Tristesse

Overview

Tristesse is a short story about love, loss and loneliness. You play as the main character who struggles through some tough times and maybe make or lose a friend along the way. It will take around 10-20 min to reach 1 of the 3 endings for a slow reader.

I recommend playing the game knowing as little about it as possible.

If you don't mind a little bit of spoiler then read ahead.

The Story

(potential spoilers below this line)

This is a fairly linear story that branches around the middle and near the end to 3 different endings. Most of your choices do not matter, but there are 3 choices that directly affect the ending. This story was heavily inspired by Air Pressure. It mainly revolves around your relationship with two other characters. Depending on your choices you will get closer to one or the other, which will determine what ending you get. But neither of the characters are what they seem. 

The Game

In parts of the story you are able to interact with your phone and computer. I initially wanted this feature to have a bigger influence on the game. But unfortunately due to time constraints I only completed the bare minimum. 

This game was originally a proof of concept/learning exercise but it took on a life of its own so I decided to finish it. This is my first time writing a visual novel. I found it quite challenging to produce a story that didn't sound cringey or cliche. Hopefully it's not complete trash and some of you enjoyed it :).

If you have suggestions, questions or find bugs feel free to comment and let me know.

The source code is available at https://github.com/kiwioyster/tristesse-vn
Pull requests welcome. The code is MIT license except for everything inside /assets which I do not own.

Credits

I did not use any visual novel makers or engine for this. It was made from scratch. Some game assets I made/remixed myself. Most were obtained from free sources online or with the creator's permission. I want to acknowledge these people and websites for their work which I've used.

- Ode Imaginations

- Uncle Mugen from Lemma Soft Forum

- ZapSplat.com

- Bensound.com