More like 100 Cats (Hidden in Plain Sight).

All Sookie wants to do is live a quiet, peaceful life. However, her extremely bad luck subjects her to getting killed over and over again, like a cartoon character. And she can't die, even if she wanted to! Where any other person would, she just wakes up like nothing ever happened soon after. This unusual part of her existence draws the attention of the headmaster of the mysterious school she just enrolled at, who presents her with an ultimatum: she is to defeat the seven MISFITS or get expelled.
20b may only be an hour long, but it absolutely oozes charm while having a balls-to-the-wall plot. It's so bonkers, in fact, that I feel like saying more than the official synopsis would be spoiling the fun. If you like what you just read, or if you at least enjoy well-made indie VNs, this is your cue to go and pick it up.

Based on what the store page promised, I thought this was going to be a lot more hectic. As it stands, it's just a simulation of multiple, mostly tedious, menial tasks. Too bad I like menial tasks. I don't, however, like the message this game tries to leave you with. I'm glad the dev followed this up with a game focused on data entry. They should do one for each of the tasks. (…Okay, maybe not the microwave one.)

Based on a real piece of Polish history, A Day at the Palace follows a couple of fictional siblings, Peter and Marysia, as they arrive in Lidzbark Warmiński in 1772 to begin their work as servants for bishop Ignacy Krasicki. You get to follow them as they meet the residents of the palace and learn about their new duties. Certain tasks, such as lighting a fireplace or polishing pewter, are featured by way of minigames. Depending on how well you help them do their jobs (and how many questions you ask when prompted), you'll get points (which ultimately mean nothing, but it's satisfying to watch them go up).
The story culminates with the mysterious disappearance of the silver spoon. I played through the game three times to see how the ending changes, but each and every ending left me unsatisfied. Maybe I missed something, but even the - in my opinion, at least - obvious culprit does not get caught red-handed.
I was positively surprised by the fact that a game set in Poland is not Warsaw-centric, but I couldn't help but wonder: "why Lidzbark Warmiński? it sounds so specific!" Well, guess I must have missed that history class, but as mentioned, not only was Ignacy Krasicki a bishop (besides being a writer, which is what he's mostly known for), he was a bishop in Lidzbark Warmiński. Oh, and the game was made in cooperation with some Polish history consultants and organizations, so yeah, this thing's legit.
Besides the story mode, there's also a minigame mode, which is a condensed run through all the minigames. Because it's shorter and features less characters, it's fully voiced by one and the same guy who already read out the minigame instructions and voiced the (female) cook in the story mode. He manages to make all the characters sound different from each other, but at the same time, it's very obviously all him. If nothing else, I'd say this game is worth picking up just to experience that.

I was excited to check this one out, because I liked the art style from the very first time I saw it. (For what it's worth, the UI design is also beautiful.)
However, I really paid attention to the "Murder Mystery" tag on VNDB and completely missed the much smaller "Japanese Mythology" tag…
There is not a murder mystery to be found here; if you were thinking of reading it for that reason, I say you're free to look elsewhere.
Despite the excellent presentation, this story is ultimately too short for the reader to bond with its characters or even feel like a conclusive, satisfactory narrative. I've already read this group's previous works and I'm probably going to keep reading the following ones, but I'm disappointed to say this was not above par for me, which I expected it to be.

A prequel to the upcoming Alex's Journey to the Grave, Alex's Hope follows a boy named Alex as his suicide attempt is halted by a stray cat and Alex's Solitude follows a girl named Alex as she learns the importance of intervening when a situation goes south and that having no friends is better than having fake ones.
Alex's Hope is much less detailed than Alex's Solitude, but I'm interested in the follow-up regardless. Looking at preview screenshots, the protagonists will be interacting with each other in that one. Can't wait to see where it goes.

A short set in the Portal universe, designed to introduce the Steam Deck controls.
I'm not surprised even people who don't own the Deck want to have a go at it. Still, I can't help but think "regular controllers don't even have L/R 4/5 buttons! wait until you have a Deck or go play something else!"
I thought all bits of the Deck would get equal use here, so I'm a little disappointed on that front. Oh well. At least I got to control a toilet turret. A turrlet.
It's funny how the prompt asking if I think the game should be Verified comes up for this game, too. It's your dang game, Valve! It'd be surprising if the game made exclusively for the Deck just up and stopped working on it.

Three women wake up aboard a spaceship; Erica, the captain, Kotoha, the mechanic and Sara, the doctor. Erica seems to be the only one who's not confused about her whereabouts, so she informs the other two that they're currently on a mission, aboard a ship named Blossom. Kotoha seems excited and readily trusts Erica while Sara insists there must be something more to this situation. Over the first week, the girls get to know each other, and by the time the second week comes around, it turns out that Sara might have been right…
I'm naturally drawn to cheerful and funny characters, so I liked Kotoha right away. However, I feel like there's gotta be some kind of special prize for the writers for making me hate Sara as immediately as possible. Writing a potential love interest who so strongly dislikes a protagonist for faults that I, as a reader, do not perceive is a bold choice to be sure. I might even go as far as to say that she's creepy. Whenever she'd appear in a scene, the mood would turn sour and I'd anticipate the worst.
Giving the girls less than a week to fall in love with each other (the game ends after two weeks) is far from ideal, but at least in Kotoha's case, it seems believable.
On her route, she and Erica spend some quality time together and if you get her good ending, they become a couple. In her bad ending, Erica fails to understand just how inferior Kotoha sees herself to be in comparison with Sara and upon Kotoha's suggestion, decides to ask Sara to be part of their relationship. I usually enjoy the suffering that comes with bad ends, but this one might be the first bad end in a while that made me a bit sad.
Sara's route is more… off. She invites Erica to her room for a late-night chat, to then ask if Erica could act as a replacement for the fiance she had to leave behind back on Earth. Thankfully, no matter what you choose, this doesn't end up happening.
It does, however, make Sara shut herself in her room for the next two days. On the morning she comes out, she's in the dining hall with breakfast at the ready before Erica and Kotoha get there. Erica feels nauseous afterwards, so Kotoha and Sara carry her to Sara's room. After some rest, she finds that she's unable to move her body. She also witnesses Sara acting… unnatural. The next day, thankfully, she's back to normal. When Kotoha gets her alone, she reveals that she thinks Sara poisoned her. Sara later apologizes for this chain of events, saying she wasn't acting like herself as it all went down, but…
In her good ending, despite everything, Erica somehow falls in love with her and they share a kiss. In her bad ending… oh boy… she kills Kotoha, then finds Erica and possibly restrains her, not to mention implied sexual assault.
Not that her fiance plays a big role in the story or anything, but if she really is a yandere, why should I trust that he's just as happy with their relationship as she is? I don't feel like I can trust anything about her by this point.
Considering Sara's bad ending, I think Blossoms Bloom Brightest could use a trigger warning or two. Other than that… I've still barely scratched the surface of WLW media, but anything that doesn't ride off of the "cool and refined, yet toxic girl x innocent and overly trusting, puppy-like girl" dynamic is fine with me. Erica is nowhere near that first archetype, because she's clueless in her own right.
The character art and UI design are okay (I really like Kotoha's design, though her asymmetric hairstyle makes her mirrored sprite look off), but the music is fantastic. It's ass-backwards that the devs are selling dakimakura designs for each girl and not the soundtrack. The girls are also partially voiced, which is a nice sentiment, but most of the voice lines are generic stuff, which doesn't even relate to what they're actually saying half the time.
Oh, and I got the achievement for completing the gallery before I even started playing… I thought this might be an issue related to playing on the Deck, but I spotted a non-Deck negative review that mentioned it as well. So… if you're in a situation where you're gonna have to explain the timestamps on your achievements, you might wanna pay attention to that.

In Crown Delights Deli, you're Jules, a teenager whose mom suggested they get a job over the summer.
This brings you to the backroom of Crown Delights, a Brooklyn bodega run by Mr Javi. Javi hires you, noting that it's a people job and that you gotta watch the rating. Over the next few days, you need to establish good rapport with the customers by talking to them in English, Spanish or AAVE to match their preferences.
This was not on my agenda, but it wouldn't run properly on my laptop, so I figured I might as well try it out on the Deck. Despite the Unknown compatibility rating, it runs flawlessly. On PC, it has a bug where, unless your system locale is set to English (USA), the game will freeze shortly into the first day. As someone in the discussion about this problem noted, it's hilariously ironic that a game all about code-switching should have this kind of bug.
If you do get to play it, though, it's very easy. You can get fired pretty quickly if you don't give a damn (and there is an achievement for that), but it's not hard to keep up the perfect rating all throughout the summer. The game is only about an hour long, but it doesn't even feel like it takes place over three months, as it only chooses to show a few days in June and July, none in August. That being said, there is a small cast of characters, most of whom are happy to build rapport with you, too. At the end of the game, you can talk to Javi about any and all of them, if you wish to do so and it's implied that you might go back to work at Crown Delights again in the future. So yeah, it's a short yet pleasant experience.

Made for a game jam, Culling of Normality follows a seemingly ordinary family of farmers over the course of a few unusual days.
I… guess I understood the plot? I don't want to spoil anything, since it's very short. I'm amazed that, even though two people were listed in the credits as proofreaders, there were so many basic spelling errors across the game (like "havn't" or "famer"… seriously?)
But more obvious than that is the fact that all the in-game art was AI-generated. The story could have been fantastic otherwise and this still would have put a sour taste in my mouth. I can't recommend this one to anybody.

Abandoned after releasing two of five planned episodes, FEAST follows Rosemaryn, a lower nobleman on his way to a certain academy his family would like him to enroll at. On the way, his carriage is attacked by a beast and his companion, Wheylock, is killed. This sets Rosemaryn on an entirely different path.
FEAST is clearly ambitious in scope - there are many ways to die, especially during fights. One encounter in particular is a turn-based affair, while others involve QTEs. I liked the creativity when it came to the gory visuals; most notably, how when Wheylock is killed, the front of his head slides clean off like it's a mask. He then appears on the game over screen, using it as such. He mentions the titular feast, but we never get to learn what it was truly meant to be.
On the bright side, the devs fully intended for the players to follow along with the world they created, seeing as there are designated menus for character bios, lore points and even a map screen that would gradually fill up with hot spots as the story progressed. They even made up three different fantasy races (which I'm sure you've already seen in other works under different names, but still.)
Also notable is the fact that the game was originally only available in Russian, but eventually got an English translation due to player demand. I bring attention to this because, unfortunately, the translation is subpar. Spelling mistakes, missing words and grammatical errors all made me itch for a solid editing pass. That being said, this is from before machine translation was as widespread as it is now and whoever was in charge of it would have gladly taken feedback about it, if the note at the start of the game is to be believed.
The character art is neat and I'm glad that even though the game ends at such a random point, we at least get to meet the poster girl. The UI design is nice, I like that the menu hides itself in a small button in the top right corner of the screen. I can't say anything notable about the music, except that when the action ramps up, a rock track will kick in.
FEAST works perfectly on the Deck, but I wouldn't recommend playing it there because there's one particular QTE I kept failing since I couldn't see whether or not I was doing it right while tracing the touchscreen.

I don't even know anything about the main game, but since this is a VN, you know I had to bite.
Assuming everyone else knows what the main game's about, this is a short story about KK and his team getting a call from a boy named Ryota, who needs help finding his lost friend.
Most of the choices boil down to which member of the team KK wants to talk to or ask for something (you can also just choose himself). These are only flavor text, though. Normally I would have explored all the choices, but because this VN was made in Unity, it doesn't have even half of the options you'd expect from a traditional VN, so it would have taken more time than necessary. For the record, I picked Erika every time.
I've seen negative reviews from people interested in the main game say this is kind of a miss when compared and contrasted, and as someone who didn't care for it (up until now, I guess), I felt like I was dropped right in the middle of a story that's been going on for hours already anyway.
Also, for some inexplicable reason the voices are treated as SFX… despite the existence of a dedicated slider for the voice volume. Sure, the voice acting is so limited it may not even be there, but… you gotta pick a lane. Either get the mixing right or get rid of the option to control voice volume.
This left me so bored and unimpressed, I might actually look into the main game just to learn what the hell even happened here.

The last of the free VNs set in the Purgatory-verse, Guidelicious has you wake up in a mysterious room filled with variety of significant items. Or, well, this guy who's in the room with you claims they are.
The game will prompt you for a name, but screw that; to The Guide (that's the guy's name), you're "Miss Pumpkin". The Guide will then ask you to look around the room and pick a single item that catches your eye.
My problem with this is, the game chooses for you - you can't pick any other item than the exact one the game lets you highlight at a given point.
This will prompt The Guide to talk about the memories tied to said item in the most vague way possible, which will lead you to feel weak and faint. Rinse and repeat until you've collected all available endings.
I assume I got the picture of "Miss Pumpkin"'s story, but I won't spoil it here.
I don't love that these shorts are so… well… short and utterly vague. Don't know that I'll remember anything from them if I ever do get to playing the main game. That being said, they do make me interested in it… so I guess that's mission accomplished? I just hope it's not nearly as flavorless as these spin-offs.
Also, both Steam and VNDB tagged this one as an "otome game" just cause it's about a vaguely attractive man talking to a female protagonist. That's not enough for it to be an otome game, y'all.

This is one of those VNs so elusive they're not even available on VNDB yet. (Culling of Normality isn't either and I'm too lazy to add them at the moment.)
Anyway, this one is about a company so secretive it's got its employees working in facilities deep underground, with everyone focused on their job and their job only. Now, there's been an emergency and four of them are locked in, with seemingly no way out. As luck would have it, however, they all have access to a computer, so they can talk to each other. After an introductory group chat, you can read each of the chat logs and then, you'll get to what's really going on. The visuals are strictly limited to simulate a minimalistic, old school OS (which arguably clashes with the premise of the company being so technologically advanced it keeps everything a secret), so you won't get to see anything they talk about, which is a shame.
And the twist… ahhh. It was disappointing and made me feel like there was no value to the entirety of the game.
A few negative reviews suggested it's like a worse version of an old Newgrounds game, so I might check that out soon.

Jack Friday wakes up in a hospital after a serious injury. One of the nurses at said hospital is Anna, whom he loathes. He's made up his mind to kill her after he recovers. There's just one problem: Anna kidnapped his girlfriend, Grace. Through Jack's secret journal, you get to learn how it got to this.
It's an interesting story which doesn't make you feel lost despite starting near the end. I do think that the only good ending is kinda fucked up, considering it seems to ignore everything that happened in the story proper.
Something unusual I'd like to mention is, this game first starts at 0% volume on all sliders. Perhaps an unconventional move and I may or may not have played it at a lower volume than I normally would have due to this, but I think it's better than getting your ears blown out.
I'd say I'm interested to check out more from this dev, but they haven't made anything before this, and as far as everyone knows, they disappeared afterwards. It's a shame, because despite finding Kill or Love just a tad sub-par, I feel like it shows promise.

3DCG porn games are an easy "Ignore" at the Steam store for me, but at the same time, I just can't pass up a free game with achievements. So, I finally took the plunge and checked this one out.
It's exactly what I thought it would be. The protagonist, Tucker, is a serial stalker and peeping tom, and fully aware of it being wrong. His victim, Lola, is a straight man's bimbo doll idea of a woman.
I don't mind the art style - in fact, I prefer it to the style most 3DCG porn games use - but I'm not a fan of cel-shading. The voice acting is AI-generated, and I'm not surprised; I can't imagine anyone wanting to voice act in a game like this. Lola lives in the so-called "House Party house" - the popular free asset commonly used in games, though most recognized as, well, the house from House Party. At least that's a fun detail.
I like me a lewd story where the protagonist isn't a sexual offender, but rather a clueless, likeable dork. Devs who make games like this don't seem to understand the difference that makes in a work.

This one was already localized by competent people, but PRODUCTION PENCIL went ahead and MTLed it anyway. No comment.

It's about a girl who lives in a town full of holes. She likes to peek inside those holes. In the holes, she gets to see tiny towns with tiny buildings and tiny people. The holes themselves, however, are too small for regular-sized people to get through them.
Sorry, it's adapted from a poem, so this is all you get. I can't imagine what the hell the original poem must have looked like, but if it's 1:1, that would have been a bad poem, nevermind what it's like as a visual novel.
The art style is cute, sure, and the whole thing is narrated by a woman who will omit a mistake in the script to then make a brand new one herself.
I don't know, man… I'm not a fan of hating on games that aren't "bad", but… this is basically a whole bunch of nothing.