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Higurashi starts slow but it's worth the slow burn. I'd say take it slowly if you do plan on finishing it- I rushed from 1-3 after it hit it's stride and now I'm slowly working my way through the rest.
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Oct 11, 2021 14:54
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Ryukishi got better at doing the tension buildup by the third Higurashi chapter, the first two have some issues with the first chapters being basically disconnected from the story other than introducing the characters with a ton of slapstick episodes
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Oct 11, 2021 14:59
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I love the slapstick and don't think the rest of it works without being at least a little invested in their normal lives. FWIW 3 was the one where I got most frustrated with the game feeling super overwritten and repetitive, and that was in the spooky parts, so getting through 1 doesn't really guarantee smooth sailing. Not that I think 3 was bad, I just feel like the guy could use an editor.
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Oct 11, 2021 16:03
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The "tricks" Hig pulls in its narrative are pretty cool, but yeah, you could shave a full 2-3 hours off of each chapter and you wouldn't lose anything
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Oct 11, 2021 19:10
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as someone just in the room hearing the music and that's it I have to say I still find it funny after hearing it 100 times already just how insanely hard the music goes when the kids are just playing cards or something just this excessively high energy piano track and I turn around my wife just looks bored to tears lmao "drat that music sounds nuts is the plot popping off yet" "NO" I think she just did the festival though so maybe someone's gonna die soon We were trying to think about like other games that have done the sort of "setting a mood of being in a quiet village" or whatever that we liked and I think Persona 4 did it really well by just having these short little vignettes that gave you just enough to feel like you sort of had the highlight of the experience, where it might show you going out to ride bikes or something but the scene would be 5 minutes, or Yukiko trying to cook, but you just get a little taste of each scene, instead of a big drawn out thing that wears out its welcome Stefan Prodan fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Oct 12, 2021 |
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Oct 12, 2021 21:02
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I mean, it is partly since a lot of the old music was replaced with the Answer Arc music. But the other part is that the club activities are purposefully written with a fun kind of fake seriousness. Like, if you read it you can see as Keiichi describes the card game as if his life depends on it. I personally like Higurashi's opening stuff since I think the slice of life parts are fun. I do think it may be problematic (hurt your experience) if you only view them as an obstacle. Of course, many view them as an obstacle in the beginning, and like them more later on. Part of this is because of the brief opening skit for Higurashi is exciting and then you are thrown into the actual start where the reader then wants to go back to that action. Its kind of an example of a "bad" in media res, since it messes with reader expectations. On a related, I feel like Umineko's opening is a lot worse in general. Higurashi starts with you learning the characters through the slife of life stuff while Umineko basically monologues forever, and even the dialogue often feels like monologue (like when the parents are threatening each other with the debt stuff it feels like they are purposefully doing so in an expository manner).
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Oct 13, 2021 00:28
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MegaZeroX posted:I mean, it is partly since a lot of the old music was replaced with the Answer Arc music. Yeah I told my wife I hadn't read Higurashi but it reminds me of stephen king's IT where the first prologue thing with Georgie is really good and then it's like 200 pages before anything happens again
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Oct 13, 2021 00:49
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Ace Attorney Investigations 1: I liked it okay for the first couple of cases, kind of generic mysteries but I enjoyed seeing the environments and characters. Especially liked not having to backtrack constantly. But boy did it poo poo the bed with the last two cases. Loved seeing the courthouse but the mystery felt like a justification for the environment. The cases relied way too much on people lying to you when they really shouldn't have or just other cheap tricks to conceal relevant information. Insanely boring, kept falling asleep. The final case is terrible. Contrived beyond anything else the series had done before, drags on and on and on. A complete chore, I had just started playing the game in AUGUST almost two months to the day to finish this one. Easily makes the game the worst in the series I've played so far. Detective Badd's music loving owns.
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Oct 13, 2021 07:22
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Yeah Investigations may be the worst in the series while Investigations 2 may be the best in the series. Keep in mind Investigations was the first AA game without Shu Takami and it shows.
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Oct 13, 2021 14:53
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Yeah, its insane how long the last investigation of AAI 1 drags on. I still overall liked the first game, but I was glad when it was over.
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Oct 13, 2021 16:23
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Any hints on the Clock Puzzle in Yu No? The only other place I've seen that Script is in the Tunnels under the Sword Cape. I'm at 80% completion, and I think I've seen all the Heroine endings. Am I missing a note, or do I have to see all the dead ends too? I tried Adding up sums to Ten since Dad wanted you to meet him at Ten O'Clock. Then I tried doing a radial symmetry thing like the Pictogram puzzle in the coffin room. I just don't know what the gently caress. Also this poo poo better take me to the Past/future/otherdimension that Eiriko/Ryuzoji/Kanna came from cause I'm going to lose it if there isn't some upside down castle nonsense I fully expected to do like a route or two and then get access to the other world, and then have to switch between the two to get items. Like Lttp or something. Also what are the secret Documents for? I got them, but I don't remember anyone ever asking for them.
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Oct 14, 2021 01:43
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Rewatch the opening movie, it’s sort of like the frequency on the back of the case in Metal Gear Solid.
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Oct 14, 2021 01:47
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numerrik posted:Rewatch the opening movie, it’s sort of like the frequency on the back of the case in Metal Gear Solid. Yeah lmao it legit had me stuck for a while
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Oct 14, 2021 01:50
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There was an opening Movie?! Motherfucker
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Oct 14, 2021 02:08
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Stefan Prodan posted:yeah that ending rules I loved that whole ending All the alternate endings rule, I love king of card games okabe. Like, jokes aside, the entire bit with Faris in that ending is really moving.
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Oct 14, 2021 04:46
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 Wtf am I even doing Symbols that are symmetrical? The symbols need to overlap to join the final symbol? If you input all the symbols it creates a crown, the three lines must correspond to each line of the input, how do I know which symbols to put in? Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Oct 14, 2021 |
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Oct 14, 2021 05:36
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Acerbatus posted:All the alternate endings rule, I love king of card games okabe. That ending has one of the funniest lines in the game where it says something like ‘he probably didn’t expect to have a gun pulled on him at a children’s card game” lmao
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Oct 14, 2021 06:56
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You know, I get why people prefer the verb "read" over "play" for VNs, but the existence of bad / multiple endings places me firmly in the "VN deserve to be treated as video games" camp It's an extremely powerful narrative move that can really only be utilized by a video game, and VNs are some of the best possible examples of how they can be used. The lack of production values allows them to go much further (in both quality and quantity) than even RPGs or adventure games
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Oct 14, 2021 08:23
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WarpDogs posted:You know, I get why people prefer the verb "read" over "play" for VNs, but the existence of bad / multiple endings places me firmly in the "VN deserve to be treated as video games" camp CYOA books have bad/multiple endings too though, structure-wise you can definitely do standard multi-choice VNs in physical book form even if it's obviously much easier in VN form. That said I haven't really heard anyone argue that VNs wouldn't count as video games, it's usually the other way around where dialogue-focused adventure games or RPGs like The Walking Dead or Disco Elysium get called VNs (or even "the next evolution of VNs") although those are definitely something you "play" rather than "read".
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Oct 14, 2021 09:59
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There's definitely a spectrum of sorts, and at the bottom of it, multiple art forms crossing into each other. Something like Higurashi or Umineko would be just as functional as a regular old paper novel - the sound and visuals are there to enhance the experience of reading the story, not because they have any plot function. A little further along the spectrum there are tons of VNs with only a few storyline branches, but are still thoroughly linear reading experiences outside of these occasional points - you could easily imagine these being done in some sort of serialized paper format, although it's a bit unusual. I think it's these categories of VNs that people generally feel aren't really video games and where "read" might be considered a more appropriate verb (I don't much care for it even then, honestly.) But then the further you go into your Escapes Zero and Dangans Ronpa, or even your Ace Attorneys, the more interactive elements and nonlinear narratives you throw in there, the more it kind of morphs first into a Choose Your Own Adventure book and from there into full-blown gameplay. Eventually the "novel" aspect becomes less primary and more just "this game has a storyline with a lot of reading in it".
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Oct 14, 2021 10:20
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I'd say if your primary verb is just the substitution of turning a page, then I'd consider it a novel more than a game. That said I don't really think the distinction matters nearly enough to warrant the amount of discourse about it. Like what does it matter if it's a game or a book?
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Oct 14, 2021 10:38
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speedrunning vn stream *hits skip text button*
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Oct 14, 2021 10:49
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Well, I think it matters in terms of setting expectations. If you tell someone Umineko is a "game", and they imagine something like Ace Attorney or Monkey Island, I'd say you've failed to communicate clearly. But, "game" is such a freakishly wide category of interactive experiences even if we exclude visual novels, so the second you pull that one out you have the onus on you to be clear about what kind of game we're talking about.
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Oct 14, 2021 10:51
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i dont think the distinction really matters unless you're recommending to someone who's never played a vn before and the particular game is obtuse in a nonobvious way like robotics;notes, in which case describing it as a "game" enourages exploring the available mechanics to a greater degree than "story" or "novel". otherwise its just prescriptivist wankery
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Oct 14, 2021 10:59
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So Yu No really expects me to grab all my jewels, get to the puzzle room. Make a Save, then go all the way back on Mio's route to relook at the Chamber Puzzle. It's the only thing I can think of. It's the only hint it's given me, and all my numerology has gotten me nowhere. I'm just going to look this poo poo up, I already had to redo all of Ayumi's route to re-get the Blue Card so I could redo all of Kaori's to get a Jewel I missed, I'm in no mood for another hour of holding ctrl.
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Oct 14, 2021 17:40
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Which version are you playing? If it’s the newer spike chunsoft version, it should have some all stuff to help guide you and a load option to start with all the items you’ve gathered so far(minus any jewels you placed, iirc)
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Oct 14, 2021 19:57
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Playing the original version of Yu-No without a guide is for fools and the insane
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Oct 14, 2021 20:00
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numerrik posted:Which version are you playing? If it’s the newer spike chunsoft version, it should have some all stuff to help guide you and a load option to start with all the items you’ve gathered so far(minus any jewels you placed, iirc) The original, I looked at the remake and it's aesthetics offended my sensibilities. Besides I mostly wanted to see how these classic VN's that influenced so many modern games were. Sakurazuka posted:Playing the original version of Yu-No without a guide is for fools and the insane It was a lot of holding Ctrl and clicking everything on screen, but once you figure out the basic route structure and get a few gems it wasn't all that bad. Granted I also had to run Eiriko's route like six times trying to get that one jewel. And hosed up and missed a jewel in the lab which meant I had to rerun two and a half routes, but it was tolerable. That clock puzzle and the Kings name one are the only parts you can't really brute force. Yeah I think were fully in a Long Sun situation here, there god is gonna be the computer made of Hyperstone in sword cape. The Sword cape itself is probably a rocket, that's a theory I've had for a minute, and they're trying to escape by somehow getting to earth in earths past. Gaius Marius fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Oct 14, 2021 |
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Oct 14, 2021 20:16
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Has anyone here played Ayakashi Gohan? I found it while looking for something else while preparing the next LP I want to do and it seems interesting, but considering it's an un-localized otome game from like 6+ years ago that doesn't get a ton of discussion anymore I'd rather play it safe 
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Oct 20, 2021 03:56
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Thinking about the concepts in Yu No now that I'm in Del Grantia. There's an interesting Duality going on with the two, including the UI. Whereas The Earth Section is Asymmetrical, or naturalistic, the one in Del Grantia is symmetrical, like camouflage such things imply artificiality. We see this kind of thing with the Del Grantian Technology in the Tower, it's implied natural but actually artificial. So we get a Natural earth being overtaken by artificiality, most pronounced with Geo Tech's exploitation of the Beach area, vs what I very strongly think is an artificial land mass of Dela Grantia, being overtaken by nature. No mistake you wake up in a forest and most the explorable objects are strange Fauna. To take this further, We know the Sages or whatever they're called, Sayless style peeps, lose one of their senses before they ascend to their godhood or their intoloculatory roles or whatever they do. How I'm thinking this is, them revoking an aspect of humanity to further themselves onto a path more similar to a machine. The earthquakes are not natural phenomena but rather the colony that is Dela Grantia losing it's ability to keep itself together, this society is so far along in it's "Decay" that it does not understand the mechanism, but understands they must stop it. The central computer must use some sort of Human component, perhaps the human is digitized, or perhaps they use a biological unit as a sort of memory repository, but this breaks down eventually, thus people who're adapted to serve such a role are trained, and slowly made more machine like in preperation of replacing the last Man/Machine controller. How I'm thinking this is going to go is Sayless is going to either die, or considering I think she was Beach Girl, accidentally jaunts to Earth period, and is unavailable, thus YuNo must take her place. Placing the Empire in conflict with Takeya. Anyways, Thinking of the Metaphysics of this universe, I was trying to go over the father's notes on parallel worlds, And I think I've gotten to the idea behind it. There's a bunch about being in the same place but not necessarily in the same time. As well as something, I forgot what I was going to say. Anyways, I think rather than Parallel timelines as such, we're looking at...Recursive?, maybe, timelines, as in everything is happening past the three days in city, and then everything until the heat death of the universe, and then it all happens again. Similar to how I see the timeline of Book of the New Sun working, and my way to deal with such things as the multiple Severians. Anyways, this leads us to a thing I was thinking of, is Dela Grantia in the Future or the Past, given how the reflector is supposed to work, it should have to be either, with it only allowing you to travel along the Time Axis rather than the Spatial axis. The answer being that it is both, and given this is a game where you have to be a hero, I'm guessing you gotta save both of 'em. So given what I've thought of, I'm guessing we're looking at this scenario. Del Grantia Colonizes the Earth after floating through space for Chilliarcs, all of human history happens until the events of the game, then eventually something causes humans/Post Humans to have to leave the earth. They found Del Grantia and the cycle repeats. The tower at sword coast, and the whole great events happening at 400? year increments is a result of Probes sent out by Del Grantia, floating on the time axis to see the current state of humanity, and to see if it's ready for colonization. Also the "Monsters" That come across the border are probably a genetically engineered worker class like the morlocks
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Oct 20, 2021 05:12
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Apologies if I missed recent discussion of it, but is Crimson Spires any good? I saw it mentioned that it's one of the rare visual novels where the main character isn't a total doormat, and that's always a plus for me.....also, one of the romance routes is with another lady. :3
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Oct 22, 2021 18:29
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I found it enjoyable but there is one major caveat that will annoy some people - the mystery is never really resolved. No, not even in the special unlockable NG+ ending. So if you're fine with weird stuff happening and then leaving it open for the players to try and put together the clues to build your own story of WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN, then you're good. Had to spoiler it because some would rather not know it, though I know that makes things if you don't know whether you should look or not! Anyway if you have specific questions I can probably remember enough to answer them.
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Oct 22, 2021 19:32
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I'm producing a linear visual novel based on a real incident in WWII, The Devils.  What's the consensus on pricing for this type of visual novel? I am thinking of releasing it on itch.io and then eventually on the mobile app stores and even Steam. Thank you.
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Oct 22, 2021 19:52
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Depends on length, amount of art, voice acting, etc. I'd expect under $10 because historical linear novels generally struggle to get a lot of excitement, so they kind of need to fall into the 'impulse buy' range. But exact price expectations depend (to me) a lot on how much content appears to be in there.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:03
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Unless there is a lot of content/fully VAed, the absolute maximum price is probably $15. That's what CYOA/motion comics usually go for at max, and it seems like that is what your game most closely resembles. $10 seems to be about the right price though.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:10
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gegi posted:Depends on length, amount of art, voice acting, etc. I'd expect under $10 because historical linear novels generally struggle to get a lot of excitement, so they kind of need to fall into the 'impulse buy' range. But exact price expectations depend (to me) a lot on how much content appears to be in there. It's based on a comic that had 3 issues. Yes, need to be priced accordingly. I've been surveying titles on Itch and Steam Thinking $4.99. My Survey: Itch.io and Steam pricing for Kinetic Novels? The Spell: $4.99 Paizuri Fantasies Kinetic Novel: $14.99 You, With Me - A Kinetic Novel: $2.99 It Comes Around - A Kinetic Novel: $2.99 Forgotten, Not Lost - A Kinetic Novel: $1.99 A More Beautiful World - A Kinetic Visual Novel: $19.99 VideoGameVet fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Oct 22, 2021 |
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Oct 22, 2021 20:35
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Yeah, as long as the story is fairly compelling, $10 seems fair to me, even if it's only a couple of hours long. I just think of it as buying a movie ticket or something. (  )gegi posted:I found it enjoyable but there is one major caveat that will annoy some people - the mystery is never really resolved. No, not even in the special unlockable NG+ ending. So if you're fine with weird stuff happening and then leaving it open for the players to try and put together the clues to build your own story of WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN, then you're good. Ah, your spoiler actually WOULD put me off a bit. Good to know; I'll wait until it's at a slightly deeper discount than the current 30%. 
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Oct 22, 2021 20:37
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I think you could easily go for $8ish and still have it feel like a bargain, but yeah, $9.[relevant number] is probably the practical maximum.
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Oct 23, 2021 00:48
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girl dick energy posted:I think you could easily go for $8ish and still have it feel like a bargain, but yeah, $9.[relevant number] is probably the practical maximum. Maybe I should test at that price on Itch?
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Oct 23, 2021 06:14
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VideoGameVet posted:Maybe I should test at that price on Itch?  sounds right to me, yeah
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Oct 23, 2021 06:29
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