Blankspace

First I want to say that you should heed the warnings and if you are in a fragile mental health state, PLEASE make sure you take care of yourself. This game touches on some very heavy topics. With that said, this game BROKE me but in the best way. I'm a huge fan of escape rooms, and of visual novels, AND otomes, and this kind of rolled everything I love about all of those into one beautiful game. As you progress through the rooms, you learn more about Chris and the reality of his situation, and how they both got into the room in the first place. The more you learn, the darker it gets, but it also gets raw. The writers invoked emotions that left me feeling devastated but also like I'd made two friends for the few hours while I played this. The glimpses into their experiences were so vivid and touching that I didn't want to let them go, thus playing 3 endings back to back and breaking my own heart over and over. That sounds dramatic, but by the end of my first playthrough I was ugly crying. But again, in the good way. As a gamer I always crave games that will make me feel something, to bring some sort of emotion into the space between mindless shooters and other various silly games. So if you're looking for a game to make you ugly cry but also love it, PLEASE play this game and support the devs. I had to review it right away because these devs deserve to know how touching this game truly is and how much I loved it. But now I'm going to go ugly cry myself to sleep and try not to think about the sad endings.

Pretty well written short escape room-esque visual novel. The puzzles never get too tiring or difficult, just hard enough to keep strong engagement with the story. The dialogue never becomes tiring, especially with the copious amounts of witty banter between the two characters. It's worth at least a playthough, although it didn't hook me enough to want to go through all the endings.

I had a fun time playing it. It intrigues you and makes you want to get all the endings.

cool little game

BlankSpace was a pretty solid visual novel that took about 3 hours, and I would recommend it on sale. The characters are fun and interesting, visuals/soundtrack pretty good and the puzzles are solid. However the short run time means that a lot of areas weren't explored as much as I would have liked - for example, Beryl is the only character we actually interact with (besides our protagonist Chris), which is fine/understandable but means we don't get to learn much about Chris' ex who is mentioned a few times One negative I would like to mention is this visual novel takes place in a series of escape rooms and the navigation of them - aka pressing arrows to check various areas of the room - is kinda bad/disorienting. This is especially an issue on the last room, which is way bigger than the rest and very confusing to move around properly. The other issue is that there are multiple endings but I don't think you have the option to skip puzzles on second+ playthroughs, which means I probably won't bother trying to get them. I got the true ending on my first playthrough and it does the usual visual novel thing where [spoiler] the ending is quite open ended and doesn't really tell you what happens to the characters afterwards which I will be honest, left me pretty unsatisfied and tempted to leave a negative review[/spoiler] Overall, I think I'd give this a 6 or 7 out of 10

It was good enough. The puzzles were fun. It's basically the equivalent of reading a short story if you have an afternoon to kill.

This was phenomenal. A big roller coaster of emotion swept through me as I played this. The puzzles were okay, not too hard but not too easy either. The dialogue was realistic in the sense that it is how I imagine they would act in that situation and with those personalities. I really hope for a continuation of their story.

It's alright. The puzzles are satisfying and the narrative lays a really good and interesting groundwork, but it doesn't really stick the landing in my opinion. I should say I got the true end, so the problem is not that my specific variation of the ending was unsatisfying, more that it set up a really interesting premise that never really got explored. In the sort-of pre-ending, if you will, there's a fairly powerful moment I think that's a little hampered by some... factors of the storytelling. Basically it is set up to be very challenging, in a good way, but it fumbles the ball a little (trying not to spoil here). Part of it was that while the story is interesting, it wasn't totally for me. The characters are good, but not amazing. The romance is fine, not great. It feels like it's simultaneously too long and too short for my tastes, if that makes any sense. Like sometimes the story goes too slow when it should pick up a little and other times it speeds through what should be taken a bit slower, though most of that probably has to do with particular design choices they made to get around your character getting help with the puzzles. Idk, it feels like it's trying to be edgy Phoenix Wright (though maybe that's just because I haven't played that many anime visual novels), but it feels like it stops right before the really interesting parts. As is we know a lot about one of our main characters, but almost nothing about the other. Also, I'll admit it, I installed the 18+ DLC, and end result: it's a mixed bag. It adds a bit to the character interactions, and definitely reads as the way the authors intended for this story to be digested, but it's also a bit awkward due to how everything fits together. It's fine, unoffensive, but not great. Overall? Better than some visual novels, the point-and-click puzzles are really interesting, but the end result is a story that's paced weirdly and wasn't fully developed.

nice

Room-escape type VN with only two characters and low on colour. Should you try escaping it or maybe try playing? You wake up in an unfamiliar room with a stranger, not in a bed, but tied to a pipe in a corner, while the stranger lies comfortably on a sofa. This is the initial set-up of the story presented to the players. Sounds like a typical start of escape games, and for the most part it is, but there is some originality here despite the cliche. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll just say some decent enough plot twists are waiting ahead, or at least ones I could not predict ahead of time if that could serve as some measure of originality. This VN is relatively short so you should be able to reach one of the endings in a few hours at most. Reaching all seven endings will require much more time if you don't just use the guide that is. Since it is an escape-type game, there is some limited point-and-click interaction with the environment. You'll collect various items, some of which can be combined, and try to figure out how to use them. As typical, in most cases, it should be pretty straightforward how and where to use your finds but some experimentation is required to utilize the less obvious ones. There are also multiple puzzles to solve in each room. Your partner will provide some hints to aid you, but most of the thinking has to be done independently. Fortunately, the difficulty of the tasks is between easy to moderate, so you should not be stuck on any of them for too long. None of the puzzles were too inventive, but I enjoyed most of them. I had much more difficulty reaching some endings. The writing is good but not very detailed, and not very engaging. There is some backstory revealed to the readers, but not in abundance. The main focus is placed on the character interactions and it feels a bit unnatural, but only a bit. I could not connect emotionally with any of the characters, which is a pity, but at least I was not repelled by them. Also, some of the endings felt a bit inconclusive and unsatisfying. I wish some more was shown than what is present. The secret ending revealed more details at least. The art has uneven quality. While the character tachie offer enough detail and pose variety, the environment feels a bit too blocky and sterile. I understand the reasoning behind the backgrounds but it could be done a little more lively. Even with the limited colour more could be done to make them more appealing. Not the best aspect of this title. The music, unlike the art, stands somewhat above the average when compared ot other indie VN games. There is a good variety of tracks so you own't be hearing the same thing over and over. Also, the music fits the events well, emphasizing the story to a degree. There is even a decent song, which is not a commont element of low cost VNs. Still, can't say any of the tracks was particularly memorable or catchy. Just decent enough music. No bugs encountered. Overall, this relatively short escape VN tells a mildly interesting story, backed by somewhat bland art and good but not memorable music. Additionally, it presents players with multiple puzzles and point-and-click sections. For the fans of similar games, it is a worthy indie title to try: 6.3/10