Retrocausality

Well it's a good game for $2.99 if you shut your brain off and suspend all belief. I swear I have seen some of these assets before like a lot of them and the credits were as mysterious to me as all the science talk. It's a great visual novel! Fun with a nice little ending. No choices but all the assets look good even though I wonder about certain things like they are all generic looking assets which could be for a reason idk. They are still nice and serve the story but I would have preferred a more distinctive art style with more characterization instead of nonstop action and science talk but for $2.99 it's a good deal. It looks like it might be setting a sequel which I will definitely buy and play depending on price. Seems like what Steins Gate is supposedly about without the distinct art style and story/characters but it was fun and sci-fi and time-traveley which I like. It is a good game 7/10 but I say buy it it was a great 1.8 hours.

[b]IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN TIME TRAVEL OR QUANTUM MECHANICS PLEASE READ OVER THIS REVIEW[/b] I really REALLY wanted to recommend this game. I am going through trying to experience several time travel visual novels and this was first on my list. I picked it up on sale when it was near two dollars, and I still do not believe it was worth it. Including the main story and the side stories, it takes approximately 1 3/4 hours to read. That's a decent amount for the price IF it is written well. So I am going to break this down into the parts that I think were done well and the parts I think could use some work and then why I eventually decided to give it the review I did. [h2]GOOD THINGS[/h2] Honestly, the side stories were some of the best parts of this novel. Why? This novel actually really shines in its ability to explain certain physical and mathematical paradoxes in layman's terms. Explaining a Cantor's Diagonalization argument visually using a spreadsheet is a very neat idea. Furthermore, when the game attempts to explain CPT symmetry to me (a realm of quantum mechanics I did not know well), it actually really succeeded in supplying the gist. The Feynman diagrams were a nice touch. It was sort of hard to tell when the actual science stopped and the world's mechanics and author's vision started to seep in, but that is to be expected of a fictional story. Honestly, these parts of the novel remind me of 999 and Umineko in some ways, and I really appreciate that. [h2]COULD USE SOME WORK...[/h2] As a time travel story, it was always going to become confusing, but the confusion presented by the novel was more annoying than satisfyingly puzzle-ish in my opinion. I will be explaining a couple of my confusions: [list] [*] The beginning premise sets up [spoiler] this calamitous event where Earth is displaced by a future version of itself. For some inexplicable reason, the protagonist has a camera that records this (?) which allows him to see the transformation of the room into the new laboratory. He later sees this video and [/spoiler] jumps to a couple of conclusions that seem near impossible to actually reach without having knowledge of the story itself. Which I think relates to the next issue. [*] Pacing; the pacing is really fast. I understand that this is only a prologue (with more to come either as a separate game or in an update? I am unsure), but so many things happen without any payoff or reason. Several characters are introduced, seemingly just to use all of the stock art the creator had. Only the two main characters are really developed (if at all due to the story's short length). Having a bit more downtime between events would help, along with a more cohesive view into the protagonist's thoughts. [*] During the end of the prologue, [spoiler]we see a fight break out between the MC and his future counterpart. It is near impossible to follow the dialogue due to the fact that they share a name. Perhaps a numeral suffix would help distinguish the characters a bit more? It just made it a tad annoying to read[/spoiler] [*] The "Twist": I think it could be a bit better set up. [spoiler]Obviously, the retrocausal title kind of implies it, but other hints of foreshadowing seem to be non-existent. This is also likely due to a lack of time to set it up. Predestination is a great example of the twist done well be setting up some interesting plot dynamics. Similarly, the main character managing to "hack" and "find his way" into the base IS a good indication of some fishy plot twist that I felt was well executed. The parents part, however, was not as greatly foreshadowed.[/spoiler] [*] The tonal shift near the end was a complete 180 that really took away from the momentum the story had been providing. The Jojo references were also kind of show stopping too. [*] The art style; please refer to the below section for more info. [*] There were a couple of grammatical and spelling issues, but none too bad to actually affect understanding, so I don't really mind that much. However, the first part of the prologue has some really clunky and unnatural dialogue from the main character that took me out of the moment. [/list] [h2]WHY DID I GIVE IT THIS RATING AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES DO I RECOMMEND IT?[/h2] This novel functions best as a teacher. If you can somehow get this for 99 cents, I think I would recommend it, especially if you love math and quantum mechanics, as it provides pretty unique views and simple explanations on some rather complicated concepts. However, it fails at what it should be foremost: a visual novel. The visuals are either lifted from packages provided to the author or AI generated, sometimes causing a clash to the art style that breaks immersion. In that case, if the visual part of the visual novel was created using others' works, the only thing I can rate this game on is the novel portion, which I found lacking. Again, I think it has a lot of potential and talent, but it has a lot of rough patches.

Визуальная новелла о путешествиях во времени, но она на самом деле пытается объяснить как устроена вселенная и почему путешествия во времени возможны. Теория струн, парадокс дедушки и кота шредингера... После этой истории вы гарантированно станете умнее! В сюжете четверо друзей внезапно попавших в будущее на 30 лет. Оказывается идет временная война, правда в прошлом она уже завершилась, а машину времени построят только в будущем... Совет: пройдите сначала пролог, он практически обычная новелла. Побочные истории лучше оставить на потом) Либо можете посмотреть мое прохождение пролога: https://youtu.be/0k_Bc5Qq28s

time travel really does make it confusing i dont get it extremely short vn with interesting concepts but the presentation is weak but i did enjoy it its nice

在同价位的游戏中显得较为粗糙，但我仍然选择推荐这部游戏。 这部游戏有所有时空系游戏该有的要素，并且结合了一些相对前沿的科学知识介绍。 尽管与剧情本身的融合并不算好，但也算勉强成为了故事的一个亮点。 起承转合，人物动机，这些都存在于游戏当中。 甚至一些激烈的战斗要素也被融入了进来，还有小部分的日常。 然而，这也正是游戏的缺陷所在。 所有该有的要素都集齐的情况下，能让游戏体验较好的时长大概是五到六小时左右。 但我几乎不到两小时就玩完了这作的主线（不知道是否有后续更新的计划，不然当前价位确实过高）。 这导致了日常部分、科幻部分、战斗部分每个部分都不尽如人意。 特别是人物，很多人物的登场完全没有意义，甚至主要人物中，除了男主角以外都很难称得上有什么塑造。 而主角的动机和态度在飞速的叙事节奏下又难以让人理解。 玩家确实能意识到人物的观点和看法，但是由于塑造和心理描写的缺少，很多人物行动使人觉得莫名其妙。 再加上免费购买的素材和部分AI生成的背景，糟糕的表现力甚至让我觉得一些严肃的桥段看起来很滑稽。 最后在结尾将先前仅提到过一次的伏笔甩出，更是让我回忆了一两秒才明白了此处的用意。 所有的一切都显得太过仓促。 然而，这部作品该有的都有，甚至可以说每个部分都有一定的闪光点，这证明了作者驾驭这些内容的能力。 但是，过快的节奏和过少的篇幅以及糟糕的表现力导致游戏整体上不太令人满意，而这些都只是依靠多做一些工作即可弥补的部分。 我还是要推荐这部作品，此类题材在VN中实在太过稀缺，愿意以此类宏大背景展开故事的作者少之又少。 希望作者能看到这条评论，继续努力制作有自己特色的游戏。 从日本背景的设置，也可以看出对日式游戏的模仿。但我认为本作不需要这些，本身就足够有特色。 如果这部作品能扩张到五到八小时，或者继续更新，并且提升制作水平，我会大力向所有人推广这部作品。 For its price, the game is quite rough around the edges, yet I'm still recommending it. This game has all the essential elements you'd expect from a story about time and space, and it even incorporates introductions to some relatively advanced scientific concepts. While these concepts aren't seamlessly integrated into the plot, their inclusion is still a highlight, albeit a slightly forced one. A proper narrative structure, character motivations—it's all there. It even weaves in some intense combat elements and a few slice-of-life moments. However, this is also precisely where the game's main weakness lies. With all these components, the ideal playtime to make the experience satisfying would be around five to six hours. But I finished the main story in under two hours (I'm not sure if there are plans for future updates, but if not, the current price is definitely too high). This short length means that the slice-of-life, sci-fi, and combat sections all feel underdeveloped and unsatisfying. This is especially true for the characters. Many of them are introduced for no apparent reason, and even among the main cast, hardly anyone besides the protagonist receives any meaningful development. Meanwhile, the protagonist's own motivations and attitudes are difficult to grasp due to the breakneck narrative pace. While you can tell what the characters' stances are, the lack of development and psychological insight makes many of their actions feel random and inexplicable. Combined with the use of stock assets and some AI-generated backgrounds, the poor presentation makes some serious scenes come across as unintentionally comical. The ending, which suddenly drops a plot twist based on a single, briefly mentioned piece of foreshadowing, forced me to pause for a moment just to recall what it was referring to. Everything just feels far too rushed. And yet, the game has all the right ingredients. You can even say that each component has its own glimmer of potential, which proves the developer is capable of handling these concepts. But the rushed pacing, short length, and poor presentation result in an overall unsatisfying experience—and these are all issues that could be fixed with more time and polish. I still have to recommend this game because this kind of theme is incredibly rare in the Visual Novel space. Developers willing to tackle a story with such an ambitious, grand-scale backdrop are few and far between. I hope the developer sees this review and continues to create unique games with their own distinct style. The Japanese setting feels like an attempt to imitate Japanese games, but I don't think this was necessary. The core concept is unique enough to stand on its own. If this game were expanded to a 5-8 hour experience, or if it receives significant updates that improve the production quality, I would wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone.

史上最混乱最谜语最神秘的剧情，打完大脑随着魔丸一块爆炸了 如果你想赤石那大可一试

This game was recommended to me and seemed alright even if a bit weird. It starts to look like ♥♥♥♥ a few minutes in when the style changes and once I suspected it was AI generated I just skipped through and it goes from plausible to hard not to notice. I wanted to confirm it and yeah the games files clearly separate backgrounds and music that were bought from asset packs, in which they had good choice and were well used, and then AI generated slop that completely ruined it.