Fires At Midnight

[quote]NOTE: This review contains spoilers![/quote] Set in a “world where making love without being in love makes you spontaneously combust”, [i]Fires At Midnight[/i] is an interactive visual novel that tells the story of two people trying to navigate their long-term relationship and regain intimacy. While the game doesn’t give any explanation on what causes people to burn while having intercourse without love apart from it being tagged as a recently emerged virus ("The Love Bug"), it’s safe to state that the whole narrative is centered around Yun and Chitra’s need to reaffirm their feelings toward each other. The story is fairly linear and episodic, split in two major parts. In the first half of the game, you’ll get to experience Yun’s memories about various moments of their relationship from the past 4-5 years, each of these memories being triggered by clicking on specific icons on his computer or items on his PC desk. Some will require you to sit back, read the dialogues between him and Chitra and experience their adult and no-so-adult interactions, others will be presented as minigames in which you have to actively participate. We learn that Yun is an aspiring photographer who enjoys capturing real-life moments into pictures which he will ultimately want to use for a New Year’s gift for Chitra: a negative-photobook. Yun’s path ends with picking 3 out of 5 possible photos and in the second part of the story, you’ll be able to experience them from Chitra’s perspective, together with a few other events, in a similar mix of reading and minigames. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2192198144 [i]Fires At Midnight[/i] tackles problems that are often encountered in real life relationships. On the one hand we have Yun who is currently unemployed, struggling to find means to provide financial support to their relationship, thus bringing home girls for photoshoots with whom he interacts in a more or less flirty way, in order to spice up the sessions. He tries to find in himself the love for Chitra, while also being attracted to his photo subjects. On the other hand, we have Chitra who has to witness these sessions and who tries to fight off her jealousy. Like pretty much every other woman out there, she seeks confirmation of Yun’s love for her in all his actions and takes his every gesture as a test of love which he constantly fails, from her perspective. Chithra’s mind is full of inner demons, triggered either by thoughts of Yun’s unfaithfulness or by the fear of love, originating from a messed up childhood. You will get to experience them intimately, in their full disturbingness and horror. On top of that, an extra layer is added to the story by a character-specific filter applied to the background which creates a very cool effect of seeing in the mind of the character (for example, mouseovering girls as Yun will see them partially undressed, while Cithra will see various monsters). https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2192198244 [i]Fires At Midnight[/i] is a choice-heavy visual novel, yet none of the choices splits the narrative into different branches, apart from the final choice which triggers one of three main possible endings. Whatever you pick until then has an effect only on the subsequent visuals or reveals more details about the story, with the exception of one completely meaningless choice at the beginning of the game which will produce an alternate ending (a 4h one), regardless of what you pick otherwise. Therefore, in order to experience the game in its entirety, you will need 4 full playthroughs, with a minimum of two playthroughs if you want to experience from Chitra’s perspective all 5 of Yun’s stories. From the second playthrough on, skipping already seen scenes becomes possible by holding the spacebar, but because the visual novel is dense with interactions, this will not decrease the time needed for one playthrough by much. A full walkthrough and achievement guide can be consulted [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2180466448]here[/url]. Soon after I started my first playthrough I realized that no matter what I choose, the outcome will be a negative one. Yun keeps being inconsiderate of Chitra’s cheating-related incident from her childhood. Chitra’s small love gestures remain either unperceived by Yun and judging by the ending, they seem to not be born out of love, but perhaps out of routine? What appears to be a positive memory from Yun’s side is an episode of bottled up suffering from Chitra’s perspective. Regardless of the fact that their relationship began years ago, Yun and Chitra still keep a lot of intimate thoughts to each other: Yun’s collection of lewd pictures and his attraction to his models, Chitra always comparing Yun to his friend Richard and secretly thinkinging that she would be better off in a relationship with Richard. [b]Therefore, don’t try to play this visual novel in order to find some answers to your own relationship questions[/b]. Its gripping and immersive story can easily make you identify with the couple, but if you take this piece of art as your own reality, it will only lead you into depression. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2192198263 One of the main things I didn’t like about [i]Fires At Midnight[/i] was the fact that the long-awaited happy ending never came. I kept hoping to get one even if it was obvious to me from the beginning that I wouldn't, due to the dark nature of its storytelling. I craved for happy memories, seen from both Yun and Cithra’s perspectives, yet none came. I wanted to see not only their sadness and sorrow but also their bright and cheerful moments, yet none of this was shown, as if the developers specifically wanted to set the focus only to the negative aspects of Yun and Cithra’s relationship, portraying them from the start as being doomed. The narrative is riveting, especially in Chitra’s part where [i]things happen[/i], but it also has some plot holes / inconsistencies if you play the game multiple times. The secondary characters don’t follow the same logic over multiple playthroughs, and there are several topics that remain unexplained. Regardless of that, [i]Fires At Midnight[/i] remains a very good visual novel.

[h1] 爱能让你疯狂，亦能使你燃烧 [/h1] 带有轻度暴力，惊悚以及裸露元素的点击式文字剧情冒险游戏 本作讲述的是关于一对夫妻在努力维持双方关系的故事，在这个世界里，若一对不相爱的人在一起做爱，那么他们将一起自燃，因而那一天也被人们称之为世界末日。 游戏一开始，玩家可以了解到这对夫妻正在为某事争论，男主Yun没有表态，女主Chitra最终气愤地开门离去。清醒后的Yun开始担心自燃一事，为了避免这种情况的发生，他打算在事态变得更糟之前，修复与Chitra的关系。他需要找到一种方式去证明自己仍然爱着Chitra，决定在新年来临之时送给Chitra一本由自己亲手制作的，关于两人过去回忆的摄影画集，希望以此来感动Chitra，获得她的原谅。玩家的任务则是要通过一系列的互动，找到有关回忆的记忆碎片，帮助Yun完成这本珍贵的摄影画集。至于最后Yun跟Chitra的关系会变成什么样子，全看玩家在这期间会做何选择了。 本作的记忆碎片跟时间线较为凌乱，如果不仔细观察场景内展示的各个信息跟细节，并将其联系在一起，想要在一周目后理解剧情不是一件容易的事情。 简单介绍下男女主（个人理解，仅作参考） [list] [*]Yun：摄影员，喜欢拍照，[spoiler]跟Chitra既有过好的回忆，也有过坏的经历。找不到工作，做过制药卖药的生意，却在Chitra看来是不务正业，甚至被怀疑跟私人拍摄的妹子们有一腿（电脑里能看到部分记录），经常为钱跟工作争吵，闹得两人的关系一直很僵硬。但尽管如此，两人仍然没有分开，甚至男主在某次事故后因被女主救了自己的性命而感到幸运。 [/spoiler] [*]Chitra：画家，[spoiler]从小好奇看了父亲的绘画本，对其中的斩首头颅跟邪恶仪式有了很深的印象，虽然不适合她当时的年龄观看，但对她现在的素描功力有了起到了很大的作用。童年有过阴影，父亲出轨背叛母亲，自己投钉伤人，以及下药差点误毒母亲等，她认为世界上的话语都是谎话，这也使得她跟Yun的男女关系常常处于水深火热之中。 [/spoiler] [/list] 细节十分丰富，由于此部分涉及到剧透，所以下面就简单提一下，比如通过邮件可以得知[spoiler] 男主Yun在1999年时的运气很差，因财务不稳定，申请信用卡遭到拒绝，因没有提出有用的信息，摄影节候选人落选，就连社区学院开放的摄影教学职位面试也没有入选，无论是事业还是生活，都遭受到了非常大的打击。[/spoiler]。女主同样如此，由于男主嗑药跟女主情绪压力过大的关系，他们会看到两种画风不一样的世界，简单来说，可以称之为表里世界，即便是在同一场中，不同的镜头下也能看到不一样有意思的东西。 [list] [*]有趣一点的是：[spoiler]服务员衣服变成了透明，电脑的鼠标变成了小老鼠，墙上贴的福字也呈现出了倒过来的样子。 [/spoiler] [*]稍微惊悚的一点的是：[spoiler] 熬制的鲜汤里出现了眼球跟耳朵，冰箱里出现了鬼等。[/spoiler] [/list] 此外，[spoiler]像是主角某月某日网购了某种商品，在网上以什么网名跟谁进行了不可描述的事情，主角妈妈为何过年不回家，关系着人们生命安全的love bug病毒呈现的病状或者避免措施以及不能送给女友的哪6种花等 [/spoiler]都可以在场景内查找到，感兴趣的大家自行查看吧。 ~游戏中包含了不少选择，不同选择会触发不一样的剧情发展跟结局，总共包含3个结局。 ~主要玩法为鼠标在场景内点点点进行互动，通过男主电脑上的“READ ME FIRST”文件也能得知，在玩家搜索场景时，当准星对准可以进行互动的物品时，会发出黄光的高亮提示。除了点点点外，随着流程推进，玩家也还能玩到一些小游戏，比如类似小蜜蜂一样的打飞机，莫名其妙的扫雷，冲洗胶片，安装相机电池跟切菜熬汤等。 ~除了男主YUN的视角外，玩家还能从Chitra的POV来回顾整个剧情，观察这个奇怪的世界。 [quote] 加入[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/ADZZW]爱の榨汁屋[/url]&关注[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34815366/]爱の鉴赏家[/url]，用爱品鉴世间作品，用心流淌真情实感。 [/quote] [h1] 品质尚可：看起来比玩起来更舒服 [/h1] [list] [*]跌宕起伏又扑朔迷离的故事情节++ [*]精致的画风，丰富的细节表现++ [*]极具代入感的氛围营造++ [*]马来西亚乐队打造的美妙音乐++ [*]轻松的点击式互动体验+ [*]针对绅士来说，有少量的裸露福利+ [*]中途不能进行存档-- [*]其中含有惊悚跟暴力桥段（因人而已）- [*]小游戏的操作手感不流畅- [*]希望后续能有汉化！ [/list]

Love the music. If not for that, I would have stopped before now. But this isn't a lot of fun, and not very interesting, even 70 minutes in.

It's really interesting to see the perspective from both Yun and Chitra. I'm curios to know how the story will end, but unfortunately it's a bit vague in the beginning and I wasn't really hooked that much by it. Music is awesome, art is great. Pros (+) Nostalgic 90s South East Asian vibes (+) Intriguing stories overall (+) Love the music! Cons (-) The story was a bit unclear in the beginning (-) I can explore the screen when the text is going. Probably would be better if the devs let players read the text first then give the chance to interact with the object or explore. [spoiler] Also, I played this in the middle of the night and pretty surprised to see the demons appearing. They're a bit too scary for me, not a fan of horror games here. But as I continued playing the game, using the demons as representation to Chitra's fear is a good idea.[/spoiler]

Bazı şeyler iyileşmiyor ama hayat mecburen devam ediyor. Oyun neye benziyor dense, hala açık ve derin bir yaraya hiçbir pansuman yapmadan üzerine küçük birkaç yara bandı yapıştırarak yaşamaya devam etmeye derdim o yüzden sanırım. Önce erkek karakterin bakış açısından deneyimliyorsunuz hikayeyi ve nihayetinde de bu bir ilişki olduğu için, bir erkek karakterden ne kadar hazzedilmezse o kadar hazzetmedim. Oyunda madde kullanımı, depresyon, cinsellik ve travmatik altyapılar mevcut bu yüzden zaten hiçbir şeyin normal şartlarda sürememesi bir yerde doğal geliyor, ama bu çıkmazda alınan kararların ya da içine girilen ruh hallerinin yıkıcılığından etkilenmemeniz zor. İkisi birbirine zıt beklentilerde ve ihtiyaçlarda iki karakter var ve gerçekten oynarken bu kadar b*ktan bir ilişkinin insanın hayat kalitesini ne kadar düşürebileceği bir yana, aklıma kaynayan kurbağa sendromunu getirdi. Bir zarar yavaş yavaş ve başta hissettirmeden geldiğinde ona gerçekten bağışıklık kazanabiliyorsunuz ve kurtulması normalden çok daha zor ve yıpratıcı sonuçlarla mümkün olabiliyor. Oyunun yarattığı etki de buralarda bir yerde sanırım. Kadın karakterin bakış açısına geçtiğimde, erkeğin bütün o yüzeysel ve mantıksal yaklaşımının içeride içten içe nelere sebep olduğunu görünce dehşete düştüm. İfadesiz bir suratın altında neler saklı olabileceğini bilememek ve çaresizlik hissinin doğurabileceği tehlikenin büyüklüğü de bir o kadar korkunç geldi empati yapınca. Hikayenin servis edilişini epey başarılı buldum o yüzden. İç açıcı bir hikaye ya da salt aşk hikayesi değil, ama bu tarz ağır temalarla bir sorununuz yoksa deneyimlenmesini tavsiye edebilirim.

Our conclusion for Fires At Midnight is consistently positive: We have rarely seen such a gripping and at the same time disturbing love story: The game really sucked us up with its 90s atmosphere and we always wanted to learn more about Yun and Chitra. Fires At Midnight fulfills this desire by allowing us to choose different paths in several game runs, which culminate in three different story endings. Persona Theory Games takes storytelling to a new level through the use of fragmentation, audio-visual elements and playful mechanics- a real must-play for everyone who cherishes innovative narrative adventure games! Full review: https://virtualseasia.com/2020/07/11/fires-at-midnight-burning-desire-for-gripping-and-innovative-storytelling/

I just finished with my 1st playthrough, picked the party and got the 3rd ending. So far, I love with the story, the characters, and also the soundtracks in the game. Though I felt like some songs kind of 'disturbing' me on focusing to the story; with their vocals, and dialogues to read some more. Haih, kacau! I didn't expect the [spoiler]ghosts and horror elements[/spoiler] in Chitra's perspective, which is great! Some kind of good twist. Kudos! Since this game is made by Malaysian publisher, I'm so proud of it. Tahniah! Gonna play the game again to see other endings too!

Exceptional story telling through heavy use of layers and symbolism. The story isn't shallow, don't be fooled by the supernatural premise, it's mature and delves into human psychology, behaviourism and mental illness. Beautiful portray of life in essence, where we're often misunderstood, hurt, haunted by experiences from the past, unable to reciprocate love and communicate to one another. Very pleasant to look at art style, I usually don't capture so many screenshots to look at them later and admire the work authors put into these drawings. Good soundtrack with fitting ambient atmosphere, although you could feel the limited budget here - please use more sound effects / background music in the future. I wholeheartedly recommend this one. edit: So few reviews, game not even rated. What a shame, such a unique experience.

I’ve been following the development of this game for a while and was really excited when I finally got to play it. It’s a point-and-click visual novel game, with gorgeous graphics and a pretty cool “Second Layer” effect that lets you see the environment as how the character you’re playing as would perceive it. Which is actually pretty genius because it adds another layer to the storytelling without it being too didactic or clunky. Sound design was good and evocative; there were some really great tracks in there. The game has so many delightful homages not just to the technology in the 90’s, but the entire atmosphere design with the furniture, food and architecture that grounds it proudly in its setting in Malaysia. It swamped me with a feeling of nostalgia, even as I was navigating through the complexities of the relationship between Yun and Chitra. Yun and Chitra. Yun’s anxieties and frustrations with his and Chitra’s situation and their relationship became my own and I started to second-guess the decisions I was making, worried that I was guiding them down the path to immolation… or worse. When the perspective flipped, and I experienced the same events from Chitra’s perspective… now that was some wild stuff. Fires At Midnight is a deceptively simple game to play, and that is a strength because it serves to highlight the incredibly tightly woven narrative. It is a highly polished game with an attention to detail; an obvious labour of love.

While I do recommend it, please be aware the game is extremely overpriced for what you are getting. I had to wait along time for it to go on sale for at least half price, because I had a feeling it was good, but not 14$ CND good...the game barely makes it to 2 hours playtime, I could just refund it, however I did genuinely enjoy it, so I wont. The "game" is essentially a motion comic with like a single minigame which is a rip-off from Space Invaders, everything else is just basically clicking on stuff and choosing options to advance the plot, while it was always pretty easy to figure out where to click, I did run into two instance where I could not figure out where to click because it wanted me to click in a very specific spot, but nothing game breaking. The plot and the artwork is what initially got me so interested in the game, as the store description says, in this game universe banging someone without loving them makes you both burs into flames, which raises a ton of interesting questions and implications. For example, humanity is essentially doomed as it can no longer reproduce, and rape is both murder and suicide. The whole POV thing was really interesting, the man is constantly seeing boobs and genitals everywhere since he hasn't been unable to have sex in along time, for the woman, it goes more into horror territory, which I am not sure why they didn't add those tags. The game is set during the night before Y2K, which may be nostalgic for those who lived through it. The game really dives into the issues of the relationship, which as someone who went through the pain of divorce, was really triggering for me, but the world doesn't revolve around me lol Overall, if you want a solid one shot comic book (which reminded me of the works of Inio Asano on the first half), this one is pretty good. The game technically has 3 endings so it expects you to replay it at least 3 times to unlock them all, but I will probably replay it after a few months... the ending I got was depressing man..lol Just remember as I said, to wait for a sale otherwise you will feel like you are getting ripped off.