An interesting play on slasher flicks in the form of VN, with obvious inspiration from Scream. I could feel some of the story beats just from being familiar enough with the genre to anticipate the moves I should make, which I actually liked. Also enjoyed that there is a true ending to the story if you go through every path. I in all honesty didn't hate the story.
I'd also say the characters weren't terrible and looked nice, the background art was good if not a bit generic, and the music was fine. Apparently the art was hand-drawn which is cool and it would explain why characters have some odd proportions in cgs. Like everyone's head looks weird for the most part outside of the standard portraits. However, I also saw the previous VN by this dev used AI for their backgrounds, so I don't know that I trust them saying it was hand-drawn.
And I do want to give compliments on the battery that appears to show a choice's impact. While it didn't matter often, it was still a nice thing to have to make a choice feel less daunting.
There was a lot more bad with this than the good. The most glaring issue with Sunlight Scream is the translation. It is painfully bad in many places, confusing pronouns, verbs, tenses, and outright making up at least one word. Hell, the words "literally raping" were used to describe losing in a video game. Now, I have absolutely used that term in the past to describe losing, but not paired with "literally." I also don't think using dated gamer slang from the mid-2000s is appropriate prose, especially in a 2020s setting and when the topic actually does come into play, literally.
Most of that would be forgivable(ish) if some parts of the story didn't go completely of the rails and made any sense. There is a point where a teacher dies and for some reason it has now fallen on the friendly police officer's shoulders to take the students on a camping trip that was conveniently to be held the next day. Another part has a character reference having blood on their hands (literally) from said officer, many days after the fact.
Additionally, I am really not sure if this is set in a university or high school. Throughout the setting is referred to as university, but the actions of characters, the (albeit relaxed) uniforms, RECESS, and classes make it seem more like high school. I presume the disconnect has to come from the developer being Russian but setting of the story being in the United States. While not a huge deal, it was a distraction.
Finally, the UI had several mishaps where either the wrong character was being shown as talking or was completely missing an indicator. The math test was not hard, but with the options covering the question, it became more difficult. I was expecting actual radio buttons to select on the choices, not a pop-up. And of course there were quite a few instances of text either being repeated in the same text box, or appearing in one and showing again in the next.
I'd also say the characters weren't terrible and looked nice, the background art was good if not a bit generic, and the music was fine. Apparently the art was hand-drawn which is cool and it would explain why characters have some odd proportions in cgs. Like everyone's head looks weird for the most part outside of the standard portraits. However, I also saw the previous VN by this dev used AI for their backgrounds, so I don't know that I trust them saying it was hand-drawn.
And I do want to give compliments on the battery that appears to show a choice's impact. While it didn't matter often, it was still a nice thing to have to make a choice feel less daunting.
There was a lot more bad with this than the good. The most glaring issue with Sunlight Scream is the translation. It is painfully bad in many places, confusing pronouns, verbs, tenses, and outright making up at least one word. Hell, the words "literally raping" were used to describe losing in a video game. Now, I have absolutely used that term in the past to describe losing, but not paired with "literally." I also don't think using dated gamer slang from the mid-2000s is appropriate prose, especially in a 2020s setting and when the topic actually does come into play, literally.
Most of that would be forgivable(ish) if some parts of the story didn't go completely of the rails and made any sense. There is a point where a teacher dies and for some reason it has now fallen on the friendly police officer's shoulders to take the students on a camping trip that was conveniently to be held the next day. Another part has a character reference having blood on their hands (literally) from said officer, many days after the fact.
Additionally, I am really not sure if this is set in a university or high school. Throughout the setting is referred to as university, but the actions of characters, the (albeit relaxed) uniforms, RECESS, and classes make it seem more like high school. I presume the disconnect has to come from the developer being Russian but setting of the story being in the United States. While not a huge deal, it was a distraction.
Finally, the UI had several mishaps where either the wrong character was being shown as talking or was completely missing an indicator. The math test was not hard, but with the options covering the question, it became more difficult. I was expecting actual radio buttons to select on the choices, not a pop-up. And of course there were quite a few instances of text either being repeated in the same text box, or appearing in one and showing again in the next.