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I decided that if I could review the game about ALGEBRA BEING FUN I could probably review some things more of you might actually be interested in. So! Off the top of my head without overthinking, let's go!

Lots of m/m, some m/f, and a little f/f and gen.

Live Action TV: Sandman, Old Fashioned Cupcake

Games: Nurse Love Syndrome, London Detetctive Mysteria

Anime: My Dress Up Darling, SpyxFamily, Sasaki and Miyano, Hirano and Kagiura, Umibe no Etranger

Prose fiction: Light Tea and Sweet Wine, The Wrong Way To A Demon Sect Leader, You Boys Play Games Very Well, spit_kitten
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Over on tumblr, bamboocounting asked for recs for good narrative games without any difficult gameplay, and I thought it would make a good topic for a post.
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I really enjoyed the Chinese fantasy m/f romance visual novel My Vow To My Liege, historical RPF set in the 5th Century BC Kingdom of Ng/Wu about various real and mythical people. The protagonist is King Fuchai, a woman cross-dressing for Reasons (to do with Evil Dragons)

It's well made, with good art, UI, music, and (Mandarin) voice acting. The writing is pretty good, too, a little repetitive in parts and with some pacing issues but made with a lot of heart. The English translation was done by one of the writers and is a little clunky and in need of proof-reading but has some moments of real poetry. And the game is LONG, you get a ridiculous amount of story for the low price.

Content notes for the game: suicide, violence, incest (not a love interest), rape (not from a love interest), age gap ships, slavery, fatphobia, hurtful gender reveal, master-slave relationship, major character death, violence between love interests

Here's the masterlist of my reaction posts and a character guide.

More thoughts, no spoilers:
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The Chinese fantasy m/f romance visual novel My Vow To My Liege is historical RPF set in the 5th Century BC Kingdom of Ng/Wu about various real and mythical people. The protagonist is King Fuchai, now a woman cross-dressing for Reasons (to do with Evil Dragons)
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An Otomate dating sim about a Japanese policewoman who gets tangled up in a Strange Mystery about a Weird Terrorist Group.
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Someone on a discord I'm on found out I'd backed the kickstarter for this game then never gotten around to actually playing the almost finished version currently available. She successfully encouraged me to do so, asking to hear my reactions, and I though some of the rest of you might be interested too.

So! Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem is a fantasy visual novel with stats building and romance. You play a customisable noblewoman sent to an international conference to form a political marriage.

The demo came out in 2015 and I had a lot of fun with it, the full game has been in development hell since then but apparently what exists is pretty satisfying.

Here's my non-spoilery review of the demo with more info about the game.

And here's a spoilery post I made as I aimed for various goals, much of which is entirely incomprehensible to me now haha.

I'm going to write up my reactions as I go, so expect spoilers! I'm going to assume you've read my non-spoilery review, but will try and explain everything else. Especially since I might need some notes, I vaguely recall failing at a bunch of things my first few times through >.>

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There was another of those massive itchio bundles recently, this time for Palestinian Aid. Having bought a copy, I went through all FORTY THREE pages of games to compile some recs with half-assed notes. If you didn't buy the bundle the games might be worth checking out anyway.

If you have opinions on any of these please let me know!
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7'scarlet(*) is a mystery m/f romance game written by Tomio Kanazawa, the producer of the Twin-Peaks-esque Deadly Premonition, for Otomate, makers of Hakuoki, Psychdelica of the Black Butterfly etc. The protagonist, Ichiko, is investigating the disappearance of her brother in a small country town.

(*)Note: the Steam trailer is a bit spoilery
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So I bought this otome game on the Switch because I'd enjoyed the couple of routes I'd played for free on Love365 (which aren't included in this version) and liked the characters. Mostly it's the fluffy tropey romance I was expecting but to my complete surprise there's ACTUAL QUEER CHARACTERS?? And two of the love interests are ambiguously shippy???

Unfortunately I have VERY mixed feelings about how this is all handled, but don't remember any queerness whatsoever in any other Love365 game, so overall I'm not sure how I feel.

Anyway. The premise is that the heroine is a journalist whose mother has just gotten married to a guy with a son her age...who turns out to be a workmate! And also her housemate! And NOBODY MUST KNOW!!

I've played three main routes and some side stories. I'll probably play the others at some point when the premise feels fresh again.

Akiyoshi: Your strict but decent boss, like a slightly bossy older brother. This was very cute.
Kaede: An awkward, stand-offish kuudere with Secret Pain. This was also pretty cute. Also he was weirdly shippy with Chiaki, who'd seemed creepy so I'd not been intending to romance him, but I got curious...
Chiaki: Charming sadistic manipulator who secretly hates women. CONSENT ISSUES AHOY. He was interesting but also awful. He gets nice by the end but ehhh. They actively avoid addressing his feelings about Kaoru.

The remaining dudes are a nice guy and a sharp tongued tsundere.

The side stories have to be played one after the other, the couple I've done were ok but didn't add much to my experience. It's stuff like the plot from the guy's POV and various sequels.

The port to Switch was competently done, it works fine on a big screen being played all at once with a console controller.

Ok so that's my review. Now for my reactions.

Content note: Consent issues, mixed treatment of gay/bi characters
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Review: a Japanese otome m/f dating sim about a sad ninja princess questioning whether her life has meaning. It's great! I haven't played all the routes but the ones I did were really well done. They're all ninja she has complicated quasi-incestuous relationships with and tend to involve a certain amount of Angst And Drama About Being A Murderer For Hire, and either you're into that or you're not. But the relationships are all also very sweet and romantic with plenty of light moments, and the stories fit together nicely.

Content note: suicide, emotional abuse.
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