It Comes Around - A Kinetic Novel Reviews

No choices

low quality spook bait. aint worth much, but thankfully its cheep.

This was so bad. So horribly horribly bad. This was 59 minitues long only because of the long pauses groaning and face palming. This is like...wow.. It comes around reads like an angsty story by a tween writer who is trying way to hard to tell a rushed poorly paced story. The writing is just bad. It comes around is just bad. The story is bad. The grammar is bad. The art is bad. The price for what I got is bad... There is nothing, nothing at all redeeming about this experience. No bonus art section. No backstory to the visual novel or its team. Just a rush job of a bad visual novel. What was Afterthought studios thinking publishing this mess? You can check out my full review and impressions at the link below: http://nardio.net/2016/10/07/it-comes-around-review/

[I] It Comes Around - A Kinetic Novel [/i] is a very short horror novel. I was looking through unfinished games in my library willing to complete what wasn't totally unbearable. I'm not sure why I didn't finish it 4 years ago when I started, I was like mere minutes till the end xD I think I'll have to choose a thumb down, there's not much to recommend here but I didn't actually hate the story, so it's more like a neutral review. --art is not to my liking. Perhaps it's the first novel without any screenshots at all. Even in indie projects with very low budget and weird visuals quite often some unique individuality is felt, here I found nothing appealing. Those same repeated red strokes indicating injuries didn't help for immersion at all. --story wasn't frightening or captivating, left me totally indifferent. Though potentially the plot is not that bad, I guess just its realization :( Too often I felt a bit confusing, I still have some questions to the ritual, the characters' motives. And the story was too short to really feel for any char. --typos. Why you could still be interested in purchasing and playing it: +cards; +it's cheap, so I guess even if you don't enjoy it it doesn't feel like a huge waste. +here I was pondering what to add more for some time but I guess that's it xD Sorry, I can't. Anyway, it's an ok game for its money but I didn't enjoy it, felt mostly confused. Maybe it's just me, though the majority of players reviewed it negatively as well but I see some compare it even with Higurashi O_O [table] [tr] [th]More thoughts about the game in a [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/readingnook/discussions/0/3963662449066196404/] Reading Nook [/url][/th] [/tr] [/table]

PROs - a couple of CGs - it [i]tried[/i] to be interesting - emphasis on [i]tried[/i] - [spoiler]I guess there was a plot twist?[/spoiler] CONs - VERY ramble-y, lots of flowery language - not very well translated, could barely understand some parts - very limited graphics - little variation in character art, BGs, and only 3-4 CGs total - nothing really interesting or likeable about any of the characters - [spoiler]the random, weird necrophilia bit. WTF?[/spoiler] I played through the whole thing because I knew it was short, but I wouldn't recommend it. It needs a LOT of polish if it wants to be considered even a half-decent story.

People need to chill lol this game is a short and decent kinetic novel. If you didn't even know what a kinetic novel is, why did you buy it? The price is good too.

A kinetic visual novel (meaning that there are no choices, you only read) that unfortunately turned out to be [b]bad[/b]. I enjoy kinetic novels a lot, and it makes me kinda sad to give this one a thumbs down… But it’s just bad. The art style was ok, BGM wasn’t good at all (in this kind of story, it’s necessary to have good music that will fit the eerie and tense atmosphere of the story. At least in my opinion). I disliked the design of the game in general, I found the font used in the text too small and hard to read sometimes - even playing on fullscreen. Maybe adding stroked text would be better? Also, the texting scenes were bad too. They could have added some unique way of typing the messages to the characters, they all write with perfect grammar even tho they’re sh*tting their pants. I’m sorry, but if I’m alone in the dark and there’s a f*cking spirit saying they’re gonna get me, there’s no way in hell I would text long and correct sentences in a chat… lol Sometimes the writing doesn’t match the CGs at all. [spoiler]Like when the teacher was holding Kenta on the roof, the text said “Kenta’s white shoes” but in the CG his shoes are brown.[/spoiler] And I couldn't sympathize with any character. The story isn’t that bad, it actually has some potential, but in the end it turned out like this. For a [i]first horror VN[/i], it’s ok; it can take time to adjust things, I can understand that. I will keep following Glass of Water Studios VNs despite the fact that I didn’t liked this title, and I wish them all the luck with their future releases. 3/10.

This story which took me about 2.5 hours to read aloud to others is most likely about an hour to an hour-and-a-half worth of reading for most people who will read this silenty to themselves. I want everyone to understand that there are NO choices to be made in this story, NO dice rolls, NO gameplay elements at all. It is simply a novel that has no voice acting and that you'll need to read to enjoy. This is the second great and very enjoyable short novel that I have read from Afterthought Studios however. It offers some pretty unnerving horror elements that are both creepy and scary alike. The short novel keeps you hooked from the start and doesn't let go until you've read the very last word that will leave you with plenty to ponder for days to come. There are memorable scenes that this novel paints that will likely haunt you for hours, or perhaps even days after you read it. Well worth the price of admission to play and I want to thank Afterthought Studios for yet another enjoyable short novel brought to Steam as an option for those of us who enjoy choices here. 9 out of 10 is my score.

Kinetic novel (just reading, no choices); took me less than an hour to read through. Those aren't negatives for me; just pointing it out because if you don't like those aspects, [i]It Comes Around[/i] isn't your kind of thing even if you disagree with the rest of my review. All the character sprites look too samey, from the pose to the middle-aged-man face. Of course, any [i][url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/310360/]Higurashi[/url][/i] fan knows you can tell an effective horror story without good art, but the writing here doesn't hold up. The premise that the characters can't speak during the ritual and so are communicating via text message isn't reflected in the writing style or the visuals. Characters text complex, grammatically correct sentences in the middle of frightening, dramatic moments where they shouldn't have the time for it, and things like cutting off in the middle of a sentence as if interrupted make characters sound like they're speaking face to face. I'm not saying the whole thing should be written in chatspeak, but there should be some stylistic distinction between characters texting, speaking on the phone, speaking face to face, or thinking to themselves. The story plays with some interesting ideas, but relies on too many cliches. Characters shouting things like "IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY I WILL VANQUISH YOU!!!!" just comes across as silly, and unlike [i][url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/415850/]Bad End[/url][/i], it doesn't seem over the top or self-aware enough to be fun anyway. Far from the worst VN I've ever read, but still a disappointment, and I wish I'd waited for a better sale.