Toxic Yuri VN Log, Pt. 1
2025-07-28
I decided to go through as many of the Toxic Yuri VN Jam games as I could that I found remotely interesting and it turns out that's a lot of them. Will I get through my whole list ever? Who can say but I'm going to do my rubesty.
See the original thread on bsky here!
Fish Party by Dirtmaster - Came in not knowing what to expect, got a meaty, sexual kind of Disco Elysium with incredibly memorable and unique, surreal visuals. Feels like wandering through A Midsummer Night's Dream while not being sure if you're one of the fair folk or an unfortunate mortal up until the very end. As with some of the best Shakespeare, it's also hilariously dirty and incredibly bloody.
Sunshine Backwards by Chambersoft - I’ve thought a lot over the last decade or so—especially post-2016—about how fear and trauma and insecurity can boil over from people who have no good outlet for it; the way loneliness and poor boundaries can turn catastrophic under pressure. Someone drowning will grab onto anything, even if it drags both of them down.
I didn’t actually make any proper internet friends until after college because my parents trained me too well to ghost at the first ask of age, sex, or location. Even so, having both grown up on the internet and struggled with forming friendships as a kid, the way Sonia and Rosy haunt each other is so deeply painful in its realism… and also in how the game has compassion for both of them as people. In some ways, it’s easier to make a monster of someone rather than face who they really are—even when that someone is yourself. And sometimes that monster eats you with teeth all the way down.
I was saying to one of my own game jam teams that there’s something I really like about works where it’s not like anyone sets out to behave badly, it’s just that everyone is a flawed person and their best method of coping is “making that everyone’s problem.” It feels… honest, to me, I guess, even if it sometimes feels like eating nails, and I think there’s something important about telling those kinds of stories. So: thank you. Incredible work. I will be thinking about this forever.
Also, additional traumatizing factor: 2013 being long ago enough to be a time you’d have a flash drive of Ancient Sins from. I’m the crypt keeper
Haunt Holy by ClaymoreGwen - holy is OUT holy has DESTROYED ITS CAGE
damn. reading this was like watching a train crash in slow motion—you can see where it’s going and you’re still kind of hoping it’ll crank the brakes at the last second while also knowing that the time anyone could have stopped is long past.
the feeling of palpable isolation—other characters rarely mentioned on screen, and a tense or hostile presence when they are; luna being away from home in a place where she only has one person she can talk to, literally—underlines the characters’ relationship really well, i think. so tightly in each others’ orbit that the crash is inevitable.
also the last screen was really just. incredible final note to end on.
Cigarettes for Shion by AOKORO - Oh this is so lovely and bittersweet. I really like how the length of the game made space for the author to lean into having animation for atmosphere and pacing, and fitting something within exactly 100 words is honestly a serious challenge and an art.
Snowcorpse Necromancy by Nadia Nova - damn itch nuked my proper long comment. I moved this one up my list after seeing the author note in a devlog that she put this together this in like six days. It does a lot with very simple visual choices—moody, grungy backgrounds, slight distortion effects, large text that takes up the whole screen like intrusive thoughts.
The way Lexona and Revo are driven together—Revo fashioning Lexona into a doll she can hold onto for warmth when she can't express vulnerability to any people, all the while Lexona has to depend on her for survival—is about as bleak as the surrounding permafrost of the setting. Dolls don't even get the last word.
Melt by DoobleDeeDooble and remidie - This was soooooo cute—I really liked the gestural style of the backgrounds and Marimaite and Sitri’s facial expressions are just really cute and full of character. The UI is really simple but I liked the flourishes of the little flame graphic as the next-page icon, and the fact that the only thing not in black-and-white is demons with their signature colors. It’s very evocative of demons being out of joint with the world and kind of uncanny. Also, incredible music choices.
Also Marimaite and Sitri’s dynamic is just really charming to me. My #1 favorite is when fictional women are mean to each other and this was really peak as they do the will-they-or-won’t-they (kill each other) dance.
Birdcage by Gretcheen - I’m not going to lie I read this because the description being just “I can’t bear to look at this any longer. Forgive me” was a real “ok what is going ON in there.”
When she reveals that the “dog” at the closet door is her husband because that really set the tone for the whole thing. (I admit I laughed.) Sonia getting to turn the tables on what’s implied to be her previous situation is cathartic, even if she is awful, and her realization that she really does like the idea of having a girlfriend who is hers is cute of her. (Also, the character art is very cute. June makes a cute girl.)
Not my usual cup of tea, but it really was fascinatingly toxic and I know a number of people where this is their exact cup of tea, so this was a nice rec to pass on.
Forest by ApplesCats - Really impressive for a first game! The use of traditional media for the sprites really suits the game—I liked how when either of them gets mad, the paper looks like it’s been burnt, and putting the physical sprite on the literal ground at the end was a neat bridging of the mediums.
I really liked the framing of Carol coming to Rafflesia’s grave and reminiscing/having a normal one over multiple visits, too; it kept the suspense of “what HAPPENED” very present.
DEAD DOLLS NEVER DIE by GUTTERBRIDE - The dreamlike feel of the art and the setting really works… like the kind of dream where you’re looking for the exit where you can’t find it or know you need to do something but can’t remember what. Beautiful and bittersweet.
Also high quality guro. I liked the part where Noelle did that thing with her tongue.
Throuple in Paradise by skroy - G-d this is so incredibly real. Feels like a very familiar and heartwrenching portrait of people who love each other a lot and also are at their fucking limits. I found myself really immediately caring about all of them.
Also, the art is really charming, especially the little speaking animations—it’s cute and different from the traditional way of doing sprites, and really made it feel alive! Also I'm giving Poppy like a hundred headpats.
WISHBLEED by deaddeaddeath - (jewishly) jesus christ
Whatever you're coming to this fucked-up family portrait for, you also get a meditation on juvenile justice and a momentary laugh about prison having taught mary the classics but not what country the pink, blue and white flag is. The characters feel very human while they're at their worst and coping absolutely atrociously.