Harrowed World: What's Past Is Portents

story line could be better it's a typical visual novel with multiple choice answers

This game is amazing has a great storyline and the dev is a sweetheart

This gets my beard of approval. An intriguing and captivating intro to a game world. Absolutely amazing music. Left me eager to see how the world develops. Did I mention it is free?

What's Past is Portents felt like your typical vampire fan fiction, just with a bit of rebranding here and there. It didn't feel like it was building a unique word, but rather reshuffling regularly used concepts with minor changes. If the goal is to create something original, it definitely needs further work to distance itself from existing media. The overall experience currently feels more like a work in progress, not a fully realised release. Because of this, I find it all the more baffling that there's already DLC and two other games in the works over building and polishing the foundation they have here. The writing is okay, I guess. Not terrible, but definitely not great either. A lot of the time it felt like it was throwing unnecessary wording in there for the sake of it, to bulk it out instead of say anything substantial, this made already unengaging dialogue feel even longer. The overall structure of the story also made it quite difficult to become invested in. Dialogue choices have no real impact or weight to them and even if they did, you can hit back on any section of dialogue anyway, further removing any connection or weight from them. It's a short game but despite that I still found it difficult to stay engaged for the 20-30 minutes it takes to complete it. There's the absolute bare minimum of interactivity from the placer outside of occasional multiple choices. That on it's own isn't a problem, but writing would need to be incredibly strong to carry it through that alone. In this case, it doesn't. Visually, the artwork is okay. There's an overall lack of consistent style which feels odd. This isn't enough to significantly impact the game, but it did stick out. When coupled with 2 looping frames for characters it leans even further into that unfinished/work in progress feel. The DLC structure raises concerns for me, as there's nothing to suggest that the continued story will have any real improvements over the introduction I've just played. Given the scope of the game at the moment, I can't justify making a purchase right now. But I would be open to in the future if there's a clear sign of improvements through an update. This isn't a terrible experience, but it wasn't great either. It seems to me that it just needs a little more love and attention from devs. For me, it didn't feel polished, unique, or substantial enough to recommend, even with it's short length.

A beautifully made visual novel game with an interesting story. The artwork and music fit perfectly and it is an overall very enjoyable short experience. There is a lot of lore weaved into an intriguing first story with more to come and I'm excited to see where it all leads. If you like vampires and dark spooky atmospheric games you'll enjoy this one. Tip: Going through the game and picking different dialogue options will get you all the lore and achievements. Make sure to use the game's save feature to go back to the point you'd like to keep branching off from. There are also some accessibility features if you need them such as having the lines read to you which is an awesome addition to any game.

graphics are NOT spectacular, story line could have been written better and dev made steam take a guide down as they don't want you play a speed run - so petty so no wouldn't recommend

Yes.