Info about The Letter - Horror Visual Novel: Official game description: MORE FROM YYM - A GAME ABOUT DONUTS 🍩 ====================================== Physical Merchandise ==================== In love with the game? You can purchase The Letter physical goodies through our webstore! Our **Collector's Edition** is a must-have for every fan! Thank you so much for your support! All proceeds will go towards our future games! About the Game ============== CONTENT WARNING --------------- This game deals with mature themes. It shows scenes that some may find disturbing, unethical and triggering. It also contains offensive language, racial slurs, sexual themes, gore and violence. Player discretion is advised. For the full list of trigger warnings, please check our Steam forums. ABOUT ----- The Letter is an interactive, horror/drama visual novel inspired by classic Asian horror films, Ju-ON: The Grudge and The Ring. Told through an immersive branching narrative, the game puts the players into the shoes of seven characters as they find themselves falling prey to a vicious curse plaguing the Ermengarde Mansion for centuries. In this game, your choices will shape and drive the story forward: will you mend a relationship on the verge of collapse, or will you let it fall apart? Will you risk saving them, despite the consequences, or leave them to die a gruesome death? The fate of all the characters is in your hands. FEATURES -------- * This is a hardcore visual novel with over 700K words. Expect _a lot_ of reading! * Romance, friendship and drama; apart from horror, the game puts heavy emphasis on relationships and character development. * Non-chronological storytelling with 7 playable characters, each with varying personality and approach to difficult situations. * Countless butterfly effects; your choices heavily affect the story. * Full English Voice Acting (optional). * Animated backgrounds, CGs and sprites. * Beautifully painted art style, with over 80 backgrounds, 100 CGs and 50 Epilogue CGs (variations included). * Original soundtrack, with opening, ending and true ending theme songs. * Quick-Time Events (optional). * A branching tree that keeps track of your progress/route. * A journal that narrates the events in chronological order, and jots down the clues found about the Ermengarde Mansion. * Over 170 achievements. Release date: Jul 24, 2017 Categories: Visual Novel, Horror, Branching Narrative, Quick-Time Events, Character-driven Narrative, Multiple Endings, Choice-based Narrative, Story-driven Gameplay - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: - Community fair range: $15.00 - $20.00 - Reasoning: The evidence shows that multiple users find the game worth its price due to its visuals, content, and overall quality. Several reviews explicitly state that the game is worth its cost, which suggests that the community considers the base game price to be fair. The consistent mention of the game being worth the price indicates a positive sentiment towards the current pricing. - Playtime Metrics: - Game completion: 21.0h - Story completion: 20.0h - Session length: 3.0h - Endgame: 40.0h - Reasoning: The evidence provides several direct mentions of playtime. The first quote mentions a playtime of approximately 21 hours for a single playthrough. The second quote suggests that each chapter takes around 3 hours, with later chapters being longer, indicating a substantial total playtime. The third quote mentions 60 hours of playtime across multiple playthroughs, and the fourth quote mentions 300 hours, although this is an outlier due to language difficulties. These quotes help estimate the typical playtime for game completion, story completion, session length, and endgame content. - Time-to-fun: - Summary: The game starts slow and can feel tedious initially, but it becomes more engaging as players delve into character backstories and understand their feelings. - Stance: Clicks after - Anchor: Character backstory familiarity - Time to anchor: 1h 0m - Friction: Slow pacing; Long, tedious inner monologues; Repetitive dialogue - Unlock drivers: Character backstory development; Understanding character feelings - Conditions: Patience for slow pacing; Interest in character-driven narratives; Willingness to endure repetitive elements - Player Archetypes: - Completionist Achievement Hunter (sale) - Motivation: Completing all achievements and exploring all endings. - Playstyle: Methodical and thorough, aiming to uncover every aspect of the game. - Experience: veteran - Purchase stance: sale - Labels: achievement hunter; completionist - Reference games: The Letter - Story-Driven Newcomer (buy) - Motivation: Experiencing a compelling story and exploring new genres. - Playstyle: Casual and exploratory, focusing on narrative and character development. - Experience: newcomer - Purchase stance: buy - Labels: newcomer; story-driven - Reference games: The Letter; Telltale Games - Horror Enthusiast (buy) - Motivation: Enjoying horror and character-driven narratives. - Playstyle: Immersive and engaged, focusing on the story and character development. - Experience: familiar - Purchase stance: buy - Labels: horror fan; story lover - Reference games: The Letter; Telltale Games Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - High-quality voice acting (weight 0.46): The game features top-notch, fully voiced characters with high-quality English voice acting. The voice acting is consistently praised for its excellence and contribution to the overall experience. - Well-developed characters (weight 0.4): Characters in the game are well-developed, engaging, and vividly portrayed. They are praised for their complexity and depth, contributing significantly to the story. - Branching paths and choices (weight 0.35): The game features numerous branching paths and a detailed decision tree, offering multiple paths and choices that impact the story. This adds to the game's replay value. - Beautiful artwork and visuals (weight 0.3): The game is noted for its beautiful and detailed artwork, including illustrations, backgrounds, and visuals. The art style is consistently praised for its quality and design. - Intriguing and interesting story (weight 0.23): The game's story is intriguing and interesting, with a tightly woven plot that delivers scares and character relationships. It is praised for its potential and engaging narrative. - Effective horror elements (weight 0.22): The game blends horror elements with drama and storytelling, creating a creepy and gripping atmosphere. The horror elements are well-executed and add to the overall experience. - Impactful story decisions (weight 0.19): Decisions made by the player have a significant impact on the story, with different choices leading to varied outcomes. This feature enhances the game's engagement and replayability. - Excellent music and sound design (weight 0.16): The game features great SFX and soundtracks, with excellent music and sound design that contribute to the overall atmosphere and experience. - Animated character models (weight 0.14): The game includes animated character models and backgrounds, adding to the visual appeal and immersion. The animations are expressive and well-done. - Relationships affect endings (weight 0.12): The game includes a relationship system where character relationships and survival are based on choices, leading to different endings and outcomes. - Long and engaging chapters (weight 0.12): The game is noted for its lengthy and engaging chapters, providing a long and immersive experience. The detailed story and multiple endings add to the game's depth. - Immersive and cinematic experience (weight 0.12): The game provides an immersive and attractive experience, with engaging emotional and cinematic elements that draw players into the story. - Option to disable QTEs (weight 0.1): The game includes quick time events (QTEs) but offers the option to turn them off, making them skippable for players who prefer not to engage with this feature. Common complaints: - Boring and excessive dialogue (weight 0.25): The game's dialogue is often criticized for being boring, excessive, and sometimes contradictory, leading to a less enjoyable experience. - Disappointing ending (weight 0.23): The game's ending is widely criticized for being lackluster, unresolved, and generally disappointing, leaving players unsatisfied. - Poor narrative quality (weight 0.22): The game's narrative is often described as poor, with unexciting storytelling, mediocre writing quality, and poor pacing. - Weak horror elements (weight 0.22): The horror elements in the game are criticized for being weak, cheesy, and sometimes annoying, failing to thrill hardcore horror fans. - Frequent grammatical errors (weight 0.21): Players have pointed out numerous typos and grammatical mistakes in the game's text, which can be distracting and reduce immersion. - Repetitive story elements (weight 0.16): The game suffers from repetition, particularly due to multiple character perspectives and repetitive events across different routes. - Frustrating Quick Time Events (weight 0.14): The Quick Time Events (QTEs) in the game are seen as frustrating and unnecessary, detracting from the overall experience. - Poorly developed characters (weight 0.14): Characters in the game are often seen as one-dimensional, uninteresting, and poorly developed, leading to a lack of engagement. - Long playtime required (weight 0.12): The game requires a very long playtime to fully understand the story and achieve all endings, which can be daunting for some players. - Voice acting issues (weight 0.11): The voice acting in the game is inconsistent, with some performances being good while others are not, and sometimes not matching the dialogue. - Achievement grind (weight 0.11): Achieving 100% completion in the game is difficult and time-consuming, requiring a significant grind for achievements. - Slow pacing (weight 0.11): The game's pacing is often criticized for being slow, with a slow build-up and excessive descriptions. - Clichéd and lengthy storyline (weight 0.09): The main storyline is criticized for being clichéd and overly lengthy, dragging on too long and losing player interest. - Lack of story explanation (weight 0.07): The game lacks sufficient explanation for certain plot points, leaving players confused about the story. - Unrealistic character behavior (weight 0.07): Some character behaviors and reactions in the game are seen as unrealistic, which can break immersion. - Predictable plot (weight 0.07): The plot of the game is seen as predictable, lacking originality and depth in character development. - Missing audio clips (weight 0.06): There are instances of missing audio clips in the game, which can detract from the overall experience. Gameplay feedback: - Branching narrative with choices (weight 0.97): The game features a branching narrative where player choices significantly impact the story. This includes multiple endings, story paths, and character perspectives, enhancing replayability. - Horror and psychological themes (weight 0.58): The game includes horror and psychological elements, creating a tense and engaging atmosphere. This theme is combined with the visual novel format to deliver a unique experience. - Quick Time Events enhance gameplay (weight 0.47): The game incorporates Quick Time Events (QTEs) that add a layer of interactive gameplay, enhancing immersion and breaking the monotony of text-based choices. - High production value (weight 0.47): The game boasts high production values, including full English voice acting, animated backgrounds, and sprites, which contribute to an engaging and immersive atmosphere. - Character relationships and interactions (weight 0.38): Character relationships play a crucial role in the game, affecting endings and story developments. The interactions and dynamics between characters are deeply explored. - Achievement system (weight 0.28): The game features an achievement system that adds an extra layer of challenge and replayability for players. Performance notes: - Optimization and technical issues (weight 0.12): There are optimization issues and some known bugs that can cause the game to force exit. Additionally, there are reports of voice lines not playing and speech not reflecting subtitles in the latter half of the game. - Excellent voice acting (weight 0.1): The game features fully voiced characters with top-notch voice acting and lip synchronization. - No technical problems reported (weight 0.04): Some players reported having no technical issues, indicating a smooth experience for certain users. - Steam Deck font support issue (weight 0.04): The Steam Deck does not support Chinese fonts, which may affect players using this platform. - Production value drops later (weight 0.04): The production value of the game drops in the later chapters, which may affect the overall experience. - Low system requirements (weight 0.03): The game has low system requirements, making it accessible to players with less powerful hardware. - Repetitive music and sound effects (weight 0.03): Some players find the music and sound effects to be repetitive, which can detract from the immersive experience. - Instant death bug (weight 0.03): There is a bug where players can die instantly upon encountering certain enemies, which can be frustrating. Recommendations: - Recommended for horror and visual novel fans (weight 0.34): The game is highly recommended for fans of visual novels and horror themes. It is praised for its engaging storytelling and creative narrative, making it a must for enthusiasts of these genres. - Highly recommended for its content (weight 0.21): Many players strongly recommend the game for its overall content and value. It is described as a worthwhile experience with high replayability. - Engaging story and characters (weight 0.18): The game offers a highly engaging experience with a compelling story and likable characters. It is recommended for fans of story-driven and choice-heavy narrative games. - Worth the price for character development (weight 0.14): The game is considered worth the price for those who enjoy character development and quality dialogue. It offers a good experience for fans of the genre. - Try the demo or buy on sale (weight 0.13): Some players suggest trying the demo before purchasing or buying the game on sale. It might be worth it at a substantial discount. - Not recommended for achievement hunters (weight 0.08): The game is not recommended for achievement hunters or those who dislike depressive themes. It may not be suitable for players who dislike verbose descriptions. - Mixed recommendations on pricing (weight 0.08): Opinions on the game's pricing vary. Some players find it worth the price, while others do not recommend it at full price. - Looking forward to more from the developer (weight 0.06): Players express anticipation for more games from the developer and hope that more players will notice the game. - High replayability value (weight 0.04): The game is noted for its high replayability value, making it a worthwhile purchase for those who enjoy revisiting content. Other player notes: - Lack of German subtitles (weight 0.04): Players have noted the absence of German subtitles in the game, which can be a significant drawback for German-speaking users. Emotions: - Frustration (weight 0.19): Players are frustrated with the game's difficulty in following choices and mini-games, as well as bugs and crashes. The narrative structure, slow pacing, and excessive dialogue also contribute to this frustration. Additionally, the grind for achievements, unclear endings, and repetitive elements add to the overall dissatisfaction. - Disappointment (weight 0.15): Players express disappointment with the game's ending, character behaviors, and lack of resolution. The horror elements did not meet expectations, and the story was found to be shallow and predictable. Some reviewers also noted mistakes in character development and plot structure, contributing to an overall unsatisfying experience. - Enjoyment (weight 0.14): Players enjoy the game's story, characters, and voice acting. The mixture of visual novels with choices and quick time events, as well as the game's length and multiple endings, are also appreciated. Despite some flaws, the engaging story and character interactions provide a great time for many players. - Satisfaction (weight 0.12): Players are satisfied with the game's visuals, gameplay mechanics, and story. The slow burn, great story, and spooky moments, along with the character dynamics and role-playing aspects, contribute to a positive experience. Achieving 100% completion and the overall high-quality visual novel experience are also satisfying. - Excitement (weight 0.08): Players are excited about the game's unique character perspectives, adult themes, and engaging plot. The impactful choices, various endings, and high-quality voice acting add to the excitement. The engaging and tense atmosphere, along with the addictive gameplay, make it a thrilling experience. - Joy (weight 0.07): Players find joy in the game's art, music, and overall experience. The beautiful visuals, top-notch voice acting, and atmospheric music contribute to this joy. The well-developed plot, animated backgrounds, and engaging ghost moments also add to the positive feelings. - Fear (weight 0.04): Players experience fear due to the game's horror elements, including supernatural elements, scary scenes, and psychological horror. The chilling atmosphere, effective jumpscares, and genuinely terrifying aspects contribute to this emotion. - Engagement (weight 0.04): Players feel engaged with the game's strong character development and emotional engagement. The complex and realistic characters, along with thoughtful story elements, keep players invested in the characters and story. - Boredom (weight 0.03): Players feel bored due to the repetitive and formulaic pattern of the game. The redundant dialogue and boring narration contribute to this feeling of boredom. - Surprise (weight 0.03): Players are surprised by the quick time events and the extent of story changes based on choices. The game's attention to detail and character development also exceed expectations, adding to the surprise. - Admiration (weight 0.03): Players admire the effort put into the game, including its flowchart feature and strong character backstories. The production value, ambience, and complex storylines are also highly appreciated. - Love (weight 0.03): Players love the game's atmosphere, multiple paths, and choices. The appreciation for all aspects of the game and its details contributes to this strong affection. - Anger (weight 0.02): Players feel anger due to the game not being worth the purchase and issues with character actions and story outcomes. Hollow and anticlimactic endings also contribute to this anger. - Enthusiasm (weight 0.02): Players are enthusiastic about the game's details and recommend it to horror game fans. The high praise for its writing, voice acting, length, production value, story, and replayability adds to this enthusiasm. - Appreciation (weight 0.01): Players appreciate the game's character development and details, despite finding the pace slow. The overall effort and quality put into the game are recognized and valued. - Happiness (weight 0.01): Players feel happiness from receiving the game as a birthday present and enjoying it. The culturally diverse and queer cast with well-written characters also contribute to this positive emotion. - Nostalgia (weight 0.01): Players feel nostalgic about playing the game on their phone and finally finishing it on Steam. The memories and experiences associated with the game evoke a sense of nostalgia. - Desire (weight 0.01): Players desire more gameplay content, indicating a strong interest and enjoyment in the game. The desire for additional content shows the game's ability to captivate and engage players. - Interest (weight 0.01): Players are interested in going until the end of the game, indicating a strong curiosity and engagement. The desire to see the game through to completion shows the game's ability to hold players' interest. - Affection (weight 0.01): Players have affection for the game as it still holds a place in their hearts. The emotional connection and fond memories associated with the game contribute to this affection.}