Porcelana

Sad and short visual novel with a neat one-time mechanic. Disclaimer: since most visual novels use the same engine, I won't go into detail about the technical aspects. All you need to know is that you can save the game at any moment and that you can skip every piece of text right from the start. There’s also a gallery that unlocks new images as you progress through the story. There’s not a lot to say about the game. It’s a sad love story between you and a girl. She suddenly stops attending the school, so you decide to go find out why. The brief game length allows you to quickly discover the secret. You make some decisions, but they are not really important. There is just one option that results in a premature ending, but you can simply avoid having to replay the game by saving before choosing. The interesting part is when you reach the end and try to start a new game. You're prevented from playing until you perform an action outside the game. It's a cool feature that eventually leads to the true ending.

“Porcelana” es una historia sobre una chica pura cuya vida es deshecha poco a poco por los malos actores de este mundo que solamente se aprovechan de la gente con buenas intenciones. El protagonista, “un hombre bueno” estereotípico, busca desesperadamente salvarla de alguna forma, pero por una u otra razón sucumbe a la impotencia. ¿Quién no ha soñado con ser un héroe? Pues bueno, “Porcelana” llega para recordarnos que no es así de fácil el asunto. Me agrada ver novelas visuales escritas originalmente en español, creo que todos debemos de darle una oportunidad a esta y otras historias contadas desde nuestra lengua y nuestras experiencias. [h1] Lo bueno [/h1] Muy bonitas imágenes de pantalla completa (CGs), la música de fondo le da un gran ambiente, sobre todo en la escena del club nocturno. El motivo de la figura de porcelana está bien utilizado durante toda la historia. Por la calidad de los assets, el juego no parece estar hecho por un equipo tan pequeño. [spoiler] El tormento que sufre la mujer protagonista, la violencia sexual y los abusos se describen de manera excelente en la primera mitad de la novela. Verdaderamente da ansiedad la forma en la que Isabella vive su vida. [/spoiler] [spoiler] La mecánica de las cartas en la mochila es divertida, es una forma de expandir los recursos narrativos. [/spoiler] [h1] Lo malo [/h1] Muy frecuentes errores de ortografía, gramática, puntuación y sintaxis hacen que la historia pierda intensidad. Muchos diálogos y descripciones son de relleno y no aportan nada a la narrativa. Entiendo que esto es común en muchas novelas visuales porque a los escritores les pagan por cantidad de palabras, pero como este es un proyecto independiente uno pensaría que ese no es el caso aquí y, sin embargo, los diálogos de relleno abundan. A algunos fondos les falta profundidad, es decir, parecen planos o hechos de cartón. [spoiler] En la escena cuando le hacen zoom a la casa con el jardín, no utilizan una imagen de mayor calidad por lo que la imagen se ve pixeleada. [/spoiler] [spoiler] La segunda mitad de la historia, después de que Isabella muere, parece un prólogo muy largo, pareciera una historia completamente aparte ya que cambia el ritmo narrativo. En la primera parte, las acciones ocurrían en el momento, había cambios de lugar, había un sentido de urgencia porque no era posible salvar a la chica. En la segunda parte todo eso se pierde y poco se gana, ya que la historia de la mujer protagonista es completamente genérica. [/spoiler] [spoiler] Si bien la carta a Isabella es completamente justificada, el salto en el tiempo parece completamente gratuito ya que en ningún momento se planteó esa posibilidad, nadie soñaba con viajar en el tiempo, etc. Es un elemento muy grande ya que de alguna manera te obliga a volver a leer toda la historia. Yo esperaría que ciertos diálogos o detalles de aquí y allá cobrarían sentido ahora, pero no es así. [/spoiler]

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Pros: • Fairly nice visuals for an indie VN. • The story is pretty nice, with some heavy emotional moments and decent drama. • The end of the story uses a neat interactive feature that I've not seen before, and could only be done in a video game. It really gave a feeling of personalisation to the VN. • Multiple endings are always nice. Cons: • There are quite a few typos and instances of bad grammar and awkward/unnatural phrasing, although not nearly as bad as some VNs I've seen and not a deal-breaker. The English translation was definitely not done by a native speaker, but it's still fairly passable. • Kind of felt similar to [spoiler]'13 Reasons Why'[/spoiler] in some ways, with the whole [spoiler]bullying thing and the concept of leaving behind messages once you're gone (although it was for friends here).[/spoiler] Because of that, it wasn't as fresh for me as it could have been. Other: • Although it's not graphic, there's some really really effed up and dark stuff in here that goes even beyond what I'd have expected from the content warning. Not for the faint of heart. • This uses a second-person narrative throughout, which is pretty rare in both VNs and books. Felt a little weird at first but I got used to it.

Wow. Just... Wow. I am shocked. This visual novel is good. REALLY good. What looked like a simple VN turned out to be something great. [h1]Story[/h1] While the story does have a focus on romance, another focus is Isabella and the demons that she face. Our protagonist tries to talk to this girl he has fallen in love with, only for something to prevent him from doing so, whether it is something like a lack of confidence or Isabella leaving before he gets the chance to. What seems like just a shy girl that is too scared to talk to people turned out to be something more. [h1]Talking about Porcelana[/h1] From the moments she appears and the different ways the protagonist describes Isabella using similes and metaphors, I can tell that Isabella is a mysterious but interesting girl. What is hiding behind that face that shows very little emotions? After learning about how Isabella was like in the past from Camil, it makes me wonder what caused this change with how she acts. Moving on to the chapters, none of them felt drawn out. Each one is given enough time and doesn't feel like filler. Once you finally learn about Isabella's past, you finally learn why she is shy and distant. Let me just say that is not for the faint of heart. It is just a reminder that not everyone is has a happy life. Some people are living through painful lives and no matter how hard they try, they can never find any form of happiness. Learning about Isabella's past made me tear up a little. No one should have to go through what Isabella did. Unfortunately, the protagonist learned about it after "that" scene happened. After I witnessed "that" scene, I hoped that there would be some way my choices could change the ending I just witnessed. Then, this VN surprised once more as I was able to [spoiler]write a letter for Isabella. After I wrote a letter, a different choice appeared. Giving the letter to Isabella results in the protagonist getting the courage to talk with her more. In the end, I was given a satisfying ending where the protagonist was able to get to Isabella in time. This was such a great ending. I am glad that the protagonist and Isabella were able to get a happy ending.[/spoiler] After everything Isabella has went through, seeing her [spoiler]cry tears of joy when the protagonist convinced her to continue living[/spoiler] is a satisfying scene. [h1]Negative(s)[/h1] - The characters other than Isabella? Yes. Most of them either felt underdeveloped or had no development at all. [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] I cannot believe how good this VN is and how little attention this VN has. Porcelana tells a romance story that looks harmless but can be heart wrenching and depressing. The story will make you feel like you are on a roller coaster of emotions. Once again, I cannot believe that I enjoyed this VN so much. How does this VN have very few people playing it? If this VN interests you in the slightest, then I highly recommend that you purchase it. You will not be disappointed. If Pandita Studio makes another VN, then I will not hesitate to buy it when I can.

"Porcelana" isn't a game. It's an e-book dumped on Steam masquerading as a game. As a visual novel/e-book/fan-fiction, this has no notable gameplay. It's just clicking through badly written dialogue that would never be accepted in print by an actual professional publisher. How did something this badly written end up on Steam? When someone can't get published in print, they spend $100 and dump their high school fan-fiction onto Steam Direct under the guise of a game. This e-book pushes the boundaries of what is possible for a garbage high school anime club dropout fan-fiction. Most of these e-books are about the author and his imaginary girlfriend... pure cringe, yes. But this one really pushes the envelope... it's about the author and his FOUR imaginary girlfriends. Shoot the moon, fan-fiction cringe writers. Comically, the authors imaginary girlfriends are suicidal. I think that says alarming things about your self esteeem if your imaginary girlfriends are suicidal, but then again, if your boyfriend writes creepy, cringey fan-fictions about you, you'd be suicidal too I guess. Trying to address serious issues such as mental and emotional health through the medium of video games is misguided and can be harmful. While it's plausible to suggest the intention was noble, this can do more harm than good. The "developer" here is not a professional in areas of mental health and social problems, and when they use video games to pretend they are, this is not only utterly ineffective, it can be harmful. It's my opinion that it's improper to use video games to address mental health issues. Apart from the harm such hamfisted attempts at addressing social problems can cause, this offers zero benefit to PC gamers. People suffering from health issues or other social problems should seek out professional help rather than going to crap shovelware video games attempting to get attention/fame by exploiting such problems for their own benefit, as is the case here. Because this was put together with the Ren'Py e-book construction kit, it didn't require any actual coding or development. It's a tool for failed authors to push their garbage high school anime club dropout fanfictions as games. Just like there's no professional writing here, there isn't any professional software development either. Visual novels/e-books are the worst way to try read a book (and they're always written far worse than real books too). Imagine reading your favorite book, be that War and Peace or The Davinci Code (are you ok??), but you have to click the mouse for every single sentence that appears. You'd hate it. It's a garbage way to try read a book... and even if it wasn't, this still isn't a game. Now imagine that clicking experience, but with utterly cringe anime club fan-fiction writing. If the author had any talent, this would be published in print on bookshelves. Instead, it's here on Steam. This garbage only ended up on Steam because they paid $100 to self-publish since no real publisher would take them. E-books are just a collection of cringe writing and badly generated character imagery (usually done with a construction kit/image generator). So it might as well be a web page. We don't spend thousands on gaming rigs just to use them for what might as well be reading a website. Even as a free e-book, this couldn't find an audience, not just because this is Steam, for PC games, not garbage e-books. With a peak of only 4 concurrent readers, it's clear nobody wanted this. They literally couldn't pay people to read it. Even more comical, to satisfy the global demand for this book, you'd only ever need to print 4 copies. And that's probably too many. While this e-book's free, you can get better quality books and comics for free online or from public libraries. Steam is for PC games. Your gaming rig is not a Kindle or a mobile phone e-book reader. It's impossible for me to recommend things to PC gamers that aren't really games.

Why i wanted to play this?

Muy buena Visual novel se recomienda jugarla con una buena botella de tequila al lado. Tiene 2 vueltas la primera es la vuelta del descubrimiento en la cual no vas a poder evitar lo que se viene, al final al terminar la primera vuelta iniciaras el juego y este se pondrá en negro entonces deberás ir a donde esta la instalación del juego y editar un archivo de texto que es una carta donde plasmaras una declaración de amor después lo guardas y regresas al juego y inicias con la segunda vuelta del juego donde ahora se mostrara la ruta verdadera y final feliz. 8/10.