malViolence - Definitive Edition

Had been on a big visual novel kick recently and found a love for them. The developer Mado of Team malViolence had contacted me to give their game a try. The art looked right up my ally and I especially love the design and look of our sweet baby bean Cautionne so decided on giving the game a play. I'm not going to lie I do kind of dread doing puzzles cause I am not the best at them but my ego got the best of me and I picked normal mode for the puzzles and they sure as heck kicked my butt. I honestly had no game plan on any of them and just got lucky in solving the puzzles in my play through. I really enjoyed the art style and the characters of the game. It was cool to have meet them and the VAs were really cool and really well voiced. The puzzles I could see would be fun for those who were looking for that kind of challenge but i believe that was all in my fault for picking a difficulty all to high for me haha. My only want from the game was more story telling. As I played just this version first I think that's all this game lacked but Overall I would recommend this game to folks who enjoy puzzles.

Being honest i am not sure if to recommend this game or not but i do think the good part outweight the bad ones had you can always make the gam easier/skip puzzles if you want to see the story only. Positives:I like the voice acting and the story,the theme,the puzzles are creative at least to me and i do like how costumaizable it is managin to choose between difficulty if you want to lose after certain attempts or even skip the puzzles if you are only intrested int the story, its a nice game though ill admit Cautionne is a hit-or-miss character i at least like him a lot though i do wish you had more opporuntities to speak and not being tied up to what the "unamed default protagonist says" but it works as it is there info and puzzle around though i like the story most finding Cautionne to be sympathetic and a good mixture of child villan and a tragic villan, there is also muliple ending and though i have issue to how you get to them i do like them,they are emotional but they suit the message that the game tries to send and this arent too hard to obtain wihtout a guide. The puzzles are good and creative though the difficulty you can always change said difficultty my only mistake was playing this on ahrd at the start since hard is really hard, but they aer nice and creative some are simple puzzle and other unique and the dynamic with Cautionne is nice and the room are crative and add to Cautionne personality and keeping his bad acts understandable Negatives(to me at least)This game is a puzzle game but its not a escape room this wouldnt be an issue if the game descirption didnt refer to this as escape rooms because they arent (only the first one is) which is a good show on how to do them you get a misterious puzzle and you look around the room to check for clues on how to do it, but the rest of the puzzles are just you get a puzzles with the instructions on the side and thats all do 3 puzzles you get the parts for the exit puzzle and move on,you dont have any reason to check around aside from lore(might be me but there is a specific puzzle i did not understand)aside from that the biggest issue i have with this games are how you ge to the alternate ending (aside from how drastic the personality change is from the protagonist from the bad ending to the neutral or good) and well spoilers ahead [spoiler]in the game you have papers this papers get you lore which is in short you work for the bad guys who hurt Cautionne but you werent aware of that thinking Cautionne is bad,depending on the papers(and objects)you interact,depend how along you get with Cautionne and the ending first issue that i have: This is supposed to be a escape room even if it fail at it i feel like reading the papers doesnt work as you trying to figure out what happens when half the papers i got i only got because i was searching for clues not curiosity. B:Ill get into collecting the papers for the lore after but i realize that if you missed other stuff you get locked out of the good ending in the second room there is something that is smiliar to an electric chari(whic chould be dangerous for all you know play the first time) and oil stain in the ground and a bookshelf with stuff if you only check one thing in the second room you get locked out of the good ending this also happens if you check less than the for info items/papers that there are in the third room.C:It also feels unfair with how much empathy the protagonist as for Cautionne and Cautionne has for the protagonist when the game hides the papers from you in places that at least to me (opinion) are hard to read and not onlky that but in the last room papers appear as you do puzzles, and this feels unfair because i assume that the game point is that the more lore you get to know the moer it shows your protagonist "cares" which is why Cautionne can grow more empathetic towards you but again i feel like this fails when the game reward curiosity at the end (whist at the start almost punishing it) since you also might be tired from doing puzzles also you have to take into accoun your cursor changed depending on if what you point at is a puzzle or not which is also an issue since aside from getting the good ending(something you might not even realize the first time you are playing) this game does not reward curiousity in the first room you have to check stuff to get to the puzzle but you also get punished as if you eat the food Cautionne gave you you die)in the second room the things that you can check dont help but also dont give any intresting/new info it seems like is there just for being there and principally if you die because of the puzzle(optional) you probably wont check them gain when the game restarts you in the same room and for some reason doesnt remeber what you check and why would check it again when it didnt give you any useful info yet desipte this in the second room if you dont check 2/3 objects you get locked out of the good ending and even in the 3 and 4 floor there in no indication that checking this info is doing anything until you get to the ending you can suspect it since Cautionne does mention your curiosity or lack thereof againi do know this is personal and you can replay the game but i feel like teh first time you play the first ending you get can be unfair as there no indication that just checking stuff can change the game ending or the game at all princpially when in the first floors the objects you check are not relevant nor to the puzzles(as its a pattern)and not to the lore so even if you get it at least to me it sounds undeserving? like i did what i needed for the good ending but there were no indication i needed to do that i just checked stuff since i was curious aside in this type of game info like that normally isnt mandatory to get (principally in a gamein which you can die even if this possibility is optional) since when loading you can miss getting the info tha you laready got, so it end up being less a show how much you care but more just an eye test to make sure you didnt miss anything princiaplly since in the firsts rooms papers dont appear out of nowhere that only happens on the last one, and again i wouldnt have much issue if it wasnt because i think you have to get almost all for what i checked i think you can miss 6 on the last room with is finr counting some papers just appear but thats only to ge the neutral ending if you did all perfect till then and there are 12 things in the last room,which sucks as i dont feel there a lot of diffrence between the neutral and good ending aside form the fact the protagonist feels more guily and Cautionne is more empatetic, this also failing has at least i managed to figure out what happen to Cautionne before the game did the revelation whic just makes me feel dissonance with the protagonist, its fine how it is but aside from giving you more leanway wiith the bad ending (i think it should be if you get 1/3 ir less of the papers bad ending,between 1/3 and 2/3 neutral and 2/3 to 3/3 the good ending with maybe a extra scene has a reward for a perfect score) i am not sure if you need 100% of the papers for the good ending (ill check this when i can) but aside from this i do think they should have left some player agency to chosse if you want to empathize with Cautionne or not or a interaction or two (like picking options) to maybe follow Cautionne game or not to justify a bit more im liking you more on less int the good ending nothing big but in the game Cautionne speaks to the player and it wouldnt have hurt to do the typical yes neutral and no answer (as long as it isnt too obvious which one is which,heck in one part of the game you get revealed that your company killed Cautionne caretaker and part of his past (assuming you arent checking the bad ending) and you could get the option to empathize, empathize but still doubt, or not empathize/saying something indicate you still belive he is bad) or the option to shoot his screen at the start[/spoiler]

This experience was just what I was looking for!! I've been on a big escape room kick lately (in real life), and I was intrigued by the relatively bite-sized nature of this adventure compared to longer VNs that I've played recently. Certainly doable in one sitting (especially if you're not reading every single extra text box out loud like I was); however, it would be certainly fine (in my opinion) to split it into two or three sittings. This would be relevant if you have a bit of a shorter attention span, are strapped for time, or needed a bit of a mental break, like I was needing closer to the end. This way, it would be possible to work on a room or two (with all its puzzles) each sitting. The puzzles felt challenging and rewarding, even if one or two of them weren't historically puzzles I've found to be my favorite. (I'll admit there was at least one puzzle for which I should've read the prompt fully.) I really appreciate all the accessibility options available! The text skip feature was much appreciated. The artstyle for the characters is wonderful, and the voice acting available for them was a treat. I enjoyed the story that was laid out; didn't overstay its welcome (coming off of live-service gacha games where there are too many text boxes to sit through). I'm looking forward to playing through the game again; trying out the puzzles at different difficulty levels and fishing for a few more achievements! I will be checking out the next game in the series soon!

I really enjoyed this game! The story was really good and such a twist! I played the game on medium and some puzzles were really hard/time consuming while others were super quick/easy- medium feels like the perfect balance of puzzle solving! Definitively will be recommending!

I did not know what to expect going into this one, but I was surprised in a good way with the challenge of this game, and the writing! The music involved was a nice jam as well, and this game does not feel like it is too long either, which makes for a nice, decently length experience with some fun, and some mystery to solve!

„Malviolence“ bringt auf den ersten Blick viele gute Ansätze mit sich und wirkt in einigen Bereichen durchaus ausgereift, verliert aber durch technische Probleme und Pacing-Probleme deutlich an Qualität. Besonders positiv fällt der Grafikstil auf. Der Zeichenstil ist wirklich gut gemacht und verleiht dem Spiel einen eigenen, passenden Look. Auch das Sounddesign kann überzeugen, auch wenn sich manche Dialoge etwas zu sehr in die Länge ziehen. Die Story und das grundlegende Spielprinzip wirken durchdacht und funktionieren an sich gut. Auch die Rätsel sind insgesamt angemessen gestaltet, sie sind weder zu einfach noch übermäßig schwer und passen gut ins Spiel, vor allem, da die Rätsel-Schwierigkeit angepasst werden kann. Allerdings wird das Ganze stark durch technische Probleme überschattet. Vor allem das Interface ist teilweise sehr buggy, was die Bedienung unnötig erschwert. Generell treten immer wieder Bugs auf, die das Spielerlebnis stören, in manchen Fällen sogar so stark, dass Rätsel kaum lösbar sind, bis man das Spiel irgendwie zum Laufen bekommt, sei dies durch einen Neustart oder in meinem Fall um die zehn. Zusätzlich fehlt es an sinnvollen Komfortfunktionen. Ein automatisches Speichersystem nach jedem gelösten Rätsel wäre beispielsweise extrem hilfreich und würde viel Frust vermeiden. Ein weiteres großes Problem ist das Pacing. Durch die teilweise zu langen Dialoge und die technischen Schwierigkeiten zieht sich das Spiel unnötig in die Länge, wodurch kaum echte Spannung aufkommt. Insgesamt zeigt sich ein klares Bild: „Malviolence“ hat eine gute Grundlage mit starkem Stil, funktionierendem Konzept und soliden Rätseln, wird aber durch Bugs, schwaches Interface und langgezogene Dialoge deutlich ausgebremst. Auch wenn viele Ansätze stimmen, würde ich das Spiel in seinem aktuellen Zustand eher nicht empfehlen. Müsst ihr Wissen!

played it through once, plaed protoviolence through, went back and 100%ed this AND MY GOD the depth of the story just hit that much harder. I really recommend playing those two back to back! Cute art, cool puzzles and lotsa lore, an allround great experience (that will hit you like a truck).

I was approached by Mado to check out the game, And I had an amazing experience. The writing in the story is really good and Cautionne and Dr. Danger are so charming. I love their voices and personality so much. I diiiiid get a bit frustrated playing on the hardest difficulty for my first 8 hour playthrough. I died... like a lot. Really brought me back to younger days of playing Sudoku books with an ink pen and realizing halfway through that I messed up halfway. All in all I had a great time. I'm playing the prequel as well!