A short scenario by Harem's author that includes the usual shenanigans in Stream of Consciousness Power Trip scenarios like complete lack of human logic, empathy, and usage of power regardless of any morality or ethics, but does not bring anything new to the table and ends up too soon without leaving too much to enjoy to any kind of possible demographic it might have.
Guys that mentally slaves his crush, a guy that possesses his mother and sees her naked body, it offers several ideas, but well, it ends them up all soon too, just like any other.
A few things to mention about this scenario is how it tries to create its own magic lore, setting up the action on Spain, and present magic "rocks" with different kinds of power, but all backgrounds are taken from real-life pictures and applied a posterized effect that doesn't look actually good (cartooning real-life pictures is usually a complicated process, after all), people told me that there was also a version with real-life photos of people, but I didn't see it anywhere and it probably isn't available either.
People who want a bit more of the whole madness of this kind of scenarios might check it out since it also has a few unintentionally memorable and pretty crazy lines, but people who want the scenario for its sexual appeal might end up dissatisfied since everything ends up so quickly, just like so many other recent scenarios. People who new to this kind of scenario with the ironic appeal should rather check Harem or other scenarios that have a lot more content instead.
This is the last scenario of the original Thalcynnas scenario trilogy, again, everything that happens is pretty dream-like and surreal with illogical decisions and cryptic writing.
The plot is about Katrina dying and taking her sister to possess other people, at the end, they try to distract and possess Setsuna and find other people's bodies to have fun for the night.
This one has a bit more comedy a difference from the other two, the writing is not really something to take seriously but as the other two it ends up in 3 minutes so I can't recommend it, either way, no matter the appeal it could have had, it just ends before it begins, just skip it.
Let me copy-paste my review of the previous scenario, done by the same author.
Just a quick, short stream of consciousness scenario with cryptic writing, illogical decisions from the characters, and an accidental dream-like atmosphere, but unlike that one who might be enjoyed by Harem fans, this one has Jess possessing adults and fondling her boobs. I wouldn't really recommend this scenario to anybody really, and it only has like 2 or 3 minutes of content.
Just a quick, short stream of consciousness scenario that Harem fans might enjoy thanks to its ironic appeal. It has cryptic writing, illogical decisions from the characters, and an accidental dream-like atmosphere.
Basically, John gets access to an app (or something, I didn't understand well to be honest) that lets him possess people, he possesses Katrina first and then Allison, he then he tells her the truth and she tells him that for compensating they have to start dating each other, from now on Allison will let John possess her at times if she is in the mood and with an app option John can give partial control to Allison while she is possessing her.
Katrina and Jess were living with John for some reason I don't remember and once Allison moved with John Katrina was starting to get jealous, but nothing is developed from there, the scenario ends up in a placeholder, maybe for the best.
Okay, when we will learn people? When will we learn? This scenario is 61 lines of code long, that's like 2 or 3 minutes of content at best.
This scenario was promoted as a test only, but as you can see, it was abandoned, and even so included in the scenario list for the frustration of all ST players, it's not even a successful test! It does have one error in-game and it is not even exported correctly! You have to add a ZIP extension to the blank file you get and create a story folder for the template rpy file, because it doesn't even have a structure.
God knows I have been patient, I have tried to be as fair and unbiased as possible with all scenarios, all of them, but even I have limits on my patience, and the more scenarios I find stuff like this WHERE THE AUTHOR DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER IN CONTINUING AFTER WRITING FOR 10 FUCKING MINUTES I get, really, really pissed off. One empty scenario? That was passable, two? that is bad, but this many? I just can't keep going with this project, because you know most people don't even give a single FUCK about this! I don't even care if your scenario is bad, just give me something! Some effort! Even Harem is better than this, it can appeal to some people, it is at least something! Something!
What does happen in the story? Well, the author says John's parents died and he has been struggling to keep up working and going to school, he even saved a girl once because he doesn't feel like living anymore, and then the author tells us to have fun with the story. Yikes.
One scene happens and after John accidentally absorbs a girl in the park he goes home and morphs into her. Yes, he doesn't think about how he totally murdered someone in the street despite being presented of being of good of heart, and the scenario just ends there in a bittersweet placeholder.
While I find the concept of absorption pretty interesting (absorption vore is one of my favorite fetishes) this scenario just doesn't have anything going for it, don't even bother.
Basically, just another Power Trip scenario in the vein of Harem, just with a lot less content. John is unhappy with his current family, Sandra didn't wake him up for school in time and Holly is distant, so when he gets the remote he changes his family to his own desire.
Depending on the choices he will make Holly his little servant sister and his mom, Sandra, either his girlfriend, sister, or close friend. People who appreciate morality on the side of the protagonist should probably skip this one, otherwise, you can check it out if you are into Mind Control and Incest, it will be either hot or plain creepy. Even then, is also pretty short, with only around 10 minutes of content.
This is the issue with most scenarios, all of them are not just incomplete, but also abandoned at their own very beginning, they create a setup and they just end, and I have tried to be as positive as possible about these stories in the past, I say, well, it is not a good story, but they offer good ideas, I try my best to think about someone who might fit the demographic the scenario is aiming for, but the truth is that checking stuff like this at the very end will be frustrating for a lot of readers, any kind of readers, even if you are the person who likes this kind of stories, you are just going to get teased and then left completely with your pants down!
If you are going to write a scenario in the future, I would say work in giving either a complete story or at least... one hour of content? At least in that way, you will make sure that there will something for the people who decide to check your story. What are you saying? Publish something as short as this as a proof of concept? No, don't, we have enough of those already, and people end up abandoning those "proof of concepts" most of the time anyway! I am sure we can discuss the concept you want and the story with you in the forum or the Discord.
Now, there is just another little thing I can mention about this scenario, let's talk about the how-the-protagonist-gets-the-TF-device-trope!
So far in the community, we have seen:
A car dropped it by accident and I picked it up (Press Switch, Bodysuit 23)
Aliens gave it to me (Student Transfer Remote)
I found it in an old abandoned old place (Student Transfer Magic Book from Kat's house, PDA device from a library or so, I think)
There is also other stuff like magical events in Freaky Friday and stores that when you try to come back do not exist anymore. In this case, we have a variant, John gets the remote thanks to an old guy who offered him "a universal remote that does whatever he needed" but I feel that's the worst variation of the trope, why somebody would give a remote like that to a stranger? Just because they are the protagonist? Anyhow, for fetish and sexual-focused stories, it does the trick, but for more serious stories, I think is something you might want to take into account if you are going to write them.
Just another short, abandoned scenario with around 10 minutes of content only. Paul discovers that he can body swap with people if he thinks about them hard enough. There are several routes open where he swaps with a princess of another nation, his friend's wife, his friend, and a pregnant neighbor.
Things happen pretty fast and characters accept things quickly, in the friends' wife's route the wife tells her if they could swap back since she always wished to be someone else, but Paul disagrees.
"Oh did you just swap with me, oh well at least you are my husband's friend oh okay oh yeah I was having sex with him so you are overwhelmed for having your first time as a woman yeah sure don't tell my husband by now he is your husband whatever."
As I said before, logic is a bit loose in most scenarios, or sometimes, very loose, but as I said before even if I find it dumb the truth is that some people just want to go to the point of the swaps, be fast since the fetish has also a sexual appeal, there are people who will like this approach "directly to the point", just a quick realization without too much drama or trauma, so I don't feel there is a point in criticizing it, just mention it to let people choose what they are going to do with it.
Most routes end up in a placeholder right away, the neighbor route was going to continue in Paul giving birth in that other body which I found interesting, but it ends up just right after. Since there are very few ideas to showcase here and the content is very short, I can also say that you can skip this one as well, there is nothing else I can comment on here because simply isn't there anything to comment on.
It has one interesting idea, it finishes soon, things happen too quickly, characters accept things too fast, that's it, what you see is what you get.
Just another short, abandoned scenario that ends too soon. Sandra finds the remote in the living room and accidentally use the "Astral Projection" function that lets her become a ghost and possess other people.
In one route she wanders around and ends up possession either Tori or Vanessa, if it is Tori, she talks with Vanessa and tells her the truth (for some reason), and asks her to go and see her in school time so she can believe her so they can both figure out the remote. You end up asking yourself, why Vanessa? Why not John? Why a kid she barely knows? Well, it finished in 10 minutes, so who cares.
The other route proposes an interesting idea, Sandra sees Holly enter a home by the kitchen and she sees her enter again through the living room, which makes her wonder why there are two Hollys and if there is someone impersonating her. It would be interesting to find out the identity of someone who might have used the remote, but the execution is just dumb. Why would the remote be there? If it was John, why would he leave it? Why was he, Holly? Why doesn't Sandra use the remote to transform them back? Why doesn't she confront that person since time might be at stake?
Logic is a bit loose like many scenarios, and overall it just doesn't have any substantial content. Some possession fans might, maybe, probably, would like, a glimpse of the possession content here, but for most of the people I can say you can totally skip it, it just has an introduction and it is abandoned.
Did you want a bigger review? Well, that's all there is, just 10 minutes of gameplay, and none of the ideas it proposes stand out, so, that's it, nothing else to say here, the review is over.
Cross the Line reads like a project of a teenager who wanted to make his own story inside the game, all characters had their names changed to very specific ones, the story is on the line of stream of consciousness and overall the writing is almost on par with Harem, just without any of the lewd parts.
The story presents Claus, now named Derek, and his three friends, Eric and John (all have different names here but I forgot them), who find one day an unconscious girl by a trash can, after Claus checks her fever (somehow, we don't know), the girl wakes up and tells them that they are the ones who can fight against "it" and all of them faint right in the spot.
After being taken care of by the paramedics to the school's nursery (for some reason) each one of the guys discovers that all have gotten new "super powers", John can use astral projection and possess people, Eric can shapeshift and Claus can body swap, and the player is given to follow each one of them in three different routes.
Most events are rather silly and almost oniric, Michelle gets mad when she sees Claus in the garden, saying all guys are the same and that they like stalk girls, Claus accidentally uses his powers, and Michelle, now in Claus' body decides to take "revenge" against guys with her new "powerful body".
The plot seems was going to take an adventure and mystery-focused direction with the three guys trying to investigate a ghost in an old building after John had spotted them in one of his astral trips, and the scenario pretty much ends there.
Harem fans might like this but at a difference from that scenario in all its bizarreness, this one is pretty short and doesn't have too many memorable lines so it doesn't offer too much ironic appeal, either way, it is just a failed piece writing that ends too soon. Inoffensive, quick, bad, nothing else. You can skip it without any remorse.
Chasing Setsuna has proposed so far the most interesting and intricate ideas for a drama that I have seen in the community, and its concept a lot holds the potential for an awesome story in itself.
What is the plot about? Nemuri dies for unknown reasons, and because of a mistake made by Setsuna while trying to send him to the eternal realm, Nemuri ends up as a ghost and decides to escape, since he wants to continue living, but Setsuna, as told by him in his life as a priest, can't let him wander around like a lost soul.
Why so? Well, in this story ghosts end up losing everything that they had as humans in their past life, their own personality, and everything that made them themselves alive beings, and due to their desire of living, they end up possessing people and causing mischief. Nemuri himself ends up possessing a girl by accident and starts liking it, then, due to his increasing nature as a ghost, he starts to like it more and goes on a rampage looking to possess more girls as he pleases.
After possessing a girl while trying to hide his aura from Setsuna, his own obsessions as a ghost turn to Setsuna, which he decides will be the best body for him to possess. This just opens the possibilities for an amazing drama and an engaging story, the implications for Setsuna are either to take her father, already unrecognizable from what she knew, back to the spirit realm or lose her body and life in the process.
The scenario ends pretty shortly, but the idea is simply amazing, Setsuna would be trying to chase Nemuri with the help of her friend, half spirit half-human, Izuna, who has a contract attached to her, and Nemuri would try to weaken her mental state controlling people close to her so he can find a chance to take over her body. This would allow giving a lot of tension to the story.
It is overall, two people who love each other, or that at least loved each other before, Father and Daughter, try to win a chase one over the other. In this case, we are sharing the perspective of the antagonist, which allows the audience to see some fetish focused action like MtF possession and where Nemuri gets the advantage of the bodies of who possesses, there is also some mind control since all the thoughts he has and actions he does while possessing others are felt like their own by the possessed when he gets out.
While it sounds like Setsuna doesn't stand a chance due to her lack of experience as a priestess, her friend, Izuna, is shown as a powerful being who carries a sword that can kill any ghosts and aberrations without any difficulty, and overall her character is given a mysterious aura; as I have said before, she is a half spirit half-human who was taken care of by Nemuri as a kid and now, respects him a lot, because of that, she is ready to keep Setsuna away to help Nemuri live his new life, nevertheless, due to her contract, if she is ordered by Setsuna, she has to take care of Nemuri; that just adds another layer to the whole picture of things, touching topics like loyalty, friendship, and some High Fantasy since Izuna is part of the spirit world.
Some people would say that this version of Nemuri takes too many liberties by making him the same as a horny teenager, but I think this depiction is quite fair with his nature as a lost soul. Nemuri going from a respected priest to lustful ghost plants a lot of questions and implications for this character, a complete mind degradation so to say. In the end, he could become an evil being with his plan of taking over Setsuna and become the new priestess of Izuna. Izuna as a half-spirit character that has to take both sides between the father and the daughter is interesting as well because that morally ambiguous, completely loyal, and skilled character interpretation, fits her a lot.
Sadly, this scenario was put on hiatus in very early stages, and even when it hasn't been totally canceled the last update was done 3 years ago, and this time it hurts a lot because the story and the plot it's just so good. It has several leads and has a big fetishistic appeal, yes, it's true, a lot of the possessions are used just to make you feel horny, but the story in itself can offer a lot for those who want some great drama, if you do not take it that seriously and let the scenes that are only for sexual appeal be themselves, you will enjoy this scenario, it really seems that it can offer the best of worlds, but the rest of the story is yet to be seen.
Overall, in the state it is now, I can recommend it if you want some MtF Possession action (sexually-focused) as well a bit of mind control, but I can also recommend it if you want to check out more about the whole concept by itself, which is sincerely awesome, even when not a fully-fledged story. (it ends just as it starts and plants the plot) it's a good concept for a compelling story.
Just like Potions, Witches & Warlocks shows potential to take the Student Transfer universe to another gaming format but due to its abandoned state and incomplete ideas, it remains skippable and unessential to the very end. It's true, projects like this can become pretty big and even ambitious, but they end up being left off due to the amount of energy they need to be spent to make the complete pieces. Maybe with a bigger public instead of just a niche community, the creators would decide to continue instead more often.
It starts as a retelling of the canon game, with a few different characters and reorganized roles, afterwards, it shows the player a map they can go through in an RPG or life simulation kind of style, in which the player can get stuck with repetitive day sequences (an issue Potions also has) or ending up in a placeholder.
There are some interesting ideas as well some arbitrary ones that do not seem to serve any purpose since there are no routes to go through, just a few things John can do but, due to the slice of life simulator style it uses, do not seem to get anywhere or develop any kind of plot whatsoever.
The interesting ideas are the spells, that, even when not TF focused, would give a lot of options to work within a magic-related game.
A few of the other ideas are changing John's mom, Sandra, for an original character, Miranda, who acts just like Sandra, maybe the author wanted to use this sprite's CGs but so far nothing is done with the change.
Carrie is changed for Patty, a stalker that this time helps John with her own knowledge of magic as a witch, and that helps him introduce him with some spells.
Jane, instead of being John's GB self, is presented as his tsundere sister who hates him even more than Holly and shows a conflict between the siblings caused by the departure of their own father.
The writing does the job and it does not come as a stream of consciousness-like some scenarios in the past have, the new characters have a defined personality, but most canon characters just repeat their main game lines or repeat the lines of others, making this a guessing game to see what has changed and what hasn't for the most part.
Another thing to say is that this scenario is very low in its TF dose, it has some mind control but afterward nothing else really happens, John astral projects, but it does not go further than that. I can say that some people can check it out if they want to see a slightly different setup of the game with a few different characters and roles as a proof of concept with a different type of gameplay, it has a nice slice of life feeling to it, but should not expect anything at all if they are looking for a complete or fleshed out story.
Playing time: Around 1 hour or so, if you do not get stuck in the loop.
From the arsenal of the whole Student Transfer catalog, it comes to this little gem called Memswap. An intense ride of Personality Change that doesn't let you breathe at any moment!
Everything starts when Sandra tells John about her workday and how she would like to have a break from all her duties. What do you think John does? Mind control her boss and other people at school so she can get vacations? No, because that doesn't get us that route, what John does is... swap with his own mom!
To help act like each other and fill it, as well "live the whole experience" John and Sandra start to... copy each other's memories? No, because that would not give us this awesome route, they... start to swap each other's memories completely! This is what starts this ride of madness all over it in a downward spiral that doesn't seem to end!
Memswap is just restless, it starts with such a simple idea, taking some memories to fill up for someone else, and then it just goes on and on and on! Everything goes well in Memswap, there is no apparent conflict in this route, John and Sandra swap their memories and you just wonder every time when is something going to go wrong, but then nothing goes wrong and the tension just increases throughout the whole story because you always think that something is going to go wrong in one moment! Something!
But the fact that it has no conflict is also another point in its favor, it does not focus on the suffering of the characters like other routes or in Drama, everything is fun, but just apparent fun when you are still seeing the madness develop underneath it! The more and more John swaps memories with his mom the more the roles get reversed, every time their relationship shifts more! John gains more control as his own mother and Sandra becomes more and more obedient to her new son-mother! Sandra loses authority as a parent and the more memories she gets from John the more she starts to act like the boy she was raising.
Every single shift in perspective is shown, John doesn't like how Sandra makes him look, but after a memory shift, is John who likes it and tells her to keep it! The change in opinions and ideas and how they make them act! The characters do not seem to notice it and when they try to act like their former selves you can see they already have mannerisms and vocabulary of each other already within them, even having their old bodies their former proprioception seems to stay!
Memswap is technical and detailed, if John is trying to recall an old memory from his perspective, he ends up realizing the shift in perspective happening if an event involves her Mom, thanks to the remote, each other's brains act like computers and swap saves memories like files in a computer, thinking and see the insane implications is intense!
Having a mother that remembers playing video games all her life as a son, remembering having your own birth, becoming mother and son all in one in a point in the swaps, or creating two brand new people! Becoming more maternal, getting comfortable in a new body! Get the authority of the person who raised you or becomes the person you are raising, be young again, or discover a friendship of several decades in a single second, a friendship lasting longer than your own life.
Memswap tricks you in its slice-of-life context but in reality, it is the wildest of stories so far in TF! Not even lewd focused, but still, one of the horniest routes that have ever been written! It is tense, it is horny, it is technical, it is intense, be prepared because Memswap will leave you out of breath! This is why Memswap is the best Student Transfer route so far.
I'm really hyped to see its end in v6 where we will see the conclusion and consequences to all these insane swaps, and I will also be waiting patiently for Yui Memswap which seems is going to top Memswap! I totally recommend this route to anybody into Mental Changes and Personality Shifts, as well Memory Transfer and Role Reversal.
Novels like Student Transfer and Press Switch offer a wide range of options in stories focused on a related thematic, TF, it is natural that some scenarios and spin-offs get born in offering their own anthology of stories and routes based on more specific topics or ideas. For example, as I said before, I wanted first Into the Janeverse to be an anthology of MTF transformations. For this scenario, Escape the Manor, we have an anthology of transformations based on Identity Death.
Now, I have said that I like long stories to even if they become linear most of the time due to how they are fleshed out, I have reviewed some linear scenarios in the past, but I haven't mentioned a scenario like this, that has a completely opposite approach.
Everything starts with a group of people who have to find refugee in a Manor when they get stranded in the middle of nowhere during a downpour; after that, the characters will realize that something inside there is going on and they will have to choose to try and escape or fight what it is within. In Escape the Manor we have a lot of choices, and by a lot I mean a lot, counting 43 endings (54 including placeholders) which offer a variety of events all across the presented story.
What kind of endings do we get? Oh boy, where do we start, since most endings show different characters and monster girl tropes all coming from High Fantasy standards. We have Bee Girls, Dark Elfs, Succubuses, Slime, Maid Servants, Immortal Wish Benders, Posession Demons, Mirror Demons, Weight Gain Fat Girls, Centaurs, Gyarus, Bimbos, Spider Girls, Isekai Girls, and so forth...
According to Narg, the ultimate goal was to provide a wide range of TF options with a large number of ways to achieve Identity Death, so, all these endings and routes, despite being so varied and different, are connected all together by this one theme, in particular, mind control and identity death, giving a somewhat consistent topic inside the scenario.
What is most discussed about this scenario however is the execution of these transformations, which might not be likable for some. While in Cold as Ice we have slow drama and introspection ending in two main events revolved about the death of an ego, most mind control and identity deaths in Escape the Manor happen quite fast actually. The implications of losing your identity and forget who you were or who other people were are not touched here, the drama there is involved and the implications of the transformations are limited to being mentioned that they happen.
Since we are talking about content explicitly focused on a fetish, it is to be assumed that a lot of people might enjoy this due to its sexual appeal. In that way, Escape the Manor works, it showcases an Identity Death happening, if you can get sexual appeal of hearing the Identity Death alone, this scenario will work for you since this is what it does best, the characters get their memory erased in a lot of different kinds of beings, and it has variety even for everyone.
If what you are looking for is the mental and social implications about Ego Death, Escape the Manor is not really the scenario for you, all due to its fast pace and approach. Most "deaths" go in a similar way, somebody applies some magic, and the characters forget what they were doing, after the other person who is mind-controlling them tells them who they are now, they adopt a new identity rather quickly losing any hesitation and personality they could have had. Sometimes characters might struggle, sometimes characters might be aware they aren't who they used to be, but in the end, most of them end up engulfed by their own mind control.
Now, while Narg says this was not intentional, the truth is that Escape the Manor as a final product is something that has to be enjoyed right quickly or rather instinctively, without analyzing it too much. As I have said before, this scenario stands for its sexual appeal rather than anything else, if you think about it the more you need, or if you judge the scenario in a more serious way than what it should, it simply falls apart in its own logic: From the unremarkable personality of the protagonists, the lack of having a different cadence for each character, through the way the casually take everything that is happening, the vague magic that is used as a plot device only, the characters that sometimes morph to different bodies while being mind-controlled and sometimes not, to the villains that have such enormous power to use telepathy and mind control in anybody in the mansion at any time but don't do it just for the sake of the plot.
With TF, there are people who enjoy the content for its mental, psychological implications, and there are people who enjoy it for the sexual appeal. It is something that I like about TF since it offers content and ideas for several kinds of audiences, Escape the Manor might be enjoyed more by the latter group in this case.
Yes, this scenario has a very characteristic stream of consciousness method, and just like in scenarios like Harem or John Sudden Lifechange, its appeal results polarizing. My recommendation is that if you like Mind Control and Identity Death you can check them out taking into account the quick and to-the-point approach it uses, it doesn't offer any further deconstruction upon identity itself but it gives a wide catalog of ideas with diversity and range.
Phantom Detective Kat is another proof of concept scenario, one of those that might or might not show interesting ideas but end up too soon before executing any of them, and ending up abandoned for the frustration of the players.
The setup was quite up cool here actually, basically, Katrina has the power to use astral projection and possess other people and even have sex with her own body thanks to the fact that her own body can create a puppet when she leaves. After some time she uses her power for good and solves cases around the school.
The story starts when one day her own body gets stolen by an unknown person who challenges her to find out their identity before 48 hours pass and Katrina gets stuck as a ghost or in the body of someone else.
So, cool concept, but according to Blortle, the culprit was going to be Maria herself with some silly reasoning or something like that, he said so it wasn't going to be anything serious, so don't raise your hopes at all. The scenario can be played only in 3.0 but so far it doesn't have anything else to offer. If you want to find out more and expand the idea yourself, you are free to try it out.
Oh boy, our time to check the v3 era has just begun!
I have checked and all scenarios in the list from here on were released after v3, which means that v2 is all covered! Aren't you excited? A new standard of quality in writing, after all the mistakes that writers committed with v2 stuff, v3 scenarios will be shown a new level of collaborations and fan content made for the game.... right?
After Kmalloc, the original founder of the game left, JcJace45 took over as the leader of the project and cobaltcore started working in the technical aspects of the game, including the new v3 engine.
As said before, v2 scenarios were presented as a single rpy file thing, without the possibility of adding custom assets, which made some people try and add their own putting them inside the own game folder, which was according to cobalt a terrible idea. The idea of shipping certain scenarios within the game came out because it would feel weird to have the scenario mode at first totally empty, and since then it has become a tradition. If your scenario stands enough (and is not that heavy either) it might end up bundled in the next version of Student Transfer.
John starts saying that this time he will actually teach you how to actually make scenarios, which is a remark to the Scenario Example made by kmalloc and that lasted only 10 seconds long, it gives a simple explanation about expressions and animations, and after v3, it includes an introduction to the json data files and scenario folders and also refers the writers to check the official Scenario Guide that by that time it moved to its own website, which is an extension of the official Ren Py documentation explaining how to write on the engine, writing fiction in a visual novel format became easier than ever.
Writing Scenarios in RenPy is an incredible reading experience where the emotions of the reader are leveled up to their peak, it has everything, compelling characters, an amazing story, teaching for the audience, self-awareness, 4th wall breaks, a cameo from one of the characters of the other installment of the massive-TF-VNs-from-TFGS franchise, Press Switch to put everything in a single cinematic universe and even it ends up in an epic explosion a la Michael Bay.
Here is a little fun fact!
This scenario will always be referred to the user every time John says "Of course!" in anything you write or read if scenario hooks are enabled.
So far scenarios have tried to show us what would happen if Kiyoshi got the remote (Kiyoshi's Gaiden) and what if Katrina would have gotten the remote (Greener Grasses), it was fair that Kyoko's turn to have the baton now.
Once Kyoko gets the remote and shows it to her friends, Kiyoshi recommends using it to solve mysteries and the scenario turns into a Scooby-Doo episode. Basically, Michelle asks about a weird thing that happened to her in the storeroom of the school, so Kiyoshi and Kyoko go and start to find out, Katrina and Claus later join in the fun.
Overall I thought the story was okay, I was thinking they would use the memory copy function to solve a mystery but in the end, the remote isn't used this way, there isn't too much comedy and the scenario gives a bigger Slice-of-Life vibe. Kiyoshi gets gender-bent, some small, some cute mind control follows, and the case ends up solved in a wacky and nonsensical way (it seems you can't mind control ghosts but you can exorcise them wiping away their memories) and after some funny but fake advancements for future episodes, the scenario ends.
The scenario is overall complete, with around 40 minutes of gameplay. While the story isn't really TF-focused, it might be disappointing for some, I find it non-essential in the very end but I can say that you can still give it a shot if you want some cute, inoffensive fun. It's not great, but it's good.
Back to the usual quality standard of v2 scenarios. Basically, John, who is less empathetic and now resembles Calvin more, decides to test the remote and mind control of one of his teachers, he later possesses her and takes her body for a ride.
In the morning he realizes he has memories of her own life and his body has disappeared, thinking he might have used the reality alteration button of the remote by mistake, John tries to decide if he should live now as her or try to go back and get his life back in some way.
I thought the reality change function was cool, but the scenario lasts only 10 minutes and doesn't go anywhere after that, and since John is depicted as a minor, it has been removed only due to depicting minors in sexual situations. You aren't really missing anything though, the only thing I think was worth checking is the reality change rules, which I will post a screenshot of below.
Due to her lack of understanding of social clues and obsessive nature, Carrie becomes a good candidate for a Power Trip scenario, being a female counterpart for Kiyoshi in that matter; but aside from letting her go batshit insane, Carrie also carries (heh) the potential for a lot of character growth, and that is what this scenario focuses on.
After deciding to take a shortcut unlike in the main game John goes to the park and finds Carrie waiting for him, and John, therefore the player, will have to choose a way to deal with her.
The options are quite organic and logical, you can either erase her memories of the encountering and send her home, erase her memories, send her home and remove her obsession, or you can either try to make up a story or even then tell her the truth about the remote.
If you decide to mind control her you can finish the whole issue (and therefore the scenario) quickly, cut or burn the knot, without any consequences, which felt quite nice, being able to let the player choose the right choice, and let the story end even before it begins even if the player wants to, it makes you feel as you can actually choose what make to happen.
If you decide to tell her the truth, John will also end up sharing his memories about her, making her realize her own creepiness, after a breakdown, Carrie invites John to her home after school, and John has to discuss with his friends what should he do about the situation, unfortunately, the scenario ends in a placeholder there.
The longest route and probably the one people will pay more attention to is the one where you try to make up a story, which ends up in an accidental body swap. After this, Carried ends up taking over and with some commands, she puts John in the verge of identity death, even then when not quite, John has no memories but he knows who he really is, which makes up for quite a chunk of interesting internal dialogue where John is trying to keep his identity intact and not to let himself go to the programming.
It is interesting seeing him pull and push with his own brain as he has to act as Carrie and discovers more about her life and background and the reason she is that way, all this is pretty short and happens in the span of a single day, but it is pretty great too see.
At the end of the day in this route, John might or might not decide to try with Carrie again and convince her to turn back, and if the right answers to her questioning are given, it can result in John finally fixing up his relationship with her or even stay back in a limbo of uncertainness.
Overall the scenario has no more than 30 minutes of gameplay and most of its paths end in a placeholder but I still think it is worth checking out if you are interested in Carrie and give yourself some ideas about how to make her grow as a person, this is the starting seed to make her a great, fully-fledged character.
So far I have covered some scenarios focused on lewd content and some focused in more elaborated stores focusing on the mental and social aspects of TF in the wholesome side, but there is a side I haven't covered of this branch of mental and social side focused stories: the one focused in darker stories, in bleak drama and pain.
Just as with many other scenarios, Cold as Ice's routes vary in quality and consistency, therefore it is better to judge them individually, like seasons on a TV show. Cold as Ice features three long routes that are linear for the most part aside from the decision each one has to give out two different endings for the audience, if you do not like linear stories you might still get successfully bamboozled by the illusion of interactivity in the story. For me, linear stories are preference sinve most of the time an author that focuses in one linear story it usually ends up fleshed out well; what about the endings? Well, that is something I will talk about in a few minutes...
The scenario introduces Irene as the main character while depicting her as a somewhat tough girl with anger issues, but with a big heart for her best friend Allison and good people who meet her, she ends up getting the spellbook but since she isn't from the Blackwell family, the amount of spells she can do is limited and it also a lot more hurtful for her, taking away her energy at times.
The first route that was completed, and curiously the route most people play at first, is a route focused on Brad, the Brad route, for short.
This one starts when Irene discovers Brad and Eric, who have been genderbent for an unknown person. Eric leaves and Brad ends up teaming up with Irene who offers her help to find out how to turn him back despite her lack of powers. To help Brad cope with being a girl she gives him some of her memories about being a girl, which also causes Brad to slowly become more and more female-minded, so Irene and Brad have to find a way to swap him back as soon as possible.
Overall the scenario behaves mostly like the main game, focused on the social relationships of the characters and how do they deal with the TF, there are also certain parts of comedy and the whole route has a taint of mystery that keeps you engaged, around the end it even gets to be thriller-esque and even when the route is linear until that point, it is nice to see Irene getting more and more clues. Another good thing to mention is how reduced the spell library Irene can use is, that is, to avoid escalation issues, which is something that normally is not taken into account in the main game.
Is the route good overall? Well... no, the truth is that the reveal is the most random and nonsensical thing ever, somebody who didn't take any participation in the story, or in any of the other routes for that matter, creating a big plot hole in the whole scenario as well. It is a person that you would never expect because she has no actual motivations related to the characters or what they do, it just doesn't make sense.
This villain is literally like the one shown in the ProZD's sketch.
Now, I said that I would talk about the two ending formula later, right? In the Brad route, you get an extremely bad ending and an extremely good ending. The curious thing is that you end up preferring the bad ending by far because it is a lot more interesting than the good ending.
Hizack mentioned he did the good ending by obligation, and it shows, the good ending is insipid, cliche, and lacks inspiration. The bad ending on the other hand might feel a bit too cruel for some but it has an interesting concept reminiscent of Being John Malkovich movie.
So, the route has good stuff on it, but it is simply ruined by its laughable ending. Hizack said he didn't really want to bother changing it, and just as the experimental ending in Stone to the Head, it remains as a failed piece in the Student Transfer history.
But don't worry, it gets better from here.
In the second route, Irene's sidekick is not Brad but Cornelia. The plot starts with Irene and Allison switching bodies out of curiosity and after an incident with Sayaka, Cornelia ends up stealing the book giving it to her thinking Irene and Allison are planning to prank her with it (not sure how though, she opened, and only see a bunch of gibberish) and then, the worst case happens, Sayaka gets magic powers, a lot bigger compared to the ones Irene has.
Here we just do not see a bigger background about Irene and Allison's friendship but we also get to see more development with Irene towards her classmate Cornelia, who now has been forgotten by Sayaka due to her new powers.
While the route lacks the mystery of the first, it still keeps you engaged as you read how Irene and Cornelia try to turn things back to normal and take the book away from Sayaka before it's too late, it's also a more cheerful route than the previous one, at least while not including the ending.
The issue with this route is the characters, starting with the main antagonist, Sayaka, who, as seen in other scenarios, acts like a complete psychopath without any actual empathy, she is the best she is and nobody can defeat her, to the point she becomes practically cartoony and one-note. A lot of the people in this route are treated as if they lacked enough intelligence. She offers to duplicate money to everybody and people start to form a line asking her for wishes, but even then Sayaka's mind controls half of the people that come to her (according to Irene), like her classmate Zoey. Yui and John also seem to lack intelligence and feelings and they believe whatever Irene tells them, not even getting angry about what is happening in the process.
Now, since Sayaka is a psychopath, the depiction of Cornelia also changes, she is not a loyal friend that has been with her since the beginning like in Arch Nemesis and she isn't an obsessive, insecure friend as shown in the main game, in the Magic Sayaka route, she is a total victim and a tool used for Sayaka just as anybody, a person who is desperate of having a friendship and that needs help as well. So, choose your version, for better or worse, there are several interpretations of the story that can explain her character. Personally, I like to see her cutting ties with Sayaka altogether, but Sayaka as a character doesn't even work here, she is practically just a walking plot device, doing things of her will, and no actual good qualities are given to her so we can feel her more alive.
Aside from that, I do think the route is quite solid, and also in contrast to the Brad route, it features a complete improvement in the concept for both endings, and I think it is really important to mention tit since it might be useful to anybody who wants to write fiction.
While in the first route we had an extremely bad ending with interesting concepts an extremely good ending that turned out to be pretty insipid, this time we got two, interesting, bittersweet endings in which where the protagonist still loses and wins something in exchange. There is no really a correct ending, or an ending where pain can be avoided, in both cases, something bad will happen, Irene will lose something, and in both cases, only some stuff can be solved. Some people would argue that having two "bad endings" is actually pointless, but there is a difference between them: who will you choose to save? Irene, or her friends and other people instead?
This format is important because making the protagonist lose something no matter the ending makes the endings feel more real and less idealistic, the issues they went through feeling more real because the errors the character committed will still have consequences the rest of her life, there is no Deus Ex Machina, no magic solution for everybody, the pain we felt along the way is real and will stay there in some way or another for the characters, it makes the story actually mean something in comparison to the cheap happy cliche ending of the Brad route where quotes are seemed to be taken of a random generator and do not actually feel like they mean anything, this is something, and it's great.
It is true that Irene's decisions are a bit stretched out for the sake of this format and she could have found another option to fix everything again, but well, it is something that can be forgiven, this is the first time the two bittersweet ending format was made in the scenario, and both endings are certainly interesting even if one lacks a lot more logic than the other.
The decision to if I will make completely happy endings from now on too is up to me to choose by now, but with Cold as Ice, I have learned that stories can have a bigger bearing in the story is not everything is solved around the end, not all the issues leave, and the bittersweet feeling, if used well, is a good resource to make the story feel more realistic, the character has lost something due to their own actions and there are consequences to those actions. While it is not done simply for the sake of it, it can be great, since I still feel that fictional characters can be treated with kindness too.
I don't want to spoil too much about these two endings either, and I already said that John and Yui's depiction is pretty flawed in this route, but in one of the endings I just saw them in a certain state that caused me a lot of feelings and emotion. The execution there was wonky since well they both acted pretty casual about everything, but the concept made me feel so excited that I even jumped from my chair several times. How can I say it without giving spoilers? Maybe something like ID pseudo-selfcest romance, or something like that, and done well could make up for the best romance story ever, and I hope to write a story for the concept one day.
For the very last route, we have Yui. After Irene uses a spell that she can't reverse due to her lack of magic abilities (even when the spell had it' own warning) she and Yui get body swapped and get stuck. Their only hope? To find a true Blackwell heir that can use the book and switch them back.
This route also features some curious ideas like the fact that Yui and Irene are slowly getting their identity erased and slowly getting into believing they are each other even when they have completely swapped bodies, implying that their own brains contain their own sense of self and that swapping souls only allowed them to take their previous memories temporarily.
While I do not get quite the logic behind that mechanic, since to me body swaps could be seen as a complete memory swap, this is a field that allows a lot of interpretations and points of view. Do souls exist? Does a puppet with your memories have its own soul? As far as the main game goes, I think the consensus is that there is a soul which puppets don't have, according to Yui Spellbook Continuation, a puppet who stays in a body long enough can grow to be a real soul, the "memory restoration effect" is another take in the mechanics of body swaps which its own rules, which in this case are made to give a sense of urgency to the story.
New characters are introduced, like Sam, Yui's playful and sassy cousin, a character that hasn't been shown in the canon game up to this date but she gives a new dynamic to the Yamashita family.
I could mention and make more nitpick about the story, but overall it is what it is, the story is about to find Blackwell, so Irene and her friends make people in all school touch the book waiting to see if the gem inside it shines, so they can identify the real Blackwell, Irene starts to get closer to Natsumi since Yui doesn't usually give her enough attention, and the story develops into Identity Death around the end. This route features other two bittersweet endings where there is not a solution for everybody, will you sacrifice Irene? Or would you rather sacrifice someone else? Who is going to lose their sense of self?
Now, let's talk about Identity Death (or ID for short), what is identity death? Basically, it is the term used for when a character forgets about themselves and who they really are, starting to believe they are someone else and become a different person at the cause of this, in other words, it is the death of an ego.
For a lot of people, this concept is failed on its own and represents a deal-breaker, the point usually given is that is nothing more than a flawed tool to change the perspective of the story and giving urgency, which many fail to write in the first place. If a character forgets everything about themselves and what we went through with them before, doesn't that make the story pointless? Anything they could have learned along the way is simply forgotten, what they were, everything, it is murder for some, and not different than normal death for a lot, what is the point of writing stories where we will just end up with a different character at the end?
Well, my friends, I used to believe all this too, all this, indeed, but Cold as Ice has shown me the actual potential of the whole concept. The point of Identity Death is not how the affected people deal with the death of their own ego since they are basically... dying, the point of Identity Death is to see how the people related to them deal with the "death" of the person they knew before, will they accept this new person or will they try to bring them back? Do they really consider this a new person? It makes up for a good source of Drama and an interesting option to show how some people grasp the concept of identity: Does the body represent the person? Is being with friends with the new person the same as being with friends with the person you knew before? Does any of their qualities stay before this ego rebirth?
Yeah, it is a complete mindfuck on its own, and even when Identity Death stories will usually end up with a sad or tragic tone, a lot of the stories it can tell to deconstruct even more the sense of self can be really interesting. Consider that Identity Death is not a mental fetish, but more of a social fetish, since the point is not exactly how the own character deals with their own death but how others around them do.
The big issue with this route is... that is not completely animated! After a bit, the path ends up in a placeholder, but the whole route is there, you have to manually open the rpy file and read the script from there, there are no animations so no visual clues (like Irene and Yui's eye color changing is given), but it is perfectly readable this way, even when a bit of a chore.
When I did read it I made some screenies with what I imagined what was happening in the story, here is Riley (best boy in the whole scenario):
What we can wait for is that somebody ends up animating the rest of the story, now that Hizack is gone from the community.
Overall, while it has a lot of flaws and issues, I consider Cold as Ice a fantastic scenario, recommendable to people who love introspection and drama in TF. People who are looking for wholesomeness and more happy stuff might need to look somewhere else but those who look for bleaker endings and stories might enjoy this scenario. If you think Identity Death is all bogus and nonsense, I would say also that Cold as Ice is the scenario for you to try so you can get an idea about what is the whole appeal of this TF subgenre. I have to admit, overall, it has a lot of fantastic ideas and some great characters too.
