One year later from its release, here I am playing Lake of Voices, a free visual novel by GB Patch Games.
The premise of this story is simple: a group of people find themselves on the banks of a lake they need to cross in order to quickly reach a village on the other side. But the lake is cursed and is home to monsters that like to drown the humans attempting to pass the maze of bridges. A nameless guide is the only person able to help them through this journey, and he makes it clear from the very beginning that anyone can be saved but not everyone will be.
The quality of this visual novel is too good to be free, so I am happy of having taken the time to play this at last.
The story has a high level of replayability and by that I mean that you have to play multiple times in order to discover all secrets hidden in the plot.
There are many timed choices that play up the tension of these life-or-death decisions, along with non-timed ones that determine any eventual romantic interest or route choice.
Art style is good with a fog-like text box, appropriate to the atmosphere.
In addition, this vn is fully voice-acted in English and in my opinion with pretty good actors by standards.
I don't have any particular criticism against this title apart from the fact that I noticed that part of the music (or all?) was reused from the devs' previous title A Foretold Affair since I was able to recognize at least one track. On the other hand, I played that game over a year ago, so I am really surprised that I was somehow able to remember its music.
Description
Kikka the Steadfast works as an official guard for one of the many tiny villages in the region. Her most recent assignment is to travel with fellow guard Bemelle to an allied town that’s been under siege by raiders.
With an ever-present sense of urgency, the two find themselves on the shore of Sinnlos, a cursed lake of black water that is home to the Nixi; twisted creatures who take joy in drowning humans. The two need the assistance of a nameless guide to even attempt to cross the maze of bridges spanning the dark waters. But they are not the only ones seeking passage that night. The guide agrees to lead them all, whilst also giving a warning that a group this large has no chance of making it across whole.
Screenshots
Oh wow, I had this wishlisted for a long time now and forgotten or maybe didn’t even notice it’s free ~ That’s cool, good thing you played and brought it up! It does seem like it’s a good quality especially for it being free, plus there’s voice acting? Yay 🙏🏼
Obligatory grammar nazi comment: you misspelled “mystery” in your tag there. ;)
As far as music goes, you shouldn’t be surprised, really. If you try hard enough, you might remember songs that were popular a decade back, even, provided you heard them enough times. Pretty sure two or more would be enough for that already :D Besides, if providing full voice acting means they had to reuse BGM, it’s not something I personally see as a fault; it’s more like a compromise.
Yeah… but I had only played it once, I don’t have that much of a musical memory so I was surprised
I’m telling you, it’s totally subconscious. If you like a song, you’re gonna want to remember it anyway, if you hate a song, it might be a pesky earworm at times, but you’ll do your best not to listen to it, probably… and then music you feel neutral towards… is there.