I am trembling writing this, but what can I say? I am thrilled to release this short project, for several reasons.

First, it’s a project I wanted to make to celebrate my twitter account reaching 200 followers. Not the biggest event in the history of indie VNs, but a milestone nonetheless: it makes me proud and I hope to continue to make games people enjoy!

But this is also important to me as it is the first project surrounding Namida. In case you don’t know, I have three projects I really want to create someday: Namida, Annelise (a Cinderella stat-raising VN) and Margarêve (so far, the only things I revealed for this project is that the protagonist is named Maragaret and that the game is about exploring her dreams). And, although I’ll admit that, if I had to make only one project out of the three, it’d be Margarêve, my favourite character of mine ever created is Katekyo Namida: the protagonist of this short game!

Katekyo Namida was an OC I created back in October 2010, when I was at the prime age of 11. I won’t reveal all his history here, since it will get boring, but this character changed over the years and he became more and more vulnerable and human. I really love him.

But to describe him briefly: Katekyo Namida, in this short game, is a twenty-five year-old man at the end of medicine school and specialises in forensic sciences to become a forensic pathologist. He has a strong will to make his parents proud, for reasons which are to be revealed in the full Namida game, rather than in the devlog of a side-story. And what would make his parents proud? Him getting married and having children.

And let’s be honest, Katekyo is an ideal bachelor: he is handsome, is going to have an extremely well-paid and exciting job, he is kind and cares about others… But he has never felt attracted to anyone, waiting for the right person to fall in love with to be fixed.

But when luck ignores you, you gotta make things happen, right? So Katekyo has his first date with someone he made on a dating app and… that’s the story of this little game!

As you can tell, the Katekyo in the Namida game (the real full-project) is quite different from the Katekyo from this spin-off. First, the game happens three years after this story, so Katekyo will actually be twenty-eight years old. Same goes with his job: while 25-year-old Katekyo is a medicine resident, 28-year-old is a forensic pathologist. But more importantly regarding his vision of love: while the Katekyo in this game is looking for the right one to fix him (at least, at the start of the game), the Katekyo from Namida has grown a bit in that regard: he doesn’t deny his asexuality anymore, but is unable to come out to his parents and struggles with the realisation that he’ll never be able to give them grandchildren. Of course, there is more going on regarding this character, his relationships with his brothers (as it is Namida’s main focus) and so on…

Because, actually, Namida is meant to be played (and probably released) in three arcs: one for each of the brothers. You’d first start with Haru (the youngest one, who makes a small appearance in this short game as a fifteen year-old highschooler), then Adam (he is mentioned as “out of the picture” in the game; during the events of this side-story, Adam is a gang leader, who’s been kicked out by his parents four years before, when he was sixteen years old, for reasons to be revealed in Namida), and only then Katekyo (whose route is the conclusive one, as it is the most emotional). So Namida is a game tackling relationships with lovers, brothers, parents, although its main topic is dysfunctional yet loving families. I intend to make it my main project once I’m done with The Stories of the Boys I Loved, so I hope you guys will welcome it when it is ready!

So, you can tell, it was satisfying to write a story for Katekyo, albeit a not so happy one, and to show this character I love to the world: hopefully you can grow attached to him too and wish him all the best. And don’t get too sad by the ending of this game: it’s more on the bitter than the sweet side, but in the full Namida game, Katekyo will have a happy ending. That’s what I can promise (unless I die under mysterious circumstances before releasing it lmao).

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys have a swell day!