Karamu (Visual Novel)

Created by: Chattercap

Genre: Romance/Horror

Karamu is really well made and I like the mystery aspect to it. I really like the UI and the general comic book like feel that it has, as well as how each ending builds upon the next one to slowly unravel the mystery. The voice acting and animations for each character was really nice too, semi subtle really adds to the feelings that each character has for the situation. If you want more information about this game, you can find more at @chattercap.

There are about four different endings, so I’ll go from the order that I got everything (which is probably the order that was intended for playing to slowly unravel the mystery).

The story starts with the main character Nelli biking with a giant bag. She ends up falling over and is helped up by her ex, Raku. He walks her over to a bus stop where Nelli contemplates about their relationship together, how he loved playing games and was the type of person who likes to get things done if he put his mind to it. Seeing that she’s injured, Raku worriedly tries to clean off the wound. The two talk about how they got into a relationship, how they slowly learned about each other, and cared for one another, and how Raku really wish he knew why Nelli broke up with him in the first place. We see that the two were very close, that Nelli would open up to Raku about her past in a way she never was before and how Raku was able to do the same. Raku, of course, still wants to have Nelli back, not understanding why she broke up with him in the first place, talking about how kind Nelli is. We learned that this was a recent event, after Nelli’s friend Sana died, and he starts being jealous that Sana’s boyfriend, Hoon-ji have been rather close lately.

If Nelli is very cold towards Raku the entire time, she’ll end up running away from Raku after seeing something about him change, but not before stumbling in to the forest. There she’s surrounded by golden threads and Raku standing before her.

If Nelli is a bit more reasonable, but still relatively cold, she’ll end up running back to her apartment instead where she blocks her door and protects her cat. In the end, the police come to arrest her.]

In the third ending, Raku is able to put together all of the pieces together on what is going on with Nelli. He notices that Nelli, despite being seemingly injured doesn’t seem to be in any pain, as well as a distinct smell from the bag that she’s holding. He notes that Sana’s death was very strange, having supposedly died from falling off of a cliff while hiking, despite that being very unlikely given how experienced she was, including the hint that the shoes she wore weren’t meant for hiking, something that she would never do on purpose. He states that the reason why Nelli ended up breaking up with him and going with Hoon-ji was to investigate what really happened, finding out that Hoon-ji had accidentally killed her. To protect his prestigious family, he ended up hiding the body in the woods and framing it as an accident. Nelli ends up finding out the truth, which leads her to accidentally kill Hoon-ji in the process. Not wanting to be found out for killing the next heir to a prestigious family, she tries to escape and get rid of the body. In this ending, she ends up stabbing Raku as she believes that he will turn her in and runs back to her apartment. However, by the time she gets there, Raku is still there, not dead and pushing her inside of the apartment.

In the last ending, Raku reveals the above, but Nelli runs away from him instead of stabbing him. Raku eventually catches her, turning into his spider form and helping destroy the evidence by eating Hoon-ji’s severed head and offers to dissolve the rest of his body as well. He tries to ask for Nelli back, and the two end up together at the end.

Like I said in the beginning, this game is really well made. I’m a sucker for good UI and this game nails it. I also really like the way the dialogue is shown, in a sort of comic book like way and how the characters are animated within each frame. Very beautiful, along with the focus on the color blue. I think the voice acting in this one is pretty well done as well, since I feel that both Nelli and Raku’s voice acting really nails the kind of relationship that they have with each other. Personally I think that Raku’s spider form kinda looks silly with his eyes kinda moving around like googly eyes, but maybe that’s because I find spider already pretty cute so my judgement is pretty skewed already. Also, it’s always fun to have a designed protagonist for these type of stories and I kind of want Raku’s jacket.

Anyways, as a yandere Raku is very caring over Nelli, as the two have a very strong bond with each other, even talking about moving in before Nelli ended up breaking up with him. Raku of course still wants to be with Nelli despite her sudden coldness from her and even her rejection in some endings. Even despite the fact that he gets stabbed and rejected in some endings, he still goes after Nelli to try to protect her, even when she was hiding away in her apartment (as I believe he was the spider that would look at her while she was in hiding). In the end, Raku is willing to get rid of Hoon-ji’s body so that the two would stay together. I do like Raku as a yandere as he is very caring over Nelli despite her pushing him away. He seems fairly protective as well, with a more subtle feeling that creeps up on you in some cases. Being a short game though, we don’t get to see too much other yandere actions besides jealousy and protection to a certain degree, but I did hear hopes of the creator making more games around these two characters which I would love to see.

Overall, I like this game quite a lot. From visual presentation to how the story was revealed, it was very fun to be able to see how the mystery unraveled and the kinds of characters Raku and Nelli are, with the general twist of Raku being a spider like monster yandere. I would recommend playing this game for just how nicely made it is.