Hey Hey Heroes, Travelers, and Wandering NPCs, it’s the spookiest time of year and I’ve been gearing up for a month-long celebration of all things spooky. Throughout the month of October, I’ll be bringing you guys tons of great Halloween-themed game reviews, lists, and other posts to get you guys in the mood for Halloween!
Today, I’m covering a super cute Halloween-themed yuri visual novel, First Kiss at a Spooky Soiree, from indie developer Nami. The game was originally created over the course of just one month for the annual game jam, Yuri Jam 2016. Like most game jam titles, First Kiss at a Spooky Soiree is rather short with playthroughs taking anywhere between 10 and 15 minutes, so you could probably finish the entire game in under an hour if you’re a fast reader or if you don’t die from the cuteness over load. The game takes place within the same universe as Nami’s Yuri Jam 2015 entry, Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet and features a new cast of characters.
In First Kiss at a Spooky Soiree, you play as Marzipan, a witch that specializes in light magic as she attempts to find someone willing to share a kiss with her. So, she and her BFF, a catgirl named Jam hit up a nearby party in hopes of helping Marzipan lock lips with some mysterious stranger.
Game Details
- Available for Windows, Mac, Linux
- 5 pursuable characters (female)
- 7 unique endings
- Free to Play
- Gameplay Length: 30-50 minutes
Honestly this is just a super sweet game with a light premise, and adorably cute characters, all of which are appropriately named after sweets. The romance is mostly light fluff; kisses, some platonic, some romantic or light touching (ie. hugs and snuggles) and the romance options are various chibi-fied versions of traditional horror creatures. There are werewolves, incubi, a zombie, catgirls, and even these really interesting moth people, so there are plenty of cute spooks to gander at.
Since this is a yuri game, most of the potential kissing partners Marzipan pursues are female or at the very least identify as female. However, there is one male kiss candidate, a shy incubus named Baezel, though pursuing him is more of a platonic friendship route than anything even remotely romantic. Also, his route deals with crossplay (when an individual cosplays as a character that is a different gender from their own) and it is hands down one of the tooth-rottingly sweet routes in the game. Usually cross-dressing is either played for laughs or seen as some sort of deviant behavior, but, Baezel’s is most definitely none of those. Rather, it’s a means of boosting his confidence and making him more secure with who he is as a character, if anything, it’s more of an awakening of sorts.
The other love interests were equally cute and endearing with special mentions to the sassy moth princess, Poffin and Jam, Marzipan’s catgirl best friend who is totally in love with her and probably should have kissed her a LOOOOOOONG time ago. In fact, the whole time I kept wondering why she never asked Jam to kiss her, she is both willing and able and a totally cutie to boot. And then it happened, and I almost got a toothache at how sugary sweet their confession scene was, 10/10 the most satisfying pairing in the game. But, hey, I can’t say that I hated any of the characters in the game, they are all well developed and fleshed out, even the side characters that only show up for like two seconds were memorable enough to warrant me remembering their names., since they had notable personalities.
The game is very stylized, bright inviting colors and soft cute character designs. Yeah, these are monsters and ghouls, but, I’ll be damned if they’re not the cutest monsters in the world. Most of the characters are humanoid, with slight design changes so you know what they’re supposed to be, like the ghost character is semi transparent and the zombie character has greenish skin and pale eyes and of course the demons have horns. Everything is designed to fit in with the game’s Halloween-theme, just with a cute bubblegum pop look and feel. The GUI is also highly stylized, with most of the menus and pages sporting cute pumpkins against purple or black backgrounds. The whole thing just screams Halloween!
All in all, First Kiss at a Spooky Soiree is by far one of the cutest games I have played all year! I spent most of the game cooing over the adorable character designs and the sweet romantic fluff! I definitely recommend playing this game if you have the chance, if not to add a little extra dose of cuteness to your day! First Kiss at a Spooky Soiree is a chill low stress yuri game perfect for folks who have been considering giving the genre a try but were afraid to delve into anything too intense. If I had to sum this game up in a few words it would have to be, cute Halloween fluff.
But, as always, you don’t have to take my word for it! Check out the game for yourself and give this adorable game a try!
You can also contact Nami on Social Media through the following channels:
- Twitter: @nomnomnami
- Tumblr: http://nomnomnamiart.tumblr.com/
- Redbubble: nomnomnamiart
- itch.io: https://nomnomnami.itch.io/first-kiss-at-a-spooky-soiree
Wow, so adorable!!
Right?! This game is just so cute!!
It’s amazing what an indie studio can produce within the space of a month. Even if the game length isn’t long the artwork is excellent and it even has multiple endings. That’s more than some titles, which cost money, offer. Monster character romance is a cool idea. There was recently a game on Steam about monster teens going to prom.