Curate of Curiosities

As I've mentioned, Longstory is an episodic game, released between 2014 and 2016. And unlike the last episodic games I've showcased, it's actually finished. It was originally released for mobile devices, and it kind of shows.

First order of business, enter your name and pronouns. The character customization, unfortunately, isn't very extensive; you only have two different hairstyles to choose from. Our default name is Sasse, which actually led me to check Behind The Name to see if it's a real name. It doesn't seem to be, so I'm not sure why the devs thaought it was a good default name.

So, the game starts with our hero getting ready for their first day of middle school. But first, we need to text our homeschooled internet buddy, Nora.

This definitely seems like nitpicking, but what on earth does this mean? Is Nora secretly more than one person?

Speaking of oversights, have a look at the textbox. Why is the left half entirely empty? At first, I thought that it was an artifact from being ported from mobile, so I looked up some footage from that version, and...well, there's less empty space, At least I can figure out why this is: the game was originally developed for tablets with square screens in mind. You'd think that in the process of porting it to PC, they would have, well, tested it out in various window resolutions rathter than leave the UI layout unmodified.

Another thing, like a lot of indie games from the past decade, it's also available on the Nintendo Switch, where the UI looks exactly the same. You'd think Nintendo, of all companies, would be a bit stricter about the way game text is laid out, but what do I know?

Boy, I sure do love jokes that were already dated at the time this game came out! And I'm sure the 12-year-olds this was supposedly aimed at would love them too!

It's just our luck that the very first person we meet is the school bully! Three of them in fact! They're names are Hanna, Jennifer, and Jane, but Sasse has a bit of trouble telling them apart, even if the UI can pretty easily, so he just calls them Hanniferjane.

Just when they're about to raise the miniscule amount of pressure on our hero, in comes the principal. I'm not sure which is worse, the bullying, his supremely corny song and dance about non-violence, or these girls sucking up to him. His default facial expression is biting his lip, and it makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Like I was saying, really, really corny.

Right inside, we see a letter, evidently left by the last person to use the locker. I would expect that that person would have cleared it out before summer break, but hey, we have a plot to get going, so...

This school will wreck you. Watch your back...or you'll find a knife in it.

And on the back of it's a love letter. Again, this isn't the kind of thing that you just leave in lockers like this. This is a recipe for potentially school career-ending embarassment, as it likely was for this Em person who apparently wrote the letter.

This is Marcel. Just to remind you, this is a romance visual novel. Everything points to him being the token tsundere, and the last time I dealt with one of those, it ended very poorly.

At lunch, we meet Abby. She's a bit nicer, and that's about it for now.

And here's Colin, who tries to think of a really lame name for the school's already lamely named sports team. I mean seriously, brick sharks? What are you, six?

And that ends our first day. Our mom is about as helpful as you would expect regarding the bullying problem, that is to say, not at all, all that's left for us to to do is to vent to Nora about it.

Yeah, so much for anti-bullying, right?

The next day, we run into a guy in a bird outfit. Of course they're romanceable as well. I feel like their presence in this game serves the purpose of providing a meme option. Oh, I hope this doesn't end up being one of those ironic visual novels that you see people complain about.

Guess who shows up right then. Here's a hint, who would be the the absolute worst people to encounter at that particular moment?

As a matter of fact, we are. What are you going to do about it?

So, I guess this is all of the romanceable characters in this game. I guess that I would have a much easier chance choosing one of them if I was actually in the target audience for this game.

Oh, don't forget that there's apparently a mystery involved with this locker and its previous owner. Marcel seems to know about Em, but not about whoever she was supposedly in love with.

Abby and Colin know a bit more; she left school last year and surprise, surprise, those three might have something to do with it. Yeah, this principal sure knows how to pick them!

I don't know. Maybe whoever drew this is just really into dams. You never know with this school.

Of course, those three show up again, and...wait a minute, I'm playing as a guy! How on earth did we end up in the same bathroom?

Anyways, they try to threaten us, but that means nothing to us. They are the most likely culprits behind this graffiti, and we have evidence that they're responsible for Em's disappearance. Maybe.

The very next day, everyone, even the bullies, wants to hang out with us for lunch. Yeah, I'm still not sure about any of these guys, so I'm just going to spend lunch on my tablet with Nora again.

Yes, I know that this is probably meant to be a phone, but its proportions and the way Sasse holds it make it look much more like a tablet.

Wh...I...what was this rated again? T for Teen? You're telling me that the ESRB is okay with this little kid making jokes about sperm!?

You know, the last Canadian game that I played had its share of innuendo of this nature, but it didn't feel this shocking, even if that game's writing felt like it came from a 14-year-old. This game advertises itself as a wholesome visual novel for teens, so jokes like these are the last thing you would expect!

Huh, that was quick. I didn't expect that we would pick a route this early.

Now, since we barely now any of these people, you would expect it to be hard for me to decide who to pursue at this point. But that won't be much of a problem. I already have a route in mind, anyway.