＜/reality＞

This is the kind of mind-bending, sci-fi fantasy visual novel that I and other people love. It has great art, music, writing, and story. I wish it was longer.

Новелла приятная, в целом интересная, и про нас же, геймеров, родимых Не сказать, что сюжет очень оригинален, но неплох. Особенно меня порадовал даже не главный сюжет, а линия о Лилии и ее пачке, с которыми они играли в ммо. Очень грустно и жизненно

The story is interesting because of mixing spirit world mythology with technology. Quite an interesting match that really holds. The game itself is more of a book. Generally you read. There are some choices and they are meaningful ones but they are really rare in comparison to the development of the story. I think the use of communication technologies as a way to create narration through spekaing in chat in this visual novel was a good idea. It gave at start necessary ignition for the story to unravel. After that there were many unnecessary repetitions of the same phrases and questions. It made just the novel more lenghty. As to the philosophical themes - they are basic. It is not a critique, rather a statement because I have decided to play this game mostly because I am interested in the relation between different worlds mediated through technology and searching different media to check how this problem is addressed. So although there are no new ideas here I found the world convincing and interesting when it comes to showing different aspects of technology. There is potential here so extenting the ontology of this world would be interesting as a subject. The ideas are basic but there are so much ways they could be extented! As as story it was nice. I haven't got new ideas concerning subjects that I am interested in but it was a good effort on the writer to try to create convincing relations between the worlds without being to rationalistic on one hand and on the other to dependant on fantasy cliches. Good basic philosophical themes (of course from my perspective). Many questions were unanswered like for example what happens to the bodies of people (I won't say more to not spoil the plot or at least one of possible plots). The novel has it's emotional moments but mostly it was done through rational discussion! I really liked it. Even if that for some people could be considered boring, for me personally was a quite interesting way in incorporating arguments. Generally, people in "Reality" are communicating by giving reasons for their decisions, behaviors and they are thinking. So if somone is looking for a tearjerker then it's not the right place. It had interesting feel because all of the characters were really concious about themselves and this made the repetetiveness of some of the material more endurable. Although I haven't checked all the endings I would say that the story revolves around 0 and 1 choices. It is not niuanced but this is good. You choose to this or that. The game is very straightforward in that regard. And they are relatively rare. You read, read and read. The animations are rare too - rather few images portraying different emotions and some animations that are placed in key moments of the plot but generally they are rare. So generally if you are not concerned that much with moving pictures, animations and could accept the slow pace of the plot here, then the game is worth the try. I would seriously consider a continuation if some in-world issues were extended, especially the relation between different worlds and some other things that I won't spoil.

Needed more gay.

Коротенькая новелла с интригующим сюжетом и актуальной для нас, геймеров, тематикой. Есть несколько довольно неоднозначных моральных выборов, особенно порадовала возможность обещать отдельным персонажам всякое, а потом передумывать, когда получил от них желаемое. Из минусов - невыносимо ныдливая главная героиня. По ходу сюжета она, конечно, становится решительнее и перестает мотать сопли на кулак, но в начале игры очень хочется прописать ей двадцать визитов к психологу внутривенно.

It was a neat VN

one of my very first OELVNs back when i played the demo in 2017! to my minor disappointment, it doesn't go very hard on the science fiction, but i got very invested in the characters instead

This game is weiiiiiird and yet artistically pretty. Worth the price. :)

Game seems to be bugged. After I entered the "in-game" world via the Penta, the left half of my screen flashes black intermittently. Kinda hurts my eyes.

< /reality > is a mixed bag of a visual novel. The game has an okay story that seems interesting at face value but has a large number of unlikely coincidences, story beats that never go anywhere and questionable character motivations. Also I really dislike Ben. On the other hand < /reality > has a really neat end of chapter mechanic that I wish more games like this had. The game has a little summary of the choices you made in the chapter and what percentage of other players also made that choice. All in all this is an ok game, so I'll give it a lukewarm thumbs up but only under the condition that you can buy the game on sale. I think the asking price is too high for what you get. If steam had a thumbs in the middle choice I would have picked that.