Worst Visual Novel Challenge Postmorten + Secret Ending Hint

There is a joke that goes "What's the difference between a physicist, a mathematician, and a philosopher? - A physicist needs all kinds of fancy equipment, a mathematician needs paper, a pencil and a wastepaper basket and a philosopher needs paper and a pencil." I have adopted the position of philosopher in the making of this game. I made and included whatever I wanted in this game in a feverish haze without stopping to question myself. 

My entry for the 2024 Worst Visual Novel challenge was made in two days because I found out about the jam shortly before it ended. Despite having some goals in that direction, I published no VNs in 2024 and making something for the Worst VN challenge proved to be intensely liberating. I just had fun making something silly I enjoyed with no regard for quality on top of brainstorming ways I could make it worse with friends. I still didn't work on much in 2024, but I painted some backgrounds for a friend's winter jam project and participated in Sealed With a Kiss jam in January 2025.

When the Worst VN Challenge rolled back around, I was ready for it from the start and decided to just have fun in every way, throwing all my ideas together and just going with whatever I thought of next. My friend Beau who made a wonderfully atrocious music track for it said the game feels like it was made by a 12-year-old who thinks it's the coolest shit ever. That's probably the sort of energy I was channeling, although 12-year-old me wasn't quite the kind of person who excitedly threw themselves at ideas, fueled by their own exuberance at what they were creating.

I made more developer friends in the meantime, and therefore got a lot more input and other help while working on it. One of the last things I added was a recreation of this iconic dramatic intro scene which a friend actually made a custom shader for. The power of silliness! (I did pay him back with some art of his OC). A lot of other fine touches were at the suggestion of friends and acquaintances who playtested for me, while some were of course entirely the fault of my own brain. I fear all this makes it more of a performance art piece/enjoyable trainwreck than a genuinely bad game, but all the same, I don't think anyone would dare to call it good, so I stand by submitting it to the Worst VN Challenge.

If you want to know what the secret ending is: