Pyre

[got_quiet]

Name: Pyre
Status: Complete
Site: https://supergiant-games.itch.io/pyre
Pairing: Gen-ish, possible M/F
Description: Cry over fantasy basketball.
 

Of all the games in the BLM Visual Novel category, Pyre is hands down the most prestigious. It's a game that the general gaming public is aware of, thanks to the strong track record of its developer, Supergiant Games, and it's one of the few, maybe only games in this group that that not only has coverage but mainstream coverage. It's also somewhat tangentially a VN, but its choice mechanics actually do feel more VN-like than many of the other games in the batch, so I think it's worthy of inclusion.

 

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While the ultimate outcome of your choices are moderately binary, either someone is free or not, the text modifies itself to describe their lives after with others depending on who else escaped with them, and while there isn't much time in the game to delve into the lore or the personal stories of the characters more than is necessary to provide a hook for the game play, this is still well done enough that as a player I felt the stakes and had an emotional investment in the outcome. So while there are mechanics in Pyre similar to that of VNs, and while those particular mechanics are not notably complex, this still manages to be a game that has choice systems more interesting than many of the other games in the bundle, and is a game that manages to marry two genres successfully in a way I've never seen done before.