Borrowed Book
A downloadable game for Windows
"I FORGOTTEN TO RETURN THE BOOK!"
Megu forgotten to return the book by the deadline only to end up in a cliche situation with her friend, Rudy. Being trapped in the library...
Will they able to complete chores and return safely from their book returning experience or perhaps there is something more behind the scenes that seemed...off-putting?
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Borrowed Book is a simple yet heavy-dialogue; psychological horror RPG Maker game on two microorganisms attempting to completing their chores for the librarian to get out from the library quickly.
However, you'll mainly be controlling Rudy, the character that Megu pairs with from the start of the story.
Because for whatever reason, she's not good with chores and you're dealing with it.
Controls:
Movement - Arrow Keys
Menu - [X], [Esc]
Action - [Z], [Space], [Enter]
Cancel - [X], [Esc]
Notes:
Please be aware that there will a lot of dialogue that plays a huge part of this game so at most, there will be different dialogues for certain choices you make so it's advised you have to save frequently before you interact with a certain scene and grab items.
If you're not the type to like reading, then I'd suggest looking into another game, sorry. This is not a JRPG. Before anyone says it, I purposely disabled 'dashing' in the game because you don't need to run in the library. Really, you don't need to. Don't bother.
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Features:
- Estimation 15-30+ minutes playtime
- Multiple Endings (7 Endings + 1 Not Exactly An Ending but Left as a Mystery)
- Simple Puzzles
- Original CG Illustrations/Sprites (excluding tilesets)
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Warnings:
Mentions/Possible Imagery of
- Experimentation/Drug Abuse
- Body Horror
- Blood/Violence/Gore
- Murder/Death
- Bullying/Discrimination
- Questionable Moralities
Please be aware that you'll see some of these, the further you play the game so keep your sanity in check before you play this game.
(There is already a disclaimer in the game but it's summarised for the sake of avoiding adding a long list of things.)
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This game is made for the 14th RPG Maker Horror Game Jam which in total took the whole month of the submission time given and the extra extension date given to beta testers to test and find errors and refined ideal qualities.
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Note from Author:
"Do I regret doing this in a month, sort of but not really? I'm able to finished my oldest unfinished RPG Maker game that never came to fruition into something more dark compared to the older concept from last year.
Though you'll won't see me doing another game in the near future as I'm more occupied in another fandom doing fan art but if I ever do it again, I probably make one regarding my other characters and extend more on their stories but unlikely because RPG Maker is a menace; you can't tell me otherwise with my spaghetti coding in that program takes me weeks to polish even with several plugins did not save me from the several issues I had with its limitations. (And god forbid that when I finally clean up all stock images, I still have to have vehicles in the image folder or the game won't even work.)
You're always free to support by looking into my itch.io page for links to my social media to see my current artwork and for those who finished the game till the end, hope you love the extra room I slapped in.
I may update this game again to have better dialogue or artwork or something to the extra room but no promises."
P.S. If you literally came from the NSFW tag, 'gore' in the game is the reason I censored as sensitive content. HOWEVER itch.io refuse to separate it with the sexual content.
So in case you need to know what type of gore, it's the +16 rated. It's not realistic but it's minor/mild.
3rd July 2023: If you see the credit going to Phanokyo, it is still me. I run with a different name currently and I like to not use my previous name. Please respect that, thank you.
Download
Install instructions
How to Open Game:
- Unzip the file
- Open folder
- Run game.exe
Development log
- Compiled Artworks on PixivNov 06, 2022
- Bug Fixes and Updates (Version 1.1.)Nov 03, 2022
- Current (1.0) Bug IssuesOct 26, 2022
Comments
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Pretty cool!
Thank you very much for the compliment! I appreciate it.
heard that Mary Had A Lost Lamb was a spinoff to this, so i wanted to check it out. i liked it quite a bit!
it's so cool to see such an original world and characters. definitely can't say i've seen any game with a concept quite like this, and it made for a really engaging sense of discovery, as i was compelled to figure out what was the world i was playing in and what was the story behind every character. it truly feels like there's a whole universe on the other side of the screen, and a really dark and intriguing one at that!
i really like the art, which gives each character a unique identity and heightens the disturbing moments tenfold; and the puzzles, which aren't super complex but really feel like the kind of petitions these haunted spirits would make, and also feel like there's a horrible consequence if you don't get them right. but my favorite part of the game was, without a doubt, the tonal whiplash. obviously i expected horror elements because of the game's description and content warnings, but... (KINDA SPOILERS) instead of going all in at the start, or even hinting about any sort of horror, the game genuinely starts like a lighthearted and charming quest to help all the ghosts in a haunted library, and i love that! i love that the start makes you keep your guard down and think for a moment that it's going to be a happy and tension-free game, only to either get the first puzzle wrong or find the note the first ghost leaves behind, and the true nature of the game hits you in such a visceral and horrifying way. it's phenomenal!!
if you don't mind criticism, while the world is super creative and compelling, i feel like the game could've used a bit more explanations. i'm intrigued by the story, but by the end i don't think i understood much about the lore or how this universe works. in a way it feels like there was an entire other game before this one, or a presentation of the world that i missed. but to be fair i haven't seen all the endings yet so maybe i'll understand things more if i do. on the other hand, the information that *is* given is written in kind of a weird way. no spelling mistakes or anything, just general wording and phrasing of things (not trying to be mean about it, i for sure know that can be a hard thing to get right lol).
overall i left this game pretty satisfied, and even more intrigued to play the spinoff, so yeah good job!
Thank you for the feedback!
Yeah I get that all now to think about it, it's pretty written weird because last year, I was probably a bit too ambitious and tend to write with a flowery structure so it can sound odd to some but fine to me.
It happens a lot when I speak too so it's why I have testers at the time. I am surprised they didn't point it out but I guess it's because they knew how I talk anyway! To others, it might be different so it takes an interesting perspective! Thank you for letting me know.
yeah don't worry about it too much, like i said wording can be hard, and i generally understood the dialogue and such. but i'm glad you appreciate a different perspective :>
Great game. I wasn't able to get the second true ending though.
Haha, you kind of made me smile because this game was meant to be quite obscure and I did not expect you to go that far in an hour to search all endings. I'm happy you enjoyed so far.
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Spoiler (True Endings):
Actually you almost have two true endings there. Within that moment while doing the quiz and how many notes you have. If you completed all the notes, that leads you to either two true endings depending on the quiz.
You may need to fail the quiz from here and have all notes. This will lead to the second ending. Not having the notes leads to the neutral ending of course despite failing or winning the quiz.