Yes, And So Our Hollow Hearts Called For Love
A downloadable game
What does it mean to suffer in heaven? Eve knows the answer and Leben is going to find out. After all what's love without a little bit of pain involved?
A 20,000 word visual novel made for the Menhera VN Jam. Love, eternity, death and time await.
This is a work for adults and may deal with difficult or upsetting themes. Viewer discretion is advised.
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Development log
- Typo FixJul 01, 2024
Comments
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The experience of lying in the dark in my bed thinking about the 'bad ending' and then going 'holy shit' when I realize. Amazing work. One of my favorite VNs now.
I found myself completely mesmerized by this vn and it scratches a spot a lot of media doesn't get to for me. It reminded me a bit of Haibane Renmei at times (I mean this in the most positive way as Haibane Renmei is one of my favorite pieces of media ever. I'm curious if it influenced this at all). I haven't really consumed a visual novel that made me feel the way this one did. From the character designs, to the art, the writing, and the relationship itself, it was an experience I really adored.
Before I even connected the dots of the bad ending, I actually found myself leaning towards it liking it more, and I was really worried it was leave a pit in my stomach, but it didn't.
The paper sequences are really beautiful... There's just so many clever choices in this visual novel! I just am blown away thinking about them. This is a fantastic VN. I hope you all make more work!
This was good I liked it
The character writing in this VN is spectacular~ Eve obviously stands out in this regard, with her steady development from a cold and standoffish beauty to a loving yet deeply troubled widow (of a sort)—but Leben sees just as much character growth, with her seemingly harmless earnestness and do-first-think-later attitude leading her down a terribly rocky and unhealthy but unfortunately realistic road. The writing for them both is very believable and humanizing, and it does an excellent job of getting you immersed and invested in the story; I even teared up a little at the end, heheheh~
The art is also quite something! In addition to the adorable character portraits, all of the paper-craft work with the backgrounds was delightfully creative, and really helped those more intense scenes where it's used to maximum effect to hit that much harder~
I also very much appreciate how the good ending helps you view the bad ending through a completely different lens, and suggests that, although an undeniably tragic outcome, it might not be all that bad after all, heheh~
Fantastic work, well and truly!
Very enjoyable, smooth flow to a well-presented story and it deals with the thing it content warns about with refreshing candor.
One thing I would like to note is that the POV-shifts near second half remove a lot of the initial uncertainty that I got from seeing Leben's POV so long.
Really great little game that does so much in its word count. Like other commenters have already mentioned, the drawn backgrounds have a rough, sketchy feel to them that give the whole setting a familiar but also otherworldly feeling. The game has really great enshutsu even with its very limited assets and it uses them to give its important scenes an appropriate feeling of weight.
There's one really inspired sequence in particular near the middle of the game that has a layer of background art tearing through another piece of art that a friend described as Gekidan Inu Curry esque. And there's the little closing sequence right at the end with the photo 🧎.
I found the writing really nice and not at all wordy. It has a nice sense of rhythm. I think the idea I'm left thinking about most from the story after having finished it a few days ago is just how nothing in the world stays constant, not even yourself, or selves. Maybe to borrow some words, the thoroughgoing impermanence of all dharmas.
We want to capture a moment of ourselves when we felt happiest, and keep it preserved in amber, preserved in a photograph, and promise to stay as that version of ourselves, but it's always already slipping through our fingers. In eternity there's infinite time to do or be whatever we want, but also an infinite number of our old selves we pass through and have to let become memories, become ashes. It's scary feeling your old selves dying, and even scarier reaching for something now knowing that no matter how hard you try to hold onto it, it will only have been a moment in infinite time.
I guess you could tell from this review I related much more strongly to the heroine Eve than the POV character Leben, but they're both great and have cute chemistry.
this was a beautiful analysis!
gay angels stuck in teh rain together.........
i really loved the visual presentation of the backgrounds and the more elaborate effects of ripped pieces. i feel bad for hte OG pieces but they died for a good reason u_u the chars are very cute i quite like how their personalities click and clash. having a relationship involve a 3rd person and the past is an angle i quite like seeing, those emotions are very real
when i finished hte 'bad' ending first, i felt like completing the other one really recontextualised that in a way that made my brain feel good. the final scene was very impactful for me.
thanks for makign this wonderful lil game!
The presentation of this game is immaculate. The character art is quite expressive and the final sections where the backgrounds kinda melt are great.
The writing is rather wordy for my own taste, but I think it captures the longing and isolation both characters feel. It explores the psychology of the characters, the guilt they have, and the kind of suffering they face living in purgatory. Refreshing to see a “no stones left unturned” approach.
My only real criticism is that the NVL textbox doesn’t contrast well with the background at times. It’s hard to read the text.
"For the first time in my life I wish that I had more experience interacting with other people. I can’t think of a way to communicate with this person."
This statement kicks off a series of deeply introspective vignettes or two people struggling in complimentary ways. Leben is one who longs for the the comfortability of knowing and being perceived by the one you care about because the lack of it brings immense distress. And Eve is one who yearns for the same, but isolates and self sabotages because the pain she can control is safer than the pain she cannot. Their chance meeting becomes the catalyst for the first chance in a long time at personal growth. Where that path leads is up to each other.
(I also really loved the BG art. I felt it was so expressive but highlighted the otherworldliness of the setting)