Destiny Fails Us - Demo - Quick review

“In the beginning of Destiny Fails Us, Idril's time is devoted to friends, video games, and a childhood crush named Vincent. Everything in her life gets flipped upside down all in one day. Suddenly, romance, school work, and friendships have become more complicated and as Idril takes a step back to reassess her life, You, the Player, take the reigns and decide what will become of Idril's teenage years.

Your choices will effect everything from your friendships, social status and love life, to your grades and what events you experience in the DFU world. Are you the type of person who strives to hold on to all of your friends and loved ones, or would you rather ignore the wants and needs of those around you to further your own gain? Either way, it's up to you to decide whether you would like to be the perfect angel, or feed your inner demon.”

The demo for Destiny Fails Us was released on roughly the 14^th of September and I couldn't help but try it out. I love visual novels where the heroin is a gamer. Idril also has pink hair that she wears in pigtails – My favourite hair colour and style. :D

Now I'm sure we're all painfully aware of how many Otome games are currently available that revolve around a high-school drama, so... what makes this one different? Well, as soon as you load up the game you are thrown head-first into the story. In the opening scene Idril is actually seen sharing a kiss with a special someone. Usually that would happen towards the end of the game once you've worked for it so I couldn't help but wonder where this story was going. The demo, though being short was full of sub plots, some crazy friends and a lot of drama. Now, the guy you share a kiss with at the beginning wont necessarily be the guy you end with. After an 'interesting' scene with the heroins mother, not choosing the right options can open up a scene where it feels like you will start to drift away from zed guy, opening up the option to pursue someone else instead. In total there are currently about five guys to choose from and each has their own personalities – some not being the norm. There is even one guy that has a strong obsession with Idril and he brings more drama and excitement to the table. Idril also has three female friends and usually in Otome games I let them take the back-seat and the game just seems to allow that too, but in the demo for DFU they were quite constant. One of them even has a weird trait where she would mooch food from her friends at lunchtime even though she had money to buy her own. This is defiantly something new in my experience. Another of her friends does come across as being really supportive and I could easily see her as being Idril's best friend.

The description for this visual novel describes Idril as being a gamer and you will get the opportunity to skip doing your homework (although you really shouldn't in Idril's case) to play video games. You're given the option of two – One being an Otome game and one that is described that made me think of 'Dota 2' which made me cringe a little bit as that is a game I loath! Ignoring that fact however, I did find it pretty neat you could choose.

 Another thing I really liked about the demo was that it has achievements. I really am the type of person who will spend a reasonable amount of time trying to get as many as I can and in this case I managed to get all of them bar one... I really couldn't figure out how to get the last one :(. Either way, this feature gave me extra motivation to play through all the options the game offered to this point – And on that note, there isn't a huge amount of replay value but at the same time, it isn't none existent either. That's kind of typical for a demo though if you ask me!

 So in short:

Things I really liked about this game:

Story wise there is a lot going on.

Some of the sound effect were quite cute.

There are a fair amount of unique aspects.

The female friends actually have a purpose.

There weren't that many mistakes in the dialogue.

All of the characters you interact with are rather interesting.

Things I wasn't to keen on:

Idril didn't really stand out on her own that much.

The art seemed a little lazy in some cases in my opinion, such as there wasn't much shading etc. but I guess that's just the type of art they were going for.

As it stands at the moment though, there is no guarantee that this visual novel will have a full release. The person responsible for this novel is currently requesting a kickstarter of at least $3,000 or it wont be finished.

“This project will only be funded if at least $3,000 is pledged by Monday Oct 14, 9:59am EDT.”

As of writing this, they currently have funds of $1,900, 70 backers and 20 days left before the kickstarter is closed. So from this, I don't see a problem with the $3,000 being reached in that time. You can back the project for as little as 1 dollar but if you're willing to pledge $5 or more, that's when you start getting a little in return.

While on the subject of the kick starter I noticed that if you pledge $10 or more you will get “One Digital Download of the Full Game” as well as something called a 'special thanks pack' but when the game is ready to be released, it will be available for purchase at $15. So by donating $10 to the kick starter you're not only helping make sure the game is finished but you're getting a small discount too really. There are of course, risks to the kickstarter which you can view on the main website (link at the end) but like I said, I don't see why they wont be able to raise another $1,100 in 20 days if things keep going how they have been!

To me however, asking for a $3,000 kickstarter sounds like a lot when I've played freeware visual novels that were on par/better than some commercial ones, but at the same time, having never made a whole visual novel myself, I'm unaware of how much these things really do cost to make!

The kickstarter goal has now been reached with several days still to go :D Really excited about that and congratz to the creator – I'm sure they are quite happy about that too!

 For anyone wondering where the money is going, see below.

Any excess donations will also be put to good use. Again, you can see more about this on the main page.

So with all that being said, I'll be offering up my pledge pretty soon and I truly hope this game will be complete as I'm really looking forward to seeing where the story will go.

If you're interesting in trying the demo for yourself there is a version for Windows, Mac and Linux currently available. For more information on the kickstarter, what you will be offered for your pledge, the risks and the download links, check out the web page here!