Bad Faith... oh Bad Faith... how long i've wished to play you, only to end up, well... a bit unsatisfied.
This is admittedly the first visual novel i have played on my own, prompted thanks to a school project i am currently working on.

to start with the art direction, it is a very cute and rather nice looking game. the art smartly uses symmetry to not only ease the workload but also show moments of unstability as well as power. Cerise's stance is particularly striking, and her expressions and sprites show her pretentious and judgemental character without even the need of text. the backgrounds, photographs or 3D model screenshots blurred under a painterly filter, somehow melt in well enough not to be too distracting, and in the cases the filter isn't as present, adds to the desired effect of uncaniness.
The prose is nice, transmitting inner thoughts well, clear enough for us to get an idea of Magda's character quick enough. The music is alright too, the track playing during the more intense moments being nicely eerie.

The story itself is a tale about alienation and bullying, while being cast in a society basing itself on "purity" yet itself being highly hypocritical. no romance shall be permitted between two members (all of whom being women, the only non specifically female character in the whole game being an angel referred to with they/them as to remind of their higher being status), no violent or "insane" thoughts shall be accepted within the minds any of the members, unless you wish to be ripped away from the community. it's a story about repressing true feelings and thoughts in fear of being ostrcized even more, even if those thoughts should be talked about and not swept under the rug.

Magda, main character of the story and principal narrator, is a normal young woman living in a cultlike community named the Haven, thinking thoughts that, even if considered "insane" or "perverted" by her greater community and even herself, are repressed deep, deep down, due to the social pressure around her. she cannot allow herself to be honest, unless she wishes to get cast out. these thoughts, in the end, get liberated by the angel like being referred to as Nils, as Magda finds them being used as live fuel for the Haven. as Nils contacts Magda, and as Magda's thoughts evolve to truly show the wants she truly has, the world around her watches her through cameras and discrete eyes, refusing to accept these thoughts being present among one of theirs. Magda isn't a bad person, she's simply a flawed human who isn't allowed to be flawed.

The question now is, do the other named characters, mainly the principal antagonists of the game, feel the same way, but still call themselves "pure" as a misconception of their own thought? purity as defined in this community is a lack of romantic or sexual, and an absence of violent acts in public, but everyone judges when in the shadows, Magda gets beaten, trampled over, wronged, accused of insanity, yet do none of the ones antagionizing her most feel the same thoughts, only pretending they are better?

Cerise, one of the main antagonizing sources, is abrasive, harsh, doesn't abstain herself from any profanity around. abusive in all ways but one, her belief in herself being pure is just ego, and her feelings of jealousy towards Magda being one of the proofs of her superiority complex. daring to call herself pure while beating up Magda behind buildings, insulting and threatening, enjoying seeing Magda suffer. Eve, head of the Research sect, complete bootlicker of the Haven's rules, shoving them down the members' throat using words such as "love" while enacting acts of cruelty and power for no reason but her own satisfaction, is plainly reminiscent of those people, shouting and preaching about "love" of their communities while touting hatred of all that does not follow rules arbitrarily written by biased people, or even themselves. purity is a tool, a simple lie the followers of the Haven tell themselves they are in order to keep the others in check.

The story itself doesn't say much about them as people, unfortunately. this is, after all, a story about someone being harmed and hurt by people who enjoy doing so, using the "rules" to excuse their abuse. thus there is no point in showing them being openly kind: this would muddle our feelings too much about their intentions. and, after all, shit people do exist in real life, and most of the time not being the ones "living it rough". neither Cerise nor Eve have it rougher than Magda, on the contrary, yet Magda's revenge on them, despite their inexcusable abuse, feels slightly hollow, to me at least.

Maria and Grace, on the other end, get a slightly different view. Maria is ultimately doomed by her false appearance to Magda, ignoring her completely until her last hour comes, remaining colder towards Magda between the very first Apologia Assembly and her final moments, at first due to coping with grief but in the end possibly due to disgust towrads Magda. Magda did indeed indulge in explicit fantasies between them two, but as private as she tried keeping them, their ultimate exposition completely changes Maria's view of her. to Maria, Magda is now no more than a vague memory, her physical being inexistent, as she paints the painting idea Magda exposed to her at the very start of the game, to never tell the one who had the idea first.

Grace is arguably the most innocent, as well as naïve of the cast. around Magda's age, a hardworker yet devout to her cult to the very end, when all is but ashes and embers and burnt corpses, she blinds herself to the truth of Magda's thoughts being more normal and natural than anything promoted by the Haven, yet still feels guilt for exposing her inner thoughts. the thought of remaining "pure" haunts her, and one can only ask if, once away from the thoughts of the Haven, she'll realize that all that was taught to her was nothing but false ideas created to build a community based on fear and doubt of your friend. Magda truly believed in Grace's kindness and trust in her, but in the end she outed her, and now, she lives with the guilt of having wronged her friends for the sake of a community that is now only rubbles on a lost island.

Unfortunately, the short length doesn't allow for much more, and, even if afterwards i still feel a little conflicted about that lack of development in the characters, it remains a nice little game.