool and unique setting (would make an incredible ttrpg).
tldr-
pros:
-gorgeous art
-hundreds of choices, 40+ endings
-great characters that change over time
-pronoun option, nb romance
-worldbuilding thats fresh and detailed
-awesome ost that gives me chills
cons:
-some clues are very hard to find, could be frustrating to some players
-pronouns limited to he-she-they (why cant i go by xe like the kitty?haha. mostly a joke but could be good if implemented)
-nothing else PLEASE play this istg (ones under this are jokes)
-too sad. -not enough ilar smooching smh. !!!!!!!!! kissa the weird mage ok
Holy cow, this is probably one of my favorite games ever made. The ambiance, the art, the flow, everything is perfect! I usually use a guide when I'm stuck on something, but the sense of accomplishment and progression for every iteration was some of the best I've ever seen.
I am getting a consistent crash on one of the bad endings, though. I'm leaving out the path I took to get it to avoid spoilers for anyone reading. Let me know if you need more info. Here's the traceback if you want it:
Full traceback:
File "game/ending_ilar_good_ritual.rpy", line 1019, in script
if read_letters_good_no_trust:
File "renpy/ast.py", line 1898, in execute
if renpy.python.py_eval(condition):
File "renpy/python.py", line 2276, in py_eval
return py_eval_bytecode(code, globals, locals)
File "renpy/python.py", line 2269, in py_eval_bytecode
return eval(bytecode, globals, locals)
File "game/ending_ilar_good_ritual.rpy", line 1019, in <module>
if read_letters_good_no_trust:
NameError: name 'read_letters_good_no_trust' is not defined
Windows-10-10.0.19041
Ren'Py 7.4.11.2266
CoT:TheRemainder 1.19
Tue Dec 20 14:25:23 2022
Thank you so much for this game. The love and care that when into it is so evident; I'm astonished.
That’s awesome <3 did you see that we are publishing the prologue story for our next game? Maybe you would enjoy reading that as well. ^^ Also it would be awesome if you gave us a rating - it really helps us reach more people. (I feel shy asking people like this, but our audience is so small so every rating makes a big difference. ^_^;)
i still haven't, i just finished the true ending and i want to explore a bit more because i still have some achievements left. but when i do, ill be sure to give it a rating and i already recommended the game to my friends, don't worry about it :D i cant wait to read it ☺️
I was iffy about buying this because Im a broke bitch BUT. I am so sincerely happy I did. I loved replaying for more info. I wanted at first to take the guide for the 'true ending' but I decided not to. Each time I figured something out it was like 'well yes... technically' and then coalesced perfectly into the 'true ending' where the yes's were explained and the technically's made sense and were expanded on and clarified. Of course the art was stunning, the metaphors and consistent lore culture was beautiful, and the game was a treat!
I am missing 2 events on page 4 (number 3 and 4) and then one letter (the one with the alternate true ending route). I'm not sure what the 2 events are, and I can't seem to trigger the true ending route again to do the alternate version. Any advice?
Hi! So, for the alternate true ending you need to make sure the body you-know-who would use in the main true ending is dead. One of the ways to do that is to give your name to the homunculus when they ask you to make a promise and then agree to give blood. After that try to be good and kind as if you are going for the normal true ending (it’s good idea to trade the shiny memory to hermit so you don’t need to look for extra waters). The true ending should proceed as before, but now instead of finding them in the new body something else will happen. As for the scenes, I’m not sure of the top of my head, but do you have two scenes where Vyn is violent with the knife? If those two are missing there is a section in the guide that tells you how to get those achievements and the scenes.
Wow, thank you!! It means a lot you responded and so quickly. I forgot they could die at all, my first train was leaving them with the sunken spirit already there. This answer makes much more sense and helps a lot. I only did one scene with the knife so that's also the right place to start when I replay today. I'm excited to have another excuse to go through and really, really pay attention to the dialogue foreshadowing and hints. <3
This is a really stunning looking game! I actually bought it on Steam and thought I should maybe go here to get some advice because I´ ve run into a problem of sorts. I´m very early into the game ( around 20 minutes now) and somehow must have messed up my game because I am now unable to save or load my game. It worked just fine the first time but I tried to do my second save during a timed choice so maybe that is what caused the issue? I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game and also tried deleting my save files but they just came back once I opened the game again.
What I´ m trying to say is that I would love to read this because it looks fantastic but I don´ t know how to get rid of this problem :/ Some help would be very much appreciated!
Hello! I’m sorry to hear you encountered this bug. In case your save screen looks empty and without any entries, try scrolling the mouse and the entries should appear again. I’m aware of this rare bug, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what is causing it or how to fix it. >_< Mouse scrolling should do the trick though. I hope this helps. ^^
I saw somebody playing one run of the story and not being sure if the game is done, and even if I can’t reply directly to the rating comment, I might as well say something here. X) - on average players don’t get the real ending until 7-12 hours of playing, (7 hours is with guide usually) while some people spend 20-30h for a completeonist run. Each run is part of the big story and by playing one run you barely even stirr the water. You need to play several differenent runs to be able to find the ending. Also, most of the explicit romantic stuff is in that true ending, so yeah. ^^
Stunning. Just ... stunning. Precious few times have I been this emotionally effected by a visual novel.
I feel like I'm limited in what I can divulge because I don't want to accidentally spoil anything and I don't know if I could do it justice anyway, but the art is beautiful, the atmosphere haunting, and there is at least one music track that gets me misty-eyed as soon as it starts playing. I'm really, really happy I gave this a shot.
I first bought this game - though finding $20 a bit dire - because I was intrigued by the unique art and interesting UI. I did not expect the game to be Fantasy Zero Escape. ZE is one of my favourite game series and I've always been enamoured by the fact that it uses the video game medium to its full potential: the player remembers information through different playthroughs, and that in turn changes the route the game takes. I was very surprised when it turned out the game was taking this route: you could use knowledge gained on other playthroughs in times where the character shouldn't have that knowledge yet, and that in turn opens up more to discover.
What I didn't like as, unlike in ZE, this seems mostly meta. Vyn doesnt seem to be aware or question why they know things ahead of time or from places they never visited. This seems to be handwaved as them retrieving memories from their past self or advice from the sage beyond death, but the "loop" of the game constantly returning itself to the same point in time at the start of every playthrough is not addressed in any way. In ZE, this is explained as time existing in a 4D or 5D space in the same way as consciousness, with the physical body existing on a 3D plane. If this is explained in COT, I either missed it or didnt understand it.
Putting together the clues for the true ending felt truly exhilarating at times. It's a hark back to the days where this was how video games were played, with people writing down the important things, though now in an era of quest logs and save files it's gradually becoming a lost art. It took me seeing the body with the carving on its arm about four times before I realised I was probably meant to be taking notes here. I enjoyed that! I enjoyed the feeling that this was my work and my mystery to solve, and that the player is rewarded for paying attention to and inspecting art in a game rather just mindlessly consuming it. I love that there are details hidden in the art, so one has to inspect and appreciate the work put into it. The philosophy, also? I love a game that makes you go hmmmmm. 🤔
The fantasy setting is unique and mesmerising. It's been a long time since I've felt so engaged by the lore of a work. I could read books of this, I really could. It has overall a very dreamlike quality with its striking metaphors and focus on illustrative physical sensation, and the washed-out ink drawings, with their great detail and high constrast, really serve to emphasise this.
The twist was great - I saw it coming, but it was still really interesting to see it play out. I think thats the best you can ask for, really. The most out-there twists can be ruined by bad writing, and even the most cliche can be elevated by good writing, and I really think you stuck the emotional and dramatic landing in every way here. The writing really shone here. Fantastic.
Theres some typos, like fiercely being written "fiercly" and rubble as "rubbel". "They leaned real close" in the story about Ilar seems too modern and colloquial for use in writing. "Until not a single piece bare any resemblence of life" should probably be "bares", since "piece" is one thing. Theres also a bug at the true end just before the ritual where if you have a custom name (and also in the third person epilogue), the player is still referred to as Vyn.
That said, this is unlikely to be a game I forget soon. It's something that has had a profound effect on me, that has left me thinking. One that's left me with mixed emotions in the best possible way. It's haunting. It's well worth the price I initially sniffed at. Thank you for this.
Thank you so much for leaving such a long review. I know some things require some squinting to be make complete sense, it’s because it’s our first story we wrote and Some things I maybe didn’t explain the best. For the next one we will try to do better. :) And thank you for finding these few typos. I’ll make sure to fix them tomorrow. ^^
Hmm, not exactly, you can see the style from the screenshots. Since we currently lack any extra funds, we are doing only volunteer fan translation with a small revshare.
I am just barely five minutes in and I had to come leave a comment. This game's art is gorgeous, the UI is gorgeous, the writing is gorgeous, the music is gorgeous -- gorgeous. I am blown away. I will consume this and then return to update -- but god damn. An incredible start.
Absolutely loving the fact I just happened to stumble across this wonderful game! It already seems like I've been playing forever but still haven't been able to figure out the true ending.. I am now just having an error where the option to save or load files has disappeared. Even with relaunching the game the load files cannot be clicked, making it hard to start from the very beginning each time. Is this an error or apart of the gameplay? Again loving the game it's amazing!
I’m so happy to hear you are enjoying it! We are trying to solve this problem about save/load dissappearing and we managed to figure out that if you scroll your mouse they will appear again. Do you mind telling me more about the situation where this happens? How many save slots you think you had filled at the time the bug appeared? Did you have the Act1 or 2 installed before you downloaded the full game? Does this happen when you access saves both from main menu and from in-game? It will help me pinpoint what exactly went wrong. >_<
Also, if it’s not too much trouble, can you send me a screenshot of you save game folder? It’s in %appdata%/Renpy/COTTD
1. I believe I had just finished filling the save slots and was re-saving over them. 2. I did not have act 1 nor 2 installed beforehand. It happens from accessing it from the main menu and in-game. Thanks for your help I can't believe all I needed to do was scroll extra hard ahaha. Heres the shot of my save files.
Having played many many builds of this game, I'm really impressed with how it's innovating vn gameplay. The artwork is STUNNING, and the music literally gave me goosebumps the first time I played through. An incredibly thoughtful game that in turn demands you think differently about how gameplay works. More of this, plz!
Hi I wanted to say that I bought this game in steam because it looked interesting but I did notice somethings that might need to be looked at.
After I installed the game and opened it, I saw it has some gallery pics unlocked (or stuff in the events, places and achievements unlocked). When I went to settings it had an option to reset progress which I did. That seemed to reset it, but I feel it's best to tell you in case it's a universal thing.
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
i am so insane about this game y’all don’t even know…! the art, music, story, everything is just amazing. i cried like so many times for both editions,, i just finished the expanded edition and somehow they made the best even betteri will say that there are just a few errors with the name input. i saw the default name vyn when i put in a different name in 2 places, but one of them i can’t explain without spoilers and i don’t know how to hide spoilers on here ;( the other time is when you’re reading the grimoire and the mc’s entry was signed v.f.n. for vyn
but overall fantastic job and i will be checking out the next in the series :DD
We are so happy to hear you enjoyed our story. <3 Also, thanks for letting me know about the name bug. I’ll make sure it’s fixed in the next update.
This extended edition is ruining my brain! I love this game and cried so hard on the old version. I cannot for the life of my figure out how to complete this new edition. Still love it but my brain is mush.
Where did you get stuck? I’ll assume it is the new ‘step’ that I added, and it has to do with Hermit. By default you ask eel for help, but perhaps that’s not the only thing you can do.
I had a sneaking suspicion! I'll try that now. New day new brain. I'll update my progress. <3
AHHH! I'm bawling my eyes out again! I love this story so much. I get so emotional with the way that it shows us the price for our obsession but having the courage to keep living and being strong enough to love.
The extended edition's endings make it feel so complete.
It's been a while since the first time playing this game but reading through it is still as lovely as ever, especially with the new and freshened up artwork.
💀 I'm playing on hard mode for now since saving doesn't work on mac but I'm sure it'll be revised soon
I’m glad you are enjoying it. ^^ Oh, I didn’t know saving doesn’t work! What happens? You are not able to save or it doesn’t load or what?
It comes up with a exception occurred with a whole list of tracebacks when trying to save!
Here's what it says on the top:
File "renpy/common/00action_file.rpy", line 383, in __call__
renpy.save(fn, extra_info=save_name)
Exception: Not saved - no valid save locations.
Alright, thank you. I’ll look into it first thing tomorrow.
I found a few possible fixes, can you give these a try?
1. Try to launch the game directly from the shortcut or the app file, and not from the itch app.
2. Make sure you have access privileges to the drive/folder the game is installed on. (for example, if playing on a guest account, you may not have the necessary permission to write to the folder)
3. Make sure you're not running the game in sandbox mode
If none of these work, or aren't applicable to your situation, then I'll dig more into it tomorrow.
I'm glad to hear you're enjoying it. :)
Thanks for the recommendations!
I'm playing it normally through the download app so 1 and 3 are out. I did just check by giving it full permissions but it still had the same issues 🤔
Sorry when you say the download app, you don't mean the itch.io app, right? Because I've read reports that sometimes the save error happens only when launching the game through the itch app.
I'm also trying to find out a way to fix the game from our end. Can you download this version and see if it works for you?
TheRemainderExpandedEdition-2.03-mac.zip
I know this game is getting an expanded edition, so I was wondering if you’d recommend playing the current version before and then the expanded? I’ve had it for a while but haven’t gotten around to playing so I’m wondering if I should just wait it out lol
I recommend waiting. ^^
I'm pretty sure this is Enki from fear & hunger
Never heard of this game, looked it up, it seems pretty interesting! Thanks for the tip. :)
Hey, I like Enki and F&H, but you should be more careful with the comparisons - not everyone likes them
I played this game back in March 2021 and I remember I was SOOO impressed by it (art, story, design, sound effects....) that I decided to pause the recording and continue playing it with my friends... which never happened. The game is now complete -- yaaaay!!! So I'll try to go back to it some day!
Hi, I just wanted to ask if you get a Steam key with purchase? I can only play on Mac, but there isn't a Mac version on Steam as of now, which is my usual gaming platform. I understand if not. Art and story looks great!
Hi! Unfortunately, the mac ver is only available here. Also, you don’t get an extra steam key.
Okay, thanks for clarifying!
I'm playing this right now on Steam and ABSOLUTELY adore it. It's so, so much fun and it's such an underrated gem, oh my gosh. I'll definitely be checking out the other games you've published and keeping my EYE on you in the future. If everything you make is as well done as this, customer for life, right here, the gameplay is so good, the story (I have so much more to find!!!), the art, the music... waghhhh.
My ONLY complaint is that you can't rebind keys. :( (Or if you can, I haven't figured out how...) I don't have a mouse wheel, but want to see my achievements!!! It's sad!! Think about that for the future ig? But gosh, it's so good. What a game.
Glad to hear you are having fun. ^^ Hmm, I never considered mouse wheel not being available. I’ll try to make a workaround for the expanded edition.
so did you make a work around i'm having the same problem so i'm curious :3 ?
I just posted a new update (ver 2.01) and now you are able to use up and down keys insted of mouse wheel. I hope this helps. ^^
It really does thank you so much :D
Hi! I'm absolutely in love with this game and I just have to let everyone involved in making this know that all the time I spent while playing this game was an absolute delight for me. ♥
And I've never seen a game that matches my taste this much before! It's just so beautiful with its art, story, characters, and everything... I'm so thankful that this game exist.
When I first started playing the game I didn't even hesitate for a second to recommend it to my friends, you all deserve all the praises in the world for making a gorgeous game like this!
I will do my best to support you in your other works as well!
Ze and I are so happy to hear you enjoyed our story, it always warms our hearts. ^^ If you want you can join us on our Discord to chat about the game and see what we are doing (I’m currently redrawing lots of Ilar’s faces for the expanded ed.)
Gorgeous game loved it! The most I could get out of Ilar was a hug though :'(
Glad you liked it! If you got only the hug it means you didn’t see the true ending. You should give it a few more playthroughs and try different things. ^^ If you need a guide you can find it here.
I finally got there last night! Now I'm sleep deprive lol
Hi! Is there a Mac demo? I'd like to try the game out before committing to it (broke college student lol) but I only see a windows demo.
Heey! You can find the mac version here.
Finished this game on Steam, absolutely loved it. The art style drew me in and the story, atmosphere, lore and mysteries kept me playing until the end (and then some). Special mention to Ilar's design, I can't get over it, haha.
I love this game. It is brilliant. I have never played a vn with this amount of choices that all affect the story in some ways! I expected to be overwhelmed but the thrill of finding new endings and secrets made me keep going. And then I saw I had been playing for nearly 4 hours....
Also, the ART? the art is incredible! it is gorgeous and intricate <3
the world also drew me in even if this is mostly about ilar and vyn. the magic(k), the lucassi, the Waters, the gods...it is such a cool and unique setting (would make an incredible ttrpg).
tldr-
pros:
-gorgeous art
-hundreds of choices, 40+ endings
-great characters that change over time
-pronoun option, nb romance
-worldbuilding thats fresh and detailed
-awesome ost that gives me chills
cons:
-some clues are very hard to find, could be frustrating to some players
-pronouns limited to he-she-they (why cant i go by xe like the kitty?haha. mostly a joke but could be good if implemented)
-nothing else PLEASE play this istg (ones under this are jokes)
-too sad.
-not enough ilar smooching smh. !!!!!!!!! kissa the weird mage ok
[COPY PASTED FROM STEAM]
We are so glad you are enjoying our game! <3 You actually can smooch Ilar on several occasions (and do much more) - if you make the mood right ^^
Thanks for the reply! I did smooch them once (and did more ;] ) but i didnt know there was more!
I wish I could play this game again for the first time. It's incredible. It's a shame it doesn't have a larger fanbase.
Thank you so much for enjoying our story! ^^ Yeah, once you know the truth you can’t unsee it hehe.
I played this on steam. It was amazing
Thank you, I'm glad to jear you enjoyed it!
It’s fixed they/them
Holy cow, this is probably one of my favorite games ever made. The ambiance, the art, the flow, everything is perfect! I usually use a guide when I'm stuck on something, but the sense of accomplishment and progression for every iteration was some of the best I've ever seen.
I am getting a consistent crash on one of the bad endings, though. I'm leaving out the path I took to get it to avoid spoilers for anyone reading. Let me know if you need more info. Here's the traceback if you want it:
Full traceback:
File "game/ending_ilar_good_ritual.rpy", line 1019, in script
if read_letters_good_no_trust:
File "renpy/ast.py", line 1898, in execute
if renpy.python.py_eval(condition):
File "renpy/python.py", line 2276, in py_eval
return py_eval_bytecode(code, globals, locals)
File "renpy/python.py", line 2269, in py_eval_bytecode
return eval(bytecode, globals, locals)
File "game/ending_ilar_good_ritual.rpy", line 1019, in <module>
if read_letters_good_no_trust:
NameError: name 'read_letters_good_no_trust' is not defined
Windows-10-10.0.19041
Ren'Py 7.4.11.2266
CoT:TheRemainder 1.19
Tue Dec 20 14:25:23 2022
Thank you so much for this game. The love and care that when into it is so evident; I'm astonished.
Thank you so much for enjoying our game and for reporting the crash, I must have introduced it with the latest update. ^^; I’ll investigate it.
i am in awe. what a good game jesus christ best 14 dollars spent in my life. Wow
I’m happy you enjoyed it! <3
enjoying it is an understatement, i absolutely loved it. i cant wait to see what you make next :D♥️
That’s awesome <3 did you see that we are publishing the prologue story for our next game? Maybe you would enjoy reading that as well. ^^ Also it would be awesome if you gave us a rating - it really helps us reach more people. (I feel shy asking people like this, but our audience is so small so every rating makes a big difference. ^_^;)
i still haven't, i just finished the true ending and i want to explore a bit more because i still have some achievements left. but when i do, ill be sure to give it a rating and i already recommended the game to my friends, don't worry about it :D i cant wait to read it ☺️
thank you! And thanks for the lovely review, I smiled when I read it. <3
I was iffy about buying this because Im a broke bitch BUT. I am so sincerely happy I did. I loved replaying for more info. I wanted at first to take the guide for the 'true ending' but I decided not to. Each time I figured something out it was like 'well yes... technically' and then coalesced perfectly into the 'true ending' where the yes's were explained and the technically's made sense and were expanded on and clarified. Of course the art was stunning, the metaphors and consistent lore culture was beautiful, and the game was a treat!
I am missing 2 events on page 4 (number 3 and 4) and then one letter (the one with the alternate true ending route). I'm not sure what the 2 events are, and I can't seem to trigger the true ending route again to do the alternate version. Any advice?
SPOILER ALERT
Hi! So, for the alternate true ending you need to make sure the body you-know-who would use in the main true ending is dead. One of the ways to do that is to give your name to the homunculus when they ask you to make a promise and then agree to give blood. After that try to be good and kind as if you are going for the normal true ending (it’s good idea to trade the shiny memory to hermit so you don’t need to look for extra waters). The true ending should proceed as before, but now instead of finding them in the new body something else will happen. As for the scenes, I’m not sure of the top of my head, but do you have two scenes where Vyn is violent with the knife? If those two are missing there is a section in the guide that tells you how to get those achievements and the scenes.
SPOILERS for the answer too
Wow, thank you!! It means a lot you responded and so quickly. I forgot they could die at all, my first train was leaving them with the sunken spirit already there. This answer makes much more sense and helps a lot. I only did one scene with the knife so that's also the right place to start when I replay today. I'm excited to have another excuse to go through and really, really pay attention to the dialogue foreshadowing and hints. <3
My pleasure, I’m happy to hear you are enjoying the story. If you still have troubles finding some stuff you can always poke me. <3
This is a really stunning looking game! I actually bought it on Steam and thought I should maybe go here to get some advice because I´ ve run into a problem of sorts. I´m very early into the game ( around 20 minutes now) and somehow must have messed up my game because I am now unable to save or load my game. It worked just fine the first time but I tried to do my second save during a timed choice so maybe that is what caused the issue? I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game and also tried deleting my save files but they just came back once I opened the game again.
What I´ m trying to say is that I would love to read this because it looks fantastic but I don´ t know how to get rid of this problem :/ Some help would be very much appreciated!
Hello! I’m sorry to hear you encountered this bug. In case your save screen looks empty and without any entries, try scrolling the mouse and the entries should appear again. I’m aware of this rare bug, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what is causing it or how to fix it. >_< Mouse scrolling should do the trick though. I hope this helps. ^^
Wahhh thank you so much!! Scrolling worked!! I'm so happy I'll get to keep playing, thank you!! ^^
I’m glad it worked, and I apologise for the bug being there. I hope your experience will be smooth from now on. <3
I saw somebody playing one run of the story and not being sure if the game is done, and even if I can’t reply directly to the rating comment, I might as well say something here. X) - on average players don’t get the real ending until 7-12 hours of playing, (7 hours is with guide usually) while some people spend 20-30h for a completeonist run. Each run is part of the big story and by playing one run you barely even stirr the water. You need to play several differenent runs to be able to find the ending. Also, most of the explicit romantic stuff is in that true ending, so yeah. ^^
Stunning. Just ... stunning. Precious few times have I been this emotionally effected by a visual novel.
I feel like I'm limited in what I can divulge because I don't want to accidentally spoil anything and I don't know if I could do it justice anyway, but the art is beautiful, the atmosphere haunting, and there is at least one music track that gets me misty-eyed as soon as it starts playing. I'm really, really happy I gave this a shot.
I first bought this game - though finding $20 a bit dire - because I was intrigued by the unique art and interesting UI. I did not expect the game to be Fantasy Zero Escape. ZE is one of my favourite game series and I've always been enamoured by the fact that it uses the video game medium to its full potential: the player remembers information through different playthroughs, and that in turn changes the route the game takes. I was very surprised when it turned out the game was taking this route: you could use knowledge gained on other playthroughs in times where the character shouldn't have that knowledge yet, and that in turn opens up more to discover.
What I didn't like as, unlike in ZE, this seems mostly meta. Vyn doesnt seem to be aware or question why they know things ahead of time or from places they never visited. This seems to be handwaved as them retrieving memories from their past self or advice from the sage beyond death, but the "loop" of the game constantly returning itself to the same point in time at the start of every playthrough is not addressed in any way. In ZE, this is explained as time existing in a 4D or 5D space in the same way as consciousness, with the physical body existing on a 3D plane. If this is explained in COT, I either missed it or didnt understand it.
Putting together the clues for the true ending felt truly exhilarating at times. It's a hark back to the days where this was how video games were played, with people writing down the important things, though now in an era of quest logs and save files it's gradually becoming a lost art. It took me seeing the body with the carving on its arm about four times before I realised I was probably meant to be taking notes here. I enjoyed that! I enjoyed the feeling that this was my work and my mystery to solve, and that the player is rewarded for paying attention to and inspecting art in a game rather just mindlessly consuming it. I love that there are details hidden in the art, so one has to inspect and appreciate the work put into it. The philosophy, also? I love a game that makes you go hmmmmm. 🤔
The fantasy setting is unique and mesmerising. It's been a long time since I've felt so engaged by the lore of a work. I could read books of this, I really could. It has overall a very dreamlike quality with its striking metaphors and focus on illustrative physical sensation, and the washed-out ink drawings, with their great detail and high constrast, really serve to emphasise this.
The twist was great - I saw it coming, but it was still really interesting to see it play out. I think thats the best you can ask for, really. The most out-there twists can be ruined by bad writing, and even the most cliche can be elevated by good writing, and I really think you stuck the emotional and dramatic landing in every way here. The writing really shone here. Fantastic.
Theres some typos, like fiercely being written "fiercly" and rubble as "rubbel". "They leaned real close" in the story about Ilar seems too modern and colloquial for use in writing. "Until not a single piece bare any resemblence of life" should probably be "bares", since "piece" is one thing. Theres also a bug at the true end just before the ritual where if you have a custom name (and also in the third person epilogue), the player is still referred to as Vyn.
That said, this is unlikely to be a game I forget soon. It's something that has had a profound effect on me, that has left me thinking. One that's left me with mixed emotions in the best possible way. It's haunting. It's well worth the price I initially sniffed at. Thank you for this.
Thank you so much for leaving such a long review. I know some things require some squinting to be make complete sense, it’s because it’s our first story we wrote and Some things I maybe didn’t explain the best. For the next one we will try to do better. :) And thank you for finding these few typos. I’ll make sure to fix them tomorrow. ^^
Game has an Ice Wind Dale visual style, I'm I right?
Hey, I could create a Spanish translation for the game, are you interested?
Hmm, not exactly, you can see the style from the screenshots. Since we currently lack any extra funds, we are doing only volunteer fan translation with a small revshare.
revshare is fine for me, just sent you a DM on DevianArt
Can you join our discord and we'll talk there?
https://discord.gg/hEZAs856
took 3 days to finish but holy shittt was it worth it oh my god the writing and plot twist is brilliant OH MY GOD
I’m glad you enjoyed it! <3
I am just barely five minutes in and I had to come leave a comment. This game's art is gorgeous, the UI is gorgeous, the writing is gorgeous, the music is gorgeous -- gorgeous. I am blown away. I will consume this and then return to update -- but god damn. An incredible start.
Absolutely loving the fact I just happened to stumble across this wonderful game! It already seems like I've been playing forever but still haven't been able to figure out the true ending.. I am now just having an error where the option to save or load files has disappeared. Even with relaunching the game the load files cannot be clicked, making it hard to start from the very beginning each time. Is this an error or apart of the gameplay? Again loving the game it's amazing!
I’m so happy to hear you are enjoying it! We are trying to solve this problem about save/load dissappearing and we managed to figure out that if you scroll your mouse they will appear again. Do you mind telling me more about the situation where this happens? How many save slots you think you had filled at the time the bug appeared? Did you have the Act1 or 2 installed before you downloaded the full game? Does this happen when you access saves both from main menu and from in-game? It will help me pinpoint what exactly went wrong. >_<
Also, if it’s not too much trouble, can you send me a screenshot of you save game folder? It’s in %appdata%/Renpy/COTTD
1. I believe I had just finished filling the save slots and was re-saving over them. 2. I did not have act 1 nor 2 installed beforehand. It happens from accessing it from the main menu and in-game. Thanks for your help I can't believe all I needed to do was scroll extra hard ahaha. Heres the shot of my save files.
Thank you so much for your feedback! We just released version 1.04 which should hopefully prevent this from happening again.
Having played many many builds of this game, I'm really impressed with how it's innovating vn gameplay. The artwork is STUNNING, and the music literally gave me goosebumps the first time I played through. An incredibly thoughtful game that in turn demands you think differently about how gameplay works. More of this, plz!
Hi I wanted to say that I bought this game in steam because it looked interesting but I did notice somethings that might need to be looked at.
After I installed the game and opened it, I saw it has some gallery pics unlocked (or stuff in the events, places and achievements unlocked). When I went to settings it had an option to reset progress which I did. That seemed to reset it, but I feel it's best to tell you in case it's a universal thing.
Hey, thanks for reporting this, we put up a patch for this, hopefully it'll work properly now. :)
I've been following the development of CoT:TR for several months, and I'm so happy to finally purchase and play! Congrats!
Thank you so much, I hope you will enjoy it!
I bought the steam version, I wanted to ask is there any steam censorship or are both games the same?
They are both the same.