PEGBRJE: This World Unknown and EAT GIRL
Wait, Page 6 is done already?
This World Unknown is a visual novel sprinkling some otome vibes from ebi-hime, a solo dev with an extensive library of visual novels. This particular game was assisted via sprites and CGs by an artist by the name of Adyrn with backgrounds credited within a txt file for each of the artist that created them. Within this title, players follow the life of Rhea, a nurse at her local hospital, as she navigates through her day to day life in a medieval village. This village is part of Aslande which has been at war with the neighbouring Eressia for all of her life, and has her childhood friend fighting on the front lines and had claimed her own father’s life years before. Rhea tries her best to fill her life with her work and interactions with other friends and coworkers, but when the troops return home including a certain childhood friend, things get a little dicey. Certainly doesn’t help that the local head of the Church has an illness that cannot be cured, and dozens of soldiers to heal.
Let’s get this first point out of the way; This World Unknown is lengthy. I didn’t make a single choice within the first hour or so of text, and it wasn’t until after Luca and the troops came back. This massive intro will polarize many from my viewpoint, since those that wish to get right into the romance will have to wait quite a while. For me, I actually enjoyed this for it gave me something I usually find lacking in a lot of visual novels; world building. As Rhea players get introduced to the world she lives within, one that while constantly at war rarely feels the effects of it apart from those missing that went to fight. Players learn of the church that exists, and that it is run by literal angels of some kind, with Selene being the next seraph to take on the roll as head since her father is sick. There are side characters that get a few lines, from the other nurses to the random streetfolk that Meirin interacts with from different nations — she, by the way, is an actual elf running the bakery. It’s this world building that helped me not only understand who Rhea was as a fairly airheaded yet honest nurse just trying to get through the world, but also the stage that the romance options will be playing out within. Each route is going to be interacting within this world, so it’s nice to know as much about it as possible.
Speaking of romance options, there appear to be only 4 unless there’s a hidden code somewhere that let’s Meirin become an option. Each of the 4 fall into a relatively safe otome stereotype, although they do bend the mold slightly to allow for growth amongst the cast to varying degrees. There’s Valerian, the logical ‘cold outside, warm inside’ doctor running the hospital with some… questionable opinions on leadership (and makes the run a tad awkward due to him being Rhea’s boss). Asa is the lady’s man who flirts with everyone and lacks understanding of personal space while working for Meirin and having the best banter with his own boss, and Garrett the recovering soldier striving to become a hero while being 15. And then there’s Luca, the childhood friend returning from the war to coldly push away all due to a multitude of factors. Each route takes quite a while to get rolling due to the nature of this specific novel, but focuses primarily on the events circulating the town while trying to grow the relationship and the love interest as people.
As Asa was the route I decided upon first, it was quite refreshing to see him delve into his own issues and recognize his own faults, although I cannot lie that I picked the route first simply because it seemed like the most fun. I rarely pick the flirt in my visual novels, personal preference honestly, since they usually follow a similar structure. Unfortunately it took a little too long for Valerian to grow on me to realize his depth and I had already made up my mind, so he would have to be a repeat playthrough to romance. The other two in Garrett and Luca didn’t appeal to me at the current time of writing, so their routes will take a little longer to get to seeing the length. If these two routes are ones of great interest, it would be best to try the intro and see them personally, or inquire with another who may have played.
Overall This World Unknown is quite a bit different than the visual novels within the bundle done thus far simply due to the strenuous work done to establish the world and its inner workings before players even get a choice. I found myself constantly fawning over side characters that couldn’t be romanced, such as the previously mentioned Selene with her plight to prove her own worth, or the coworker with the horns for some reason Clair as she comforts and teases Rhea. The visuals of the backdrops are really well done, credits to all of the artists involved, and the sprites are much more unique than what I’m used to for visual novels. The writing is consistently on point, with a few hiccups along the way mostly attributed to some characters doing bizarre things or some interactions just getting a little too wordy for basic conversation. If you can handle longer visual novels that put a lot of work into the worldbuilding to help elevate the cast t to the point that the side characters nearly outshine the romanceables, then I’d give This World Unknown a shot to see if you’ll enjoy it.
Seriously though, Meirin best girl.
EAT GIRL is a curious 2D action game made by tesselode, a solo indie dev specializing in audio and development integration as apparent by the extensive library of games and audio plugins. Players control a tiny white hinge-like mouth, with a singular goal: eat pills, exit levels, win. That’s the goal, and nothing except for the creepy random enemies that may or may not be out to destroy the opposition will stop this tiny creature from succeeding.
If it wasn’t completely obvious, EAT GIRL takes inspiration from Pac-man in its style and basic gameplay elements, with a tiny object with a mouth eating pills in a snakey map with walls and enemies. The simple differences between the two includes that there are no lives for this small white mouth, so a single death resets the level back to the start. Pills also don’t cover the entirety always, and are spawned in waves instead, and there isn’t any way to destroy enemies from my understanding. It’s from here however that the similarities between the two end, and where EAT GIRL branches off into an adventure into the bizarre and surreal.
EAT GIRL’s big gameplay feature is in the acceleration of the character — unimpeded movement increases the speed until either players run into a wall which returns the speed to the default, or goes the exact opposite direction to lower the speed slightly. This has its uses to avoid enemies by going faster and faster, while also certain speed thresholds allow for players to break through obstacles such as crates indicated by the tail. Not to mention, all of this is in a setting in which the main ‘hubworld’ can be slowly explored and peeled back by finding levels and completing them, as if there was a massive puzzle to uncover baked into the design of the hub itself. After 2 levels, I was able to explore, ignoring the obvious portal to the next level and went straight through a crate to find another level in a corner, and the world continues as new things are found.
This combined with the audio and visual effects gives a bizarre surrealism to the game, keeping players uncertain as to what exactly is going on or if there is anything going on at all. I read within the comments by tesselode that the audio is generated per level to keep it within context of each, and upon immediately jumping into a game it certain did — The soundtrack was dynamic, never sounding entirely the same and always giving a dissonance while somehow fitting snuggly in the background. It was uneasy, constantly increasing speed while this track just nestles in the ears as I’m trying to focus on not hitting a wall, wrestling control to collect all the dots. Suddenly, I lose focus for a smidge, lose all of my speed and inadvertently head straight into an enemy as if I couldn’t even see it.
That sentence above summarizes the entire sequence of events while playing EAT GIRL. Your focus lasers in on making the character avoid walls, collect pills and avoid all of the enemies until a simple blip stuns everything, breaking concentration and then suddenly it becomes a fight to regain the speed before something goes wrong horribly. If you enjoyed Pac-Man but were wishing for a bit more uneasy puzzle solving and less unending score collection, EAT GIRL will definitely appeal.
