GESTALT: The Fifth Day

I chanced upon this game whilst seeking worthy ways to expend mine Steam points. Drawn by its striking artistic style and its AURA of terror, I granted the demo a trial. Yet I was left yearning for more and lo, I discovered that a DLC awaited as well! Though I have but three hours in its embrace, I have already uncovered several endings. I must confess: it is a most excellent experience, be it for deep thought, quiet reflection, or to pursue what optional delights lie upon the nightstand of the first day. 5/5 — heartily recommended for its artistic splendour, simple yet engaging gameplay, and masterful atmosphere.

I'll start with the negatives, but I'll say up front that I wanted to like this—it has a super strong hook at the start, and the title suggested a game that would have some pretty interesting ideas/themes/a take on the haunted house story*, but the prose was super groan-worthy and it wore me out. Lots of pointlessly restating information that doesn't evolve your relationship to the character or house... the main character saying basically the same thing over and over again, or dryly listing off things that were communicated perfectly clearly through the game's graphics—I only played for a little over an hour and I felt like half of what I was reading was just wasting my time. Sound feels really underutilised as well. A little ambience would go a long way. Some floorboards creaking... a little wind outside batting the windows in the lounge room, a low drone in the basement. Literally anything. Scares do not have the sauce at all, at least the ones I experienced. They were more baffling than anything. As for positives... I liked some of the imagery, the plant guys and owls are awesome... owls are just inherently cool and mysterious and pair great with the lo-fi black and white aesthetic. love the idea of the house rejecting new furniture. There are some really imaginative concepts here. I found the option to masturbate pretty surprising; I thought that was a nice bit of characterisation, it felt grounded and intimate, a little sad, as opposed to being sleazy/there to titillate... It felt weirdly like the only time in my playthrough where the main character was exerting real agency, and me along with her in a way that justified this being a game instead of a book or whatever... and I also think that was why it was kind of sad and relatable: when so much of your life doesn't feel like it's your own, you are left with small choices. They don't really affect anything, but they are yours, and only yours. (Though if I were to nitpick the writing, it's pretty silly that the main character, in her own internal monologue, is so reticent to acknowledge the vibrator in her bedside drawer. Felt almost like a fourth wall break.) Overall... I don't know, I dropped it around day 3 when the annoying girl showed up. Wish I could recommend it but I think there are just better things you could be reading/looking at. When you're writing a visual novel/interactive fiction, I think it is incumbent upon you to use all the tools at your disposal, and to understand the unique value each tool can contribute to your storytelling. Especially if you're more gifted in one area than the next, (for instance art) LEAN ON THAT, and lean away from the tools you're less comfortable using. Efficiency is not always a virtue, and there's a lot of value to be found in taking things slow, of course—slowness and repetition produce their own unique affects—but I think always, asking yourself if your ideas actually benefit from a slower pace or if they would be better served by a punchier one is important. I know gamers are weird about the dollars-to-hours conversion rate of any given game, but your game only stands to benefit from making it the EXACT LENGTH that it is crying out to be. For instance, if the main character is restating the same basic idea 5 times in only slightly different ways, I think that idea is crying out to be 5 TIMES SHORTER in length. * "Gestalt" is the main character's last name and the title, and the very general, basic version of what it means which you'll find by googling it is that it's about how the whole of something is different/more important/larger than the sum of the individual parts that make it up. There's also the Gestalt school of psychology, which "emphasizes processing entire patterns (and "configurations"), not merely individual components of situations or events separately." (I just got that from the Wikipedia article. I know that's lazy, but this isn't an essay, it's a first impression.) It's entirely possible that the game DOES dig into this idea and how it pertains to the setting or the character (like the opening lines suggest, it seems that there is something malevolent about the house itself, and the "ghosts" or whatever are merely symptoms), but I do kind of have my doubts, because it's literally the main character's name: Wickenia Gestalt... and maybe I'm being uncharitable but that sounds like the sort of name you pick because it sounds cool and edgy, not because you're carefully setting up a theme.

我这边遇到一个启动问题： 购买并安装游戏后，从 Steam 启动时会先弹出一个白色窗口，标题显示“未响应”，随后游戏自动关闭。 我已经做过这些排查： 验证过游戏文件完整性 直接从本地 exe 启动，情况相同 --safe-mode 可以正常打开安全模式界面 在 safe mode 里尝试过不同 Renderer（包括 ANGLE2 / Automatically Choose），仍然无法正常进入游戏 关闭过 Steam Overlay、Wallpaper Engine、桌面挂件等可能的覆盖层程序 试过管理员运行、DPI 兼容设置，仍无效 我的环境信息： Windows 11 22H2 / 22621 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU Ren'Py 8.1.1 屏幕缩放 150%（也尝试过兼容设置） log.txt 没有出现 Traceback 或脚本报错，最后停在类似下面的位置： Initializing gl2 renderer Maximum texture size: 4096x4096 看起来不像是脚本错误，更像是正式进入渲染/显示阶段时卡死或闪退。 想请问开发者是否知道这个问题，或者有没有推荐的解决办法？ 谢谢。

サイコホラー好きならハマると思う 翻訳が少し怪しいのと，日本語版だとクラッシュしたときに実績が全部消し飛ぶ🥺 動作が安定しているEnglishにして遊ぶと良いかも 日本語だとクラッシュ画面が文字化けしているので終了するしかないけど，EnglishだとRollbackボタンでクラッシュ前に戻せる 翻訳の都合で謎解きが難しいけど，ゲームに救済措置が付属している [spoiler]ゲームのローカルファイルに作者からのヒント(ほぼ答え)が付属している[/spoiler] クリア後に実績コンプしようとしたら絶望した 実績コンプ勢はぜひ同じ苦しみを味わってほしい🥰

I love this game! The story and characters are good: the plot caught my attention, and as the story unfolds you find more and more things about said characters - they have more going on for them than it may seem at first. It's mostly about Vicke, but Emma makes an appearance in her scenario and has quite a lot of interesting things to say. Aggie's story is expanded upon in the dlc. Each scenario adds to the story in some way, making each one of them meaningful and encourages the player to explore all of them. The genie offers some great life advice as well, haha. The artstyle is great stuff - monochrome, grungy, disgusting at times, and intertwines with realistic images. But also beautiful, in a twisted way. The characters look great. Kinja definitely knows his stuff. He even made a detailed steam guide on each scenario. The soundtrack is made of very few songs, but they do their job in setting up the atmosphere very well. Can't say more than that. The only bad thing I could say is that the ritual and plant scenarios are rather confusing and unintuitive, they require some trial and error. I highly recommend this game! The sequel looks to be very promising as well.

Well written and interesting

[h3]5일 동안 집에서 발생하는 이상 현상들을 해결하는 게임[/h3] 1일차는 몸풀기 튜토리얼 개념이고 2,3,4일차는 랜덤한 현상이 발생하며 퍼즐이 있다. 5일차는 사실상 퍼즐을 잘 풀었는지 숙제검사하는 날이라고 보면 된다. 게임은 5일차가 끝나면 다시 1일차부터 다시 시작하게 된다(일종의 루프물) *기괴하고 잔인한 화면이 종종 튀어나오며 소리로 놀래키는 공포게임이다. 피지컬을 필요로 하진 않는다. *화면깜박임이 심한 장면이 자주 등장하기 때문에 'Photosensitive Epilepsy'를 조심해야 한다.