Friday, November 16, 2007

The Sight of Autumn - Original English Kinetic Novel


This is an Original English Language Visual Novel and technically not a game, so to dispel any prejudice you might have, please read this before continuing: http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm I'm a bit biased regarding this "game" because it's in the genre that I prefer.

All done? Good. The Sight of Autumn is a non-branching visual novel in 3 chapters (meaning linear story with no choices) made in flash. The story is about a protagonist who is slowly losing his sight both literally and figuratively speaking and his fated meeting with a blind female counselor. The story is told in the contemporary first-person present-tense style from the protagonist's perspective.

From the introductory logo, it's easy to see that the author put a lot of effort into his creation. I won't mince too many words on this VN nor write a detailed review, since in my opinion, it doesn't deserve that kind of treatment of being analyzed and taken apart piece by piece like some uninspired research paper. While being in essence a semi-animated short story, from the exposition and style of writing, one can tell that this is a very emotional piece meant to impart an experience. This experience should be very different for each individual.

While the individual elements are far from perfect, the art works well for this VN and even features some limited animation.The music is near-professional in quality and has a sad, nostalgic feel to it. I love the instrumental and vocal versions of the main theme. Some might compare this work to japanese doujin such as Narcissu and Red Shift, and while it cannot match up to them in terms of professionalism, the indefinable cathartic quality of The Sight of Autumn does not pale in comparison.

Read this free VN with an open heart.
Download Page http://www.renai.us/game/autumn.shtml
Author's Homepage http://www.eltania.net/m12/

Hmm... oh yah, allow me to shamelessly plug some of my own works here. I'm kinda partial to TSOA because the author's style is very similar to mine.
http://www.renai.us/game/wings.shtml
http://www.renai.us/game/hikariRibbon.shtml
Please read some of the other VN's by Radical Dreamers 2002 on the archives too ^_^. I'm nearly finished on my latest one right now. http://www.renai.us

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

M12 here. Thanks for the review. I appreciate it. Any plans on future works? Your stories are inspiring and I'm very interested.

M12 out.

lordcloudx said...

I'd like to read The Sight of Winter when it's done too. Funny that you should mention that the protagonist's gender is indefinite in your notes. I'm using the same concept for one of my pending releases Wings II... unfortunately, although I'm 100% done on my part, my co-artist and co-author is taking his time.

Same goes for what will be my last VN Dream Chasers... 100% done except for the music coz my musician seems to have disappeared. Know anyone willing to do music for a complete VN?

M12 said...

Awesome. Looking forward to Wings II. Is Dream Chasers that RPG game? For some reason, my laptop hung when I tried to run it. Darn.
Yeah, unfortunately finding a muscian is really hard. I am having the same problem with Bermuda, my new game.