Clarity in Qualia is a visual novel I started creating for the Yaoi Game Jam 2018 :3

Alyx is a young man who has allowed his mother to dictate every aspect of his life for as long as he can remember. As a result, Alyx is currently in further education studying subjects that he has no interest in and dating a girl who he doesn't have feelings for. He has known for a while that his romantic urges tend to veer towards other males but is afraid of actually mentioning it to his mother for fear of upsetting her. In fact, Alyx refuses to even accept himself, preferring instead to just let life pass him by. Despite being fairly miserable, Alyx is empathetic to the point that he would prefer to suffer in silence than face the possibility of hurting others. His only solace lies in a chat group he came across online, where he's able to be a truer version of himself around the other members of the group, Alvy, Sio, Elil, and Kagan.

One day, Alyx is involved in an accident that puts him in a coma. As he dreams away in hospital, a mysterious figure called Merrik visits him, claiming to be his spirit guide. Merrik warns Alyx that if he continues to refuse to accept himself then he will never wake up. All hope is not lost, as Merrik offers Alyx another opportunity to live, with the requirement that he makes an effort to be true to himself. There is one condition, however, Alyx must prove to Merrik that he has the ability to change within just 3 days, or face death after all.

With the help of his online friends, can Alyx learn to love himself for who he really is on the inside? The outcome is entirely up to you! Make choices and help Alyx on his journey of self-discovery, deepen friendship with his online companions, and possibly even find true love :3

(Click the images on the side to view character profiles :3)

I suppose this would fall under the category of slice of life, with a bit of fantasy mixed in. I've never even played a yaoi game before as I prefer otome's instead, so I have no idea if I'm even doing this right, or how it compares to all the yaoi content out there >.< But at the end of the day, I just figured it's a story about friendship, love, and learning to accept yourself... and I wanted to tell it, so yeah xD 

Because of the time limitations on this project, I decided it would be best to edit some of Tokudaya's sprites to make the characters, so if they seem familiar, that's why! I did my best to edit them in a way that makes them look a little more unique at least :3

Anyway, I hope that someone out there somewhere will get some form of enjoyment out of this project at some point ^_^/

The jam demo

So I managed to release a demo in time for the end of the jam, but it only contains the prologue and common route. Please be aware if you're downloading it that it wasn't thoroughly tested as I was really short on time to submit an entry >.< I imagine it's full of spelling & grammar errors, and probably some little bugs! For one thing, I know that it crashes at the end of the demo instead of taking you back to the title screen xD So yeah, it's a very rough demo, sorry about that.

The full version is currently still in development :3

Contact:

If you enjoyed playing through the demo (or even if you didn't xD), I'd really appreciate hearing your feedback in the comments + ratings are much appreciated too ^-^

If you need help with anything, or just wanna drop me a message about the game, feel free to post a comment, or send me an email: melancholicmarionette@gmail.com

This game will always be available to download for free, if you enjoyed playing it, you're welcome to buy me a coffee, or support other projects I'm working on by becoming a patron :3