Maxwell Harrison's life has been spectacularly mundane ever since he graduated two years ago. He's a bartender in the tiny vacation town of Hilltop, where nothing exciting ever happens. He spends his time off loitering around town and sometimes even listening to his radio. It's calm. He tells himself he prefers it that way.

But then, a cave is discovered on the edge of town. And people start disappearing.

Max's life is about to become a lot less mundane.

Whether he likes it or not.

...

Our entry for NaNoRenO2024! Can be downloaded OR played in-browser (do note that this causes some slight lag).

CW: Claustrophobia

Approx. word count: 19,070

sharkinfishnets (Concept, narrative, script,  UI, code)
pointyshades (Narrative, script, music, code)
AmeKinoko (Character design,  visuals, sound design, code)

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Updated 3 days ago
StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows, macOS, Linux, HTML5
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(5 total ratings)
AuthorsDecayed Barrier, pointyshades, sharkinfishnets
GenreVisual Novel
Made withRen'Py
TagsHorror, nanoreno2024, Ren'Py
Average sessionAbout an hour
LanguagesEnglish

Download

Download
they-looked-like-stars-win-linux.zip 301 MB
Version 1.0 91 days ago
Download
they-looked-like-stars-osx.zip 296 MB
Version 1.0 91 days ago

Comments

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(+1)

I wasn't really sure what to expect coming into this, but gosh this was so gripping. The feeling of entrapment, even before entering the cave, was so good. Got real 'Enigma of Amigara Fault' vibes in just how you could see the end from the moment the story started, but all you can do is watch it unfold. The writing really sold the protagonist's predicament and decisions; even knowing how stupid he was being it was understandable how he came to that point and why he'd felt driven to do something so reckless. Also, I'm not usually affected that much by cave stuff/claustrophobia, but DAMN did this make my skin crawl. Excellent work!

(+1)

If the screenshots are giving you Higurashi vibes, you should DEFINITELY play this game, it will be right up your alley, I promise! Immaculate horror~

(+2)

I <3333 caves