How Stories Die

I will start by saying this VN could have made a lot of money if it weren't free. The true end was great. The Overall Story had a good mix of humor and serious content. Each route was a lot of fun, and then Getting the true ending on each route unlock the secret route and that was a blast. There were so many twists and turns that I was flabbergasted at how different each of the the routes ended up being.

"How Stories Die" is not a game, it's an e-book that's been dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual/interactive novel, this doesn't feature any notable gameplay, it's just a lot of clicking through badly written dialogue that would never have been accepted or published in print, which poses the question, "How did something this badly written end up on Steam?". When someone hoping to become an author is unable to get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam, under the guise of a game. This garbage high school anime club dropout fan-fiction is an incredibly cringey e-book featuring not one but THREE imaginary anime girlfriends that the author really does have relationships with, but you wouldn't know them, because they go to another school. In Canada. Yes, once more we have a fan-fiction about some guy and his imaginary girlfriends. The cringe here is basically weaponized. This was slapped together with the godawful Ren'Py visual novel construction kit... enabling terrible authors to publish books as if they were games when otherwise we might have been spared the pollution. So, just like no professional writing took pla…

Игра 'How Stories Die' - это короткая, но глубоко трогательная интерактивная новелла. Она исследует тему памяти, утраты и того, как наши истории формируют нас. Визуальный стиль минималистичен, но очень эффективен, создавая меланхоличную и интимную атмосферу. Геймплей построен на выборе фраз в диалогах и исследовании небольших локаций, что позволяет постепенно раскрывать историю главного героя и его взаимоотношения с дедом. Каждый выбор кажется важным и влияющим на восприятие произошедших событий. Особенно хочется отметить атмосферу задумчивости и рефлексии, которую игра искусно создает. Она заставляет задуматься о ценности воспоминаний и о том, как мы сохраняем связь с ушедшими. Повествование трогает до глубины души, а финал оставляет после себя приятную грусть и чувство завершенности. Несмотря на свою небольшую продолжительность, 'How Stories Die' оставляет сильное впечатление и определенно стоит потраченного времени.

I’ve got to admit, I didn’t expect absolute cinema from some random free game I stumbled on during a sleepless night. Sure, it might look like your run-of-the-mill fantasy story at first, but hear me out. The characters are ridiculously lovable, and the game pulls you in fast with a lore that keeps getting darker, spiced with twisted humor and unexpectedly deep morals. You’ll face real choices that truly shape the story (and yeah, you’ll want to avoid those bad endings). There are so many branching paths, each leading to a completely different narrative. Just give it a shot, it’s free, and you won’t regret the time you spend on it. The only thing it’s missing is achievements to make it even more rewarding, but honestly, it’s fine as is. And since it’s a graphic novel format, be prepared to do a lot of reading. Shoutout to my guy Gudolf.

not sure about this one. story was ok. writing lacked depth. plot twists and revelations felt boring. i did enjoy the characters though

Tested 60+ hours, informal "playtime". I didn't find any "Halt&CatchFire" bugs. A few minor misses (spelling and grammar errors, wrong name in the NameBox, etc.) I enjoyed it, didn't wipe the disk in frustration. That's high praise from me.