Shared Beauty

What a haunting story! The abandoned witch’s cabin with her eerie spells and the faceless protagonist give off a feeling of a place lost to history! The facelessness of most of the characters does so well in emphasizing how unseen the protagonist feels she and her fellow villagers are compared to Faralda and Odan. (I felt for the villagers that gave up their best food for someone already rich.)

I only wish there was more about the mysterious witch or a longer reflection of sorts before the end.

Spoilers The world and magical phenomena in Shared Beauty has captured my imagination! I wonder if the three of them got Faralda’s beauty after the end. Also if the witch became more wrinkled at times and younger later, does that mean she was killed to return the beauty to others?

An astonishing story of jealousy, bitterness, magic, and violence--I was completely drawn in.  Beautiful character designs and movement, and characters that are at once both incredibly flawed and relatable.  I love how often the characters in this story KNOW that what they're feeling or the way they perceive a situation is flawed and unfair--and we watch them struggle to come to terms with those feelings.

I've only gotten two endings so far, and I'm keen to get back to it and discover what else is writhing under the surface here. 

An enchanting and haunting dark fairytale! I always enjoy stories that explore the cost of magic, and this does so with aplomb. Taking inspiration from Lotte Reiniger's art is also a brilliant choice: the grayscale backgrounds and the use of cutout silhouette sprites make Faralda and Odan stand out that much more as belonging to some world that is brighter and beyond reach for the other characters, and the half-NVL ui serves to add even more to the storybook quality. Beautiful work all around!

(Just copy-pasting what I said in spooktober page cause I truly did enjoy this game) 

After completing the game and collected all 4 endings, I was honestly blown away by how much quality there is in this game. The writing, the UI, and the small animations were so effective and immersive. Truly a dark fairytale with no 'true' happy ending. Though, very believable given the circumstances. It's like 'getting hit with reality' when we see the consequences of the characters' actions and how there's no real way out of it. Either they go with the solution or live with what they've done. Even the 'best' ending was still tragic (but sweet) since Isgard, the protagonist, still has to live with what she's done despite doing the right thing. Though, I do appreciate how there's no last min solution to give a happy ending that would have felt forced.

I really liked the heroine we play as too. Especially how she's got some vices like her jealousy and how cold she can get depending on your choices. Yet can still do better and does have a soft side. It's amusing how much of a 'side character' she was while Faralda felt more like a 'main character' with her kind nature, beauty, and capturing the heart of the stoic noble. Something you'd see in a regular romance story. Small note: I would've loved to see more of the two girls' friendship! I enjoyed the few scenes they had.

It may have been a short game, I still enjoyed everything about it and would LOVE to check out a longer version or more games from the dev!

Literally all i can think about is how pretty odan is hahahahaha
I'm sure I can think of other things to say about this VN but he is just too pretty...
My heart...
Aaaaa.........

If Spooktober had a 'most handsome character' rating category, I think Odan would win hands down (at least, in my heart)
Thank you for blessing my unworthy eyes with such a beautiful bishounen 🙏🙏🙏

Oh, and the music and cinematography in this VN are top notch! The presentation is really good all around; you did a great job!

A beautiful and haunting story. I didn't have time to do all the routes during stream but I went back to get all the endings off stream! The cinemaphotography is amazing and you really feel for all the characters involved in the story. The suspense really built up as a OH BOY WHAT DO WE DO NOW? The gallery is also super cool!

Honestly I'm a lil conflicted because I kinda wish we had a glimpse of Miltruad and Siglind's appearances considering the role they play in this is (in my opinion) pretty big and might give more weight when you er... don't follow their lead. BUT I do understand the nature of this VN to be very storybook like and for the focus to be on Isgard, Faralda and Odan. The usage of silhouettes for everyone else really highlights Faralda's beauty.

P.S. Apologies for thinking Isgard was a male character at the start of the playthrough.  I didn't remember the character images at the time :')

Well, dark fairy tale is right...

What a delightful game, I loved it! The art is great, the story is even better, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. It's been a while since I've gotten so invested. Great work!

Here's my little take. No facecam or commentary. I did it in small bite-size bith to make the tension last...

This game has been a beautiful experience from start to finish. I played alongside two members of my own team, with one of them reading along, and we were amazed at how gorgeous the GUI was!

Then, as we went through the story, I became more and more immersed, theorizing what could be happening and reasoning. It was absolutely captivating! I was devastated upon getting the traitor ending first, but gosh those cinematics are soooo cool! We went ahead to get all the endings and by the last one, Legacy, I cried, you made me cry! I loved it, it broke my heart in a beautiful way.

The moral of this story for me is: Read the instructions and side effects properly before performing a spell with your squad.

(Copied from my Spooktober rating page review to help this game within itch.io's algorithm!)

Shared Beauty is exactly what it advertises itself to be: a dark fairytale with no happy conclusion (I think? - I got 3 out of the 4 endings, and they were all very sad). This isn't a bad thing at all - it means it got across its tone as intended.

The character art is lovely - especially the CGs. I love the way the key visuals in the game were rendered: they felt very professional. And speaking of visuals - the cinematography in this work was lovely too. I could tell you really used the Ren'Py Action Editor well here - especially in scenes with little gestures like Isgard, Faralda and the other village girls walking to Odan's tent. 

I genuinely wonder how you did it - because I've begun using the Action Editor itself and while its a very useful tool, it can get very... fiddly at times, haha.

I also think the presentation of the in-game UI adds to the "fairytale" feeling - with all of the dialogue and descriptions taking place in one NVL window. There aren't many NVL-only titles for jams like these, so I'm glad to see this form of visual novel get a bit more love.

On the writing front; I do really like the central themes of beauty and envy, especially when it comes to Faralda. Faralda's beauty makes the other village women jealous, but she's a genuinely sweet and thoughtful girl... which makes seeing her fate in some endings all the harder. 

All in all, well done! Thanks for bringing this title into the world.

"Dark fairy tale" really is the perfect descriptor for this game. The story is haunting, the endings are gut-wrenching, and the simple, monochrome style with splashes of colour really suit the atmosphere. Wonderful work!

This hurt a lot. It was such an amazing story, though. I loved the storytelling of it all with the cinematography and artstyle -- so beautifully tragic. 

(I also really wanted to say that I absolutely love the logo - the S and the B entangling each other to represent the title, ugh so brilliant.)

This game was amazing. I loved the art style, the setting, the writing was really great as well!

I did a lets play of only one of the endings, and personally I don't know if I could bare to see the others. I'm so glad I got the ending I did!

You can check it out here, I have made sure to link the game so people can support you!

Drama? Check

Historical setting? Check

Mystery? Check

Omnious spells? Check!

I'm definitely gonna play this