Cycle of Struggle: Ardengrad

Great start! Everything I liked from the demo still stands here in this Early Access version. All of the characters introduced make a good strong impression. The writing does a great job of bring the people and the setting to life, nicely conveying life in this world, with all its contradictions. I was a little apprehensive of how the subject of political ideologies between the characters and their conflict would be handled at first. But the writing in this first chapter already demonstrates a good understanding of how politics shape people's beliefs and outlook. How all of the things that make up one's everyday life and routine can be traced back to generations of people in turn fighting for their convictions. I walked away viewing the story as not content with these characters being mere strawmen for their ideologies, which is all I can ask for. I am looking forward to see where the story and these characters go from here.

Interesting political science VN that handles its subject matters maturely while developing an interesting plot for the protagonist. I was worried with a visual novel centered around politics, it could run into a lot of writing pitfalls, but the author appears to have avoided all of them for now. I am interested in where the plot is going on all fronts: within the clubroom, in Yura's home life, and on the national scale. Dima's affectionate comments about tea have also encouraged me to try more hot teas this winter. All of the characters bring interesting perspectives and their ideologies seem to be informed by their own lives and experiences, much like real life. I haven't gone back through to do other choices yet, but from what I have seen so far, the writing steelmans the leftist position for the first major discussion the club has. This is fine, but so far Natya has been the only one to actually express political ideology- Anya has been observant and analytical, Masha has been defensive, and Nadya has been almost entirely reactionary. I would hope to see more steelmanning of all political positions because that is the hallmark of good writing- the political situation of Ardeng…

So to take it short: The game is worth playing it, even now in the early access it made a lot of fun, downsides are that some things like the romance not yet exist and that the way of getting achievements is maybe not so clear to everyone, everything else is really good so i would say 10 out of 10 because its new, its unique. Longer version: I completed the full early access to the point where i am writing the review, the game itself is a unique combination of different types of visual novels what you cant find anywhere else, and when the updates and next chapters come you will also be able to get dating/romance endings with each one of them, there are 4 options who are halfed in two main routes, at the ending of one of those two main routes you choose one of those two girls who is in this specified route, but we are not yet at this point of course, i needed 12 hours to complete it but normal players seem to need like 6 hours, maybe 7 to 8 hours when you try to get all achievements, now to the psycho horror/dark sides of this visual novel, the dev says that this is a sci fi political drama or so, but the game and story always hinted that there is way more behind it than that, ther…

This is beautiful, in a way that words struggle to convey even if they are the medium by which the story was told. I will not mar this with lengthy explanations or exultations- only request that should you read this, you give it a try if you have not yet. ...And on Mars there will be apple blossoms.

pretty cool

I like the world setting n shi