The Elevator Game with Catgirls

I'm just over an hour into this game and it is amazing! The atmosphere, music, puzzles, and story are all incredibly creative, and super creepy. Being in the elevator gives me chills. Highly recommend and looking forward to finding all of the potential endings.

Not exactly what I expected, it's not really your typical visual novel or a generic romantic narrative, not after the first 30 minutes anyway. If anything the actual meat of the game is psychedelic exploration, one of those easter egg hunts for various secrets and additional story context, slightly reminds me of games like "Who's Lila", but with a static point&click gameplay, especially the whole looping effect, becoming something different from just reading a wall of text, and sometimes getting the story from disjointed segments, not necessarily a linear experience. I would describe the narrative in this game as Alice in Wonderland Silent Hill 4, which seems about right.

It's a bit confusing if you just starting the game, there is a nice 'visual novel' barrier before the game truly starts to be creative and play around with your expectations, even in terms of dialogue and world-building I think this game is a little slow to take off, the point being, I didn't like it that much for the first 2 hours, but I think it's one of those games that gets a lot more compelling as you peel its many layers. I was able to discover about 70% of the content in 5 hours, and stuck at the moment with no remaining clues, so you probably looking at a 8-hour game if you just wanted to brute force everything, but even then it has a lot of secrets. The game could be considered convoluted in terms of puzzles, but I didn't have too many issues personally, I just wish the rules with the codes were explained better, it's easy to mislead yourself by applying your own interpretation of how things should work.

The game is structured around a ritual that is performed inside an elevator, by entering secret codes on the panel you are taken to all kinds of psychotic dimensions in what I assume is a parallel universe that looks a lot like ours, some of the worlds are surreal, and others are more disturbing. It's actually a little weird because the game does not seem to have much horror in it, but you will find it if you dig deep enough. The endings in this game are not traditional in the sense that sometimes you need one ending to find another, so it's more of a looping effect with the narrative, you have to keep playing it to unlock more things.

Luckily the game is voice-acted, at least the dialogue between the characters, not the silent thoughts though. The delivery of the story is very subjective, I almost feel like the game bounces between being a generic relationship game and being super clever with game deconstruction, I definitely feel like there is a lot of thought-provoking themes, but it's not something that I felt all the time, and unfortunately, the game that tends to get better halfway in.

Pros:

(+) (More than meets the eye) At first I was fully convinced it would be another generic visual novel, and to be fair, sometimes it does feel that way, even as deep as 3-4 hours into the game, but there are some really cool and creative narrative twists if you manage to find them, and as a visual novel, it feels very different once the whole elevator gameplay starts. The story is a bit weird with the themes, it's very good in some parts of the game, but I was not following it all the time or cared to do so.

(+) I was a bit skeptical about the price, but the game has a respectable amount of exploration, optional context, and achievements, with no hints you probably looking at more than 7 hours. All of the unique worlds that you find give all kinds of strange vibes, it's something that motivates me to keep playing it because I just don't know what I will find here.

(+) I like that the game looks different from just about everything else, cool art style on the characters, except maybe my dude Gin Ichimaru - I just can't unsee that face on the host there, his art style pops too much in comparison. Overall I think the game looks interesting visually, but not consistently amazing, some backgrounds look a bit too empty/low detail. Relatively immersive game, again, depending on where you at with the story.

Feedback:

Puzzles - I don't mind the puzzles here too much, but maybe a little bit more generous with the hints (at least for the harder puzzles), sometimes you leave a lot of space for your own interpretation and you don't want that.

Atmosphere - for the most part I like the way you handled it, it gets better toward the second half, but sometimes you would linger on the same screen trying to describe the situation, which is perfectly fine, just not back to back to back, I wish the story moved with more purpose because it did get a little boring in some sections. I was paying a lot more attention when the characters would talk and not just think in silence.

Overall Thoughts: 8/10

This one was a little hard to swallow for me, feels a bit meh sometimes, but ultimately it gets better in terms of narrative and exploration, it has a lot of content and different layers to the experience, it's an interesting game that requires some commitment to get something out of it. I like the whole elevator thing, pretty cool idea for world navigation. Overall nice artwork and a decent sense of immersion, probably could have been handled a little better with the dialogue and overall tone, but if you like digging deep in the exploration, there are a lot of secrets.

Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ 

Loved the mystery and horror. I thought the puzzles were difficult, but not too difficult (although some of the prerequisites were a bit confusing, and you might need a guide or help to solve them). The story explores some interesting themes about relationships, and I thought it was done well. I think the only thing I disliked were the amount of references to other games, which felt like a lot, but overall I very much enjoyed playing it!

Games great fun tho because of my PC from the stone ages the amount of snow on screen causes the PC to go up in flames! Good for these colder times. Also could do with more nsfw scenes like cmon not enough cat girl nudity

Another great game from this studio! The art direction is very distinct and fits well with the horror theme of the game.
It diverts a bit from 'traditional' Visual Novels by taking a winding path towards the ending, with many stops along the way where it explores its characters and world.
As you guide Asahi through the story, you'll solve puzzles and face your fears, then head back into that elevator to see what it has in store for you next...

Some things that stand out are the excellent sound design, which really sets the mood, the voice acting that helps set the characters apart and the intriguing places the plot is willing to go, despite the premise seeming simple on the face of it.

Highly recommended if you enjoy a good mystery, a spooky atmosphere and of course.. adorable cat-girls.

The Elevator Game with Catgirls is NoBreadStudio's new third project.
If you happen to play any of the previous games - You can suspect what awaits you, down the (playthrough) road.
In this game, we dive into a horror visual novel, with a charming cast of characters.
With the full voice-over and the greatly composed soundtrack, the immersion in the eerie atmosphere is even greater!
Multiple endings in NoBreadStudio's work are almost a signature point.
In Elevator Game with Catgirls, multiple endings are turned up by timed choices, to get you more excited.
Along the playthrough, you can find multiple easter-eggs and references to other, great horror games- it always puts a smirk on your face.
The Point-and-click puzzles are well thought out.
The mechanics of moving around the place in an elevator are nice addon to the genre - the suspense - what we will see this time after the elevator doors open is a combination of curiosity and a slight thrill.
The visual side of the game is gorgeous and with the attention put into the details, like the snow, it's a great fit in the setting and atmosphere of the project.
Of course, you can not mention the Cat Girls,
Asahi and Kirin are a lovely duo (couple), they have great dynamics, - they complement each other very well, with the balance in the characters.
The rest of the game's characters - not to spoil the fun, you just have to get to know them.
Overall game is a fun ride in the horror visual novel genre - the time spent with the game will be a great adventure.

I was in two minds about getting this because I'm a scaredy cat and I wasn't too clear on quite how "horror" this was. Someone I know played it as well and figured it might be my jam and - what do you know! It is!

If I had to compare it to something to give you an idea of the general feeling, I'd probably go with Silent Hill 2, but with more snow and very well suited for the Christmas season. At least, I like playing games with some puzzle aspects in them during the Christmas holidays, and this fit the bill perfectly. So much so I ended up playing it all day until 2 AM, which is really rare for me. I am therefore really knackered today...

All in all, I think you can get a decent idea of whether you might like the ambience from the demo, though that doesn't really have any of the puzzles. The puzzles aren't really of the point-and-click variety, they all revolve around finding different combinations for the buttons on the elevator. I only got stuck once, and I think that's because I didn't pick up on a narrative cue which I'll spoiler here: if you're stuck and can't think of any possible puzzle that might give you a new combination for the elevator remember one of the notes pointed out that you didn't meet the woman in the elevator and therefore have you considered trying the original elevator sequence again?

My play time is a bit off because I often have to go and do stuff and forget (or don't care) to quit the game, but I'd say this could very well entertain you for an afternoon and evening of relaxed play. I played the developers' previous VN Blank Space and I'd say this is a more refined experience and I liked it better overall, although the puzzles are of a different kind compared to the more point-and-click variety BS had, so keep that in mind if that's a deal breaker for you.

I wasn't initially sold on the art, but I actually really like all of the inserts and I think it works really well for the story. This is probably a case where screenshots don't really give you an idea of how an art style might work in a game until you give it a try.
The music was quite atmospheric and worked really well.

There are several endings, and I'm missing one of the secret ones, but I did get the true ending and I get the impression there could be space for more stories in this universe. I certainly would be interested in seeing more.

* As an aside: I can't really comment on the voice acting because I don't like playing VNs with voices. There is an option to remove them and still have the music and SFXs, should you so desire.
**In case the font is a bit hard for you to read for any reason, press 'a' and change it to a more default one. This is apparently an option in every Ren'Py game, it's just not very apparent. This makes some text spill a bit at times, but I still preferred it to the chosen font, which was a bit hard for me to parse.